Global Pulse

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  • ‘We must enter first’: Yemen’s female soldiers face war, danger and a changing society

    ‘We must enter first’: Yemen’s female soldiers face war, danger and a changing society

    In the war-torn Yemeni city of Taiz, 36-year-old female security officer Tahani patrols local markets in her uniform, unarmed by conventional military standards, but carrying the weight of a historic shift in Yemeni society. Her daily work represents one of the most visible changes to Yemen’s security landscape in the decade since the 2015 outbreak of war: the rapid expansion of women’s roles in the country’s security apparatus.

    Before the war, female soldiers were virtually absent from public security roles in Yemen. Today, women serve across every corner of the national security sector, from police stations and prosecution offices to frontline military checkpoints and high-stakes security raids. Tahani is one of thousands of women who joined Yemen’s expanding women’s police force in 2022, a move that transformed her life and opened a new path for Yemeni women seeking economic independence and public service.

    A divorcee from a poor rural background who previously worked as a housewife struggling to support her only child, Tahani describes the recruitment drive for Taiz’s women’s police as the chance to fulfill a long-held dream. “Yemen needs female soldiers just as it needs female teachers,” she told Middle East Eye in an exclusive interview. On a typical day, Tahani rises early to cook breakfast for her son and get him ready for school before heading to the station, where she works alongside both male and female colleagues.

    Her role fills a critical gap in Yemeni security, shaped by the country’s conservative social norms. Many Yemeni women prefer to interact with female officers when filing reports, undergoing searches, or providing testimony, and Tahani and her colleagues specialize in supporting these women. One of her most dangerous and essential duties is participating in home raids targeting criminal suspects. Per Yemeni tradition, male security personnel cannot enter a home where women are present, so female officers must lead the entry into these properties. “This is one of the most dangerous tasks. We must be cautious and have our weapons drawn, and we never raid a home without a plan,” Tahani explains. While she has received full tactical training, she has never had to fire on a suspect, as male colleagues provide overwatch from behind during these operations.

    Today, amid a new wave of military escalation across Yemen, the work of female security officers has become even more critical. The numbers tell the story of the force’s rapid growth: back in 2014, there were just 2,868 female police officers across the entire country. Over the past decade, both the Yemeni government and Houthi authorities have ramped up recruitment of female soldiers, growing the force exponentially. Last year, the United Nations Development Programme supported capacity-building training for 69 female officers in Aden Governorate, equipping them with professional skills to carry out their duties. As security inspections have doubled and raids on suspected cells have intensified with the recent escalation, female officers have been stretched thinner than ever.

    “This is the most serious situation since I started my job in 2022, as there are more home raids requiring female soldiers to be present,” Tahani says. “My colleagues at checkpoints have also doubled their efforts, because, during war, weapons can be smuggled and sleeper cells can spread among residents, so we must stay vigilant.”

    Her more experienced colleague, 43-year-old Sali, who joined the force in 2016 and has served at checkpoints and stations across Taiz, echoes that sentiment. Sali explains that during periods of military escalation, security work becomes a 24/7 responsibility, extending even into personal time and daily commutes. “Security awareness must be high in such situations. We have to monitor all activity and people around us to prevent crime before it occurs,” she says. Sali adds that officers are also working to raise public awareness about the risks of sharing sensitive information about military and security developments on social media, noting that such posts can inadvertently provide intelligence to enemy forces.

    Yemeni army Captain Muamer Abdulmonem, a 20-year veteran of the force, says that while female soldiers play a key role in routine security, their contribution becomes irreplaceable during periods of escalation. “During the recent escalation, there has been a dire need not only for female soldiers, but also for female volunteers. Many have been supporting the army and security forces, particularly by monitoring sleeper cells and unfamiliar individuals arriving in communities,” Abdulmonem explains. He notes that sleeper cells often hide in plain sight, operating under the guise of displaced families, street vendors, or beggars, making community-based surveillance by female security personnel especially critical. The captain also points out that female officers are the only ones who can lawfully and culturally search female travelers, a key task given that criminal networks often exploit women to smuggle weapons and contraband in a society where male officers cannot search them.

    While Yemen’s women’s police force was first established in 2000, it remained a small, marginalized institution for nearly 15 years. It is only over the past decade that the force has grown significantly and won broader acceptance across Yemeni society. Tahani’s brother, 31-year-old Thaker, says his family was initially hesitant to allow Tahani to join the force, but their opposition softened once they saw that she would be working exclusively with other women on cases involving female civilians. “Tahani works with women and deals with women, so she is like any other woman working in the civil sector, and the family has accepted that,” Thaker says. “A respected woman can work anywhere to serve her country. Women are entering all kinds of professions and that society must accept female soldiers, as it is society itself that needs them to interact with women.”

