Global Pulse

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  • Ruthless Bayern target treble as rivals reboot on Bundesliga return

    Ruthless Bayern target treble as rivals reboot on Bundesliga return

    As Germany’s top-flight football league Bundesliga kicks off its new campaign this Friday, defending double champions Bayern Munich have entered the season with high ambitions of claiming an unprecedented treble, while their closest competitors have executed major offseason overhauls in a bid to close the growing gap on the Bavarian giants.

    Bayern Munich will kick off their title defense at home against Stuttgart, the 2025-26 German Cup runners-up, fresh off a historic domestic campaign that saw the club claim both the Bundesliga and German Cup titles, secure the fourth-highest points total in league history, and set a new goal-scoring record of 122 goals across 34 regular-season matches. Led by star striker Harry Kane, who lined up alongside lethal wingers Michael Olise and Luis Diaz, Bayern dropped just one domestic fixture all last season, with Kane netting a hat-trick to seal the Cup final win over Friday’s opening opponent. The only significant setback of Bayern’s 2025-26 campaign came in European competition, where they bowed out of the Champions League semi-finals in a tight 6-5 aggregate defeat to eventual tournament winners Paris Saint-Germain.

    This offseason, Bayern has reinforced its title-chasing squad by adding Moroccan World Cup standout Ismael Saibari and young German defender Nathaniel Brown, building on a already dominant core. The club’s hunger for silverware remains unquenched, as demonstrated by their recent 2-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund in the German Super Cup. Speaking to reporters after the Super Cup win, Kane made clear the team’s intentions for the new season, framing the early win as a warning to the rest of the league. “We fell just short in the Champions League, but our momentum is to keep pushing, pushing each other, pushing this team to see how far we can go,” the England captain said. “Our aim is to continue to dominate in Germany, and I think winning here is a great statement.”

    Kane, who joined Bayern from Tottenham Hotspur in 2023 after years without major silverware in England, has already claimed three domestic trophies and two Super Cup titles with the Bavarian side, following a 61-goal haul across all competitions last season. The 33-year-old also has extra motivation for a strong start to the new campaign: the Ballon d’Or award will be presented in October in his home city of London, and Bayern’s leadership has publicly thrown their full weight behind Kane’s candidacy. “It can only be Harry Kane. We can just give it to Harry already,” Bayern board member Rouven Kasper told AFP. Sporting director Christoph Freund echoed that sentiment, noting “[Kane] deserves to win the Ballon d’Or — he had an outstanding season.”

    Off the pitch, Bayern has also been navigating a health concern for star playmaker Jamal Musiala. The 23-year-old German international, who revealed this summer he is living with a neurological disorder that caused two on-pitch collapses during pre-season, is expected to be gradually eased back into the starting lineup, with Saibari’s arrival providing the squad with enough depth to cover for his slow return. Bayern’s technical staff has expressed confidence that Musiala will return to his best form in due time.

    While Bayern enters the season as the overwhelming favorite, their Bundesliga rivals have all undergone major changes in the offseason in an attempt to mount a credible title challenge. Longtime Bayern challenger Borussia Dortmund, after years of prioritizing established senior players, have returned to their historic model of investing in high-potential young talent, sinking a reported 110 million euros into new signings this summer. That total matches Bayern’s own offseason spending on Saibari and Brown, with Dortmund adding 19-year-old winger Konstantinos Karetsas, teenager defender Joane Gadou, 23-year-old midfielder Giannis Konstantelias, and experienced midfielder Joey Veerman to their ranks.

    For Dortmund head coach Niko Kovac, who won the Bundesliga title with Bayern in 2018-19, the gap between his current side and the defending champions remains sizable, even after the summer investment. “A lot must happen to close the gap,” Kovac told AFP. “We must play over our capacities, I would say. And then Bayern Munich play under their capacity. But you can be sure we will try everything.”

    Elsewhere across the league, Stuttgart, who have qualified for the Champions League in two of the three full seasons under manager Sebastian Hoeness, has achieved a rare offseason stability: for the first time since Hoeness took charge in 2023, the club has managed to retain all its top talents despite interest from bigger European clubs, rather than selling key stars. 2023-24 Bundesliga winners Bayer Leverkusen have turned to Spanish manager Carles Martinez Novell to continue the club’s rebuild that began when former coach Xabi Alonso departed in 2025. RB Leipzig, who finished third last season to qualify for the Champions League, has appointed Argentine manager Martin Demichelis to replace outgoing coach Ole Werner, and has seen major squad turnover after selling star midfielder Yan Diomande to Real Madrid for 120 million euros. Despite bringing back fan favorite Christopher Nkunku on a season-long loan from AC Milan, the squad still lacks top-level experience in key positions heading into the opener.

