Global Pulse

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  • King ‘heartbroken’ by deadly Nepal flash floods

    King ‘heartbroken’ by deadly Nepal flash floods

    A catastrophic glacial lake outburst near the Nepal-Tibet border has triggered devastating flash floods that have left a trail of destruction and thousands unaccounted for, including at least 33 British residents. Among the missing UK citizens are a 13-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, sparking urgent rescue efforts and profound grief across international communities. As of the latest update from Nepali authorities, the confirmed death toll from the disaster has climbed to 359, with more than 1,300 people still missing overall – 644 of those unaccounted for are tourists visiting the Himalayan region.

    The disaster struck early Wednesday morning in Rasuwa, a district located just north of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Initial hypotheses pointed to an earthquake as the trigger, but revised analysis from the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the seismic activity recorded was actually generated by a large-scale landslide tied to glacial collapse. A 5.2 magnitude seismic event driven by “glacial collapse and debris flow” was registered near the border at 8:37 a.m. local time Wednesday, official data confirms. Nepali officials have since warned of ongoing risks, including the potential for secondary flooding along the Bhote Koshi river, prompting urgent warnings for residents and visitors to remain vigilant.

    Britain’s royal family has publicly expressed their sorrow over the tragedy. King Charles III released a statement saying he and Queen Camilla are “heartbroken” by the loss of life and destruction, sending their “most profound sympathy to all those who have so tragically lost their loved ones.” “Many in the United Kingdom have strong, deep and personal ties to this part of the world,” the statement added. “We feel deeply for the many families awaiting anxiously the news of friends and relations. Our hearts go out also to the families of all the police and armed forces personnel who lost their lives while carrying out their courageous duty in the service of others.” The Prince and Princess of Wales also shared their reaction, saying they were shocked by the disaster and that their thoughts are with every person and community affected.

    The UK government has mobilized a rapid response to the crisis. Prime Minister Keir Starmer (correcting the original misattribution to Andy Burnham) announced the UK would provide £5 million in emergency aid to support the Nepali government’s response and recovery efforts, describing the situation as “very distressing and devastating.” The UK Foreign Office confirmed it is working closely with Nepali authorities to locate missing British citizens, and has urged all UK residents in the affected region to follow local safety guidance and stay alert to the rapidly changing hazard conditions.

    Multiple tour companies operating in the region have reported missing British nationals who were part of pilgrimage and trekking groups when the floods hit. Most of the missing UK citizens were participating in the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, a sacred Hindu pilgrimage to Mount Kailash – a revered Himalayan peak located near the Nepal-Tibet border that is considered the spiritual home of the Hindu god Shiva. The pilgrimage only recently restarted after years of disruptions, first from the COVID-19 pandemic, and later from cross-border tensions between India and China.

    Alpine Eco Trek, one of the tour operators organizing the pilgrimage, has been unable to contact 12 Britons who were part of its Mount Kailash tour when the flash floods struck, along with four of the company’s Nepali tour guides. The youngest person in the group is the 13-year-old girl reported missing earlier. The Trekkers’ Society confirmed nine UK nationals who crossed the Nepal-Tibet border for the pilgrimage remain unaccounted for: four males between the ages of 14 and 50, and five females between 40 and 53 years old. Himalayan Glacier US reported two British citizens are missing from its group of 47 pilgrimage guests, Kailash Journeys says two British men are among 27 missing guests and staff from its tour, and Fishtail Tours confirmed one British person on its itinerary is missing.

    For families with ties to both the UK and Nepal, the uncertainty has been unbearable. Pramod Pudel, a British resident originally from Nepal who now lives in East Sussex, told BBC Radio Sussex Thursday that “nothing remains” of the neighborhood where his family home is located. He is flying back to Nepal to search for his wife, mother, brother and uncle, who have been uncontactable since the disaster struck. “It’s a very, very difficult time for me and for my family and my country at this moment, but obviously I have to go and see what’s happening there,” he said. “A lot of people are missing and there is no information regarding who is missing, where they are. Nobody can contact each other and all the bridges are broken, so you can’t cross the land. There’s no power, no electricity, so I can’t contact anyone, so it’s a very difficult time not knowing what’s happening.”

    Search and rescue operations are ongoing across the affected region, though damaged infrastructure including broken bridges and cut power lines have hampered emergency response efforts. Authorities continue to prioritize locating missing people and delivering emergency aid to displaced communities affected by the disaster.

  • Parents and teachers in Congo urge delay of school resumption as Ebola outbreak rages on

    Parents and teachers in Congo urge delay of school resumption as Ebola outbreak rages on

    In the heart of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s fastest-expanding Ebola outbreak on record, caregivers and educators are pressing regional and national authorities to postpone the nationwide school reopening scheduled for September 1, warning that unchecked community spread continues to put children at catastrophic risk.

