Global Pulse

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  • Afghanistan marks 5 years under the Taliban with safer streets but pleas for jobs and education

    Afghanistan marks 5 years under the Taliban with safer streets but pleas for jobs and education

    It has been five full years since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, a watershed moment that followed a sweeping territorial offensive launched as the United States and NATO withdrew their forces after 20 years of war. The withdrawal culminated in chaotic, widely documented scenes at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, where tens of thousands of Afghans crowded the facility desperate to flee the country ahead of the new regime’s takeover.

    As the Islamist administration marks its five-year anniversary in power, the legacy of its rule remains deeply divided: while many Kabul residents acknowledge an end to decades of open conflict that shook the country, widespread frustration over persistent economic hardship, systemic exclusion of women and girls from education and employment, and international isolation casts a long shadow over the regime’s claimed progress.

    For many ordinary Afghans, the most immediate improvement cited is the end of large-scale war. “Thank God, the past five years have passed in safety,” said 30-year-old Mohammad Qasim, speaking amid the country’s ongoing economic crisis. Like many Afghans, he emphasized that the Taliban’s primary unfinished task is addressing widespread youth unemployment, calling on the administration to open pathways to work and education for the country’s growing young population. “We, along with the entire nation, call upon the government to create employment opportunities for the youth and to encourage them to pursue education,” Qasim added.

    The most contentious and widely condemned policy of the Taliban administration remains its sweeping rollback of women and girls’ rights. Though the group initially pledged to protect women’s rights following its takeover, it quickly implemented a ban on girls above age 12 attending secondary education, followed by a full ban on women’s access to higher education, citing its own strict interpretation of Islamic law. Additional restrictions have since barred most women from formal employment and required women to be accompanied by a male guardian for domestic and international travel.

    The United Nations has acknowledged that large-scale conflict has decreased across Afghanistan since the takeover, but has repeatedly warned that durable stability and economic recovery are impossible unless the Taliban reverses its gender-based restrictions. “A reduction in conflict has brought tangible benefits for many Afghans and created opportunities to focus on recovery, development and regional economic cooperation,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) noted in a pre-anniversary statement. The mission added, however, that “the restrictions on women and girls impede Afghanistan’s recovery and its reintegration with the international community.”

    This week, UN Women reinforced that warning, declaring Afghanistan is currently home to the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis. “Half a decade after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan has systematically dismantled the rights of half its population, making it a global outlier with no parallel in the modern world,” the agency said, adding that the exclusion of women from public life, education, employment, healthcare and the justice system has only intensified over the past year.

    For Afghan women’s rights advocates like Fazila Soroush, a 39-year-old Kabul-based entrepreneur and activist, the five-year anniversary is a moment to demand concrete action from the Taliban to reverse education bans that have sidelined an entire generation of girls. “We consider it essential that the officials of the Islamic Emirate who had announced the closure of schools and universities until further notice, now make a clear and practical decision regarding this matter,” Soroush said.

    Across Kabul, the Taliban has moved forward with public preparations for anniversary celebrations, with street vendors selling the group’s distinctive white flag with black script, and workers painting pro-Sharia slogans on public walls, including messages that “The Islamic system has been achieved at the cost of the martyrs’ blood” and “Our commitment stands firm: Consolidation and implementation of Islamic Sharia.”

    Taliban officials defend their five-year record, framing the end of decades of war as their core achievement. Molvi Hayatullah Mahajar Farahi, deputy minister for broadcasting at the Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture, told the Associated Press that in addition to delivering nationwide security, the administration has stabilized the Afghan currency, upgraded critical infrastructure, and established new industrial parks that have created new jobs for Afghans.

    “Naturally, challenges and difficulties exist, yet we can highlight several accomplishments,” Farahi said. When pressed about the ban on girls’ and women’s education, Farahi declined to address the policy directly, instead noting that “the level of investment made in universities surpasses anything seen in the past.” He added that “the Emirate continues its efforts to further organize and improve services for our citizens in the fields of education and other sectors.”

