Global Pulse

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  • Microhistory pioneer Carlo Ginzburg, who gave voice to the marginalized, dies at 87

    Microhistory pioneer Carlo Ginzburg, who gave voice to the marginalized, dies at 87

    Carlo Ginzburg, the trailblazing Italian historian whose innovative scholarship redefined modern historical inquiry by centering the long-silenced perspectives of marginalized communities, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 87 in Bologna, a northern Italian city. The confirmation of his death came from Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, the prestigious academic institution where Ginzburg once studied as a student and later served as an emeritus professor.

    Widely recognized as the founding father of microhistory, Ginzburg developed a radical new approach to studying the past that rejects broad, top-down macro-historical frameworks in favor of focused, granular analysis of small, specific subjects — from a single ordinary individual, to a tight-knit local community, to one isolated historical event. This method, he argued, unlocks far broader, more universal themes and structural tensions that shape larger historical narratives, a insight that upended centuries of traditional historiographical practice.

    As one of the most influential voices in 20th and 21st century historical studies, Ginzburg also pioneered the groundbreaking “evidential paradigm” — an interpretive framework that centers seemingly insignificant clues, fragmented traces and overlooked small details to reconstruct the lived experiences of people pushed to the margins of dominant historical records created by ruling elites.

    Ginzburg first honed his approach through early research into the benandanti, a little-known pagan fertility movement that operated in Italy’s Friuli region between the 16th and 17th centuries. Members of the group practiced shamanic healing, but were targeted as heretics by the Roman Inquisition. His research into the cult, which traced its origins to pre-Christian Central European spiritual traditions, formed the foundation of his first published book in 1966.

    He solidified his global reputation with his 1976 landmark work *The Cheese and the Worms*, still widely regarded as one of the most important texts in modern Italian historiography. The book centers on the heresy trial of Menocchio, a 16th-century Friulian miller who was prosecuted for sharing unorthodox views about the origins of the universe and the nature of Jesus Christ. Drawing exclusively on surviving Inquisition trial records, Ginzburg masterfully demonstrated that the same documents created by ruling authorities to suppress dissent also contain hidden traces of that dissent, showing how power and resistance exist side-by-side in historical archives. Through this intimate small-scale case study, he illuminated far-reaching cultural frictions between elite educated culture and grassroots popular culture, as well as the enduring tension between state and religious authority and individual dissent.

    Born in Turin in 1939, Ginzburg grew up in a family deeply committed to intellectual life and anti-fascist resistance: his mother Natalia Ginzburg was one of Italy’s most celebrated 20th century writers, and his father Leone Ginzburg was a prominent anti-fascist activist who was persecuted for his opposition to Benito Mussolini’s regime. Over the course of his decades-long academic career, Ginzburg held teaching positions at top global institutions, including Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles. His body of work has been translated into more than 30 languages, reaching a global audience of scholars and general readers alike.

    Ginzburg’s contributions to historical scholarship earned him dozens of the highest international honors in the humanities, including the Prix Aby Warburg, the Balzan Prize for Social and Political Sciences, the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize, and the Humboldt Research Award.

    In a 2023 interview with Italian cultural magazine *Lucy*, Ginzburg emphasized that his methodological approach was not limited to academic historical research. He argued that the practice of prioritizing small clues and centering marginalized perspectives should be applied to “everyday life” as a tool to build deeper, more empathetic understanding of other people.

    In a formal statement following Ginzburg’s death, Scuola Normale Superiore paid tribute to his transformative impact on the field, noting that he “changed the way of practicing the historian’s craft.” The institution added that Ginzburg’s work “restores voice to those who lack it, shows that the rigor of proof is a form of justice, and upholds a demanding idea of truth.”

    Ginzburg is survived by his two daughters: Silvia, an art historian, and Lisa, a published writer and essayist. They are his children from his marriage to Anna Rossi-Doria, a fellow historian who preceded him in death.

  • A 16-month-old and his mother recover from Ebola in rare good news from outbreak in Congo

    A 16-month-old and his mother recover from Ebola in rare good news from outbreak in Congo

    In the conflict-stricken eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a glimmer of hope has emerged amid a rapidly spreading Ebola crisis: a 16-month-old infant and his mother have successfully overcome the deadly virus and been discharged from a local treatment center. The pair left the Rwampara Treatment Center near Bunia, the capital of Ituri province — the current epicenter of the outbreak — on Tuesday, alongside five other patients who also achieved full recovery from Ebola.

