Global Pulse

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  • Women say they were raped and ransomed by fighters in Sudan’s ongoing war

    Women say they were raped and ransomed by fighters in Sudan’s ongoing war

    As Sudan’s brutal civil war stretches into its fourth year, survivors are breaking a long-standing cultural taboo to expose a horrific pattern of widespread sexual violence, abduction, and extortion being carried out by the country’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary group blamed for the majority of these abuses. In on-the-record interviews with the Associated Press, three survivors shared graphic, harrowing accounts of their captivity, shining a new light on a crisis the United Nations has labeled one of the most defining characteristics of Sudan’s ongoing conflict.

    The first survivor, a 38-year-old woman whose identity is being protected in line with standard reporting practice for sexual assault victims, fled her besieged home in el-Fasher, Darfur, in September 2024, just weeks before RSF forces captured the city in an assault the UN has confirmed bears the hallmarks of genocide. Her husband, a soldier, had already been killed in fighting, and her brother had been shot and critically wounded, requiring urgent medical care that could not be accessed in the embattled city. As the pair traveled to seek safety, RSF fighters ambushed their convoy.

    Fighters separated women and children from male passengers, searching all men for shoulder marks that would indicate past military service. Everyone was forced to strip completely. When fighters moved to execute her wounded brother, the woman volunteered herself to take his place. She was bound, beaten, and thrown into the back of a truck alongside four other abducted women and teenage girls, who were then driven to an isolated, abandoned desert village.

    For two days, the 38-year-old and the other captives were held naked, unfed, and bound in an open shelter, unable to move and forced to lie in their own waste. Multiple RSF fighters repeatedly raped the women, entering the shelter to select victims, assault them, and rebind them afterwards. “I was thinking about ending my life,” the survivor recalled, wiping away tears during the interview.

    On the second day of captivity, her captors demanded a $1,500 ransom for her release. They gave her a mobile phone, ordering her to drain her bank account and contact relatives for additional funds. She transferred all she had, roughly $200, before being forced to reach out to her cousin on Facebook. After the cousin sent a second payment, fighters tortured the woman in front of him over a call, pressing a heated metal object into her fingernails to force more money. By the time she was released, her family had paid a total of roughly $700. Today, she remains haunted by the fates of the other women who could not raise their ransoms. Rights activists confirm most captives who cannot pay simply disappear in captivity.

    Her account is not an isolated case. A second survivor, 30, was abducted from a Khartoum market in 2024 after the RSF seized control of the capital. She was held in a remote compound for two weeks, forced to cook, clean, tend cattle and bathe fighters, and raped every single night. Even after her relative in the United States paid a $1,250 ransom, her captors initially refused to release her. Only the unexpected compassion of one fighter, who smuggled her out under cover of night, secured her freedom. “They never missed a day … I have nightmares,” she told the AP.

    The third survivor, abducted near Dilling in South Kordofan, was held for nine days, beaten and raped, before her family paid for her release in September 2024.

    International bodies and conflict analysts have confirmed these individual stories reflect a growing national crisis. The United Nations has documented that sexual assault rates have skyrocketed since the war between the RSF and Sudan’s regular military began in 2023, and that most documented abuses are linked to the RSF, with hotspots including Khartoum, Darfur, Gezira state, and increasingly, expanding conflict zones in South Kordofan. While all warring parties have been accused of sexual violence by the UN and human rights groups, the RSF has been linked to the vast majority of incidents. The RSF has not responded to repeated requests for comment on allegations of abduction, sexual assault, and ransom demands.

    The UN has also confirmed that the abduction of women for sexual slavery, followed by ransom demands for their release, has become systemic. Ransoms can reach as high as $10,000 per captive. Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit conflict monitoring organization, shows reported incidents of ransom-linked abductions, including those involving sexual violence, have jumped nearly 195% since the war began through May 2025, with the RSF identified as the perpetrator in most cases. Sudanese conflict analyst Mohamed Younis predicts these crimes will only become more common as the RSF fragments following a series of high-level defections from the paramilitary group’s leadership.

    For survivors and their families, the harm extends far beyond the physical and psychological trauma of assault. Local aid workers say raising ransom money pushes already vulnerable families into crushing poverty, forcing them to sell gold reserves, vehicles, and even homes to secure the release of their loved ones. Local support organizations like Bait Al Mohaba, which works with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, report they lack the funding to provide critical support, including life-saving medical treatment for survivors.

    Aid funding gaps have been exacerbated by policy changes from the U.S. government: the previous Trump administration cut all $370 million in funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which provided critical support for survivors of gender-based violence in more than 25 countries including Sudan. The cut was based on unsubstantiated claims of coercive abortion ties in China that UNFPA has repeatedly rejected. While Sudan still receives more than $220 million in U.S. humanitarian funding for other needs this year, no replacement funding has filled the gap left by the UNFPA cut.