    Farahi rejected U.N. warnings that terrorist networks have reestablished footholds in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, dismissing the claims as “enemy propaganda, spread to portray the country as unstable.” On the issue of the Taliban’s ongoing international isolation, Farahi claimed the administration maintains working relations with roughly 40 countries, though to date only Russia has formally granted the Taliban government full diplomatic recognition. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has fulfilled all the requirements necessary for official recognition. It is now up to the international community and others to step forward and take the appropriate action,” he said.

    New U.N. data released this week underscores the depth of the educational crisis triggered by the Taliban’s gender ban. UNESCO estimates that 2.4 million girls are currently excluded from secondary education in Afghanistan — an increase of 200,000 from just one year ago. The restrictions have reversed 20 years of incremental progress in expanding educational access across the country, the agency said, noting that the crisis extends beyond gender exclusion: overall, 53% of primary school-aged Afghan children are out of school, and most schools lack basic infrastructure including clean water, sanitation and heating, with hundreds more closed due to frequent natural disasters.

    Compounding these challenges, the U.N. World Food Program warns that child malnutrition has reached critical levels in one-third of Afghanistan’s provinces, and conditions are expected to worsen as international funding shortfalls force cuts to food assistance and other life-saving support for vulnerable households.

    Even among Afghans who support the Taliban administration and welcome the end of open conflict, many are pushing for policy changes to address the country’s multiple crises. Dost Mohammad Khan, a 38-year-old Kabul resident who backs the Taliban, said the past five years have delivered the stability Afghans longed for after decades of war, but the country needs trained professionals from doctors to engineers to move forward. “We also call upon the Islamic Emirate to permit women to attend school under the sharia dress code and we urge the public to heed the directives of the Emirate also,” Khan said.

  • Stolen Matisse artworks recovered by police in Brazil

    Stolen Matisse artworks recovered by police in Brazil

    A high-profile art theft case from one of Brazil’s most iconic cultural institutions has marked a major breakthrough, with law enforcement announcing the recovery of eight rare Henri Matisse illustrations stolen nearly a year ago. The valuable artworks were discovered Thursday at a private residence in São Bernardo do Campo, a southern suburb of São Paulo, where officers took a 44-year-old suspect into custody at the scene of the seizure.

    The heist that shook Brazil’s cultural community unfolded on December 7 last year, when two robbers targeted the Mario de Andrade Library in downtown São Paulo during the final day of a special collaborative exhibition with the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art. Witness accounts confirm the assailants overpowered an on-duty security guard and two elderly visiting patrons before fleeing the library on foot through the main entrance, escaping quickly to a nearby metro station.

    According to local Brazilian news outlet Globo, the arrested suspect, João Paulo Linhares de Araujo, is believed to have acted as a storage middleman, holding the artworks on behalf of the criminal network that planned and carried out the robbery. Investigative sources name 53-year-old Laéssio Rodrigues de Oliveira, already described by Brazilian media as a repeat art thief with a long rap sheet, as the mastermind who planned and coordinated the heist. Oliveira has already been behind bars since April, arrested in connection with an unrelated art crime case.

    Thursday’s arrest marks the fourth person taken into custody in connection with the theft: Oliveira, a second man and a woman were all arrested previously in the ongoing investigation. The breakthrough brings partial closure to the case, however: five original engravings by iconic Brazilian modernist artist Candido Portinari, stolen alongside the Matisse works during the raid, remain missing as of the latest police update.

    The recovered Matisse works are original illustrations created for the artist’s famous limited-edition 1947 art book *Jazz*, with an official estimated combined market value of roughly $200,000 (£148,000). The Portinari works, meanwhile, were custom engravings created to illustrate a special edition of Brazilian writer José Lins do Rego’s classic novel *Menino de Engenho* (Plantation Boy). While the market valuation of the Matisse pieces is set at $200,000, art critics have noted their cultural and historical value is effectively incalculable; Matisse is widely ranked as one of the most influential visual artists of the 20th century, whose work redefined modern European and global art. Portinari, for his part, remains one of Brazil’s most celebrated modernist creators, best known for his iconic portrayals of rural workers and working-class life across the country.

