Global Pulse

作者： admin

  • Why super-sized and politicised World Cup comes at a cost

    Why super-sized and politicised World Cup comes at a cost

    As the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off Thursday at Mexico City’s iconic Estadio Azteca – the first venue ever to host three World Cup opening games – the global football community is gearing up for what FIFA President Gianni Infantino calls “the greatest event humanity has ever seen.” This summer’s tournament, the first 48-team, tri-nation World Cup spread across 16 cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada, is already making history for far more than just its groundbreaking size. From political polarization to exorbitant ticket prices, unresolved security gaps and environmental concerns, this expanded showcase of the world’s most popular sport carries with it a level of contention unseen in any previous World Cup.

    Infantino has framed the first pan-continental iteration of the tournament as the most inclusive, welcoming and unifying edition in the event’s 96-year history. But critics say those superlatives mask deep flaws that have undermined the tournament before a ball is even kicked: it is the most politicized, the most expensive, the most carbon-intensive, and the most commercially lucrative for FIFA itself, which is projected to pull in a record-breaking $9 billion in revenue this year alone.

    The current state of play began eight years ago, when FIFA awarded the 2026 hosting rights to the North American bid, a move crafted to help the governing body rebuild its reputation after crippling 2010 corruption scandals tied to the 2018 Russia and 2022 Qatar World Cups. With most stadium infrastructure already in place across the three countries, the bid was seen as a low-risk, high-reward proposition that would leverage the world’s most valuable commercial sports market to unlock unprecedented broadcasting and sponsorship revenue. That windfall will let FIFA distribute $2.7 billion to global member associations over the next four years, a boost widely viewed as strengthening Infantino’s odds of securing a third term as president in 2027.

    But the first major controversy to erupt has centered on ticket pricing, which has sparked public backlash and even official investigations. Ahead of the 2018 bid, organizers promised final tickets would cost no more than $1,550. When tickets went on sale last December, the most expensive premium seats hit $8,680, with dynamic pricing – a first for World Cup, where ticket costs fluctuate based on demand – pushing costs even higher for popular matches. Leading supporters’ groups called the pricing a “monumental betrayal,” and while FIFA released a limited batch of $60 entry-level tickets, New York and New Jersey officials have launched a formal probe into allegations that FIFA artificially inflated prices and misled fans. Thousands of tickets for matches featuring lower-ranked nations are currently selling below face value on official and secondary platforms, suggesting the governing body overestimated demand for high-priced inventory.

    Off the pitch, other costs have also sparked anger. Regular train fares from New York City to MetLife Stadium, host of the 2026 final, jumped from $12.90 to as high as $150, with New Jersey’s governor blaming FIFA for refusing to subsidize public transport costs. A late policy change that initially banned reusable water bottles from stadiums drew widespread condemnation over public health risks, with 14 of 16 host venues expected to see dangerous summer heat; FIFA walked back the ban days later under intense pressure from fans and politicians, though scientists still warn the governing body’s heat safety protocols remain inadequate to protect players and spectators.

    The tournament’s most intractable challenges, however, stem from its unprecedented entanglement in global politics, amplified by the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration. Never before has a host country been engaged in ongoing military conflict with a participating nation: after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran in February, with a ceasefire holding only nominally since April, Trump initially questioned whether Iran should be allowed to participate, suggesting unqualified Italy should replace the four-time World Cup qualifier. Iran ultimately secured its place in the draw, but the country has accused the U.S. of denying visas to dozens of its backroom staff, imposing harsh entry requirements for matches hosted in the U.S., and revoking all fan ticket allocations for its group stage matches. FIFA has also moved to ban Iran’s pre-revolutionary flag from stadiums, turning Iran’s opening two matches in Los Angeles – home to one of the world’s largest Iranian diaspora communities – into inherently politically charged events. The team relocated its training base from Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico, to avoid ongoing political and travel friction.

    Immigration policies have created even broader barriers to entry. Back in 2017, during Trump’s first term, Infantino warned that a U.S. travel ban on majority-Muslim nations violated FIFA rules and could disqualify the U.S. from hosting. Today, four participating nations – Iran, Haiti, Senegal and Ivory Coast – face full or partial travel bans on their fans under second-term Trump administration policies, with the White House citing security concerns. BBC analysis found fans from more than a quarter of the 48 participating teams face either travel bans, tightened visa restrictions, or extremely high visa rejection rates. Most recently, FIFA confirmed that Omar Artan, set to become the first Somali referee at a men’s World Cup, was dropped from the officials’ roster after U.S. immigration denied his entry visa. The International Sports Press Association has also complained that dozens of accredited journalists have been denied entry visas to cover the tournament.

    Infantino’s close public relationship with Trump has drawn further criticism: last year, he awarded the U.S. president a controversial FIFA Peace Prize during the World Cup draw, drawing condemnation from human rights groups that label the tournament a “bonanza of sportswashing” as Trump leverages the event to boost his political standing, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. Amnesty International has warned the World Cup risks becoming “a stage for repression,” highlighting abusive U.S. immigration enforcement and the role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the tournament’s security apparatus, coming off a high-profile fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens during an ICE immigration crackdown earlier this year. The White House World Cup Task Force has pushed back, vowing the tournament will be “the safest, most welcoming sporting event in history,” though a recent partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security – the agency leading tournament security – exposed critical planning gaps that officials admit are still being addressed just weeks ahead of kickoff. The recent Ebola outbreak centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose team will play group matches in Houston, Atlanta and Guadalajara, has added an additional public health layer to security planning.