    Today, the 38-year-old survivor lives in a Khartoum displaced persons camp, reunited with her wounded brother, but still struggling to rebuild her life. She sustained internal bleeding and fluid buildup from her assault, but cannot afford the life-saving surgery she needs. She carries heavy debts to the relatives who helped pay her ransom, some of whom have since been killed in the war; she says she vows to repay the money to their children, or donate it to charity in their names, just to find peace. She has turned to supporting other survivors in the camp, mentoring women and girls who have endured similar trauma, and holds onto the hope that the graphic photos she took of her battered body after her release will one day serve as evidence to hold her attackers accountable. “I thought about seeking justice one day,” she said.

  • A wall of nametags at a South Korean park testifies to adoptees’ longing for their birth mothers

    A wall of nametags at a South Korean park testifies to adoptees’ longing for their birth mothers

    Against a misty, rain-dampened backdrop in Paju, a South Korean city just miles from the North Korean border, dozens of Korean adoptees who grew up across North America and Europe recently gathered at a former U.S. military base to add their names to a quiet, powerful memorial. Their goal: after decades apart, to leave a trace that a birth mother still searching for them might find.

    The site, Omma Poom Park — its name translates to “mother’s embrace” in Korean — is home to a growing cobblestone monument covered in mesh, where adoptees hang handcrafted ceramic name tags that carry their details. As of the recent gathering, more than 900 tags hang like unmailed, waiting letters, a quiet testament to the mass separation of children from their parents that created what experts call the world’s largest adoptee diaspora.

    Each hand-painted tag includes the adoptee’s full name, year of birth, and place of birth in Korea. Color coding marks the decade an adoption was finalized: most tags are red or sky blue, matching the peak decades of foreign adoption from South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. White tags are reserved for adoptees who died without ever being reunited with their biological families. Among the dozens of tags, one laminated handwritten note flutters, left by anonymous birth parents searching for a daughter they named Bora: “You are not alone. You have a mother and a father. I’m so sorry and I love you.”

    The history of foreign adoption from South Korea stretches back to the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War, when the first wave of children sent abroad were mixed-race kids born to Korean women and U.S. soldiers, who were widely stigmatized as outcasts in Korean society at the time. Adoption numbers surged in the 1970s, when the country’s former military dictatorship pushed for large-scale foreign placement of full-Korean children, most often born to unwed mothers or families living in extreme poverty. From the 1970s through the mid-2000s, thousands of Korean children were sent to Western homes every year, with adoption numbers peaking at more than 6,600 placements annually in the 1980s, as the authoritarian government sought to reduce domestic population pressure.

    After a yearslong advocacy campaign led by Paju-based photographer Lee Yong-nam and adoptee support nonprofit Me & Korea, Omma Poom Park opened to the public in June 2025. Lee, now 72, first became invested in adoption justice after spending decades searching for a Black-Korean childhood friend who was adopted to the United States as a child. “Adoptions continued unchecked and now the pain is surfacing,” he explained of the adoptees who travel to the park to add their names to the wall, most of whom are younger than the war generation that first saw widespread adoption.

    On a neighboring hill overlooking the park, a converted former U.S. Army building operates as a dedicated museum that holds nearly 1,000 adoptee profiles, each featuring a photo, birth details, and a personal message to the adoptee’s birth mother.

    One of those profiles belongs to Angela Lee-Pack, who was adopted by a family in Ontario, Canada, in 1971 when she was just 2 years old. Growing up, Lee-Pack endured severe abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother, including being locked in a closet without food, and later experienced further abuse in a second foster home before leaving at 15 and struggling for years to build a stable adult life. “I think about you every day and only wish the best for you,” she wrote to her biological mother. “I hope one day I will be able to know who I am.”

    Lee-Pack has traveled to South Korea twice to search for her birth mother, posting flyers across Seoul and the southern city of Jeonju. During her first trip in 2019, a man contacted her believing she was the daughter of his late uncle. The lead gave her hope, but it slowly and painfully unraveled: eventually, the man tracked down a woman in her 70s whose background matched Lee-Pack’s adoption records, but she denied ever giving up a child and refused to meet. Lee-Pack collapsed in her hotel room and cried for hours. “Every time I look in the mirror I wonder who she is and what she looks like,” she said. “The thoughts never end.”

    For Nicole Rieth, who was adopted to a family in Michigan at 4 months old in 1989, becoming a mother of two sons pushed her to launch her own search for her birth mother. Her adoption records note that she was the third child of a Seoul couple who surrendered her shortly after birth in 1988, citing extreme financial hardship at a time when the government was aggressively pressuring families to limit their number of children. Rieth first began her search in 2024, but letters sent by her adoption agency to her birth mother’s last known address went unanswered. She is now continuing her search through South Korea’s National Center for the Rights of the Child, a government agency, in the hopes that her sons will one day know the cultural heritage she never got to grow up with.

    “I kind of don’t allow myself to hope because the whole journey has been a roller coaster of hoping, finding something out, and diving down into hopelessness, getting a glimmer of a maybe,” Rieth said. “And yet I want to exhaust every effort … so that there are no regrets.” For her, the act of putting her name on the wall at Omma Poom is not about forcing a relationship with her birth mother. “I’ve just always wanted to know who I looked like, because I’ve never had that before,” she explained.

