Global Pulse

作者： admin

  • Uefa preparing criminal legal action against Infantino

    Uefa preparing criminal legal action against Infantino

    A bitter rift at the top of global football has escalated dramatically, with European football’s governing body Uefa moving forward with planned criminal legal proceedings against Fifa president Gianni Infantino centered on a now-abandoned scheme to sell private stakes in the World Cup and other top Fifa competitions.

    Internal documents obtained by BBC Sport senior journalist Daniel Austin confirm Uefa has filed applications to access critical evidence and documents that will underpin its upcoming criminal case against Infantino in Switzerland, where the global governing body Fifa is headquartered. The European association accuses the Fifa president of criminal mismanagement over the controversial proposal.

    The plan at the center of the dispute was first tabled by Infantino shortly after this summer’s men’s World Cup. Under the proposal, a new subsidiary called Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) would be created to hold the commercial rights to the men’s World Cup, women’s World Cup and Club World Cup, with minority stakes then sold off to private external investors. The scheme was quickly scrapped after triggering widespread condemnation and backlash from confederations and member associations across global football.

    In its evidence application, Uefa lays out explosive allegations that Infantino designed the scheme specifically to benefit himself and a small inner circle of associates, at the direct expense of Fifa, its 211 member associations, and the broader global football community. “In truth, it was a vehicle for Infantino and that small circle to acquire a permanent stake in and otherwise profit from Fifa’s most valuable assets to the detriment of Fifa, its members, and other parties within the football family,” the document reads.

    Uefa further claims that Infantino rushed the plan through internal Fifa approval in a last-minute, hastily called meeting. Only a limited group of Fifa management staff were invited, with some learning of the multi-billion-dollar proposal for the first time at the meeting and given just hours to sign off on the unprecedented scheme, the application alleges.

    The European body also argues that the valuation of the stakes on offer was never verified by an independent third party, and that the $4.2bn asking price for a permanent stake in Fifa’s commercial operations implied an unreasonably low total enterprise value of just $20bn. Uefa calls the pricing “a fraudulently off-market price promoted by Infantino for his own benefit”, noting that the valuation was not set through an open, competitive bidding process or vetted by independent valuation experts.

    To build its case, Uefa has filed an evidence access request with a Florida court, seeking to obtain records held by two Fifa-affiliated entities based in the U.S. state: Fifa Americas and FWC2026. These documents would then be used to support the criminal proceedings planned for Switzerland.

    Uefa says the scrapped investment scheme posed direct potential harm to its 55 member nations, and notes that criminal proceedings could also be brought against other senior Fifa officials and advisors involved in developing the plan, beyond just Infantino. “Uefa and other interested parties are preparing to bring criminal claims in Switzerland against Infantino and possibly other Fifa officials and advisors for criminal mismanagement,” the application confirms.

    The document adds that the plan’s secretive development, flawed valuation and opaque structure caused concrete damage to Fifa’s global reputation, governance credibility and key commercial relationships, harming both the governing body itself and all 211 of its member associations.

    Contrary to Infantino’s claims that the plan was a transparent new proposal, Uefa alleges the scheme was developed in secret for more than a year by Infantino and a small group of co-conspirators, without any consultation with the Fifa Council, other continental confederations, or any of Fifa’s member associations. The public announcement of the plan on 28 July 2026 marked the first time any outside stakeholders learned of the initiative, the application says.

    Uefa also references the well-documented history of corruption among senior Fifa leadership, arguing that the body’s concentrated power has long operated without effective internal checks and balances, with meaningful accountability only coming from external pressures such as public scrutiny, political pressure and international criminal law enforcement.

    Under Swiss law, where Fifa is headquartered in Zurich, Uefa confirmed it has legal standing as a complainant to file the criminal mismanagement complaint, and that Swiss legal counsel has confirmed the proceeding is valid under local statute.

    To win support for his proposal, Infantino reportedly offered each of Fifa’s 211 member associations a $40m payout if they backed the FFE private investment scheme. After widespread backlash led by Uefa, which pulled its support and secured a vote from its members to boycott future World Cups unless the plan was scrapped, Infantino walked back the proposal earlier this month. The move did not end the pressure, however, and he has faced growing calls to step down entirely.