    That growing acceptance is visible among the Yemeni public as well. Amni Qaheri, a Taiz resident who has interacted with female officers while reporting a stolen phone and undergone searches at city checkpoints, says she appreciates the presence of female soldiers. “It was a good experience to see that there are female soldiers we can deal with. I hope their numbers increase, or even that a women’s police station is established where all the staff are women, so we can have an even higher level of freedom,” Qaheri says. She adds that searches carried out by female officers make her feel far more comfortable, and that “they do their job perfectly.”

    Yemeni sociologist Hail Saeed says that while social acceptance of women in security roles is growing across the country, it remains uneven across different regions and demographic groups. “Some families and communities still harbour reservations due to the nature of security work, particularly regarding field operations or night shifts,” Saeed explains. Even so, he notes that female soldiers fill a uniquely critical role in a conservative society, especially when working with women and minors. “Having women in the police helps ensure greater privacy and comfort for female citizens during searches, interrogations, or when filing complaints,” Saeed says. “It also facilitates access to information that some women might hesitate to share with a male officer due to social customs in a conservative society.”

    Saeed predicts that public acceptance will continue to grow in coming years, as long as female security personnel continue to demonstrate competence, discipline, and a commitment to public service that respects local cultural norms. “Community acceptance may expand gradually if the work of female soldiers is linked to competence, discipline, and community service, while taking cultural and social sensitivities into account,” he says.

    (Note: The names of female police officials have been changed at their request to protect their privacy.)

  • Woman at centre of Cornell rape inquiry was ‘failed’ by officials, says New York governor

    Woman at centre of Cornell rape inquiry was ‘failed’ by officials, says New York governor

    A high-profile sexual assault case linked to Cornell University’s fraternity system has triggered a major leadership shakeup in New York’s criminal justice system, after Governor Kathy Hochul publicly condemned the botched initial investigation and announced sweeping steps to address long-standing gaps in state rape law.

    The case centers on a woman identified only as Jane Doe in court documents, who alleges she was drugged and gang-raped by multiple male students at a Cornell University fraternity house in 2024. When the incident was first reported, local law enforcement launched an inquiry but ultimately declined to bring any criminal charges against the accused men. The allegations only gained national public attention last month, when Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against the perpetrators and the university, prompting renewed scrutiny of how the initial probe was handled.

    Speaking at a televised press conference on Friday, Governor Hochul delivered a scathing rebuke of the original investigation, saying the 25-year-old accuser was let down at every stage of the process by systems designed to protect survivors of sexual violence. “Jane Doe was failed at every turn by people and institutions that had a clear obligation to protect her,” Hochul said, adding that she was “deeply disturbed” by the multiple missteps uncovered during a preliminary review of the local prosecutor’s work.

    The governor went on to announce that she had formally lost confidence in the ability of local District Attorney Matthew Van Houten’s office to oversee the reopened investigation, prompting her to appoint New York State Attorney General Letitia James to take over full leadership of the case. A key point of outrage for Hochul was the revelation that local prosecutors never personally interviewed Jane Doe to hear her account of the alleged assault, a failure she called unacceptable.

    Alongside shaking up the investigation leadership, Hochul used the press conference to unveil plans to close a critical legal loophole in New York state law that currently hinders prosecutors from pursuing rape charges in cases where the victim voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs before the assault. Hochul argued that even if a person chooses to drink or use drugs voluntarily, that choice does not erase the fact that they cannot give sexual consent if they are too impaired to agree to sexual activity.

    “If someone is too intoxicated to consent it should not matter if they chose to use drugs or alcohol,” Hochul said. “Voluntary intoxication is not a licence for gang rape.”

    Attorney General James appeared alongside the governor at Friday’s event, and pledged to conduct a thorough, impartial inquiry guided strictly by evidence and state law. “My office will leave no stone unturned – we will interview all relevant witnesses, review every piece of available evidence, and move forward with criminal prosecutions if the facts support that action,” James said.

    For his part, Van Houten, the district attorney who led the original investigation, has defended his office’s original decision not to file charges, arguing that his team simply did not receive sufficient evidence to meet the strict legal threshold required to secure a criminal conviction. He added that most of the new information that has emerged in public debate over recent weeks was never shared with his office during the initial probe.

