Global Pulse

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  • FIFA signs another World Cup sponsor deal with the gambling industry

    FIFA signs another World Cup sponsor deal with the gambling industry

    GENEVA – International soccer governing body FIFA has expanded its commercial partnership portfolio for the 2026 men’s World Cup, announcing a new regional sponsorship agreement with Greece-based betting operator Betano on Monday. The deal covers markets across Europe and South America, marking a deepening of the ties between the global tournament organizer and the gambling industry that has raised quiet scrutiny amid the body’s own internal ethical rules.

    This partnership is not Betano’s first collaboration with FIFA. Four years ago, ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, the betting brand’s parent company Kaizen Gaming signed a Europe-exclusive sponsorship deal, making Betano the first betting sponsor in the tournament’s history. Financial details of the new 2026 agreement have not been publicly disclosed by either party.

    The 2026 World Cup, which will kick off June 11 across 16 host cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will feature an expanded 104-match format — the largest in tournament history. In a prepared statement announcing the new deal, FIFA Chief Business Officer Romy Gai praised the existing partnership with Betano, highlighting what he called the brand’s “genuine commitment to sporting integrity.”

    “Since we first partnered with Betano four years ago, we have seen a genuine commitment to sporting integrity, bringing fans closer to our game and finding new, engaging ways to entertain them,” Gai said.

    The Betano agreement is the third major deal tying FIFA to the gambling and betting sector this year alone, as the governing body builds toward a tournament that is projected to generate more than $11 billion in total revenue for FIFA.

    Last month, FIFA added ADI Predictstreet, a newly launched predictions and gambling platform, as a top-tier global partner for the 2026 tournament. Norwegian sports magazine Josimar reported that the deal is valued at approximately $150 million. The outlet also noted that the Abu Dhabi-backed company was founded just one week before securing the partnership, and received a gambling license from the British overseas territory of Gibraltar only one day after its incorporation.

    Earlier this year in January, FIFA announced a separate data and streaming agreement with sports data provider Stats Perform. The deal grants selected online betting operators rights to livestream matches from the 2026 World Cup, and also gives Stats Perform exclusive betting-related rights to stream thousands of additional matches from FIFA-organized and national federation events around the world.

    The expansion of gambling industry sponsorships comes despite a clear provision in FIFA’s own code of ethics, which formally prohibits all players, match officials, and agent representatives from participating “either directly or indirectly, in betting, gambling, lotteries or similar events or transactions related to football matches or competitions.”

    Beyond its FIFA partnership, Betano has built a prominent footprint across top European soccer competitions this year. The brand is also an official sponsor of UEFA’s 2024 men’s European Championship, holds sponsorship rights for the UEFA Europa League, and features its branding on the match kit of English Premier League side Aston Villa, which will compete in the 2023-24 Europa League final this Wednesday.

  • Shakira wins £50m tax refund from Spanish government

    Shakira wins £50m tax refund from Spanish government

    After nearly a decade of high-stakes legal conflict that upended the global superstar’s personal and public life, a Spanish national high court has delivered a landmark ruling ordering the country’s tax agency to return €55 million ($64 million) to Colombian singing icon Shakira, finding the sum was wrongfully seized amid a years-long disagreement over her 2011 tax status.

    The Grammy-winning artist, famous for decades of global hits including *Hips Don’t Lie*, *Waka Waka* and *Whenever, Wherever*, has consistently maintained she never committed tax fraud. The court’s ruling backed her core argument: tax officials failed to provide sufficient evidence that Shakira spent the 183 days required to qualify as a Spanish tax resident during the 2011 fiscal year. Judicial calculations put her total time in Spain that year at just 163 days, 20 days below the legal threshold for mandatory personal income tax obligations for residents.

    The €55 million repayment order includes roughly €24 million in improperly collected income tax and €25 million in unlawful fines that authorities had issued labeling the case a “very serious” infringement. The court explicitly struck down the fines, noting they were rooted in the unproven assumption that Spain was Shakira’s primary tax residence in 2011.

    In an emotional public statement following the ruling, Shakira said the court had “finally set the record straight” after eight years of what she described as “brutal public targeting, orchestrated campaigns to destroy my reputation, and sleepless nights that ultimately impacted my health and my family’s well-being.”

