Global Pulse

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  • Argentine plazas buzz with World Cup sticker trading fever

    Argentine plazas buzz with World Cup sticker trading fever

    MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – As countdown clocks tick down to the opening kickoff of the FIFA World Cup, just four weeks away, a beloved quadrennial off-pitch tradition is bringing thousands of soccer fans flooding into public plazas across Argentina: the decades-old ritual of collecting and swapping stickers to complete Panini’s official World Cup sticker album.

    For more than 50 years, Panini sticker albums have been an irreplaceable, cherished cornerstone of the global World Cup experience. Neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and town squares transform into informal trading hubs, where fans lay out duplicate stickers and negotiate to track down the rare, coveted entries missing from their collections. In South America, where the hobby carries special cultural weight, the tradition has expanded beyond in-person meetups to digital spaces, with hundreds of WhatsApp groups, dedicated mobile apps, and fan-run websites popping up to connect collectors and facilitate swaps.

    This past weekend, crowds packed central Buenos Aires to trade their stacks of multicolored stickers, each emblazoned with the portrait of one of the world’s top soccer stars. Some collectors spread their duplicates across folding tables, dealing cards just like a poker dealer at a casino, while children carefully carry their half-filled albums, waiting to paste their newly acquired stickers in precisely the right spot.

    Juan Valora, an Argentine collector who was trading stickers alongside his girlfriend, highlighted the unique social magic of the physical hobby. “This connects you with the world. Everyone does it,” he explained. “If this was only a virtual activity, you wouldn’t get that face-to-face interaction looking through the stickers and making trades. You’d lose a lot of that human connection that makes it special.”

    For this year’s expanded World Cup – the first to feature 48 participating nations, up from the previous 32 – Panini has released its largest sticker collection to date. Each pack contains seven stickers, retailing for roughly $1.50 in both Argentina and Uruguay. This era of Panini’s iconic stickerbooks will draw to a close after the 2030 World Cup, when global sports retail giant Fanatics takes over as FIFA’s exclusive licensed sticker and collectibles partner. Vintage, completed Panini World Cup albums already command thousands of dollars on the secondary collectibles market, a testament to their enduring cultural value.

    To skip the hassle of trading for rare stickers, many modern collectors now opt to buy pre-packaged bulk boxes of stickers, rather than hunt for individual missing entries. A full box can hold up to 104 packs, priced at $180 with flexible installment payment options, and often includes the album itself. Even the most sought-after rare stickers – featuring global superstars such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Kylian Mbappé – can be purchased directly this way, cutting out the need for trades entirely.

    Matías Inglesi, a software developer whose 9-year-old son Lucas is an avid collector, said the bulk-buying approach actually saves money in the long run. “It’s a way to avoid spending extra extra money chasing down that last missing sticker to finally complete the album,” explained Inglesi, who estimates his family spends around $20 a week on the hobby.

    For many young fans, filling the entire sticker album is a more prized goal than watching their home national team lift the World Cup trophy, and many parents pitch in to help their children reach that milestone. Child psychologist Agustina Zerbinatti noted that the hobby offers more than just entertainment: it delivers tangible developmental benefits for children. Beyond being a fun, engaging challenge, collecting and pasting stickers helps kids build fine motor skills, she explained, while teaching them core academic concepts from geography – including learning about each participating nation and its languages – to basic math skills like number sequencing, cardinality, and ordinality.

  • How social media turned Indian film star Vijay into a political force

    How social media turned Indian film star Vijay into a political force

    In one of the most shocking political upsets in modern Indian electoral history, Tamil actor-turned-politician Chandrasekhar Joseph Vijay — universally known by his fan nickname Thalapathy (Commander) Vijay — has led his newly formed political party Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) to become the single-largest faction in Tamil Nadu’s 234-seat state assembly, defying every pre-election prediction and upending the southern state’s decades-old political order.

    The stunning outcome was foreshadowed by one underdog race that encapsulated TVK’s entire electoral surprise. When 42-year-old meat shop owner Madhar Badhurudeen, a first-time TVK candidate, filed to run in the Madurai Central constituency — a Hindu-majority seat anchored by the iconic Meenakshi Amman temple — no political observer gave him a shot at victory. A Muslim candidate from a non-political, working-class background, Badhurudeen ran a low-key grassroots campaign with no high-profile celebrity rallies, no visits from party leader Vijay himself, and none of the glitzy, high-decibel campaign events that defined his rivals’ bids.

    His opponents were political heavyweights: the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) fielded sitting state minister and senior party leader Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, while the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) — the two entrenched regional parties that have dominated Tamil Nadu politics for decades — tapped well-known actor-filmmaker Sundar C. Both opponents held massive, star-studded processions and drew thousands to public rallies, leaving Badhurudeen’s quiet door-to-door outreach invisible to most traditional political analysts. Yet when results were announced last week, Badhurudeen defeated both rivals by a comfortable margin of more than 19,000 votes.

    “My only strength was our leader Vijay and the party’s electoral symbol, the whistle,” Badhurudeen told reporters after his win. “I campaigned on our leader’s pledge of a corruption-free government, and that was enough.”