    For Kahindo Mireille Pierrette, the mother of the recovering infant, the relief and joy of her child’s survival are overwhelming. “The joy is immense given the state he was in at first,” she shared. “If you had seen him before, you wouldn’t believe he could have this strength now.” Pierrette explained that she rushed her son to the treatment center in late May, after he developed frightening Ebola symptoms: uncontrollable bleeding from the mouth and nose, and extreme weakness that left him barely able to move. Dr. Modet Camara, a clinical lead at the treatment facility, confirmed that the infant received a positive Ebola result via PCR testing on his second day of admission, and was immediately placed on targeted supportive care including antibiotics to manage secondary infections.

    As of Tuesday, Congo’s Ministry of Health has confirmed 837 Ebola cases and 196 confirmed deaths since the outbreak was formally declared on May 15. However, public health officials warn the true case count is almost certainly higher, because the virus began spreading undetected for weeks before official confirmation was announced. To date, only 49 patients across the affected region have recovered from the virus, according to government data.

    What makes this outbreak particularly challenging for response teams is that it is driven by the rare Bundibugyo Ebola strain, a variant for which no approved vaccines or specific antiviral treatments currently exist. This marks a departure from Congo’s 16 previous Ebola outbreaks, which were overwhelmingly caused by the more common Zaire strain — a variant for which an effective, approved vaccine is already available.

    More than 90% of all current cases are concentrated in Ituri province, though infections have also been documented in neighboring North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, and the virus has already crossed the international border into Uganda. Speaking during a virtual meeting of African heads of state on Tuesday, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Director-General Jean Kaseya issued a stark warning about the outbreak’s trajectory: if spread is not rapidly contained, it could surpass the 2014–2016 West African outbreak to become the deadliest Ebola event on record. Kaseya highlighted that tens of thousands of close contacts of confirmed Ebola patients have not yet been traced and monitored, creating a large pool for potential further transmission.

    The 2014 West African outbreak remains the worst Ebola event in recorded history, with more than 28,000 confirmed cases and over 11,000 reported deaths across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

    Multiple structural challenges are hampering containment efforts in eastern Congo. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that years of ongoing armed conflict have displaced nearly one million people across Ituri province. As communities flee persistent attacks and move frequently through the region’s vast, dense forest landscape, which is crisscrossed by poor roads and dotted with remote villages that can take days to reach, contact tracing teams struggle to track exposed individuals and limit new transmissions. Additional complications come from the region’s large population of artisanal miners, who regularly move between remote mining sites in the mineral-rich province, making consistent monitoring of potential exposures nearly impossible. Local cultural preferences for traditional healers over formal hospital care have also slowed response efforts, as many infected people delay seeking treatment and continue to interact with their communities while contagious.

  • Bystanders rush to rescue aircraft passengers after fiery Texas crash

    Bystanders rush to rescue aircraft passengers after fiery Texas crash

    On Tuesday, a dramatic private jet crash unfolded on a major Texas highway just outside Laredo, prompting an immediate, courageous response from bystanders and emergency personnel who rushed to rescue trapped passengers. Cell phone video of the incident captured the group using a makeshift set of tools — a shovel and a sledgehammer — to break through sections of the downed aircraft, prying open an exit to pull five survivors to safety before first responders secured the scene.

    According to Gilberto Sanchez, director of Laredo International Airport, the aircraft was en route from Los Cabos, Mexico, to Austin, Texas, when its flight crew alerted air traffic control at Laredo that the jet was experiencing critical mechanical failures, initiating preparations for an emergency landing. The crash occurred just 150 miles, or 240 kilometers, southwest of San Antonio, in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

    Laredo Police Department investigators confirmed that one of the six people on board the private jet was killed in the crash. The identity of the deceased has not been released pending next-of-kin notification. All five survivors were transported to local medical facilities for treatment, and officials confirmed Wednesday that all remain in stable condition. Responding to the incident, five first responders were later treated for smoke inhalation after working to extinguish the fire that broke out on impact.

