Voters across Serbia and its global diaspora turned out in unprecedented numbers on election day, as a youth-driven anti-corruption movement mounted a formidable bid to end the 12-year grip of right-wing populist Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) on national power. By 2 p.m. local time, preliminary official data showed 46% of registered electors had already cast their ballots – nearly 1 million more voters than the midday turnout recorded during the country’s December 2023 parliamentary poll, putting the nation on track for one of the highest participation rates in its democratic history. The snap election was called by Vučić earlier this year, against a backdrop of two years of sustained mass student protests sparked by the 2024 deadly canopy collapse at a Novi Sad train station that killed 16 people. The tragedy became a widely cited symbol of systemic official corruption, gross negligence and state capture by ruling party loyalists, galvanizing broad public anger that coalesced into the grassroots Student List opposition coalition. The movement’s policy platform centers on rooting out officials who authorized violent crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators, ousting partisan appointees from the leadership of all state-owned enterprises, and stripping the country’s public broadcaster of long-documented political interference. Vučić and the SNS have repeatedly rejected all allegations of corruption and deliberate manipulation of national media outlets. Long queues snaked outside polling stations from Serbia’s largest urban hubs including Belgrade and Novi Sad to small rural towns, as well as at overseas voting sites in Ljubljana, Munich, Los Angeles, Chicago and Paris, where voters waited for hours in heavy rain to cast their ballots. Local media analysts note that a final turnout rate of 65% or higher would strongly favor the Student List’s electoral prospects, as the movement has mobilized large numbers of young, first-time voters who historically sat out previous elections. Polls are scheduled to close at 8 p.m. local time, with partial preliminary results expected to be released roughly two hours after voting concludes. Tensions ran high across the capital on election day, with police sealing off streets surrounding the headquarters of the Republic Electoral Commission. Nearby, drivers waiting at traffic lights rolled down their windows to blast the popular folk anthem “I Want Three Kisses” – a deliberate reference to the Student List’s third position on the national ballot, prompting groups of young passersby to dance in the streets in celebration of their civic engagement. Vučić, who served two consecutive terms as Serbia’s president and is constitutionally barred from running for a third, is leading the SNS campaign in a bid to return to the prime minister’s post he vacated in 2017. The long-time leader retains a loyal base of support among large segments of the electorate, who credit him with delivering over a decade of steady economic growth, sweeping national infrastructure upgrades, and a pragmatic foreign policy that balances Serbia’s bid for European Union membership with a refusal to impose sanctions on Russia over its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. His campaign pledges include across-the-board hikes in public sector salaries and state pensions, plus expanded investment in the country’s public healthcare system. SNS campaign posters plastered across urban centers feature imagery of clasped hands belonging to healthcare workers, farmers, construction laborers, educators and parents, with Vučić’s campaign messaging framing the party as the force of stable, proven continuity for the nation. In response to widespread public concerns over potential electoral fraud by the ruling party, the Student List has deployed no fewer than two independent election observers to every one of Serbia’s 8,210 domestic polling stations. Multiple unverified videos circulating on social media on Sunday morning purported to show instances of pre-filled ballot papers – a practice commonly referred to as “chain voting” – being prepared in a private cafe in the southern city of Niš, which staff quickly hid after noticing they were being filmed. There have also been scattered verified reports of physical assaults on independent election monitors and accredited journalists at several polling locations across the country. “We are witnessing a completely unique experiment in contemporary European political history,” former Serbian deputy prime minister and long-time anti-nationalist opposition figure Žarko Korać told the BBC. The Student List’s 250 parliamentary candidates were selected directly by student-led assemblies at the country’s public university faculties, rather than through traditional party nomination processes, and include doctors, actors, academics, professional athletes and civil society leaders, headed by Novi Sad University professor Ilija Srdanović. “These are people who largely do not know each other, and the wider public has little clarity on their individual political stances, so there is huge uncertainty over whether they could form a functional governing cabinet if they secure a majority,” Korać explained. “On the other hand, if Vučić claims a late-night victory this evening, I am fully convinced the student movement will refuse to accept that outcome as legitimate.” Korać also warned that a razor-thin contested result, with both camps declaring themselves the rightful winners, could trigger weeks or even months of prolonged political instability, noting that many mid-ranking SNS loyalists currently in senior state positions may defect to the opposition if preliminary results point to a Student List win. Additional concerns have been raised about the reliability of Serbia’s electoral register, which lists 6.45 million registered voters in a country with a total national population of just 6.53 million, with voting rights extended to ethnic Serb residents of Kosovo and dual Serbian citizens living in neighboring Bosnia and other regional states.
