Global Pulse

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  • Faced with new energy shock, Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer

    Faced with new energy shock, Europe asks if reviving nuclear is the answer

    As households and industrial sectors across the continent watch natural gas and gasoline prices skyrocket with growing anxiety, Europe is facing yet another energy crisis – a familiar challenge that echoes the crippling cost-of-living shock that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This time, growing volatility in the Middle East, particularly disruptions to energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, has sent global energy markets reeling, forcing policymakers to revisit a decades-old question: how can the continent achieve genuine energy independence?

    The answer increasingly being embraced across EU capitals and in London is a surprising one: nuclear power, a source that much of Europe turned its back on after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, is now back at the center of European energy strategy.

    Speaking at the recent European Nuclear Energy Summit in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Europe’s widespread post-Fukushima retreat from nuclear power a historic “strategic mistake.” Notably, von der Leyen served in the German government when it approved a full nuclear phaseout in 2011, a decision that would reshape the country’s energy landscape for decades. She pointed out that nuclear power generated roughly one-third of Europe’s electricity in 1990, a share that has plummeted to just 15% on average today. This decline, she argued, has left the continent dependent on expensive, volatile imported fossil fuels – a vulnerability exposed first by Russian supply cuts after Ukraine, and now by Middle East tensions. Currently, Europe imports more than 50% of its total energy, primarily oil and gas, leaving it exposed to global price swings and geopolitical disruptions.

    The impact of differing national energy mixes is already stark across the continent. Spain, which has invested heavily in utility-scale wind and solar power, is projected to see average 2026 electricity prices around half that of Italy, where 90% of electricity prices are tied to volatile global gas costs. France, Europe’s largest nuclear power producer, generates 65% of its electricity from nuclear reactors, and its forward electricity prices for next month are just one-fifth of those in Germany – a gap that has put enormous strain on Germany’s energy-intensive automotive and chemical sectors. This week, Berlin’s leading economic research institutes cut their 2026 GDP growth forecast in half to just 0.6%, citing the ongoing impact of elevated gas prices.

    A broad policy reversal is now unfolding across Europe. Italy is drafting legislation to roll back its decades-long ban on new nuclear power. Belgium has performed a complete U-turn after years of resisting new nuclear investment. Greece, which has long avoided nuclear development due to seismic risks, has opened a national public debate on advanced, safer reactor designs. Sweden has reversed a 40-year policy of phasing out nuclear power. In the UK, Chancellor Rachel Reeves recently announced plans to streamline regulatory processes to speed up nuclear project development, arguing that “to build national resilience, drive energy security and deliver economic growth, we need nuclear.” New YouGov polling shows growing public support for nuclear power even in traditionally skeptical Scotland, where a majority now backs including it in the country’s energy mix.

    France has emerged as the most vocal advocate for a European nuclear revival. President Emmanuel Macron, a long-time supporter of his country’s domestic nuclear industry, told the summit that “nuclear power is key to reconciling both independence, and thus energy sovereignty, with decarbonisation, and thus carbon neutrality.” He also highlighted nuclear energy’s unique role in powering the growing energy demand of artificial intelligence, arguing that it could give Europe a competitive edge in the global AI race, providing the reliable baseload power needed to expand data center and computing capacity.

    Even Germany, the most prominent European nation to phase out nuclear power after Fukushima, has softened its long-standing opposition. Until last year, Berlin blocked EU efforts to classify nuclear power as a sustainable energy source alongside renewables, creating major friction with France, its closest EU ally. Berlin has since agreed to remove anti-nuclear language from EU legislation, a shift that many observers link to growing European security concerns amid deteriorating relations with the second Trump administration. Just this month, France agreed to extend its independent nuclear deterrent to European partners at Germany’s request.

    Despite this growing momentum, experts warn against treating nuclear power as a quick fix for Europe’s current energy crisis. Large-scale conventional nuclear reactor projects are notoriously slow and expensive to develop, with recent high-profile projects in France (Flamanville-3) and the UK (Hinkley Point C) suffering years of delays and massive cost overruns. Longstanding challenges including radioactive waste management and public safety concerns, reignited by the 15th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster this year, still persist.

    Environmental groups also warn that large-scale investment in nuclear power could divert critical funding and political attention from the faster expansion of wind and solar power, whose costs have fallen dramatically in recent years to undercut nuclear. Additional strategic risks remain: several Central European countries, including Hungary and Slovakia, still rely on Russian technology and uranium for their existing nuclear fleets, creating potential dependency risks similar to the old fossil fuel import model.

    Chris Aylett, a Research Fellow at the Environment and Society Centre at Chatham House, notes that many of Europe’s existing nuclear reactors are already nearing the end of their design life, requiring massive investment just to maintain current nuclear generating capacity. “If governments really want to increase the share, they need a lot of time and a lot of money,” he explained, adding that most European governments are already heavily indebted, cash-strapped, and juggling competing priorities ranging from welfare spending to meeting higher defense spending targets set by the Trump administration.

    To address cost and scalability concerns, the European Commission has pinned much of its long-term hope on small modular reactors (SMRs), a next-generation nuclear technology that is designed to be factory-built at scale, lower cost, and flexible enough to power specific high-demand uses including AI data centers, hydrogen production, and local district heating networks. The EU has just unveiled a €330 million investment package to advance nuclear technology, with a major focus on SMR development, and Brussels aims to bring the first commercial SMRs online by the early 2030s. The push for SMRs is a global effort: the U.S. and Japan recently announced a $40 billion joint project to develop SMRs in the southern U.S., and the UK has already published the regulatory framework to allow Rolls-Royce to build the first commercial SMR fleet in the country. Even so, SMR technology remains unproven at commercial scale, and as of early 2026, no construction licenses have been issued for commercial SMR projects anywhere in the EU. The EU is also investing in long-term nuclear fusion research, though commercial fusion power remains decades away from widespread deployment.