    Decades of unregulated adoption have left deep, lasting scars on both adoptees and their biological families. At the peak of foreign adoption, South Korean authorities largely turned a blind eye to rampant systemic fraud, including illegal procurement of children from hospitals and orphanages and deliberate falsification of children’s origins to speed up international placements. Tens of thousands of children were falsely labeled as abandoned orphans to make them eligible for adoption, leaving generations of adoptees with no clear information about their identity, family history, or the circumstances of their separation. On the other side, birth mothers were often pressured to surrender children born out of wedlock, some were separated from their children without their full consent, and many spent decades searching only to learn their children were sent overseas with falsified paperwork.

    The recent gathering at Omma Poom came just weeks after a group of birth mothers formally asked South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to open an investigation into the illegal adoptions of their children, joining hundreds of existing fraud and abuse claims filed by adoptees across the globe.

    Jalyn Smith, who was adopted to Michigan in 1993, had her adoption agency locate her birth mother in 2021. According to adoption records, the woman had surrendered Smith after separating from Smith’s biological father — but she declined to meet or have any contact. Five years later, Smith is continuing her search, and chose to add her name to the memorial wall. “Hanging it up, I felt proud,” Smith said. “I feel proud to be part of this community, though it comes with a lot of conflicting feelings of sadness and anger and grief.”

  • Senior SA doctors use ‘professional development’ fund for expensive watches, iPads and trips to Disneyland

    Senior SA doctors use ‘professional development’ fund for expensive watches, iPads and trips to Disneyland

    An explosive investigation by South Australia’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has exposed widespread misuse of a taxpayer-backed professional development fund, revealing that senior medical practitioners across the state have claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in lavish, personal expenses through the program.

    Launched to cover legitimate professional development costs for registered consultants, practicing doctors and medical registrars, the scheme allows eligible clinicians to claim up to $23,000 in reimbursements every calendar year. Official data shows that between April 2025 and April 2026 alone, SA Health allocated $64 million in public funds to the initiative, which was designed to help clinicians stay updated on evolving clinical practices and maintain high standards of patient care.

    Instead of supporting legitimate training and education, the ICAC probe uncovered a pattern of brazen abuse, with senior medics filing claims for a litany of personal luxury items and leisure trips that have no connection to professional development. Among the most staggering abuses documented by investigators: one senior medical officer claimed reimbursement for a single luxury watch priced at $23,000, and accumulated a total of $49,000 in reimbursements for four luxury watches over a three-year period. The same clinician also submitted a $68,600 claim for a range of Apple consumer devices, including four watches, five iPads and four smartphones. Other outlandish claims documented in the report include a $3,400 five-day Disneyland trip for four people, $23,000 in flights and accommodation for the French Alps to attend an entirely online conference, a $12,000 personal wellness retreat in Bali, a $7,340 premium workbag and a $1,260 luxury fountain pen.

    ICAC Commissioner Emma Townsend noted that the widespread misuse of funds stems from a critical lack of clear guidelines defining what qualifies as eligible professional development spending. “There is no doubt that the lack of clarity has contributed to the wide range of claims identified during the evaluation, including examples that, on the surface, appear to blur the lines between professional and personal development,” Townsend said in the commission’s official report. She emphasized that while ongoing professional development is an essential pillar of a high-functioning public health system, large-scale public investment requires accountability to the community. “However, with significant public investment comes a responsibility to ensure those funds are used for their intended purpose and deliver value to the public health system and community,” she added.

    In response to the findings, the ICAC has put forward a series of targeted recommendations to curb future abuse, centered on introducing clear, binding definitions of eligible professional development activities and strengthening oversight of the claims approval process. SA Health Chief Executive Robyn Lawrence confirmed that the department accepts all of the commission’s recommendations, noting that the vast majority of participating medical officers use the funding appropriately for legitimate professional development. “However, SA Health accepts all the recommendations outlined in the report, which will provide our medical officers with greater clarity over appropriate professional development spending and ultimately increase protection against corruption, misconduct and maladministration,” Lawrence said.

    Work to update the scheme’s guidelines was initially paused pending the outcome of the ICAC review, but Lawrence confirmed preliminary discussions with the South Australian Salaried Medical Officers Association began last year to develop clear guidance for line managers reviewing professional development funding applications.

  • Rubio says US will only provide sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for nuclear concessions

    Rubio says US will only provide sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for nuclear concessions

    In remarks before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid out an uncompromising new set of terms for any future agreement with Iran, tying any rollback of US economic sanctions exclusively to Tehran’s full surrender of its nuclear enrichment program. The hardline position directly rejects Iran’s longstanding demand that economic relief, including the unfreezing of billions of dollars in Iranian assets held abroad, be included as a core component of any phased ceasefire deal.

    Rubio emphasized that the existing sanctions regime against Iran is directly tied to its nuclear activities, particularly its production of highly enriched uranium. “If they agree to give up those things, there will be sanctions relief,” he told committee members, adding that Tehran must commit to either accepting strict, long-term limitations on its enrichment work or abandoning the program entirely.

    The top US diplomat noted that Iran has recently signaled a willingness to discuss elements of its nuclear program that it had previously refused to negotiate, though he declined to share specific details of any backchannel discussions. His account conflicts sharply with an official statement issued by Tehran just last Friday, which flatly denied that any nuclear negotiations are currently underway.

