Global Pulse

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  • Attack on Saudi Arabian pipeline may cut four percent of world’s oil supply

    Attack on Saudi Arabian pipeline may cut four percent of world’s oil supply

    A recent drone strike targeting Saudi Arabia’s critical East-West Pipeline has triggered major disruptions to global oil markets, with industry assessments indicating repairs could take five to six weeks to complete, according to senior industry sources cited by Reuters. The outage removes approximately 4 million barrels per day of Saudi crude – equal to 4% of total global oil supply – from international markets, sending energy prices soaring across the board at the start of the trading week.

    On Monday, Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil pricing, climbed 3% to trade near the $108 per barrel mark. This upward momentum follows a sharp rally last week, driven by a rapid Houthi offensive that secured the group full control of Yemen’s side of the Bab el-Mandeb, a strategically vital Red Sea chokepoint through which millions of barrels of Saudi oil are shipped daily.

    Market analysts warn that publicly quoted benchmark prices do not fully capture the extreme cost increases being passed on to commercial buyers, particularly for refined petroleum products such as diesel. Gregory Brew, a leading energy analyst at risk consultancy Eurasia Group, noted on social platform X that physical cargoes of Omani crude are currently selling for as high as $121 per barrel, while Murban crude loaded at the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah port is trading at $131 per barrel – far above benchmark levels.

    The sudden price spike comes at a particularly fragile moment for the global economy, which is already struggling to rein in persistent high inflation and adapt to sharply higher borrowing costs across major developed and emerging markets.

    In comments made on Monday, former U.S. President Donald Trump pushed back against claims that rising diesel prices stem from the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, instead blaming attacks on energy infrastructure carried out by Russia and Ukraine. He added that the two nations have reached an agreement to temporarily halt such targeting operations.

    New satellite imagery published by analytics firm Vantor on Sunday confirms extensive damage to a key pumping station along the East-West Pipeline at al-Mesabaah, located southeast of the Saudi city of Medina. Last week, Saudi officials stated the drone attack was launched from Iraqi territory, where a network of Shia-majority militias aligned with Iran operate. Both the Yemeni Houthi movement and Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) are part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” alliance, though the Houthis exercise a greater degree of operational independence from Tehran than other member groups.

    For both Iran and the Houthis, the disruption of the pipeline represents a significant strategic gain, as it lays bare critical security vulnerabilities in Saudi Arabia’s energy export infrastructure. The Houthis are seeking to leverage their recent battlefield gains to expand the territory under their control in Yemen, while Iran aims to strengthen its strategic dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, another chokepoint through which roughly 20% of global oil trade passes.

    The East-West Pipeline has served as a critical bypass for Saudi oil exports for decades. Constructed in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War specifically to offer an alternative route around the Strait of Hormuz, the pipeline runs from Saudi Arabia’s giant Gulf coast oil fields to the Red Sea export terminal at Yanbu. In recent years, it has allowed Saudi Arabia to maintain roughly two-thirds of its pre-conflict export volumes despite a de facto blockade imposed by Iran on Gulf shipping through Hormuz, carrying 4 million bpd for international markets before the attack.

    Beyond the immediate pressure on Saudi Arabia, the pipeline shutdown is also prompting warnings for other Gulf Cooperation Council states that have invested in alternative export routes to avoid dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. The United Arab Emirates currently operates a smaller pipeline that terminates at Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman to bypass Hormuz, but that infrastructure sits far closer to Iranian territory than Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, raising questions about its own vulnerability to similar attacks.

  • Mitch McConnell returns to Senate after three-month absence

    Mitch McConnell returns to Senate after three-month absence

    After a three-month absence triggered by a fall that landed him in the hospital, long-serving Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell made his public return to Capitol Hill on Monday, marking the first day of the chamber’s reconvening after a five-week recess. The 84-year-old Kentucky Republican, who has held his Senate seat for 41 years and stands as the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, stepped back to his duties just as lawmakers enter a critical final stretch of legislative work ahead of November’s midterm elections, contests that will redefine the partisan balance of power in Congress. McConnell is not seeking re-election, and his current term is set to expire in January.

    In comments to reporters ahead of casting a vote on a judicial nomination, McConnell acknowledged that his road to recovery has been far from straightforward, complicated by lingering effects of childhood polio that he has lived with for decades. “My recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven’t made it any easier,” McConnell said. “I’m still not quite back to 100%,” he added, noting that he “will do my best to be present for tough votes.” In his concluding statement, McConnell expressed his eagerness to resume regular work on behalf of his constituents back in Kentucky: “I’m glad to get back to more of business as usual on their [fellow Kentuckians’] behalf this month.”

    Footage captured of McConnell leaving his Washington D.C. residence showed the veteran lawmaker being assisted into a vehicle via wheelchair, though he appeared on the Senate floor just a short time later, where he was greeted by colleagues from both sides of the aisle. McConnell’s last recorded vote dated back to June 11, and as questions about his whereabouts grew over the following weeks, his office finally released a statement a month after the incident clarifying that he had fallen at his home on June 14 and been hospitalized to treat mild pneumonia that developed after the accident.

    McConnell’s extended absence sparked widespread political speculation about the state of his health, with Senate Democrats formally calling for greater transparency around the leader’s medical condition. This is not the first time public concerns have been raised about McConnell’s health in recent years: he suffered minor injuries from a fall in 2024, and a year prior, another fall left him with a concussion that required another hospital stay. In 2023, a public press conference appearance where McConnell froze mid-speech and stared blankly into space for an extended period also fueled widespread questions about his mental acuity.