    For the immediate future, Europe remains heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels, leaving it exposed to geopolitical volatility and global price swings. As Aylett points out, greater energy independence is clearly in Europe’s strategic interest, to avoid being held hostage to the decisions of authoritarian energy exporters and volatile commodity markets. While European governments have overwhelmingly embraced nuclear power as a core part of their medium and long-term energy security strategy, the question of how to address the current energy crisis and protect households and industries from skyrocketing prices in the here and now remains unanswered.

  • After 16 years in power, could Viktor Orban finally be unseated?

    After 16 years in power, could Viktor Orban finally be unseated?

    One week out from Hungary’s 12 April parliamentary election, long-ruling nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán showed a rare crack in his carefully crafted public image. Addressing a mass campaign rally in the western Hungarian city of Győr on 27 March, a hoarse, furious Orbán lashed out at opposition protesters who interrupted his speech with chants against his ruling Fidesz party, declaring “All they stand for is anger, hatred, and destruction.” The outburst shattered the carefully polished persona Orbán has cultivated for years: the steady, unflappable leader steering Hungary through global crisis. For a leader accustomed to disarming even critics with humor and charm, this unscripted display of temper laid bare the urgent pressure he faces to hold onto power after 16 years of unchallenged rule.

    Poll after poll puts the opposition Tisza Party, led by former Fidesz insider Peter Magyar, far ahead of Fidesz – the most recent survey pegs Tisza support at 58%, against Orbán’s 35%. After holding nearly unrivaled power since 2010 and holding just a handful of campaign rallies in the last three elections, Europe’s longest-serving incumbent leader has been forced back onto the campaign trail, scrambling to mobilize his base and win over undecided voters. The stakes stretch far beyond Budapest: a defeat for Orbán would not only end his 16-year hold on power, but would also send shockwaves through the global illiberal populist movement that he has spent more than a decade building as its figurehead.

    Orbán’s tenure has positioned him as a defining figure on the global right. He has counted both former U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin among his supporters, has long been a persistent source of friction for the European Union, and stands out as one of the only EU leaders to refuse alignment with Western support for Ukraine against Russian invasion. For nationalist movements rising across Europe, from ruling parties to opposition groups on the brink of power, Orbán has served as the blueprint for how to win power and upend liberal democratic norms. It is for this reason that political observers and populist movements across the world are watching the 12 April vote with unprecedented intensity.

    Shifting public opinion data confirms the dramatic swing against Fidesz. Pollster Endre Hann of Hungary’s Median public opinion research firm notes that just three months ago, 44% of respondents expected Fidesz to win, compared to 37% who backed a Tisza victory. By March, that number flipped entirely: 47% now believe Tisza will win, while just 35% predict a Fidesz victory. “This reflects a huge change of trust,” Hann explains. “People believe that it can be changed.”

    The most striking irony of this election cycle is that the same voter anger that has swept right-wing populists into power across Europe – fury at entrenched, corrupt ruling elites – is now working against Orbán. Today, it is Orbán and Fidesz that are widely labeled by Hungarians, especially younger voters, as the corrupt, out-of-touch establishment the public wants to oust.

    The Fidesz government has faced repeated allegations of graft, including the channeling of billions in state contracts to firms owned by Orbán’s close friends and family members. Orbán has framed this concentration of economic power as a deliberate push to keep Hungarian assets out of foreign hands, but critics call it systemic cronyism. Orbán’s son-in-law, Istvan Tiborcz, owns a portfolio of high-profile Hungarian hotels, while his childhood friend Lörinc Meszaros – a former gas fitter – is now Hungary’s wealthiest citizen. All involved deny any wrongdoing, and Orbán has refused to answer questions about the accumulated wealth of his inner circle.

    Allegations of systemic voter intimidation and vote-buying have also dominated the closing weeks of the campaign. An investigative documentary released last week claims that Fidesz’s long-standing local patronage network, built up over more than two decades in rural Hungary, is being deployed on an unprecedented scale to deliver votes. The documentary alleges that Fidesz-aligned local mayors are given mandatory vote quotas for each village, with offers ranging from €120 in cash, food coupons, and prescription drugs to access to the only local public works jobs in exchange for supporting Fidesz. Voters who refuse are allegedly cut off from social and work support. On election day, the documentary claims, Fidesz organizers arrange transportation to polling stations and deploy “companions” to accompany voters into the booth to ensure they cast a ballot for the ruling party.

    There has been no formal official response from the Fidesz government to the allegations, though one cabinet minister noted that any confirmed wrongdoing should be handled by law enforcement. Veteran Hungarian election observers note that while minor vote-buying by rival parties has been common in past cycles, the scale of alleged irregularities this year is unmatched.

    Fidesz allies push back against the narrative that the ruling party is on the brink of defeat, arguing that the narrative of a Fidesz loss is deliberately manufactured by the opposition to set up expectations of fraud should Orbán win. “All these scandals are just the usual suspects trying to build a narrative,” says Zoltan Kiszelly, a political analyst with government-aligned think tank Szazadveg. “When the opposition lose the election, this gives them an excuse to allege ‘fraud.’” Kiszelly adds that the key to the election will not be polling numbers, but turnout: Fidesz’s success hinges on whether its base can be convinced to show up to vote. “Nobody believes in the opinion polls, neither our own, nor the opposition ones,” he says. “The majority of the voters are for Fidesz. Of pensioners, of women, of the Roma, of the poor, of the blue collar workers, of the rural people. The question is, will they cast their vote?”

