Global Pulse

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  • No, China did not manage to avoid a crash

    No, China did not manage to avoid a crash

    For decades through the 2010s, global economic observers widely regarded China’s economy as uniquely recession-resistant. Surviving both the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2015 domestic stock market crash and capital outflow event without recording a single quarter of negative growth, the country’s macroeconomic management strategy drew widespread fascination. As early as the late 2010s, analysts noted that Beijing had developed a distinct third tool for economic stabilization beyond the conventional monetary and fiscal policies used by most Western economies.

    Standard counter-cyclical policy relies on two levers: monetary policy, which cuts interest rates to encourage private borrowing and investment, and fiscal policy, which directs government spending directly to public projects to boost employment and aggregate demand. China, however, adds a third mechanism: direct credit policy. Leveraging state control over the country’s banking system, Beijing can order state-owned banks to expand lending rapidly during downturns, then rein in credit once growth stabilizes. When extended loans eventually default, the government steps in to remove nonperforming assets from bank balance sheets, allowing the system to continue lending and supporting growth that eventually reduces the relative size of public debt.

    Throughout the 2010s, this strategy relied heavily on directing new credit to the real estate sector, fueling what remains the largest property construction and price boom in modern history. That era of endless expansion came to an abrupt end in late 2021, when the default of industry giant Evergrande triggered a wave of bankruptcies and missed debt payments across the entire sector. Since then, property prices have fallen continuously, and housing construction activity has plummeted sharply, according to Bloomberg data.

    Yet official GDP growth figures never dipped below 3% even as the property crash unfolded. Mirroring its 2009 and 2015 playbook, Beijing ordered its state-controlled banking system to replace slowing real estate lending with a surge of new loans to manufacturing and industrial firms. The shift succeeded in keeping headline growth stable, leading some proponents of China’s managed market model to declare the strategy a resounding success. In a July 2026 social media post, economist Isabella M. Weber noted that many Wall Street analysts had predicted a 2008-style “Lehman moment” for China in 2021, but the bubble defused without a total financial collapse, arguing that this demonstrated an advantage of state-managed markets over unregulated free markets.

    Critics have long warned that this approach carries steep long-term costs: repeated credit-directed stimulus funnels capital to unproductive, politically favored firms, dragging down aggregate productivity growth. This pattern played out in the 2010s, when massive lending to real estate companies diverted resources from more productive sectors. Now, economists warn that the 2022-2024 wave of industrial lending could leave a lasting overhang of “zombie companies” that hoard labor and capital without generating meaningful economic output.

    Supporters of Beijing’s approach push back against these warnings, arguing that long-term costs are unproven, productivity is difficult to measure accurately, and any structural issues can be addressed later. They frame the outcome as a victory for China’s policy goals: successfully pivoting the economy away from excessive reliance on real estate development without triggering a broad economic contraction. Proponents of expanded state economic control in other countries have also held up China’s performance as evidence of the benefits of greater government intervention in markets.

    However, a closer look at labor market data and independent growth estimates tells a more complicated story. Despite official claims of continued stable growth, China did experience a sharp economic downturn following the property crash, and underlying growth remains far weaker than headline figures suggest.

    The first red flag appears in China’s labor market. In 2023, Beijing revised its methodology for calculating youth unemployment to use a narrower definition, after official figures hit record highs. Even with the methodological change, the youth unemployment trend has still moved upward. Official overall unemployment figures show only a small increase, but independent analysts note that these numbers are incomplete: they exclude migrant workers from rural areas, workers who have dropped out of the labor force, and people waiting to start new jobs. Alternative indicators, such as the non-manufacturing employment purchasing managers index, have remained consistently below pre-pandemic levels since the crash, and the migrant worker population has not grown at all since the COVID-19 pandemic. Record numbers of young people are now opting to pursue postgraduate education or civil service roles rather than entering the open job market, masking the true scale of weak labor demand.

    Even official GDP data contradicts claims that China avoided any quarterly contraction. China typically reports growth on a year-over-year basis, unlike the quarterly sequential reporting used in the U.S. and most other major economies. Official figures show that China’s economy contracted by 0.8% quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter of 2022, equal to an annualized contraction of more than 3% — a figure that was originally reported as a much steeper 9.3% contraction before being revised downward. Even official data confirms that current trend growth is roughly 2 percentage points lower than it was immediately before the pandemic.

    Numerous independent analyses suggest that even the revised official figures overstate growth, due to a long-standing practice of “smoothing” GDP numbers: official statistics understate growth in strong years and overstate it in weak years to present a more stable picture of economic performance. A 2016 academic study found that this practice has resulted in official data overstating actual growth by a substantial margin since 2002. Following the 2021 property crash, multiple independent research groups have reached similar conclusions.