    Badhurudeen’s upset was far from an isolated anomaly. Across the state, 108 TVK candidates — the vast majority of them political newcomers — won their seats, leaving the party just 10 seats short of a full majority. After days of post-election negotiations to secure a governing mandate, Vijay was sworn in as Tamil Nadu’s chief minister on Sunday, closing out a political journey that began just two years ago when he launched TVK after decades as one of Tamil cinema’s biggest box office draws.

    The question on every political observer’s mind after the upset is simple: how did a first-time political party, led by a celebrity who campaigned in person for less than three weeks total, pull off such a decisive victory against two well-established political machines?

    Vijay’s campaign faced major disruptions long before election day: he paused all campaigning for more than two months after a fatal crowd crush at one of his September 2024 rallies killed dozens of attendees, and dozens more scheduled public events were canceled over what the party cited as logistical constraints and time shortages. The answer, experts say, lies not in traditional ground campaigning, but in a revolutionary digital strategy that rewrote the rules of Indian electoral politics.

    “This was almost certainly the first election in India won almost entirely through social media,” explained Anup Chandrasekharan, a Bangalore-based independent media strategist. “Vijay’s supporters didn’t just use digital platforms — they ushered in a full digital revolution in Indian campaigning.”

    Unlike traditional Indian election campaigns, which rely on massive ground rallies, door-to-door canvassing, printed banners and endless offline outreach, TVK turned a pre-existing network of 85,000 Vijay fan clubs — built over the actor’s 30-year film career — into a coordinated, 24/7 online campaign army. When Vijay launched his party in 2024, this massive grassroots fan network seamlessly transitioned into an organized political operation focused on digital outreach.

    Vijay himself broke with traditional political norms: he gave no national media interviews, held no press conferences, and delivered far shorter public speeches than rival party leaders. Instead, he communicated directly with supporters through social platforms, and every public appearance was quickly repackaged into bite-sized, shareable content by the party’s well-funded IT wing and thousands of volunteer supporters. Clips of his speeches, edited selfie videos, and campaign messaging were cut into Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, then shared across hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp groups and social feeds, reaching millions of voters without a single expensive ground rally.

    One edited selfie video of Vijay from a Madurai party conference amassed nearly 90 million views in just 24 hours, a level of organic reach no traditional campaign ad could match. For years, Vijay built his film brand portraying a crusader against corruption, injustice and inequality, championing the rights of underprivileged and marginalized communities — a narrative that translated seamlessly to his political campaign, resonating with voters hungry for change after decades of rule by the two established Dravidian parties.

    The strategy proved particularly effective with young Gen Z voters and women, who turned out in large numbers to back TVK and its anti-corruption platform. Unlike many new political entrants in India, TVK’s victory came without widespread allegations of voter intimidation or financial graft, a rare feat in a political landscape long dominated by money, caste and religious identity politics.

    Still, experts caution that the digital-first model that delivered electoral success will not be enough to govern effectively. “This model worked because Vijay is a new entrant with no political baggage,” Chandrasekharan noted. “Now that he is in power, he has to deliver results, and he needs to strengthen his on-the-ground party structure — you can’t govern solely from the digital world.”

    Critics have also raised questions about Vijay’s lack of formal administrative and political experience as he takes on the role of chief minister. But TVK leaders reject those concerns, pointing to the 1967 election that first brought the DMK to power in Tamil Nadu, when the party was also a new, untested political force.

    “What kind of experience did DMK have when they took power in 1967?” Badhurudeen said. “Our goal is to deliver a clean, transparent administration, and our leader is exactly the person to do that.”

    There is no question that Vijay has made history: he took on two of India’s most entrenched regional political machines and single-handedly upended the state’s political order, thanks to a revolutionary digital campaign strategy that will likely reshape how Indian elections are fought in years to come. But as post-inauguration celebrations wind down, the reality of governing is setting in. For Thalapathy Vijay and his army of digital campaigners, the real test of their political project is only just beginning.

  • ‘No friends left’: Jewish teen’s heartbreaking words after school kids targeted him with anti-Semitic abuse on Minecraft

    ‘No friends left’: Jewish teen’s heartbreaking words after school kids targeted him with anti-Semitic abuse on Minecraft

    Australia’s Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion has opened a critical window into the escalating crisis of anti-Jewish hostility across the country, with 56 witnesses sharing harrowing accounts of normalized abuse that has shaken communities in the months following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Among the most moving testimonies came from a 15-year-old Jewish teen, identified only as ABB to protect his identity, who detailed relentless anti-Semitic bullying from peers at his own school that played out both in hallways and online in the popular sandbox game Minecraft.

    ABB told the commission that the targeted harassment began in late 2024, when fellow students in a school-connected Minecraft chat group unleashed a torrent of virulent, anti-Semitic slurs. On one occasion, a user posted the explicit declaration “I hate the Jews”; on another, a vicious comment laden with age-old anti-Semitic tropes left the teen physically ill. “It made my stomach turn upside down, I really just had to step away from my computer for a little bit and then, when I came back, I think I just closed and logged off for the day,” ABB recalled.