作者： admin
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Gabon says access to social media restored after eight-month ban
Gabon’s national media regulatory body, the High Communication Authority (HAC), formally announced the full reversal of an eight-month-long nationwide social media restriction in a televised public statement on Saturday, marking a notable policy shift that follows widespread public pushback against the original ban when it was first enforced earlier this year.
The original ban was implemented on February 17, with the HAC justifying the measure by claiming unregulated online content was inciting communal tensions and widening societal rifts across the Central African nation of roughly 2.5 million residents. The sudden restriction caught the public largely off guard, as platforms including Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram had become deeply embedded in daily life for Gabon’s youth population, who relied on the services for both recreational use and small-scale commercial operations to generate household income. In response to the block, a large share of internet users turned to virtual private network (VPN) tools to circumvent the restrictions and maintain access to their usual social media channels.
The ban was first imposed during a period of heightened domestic unrest, falling less than 12 months after President Brice Oligui Nguema secured electoral victory. At the time, public sector workers including teachers and civil servants had organized widespread labor strikes to protest stagnant wages and inadequate working conditions, prompting concerns from opposition groups who characterized the social media suspension as a blatant overreach of state authority and an abuse of executive power.
Nguema won last year’s national elections with over 90% of the popular vote, two years after a military coup ousted the Bongo family, which had held uninterrupted control of Gabon’s government for more than 50 years. When he initially took power, Nguema publicly committed to sweeping institutional reforms for the oil and timber-rich coastal state, where previous administrations had frequently deployed full digital blackouts as a tactic to suppress the spread of unvetted information. The BBC has since reached out to the HAC to request further official comment on the timeline of the policy reversal and any new regulatory frameworks that may be applied to social media platforms moving forward. -
Russia given first championships since Ukraine invasion
In a landmark announcement made public on Sunday by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), Moscow has been selected as the host city for the 2030 Senior World Weightlifting Championships, making it the first global elite Olympic-sanctioned sporting event to be staged in Russia since the launch of the country’s full-scale military incursion into Ukraine in February 2022. The decision comes just four months after the IWF formally reinstated the eligibility of Russian weightlifters to participate in its international competitive circuits, and follows a July ruling from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that provisionally lifted the 2022 suspension imposed on the Russian Olympic Committee, a move that has paved a potential regulatory path for Russian athletes to compete under their national banner at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Alongside the 2030 Moscow host selection, the IWF unveiled a slate of four upcoming world championship hosts spanning youth, junior and senior competitive tiers: the 2029 senior World Weightlifting Championships will be hosted by Ahmedabad, India. IWF General Secretary Jose Quinones noted that all submitted bids for the events were of exceptional standard, expressing full confidence that each host nation would deliver highly successful, world-class championships. Prior to this announcement, no summer or winter Olympic sport governing body had awarded a top-tier world championship event to Russia since the onset of the Ukraine conflict. The 2025 World Aquatics Championships, originally allocated to the Russian city of Kazan, was reallocated to Singapore in a widely reported 2022 decision, and Moscow has not hosted the senior World Weightlifting Championships since the 1983 iteration of the tournament. The Russian Weightlifting Federation framed the IWF’s decision as a historic milestone, stating it marks the first time an Olympic sport governing body has succeeded in bringing an official top-tier international competition back to Russia in the years following the invasion. Federation President Aleksandr Vinokurov published a public statement on the Telegram messaging platform thanking the IWF for its vote of confidence, noting that the 2030 Moscow championships will also operate as an official qualifying event for the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. Vinokurov emphasized that Russia boasts decades of proven experience, robust operational capacity, and state-of-the-art sporting infrastructure in Moscow that has repeatedly supported large-scale international sporting events. The IOC’s July provisional suspension lift for the Russian Olympic Committee included explicit caveats: no final determination has been made on whether Russian national flags, colours, or anthems will be permitted at future Olympic Games, and the IOC will maintain its existing policies of not staging any IOC-owned events in Russia, nor extending event invitations to senior Russian government or state officials. A cohort of Russian athletes competed as neutral participants at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Ukraine has formally filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) seeking to overturn the IOC’s ruling to reinstate the Russian Olympic Committee’s suspended status. The IOC’s July decision followed a separate ruling from the International Paralympic Committee that ended Russia’s multi-year exclusion from Paralympic global events, allowing Russian athletes to compete under their national flag at upcoming Winter Paralympic competitions. Five Ukrainian weightlifters are currently registered to compete at the upcoming 2026 IWF World Championships scheduled to take place in Ningbo, China, from October 27 to November 8. Weightlifting, first introduced as a full Olympic medal sport at the 1896 Athens inaugural modern Games, has long been a core fixture of the Summer Olympic program.