    The Rhodium Group, a leading independent research firm focused on China, used alternative data sources to estimate that China’s economy actually contracted between 0.3% and 0.8% in 2022, compared to the official 3% growth figure, and grew only 1.5% to 2% in 2023, far below the official 5.2% reported. The Bank of Finland found that growth effectively stalled in 2022, and Capital Economics concluded that China did experience a full recession that year, even though growth has picked up moderately since. Adding to evidence of weak demand, China has slipped into deflation, with consumer prices falling into negative territory — a classic indicator of insufficient aggregate demand in a slowing economy.

    It is important to acknowledge that China’s credit-based stabilization policy represents a meaningful innovation in macroeconomic management that merits further study from policymakers around the world. Beijing succeeded in preventing the property crash from spiraling into a total financial collapse, a feat that many analysts once considered unlikely. Even so, triumphal claims that China has eliminated the business cycle and avoided any recessionary pain from the property bust do not hold up to scrutiny. Long-term productivity costs remain a major risk, and even in the short term, the downturn has been far deeper than official figures suggest. If China remains on a trajectory of permanently lower trend growth, the practice of smoothing official growth numbers will eventually become unsustainable, as there will not be enough strong growth in good years to offset the inflated numbers reported during downturns.

  • As quake rescue effort winds down, Venezuelans are left alone to recover their dead

    As quake rescue effort winds down, Venezuelans are left alone to recover their dead

    Two weeks after twin earthquakes struck coastal Venezuela, leaving a trail of death and destruction, hundreds of grieving relatives are still forced to dig through collapsed buildings with their bare hands and basic tools, abandoned by state authorities who have failed to provide the heavy machinery and support needed to recover the remains of their missing loved ones.

    The devastating back-to-back quakes that hit on June 24 toppled dozens of structures, including public high-rise housing blocks constructed under former socialist leader Hugo Chávez, and have officially claimed 3,342 lives, with another 16,740 people injured. But thousands more remain unaccounted for: more than 30,000 missing person reports have already been filed to an opposition-run database, a figure that far outpaces official government counts.

    For 26-year-old Noel Márquez, the disaster has been marked by unending suffering and unmet need. Márquez was away at his girlfriend’s apartment when the 10-story building his entire family called home crumbled into rubble and ignited. Rushing back to the site, he called out for his mother, pregnant sister, grandparents and siblings, and only heard a response from his 17-year-old brother Leonel, whose legs were trapped beneath heavy concrete columns.

    For hours, Márquez and his father — who also escaped being in the building that day — shouted through layers of wreckage to Leonel, listening as the teenager cried for help and gasped through thick, suffocating smoke while waiting for a government-provided crane to lift the crushing debris. The rescue equipment never arrived. Eventually, Leonel’s calls fell silent.

    That agony, however, was only the beginning. Márquez said the worst horror came when he was left to untangle the remains of his family with nothing but a hand saw and his bare hands. He managed to cut through debris to retrieve the bodies of Leonel and his mother, but was forced to leave his eight-month pregnant sister, grandmother and other relatives trapped beneath the rubble — abandoning not just their bodies, but his last hope of giving them a proper, respectful burial.

    “It’s unfair. It’s inhumane, everything that is happening,” Márquez said from the overcrowded makeshift morgue set up at La Guaira port. “We couldn’t get my brother out because we didn’t get a response from the state … and after 11 days, we are still requesting a crane.” Even a week after he delivered the recovered remains of his mother and grandfather to the morgue, Leonel’s body is still lost, he says — a loss he blames entirely on official negligence.

    Márquez is far from alone in his grief and anger. Across the hardest-hit state of La Guaira, hundreds of survivors are facing the same gruesome, heartbreaking reality 12 days after the quakes. International rescue teams that arrived in the immediate aftermath have begun departing, quietly conceding that no additional survivors are likely to be found alive under the rubble. Local authorities have shifted their focus to securing temporary shelter for the more than 14,000 displaced people left homeless by the quakes, and have pivoted publicly from sharing dramatic rescue updates on social media to rolling out a national reconstruction initiative dubbed *Venezuela Reborn*.

    But the pressing, horrific work of recovering the dead has fallen almost entirely to civilian family members, who say they have been abandoned by the state just as they were when they first begged for help to trap survivors in the hours after the quakes. Over the weekend, no government civil defense teams or security personnel were spotted assisting families digging through wreckage across La Guaira. Almost all the work is being done by civilians, using nothing but their hands or basic hand tools, with only occasional support from volunteer firefighters and the small remaining contingent of Mexican rescue workers who have not yet left the country.

    William Gomez, a La Guaira-based firefighter, explained that the delay has made the recovery work even more grotesque. “It has been difficult because the bodies are already in an advanced state of decomposition, decomposed to such an extent that many times when we try to remove them, they fall apart,” he said.