    Investigator Jose Baeza of the Laredo Police Department noted that a civilian vehicle traveling on the highway was hit by the aircraft during the crash, though officials have not yet confirmed which part of the jet made contact with the car. Social media posts from witnesses in the area showed heavy black smoke billowing from the wreckage, with large flames visible along the fuselage in the immediate aftermath of the crash.

    The crash forced an immediate full closure of Loop 20, a major arterial highway serving the Laredo area. Laredo police confirmed that the highway will remain closed to all traffic through Wednesday as investigators from multiple agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board, conduct a full on-site investigation into the cause of the crash.

  • Watch: Japan’s unusual course on avoiding a bear attack

    Watch: Japan’s unusual course on avoiding a bear attack

    Across Japan, 2024 has already seen an unprecedented spike in human-bear conflicts, with total confirmed bear attacks on people hitting a record high that far outpaces any previous year recorded in national wildlife data. As dangerous encounters between humans and these wild animals become increasingly common in both rural and semi-urban areas, regional authorities are stepping up emergency preparedness to protect local communities and visitors.

  • ‘Why bother?’: Trump no longer feels the need to seize Iran’s uranium

    ‘Why bother?’: Trump no longer feels the need to seize Iran’s uranium

    Just one day after formalizing a ceasefire memorandum of understanding with Iran to end the unprovoked war launched jointly with Israel in February, U.S. President Donald Trump has dramatically softened his long-stated top priority for the conflict: seizing Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium. Speaking Tuesday on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in France, Trump asserted there was “no rush” to recover the nuclear material from sites targeted by U.S. airstrikes in June 2025.

    In comments that contradicted months of public messaging from Trump and his senior national security team, the president downplayed both the urgency and the value of the uranium he had once framed as an existential threat requiring immediate military action. “Taking the highly enriched uranium is something the U.S. wants psychologically, but not enough to prioritize extracting it right away,” Trump said, even suggesting that a case could be made that the effort to seize the material was not worth the logistical challenge at all.

    Noting that only the United States and China possess the specialized heavy equipment required to extract the uranium, Trump added: “Frankly, to go get it—we’re going to go get it—but to go get it is a big deal. You could make the case, ‘Why do you even bother?’ because it’s not very valuable, you know. It’s probably half a million dollars worth, it’s not very valuable stuff.”

    Trump’s shift comes 24 hours after he and Iranian officials announced the MOU that halted hostilities, a conflict during which Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies and sending oil prices soaring across international markets. The president told The New York Times that the agreement caps Iran’s uranium enrichment at levels that can never be repurposed for military use. However, anonymous White House officials speaking to The Washington Post clarified that full details of Iran’s nuclear program oversight remain unresolved, with formal negotiations set to unfold over the next two months. The question of whether nuclear talks would proceed separately from ceasefire negotiations had been a major sticking point for U.S. negotiators in the lead-up to the MOU.

    When pressed on criticism that the new agreement fails to secure any new nuclear concessions that were not already enshrined in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the Obama-era deal that Trump abandoned during his first term, which traded sanctions relief for nuclear limits—the president pushed back. He reiterated that the new deal permanently restricts Iran’s uranium enrichment to nonmilitary purposes only.

    Supporters of the administration, including former National Security Council chief of staff Alex Gray, have defended the agreement as a historic breakthrough, claiming it marks the first time the U.S. has permanently blocked Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. Iran has consistently maintained, even before the February invasion, that its entire nuclear program is intended exclusively for peaceful civilian energy purposes.

    But foreign policy analysts say Trump’s Tuesday comments expose inconsistencies in the administration’s justifications for the war. Foreign policy analyst Logan McMillen argued that the president’s downplaying of the uranium is an implicit admission that the material was always a false pretext for the conflict. “The real purpose was to punish Iran for the crime of being an independent economic power that refused to participate in America’s petro economy,” McMillen said.

    CNN’s Aaron Blake points out that this latest shift is far from the first time Trump has sent contradictory messages about Iran’s nuclear program. Just weeks ago, Trump wrote on social media that Iran’s uranium would be unearthed by U.S. experts—working with Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency—and destroyed. But as far back as April, he told Reuters that U.S. strikes had left Iran’s uranium buried deep enough that he “didn’t care” about its location. Two weeks after that April comment, he insisted the U.S. “had to take that nuclear dust,” then told Fox News later that destroying the stockpile was “not necessary except from a public relations standpoint.”