    Following their recovery, the Matisse illustrations have already been returned to the Mario de Andrade Library, the city’s cultural department confirmed. In the wake of the high-profile theft, the institution has implemented a series of upgrades to its on-site security protocols to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

  • Man accused of murdering Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy hospitalised after suspected suicide attempt

    Man accused of murdering Ballarat mum Samantha Murphy hospitalised after suspected suicide attempt

    The high-profile disappearance case of a Ballarat mother has taken a shocking new turn, as the 24-year-old man accused of her murder has been rushed to hospital following an alleged suicide attempt behind bars.

    Patrick Orren Stephenson, son of former Australian Football League player Orren Stephenson, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Samantha Murphy, who disappeared while out for a solo run near her Ballarat home in February 2024. The case has gripped regional Victoria for months, as extensive search efforts by police and community volunteers failed to locate the missing mother, leaving the community with unresolved questions.

    According to reporting from 9News, the alleged incident unfolded on Friday inside the Melbourne Assessment Prison, where Stephenson has been held on remand while awaiting his trial. A spokesperson for Victoria’s Department of Justice and Community Safety later confirmed the incident to media, confirming that an unnamed remand prisoner from the facility had been transported to a hospital for urgent medical assessment. The department did not officially confirm Stephenson’s identity in line with standard correctional protocols, but multiple sources have confirmed he is the prisoner in question.

    Murphy was last captured on closed-circuit television leaving her home in a maroon athletic top and black leggings, which was the last confirmed sighting of the 51-year-old mother. When she failed to return home as expected later that day, her family contacted police immediately, triggering what would become one of the largest missing person searches in recent Victorian history. Search efforts focused on dense regional bushland areas surrounding Ballarat, including Canadian State Forest, Enfield State Park and Buninyong Bushland Reserve, but no trace of Murphy was found for months after her disappearance.

    Approximately four weeks after Murphy vanished, Victoria Police arrested Stephenson and charged him with her murder. He appeared before a Ballarat court the day after his arrest and has maintained his complete innocence from the moment he was taken into custody. It was not until May 2024, three months after Murphy disappeared, that investigators announced they had recovered several “items of interest” from a local dam, including Murphy’s mobile phone. No other substantial evidence has been released to the public as the case progresses through the court system.

    As of the latest update, Stephenson’s murder trial remains ongoing, and his court case is still active before the Victorian judiciary. No new court date has been announced following this week’s alleged suicide attempt, and the community continues to wait for answers in the case that has left a regional community heartbroken.

  • Delhi’s unusual challenge: Keeping monkeys and pigeons away from top badminton event

    Delhi’s unusual challenge: Keeping monkeys and pigeons away from top badminton event

    One of badminton’s most prestigious global tournaments, the BWF World Championships, is set to kick off on Monday at New Delhi’s iconic Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, bringing together the sport’s top athletes from across the globe. But this year, much of the pre-tournament conversation has centered not on title predictions or rivalries, but on an unusual challenge: keeping uninvited wildlife guests away from the competition courts.

    The preparations come in direct response to the high-profile disruptions that marred the capital’s January 2026 India Open tournament. What was meant to be a showcase of elite badminton and India’s ability to host major international sporting events instead became dominated by off-court issues. Famed for its dense urban macaque monkey populations and feral pigeon flocks, Delhi’s wildlife crashed the event: a wild monkey was spotted roaming inside the main stadium, while multiple matches had to be halted mid-play after pigeon droppings landed on active competition courts. Compounding these problems, hazardous levels of seasonal air pollution drew widespread criticism from visiting players, who reported respiratory difficulties during practice and play. The series of missteps left organizers eager to avoid a repeat of the negative headlines as they prepare for the far higher-stakes World Championships.

    To address the risk of animal intrusions, event authorities have rolled out a multi-layered set of precautionary upgrades to the 44-year-old venue, which was originally built for the 1982 Asian Games and most recently renovated for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. According to Sanjay Mishra, general secretary of the Badminton Association of India, nearly all entry points to the stadium have been modified to block wildlife access: original single wooden doors have been swapped out for auto-locking double-door systems, durable high-grade netting has been fitted over all open vents, roof gaps and other potential access routes, and a non-toxic gel has been applied to ledges and handles to deter pigeons from landing. Structural and cosmetic overhauls have also been completed across the stadium’s three main competition arenas, with lighting systems fully upgraded to eliminate the shadow issues on courts that drew player complaints during the India Open.