    Norely Rodríguez, who is searching for her 5-year-old daughter in the rubble, echoed the despair of many families. “I found her hand, but her torso is crushed,” she said. “I want to see if I can get her out whole.”

    Yeikhary Urbina, who recovered the bodies of her mother and brother Saturday, trapped in an embrace under layers of concrete, said civilian families have been left to fend for themselves entirely. “We are the ones helping ourselves: our family. Nobody else helps us except for a few volunteers,” she said.

    The disaster has reignited long-simmering anger over shoddy construction in the country’s public housing blocks, which were built for low-income families under Chávez’s administration. Multiple residents reported that they had complained for years about structural flaws in their high-rises, only to have their concerns ignored by authorities. When the quakes hit, dozens of these buildings collapsed completely, trapping hundreds inside.

    Alexander, a 42-year-old police officer who asked to be identified only by his first name over fears of official retaliation, was shaking with fury as he recovered his 12-year-old daughter’s remains after 11 days of digging. He blamed the government for ignoring long-running warnings that his housing complex was structurally unsound, for failing to send rescue teams in time to save his wife and three daughters, and now for refusing to send heavy machinery to help him retrieve their bodies.

    “Not a single person from the government was here,” he said, as he held the black plastic body bag containing his daughter’s decomposed but intact remains. “She was waiting for me to pull her out.”

    For grieving families, the lack of support has turned an already catastrophic disaster into an ongoing trauma, with many still unable to lay their loved ones to rest, and left to confront the gruesome work of body recovery entirely on their own.

  • Charlie Kirk’s family attends hearing for suspect charged with his murder

    Charlie Kirk’s family attends hearing for suspect charged with his murder

    Nearly 10 months after the high-profile assassination of influential American conservative activist Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus, the first formal preliminary hearing for his accused killer got underway this week, bringing Kirk’s grieving family face-to-face with the man charged with his death. Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of the youth conservative group Turning Point USA and a close ally of former President Donald Trump, was fatally shot in September 2025 while delivering a speech at Utah Valley University in Orem, triggering an urgent two-day nationwide manhunt for the perpetrator. Law enforcement officials took 23-year-old Tyler Robinson into custody on September 12, 2025, and prosecutors have leveled four serious charges against him: aggravated murder, felony firearm discharge, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. As of the opening of this week’s hearing, Robinson has not entered a formal plea, and local prosecutors are pushing forward with a pursuit of the death penalty. The preliminary hearing, which is set to run through the end of this week, opened on Monday with procedural moves and the start of evidence presentation from the prosecution. Ahead of the proceedings, Kirk’s family — including his widow Erika, two young children, parents Robert and Kathryn, and sister Mary — released a heartfelt public statement through local media, opening up about the permanent trauma of their loss. “Charlie was a beloved husband, son, brother, friend, and father,” the statement read. “Every court proceeding serves as a painful reminder of his death and the loss that has irrevocably impacted our lives and the lives of his children.” On Monday morning, Kirk’s parents and widow arrived at the Utah County courthouse separately, both maintaining privacy as they entered the building. The family expressed deep gratitude for the widespread outpouring of support they have received from across the country in the months since the shooting. “This outpouring has sustained us during the darkest days of our lives,” the statement added. “Out of respect for the judicial process, we will not be commenting further at this time. We ask for continued privacy as we navigate this process and immense grief.” For the defense team, multiple pre-hearing motions have failed to shift the trajectory of the case. Attorneys for Robinson previously attempted to have a range of evidence thrown out, all of which were denied by the court. They also launched an unsuccessful bid to bar cameras from the courtroom during the preliminary hearing, and have formally asked presiding Judge Tony Graf to eliminate the possibility of the death penalty entirely. On the opening day of the hearing, Robinson appeared in court dressed in a light-colored suit, seated quietly between his two legal representatives at the defense table. Prosecutors confirmed at the start of proceedings that four law enforcement witnesses would be called to testify during the first day of the hearing, as the state begins laying out its case against Robinson to establish that there is probable cause to move forward with a full murder trial.

  • More than 1,000 arrested as part of global human trafficking crackdown

    More than 1,000 arrested as part of global human trafficking crackdown

    A coordinated international law enforcement sweep targeting the global human trafficking trade has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests and the identification of over 2,000 victims after a five-day operation spanning four continents. Spearheaded by Interpol, with support from Europol (the European Union’s law enforcement cooperation agency) and European border management body Frontex, Operation Global Chain brought 40,000 on-the-ground officers together across 59 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe to dismantle criminal networks engaging in sexual exploitation, forced labor, coerced criminal activity and forced begging.

    The operation, conducted between June 8 and 12, uncovered evolving smuggling routes and increasingly adaptive criminal tactics, Interpol officials confirmed. Among the major breakthroughs was the takedown of two high-profile criminal networks: one that trafficked victims to Cambodia to coerce them into participating in global online scam operations, and another that groomed underage girls through social media to force them into sex work across multiple European countries.