    Centered in Congo’s eastern Ituri province, the ongoing outbreak has already reached staggering public health proportions: Congolese health authorities confirm 5,713 confirmed infections and 2,744 recorded deaths to date, with transmission outpacing all containment efforts. This epidemic, which official data traces back to February despite an official declaration in mid-May, has ballooned from three initial affected health zones to nearly 60 across the country, with the majority of new cases and deaths occurring in unmonitored community settings rather than clinical facilities. The World Health Organization has confirmed the outbreak remains fully out of control and is on track to surpass the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic, the deadliest in recorded history that killed more than 11,000 people.

    Comprehensive public health data from the outbreak reveals a particularly alarming risk for young children: kids aged 4 and under face a 60% case-fatality rate, the highest mortality rate of any age group impacted by the virus. This stark statistic has fueled growing calls from local stakeholders to delay the scheduled return to classrooms, even as many families and educators acknowledge the urgent need to resume interrupted learning.

    “We want to get back to teaching, but not at the cost of our lives or the lives of our students,” said Fazila Rebecca, a primary school teacher based in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, in an interview with the Associated Press. “As long as the virus is still circulating widely in our communities and sufficient protective measures are not in place, opening our school doors is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.”

    On Tuesday, the Ituri regional teachers union held an emergency assembly in Bunia, formally calling on public health authorities to conduct a full, transparent assessment of current transmission rates before finalizing any decision on school reopening. “We are not against resuming classes — we just believe that the health and safety of every teacher and every student has to come first,” explained Budju Lobo Isaac, a representative for the union. Ituri authorities had not issued a public response to the union’s request or growing public pressure as of Thursday.

    The current outbreak has been amplified by a perfect storm of systemic challenges: chronic regional insecurity from rebel violence, mass population displacement, a recent strike by frontline health workers, and constant cross-community population movement have all hampered containment efforts. Beyond logistical barriers, the strain of the outbreak is exacerbated by the fact that it is driven by the rare Bundibugyo Ebola virus, for which no widely approved vaccines or specific treatments currently exist. While clinical trials for experimental vaccines and therapeutics are already underway in the region, no fully vetted, large-scale intervention is available to stop transmission at this time. The Congolese government has noted that it is set to receive 70,000 doses of Ervebo, an Ebola vaccine that proved effective against previous outbreaks of other Ebola strains, though its effectiveness against Bundibugyo remains unconfirmed.

    Widespread outbreak control measures, including limits on public gatherings, social distancing requirements, and regional airport closures, have already upended daily life across six affected provinces, particularly in Ituri, which has already been devastated by years of rebel conflict. While the national government has rolled out limited public health interventions, including the installation of basic sanitation equipment at high-traffic locations, child health advocacy groups say far more work is needed to both scale up protective resources and build community trust around public health guidance.

    “Beyond practical logistical challenges, community buy-in remains the most critical piece of outbreak response,” noted Greg Ramm, country director for Save the Children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Our immediate priority right now is to make sure every school, every teacher, and every family has the accurate public health information and personal protective resources they need to make the start of the school year as safe as possible for every child.”

    For many parents in Bunia, the uncertainty around school reopening has created an impossible dilemma: many are eager to get their children back to structured learning after months of disruption, but fear the risk of viral exposure. “As a parent, I want my children in school — I know how important their education is,” said Espérance Dz’venga, who was purchasing school supplies for her children at Bunia’s central market this week. “But like every other parent, what I want most is for them to come home healthy at the end of the day. We are terrified that they will be exposed at school, and then bring the virus home to our whole families.”