    Instead of ending the abuse after ABB confronted the group at school and explained the harassment was ruining his mental health, the bullying only intensified. The teen tried to handle the situation on his own for weeks before the pain became too much to bear. He ultimately walked into his parents’ room, tears in his eyes, and delivered a devastating line: “I have no friends left.” His mother ABD told the commission that the group of bullies even trapped ABB’s in-game character in a locked section of the Minecraft world and left him to die alone. Most disturbingly, ABD said her son had come to normalize the abuse, accepting it as an unremarkable part of his daily school life – a reality that leaves her constantly unsettled. While the school launched a formal investigation and three of the involved students apologized to ABB, the harassment continues: when ABB is near the group at school, he is still openly told to leave. The teen also shared that he recently overhead a group of Year 12 students casually remark in conversation that “Hitler was right to kill them all,” a comment that left him stunned.

    ABB’s father ABE told the hearing he no longer recognizes the Australia he once knew, where a cultural commitment to “a fair go” for all used to foster widespread tolerance. “All of those Australian idioms that we have for people having a fair go, that seems to have been lost,” he said. “I would like to see something come out of this commission where we can chart the course back towards that Australia, or that attitude that we had in Australia.”

    Witness testimony from other Jewish community leaders expanded on the teen’s account, painting a broader picture of a dramatic, unprecedented surge in anti-Semitic incidents across the country that has been supercharged by social media and public normalization of hate. Julie Nathan, research director for the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), told the commission that her organization’s 2024-2025 annual report documents a 316% jump in recorded anti-Semitic incidents since October 7 2023. Nathan, who herself was targeted with a horrifying, sexualized anti-Semitic caricature circulated online that relied on dangerous historical stereotypes of Jewish people, noted that this figure only counts offline and direct incidents – online abuse is so widespread that it is impossible to fully count, comparing the task to “trying to count the stars.”

    Nathan clarified that legitimate criticism of Israeli policy is not counted as anti-Semitism, noting that political discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains protected even when it is harsh or offensive. Anti-Semitism is only recorded when rhetoric crosses the line into targeting Jewish people as a group, such as when pro-Palestinian messaging is placed directly on Jewish community sites like synagogues or Jewish schools. Even so, Nathan said modern anti-Semitism has become far more brazen, with perpetrators openly sharing hate without fear of social consequences. “We’re getting much more brazen and much more confident coming out and not ashamed or worried about it being anti-Semitic and inciting violence against Jews,” she said.

    Tahli Blicblau, chief executive of the Dor Foundation – an organization launched in 2024 to combat anti-Semitism – told the commission that the normalization of anti-Jewish hate began immediately after the October 7 attack, pointing to an October 8 2023 protest in Western Sydney where celebratory fireworks were set off as Israel was still counting its dead from the Hamas assault. “The glorification of violence that night at a time when Israel was still counting its dead really set the tone for a permissive environment in which glorifying violence was accepted and permissible,” Blicblau said. She added that anti-Semitic tropes are now often framed in the language of human rights, making them difficult for most Australians to recognize, while social media has allowed hate to move from the extreme fringes of society into mainstream public discourse, reaching millions of users in seconds. “The role of the internet and social media allows these hateful comments to reach millions of people within milliseconds, so in order to combat the new form (of anti-Semitism) … we need to operate there,” she said.

    The commission entered its second week of public hearings Monday, with eight additional witnesses scheduled to give evidence as the inquiry continues to gather evidence to address rising anti-Semitism across Australia.

  • Why Eurovision’s fallout over Israel may change the competition forever

    Why Eurovision’s fallout over Israel may change the competition forever

    Seventy years after its founding as a unifying celebration of cross-continental music, the Eurovision Song Contest is confronting the most severe crisis in its history, as deep divisions over Israel’s participation in the 2026 Vienna-hosted event have sparked an unprecedented boycott by five major European public broadcasters. The roots of this year’s upheaval stretch back to the 2025 Eurovision final held in Basel, Switzerland, where geopolitical tensions boiled over long before the final winner was announced.

    Anti-Israel protests, organized in opposition to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that began in October 2023, surrounded the 2025 contest venue. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered, bearing Palestinian flags and covering their bodies in fake blood to symbolize civilian casualties in Gaza, which the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry puts at more than 72,000. The unrest spilled into the arena during the final, when two protesters attempted to storm the stage during Israeli contestant Yuval Raphael’s performance, throwing paint that accidentally struck a Eurovision crew member. As the final vote counts rolled in, the atmosphere in the venue reached a fever pitch of tension: audience members chanted for second-place contender Austria, with many openly praying Israel would not secure enough points to win the right to host 2026’s event. When Austria ultimately claimed the top spot, UK Eurovision commentator Graham Norton joked that organizers were breathing a huge sigh of relief at avoiding a 2026 final in Tel Aviv.

    Beneath the surface, the 2025 result sparked lasting controversy that set the stage for this year’s boycott. While Raphael earned only middling scores from competition judges, she won the public vote by a wide margin – a result that immediately drew scrutiny from multiple broadcasters. Critics pointed out that official Israeli government accounts, including that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had urged supporters to vote for Raphael the maximum 20 times per person, a practice allowed under contest rules. The implication was that the strong public showing reflected coordinated mass voting rather than organic popular support for Raphael’s entry.

    The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes the annual contest, launched an independent audit of the results, which confirmed there was no evidence that mass voting disproportionately skewed the final outcome. The EBU reaffirmed that the 2025 result was valid and robust, but that finding failed to ease growing discontent among member broadcasters. Calls for a broader review of the longstanding voting system grew, with many outlets arguing that the current framework no longer guaranteed a fair reflection of viewer opinion.