    The most talked-about pre-tournament measure has been the reported strategy to deter marauding rhesus macaques, a common nuisance in central Delhi’s public spaces. For decades, Indian authorities have relied on a traditional, low-cost method to repel smaller macaques: leveraging the animals’ natural fear of langurs, large native primates that are dominant over rhesus macaques. A viral social media video that circulated earlier this week showed a man mimicking langur calls inside the stadium grounds, leading multiple media outlets to report that organizers had hired langur impressionists for the championships. Even India’s star two-time Olympic badminton medalist PV Sindhu weighed in on the social media conversation, commenting: “Our solutions may be uniquely Indian, but so are our warmth, our spirit and our hospitality.”

    Mishra clarified to the BBC that no dedicated langur mimics have been hired specifically for the tournament, noting that an individual familiar with imitating langur calls was only briefly deployed at the stadium’s northern section as a precaution for its large, sprawling perimeter. This tactic is far from unprecedented for major Indian events: during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, authorities deployed live langurs at competition venues to scare off macaques, and for the 2023 G20 summit hosted in New Delhi, officials placed life-sized cutout posters of langurs across the capital to deter monkey intrusions.

    Beyond wildlife, Delhi’s well-documented seasonal air quality crisis remains a lingering concern, though the annual winter pollution peak has passed in mid-August. For India, a successful BWF World Championships carries far more weight than just badminton bragging rights: the country is actively working to build its reputation as a leading destination for global sports, and is already scheduled to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games, with a formal bid in the works for the 2036 Summer Olympics. The 2026 India Open’s high-profile missteps were a major embarrassment for the nation’s sporting ambitions, making a smooth, disruption-free World Championships a key priority.

    This year’s tournament, running from August 17 to 23, will feature all of the sport’s top-ranked players, including defending men’s world champion Shi Yuqi of China and defending women’s champion Akane Yamaguchi of Japan. Host nation India will pin its medal hopes on Sindhu, who is leading the country’s challenge in the women’s singles draw. For organizers, the ultimate goal is simple: over the course of the week, all headlines coming out of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium should focus on the athletes, the competitive matches, and the drama of badminton’s flagship event — not on rogue monkeys or pigeon droppings.

  • Teens who fled Venezuela after deadly quakes caught in another disaster in Colombia

    Teens who fled Venezuela after deadly quakes caught in another disaster in Colombia

    For 15-year-old Deivi Delfín, the nightmare of earthquakes never seems to end. Just months after surviving a catastrophic pair of back-to-back seismic events that destroyed their home and killed three immediate family members in Venezuela, he and his 17-year-old brother Winder thought they had found safety by joining their father in Colombia. Barely three days after arriving, disaster struck again: one of the strongest earthquakes in Colombia’s modern history shook their new city, leaving the brothers already broken by trauma reeling from another terrifying shake.

    The Delfín brothers’ tragedy began on June 24, when two massive earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 hit just 39 seconds apart along Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. Their hometown of La Guaira, the region worst impacted by the tremors, would see entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble, with the Venezuelan government reporting a death toll that exceeded 6,300 people to date. To this day, no official count of missing people has been released.

    On that fateful evening, the two teenagers had been heading back from a day trip to a nearby Caribbean beach. Winder had begged his mother Yusmani to let their 10-year-old brother Moissés join them, but the young boy had been grounded for misbehavior and stayed home with their mother and grandmother Carmen. When the ground began to roll violently, the brothers clung to each other and shut their eyes, certain they would not survive. When the shaking stopped, a thick cloud of dust and debris obscured everything around them.

    When they reached their 12-story apartment building, all that remained was a mountain of tangled concrete: their mother, grandmother, and 10-year-old brother were trapped beneath the ruins. “My world came crashing down,” Winder recalled of the moment he realized what had happened. Their father Deivid, who had already been working in Cali for the family, spent three frantic days searching for his two surviving sons after rushing back to Venezuela, while the teenagers joined rescue efforts, sleeping on the street and going without food for three days straight.