    Infantino, who is currently running for a fourth term as Fifa president in the upcoming March election, has already been accused of breaking trust through deception in a joint open letter from Uefa, Concacaf (North America’s governing body) and the Asian Football Confederation. All four UK home nations have withdrawn their support for his re-election bid, while he retains backing from South America’s Conmebol and Africa’s Caf. A number of individual member associations have broken ranks with their own confederations to publicly support the incumbent president.

    In recent days, Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, whose relationship with Infantino has deteriorated sharply in recent months, ruled out running for the Fifa presidency himself, while a coalition of top current and former players has publicly united to call for leadership change at the top of global football, stating that “change is necessary” at Fifa.

    BBC Sport has reached out to both Infantino, Fifa and Uefa for comment on the new criminal proceedings, and as of publication has not received responses.

  • Tottenham sign Man City’s Marmoush on loan

    Tottenham sign Man City’s Marmoush on loan

    In one of the most high-profile moves of the 2025 summer Premier League transfer window, Tottenham Hotspur has secured a season-long loan deal for Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush from Premier League champions Manchester City, with a mandatory obligation to convert the temporary move into a permanent transfer for a reported £60 million next summer. The 27-year-old Egypt international, who earned his first senior cap for his national side back in 2021, will link up with his former Manchester City teammate Savio at the north London club, just days after the Brazilian winger completed his £75 million move to Tottenham on Tuesday. In a statement following the confirmation of his transfer, Marmoush expressed his excitement over the switch to one of English football’s biggest institutions, noting that the club’s long-term project was a major draw for him. “Tottenham Hotspur is one of the biggest clubs in England, if not the world, and the project was very attractive to me,” Marmoush said. “I’ve spoken with the head coach [Roberto de Zerbi], I loved what he had to say and I’m sure our passion for the game will go very well together.” Marmoush initially joined Manchester City from Bundesliga side Eintracht Frankfurt for a £59 million fee back in January 2025, and has notched 16 goals across 62 appearances in all competitions for the Sky Blues during his tenure at the Etihad Stadium. After an impressive start to his career at City, Marmoush found first-team opportunities limited in the 2024/25 season, with 13 of his 21 league appearances coming off the bench as Norway star Erling Haaland remained manager Pep Guardiola’s preferred starting central striker. The Egyptian forward’s limited game time continued into the start of the 2025/26 campaign: he came on as a late substitute in City’s 3-0 Community Shield defeat to Arsenal, and did not make it off the bench during last Sunday’s 2-1 Premier League opening-round victory against Bournemouth. The addition of Marmoush caps off a historic summer spending spree for Tottenham, who have splashed out more than £311 million on new incoming transfers during the current window. Prior to Marmoush’s arrival, the club added Portuguese midfielder Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United, Italian midfielder Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United, and Dutch defender Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton & Hove Albion, while also picking up centre-back Marcos Senesi, left-back Andy Robertson and goalkeeper Martin Dubravka on free transfers. De Zerbi, Tottenham’s recently appointed head coach, spoke highly of his new recruit, framing Marmoush as the exact profile of player the club is targeting to build out its new project. “Omar is exactly the kind of player we want at this club – ambitious, hungry and determined to make a difference,” De Zerbi said. “He has incredible attacking quality but what I also love is his desire to improve and to win. He brings pace, intelligence and a real threat in front of goal, and I believe he can take our attacking play to another level.” The transfer has sparked widespread debate among football analysts and fans, with many questioning whether the addition of the out-of-favour City striker will prove to be a transformative move for Spurs, or a high-risk investment that fails to deliver on expectations.