    As the first kickoff of the new Bundesliga season approaches, all eyes will be on whether Bayern can turn their domestic dominance into a historic treble, or if the league’s revamped challengers can finally dethrone the Bavarian giants.

  • Yayoi Kusama, who splashed polka dots across art world, dies at 97 in Tokyo

    Yayoi Kusama, who splashed polka dots across art world, dies at 97 in Tokyo

    Legendary Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama, whose instantly recognizable polka dot works transformed global visual art, passed away on August 14 at a Tokyo hospital at the age of 97, her official studio confirmed in a public statement released Thursday.

    Kusama remained dedicated to her craft right up to her final moments, the statement emphasized: “She continued to paint until her final days, never setting aside her brush, and continued exploration of forever love and eternal soul. We will carry forward Kusama’s wishes and, through art, continue to bring hope and strength for the future to people around the world.”

    Widely celebrated as one of Japan’s most influential contemporary creators, Kusama’s work has been showcased in leading cultural institutions across the globe, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Repetition lies at the core of her artistic identity: while she experimented with recurring motifs ranging from woven net patterns to swirling, worm-like forms, polka dots remain her most iconic signature. These vibrant, psychedelic spots danced across her canvases, took shape as glittering spheres, and became glowing installations that immerse visitors in her singular visual world.

    In a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, Kusama — appearing in her characteristic orange bob wig and a garment covered in her beloved dots — summed up her creative mantra simply: “Polka dots are fabulous.” Speaking in a gentle, straightforward tone, she added, “I want to create a thousand paintings, maybe two thousand paintings, as many as I can draw. I will keep painting until I die.” She kept that promise.

    Kusama drew the world as she experienced it: she explained that the spotted perspective that defined her work originated from the hallucinations she experienced from childhood. For decades, she navigated regular stays in psychiatric institutions, but her mental health struggles never derailed her trailblazing career. In 1957, she became one of the first Japanese female artists to relocate to New York to pursue artistic work. Though soft-spoken and naturally shy, she was unapologetically bold in advancing her unique creative vision, sticking to her dot-centric style for decades while working to make her art accessible to mainstream audiences, not just gallery elites.

    In her later life, Kusama received the widespread acclaim she had long been denied. She collaborated with global luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton and lent her designs to a range of licensed consumer goods, from teacups and t-shirts to keychains and store display figures of herself. In 2008, one of her works sold for $5.8 million at Christie’s auction house, cementing her status as a major commercial force in the art world. In 2016, she received Japan’s highest honor for artists, the Order of Culture. Upon accepting the award, she reaffirmed her unwavering commitment to her craft, noting that the sincerity and devotion she brought to her personal life formed the core of her artistic legacy. “I feel there is little left in my life, but I am now still fighting to the death for my art,” she said at the time. “I am giving all I have so that many people will continue to be interested in my art, even after I am dead.”

    Critics have labeled her work with a wide range of labels, from pop art and avant-garde to feminist art, but Kusama rejected most attempts to box her practice into narrow categories. Born into a middle-class Japanese family, Kusama grew up feeling deeply misunderstood: her parents discouraged her artistic ambitions, pushing her to pursue traditional domestic life and marriage instead, offering to buy her kimonos rather than paints and brushes. Knowing she had to escape to fulfill her potential, she chose to build her career in the United States.

    When Kusama arrived in New York, the dominant artistic trend was abstract expressionist “action painting,” defined by gestural drips and broad brushstrokes — not the controlled, repetitive dots that would become her trademark. She endured years of poverty and public obscurity, but never abandoned her commitment to painting dots. In the late 1960s, she gained media attention (and legal scrutiny) for anti-war “happening” performances where she placed paper dots on participants’ bodies — and even on a horse — leading to obscenity arrests for some involved. While building her practice in New York, she befriended leading contemporary artists including Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joseph Cornell, all of whom praised her innovative creative approach.

    Over her seven-decade career, Kusama created a vast body of quirky, celebratory works that span multiple mediums. Notable pieces include *Macaroni Girl*, a figure covered in dry macaroni that explores fear of food; *The Visionary Flowers*, large-scale sculptural works of twisting tulips; and *Mirrored Corridor*, an immersive installation that uses reflective surfaces to create the illusion of an endless field of dotted phallic forms. Beyond visual art, Kusama also experimented with filmmaking and published multiple novels. She once told the AP that the origin of her creative ideas remained a mystery even to her: she simply picked up her brush and started creating, and the process often surprised her. “I think, ‘Oh, I drew that? I was thinking that,’” she said.