    As Congress gets back to work, McConnell’s return brings a degree of stability to Senate Republican proceedings as the party fights to hold or expand its majority in the upcoming elections. With McConnell set to retire at the end of his term, the race to pick his successor as the top Republican in the Senate is already underway, though attention this month remains focused on the legislative agenda that will shape both parties’ closing arguments to voters ahead of November.

  • Why cash continues to thrive even as India’s digital payments grow

    Why cash continues to thrive even as India’s digital payments grow

    Against the backdrop of India’s unprecedented boom in digital finance, a striking and counterintuitive trend has emerged: as the country’s real-time digital transaction network Unified Payments Interface (UPI) surges toward 1 billion daily transactions, the volume of physical cash in circulation continues its steady double-digit growth. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the nation’s central bank, now manages a total of 176 billion circulating banknotes, printing 28 to 30 billion new notes across six denominations each year while retiring roughly 21 billion worn out bills – an enormous national logistics operation that demands constant planning and resource allocation.

    This phenomenon, dubbed the “cash paradox” by RBI Deputy Governor Shirish Chandra Murmu, has presented a unique challenge to central bank planners. Speaking at a gathering of global central bankers in Jakarta last month, Murmu noted that while cash’s share of routine individual transactions has declined as digital payments gain widespread adoption, the total volume of currency in circulation continues to expand at double-digit rates. This unpredictable combination makes long-term forecasting of cash demand far more complex, complicating decisions around production capacity and distribution infrastructure.

    To contextualize India’s massive cash stockpile, Murmu offered a global comparison: at the end of last year, the United States had roughly 56 billion dollar bills in circulation, while the Eurozone counted just 30 billion euro notes. One important caveat to this comparison is that India’s circulation count is inflated by a higher share of low-denomination notes, which require more individual bills to equal the same transaction value.

    The puzzle of India’s growing cash supply is not that Indians still use cash – as recently as 2019, 94% of all consumer transactions were still cash-based, according to research by economists Anirudh Tagat, Mehmet Ozmen and Pushpa Trivedi. What confounds analysts is that cash volumes keep rising even as digital payments capture an ever-larger share of daily transactions. Economists point out this parallel growth of digital and physical money is not unique to India; Bank for International Settlements research shows the same pattern has played out globally since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, and India is simply the most high-profile, large-scale case study of the trend.

    Anirudh Tagat, an economist specializing in Indian payment behavior at the Mumbai-based Observer Research Foundation, explains that currency fulfills three core functions for consumers: it acts as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a hedge against economic or systemic uncertainty. Digital payment apps have only displaced cash in the first of these roles, leaving the other two intact. That means rising digital adoption alone cannot eliminate demand for physical banknotes.

    David Humphrey, a Florida State University economist who has studied cash usage across 14 global economies, notes that digital adoption is just one of many factors shaping cash holdings. For major reserve currencies, much of the growth in circulation comes from demand outside the issuing country, a trend seen clearly in the United States, where most high-denomination $50 and $100 bills are held and used overseas, rarely appearing in routine domestic transactions. Even as domestic ATM withdrawals for everyday spending – concentrated in small-denomination bills – have declined in recent years, the total value of U.S. currency in circulation continues to climb, driven by this international demand.

    In India, one key structural driver of unrecorded cash growth is the large informal and underground economy. Illegal and underreported activity, from under-the-table property transactions to untaxed commerce, relies almost exclusively on untraceable cash. Even India’s 2016 demonetization policy, which overnight invalidated 86% of the country’s cash by value to crack down on “black money,” only eliminated existing illicit cash stockpiles, it did not address the underlying incentives that fuel ongoing under-the-table cash flows. Buyers and sellers in real estate still routinely underreport transaction values to avoid high stamp duties, settling the difference between the declared price and actual market value in untraced cash, leaving economists without any reliable estimate of how much unrecorded cash is held in the sector.

    Psychological factors also play a role. Digital payment platforms are intentionally designed to remove the psychological “pain of paying” that comes with handing over physical cash, replacing the tangible loss of money with a simple satisfying notification. In theory, this should encourage more spending and further erode cash demand, but it has not – and analysts point to a quiet driver: fear of systemic disruption. Consumers hold cash as a buffer for when digital networks go down, power outages cut off online banking, or other crises disable digital infrastructure.

    This trend mirrors what central bankers are seeing across Europe. The European Central Bank (ECB) has recorded growth in circulating euro banknotes from €1 trillion in 2016 to €1.6 trillion in 2024, even as cash’s share of point-of-sale transactions has fallen to roughly 50%. Like in India, the number of euro notes used for routine transactions is falling, but household holdings of cash as savings keep growing. ECB research has confirmed this same “banknote paradox,” driven by household hoarding and international demand for euros. Several European governments, including Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands, now formally advise citizens to keep a small stock of cash at home as a contingency for blackouts, cyberattacks, or even wartime disruption of digital systems. In short, cash is no longer primarily for everyday spending – it has been redefined as critical emergency infrastructure.

    Beyond emergency preparedness, cash remains an essential tool for vulnerable populations that are often excluded from the digital finance ecosystem. University College Cork professor Olive McCarthy notes that elderly people, low-income rural communities, domestic violence victims who need to keep their finances private from abusers, and children learning about how money works all rely disproportionately on physical cash. Many consumers across income levels still simply prefer the privacy and tangibility that physical money provides.