    Even environmental pledges have come under fire. While the use of existing stadiums aligns with FIFA’s goal to cut carbon emissions 50% by 2030, the expanded 104-match tournament spread across three countries has forced teams, fans and media to rely heavily on air travel, leading environmental groups to label it the most climate-damaging World Cup in history. It is projected to generate more than nine million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, almost double the average of the past four World Cups – far exceeding the 3.6 million ton estimate included in the original 2018 bid, which promised the tournament would set new sustainability standards for global sport.

    In host co-host Mexico, challenges are already playing out in plain view: high ticket prices have priced out local fans, ongoing cartel violence has raised security concerns, and teacher protests demanding higher wages have toppled World Cup player statues and threatened to disrupt match play. In the U.S., polls show a majority of average Americans say the tournament is too expensive to attend, and hotel bookings across almost all host cities are well below initial projections, suggesting high costs and political tensions have deterred casual fans. Even for international visiting supporters, turnout is lower than expected: the Football Supporters’ Association projects just 12,000 to 15,000 England fans will attend each of the team’s group matches, a figure leaders call disappointing given pre-tournament excitement.

    As the world turns its attention to Estadio Azteca for the opening match between Mexico and South Africa, the tournament stands at a crossroads. Proponents argue the expanded 48-team format will be a transformative moment for football in the U.S., which last hosted the tournament in 1994, when the event helped propel the sport into the American mainstream. Today, with a thriving domestic MLS and massive U.S. investment in European football, supporters see an opportunity to unlock a trillion-dollar growth market for the global game. But critics warn that the unbridled expansion, commercialization and politicization of this World Cup has created a perfect storm of controversy that could overshadow the on-pitch action. The next five weeks will answer one burning question: will this unprecedented tournament cement football’s place as the world’s most popular sport, or will it collapse under the weight of its own unaddressed challenges?

  • Round 15 team lists: Souths name Jai Arrow in touching act as Ezra Mam remains on the Broncos bench

    Round 15 team lists: Souths name Jai Arrow in touching act as Ezra Mam remains on the Broncos bench

    The National Rugby League community is coming together to celebrate the career of beloved player Jai Arrow, who was forced into early medical retirement earlier this year after a devastating motor neurone disease diagnosis, as Round 15 of the competition opens Thursday with a series of touching tributes planned by both his former and current clubs.

    Arrow’s current club, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, have pulled off one of the most emotional gestures in recent rugby league history, naming the retired forward to their extended bench for Thursday’s clash against the Brisbane Broncos — Arrow’s first professional club. He will wear jersey number 23 for the match, and the club has invited all fans and members to join in honoring his legacy ahead of kickoff.

    The tributes do not end with South Sydney, either. The Broncos, where Arrow launched his NRL career across two seasons before moving to the Gold Coast Titans and ultimately signing with the Rabbitohs in 2021, will also honor the former representative star, with every Broncos player set to display Arrow’s name and original club number on their game jerseys for the matchup.

    The pre-game ceremony will include one particularly poignant moment: Arrow will have the honor of ringing the iconic Rabbitohs Legacy Bell before the match, while players from both the Rabbitohs and Broncos will form a guard of honor to welcome him as he takes the field. The Rabbitohs confirmed the plans in an official statement, calling on supporters to turn out to celebrate Arrow’s career alongside him.

    Beyond the emotional tributes, Round 15 brings a host of team selection changes across the league, largely driven by State of Origin representative commitments and injury updates. For the Rabbitohs, the club will be missing all their Origin-selected stars, plus starting center Campbell Graham who sidelined by a calf injury. Tallis Duncan will shift to the backline to pair with Latrell Siegwalt in Graham’s absence.

    For the Broncos, standout playmaker Ezra Mam will remain on the bench after missing a match-winning opportunity in the final minute against the Titans last week and subsequently being dropped from Queensland’s squad for State of Origin II. Hayze Perham will step into the fullback position to replace Reece Walsh, while backrower Jordan Riki returns to the starting side after recovering from an injury layoff.

    Across other Round 15 fixtures, the Cronulla Sharks will again be without star halfback Nicho Hynes, who remains sidelined by a calf injury for their cross-Tasman trip, with Luke Metcalf held over on the extended bench. For the Dolphins, Trai Fuller will step in at fullback for Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, while playmaker Isaiya Katoa is set to be released from New South Wales Blues Origin camp to take the field against the Sydney Roosters.

    The Roosters will have Cody Ramsey in at fullback to replace the Origin-bound James Tedesco, with Hugo Savala moving to his preferred halves position to partner Daly Cherry-Evans. Tommy Talau will make his club debut on the wing, filling in for Mark Nawaqanitawase who is with the NSW Origin camp. The Wests Tigers have received a major boost, with winger Taylan May returning to the side after recovering from a shoulder injury as the club chases a much-needed win at Leichhardt Oval.