    Cornell University, meanwhile, has pushed back against that claim, saying it turned over all evidence collected during its own internal investigation to the district attorney’s office. That evidence includes a controversial Snapchat group chat allegedly linked to the fraternity members accused in the case, in which the men are reported to have discussed a “free” sexual encounter with Jane Doe on the night of the alleged assault.

  • Israel’s top court backs barring Palestinian politician from election over article

    Israel’s top court backs barring Palestinian politician from election over article

    In a high-stakes decision that has escalated tensions over political representation for Palestinian citizens of Israel, Israel’s highest judicial body has cleared the way for the exclusion of Balad party leader Sami Abu Shehadeh from the country’s upcoming parliamentary vote, based on an opinion piece he wrote days after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack.

    The controversy traces back to late last year, when the Central Elections Committee (CEC), a regulatory body dominated by members of Israel’s current governing coalition, voted to bar Abu Shehadeh, a leading figure in the Palestinian-majority Joint List electoral alliance, from running for a seat in the Knesset. The disqualification was rooted entirely in an article titled *The Al-Aqsa Flood: Preliminary Observations*, published 8 October 2023 by Arabic-language outlet Arab48, one day after the cross-border attack that killed roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, according to Israeli officials.

    In his commentary, Abu Shehadeh framed the 7 October attack as a predictable outcome of decades of Israeli occupation, blockade, and systemic mistreatment of Palestinians. He argued that the “unfolding strategic event” should not have caught anyone off guard. “What happened and is happening, up to this moment, is entirely consistent with the law of physics that we all know: excessive pressure leads to an explosion,” he wrote. “Decades of occupation and blockade, the assassination of leaders, the daily killing of people, and violations against the dignity, property, and holy places of the Palestinian people – all of this could only lead to a reaction. The real surprise is the Palestinian people’s capacity for endurance, until they reached the point of explosion.”

    Abu Shehadeh also noted that the attack exposed the fallibility of Israeli intelligence, writing that the country’s security services were not invulnerable to organized Palestinian resistance. He added that to advance Palestinian political goals, all factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization must be integrated into any political process opened by the conflict.

    Based on this text, election officials accused Abu Shehadeh of endorsing armed struggle against Israel and rejecting the country’s legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. The Balad leader forcefully denied both accusations, framing the disqualification as a deliberate effort to silence Palestinian political representation in the Knesset, and appealed the CEC’s ruling to the Supreme Court. His legal representative, Hassan Jabareen, argued that the article contained no explicit call for violence and did not meet the legal threshold for disqualification from running for office.

    Last Thursday, Supreme Court President Isaac Amit recommended Abu Shehadeh voluntarily withdraw his candidacy, giving him a 24-hour deadline to make a decision. The court informed the politician that a majority of justices had already agreed to uphold the CEC’s ban, meaning disqualification would be finalized if he refused to step aside. By Friday, Abu Shehadeh announced he would withdraw his candidacy.

    In an official statement released after the decision, Balad said Abu Shehadeh stepped down out of political responsibility to the Palestinian community in Israel and the Joint List alliance, to avoid broader harm to Palestinian political and parliamentary organizing. The party added that Abu Shehadeh “fought the legal and political battle all the way to the end against the fascist right and the Zionist consensus.”

    Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification is just one of several ongoing disputes over candidate exclusion ahead of next month’s election. The Supreme Court is still scheduled to review appeals against bans on the full Joint List and United Arab List, two electoral alliances representing Palestinian citizens of Israel that are widely expected to hold enough seats to play a kingmaking role in forming a new government after the vote. The court will also hear an appeal against the disqualification of Ofer Cassif, a Jewish Knesset member and prominent critic of the Israeli government’s policies toward Palestinians.

    Notably, the CEC, which moved to bar Abu Shehadeh, rejected all requests to disqualify two far-right parties linked to senior members of the current governing coalition: Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism. Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have a long record of extreme public statements targeting Palestinians that rights groups and political critics say violate Israeli electoral law and international human rights standards. Ben-Gvir has previously called for the killing of unarmed Gazans, claiming they were “not worthy of life,” while Smotrich has argued that allowing two million Gazans to die of starvation “might be justified and moral” and has publicly called for the complete destruction of the Palestinian West Bank town of Huwara.