    For the RBI, this paradox creates a difficult policy and budgetary balancing act. The central bank maintains an entirely domestic, self-reliant supply chain for currency, including four paper mills, four banknote printing presses, and dedicated ink production facilities, while simultaneously championing UPI, the world’s largest and fastest-growing instant digital payment network used by more than 550 million Indians. Now, as the RBI finally begins trials of polymer 10 and 20 rupee notes – a reform first proposed a decade ago that would produce longer-lasting notes and reduce replacement costs – the central bank must decide how much capital and labor to allocate to maintaining its cash infrastructure versus expanding digital payment access.

    Economists say the RBI has strong incentives to keep the cash system running even as digital payments expand. Murmu frames a reliable, widely available cash supply as a core component of India’s monetary sovereignty, and the rupee’s widespread informal use across South Asia means a stable cash supply acts as a regional economic shock absorber. If UPI follows through on reported plans to introduce transaction fees for small-value payments, analysts predict cash could even regain share in routine transactions, on top of its continuing growth as a savings and emergency asset.

    The broader takeaway for policymakers globally is a humbling one: decades of rapid digital financial innovation have not rendered cash obsolete. Rather than being an outdated technology destined for replacement, cash has transformed into an insurance policy that few consumers or governments are willing to give up.

  • I got paid $5,000 to move to a place I’d never heard of

    I got paid $5,000 to move to a place I’d never heard of

    Across the United States, a growing shift in where Americans choose to live is reshaping small and mid-sized communities, driven by skyrocketing living costs in major urban centers and the widespread normalization of remote work post-pandemic. For many households, the dream of stable homeownership and financial breathing room has become unobtainable in large coastal cities – pushing thousands to pack their belongings and head for smaller, lower-cost towns that are rolling out the welcome mat with tangible financial incentives.
    Brianna Beyrouti, a single mother working remotely for a national bank, embodies this growing trend. Just one year ago, she was trapped in a cycle of paycheck-to-paycheck living in Portland, Oregon, one of the country’s most expensive major metro areas. “I was absolutely financially drowning,” Beyrouti recalled. “Even a small unexpected expense, like new shoes for the kids, would send my budget into chaos. As a single parent, every financial burden falls solely on my shoulders.”
    Last year, Beyrouti took advantage of a population growth incentive program and moved 2,000 miles east with her two children to Muncie, Indiana – a quiet small city of 65,000 residents, home to a state university and abundant open green space. The program covered $5,000 of her relocation costs, a boost that made the cross-country move feasible. What followed was a life-changing shift in her financial stability: Beyrouti kept her existing position with the bank, meaning her $107,000 annual salary stayed the same – but her cost of living plummeted.
    In Portland, Beyrouti paid $1,290 a month for a small rental apartment. In Muncie, she purchased her first detached family home, where the combined monthly cost of her mortgage, property insurance, and property taxes comes out to just $1,100. When factoring in Indiana’s lower state income tax, reduced car insurance premiums, and cheaper energy bills, Beyrouti now saves roughly $600 every month. This newfound financial flexibility has allowed her to say “yes” to her children’s requests that were once out of reach – including the first family vacation her youngest child has ever taken. “My quality of life has increased dramatically,” she said. “I’m actually able to enjoy life now, not just scrape by.”
    Beyrouti is far from the only American making this kind of move. A 2025 analysis from the National Association of Realtors confirms that housing affordability is now the top motivating factor for Americans relocating across state lines. Major population centers including New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland have all recorded sustained population dips in recent years, a trend accelerated by the post-Covid-19 rise in permanent remote work that eliminates the need for workers to live close to corporate office hubs.
    For many small towns that have struggled with decades of population decline, this shift presents a rare opportunity to reverse years of outmigration. Muncie, for example, saw its population climb to 65,466 last year, up from 65,194 in 2020 – though it remains well below its 1990 peak of 71,828. To attract new remote-working residents from out of state, Muncie’s city council partnered with MakeMyMove, a national platform that connects workers with relocation incentive programs across hundreds of small US communities, to offer $5,000 in cash for moving costs. Participating communities pay MakeMyMove a subscription fee to list their programs, and many add extra perks to stand out, from complimentary local cinema tickets and restaurant gift cards to free bottles of regional wine.
    So far, roughly 100 families have relocated to Muncie through the MakeMyMove program, and the platform reports it helped 1,000 people relocate across the country last year, with projections to hit 1,500 relocations in 2026. Another participant, scientist Elena Chrysostomou, made a similar move in 2024, leaving the expensive coastal city of San Diego, California, for Jacksonville, a rural Illinois town of just 17,700 people. The Jacksonville Regional Economic Development Corporation offered her $5,000 in cash plus an additional $4,000 quality-of-life package that includes free gym memberships and local golf course access.
    Like Beyrouti, Chrysostomou experienced an immediate transformation in her financial outlook. In San Diego, she paid $3,000 a month to rent a small one-bedroom apartment. In Jacksonville, she now owns a three-bedroom home with a monthly mortgage of just $1,868. She also secured a new job in her field with a 22% pay raise, and her commute shrank from 15 minutes by car to just one minute. “I never thought I’d be able to afford a house on my own,” Chrysostomou said. “I always assumed I’d need a partner to qualify, and even then it would have been nearly impossible in San Diego. This move has given me so much more freedom, security, and independence.”
    While both women say they have no regrets about their relocations, they acknowledge the tradeoffs that come with moving from a major metro area to a small town. Drawbacks include a far narrower range of entertainment and dining options, the emotional weight of leaving friends and family behind, and practical hurdles like helping children adjust to new schools – a challenge Beyrouti encountered in her first months in Muncie. Unlike in Portland, where Beyrouti could walk to neighborhood parks and grocery stores, she now relies on her car for every trip off her property.
    Even with these adjustments, both women say the benefits far outweigh the downsides. For thousands of other Americans grappling with unaffordable housing and stagnant wages in big cities, their stories highlight a growing path to financial stability that has only become possible through the combination of remote work and proactive small-town recruitment policies.