  • Jellyfish force partial shutdown of French nuclear plant

    Jellyfish force partial shutdown of French nuclear plant

    A record-breaking surge of jellyfish congregating in coastal waters has forced widespread operational disruptions at one of France’s largest nuclear power facilities, the Gravelines plant in northern Hauts-de-France. State-owned energy operator Électricité de France (EDF) confirmed that three of the site’s six 900-megawatt reactors have been taken offline due to jellyfish blockages in the seawater cooling system, with two additional reactors running at reduced capacity as a precautionary measure. The plant draws cooling water from a man-made canal connected directly to the North Sea, leaving its intake filters vulnerable to marine wildlife incursions during warm summer months. The shutdown sequence unfolded gradually: one reactor was taken offline on August 10, followed by two more between Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Notably, the August 10 shutdown came just eight days after that same reactor was reconnected to the national grid following an earlier jellyfish intrusion earlier this month. A fourth reactor has been out of service for unrelated scheduled inspections. This is not the first time the Gravelines plant, situated between the coastal cities of Dunkirk and Calais, has faced this issue: a nearly identical disruption linked to jellyfish blockages shut down operations at the site in August 2024. Marine biologists explain that this annual summertime pattern is driven by rising North Sea water temperatures, which boost plankton populations near the surface and draw large swarms of jellyfish inshore to feed. Local authorities and plant operators have rolled out targeted mitigation strategies to reduce the risk of repeated incursions. According to French regional news outlet Ici, one key initiative is a partnership with local commercial fishermen, who deploy nets to catch large jellyfish blooms and relocate them further offshore, away from the plant’s cooling intake. While jellyfish-related shutdowns make headlines, industry data shows such events are extremely uncommon globally. The last documented major incidents date back more than a decade: Scotland’s Torness nuclear plant was partially shut down by a jellyfish bloom in 2011, and Sweden’s Oskarshamn facility faced the same issue in 2013. For France, which relies on nuclear power for roughly 70% of its national electricity generation, unplanned reactor disruptions during peak summer demand — when air conditioning use pushes grids to capacity — add unexpected strain to the country’s energy system. The current shutdown removes 2,700 megawatts of generation capacity from the grid, enough to power roughly 2.7 million average French households. EDF has not yet announced a clear timeline for when the affected reactors will be fully cleared and brought back online.

  • Alleged 9/11 mastermind to go on trial in June 2028

    Alleged 9/11 mastermind to go on trial in June 2028

    Nearly 27 years after the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, the long-running legal saga of the alleged architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks has hit a new milestone: a confirmed trial date. A U.S. court official announced Thursday that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, will appear before a U.S. military court at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba starting June 5, 2028, alongside three co-accused plotters: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.

    The timeline marks a delay from the prosecution’s requested January 2027 start date, after the presiding military judge ruled additional time was required to resolve lingering pretrial disputes. This procedural hold-up is just the latest in a string of delays that have stretched on for nearly two decades, as the case has been bogged down by legal, political and ethical debates surrounding the defendants’ detention.

    Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, widely known by the initials KSM, was once a top lieutenant to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He was captured during a raid in Pakistan in March 2003, and spent three years held in secret CIA black site facilities before being transferred to the notorious Guantanamo Bay military prison in 2006. A trained engineer who studied at a U.S. university, Mohammed has openly claimed he planned the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z”, and has also admitted involvement in numerous other anti-U.S. plots, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people, and the 2002 beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl.

    The 9/11 attacks remain the deadliest terrorist act in modern U.S. history: 19 al-Qaeda hijackers crashed four commercial passenger planes, two into New York’s Twin Towers, one into the Pentagon outside Washington D.C., and a fourth into a rural field in Pennsylvania, leaving 2,977 victims dead.

    The most recent major push toward a trial collapsed in 2023, when a proposed plea deal that would have spared the four defendants the death penalty was withdrawn after intense public backlash from family members of 9/11 victims. For years, the central legal battle in the case has centered on whether the defendants can receive a fair trial, after it was confirmed they were subjected to systematic torture by CIA interrogators while in secret custody. Evidence obtained through torture is inadmissible in U.S. legal proceedings, creating a major legal hurdle that has slowed the case for decades.

    The Guantanamo Bay detention facility was opened by the U.S. government in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to hold militants captured during the global War on Terror. The base’s isolated location outside the continental United States was intentionally chosen to prevent detainees from claiming full constitutional rights under U.S. domestic law. At its peak, the facility held roughly 800 prisoners, but most have since been transferred to other countries for detention or release, leaving only a small fraction of the original detainee population still in custody today.

  • Uefa preparing criminal legal action against Infantino

    Uefa preparing criminal legal action against Infantino

    A bitter rift at the top of global football has escalated dramatically, with European football’s governing body Uefa moving forward with planned criminal legal proceedings against Fifa president Gianni Infantino centered on a now-abandoned scheme to sell private stakes in the World Cup and other top Fifa competitions.

    Internal documents obtained by BBC Sport senior journalist Daniel Austin confirm Uefa has filed applications to access critical evidence and documents that will underpin its upcoming criminal case against Infantino in Switzerland, where the global governing body Fifa is headquartered. The European association accuses the Fifa president of criminal mismanagement over the controversial proposal.

    The plan at the center of the dispute was first tabled by Infantino shortly after this summer’s men’s World Cup. Under the proposal, a new subsidiary called Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) would be created to hold the commercial rights to the men’s World Cup, women’s World Cup and Club World Cup, with minority stakes then sold off to private external investors. The scheme was quickly scrapped after triggering widespread condemnation and backlash from confederations and member associations across global football.

    In its evidence application, Uefa lays out explosive allegations that Infantino designed the scheme specifically to benefit himself and a small inner circle of associates, at the direct expense of Fifa, its 211 member associations, and the broader global football community. “In truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from Fifa’s most valuable assets to the detriment of Fifa, its members, and other parties within the football family,” the document reads.