    The 2025 near-win for Israel brought decades of simmering tensions over geopolitics’ role in Eurovision voting to a breaking point. This year, that tension has erupted into the biggest boycott in the contest’s 70-year history. While 35 countries are still set to participate in the 2026 contest, public broadcasters from Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia have all withdrawn in opposition to Israel’s inclusion.

    Boycotting outlets cite a range of overlapping reasons, most rooted in protest against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Many have explicitly accused the Israeli government of genocide, a charge Israel vehemently denies. While the boycotting broadcasters insist their decisions were made independently, most align with the official stances of their national governments – all of which have strongly criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza, and recently joined a failed push to suspend the European Union’s preferential trade relations with Israel.

    This unprecedented action marks a sharp escalation from previous years, when only a handful of broadcasters raised public objections to Israel’s participation after the Gaza war began, with none withdrawing from the 2024 or 2025 contests. Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar has dismissed the boycott as shameful and hypocritical, arguing that Eurovision should remain a celebration of music and cross-cultural connection, not a platform for political grandstanding.

    Geopolitical influence is nothing new for Eurovision. For decades, politically aligned and neighboring nations have consistently exchanged higher public votes, and contest historian Dr. Dean Vuletic, author of *Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest*, notes that entry to the contest has long been used as a political tool. Since the Cold War era, countries have used Eurovision participation to signal international legitimacy or geopolitical alignment, from Franco’s 1961 Spanish debut to non-aligned Yugoslavia’s early participation amid the Cold War divide.

    Past conflicts have also spurred isolated withdrawals, but those were typically temporary and regionally contained: Greece boycotted in 1975 over Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus, Armenia skipped the 2012 contest hosted by Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh tensions, and Lebanon withdrew ahead of its 2005 debut rather than comply with EBU rules requiring it to broadcast all entries, including Israel’s. The only time Morocco participated, in 1980, it was the one year Israel did not compete, a connection widely accepted as the reason for its one-off appearance. This year’s boycott, however, is broader and more foundational, challenging the EBU’s core ability to keep geopolitics from overwhelming the competition.

    For boycotting broadcasters, the core issue is that the presence of a country actively at war undermines the integrity of the contest as a purely musical competition. Natalija Gorščak, president of the management board of Slovenia’s withdrawing broadcaster RTV, explained that widespread public protest from Eurovision fans over sharing a stage with Israel pushed her organization to take an ethical stand for peace. Gorščak argues that even though Raphael, an Israeli survivor of the October 7 Hamas attack on the Nova music festival who performed with shrapnel still in her leg, met all EBU rules requiring entries to be non-political, her participation was inherently symbolic and political.

    The 2022 Russian expulsion from Eurovision following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine’s subsequent victory that same year, has also amplified calls for rule change. The EBU ruled that a Russian entry would bring the contest into disrepute, and Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra went on to win the 2022 contest, thanks in part to a wave of politically motivated public solidarity voting. Critics, including Gorščak, argue this set a precedent that questions the fairness of the contest: political solidarity voting overwhelmingly benefits entries from countries involved in active conflict, sidelining performers from other nations regardless of the quality of their music.

    Critics of the status quo now argue that the EBU’s longstanding rule, which allows any EBU member broadcaster to field an entry regardless of whether their country is at war, needs urgent reform. “When there is political conflict we should really think how the representative from the aggressor’s part and from the victim’s part should be involved and how they could be involved,” Gorščak said. “This is the debate I think we need to have within Eurovision.” Spain’s public broadcaster chair José Pablo López echoed that call at a parliamentary hearing earlier this year, urging a full overhaul of EBU statutes to bar countries in active conflict from participating. A senior official from a non-boycotting broadcaster acknowledged the widespread frustration, admitting that “a country from a conflict creates a bigger one for the contest” and that current rules do not create an equal playing field for all participants.

    Opponents of a rule change and the boycott argue that barring Israel (or any nation) from participation violates Eurovision’s core founding values of unity and inclusivity. Dana International, who won Eurovision for Israel in 1998, argued online that “you don’t punish an entire country because you disagree politically with its government… Announcing a withdrawal from Eurovision harms the very idea of peace, harms Israel, and harms the contest itself.” Israeli public broadcaster Kan, which holds Israel’s EBU membership, has repeatedly affirmed it has not broken any contest rules, and argues that disqualifying it would undermine the core values the EBU claims to uphold. Notably, the EBU itself has previously defended Kan from sustained political attacks by the current Israeli government, which has threatened the public broadcaster’s independence and existence amid proposed broadcast reforms.

    In response to growing criticism, the EBU has made minor adjustments to rules for 2026, cutting the maximum number of votes per viewer from 20 to 10 and introducing new guidelines discouraging disproportionate promotion by third parties including government agencies. Even so, the EBU issued a formal warning to Kan just ahead of the 2026 contest after current Israeli representative Noam Bettan published social media posts instructing followers to “vote 10 times for Israel,” a move organizers said violated the spirit of the competition. Kan complied with a request to remove the content.

    As final preparations wrap up for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, the event remains mired in political controversy rather than being able to focus on the music, performance and spectacle that define the annual competition. Insiders report that this year it has been harder than ever to recruit participating artists, many of whom worry about reputational damage amid the growing partisan divide over the event. Petitions and protests continue to surround the contest, even as organizers reaffirm their commitment to their founding mission of providing a platform for peace and unity in a divided world.