  • Israeli settlers protest UK sanctions outside consulate in East Jerusalem

    Israeli settlers protest UK sanctions outside consulate in East Jerusalem

    A new wave of diplomatic tension between the United Kingdom and Israel erupted on Monday, as far-right Israeli settlers and right-wing activists rallied outside the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem, demanding the diplomatic mission shut down immediately. The demonstration came in direct response to the UK’s recent decision to impose broad trade sanctions targeting economic activity linked to illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.

    The escalation of tensions began last week, when the British government formally declared Israel’s long-running occupation of Palestinian land illegal and rolled out the comprehensive sanctions package. Government sources confirmed to Middle East Eye that the new restrictions will apply to Israeli settlements not only in the occupied West Bank, but also in the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem—territories that Israel has occupied and annexed in moves never recognized by the majority of the international community. Eleven other nations, including Canada, France, Spain, Sweden and Ireland, have joined the UK in either backing or actively considering similar trade restrictions on settlement-linked goods, amplifying international pressure on Israel over its settlement expansion.

    Within hours of the UK’s announcement, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced a series of retaliatory measures: Israel will shutter the British consulate in East Jerusalem and ban entry to 11 sitting British members of parliament, among other reciprocal actions.

    Monday’s street protest was organized by Arieh King, a prominent far-right Israeli settler and dual British-Israeli citizen who has built a political career around pushing Palestinian communities out of Jerusalem and opposing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the UN body that provides aid to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region. King currently leads his own political faction, United with Arieh King, on the Jerusalem Municipal Council, and previously founded and chaired the Israel Land Fund, an organization dedicated to seizing Palestinian property for Israeli settlement expansion.

    King has long been a polarizing figure for his extreme anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim views. He has led campaigns to forcibly displace Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem neighborhoods including Sheikh Jarrah, where dozens of families have fought years of legal battles to avoid expulsion to make way for Israeli settlers. Under his leadership, the Israel Land Fund has pushed forward multiple settlement projects across East Jerusalem, including Nof Shuel in Beit Hanina, Nof Zion in Jabal al-Mukaber, and Givat HaMatos, built on land expropriated from the Palestinian neighborhoods of Sharafat and Beit Safafa.

    Even before the UK’s formal announcement of sanctions, King sent a pre-emptive letter to Foreign Minister Saar and Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion laying out a slate of aggressive measures targeting the British consulate should London move to declare the occupation of East Jerusalem illegal. His proposals included removing official signage identifying the consulate, cutting off the mission’s water supply, and revoking reserved parking privileges for diplomatic staff.

    Following the UK’s announcement, King released a social media video filmed outside the consulate, doubling down on his demands. He called on Israeli authorities to cancel all existing contracts with British entities operating in East Jerusalem, and to cut off basic services provided to the consulate by the Jerusalem municipality, the city’s Israeli-run water utility Hagihon, and major Israeli telecommunications firm Bezeq. Bezeq is already listed in a United Nations Human Rights Office database of companies linked to illegal settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    King has also launched a new domestic campaign to rebrand Jerusalem’s central King George Street, a major downtown thoroughfare named in 1924 during the British Mandate for Palestine, stripping it of its British-linked name to replace it with a Jewish-Israeli title.

    Controversy has followed King for years over his extreme rhetoric and actions. In 2024, he published multiple anti-Muslim social media posts, including public statements supporting the far-right anti-immigrant riots that swept across several British cities that summer. He has waged a years-long campaign to shut down UNRWA’s operations in Israel and expel the agency from Jerusalem, and in January 2026, he publicly celebrated Israeli authorities’ demolition of a UNRWA compound in the city, infamously stating, “We will throw out, annihilate and kill all members of UNRWA.”

    Most recently, King planned a fundraising tour of the United States and Canada on behalf of the Israel Land Fund, but the trip sparked widespread public backlash and legal challenges. Activists in both countries launched campaigns to bar his entry, and legal complaints were filed accusing him of involvement in the war crime of unlawful population transfer and incitement to genocide. Canadian authorities have already barred King from entering the country pending a full review of his visa application.

  • Exclusive: Mali’s Tuareg separatists seek Turkey talks, reveal Russian contact

    Exclusive: Mali’s Tuareg separatists seek Turkey talks, reveal Russian contact

    Mali’s years-long internal conflict has entered a new phase of shifting alliances and diplomatic outreach, with the Tuareg separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) confirming it has held direct, tactical communications with Russia’s Africa Corps and publicly calling for open dialogue with Turkey to facilitate a negotiated political settlement to the country’s deepening crisis. The revelations came in an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye from FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, who detailed the complex web of battlefield coordination and competing political goals shaping the current conflict.

    Today, the FLA is fighting alongside Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-aligned armed coalition, against Mali’s military-led government. The two factions have coordinated a series of successful offensives in recent months, capturing multiple urban centers and military outposts, blockading the capital Bamako, and even killing senior government military leadership including Defense Minister Sadio Camara. Despite this operational alignment, Ramadane emphasized that the two groups hold fundamentally divergent end goals: the FLA seeks to establish an autonomous independent state of Azawad in Mali’s resource-rich northeast, while JNIM’s core objective is to overthrow the Bamako government entirely.