    Uefa further claims that Infantino rushed the plan through internal Fifa approval in a last-minute, hastily called meeting. Only a limited group of Fifa management staff were invited, with some learning of the multi-billion-dollar proposal for the first time at the meeting and given just hours to sign off on the unprecedented scheme, the application alleges.

    The European body also argues that the valuation of the stakes on offer was never verified by an independent third party, and that the $4.2bn asking price for a permanent stake in Fifa’s commercial operations implied an unreasonably low total enterprise value of just $20bn. Uefa calls the pricing “a fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”, noting that the valuation was not set through an open, competitive bidding process or vetted by independent valuation experts.

    To build its case, Uefa has filed an evidence access request with a Florida court, seeking to obtain records held by two Fifa-affiliated entities based in the U.S. state: Fifa Americas and FWC2026. These documents would then be used to support the criminal proceedings planned for Switzerland.

    Uefa says the scrapped investment scheme posed direct potential harm to its 55 member nations, and notes that criminal proceedings could also be brought against other senior Fifa officials and advisors involved in developing the plan, beyond just Infantino. “Uefa and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other Fifa officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement,” the application confirms.

    The document adds that the plan’s secretive development, flawed valuation and opaque structure caused concrete damage to Fifa’s global reputation, governance credibility and key commercial relationships, harming both the governing body itself and all 211 of its member associations.

    Contrary to Infantino’s claims that the plan was a transparent new proposal, Uefa alleges the scheme was developed in secret for more than a year by Infantino and a small group of co-conspirators, without any consultation with the Fifa Council, other continental confederations, or any of Fifa’s member associations. The public announcement of the plan on 28 July 2026 marked the first time any outside stakeholders learned of the initiative, the application says.

    Uefa also references the well-documented history of corruption among senior Fifa leadership, arguing that the body’s concentrated power has long operated without effective internal checks and balances, with meaningful accountability only coming from external pressures such as public scrutiny, political pressure and international criminal law enforcement.

    Under Swiss law, where Fifa is headquartered in Zurich, Uefa confirmed it has legal standing as a complainant to file the criminal mismanagement complaint, and that Swiss legal counsel has confirmed the proceeding is valid under local statute.

    To win support for his proposal, Infantino reportedly offered each of Fifa’s 211 member associations a $40m payout if they backed the FFE private investment scheme. After widespread backlash led by Uefa, which pulled its support and secured a vote from its members to boycott future World Cups unless the plan was scrapped, Infantino walked back the proposal earlier this month. The move did not end the pressure, however, and he has faced growing calls to step down entirely.

    Infantino, who is currently running for a fourth term as Fifa president in the upcoming March election, has already been accused of breaking trust through deception in a joint open letter from Uefa, Concacaf (North America’s governing body) and the Asian Football Confederation. All four UK home nations have withdrawn their support for his re-election bid, while he retains backing from South America’s Conmebol and Africa’s Caf. A number of individual member associations have broken ranks with their own confederations to publicly support the incumbent president.

    In recent days, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, whose relationship with Infantino has deteriorated sharply in recent months, ruled out running for the Fifa presidency himself, while a coalition of top current and former players has publicly united to call for leadership change at the top of global football, stating that “change is necessary” at Fifa.

    BBC Sport has reached out to both Infantino, Fifa and Uefa for comment on the new criminal proceedings, and as of publication has not received responses.