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Australia reach World Cup semis & New Zealand get back on track
In a high-octane, physically grueling Rugby League World Cup group stage showdown in Brisbane, defending top contender Australia scraped past a fiercely determined Fiji side with a 36-22 final scoreline, punching their ticket to the tournament’s final four. For Fiji, the fixture marked a stunning reversal of their recent history against the green and gold: their prior five consecutive losses to Australia had stacked up to a lopsided aggregate of 246 to 16, but the raucous home crowd in Brisbane watched in shock as Fiji dominated territory for large stretches of the first half, storming to a 16-12 lead shortly after the restart. The match’s entire trajectory shifted in a chaotic, game-defining 60-second window: Fiji’s Solomone Saukuru appeared to have extended his side’s lead to 20-12 with a blistering run, only for officials to disallow the try over an obstruction call. Seizing the momentum instantly, Australia charged up the opposite end of the pitch where Tom Trbojevic dotted down to level the scores. Trbojevic, who had shown noticeable defensive vulnerabilities earlier in the match, went on to cross the try line two more times to put his side in control, even as Fiji’s Semi Valemei completed a memorable hat-trick for his underdog team, and Jacob Preston added a late insurance try for Australia. Post-match, a candid Trbojevic acknowledged his side’s subpar performance to Premier Sports: “There are definitely some areas to improve on. We didn’t start as we wanted to and couldn’t get a flow. We just needed to play our style of footy. We weren’t at our best but we came away with two points. We need to improve. We’ve got to enjoy a win but we’ve got to be our harshest critics too.” Local Brisbane Broncos star Kotoni Staggs opened the scoring for Australia on his home turf, while debutant Sam Walker capped his first senior appearance with a try and a perfect 12 points from the boot. Still, head coach Kevin Walters faces clear concerns heading into the semi-finals: his side’s forward pack was consistently outmuscled by Fiji’s aggressive lineup, and their leaky defensive structure allowed Taane Milne and Valemei to run rampant, marking Australia’s second unconvincing win in as many outings after their narrow earlier victory over New Zealand. Elsewhere in the tournament, New Zealand’s men’s team bounced back dramatically from their narrow 24-22 opening group loss to Australia, notching a commanding 82-16 win over the Cook Islands in Christchurch – though the fixture was far from a straightforward rout. The Cook Islands fought back from an early 12-0 deficit to grab a 16-12 lead, before New Zealand clicked into high gear to storm to a 36-16 halftime advantage. Standout fullback Jamayne Isaako, who is set to join the Melbourne Storm for the next domestic season, stole the show by breaking a 24-year-old national record: his 38-point single-match haul, including three tries and 13 successful conversions, surpassed the previous mark of 32 points set by Tasesa Lavea against the exact same Cook Islands side back in 2000. Multiple Kiwi players landed on the scoresheet, with Test debutant Tanner Stowers-Smith, Ronaldo Mulitalo and Casey McLean all crossing for two tries apiece, alongside additional scores from Scott Sorensen, Kodi Nikorima, Te Maire Martin, Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad and replacement full-back Keano Kini, who stepped in for injured star Kalyn Ponga. New Zealand’s women’s team delivered an even more lopsided result earlier the same day in Brisbane, dismantling France 92-0 in an 18-try masterclass. Apii Nicholls led the rout with four tries, while Stacey Waaka and Mele Hufanga each secured a hat-trick, and Raecene McGregor notched two tries plus five try assists to dominate playmaking duties. The win extends the Kiwi Ferns’ undefeated head-to-head run against France at the World Cup to three matches, with a combined total scoreline of 236-0 across those fixtures. As group stage play nears its conclusion, three high-stakes fixtures are scheduled for Saturday 31 October: Fiji takes on France at 02:20 GMT, New Zealand’s men face off against the Cook Islands for a make-or-break group decider at 04:30 GMT, and the New Zealand women’s side will wrap up their Pool B campaign against Papua New Guinea at 06:45 GMT. The women’s Kiwi side, currently top of their group, is on track to face either Samoa or England in the semi-finals. The 2025 Rugby League World Cup runs from 15 October through 15 November, co-hosted by Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, with full live audio commentary for all men’s matches and key women’s fixtures available via BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, BBC Sounds and the BBC Sport digital platforms.