    The current military landscape in Mali is a dramatic reversal of just a decade ago, when French and Western coalition troops were deployed to prop up the Malian state against JNIM and its predecessor extremist groups. Today, the Malian junta relies on military support from Moscow, which first deployed Wagner Group mercenaries to the country in 2022. Following the short-lived Wagner mutiny against the Kremlin in 2023, the group’s Malian operations were reorganized into the official Russia Africa Corps.

    A major FLA-JNIM offensive in April exposed critical weaknesses in Russia’s military deployment in northern Mali, with Africa Corps personnel withdrawing from the strategic northern city of Kidal shortly before FLA fighters seized full control of the area. By July, as fighting intensified around Anefis, a town located roughly 100 kilometers southeast of Kidal, unconfirmed reports began to circulate of informal arrangements between the FLA and Africa Corps.

    Ramadane confirmed for the first time that direct contacts between the separatist group and Russia’s Africa Corps have indeed taken place, but stressed these communications are strictly tactical in nature and do not amount to formal political negotiations or a strategic shift toward rapprochement. “I can confirm that there were direct contacts in certain contexts, notably around questions related to movements, withdrawals and the situation in certain areas,” Ramadane told Middle East Eye. “In a conflict, there are sometimes channels of communication with the adversary to avoid incidents, manage certain situations or facilitate occasional arrangements. This does not mean that the political objectives of the parties have become compatible.”

    The FLA spokesperson also stressed that the northeastern Azawad region must not be allowed to devolve into a proxy battleground for competing foreign powers, even as the group pursues new diplomatic overtures to Turkey. Over the past decade, Ankara has steadily expanded its diplomatic, economic, and military footprint in Mali, emerging as a key external partner for the Bamako junta. Since 2023, Turkey has supplied armed drones and other military hardware to the Malian government, and bilateral trade between the two countries has tripled since 2014. According to reporting from Le Monde, arms and ammunition made up 20 percent of all Turkish exports to Mali in 2024, making it Ankara’s top export category to the country ahead of electronics, industrial machinery, and cereals.

    Ramadane acknowledged Turkey’s deepening ties to the Malian junta, noting that Turkish-supplied drones have allegedly been used in strikes that have caused civilian casualties in Azawad. “We note that Turkey has considerably developed its relations with the criminal junta in Bamako, particularly in the sale of drones,” he said. However, he argued that Ankara’s growing influence positions it uniquely to facilitate dialogue, and the FLA is not calling for Turkey to cut its ties with the Bamako government. “We do not ask Turkey to break its relations with the military junta. We ask it to look at the Malian reality in all its complexity and not to consider the question of Azawad solely through the prism of the authorities in Bamako,” Ramadane explained.

    The FLA is seeking to open direct channels of dialogue with the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, rather than limiting engagement to only military channels, Ramadane added. He emphasized that the outreach is not an attempt to recruit a new foreign military patron. “We do not ask Turkey to take a military side with the FLA. We ask it first to listen and understand,” he said. “Turkey’s influence in Africa and the Muslim world, combined with its close relationship with Bamako, gave it a particular responsibility. We do not ask Turkey to choose between Mali and Azawad. We ask it to contribute to ensuring that peace is not imposed on Azawad but negotiated with it. Our essential message is this: we are not seeking foreign patrons for our cause, we are seeking partners capable of contributing to a just, lasting political solution consistent with the aspirations of the populations concerned.”

    A senior Turkish official familiar with African affairs responded to the FLA’s outreach, confirming that Ankara is open to engaging with a broad range of actors in Mali. “Ankara was open to dialogue with a range of actors and that channels could be found if the FLA wanted to engage with the Turkish government,” the official told Middle East Eye. “However, it doesn’t mean that we will take their side and be part of the internal conflict of a foreign state. But we would listen to them.”

    Alongside its diplomatic overtures to Russia and Turkey, the FLA once again clarified the nature of its current cooperation with JNIM, stressing that operational coordination on the battlefield does not constitute a formal political alliance. Ramadane acknowledged that the two groups have grown closer operationally out of a shared opposition to the Malian junta and Russian military presence, but their core political projects remain distinct. “It is first necessary to distinguish two things that are often deliberately confused: operational convergence on the ground and political alliance,” he said.

    Following coordinated April offensives across northern and central Mali, the two groups launched a second wave of coordinated attacks in July, including heavy clashes around Anefis and targeted strikes on military positions in Gao and Aguelhok. Ramadane argued that the ad-hoc cooperation is a pragmatic response to current battlefield conditions, not a merging of political goals. Any lasting peace agreement, he emphasized, must explicitly address the longstanding political demands for Azawad’s self-determination. “The FLA remains an Azawadian political and military organisation whose project responds to the aspirations of the people of Azawad,” he said. “That being said, lasting peace in Mali and Azawad will necessarily have to take into account the realities on the ground.”

    Ramadane also argued that JNIM, which now draws the vast majority of its membership from Malian citizens, cannot be sidelined in any future peace process. “It is impossible to make peace in Mali or speak of stability without including JNIM,” he said, adding that the group has increasingly begun to articulate a political platform focused on local grievances, rather than only a transnational extremist agenda.

  • Donald Trump Jr and Bettina Trump say Putin ally paid for some wedding festivities as a ‘gift’

    Donald Trump Jr and Bettina Trump say Putin ally paid for some wedding festivities as a ‘gift’

    A new ethics controversy has emerged surrounding former U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, after Donald Trump Jr.’s wife Bettina publicly confirmed that a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin covered a portion of the couple’s lavish 2026 wedding celebrations. The confirmation follows an investigative exposé published by independent watchdog outlet ProPublica earlier this month, which first detailed that Umar Kremlev, head of the International Boxing Association (IBA) and a key ally of the Russian president, contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the high-end Bahamian wedding festivities.