    Rubio’s comments also make clear that the US is in no position to release the billions in frozen Iranian assets that Tehran has demanded as a prerequisite to extending a current ceasefire. Last week, Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reiterated that the release of these funds is a “legal right” of the Iranian people, and Iranian state media has made clear that any ceasefire agreement will not be finalized without concrete economic concessions from the West.

    Beyond the nuclear file, Rubio also issued a firm rejection of Iran’s reported plans to impose tolls on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global chokepoint for oil and natural gas shipments. “They have to announce very clearly, ‘The straits are now open, we’re not charging a toll’”, Rubio said, adding that Washington also demands Iran stop firing on passing commercial vessels and assist in removing mines that US officials claim Iran has placed across large stretches of the waterway. Iran has not yet publicly responded to Rubio’s claims about mined waters.

    Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal states may only claim up to 12 nautical miles of territorial waters. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is just 21 nautical miles wide, split between territorial waters controlled by Iran and Oman. International law explicitly bars coastal states bordering international straits from restricting transit or charging tolls on vessels passing through the waterway. Even so, legal experts interviewed by Middle East Eye note that Iran could find loopholes to impose charges – framing them as “piloting fees” or “service charges” – if it secures cooperation from Omani authorities.

    The current diplomatic impasse comes against a backdrop of massive political upheaval in Iran following the outbreak of war. Early in the conflict, Israeli assassinations killed longtime Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials who had previously led nuclear talks with Western powers, including former national security advisor Ali Larijani. The new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was severely wounded in an Israeli strike that killed most of his family, and has not appeared in public since the conflict began. He currently communicates with Iranian leadership and negotiators through an indirect, secure messaging system, and has only addressed the Iranian public via written press statements. Rubio told senators that US intelligence assesses the new supreme leader is taking an increasingly active role in guiding Iran’s negotiating positions. “I think there are indications out there that he is increasingly engaging at some level,” Rubio said.

    Earlier in the conflict, former US President Donald Trump noted that negotiations with Tehran were complicated by political uncertainty, saying Washington did not have a clear picture of who held decision-making power in the country amid the post-assassination leadership reshuffle.

  • Protesting teachers in Mexico topple player statues days before World Cup

    Protesting teachers in Mexico topple player statues days before World Cup

    Just days before Mexico City hosts the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup co-hosted by Mexico, the United States and Canada, a high-profile labor protest has disrupted the capital’s pre-tournament calm and drawn global attention. On Tuesday, June 2, dissident teachers from Mexico’s national teachers’ union CNTE took to Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City’s iconic tree-lined central promenade dotted with skyscrapers, to push their unmet labor demands.

    The stretch of the avenue had been lined with 5-meter-tall plastic statues of international football players, installed as part of pre-World Cup public celebrations. Using ropes, the protesting teachers pulled down three of the giant statues, stripped off the player uniforms draped on the mannequins and set the garments on fire. Graffiti in bright red paint was scrawled across one of the toppled nude mannequins reading “Long live the CNTE”, while another bore the message: “If there isn’t a solution, the ball won’t roll.” Notably, the statue decked out in Mexico’s national team kit remained standing through the action.

    In a sign of the escalating tension between the dissident union wing and authorities, police had already deployed tear gas and sound grenades to break up a separate CNTE march on Monday near Mexico City’s historic Zocalo plaza, the site of the official World Cup Fan Fest. By Tuesday, crews were still reinforcing the perimeter of the plaza with metal barricades to prevent further disruptions. Tuesday’s statue-toppling action itself shut down key thoroughfares, compounding the chronic traffic congestion that plagues the Mexican capital. Notably, on-site police forces made no attempt to intervene to stop the protesters’ action.

    The dissident CNTE faction, which has organized rolling protests across the country in recent weeks, is demanding a 100% increase to base teacher salaries and is vehemently opposing planned federal pension reforms. The group has already rejected a 9% pay increase that government negotiators agreed to with the union’s mainstream, government-aligned national leadership. Protesters have issued a clear warning: if the administration does not address their demands by the tournament’s opening match on June 11, they will stage mass demonstrations that disrupt the opening festivities.

    Juan Pablo de la Cruz, a 44-year-old teacher participating in Tuesday’s protest, defended the group’s disruptive tactics, drawing a direct parallel between the statue action and the government’s labor policies. “If (President Claudia Sheinbaum) calls toppling some statues a crime, what would she call the act of taking away our rights? We need to be more firm,” he told reporters.

    For her part, President Claudia Sheinbaum characterized the Tuesday protest as peaceful in public remarks, and a formal statement from her administration extended an invitation to the dissident union to resume negotiations to resolve the dispute. As the World Cup’s opening draw closer, the standoff between teachers and the government casts uncertainty over the smooth running of the global tournament’s opening activities in Mexico.