  • Intensified Russian strikes are tearing Kyiv apart, warns mayor

    Intensified Russian strikes are tearing Kyiv apart, warns mayor

    In the latest escalation of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is facing what city leaders describe as an unprecedentedly dramatic crisis after repeated Russian drone and missile strikes targeted key infrastructure, including a vital river bridge that serves as the city’s central transport artery. Vitaliy Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv, issued a stark warning following an emergency crisis meeting of Kyiv’s Defence Council that intensified Russian bombardment is tearing apart the capital, with critical infrastructure, logistics networks, residential buildings and other core facilities all bearing the brunt of the attacks. The focal point of the latest strikes is Pivdennyi Bridge, a major crossing over the Dnipro River that splits Kyiv into its western and eastern halves. The structure has been hit four times in just 48 hours, with two strikes occurring within the span of 24 hours: an overnight drone attack was followed by a second strike on Friday evening. In the wake of the latest assaults, all metro and road traffic across Pivdennyi Bridge has been fully suspended, with additional movement restrictions imposed on Kyiv’s two other key river crossings. The shutdown has triggered massive traffic gridlock across the capital, leaving hundreds of thousands of daily commuters stranded. With an estimated current population of three million, Kyiv relies heavily on its integrated metro and road networks to keep the city functioning, making the bridge closure a major disruption to daily life. Beyond the transport disruption, the strikes have already claimed civilian life: Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (DSNS) confirmed one civilian was killed overnight when a multi-story residential building was hit in an attack. Recent strikes have also targeted Kyiv’s data centers, triggering widespread internet outages across the capital that have disrupted communications and public services. Klitschko framed the current moment as an existential test for Kyiv, telling the gathered top military, security, emergency services and police leadership at Friday’s crisis meeting: “We’re talking about survival.” He added that Russia’s explicit goal is to sow widespread panic among the civilian population, but stressed that the capital would ultimately prevail, “but only through the joint efforts of those who love it and care for it.” The escalating strikes have drawn condemnation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who accused Russian leader Vladimir Putin of abandoning all international norms of warfare. In excerpts of an upcoming interview with the *Financial Times* published this week, Zelensky noted that Putin made the decision in early September to operate “with no rules” when targeting Ukraine. “The Russians have failed to occupy us. So now they are carrying out massive attacks and mass killings. They want to destroy our bridges, our data centres, the internet, mobile networks, hospitals, kindergartens, schools, universities – everything. They want people to flee their cities,” Zelensky said. For his part, Putin has attempted to justify the intensified strikes on Ukraine as a direct retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and Black Sea naval vessels. Speaking Thursday at the annual Valdai foreign policy forum, Putin pushed back against international calls for a de-escalation, claiming “they started it.” He admitted that Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries have had a measurable economic impact, saying Kyiv “got some results” from the attacks and that Russia has lost roughly 1% of its gross domestic product as a result. Ukraine has countered that its strikes on Russian oil infrastructure are a legitimate military target, as revenue from fossil fuel exports directly funds the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion that Russia launched in February 2022. This pattern of targeting energy infrastructure is not new: Russia has prioritized strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities every winter since the 2022 invasion, aiming to damage critical civilian infrastructure and break public morale amid the cold winter months. The latest wave of strikes on Kyiv marks a new escalation of this strategy, expanding beyond energy targets to core transport and digital infrastructure that millions of civilians depend on daily.

  • Spanish PM Sánchez loses key housing crisis vote after eviction of woman, 87

    Spanish PM Sánchez loses key housing crisis vote after eviction of woman, 87

    MADRID – Spain’s minority socialist government led by Pedro Sánchez suffered a major parliamentary defeat Friday, when Congress voted down two emergency decree laws crafted to address the country’s escalating affordable housing crisis. The outcome has amplified widespread speculation that Sánchez will be forced to call an early general election, months ahead of the scheduled vote next summer.

    The crisis that forced the government’s hand began last week, when 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from her long-term central Madrid apartment after being unable to absorb a steep rent hike imposed by property owner Urbagestión. Mass public outrage over the eviction quickly spread nationwide, with thousands of protesters mobilizing to demand systemic reform of Spain’s unregulated rental market, where prices have surged to unaffordable levels for millions of working and low-income households in recent years. Under intense public pressure, Urbagestión later reversed course and agreed to allow Abascal to return to her home at a reduced rate, but the protest movement only gained momentum, spreading to city squares across the country and organizers called for a national strike over housing affordability.