    Gabor Török, a rare political analyst respected by both sides in Hungary’s deeply polarized political landscape, warns that Orbán’s recent uncharacteristic outbursts do not bode well for the ruling party. “This is not the ‘calm strength’ or the ‘strategic calm,’ image, nor the one carefully cultivated for years and displayed on ‘Prime Minister of Hungary’ posters,” Török wrote recently. “If the remaining two weeks unfold like this, it does not bode well for the government side.”

    Orbán’s core campaign message to voters frames the election as a binary choice between peace and war. He has positioned himself as the only leader capable of preventing Brussels from dragging Hungary into the war in Ukraine, framing opposition leader Peter Magyar as a puppet of EU leaders who would force Hungary to deploy troops against Russia, sending young Hungarian men to die on the Eastern Front – a message crafted to resonate deeply in a country that suffered catastrophic losses in both World Wars. Orbán has argued since 2022 that Russia cannot be militarily defeated, and that the West should pressure Ukraine to negotiate peace on Russia’s terms. Giant campaign billboards across Hungary depict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the slogan: “Don’t let Zelensky have the last laugh!”

    Recent polling suggests this core messaging is losing traction with Hungarian voters. Hann’s latest data shows that 52% of respondents now agree that Russia launched an unprovoked, illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while just 33% back Fidesz’s narrative that Russia acted legally to defend its own security interests. The 2010 shutdown of the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline that carried Russian crude oil to Hungary through Ukraine, after a Russian attack damaged a key pumping hub, has amplified the rhetorical battle: Orbán accuses Zelenskyy of deliberately blocking the restart of oil flows to damage his election prospects. Kiszelly explains that the party frames the energy disruption as tied directly to household utility costs, which Fidesz has capped since 2013 to keep Hungary’s consumer energy prices the lowest in the EU. The government argues the price caps can only survive with continued access to cheap Russian energy.

    The man seeking to unseat Orbán is a figure that few predicted would become a threat just two years ago: Peter Magyar, a 45-year-old former Fidesz insider, former diplomat, and ex-husband of a former Fidesz justice minister. Magyar shocked Hungarian politics in February 2024 when he resigned abruptly from all his party and state posts, published a viral anti-corruption interview that racked up two million views in days, and launched his new opposition party, named for the Tisza river, a major Hungarian tributary of the Danube.

    Long dismissed as too urbane, too slick, and too tied to Budapest’s elite to win over rural Fidesz voters – Orbán’s core base – Magyar has defied all expectations. He has spent two years touring the country relentlessly, abandoning scripted speeches to speak directly to voters, and now draws huge crowds even in traditional Fidesz strongholds. Unlike Orbán, who focuses heavily on global geopolitics in his rallies, Magyar centers his platform on domestic bread-and-butter issues: underfunded healthcare, failing education, crumbling transport infrastructure, and rampant rural depopulation.

    On foreign policy, Magyar breaks sharply with Orbán. He has pledged to diversify Hungary’s energy supplies away from Russia, renegotiate existing energy contracts with Moscow, and restore Hungary’s full standing within the EU and NATO. He has also adapted quickly to campaigning: after early criticism that his scripted speeches felt stilted, he abandoned his notes and now speaks directly to crowds, answering questions openly and honestly – a departure from the controlled messaging that defines Orbán’s campaign. Where Orbán holds one rally a day, Magyar visits three to six, aiming to reach all 106 parliamentary constituencies before voting day. He relies on live streaming his rallies on Facebook to reach voters, bypassing Fidesz’s tightly controlled domestic media empire, and has drawn crowds of thousands in provincial cities that once reliably backed the ruling party. Even a senior Fidesz official has privately acknowledged that Magyar brings a “brutal energy” that the ruling party’s campaign lacks.

    Magyar has faced his own share of campaign controversy: his ex-wife has publicly accused him of domestic violence, and Fidesz has run multiple smear campaigns against him, including releasing a secretly recorded conversation and linking him to cocaine use. Magyar has denied all allegations, published a negative drug test, and challenged Fidesz politicians to release their own test results.

    Recent polling confirms that Tisza has pulled ahead in nearly all key swing constituencies, with Magyar reporting a “tipping point” of support in rural Fidesz heartlands. If the polls hold, he is on track to end Orbán’s 16-year hold on power.

    The global stakes of the vote are hard to overstate. As Michael Ignatieff, former rector of the Central European University – which was forced out of Budapest by Orbán’s government in 2019 – puts it: “Budapest is the headquarters of illiberal democracy in the world. This is not just an election. This is a referendum on that whole model of authoritarian rule that Orban represents.”

    Orbán has turned Hungary into a global hub for the transatlantic populist right, hosting major gatherings of conservative influencers, think tanks, and political leaders from Europe and North America in recent years. While no top U.S. politicians attended this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in Budapest, the U.S. Republican Party has remained aligned with Orbán: Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited in February, and Vice President JD Vance is set to travel to Budapest in the final days of the campaign. A Fidesz victory would give a major boost to rising far-right parties across France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Portugal, while an Orbán defeat would deflate momentum for those movements. A senior Tisza official argues that a Tisza win could show the rest of Europe a path out of the growing tide of radical nationalism.

    For Hungary itself, the outcome will reshape the country’s future for decades. Former Hungarian Supreme Court President Andras Baka argues that a Fidesz victory would entrench what critics call state capture, cementing single-party control over all branches of government into a permanent, increasingly rigid autocracy. A Tisza victory, by contrast, would require a massive overhaul of Hungarian institutions: restoring independence to the courts, prosecution service, audit office, public media, and intelligence services that have been brought under Fidesz control over 16 years. The speed and success of that overhaul, analysts note, will depend on the size of Tisza’s eventual margin of victory.

