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A newly published investigation by Africa Intelligence has uncovered ongoing covert diplomatic and intelligence contacts between Israeli officials and senior leaders of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), holding meetings and hosting RSF delegations in Tel Aviv throughout Sudan’s brutal three-year civil conflict. The inquiry, which was released Friday, details two official RSF delegations that traveled to the Israeli coastal capital, with the first visit taking place in May 2025 and the second held in February 2026. According to the investigation’s findings, RSF representatives held closed-door talks with senior officials from the Africa Division of Israel’s foreign ministry as well as top leaders from Israeli national intelligence agencies. These high-level contacts are not a new development, the investigation confirms, but rather form part of a broader security and intelligence partnership that was established long before Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023. The first RSF delegation was led by Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, the deputy commander of the paramilitary group and brother of RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known by his nickname Hemedti, alongside a third Dagalo brother, Algoney Hamdan Dagalo. For the second February 2026 visit, the Dagalo brothers were joined by Ezzadean Elsafi, the RSF’s top legal advisor, the report notes. Investigators found that the years-long cooperation between Israeli officials and Hemedti’s inner circle has reportedly centered on the transfer of sensitive surveillance technologies to the RSF, a development that could significantly expand the paramilitary group’s operational capabilities on the battlefield across Sudan. Israel has a long documented history of parallel outreach to both of Sudan’s competing warring parties, maintaining ties with the official Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, while cultivating a separate relationship with the RSF through Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad. Diplomatic relations between Khartoum and Tel Aviv were formally normalized in 2021, when Sudan’s post-uprising Transitional Sovereignty Council signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords, making Sudan the third Arab-majority nation to officially normalize ties with the Jewish state. The revelation of these secret meetings comes as the RSF faces mounting international accusations of mass atrocities, including genocide and ethnic cleansing, during its military campaign across Sudan. Earlier this year, the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan released a landmark conclusion that the RSF’s months-long October 2025 siege of el-Fasher, the capital of Sudan’s North Darfur region, carried all the “hallmarks of genocide.” In early July of 2026, an anti-terrorism and state crimes court based in Port Sudan, which is held under SAF control, handed down death sentences in absentia to RSF leader Hemedti and 15 other senior RSF figures. The court convicted the group on multiple charges including their role in the 2023 assassination of West Darfur Governor Khamis Abdullah Abakar, as well as crimes against humanity, war crimes, unlawful warfare, and acts of genocide in the West Darfur capital of el-Geneina. This historic ruling marks the first time RSF leadership has been formally convicted by a Sudanese judicial body since the outbreak of the civil war in April 2023. The trial centered heavily on the assassination of Governor Abakar, who was killed just one day after he publicly condemned RSF shelling attacks on the residential el-Jamarik neighborhood of el-Geneina. In 2024, global human rights watchdog Human Rights Watch released its own investigation concluding that the systematic violence carried out by the RSF in el-Geneina amounted to ethnic cleansing, and likely constituted genocide targeting the Masalit people and other non-Arab ethnic communities in the region. Despite widespread evidence including circulated video footage showing RSF fighters mutilating Abakar’s body, the RSF has repeatedly denied all responsibility for the killing and has instead blamed the atrocities on the SAF. As early as June 2023, just two months after the war began, independent regional outlet Middle East Eye reported that roughly 1,500 civilians had been killed in el-Geneina alone within the first eight weeks of conflict. The violence forced tens of thousands of Masalit civilians to flee their homes on foot, crossing the Sudan-Chad border to seek safety in eastern Chad.

On the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, top United Nations disarmament officials have issued a stark public warning: the fragile decades-long global restraint on nuclear explosive testing is at grave risk of collapse, with rising geopolitical tensions pushing major nuclear-armed states closer to resumption that could ignite a dangerous new global arms race.

Held at U.N. Headquarters in New York, the commemorative General Assembly meeting came amid a rapidly shifting landscape of global distrust. Last year, the world’s two largest nuclear powers — the United States and Russia — both openly raised the possibility of resuming explosive nuclear tests, sending shockwaves through the international nonproliferation community. Then-U.S. President Donald Trump accused Russia and China of carrying out covert nuclear tests, claims both nations have flatly denied. Earlier this year, Russia took the unprecedented step of revoking its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the 1996 global agreement designed to permanently ban all nuclear explosive testing.