  • Scientists find yeast in ancient Iceman’s guts — and make bread

    Scientists find yeast in ancient Iceman’s guts — and make bread

    More than five millennia before the present day, long before the final stones were placed on Egypt’s Great Pyramids, a Bronze Age traveler now known to the world as Ötzi the Iceman was fatally shot with an arrow through the back while crossing the Alpine tundra along the Austria-Italy border. His frozen corpse lay undisturbed deep in glacial ice for 5,300 years, until two German hikers accidentally uncovered his remarkably preserved mummy in Italy’s South Tyrol region in 1991.

    Since that landmark discovery, Ötzi has been stored at a constant -6°C, replicating the frigid conditions of his glacial tomb to preserve his body for ongoing research. As one of the most intact ancient human mummies ever found, he has provided scientists with an unparalleled view of daily life, diet, and health during the Neolithic period. Now, a new study published Wednesday in the journal *Microbiome* has uncovered a surprising twist: Ötzi’s remains host active ancient and modern microbial communities, including four strains of cold-adapted yeast living in his gut, skin, and the meltwater that leaches from his partially thawed body.

    Lead researcher Mohamed Sarhan, a microbiologist at the Eurac Research Institute in Bolzano, Italy, told reporters that the presence of surviving yeast was completely unexpected. “What we didn’t expect to find was yeast,” Sarhan explained in an interview with Agence France-Presse. All four isolated yeast strains are adapted to survive sub-zero temperatures, a rare trait most commonly seen in yeast communities native to extreme environments like Antarctica. Researchers say this confirms the yeast colonized Ötzi’s body after his death, rather than being part of his original living gut microbiome. Genetic testing showed that the yeast’s DNA damage levels are consistent with ancient microorganisms embedded in the Iceman’s tissues, leading the study team to conclude colonization occurred shortly after Ötzi died and froze.

    “These yeasts have accompanied Oetzi on his long journey through the millennia,” said study co-author Frank Maixner in a public statement about the findings. After isolating the yeast strains, the team replicated them in cold laboratory conditions stored in a standard refrigerator. When word of the yeast discovery spread, the team faced the inevitable question: could this 5,000-year-old yeast be used to bake bread?

    Initial baking attempts failed, but after three months of tweaking growing conditions and fermentation techniques, the team produced what Sarhan described as a “very, very good sourdough” loaf. When asked about future experiments, Sarhan joked that brewing beer with the ancient yeast is already “on the list” of upcoming projects. Beyond the novelty of baking with ancient yeast, the discovery holds serious practical applications for environmental science. After Ötzi was first discovered in 1991, conservation teams treated his body with phenol, a common chemical preservative used to stop fungal growth on cadavers. The team found that the isolated yeast can consume and break down phenol, meaning related strains could one day be used to remediate phenol contamination in polluted soil and water systems.

    The yeast discovery is not the only groundbreaking insight from the new analysis of Ötzi’s microbiome. Researchers also identified a strain of gut bacteria in Ötzi’s intestines that is virtually absent in the gut microbiomes of people living in industrialized nations today. The same bacteria has only been found in isolated indigenous tribes across Africa and South America, and in 3,000-year-old preserved feces recovered from a Bronze Age salt mine in Hallstatt, Austria — one of the few other existing samples of ancient human gut microbes. Sarhan noted that Ötzi and the Bronze Age salt miners ate far more fiber and whole grains than the average modern person, a dietary difference that likely explains the presence of this now-rare bacteria.

    The study upends the long-held view of Ötzi as a static “frozen time capsule” of Neolithic life, instead framing his mummy as a dynamic, ongoing complex ecosystem that continues to evolve thousands of years after his death. Researchers note that it remains too early to confirm whether the active yeast communities are causing any long-term degradation to Ötzi’s remains, and have called for additional long-term study to monitor microbial activity in the mummy.

    Not all independent experts have fully accepted the study’s conclusion that the yeast has been active in Ötzi’s body for millennia. Nikolay Oskolkov, a researcher at the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis who was not involved in the new study and previously discovered ancient fungus in Ötzi’s gut, called the finding that the Iceman’s microbiome is not “frozen” scientifically interesting. However, he cautioned that yeast samples were only collected in 2010 and 2019, meaning there is limited evidence to confirm the yeast has been multiplying continuously over thousands of years. Oskolkov argued the yeast may be relatively recent colonizers of the mummy’s body rather than long-term inhabitants that survived with Ötzi since the Copper Age.

  • Prominent Greek shipping mogul willing to pay Iranian transit toll in Hormuz

    Prominent Greek shipping mogul willing to pay Iranian transit toll in Hormuz

    At the high-profile Posidonia shipping conference held in Athens this Tuesday, a leading figure in global shipping has thrown the global maritime community into debate with an unexpected stance on a contentious Middle East waterway issue. Evangelos Marinakis, a Greek shipping tycoon whose fleet of more than 150 vessels spans oil tankers, LNG carriers and bulk carriers, and who also owns prominent European football clubs Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos, says he is willing to pay a transit toll to Iran to keep the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz open. The $100,000 to $200,000 per-vessel fee, scaled to a ship’s size and cargo volume, is a far better outcome than facing disruptive delays and security risks, he argued, adding that the collected funds could help Iran offset damage it has suffered from ongoing US-Israeli military action against the country.