    Kusama embraced public attention and acclaim for her work, happily reading her poetry for reporters and posing with energy for press photographs. She remained a disarmingly charming mix of vulnerability and defiance to the end: one moment declaring herself “an artistic revolutionary,” and the next murmuring, “I am so afraid, all the time, of everything.” Her work and legacy continue to resonate with audiences around the world, carrying forward the message of hope and creativity she spent a lifetime building.

  • Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama dies aged 97

    Japanese avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama dies aged 97

    Yayoi Kusama, the iconic Japanese avant-garde artist whose decades-spanning career redefined global contemporary art, has passed away at the age of 97, her official company confirmed in a formal public statement this week. The pioneering creator died on August 14, 2025, while receiving care at a Tokyo hospital, ending a life singularly dedicated to boundary-pushing artistic innovation.

    Widely recognized for her instantly recognizable visual language of infinite polka dots, immersive installations, and bold, colorful large-scale sculptures, Kusama rose to widespread international acclaim late in her life, cementing her status as one of the most influential contemporary artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Unlike many creators who confined their practice to a single medium, Kusama built a boundary-crossing career that spanned far beyond visual art: her body of work includes groundbreaking performance pieces, published fiction, and collections of poetry, each marked by her distinctive exploration of infinity, obsession, mental health, and human connection.

    For much of her later life, Kusama chose to live voluntarily in a Tokyo psychiatric hospital, a decision she framed as central to sustaining her artistic practice while managing her long-standing mental health challenges. She was equally famous for her iconic public persona as for her art, often appearing at exhibitions and public events in her signature bright crimson wig and playful polka-dot clothing, a look that became synonymous with her unapologetically creative and whimsical approach to life and work.

    Born in 1929 in Matsumoto, Nagano, Kusama moved to New York City in the 1950s to pursue her artistic career, where she became a central figure in the 1960s avant-garde movement alongside pop art and minimalist pioneers. Though she faded from public attention for decades after returning to Japan in the 1970s, a global critical re-evaluation of her work starting in the 1990s catapulted her to the mainstream fame she holds today, with blockbuster exhibitions drawing record crowds at museums around the world. Tributes to her life and work have begun pouring in from art institutions, fellow creators, and fans across the globe, who celebrate her as a visionary who turned personal struggle into universally resonant art.

  • Trial date set for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

    Trial date set for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

    Nearly 25 years after the deadliest terror attack on modern U.S. soil, a long-awaited legal milestone has finally been set: the military trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks, will begin in June 2028. The date was announced this week by U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael A Schrama, the presiding military judge, who rejected prosecutors’ request for an earlier 2027 start as unfeasibly rushed.

    Alongside Mohammed, three co-accused alleged accomplices – Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi – will also stand trial on the same date. In his ruling, Schrama explained that the two-year timeline was intentional, designed to give all parties sufficient time to resolve pre-trial procedural disputes, particularly over the admissibility of evidence, a sticking point that has delayed proceedings for decades.

    The road to this trial has been marked by repeated delays, legal reversals, and decades of pre-trial detention. Mohammed, a U.S.-educated engineer, was first captured alongside al-Hawsawi in Pakistan in March 2003, three years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people across New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He has been held in military detention at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba since September 2006, and has previously publicly claimed he planned the 9/11 operation “from A to Z”. Prosecutors allege Mohammed developed the plot to train hijacker pilots to fly commercial aircraft into prominent U.S. targets, and personally presented the plan to al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

    Most recently, a 2021 plea deal that would have spared Mohammed the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea and a sentence of life without parole collapsed last summer, after a federal appeals court struck down the agreement. The deal, negotiated over two years and signed by a Pentagon representative appointed by then-U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, caught Austin off guard, and he moved to revoke it almost immediately after it was finalized.

    Next month will mark 25 years since 19 al-Qaeda hijackers seized four commercial airliners, crashing two into the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York, one into the Pentagon outside Washington D.C., and a fourth into a rural field in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted against the hijackers. The attack remains the deadliest criminal act on U.S. soil in modern history, and the prolonged detention and legal process at Guantanamo Bay – which opened just six months after the attacks, and still holds 15 detainees today – has been one of the most contentious legacies of U.S. counterterrorism policy in the post-9/11 era.