    Looking ahead, the central question facing Eurovision remains: can the 70-year-old competition adapt to a more divided geopolitical landscape, or will it be permanently redefined as a forum for political expression, rather than the celebration of music it was founded to be?

  • No summer border delays for Brits, Greek tourism minister says

    No summer border delays for Brits, Greek tourism minister says

    As the peak summer travel season approaches, Greece’s tourism minister has moved to reassure British visitors that they will face no extended border waits even during the busiest travel periods, easing widespread concerns over disruptions tied to the European Union’s new entry-exit border system.

    In an interview with the BBC, Olga Kefalogianni emphasized that the Greek government is committed to preventing unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles from ruining travelers’ entry or exit experiences. She explicitly confirmed that British tourists will not be subject to mandatory biometric screenings at any point throughout the 2025 summer travel season, and that the nation is working to cut all border processing times to under two minutes per passenger.

    The EU rolled out its much-debated new digital Entry-Exit System (EES) across member states back in April, a regulation that requires short-term travelers from non-EU and non-European Economic Area nations to submit biometric data including fingerprints and facial scans on their first entry to the Schengen Area, with repeat verification at every subsequent border crossing. While the system has functioned smoothly in some regions, it has sparked major disruptions elsewhere: multiple airports in Italy saw massive queues stretching up to three hours last month, leading more than 100 EasyJet passengers bound for Manchester from Milan Linate Airport to miss their flights, with additional Ryanair passengers from Milan Bergamo also facing missed trips due to backlogs. The airline called the extended wait times “unacceptable.”

    Though Greece officially announced it had launched full operations of the EES successfully, the country already paused biometric checks for British travelers in early April after crippling queues formed at Corfu Airport. While unconfirmed reports had circulated that Italy and Portugal would follow Greece’s lead in waiving checks for UK nationals, the European Commission confirmed last week that both countries have no plans to issue such exemptions.

    Kefalogianni has pushed back against claims that Greece is violating EU regulations, noting that current rules allow temporary suspensions of EES biometric checks during periods of extreme airport congestion, even as blanket exemptions for specific nationalities are prohibited. “What we’re doing is not actually an exemption,” she explained. “It’s just that we have made sure that we facilitate the procedure in a way that means visitors are not burdened.” Despite this, the EU stated last week that it is in contact with Greek authorities to clarify the country’s policy and remind officials of existing regulatory requirements.

    Beyond border processing concerns, Kefalogianni acknowledged that swirling rumors of regional jet fuel shortages, which have been linked to potential price hikes and flight cancellations, have made some potential tourists more hesitant to book trips to the country. The ongoing conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran that erupted more than two months ago has drastically reduced jet fuel shipments from the Gulf region, a key import source for most European nations, creating widespread supply uncertainty across the continent.

    “I think that this is a trend that you would see everywhere,” she said. “People are being much more reluctant. But at the same time, they realise that Greece is always a country which has upgraded its tourism offering and that it provides a very good balance when it comes to price and the offering.” She added that Greece is already welcoming strong visitor numbers early in the season, and expects even more travelers as the summer progresses.

    Last week, the UK government also moved to reassure British travelers, advising that there is no need to cancel or amend planned travel to Greece or other European destinations amid the jet fuel concerns. Officials noted that the UK currently faces no domestic jet fuel shortages, and contingency plans have been put in place to address any potential supply disruptions in the coming months.

  • Iraqi parliament ‘to summon defence minister’ over alleged secret Israeli base

    Iraqi parliament ‘to summon defence minister’ over alleged secret Israeli base

    Allegations that Israel established a covert military base inside Iraqi territory during its recent conflict with Iran have triggered a political firestorm in Baghdad, prompting Iraq’s parliament to launch a formal investigation and summon the country’s defence and interior ministers for questioning.

    According to reporting from The New Arab, the parliamentary probe will not be limited to cabinet-level security leaders. Senior national security figures will also be called to testify as lawmakers work to unpack the veracity of multiple independent claims about the hidden outpost, which was reportedly built in Iraq’s western desert.

    The first public claim of the base emerged over the weekend from The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Israeli special forces constructed the covert installation in the weeks preceding the outbreak of the Iran-Israel conflict in February. The site, the outlet stated, was purpose-built to support Israeli air operations targeting Iran. When Iraqi military units stumbled on the location nearly two months after construction, the outlet added, Israeli forces launched an attack on the approaching Iraqi contingent.

    Israeli outlet Maariv followed with additional reporting the next day, confirming that the forward outpost was designed to serve a critical contingency role: hosting Israeli commando and search-and-rescue teams on standby to extract downed Israeli aircrew from Iranian territory if needed.

    Independent open-source intelligence group Faytuks Network has corroborated these claims with satellite imagery captured in March, which shows a temporary makeshift airstrip carved into a dried lakebed in Iraq’s western Najaf desert. The imagery clearly shows fixed-wing aircraft and prefabricated temporary structures at the site, according to the group’s analysis, which was publicly posted to social media on May 10, 2026.

    This evidence aligns with on-the-ground reports from early March, when Iraqi state media confirmed that one Iraqi soldier was killed in armed clashes with an unidentified foreign force in the desert region between the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Iraqi forces had been dispatched to the area that day to investigate unconfirmed reports of a military airdrop carried out by multiple unidentified helicopters.