    In a joint Instagram statement posted Monday, Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina acknowledged Kremlev’s financial support, framing the contribution as an extravagant personal gift from a close friend. “Our dear friend Umar very generously hosted two incredible nights of celebrations for us after our wedding. It was an extraordinarily generous wedding gift from a friend, and something for which we were and remain incredibly grateful,” the couple wrote. Photos of the couple released last week show the pair disembarking from Air Force One during an official visit to Ireland on September 12, just days before the controversy came to light.

    According to ProPublica’s investigation, the couple exchanged vows on a private Bahamian island before moving the three-day celebration to a second exclusive island venue that costs roughly $100,000 per night to rent. Kremlev covered the full cost of two nights at this venue, in addition to a $70,000 private fireworks display for the event. Kremlev, who has longstanding close ties to the Kremlin, received the Order of Friendship — one of Russia’s highest state honors — from Putin personally, and earlier this year joined the Russian president on an official delegation visit to China. He leads the IBA, which was suspended by the International Olympic Committee in part over the organization’s refusal to cut financial ties with Gazprom, Russia’s state-backed energy giant that provides core funding for the boxing body.

    As Donald Trump Jr. is currently a private citizen and holds no official position in the U.S. government, accepting financial gifts from foreign nationals is not a violation of U.S. law. Even so, government ethics watchdog groups have warned that the arrangement creates a clear public perception of conflicts of interest, given the recipient’s status as the eldest son of a sitting U.S. president and the leading 2026 presidential candidate from the Republican Party.

    Jordan Libowitz, vice president of communications for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan ethics watchdog, argued that the lavish gift comes with implied strings attached. “People don’t just give hundreds of thousands of dollars to a random acquaintance without wanting something,” Libowitz said. “You can see how [Putin] would enjoy all this press about how people in his circle are cozying up to people in the president’s circle.”

    Libowitz added that both the former president — a billionaire whose net worth runs into the billions — and Donald Trump Jr., who Forbes estimates has a personal net worth of roughly $300 million, could easily have covered the full cost of the wedding to avoid ethical concerns. “His father is worth billions he could have picked up the tab. Clearly they just didn’t want to pay for it,” Libowitz said. “They don’t really care about the ethical ramifications.”

    Representatives for Donald Trump Jr. have pushed back on the ethics concerns, emphasizing that the pair share only a personal friendship and have no formal business ties. A spokesperson for Donald Trump Jr. confirmed the friendship to ProPublica, and an ally of the president’s son directed the BBC to the couple’s Instagram statement. Kremlev’s office also issued a confirmation of the friendly relationship to the outlet, noting that the pair first met several years ago, and Kremlev attended a portion of the wedding celebrations.

    High-profile attendees at the wedding also included Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter, and her husband Jared Kushner, who served as a senior White House advisor during Trump’s first presidential term and led U.S. diplomatic negotiations with Iran, Russia and parties in the Middle East. This controversy marks a new chapter in longstanding scrutiny of Trump family ties to Russian interests: during the 2016 presidential election, the Trump campaign faced widespread controversy over potential improper connections to Russia, which led to a multi-year special counsel investigation. During that probe, particular scrutiny focused on a pre-election meeting Donald Trump Jr. arranged at Trump Tower with a Russian national offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

  • French TV censors actress Adele Haenel after she condemns Israel’s genocide in Palestine

    French TV censors actress Adele Haenel after she condemns Israel’s genocide in Palestine

    A prominent French actress and longtime gender-based violence activist Adele Haenel has become the center of a fierce free speech controversy after her on-air remarks condemning Israeli actions in Gaza resulted in the full removal of her television appearance from public access.

    Haenel’s September 9 guest slot on France 5, a public French television channel, was originally arranged to promote her debut book, which details her decades-long fight for accountability over sexual abuse she endured as a child minor at the hands of acclaimed French director Christophe Ruggia. Just months prior, in April 2024, a French court handed down a conviction against Ruggia for sexual assault, a landmark ruling that became a national flashpoint for conversations about systemic silence around sexual violence in the French film industry.

    The talk show she joined is structured around open, unfiltered debate, with a core premise that invited guests are granted full latitude to share their perspectives. During her segment, Haenel read a prepared statement to the live studio audience, drawing a thematic connection between the culture of silence that protects perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence and the global lack of accountability for what she described as widespread sexual violence against Palestinian people in Gaza perpetrated by Israeli forces.

    In her unscripted closing remarks delivered live on air, Haenel stated plainly: “The State of Israel is committing genocide in Palestine, and France is complicit. Don’t accept the unacceptable; sanction Israel and liberate Palestine.” The statement was met with enthusiastic applause from the in-studio audience, but triggered immediate pushback from pro-Israel advocacy groups and far-right political actors, who filed formal complaints against the network.

    Within 24 hours, on September 10, parent broadcaster France Televisions confirmed it had pulled the entire episode from its online replay platform, effectively erasing Haenel’s comments from public view.

    In subsequent comments to French media, published in full by Middle East Eye, Haenel detailed how she intentionally altered her prepared remarks to name specific responsible parties. She explained that she had submitted a milder draft of her statement to producers ahead of the taping, because she was certain the full unedited text would be blocked from airing. That morning, she rehearsed the approved draft for production and technical teams, with no objections raised, even after sharing the modified script with the show’s lead producer that same day.