  • Iran scrambles to sustain trade as US threatens to sanction countries that refuse to break ties

    Iran scrambles to sustain trade as US threatens to sanction countries that refuse to break ties

    BEIRUT — Already grappling with crippling hyperinflation, decades of sweeping Western sanctions, and a war that has eviscerated its critical oil export revenue, Iran’s fragile economy is bracing for a new wave of destabilization as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on the global community to sever all financial and commercial ties with the Islamic Republic. The Trump administration’s latest campaign to force Tehran into compliance gained momentum last week, when the United Arab Emirates announced it would suspend all formal trade relations with Iran — a move that leaves Iran with far fewer economic lifelines at a moment when its foreign commerce was already concentrated among a tiny handful of partner nations. The outcome of the U.S. strategy will largely depend on the stance of China, Iran’s top trading partner and the largest buyer of its crude oil, while Russia — Tehran’s longstanding ally and a fellow target of broad U.S. sanctions — is mired in its own military conflict and economic turmoil, leaving it with limited capacity to provide meaningful financial support to Iran. Regional actors including Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq maintain deep economic and political ties with both Washington and Tehran, leaving them wary of triggering the harsh secondary sanctions that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned will be imposed on any nation that refuses to cut economic ties with Iran. “Those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership,” Bessent told reporters Monday while unveiling the administration’s new initiative, dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast.” “Those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation.” For Iran, replacing the UAE as a key trade and financial gateway will be no quick or easy task. According to data from Trade Data Monitor, a private industry analytics firm, Iran conducted $125 billion in total global goods trade in 2024, despite decades of Western restrictions. Not a member of the World Trade Organization, Iran’s official trade is overwhelmingly concentrated among just a handful of partners: the UAE, China and Turkey account for nearly three-quarters of all Iran’s merchandise imports, while four nations — China, Iraq, the UAE and Turkey — handle more than two-thirds of its non-oil exports. Beyond direct trade, the UAE has long served an irreplaceable role as a logistical and financial intermediary for Iran, keeping the country connected to global markets even amid sweeping sanctions. As a leading global re-export hub, the UAE processed shipments from international suppliers that refused to conduct direct business with Iranian customers, while also providing access to cross-border payment channels that allowed Iranian businesses to send and receive international funds. “From Iran’s perspective, the UAE can be replaced, but the Iranians are openly saying it’s not going to happen overnight,” explained Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. While China maintains deep-rooted economic ties with Iran, Beijing is far less dependent on the relationship than Tehran is. China’s economic interests across the Persian Gulf extend well beyond Iran, and Beijing has so far avoided being drawn into the conflict initiated by the U.S. and Israel. Currently, China purchases the overwhelming majority of Iran’s crude oil via opaque trading networks that bypass existing U.S. sanctions. Unlike smaller regional partners, China’s massive manufacturing sector and its control over global supplies of critical minerals give it far more leverage to resist U.S. pressure, according to David Lubin, a senior research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House. He notes that aggressive U.S. action against major Chinese banks and corporations that do business with Iran would reignite bilateral trade tensions at a sensitive moment, just as Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepares for a high-stakes meeting with President Trump in Washington next month. “I don’t see China playing ball by any means,” Lubin said. Data from the WTO and United Nations confirms that China is both Iran’s largest documented export market and a top supplier of critical industrial components and consumer goods. Daniel Fried, an Atlantic Council fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Poland, recalled that during the Obama administration, Beijing agreed to cut its energy imports from Iran as part of a broader nuclear agreement. “We will want the Chinese to go a lot farther than they have gone in the past,” Fried said. “But it’s a lot harder now.” China has a long track record of helping sanctioned allies weather international pressure: for decades, it has served as North Korea’s primary economic lifeline and top diplomatic backer, and experts widely assess that Beijing has avoided fully enforcing UN sanctions on Pyongyang, providing clandestine aid to keep the impoverished regime stable. Even if Iran succeeds in shifting more trade to regional partners, the move would create new frictions for Tehran’s neighbors. The day the UAE announced its trade suspension, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — who has led Tehran’s negotiations with regional actors over the past six months — was on an official visit to Iraq. Qalibaf framed the trip as focused on “speeding up efforts to expand joint cooperation among all countries in the region, without foreign interference.” Still, the U.S. dollar’s central role in global trade and finance means no country is willing to antagonize Washington lightly, Vatanka noted. “We’re still at a point where if the U.S. wants to hurt you, it will matter,” he said. The risk of U.S. retaliation is already shaping regional policy: in July, Turkey resolved a yearslong U.S. dispute over a state-owned bank’s role in helping Iran evade sanctions via an oil-for-gold scheme. In exchange, Trump lifted crippling sanctions on the NATO member that were imposed over Turkey’s purchase of a sophisticated Russian air defense system. “I really don’t think Turkey would like to become the next country helping Iran to evade sanctions right now,” said Riccardo Gasco, an analyst at Istanbul-based think tank IstanPol. For Iraq, Iran is a critical import supplier and retains major political influence via allied Iraqi political factions and armed groups, but Baghdad has sought closer economic and security ties with Washington in recent years. Since the 2003 U.S. invasion, Washington retains significant control over Iraq’s foreign currency reserves, which are held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leaving Baghdad with little room to defy U.S. pressure. Oman, which has long served as a neutral intermediary between Washington and Tehran, has found its delicate balancing act increasingly precarious. Last week, Trump issued a public threat against Oman over its ongoing negotiations with Iran regarding the future management of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints. One potential workaround for sanctions could be rerouting trade through Pakistani ports near the Persian Gulf such as Gwadar, said Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University. “Ship an intermodal container of drone parts to one of the ports in western Pakistan and unload it onto a truck and have it driven across the border into Iran,” Harrell explained. While Pakistan — a key regional ally and economic partner of China — has expressed interest in expanding bilateral trade with Iran, it faces competing geopolitical pressures: it currently serves as a neutral mediator between Tehran and Washington, and maintains deep security ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s longstanding regional rival. Alternative trade routes through the Caspian Sea are unlikely to expand fast enough to offset the loss of UAE trade, analysts say. With the Strait of Hormuz largely blockaded and Russia’s war in Ukraine disrupting commercial shipping in the Black Sea, Iran has pushed to develop what it calls a “road of life” through the Caspian, according to Nikita Smagin, an independent analyst and former Russian state news correspondent based in Tehran. This year, Russia has reportedly supplied drones to Iran, repaying Tehran for its early support of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia has also rerouted a portion of its exports to Iran via Caspian ports such as Astrakhan. Currently, 80% of official trade between Russia and Iran consists of agricultural products. “Both economies are exporting natural resources and have little to offer each other,” Smagin said. The other Caspian-bordering nations — Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan — are unlikely to rush to open new trade routes with Iran, said Umud Shokri, a fellow at George Mason University. Still, Russia and Iran have operated for years as an “axis of the sanctioned,” noted Mark Galeotti, executive director of intelligence firm Mayak Intelligence. The two countries have collaborated for decades to evade trade restrictions, and Galeotti said an expansion of bilateral trade in strategic goods and contraband — including military technology, microchips and luxury counterfeit goods — could be the next step. “Pomegranates and tomatoes only go so far,” he said. This report was contributed to by Associated Press writers McNeil in Brussels, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia.

  • Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladić dies aged 84

    Convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Mladić dies aged 84

    Ratko Mladić, the high-profile Bosnian Serb war criminal convicted of orchestrating genocide and mass atrocities during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, has died at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence in a United Nations prison in The Hague. The death, first broken by Serbian media outlets, was later officially confirmed by a UN spokesperson, ending a decades-long chapter of international justice proceedings for a man whose actions left an indelible mark on 20th-century European history.

    Mladić led Bosnian Serb military forces during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, when competing ethnic and political factions clashed in a violent conflict that tore apart the Balkan region. Under his command, troops carried out widespread systematic ethnic cleansing campaigns against Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Bosnian Croat civilian populations. His forces also laid a years-long siege around Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo that killed more than 10,000 civilians and combatants trapped in the city, and perpetrated the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were systematically executed in the worst European atrocity since the end of World War II.

    For nearly 16 years after the end of the Bosnian War, Mladić evaded international capture, moving between hiding locations across the Balkan region before he was finally apprehended in a rural area of Serbia in 2011. Following his arrest, he was transferred to The Hague to stand trial before the UN’s international war crimes tribunal. In 2017, the court handed down a full life sentence, finding him guilty on all counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. That conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal in 2021, cementing the legal finding against him for his role in the mass violence.

    In the final months of his life, Mladić’s legal team launched an eleventh-hour bid to secure his early release, arguing that his health had declined to terminal levels and that he should be allowed to spend his final days outside of detention. In May 2025, the UN court rejected this request, acknowledging that Mladić’s health condition was “dire” but ruling that he was already receiving appropriate, comprehensive palliative care within the UN detention system. He remained in the facility’s on-site hospital for his end-of-life care up until his death, officials confirmed.

