Global Pulse

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  • Putin hails Russia’s test launch of a new ballistic missile and calls it the world’s most powerful

    Putin hails Russia’s test launch of a new ballistic missile and calls it the world’s most powerful

    On a Tuesday in Moscow, Russian military officials carried out a successful test launch of the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a key milestone in the Kremlin’s years-long campaign to modernize its aging nuclear strategic forces. The announcement came just days after President Vladimir Putin claimed that the nearly three-year full-scale conflict in Ukraine was drawing to a close, delivering a high-profile display of Moscow’s nuclear military capabilities to the West.

    Speaking after the test, Putin confirmed that the nuclear-capable Sarmat missile – codenamed “Satan II” by Western defense analysts – will enter official combat service with Russia’s strategic nuclear forces by the end of 2025. The new system is engineered to replace the Soviet-designed Voyevoda ICBM, a decades-old platform that has formed the core of Russia’s land-based nuclear deterrent for generations.

    Putin emphasized the Sarmat’s unprecedented destructive power, describing it as “the most powerful missile in the world.” He noted that the combined explosive yield of the system’s multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles is more than four times greater than that of any comparable ICBM fielded by Western nuclear powers. The missile boasts a maximum range of more than 35,000 kilometers, or 21,700 miles, enabling it to strike targets anywhere on the globe via suborbital flight, and incorporates advanced design features that allow it to penetrate even the most sophisticated prospective Western missile defense networks. Compared to its Soviet-era predecessor, the Sarmat also delivers dramatically improved targeting accuracy, Putin added.

    This test marks the second publicly acknowledged successful test of the Sarmat, after development began back in 2011. Reports indicate the program suffered a major setback in 2024, when a test launch ended in a large accidental explosion at the test site. The Sarmat is one of several next-generation strategic nuclear systems Putin first unveiled in a 2018 address, when he claimed the new weapons would render any U.S.-built missile defense systems completely ineffective.

    The test launch fits into a broader pattern that has played out since Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022: the Russian leader has repeatedly emphasized his country’s nuclear capabilities to deter Western nations from expanding military and political support for Kyiv. Just three days before the test, Putin oversaw the annual Victory Day military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, marking the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. Notably, the 2025 parade broke with nearly 20 years of tradition by excluding all heavy weapons and armor, a shift widely interpreted as a security measure to reduce vulnerability to Ukrainian cross-border attacks.

    Since Putin first took office in 2000, upgrading Russia’s Soviet-era nuclear triad – the three-pronged force of land-based ICBMs, nuclear-armed submarine-launched missiles, and nuclear-capable strategic bombers – has been a core national security priority. To date, the Kremlin has overseen the deployment of hundreds of new land-based ICBMs, commissioned new nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, and completed modernization work on its fleet of strategic bombers. Beyond the Sarmat, multiple other next-generation nuclear systems have reached deployment or are in late-stage development:
    – The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, capable of reaching speeds up to 27 times the speed of sound, has already entered operational service.
    – The new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, which can be fitted with either conventional or nuclear warheads, has already been used twice in conventional strikes against targets in Ukraine. With a maximum range of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), the system can reach any target across the entire European continent.
    – Development of the Poseidon, a nuclear-powered underwater drone designed to carry a massive thermonuclear warhead, is in its final stages. The system is engineered to detonate offshore near enemy coastal cities, generating a catastrophic radioactive tsunami that would render large swathes of coastline uninhabitable for decades.
    – The Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, also in late-stage development, boasts effectively unlimited range thanks to its miniature atomic reactor propulsion system. The design allows the missile to loiter for days outside enemy air defenses, bypassing traditional defensive networks to strike targets from unexpected directions.

    Putin framed the development of these new systems as a forced response to U.S. policy dating back to 2001, when Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a Cold War-era agreement between the U.S. and Soviet Union that limited the deployment of national missile defense systems. Russian military strategists have long warned that a U.S. national missile shield could create an incentive for Washington to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia, counting on the shield to intercept the small number of Russian warheads that would survive an initial first strike.

    “We were forced to consider ensuring our strategic security in the face of the new reality and the need to maintain a strategic balance of power and parity,” Putin stated Tuesday.

    Russia’s ongoing nuclear modernization push has already triggered reciprocal action from the United States, which has launched a costly multi-billion dollar upgrade of its own nuclear arsenal. The move comes at a time of historic erosion in bilateral nuclear arms control: the last remaining binding treaty limiting the size of the two countries’ nuclear arsenals, New START, expired in February 2025. For the first time in more than 50 years, there are no legal caps on the world’s two largest nuclear stockpiles, fueling widespread international concern that the world is now entering an unconstrained new nuclear arms race.

  • Ethiopian marathon runner Melese dies aged 36

    Ethiopian marathon runner Melese dies aged 36

    The Ethiopian Athletics Federation has confirmed the passing of decorated long-distance runner Yebrgual Melese, who died at 36 following a sudden medical emergency during a routine training session this Tuesday. The multiple international marathon champion was in active preparation for an upcoming race scheduled to take place in Ottawa on May 24 when the unexpected incident unfolded.