    In comments to The New Arab, a senior parliamentary official confirmed that Iraqi national security authorities initially assumed the unknown force operating in the desert was part of the U.S.-led international counter-ISIS coalition, and did not immediately move to expel or confront the group. Multiple anonymous security sources have told Arab media outlets that the site is no longer occupied by Israeli personnel as of the latest reports.

    The revelations have sparked widespread public and political anger across Iraq, with growing cross-party demands for the Iraqi government to deliver a full public explanation and hold accountable any actors responsible for violating Iraqi sovereignty. Prominent Iraqi MP Raed al-Maliki has publicly leveled blame at the United States, accusing Washington of enabling the Israeli operation by granting Israel free access to Iraqi airspace during the conflict and ordering Iraqi air defense radar systems to be shut down.

    “The United States handed Iraqi airspace to the entity during the war and ordered radar systems to be shut down. Now it has become clear that Iraqi territory was also used to establish a secret intelligence centre or base for the Zionist entity,” al-Maliki said in a public statement.

    As of press time, the federal Iraqi government has not issued any official public comment on the allegations or the impending parliamentary investigation.

  • ‘Ambition’: Anthony Albanese defends breaking election promise on CGT, negative gearing

    ‘Ambition’: Anthony Albanese defends breaking election promise on CGT, negative gearing

    Ahead of Tuesday’s highly anticipated federal budget, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has faced intense backlash and publicly defended his government’s decision to walk back a key pre-election pledge, confirming plans to revise rules around negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT).

    Albanese argued that the shift in policy is rooted in the growing, unaddressed crisis of intergenerational inequality that has only become more entrenched since Labor won the 2022 federal election. In an interview with ABC Radio National, the Prime Minister framed the policy reversal as a necessary response to ongoing housing affordability struggles that have shut a generation of young Australians out of home ownership.

    “Last year was a year of delivery on our core election commitments, but that was never the limit of our ambition,” Albanese told reporters. He drew a parallel to the government’s unexpected fuel excise cut introduced in response to market volatility triggered by the Middle East conflict, noting that policy adjustments are sometimes required to match shifting national circumstances.

    Since the last election, Albanese said, little progress has been made to fix the systemic barriers facing young aspiring homeowners. “Another year has passed, and too many young people are still missing out at property auctions, still renting and paying off someone else’s mortgage, and many are already close to giving up on ever owning their own home,” he said. The Prime Minister added that housing has been a top priority for his government since taking office in 2022, and the upcoming budget will deploy every available policy lever to expand access to home ownership. While the upcoming changes will roll back existing CGT concessions, Albanese emphasized the budget remains centered on delivering cost-of-living relief for working Australians, and the government will always be transparent about any shifts in policy position, motivated by what delivers the best long-term outcome for the nation.

    In the lead-up to the budget, the government has already unveiled a suite of housing-focused measures, including additional funding to boost new housing supply and accelerate construction timelines for new developments. But opposition figures have slammed the policy shift as a broken promise and a cynical cash grab.

    Liberal Senator Jane Hume criticized the turnaround, pointing out that just 12 months ago, Labor repeatedly ruled out any changes to negative gearing and CGT in this parliamentary term. Even 18 months ago, she noted, Treasurer Jim Chalmers publicly stated there was no evidence that changing these tax policies would have any positive impact on housing supply.

    “Labor said life would be better under an Albanese government: you’d have more money in your pocket, electricity prices would fall, housing would become more affordable. All of that has been a lie,” Hume told the ABC. She argued that if Chalmers cannot demonstrate how the tax changes will actually increase housing supply, the move is nothing more than a government revenue grab at the expense of Australian taxpayers, driven by what she claimed was a collapsing federal budget position.

    All eyes now turn to Tuesday, when Chalmers will officially hand down the 2024 federal budget and detail the full scope of the planned tax changes and housing measures.

  • One Nation eyes Western Sydney seats ahead of 2028 federal election: Joyce

    One Nation eyes Western Sydney seats ahead of 2028 federal election: Joyce

    Australia’s right-wing populist party One Nation has made an unprecedented breakthrough in national politics, securing its first ever lower house parliamentary seat in a landslide by-election upset that has immediately paved the way for an aggressive expansion into key Sydney battlegrounds ahead of the 2028 federal election.

    On Saturday, One Nation candidate David Farley claimed victory in the rural New South Wales seat of Farrer, ending 77 consecutive years of unbroken control over the electorate by the conservative Liberal-National Coalition. The win marks a historic milestone for the party, which was founded by Pauline Hanson in 1997 and had never before won a seat in Australia’s lower house.

    The expansion plan was revealed by Barnaby Joyce, the former Nationals leader who defected to One Nation last November. Speaking on Seven Network’s *Sunrise* program on Monday, Joyce doubled down on remarks he made on election night, confirming that the party is actively scouting potential candidates to contest Labor-held seats across Western Sydney, a densely populated urban region that has long been a progressive stronghold. When pressed, Joyce did not rule out targeting the seat of McMahon, currently held by federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen, which covers the major working-class suburbs of Blacktown, Penrith, Cumberland and Fairfield.