  • Mladić and the monstrous crimes of the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’

    Mladić and the monstrous crimes of the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’

    Ratko Mladić, the former Bosnian Serb army commander convicted of orchestrating the worst European atrocities since World War II, has died at age 84 while serving a life sentence for genocide and crimes against humanity. Infamously dubbed the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia, Mladić leaves behind a legacy of unresolved trauma and deep division across the Balkan region.

    Born in March 1942 in a small mountain village near Sarajevo, Mladić grew up shaped by early loss: his father was killed fighting for Tito’s anti-Nazi partisans when Mladić was just two years old. After a brief stint as an apprentice tinsmith, he pursued a military career, graduating from officer training school in 1965. A driven and capable soldier, he rose quickly through the ranks of the Yugoslav People’s Army, earning command postings in Macedonia and Kosovo.

    The 1980 death of Josip Broz Tito, the unifying leader of Yugoslavia’s fragile multi-ethnic confederation, unlocked decades of simmering nationalist tensions. When Croatia declared independence in 1991, Mladić was deployed with Yugoslav federal forces to reassert control, where he gained a reputation for reckless frontline courage that won him fierce devotion from his troops. As conflict spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992, Mladić defected to lead the army of the self-declared breakaway Republika Srpska, embracing a radical nationalist agenda to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia.

    Mladić viewed Bosnia’s Muslim Bosniak population as illegitimate “interlopers” descending from Ottoman-era occupation, and framed his campaign as a mission to correct historical injustice. His first major act of aggression was the 1,425-day siege of Sarajevo, the longest continuous city blockade in modern warfare. Holed up on the hills surrounding the multi-ethnic capital, Mladić’s forces pounded civilian neighborhoods with daily artillery barrages and sniper fire. On a single day in July 1993, nearly 4,000 shells rained down on the city. By the time the siege ended, more than 13,000 Sarajevo residents were dead, thousands of women were systematically raped, and the vast majority of the city’s buildings lay damaged or destroyed. Declassified command communications from Mladić’s headquarters revealed his deliberate strategy of terror: “Shoot at slow intervals until I order you to stop. Target Muslim neighborhoods… Shell them until they are on the edge of madness.”

    Even as he waged war, Mladić kept his wife and two children in relative safety in Belgrade. His life was rocked by personal tragedy in the 1990s, when his 23-year-old daughter Ana, torn between her love for a human rights activist who demanded she renounce her father and her family loyalty, died by suicide with Mladić’s own service weapon. Mladić never accepted responsibility for her death, instead blaming the tragedy on foreign conspiracies.

    In 1995, NATO finally intervened to end the siege, launching devastating airstrikes against Mladić’s positions around Sarajevo that broke the blockade. But the worst atrocity of the Bosnian war was still to come. That summer, more than 40,000 Bosniak civilians fled to Srebrenica, a small eastern Bosnian mountain town designated a UN-protected “safe area.” Mladić’s forces surrounded and bombarded the town, then seized control. In front of international television cameras, Mladić greeted residents with false assurances of safety, handing out sweets to children and promising no harm would come to them. Within days, his troops rounded up every Bosniak man and boy they could find, from 12-year-old children to elderly men in their 70s. In a coordinated, industrial-scale mass killing, 8,000 people were executed and dumped in unmarked mass graves. The Srebrenica massacre remains the worst act of genocide on European soil since 1945, and a widely cited failure of the international community to protect vulnerable civilians.

    After the massacre, Mladić was immediately indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), with the U.S. offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. For 16 years, he evaded arrest, protected first by Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević, who allowed Mladić to live openly in Belgrade, hunt deer, attend public events, and even maintained a dedicated military unit for his personal protection. Mladić remained a celebrated folk hero among many Serbian nationalists, who viewed him as a defender of Serbian national interests.