  • Spinners Zampa and Davies shine as Australia wins opening T20 vs Bangladesh

    Spinners Zampa and Davies shine as Australia wins opening T20 vs Bangladesh

    In the opening fixture of a three-match Twenty20 international series between Australia and Bangladesh hosted in Chattogram on Wednesday, a disciplined spin attack from the visitors laid the foundation for a four-wicket victory, with slow bowlers Adam Zampa and Joel Davies sharing six wickets between them to dismantle the home side’s batting lineup.

    A notable milestone also marked the match: leg-spinner Nikhil Chaudhary, the first India-born male cricketer to earn a cap for Australia’s national team in six decades, chipped in with one wicket to cap his historic appearance. Australia’s spin unit dominated from the middle overs onward, bowling Bangladesh all out for just 131 runs inside 19 overs.

    Chasing a modest total, Australia got off to a rocky start, losing returning opener Mitchell Marsh — who was back in the side after missing the preceding ODI series with an ankle injury — and fellow opener Josh Inglis in quick succession. But Cooper Connolly, whose match-winning 149 in the final ODI rescued Australia from a potential series sweep just days prior, stepped up again to anchor the run chase. Striking four fours and three sixes, the batter compiled a steady 47 runs to steer Australia closer to the target.

    Connolly shared a valuable 40-run third-wicket partnership with Tim David, who contributed 20 runs, before he was caught off the bowling of Abdul Gaffar, who claimed his maiden international wicket on his T20 debut. The left-arm fast bowler finished his opening outing with strong figures of 2 wickets for 32 runs. Australia ultimately crossed the finish line in 18.2 overs, finishing on 133 for 6 to claim the first win of the series.

    For Bangladesh, the match was played under new leadership: regular captain Litton Das was forced out of the fixture with a calf injury sustained in the third ODI, forcing Tawhid Hridoy to step in as stand-in skipper. Hridoy won the pre-match toss and opted to bat first, but the decision failed to pay off, as no home batter could mount a sustained resistance against Australia’s controlled spin attack. While Bangladesh got off to a promising start at 39 for 1 after the first five overs, Zampa and Davies sparked a dramatic batting collapse that saw the home side lose seven wickets for just 60 runs, capping their disastrous batting performance.

    The second match of the three-match T20 series is scheduled to take place this Friday, with Bangladesh looking to bounce back and level the series before the deciding final fixture.

  • Bolivia signs $20m deal with US to fight drug trafficking, foreign ministry says

    Bolivia signs $20m deal with US to fight drug trafficking, foreign ministry says

    Nearly two decades after Bolivia expelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from its territory under former President Evo Morales, the Andean nation has marked a sharp reversal of course by inking a new bilateral counter-narcotics cooperation agreement with the United States. The landmark deal, signed in Bolivia’s administrative capital La Paz, will see Washington provide up to $20 million (£15 million) to train and equip local Bolivian security forces for the joint campaign against transnational drug smuggling, Bolivia’s foreign ministry confirmed.

    As the world’s third-largest producer of coca, the base raw material for cocaine, Bolivia holds significant strategic importance in global counter-narcotics efforts. This new agreement is the clearest signal yet of warming relations between the two countries following the election of centrist President Rodrigo Paz. Since taking office, Paz has moved Bolivia back into alignment with U.S. security priorities in the Western Hemisphere, most recently joining the Shield of the Americas, a regional security initiative spearheaded by the United States.

    The signing comes less than two weeks after Paz appointed Ernesto Justiniano, the country’s recently named “drug czar,” as Bolivia’s new defense minister. In March of this year, Paz joined 12 other regional leaders at the inaugural Shield of the Americas summit hosted by U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida. In recent weeks, alliance member states have thrown their public support behind Paz amid a growing wave of anti-government protests and road blockades targeting his administration. In a joint statement released May 21, the coalition reaffirmed that it “stands with the government of Bolivia” and voiced deep concern over protests aimed at subverting constitutional order and destabilizing the democratically elected government.

    While counter-narcotics collaboration is the core of the new Bolivia-U.S. deal, the broader Shield of the Americas initiative is framed by its creators as a campaign to combat what it labels “narco-terrorism.” As part of his stated pledge to block illicit drugs from reaching U.S. consumers, President Trump has also authorized U.S. military forces to target watercraft suspected of smuggling controlled substances across international waters. Since early September, these strikes have killed more than 200 people in Caribbean and Pacific waters, a tactic that has drawn sharp criticism from legal experts who argue the operations violate fundamental norms of international law.