    Local media reports confirm that Melese suffered the acute health crisis while training in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Emergency personnel transported her quickly to a nearby medical facility, but clinical teams were unable to save her life despite all resuscitation and treatment efforts. No additional details surrounding the exact cause of her death have been released to the public as of this reporting.

    In an official statement released following the announcement of Melese’s passing, the Ethiopian Athletics Federation shared its profound grief over the loss of the celebrated athlete. “We express our deep sorrow over the sudden passing of this heroic athlete and offer our sincerest condolences to her family, friends and fans across the globe,” the statement read.

    Melese built a legendary competitive career spanning more than a decade, claiming prestigious marathon titles in major global cities including Houston, Prague, and Shanghai. Her 2018 victory at the Shanghai Marathon remains one of her most iconic career wins. She notched her strongest performance in the World Marathon Majors circuit in 2015 — the same year she secured wins in Houston and Prague — when she crossed the finish line in second place at the Chicago Marathon. Her most recent appearance in competitive racing came at a Beijing marathon in May 2023, where she was unable to complete the full distance.

  • On the Greek island of Rhodes, I skipped the beach to visit a pasha’s library

    On the Greek island of Rhodes, I skipped the beach to visit a pasha’s library

    On a muted, drizzly early spring morning on the Greek island of Rhodes, Tarik Tuten, a local resident with a soft Turkish lilt, wanders the quiet sea-pebble alleys of the island’s Old Town – a ritual he has followed for decades, regardless of company. As the island has not yet been flooded by the annual summer tourist rush, only stray cats share these winding lanes with us, and the overcast sky casts a soft, melancholic haze over the faded Levantine architecture around us.

    This quiet melancholy, known in Turkish as *huzun*, is a rare feeling in the modern eastern Mediterranean, where coastlines are either torn by conflict or transformed into exclusive playgrounds for the global wealthy. Neither war nor what Tuten calls “Dubaisation” leaves room for this quiet, layered sense of history – but it lingers on every corner of Rhodes’ back streets, where Tuten has spent his whole life navigating forgotten landmarks: overgrown gardens in the old Jewish quarter, a hidden Byzantine church tucked behind oleander and cypress groves.

    But this walk is not just a casual ramble. I have come to Rhodes to visit one of the Mediterranean’s most extraordinary hidden cultural treasures: the Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library, a 1793 Ottoman institution that Tuten’s family has stewarded continuously for seven generations – a near-unique survival of a centuries-old *waqf* (pious charitable endowment) still under the care of its founding family.

    Nestled unassumingly opposite the 16th-century Suleymaniye Mosque, tucked between a row of tourist-facing jewellery shops, the library is easy for casual summer visitors to miss. Step past its plain exterior wall, however, and you enter a treasure trove of 828 handwritten manuscripts spanning astrology, philosophy, medicine, Islamic law, and economics, penned in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. What makes the institution even rarer than its collection is its unbroken lineage: founded as part of a waqf by Tuten’s seventh-generation ancestor, it has never been seized by the state or broken from its founding family’s stewardship – a miracle of survival, Tuten says, that few other endowments across the former Ottoman Empire can match.

    The library’s story begins with a pilgrimage. Tuten’s ancestor, Ahmed Aga of Rhodes, was an Ottoman official and wealthy merchant leading a camel caravan bound for Mecca and Medina on behalf of Sultan Selim III when he was assassinated under unclear circumstances somewhere between modern-day Syria and Saudi Arabia. Aga built a diversified fortune: he held tax farms in the Balkans, owned a soap factory in Izmir, and had stakes in shipping and salt mining, making powerful enemies amid shifting Ottoman political tides. When a new grand vizier took power, Aga was eliminated – a common practice in the era, Tuten explains, though the full story remains untold.

    Rather than being dissolved after Aga’s death, his waqf flourished under his son, Ahmed Fethi Pasha, who rose to become one of the Ottoman Empire’s most prominent 19th-century statesmen. Born in the early 1800s, Fethi Pasha climbed the ranks of the Ottoman imperial establishment, distinguishing himself in the 1828–1829 Russo-Turkish War, where his bravery on the battlefield earned him the honorific *fethi*. He went on to serve as the Ottoman ambassador to Russia, Austria, and France, becoming a leading figure of the Tanzimat era – a period of sweeping Western-inspired reform to modernize the Ottoman state. A lover of European technology and design, he founded Istanbul’s Beykoz porcelain factory to satisfy the growing Ottoman bourgeoisie’s appetite for Western-style luxury goods, and oversaw a boom in clock tower construction across the empire that still shapes skylines from the Greek islands to Lebanese mountain villages. His 1852 clock tower, built to honor Sultan Abdulmecid I’s visit to Rhodes, still dominates the Old Town’s skyline as a marker of his forward-thinking vision.