    The key difference between the submitted draft and her live remarks, Haenel noted, was the explicit naming of the State of Israel as the perpetrator of genocide. “As long as there is no subject in the sentence, a genocide appears as an inevitable reality, a crime without a perpetrator,” she explained. “On the other hand, saying ‘the State of Israel is committing genocide’ points to this State as responsible for this ongoing crime against humanity.”

    She further argued that naming the perpetrator forces Western governments, including France, to confront their own policy choices: namely, the decision not only to avoid acting to end the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but to actively enable ongoing violence through arms sales to Israel. Haenel added that mainstream French media largely pushes a one-sided pro-Israel narrative that frames Palestinians as responsible for their own suffering, allowing Western governments to maintain a false veneer of innocence. This dynamic, she said, is what prompted the harsh media backlash and censorship of her comments.

    The incident has reignited long-simmering debates in France over free speech, media bias and acceptable forms of protest against Israeli military action in Gaza, with free speech advocates decrying the removal of the episode as an act of overt political censorship.

  • Legendary costume designer Bob Mackie dies aged 87

    Legendary costume designer Bob Mackie dies aged 87

    Legendary American fashion and costume designer Bob Mackie, whose glittering, boundary-pushing creations dressed some of the biggest names in entertainment from Cher to Elton John, has passed away at the age of 87.

    The official confirmation of his death came via a statement posted to his Instagram account on Monday, which read: “It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Mr Bob Mackie passed away today. He lived his 87 years to the fullest, fulfilling his dream of being a Fashion and Costume Designer, which is all he ever wanted to do. His genius and extraordinary designs will live on forever, continuing to bring beauty into this world.”

    Widely nicknamed the “Sultan of Sequins” for his signature love of sparkling, embellished designs, Mackie carved out an unparalleled career spanning more than six decades, earning a Tony Award, nine Emmy Awards, and three Academy Award nominations for his work across stage and screen. Even in his final years, he remained active in the industry: last year, Sabrina Carpenter wore one of his custom designs to the MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2024, Miley Cyrus stepped out in a Mackie creation for her Grammy Awards performance, where she took home the award for Record of the Year for her hit single *Flowers*.

    One of Mackie’s most iconic contributions to fashion history came from his decades-long collaboration with superstar Cher, which reshaped public perceptions of bold fashion on red carpets and television. His most famous work for the singer remains the groundbreaking Mohawk-inspired ensemble Cher wore to the 1986 Academy Awards, a piece widely known as her “revenge outfit”. Cher had been widely expected to earn an Oscar nomination for her leading role in *Mask* that year, but was snubbed by voters. In the 2024 documentary *Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion*, Cher explained that the striking look was intentional: “I didn’t get nominated for a movie that everyone thought I would actually win for [Mask] – so was dressing that night for a kind of revenge.”

    The showgirl-inspired costume featured a towering plumed Mohawk headdress and left the star’s midriff completely exposed, a choice that shocked audiences and critics alike in the 1980s. The look has since been cemented in pop culture and fashion history as one of the most daring, extravagant red carpet designs of all time. In a 2010 interview with the BBC, Mackie reflected on his early work with Cher, noting that she stood out from every other performer in the industry at the time: “Everybody just went crazy over this woman as she could wear anything.” Mackie’s designs also helped Cher make television history, when she became the first woman to show her belly button on U.S. broadcast television.

    Beyond his work with Cher, Mackie created some of the most recognizable stage costumes for music’s biggest stars. One of his most famous creations is the bedazzled Los Angeles Dodgers uniform Elton John wore for his historic 1975 performances at Dodger Stadium, a look that remains one of the singer’s most iconic. Following news of Mackie’s death, Elton John paid tribute to the designer in an Instagram post, writing: “Every time I put something on that Bob made, I felt very, very special. His costumes were works of art, and he will go down as one of the most legendary designers ever in Hollywood.”

    Pop singer Pink, who wore multiple Mackie designs throughout her career including the entire wardrobe for her 2009 Funhouse tour, also shared a heartfelt tribute. “I was so lucky to be dressed by him for so long. He was loving, wickedly funny and an absolute genius,” she wrote, adding a playful, fitting tribute: “There are going to be some fabulously dressed angels.”

    Born Robert Gordon Mackie in Monterey Park, California in 1939, Mackie got his start in the industry as a sketch artist for prominent French-American costume designer Jean Louis. One of his earliest career assignments saw him sketch the iconic sheer nude dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang her legendary rendition of *Happy Birthday, Mr. President* to John F. Kennedy in 1962.

    In his personal life, Mackie married Hollywood singer and actress Lulu Porter in 1960, and the pair welcomed a son, Robin, before divorcing three years later. Robin passed away from an AIDS-related illness in his early 30s. From 1963 until his partner Ray Aghayan’s death in 2011, Mackie shared his life and work with Iranian fashion designer Aghayan. In a 2018 interview with *The Guardian*, the designer, then 79, joked that he was the oldest active working designer in Hollywood. When asked if he ever planned to retire, he gave a simple, firm answer: “I hope not.”

  • Why the Mecca defence pact hasn’t triggered action against the Houthis

    Why the Mecca defence pact hasn’t triggered action against the Houthis

    Last month, when Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia put their signatures to the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, controversy erupted almost instantly. Critics have zeroed in on one glaring question: why has the newly minted alliance failed to mount a coordinated response to ongoing Houthi attacks originating from Yemen targeting Saudi Arabia?