    Marinakis’ position immediately puts him at sharp odds with major global and domestic political actors, including the Trump administration and his own home country’s government. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis made the country’s official stance clear in a May interview with the Financial Times, stating that Iran has no right to impose any form of toll on transit through the strait. The split among Greece’s most powerful shipping leaders further highlights deep divisions over how to handle the escalating crisis in the strategic waterway: just days after Marinakis’ remarks, fellow Greek billionaire shipowner George Procopiou pushed back against the idea of an Iranian toll at the same Posidonia forum, invoking Greek maritime tradition of breaking blockades to defend his opposition. Procopiou’s firm Dynacom has been one of the rare shipping operators continuing to send vessels through the strait amid ongoing regional conflict, reaping the benefits of skyrocketing freight rates driven by security risk premiums.

    This debate comes as Iran has formally pushed to secure the right to charge transit tolls as part of any potential negotiated end to the current regional conflict, and has already moved to build diplomatic support from Oman, the only other state that shares territorial waters over the Strait of Hormuz. Geographically and legally, the situation is uniquely complex: at its narrowest point, the strait measures just 21 nautical miles across, while international law under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) allows coastal nations to claim territorial water rights up to 12 nautical miles. UNCLOS explicitly prohibits states bordering international straits from restricting transit or charging tolls for passage through their territorial waters in such key global waterways. However, legal experts interviewed by Middle East Eye note that Iran could still structure charges under alternative labels such as compulsory piloting fees or administrative service fees if Oman agrees to cooperate, creating a legal workaround for the policy. Multiple industry sources have already confirmed that some vessel operators have quietly paid unofficial transit fees to Iran in Chinese yuan in recent months.

    With Greek shipping families controlling roughly 20% of the world’s total merchant fleet, the split among the country’s top industry leaders carries major implications for global energy trade and supply chain stability. Nearly 20% of the world’s daily oil consumption and a large share of global LNG trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making any disruption or new transit cost a shock that would ripple through global energy and commodity markets. The U.S. government has already issued a firm rejection of any Iranian attempt to impose transit charges, leaving shipping operators caught between conflicting legal, political and commercial pressures as they navigate one of the world’s most strategically critical waterways.

  • Batch of Allen’s Inside Outs recalled over plastic fears

    Batch of Allen’s Inside Outs recalled over plastic fears

    A popular confectionery line from Australian candy brand Allen’s has been pulled from retail shelves across Australia and New Zealand, after an equipment malfunction at a third-party production facility led to confirmed plastic contamination in some units of the product.

    The recall, which covers 130g sealed bags of Allen’s Inside Outs lollies, was launched as a proactive consumer protection measure following the incident, according to parent company Nestlé. The equipment failure at the contract manufacturer’s production site caused small fragments of plastic to break loose and enter the candy batch during manufacturing, the company confirmed in an official statement published on its website.

    Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), the regional bi-national food safety regulator, has issued a public warning advising any consumer who purchased the affected batch to avoid consuming the product and return it to the point of purchase for a full, no-questions-asked refund. The recalled products carry a best-before date of 30 June 2027, and fall under seven specific batch identification numbers: 6072T941, 6073T941, 6074T941, 6075T941, 6085T941, 6086T941 and 6088T941.

    Nestlé spokesperson Andrew Lawrey emphasized that consumer safety remains the company’s top priority in responding to the incident. “This recall is a precautionary action, taken in line with our rigorous quality standards,” Lawrey said, adding that company teams moved rapidly to alert food safety authorities and retail partners immediately after the contamination issue was identified. “If you have purchased any of these products, please return it to the place of purchase for a full refund.”

    As of the latest update, no consumer injuries or adverse health incidents linked to the contaminated batch have been reported. The recall is currently ongoing, with major supermarkets already removing the affected stock from store shelves.

  • Sailors stressed and exhausted after months trapped by Strait of Hormuz blockade

    Sailors stressed and exhausted after months trapped by Strait of Hormuz blockade

    For Pakistani captain Hassan Khan, who asked to keep his real identity hidden for safety, the glassy calm of the Gulf waters can often lull him into a fleeting moment of normalcy — before the weight of his situation crashes back. Three months have passed since his vessel, along with roughly 1,600 other commercial ships, became trapped in or near the Strait of Hormuz after the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran in late February.

    Once the beating heart of global energy trade, carrying one-fifth of the world’s daily oil and gas supplies, this vital chokepoint has been reduced to a deadly no-man’s-land. Missiles streak across the sky above while uncharted mines drift beneath the surface, bringing all commercial transit to a grinding halt. An estimated 20,000 sailors remain stuck on vessels stranded on the wrong side of the strait, cut off from the open ocean and facing a daily battle against fear, exhaustion, and growing resource scarcity.

    On Khan’s ship, the crew has attempted to cling to familiar routines to maintain some semblance of normalcy. But the old dynamic has vanished entirely. Rarely do any crew members volunteer for the infrequent, tightly restricted shore leave. Lighthearted crew banter has been replaced by tense, anxious silence, broken only by the constant vibration of mobile phones as sailors check in with frantic family members back home. Even in their sleep, crew members startle awake at the smallest unexpected noise. “The stress never leaves our minds,” Khan explained. “Everyone is worn out, completely drained both physically and mentally.”