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El Salvador president says bodies found in Haiti are not those of hostages
El Salvador’s high-profile president Nayib Bukele has publicly refuted earlier unconfirmed reports that four human remains handed over to Salvadoran special forces deployed in Haiti belonged to the four missing Salvadoran air technicians, stating unequivocally that the recovered corpses are not his country’s personnel. The sequence of events began when the four Salvadoran crew members, who were serving as part of the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) focused on mitigating Haiti’s rampant gang violence, were ambushed by heavily armed criminal factions while traveling back to their base in an armored vehicle in Croix-des-Bouquets, a gang-controlled district outside Port-au-Prince. No armed group has publicly claimed responsibility for the abduction to date. Following the men’s disappearance, Bukele authorized the deployment of roughly 450 elite Salvadoran soldiers to Haiti last Thursday, framing the entire military operation as a single-minded mission to rescue the four hostages alive. Days later, a non-governmental organization delivered four sets of human remains to a Haitian airport, claiming they were the missing Salvadoran air technicians. But a preliminary inspection of the remains immediately exposed critical inconsistencies: one corpse was that of a child, another belonged to an individual far taller than any of the missing technicians, one body wore partial uniform of a foreign national army, and the recovered personal effects included identification cards and uniforms belonging to personnel from other nations, including a Chadian national ID card and a GSF member credential that Bukele shared via public social media posts. The revelation directly contradicts a prior New York Times report, which cited anonymous sources close to the Salvadoran mission claiming the badly burned bodies recovered on Port-au-Prince’s outskirts on Saturday were presumed to be the missing Salvadoran men, and that formal forensic testing would be required for positive identification. The same New York Times source later pushed back on Bukele’s evidence, claiming the Chadian ID card he displayed belonged to a soldier who had lost the document after sustaining an injury. The incident unfolds against the backdrop of Haiti’s years-long spiral of gang-fueled chaos, which has deteriorated sharply since the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse left a crippling political vacuum. The UN-backed multinational intervention force deployed to dismantle gang control has faced persistent barriers accessing territories fully dominated by armed factions. UN statistics released in early October show that between January 1 and September 11 of this year, more than 5,700 people have been killed or wounded either by gang violence or during counter-gang operations. The Salvadoran armed forces clarified that the missing four technicians were stationed in Haiti primarily to conduct life-saving medical evacuation missions, not to engage in direct combat, and that initial rescue efforts launched immediately after their abduction – including helicopter deployments – were thwarted by ongoing intense clashes in the ambush zone.