Addressing assembled delegates, U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu emphasized the gravity of the current moment. The world is facing “deep geopolitical tension, growing division and diminishing trust,” she noted, creating fertile ground for a rollback of decades of progress on nuclear nonproliferation. “Even contemplating such a course is dangerous,” Nakamitsu warned. “Any resumption would erode decades of restraint, deepen mistrust and risk triggering reciprocal tests and an arms race. This must never become reality.”

The CTBT, which was adopted by the international community in 1996, carries a strict requirement for entry into force: it must be ratified by 44 specific countries identified as possessing nuclear technology or infrastructure. To date, nine of those countries have failed to complete ratification. The U.S., China, Iran, Egypt and Israel have signed the treaty but never moved to ratify it. India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified the agreement, leaving the treaty stuck in a decades-long limbo that has prevented it from formally entering into force. Even with that barrier, the CTBT has become the cornerstone of global norms against nuclear testing, with nearly all nations adhering to an informal moratorium for nearly 30 years.

In a small glimmer of progress, Robert Floyd, executive head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) that monitors global compliance with the treaty, announced that Tonga’s recent ratification has pushed the total number of states party to the agreement to 179. Still, Floyd stressed that the underlying geopolitical risks have never been higher. Since the first atomic test in 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear explosions have been conducted across the globe, he noted. While that number has dropped sharply to fewer than 12 total tests over the past three decades — a testament to the strength of the global moratorium — the shifting global landscape has erased much of that progress. “The international scene is tense, full of mistrust,” Floyd cautioned, “including about nuclear testing.”

If major powers walk away from the testing moratorium, Floyd warned, the consequences will be catastrophic. A return to regular testing would pave the way for the development of far more advanced, lethal nuclear arsenals, drastically increase the risk of accidental nuclear use, and leave the world facing “devastation from nuclear ‘bad luck.’”

The International Day Against Nuclear Tests, established to mark the 1991 closure of the Soviet Union’s Semipalatinsk test site — now located in Kazakhstan, where 456 nuclear tests were conducted over decades — also centers the human cost of nuclear testing that is often overlooked in global diplomatic debates. This year, survivors and affected community leaders shared first-hand accounts of intergenerational harm caused by unregulated nuclear testing.

Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, an advocacy group formed to support communities affected by the 1945 Trinity atomic test in New Mexico, told delegates how five generations of her family have suffered from radiation-related illnesses linked to the first ever nuclear bomb test. “We were never warned before or after of the danger, so we lived our lives off the land as we always did,” Cordova said. Every generation of her family has battled cancer caused by radiation exposure from the test, she added, a fate shared by thousands of affected communities around the world.

Cordova emphasized that New Mexico survivors are not isolated in their struggle. Nuclear testing programs carried out across the globe have left communities in Guam, French Polynesia’s Tahiti, Kazakhstan, and Indigenous Aboriginal lands in Australia, as well as multiple U.S. states including Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Montana, suffering chronic health impacts from radiation exposure. Uranium miners and processing workers and their families have also faced disproportionate harm from nuclear testing programs. “We’re the people that became the collateral damage to the development and testing of nuclear devices and were left to deal with the consequences on our own,” Cordova said. “It is why we fight for acknowledgment and assistance.”

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has moved to expand his controversial loosening of civilian firearm regulations to the Jerusalem-adjacent city of Beit Shemesh, while explicitly barring members of the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox group Neturei Karta from accessing gun licenses, Israel Hayom reported Monday.

The expansion of the minister’s signature gun reform forms part of a broader push that began shortly after he took office, which has already upended decades of tighter Israeli regulations on civilian gun ownership. In October 2023, the Israeli government approved a sweeping set of rule changes that drastically lowered eligibility requirements for ordinary civilians to obtain personal firearms. As of the latest reporting, roughly 300,000 additional Israeli citizens have secured gun licenses since Ben Gvir assumed his post, and residents of more than 200 municipalities across the country now qualify for the program.