    Official data from the operation reveals that 2,070 confirmed and potential victims were rescued, the overwhelming majority of whom are women. Around 10 percent of all identified child victims subjected to sexual exploitation came from the Americas, highlighting an alarming emerging trend of Latin American people being trafficked to Europe for forced labor. Of the 1,024 total arrests made, 334 were direct charges for human trafficking offenses, with the remaining 690 related to linked criminal activities. An additional 201 suspected traffickers were identified for further investigation, and Interpol has already issued global notices to track down at-large wanted persons of interest.

    Local law enforcement agencies across participating nations carried out targeted actions tailored to regional trafficking patterns. In Brazil, Federal Patrols were deployed along the country’s open border regions, resulting in the identification of 406 victims of a transnational trafficking ring—83 Brazilian nationals and 323 foreign citizens—who were bound for Cambodia to be forced into online scam work. Across the border in Argentina, local police rescued two Bolivian children who had been held as forced labor in a local grocery store and arrested the traffickers responsible. Colombian authorities complemented enforcement action with an airport awareness campaign to warn travelers of the risk of fraudulent job offers that often lure victims into trafficking networks.

    In Western Europe, Belgian law enforcement dismantled a cross-border trafficking ring that recruited victims through social media, held them captive, and forced them into prostitution across Belgium and neighboring France, resulting in 17 arrests. Officials note that 465 new ongoing investigations into unaddressed trafficking networks were launched as a direct outcome of the operation, and all identified victims have been transferred to national social protection and support services to aid their recovery.

    Breaking down the types of exploitation uncovered by the sweep, Interpol confirmed that sexual exploitation accounts for the largest share of detected trafficking cases, followed by forced criminal activity at 20 percent, forced labor at 11 percent, and forced begging at 2 percent. Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza emphasized that human trafficking remains one of the most lucrative and widespread forms of organized transnational crime, generating billions of dollars in illicit annual revenue while inflicting irreversible, long-term harm on survivors.

    Despite the scale of the ongoing challenge, Urquiza highlighted the operation’s outcome as a testament to cross-border collaboration. “These results demonstrate what can be achieved when countries work together to disrupt criminal networks and strengthen cooperation across regions,” he said.

  • Ex-Syrian intelligence chief found guilty of torture and sexual abuse by Austrian court

    Ex-Syrian intelligence chief found guilty of torture and sexual abuse by Austrian court

    In a landmark ruling that marks one of the rare instances of European jurisdiction over crimes linked to the Bashar al-Assad government, a court in Vienna, Austria, has convicted two former Syrian security officials of systemic torture, sexual abuse, and assault against anti-government opponents during the early stages of Syria’s civil conflict. The defendants, both of whom had sought asylum in Austria years ago, now face eight-year prison sentences, with an appeal already open to them.

    The lead defendant, identified only as Khaled al-H. per Austria’s strict privacy regulations, served as the head of Syria’s General Intelligence Directorate in the northern city of Raqqa from 2011, the same year the uprising against Assad erupted, through 2013, when the Free Syrian Army seized control of the city and prompted his flight. A member of Syria’s Druze ethno-religious minority, Khaled al-H. was found guilty of direct involvement in torture. His co-defendant, Moussab Abou R., the city’s former police chief, was convicted alongside him; both men were found guilty on additional charges of sexual coercion, aggravated coercion, and inflicting severe bodily harm.

    Prosecutors argued that the pair repeatedly ordered or intentionally failed to stop the brutal abuse of anti-government protesters held in custody in Raqqa, with the explicit goal of crushing the emerging protest movement and intimidating the civilian population into compliance. Over the course of the trial, dozens of victims, former detainees who traveled from across Europe and Syria to give testimony, shared graphic accounts of their abuse. The court heard harrowing details: victims were stripped naked before being beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and alternated between being doused in scalding and freezing water. One witness described being repeatedly lashed on the soles of his feet with electric cables. Judges also noted that nearly all survivors suffer from permanent, life-altering mental trauma as a result of their detention.

    Both defendants have repeatedly denied all charges brought against them. During the proceedings, Khaled al-H. claimed he never ordered or witnessed any acts of torture at his facility, and argued that as a member of a minority group in Assad’s Syria, he had no choice but to follow orders from the central government.

    The case has already triggered broader intrigue beyond the convictions: multiple independent media reports reveal that Khaled al-H. was brought into Austria in 2015 by the country’s former domestic intelligence agency, the BVT, at the formal request of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service as part of a classified initiative codenamed “Operation White Milk.” The Austrian Press Agency confirmed that the secret agreement was overseen by Martin Weiss, the former head of the BVT. Weiss is currently a fugitive living in Dubai, and is wanted for questioning over his alleged ties to disgraced Austrian spy Jan Marsalek, a wanted fugitive who is believed to be hiding in Moscow.