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‘I cannot teach you integrity’: How employee theft is hurting small businesses in Africa
When beloved Kenyan food content creator That Girl Boina embarked on her first international European vacation in 2025, she expected a well-earned break after building her Nairobi-based Waxaholic Studio, a premium waxing and hydrafacial parlour launched just over a year prior. A single unexpected Instagram direct message from a disoriented customer shattered that peace a week into her trip: the patron noted they had been asked to send payment to a personal phone number completely different from the official business contact posted on the studio wall. This small, seemingly trivial alert unraveled a pattern of systemic employee theft Boina had never suspected, despite her close oversight of the compact, three-person operation. She had initially brushed off months of declining revenue as a predictable seasonal slump, but soon realized she was the only stakeholder not profiting from the studio’s steady stream of client traffic. Rather than confront her trusted receptionist and two service specialists, Boina made the painful decision to shut down the business in October 2025, selling off loose equipment and hauling home remaining decor after failing to find a buyer for the full operation. The closure hit far harder than a mere financial setback: Boina had poured her savings into the venture as a long-term pillar of future financial security, and she described breaking down in tears at a friend’s consolatory dinner as the lowest point of her adult life. Nearly a year later, after months of emotional healing, Boina shared her story in a TikTok video that went viral across X (formerly Twitter), racking up nearly a million views and sparking an outpouring of shared experiences from hundreds of African small business owners who faced identical fates of payment diversion, stock theft, and unauthorized equipment sales by staff. Her story is far from an isolated case. Industry data and widespread anecdotal evidence confirm employee fraud is a crippling, underaddressed crisis for enterprises across East and West Africa. A 2022 PwC survey found 63% of East African organizations reported experiencing economic crime, a rate far higher than the 46% global average. Even major national retail giants were not spared: Kenya’s iconic Nakumatt and Tuskys supermarket chains, which once operated dozens of locations across Kenya and Uganda and employed thousands of workers, collapsed in recent years in part due to rampant internal theft. A 2015 audit commissioned by Tuskys found the chain was losing more than 100 million Kenyan shillings monthly to staff colluding to manipulate till transactions, pocket cash, and falsify supplier delivery records, while Nakumatt lost over $100 million in unaccounted stock before its 2020 collapse. John Wanjohi, CEO of loss-prevention firm Hipora Business Solutions East Africa, estimates internal employee theft accounts for over 60% of all recorded losses for small businesses across the region, noting that theft rings have evolved into coordinated cartels that collude with external clients and suppliers to siphon funds in increasingly subtle, hard-to-detect ways. Kenyan ready-to-wear fashion brand founder Cris Njoki faced one such sophisticated scheme when she discovered a senior procurement staffer was colluding with raw material suppliers to inflate invoice prices, splitting the excess payments before the company could spot the discrepancy. She dismissed the employee and overhauled her entire procurement workflow, centralizing all purchasing processes, creating full auditable paper trails, and shifting payment responsibilities exclusively to her independent finance team to eliminate future loopholes. In Accra, Ghana, Muftawu Nabila, a prominent sports journalist who used YouTube channel earnings to launch a local electronics shop, nearly lost his entire business to a newly hired attendant he left in charge while traveling to cover the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States. The staffer systematically siphoned up to $30 from daily $200 sales over two months, leaving Nabila with insufficient cash to restock inventory until a mandatory daily morning stock count uncovered the massive gap between recorded sales and physical inventory. He relied on his steady journalism salary to rebuild the operation, noting the betrayal was extra stinging because he had launched the shop explicitly to create local jobs for community members. For African small businesses, the stakes of internal theft are exponentially higher than for large multinational corporations: most operate on razor-thin profit margins, face exorbitant borrowing costs, navigate unpredictable regulatory and tax environments, and serve consumer markets with limited discretionary purchasing power that prevents them from raising prices to offset losses. Many have no financial buffer to absorb even moderate theft, and losses that would be a minor line item for a large firm can force them to lay off staff, halt operations, or shut down permanently. Wanjohi notes most small business owners only reach out to loss-prevention specialists after theft has already caused catastrophic damage, but targeted, low-cost overhauls to cash tracking, stock management, and transaction audit systems can deliver dramatic results: one struggling pharmacy that implemented his recommended controls saw daily sales jump from 80,000 to 200,000 Kenyan shillings almost overnight. Legal advocate Judith Guserwa also reminds employers that they must follow formal, legal procedures when addressing suspected theft, requiring full evidence gathering, a chance for accused staff to formally respond, and written repayment agreements if staff choose to make amends before pursuing formal termination or criminal charges. For Boina, the harrowing experience has permanently reshaped her approach to entrepreneurship: she now says she will be far more deliberate about hiring, and will not hesitate to take swift action at the first sign of unethical behavior, noting that workplace integrity is a value no employer can reasonably be expected to teach a fully grown adult.