  • More than 1,300 are missing in Nepal and Tibet after catastrophic floods caused by glacier collapse

    More than 1,300 are missing in Nepal and Tibet after catastrophic floods caused by glacier collapse

    On August 26, 2026, a sudden glacier collapse unleashed a devastating surge of floodwater and mud across communities along the Nepal-China Himalayan border, triggering one of the region’s deadliest climate-linked disasters in recent years. By the following day, rescue teams had launched large-scale search operations for more than 1,300 unaccounted-for people, with official counts confirming at least 168 fatalities and hundreds displaced across the high-altitude Himalayan zone. The disaster included foreign travelers and religious pilgrims among its victims, and drone footage captured on Thursday laid bare the staggering scale of destruction across Nepal’s hard-hit Nuwakot district.

    Survivor accounts and disaster imagery paint a grim picture of the catastrophe. Steep Himalayan valleys, which serve as critical economic and travel corridors for local populations, became death traps when the muddy surge hit, leaving almost no time for residents and visitors to evacuate. The entire village of Soley, home to roughly 25 households, was nearly erased from the map. Nirajan Paudyal, a Kathmandu-based journalist with family and relatives in Soley, traveled to the disaster zone Thursday in search of information, describing the agonizing uncertainty: “There is no update till now. I fear there won’t be any update.”

    After the flood passed, second floors of remaining buildings were caked in thick mud, debris was tangled in tree branches and power lines, and entire vehicles were buried under silt. Travel across multiple affected areas was brought to a complete halt, with stunned survivors covered in mud wandering the wreckage in search of lost loved ones.

    Official casualty breakdowns confirm the cross-border scope of the tragedy: Nepal has recorded 165 deaths and 826 missing people, while Tibet reports 3 deaths and 558 unaccounted-for individuals. Dozens of bridges were destroyed and close to 25 miles of roadway sustained damage, severely complicating rescue access to remote affected areas. The Nepalese Army deployed helicopter operations on Thursday morning, evacuating more than 100 trapped people, including eight foreign nationals airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment. Army teams also rescued personnel stranded at facilities linked to the Trishuli hydropower project. As of Thursday, dozens of injured people had been transferred to Kathmandu for advanced medical care, and recovery teams have already recovered bodies hundreds of kilometers downstream in Nepal’s Chitwan district. The Nepal Red Cross Society has announced it is shifting its focus from active rescue to large-scale relief operations, with roughly 1,200 people displaced across three hard-hit villages.

    In Tibet’s Gyirong Port border crossing, the mudslide left an average of 5 feet of mud across surrounding areas, with some road sections buried under more than 6 feet of silt. All access roads to the port were damaged, and authorities have warned that ongoing rain raises the risk of secondary landslides and collapses. Chinese authorities dispatched a large military transport plane to ferry rescue teams to the region, and Chinese Premier Li Qiang traveled to Gyirong on Thursday to oversee search and relief efforts. Officials also warned that a newly formed barrier lake at the confluence of the Tsogyal River and Purupqiangzangbu is already overflowing and at risk of bursting.

    Hundreds of the missing are foreign nationals, many of whom were traveling on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a sacred site for Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims that draws visitors from across the globe. Nepal’s Tourism Board reports that 517 of the country’s missing are foreigners, including 178 from India, more than 60 from the United States, and people from 30 other nations ranging from the United Kingdom and Ukraine to South Africa and Japan. Indian spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, head of the Isha Foundation, confirmed that 77 people from one of his organization’s Mount Kailash pilgrimage groups were caught in the flood at the Nepal-China border immigration office. In an emotional video statement posted to X, Sadhguru noted the group included citizens of multiple countries, including 22 U.S. nationals, and that no official information on their whereabouts has emerged: “Looking at the scale of destruction, it looks bad. The same building where we were for the immigration just a week ago, that entire building is washed away.” On the Chinese side, officials confirmed that nearly 100 Chinese citizens are missing on the Nepal side of the border, while 260 foreigners are unaccounted for in Tibet.

    Analysis from scientific bodies has confirmed that the disaster was triggered by a glacier collapse, not an earthquake as initially reported. The U.S. Geological Survey first recorded a seismic event 41 miles north of Kathmandu early Wednesday, later updating its assessment to confirm the signal came from a magnitude 5.2 glacier collapse that sent a massive debris flow downstream, rather than a tectonic earthquake. Experts from the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development note that a glacial avalanche sparked the flash flood, adding that hydrological data shows the flood wave moved at an extraordinary speed: Water levels on the Trishuli River rose as much as 27 feet in just 30 minutes, with the worst flooding recorded on the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi.