    “There was never any fraud, and the Administration itself could never prove otherwise, simply because it wasn’t true,” she said. “Yet, for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty. Every step of the process was leaked, distorted, and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers. Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.”

    The singer dedicated her legal victory to “thousands of ordinary citizens” who face similar pressure to prove their innocence in tax disputes, often at the cost of “economic and emotional ruin.” Writing for Spanish daily *El Mundo* in 2024, the 49-year-old artist compared the ongoing tax investigations against her to an “inquisition trial.”

    Shortly after the high court’s announcement, Spain’s tax agency confirmed it would appeal the ruling to the country’s Supreme Court, and no funds will be repaid until a final definitive ruling is issued. It is important to note this 2011 dispute is separate from other tax conflicts between Shakira and Spanish authorities, including a broader fraud case that the singer settled in 2018 to avoid trial. The current ruling also does not address her tax status for years after 2011.

    Shakira’s connection to Spain stems from her 11-year relationship with former FC Barcelona and Spanish national team footballer Gerard Pique, whom she met in 2010 while filming the music video for *Waka Waka*, the official anthem of that year’s South Africa FIFA World Cup. The couple separated in 2022.

    The legal victory comes as Shakira is at the peak of a massive global career resurgence. Earlier this month, she drew a crowd of two million fans to a free open-air concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach, one of the largest live audiences for a solo performer in recent history. The singer is set to conclude her *Women Don’t Cry Anymore* world tour with a high-profile residency in Madrid starting this September. Just last week, organizers confirmed she will perform alongside pop icon Madonna and K-pop group BTS during the halftime show for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup final this summer.

  • Pope and co-founder of Anthropic to launch pontiff’s AI encyclical on May 25

    Pope and co-founder of Anthropic to launch pontiff’s AI encyclical on May 25

    VATICAN CITY — The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Leo XIV will join Christopher Olah, co-founder of leading artificial intelligence firm Anthropic, for the official launch of the pontiff’s first-ever encyclical on May 25. The high-profile document, titled *Magnifica Humanitas* (Magnificent Humanity), centers on protecting and upholding human dignity amid the rapid global expansion of artificial intelligence.

    Olah’s invitation to participate in the launch carries major geopolitical and policy significance, already signaling that the U.S.-born pope’s stance on AI governance will emerge as a new point of friction with the Trump White House. Just three months prior, in February 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order banning all U.S. federal agencies from using Anthropic’s AI tools, and imposed additional sweeping sanctions on the company. The penalties came after Anthropic refused to grant the U.S. military unlimited access to its proprietary AI technology. Anthropic has since filed a lawsuit against the administration, alleging the penalties amount to illegal retaliation for the company’s commitment to building guardrails around harmful uses of its AI systems.

    Since taking office, Pope Leo XIV has identified AI ethics and governance as a core priority of his papacy, and has repeatedly voiced deep concern over the development of AI for military applications, calling for global mandatory monitoring of high-risk AI deployments.

    The format of the launch itself marks a break from Vatican tradition. Historically, new papal encyclicals are unveiled in the small Vatican press room, with only a small group of select officials and invited guests on hand to address reporter questions. For *Magnifica Humanitas*, however, the Vatican has organized a high-profile formal event in its main auditorium, featuring a roster of top religious and secular speakers.

    Leading the presentation will be two of the Holy See’s most senior cardinals: Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Michael Czerny, head of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Joining Olah as lay speakers are two prominent theologians, Anna Rowlands and Leocadie Lushombo. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will deliver the closing remarks, before Pope Leo XIV gives a keynote address and offers a final blessing to attendees.

    Pope Leo XIV signed the encyclical on May 15, a date chosen intentionally to mark 135 years to the day after his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, signed *Rerum Novarum* — the landmark 1891 encyclical that addressed workers’ rights, the excesses of unregulated capitalism, and the obligations of states and employers to working people amid the Industrial Revolution. That document laid the foundation for modern Catholic social teaching, and the current pope has already referenced it repeatedly in discussions of the AI revolution, arguing the technology poses the same fundamental existential questions about work, dignity and power that industrialization sparked more than a century ago.