  • Turkish woman makes remarkable recovery at Chongqing hospital

    Turkish woman makes remarkable recovery at Chongqing hospital

    A 47-year-old Turkish woman living and working in Southwest China’s Chongqing has made an extraordinary full recovery from aggressive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma after receiving personalized, multidisciplinary care at a leading local public hospital, a case that showcases the high quality of China’s international medical services for foreign residents.

    Going by the pseudonym Zeynep, the patient was first admitted to the Hematology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University on December 31, 2024, presenting with a severe case of the blood cancer marked by widespread lymph node involvement. Medical teams moved quickly to run diagnostic tests, confirming the diagnosis and flagging the urgent need for immediate therapeutic intervention. By the beginning of January 2025, Zeynep’s condition deteriorated rapidly, triggering life-threatening acute respiratory failure that required intensive care support.

    Faced with the serious health crisis, Zeynep and her family initially planned to travel back to Turkiye to complete treatment, a common choice for many foreign expats facing major illness abroad. But after receiving positive feedback and endorsement of the Chongqing hospital’s proposed treatment plan from medical experts in Turkiye, the family chose to stay and proceed with care in China.

    To deliver the best possible outcome for Zeynep, the hospital assembled a cross-departmental multidisciplinary treatment team drawing specialists from eight clinical and research units, including pathology, clinical molecular diagnosis, and critical care medicine. This collaborative approach allowed clinicians to address every complication of Zeynep’s case and adapt treatment to her specific health profile.

    According to Zhang Hongbin, chief physician in the hospital’s Hematology Department and lead of Zeynep’s care team, clinicians implemented a customized first-line regimen called Pola R-CHP, which integrates multiple targeted cancer therapies. Unlike standard treatment protocols, this personalized approach is designed to boost long-term survival outcomes for patients with high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Zhang explained that the tailored therapy is projected to raise the patient’s five-year survival rate from the 60 percent average associated with traditional regimens to 80 percent. After weeks of coordinated care, Zeynep achieved a remarkable recovery that has been hailed as a testament to China’s advancing precision oncology capabilities and patient-centered care for international residents.

  • Cuba begins releasing more than 2,000 prisoners as US pressure mounts

    Cuba begins releasing more than 2,000 prisoners as US pressure mounts

    Emotional scenes unfolded across Cuban prisons on Friday as the first wave of inmates walked free, part of a government-ordered mass release of 2,010 prisoners described by Havana as a humanitarian and sovereign act, carried out against a backdrop of mounting economic and political pressure from the United States.

    Agence France-Presse correspondents on the ground captured moving moments at La Lima prison in eastern Havana, where more than two dozen released inmates embraced relatives who had waited for hours behind prison walls for the moment of reunion, many openly crying as they were reunited with loved ones. Among the first to leave was 46-year-old Albis Gainza, who had completed half of a six-year sentence for a robbery conviction.

    In an official statement released Thursday through its embassy in Washington, Cuba confirmed the release will prioritize specific vulnerable groups: foreign nationals, youth, women, and incarcerated people over the age of 60. Eligibility for release was determined through a multi-factor review, the statement added, including an assessment of the individual’s original offense, documented good behavior during incarceration, completion of a substantial portion of their sentence, and underlying health conditions. The government also framed the move as a traditional practice tied to Holy Week religious celebrations, a longstanding custom within the country’s criminal justice system.

    The large-scale release marks the second prisoner amnesty Cuba has authorized this year alone. In March, 51 inmates were freed following diplomatic talks with the Vatican. In 2005, a previous 553-person release was brokered through a joint agreement between the Vatican and the United States.

    Local reports from across the country confirmed releases were underway at multiple facilities. Cuban independent outlet 14ymedio, citing the head of Spain-based human rights organization Prisoner Defenders, reported that 41 prisoners had already been released from the Toledo 2 Forced Labor Prison in southwestern Havana. In the eastern city of Las Tunas, six people convicted of common crimes were freed from El Típico prison, alongside dozens more from nearby forced labor camps, the outlet added. Freed inmates were documented waving their official release papers as they exited correctional facilities to rejoin their families.

    The amnesty comes at a moment of severe crisis for Cuba, driven by aggressive policy shifts from the Trump administration. Since returning to the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump has made clear his goal of forcing regime change in Cuba’s long-standing communist government, tightening economic sanctions that have crippled the island nation’s energy supply. Previously, Cuba relied on heavily discounted crude oil shipments from ally Venezuela, but the U.S. cut off that arrangement after a January military raid in Caracas that seized former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and now imposes tariffs on any third country that sends oil to Cuba, worsening the island’s energy crisis.

    Trump’s hardline policy has shifted focus back to Cuba in U.S. Latin America strategy following the Maduro raid. The U.S. leader has repeatedly publicly raised the possibility of using military force to occupy Cuba and install a U.S.-aligned government. While Washington recently signaled it had no objection to a Russian-owned tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude docking in Cuba last week—the first such arrival since early January—Moscow confirmed Thursday it will send a second tanker with enough crude to keep Cuba’s economy operating for several weeks.

    The ongoing fuel shortage has triggered cascading crises across Cuban society. The World Health Organization warned last week that widespread fuel shortages have left Cuban hospitals unable to maintain critical emergency and intensive care services, putting thousands of vulnerable patients at risk. Rolling blackouts have left millions of Cuban residents without power for extended periods, sparking rare public protests against the government in recent months. While Havana and Washington have held quiet talks to de-escalate tensions and resolve the current impasse, both sides have publicly laid out non-negotiable political and economic red lines that have made finding a compromise elusive so far.

    Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch estimate that Cuba currently holds hundreds of political prisoners, and that government critics face regular harassment and criminal prosecution. Following the U.S. operation in Venezuela, the interim Venezuelan government installed by Washington has also carried out a release of political prisoners, a key demand from the Trump administration, though one prisoner rights group has noted that only one-third of the promised releases have been completed to date.

  • Israel’s campaign against Unrwa could set precedent to dismantle other UN agencies, chief warns

    Israel’s campaign against Unrwa could set precedent to dismantle other UN agencies, chief warns

    In a swansong interview with Middle East Eye’s David Hearst Podcast, outgoing Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini has issued a stark warning to the international community: if UN member states permit Israel to eliminate the only organization dedicated to delivering education and healthcare to Palestinian people, no UN agency will be safe from the same fate.

    Lazzarini pulled no punches in his assessment of the global response to Israel’s open campaign to dismantle UNRWA, which he says has become an officially declared war objective. He described the agency as facing an unprecedented, overwhelming assault that has proceeded with complete impunity, largely unchallenged by the international community.

    “The agency has come under massive, massive attack,” Lazzarini told the podcast. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, 391 UNRWA staff have been killed in Israeli strikes. Just weeks before the interview, the agency’s main headquarters in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was stormed, demolished, and burned by Israeli forces, with government and parliamentary figures openly celebrating the act and even quarreling over who deserved credit for the destruction.

    Beyond physical attacks, Lazzarini said the agency has been targeted by a large-scale disinformation campaign, multiple legal challenges, and three new domestic Israeli laws explicitly designed to force UNRWA to shut down. He expressed deep frustration that a formal UN agency is being openly dismantled without meaningful pushback from member states or global bodies.

    Lazzarini made clear that the entire campaign against UNRWA is politically motivated, arguing that unsubstantiated claims the agency had been infiltrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad were nothing more than a manufactured pretext to pressure donor countries into cutting funding. An independent investigation led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna found Israel failed to produce any evidence to back up its allegations of staff involvement in the October 7 attacks. Even so, 16 major donors including the United Kingdom froze funding within 48 hours of the claims being made; all have since resumed contributions except for the United States and Sweden.

    Despite the relentless pressure, Lazzarini struck a defiant note, emphasizing that UNRWA remains the leading provider of public services to Palestinians in Gaza even amid the ongoing conflict. The agency continues to run vaccination campaigns, deliver clean water access, and manage waste disposal to stop outbreaks of disease, and is working urgently to restore learning opportunities for displaced children.

    Since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, relentless bombardment has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure including residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, places of worship, and UN-run shelters. Gaza’s healthcare system is already on the edge of total collapse: doctors are forced to perform surgeries without proper equipment or medication, and disease is spreading rapidly in overcrowded displacement camps. Even in this crisis, Lazzarini confirmed that around 11,000 UNRWA staff remain on the ground in Gaza, delivering 20,000 primary healthcare consultations every day. To date, roughly 70,000 children have returned to in-person classes, and more than 250,000 access distance learning programs run by the agency.

    The roots of Israel’s campaign against UNRWA stretch back to the agency’s core mandate, Lazzarini explained. When Israel was admitted to the United Nations in 1949, its membership was conditional on recognizing UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which affirms the natural and legitimate right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and receive compensation for seized property. UNRWA is the only UN agency that formally recognizes Palestinian refugees and their descendants, so eliminating the agency is a deliberate attempt to erase this right to return — a core issue in any future final-status peace negotiations. Lazzarini pushed back against the narrative that dismantling UNRWA would revoke Palestinian refugee status, stressing that status is legally independent of the agency’s operations and will pass to future generations until a lasting political settlement is reached.

    Even with the extraordinary resilience of its on-the-ground staff, Lazzarini warned that UNRWA is fighting to stay operational, crippled by growing funding gaps and shrinking operational space. He specifically called out the 90 percent drop in contributions from Arab states since 2024, alongside the ongoing funding freezes from the U.S. and Sweden, once a top-five donor. “Have member states done enough? Obviously not enough to protect the agency,” he said. “Hence my alarm to the members of the General Assembly, telling them that if you do not pay more attention to UNRWA, the agency might not be viable anymore in the future. We cannot continue to navigate a constant chronic lack of resources and at the same time seeing also our operational space shrinking because of political considerations.”

    As global media and diplomatic attention has shifted to recent tensions between Israel and Iran, Lazzarini pointed out that Israel continues to block the entry of sufficient food and medical aid into Gaza. After the recent ceasefire agreement, aid groups expected 800 aid trucks to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing every day, but Lazzarini said the actual volume is nowhere near that target. Aid organizations estimate a minimum of 600 trucks a day are needed to meet the basic needs of Gaza’s population, and even that low bar is rarely met: Israeli authorities often require trucks to carry only partial loads, further restricting the flow of supplies. Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has been unable to bring any new supplies into Gaza this year, with critical shortages of chronic disease medication, surgical supplies, and essential medical equipment. “Since we cannot bring in new supplies or spare parts, malfunctioning equipment can force us to postpone or suspend surgeries, with serious consequences for patients,” explained Dr Randa Abu El-Khair Masoud, MSF’s project medical referent.

    Lazzarini also rejected Israeli claims that other UN agencies can easily replace UNRWA’s services, arguing that no other body has the mandate, capacity, or resources to deliver the full range of public services UNRWA provides. For example, UNICEF can support supplementary education programs, but it cannot run the entire primary and secondary education system for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children across Gaza and the region. Lazzarini stressed that the only legitimate replacement for UNRWA is a fully functioning sovereign Palestinian state — exactly the original vision behind the agency’s creation 75 years ago.