  • Tottenham sign Man City’s Marmoush on loan

    Tottenham sign Man City’s Marmoush on loan

    In one of the most high-profile moves of the 2025 summer Premier League transfer window, Tottenham Hotspur has secured a season-long loan deal for Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush from Premier League champions Manchester City, with a mandatory obligation to convert the temporary move into a permanent transfer for a reported £60 million next summer. The 27-year-old Egypt international, who earned his first senior cap for his national side back in 2021, will link up with his former Manchester City teammate Savio at the north London club, just days after the Brazilian winger completed his £75 million move to Tottenham on Tuesday. In a statement following the confirmation of his transfer, Marmoush expressed his excitement over the switch to one of English football’s biggest institutions, noting that the club’s long-term project was a major draw for him. “Tottenham Hotspur is one of the biggest clubs in England, if not the world, and the project was very attractive to me,” Marmoush said. “I’ve spoken with the head coach [Roberto de Zerbi], I loved what he had to say and I’m sure our passion for the game will go very well together.” Marmoush initially joined Manchester City from Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt for a £59 million fee back in January 2025, and has notched 16 goals across 62 appearances in all competitions for the Sky Blues during his tenure at the Etihad Stadium. After an impressive start to his career at City, Marmoush found first-team opportunities limited in the 2024/25 season, with 13 of his 21 league appearances coming off the bench as Norway star Erling Haaland remained manager Pep Guardiola’s preferred starting central striker. The Egyptian forward’s limited game time continued into the start of the 2025/26 campaign: he came on as a late substitute in City’s 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal, and did not make it off the bench during last Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League opening-round victory against Bournemouth. The addition of Marmoush caps off a historic summer spending spree for Tottenham, who have splashed out more than £311 million on new incoming transfers during the current window. Prior to Marmoush’s arrival, the club added Portuguese midfielder Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United, Italian midfielder Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United, and Dutch defender Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton & Hove Albion, while also picking up centre-back Marcos Senesi, left-back Andy Robertson and goalkeeper Martin Dubravka on free transfers. De Zerbi, Tottenham’s recently appointed head coach, spoke highly of his new recruit, framing Marmoush as the exact profile of player the club is targeting to build out its new project. “Omar is exactly the kind of player we want at this club – ambitious, hungry and determined to make a difference,” De Zerbi said. “He has incredible attacking quality but what I also love is his desire to improve and to win. He brings pace, intelligence and a real threat in front of goal, and I believe he can take our attacking play to another level.” The transfer has sparked widespread debate among football analysts and fans, with many questioning whether the addition of the out-of-favour City striker will prove to be a transformative move for Spurs, or a high-risk investment that fails to deliver on expectations.

  • Iran scrambles to sustain trade as US threatens to sanction countries that refuse to break ties

    Iran scrambles to sustain trade as US threatens to sanction countries that refuse to break ties