    Legal experts note that this trial is a significant milestone for universal jurisdiction efforts, which allow countries to prosecute serious human rights crimes committed anywhere in the world, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators or victims. It remains uncommon for European nations to open and conclude such cases against current or former officials of the Assad government, making the Vienna verdict a notable shift in how European courts address atrocities linked to the Syrian civil war. Both men have confirmed they plan to exercise their right to appeal the conviction and sentence.

  • UK urged to sanction Netanyahu and justice minister over Israeli torture of Palestinians

    UK urged to sanction Netanyahu and justice minister over Israeli torture of Palestinians

    A cross-party coalition of more than 70 British members of Parliament and House of Lords peers has launched a formal call for the UK government to impose targeted sanctions on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Israeli justice official Yariv Levin, citing documented systemic abuse of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli government.

    According to reporting from Sky News, the open letter dated last week, addressed to newly appointed UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, bears the signatures of 71 legislators from across the UK’s political spectrum. The campaign is led by sitting Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan, and already includes backing from 30 Labour MPs and seven Labour peers — a notable showing of dissent within the ruling party.

    In the text of the letter, parliamentarians argue that direct responsibility for the widespread, systematically documented torture of Palestinian civilians rests at the highest level of the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu personally implicated. The group is calling on Cooper to take immediate action to end what they describe as enduring impunity for senior Israeli leaders by imposing sanctions on both Netanyahu and Levin, who holds multiple senior government roles including deputy prime minister, justice minister and interior minister.

    The letter notes that UK sanctions imposed last year on far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, while a welcome step, have failed to shift the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinian detainees. Lawmakers add that the situation has since escalated dramatically, with perpetrators of abuse acting with near-total immunity from accountability.

    To back their claims, the letter cites a February 2024 United Nations report that concluded torture has become a core, institutionalized component of Israel’s occupation, inflicted systematically on Palestinian men, women and children through both in-custody abuse and a broader campaign of forced displacement, mass killing, systemic deprivation and destruction of critical infrastructure needed for daily life. It also highlights a recent controversial incident in which Netanyahu publicly praised the decision to dismiss military rape charges against Israeli soldiers accused of assaulting a Palestinian detainee.

    Additionally, legislators point to the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza by Israeli forces two months prior, during which multiple British citizens were detained while operating in international waters. Along with Labour signatories, the letter draws support from members of the Green Party, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, and one Conservative Member of Parliament, demonstrating rare cross-party consensus on the need for tougher action against Israeli leaders.

    In response to the letter, a spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office acknowledged the severity of the allegations, telling Sky News that “the reports of mistreatment of detainees by Israeli forces are disgraceful and we have raised this issue with the Israeli government.” The spokesperson added that all detainees are required to be treated humanely in line with the requirements of international law, and that all credible allegations of torture and abuse must be subject to full, impartial investigation. The UK, they confirmed, continues to pressure the Israeli government to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross immediate and unfettered access to all Israeli detention facilities, and called the prolonged detention of hundreds of Palestinian children without charge “completely unacceptable.”

    The latest call for accountability aligns with mounting international scrutiny of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian detainees. In March 2024, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council describing Israel’s prison system as “a laboratory of calculated cruelty,” documenting extreme abuses including the sexual assault of Palestinian detainees with bottles, metal rods and knives.

    Since Israel launched its large-scale military operation in Gaza in October 2023, more than 100 Palestinian detainees have been confirmed dead in Israeli custody, independent monitors report. Analysts widely view this number as a significant undercount, with the actual death toll believed to be far higher. This pressure comes after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, charging both with war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from actions in Gaza since the start of the current conflict.

  • Greaves bats West Indies back into 2nd test against Sri Lanka on day 4

    Greaves bats West Indies back into 2nd test against Sri Lanka on day 4

    On a slow, run-friendly pitch at North Sound in Antigua, a dogged, record-building innings from all-rounder Justin Greaves has positioned the West Indies men’s test cricket team on the brink of a milestone: their first test series victory in four years. With one full day of play remaining in the second and final match of the series, the home side holds all the momentum heading into the final session, thanks to Greaves’ 325-ball marathon that yielded 180 runs.

    Resuming on Day 4 at 318-4, with Greaves already sitting on 85 overnight, the West Indies batters set about erasing the sizable first-innings deficit Sri Lanka had built after declaring at 549-9. The defining moment of the day came from a fifth-wicket stand that echoed one of the pair’s prior career-defining performances: Greaves and Shai Hope put together a 242-run partnership, dragging the West Indies from a precarious 144-4 to a comfortable 386-5. This collaboration mirrored the 196-run stand the two put together against New Zealand in December 2024, when Greaves hit an unbeaten 202 and Hope scored 140 to salvage a draw.