Under the latest expansion, most residents of Beit Shemesh – a city with a large ultra-Orthodox population located just west of Jerusalem – will newly qualify to apply for licenses to carry personal firearms. However, the fringe anti-Zionist Neturei Karta community, which maintains a presence in the city, has been completely locked out of the scheme. Eligibility for the program is mapped by residential address, with Israeli police and Ben Gvir’s office specifically removing all streets where Neturei Karta members reside from the eligible zones.

“I am proud to continue the weapons reform and expand it to Beit Shemesh as well,” Ben Gvir told Israel Hayom. “The residents of Beit Shemesh, like all citizens of the State of Israel who love the State of Israel, have a basic right to defend themselves and their family members.”

Data from The Jerusalem Post shows that 126 additional communities have been added to the eligible list for expanded gun access in 2026 alone. Ben Gvir has pledged to continue rolling out the reform across the country, saying he will “expand the weapons reform, add more cities, towns and neighbourhoods to eligibility, and ensure that as many citizens as possible can defend themselves and the State of Israel.” Repeating his long-stated policy mantra, he added: “My policy is clear: weapons in the right hands save lives.”

Justifying the exclusion of Neturei Karta – a small ultra-Orthodox faction whose name translates from Aramaic to “guardians of the city” and which rejects the existence of a Jewish state before the coming of the messiah, routinely advocating for Palestinian causes and rejecting engagement with Israeli state institutions – Ben Gvir argued the group’s positioning makes them ineligible. “Whoever prides himself with the PLO flag and takes photos with terrorists is an enemy, and therefore the neighbourhoods of the extremists have been excluded from eligibility for weapons,” he said.

The explosive growth in gun ownership under Ben Gvir’s reforms is well-documented. Before he took leadership of the national security ministry, data from Haaretz shows only around 170,000 Israelis held active firearm licenses. That number has more than doubled in the years since the regulations were loosened. By June of last year, total gun license applications filed since late 2023 had surpassed 400,000, the Times of Israel reported.

The expansion of civilian gun access has drawn widespread criticism from analysts, human rights groups, and independent researchers, who have flagged a range of severe risks stemming from the policy. Experts have repeatedly warned that the spread of unregulated firearms among Israeli civilians has fueled a sharp rise in violence targeting both Palestinians and women within Israel. Critics also note that the reform systematically excludes Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are barred entirely from obtaining gun licenses under the current framework.

Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) underscores these concerns: in the first half of 2026 alone, OCHA recorded more than 1,000 settler attacks against Palestinians that caused injury or property damage across 230 Palestinian communities. The Israel Democracy Institute, an independent Israeli research center, has concluded that Ben Gvir’s gun reform “primarily serves Israel’s Jewish citizens, at times while creating a threat to and endangering those who are not Jewish.”

This latest expansion of the scheme follows a similar move Ben Gvir made in March, when he announced that all Jewish residents of Jerusalem – including those residing in occupied East Jerusalem – would qualify for gun licenses, adding 300,000 eligible Israelis in the capital.

In an ambitious move that blends municipal economic ambition with high-level international diplomacy, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi has launched a years-long campaign to bring giant pandas to the Honolulu Zoo – a quest that has already taken him across China, required a direct appeal to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and sparked new conversation about the enduring role of “panda diplomacy” in tense U.S.-China relations. What began as a casual idea to boost flagging zoo attendance has evolved into a carefully negotiated diplomatic process, highlighting how China’s iconic black-and-white bears remain one of the most powerful soft power tools in global politics.

Blangiardi’s journey began when he approached the Chinese Consulate-General in Los Angeles with his proposal to add pandas to the Honolulu Zoo. Officials there advised him to take his pitch directly to China, and last spring, the mayor and his Beijing-born wife Karen Chang embarked on a 10-day, three-city tour that cost Hawaii taxpayers roughly $29,000. The itinerary included high-level meetings with senior Chinese foreign affairs officials, visits to leading panda breeding and conservation facilities in Fuzhou and Chengdu, cultural stops including the Great Wall, and an 18-course formal meal. Blangiardi later joked to local radio host Rick Hamada that the scope of negotiations felt like working out a peace treaty – a comparison that is far closer to reality than many might assume.