    In a rushed response to the growing social backlash, Sánchez’s left-wing coalition government pushed through two executive decrees packed with tenant protection measures, which required parliamentary approval to remain in force. The first decree included sweeping provisions: a moratorium on evictions for vulnerable renters through 2030, a two-year extension for rental leases set to expire before 2028, higher taxes on short-term tourist apartments, and new restrictions on residential property purchases by large investment firms the government labels “vulture funds.” The second, more contentious decree proposed automatic renewal of existing rental contracts, a core demand of tenant activists and left-wing organizers.

    With the conservative People’s Party (PP) and far-right Vox already committed to voting against both measures, Sánchez’s minority government relied on the support of small regional nationalist parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country to pass the reforms. However, centre-right pro-independence party Together for Catalonia (JxCat) announced it would oppose the decrees in the lead-up to the vote, dooming the government’s proposals to defeat. The final vote tallies reflected the narrow divide: the first decree was rejected 178 to 172, while the second failed by a wider margin of 184 to 166.

    In a last-ditch emotional appeal moments before the vote, Sánchez pleaded with undecided lawmakers to back the measures, framing the reform as a moral and existential issue for Spanish society. “I don’t ask you, I beg you to be brave and consistent,” he said. “Because they are not just ambitious measures, they are necessary. We have to put order and humanity into this market, because if we don’t, it will bring down our society.” Social Affairs Minister Pablo Bustinduy, representing junior coalition partner Sumar, framed the vote as a choice between working-class Spaniards and wealthy foreign interests. “Today is about defending an international oligarchy which is extracting rent from salaries earned with the effort of working classes of this country,” he argued. “Voting against these decrees today means defending the interests of this oligarchy and turning your back on your own people.”

    Critics of the decrees pushed back on both policy and procedural grounds. JxCat lawmaker Miriam Nogueras argued the reforms had been hastily drafted and would ultimately backfire, saying “these two decrees will allow [vulture] funds to keep buying, keep speculating and evictions to keep happening… they will provoke the opposite effect of what they aim to achieve.” The opposition PP echoed the criticism, arguing that government intervention in the rental market would discourage private homeowners from listing properties for rent, further reducing supply and driving up prices. “Housing doesn’t get cheaper with decrees, it gets cheaper with more homes,” said PP representative Juan Bravo.

    As the vote unfolded inside Congress, hundreds of housing activists gathered outside the building, and angry demonstrations broke out after the results were announced. Protesters chanted “shame on you” and “your profits, our misery” to condemn the rejection of the reforms. The leading activist group coordinating the national movement, the Sindicato de Inquilinas (Tenants’ Union), announced during the congressional debate that it would end its week-long tent encampment in central Madrid to refocus its efforts on neighborhood organizing. “We will take the struggle to all the neighbourhoods, residential blocks and homes of Madrid, wherever there are rental increases, expulsions and abuses each day, and turn the energy of the last few days into a permanent organisation,” the group said. It has already scheduled a new series of mass marches for this weekend and continues to call for a national general strike over the housing crisis.

    Friday’s defeat highlights the fragility of Sánchez’s minority government, which has already been weakened by a series of ongoing scandals and judicial investigations affecting the Socialist Party and its close allies. Political analysts now widely expect Sánchez to call a snap general election, rather than continue to govern without a working majority, more than eight months before the scheduled election in summer 2026.

  • Watch: New York governor blasts handling of Cornell rape inquiry

    Watch: New York governor blasts handling of Cornell rape inquiry

    A major controversy has erupted over the handling of a sexual assault inquiry at one of America’s most prestigious higher education institutions, with New York’s top elected official publicly calling out systemic failures in the process. Governor Kathy Hochul has delivered a blunt rebuke of both Cornell University’s police department and the local county prosecutor’s office, breaking her silence on the mishandled probe that has sparked widespread outrage across the state.

    In a public statement that sent shockwaves through the state’s political and academic communities, Hochul revealed that she is “deeply disturbed” by the missteps that have marred the investigation into an alleged rape at the Ithaca-based Ivy League university. The governor’s criticism targeted two key players in the case: first, the university’s own law enforcement division, which she accused of bungling core procedural steps throughout the inquiry, and second, the local prosecutor, whose handling of the case has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks.

    The rebuke comes amid growing calls for systemic reform in how colleges and local law enforcement collaborate to investigate sexual violence on campus. Advocacy groups for sexual assault survivors have long argued that institutional complicity and miscommunication between university police and local prosecutors often allow perpetrators to avoid accountability, and Hochul’s public condemnation has amplified those calls, putting new pressure on state leaders to pursue policy changes that improve transparency and outcomes for survivors.