    Hope, who missed the first test of the series after picking up a shoulder injury in pre-match training, went on to notch his third century in five test matches, finishing with 112 off 199 balls. His knock included 10 boundaries, and he confidently handled both Sri Lanka’s pace attack and spin spearhead Prabath Jayasuriya, using clever footwork to neutralize the spinner’s threat. He survived a dropped review early in the day, when Sri Lanka’s appeal for a caught behind off Milan Rathnayake was turned down by the on-field umpire, and the touring side opted not to challenge the call. His innings ended in bizarre fashion close to the lunch break: attempting to pad away a length ball from left-arm spinner Sonal Dinusha down the leg side, Hope stepped outside his crease and missed the ball. Though wicketkeeper Kusal Mendis fumbled the catch, the ball ricocheted off his gloves onto the stumps, and Hope was ruled stumped.

    After Hope’s dismissal, Greaves continued to anchor the innings, shepherding the West Indies lower order to add 113 runs for the final five wickets. The right-handed batter eventually fell as the last man out, with the West Indies all out for 499, cutting Sri Lanka’s first-innings lead to just 50 runs. The innings marked Greaves’ third test century, and the second-highest score of his international test career, as he brought up his hundred off 201 balls on Antiguan soil.

    Sri Lanka’s bowlers never let up pressure through the day, relying heavily on disciplined short-pitch bowling to restrict run flow. Pace bowler Asitha Fernando claimed his third career five-wicket test haul, finishing with figures of 5-130 off 40 overs, while Jayasuriya chipped in with 3-131.

    By stumps on Day 4, Sri Lanka had navigated early wickets to reach 92-2 in their second innings. The touring side lost first-innings centurion Lahiru Udara for a four-ball duck and opener Nishan Fernando for 20, before Dinesh Chandimal (40 not out) and Kamindu Mendis (30 not out) put together an unbroken 60-run partnership to close out play. That result pushed Sri Lanka’s overall lead to 142 runs with one day of cricket remaining.

    Through the final 22 overs of Day 4, Sri Lanka scored at a rate of more than four runs per over, a pace they will need to maintain if they hope to set a defendable total and force a victory on a pitch that is expected to deteriorate on the final day. Only 21 wickets have fallen across the first four days, with 1,140 total runs scored, making conditions heavily favorable to batters and the home side, which already holds a 1-0 series lead after winning the opening test by an innings and 217 runs.

    A draw in the second test would be enough for the West Indies to claim their first World Test Championship series win since beating Bangladesh in the Caribbean in 2022, ending a four-year drought without a test series victory.

  • Macron arrives in Syria as first major western leader to visit war-torn country under new leadership

    Macron arrives in Syria as first major western leader to visit war-torn country under new leadership

    In a landmark moment for post-conflict diplomacy in the Middle East, French President Emmanuel Macron touched down in Damascus on Monday, marking the first visit to war-ravaged Syria by a major Western European or North American leader since Bashar al-Assad was ousted from power in 2024. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had traveled to the country earlier this year in April, but Macron’s trip breaks new ground for Western engagement with Syria’s new transitional government.

    The visit arrives at a fragile juncture for the region, coming on the heels of a month-long conflict between Iran and Lebanon that has recently de-escalated, leaving a tentative period of relative calm across the Middle East. Following his engagements in Damascus, Macron will travel onward to Ankara, Turkey, to attend a high-stakes NATO summit. At that same gathering, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is also scheduled to appear, where he is set to hold a widely anticipated high-profile meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.

    According to Syria’s official state-run news agency SANA, Macron is not traveling alone: he is accompanied by a delegation of French business leaders, with an agenda focused on two core pillars: regional security cooperation, and unlocking new business and investment opportunities for the war-battered country. Upon his arrival at Damascus International Airport, Macron was formally welcomed by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani.

    In a public post shared to the social platform X shortly after his arrival, Macron outlined the core purpose of his trip. “I have come to express France’s commitment to the Syrian people. For a sovereign Syria, united in its diversity and at peace with its neighbors,” he wrote. “Together, let us open a new chapter of stability and peace.”

    A statement from Macron’s office expanded on France’s long-running position toward Syria’s new governance, noting that France backs all actors working to build a new Syrian state aligned with the aspirations for political change that emerged during the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East.

    During his time in Damascus, Macron is set to hold formal talks with al-Sharaa at the Syrian presidential palace, and his office confirmed he will also hold direct engagements with a broad cross-section of Syrian society from diverse backgrounds. Full details of the visit’s schedule have not been released to the public, a decision made out of an abundance of caution for security reasons.