    “We are very much focused on the western suburbs of Sydney. I was talking to people on the ground from the region just last night,” Joyce told reporters. “To be quite frank, I think we’re talking to potential candidates. People are very enthusiastic. They know we have huge potential as a movement, and they want to be part of that, not part of this empty, performative butterfly chasing exercise that passes for politics today.” Joyce declined to share specific details about the candidates under consideration, but noted they are mostly first- and second-generation Australian residents, reflecting the demographic makeup of the region.

    The stunning by-election result has sparked finger-pointing across the political spectrum, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blaming the Coalition’s own strategic missteps for One Nation’s victory. Albanese argued that the fractured conservative bloc had effectively legitimized One Nation over recent years, first by adopting watered-down versions of the party’s populist policy platform, then by directing candidate preferences to One Nation during the by-election.

    “I think the Liberal Party and National Party made a big mistake legitimising One Nation … and then following that up by giving them preferences, they were saying effectively that it was OK to vote for One Nation rather than the traditional conservative party,” Albanese told ABC Radio National.

    The Prime Minister also cited multiple internal rifts within the Coalition as key factors in the upset. The conservative alliance split twice in 2025: first in May, then again the following January, leaving deep divisions among long-time conservative voters. Albanese added that the unceremonious ousting of former Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who had held the Farrer seat for 25 years, also fueled voter anger. Ley was removed from the leadership without even being given the opportunity to deliver a single budget reply, and the leadership challenge was controversially held on the same day as the funeral of a former Liberal colleague, a move Albanese said left a “legacy of betrayal” among Farrer voters.

    Beyond internal conservative chaos, Albanese acknowledged that deep-seated economic anxiety also drove the result. “Quite clearly, there’s a lot of people under financial pressure who feel like the system isn’t working for them,” he said. “And that’s a message for all political parties in the system.”

  • Shane van Gisbergen remains NASCAR’s road-course ace with Watkins Glen win from the pole

    Shane van Gisbergen remains NASCAR’s road-course ace with Watkins Glen win from the pole

    WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – On a sun-baked Sunday at the iconic Watkins Glen International road course, New Zealand native Shane van Gisbergen put on a driving masterclass that further cemented his reputation as NASCAR’s undisputed king of street and road courses, claiming his second consecutive Cup Series victory at the 2.45-mile track in dominant fashion.

    Starting from pole position in the No. 97 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing, van Gisbergen controlled the majority of the 100-lap event, leading 74 laps en route to his seventh career Cup Series win. Remarkably, all seven of his top-series victories have come on road or street layouts, extending his all-time NASCAR record for the most wins by a driver born outside the United States.

    The most stunning chapter of the race unfolded with just 24 laps remaining, when van Gisbergen pitted from the lead under green-flag conditions for a fresh set of four tires, a strategic call orchestrated by crew chief Stephen Doran. When he exited pit road, the Trackhouse driver sat 24th in the running order and nearly 30 seconds behind new race leader Ty Gibbs. What followed was a relentless charge through the field: van Gisberg carved his way past 23 competitors in just 17 laps, retaking the top spot before pulling away to a 7.288-second victory over runner-up Michael McDowell. Gibbs crossed the line third, with Chase Briscoe fourth and reigning points leader Tyler Reddick rounding out the top five.

    Van Gisbergen admitted the outcome looked far more assured than it felt from behind the wheel, noting that his team had struggled for pace in practice before a shock qualifying performance locked him onto pole. “We weren’t very good in practice, and then qualifying was amazing, and then today, what a race car,” van Gisbergen said post-race. “Stephen made great calls. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, and then to run them down like that, it’s very, very special to do two in a row.”

    Despite the pressure that comes with being labeled the favorite for every road course event, van Gisbergen said he never takes his dominant streak for granted. Dating back to the Mexico City race last June, he has now won six of the last seven road and street course events on the Cup schedule. “It’s not easy,” he emphasized. “Everyone’s really good. McDowell was good. Connor (Zilisch) was good. Tyler Reddick. There were some really good guys and a lot of pressure. So just stoked to execute every facet of our game. And speechless. This is so cool.”

    McDowell, who started second and also fought through the field after dropping to 27th on his final pit stop, said he quickly realized van Gisbergen was pacing him during the race. “It felt like he was just pacing himself off me, and he’d take back off,” McDowell said. “We still got a little work to do, but it’s a good building block.”

    Doran, van Gisbergen’s crew chief, explained the bold late pit strategy that set up the win: unlike most competitors who pitted earlier to save fuel, the team opted for a late stop to give van Gisbergen the aggressive car he prefers. “He’s made it pretty clear, especially at these tracks, he likes to be on offense, so we put him there and just let him go do his thing,” Doran said.

    The win completed a dream weekend for Trackhouse Racing, whose rookie driver Connor Zilisch claimed victory in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race on Saturday. Zilisch was on track for a strong top-five finish in Sunday’s Cup race before a late tire issue dropped him to 20th. “Just frustrating because we had a really good day going,” Zilisch said. “At worst, we were going to get ourselves our first top five and walk out of here with something. But congrats to Shane, Trackhouse and everybody who makes this happen.” The organization’s overall performance was a marked turnaround: entering the weekend, Trackhouse had only secured four top-10 finishes across its three cars in the first 11 races of the season, but qualified all three entries in the top five on Sunday.