    The new encyclical is expected to frame the global debate over AI through the lens of longstanding Catholic social teaching, which already encompasses principles of labor rights, global justice, and peace. A brief look at Anthropic’s background contextualizes why this collaboration is notable: the company was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei and a group of researchers who left OpenAI over public disagreements with then-CEO Sam Altman over AI safety priorities. From its founding, Anthropic has centered its public mission on building safety guardrails for artificial general intelligence (AGI) — the advanced AI system that can outperform humans on most economic and cognitive tasks, a goal both Anthropic and OpenAI are pursuing from their San Francisco bases. As of early 2025, the privately held Anthropic reported a valuation of $380 billion, placing it as one of the world’s most valuable AI companies alongside OpenAI and Elon Musk’s combined SpaceX-xAI venture. Its flagship chatbot Claude competes directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok.

    The Associated Press’ religion coverage is supported through a collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP retains full editorial responsibility for this content.

  • Cruise ship hit by hantavirus outbreak docks in Rotterdam

    Cruise ship hit by hantavirus outbreak docks in Rotterdam

    After a weeks-long transatlantic journey marked by a deadly hantavirus outbreak that left three people dead, the Dutch-flagged cruise vessel MV Hondius has finally docked at its final destination in the Port of Rotterdam. The final sailing into Rotterdam carried only the ship’s core crew and medical personnel, after all remaining passengers disembarked between May 10 and 11 in the Canary Islands, following coordinated international arrangements to end the voyage early.

    The outbreak, which has sickened at least 11 confirmed passengers so far, has already claimed three lives: a Dutch couple and a German tourist who were traveling on the expedition cruise. Two of the three fatalities have been confirmed to be positive for hantavirus, with Canadian health officials adding a new confirmed case over the weekend, updating the global case count from the eight confirmed cases the World Health Organization (WHO) reported just days earlier.

    Local authorities and public health agencies have spent more than a week preparing for the ship’s arrival. Port of Rotterdam Harbour Master René de Vries confirmed that port officials received the docking request 10 days prior to arrival, and after close consultation with regional public health services, approved the vessel’s entry. In preparation for disembarking the crew, 25 fully equipped mobile homes, outfitted with on-site catering and satellite communications infrastructure, have been staged to accommodate crew members during a mandatory self-isolation period, aligned with WHO recommendations that all people leaving the vessel complete 42 days of isolation to prevent further spread.

    Yvonne van Duijnhoven, director of GGD Rotterdam-Rijnmond, the local municipal public health service, noted that the ship’s on-board medical team had already begun collecting biological samples from crew members prior to arrival. All collected samples will undergo initial testing immediately after docking, with a full round of additional testing scheduled for Monday afternoon to screen all crew for signs of hantavirus infection.

    Hantavirus refers to a family of pathogens primarily carried by wild rodents. While most strains of the virus cannot spread between humans, the strain responsible for this outbreak—the Andes virus—has documented rare cases of human-to-human transmission, making extended isolation and rigorous screening a critical public health precaution.

    Once all crew have completed disembarkation and testing, the vessel will undergo a full professional deep cleaning before it is cleared to return to active service, according to de Vries.

    The cruise, operated by Dutch expedition travel firm Oceanwide Expeditions, originally launched on April 1 from Ushuaia, Argentina, with approximately 150 passengers and crew hailing from 28 countries around the world. Dozens of passengers left the vessel early at the island of St. Helena on April 24, before the first cases of illness were detected. The outbreak was identified mid-voyage, and Cape Verde, the ship’s originally scheduled final destination, refused entry to the vessel to prevent potential importation of the virus. Following that denial, the WHO and European Union coordinated with Spanish authorities to reroute the ship to the Canary Islands, where all remaining passengers were able to disembark and begin repatriation to their home countries. After all passengers exited the vessel in Tenerife on May 10, the ship set sail for Rotterdam the following day with only crew and medical staff on board.

  • Irish president to meet King Charles during official visit

    Irish president to meet King Charles during official visit

    Irish President Catherine Connolly has launched a landmark three-day official visit to the United Kingdom, with a high-profile meeting with King Charles III scheduled as the centerpiece of her itinerary. This trip marks Connolly’s first official visit to England since her inauguration last November, and her third overseas engagement since taking office, following earlier working visits to Northern Ireland and Spain.

    Connolly kicked off her schedule on Monday with a warm welcome at the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, West London. During her stop at the hub, which has long served as a community home for Irish people in the British capital, the president led detailed discussions on the long history of Irish migration to the UK. She interacted directly with learners attending an on-site Irish language class, and took in traditional Irish musical and dance performances put on by local community groups.