    This visit is the latest step in growing diplomatic ties between Paris and Damascus: Macron previously hosted al-Sharaa in Paris back in May 2025. During that meeting, Macron urged European and U.S. leaders to roll back decades-wide crippling economic sanctions imposed on the Assad-era Syrian government. Following that push, the vast majority of those sanctions have now been lifted.

    Notably, France has thrown its support behind Syria’s new leadership even as many other Western governments held initial skepticism, due to al-Sharaa’s background leading the Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a group that previously maintained ties to al-Qaida. Western capitals have also raised ongoing concerns about three key issues: the protection of women’s rights, the political inclusion of ethnic and religious minority groups, and whether the new transitional government will follow through on its pledges to transition to full democratic rule.

    While Syria has avoided being drawn into the most recent wave of regional conflict, the country still bears the devastating scars of 13 years of full-scale civil war. Much of the country’s critical infrastructure lies in ruins, millions of Syrians have been pushed into extreme poverty, and preliminary estimates place the total cost of reconstruction at hundreds of billions of dollars. To date, while Syria has signed preliminary memorandums of understanding for large-scale infrastructure and investment projects with multiple foreign governments and multinational corporations, none of these major projects have yet moved into implementation.

  • ‘It’s a very sad day’ – Mexican fans react to loss to England

    ‘It’s a very sad day’ – Mexican fans react to loss to England

    Mexico’s 202x FIFA World Cup journey came to a devastating close in front of a heartbroken home crowd in Mexico City, as the national side fell to a narrow 3-2 defeat against England. For supporters who filled the stadium with chants, colors, and unwavering hope throughout the tournament, the final whistle marked the end of a dream that had captivated the entire nation.\n\nFrom the opening kickoff, the match delivered relentless drama: both teams traded attacking blows, with Mexico mounting a fierce late comeback that came agonizingly short of forcing extra time. When the referee blew the final whistle, silence fell over sections of the stands before fans began to applaud their team’s effort, even through tears of disappointment.\n\nSpeaking to reporters outside the stadium after the match, multiple supporters described the result as a devastating blow. “It’s a very sad day for all of us,” one long-time fan told journalists, echoing the sentiment shared by thousands across the country. “We poured everything into supporting this team, and we believed we could pull off the win today. It’s hard to accept that our run is over.”\n\nDespite the heartbreak, many fans acknowledged the pride they felt in the national team’s performance throughout the tournament, highlighting the fighting spirit the squad showed until the final second of the match. Street gatherings that had been planned for a potential victory fizzled into quiet conversations, as fans processed the loss and looked ahead to the next edition of international football’s biggest competition.

  • Lethal weapon: How Bollywood’s ‘Chauhaan’ trivialises the suffering of Kashmiris maimed by Indian forces

    Lethal weapon: How Bollywood’s ‘Chauhaan’ trivialises the suffering of Kashmiris maimed by Indian forces

    Twenty-five-year-old Inam Ahmad’s strained, flickering gaze behind thick glasses is a permanent, visible marker of the irreversible harm pellet guns have inflicted on countless civilian lives in Indian-administered Kashmir. In 2017, at just 16 years old, not long after passing his matriculation exams, Ahmad was struck by dozens of pellets fired by Indian armed forces outside his Srinagar home. The shrapnel became embedded in his skull, neck, and behind his eyes, robbing him of 80 percent of his vision. “Every day I live with pain when the pellets shift or heat up,” he explained. “They never let me forget I will never be normal again.”

    Ahmad’s mother Fahmeeda Jan holds a faded childhood photo of her son: a grinning three-year-old in a green tracksuit, clinging to his younger sister’s hand, bright eyes looking up toward the camera. Full of energy before the shooting, her son’s life and the entire family’s future was upended by the injury. After multiple rounds of surgery, crippling medical debt that drained their savings, and the abrupt end to Ahmad’s education, the constant unrelenting pain often pushes Ahmad to breaking point. “He gets so fed up that he pulls his hair in frustration, becomes aggressive, and says he wants to end his life,” Jan shared. Desperate to restore her son’s sight, she once offered to donate one of her own eyes during a trip for treatment outside Kashmir, but doctors told her such a transplant was medically impossible. “Only those who this weapon has hit truly know what it is,” she says.

    Originally designed for bird hunting, pellet shotguns fire hundreds of small metal fragments over a wide, scattered area, making precise targeting impossible. Indian authorities introduced the weapons to Kashmir in 2010 as a so-called “non-lethal crowd control tool” following widespread anti-India protests. But this official classification has been repeatedly challenged by global human rights and medical bodies. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has labeled pellet guns “one of the most dangerous weapons used in Kashmir”, and a 2020 UN guideline on less-lethal law enforcement weapons explicitly states: “Metal pellets, including those discharged by shotguns, should never be used.” Amnesty International has similarly condemned the weapon, noting that “injuries and deaths caused by this cruel weapon bear testimony to how dangerous, inaccurate and indiscriminate it is.” While the weapon is banned for hunting in many countries, official Indian data from 2018 recorded 6,221 people wounded by pellets between July 2016 and March 2017 alone, and no comprehensive full count of casualties has ever been released.