    The logjam of trapped vessels began days after the war started, when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz — the only navigable exit from the Gulf to the Indian Ocean — and barred all commercial traffic from passing without explicit government approval. “It’s like being stuck in a pond with only one drain, and that drain is Hormuz,” described Shafiqul Islam, captain of the Bangladesh-owned bulk carrier *Banglar Joyjatra*, which is carrying 37,000 tonnes of fertiliser bound for South Africa.

    Islam has made two attempts to exit the Gulf over the past three months, and both have ended in disappointment. Following an April 8 ceasefire announcement, Islam learned that another commercial vessel had secured passage approval from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He steered *Banglar Joyjatra* toward the strait alongside four other trapped ships, only to be turned away by Iranian military warnings before they could reach the waterway.

    Nine days later, a second opportunity appeared to open up when Iranian officials announced the strait would be “fully open” to all commercial traffic in compliance with the ceasefire terms. But Iran abruptly reversed its decision after the United States refused to lift its ongoing naval blockade of Iranian ports. By that time, Islam’s ship was already within 30 nautical miles of the strait, and he was forced to turn back amid repeated radio warnings of imminent attacks. Islam counts himself lucky, however: just two days into the conflict, his ship was anchored only 200 meters from Dubai’s Jebel Ali Port, a facility that was targeted in an Iranian retaliatory strike. Since then, he and his 30-member crew have witnessed dozens of attacks firsthand. “Sometimes missiles pass right over a nearby ship, and other times falling debris lands on the deck of the next vessel,” Islam said. “When attacks run all through the night, none of us can even close our eyes to sleep.”

    “ We have seen horror and destruction with our own eyes,” added Rashedul Hasan, the *Banglar Joyjatra*’s chief engineer. Their fear is well-founded: the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) confirms that at least 11 sailors have been killed and one more remains missing across 39 verified violent incidents in the area.

    While the April ceasefire has reduced large-scale hostilities, the region remains on edge. Military activity continues to be a daily sight: sailors regularly spot drones, fighter jets, naval warships and submarines patrolling the waters. “The military vessels use bright searchlights and broadcast warnings over loudspeakers. They do this to deter any ship from trying to cross,” explained Sajid Masood, a Pakistani cook working on a stranded oil tanker who also requested a pseudonym for security.

    Beyond the constant threat of violence, trapped crews are facing a growing humanitarian crisis as critical supplies run short and prices skyrocket. While the Gulf’s major hubs, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, maintain established ship supply networks, delivery schedules have become completely unpredictable. For vessels that have shifted to safe anchorage off UAE ports, the cost of basic provisions has jumped exponentially. Hasan told reporters that a recent 180-tonne water delivery that would have normally cost between $1,500 and $2,000 wound up costing the crew $11,000. An anonymous South Korean sailor trapped on a different vessel accused some suppliers of price gouging, saying “it feels like many vendors are deliberately exploiting this crisis to charge inflated prices and make excessive profits.”

    The situation is set to worsen as summer approaches. Regional air temperatures already topped 30 degrees Celsius in May, and are expected to climb as high as 45 degrees Celsius in the coming months, increasing ships’ daily water demand for cooling and crew use. On Khan’s vessel, the crew still has enough staples to get by, but fresh produce and legumes have become almost impossible to source. “We can still get beef and chicken, but the easy access to fresh foods we had before is gone,” Khan said.

    For shipping companies, the crisis has already resulted in billions of dollars in lost revenue and cargo delays, and many are already planning to cut staffing costs to offset losses. For the trapped sailors, the human cost is far higher: most sailors’ employment contracts are expiring, and large-scale crew rotations have been put on hold indefinitely. Many seafarers are now rethinking their decision to work in the industry, saying the crisis has exposed just how quickly access to international waterways can become a weapon in future conflicts.

    Masood, whose contract ends in just one month, says he is now reconsidering his decades-long career at sea. But for now, his only focus is getting home to his family in Pakistan, where he planned to bring back gifts: Barbie dolls for his two daughters and a toy airplane for his young son. “I thought I would be home weeks ago, but we’re still stuck here,” he said. “Every single day my family messages asking when I’ll come home, and I have no answer to give them.”

    A small number of vessels — roughly 750 since late February, according to maritime analytics firm Kpler — have managed to secure passage through the strait. Jonathan Schroden, a researcher at Washington DC-based non-profit think tank CNA, noted that most of these successful transits are for vessels owned by companies from China, India, or Pakistan, and rely on direct government diplomacy with Tehran. “On top of diplomatic support, it appears ship owners have also paid a transit fee running into millions of dollars per vessel,” Schroden added.

    For the *Banglar Joyjatra*, diplomatic negotiations with Iran are the crew’s only path out. The Bangladeshi government has been working alongside the ship’s owner, state-run Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC), to secure exit approval. Initially, BSC and the government agreed to pay the transit fee Iran demanded, but the plan collapsed after the United States threatened to impose sanctions on any entity that complied with Iran’s terms. “We are caught between two sides now,” said BSC managing director Commodore Mahmudul Hasan. “We are facing a double crisis that we can’t seem to escape.”