    In the most recent of these strikes, confirmed by U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) on Tuesday, one person aboard the targeted vessel was killed and two others survived. Southcom claims intelligence confirmed the vessel was involved in active drug trafficking operations, but has not released any public evidence to back this assertion. The U.S. embassy in Bolivia has confirmed to Agence France-Presse that Washington will “work closely with the Bolivian government to provide training, equipment, and other forms of support” under the new agreement. The BBC has also reached out to the embassy for additional comment, and Bolivia’s foreign ministry says the overarching goal of the pact is to strengthen domestic institutions responsible for public security, criminal investigation, and countering transnational organized crime.

  • All the ways Iran beat Trump into submission

    All the ways Iran beat Trump into submission

    Three months after the United States and Israel launched a large-scale military campaign against Iran, the outcome has defied nearly all early expectations: the Islamic Republic has demonstrated far greater strategic resilience than Western military analysts predicted, and has now seized the upper hand in the conflict’s political and diplomatic landscape. This unexpected reversal of fortune, outlined by two leading war studies scholars from King’s College London, offers a stark lesson in the dynamics of asymmetric conflict between vastly mismatched military powers.

    When the joint US-Israeli military operation launched in late February 2026, almost all outside observers forecast a swift collapse of the Tehran government. The conflict was lopsided from the start: Iran faced two nuclear-armed adversaries with the world’s most sophisticated military technology, and the scale of the invasion surpassed any military pressure Iran had endured in nearly a century.

    For weeks, US and Israeli air and missile forces carried out relentless bombardment across Iran. Precision airstrikes and targeted assassinations eliminated top political and military leadership, including long-time supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s conventional air and naval forces were all but destroyed, hundreds of missile launchers and air defense systems were reduced to rubble, and the country’s internal security infrastructure suffered catastrophic damage. Thousands of tons of munitions were dropped on Iranian nuclear facilities, missile production plants, and drone manufacturing sites. While Iran quickly moved to install new leadership and mobilize its remaining military assets for a counterattack, the regime faced an undeniable existential threat in the opening weeks of the war. At that time, the idea that Iran could avoid full surrender, retain its political sovereignty, and even gain negotiating leverage against the world’s most powerful military alliance seemed impossible. Yet that is exactly what has transpired.

    Jerusalem-based Middle East analyst Daniel Sobelman explains that for a weaker military power to avoid defeat in an asymmetric conflict against a far stronger adversary, it must shift the “balance of vulnerability” in its favor. That requires two core steps: preserving critical retaliatory military capabilities, and systematically exploiting the structural vulnerabilities of the opposing side. This strategic logic has long been central to Iranian military planning: Iranian officials have repeatedly emphasized that shifting the balance of vulnerability is the foundation of asymmetric deterrence and wartime strategy.

    While Tehran’s pre-war deterrence posture failed to prevent the US-Israeli invasion, Iranian commanders successfully rewrote that balance over three months of sustained fighting. By inflicting unacceptable costs on the attacking coalition and exploiting unforeseen vulnerabilities, Iran not only survived the onslaught but forced the US and Israel to the negotiating table for a ceasefire.

    By April, it became clear that the US and Israel could not force Iran to surrender – a goal US President Donald Trump had publicly framed as forcing Iran to “cry uncle”. The coalition failed to achieve its core objective of regime change, and it never succeeded in destroying Iran’s entire stockpile of missiles and attack drones.

    Iran absorbed the devastating initial blows, but retained enough retaliatory capacity to launch consistent missile and drone strikes against Israeli population centers and US military bases across the Persian Gulf. It also targeted critical energy infrastructure in US-aligned Arab Gulf states, undermining Washington’s stated core goal of protecting its regional allies and throwing the Gulf’s reputation as a stable hub for energy production into chaos. These strikes sent a clear message to regional states: aligning with the US in this conflict creates major security risks, not protection.