    Ahmad’s story is far from unique. In 2016, 14-year-old Insha Mushtaq was struck by pellets while standing by the window of her family home in Shopian district, resulting in permanent blindness and lifelong facial disfigurement. Just two years later in the same district, 18-month-old Hiba Nisar – the youngest recorded pellet victim – was hit while sitting in her mother’s lap. For thousands of survivors like these, the harm is permanent: pellets remain lodged in soft tissue and bone, causing chronic pain and permanent disability for decades.

    It is against this backdrop of ongoing collective trauma that a 144-second teaser for the upcoming Bollywood film *Chauhaan* has ignited widespread anger and condemnation across Kashmir and among human rights observers. The film, starring A-list actor Ajay Devgn and backed by major production houses Colour Yellow Productions and Jio Studios – owned by Reliance Industries, a conglomerate led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani long tied to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its right-wing Hindutva agenda – claims in its promotional material that pellet guns inflict only “limited damage” on protesters. In the teaser, Devgn’s voiceover argues that India’s current pellet gun use for crowd control is actually too restrained, calling for harsher measures against unrest in the region. Scheduled for a October 2025 theatrical release, the film is set against the backdrop of the decades-long Kashmir conflict, split between India, Pakistan and China, with early footage showing stone-pelting protests, pellet injuries, and paramilitary operations, pointing to a politically charged narrative aligned with the ruling party’s position.

    Critics say the teaser’s claim of “limited damage” is a grotesque trivialization of a humanitarian crisis that has left thousands permanently blinded or maimed across the region. *Chauhaan* is not an isolated case: for years, activists and locals have decried a pattern of Bollywood films set in Kashmir that advance Hindutva ideology, whitewash civilian suffering, and misrepresent the region’s history. Recent high-profile releases including *Uri: The Surgical Strike*, *Shikara*, *The Kashmir Files*, and *Article 370* all drew massive backlash for framing Kashmiri Muslims as terrorists, altering historical events to align with the ruling party’s narrative, and celebrating the 2019 unilateral revocation of Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, a move endorsed personally by Modi. Author and Kashmir scholar Mirza Waheed argues that the *Chauhaan* trailer reflects a dangerous shift in Indian public life. “Instead of asking what life is really like for a young person permanently blinded by these weapons, what happens to their dreams and their families, the film explicitly calls for even more severe and lethal tactics,” Waheed explained. He calls this trend a symptom of India’s “post-truth, anti-history” political environment, where “such mendacious narratives seek to subvert Kashmir’s recent history, painting the victims in a completely dehumanized light and the perpetrators as virtuous, heroic.”

    Aga Ruhullah Mehdi, a Kashmiri parliamentarian with the opposition National Conference, described the teaser as deeply disturbing for anyone who has lived through pellet gun violence in the region. “What they call ‘ineffective’ left behind thousands of shattered lives,” he wrote. “For those who lost their eyesight, those who still live with pellets lodged in their bodies, and the families who continue to bear those scars, this is not an action sequence or a cinematic backdrop. It is a lived trauma.” Mehdi added that mainstream Indian cinema has repeatedly reduced Kashmir to a setting for conflict-framed narratives that reinforce harmful stereotypes, noting that “Kashmir deserves empathy, honesty and dignity – not the commercialization of its pain.”

    Scholar and author Dr. Niharika Pandit, whose work examines the impact of widespread militarization in Kashmir, says that since 2014, when Modi’s BJP first took national power, Bollywood has increasingly functioned as a public relations arm for the ruling party. “Earlier Hindi cinema used to project Kashmiris as ethereal, but without any agency; the latest batch of movies has turned far more explicitly propagandist,” Pandit explained. “They peddle the narrative that everything is normal in Kashmir, justify the government’s decisions like the abrogation of Article 370, and further erase Kashmiri histories and lived realities. This is epistemic violence: first you inflict widespread bodily harm that cripples young Kashmiris, then you pretend it never happened or frame it as necessary for national security.” Kashmiri academic Dr. Mohamad Junaid, who teaches at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, adds that Hindi cinema has long followed a pattern of exoticizing Kashmir’s landscape while demonizing its people. “The violence we see on screen is a natural outcome of that dynamic. Hindi cinema is just reflecting what the Hindu right-wing has done to India’s public sphere,” he noted.

    For survivors like Inam Ahmad, the controversy over the teaser is not just an abstract political debate – it is a fresh reopening of a wound that never heals. The damage from that 2017 shooting was never limited. It is a daily reality he and thousands of other Kashmiris will live with for the rest of their lives.