    BEIRUT — Already grappling with crippling hyperinflation, decades of sweeping Western sanctions, and a war that has eviscerated its critical oil export revenue, Iran’s fragile economy is bracing for a new wave of destabilization as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on the global community to sever all financial and commercial ties with the Islamic Republic. The Trump administration’s latest campaign to force Tehran into compliance gained momentum last week, when the United Arab Emirates announced it would suspend all formal trade relations with Iran — a move that leaves Iran with far fewer economic lifelines at a moment when its foreign commerce was already concentrated among a tiny handful of partner nations. The outcome of the U.S. strategy will largely depend on the stance of China, Iran’s top trading partner and the largest buyer of its crude oil, while Russia — Tehran’s longstanding ally and a fellow target of broad U.S. sanctions — is mired in its own military conflict and economic turmoil, leaving it with limited capacity to provide meaningful financial support to Iran. Regional actors including Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq maintain deep economic and political ties with both Washington and Tehran, leaving them wary of triggering the harsh secondary sanctions that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned will be imposed on any nation that refuses to cut economic ties with Iran. “Those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership,” Bessent told reporters Monday while unveiling the administration’s new initiative, dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast.” “Those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation.” For Iran, replacing the UAE as a key trade and financial gateway will be no quick or easy task. According to data from Trade Data Monitor, a private industry analytics firm, Iran conducted $125 billion in total global goods trade in 2024, despite decades of Western restrictions. Not a member of the World Trade Organization, Iran’s official trade is overwhelmingly concentrated among just a handful of partners: the UAE, China and Turkey account for nearly three-quarters of all Iran’s merchandise imports, while four nations — China, Iraq, the UAE and Turkey — handle more than two-thirds of its non-oil exports. Beyond direct trade, the UAE has long served an irreplaceable role as a logistical and financial intermediary for Iran, keeping the country connected to global markets even amid sweeping sanctions. As a leading global re-export hub, the UAE processed shipments from international suppliers that refused to conduct direct business with Iranian customers, while also providing access to cross-border payment channels that allowed Iranian businesses to send and receive international funds. “From Iran’s perspective, the UAE can be replaced, but the Iranians are openly saying it’s not going to happen overnight,” explained Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. While China maintains deep-rooted economic ties with Iran, Beijing is far less dependent on the relationship than Tehran is. China’s economic interests across the Persian Gulf extend well beyond Iran, and Beijing has so far avoided being drawn into the conflict initiated by the U.S. and Israel. Currently, China purchases the overwhelming majority of Iran’s crude oil via opaque trading networks that bypass existing U.S. sanctions. Unlike smaller regional partners, China’s massive manufacturing sector and its control over global supplies of critical minerals give it far more leverage to resist U.S. pressure, according to David Lubin, a senior research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House. He notes that aggressive U.S. action against major Chinese banks and corporations that do business with Iran would reignite bilateral trade tensions at a sensitive moment, just as Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepares for a high-stakes meeting with President Trump in Washington next month. “I don’t see China playing ball by any means,” Lubin said. Data from the WTO and United Nations confirms that China is both Iran’s largest documented export market and a top supplier of critical industrial components and consumer goods. Daniel Fried, an Atlantic Council fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Poland, recalled that during the Obama administration, Beijing agreed to cut its energy imports from Iran as part of a broader nuclear agreement. “We will want the Chinese to go a lot farther than they have gone in the past,” Fried said. “But it’s a lot harder now.” China has a long track record of helping sanctioned allies weather international pressure: for decades, it has served as North Korea’s primary economic lifeline and top diplomatic backer, and experts widely assess that Beijing has avoided fully enforcing UN sanctions on Pyongyang, providing clandestine aid to keep the impoverished regime stable. Even if Iran succeeds in shifting more trade to regional partners, the move would create new frictions for Tehran’s neighbors. The day the UAE announced its trade suspension, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — who has led Tehran’s negotiations with regional actors over the past six months — was on an official visit to Iraq. Qalibaf framed the trip as focused on “speeding up efforts to expand joint cooperation among all countries in the region, without foreign interference.” Still, the U.S. dollar’s central role in global trade and finance means no country is willing to antagonize Washington lightly, Vatanka noted. “We’re still at a point where if the U.S. wants to hurt you, it will matter,” he said. The risk of U.S. retaliation is already shaping regional policy: in July, Turkey resolved a yearslong U.S. dispute over a state-owned bank’s role in helping Iran evade sanctions via an oil-for-gold scheme. In exchange, Trump lifted crippling sanctions on the NATO member that were imposed over Turkey’s purchase of a sophisticated Russian air defense system. “I really don’t think Turkey would like to become the next country helping Iran to evade sanctions right now,” said Riccardo Gasco, an analyst at Istanbul-based think tank IstanPol. For Iraq, Iran is a critical import supplier and retains major political influence via allied Iraqi political factions and armed groups, but Baghdad has sought closer economic and security ties with Washington in recent years. Since the 2003 U.S. invasion, Washington retains significant control over Iraq’s foreign currency reserves, which are held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leaving Baghdad with little room to defy U.S. pressure. Oman, which has long served as a neutral intermediary between Washington and Tehran, has found its delicate balancing act increasingly precarious. Last week, Trump issued a public threat against Oman over its ongoing negotiations with Iran regarding the future management of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints. One potential workaround for sanctions could be rerouting trade through Pakistani ports near the Persian Gulf such as Gwadar, said Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University. “Ship an intermodal container of drone parts to one of the ports in western Pakistan and unload it onto a truck and have it driven across the border into Iran,” Harrell explained. While Pakistan — a key regional ally and economic partner of China — has expressed interest in expanding bilateral trade with Iran, it faces competing geopolitical pressures: it currently serves as a neutral mediator between Tehran and Washington, and maintains deep security ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s longstanding regional rival. Alternative trade routes through the Caspian Sea are unlikely to expand fast enough to offset the loss of UAE trade, analysts say. With the Strait of Hormuz largely blockaded and Russia’s war in Ukraine disrupting commercial shipping in the Black Sea, Iran has pushed to develop what it calls a “road of life” through the Caspian, according to Nikita Smagin, an independent analyst and former Russian state news correspondent based in Tehran. This year, Russia has reportedly supplied drones to Iran, repaying Tehran for its early support of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has also rerouted a portion of its exports to Iran via Caspian ports such as Astrakhan. Currently, 80% of official trade between Russia and Iran consists of agricultural products. “Both economies are exporting natural resources and have little to offer each other,” Smagin said. The other Caspian-bordering nations — Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan — are unlikely to rush to open new trade routes with Iran, said Umud Shokri, a fellow at George Mason University. Still, Russia and Iran have operated for years as an “axis of the sanctioned,” noted Mark Galeotti, executive director of intelligence firm Mayak Intelligence. The two countries have collaborated for decades to evade trade restrictions, and Galeotti said an expansion of bilateral trade in strategic goods and contraband — including military technology, microchips and luxury counterfeit goods — could be the next step. “Pomegranates and tomatoes only go so far,” he said. This report was contributed to by Associated Press writers McNeil in Brussels, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia.

  • Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladić dies aged 84

    Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladić dies aged 84

    Ratko Mladić, the high-profile Bosnian Serb war criminal convicted of orchestrating genocide and mass atrocities during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, has died at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence in a United Nations prison in The Hague. The death, first broken by Serbian media outlets, was later officially confirmed by a UN spokesperson, ending a decades-long chapter of international justice proceedings for a man whose actions left an indelible mark on 20th-century European history.

    Mladić led Bosnian Serb military forces during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, when competing ethnic and political factions clashed in a violent conflict that tore apart the Balkan region. Under his command, troops carried out widespread systematic ethnic cleansing campaigns against Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat civilian populations. His forces also laid a years-long siege around Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo that killed more than 10,000 civilians and combatants trapped in the city, and perpetrated the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were systematically executed in the worst European atrocity since the end of World War II.