  • ‘I reduced my running because of urine leaks’ – Commonwealth finalist Korir

    ‘I reduced my running because of urine leaks’ – Commonwealth finalist Korir

    Kenyan middle-distance runner Naomi Korir has turned a 13-year battle with a congenital disabling condition into a story of global athletic success, reaching new career heights this summer when she crossed the line in fifth place at the 2024 Commonwealth Games mile final in Glasgow. But for the 28-year-old, reaching the world stage of elite track and field looked nearly impossible earlier in her life.

    Born with congenital genitourinary fistula, a condition characterized by an abnormal opening between the bladder and vagina that causes constant, uncontrollable urine leakage, Korir fell in love with sport as a young girl, but her condition forced her to drastically adjust her early relationship with running. “I played most of the sports activities: football, netball, athletics, even rugby,” Korir recalled in an interview with BBC Sport Africa. “But it was difficult because [of] the training, and the urine is flowing continuously. It’s bad. I reduced my running to shorter distances to reduce the leaking. I began doing 100m hurdles.”

    Beyond the physical discomfort, the condition carried severe social stigma that left Korir isolated from peers. Many people avoided her due to misunderstanding of the condition, but her love of athletics became a lifeline that kept her connected to activity and gave her a sense of purpose. “I could do it because I loved it, because most of the people could avoid me, I did a lot of activities just to pass time and not to feel that I’m excluded,” she said.

    Fistula, a condition that affects an estimated 500,000 women globally, can develop either as a complication of prolonged obstructed childbirth or, as in Korir’s case, be present from birth. While widespread access to obstetric care and low-cost corrective surgery has all but eliminated the condition in high-income nations, it remains a persistent public health challenge in sub-Saharan Africa, where high-quality specialized care is often out of reach for low-income communities.

    Korir endured two failed corrective surgeries before a third successful procedure finally brought her relief in August 2013, when she was 13 years old. The operation was performed at Eldoret’s Gynocare Hospital, a Kenyan facility that specializes in fistula treatment, obstetric care and reproductive health, which has treated thousands of patients from across East Africa since opening in 2011.

    Caroline Mabeya, director of Gynocare, explained that the social isolation and stigma surrounding fistula often creates as much harm as the physical condition itself. “It’s a difficult condition to live with every day,” Mabeya said. “They are ostracised in the society. That’s the psychological torture that they face with the fistula.” Unlike many treatment providers, Gynocare offers free care for low-income patients and combines surgical intervention with long-term support to help women rebuild their self-esteem and reintegrate into their communities after treatment. “When they come into the facility, they are crushed, they have low esteem. So, there’s a huge amount of effort that is put in to make them at least be strong enough to be reintegrated and get back into the community,” Mabeya added.

    For Korir, successful surgery opened the door to a second chance at both education and her athletic dreams. Through Gynocare’s Young Fistula Programme, she was able to complete her secondary education, while the end of her chronic symptoms allowed her to return to full-distance running training. By 2019, she had turned professional, quickly climbing the ranks of international track and field: in 2021, she claimed a silver medal in the 2x2x400m mixed relay at the World Relays in Poland alongside teammate Ferguson Rotich, followed by a gold medal in the 4x400m relay at the 2022 African Championships in Mauritius.

    Her 2024 Commonwealth Games appearance marked her first start in a major global senior final, a milestone that has cemented her role as a beacon of hope for women living with fistula around the world. “I’m giving hope to young women maybe who have lost hope,” Korir said. “They need to come back again in living and enjoying life.”

    Mabeya noted that Korir’s journey has become a powerful inspiration for both current patients at Gynocare and the hospital’s staff, who face daily challenges treating the condition and addressing its long-term social impacts. “She makes them realise that you can actually pull yourself out of these struggles and still make it in life and succeed,” Mabeya said. “Naomi actually is one of those patients that inspires us to continue working very hard, because we struggle with this condition and these women. The work is not easy.”

    Once a young girl who assumed music would be her future, singing in church and playing keyboard, Korir now has her sights set on even bigger athletic milestones: the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Beijing and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Reflecting on her journey so far, she remains grounded in what her biggest victory has already been. “I know I’m a champion in life, because conquering fistula alone is being a champion,” she said. “Now I’m looking forward to be a champion in sport.”