    Even for crew members who have managed to hold onto hope, the uncertainty of each passing day wears on. Hasan, the *Banglar Joyjatra*’s chief engineer, says he still believes the crew will get through this “critical moment” — but for thousands of trapped sailors across the Gulf, every day stuck at anchor is another day of fear, uncertainty, and waiting for a way home.

  • Putin remains uncompromising on Ukraine, but is public discourse on war changing in Russia?

    Putin remains uncompromising on Ukraine, but is public discourse on war changing in Russia?

    Five years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian state remains unapologetic in its prosecution of the war, with President Vladimir Putin doubling down on his commitment to achieve Moscow’s stated aims even as the originally planned short operation has devolved into a grinding, costly stalemate.

    The defining posture of modern Russia in 2026 is best captured by a blunt remark from popular folk singer Nadezhda Babkina, who, after receiving a state honor from Putin at the Kremlin, declared that Russia’s multi-ethnic national unity would never allow surrender, adding “Anyone who doesn’t like that can go and poison themselves.” That uncompromising tone echoes longstanding messaging from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who once framed Russia as unashamed of its identity and actions on the global stage – a description that fits Putin himself, who has never expressed remorse for ordering the 2022 invasion and shows no intention of halting military operations.

    Just ahead of this year’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s flagship event designed to attract global investment and showcase the country to international audiences, Moscow launched another massive wave of missile and drone strikes across Ukrainian territory. While high-profile Western investors and political figures abandoned the forum years ago, organizers claim delegations from more than 130 countries and territories are still set to attend. Even so, a years-long active war on a neighboring country is hardly an ideal selling point for a nation courting foreign capital – a contradiction that does little to shift Moscow’s behavior.

    Putin’s public demands remain unchanged: he continues to insist Ukraine cede full control of the entire Donbas region to Russia. What has shifted, however, is Moscow’s earlier high hopes for a favorable peace deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump. Last year, following the Anchorage summit between Trump and Putin, senior Russian officials repeatedly praised the so-called “spirit of Anchorage”, suggesting the two leaders had reached a mutually beneficial understanding that would force Kyiv to accept Moscow’s maximalist terms. Today, that optimism has faded: Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov recently told Russian state television he has never used the phrase, a quiet signal that the once-touted diplomatic breakthrough has all but evaporated.

    That dashed hope is one of many factors fueling Putin’s growing frustration. What was planned as a quick, short-term “special military operation” has become a bloody war of attrition entering its fifth year, leaving Russia with massive battlefield casualties, deep economic damage from sweeping international sanctions, and eroded technological capacity. The conflict has increasingly moved into Russian territory as well: Ukrainian drones now regularly strike deep inside the country, targeting key energy infrastructure including oil refineries. A large-scale drone attack on the Moscow region last month exposed gaps in the capital’s air defense network, prompting officials to scale back the iconic annual 9 May Victory Day parade on Red Square amid security fears. Sanctions and prolonged war have also strained Russia’s public finances, with a growing budget deficit and stagnant economic output becoming persistent problems.

    Rather than drawing down military operations to address these challenges, the Kremlin has opted for escalation, as demonstrated by the recent large-scale air raids on Ukrainian cities. Moscow frames the escalation as a response to a Ukrainian strike on a building in Starobilsk, a city in occupied eastern Ukraine, which Russia says was a student dormitory that left 21 dead. Ukraine confirms it targeted the headquarters of Russia’s elite Rubicon drone unit in the area but has not confirmed whether the building matched the one Russia identified.

    As Putin prepares to address delegates at the St Petersburg forum – a traditional venue for him to lay out his worldview and criticize the West – there is no indication he will use the speech to signal any shift in Russia’s position on the war. That said, faint signs of a growing domestic debate over the future of the conflict have begun to emerge, even within Russia’s tightly controlled media ecosystem.

    Writing in *Russia In Global Affairs*, a journal closely tied to Russia’s foreign policy establishment, prominent political scientist Vasily Kashin recently concluded that the core goal of removing the current Ukrainian government is fundamentally unachievable at this stage without a long-term full military occupation of the entire country – a step that is technically out of Russia’s reach. Other Russian commentators have echoed similar uncertainty: pro-Kremlin tabloid *Moskovsky Komsomolets* quoted political analyst Alexander Nosovich noting that the expert community is split, with one camp pushing to continue the war until all stated goals are met and the other arguing it is time to end the conflict, warning that the worst outcome is not defeat, but an endless open-ended war.

    In a striking break from the dominant narrative that frames Russia as a nation defined by victory, lawyer Dmitry Krasnov argued in the same outlet that throughout Russian history, lost wars and humiliating truces have often paved the way for critical reforms, breakthroughs and eventual future victories, suggesting major geopolitical setbacks can sometimes be more useful than military triumphs. When reporters attempted to access the article online days later, it had been removed, with a 404 access denied error appearing. While a limited public discourse over the war is emerging, it still operates within clear, strict boundaries set by the Kremlin.

    With no shift in Putin’s position and no diplomatic breakthrough on the horizon, an end to the devastating conflict remains as distant as ever.