    Deivid warned his teenage sons that crawling through the unstable rubble put their own lives at grave risk, but the boys refused to stand down. Smaller and more agile than adult rescue workers, they squeezed through narrow gaps between collapsed concrete slabs, navigating by the faint light of cell phones and handheld torches to flag potential locations of their trapped family to official crews. It was during these weeks of grueling, heart-wrenching searching that both boys say they lost their childhood forever. “I don’t feel like a child anymore,” Deivi told BBC Mundo in an interview.

    Slowly, the boys pulled small fragments of their old life from the wreckage: a pair of Moissés’s shorts, their mother’s well-worn Bible, an unfinished handwritten shopping list. One day, Deivi spotted a scrap of patterned fabric he recognized as his grandmother’s floral skirt, leading rescuers to recover her body first. Days later, Winder was the first to identify his mother’s remains: a plastic bag she had been using to dye her hair when the boys left for the beach was still wrapped around her head. When rescue crews lifted the heavy concrete slab that pinned Yusmani’s body down, they made a devastating discovery: little Moissés was still clinging to his mother’s hand. At the sight, Deivid collapsed, overwhelmed with grief. “When his little head fell into my hands… I broke down,” he shared.

    After burying their three lost family members, the brothers traveled to Cali to start a new life with their father, who had already settled in a modest working-class neighborhood on the northeastern outskirts of the Colombian city. The boys say they hold onto hope that they can build a quiet life focused on work and study, one that would make their late mother proud. But that fragile new start was shaken to its core just days after they arrived, when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake—Colombia’s strongest seismic event in a century—struck the country, leaving hundreds dead and hundreds more missing across the nation. Cali was once again among the areas hardest hit by the shaking.

    Deivi was asleep when the tremor began, and at first thought the gentle swaying was just a nightmare. When the shaking grew more violent, he scrambled out of bed and ran outside, followed immediately by Winder. The brothers clung to a metal street gate as the ground moved beneath them, waiting out the worst of the tremor. Their father, who had been out running errands when the shaking started, immediately ran back home to check on his sons, only to find the house empty. A neighbor told him she had seen the boys run out to the street, and after searching through nearby blocks, he found them waiting outside the barbershop where he works. It was the traumatized teenagers who had to calm their panicking father: “Dad, stay calm. We’ve been through this before,” they told him.

    Today, the boys say the memory of the Venezuela quake continues to haunt them, and the second shake in Colombia has only deepened their trauma. But even after unthinkable loss and repeated disaster, they hold onto small hopes for the future, clinging to each other as they rebuild their lives from scratch.

  • Farage wins UK by-election as Count Binface claims ‘moral victory’

    Farage wins UK by-election as Count Binface claims ‘moral victory’

    In a widely watched UK parliamentary by-election that captured national attention for its unusual cast of candidates and political context, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage secured a decisive victory in Clacton on Friday, while surprise high-performing joke candidate Count Binface declared an unexpected moral victory for his campaign.

    The contest, which drew a historic 34 candidates — resulting in ballot papers nearly one meter long, one of the longest in British electoral history — was triggered by Farage’s resignation from the seat he had held since the 2024 general election. The hard-right politician stepped down amid an ongoing parliamentary watchdog investigation into allegations of undeclared financial gifts, a move that Britain’s major mainstream parties, including the incumbent Labour government, dismissed as a political stunt and opted not to contest.

    When official results were announced, Farage, founder of Reform UK, took a commanding 63 percent of the vote in the eastern English coastal constituency, a strong showing that confirmed pre-election predictions of his victory. Even before vote counting concluded, Farage declared victory at a rally for supporters in Essex, broadcast live on social platform X, telling cheering backers: “The verdict is in and it is a convincing and overwhelming win.” He declined to attend the official count venue, citing an Essex Police warning of a planned organized campaign to disrupt the electoral process. Local election officials later confirmed the vote proceeded safely and securely with police support.

    Farage framed the by-election as a battle between Clacton voters and the national political establishment, casting the financial investigation against him as a coordinated stitch-up to remove him from office. The parliamentary standards probe is examining a reported £5 million ($6.7 million) donation to Reform UK from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne, with Farage and deputy leader Richard Tice denying any wrongdoing in failing to declare the gift. London’s Metropolitan Police also launched a separate investigation last year into party donations ahead of the 2024 general election.