  • He’s seen nearly 500 executions. But never one like Christa Pike’s

    He’s seen nearly 500 executions. But never one like Christa Pike’s

    A highly unusual botched execution attempt in Tennessee has sent shockwaves across U.S. capital punishment discourse, prompting an immediate halt to all scheduled executions in the state and triggering a wide-ranging independent investigation into lethal injection protocols. The incident, which saw convicted murderer Christa Pike remain alive and breathing after two full doses of the sedative pentobarbital, the standard drug used in Tennessee’s execution protocol, has reignited long-simmering debates over the reliability and ethics of lethal injection in the United States.

    Veteran Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk, who has covered nearly 500 executions in Texas—more than any other American journalist— and continued this work even after his official retirement in 2018, says the outcome did not catch him completely off guard. Over his 46-year career with the AP, Graczyk witnessed rare procedural complications, including two instances where injection needles dislodged before being reinserted to complete the execution, but he had never seen an inmate survive after the full fatal dose was administered. Still, he had long considered this rare failure a distinct possibility. “It seems to me it was just a matter of time,” he told BBC News in the wake of the Tennessee incident.

    Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she tortured and killed alongside her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp during a confrontation at a job training camp. Following Wednesday night’s failed execution attempt, Pike was transferred to a local hospital and is currently receiving life-saving care, according to her legal team. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, who attended the attempted execution, described the chaotic ordeal to NBC News simply as “a mess.”

    Tennessee’s existing execution protocol explicitly calls for a secondary backup set of pentobarbital syringes if the inmate survives the first dose, but it provides no clear guidance for what action to take if the second dose also fails to cause death. Hours after the failed procedure, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee ordered a temporary pause on all executions in the state and launched an independent review of the state’s capital punishment procedures.

    Botched executions have grown increasingly common in the U.S. over the past 15 years, following widespread shortages of the traditional lethal injection drugs that forced many death penalty states to alter their drug formulations or source drugs from unregulated, untested suppliers. The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonpartisan think tank that takes no official stance on capital punishment, has documented 64 botched executions across the U.S. since 1982, 51 of which involved lethal injection. In at least seven of those cases, executions were called off entirely after medical teams were unable to establish a functional IV line for the drug delivery. Some states have even responded to drug access challenges by reinstating archaic execution methods like firing squad as a last-resort alternative.

    For Graczyk, 76, who still resides and reports in Texas—the U.S. state that has carried out more executions than any other since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment nationwide in 1976—covering executions has always been a core journalistic responsibility. Texas conducted the first ever lethal injection execution in U.S. history in 1982, and has overseen 602 executions in total, accounting for more than a third of the 1,683 executions carried out across the country since 1976. Graczyk argues that independent, neutral observers have a critical duty to witness the implementation of state capital punishment, to hold authorities accountable and document what occurs for the public.

    “There is no greater authority, power, whatever you want to call it, that state or federal government has over us than the power to take our life,” he explained. “I always thought it was important for someone who has no stake in the outcome of a case to be there and to see the law being carried out and to make certain that it is done properly. That someone is there to see it and tell others: Here’s what I saw. Here’s what happened.”

    Graczyk also notes a persistent imbalance in media coverage of executions, where the inmate receives the vast majority of public attention while crime victims and their families are often overlooked. In the Tennessee case, he points out, public discussion has centered almost exclusively on the failed execution and Pike’s status, with little focus on Slemmer, her life, or the grief her family has carried for nearly 30 years. “I feel bad for the victims in the case. They are the forgotten folks. They always have been,” he said. “Today, all the emphasis is on the inmate in Tennessee. No tears are being shed, other than the victim’s immediate family, for the victim … and I understand that’s the business we’re in, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.”

    Over his decades of reporting, Graczyk has carried indelible memories of the executions he witnessed, including the 1998 execution of Jonathan Nobles, a Texas man convicted of stabbing two Austin women to death in 1986. As Nobles’ last words, he began singing the Christmas carol *Silent Night*—and stopped mid-verse, at the line “Round yon virgin,” when the sedative took effect and he lost consciousness. The moment has stayed with Graczyk for nearly 30 years. “To this day, when I’m in church on Christmas, and the choir is singing *Silent Night*, and all the congregation is joining in … I’m thinking of this execution. I’m sure I’m the only one in that congregation that is having that kind of recollection,” he said.

    Texas’ execution procedures differ from Tennessee’s in key ways, Graczyk explains: in Texas, the IV line is set up before journalists and other observers are allowed into the death chamber viewing area, so reporters never witness the insertion process. When insertion fails at the first attempt on the arm’s crook, execution teams typically move the IV to the back of the hand, leg, neck, or alternate site. In all successful executions Graczyk has witnessed, inmates become visibly unconscious within seconds of receiving the dose, and are officially pronounced dead between 20 and 40 minutes later.