    Addressing attendees at the centre, Connolly contextualized the ongoing patterns of Irish population movement across the Irish Sea. She noted that for more than two centuries, mass migration from Ireland has largely been driven by economic pressures, with generations of Irish people settling in major British cities including London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. Even today, Connolly acknowledged, economic hardship continues to push some Irish citizens to leave their home country, singling out the Republic’s ongoing housing crisis as a key contributing factor pushing people to seek opportunities abroad.

    Following her visit to the Hammersmith centre, Irish Ambassador to the UK Martin Fraser hosted an official evening reception at the Irish Embassy in London in honor of President Connolly and her husband, Brian McEnery.

    The president’s packed agenda continues on Tuesday, with planned stops at the world-famous Chelsea Flower Show and the London Irish Centre in Camden. On Wednesday, the final day of the visit, Connolly will travel to the northern English city of Leeds, where she will tour the University of Leeds and the city’s Irish Centre. During her time in Leeds, she will receive a briefing on the services delivered by the city’s Irish Health Centre, which supports the local Irish community, and will hold meetings with representatives from Irish community organisations across the Yorkshire region.

    Since taking office, Connolly has repeatedly emphasized her administration’s commitment to strengthening ties with the global Irish diaspora, and this UK visit is framed as a key step toward delivering on that pledge. It also builds on longstanding diplomatic and cultural connections between Ireland and the United Kingdom, deepening people-to-people links between the neighboring nations.

  • Cuba accuses US of building ‘fraudulent case’ for military action

    Cuba accuses US of building ‘fraudulent case’ for military action

    Tensions between the United States and Cuba have spiked dramatically in recent weeks, as a crippling domestic fuel crisis worsened by longstanding US trade restrictions collides with escalating US pressure on Havana’s communist government and sharp Cuban accusations of Washington plotting military aggression.

    The crisis ignited after US news outlet Axios published a report on Sunday citing classified US intelligence claims that Cuba had acquired roughly 300 attack drones, and was weighing potential strikes on US targets in the region—including the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, US naval vessels operating nearby, and Key West in southern Florida. The report also repeated unconfirmed intelligence claims that Iranian military advisors are currently present in Havana, a development that echoes the growing role of Iranian drone technology in conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine.

    In an immediate and forceful response posted to social media, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez rejected the claims outright, accusing the US of systematically constructing a “fraudulent case” to justify both its ongoing harsh economic war against the Cuban people and potential future military intervention. Rodríguez emphasized that Havana “neither threatens nor desires war” with the US, but confirmed that Cuba is actively preparing defensive measures in response to rising external aggression. He also criticized major US media outlets for complicity in spreading the unsubstantiated claims, calling their coverage coordinated slander aligned with US government messaging.

    Behind the escalating diplomatic row is a deepening humanitarian crisis inside Cuba, driven largely by an effective US oil blockade that has cut off nearly all of the island’s regular energy supplies. The last permitted Russian oil shipment to Cuba was exhausted earlier this month, and the loss of steady oil deliveries from former Venezuelan ally Nicolás Maduro—whose government fell to a US-backed raid earlier this year—has left the country with acute fuel shortages. Those shortages have triggered widespread rolling blackouts across the island that have disrupted critical services, including hospital operations, water pumping stations, public transportation networks, and municipal waste collection. When combined with already severe shortages of basic food and medicine, the energy crisis has sparked rare public protests against the Cuban government, which has overseen years of gradual infrastructure decline.

    For years, Cuba weathered broad Western sanctions with the support of regional allies, most notably Maduro’s Venezuelan government, which previously supplied an estimated 35,000 barrels of oil per day to the island. That support ended after US forces captured Maduro in a raid on Caracas earlier this year, where the former Venezuelan leader is now set to stand trial in New York on federal drug trafficking charges. The Trump administration framed that raid as justified by a prior federal indictment against Maduro, a playbook that Cuban officials fear will be repeated against their own leadership. US media has also reported that the US is preparing a federal indictment against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who took power from his brother Fidel Castro—the revolutionary leader who overthrew the US-backed Cuban government in 1959.