    While Farage’s landslide was widely expected, the performance of Count Binface — the satirical alter ego of comedian Jon Harvey, who campaigns wearing a rubbish bin on his head and styles himself as an intergalactic space warrior from the fictional planet Sigma IX — far outstripped analyst predictions. Binface secured 9,455 votes, equal to 27 percent of the total vote share, turning the contest into a two-horse race after major parties bowed out.

    Speaking early Friday from the count venue at Clacton Leisure Centre, Binface claimed a moral victory, noting that with major mainstream parties declining to field a candidate, it fell to fringe candidates to offer voters an opposition choice. “If the other parties choose not to stand, somebody has to stand up and be the opposition. And so it’s my humble duty to actually be His Majesty’s official opposition,” he said, adding that he respected the result if voters chose to return Farage as their member of parliament.

    Voter turnout for the by-election hit approximately 44 percent, down from 59 percent in the 2024 national general election, a drop that is typical for off-cycle by-elections in the UK. Many voters in the seaside resort constituency expressed apathy toward the contest, with even some Reform UK campaign volunteers describing the election as unnecessary and ridiculous. “It’s all to make Nigel Farage look like an idiot, basically. But he doesn’t look like an idiot to me or his supporters,” local campaigner Jane Embleton told AFP ahead of the vote.

    Political analysts have characterized the by-election result as having limited wider ramifications for national British politics. Farage’s Reform UK led national opinion polls for 18 months before slipping in recent surveys, but the Clacton seat has long been a stronghold for pro-Brexit, right-wing politics, having backed Brexit by a large margin in the 2016 referendum.

    Stijn van Kessel, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP: “This by-election was ultimately of limited consequence. Farage successfully managed to mobilise supporters in a constituency where he is popular. But the result does not reflect Reform’s support across the country.”

    Stuart Fox, senior politics lecturer at the University of Exeter, noted that Farage’s return to parliament will now allow the parliamentary standards investigation to resume, potentially putting Farage back in the spotlight and forcing another by-election in the near future. “Now he’s back in Parliament, the standards commissioner will resume the investigation,” Fox said. “He could easily be forced to face another by-election in a matter of weeks.”

  • Fire in Berlin high-rise injured 5, prompted some residents to consider jumping to safety

    Fire in Berlin high-rise injured 5, prompted some residents to consider jumping to safety

    A large-scale fire that broke out in a 21-story residential high-rise in central Berlin left around five individuals injured and triggered chaotic, high-stakes rescue operations that ended with the blaze being contained on Friday morning, according to local German media reports.

    The intensity of the fire trapped multiple residents in upper floors of the building, with several people even contemplating jumping from heights to escape the spreading smoke and flames, the reports added. While five people have been confirmed injured, the full extent and severity of those injuries remain unclear as of Friday midday, German national news agency DPA relayed. Every resident from the affected building was successfully evacuated from the site by emergency responders.

    In one particularly harrowing incident documented during the response, one resident was forced to jump from their endangered floor directly into the aerial rescue basket of a responding fire truck. A spokesperson for the Berlin Fire Department characterized the entire rescue mission as an exceptionally dramatic operation, noting that teams had to work under intense pressure to reach trapped civilians. Details on the vertical distance of that high-stakes jump have not been released to the public as of yet.

    According to DPA’s preliminary on-site reporting, the fire ignited at approximately 6:30 a.m. local time in the dense Friedrichshain neighborhood, just a short distance from Berlin’s busy Ostbahnhof central train station. It took emergency teams less than three hours from the initial call-out to bring the blaze fully under control, a relatively fast response that helped prevent a larger number of casualties.

    Investigators have confirmed the fire originated in a private apartment located on the 11th floor of the building, before spreading upward to the residential unit directly above the origin point. At this early stage of the investigation, the official cause of the blaze has not been determined, as authorities continue to examine the site for clues.