  • US jobs market sees sharp slowdown in September

    US jobs market sees sharp slowdown in September

    In the final monthly employment update ahead of November’s congressional midterm elections, the U.S. labor market delivered a far weaker performance than expected in September, new federal data shows, pointing to a noticeable cooling of the world’s largest economy and shifting expectations for future Federal Reserve monetary policy.

    Figures published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveal that U.S. employers added just 29,000 net new jobs to their payrolls in September, a dramatic downturn from August’s revised 133,000 job gains. The slowdown cut across nearly all major sectors of the economy, from big tech to retail, where headcounts stayed largely flat as businesses opted to freeze hiring rather than expand or cut their workforces. The national unemployment rate also ticked upward slightly over the month, rising from 3.5% in August 3.8% in September.

    The surprisingly soft jobs report has led economic analysts to downgrade their expectations for aggressive interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve, which has been raising borrowing costs for more than a year to curb persistent inflation. A cooling labor market eases upward pressure on wages, which central bank policymakers see as a key factor in bringing inflation back to their long-term 2% target. Many economists have noted that the weak September reading does not necessarily signal an impending deep recession, however.

    George Brown, senior economist at asset management firm Schroders, pointed out that monthly job growth has been highly volatile throughout 2024, describing the trend as a “rollercoaster.” A single soft month of gains, he argued, is not enough to confirm a lasting, widespread collapse in employment. Bradley Saunders, North America economist at Capital Economics, echoed that tempered assessment, calling the lower-than-expected jobs figure “not disastrous.” He noted that the headline number was dragged down by one-off factors including a drop in temporary government positions and recent policy shifts affecting work visas that temporarily slowed hiring for foreign workers.

    Beyond economic implications, the BLS data creates a major political challenge for former President Donald Trump and Republican candidates across the country, just four weeks before voters head to the polls for the 2026 midterm elections. This development stands in stark contradiction to Trump’s repeated public claims that the U.S. economy is booming, and that the country holds the title of the “hottest” economy in the world.

    New public opinion polling underscores the growing gap between Trump’s upbeat economic messaging and public sentiment. A new AP-NORC poll released Thursday shows that only 17% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of cost-of-living issues, while just 26% approve of his overall management of the economy. Both approval marks hit new lows for Trump, falling below the lowest economic approval ratings recorded during President Joe Biden’s term in office.

    Trump has privately and publicly acknowledged that his framing of the economy does not align with most Americans’ experiences. Earlier this week, he admitted during a White House event: “I’ve done a very bad job of explaining how good the country is doing.” The disconnect between the administration’s optimistic rhetoric and on-the-ground economic data leaves Republicans scrambling to defend their economic record on the campaign trail as voters prioritize inflation and jobs ahead of the critical midterm contests.

  • ‘Knowledge is power’ – Awoniyi

    ‘Knowledge is power’ – Awoniyi

    For professional football stars at the peak of their careers, stepping off the pitch and back into the classroom is a rare choice. But for Taiwo Awoniyi, the Nigerian international striker who plies his trade for Coventry City and has already built a multi-million career in top-tier soccer, continuing his education is not an extracurricular hobby – it is a lifelong promise he made to himself, rooted in a lesson from his father.\n\nAwoniyi, who previously built his reputation in the Premier League, has just marked a major personal milestone: he has graduated with a specialized diploma crafted to cultivate the next generation of leadership within the global football industry. In recent comments explaining his ongoing commitment to academic study alongside his demanding playing schedule, the forward emphasized the core wisdom passed down to him from his family: that knowledge is the most enduring form of power, and education holds irreplaceable value that no athletic success can replace.\n\nWhat makes Awoniyi’s choice stand out is that it breaks the common stereotype that top professional athletes set aside academic growth once they secure sporting fame and financial stability. As a millionaire player who has achieved widespread success in his career, his decision to prioritize education sends a powerful message to young aspiring athletes around the world, particularly emerging talent across the African continent. It highlights that athletic careers are finite, but the knowledge and skills gained through education can open doors to long-term leadership opportunities that extend well beyond a player’s time on the pitch.\n\nThis report was reported by Nizaar Kinsella, produced by Ian Williams, and edited by Aaron Akinyemi, published one hour ago in the Africa Sport subsection.