    The net began to close after Milošević was ousted from power and arrested in 2000, with Serbia’s bid for European Union membership tied to its cooperation with the ICTY. Mladić went on the run, moving between hidden safe houses for nearly a decade, protected by a shrinking circle of loyal bodyguards and eventually his own family. After his former political partner Radovan Karadžić was arrested in Belgrade in 2008, Mladić became the tribunal’s top priority fugitive. In May 2011, Serbian police tracked Mladić to a squalid remote farmhouse, where he was found suffering from multiple strokes and in poor health, 16 years after his indictment.

    Mladić’s ICTY trial lasted four years, with the court sitting for more than 500 days, hearing testimony from nearly 600 witnesses, and reviewing more than 10,000 pieces of evidence. In 2017, he was convicted on all counts: genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, and sentenced to life in prison. A defiant and unrepentant Mladić smiled and gave a thumbs-up to cameras upon entering the courtroom, but erupted in rage when the verdict was read, shouting that the ruling was “all lies” before being forcibly removed from the chamber. While survivors and victim relatives hailed the conviction as a long-delayed victory for justice, the ruling deepened divisions across the Balkans: Serbian nationalist leaders condemned the trial as an anti-Serbian plot, and many Serbs continue to view Mladić as a national hero.

    In his final years, Mladić, who suffered from multiple heart attacks and strokes, repeatedly applied to be transferred to a Serbian prison to serve out his remaining sentence, a request supported by both Serbia and Russia, but repeatedly rejected by the court. As of January 2026, the regional divide over Mladić’s legacy remains raw: a Bosnian opposition politician was sentenced to three years in prison just months ago for publicly glorifying Mladić and Karadžić. While the 1990s Bosnian war has long ended, the tension and division sown by Mladić’s campaign of ethnic cleansing persist, with Bosniaks and much of the international community remembering him as one of the worst war criminals in modern European history, and segments of the Serbian public continuing to view him as a patriot and defender of their nation.

  • ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic dead: Serbian state media

    ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic dead: Serbian state media

    Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb military commander infamously known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, has passed away, Serbia’s state-owned broadcaster RTS confirmed Thursday. The 80-year-old (or 81, per tribunal records) had been in failing health for months, suffering multiple strokes, while serving a life sentence at a United Nations detention facility in The Hague.

    Mladic’s death closes a dark chapter in post-World War II European history, marking the end of a decades-long journey to accountability for one of the continent’s worst atrocities. As the military leader of Bosnian Serb forces during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, which grew out of the violent collapse of communist Yugoslavia, Mladic stood at the center of a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed at carving out an ethnically pure “Greater Serbia” from Bosnian territory. The war ultimately claimed an estimated 100,000 lives and displaced more than 2.2 million people.

    The most horrific act of Mladic’s command came in July 1995, when his forces overran Srebrenica, a small town designated a UN-protected safe haven for Bosnian Muslim civilians. Over the course of days, Mladic’s troops systematically separated 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from their families, marched them into remote forested areas, and executed them en masse. Contemporary footage captured Mladic appearing to offer sweets to Srebrenica’s children moments before women and children were forcibly bused out of the enclave, while the men were led away to their deaths. To cover up the massacre, perpetrators buried victims in mass graves, later exhuming and reburying bodies across multiple sites to destroy evidence of the slaughter. The few survivors escaped to share harrowing accounts of systematic murder, torture, and sexual violence committed by Bosnian Serb forces.

    The road to Mladic’s conviction stretched nearly two decades. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) first indicted Mladic for war crimes and genocide in November 1995, shortly after the Srebrenica massacre. Though removed from his military post, Mladic evaded capture for 16 years, initially living a comfortable lifestyle shielded by sympathizers within Serbia’s military establishment, where he remains venerated by many Serbs as a nationalist hero even today. After the fall of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, pressure on Mladic grew, and he was finally arrested in Serbia in May 2011 and extradited to The Hague to stand trial.

    Throughout his trial and subsequent appeal process, Mladic repeatedly maintained his innocence, launching angry tirades against judges and dismissing the tribunal as a tool of Western powers aligned against Serbia. He framed himself as a victim of NATO aggression, casting his actions as necessary to protect the Serb people. In 2017, the tribunal found him guilty on all counts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, sentencing him to life in prison. The conviction was upheld on appeal in 2021. The tribunal described Mladic’s crimes as “amongst the most heinous known to humankind,” while former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein labeled Mladic the “epitome of evil.”