    Ever since the signing ceremony wrapped up, regional and global security analysts have openly cast doubt on whether Turkey would honor its commitments to come to Riyadh’s defense amid persistent Houthi strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure and populated civilian areas. The debate grew far sharper after recent Houthi military gains over the weekend: the group seized extended stretches of Yemen’s Red Sea coast adjacent to the strategically critical Bab al-Mandeb Strait, followed by a targeted attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, a vital energy chokepoint that carries nearly 4% of the world’s total oil supply.

    Yet critics who dismiss the pact as a failure purely on the basis of its lack of an immediate joint military response are missing three core, unaddressed questions: have the agreement’s defence obligations actually entered into legal force? Have member states built the institutional and operational mechanisms required to execute mutual defence commitments? And are the signatories already demonstrating meaningful political solidarity? In an exclusive off-the-record interview with Middle East Eye, a senior anonymous Turkish official pushed back against widespread narratives that the alliance is already ineffective, arguing that such criticism is deliberately misleading and designed to undermine the new bloc.

    The official’s core clarification is straightforward: the treaty’s mutual defence commitments are not yet legally binding on any of the three signatories. The bureaucratic, institutional, and military coordination structures needed to put the agreement into practice will require months, if not years, of work to fully establish. Before defence obligations become enforceable under international law, the agreement must first complete domestic ratification processes in each of the three member states.

    According to the official, Turkey will formally submit the agreement to its parliament for approval as early as October, when the full text of the treaty will be released to the public and the legislative review process will get underway. Under Turkey’s constitution, the presidency lacks the authority to ratify binding security agreements without formal parliamentary approval. Pakistan follows a similar requirement, mandating parliamentary sign-off before the treaty can take effect, while Saudi Arabia is able to complete ratification via royal decree.

    This explanation directly counters claims that Turkey has already reneged on a legally binding mutual defence pledge, though it does not fully resolve all open questions surrounding the agreement’s legal standing across all three member states. “People don’t want to understand but what we founded is not only a security alliance but actually an international organisation,” the official emphasized. “And the founding treaty, once revealed, would show to the world how carefully it was crafted.”

    Even after the agreement formally enters into force, the three nations will still need to develop shared mechanisms to assess emerging threats, hold coordinated consultations, and align collective assistance. “We need to draw defence and readiness plans, work on interoperability issues and create a long-term plan to establish deterrence for these three countries,” the official added.

    This is not to say the three militaries have no history of cooperation: Turkey has previously held and organized joint military drills with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia individually, but this marks the first time the three have formalized a permanent trilateral security framework. A key outstanding task is addressing interoperability gaps, ensuring that the three countries’ personnel, military equipment, and operational protocols can function seamlessly together during joint actions.

    Work to build the alliance’s core governing institutions is already underway. During a consultative meeting held in Istanbul on August 31, member states reached agreement to establish a permanent alliance secretariat based in Saudi Arabia, with an initial three-year term for a Pakistani secretary-general to lead the body. They have also agreed to a schedule of joint activities designed to boost collective military capabilities and deepen cooperation. “The consultative Istanbul meeting by the allies to establish a secretariat, appoint a secretary-general and regularly meet to hold defence negotiations is a sign that we are on a long way to institutionalise it,” the official noted. “This could take a few years.”

    Of course, the announcement of a secretariat does not mean the bloc has already finalized or tested coordinated response protocols for missile or drone attacks. The Mecca agreement’s core principle— that an attack on one signatory counts as an attack on all— has drawn inevitable comparisons to Nato’s iconic Article 5 mutual defence clause. The Turkish official confirmed that the agreement’s drafters drew consistent inspiration from the Nato founding treaty throughout the drafting process.

    Article 5 is widely regarded as the global gold standard for collective security guarantees, but it has only been invoked once in Nato’s 74-year history: in the aftermath of al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Under the clause, all member states are obligated to assist an ally under attack, but each member retains the right to determine what form that assistance will take. Support does not automatically require the use of armed force, nor does it mandate an immediate retaliatory strike.

    The Mecca pact follows this same model, requiring collective consultation before any response is agreed upon, the official explained. “As in the Nato case, Mecca allies will receive a petition from any member states, host a conference on this and decide how to respond,” the official said. “An attack simply doesn’t trigger a military counter-attack.”

    So far, both Turkey and Pakistan have already demonstrated formal political solidarity by issuing public statements condemning the recent Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. Pakistan has also clarified that under its existing bilateral security treaty with Riyadh, it has not yet received any official request for military intervention from Saudi leadership.

    To put the criticism of the Mecca pact in context, the official drew a parallel to a 2015 incident: when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that it said had violated its national airspace, Ankara requested an emergency Nato meeting. The alliance’s support for Turkey included bolstering Turkish air defences and deploying additional air and maritime capabilities to the region. But the official also pointed to more recent incidents where Nato failed to mount a unified response to aggressive actions: “Russian drones have repeatedly violated the Nato airspace and landed in several allied countries, what was Nato’s response?”

    The official pointed to August’s suspected drone incident in Germany, where German authorities blamed Russia for an attempted explosive drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport. An explosive-laden drone was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane, but failed to detonate due to a faulty detonator; debris from a second suspected explosives drone was discovered near the airport 10 days later. Despite the clear provocation, the entire episode never triggered a unified collective response from the Nato alliance.

    For the three signatories of the Mecca agreement, the core purpose of the pact is not to deliver an immediate fix to every ongoing regional conflict, but to build long-term strategic deterrence, the official argued. “We all know that a possible India-Pakistan fighting, or Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia are the soft tummies of this agreement,” the official acknowledged. “But we signed this deal to ensure that this alliance in the long run would establish enough deterrence to de-escalate things.”