    When the library’s long-serving groundskeeper Yusuf pulls open the heavy wooden double gates to the compound, visitors step into a quiet oasis frozen in time. The courtyard, paved in alternating bands of white and black pebbles in the traditional Rhodian *krokalia* mosaic style, is fragrant with orange blossom, lined with rows of potted geraniums and basil, and shaded by loquat trees heavy with fruit. Tuten explains that Yusuf’s wife tends the garden, and the family has intentionally kept its relaxed, unmanicured form – a choice that feels like a quiet rejection of the slick, disposable modern development that has spread across much of the Mediterranean.

    The library itself is a study in understated durability, built from Rhodes’ distinctive porous sand-colored limestone, with solemn wooden windows framed by delicate carved lintels and a red-tiled roof bound with Khorasani, an ancient mortar that has held together Byzantine, Ottoman, and Persian architectural masterpieces for centuries. It was built to outlast generations, a stark contrast to the temporary, tourist-focused developments that line much of the island’s coast today. The waqf’s original charter allocated a portion of its rental property income to support a full-time groundskeeper, a role Yusuf has held for 40 years. Tuten notes that Yusuf has rarely traveled more than two hours from the library in his four decades on the job, calling the role a sacred duty rather than just a paycheck.

    Once inside, the library’s resident researcher Aydin Bostanci, a specialist in Islamic manuscripts and Ottoman calligraphy from Greece’s Western Thrace region, leads the tour. Bostanci’s home region is one of the few places that retained its Muslim population after the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey mandated by the Treaty of Lausanne, and Rhodes itself has a similar layered history: around 2,000 descendants of Ottoman Muslims remained on the island after 1923, thanks to the Dodecanese being under Italian occupation from 1912 to 1947, exempting it from the population exchange.

    In the high-ceilinged, whitewashed reading room with deep arched windows, Bostanci explains that the library’s rules have never allowed its manuscripts to leave the premises – for centuries, scholars would travel to Rhodes to request volumes, which the librarian would bring to them to read on site. Originally, the waqf also included a *medrese* (religious school) that taught young boys Arabic and Quranic studies, since literacy in Ottoman, Arabic, and Persian was limited to a small class of transitory religious and state officials.

    When Bostanci opens the door to the secured book room, the quiet weight of history hits immediately. A central cherry wood cabinet with glass panes holds the library’s collection, where the scent of aged wood mixes with oud – the fragrant resin placed between shelves to repel insects and preserve the fragile pages. Laid out for viewing are the collection’s rarest pieces: a 1735 copy of Ibn Khaldun’s 14th-century *Muqaddimah* (Prolegomena to History), a Mamluk-era Quran, texts on Hadith and astronomy, and an exquisitely illustrated 16th-century Safavid Quran.

    Rhodes itself has always been a crossroads of empires, a place where layers of history overlap rather than erase one another. After the Knights Hospitaller were expelled from Jerusalem by Saladin’s armies, they captured Rhodes from the Byzantines in 1309 and built massive fortifications, churches, and a castle that still define the Old Town’s skyline. It took Suleiman the Magnificent six months of siege to oust the knights in 1522 – 70 years after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople – transforming the island from a crusader fortress into a thriving trading entrepot and the Ottomans’ most important Eastern Mediterranean naval base. Commerce flourished, linking North Africa to the Black Sea and drawing multiethnic communities of Orthodox Christians and Jews to the island.

    Today, Rhodes draws millions of tourists a year, drawn by its beaches and crowded waterfront cafes serving everything from overpriced sushi to traditional Greek fare. But the island has been a destination for curious travelers for centuries: French writer François-René de Chateaubriand wrote in 1812 that he found Rhodes more welcoming than any other Levantine destination, calling it “a little France in the midst of Greece” thanks to the Knights Hospitaller’s legacy. Even Egypt’s Khedival royal family vacationed here to escape the summer heat, and many elite members who died during their stays are buried at the Murad Reis Mosque near the port – the same cemetery where British writer Lawrence Durrell lived in a small cottage he named Villa Cleobolus for two years after World War II, before he found fame with *The Alexandria Quartet*. Durrell’s 1940s writings on Rhodes helped lay the groundwork for the Greek tourism boom of the 1960s, describing a poor island in flux, no longer Ottoman or Italian, not yet fully Greek.

    On my final night, Tuten hosts a dinner for a diverse group of guests at a restaurant in Rhodes’ new city: a mix of people from Greece, Turkey, Istanbul, and Saudi Arabia, bound together by shared connection to the island’s layered history. A Greek writer friend from Istanbul whispers that the scene feels straight out of a Durrell novel: it is the Levant at its best, a messy, convivial mixing of cultures where conversations shift seamlessly between English, Greek, Turkish, and Arabic over wine and pizza.

    Local researcher Savvas Pavlidis, whose great-grandfather was Rhodes’ last Ottoman-era mayor, explains that the island’s overreliance on tourism is no accident: after the 1923 population exchange and the severing of historic economic ties between the Dodecanese and the Anatolian mainland, Italian occupiers first turned to tourism to prop up the island’s economy, a path successive Greek governments continued. But while mass tourism shapes much of modern Rhodes, the Hafiz Ahmed Agha Library stands as a testament to the island’s natural connection to its eastern neighbors.