  • Hundreds of aftershocks jolt Philippines as officials say death toll could rise

    Hundreds of aftershocks jolt Philippines as officials say death toll could rise

    A powerful magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck the southern Philippine island of Mindanao early Monday has left at least 37 people dead and 487 others injured, with disaster officials warning the casualty count is likely to climb as emergency teams reach cut-off coastal communities. Hundreds of aftershocks have continued to rattle the disaster zone, hampering rescue and recovery efforts across the region.

    The seismic event left a trail of catastrophic destruction in its wake: multi-story buildings have collapsed, paved roads have split open or been swallowed by landslides, and large portions of Mindanao remain completely cut off from power and communications infrastructure. The initial quake also triggered widespread tsunami warnings across regions as far as southern Indonesia and Japan’s Pacific coastline, forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes for higher ground.

    As search operations entered their first full day, disaster response officials confirmed that priority remains focused on pulling survivors from rubble and reaching isolated communities. “We hope the death toll does not increase further, but we are expecting it to move. Our priority today is search and rescue,” Bernardo Alejandro, assistant secretary of the Philippines’ disaster response oversight agency, told local radio station DZMM. As of initial assessments, close to 2,000 residential structures and more than 6,000 public schools have sustained damage across the affected region.

    The Philippines sits along the geologically active Pacific Ring of Fire, making it highly prone to major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Monday’s temblor originated from tectonic movement along the Cotabato Trench, a fault zone off the country’s southern tip that has produced some of the deadliest seismic events in the nation’s recorded history. In 1976, a magnitude 7.9 quake from the same trench generated a devastating tsunami that killed an estimated 5,000 people.

    On-the-ground accounts from survivors capture the chaos and terror of the two-minute-long quake. In Lebak town, public school teacher Cesar Sundo described the shaking as feeling like being violently rocked in a hammock, with the intensity building by the second. Thousands of young students, most under 10 years old, panicked and cried as the ground bucked beneath them. By chance, the entire school was gathered outside for their weekly Monday morning flag ceremony when the quake hit, a circumstance that likely saved countless lives.

    “They were lucky to be outside. They were able to stay put and sit down,” explained Renato Solidum, the Philippines’ science minister and a veteran seismologist, confirming that the outdoor assembly saved many students from injury or death when structures collapsed around them. “These areas have experienced strong earthquakes before. This is one of the strongest.”

    Viral footage captured from the scene shows a branch of popular local fast-food chain Jollibee in General Santos City crumble to the ground as onlookers scream and retreat to safety. The chain released an official statement Monday night confirming that all its employees across earthquake-impacted areas are unharmed.

    Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has mobilized the full capacity of the national government to coordinate disaster response. Both the transportation and health secretaries have traveled from the capital Manila to Mindanao to oversee relief efforts on the ground. Health secretary Teodoro Herbosa noted that medical teams treating injured survivors have been interrupted repeatedly by strong aftershocks even as they work.

    Access to many hard-hit communities remains severely limited. In Jose Abad Santos, a coastal town on Mindanao’s eastern Davao Occidental province, landslides have buried the region’s only paved highway, cutting off half the town from overland access. “Relief goods have to be flown in to far-flung barangays (villages),” Mayor Jason John Joyce told DZMM.

  • Ecuadorian artisans working to preserve the traditional craft of weaving horsehair strainers

    Ecuadorian artisans working to preserve the traditional craft of weaving horsehair strainers

    Nestled in the highlands east of Ecuador’s capital Quito, the small village of Guangopolo holds a 200-year-old Indigenous craft tradition that is quietly slipping into history: the hand-weaving of cedazos, traditional horsehair sieves that once defined the community’s identity and economic life.

    Inside 76-year-old artisan Ligia Ipiales’ modest family home, she moves with deliberate care, separating individual strands from raw horse tails to weave an intricate mesh as fine as medical gauze — the signature texture that made Guangopolo’s cedazos prized across Ecuador for generations. Today, only nine practicing cedacero artisans remain in the entire village, a dramatic collapse from the thriving trade that supported hundreds of households just half a century ago.

    Among the remaining craftspeople is 51-year-old Guido Paucar, the youngest and only man in the group. He remembers a very different Guangopolo from his childhood: 50 years ago, roughly 500 Indigenous families in the village made their full or partial living crafting and selling cedazos, shipping up to 600 finished sieves to markets across the country every month, priced between $6 and $30 depending on size. “This is our village’s identity. If it disappears, Guangopolo loses a part of who we are,” Paucar said. “We are the last generation making these sieves.”

    What doomed the centuries-old trade? The mass production of cheap plastic kitchen sieves and synthetic alternatives pushed handcrafted horsehair cedazos out of everyday Ecuadorian households, reducing them to decorative display pieces for tourists rather than functional kitchen tools. “Now we only sell up to 10 each week,” Paucar added. Compounding the decline is a growing scarcity of the traditional raw materials required for authentic cedazos. The craft relies on two key local resources: horsehair from working farm horses, and wood from the native Pumamaqui tree used to craft the 15-centimeter drum-shaped wooden rims that hold the mesh in place.

    Where working horses once populated every Andean farm in the region, modern agricultural mechanization has replaced equine labor with motorcycles and tractors, eliminating the local supply of horsehair. Artisans are now forced to import horsehair from distant regions of southern Colombia and central Ecuador, paying a steep premium: 45 kilograms of raw horsehair costs roughly $1,000, a major expense for small-batch producers.