    Over decades, UNRWA has educated generations of Palestinians, and Lazzarini said he regularly meets Palestinians who credit their UNRWA schooling for every achievement they have made. “Palestinians have had their land, their houses taken away from them. We have to redouble our effort to make sure that education remains an asset that we cannot take away from the Palestinians,” he said. He warned that the current crisis risks losing an entire generation of Palestinian children in Gaza if UNRWA cannot continue its work, and even across the wider region, ongoing erosion of the agency’s capacity will damage education quality and undermine long-term social cohesion for Palestinian communities.

  • Marshmallows fall from the sky at annual Michigan Easter event

    Marshmallows fall from the sky at annual Michigan Easter event

    Every spring, communities across the United States embrace unique Easter traditions that bring families together for fun and celebration. In Michigan, one of the most anticipated local holiday events stands out from the rest: the annual Great Marshmallow Drop, a one-of-a-kind gathering that turns a wide open field into a candy-filled playground for children of all ages.

    This year’s edition of the beloved event delivered on its signature whimsy, as a helicopter soared overhead and released more than 15,000 soft, fluffy marshmallows down onto the crowd below. What followed was a lively, chaotic dash as excited children raced across the grass, scrambling to grab as many of the falling sweet treats as they could before they hit the ground.

    The Great Marshmallow Drop has grown into a staple spring community gathering in Michigan, drawing hundreds of families year after year. More than just a candy hunt, the event creates lasting holiday memories for local residents, combining the joy of the Easter season with a playful, unconventional twist that keeps attendees coming back annually.

  • UK deploys Rapid Sentry anti-drone air defence system to Kuwait

    UK deploys Rapid Sentry anti-drone air defence system to Kuwait

    Escalating its security commitment to a key Gulf ally amid rising regional instability, the United Kingdom has formally announced the deployment of its cutting-edge Rapid Sentry air defence system to Kuwait, a move designed to shield both British and Kuwaiti national interests following a pair of recent drone strikes on critical national infrastructure in the country.

    The security escalation comes after two successive drone attacks targeted high-value sites in Kuwait: an overnight assault on the Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery that ignited blazes across multiple operational units, per Kuwaiti state media, followed by a second drone strike targeting a combined power and desalination plant early Friday.

    Located just 80 kilometers from Iran, Kuwait sits at the center of intensifying geopolitical friction that has roiled the Gulf region since the outbreak of the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. Against this backdrop, the UK Ministry of Defense confirmed that Royal Air Force (RAF) personnel have brought Rapid Sentry, a modern short-range air defence platform purpose-built to neutralize hostile drone threats, to the Gulf emirate.

    Unlike electronic countermeasure systems that can fail to disable rogue drones, Rapid Sentry delivers a kinetic defensive option: it launches missiles with an 8-kilometer operational range, engineered to track and destroy small, fast-moving aerial targets that have become increasingly common in regional attacks. Air Commodore Paul Hamilton, commandant general of the RAF, outlined the system’s unique value just last month, noting that “Rapid Sentry gives us a credible kinetic safeguard when a drone cannot be defeated electronically.”

    UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer held an urgent phone consultation with Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khalid al-Sabah on Friday morning to discuss the deployment and the recent attacks. A Downing Street spokesperson confirmed that Starmer issued a firm condemnation of “the reckless overnight drone attack on a Kuwaiti oil refinery” and reiterated the UK’s unwavering commitment to the region, saying “the UK stands with Kuwait and all our allies in the Gulf.”

    The deployment builds on a decades-long bilateral defence partnership between London and Kuwait, under which the RAF has already provided long-term training support to the Kuwait National Guard. This new security move aligns with ongoing RAF operations in the region that have focused on intercepting Iranian drones and missiles targeting Gulf Arab states since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

    The heightened military coordination comes alongside parallel diplomatic efforts led by the UK to address a growing global energy chokehold. On Thursday, UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper convened a gathering of representatives from more than 40 nations to coordinate a collective response to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint that carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s global oil supplies. Participants agreed to develop a coordinated strategy to pressure Iran to reopen the corridor.

    Following the meeting, Cooper made clear that Britain would “comprehensively reject” any unilateral attempt by Iran to impose transit fees on commercial vessels passing through the strait. She added that the international community could not allow Iran to “hold the global economy hostage” and confirmed that participating nations had discussed targeted new sanctions designed to pressure Tehran to reverse course. The UK is also currently supporting US operations to reopen the strait, with American bomber aircraft conducting strikes on Iranian targets from British military bases in the region.

  • Good Friday across Latin America brings faith into the streets

    Good Friday across Latin America brings faith into the streets

    Across the length and breadth of Latin America, millions of Catholic faithful gathered on Good Friday to mark one of the holiest days on the Christian calendar, reviving centuries-old traditions of public processions, solemn ceremonies, and acts of penance that honor the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Even as religious demographics have shifted across the region in recent decades, these deeply rooted observances drew crowds of devotees spanning multiple generations, underscoring the enduring power of faith in public life.

    In Antigua Guatemala, the UNESCO-listed colonial gem tucked beneath towering, active volcanoes in southern Guatemala, the city’s annual Holy Week celebrations kicked into their most solemn phase at dawn. Dozens of penitents, locally known as cucuruchos, clad in flowing purple and white robes, processed slowly along the city’s iconic cobblestone streets under the rising sun. Other participants bore gilded, centuries-old religious images of Jesus, passing through neighborhoods packed with onlookers who have traveled from across the country and beyond to witness the event. Antigua hosts more than 15 separate processions throughout Holy Week, each with its own distinct history and devotional purpose.

    For 63-year-old Marcos Bautista, the occasion is a lifelong family tradition, stretching back to when he was an infant carried in his father’s arms. “To describe Holy Week in Antigua, there are no words that can capture what it feels like,” he shared. “It’s a feeling that, just by speaking about what Jesus has done in our lives, moves me deeply.”