    This disaster is directly linked to accelerating glacial melt driven by human-caused climate change, experts emphasize. The Hindu Kush Himalaya region holds some of the world’s highest peaks and largest remaining glacial systems, but its steep slopes and low-lying valleys are uniquely vulnerable to glacial outburst floods and landslides. Research published earlier this year by Kathmandu-based scientists found that glaciers across the region are melting at an accelerating rate, with ice loss rates doubling since 2000. This is not an isolated event: In August 2025, high temperatures triggered a glacial lake outburst flood in Tibet that killed nine people and damaged critical cross-border infrastructure between Nepal and China. Today, the region’s increasingly unstable glacial systems pose a growing threat to communities, critical infrastructure, and freshwater supplies across one of the most densely populated regions on Earth.

  • Sydney police investigate death of teen girl from suspected choking during sex

    Sydney police investigate death of teen girl from suspected choking during sex

    A devastating tragedy in Sydney has reignited urgent public debate over the growing popularity of dangerous sexual choking practices among young Australians, after a 16-year-old girl died in hospital earlier this week following a suspected choking incident during sexual activity.

    Local emergency responders were dispatched to a private residence in Elanora Heights, a quiet coastal suburb in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, at roughly 5:45 p.m. local time on Sunday. Crews found the teen unconscious at the scene, administered immediate first aid, and airlifted her in critical condition to Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital. Despite medical intervention, the young girl succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday night.

    While formal police reports have not publicly confirmed the exact cause of death or details of her injuries, unnamed law enforcement sources have confirmed to multiple major Australian outlets, including the national public broadcaster ABC and *The Sydney Morning Herald*, that investigators are working from the initial hypothesis that the teen lost consciousness after being choked during sex.

    Public health experts and sexual violence advocates have long flagged that non-fatal and fatal strangulation during sexual activity has become increasingly common among young Australian demographics in recent years, even as the practice carries well-documented life-altering risks: chronic headaches, permanent memory impairment, irreversible brain damage, and in rare but devastating cases, death.

    Chanel Contos, a leading Australian sexual consent activist and founder of the national advocacy group Teach Us Consent, launched in 2021, said the 16-year-old’s death was almost entirely avoidable, and placed direct blame on mainstream pornography platforms for normalizing harmful behavior.

    Contos, who first sparked a nationwide reckoning with campus and school sexual assault in 2021 when hundreds of young Australians came forward to share their own experiences of abuse, argued that mainstream pornography consistently frames sexual violence against women — including choking, slapping, and other physical abuse — as desirable or consensual, misleading young audiences about real risks.

    “This is not the first tragedy of its kind and it won’t be the last,” Contos warned. She emphasized that contrary to a common misconception among many young people who view the practice as low-risk, there is no safe way to perform sexual choking. “Even when young people believe they are consenting, they’re often uninformed about its potential consequences, which are fatal at worst, and can cause permanent brain injury even when there are no visible signs of harm,” she added.

    Data from recent Australian academic research backs up advocates’ concerns about the rising prevalence of the practice. A 2024 joint study by the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland surveyed 4,700 young adults across the country and found that 57% of Australians between the ages of 18 and 35 had experienced sexual strangulation at least once. The research also found that one-third of respondents who had engaged in the practice first experienced it between the ages of 19 and 21, pointing to how normalized the dangerous act has become among late teenage and early adult demographics. Police are continuing their investigation into the 16-year-old’s death to confirm the exact circumstances surrounding the incident.

  • Bond yields are surging: Here’s why that could spell trouble

    Bond yields are surging: Here’s why that could spell trouble

    Across major global economies from North America to Europe and East Asia, financial policymakers and market participants are growing increasingly uneasy as government bond yields climb to levels not witnessed in a decade or longer. This sharp uptick is pushing borrowing costs higher for every segment of the economy: national governments, private businesses, and ordinary consumers alike.

    At the core of this trend is a toxic combination of ballooning government budget deficits and swelling national debt loads, which have eroded investor confidence in the ability of major economies to restore long-term fiscal sustainability. Compounding this pressure is persistently high inflation across the United States and Europe, which has been further stoked by rising energy prices tied to ongoing Middle East conflict — creating greater odds that central banks will keep interest rates elevated, or even push them higher, in the coming months.