    The current escalation aligns with the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive posture toward Latin American left-wing governments, a marked shift from the policies of recent US predecessors. Trump has openly framed his regional policy as a revival of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which asserts US primacy over the Western Hemisphere, rebranding the policy the “Donroe Doctrine” and explicitly naming Cuba as the “next” target after Venezuela. Since capturing Maduro, Trump has repeatedly stated he expects to “take Cuba” in the near future.

    In recent weeks, US military activity around Cuba has ramped up significantly: the *New York Times* reported Friday that surveillance flights over Cuban airspace have increased, and the US is planning a build-up of military forces in the Caribbean region. Just one day before the Axios report was published, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for talks with Cuban officials, where he issued a demand that Cuba end its status as “a safe haven for adversaries in the western hemisphere.”

    Cuba and the US have held quiet talks for months to resolve longstanding bilateral tensions, but those negotiations have been sidelined by the Trump administration’s escalating pressure campaign. With energy supplies exhausted and US military momentum growing, the island now faces the dual crisis of domestic humanitarian collapse and rising risk of foreign military intervention.

  • Injured Madison Keys withdraws from French Open warmup tournament

    Injured Madison Keys withdraws from French Open warmup tournament

    Organizers of the Internationaux de Strasbourg, a key clay-court warm-up event for the French Open, announced Monday that American top player Madison Keys has pulled out of this year’s tournament due to a nagging left thigh injury.

    Ranked 19th in the world, Keys was not just any participant heading into this week’s competition in Strasbourg, France — she entered the event as its reigning 2024 singles champion, making her withdrawal a notable blow to the tournament’s star power. In a public statement confirming her exit, Keys explained that the choice to step back was made out of a strategic focus on getting fit in time for the year’s second Grand Slam tournament.

    “ I’ve decided it’s best to withdraw from Strasbourg to get healthy and ready to compete in Roland Garros,” Keys said.

    The 2025 French Open is set to kick off on May 24 at the iconic Roland Garros stadium in Paris, and Keys has a history of strong performances on the Paris clay. The American famously advanced all the way to the women’s singles semifinals of the clay-court Grand Slam back in 2018, cementing her reputation as a serious contender on the surface.

    Injury concerns around Keys emerged over the weekend, when she was forced to retire mid-match in the final of the Clarins Trophy on Sunday. At the time of the stoppage, Keys held a commanding 6-3, 3-3 lead over France’s home favorite Diane Parry, leaving her unable to claim that title as she was forced to prioritize recovery.

    The withdrawal leaves tournament organizers to adjust their draw, with a lucky loser or alternate set to take Keys’ place in the main draw as the event gets underway this week. For Keys and her team, the priority remains managing the minor thigh injury to avoid further setbacks ahead of the year’s most important clay-court championship.

  • After years of tension, Hungary and Ukraine hold talks on Hungarian minority rights

    After years of tension, Hungary and Ukraine hold talks on Hungarian minority rights

    Diplomatic relations between neighboring Hungary and Ukraine are poised for a potential turnaround, after the two nations’ top foreign policy officials announced Monday that high-level talks focused on securing the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority will get underway as early as this week. The move marks the first concrete sign of improved relations following the April general election that ousted long-time pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose 16-year tenure left bilateral ties at a historic low.

    For years, Orbán’s nationalist-populist government refused to extend military or financial aid to Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, consistently blocked critical European Union funding for Kyiv, stalled EU sanctions on Moscow, and repeatedly threatened to derail Ukraine’s accession process to the bloc. In the lead-up to the April election, Orbán’s administration ran a harsh anti-Ukraine campaign, framing the war-torn neighboring country as an existential threat to Hungary’s economic stability and national security, claiming it would drag Hungary directly into the ongoing conflict.

    Orbán repeatedly justified his administration’s anti-Ukraine stances by pointing to long-running disputes over minority rights for the roughly 100,000-strong ethnic Hungarian community based in Ukraine’s western Zakarpattia region. Tensions over the issue flared in 2017, when Kyiv passed a new education law mandating Ukrainian as the exclusive language of instruction for all students beyond the fifth grade. Drafted primarily to curtail Russian influence in Ukrainian public life, the policy ultimately restricted education access in other minority languages, drawing widespread anger from Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian minority groups across western Ukraine.