    In his final months, Mladic’s legal team and Serbian officials repeatedly petitioned for his release on humanitarian grounds, citing his terminal, untreatable health condition and limited life expectancy. His lawyers argued that continued detention served no legitimate purpose and amounted to inhumane treatment, but the tribunal rejected all appeals for early release. Mladic’s death leaves unresolved the deep divisions that persist over the legacy of the Bosnian War: while survivors and the international community recognize Mladic as a perpetrator of genocide, a large segment of Serbian society continues to view him as a patriotic leader defending Serb interests.

  • Kidnappers in Nigeria collected more than $5 million in ransoms in a year, analysts say

    Kidnappers in Nigeria collected more than $5 million in ransoms in a year, analysts say

    ABUJA, Nigeria – A new report from Lagos-based intelligence firm SBM Intelligence has laid bare the staggering human and economic cost of Nigeria’s ongoing kidnapping crisis, revealing that criminal groups extracted more than $5.8 million in ransom payments between July 2025 and June 2026, as abduction rates soared nearly two-thirds from the previous 12-month period. The data paints a grim picture of a country grappling with overlapping security threats that have left thousands of civilians captive and shattered countless families, even as the government partners with the United States to curb the violence.

  • After US settlement, EU says Meta must ‘protect our kids too’

    After US settlement, EU says Meta must ‘protect our kids too’

    In the wake of a groundbreaking multi-state settlement that forces Meta to implement sweeping new restrictions on teenage use of its Facebook and Instagram platforms, the European Union has issued a clear call for the tech giant to extend equivalent child safety protections to young users across the bloc.

    Last month, the European Commission already ruled that Meta violated the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA) — a landmark regulatory framework designed to curb harmful practices by large technology companies operating in the EU’s 27 member states. At that time, regulators ordered the company to draft concrete proposals to reduce risks to minors using its platforms.

    European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters Thursday that EU regulators have held new discussions with Meta following the U.S. settlement, which Brussels has monitored “very closely.” “The ball is in Meta’s court,” Regnier said. “Meta knows what we are expecting from them. Now it is for the company to offer these commitments in the European Union to protect our kids here too.”

    Regnier confirmed that EU investigators are probing Meta over the same harmful design features that were the focus of the U.S. legal action, and regulators are pushing to secure “at least equally good protection for our kids here in the European Union.” Specific demands from Brussels include mandatory, built-in screen time management tools and robust, default parental controls for minor accounts.

    EU regulators have long flagged risks to children from specific Meta platform features, including infinite scrolling functionality, algorithmically-driven highly personalized content feeds that promote compulsive use, and automatic video playback. Regulators issued a nearly identical warning to rival short-form video platform TikTok back in February.

    Meta has publicly stated that it disputes the EU’s DSA violation finding, but has committed to engage “constructively” with regulators to address their concerns. If the company fails to meet the bloc’s demands, EU rules allow regulators to impose fines of up to 6% of Meta’s total global annual revenue, a penalty that could run into billions of dollars.

    The U.S. settlement, which resolved a years-long landmark lawsuit brought by a coalition of U.S. states in California, requires Meta to pay up to $16.7 billion in damages and implement a far-reaching set of new safety rules for underage users. These include an automatic block on platform access during nighttime hours and a default daily cumulative usage cap of two hours across all of Meta’s apps. The agreement marks the strictest set of child safety obligations Meta has ever agreed to, coming after years of sustained criticism from parents, child health experts and policymakers over the impact of social media on adolescent mental health and development.

    Parallel to its ongoing DSA investigation, the EU is also considering broader age restrictions on social media access, a move driven by multiple member states that want to follow Australia’s lead on strict child online protection rules. Last month, an expert panel convened by the EU presented its recommendations to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Von der Leyen is scheduled to outline proposed new restrictions in a major policy speech on September 16, with a formal draft legislative proposal expected before the end of the year.