    To understand the current landscape, it is important to contextualize just how far yields have risen. Bond yields move inversely to bond prices, rising when investors demand higher interest returns to purchase or hold government-issued debt. For decades, U.S. Treasury bonds have been viewed as the global gold standard of safe-haven assets, allowing the U.S. government to borrow from international investors at historically favorable rates. But even this market is seeing unprecedented shifts: the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries, a key benchmark for gauging long-term economic confidence, hit 5.34% in mid-August — its highest level since 2007, just before the onset of the global financial crisis. While it has since pulled back slightly to around 5.17%, it remains far above levels seen over the past 15 years.

    The same upward trend is playing out across European bond markets. Germany’s benchmark 10-year bund, the eurozone’s de facto risk-free rate, currently trades around 3.22% — a level not reached since 2011. In France, where the sitting government faces intense pressure to implement unpopular spending cuts ahead of next year’s presidential election, the 10-year government bond yield has hit 4.05%, its highest since 2008 and a full 0.5 percentage points above its yield at the start of 2024. Even Japan, which spent decades grappling with deflation and maintaining near-zero bond yields to stimulate growth, has seen a sharp jump: its 10-year yield has surged to nearly 2.9%, up from just 2.1% in February 2024.

    Economists point to repeated large-scale economic shocks over the past 15 years as the root cause of ballooning deficits and debt. Since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, public debt levels have continued a steady upward climb across nearly all major advanced economies. That acceleration grew even steeper after the COVID-19 pandemic, when governments rolled out massive stimulus packages to prevent economic collapse, and was exacerbated by the onset of new geopolitical shocks, including the Ukraine war, escalating Middle East tensions, and the reversion to tit-for-tat trade conflicts between major global powers. All of these events required extraordinary government spending to buffer domestic economies from the fallout.

    Notably, even countries with a longstanding reputation for fiscal prudence are now facing rising deficits. Charlotte de Montpellier, an economist at ING, pointed out that traditional fiscal conservatives like Germany are no longer immune to expanding budget shortfalls. To fund these ongoing deficits, governments have to issue a growing volume of new bonds, creating intense competition between issuers to attract limited global capital. This competition forces governments to offer higher interest rates to lure buyers, which in turn pushes up overall bond yields across the market.

    Adding to the competitive pressure on capital is a surge in borrowing from large technology companies, which are taking on massive debt to fund the ongoing global boom in artificial intelligence research and deployment. This creates an additional strain on available capital, further pushing borrowing costs higher.

    The most alarming headline comes from the United States, where the U.S. Treasury announced this month that total U.S. national debt has crossed the $40 trillion threshold for the first time in history — doubling the country’s total debt load from just 10 years ago. As yields have climbed, the annual cost of servicing this national debt has ballooned dramatically, consuming taxpayer dollars that could otherwise be allocated to core public priorities including education, health care, and national defense. In 2023 alone, U.S. federal interest outlays hit a staggering $970 billion, up from just $350 billion in 2021.

    Uncertainty over U.S. monetary policy is also amplifying market volatility. With U.S. inflation currently running at 3.7% — nearly double the Federal Reserve’s 2% target — bond investors remain unsure what path new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will take to bring prices under control. De Montpellier noted that Warsh has shifted away from the Fed’s recent practice of clear forward guidance on interest rate moves, adopting a more opaque communication strategy that has left markets guessing. Because U.S. monetary policy sets the tone for global bond markets and interest rates worldwide, this uncertainty has spilled over into markets across the globe.

    For ordinary households and businesses, the impact of rising bond yields is immediate and tangible. Higher government bond yields directly translate to higher borrowing costs for everyday consumers, from home mortgages to auto loans and personal credit. For businesses, higher interest rates mean more expensive borrowing to fund expansion, research, and new hiring — a dynamic that weighs on overall economic activity. Ultimately, this translates to fewer home purchases, fewer business investment projects, and slower overall economic growth. As de Montpellier put it: “It’s clearly not good news” for the global economic outlook.

  • UEFA set to withdraw FIFA boycott threat ahead of Champions League draw

    UEFA set to withdraw FIFA boycott threat ahead of Champions League draw

    As European football’s elite clubs gather in Monaco for Thursday’s 2025-26 UEFA Champions League draw, the long-simmering dispute between UEFA and FIFA over a controversial private investment plan for World Cup commercial operations is set to de-escalate, multiple sources confirmed to AFP.

    The conflict erupted in late July, when news broke that FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s administration had proposed launching a commercial subsidiary under the FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) initiative, which would allow private investors to purchase equity stakes in the entity that operates FIFA’s flagship events, including the men’s and women’s World Cup and the Club World Cup.