    The process of crafting a single sieve remains labor-intensive, unchanged for two centuries. After harvesting, horsehair is washed, sun-dried, and sorted by length before being stretched onto a simple handcrafted wooden frame called a guanga. Seated cross-legged on the floor, artisans sort, stretch, and knot individual strands at a speed that makes their fingers blur, resulting in a fine, durable mesh that was once indispensable for sifting flour in Ecuadorian homes.

    For decades, the craft also played a critical social role: it provided rural women with independent extra income, often enough to cover school fees and other expenses for their children. Today, efforts to pass the tradition to younger generations at Guangopolo’s El Cedacero craft center — through free workshops and targeted training programs — have repeatedly failed.

    Leaving the village for higher-paying professional careers has become the norm for young people, turning traditional craft work into an unappealing option. “From the age of 6 or 7 our mothers taught us how to weave sieves,” explained 57-year-old artisan Leonor Cuje, gesturing to a table lined with finished sieves and smaller horsehair goods like bracelets and brushes. “Now they are professionals and they don’t want to do this anymore.”

  • Italian commuters find a moment of peace on a cable-guided ferry sketched by Leonardo da Vinci

    Italian commuters find a moment of peace on a cable-guided ferry sketched by Leonardo da Vinci

    Nestled along the scenic Adda River in northern Italy’s Lombardy region, a one-of-a-kind vessel has reclaimed its historic purpose, offering local commuters and visitors a quiet, eco-friendly alternative to gridlocked roads after a nearby bridge shutdown for maintenance.

    Known popularly as Leonardo’s Ferry, this cable-guided reaction ferry operates on a 500-year-old design first sketched by Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci in 1513, during his detailed studies of northern Italian waterways including Milan’s famous canal network. The original drawing is held in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, outside London, and while historians debate whether da Vinci personally invented the reaction ferry concept, his detailed rendering has cemented the vessel’s place in engineering and cultural history. Today, it is the last fully operational reaction ferry of its kind remaining on the entire Adda, which stretches from the Alpine foothills to join the Po River.

    Unlike modern motorized ferries, the vessel relies entirely on the natural current of the Adda for propulsion, making it a zero-emission form of transport. Its ingenious operating principle relies on basic high school physics: a fixed cable tethers the ferry to both banks, and the force of the downstream river current is split per the parallelogram rule of force, with one component creating resistance along the cable and the other generating lateral movement that carries the craft across the water. The ferry’s rudder adjusts the vessel’s angle to the current, fine-tuning its speed and trajectory across the 5-minute crossing.

    The historic ferry almost vanished permanently last year, when its long-time concession operator stepped down, leaving the service without a steward. Refusing to let the centuries-old community link disappear, Imbersago mayor Fabio Vergani took matters into his own hands: he earned a commercial ferryman’s license himself, then partnered with the local tourism association to recruit and train a team of local volunteers to run the service.

    Through 2024, the volunteer team primarily catered to weekend tourists drawn to the ferry’s historic charm and riverside scenery. That changed this spring, when a nearby connecting bridge was closed for extensive repairs, sending road traffic into hours-long gridlock and forcing local residents to take a 20-kilometer detour to cross between Imbersago on one bank and Villa d’Adda on the other. Stepping up to fill the gap, the volunteer crew added a daily commuter service to their schedule, operating from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily with a two-hour midday break.

    Fares are modest: 1.50 euros (around $1.75) for foot passengers, 2 euros ($2.30) for cyclists, 2.50 euros ($2.88) for motorbikes, and 3.50 euros (roughly $4) for cars. For local residents, the ferry has become more than a tourist attraction — it’s a vital, welcome shortcut that cuts hours off daily commutes.

    Gianpaolo Graffagnino, who lives in Villa d’Adda and works on the opposite bank, now bikes to work and uses the ferry to avoid the detour. “Right now this is the fastest system, but above all the nicest because you get five minutes of peace,” he said of the quiet crossing. Another local commuter, Mauro Carnati, who drives his car across the ferry to take his daughter to school, says the small fare is worth the unique experience. “It’s true that we spend a little money, and it’s not possible every day, but the romance and added value of the Adda and the ferry are truly amazing. It makes for a better start to the day,” he noted.

    For volunteer ferryman Massimo Zoia, the ferry’s new role as a modern community link is a perfect full-circle moment for the centuries-old design. “This is a means of transport that has been here for 500 years and has always connected the two banks of the Adda,” he said. “And now it has returned to its original purpose: connecting two populations living on different banks of a river.”

  • He told us we were slaves – The fight for justice on a Scottish fishing trawler

    He told us we were slaves – The fight for justice on a Scottish fishing trawler

    After nine years of relentless campaigning for accountability, a landmark Scottish modern slavery case has finally drawn to a pivotal guilty plea, exposing horrific abuse of migrant fishermen at the hands of a local trawler operation. For Ghanaian fisherman Joshua Amissah, the moment the court confirmed the admission of wrongdoing was overwhelming: he stepped away from the witness stand, retreated to a quiet corner of the silent courtroom, and crouched to compose himself, overwhelmed by the weight of nearly a decade of unaddressed trauma.