    Most impactfully, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, cutting off one of the world’s most critical arteries for global oil, natural gas, and fertilizer trade. The closure triggered immediate cascading disruptions to global energy and food supplies, spreading the cost of the conflict far beyond the Middle East. Iran also forced the US, Israel, and Gulf allies to expend massive stockpiles of precision munitions – a slow-to-replenish resource that created a new critical vulnerability for the coalition to pressure.

    To escalate pressure on the coalition, Iran has issued further threats to raise the economic and human cost of the conflict: it has warned it will expand attacks on energy and infrastructure targets across Israel and the Gulf, and could target critical undersea internet cables running through the Strait of Hormuz. It has also threatened to mobilize its Houthi allies in Yemen to disrupt shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea, another critical global trade chokepoint.

    It is true that the US and Israel achieved many of their stated short-term military goals: they severely degraded Iran’s nuclear program, conventional military capabilities, and domestic defense industries. But Iran successfully blocked the coalition from achieving its overarching strategic goals, and inflicted massive strategic, diplomatic, military, political, and economic costs on the US, Israel, their Gulf allies, and the global economy.

    Tehran still remains at a major conventional military disadvantage, and remains vulnerable to future US and Israeli airstrikes. But as things stand today, it holds a clear upper hand at the political and strategic level. Iran has forced the Trump administration to seek an exit from the conflict, retains the ability to reclose the Strait of Hormuz at will, and can still strike critical targets across the region at any time.

    Iran has also moved to revamp its Axis of Resistance network, which includes Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemeni Houthis, as a core pillar of its deterrence and wartime strategy. Tehran recently announced the creation of a new “security belt” for the alliance, and unveiled a new doctrine for a “unified resistance front” that mandates a coordinated retaliatory response from all members to any attack on any single part of the network.

    Looking ahead, Tehran is expected to leverage its current perceived strategic advantage to strengthen its position both on the battlefield and in negotiations with Washington. Its goal is not just to survive the conflict, but to emerge with a stronger long-term strategic position that allows it to rebuild and expand its key retaliatory capabilities, particularly missiles and drones, while continuing to exploit the vulnerabilities of its adversaries.

  • Search for six-year-old Ebola patient after armed men storm DR Congo hospital

    Search for six-year-old Ebola patient after armed men storm DR Congo hospital

    A violent attack on an Ebola treatment facility in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has triggered an urgent search operation for a 6-year-old confirmed Ebola patient and her mother, who were abducted from the hospital by armed men armed with knives, local health authorities have confirmed.

    According to a formal statement released by Dr. Lubambo Maboko Gaston, a senior local health official, the pair were taken from Wanamahika Hospital in the conflict-affected city of Butembo by what he described as a group of ‘very angry’ assailants. It remains unclear whether the attackers had any prior personal connection to the child or her family, but the incident fits a dangerous pattern of rising violence against Ebola response infrastructure that has plagued the current outbreak.

    Deep-seated suspicion and misinformation around Ebola treatment efforts have created a volatile environment for medical responders across the affected region. In a conversation with Reuters, Dr. Gaston issued an urgent appeal to the abducted pair to voluntarily turn themselves in at a formal health facility, warning that delayed care would not only put their own health at severe risk of worsening outcomes but also threaten the health of their family and community by enabling further virus transmission.

    This attack is not an isolated event. During the current outbreak, Ebola treatment centers have been targeted repeatedly by community members distrustful of medical efforts. Official counts from response teams have already confirmed 840 total cases and nearly 200 deaths from the virus to date.

    Just last month, tensions boiled over in two separate communities. In Mongbwalu, local police were forced to fire warning shots into the air to disperse an angry crowd that attempted to forcibly retrieve the bodies of Ebola victims from a local health facility. Just a few days before that incident, residents of Rwampara — a town located 85 kilometers southeast of Mongbwalu — set fire to hospital isolation tents after authorities blocked them from collecting the body of a man who had died from suspected Ebola.

    Health experts emphasize that the bodies of people who die from Ebola carry an extremely high viral load, making them far more infectious than living patients in most cases. Unregulated contact and traditional burial preparations with infected remains are one of the most common drivers of new Ebola clusters, making these forced retrievals an especially major public health threat.

    Local leaders say much of the unrest stems from widespread misinformation that has spread through rural and remote parts of the affected provinces. ‘People are not properly informed or sensitised about what is happening. For a certain segment of the population, especially in remote areas, Ebola is an invention by outsiders – it does not exist,’ local politician Luc Malembe Malembe explained to the BBC in an interview last month. ‘They believe it is the NGOs and hospitals creating this to make money, and this is tragic.’