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Musk says SpaceX restricted Ukraine’s Starlink connection as service restored
In a series of public posts on social platform X, SpaceX founder Elon Musk formally acknowledged that the private aerospace firm had placed restrictions on Ukraine’s access to its commercial Starlink satellite internet service, a disclosure that came shortly after Ukrainian officials reported that earlier widespread connectivity disruptions had been fully resolved. Musk asserted that Ukrainian military forces had violated the platform’s official terms of service by leveraging the civilian-focused network to conduct long-range offensive drone attacks targeting Russian personnel and infrastructure, a use case that had never been authorized under the original service agreement. He explicitly distanced the restriction from any interference with Starshield, SpaceX’s separate, military-grade satellite communications platform that is fully owned and operated under the direct oversight of the United States government. This development unfolded against a backdrop of escalating diplomatic friction between Washington and Kyiv over Ukrainian military operations targeting Russian oil and energy facilities. Just days prior to Musk’s public statement, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly stated that he had intervened to order Musk to restore full Starlink functionality in Ukraine, a stark reversal from his repeated earlier denials that he had ever issued directives to throttle the service in the first place. Musk pushed back against criticism that SpaceX had undermined Ukraine’s defensive capabilities, emphasizing in his posts that the company had contributed more tangible support to Ukraine’s defense than any other private sector entity in the world, and drawing a clear line between permitted military use cases (such as coordinating frontline troop movements and connecting remote civilian and military infrastructure) and explicitly prohibited offensive operations that risked drawing direct retaliatory strikes against Starlink’s network infrastructure. Ukrainian presidential adviser Serhiy Beskrestnov pushed back against Musk’s allegations in a public Telegram post, describing the billionaire’s claims as deeply peculiar and insisting that Ukraine lacked the technical capability to use the commercial, consumer-facing Starlink network to control medium and long-range offensive drones. Neither Ukraine’s defense ministry nor President Volodymyr Zelensky had issued an official formal response to Musk’s remarks at the time of reporting, though Zelensky did confirm on Telegram that connectivity across the country had returned to full operational stability, with drone operators now able to achieve flight speeds exceeding 400 km/h, a sharp improvement from earlier restrictions that cut off connectivity for any drone traveling faster than 161 km/h. Analysts note that the timing of the initial Starlink restrictions aligned with a high-stakes policy standoff between the Trump administration and Kyiv: Trump had publicly blamed Ukraine’s sustained strikes on Russian oil refineries for driving up global fuel prices, a politically sensitive issue as his administration faced upcoming U.S. midterm elections and widespread domestic public frustration over rising energy costs. The Trump administration had recently waived a set of longstanding sanctions on Russian energy exports to allow Russian diesel to flow back to U.S. and global markets, a move heavily criticized by European NATO allies as a policy that would directly funnel additional revenue to Moscow to fund its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Zelensky had previously agreed to a temporary pause on strikes against Russian energy infrastructure on the condition that Russia halt its own widespread campaign of attacks targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy grid, but resumed operations after Moscow repeatedly violated that ceasefire condition. Ukrainian officials also alleged that the U.S. had threatened to cut off critical real-time intelligence sharing support if Kyiv did not end its energy infrastructure strikes, a claim that Trump has repeatedly denied. Musk declined to explain why SpaceX had chosen to enforce the longstanding terms of service restriction only last week, even as Ukraine’s widespread military use of the Starlink network to support frontline defensive operations had been public knowledge for nearly three years since the full-scale Russian invasion began.
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Weather causes cancellation of MotoGP in Australia
The iconic Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, a staple of the MotoGP world championship for nearly three decades, saw its highly anticipated final top-class Australian round cancelled outright on Sunday, as relentless downpours and crippling low visibility rendered safe racing operations impossible. As noted in pre-event coverage, reigning series title holder Marc Marquez, who has notched four premier-class victories at the coastal Victorian venue over his career, held a narrow 10-point lead in the season standings with four rounds remaining before the cancellation was announced. Prior to calling off the headline MotoGP contest, event organisers had already scrapped the lower-tier Moto2 and Moto3 support races, and attempted to reschedule the flagship MotoGP session by pushing its start time back by several hours, as scattered patches of the track appeared to dry out after a brief lull in the rain. Ultimately, however, officials confirmed that the persistent lack of clear visibility made it impossible for emergency medical helicopters to operate, a non-negotiable safety requirement for the remote coastal circuit. Race director Graham Webb emphasized that the event’s strict safety protocols mandate a 60-minute clear operational window for air ambulances covering both Phillip Island and the nearby major hospital in Melbourne, a regulation that could not be met on race day. Unlike most MotoGP venues, where road transport can deliver injured riders to appropriate care within the required 45-minute regulatory window, Phillip Island’s isolated location means road travel to a major acute care facility exceeds that threshold, forcing organisers to rely entirely on air medical support for rider safety. The cancellation closes out Phillip Island’s 30 consecutive years on the MotoGP calendar, save for the two-year hiatus caused by global COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. The legendary circuit has hosted some of the series’ most historic moments: local two-time world champion Casey Stoner secured six straight home wins at the venue between 2007 and 2012, while Australian racing icon Mick Doohan claimed his fifth and final premier-class world title there with a victory in the 1998 season round. Starting from the 2025 MotoGP season, the Australian round will relocate to a purpose-built street circuit in Adelaide, bringing an end to Phillip Island’s three-decade run as the home of Australian motorcycle grand prix racing.