    Amissah was one of five Ghanaian fishermen recruited to work on the *Sea Lady*, a scallop trawler owned and operated by Annan-based TN Trawlers, headed by Thomas Nicholson Sr. The vessel’s skipper was Nicholson’s son, Tom Nicholson Jr., who Amissah says openly viewed his Black crew as disposable labor. “He told us we were slaves,” Amissah told the jury at Hamilton Sheriff Court. “He said that his father had told him that any black person he worked with, he must treat that person as a slave.”

    What the fishermen endured on the *Sea Lady* in 2017 matches the legal definition of modern slavery, the court has confirmed. Work demanded was non-stop, with no scheduled rest periods. Amissah and his crewmates were forced to create an underground, secret rotating schedule just to steal minutes of sleep between shifts. Food rations were so inadequate that crew members resorted to scavenging raw fish and octopus caught by the vessel’s dredges to avoid starvation. There was no formal onboarding, no safety training, and no opportunity to push back against the exploitative conditions. “As soon as we got there, he said we should just get to work,” Amissah recalled. “[Tom Jr] said there was no time and that we needed to go hunt for scallops. There was no rest during the trip.”

    The ordeal only came to light after a life-threatening accident forced the vessel into port. In rough December 2017 weather in the English Channel, 55-year-old crew member Augustus Mensah fell and struck his head open on the hard deck. The only first aid supply on board was a single bandage. When the *Sea Lady* docked in Portsmouth for emergency medical care, police were alerted, launching what would become a years-long battle for justice.

    After three days of witness testimony, the case took a sudden turn when Nicholson Jr. changed his plea to guilty on amended charges, admitting he failed to provide adequate food, rest, and mandatory safety training to his Ghanaian crew during their months-long 2017 voyage. The unexpected plea meant three other accusers—Kow Mensah, Gershon Norvivor, and Kojo Attah—never got the chance to deliver their testimony in court. Augustus Mensah, who waited nine years to share his account, said he was still relieved that justice finally moved forward. “It wasn’t easy for me, but I am very happy that at long last we got our justice,” he told reporters outside court.

    The convictions are not the first for the Nicholson family or TN Trawlers. In 2022, Thomas Nicholson Sr. pled guilty to failing to provide adequate care for a Filipino crew member in a separate case stemming from a 2012 probe that identified 18 Filipino crew as modern slavery victims. He was fined £13,500 and ordered to pay £3,000 compensation to the injured worker.

    This week, the elder Nicholson pled guilty to breaching a landmark Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Order (TERO), a court order designed to restrict the movement of vessels operated by those under trafficking investigation. He is the first person in Scottish legal history to breach one of these orders, which required him to disclose details of all non-European crew before moving any of his vessels. Nicholson moved his trawler *Olivia Jean* from the Netherlands to Scotland without submitting the required documentation to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency; his defense claimed the breach was a “genuine mistake” with no foreign crew on board, but the court still fined him £2,700. He remains under active investigation for human trafficking.

    The case, which originated from a three-year undercover investigation by BBC journalists, has sparked widespread criticism over systemic failures in the UK fishing industry and government oversight of public funding for abusive operators. Charity Open Seas director Phil Taylor revealed that TN Trawlers received more than £250,000 in public funding while human trafficking investigations were already ongoing, calling the fine against Nicholson Sr. “paltry.” “This is a really concerning case, and it’s hard to understand how this firm was provided with public funding,” Taylor said. “It shouldn’t be possible for ministers to hand out tens of thousands of pounds to a business under investigation for human trafficking. This case shows how important it is for government to scrutinise the work of firms it is supporting with public money, and to publish details of historical convictions and ongoing investigations on the UK fishing vessel register, to ensure those who break the rules are held accountable.”

    Detective Chief Inspector Paul McNamara of Police Scotland said the case was the result of a years-long joint operation between multiple agencies, noting that TEROs play a critical role in stopping exploitation before more harm occurs. “They allow police to step in at an early stage to prevent harm and disrupt organisations while we investigate. Partnership working is essential as we share knowledge and skills to target those who make money by exploiting others. We want to make Scotland a hostile environment for organisations involved in slavery and exploitation, to protect potential victims and keep our communities safe,” McNamara said.

    Industry advocates say the TN Trawlers case is not an isolated incident, but evidence of deep, systemic exploitation of migrant workers in the UK fishing sector. Chris Williams, fisheries section co-ordinator at the International Transport Workers Federation, called for sweeping regulatory reform to guarantee basic labor protections for migrant crew. “What we need is a solution that enables workers from the Philippines, Ghana, Sri Lanka and India to come into the UK fishing industry with employment rights, minimum wage protections, and their hours of work and rest being recorded,” Williams said. “We should not allow a ‘race to the bottom’ where workers can be exploited and abused. If we’re so desperate to have them to keep this food-producing sector working, we should be paying people fairly and treating them fairly.”