    Today, Tuten hosts regular researchers and academics who come to study the library’s manuscripts and learn preservation techniques, but his core goal for the institution is far simpler. Drawing on the shared Greek-Turkish word *muhabbet*, meaning a warm, friendly exchange between people, Tuten says he wants the library to be more than an archive: it is meant to be a meeting place, a convivial space that unites communities across the borders and divisions that have reshaped the eastern Mediterranean over the past two centuries.

  • Armed conflict last year in Colombia hit civilians the hardest in a decade, Red Cross says

    Armed conflict last year in Colombia hit civilians the hardest in a decade, Red Cross says

    BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – A new annual report published Tuesday by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has delivered a stark assessment of Colombia’s deepening security crisis, finding that harm to civilian communities from ongoing armed violence reached its highest level in 10 years in 2025.

    The humanitarian organization’s findings paint a grim picture of widespread displacement and restriction across rural and regional parts of the country: the total number of people forced to flee their homes amid clashes between criminal gangs, rebel factions, and state forces doubled over 2024, hitting 235,000. Concurrently, the number of civilians trapped in forced lockdowns imposed by armed groups on small towns and villages jumped by 99% compared to the prior year.

    Colombia’s internal conflict has stretched across decades, with rebel factions and drug trafficking organizations long battling government forces for control of strategic rural territories, including key smuggling corridors central to the global cocaine trade. A landmark 2016 peace accord between the Colombian government and the country’s largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), delivered a notable reduction in rural violence for years after the agreement was signed. But in the wake of FARC’s demobilization, fragmented smaller armed groups have moved to seize the power vacuum left behind, extorting local businesses through illegal taxes and terrorizing civilian residents who resist their control, driving a steady erosion of security across much of the countryside.

    Olivier Dubois, the ICRC’s head of mission in Colombia, emphasized that the catastrophic humanitarian conditions recorded in 2025 are the outcome of a gradual decline that the organization has flagged to stakeholders since 2018.

    Over the past four years, the administration of Colombian President Gustavo Petro has pursued a strategy of de-escalating rural violence, launching formal peace negotiations with the country’s remaining active insurgent groups and reaching bilateral ceasefire agreements with several factions. But critics of this approach warn that armed groups have exploited the ceasefire periods to reorganize, rearm, and consolidate their control over civilian communities. These groups have also ramped up the forced recruitment of children into their criminal and armed ranks, the criticism notes.

    Political violence has also accelerated sharply across the country. Last year, a presidential candidate was shot in the head during a public campaign rally in Bogota and later succumbed to his injuries; Colombian authorities have attributed the attack to one of the nation’s active rebel groups.

    Earlier this year, the United Nations Human Rights Office in Colombia also sounded the alarm, describing the country’s security trajectory as “backsliding” and confirming that targeted killings of human rights defenders rose by 9% in 2025. The ICRC’s report adds further data to this assessment, noting that casualties from explosive devices – including landmines and drone-deployed ordnance – rose 33% year-over-year to 965 people killed or injured in 2025.

    In its concluding appeal, the ICRC called on all parties involved in Colombia’s internal armed conflict to uphold fundamental protections for civilian populations, and to safeguard the rights of people who wish to exit hostilities. The organization stressed that adherence to international humanitarian law is a non-negotiable obligation, not an optional standard.

    Coverage of Latin American and Caribbean affairs from the Associated Press can be found at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

  • Albrecht Weinberg, a Holocaust survivor who returned to Germany in his 80s, dies at 101

    Albrecht Weinberg, a Holocaust survivor who returned to Germany in his 80s, dies at 101

    LEER, GERMANY — Local municipal authorities confirmed this Tuesday the passing of Albrecht Weinberg, a 101-year-old Holocaust survivor who endured some of the Nazi regime’s most brutal concentration and death camps, lost nearly his entire family to the genocide, and returned to his native Germany in his 80s to spend his final decades educating new generations about the atrocities he survived.

    Weinberg died at his home in Leer, a city in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, just a few weeks after celebrating his 101st birthday and attending the premiere of a documentary chronicling his life. Titled *Es ist immer in meinem Kopf* (translated “It is always in my head”), the event drew hundreds of attendees who gathered to honor his decades of work as a witness to history.

    Born in 1925 in Rhauderfehn, a small community just outside Leer, Weinberg was a young Jewish man when the Nazi regime rose to power. He was deported and imprisoned in three of the Third Reich’s most infamous death and concentration camps: Auschwitz, Mittelbau-Dora, and Bergen-Belsen. He also survived three deadly forced death marches in the final chaotic weeks of World War II, as Nazi officials emptied camps ahead of advancing Allied forces. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust, leaving him as one of the only surviving members of his immediate family.

    After decades living in New York, Weinberg made the decision to return to his East Frisian homeland 14 years ago, a choice that surprised many given the trauma he had suffered at the hands of the Nazi German state. From that point forward, local mayor Claus-Peter Horst recalled, Weinberg dedicated himself tirelessly to sharing his experiences with incredible energy, repeatedly warning German communities against the danger of forgetting the horrors of the Nazi era. For years, he spoke regularly to high school groups, community organizations, and public audiences, turning his personal trauma into a warning against rising extremism.