    Beyond the on-track action, eight-time NASCAR Most Popular Driver Chase Elliott made a rare public push Saturday for his uncle, engine builder Ernie Elliott, to be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The vote for the 2027 Hall of Fame class is scheduled for May 19, and this year marks Ernie Elliott’s first appearance on the ballot. Ernie built engines for Chase’s father, Hall of Fame driver Bill Elliott, throughout the 1980s and continued to contribute to Chase’s early racing career. “I don’t talk about this stuff a lot, but you don’t have to dig very far into the Elliott racing story to recognize how much of a family effort it was,” Chase Elliott said. “I don’t think the story has the same ending… without Uncle Ernie and what he meant to all of us. He’s meant a lot to my career. There are a lot of very, very deserving names on the list, but he is one of the very deserving that doesn’t get talked about enough for the credit that he deserves.”

    This 2025 May running at Watkins Glen is also expected to be a one-off experiment. NASCAR has already confirmed the series will return to its traditional September date at the road course starting in 2027. The 2024 Cup race at Watkins Glen was held in September, and the previous 42 races at the track all took place in July or August. While next year’s schedule will not be released for several more months, new NASCAR CEO Steve O’Donnell reaffirmed during pre-race coverage on Fox that Homestead-Miami Speedway, which takes over as the season finale from Phoenix Raceway this year, will likely remain the final event on the Cup calendar in 2027.

    Up next on the NASCAR schedule is the All-Star Race, which makes its debut at Dover Motor Speedway on May 17. Christopher Bell enters as the defending champion of the exhibition event, which was held at North Wilkesboro Speedway for the past three seasons.

  • What next for US passengers evacuated from hantavirus-hit cruise ship?

    What next for US passengers evacuated from hantavirus-hit cruise ship?

    A coordinated international public health response is underway after a potential hantavirus exposure on a cruise ship docked in Spain’s Canary Islands, with 17 American passengers and one British resident of the U.S. being repatriated via government charter jet for specialized screening and quarantine at a leading U.S. medical facility.

    The passengers were part of the more than 90 people evacuated from the MV Hondius on Sunday at the Port of Grandilla de Abona on the island of Tenerife. Photographs captured the group disembarking the vessel wearing full personal protective equipment, including disposable blue gowns, bouffant caps, and medical-grade face masks. Seven other U.S.-based passengers had returned to the country earlier and are already undergoing routine monitoring in their home states across the nation.

    Upon arrival early Monday morning at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) in Omaha, the newly repatriated group will undergo formal risk assessment by public health officials to determine if they require treatment or can safely complete monitoring protocols, acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Jay Bhattacharya confirmed to CNN.

    Officials stress that the overall risk of a large-scale hantavirus outbreak remains extremely low, and the public should not confuse this event with the rapid spread of COVID-19. Hantavirus only spreads between people through close, prolonged contact with an infected individual who is already showing active symptoms, meaning most exposed passengers face minimal public health risk.

    “ If they weren’t in close contact with someone who was symptomatic, then we’re going to deem them a low risk. If they were in close contact, we’re going to deem them a medium or high risk,” Bhattacharya explained. Tailored protocols will apply for each risk tier, he noted: low-risk passengers may be allowed to return home via controlled, isolated transportation to avoid exposing other members of the public, while higher-risk individuals will be offered the option to complete their quarantine period at the Nebraska facility. All passengers, regardless of risk classification, will complete a 42-day self-isolation period and ongoing monitoring by local health departments, with full CDC support throughout the process.

    Notably, none of the evacuated passengers are currently showing active symptoms of hantavirus infection, so broad testing is not being conducted at this time per CDC guidance.

    UNMC was selected for this operation because it houses the United States’ only federally funded national quarantine facility: a 20-bed National Quarantine Unit that opened in November 2019, just months before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The facility is purpose-built for infection control, with all rooms fitted with negative air pressure systems designed to prevent the airborne spread of communicable pathogens. If any passenger does develop symptomatic hantavirus infection during their stay, they will be transferred to UNMC’s on-site Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, a specialized facility purpose-built to treat patients with high-consequence infectious diseases.

    UNMC leadership emphasized that the incoming passengers are not expected to be severely ill. “We don’t expect to see any of these passengers transported off on a gurney,” said Professor John Lowe, the center’s director. “They’re going to walk off a plane and walk into a vehicle and get driven over here and head into their quarantine room.”

    Dr. Michael Wadman, director of the National Quarantine Unit, added that the experience of quarantine for most passengers will be far from restrictive. “It’s pretty much like living in a hotel room with delivery of food. They can use their exercise devices in the room, we do daily symptom and monitoring as well as vital sign checks,” he explained, noting that passengers retain significant personal freedom during their stay.

    The seven U.S. passengers who returned earlier are currently being monitored by state health departments across the country: two are in Georgia, two in Texas, one in Virginia, one in Arizona, and an additional group is being monitored in California, with no reported symptomatic cases to date. Public health officials have repeatedly stressed that they are following decades-old, proven hantavirus containment protocols that have successfully limited past outbreaks, and there is no cause for widespread public panic. “This is not Covid. And we don’t want to treat it like Covid. We don’t want to cause a public panic over this. We want to treat it with the hantavirus protocols that were successful in containing outbreaks in the past,” Bhattacharya said.