    For nearly 16 years after the end of the Bosnian War, Mladić evaded international capture, moving between hiding locations across the Balkan region before he was finally apprehended in a rural area of Serbia in 2011. Following his arrest, he was transferred to The Hague to stand trial before the UN’s international war crimes tribunal. In 2017, the court handed down a full life sentence, finding him guilty on all counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. That conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal in 2021, cementing the legal finding against him for his role in the mass violence.

    In the final months of his life, Mladić’s legal team launched an eleventh-hour bid to secure his early release, arguing that his health had declined to terminal levels and that he should be allowed to spend his final days outside of detention. In May 2025, the UN court rejected this request, acknowledging that Mladić’s health condition was “dire” but ruling that he was already receiving appropriate, comprehensive palliative care within the UN detention system. He remained in the facility’s on-site hospital for his end-of-life care up until his death, officials confirmed.

  • Mladić and the monstrous crimes of the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’

    Mladić and the monstrous crimes of the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’

    Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb army commander convicted of orchestrating the worst European atrocities since World War II, has died at age 84 while serving a life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity. Infamously dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia, Mladić leaves behind a legacy of unresolved trauma and deep division across the Balkan region.

    Born in March 1942 in a small mountain village near Sarajevo, Mladić grew up shaped by early loss: his father was killed fighting for Tito’s anti-Nazi partisans when Mladić was just two years old. After a brief stint as an apprentice tinsmith, he pursued a military career, graduating from officer training school in 1965. A driven and capable soldier, he rose quickly through the ranks of the Yugoslav People’s Army, earning command postings in Macedonia and Kosovo.

    The 1980 death of Josip Broz Tito, the unifying leader of Yugoslavia’s fragile multi-ethnic confederation, unlocked decades of simmering nationalist tensions. When Croatia declared independence in 1991, Mladić was deployed with Yugoslav federal forces to reassert control, where he gained a reputation for reckless frontline courage that won him fierce devotion from his troops. As conflict spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, Mladić defected to lead the army of the self-declared breakaway Republika Srpska, embracing a radical nationalist agenda to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia.

    Mladić viewed Bosnia’s Muslim Bosniak population as illegitimate “interlopers” descending from Ottoman-era occupation, and framed his campaign as a mission to correct historical injustice. His first major act of aggression was the 1,425-day siege of Sarajevo, the longest continuous city blockade in modern warfare. Holed up on the hills surrounding the multi-ethnic capital, Mladić’s forces pounded civilian neighborhoods with daily artillery barrages and sniper fire. On a single day in July 1993, nearly 4,000 shells rained down on the city. By the time the siege ended, more than 13,000 Sarajevo residents were dead, thousands of women were systematically raped, and the vast majority of the city’s buildings lay damaged or destroyed. Declassified command communications from Mladić’s headquarters revealed his deliberate strategy of terror: “Shoot at slow intervals until I order you to stop. Target Muslim neighborhoods… Shell them until they are on the edge of madness.”

    Even as he waged war, Mladić kept his wife and two children in relative safety in Belgrade. His life was rocked by personal tragedy in the 1990s, when his 23-year-old daughter Ana, torn between her love for a human rights activist who demanded she renounce her father and her family loyalty, died by suicide with Mladić’s own service weapon. Mladić never accepted responsibility for her death, instead blaming the tragedy on foreign conspiracies.

    In 1995, NATO finally intervened to end the siege, launching devastating airstrikes against Mladić’s positions around Sarajevo that broke the blockade. But the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war was still to come. That summer, more than 40,000 Bosniak civilians fled to Srebrenica, a small eastern Bosnian mountain town designated a UN-protected “safe area.” Mladić’s forces surrounded and bombarded the town, then seized control. In front of international television cameras, Mladić greeted residents with false assurances of safety, handing out sweets to children and promising no harm would come to them. Within days, his troops rounded up every Bosniak man and boy they could find, from 12-year-old children to elderly men in their 70s. In a coordinated, industrial-scale mass killing, 8,000 people were executed and dumped in unmarked mass graves. The Srebrenica massacre remains the worst act of genocide on European soil since 1945, and a widely cited failure of the international community to protect vulnerable civilians.

    After the massacre, Mladić was immediately indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), with the U.S. offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. For 16 years, he evaded arrest, protected first by Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević, who allowed Mladić to live openly in Belgrade, hunt deer, attend public events, and even maintained a dedicated military unit for his personal protection. Mladić remained a celebrated folk hero among many Serbian nationalists, who viewed him as a defender of Serbian national interests.