    The proposal triggered immediate and fierce backlash from UEFA, which controls the lion’s share of global football’s multi-billion-dollar economy through its top club competitions and member association revenues. Led by president Aleksander Ceferin, UEFA slammed the plan in unvarnished terms, calling it a “shady, opaque backroom deal” that threatened the fundamental structure of the global game. The governing body issued a blunt ultimatum: no UEFA national or club teams would take part in any FIFA competition as long as the proposal remained on the table. That hardline stance was widely credited with forcing FIFA to shelve the controversial plan almost immediately.

    Now, ahead of Thursday’s draw, sources close to UEFA’s executive committee and member association talks in Monaco told AFP the threatened boycott will “likely” be withdrawn. UEFA had laid out two non-negotiable conditions for backing down from the threat: a full scrapping of the original investment proposal, and a permanent guarantee that no similar attempts to restructure FIFA’s top event commercial operations would be advanced in the future. One senior source confirmed Wednesday that UEFA has now received the required assurances, satisfying both conditions.

    The decision to drop the boycott threat also removes a major point of internal friction for UEFA, which has pushed for Infantino to step down over the controversy. A split among member associations over a boycott would have undermined the bloc’s unified front calling for the FIFA president’s departure, a risk that is now eliminated. The timing also removes immediate uncertainty for upcoming FIFA events: the Under-20 Women’s World Cup is set to kick off in Poland next month, and European qualifying for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil is already underway.

    With the governing body dispute moving toward resolution, focus has fully shifted to the draw itself, which will set the stage for the new season of Europe’s most prestigious club competition. Defending champion Paris Saint-Germain enters the draw chasing an unprecedented three-peat in the modern era; the French side retained their title last season after beating Arsenal on penalties in the Budapest final, and only Real Madrid, who won three consecutive Champions League crowns between 2016 and 2018, have achieved the three-peat feat in the last 50 years. PSG manager Luis Enrique reiterated the club’s ambitions earlier this month, saying “We have won the last two, which means we can win a third. It will be very hard, but that is our ambition.”

    This season marks only the third iteration of the Champions League’s revamped format, which expanded the competition to 36 teams competing in a single unified league phase, with each side facing eight different opponents before the knockout round. The new format has amplified the growing polarization of European club football, with the wealthiest clubs from the continent’s top four leagues set to dominate participation and capture the bulk of competition prize money. Half of all 36 competing clubs hail from the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, and the Bundesliga. The English Premier League leads all leagues with five entrants: Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Aston Villa. La Liga also has five representatives, including Real Betis, who return to the Champions League group stage proper for the first time in 20 years.

    The draw will also feature several historic debuts for underdog clubs who defied expectations to reach the league phase. In Italy, Como, coached by former Arsenal, Barcelona, and Spain midfield star Cesc Fàbregas, will make their first ever Champions League appearance after upending more established Italian sides to qualify. Azerbaijan’s Sabah will also make their debut, having fought through four qualifying rounds starting from the very first preliminary round to earn their spot. Austria’s LASK completes the list of first-time qualifiers, pulling off a stunning late comeback to beat Celtic in the play-off round to secure their place in the 36-team league.

    The first matchday of the league phase is scheduled for September 8 to 10, with the league phase wrapping up in late January 2026. This season’s Champions League final will be hosted at Atlético Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium on June 6, 2026.

  • CIA director warned Russia not to attack NATO members: US media

    CIA director warned Russia not to attack NATO members: US media

    In one of the highest-level American visits to Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow this week with a core mission: delivering a blunt warning to Russian authorities against any military provocation targeting NATO member countries, multiple major U.S. media outlets reported Wednesday. The revelation came shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump sought to frame the high-stakes meeting as a low-key, semi-routine engagement.

    Both The Wall Street Journal and CBS News confirmed that Ratcliffe’s warning was rooted in U.S. intelligence assessments indicating that the Kremlin could move to test the transatlantic alliance’s collective defense commitment with a limited offensive strike against a NATO member within the next several years. The top U.S. intelligence chief’s visit unfolded against a deeply tense backdrop: Russian forces have ramped up their offensive operations across eastern and southern Ukraine this summer, driving a sharp rise in civilian casualties, while U.S.-brokered efforts to jumpstart peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow have completely stalled.