    To date, the UK Home Office has recognized 35 former TN Trawlers workers as official victims of modern slavery, following investigative reporting by the BBC that first exposed the widespread abuse in 2024’s *Slavery At Sea* documentary. In October 2024, a separate group of Ghanaian fishermen rescued from another TN Trawlers vessel, the *Olivia Jean*, each received £20,000 in government compensation for their abuse. TN Trawlers has repeatedly denied all allegations of modern slavery and human trafficking, maintaining that all its workers have always been well-treated and fairly paid. Tom Nicholson Jr. will return to Hamilton Sheriff Court next month for sentencing.

  • Survivors share experiences and lessons from Congo’s 2018 Ebola outbreak

    Survivors share experiences and lessons from Congo’s 2018 Ebola outbreak

    In the bustling eastern Congolese border city of Beni, where trade routes connect the Democratic Republic of Congo to Uganda and Rwanda, the word “Ebola” still triggers sharp, traumatic memories for local survivors like Vianney Kambale Kombi. Kombi lived through the 2018–2020 Ebola epidemic, the second-largest in recorded history that infected more than 3,400 people and claimed over 2,200 lives. While that outbreak was ultimately contained through the rollout of experimental vaccines, Kombi says community denial, deep-rooted skepticism, and violence against frontline health workers accelerated the virus’s deadly spread. Back then, many residents in his community blamed the outbreak on supernatural forces, he recalls.

    “We thought it was witchcraft,” Kombi explained. “The community had not accepted that this disease existed and it had not accepted that we could recover from it.”

    Now, as Beni faces a new, emerging Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, local residents and health workers fear the same damaging patterns of misinformation and distrust that fueled past tragedy could derail the response once again. Compounding these concerns is the absence of a widely approved, targeted vaccine for this specific strain of the virus. As of the latest update, 515 confirmed infections have been reported, with 91 people dead and only 12 confirmed recoveries.

    Kombi, who survived the 2018 outbreak after contracting the virus, says misinformation took many forms during that crisis beyond the belief in witchcraft. Many residents dismissed Ebola as a Western conspiracy invented to draw international aid funding, while others framed it as a political tool amid national election campaigns. This widespread denial made life hard for survivors even after they recovered from the virus. “The community had not accepted that we could recover from this disease, that’s why reintegrating into the community at first was a bit difficult,” Kombi said.

    Bienfait Wanzire, another 2018 Ebola survivor, echoed this account of community confusion. “When a pandemic hits here in Congo, we initially think it’s a political issue,” he said. “At first, we thought it was a spiritual illness. Then because there were election campaigns, we believed it was political.”

    For frontline health workers, the legacy of that mistrust remains personal. Dr. Babah Mutuza Lusungu, a physician at Beni’s “Dieu Est Grand” Medical Center, lost his uncle and two colleagues to the 2018 outbreak, even as he worked tirelessly to convince local residents the virus was a real, treatable threat. “There was very strong resistance,” Lusungu recalled. “And so there was a climate of mistrust that took place between the population, the authorities, the partners too, right, and the health workers.”

    Looking back at the failures of the 2018 response, Lusungu argues that local leaders made a critical mistake by excluding young people from public outreach and response efforts. He is now urging officials to partner directly with youth community leaders to spread accurate information about the new outbreak before the virus can gain further traction. “If we wait until they have so many declared cases to start making an effective response, we will have totally missed the target,” he warned.

    Esperance Masinda, who worked for the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF in Beni during the 2018 outbreak, knows firsthand the dual toll of the virus and community stigma. She contracted Ebola while caring for her husband, a medical doctor who also caught the virus. Both survived, thanks in part to early access to experimental Ebola vaccines, but the treatment that saved their lives left them isolated from their own community.

    “When we were in the community, we were told that you’re not going to make it even five years, you’re going to die with that medication that you took there,” Masinda recalled. Years later, however, that stigma has slowly faded. “And today, when they see us, these people no longer stigmatize us,” she said. “We are all humans, even though we have been victims of Ebola, all of us are humans.”

    For Beni’s residents and public health experts, that hard-won lesson—of recognizing Ebola as a treatable, human disease rather than a curse or a plot—could make all the difference in containing the new outbreak before it repeats the scale of the 2018 crisis.

  • Simon Lara: Fake seizure guy gives odd interview after pleading guilty to public nuisance charges

    Simon Lara: Fake seizure guy gives odd interview after pleading guilty to public nuisance charges

    A 44-year-old Melbourne man has made headlines after pleading guilty to three criminal charges linked to a pattern of bizarre public behavior, where he faked medical emergencies to trick strangers into restraining him. Simon Lara entered guilty pleas to two counts of public nuisance and one count of public indecent behaviour during a Tuesday morning hearing at Melbourne Magistrates Court, with the charges stemming from three separate incidents across 2023.

    Court documents and prosecutor accounts detail a consistent pattern of deception across all three events. The first incident unfolded just after 6 p.m. on March 13 outside a Carlton North venue on Rathdowne Street. Lara collapsed on the ground, and when two passersby stopped to offer assistance, he claimed to suffer from a chronic muscle spasm condition that required physical restraint to subside. The two good Samaritans followed his instructions, kneeling on his back as he writhed on the ground for two to three minutes, before Lara stated the spasms had passed and he departed the scene.

    The second incident occurred in the late evening of June 3 outside Windsor Railway Station. A member of the public found Lara shaking on the ground, and Lara again asked the man to kneel on his back. When the passerby expressed discomfort with the request, Lara stood up unassisted, thanked him, and left the area. The man later reported the encounter to police after recognizing Lara in a viral Reddit post about the fake seizure scheme.