    Following the landslide electoral victory of the center-right Tisza Party and its leader Prime Minister Péter Magyar, however, observers have held out hope for a major shift in Hungary’s approach to its eastern neighbor. The new administration’s break from Orbán’s pro-Moscow stance was already on display last week, when new Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán – who is not related to the former prime minister – summoned the Russian ambassador to Budapest to condemn a massive Russian drone strike on Zakarpattia. That step would have been nearly unthinkable during Orbán’s tenure, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the move as an “important message” that demonstrated a clear break from the previous government’s approach.

    In a public post on X on Monday, Anita Orbán confirmed that expert-level consultations focused on resolving the long-running dispute over ethnic Hungarian minority rights will launch this week. She framed the talks as “an important foundation for the prompt and reassuring settlement of minority rights issues,” adding that she expects the dialogue to be constructive and yield tangible progress for the Hungarian community in Zakarpattia in the near term.

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha echoed that optimistic tone in his own X post Monday, confirming that Kyiv is ready to move forward with a new era of cooperative relations. “We are ready to open a new, mutually beneficial chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations without delay, with the aim of restoring trust and good-neighborly relations between our countries,” Sybiha wrote. He added that during a recent phone call with Anita Orbán, he thanked the Hungarian foreign minister for her government’s “principled and swift reaction to the latest Russian strikes against Ukraine.”

  • New Ebola outbreak in DR Congo: What we know

    New Ebola outbreak in DR Congo: What we know

    The World Health Organization has officially designated the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), amid rising death tolls and growing warnings of cross-border spread across East Africa. As of the latest official update from Congolese Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba, the outbreak has been linked to 91 suspected deaths and approximately 350 suspected infections, with most cases affecting adults aged 20 to 39 and over 60% of cases recorded among women. To date, only a small number of suspected cases have received confirmatory laboratory testing, meaning most official counts remain preliminary.

    The epicenter of the outbreak is located in Mongbwalu health zone, northeastern Ituri province, a mineral-rich region bordering Uganda and South Sudan marked by constant population movement tied to artisanal gold mining. Large swathes of the province are also destabilized by ongoing violence from multiple armed factions, creating significant security barriers that slow the deployment of response teams and limit access to affected communities. The outbreak’s first officially recorded case was a nurse who sought care in Ituri’s capital Bunia on April 24, but local authorities were not alerted to the unusual cluster of high-mortality illness until May 5, when four healthcare workers died within four days in Mongbwalu. Delays in reporting were compounded by local community beliefs that the disease was a “mystical illness” or curse caused by witchcraft, leading many sick residents to seek treatment at religious prayer centers rather than formal medical facilities, allowing the virus to spread undetected. Initial symptoms of the Bundibugyo Ebola strain also mirror common illnesses like influenza and malaria, further delaying timely identification and isolation of cases.

    Alarmingly, the virus has already spread beyond Ituri’s borders. One suspected case has been recorded in Goma, a major eastern DRC urban hub in North Kivu province that has been controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group since early 2023. Additionally, one confirmed Ebola case and one death have been recorded in Uganda, involving two Congolese travelers who crossed into the country from the DRC. No secondary local transmission clusters have been reported in Uganda to date, but the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that neighboring East African nations face a high risk of further spread.

    A key complicating factor in the response is that the outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which no approved vaccines or targeted antiviral treatments currently exist. All licensed Ebola vaccines are only effective against the Zaire strain, which has caused the largest recorded Ebola outbreaks in history. The Bundibugyo strain was first identified in 2007, when it caused a small outbreak in Uganda, and a second outbreak occurred in the DRC in 2012, with historical mortality rates ranging between 30% and 50%. Without pre-existing medical countermeasures, all current containment efforts rely on rapid case detection, isolation of infected people, rigorous contact tracing, and widespread adherence to protective hygiene measures to cut chains of transmission.

    The DRC has a long history of managing Ebola outbreaks, with this event marking the 17th recorded outbreak in the country since the virus was first co-discovered by Congolese virologist Jean-Jacques Muyembe in 1976. Even so, experts warn the current outbreak carries unique and severe risks. “It’s an outbreak that will spread very rapidly, all the more so because it has broken out in a densely populated province,” Muyembe, now head of the DRC’s national infectious disease research institute, told Agence France-Presse. If all currently suspected cases are confirmed, the outbreak will rank as the seventh-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded across all strains, and the second-largest ever recorded involving a non-Zaire strain. Over the past 50 years, Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people across Africa. The DRC’s deadliest outbreak on record occurred between 2018 and 2020, when Zaire strain Ebola killed nearly 2,300 people across 3,500 confirmed cases. The most recent outbreak before the current event killed 45 people between September and December 2023, according to WHO data.