    The panel, which includes doctors, academic researchers, youth representatives and parents, recommended a complete ban on screen use for infants and toddlers. For children under 12, the panel advised that only age-appropriate social media platforms should be allowed, all under direct adult supervision. For adolescents aged 13 to 18, the panel recommended gradually expanding autonomous access only to platforms that have already implemented mandatory core child safety features.

    “This is not about whether children can access social media. It is about whether and when social media can access our children,” von der Leyen said last month, emphasizing that the burden of proof falls to technology companies to “prove that their services do no harm.”

  • Ratko Mladic, ex-Bosnian Serb warlord who oversaw atrocities in Bosnia, dies in prison at 84

    Ratko Mladic, ex-Bosnian Serb warlord who oversaw atrocities in Bosnia, dies in prison at 84

    In a development that has reopened bitter wounds across the Balkans, convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic, the 84-year-old former military leader held responsible for some of the worst European atrocities of the 1990s, has reportedly died while in United Nations prison custody. Multiple regional state broadcasters, including Serbia’s public service network RTS and the official television service of Bosnia’s Serb entity, first broke the news of Mladic’s passing Wednesday, noting he died at a U.N.-administered prison hospital facility based in The Hague, Netherlands.

    An anonymous family member, who requested withholding their identity due to the highly sensitive political and social nature of Mladic’s case, confirmed the initial reports to the Associated Press. The source also shared that Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was already traveling to the Netherlands to coordinate next steps. As of initial reporting, however, spokespeople for the international U.N. tribunal system have stated they cannot immediately verify the death, leaving room for formal confirmation in the coming hours.

    Mladic’s name remains permanently tied to the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst act of ethnic cleansing on the European continent since World War II, where more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were systematically executed under his military command. He was also found guilty of orchestrating the 44-month siege of Sarajevo that killed more than 10,000 civilians during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War. After evading capture for more than a decade following the end of the conflict, Mladic was arrested by Serbian authorities in 2011 and transferred to The Hague to stand trial. In 2017, he was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which sentenced him to life imprisonment.

  • ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic dead: Serbian state media

    ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ Ratko Mladic dead: Serbian state media

    Ratko Mladic, the former top military commander of Bosnian Serb forces whose role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre earned him the notorious moniker the “Butcher of Bosnia”, has passed away, Serbia’s state-owned public broadcaster RTS announced on Thursday. The 80-year-old had been serving a full life sentence at a United Nations detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands, after being convicted of genocide, multiple war crimes, and crimes against humanity for his central role in orchestrating the Srebrenica slaughter — the worst episode of mass killing Europe has witnessed since the conclusion of World War II.

    In the months leading up to his death, Mladic had experienced multiple strokes that left his health in severe decline. Serbian government officials and members of Mladic’s family had repeatedly submitted formal requests to the international tribunal in The Hague, calling for his compassionate release on medical grounds. All of these appeals were ultimately rejected by judicial authorities, who ruled that Mladic should serve out his full sentence behind bars.

    Mladic stood as one third of a brutal power bloc that drove ethnic violence through the Balkans during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The political wing of the faction was led by Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, and Radovan Karadzic, the founder and former leader of the unrecognized Bosnian Serb state. When communism collapsed across Eastern Europe, the former Yugoslavia fractured along ethnic lines, plunging the region into a devastating four-year war between 1992 and 1995. By the time the conflict ended, official casualty counts put the total death toll at roughly 100,000, with an additional 2.2 million people forced to flee their homes and become displaced persons.

    No atrocity during the conflict gained more global infamy than the Srebrenica massacre. In July 1995, Mladic’s Serb forces swept into Srebrenica, a small town in eastern Bosnia that had been formally designated a UN-protected safe haven for vulnerable Bosnian Muslim civilians. Over the course of several days, Mladic’s troops systematically rounded up and executed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, burying their remains in mass unmarked graves across the surrounding countryside. For decades after the massacre, forensic teams have continued to recover and identify remains from these mass graves, providing long-awaited closure to surviving family members.

    Mladic evaded capture for more than 16 years after the end of the Bosnian war, living in hiding in Serbia before he was finally arrested by Serbian security forces in 2011. He was extradited immediately to The Hague to face trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and was found guilty on all counts in 2017. His final appeal to overturn the conviction was rejected by the UN appeals court in 2021, which upheld his life sentence.