    Even in his final years, the memories of his wartime suffering never faded. Speaking to reporters last year, Weinberg acknowledged that the trauma of his camp experiences remained a constant part of his daily life. “I sleep with it, I wake up with it, I sweat, I have nightmares; that is my present,” he said. He also voiced a persistent worry that when the last generation of Holocaust survivors passed away, the collective memory of the atrocities would fade, leaving future generations only with written accounts rather than the personal, human testimony that carried far greater weight.

    Weinberg’s legacy also included a powerful act of political protest that drew national attention last year. In 2017, he had been awarded Germany’s prestigious Order of Merit in recognition of his educational work. But he chose to return the honor in 2024 to protest a parliamentary motion that passed with the support of a far-right political party. The motion, put forward by Friedrich Merz — who became Germany’s chancellor in late 2024 — called for significantly stricter border policies that would turn away most irregular migrants arriving at Germany’s borders. Weinberg’s protest highlighted his lifelong commitment to speaking out against far-right extremism, decades after he survived it.

    Following the announcement of his death, tributes poured in from across Germany and the global Jewish community. Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, wrote on the social platform X that he had gotten to know Weinberg well over the years, praising him as a unique “bridge — between past and present, between pain and hope, between the dead he could never forget and the young people whom he encouraged to seek the truth.”

  • Israeli army chief warns reserve forces could ‘collapse’ amid manpower crisis

    Israeli army chief warns reserve forces could ‘collapse’ amid manpower crisis

    Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir has delivered a stark, urgent warning to Israeli lawmakers that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) could see its entire reserve force collapse within a matter of months if the government fails to immediately pass sweeping conscription and service extension legislation, multiple Israeli media outlets have confirmed. Speaking during a closed-door classified session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Monday, Zamir laid out an urgent set of policy demands, including raising mandatory active military service from 30 months to 36 months, expanding overall recruitment pools, and updating outdated reserve duty requirements to address the growing shortfall.

    Zamir’s projection painted a grim picture for the IDF’s force structure: by January 2027, the scheduled reduction of mandatory service to 30 months will strip the service of thousands of additional frontline combat troops, creating a gap so severe that “the reserve army will collapse into itself,” according to comments reported by Israeli outlet i24news. The top uniformed official stressed that after nearly three years of constant combat operations across multiple fronts, the IDF is already grappling with a critical manpower shortage that threatens to undermine the military’s ability to carry out future missions. “I do not deal with political or legislative processes,” Zamir told the committee. “I am engaged in multi-front warfare and in defeating the enemy. In order to continue doing that, the IDF urgently needs more soldiers.”

    Per Israeli news outlet Ynet, Zamir confirmed the IDF is already operating at “the lower threshold in terms of manpower,” as prolonged large-scale military campaigns continue to drain personnel resources. Monday’s warning comes just weeks after Zamir first notified the government that the IDF needs an additional 15,000 troops, between 7,000 and 8,000 of whom are required for frontline combat roles. This need has grown more pressing in recent weeks after the Israeli government approved construction of 30 new illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank, all of which require dedicated military protection for residents and operations.

    A senior official from the IDF Manpower Directorate added further context Sunday, noting that if mandatory service is not extended, reservists could be forced to serve between 80 and 100 days of active duty annually, a burden that many observers believe will lead to widespread retention issues. Just one day after the Manpower Directorate’s comments, Israel Hayom reported that the Knesset committee had extended the active call-up order for roughly 400,000 reservists through the end of the current month. While the IDF has attempted to alleviate the shortage over the past 18 months by recruiting 8,000 new troops through an accelerated career-service program, Israeli financial newspaper The Marker reported that the initiative has failed to meaningfully reduce the strain on existing personnel. As of today, an estimated 100,000 reservists remain on active duty, placing unprecedented pressure on Israel’s reserve force structure.

    Opposition politicians across the ideological spectrum have seized on Zamir’s comments to attack Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, arguing that the government’s failure to end longstanding military conscription exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities is directly responsible for the worsening manpower crisis. Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and opposition figure, accused the government of “evading responsibility and prioritizing political considerations over the country’s security.” Writing on social platform X, Eisenkot added: “A government that does not demand conscription for everyone at such a critical moment for Israel is a government that does not deserve to remain in office for even one more day.”

    Former Israeli Prime Minister and current opposition leader Naftali Bennett echoed Eisenkot’s criticism, stating that the ongoing draft exemptions are “costing the lives of our soldiers.” Bennett pointed to the scale of the unmet personnel demand: “There are 100,000 healthy ultra-Orthodox young men who, because of politics, are not being drafted.”

    Public debate over ultra-Orthodox conscription exemptions has exploded in intensity in Israel since October 2023, as expanded operational demands across Gaza, the West Bank, and northern border with Lebanon have stretched the IDF’s personnel capacity to breaking point. Senior military leaders and politicians from across the political divide have repeatedly called for an end to the exemptions to close the manpower gap, but Netanyahu’s coalition has been unable to advance new conscription legislation due to deep internal divisions within his ruling alliance.