Today, only two zoos in the United States currently host giant pandas on loan from China. Securing the animals requires navigating a yearslong approval process that ultimately ends with a sign-off from China’s top leader, and comes with strict non-negotiable terms: a minimum annual leasing fee of $1 million for a pair of pandas, strict animal welfare reporting requirements, and an expectation that hosting institutions will avoid crossing China’s political red lines. All pandas remain the property of China, and any cubs born during the loan period are ultimately repatriated. For Blangiardi, however, the investment is well worth the risk: he projects that adding pandas could triple the zoo’s current annual attendance of more than 500,000 visitors, generating new revenue that can be reinvested into facility upgrades and animal care programs across the zoo.

Panda diplomacy is not a new concept, but its role in modern geopolitics has evolved dramatically alongside China’s rise as a global power. Giant pandas are endemic to China, and historians trace the country’s adoption of the bear as a national symbol back to the early days of the People’s Republic of China. Unlike cultural symbols tied to imperial history, pandas were a “safe” unifying national icon that could be embraced even during periods of political upheaval. The modern era of panda diplomacy began shortly after U.S. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 groundbreaking visit to China, when Premier Zhou Enlai offered two pandas to the United States as a gesture of goodwill, sparking a nationwide “panda-monium” that cemented the animals’ reputation as global diplomatic ambassadors.

Today, panda loans remain a carefully calibrated tool of Chinese soft power. The link between political alignment and panda access was underscored earlier this year, when Japan’s Ueno Zoo failed to secure a renewal of its panda loan after newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made statements asserting Japanese military support for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. While China did not abruptly remove the pandas mid-loan, experts confirm the non-renewal was a deliberate response to the political statement, leaving Japan without pandas for the foreseeable future. This precedent is not lost on Blangiardi, who has already adjusted a local planning decision related to a Chinatown property owned by the Taiwanese government to avoid potential offense, opting to keep the site focused on Chinatown rather than rebranding it as a Taiwan Cultural Plaza.

For Honolulu Zoo, the bid for pandas comes as the facility has worked for years to rebuild its reputation after losing national accreditation in 2016 due to systemic underfunding. The zoo regained accreditation in 2020, and earlier this year earned approval to retain its status through 2030, a milestone city leaders celebrated as a sign of the facility’s turnaround. Zoo Director John Berry, who previously oversaw panda operations at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., says the odds of Honolulu’s bid being approved are currently “leaning yes.” The team is currently working to prove the facility can meet China’s strict care standards, a process Berry compares to applying for a rental property: candidates answer detailed questions, then respond to additional requests for information, before the final application is sent to Beijing for presidential approval.

Critics have raised multiple concerns about the project, from the high annual leasing fee to the cost of building a temperature-controlled panda exhibit that can accommodate the bears’ preference for cool temperatures, to questions about animal welfare in a tropical climate. Honolulu City Council member Esther Kiaʻāina initially questioned whether limited public funds would be better spent on other pressing zoo improvements, though she has since backed the project out of confidence in Berry’s leadership. Berry has moved to address funding concerns, noting that he plans to secure all additional costs from private wealthy benefactors rather than drawing on taxpayer funds, and has already partnered with the University of Hawaii to research energy-efficient cooling solutions that could position Honolulu as a leader in tropical panda facility management.

Public reaction to the proposal has been overwhelmingly positive among recent zoo visitors. Many tourists, who come to Oahu from across the U.S. and around the world, have never seen giant pandas in person, and say the addition would draw them back to the zoo. Local residents also see the pandas as a catalyst to turn the Honolulu Zoo from a minor stop into a top-tier international destination that would boost tourism across Waikiki and the broader Hawaiian islands. If approved, pandas could arrive at the Honolulu Zoo within two years of final Chinese approval, and Blangiardi’s high-level access – aided by his wife’s Beijing roots and language skills – has already put the bid further along than many initially expected. As U.S.-China relations remain strained over trade, security, and territorial disputes, both sides stand to gain from the deal: Honolulu gets a blockbuster tourist attraction, and China gets a popular, high-profile symbol of peaceful people-to-people exchange in one of America’s most visited tourist destinations.