    Complicating response efforts further, the current outbreak is caused by Bundibugyo, a rare strain of Ebola that has no licensed vaccine currently available for use. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed that it will take months of development and testing before a specific vaccine for this strain is ready for widespread deployment.

    The abduction took place on Monday in North Kivu, one of three eastern DRC provinces currently at the center of the outbreak, alongside Ituri and South Kivu. Ituri province remains the epicenter of ongoing transmission. The WHO has repeatedly warned that ongoing armed conflict in the region is a major barrier to containing the spread of the virus. The M23 rebel group currently occupies large swathes of both North and South Kivu, leaving vast areas inaccessible to medical response teams.

    More coverage of the DRC Ebola outbreak and other news from across the African continent is available at BBCAfrica.com, and audiences can follow BBC Africa’s reporting on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

  • Kylian Mbappé by the numbers: Star striker starts his World Cup by breaking France scoring record

    Kylian Mbappé by the numbers: Star striker starts his World Cup by breaking France scoring record

    PARIS – In a defining moment of his already storied international career, Kylian Mbappé etched his name into French football history on Tuesday, netting a brace against Senegal at the 2026 FIFA World Cup to surpass Olivier Giroud as Les Bleus’ all-time leading goalscorer.

    The 27-year-old Real Madrid striker found the back of the net twice in France’s 3-1 victory, pushing his national team goal tally to 58 – one clear of Giroud, who retired from international football following the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The milestone caps nearly a decade of elite service for France, with Mbappé’s first senior international goal coming nine years after he first pulled on the iconic blue jersey.

    Looking ahead, Mbappé will have immediate opportunities to extend his record. France is set to face Iraq in Philadelphia next Monday, before wrapping up Group I play against Norway in Boston four days later. If France advances deep into the tournament, the 27-year-old is also on track to break the team’s all-time appearance record. He has now earned 99 caps for his country, just four behind former manager and ex-captain Didier Deschamps’ 103 appearances, and is on pace to surpass goalkeeper Hugo Lloris’ existing record of 145 caps if he stays fit, a mark widely expected to fall before the end of his international career.

    Beyond his new all-time national scoring record, the World Cup milestone also added another entry to Mbappé’s growing collection of global tournament honors. His two goals against Senegal brought his career World Cup goal total to 14, moving him past French legend Just Fontaine, who scored all 13 of his World Cup goals at the 1958 tournament in Sweden. That puts Mbappé just two goals behind the all-time men’s World Cup scoring record of 16, shared by former Germany striker Miroslav Klose and Argentina’s Lionel Messi – who ironically scored a brilliant hat trick in his own World Cup fixture just hours after Mbappé hit his brace against Senegal.

    A deep dive into Mbappé’s career statistics reveals a pattern of historic achievement from the earliest days of his international tenure. He made his France debut as an 18-year-old substitute in a World Cup qualifier away to Luxembourg in March 2017, and scored his first senior goal just five months later against the Netherlands at the Stade de France in August that same year.

    He has notched three hat tricks for France to date, each more notable than the last. His first came in 2021 during a World Cup qualifier against Kazakhstan, where he scored four goals alongside Karim Benzema. The second came in the dramatic 2022 World Cup final against Argentina, and the third during a record 14-0 European Championship qualifying win over Gibraltar in 2023.

    Between early June 2023 and late March 2024, Mbappé notched a goal in seven consecutive international matches, the longest scoring streak of his France career. Off the pitch, he has maintained a remarkably clean disciplinary record, picking up just 10 yellow cards and never receiving a red card in nine years of international play.

    Mbappé also holds a unique place in World Cup final history. He has scored in two separate men’s World Cup finals: against Croatia in 2018, when he was just 19 years old, and against Argentina in the 2022 final. He is only one of two players ever to score a hat trick in a men’s World Cup final, joining England’s Geoff Hurst, who achieved the feat in the 1966 final against West Germany. He joins Zinedine Zidane as just the second Frenchman to score in two separate World Cup finals, and is only the second teenager ever to score in a men’s World Cup final, alongside Brazil legend Pelé, who hit the net in the 1958 final as a 17-year-old.