    The third incident took place on Flemington Road in Parkville on August 4, when Lara asked another stranger to kneel on his buttocks. The man complied for roughly 30 seconds while asking bystanders to contact emergency services, before Lara stood up, shook the man’s hand, and walked away. Five days later, that same man recognized Lara in a 9News report about the so-called “Fake Seizure Guy” and alerted authorities.

    Notably, these three incidents all occurred before Lara was sentenced in August 2023 for nearly identical offending linked to an incident at a local Melbourne beach earlier that year. For that prior conviction, Lara was ordered to serve a community corrections order that included mandated treatment for what the court described as his “complex needs.” Legal representatives confirmed Lara has two additional pending matters before the courts, but he has not been accused of any similar offending since October 2023.

    Outside the courtroom following Tuesday’s hearing, Lara gave an unorthodox interview to assembled television cameras, spinning for the lens and openly stating that he has always dreamed of becoming a TV star. “Go right ahead put it on television. I’ve got nothing to hide, not all disabilities are visible,” he told reporters, pointing to a flower emblem stitched to his shirt. Lara also reaffirmed that his previous expressions of remorse for his actions were genuine, and claimed the public would not see any further issues from him moving forward.

    Lara’s defense team has confirmed the defendant has significant documented vulnerabilities, including a diagnosis of autism, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, alongside a history of traumatic life experiences. His legal team has requested a lengthy adjournment of the current case to allow time for a psychologist to conduct a full assessment of Lara and prepare a formal psychiatric report for the court. The case will return before Magistrate William Parker for a further hearing in August.

  • Pope Leo will tap into the Sagrada Familia’s allure while honoring Catalonia’s holy mountain

    Pope Leo will tap into the Sagrada Familia’s allure while honoring Catalonia’s holy mountain

    On Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV will embark on a landmark day of religious and cultural engagement during his seven-day trip to Spain, bringing together a millennium of Catholic heritage and modern global faith at two of Catalonia’s most iconic sites: the mountain-top medieval Benedictine monastery of Montserrat and Barcelona’s world-famous Sagrada Familia Basilica.

    Nestled a short drive outside Barcelona atop a steep, rugged slope, Montserrat holds a deeply cherished place in the cultural and spiritual identity of Catalonia’s people. Each year, more than 2 million pilgrims and travelers journey to the 11th-century abbey complex, which also houses a 16th-century basilica and the revered Black Madonna statue. While historical analysis confirms the carving was originally white, centuries of exposure to candle smoke and incense darkened its surface before it was repainted black, cementing its status as a beloved symbol of faith for locals. For Catalans, Montserrat is far more than a religious site: it is a core pillar of regional culture, tied closely to efforts to preserve the Catalan language and centuries-old traditions. As Catalan theologian Francesc Torralba explained, many Catalans turn to the Black Madonna in times of hardship, calling the mountain a spiritual home for the region.

    For global observers, however, the undisputed highlight of the Pope’s visit will be his evening Mass at the Sagrada Familia, held to mark 100 years since the death of the basilica’s visionary architect, Antoni Gaudí. During the trip, Pope Leo will deliver nearly all remarks in Spanish, with select addresses in Catalan, reflecting a careful balance of national and regional outreach.

    Unlike most of Europe’s ancient cathedrals, the Sagrada Familia’s enduring global allure stems from its one-of-a-kind design and ongoing construction. Work first began on the site in 1882, during the papacy of Leo XIII — Pope Leo XIV’s namesake — and continues to this day, funded entirely by visitor entrance fees. Gaudí’s masterpiece blends natural imagery — from towering tree-like columns and carved birds to abundant fruit motifs — with narrative scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, creating a space that bridges 2,000 years of Christian history with modern and postmodern design sensibilities. As Ferran Sáez, a humanities professor at Barcelona’s University of Ramón Llull, notes, the building communicates complex theological ideas in an accessible way that resonates with believers and non-believers alike.

    Today, the Sagrada Familia tops nearly every international traveler’s bucket list, with foreigners making up 90% of its annual visitor base — and more Americans visiting than Spanish nationals. Its recent completion of the Tower of Jesus Christ earned it the title of the world’s tallest church, drawing even more attention, and it has proven remarkably popular with adolescents and young adults, a stark contrast to the aging parishioner base of most traditional Spanish churches, at a time when the global Catholic Church is working to re-engage younger generations.

    Pope Leo’s visit comes at a moment of profound religious shift in Spain, and particularly in Catalonia, one of the country’s most secular regions. Following Spain’s transition to democracy in the late 20th century, religious adherence has declined steadily: a 2024 state poll found just over half of Spaniards identify as Catholic, and only one in five of those are practicing believers. Unlike more religious regions of Spain such as Seville, Catalonia’s Catholic tradition is understated, focused on sacred sites rather than large public processions. In this context, the Pope’s dual visit to Montserrat and the Sagrada Familia represents a deliberate balancing act: upholding centuries of religious tradition in a rapidly secularizing society, while using the Sagrada Familia’s global profile to reach audiences far beyond Spain’s borders.