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How a California mansion filled with surrogate children became a ‘House of Horrors’
In May 2025, two-month-old infant Walter was rushed to a hospital in Arcadia, a prosperous, majority-Asian Los Angeles suburb nicknamed the “Chinese Beverly Hills.” The woman who identified herself as his mother initially told responding law enforcement that the infant had suffered a head injury after an accidental fall from a bed, but attending medical staff immediately flagged inconsistencies: Walter’s traumatic injuries aligned far more closely with blunt force impacts from a high-speed collision or violent shaking than a short fall.
Prompted by the medical team’s child abuse suspicion, local law enforcement executed a search warrant on the sprawling 10,000-square-foot, nine-bedroom Arcadia mansion where Walter resided, briefly detaining the two adults at the property: 66-year-old Guojun Xuan and 39-year-old Silvia Zhang. What investigators uncovered inside the surveillance-laden residence, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman later stated during an October press conference, could only be described as a “house of horrors.” Hidden across the property, 32 motion-activated cameras documented 14 surrogate-born children between six months and three years old, who prosecutors allege were subjected to routine physical beatings. Footage captured the toddlers spending hours confined to desks, with audio recordings of screaming coming from a single camera-free room where nannies were regularly seen carrying the young children. Authorities also identified the property as the unregistered headquarters of Mark Surrogacy, a surrogacy agency secretly operated by Xuan and Zhang to recruit gestational carriers.
The pair were formally arrested in October 2025 on charges of conspiracy to commit child abuse, pleading not guilty while being held in custody on individual $20 million bonds. If convicted, Xuan faces a maximum 17 years and four months of incarceration, while Zhang could receive up to 11 years and eight months. A third suspect, 61-year-old nanny Chunmei Li, has been charged with severe child abuse for allegedly inflicting Walter’s injuries and remains at large as a fugitive. The couple’s defense attorney Mitchell Krems has dismissed all allegations as a deliberate “mischaracterization” of available evidence, claiming Xuan is being targeted for exercising his constitutional right to build a large family.
The high-profile case has cast a harsh spotlight on the largely unregulated cross-border US surrogacy industry, a leading global destination for intended parents seeking assisted reproductive services that remain banned or heavily restricted in their home countries. A 2024 industry study found that nearly one-third of all international intended parents accessing US surrogacy services between 2014 and 2020 hailed from China, where commercial surrogacy is fully prohibited, making China the largest single source of foreign clients. Many of these clients are individuals locked out of domestic IVF and fertility support for single people and LGBTQ communities, or couples who missed their chance to conceive naturally after decades of the now-repealed One-Child Policy.
Court documents reveal that Xuan and Zhang deliberately concealed their ownership of Mark Surrogacy from dozens of gestational carriers, leading multiple surrogates to file civil lawsuits against the pair for fraud and intentional misrepresentation. Six women allege they were falsely told they were the only surrogate working for the couple, tricked into believing they were helping a small, loving family welcome one single cherished child. The pair also contracted with third-party California surrogacy agency Babytree Surrogacy, whose founder Patrick Yu told investigators he was unaware the couple had arranged for more than 20 surrogate children until news of Walter’s injury broke, immediately severing all ties with the pair.