    In Bolivia, this year’s Good Friday held particular political and cultural significance, marking a break from a nearly 20-year precedent of government leaders avoiding public religious events. Under Bolivia’s secular constitution, national leaders refrained from official participation in religious ceremonies between 2006 and 2025. But President Rodrigo Paz, who took office last November, broke with that tradition in recent weeks by attending Palm Sunday Mass carrying a ceremonial palm frond, and traveled to the southern city of Tarija to join Good Friday observances this year. In the capital La Paz, local government officials and military marching bands joined public processions, where hooded penitents carried the Holy Sepulcher through downtown streets.

    Antonio Santamaría, a participant who carried a religious image of Jesus during the procession, welcomed the shift in government engagement. “I’m glad everyone is here now,” he said. Bolivia remains a majority Catholic nation, with strong overlapping Indigenous spiritual traditions that shape many local religious practices. A longstanding household custom of eating only fish on Good Friday and preparing up to 12 dishes to represent Jesus’ 12 apostles has faded in recent years, however, as the country grapples with a sustained economic crisis that has strained household budgets.

    In neighboring Ecuador, where roughly 80% of the population identifies as Catholic, processions unfolded in every major urban center. In the capital Quito, the annual “Jesús del Gran Poder” procession drew more than 150,000 faithful, who packed the streets of Quito’s historic center, filling the air with chants and prayers as they accompanied the centuries-old image of Jesus carrying the cross.

    Just across the border in Colombia, thousands of devotees made the steep climb up Monserrate Hill, a 3,100-meter peak that overlooks the capital Bogotá, to attend a special Good Friday Mass at the hilltop basilica. Similar observances, including dramatic reenactments of the Stations of the Cross that retrace Jesus’ final journey to crucifixion, were held in towns and cities across the country.

    In Mexico, home to nearly 100 million Catholics, communities also marked the day with deeply rooted local traditions. In the central town of Atlixco, in the state of Puebla, the famous “Procession of the Chained” drew crowds of onlookers. Masked penitents walked the route bound in heavy iron chains, with pieces of cactus pressed into their skin as an act of penance. For participants, the ritual serves two purposes: some take part to atone for sins, while others walk to fulfill a vow in thanks for answered prayers and miracles. “It’s very beautiful, very sad,” said Marcela Ramírez, a homemaker who attended the procession. “It’s a kind of reverence, and you have to come and accompany them.”

    While demographic data from 2024 surveys conducted by Pew Research Center and Latinobarómetro confirms that the share of Latin Americans who identify as Catholic has declined over the past two decades, the faith remains the largest religious affiliation across the region. Even in countries where that share has fallen, more than 60% of adults still identify as Catholic in nations including Peru and Argentina, keeping these large-scale public Good Friday traditions alive for new generations.

  • Unanswered questions remain after Australia’s most wanted fugitive killed in standoff

    Unanswered questions remain after Australia’s most wanted fugitive killed in standoff

    After seven months of one of the largest and most intensive manhunts in Australian history, the search for Dezi Freeman — the fugitive who killed two police officers in August 2025 — ended on Monday in a fatal standoff at a remote rural campsite, leaving a community grappling with partial closure and lingering unanswered questions.

    Weeks earlier, investigators had publicly stated they strongly believed Australia’s most wanted man had died while evading capture in the rugged mountain bushland where he vanished shortly after the double shooting. Freeman, a well-known conspiracy theorist and self-identified “sovereign citizen” who went by the alias Desmond Filby, fled into the dense bush near the small Victorian town of Porepunkah immediately after ambushing two officers who arrived at his property to execute a search warrant over historical child sex abuse allegations.

    The operation concluded on a remote farm in Thologolong, a tiny community located near the border of Victoria and New South Wales. According to Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush, officers maintained a 24-hour covert stakeout of Freeman’s ramshackle campsite, set up inside disused shipping containers, before calling on him to surrender. “We gave him every opportunity to come out peacefully and safely. He didn’t take that option,” Bush confirmed to reporters.

    Local media reports, citing unnamed police sources, state that after three hours of negotiations, Freeman emerged from one of the containers at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time, armed with a weapon stolen from the two slain officers. Multiple police snipers fired simultaneously, killing him at the scene.

    The outcome came as a profound shock to Thologolong’s small local population of just 22 residents. The land where Freeman set up camp is owned by elderly farmer Richard Sutherland, who has been staying in Tasmania for months, according to his brother and neighbor Neil Sutherland. Sutherland confirmed the property owner had no connection to Freeman and did not share his extremist beliefs. In recent weeks, some local road signs were found graffitied with Freeman’s name, which local cattle farmer Janice Newnham told the BBC she had dismissed as a tasteless April Fool’s Day prank. Newnham added she remains skeptical any local resident knew of Freeman’s hiding place, noting that in the tiny tight-knit community, “everyone seems to know what everyone else is doing.”

    From the early days of the manhunt, Freeman’s intimate knowledge of the local alpine terrain and off-grid survival skills gave investigators a major disadvantage, explained Dr. Vincent Hurley, a former police hostage negotiator and current policing lecturer at Macquarie University. Unlike urban fugitives, who leave traceable digital footprints from mobile phones, travel and financial transactions that can be tracked via modern tools like facial recognition, Freeman operated in an unpopulated wilderness with no digital footprint. “There was no easy way to actually try and track him down because they literally just had to go searching through the bush, and that’s pretty, pretty rare,” Hurley said.

    The only comparable recent case in Australia was that of Malcolm Naden, who evaded capture for nearly seven years in New South Wales before being arrested in 2012. But unlike Naden, who left a clear trail of broken into properties and temporary campsites, Freeman left no trace of his movements for seven months. That complete lack of evidence has led police to conclude the fugitive received outside help to stay off the grid.