  • Prabowo touts Indonesia’s economic growth and investment gains in State of the Nation address

    Prabowo touts Indonesia’s economic growth and investment gains in State of the Nation address

    In a nationally televised annual State of the Nation address delivered to Indonesia’s parliament in Jakarta on Friday, President Prabowo Subianto highlighted the Southeast Asian nation’s strongest first-half economic expansion in 13 years, projecting that full-year growth could hit 6% despite persistent global economic volatility. However, his optimistic outlook has drawn pushback from economists, who argue headline growth numbers are disconnected from the everyday struggles of ordinary Indonesians.

    Prabowo outlined that Indonesia’s economy grew 5.61% in the first quarter of 2024, followed by a 5.45% expansion in the first half of the year. This marks the highest first-quarter and first-semester growth rate the country has recorded since 2011. “With the right policies, rational policies and policies based on common sense, I am confident our economic growth can reach 6% by the end of this year,” the president told the assembled lawmakers, striking a confident tone in his speech.

    Notably, Prabowo emphasized that robust GDP growth and rising investment are not ends in themselves. He stressed that the true measure of economic success lies in whether expansion translates to improved welfare for the general population, particularly low-income households. “For me, growth and investment are not the final goal. Our goal is the welfare of our people,” Prabowo said. “High growth that cannot be enjoyed by most of our people is of no benefit to us.”

    The address came ahead of Indonesia’s 81st Independence Day celebrations on Monday, with the president outlining that every rupiah of incoming investment should be directed toward creating formal employment, expanding access to critical public services, and boosting government support for vulnerable communities. He cited recent investment data to back up his administration’s track record: realized investment hit 1,931 trillion rupiah (equivalent to $108 billion) in 2023, generating more than 2.7 million new jobs, while first-half 2024 investment reached 1,010 trillion rupiah ($56.7 billion), creating an additional 1.4 million positions.

    Prabowo also highlighted several flagship social and economic policies his administration has rolled out, which he said are already delivering tangible benefits to Indonesians. These include the signature Free Nutritious Meals program, expanded social assistance schemes, and regulatory policies designed to boost downstream processing of Indonesia’s abundant natural resources, moving the country beyond exporting unprocessed raw materials. “Our promise of nutritious meals, social assistance and down-streaming is no longer merely a plan on paper,” he said. “It is already underway, and the people are feeling the benefits.”

    Launched in 2023 to address widespread malnutrition, the Free Nutritious Meals program aims to deliver free daily meals to nearly 90 million school-aged children and pregnant women across the archipelago. Beyond improving public nutrition, the government designed the initiative to stimulate demand for local agricultural goods and support employment across the domestic food supply chain. However, the program has faced growing public and regulatory scrutiny in recent weeks following a string of food poisoning incidents that have sickened thousands of students nationwide. Most recently, on Thursday, 269 students from three high schools in Karo Regency, North Sumatra, fell ill after eating meals supplied through the government program.

    Beyond concerns over the free meals initiative, some independent economists have questioned whether the government’s strong growth figures align with the economic realities facing most Indonesian households. Nailul Huda, a researcher at Jakarta-based think tank the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios), pointed to slowing household consumption, rising layoffs, and persistent challenges in securing stable formal work as evidence that the benefits of recent growth have not been widely shared.

    Huda noted that softening consumer confidence and ongoing labor market concerns point to a clear gap between headline GDP growth and the daily experiences of most Indonesians, especially those in lower income brackets. “The government always claims the economy is growing strongly, but lower-income communities do not feel it,” Huda said.

  • Perth teens accused of beating black swan and forcing it to inhale vape fumes face new charges after police confirm swan’s death

    Perth teens accused of beating black swan and forcing it to inhale vape fumes face new charges after police confirm swan’s death

    A disturbing case of animal cruelty in Western Australia has taken a tragic turn, with authorities confirming the black swan abused by two local teenage boys has succumbed to its injuries, leading to upgraded criminal charges against the pair.

    The incident unfolded earlier this month near Endeavour Island, located off the coast of the Mandurah region roughly 77 kilometers south of Perth. The two suspects — a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old from the Erskine suburb — reportedly took the swan out onto an inflatable watercraft before committing the brutal acts, which they recorded on camera to share on social media.