  • Italian minister says Modena attack raises integration concerns amid migration debate

    Italian minister says Modena attack raises integration concerns amid migration debate

    On a recent Saturday in the northern Italian city of Modena, a violent assault left eight civilians wounded, one currently in critical, life-threatening condition, that has quickly ignited a charged national conversation around social integration, mental health, and the place of second-generation communities in Italy.

    The attacker, 31-year-old Salim El Koudri, is an Italian citizen born in the country to parents of Moroccan descent, and holds a university education. According to official accounts, he first drove his vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians before crashing into a storefront. After attempting to flee the scene, he stabbed and slightly injured a bystander with a knife, before being subdued by brave members of the public and taken into police custody. Prosecutors have formally charged him with crimes including massacre and aggravated infliction of grievous bodily harm, with a court set to rule on the validity of his arrest within hours of the interior minister’s Monday announcement.

    Speaking in an interview with Italian daily newspaper *Il Giornale* on Monday, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi explicitly ruled out terrorism as a motive for the assault. “At this stage, there are no elements that correspond to the classic profile of a terrorist who plans violent actions,” he stated. However, he pushed back against widespread attempts to frame the attack as the isolated action of a single person with untreated mental illness, noting that it exposes deeper, systemic societal vulnerabilities.

    Local authorities have confirmed that El Koudri received a formal diagnosis of a schizoid personality disorder in 2022, but discontinued treatment shortly after beginning care. He had also documented longstanding frustration with his employment and personal social circumstances, and investigators discovered he had sent an email to his former university containing anti-Christian insults, before issuing a later apology. Piantedosi suggested the attack may stem from personal resentment rooted in a perceived experience of systemic discrimination, while cautioning that the full investigation into the motive remains ongoing.

    The incident has thrown gasoline on already heated political debate in Italy, where migration control stands as a core policy priority for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing ruling administration. Though Piantedosi acknowledged the connection to broader integration failures, he drew a clear line between the Modena attack and the government’s migration enforcement agenda, pointing out that El Koudri is a legal Italian citizen, not an undocumented migrant. “We are working on repatriations of foreign nationals who commit crimes, but here we are talking about an Italian citizen,” he explained. “This is something different.”

    He emphasized that legal status, formal citizenship, and even academic achievement do not automatically guarantee successful social integration, warning against oversimplifying the attack by reducing it solely to a psychiatric issue. “It would be superficial to deny psychiatric discomfort, just as it would be to use it to avoid a broader reflection on social and cultural fragilities,” he said.

    Political reactions have been deeply divided across the Italian political spectrum. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the hardline anti-migrant League party, labeled El Koudri a “second-generation criminal” in a social media post, and renewed his calls for stricter border and migration controls. That characterization was immediately rejected by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who pointed out that the attacker is an Italian citizen, not a foreign migrant. Tajani planned to travel to Modena on Monday to visit wounded victims in the hospital.

    Opposition politicians and local officials have pushed back against attempts to exploit the attack for political gain, rejecting attempts to tie the violence to immigration policy more broadly. Modena Mayor Massimo Mezzetti dismissed broad generalizations about foreign-born communities as “nonsense,” noting that two Egyptian migrants were among the members of the public who intervened to stop El Koudri and take him down before police arrived.

    The attack has also refocused national attention on the unique challenges faced by so-called second-generation Italians, people born and raised in Italy to immigrant parents, who often fall into gaps in the country’s citizenship and social systems. Under current Italian law, second-generation individuals are not automatically granted citizenship at birth, and must apply for status later in life. Even when they grow up, attend school, and build their lives in Italy, many continue to face persistent barriers to employment, social inclusion, and a shared sense of national identity.

    Thousands of Modena residents gathered over the weekend in the city’s central Piazza Grande to hold a public gathering in solidarity with the attack’s victims, as medical teams continue to treat the wounded, with one woman still listed in life-threatening condition as of Monday.