    What many visitors and even locals do not know is that the two sites share a hidden historical connection. According to Mònica Santín, a tour guide, historian, and doctoral candidate researching Gaudí, the young architect got his early training working on a Montserrat chapel project for the original architect tapped to design the Sagrada Familia. When that architect’s neo-Gothic plan proved too costly to execute, the commission passed to Gaudí, who wove elements of Montserrat into his iconic design: the basilica’s distinctive soaring towers echo the jagged, spire-like rock formations of the Montserrat range, leading Santín to call the Sagrada Familia “a Montserrat in the middle of the city.”

    For all its cultural and spiritual significance, the Sagrada Familia’s global fame has also created frictions. Many Barcelona residents blame the basilica’s popularity for worsening overtourism in the surrounding neighborhood: cruise ship day-trippers flood local streets, the area is dominated by chain fast-food outlets and souvenir shops, and tensions boiled over last year when water gun-wielding protesters targeting mass tourism were stopped by police before they could reach the basilica. Sagrada Familia rector Rev. Josep Turull acknowledges the inevitable friction between locals and tourists, but frames growing pains as an opportunity for improvement, noting the basilica works to ensure local parishioners still feel it is their spiritual home even as it welcomes millions of global visitors.

    Basilica construction CEO Xavier Martínez projects that Pope Leo’s Mass will drive a similar surge in visits to the one that followed Pope Benedict XVI’s 2010 consecration of the site, which boosted annual attendance from 3 million to nearly 5 million by 2025. While Santín secured a spot to see the Pope in person, she chose to join him at Montserrat rather than the Sagrada Familia, following in the footsteps of her grandmother, who made a barefoot pilgrimage to the mountain during the Spanish Civil War to pray for her husband’s safety. Even as she acknowledges the Sagrada Familia’s ability to move believers and non-believers alike, she joins many local residents in expressing concern that the Pope’s visit could push tourism levels to unsustainable heights for the Barcelona community.

  • Outdoor hospitals, cut-off communities as Philippine quake toll hits 41

    Outdoor hospitals, cut-off communities as Philippine quake toll hits 41

    A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Mindanao, the southern major island of the Philippines, on June 8 has left 41 people dead, more than 450 injured, and thousands displaced, with disaster response efforts hampered by ongoing aftershock risks and widespread infrastructure damage, according to latest updates from national and local disaster management agencies.

    The quake, which triggered immediate tsunami warnings across the Pacific region that forced thousands of coastal residents in the Philippines and neighboring Indonesia to evacuate to higher ground, was followed by a cascade of powerful aftershocks that began just two hours after the initial tremor, with hundreds of smaller seismic events continuing to rock the disaster zone in the days after the main shock. By midday the day after the quake, all tsunami warnings had been lifted, with the highest recorded waves reaching just 20 centimeters off Japan’s Pacific coast, well below dangerous thresholds.

    Sarangani province, the hardest-hit region, faces particularly acute challenges: local government officials confirmed Tuesday that several remote communities remain completely cut off from outside aid, with damaged roads and a collapsed bridge expected to block access for at least a week. Some isolated areas can only be reached by helicopter, and repeated aftershocks have forced rescue teams to proceed with extreme caution to avoid being caught in further structural collapses.

    “There are still aftershocks, so the rescuers are very cautious in their approach. That’s a challenge,” regional civil defence chief Rodrigo Sosmena told reporters during a Tuesday briefing.

    The widespread damage to buildings has left medical facilities across the region unable to operate normally, forcing medical teams to treat patients in makeshift outdoor wards set up under the scorching tropical sun. At a hospital just outside General Santos, the region’s largest urban center, reporters with Agence France-Presse witnessed one young mother successfully give birth behind a temporary fabric screen, with medical staff guiding her through the delivery in the open air.

    In Glan municipality, where 13 residents were killed after being buried by landslides that hit their residential areas, a local hospital administrator told AFP that all 60 of the facility’s patients had been moved to outdoor beds after structural inspections found severe damage to the building that rendered it unsafe for occupancy. “The hospital sustained a lot of damage,” the staff member said. “The municipal engineer decided we could not use the building.” As of Tuesday morning, only four people remained listed as missing across the entire disaster zone.

    Recovery efforts have resumed in General Santos after pausing overnight, with search and rescue teams and specialized canine units working through the rubble of a collapsed local grocery store to reach two employees who were trapped when the building crumbled. A local rescuer told reporters the operation had shifted from active rescue to recovery, though a senior regional official later clarified that no formal decision on this shift had yet been made. The Philippine Coast Guard is also still searching for two swimmers who went missing off a local beach resort when the quake triggered violent churning of coastal waters.

    Social media videos verified by AFP have captured the scale of the destruction: one clip shows the full collapse of a General Santos shopping center that housed a popular Jollibee fast food outlet, while another shows an empty school building crumpling to the ground. A third video, posted to a local school’s official Facebook page, captures young students screaming as they cling to their teachers during the violent shaking, with a flimsy metal structure visible toppling in the background before the clip cuts off. The school’s caption confirmed no one was injured when the structure fell.

    This latest major seismic event comes just eight months after two powerful earthquakes, measuring magnitude 7.4 and 6.7, hit eastern Mindanao in October of the previous year, killing at least eight people.