    Avigdor Liberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, called the failure to mandate ultra-Orthodox conscription “a devastating blow to the security and future of the State of Israel.” Yair Golan, leader of the opposition Democrats party and a retired senior IDF officer, went further, accusing the government of “selling out the country’s security simply to preserve ultra-Orthodox draft evasion. This is simply a betrayal of our soldiers,” Golan said.

    The ongoing manpower crisis has also amplified a separate contentious debate over the recruitment of women into combat units. During his testimony to the Knesset committee, Zamir pushed back against opposition from religious leaders, reaffirming the IDF’s commitment to recruiting women for combat roles. “Women are an inseparable part of the IDF’s strength,” he stated.

    Last month, leading religious-Zionist rabbis issued a formal warning that continued recruitment of women into mixed-gender combat units would drive members of their communities to refuse military service. “Under no circumstances can we allow our male and female students to serve in mixed-gender frameworks that place them in impossible situations,” one rabbi declared during an emergency conference of religious-Zionist leaders. A second rabbi added: “We will not serve in a field unit in a setting where there is mixing with women.”

    Days after that conference, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan 11 reported that three religious Israeli soldiers had already refused to report for duty at a northern Israel military base after a female service member was assigned to the same post, marking the first public case of protest-related refusal tied to the mixed-gender debate.

    With the Netanyahu government deadlocked on passing new conscription legislation, Israeli security analysts and researchers have floated a series of unorthodox alternative proposals to address the IDF’s critical manpower shortage. In February, two researchers at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, a prominent right-leaning security think tank, proposed the creation of a foreign legion modeled on the longstanding unit operated by the French military. The researchers argued that increasing recruitment from global Jewish diaspora communities would not meet the IDF’s current needs, and instead called for allowing “the enlistment of non-citizen volunteers” to build a new auxiliary fighting force. While the pair acknowledged that the proposal “will likely make many Israelis uncomfortable,” their report argued that “there is no compelling reason to forgo the assistance of foreign volunteers in advancing the Zionist project.”

  • South Africa’s top court bars repeat asylum applications

    South Africa’s top court bars repeat asylum applications

    In a landmark final ruling that has reshaped South Africa’s asylum framework, the country’s Constitutional Court has moved to block foreign nationals from submitting repeated asylum claims after an initial application has been rejected. The judgment, which upends a prior ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeal, addresses longstanding administrative and policy concerns over the nation’s overstretched refugee processing system.

    The court’s majority opinion emphasized that without explicit governing legislation, allowing endless cycles of repeat asylum applications would create a permanent logjam: a “never-ending cycle” of processing that would block ordered deportations and overwhelm government administrative capacity. The case that led to the ruling originated with two Burundian nationals who first had their asylum claims rejected in 2014, then submitted a new application in 2018. The pair argued that renewed political violence that erupted in Burundi following the 2015 controversial presidential election, which left at least 70 people dead amid widespread unrest after then-President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term, justified a reevaluation of their claim.

    Lower courts sided with the two claimants, but the Constitutional Court, South Africa’s final court of appeal, overturned that decision. The ruling has been celebrated by the nation’s current coalition government as a critical check on systemic abuse. Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, a member of the Democratic Alliance – the second-largest party in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC-led unity government – called the outcome a “major victory” over misuse of the refugee system. In remarks to local broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Schreiber explained his department had spearheaded the legal challenge to the Supreme Court of Appeal’s ruling, warning that upholding the lower court’s decision would have opened the door to “multiple bites at the cherry” for rejected claimants, enabling ongoing abuse of the asylum process.

    Schreiber added that the judgment is a key step toward the government’s broader goal of building a more “effective and fair system to manage refugees and asylum seekers.” As of 2025, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) data shows South Africa hosts more than 167,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers, the vast majority originating from neighboring and conflict-affected African states including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. Official census figures estimate South Africa is home to roughly 2.4 million documented migrants, accounting for just under 4% of the total population, though observers believe a large additional number of undocumented migrants reside in the country without formal status. As Africa’s most industrialized economy, South Africa has long drawn migrant workers from across the continent seeking better economic opportunity.

    The ruling comes at a moment of heightened domestic tension over immigration, with South Africa recently swept by a wave of large-scale protests targeting undocumented migrants. Thousands of demonstrators have marched in major urban centers to demand mass deportations of foreign nationals, and the unrest has included targeted attacks on migrant-owned businesses and communities. Several African governments have formally raised concerns through the African Union and have issued travel advisories warning their citizens residing in South Africa of potential targeting. Earlier this week, President Ramaphosa issued a public statement blaming “opportunists” for orchestrating the violent anti-immigrant attacks, stressing that the unrest does not reflect the will of the South African public or official government policy. “The recent violent protests and criminal acts directed at foreign nationals in parts of our country do not represent the views of South Africa’s people nor reflect our government’s policy,” Ramaphosa said in an open letter.

    The judgment marks a significant shift in South Africa’s asylum policy, and comes as the government faces growing pressure from domestic political factions to crack down on unauthorized migration while navigating criticism from human rights groups and neighboring nations over the treatment of foreign residents.