    The net began to close after Milošević was ousted from power and arrested in 2000, with Serbia’s bid for European Union membership tied to its cooperation with the ICTY. Mladić went on the run, moving between hidden safe houses for nearly a decade, protected by a shrinking circle of loyal bodyguards and eventually his own family. After his former political partner Radovan Karadžić was arrested in Belgrade in 2008, Mladić became the tribunal’s top priority fugitive. In May 2011, Serbian police tracked Mladić to a squalid remote farmhouse, where he was found suffering from multiple strokes and in poor health, 16 years after his indictment.

    Mladić’s ICTY trial lasted four years, with the court sitting for more than 500 days, hearing testimony from nearly 600 witnesses, and reviewing more than 10,000 pieces of evidence. In 2017, he was convicted on all counts: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, and sentenced to life in prison. A defiant and unrepentant Mladić smiled and gave a thumbs-up to cameras upon entering the courtroom, but erupted in rage when the verdict was read, shouting that the ruling was “all lies” before being forcibly removed from the chamber. While survivors and victim relatives hailed the conviction as a long-delayed victory for justice, the ruling deepened divisions across the Balkans: Serbian nationalist leaders condemned the trial as an anti-Serbian plot, and many Serbs continue to view Mladić as a national hero.

    In his final years, Mladić, who suffered from multiple heart attacks and strokes, repeatedly applied to be transferred to a Serbian prison to serve out his remaining sentence, a request supported by both Serbia and Russia, but repeatedly rejected by the court. As of January 2026, the regional divide over Mladić’s legacy remains raw: a Bosnian opposition politician was sentenced to three years in prison just months ago for publicly glorifying Mladić and Karadžić. While the 1990s Bosnian war has long ended, the tension and division sown by Mladić’s campaign of ethnic cleansing persist, with Bosniaks and much of the international community remembering him as one of the worst war criminals in modern European history, and segments of the Serbian public continuing to view him as a patriot and defender of their nation.

  • ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic dead: Serbian state media

    ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic dead: Serbian state media

    Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander infamously known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, has passed away, Serbia’s state-owned broadcaster RTS confirmed Thursday. The 80-year-old (or 81, per tribunal records) had been in failing health for months, suffering multiple strokes, while serving a life sentence at a United Nations detention facility in The Hague.

    Mladic’s death closes a dark chapter in post-World War II European history, marking the end of a decades-long journey to accountability for one of the continent’s worst atrocities. As the military leader of Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, which grew out of the violent collapse of communist Yugoslavia, Mladic stood at the center of a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed at carving out an ethnically pure “Greater Serbia” from Bosnian territory. The war ultimately claimed an estimated 100,000 lives and displaced more than 2.2 million people.

    The most horrific act of Mladic’s command came in July 1995, when his forces overran Srebrenica, a small town designated a UN-protected safe haven for Bosnian Muslim civilians. Over the course of days, Mladic’s troops systematically separated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from their families, marched them into remote forested areas, and executed them en masse. Contemporary footage captured Mladic appearing to offer sweets to Srebrenica’s children moments before women and children were forcibly bused out of the enclave, while the men were led away to their deaths. To cover up the massacre, perpetrators buried victims in mass graves, later exhuming and reburying bodies across multiple sites to destroy evidence of the slaughter. The few survivors escaped to share harrowing accounts of systematic murder, torture, and sexual violence committed by Bosnian Serb forces.

    The road to Mladic’s conviction stretched nearly two decades. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) first indicted Mladic for war crimes and genocide in November 1995, shortly after the Srebrenica massacre. Though removed from his military post, Mladic evaded capture for 16 years, initially living a comfortable lifestyle shielded by sympathizers within Serbia’s military establishment, where he remains venerated by many Serbs as a nationalist hero even today. After the fall of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, pressure on Mladic grew, and he was finally arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and extradited to The Hague to stand trial.

    Throughout his trial and subsequent appeal process, Mladic repeatedly maintained his innocence, launching angry tirades against judges and dismissing the tribunal as a tool of Western powers aligned against Serbia. He framed himself as a victim of NATO aggression, casting his actions as necessary to protect the Serb people. In 2017, the tribunal found him guilty on all counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, sentencing him to life in prison. The conviction was upheld on appeal in 2021. The tribunal described Mladic’s crimes as “amongst the most heinous known to humankind,” while former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein labeled Mladic the “epitome of evil.”

    In his final months, Mladic’s legal team and Serbian officials repeatedly petitioned for his release on humanitarian grounds, citing his terminal, untreatable health condition and limited life expectancy. His lawyers argued that continued detention served no legitimate purpose and amounted to inhumane treatment, but the tribunal rejected all appeals for early release. Mladic’s death leaves unresolved the deep divisions that persist over the legacy of the Bosnian War: while survivors and the international community recognize Mladic as a perpetrator of genocide, a large segment of Serbian society continues to view him as a patriotic leader defending Serb interests.