    Court documents and police reports detail the cruelty: the pair first removed a fishing lure tangled around the swan’s neck, then one of the teenagers held the bird’s beak open and forced a vape device into its mouth, forcing it to inhale large amounts of vape fumes. The second suspect repeatedly struck the swan on the head during the attack. Once the abuse was complete, the attackers uploaded the graphic footage to social platforms, where it spread quickly and sparked widespread public outrage.

    Police quickly identified the underage suspects after the video went viral, and initially charged both with one count of causing unnecessary harm to an animal. In a formal update issued Friday, Western Australia Police confirmed the critically injured swan had died from the abuse, clearing the way for additional legal action.

    “As part of ongoing investigations into the Mandurah animal cruelty incident earlier this month that ended with the death of a black swan, Mandurah Detectives have uncovered a second alleged offence,” a Western Australia Police spokesperson shared in an official statement.

    Following the confirmation of the swan’s death, prosecutors have added an additional count of animal cruelty by causing unnecessary harm to the existing charges against the two teens. The case has sparked renewed debate around youth accountability for animal cruelty and the enforcement of animal protection laws across Western Australia, with animal welfare advocates calling for stricter penalties to deter similar violent acts against wildlife.

  • France and England battle multiple wildfires as record heat grips Europe

    France and England battle multiple wildfires as record heat grips Europe

    A punishing new wave of record-shattering heat has swept across large swathes of Western Europe this week, creating tinder-dry conditions that have ignited dozens of destructive wildfires stretching from southwestern France to coastal Croatia, overwhelming firefighting teams and forcing thousands of residents and tourists to flee their homes.

    France, which is already enduring its driest calendar year on record, has been one of the hardest-hit regions. Overnight Thursday into Friday, a fast-moving wildfire tore through vast woodland areas in Landes, a coastal region in the country’s southwest. Local regional authorities confirmed Friday that the blaze forced more than 500 residents of the town of Luglon to evacuate their properties, as hundreds of firefighters were deployed to contain the spread. This blaze is just one of multiple major wildfires burning through forested land across France this week, with even normally cool, wet regions in northern France and Brittany seeing major outbreaks. Last month, a catastrophic, historic wildfire near the southwestern city of Bordeaux destroyed thousands of hectares of forest and displaced 250,000 people.

    Across the English Channel, the United Kingdom recorded its hottest day of the year Thursday, with temperatures hitting 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in west London. That same heat fueled wildfires across the West Midlands of central England, where multiple residential properties were completely destroyed by flames. Simon Tuhill, chief fire officer for the region, described the outbreak as one of the most significant wildfire incidents the service has ever responded to. New data from the UK’s National Fire Chiefs Council shows 1,017 wildfires have broken out across England and Wales since the start of 2024.

    The extreme heat has spread beyond France and the UK, devastating parts of Southern Europe as well. On the Croatian Adriatic coast, a wildfire fanned by strong gusts of wind erupted overnight Thursday near the coastal town of Omis, spreading rapidly toward the town center. The blaze forced more than 1,000 residents to evacuate, cut power to parts of Omis, destroyed dozens of vehicles, and even ignited fires on anchored boats, leading some evacuees to jump into the Adriatic Sea to escape. By early Friday, 36 people had sought medical treatment for fire-related injuries, 14 were admitted to hospitals, and seven remained in critical, life-threatening condition. Firefighters managed to contain the Omis blaze by Friday morning, but air crews were immediately dispatched further south to the Peljesac peninsula, where a second large wildfire broke out overnight.

    Further east in northern Greece, a wildfire swept through a coastal pine forest Thursday, threatening residential and tourist properties. Authorities evacuated more than 300 vacationers and local residents by sea to safety.

    Meteorologists across the continent recorded near-record temperatures Thursday, with parts of France ranging from southwestern Aquitaine to the eastern Rhone River valley hitting 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit). Forecasters predicted temperatures would hold near those extreme levels Friday before cooling over the weekend. Climate scientists have repeatedly linked this type of extreme heat event across Europe to human-caused climate change, noting that many European nations, accustomed to long, cool winters and moderate summer temperatures, remain poorly equipped to handle prolonged extreme heat, with most residential and public buildings lacking air conditioning.