  • Trump ‘very disappointed’ in Kurds who just ‘take, take, take’

    Trump ‘very disappointed’ in Kurds who just ‘take, take, take’

    Weeks after the United States and Israel launched their large-scale military assault on Iran starting in late February, former U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly slammed Iranian Kurdish groups, saying he is “very disappointed” in their failure to provide military backing to Iranian opposition forces. His remarks at the White House Monday came amid persistent unconfirmed media reports that the Central Intelligence Agency had supplied weaponry to Kurdish opposition factions to deploy against the Iranian government, claims that Kurdish leaders have repeatedly and flatly denied.

    In his comments, Trump painted a critical picture of the Kurdish groups, saying, “The Kurds take, take, take. They have a great reputation in Congress. Congress says they fight hard. They fight hard when they get paid.” These latest critical remarks mark a sharp shift from Trump’s own conflicting public statements on the issue just weeks earlier, highlighting the chaotic alignment of U.S. policy around the Iran conflict.

    Shortly after the U.S.-Israeli offensive began in early March, Trump confirmed to Reuters that he would openly support a Kurdish offensive against the Iranian government, a comment that aligned with widespread media reports of CIA arms shipments to Kurdish factions. However, just days later, Trump backtracked entirely, telling reporters he had explicitly instructed Kurdish groups not to join the conflict. “They’re willing to go in, but I’ve told them I don’t want them to go in,” he stated at the time.

    These contradictory statements from the U.S. head of state have left Iranian Kurdish party leaders caught off guard. The factions collectively maintain roughly 6,000 armed fighters based primarily in northern Iraq, and none of the groups have entered the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war against Iran to date.

    Mustafa Mawloudi, deputy secretary-general of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI) — one of the largest Iranian Kurdish opposition groups — told independent outlet Middle East Eye that his organization has neither received U.S. weapons nor shipped arms to activists inside Iranian Kurdistan, referred to locally as Rojhalat. “A proof of this is that we cannot send arms through Iraq to our people,” Mawloudi explained, noting that cross-border arms shipments would create serious legal complications for the group, which is based in Iraq’s northern Kurdish autonomous region.

    Tensions have spiked dramatically in the border region since the U.S.-Israeli offensive began. Data compiled by independent Kurdish news outlet Rojhelat Info shows that Iran and its allied militias have launched nearly 700 missile and drone strikes targeting Iraqi Kurdistan since February 28. At least 15 people have been killed in these attacks, according to the data. Roughly 170 of those strikes have specifically targeted bases of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, killing six opposition fighters to date.

    The back-and-forth rhetoric from Trump comes on the heels of major unrest inside Iran just months earlier: in late December, widespread nationwide anti-government protests spread across the country, lasting roughly two weeks before Iranian security forces violently suppressed the demonstrations amid a total national internet blackout.

  • EU agrees to sanctions on Israeli settlers after Hungary’s new government lifts veto

    EU agrees to sanctions on Israeli settlers after Hungary’s new government lifts veto

    After months of diplomatic deadlock, the European Union has finally moved forward with targeted sanctions against violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, a breakthrough made possible when Hungary’s new government reversed a veto held by the country’s former pro-Israel right-wing administration.

    For months, the EU’s plan to penalize settlers amid a sharp spike in anti-Palestinian attacks had been held up by Viktor Orban, the former Hungarian prime minister and a longstanding close ally of Israel, who blocked the proposal after settler violence surged across the occupied territory starting in October 2023. Orban’s tenure ended when he lost re-election in April, and his successor Peter Magyar moved quickly to end the stalemate, clearing the path for a formal vote.

    The sanctions package received final approval during a meeting of EU foreign ministers from all 27 member states on Monday. Under the terms of the new measures, three individual Israeli settlers and four settler organizations will be targeted, though the identities of those affected have not yet been released to the public. The sanctions also extend to leading figures from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip.

    EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas emphasized that the long-delayed action marked a shift from stalled negotiations to tangible policy. “It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery… extremisms and violence carry consequences,” Kallas stated. She also acknowledged that broader, more sweeping measures — including a French-Swedish proposal for a full trade embargo on goods from illegal Israeli settlements — failed to gather enough backing from EU member states to move forward.

    French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot welcomed the decision, praising the bloc’s action in a social media statement. “The EU is sanctioning the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank,” Barrot wrote, adding, “These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay.”

    Israeli officials were swift to condemn the sanctions, issuing harsh pushback within hours of the announcement. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the measures “unacceptable” and “without any legal or factual basis.” Far-right Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir went further, labeling the EU’s decision antisemitic.

    “To expect the antisemitic union to make a moral decision is like expecting the sun to rise in the west. While our enemies perpetrate attacks and murder Jews, the European Union is trying to tie the hands of those who defend themselves,” Ben Gvir wrote in a social media post. He added that “the settlement enterprise will not be deterred. We will continue to build, to plant, to defend, and to settle throughout the entire land of Israel.”