    “We’re keen to learn who, if any – but we suspect some – assisted him in getting away from Porepunkah… if anyone was complicit, they will be held accountable,” Bush told reporters. While it is physically possible to walk the 150-kilometer route from Porepunkah to Thologolong, investigators consider this extremely unlikely: the trail crosses rugged, heavily forested mountain terrain, with extreme temperatures ranging from sub-freezing in winter to 40 degrees Celsius in summer, conditions that make independent travel and survival nearly impossible. Police sources also indicate Freeman likely only arrived at the Thologolong campsite recently, after severe bushfires swept through the region in January, burning within a kilometer of the property and forcing a full evacuation of the area that saw constant emergency service and air patrol activity.

    Physical evidence from the campsite further supports the theory of outside assistance. Photos published by local media show recently installed air ducts fitted to the shipping container Freeman hid in, a modification that would likely require multiple people to complete. Three camping chairs and an open case of beer found at the site also suggest Freeman was not alone at the camp. Police have closely monitored Freeman’s family throughout the manhunt, who have publicly condemned his actions; his wife was reportedly shocked by the news of his discovery, having long believed he was already dead.

    Hurley said he believes any accomplices are almost certainly fellow sovereign citizen believers, who reject the authority of government and law enforcement. No ordinary local would support Freeman after the brutal killing of two officers, he argued, adding that Freeman was known to be a loner with few close connections outside his ideological circle. Hurley also believes the tip that led police to Freeman’s hideout did not come from within the sovereign citizen movement, whose members are deeply anti-police and unlikely to cooperate. For Freeman himself, Hurley added, surrender was never a realistic option: “Being captured alive, that would be the ultimate humiliation and betrayal to him as a person. For the duration of the time he was at large, he was symbolically giving the middle finger to the police all over Australia.”

    Many key questions about the manhunt and Freeman’s seven months on the run may never be answered, Bush has hinted. The investigation into potential accomplices is still in its early stages, and the police chief confirmed that while investigators received information that led them to the hideout, details of how the tip was obtained will remain confidential. Notably, no one has come forward to claim the AU$1 million reward offered for information leading to Freeman’s capture, and Bush said all details related to the reward and the investigation’s final phase will remain “absolutely confidential.” Adding, “I’m quite sure we’ll never be sharing those details.”

  • Israel prevents worshippers from marking Good Friday at Holy Sepulchre

    Israel prevents worshippers from marking Good Friday at Holy Sepulchre

    Jerusalem’s holiest Christian site, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hosted a dramatically truncated Good Friday service this year, led by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa, after sweeping Israeli access restrictions across the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem barred all public attendance.

    Traditionally, the annual Liturgy of the Passion of Christ at the basilica — widely venerated by Christians as the exact location of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and burial — draws thousands of worshippers from across the globe. This year, however, only roughly 15 clergy members were permitted to participate in the ceremony. The restrictions that shuttered the site to the public also impacted Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, extending sweeping access limits across all major religious sites in the Old City.

    The limited Good Friday service follows a similar scaled-down Holy Thursday gathering led by Pizzaballa at the same church just one day prior. During his remarks at the Good Friday service, the patriarch drew direct links between the restricted worship, rising regional volatility tied to the recent US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, and growing threats to religious freedom in the holy city.

    “Outside, the doors of the Holy Sepulchre are closed,” Pizzaballa told the small gathering of clergy. “War has turned this place into a refuge, an inside cut off from an outside weighed down by tension.”

    The restrictions on worship come on the heels of a controversial incident that sparked global outcry just weeks earlier, when Israeli forces blocked Pizzaballa from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Palm Sunday services. The patriarch and Father Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land, were both denied entry to the site — a step that Jerusalem church authorities called unprecedented in centuries. Officials noted that the unprecedented denial of access to senior Catholic leaders set a dangerous precedent and ignored the spiritual sensibilities of more than 2 billion Christians worldwide who turn their focus to Jerusalem during Holy Week.

    The incident drew immediate official condemnation from multiple European governments, including France, Spain and Italy. Facing mounting international backlash, Israeli police announced that they would allow a “limited prayer framework” for the Good Friday and Easter observances, though restrictions remained far stricter than in any prior year in recent memory.

    Even with the adjusted limited access, many Palestinian Christians have expressed frustration with both the Israeli restrictions and the response from senior church leadership. Speaking to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity over safety concerns, one Palestinian shopkeeper in the city argued that Pizzaballa should have taken a more public stand against the entry block for Palm Sunday. The shopkeeper said the patriarch should have challenged the blocking Israeli soldiers, and even held open-air prayers in the street if necessary, adding that church leaders were wrong to enter into negotiations with Israeli authorities over access to sites that fall under occupied territory.

    Israel has occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, since the 1967 Six-Day War, a occupation that the International Court of Justice reaffirmed in a 2024 ruling is illegal under international law. Since the launch of the US-Israeli assault on Iran weeks ago, the Old City has remained almost entirely closed to non-resident visitors. Israeli forces have maintained permanent checkpoints at all entry gates, strictly controlling access to all key religious sites.

    Al-Aqsa Mosque has remained fully closed to Muslim worshippers throughout this period, a restriction that was also in place for most of the holy month of Ramadan and during the Eid al-Fitr holiday last month. Israeli officials justify the sweeping access limits by citing public safety concerns linked to potential retaliatory Iranian missile attacks. While debris from intercepted Iranian missiles has caused minor damage in parts of Jerusalem, many Palestinians argue the far-reaching restrictions are actually a deliberate tactic to strengthen Israel’s unilateral control over the occupied Old City, a strategic site with profound global religious significance.

    This report was originally published by Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.