    Beyond the core message on NATO, CBS News, citing multiple anonymous sources familiar with the closed-door discussions, reported that Ratcliffe also raised tensions around the Persian Gulf during his talks. He issued a clear warning that Russia would face additional U.S. sanctions if it did not allow the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical global shipping chokepoints — to reopen to unimpeded commercial maritime traffic, amid ongoing Iranian actions that have disrupted navigation in the waterway.

    Kremlin officials confirmed the visit on Wednesday, acknowledging that Ratcliffe held formal contacts with Russian intelligence agencies but confirming that he did not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Putin received a full briefing on the outcomes of the talks, but declined to confirm whether the ongoing war in Ukraine was among the topics discussed during the meetings. Peskov framed the intelligence-to-intelligence contacts as a modest positive step in bilateral relations, noting that it was still too early to predict whether the engagement would lead to any broader de-escalation of long-running tensions between Washington and Moscow.

    This week’s trip marked a historic milestone: the first time a sitting CIA director has visited Moscow since former director William Burns traveled to the capital in November 2021, where he issued a direct warning to the Kremlin against invading Ukraine. Just weeks after that 2021 meeting, the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion, sparking the largest continental conflict in Europe since the end of World War II. In recent years, the CIA has also been the lead U.S. agency coordinating high-profile prisoner swap deals with Moscow, including a major multi-person exchange completed in mid-2024.

    Trump pushed back against media reporting of the trip’s core priorities during an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck, framing the engagement as semi-routine and emphasizing that the primary goal was to advance discussions on ending the war in Ukraine. “He’s there, very sort of semi-routine. I hate to disappoint people. We would like to see the war with Ukraine end,” Trump told Beck. The U.S. president dismissed widespread speculation that the trip covered threats to NATO or escalating pressure on Iran, saying, “He is not in there for any of the things that you said, now something may come out, you know, out of it.” He added, “We’re working very hard to get that war ended, and frankly, they both want to see it ended at this point.”

    The White House declined multiple requests for comment from Agence France-Presse on the details of the visit and the reporting of Ratcliffe’s warnings. The ongoing war in Ukraine has now killed hundreds of thousands of people, and the Kremlin has so far refused to back away from its maximalist territorial demands, which include full control over all of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and permanent retention of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.

  • At least 12 dead as wildfires sweep through northern Algeria

    At least 12 dead as wildfires sweep through northern Algeria

    A devastating outbreak of wildfires tearing across vast stretches of northern Algeria has claimed the lives of at least 12 people and left dozens more injured, as climate change-fueled extreme heat amplifies the risk of catastrophic fire events across North Africa.

    The fast-spreading blazes have ignited across multiple provinces lining Algeria’s northern Mediterranean coastline, with the death toll broken down by region: five fatalities reported in Jijel province, four in Bejaia, and three in Tizi Ouzou, according to Interior Minister Said Sayoud. As of Wednesday evening, 54 people have been treated for burn injuries, with at least six patients remaining in intensive care for severe wounds.

    By early Wednesday, Algerian civil protection teams were already working around the clock to contain 97 active blazes scattered across the country, the agency confirmed. Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate their homes in high-risk zones in Bejaia and Jijel, with local footage captured by broadcaster Jijel News showing displaced residents sheltering inside a local post office, thick gray smoke billowing across the surrounding landscape.

    To coordinate the emergency response, Sayoud traveled to the hard-hit Bejaia region on Wednesday alongside Algerian Health Minister Mohamed Seddik Ait Messaoudene to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of ongoing firefighting operations and civilian evacuation efforts. Bejaia is no stranger to catastrophic wildfire events: just three years ago, a similar outbreak of blazes that swept through the region’s forests and agricultural land killed 30 people.

    This most recent disaster comes as a record-shattering severe heatwave bakes the entire North African region, with both Tunisia and Algeria facing some of the most extreme conditions. Algeria has long faced seasonal wildfire risk during the warm summer months, but scientific data and climate experts confirm that human-caused climate change has drastically increased the intensity, frequency, and severity of these fire events in recent years.

    Data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that extreme heat events have become the new norm across North Africa, which is the fastest-warming subregion on the African continent. Between 1991 and 2025, average temperatures in the region rose at a rate of 0.43°C per decade, outpacing warming across every other part of the continent.

    The impacts of rising temperatures stretch far beyond deadly wildfires. A recent academic study has also linked prolonged summer heatwaves and widespread water shortages to a sharp increase in camel deaths across Algeria, threatening the livelihoods of rural communities that rely on the animals for transport, food, and income. Just one month prior, in July 2025, Algerian fire crews battled more than 2,000 separate blazes across the country, which claimed six additional lives.