    The EU’s move comes as Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank has accelerated dramatically in the months following Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The hardline government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has introduced a raft of policies to expand settlements, approving new construction at a record-breaking pace. In April, Israeli media reports revealed that the Israeli cabinet secretly authorized an unprecedented number of new settlements amid rising regional tensions with Iran, approving 34 new outposts in a single decision — that number is more than half of the total settlements approved in 2025, the previous record-setting year for expansion.

    Under international law, all Israeli settlements built in the West Bank, territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, are widely recognized as illegal. The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and most of the global community have repeatedly reaffirmed this position, though Israel rejects the classification and has continued to expand its presence in the territory.

  • Zelensky’s ex-chief of staff in court as Ukraine corruption probe escalates

    Zelensky’s ex-chief of staff in court as Ukraine corruption probe escalates

    Two major overlapping developments have rocked the ongoing conflict in Ukraine this week: a high-stakes corruption probe targeting one of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s closest former aides has unfolded in Kyiv, even as Russia resumed large-scale drone strikes after a three-day Victory Day ceasefire and announced plans to deploy a cutting-edge intercontinental nuclear missile by the end of 2026.

    On Tuesday, Andriy Yermak, who once served as head of Ukraine’s presidential office and Zelenskyy’s most senior advisor through the opening years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, appeared before a Kyiv court following formal designation as a suspect in a multi-million dollar money laundering scheme. Yermak, who stepped down from his post last November after anti-corruption agents raided his apartment, has forcefully pushed back against the claims. Speaking to reporters hours ahead of his scheduled court appearance, Yermak stated, “I do not have any house, I only have one flat and one car.” His defense attorney, Ihor Fomin, has repeatedly described the allegations against his client as “baseless”, telling Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne that the unsubstantiated charges were driven by unprecedented public pressure, rather than evidence of wrongdoing.

    The suspicions against Yermak center on two separate alleged corruption schemes. The first is an elite luxury housing development named “Dynasty” outside Kyiv, where investigators claim roughly $10.5 million in construction funds were laundered through illegal channels. The case is also tied to a broader ongoing inquiry into an alleged $100 million embezzlement ring within Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy sector. Nabu, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, and SAPO, the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the two agencies leading the investigation, have confirmed that six additional people have been named as suspects alongside Yermak, and have released partial transcripts of wiretapped conversations as part of their evidence. Prosecutors are requesting that the Kyiv court impose either pre-trial detention or set bail at approximately $4 million. In a key clarification for national politics, Nabu’s leadership stressed that President Zelenskyy himself is not part of the ongoing pre-trial investigation.

    Yermak was once one of the most powerful figures in Zelenskyy’s government, leading Ukraine’s diplomatic negotiations with the United States and serving as the president’s closest confidant throughout the first phase of the full-scale invasion. This corruption case is the latest high-profile fallout from Operation Midas, a sweeping anti-corruption probe that has already ensnared multiple other former senior officials and members of Zelenskyy’s old inner circle. Former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov has been charged with abuse of office, former Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko was detained while attempting to cross the Ukrainian border, and businessman Timur Mindich, a one-time business partner of Zelenskyy who co-owned his former production studio Kvartal 95, has fled Ukraine after being named a suspect. All individuals named in the probe deny any criminal wrongdoing.

    The unfolding corruption scandal carries significant geopolitical weight for Ukraine, as it comes as the country pursues formal accession to the European Union. Brussels has repeatedly made clean governance and robust independent anti-corruption efforts a core requirement for Ukraine’s membership bid. Last year, Zelenskyy was forced to reverse a controversial law that would have weakened the operational independence of Nabu and SAPO after widespread domestic protests and sharp criticism from EU officials.

    Simultaneously, military tensions have spiked across the region following the end of Russia’s three-day Victory Day ceasefire, marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Overnight, Russia launched a massive drone assault targeting multiple regions across Ukraine, with more than 200 drones launched. Ukrainian authorities confirmed that the attacks left at least one civilian dead. Kyiv, which had seen a period of relative calm in the days leading up to the strikes, faced new air raid alerts across the capital overnight. For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed it had shot down more than 100 Ukrainian drones launched into Russian territory over the preceding 24 hours.

    Military and diplomatic positioning has shifted in recent days following conflicting statements from Russian and Ukrainian leaders over the prospects of peace talks. At the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that the war was “coming to an end”, but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov clarified on Tuesday that “a lot of homework is still to be done”, indicating that a planned meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is unlikely to happen in the near future. Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected Russian overtures, stating earlier that Moscow has “no intention of ending this war” and is actively preparing for new offensive operations.

    In one of the most provocative announcements of the week, Putin confirmed on Tuesday that Russia will deploy the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile by the end of 2026. The missile has an advertised maximum range of 35,000 kilometers, putting any target on the globe within striking distance. The Russian Ministry of Defense released newly published footage of a Sarmat test launch this week, with Putin describing the system as “the most powerful missile system in the world”. Putin added that development work on three other next-generation strategic nuclear weapons — the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile and a nuclear-powered torpedo — is in its final stages of completion.