Reproductive health legal experts confirm no existing US federal or California state laws cap the number of surrogacy arrangements a single intended parent can pursue, nor mandate full disclosure of prior surrogacy attempts to agencies or carriers, creating a largely unregulated grey area that wealthy clients often exploit to avoid public scrutiny. Prosecutors have confirmed Xuan and Zhang’s combined net worth exceeds $100 million, and Xuan holds three separate passports from China, the United States, and Mexico. A former high-ranking provincial legislator in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region who later led the US Xinjiang Chamber of Commerce, Xuan previously made a $4,900 campaign donation to disgraced former Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang, who resigned in May 2025 after pleading guilty to acting as an unregistered illegal agent of the Chinese government. In total, 26 children have been linked to the couple’s surrogacy network: 21 were placed under state protective custody during the 2025 investigation, with five more born after the probe launched. One infant born in early 2026 remains in the care of her Virginia-based surrogate mother Melissa Epps, who is fighting the couple’s legal attempt to seize custody of the child and claim $1 million in damages for alleged surrogacy contract breach. -
‘A disaster zone’: Hebron is under full Israeli siege, mayor says
In a statement shared with Middle East Eye on Saturday evening, Hebron’s Mayor Yousef Jaabari confirmed that Israeli military forces have sealed every entry and exit point to the occupied West Bank city, and carried out forced evictions displacing roughly 2,200 Palestinian residents from their homes in surrounding neighbourhoods.
Jaabari described the current situation in Hebron as a full-blown disaster zone, noting that the total closure prevents any person or supply from moving in or out of the densely populated area. He framed the sweeping restrictions as a deliberate act of collective punishment imposed by Israeli authorities, triggered by a fatal shooting incident on Friday.
Earlier that day, two suspected Palestinian assailants opened fire on Israeli military personnel positioned at the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint, located in the northern reaches of Hebron, resulting in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and non-fatal injuries to three additional troops.
As the largest urban centre in the West Bank, Hebron is home to approximately 320,000 permanent residents, and serves as the administrative hub for the broader Hebron Governorate, which counts more than one million total inhabitants, per data shared by Jaabari.
The mass forced evictions targeted the neighbourhoods of Deir Bahala, al-Jalda and adjacent residential zones, covering a land area of roughly 330 dunams that holds more than 490 separate housing units. Local residents who spoke to Middle East Eye reported that Israeli soldiers gave affected families only five minutes to gather their belongings and vacate their properties, leaving no time to arrange for the transport of personal possessions. Footage circulated on social media platforms showed convoys of Palestinian truck drivers coordinating to evacuate stock and raw materials from local factories, acting in a last-minute bid to save supplies before Israeli forces move ahead with planned demolitions of the structures.
Jaabari added that Hebron municipal teams have intervened rapidly to arrange temporary shelter for all displaced residents, with the local government formally declaring a city-wide state of emergency to coordinate relief efforts and track every evolving detail of the crisis. The municipality has also launched a dedicated 24/7 crisis hotline for displaced families and affected residents to request urgent support, food, shelter or medical assistance.
Beyond the city-wide closure and mass evictions, Israeli forces also moved to lock down the Ibrahimi Mosque, a protected UNESCO-endangered Palestinian World Heritage Site, expelling all its on-site staff and custodians, according to official statements from the Palestinian Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs. Jaabari confirmed that congregational prayers are no longer being held at the ancient religious site, and Israeli forces have issued a formal ban on the traditional Islamic call to prayer being broadcast from its premises.
The Ibrahimi Mosque stands as one of the oldest and most revered shared holy sites across Islam, Judaism and Christianity, and has been administered exclusively by Palestinian religious authorities and used as a mosque for more than 1,400 consecutive years. Over recent months, Israeli authorities have moved to tighten their grip on the site, rolling out a series of escalating restrictions including periodic bans on Muslim worshippers accessing the space, repeated limits on the call to prayer, and policies that enable increasing incursions by Israeli settlers into the mosque grounds.
Jaabari went on to note that the timing of the sweeping crackdown appears highly suspicious, accusing far-right factions within the current Israeli government of leveraging the crisis in Hebron, including the restrictions on the Ibrahimi Mosque and the displacement of local Palestinian residents, as free, high-visibility electoral publicity for hardline ministers competing in upcoming national Israeli elections.