Global Pulse

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  • Global military spending surges on insecurity: report

    Global military spending surges on insecurity: report

    Global military expenditure has climbed to nearly $2.9 trillion in 2025, extending an uninterrupted annual growth streak to 11 years, according to a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The world’s three largest defense spenders – the United States, China, and Russia – accounted for just over half of the global total, with a combined outlay of $1.48 trillion in 2025. Overall global spending rose 2.9 percent year-on-year, even as the world’s single largest spender, the U.S., recorded a nominal reduction in its 2025 defense budget.

    Lorenzo Scarazzato, a SIPRI researcher, told AFP that the U.S. cut was fully offset by sharp spending increases across Europe and Asia, driven by what he described as “another year of wars and increased tensions.” This upward trend is mirrored in the global “military burden” – the share of total global GDP allocated to defense spending – which reached its highest level since 2009. “Everything points to a world that feels less secure and is spending on its military to compensate for the global landscape,” Scarazzato noted.

    The U.S. recorded a 7.5 percent annual reduction in 2025 military spending, finishing the year at $954 billion. The drop is largely attributed to the failure of Congress to approve new military aid packages for Ukraine in 2025, after Washington committed a total of $127 billion to Kyiv over the preceding three years. However, analysts expect this dip to be temporary: the U.S. Congress has already approved a $1 trillion+ defense budget for 2026, and spending could surge to $1.5 trillion in 2027 if the budget proposal put forward by U.S. President Donald Trump is enacted.

    The biggest contributor to the 2025 global spending increase was Europe, which includes both Russia and Ukraine. Total regional spending surged 14 percent year-on-year to hit $864 billion. Scarazzato outlined the two core drivers behind the surge: the ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine, and shifting U.S. defense policy that pushes European nations to take greater responsibility for their own security in the face of reduced American engagement. Germany, the world’s fourth-largest military spender, raised its 2025 expenditure by 24 percent to $114 billion, while Spain recorded a dramatic 50 percent increase to $40.2 billion, pushing its defense spending above 2 percent of GDP for the first time since 1994.

    Both Russia and Ukraine have ramped up military spending amid the active conflict, with both nations allocating a larger share of government expenditure to defense than any other countries tracked by SIPRI. Russia’s spending rose 5.9 percent to $190 billion in 2025, equal to 7.5 percent of the country’s total GDP. Ukraine, by contrast, boosted its defense outlay by 20 percent to $84.1 billion – a staggering 40 percent of its entire annual GDP.

    In the Middle East, where long-running geopolitical tensions remain high, regional spending rose only marginally by 0.1 percent to $218 billion. While most nations in the region increased their defense budgets, both Israel and Iran recorded nominal decreases. Iran’s spending fell 5.6 percent to $7.4 billion, a drop driven almost entirely by the country’s 42 percent annual inflation rate; spending actually rose in nominal terms. For Israel, the 4.9 percent drop to $48.3 billion followed a January 2025 ceasefire in the Gaza war that reduced immediate military operational needs. Even with the decline, Israel’s 2025 defense spending remains 97 percent higher than it was in 2022.

    Across Asia and Oceania, total military spending reached $681 billion in 2025, an 8.5 percent year-on-year increase that marks the region’s largest annual jump since 2009. Scarazzato identified China as the region’s major player, noting that the country has now expanded its military spending every year for 30 consecutive years, hitting an estimated $336 billion in 2025. Beyond China’s ongoing military modernization, Scarazzato highlighted growing threat perceptions among other regional actors as a key growth driver. Japan raised its defense expenditure by 9.7 percent to $62.2 billion in 2025, equal to 1.4 percent of GDP – its highest GDP share for defense spending since 1958. Taiwan also increased its spending by 14 percent to $18.2 billion amid shifting regional security dynamics.

  • How climate change threatens the economic backbone of the Pacific

    How climate change threatens the economic backbone of the Pacific

    Stretching across more than 3.4 million square kilometers of the central Pacific Ocean, the small island nation of Kiribati holds an outsize role in the global tuna industry. Despite having a total land area roughly equal to that of New York City, this scattered archipelago of 33 islands sits at the heart of the world’s most productive tuna fishing grounds, which collectively supply more than half of the global tuna catch. For Kiribati, this abundant marine resource is not just a cultural cornerstone — it is the entire backbone of the country’s economy. Unlike larger Pacific neighbors such as Papua New Guinea, Kiribati has almost no other natural resources to draw on: its highest natural elevation above sea level is just two meters, with limited fresh water reserves and virtually no terrestrial mineral or agricultural assets. As a result, revenue from selling tuna fishing licenses to international fleets makes up more than 70% of the country’s total government income, the highest proportional dependence of any nation on Earth, according to official data. Between 2018 and 2022, this revenue equaled roughly 40% of Kiribati’s entire GDP, figures from the International Monetary Fund show. In 2024 alone, license sales generated $137 million for the government, a sum officials describe as a “critical financial lifeline” for the nation of 130,000 people. Today, large fishing vessels from major tuna-consuming nations including Japan, China, the United States, and European Union member states travel to Kiribati’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to harvest the region’s abundant stocks of skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye tuna. As veteran fisheries specialist Simon Diffey, who has worked on Kiribati for more than 30 years, notes, more than half of all canned tuna sold globally comes from the Western Central Pacific, including Kiribati’s waters. The global tuna industry is currently valued at over $44 billion per year, making Kiribati’s control over its vast EEZ an invaluable economic asset. Yet the same ocean that sustains Kiribati now threatens its very survival, driven by the impacts of human-caused climate change. Warming ocean temperatures are already reshaping tuna migratory patterns, and scientists warn that the tiny nation is at extreme risk of losing its most valuable natural resource. Tuna are extremely sensitive to even small shifts in water temperature, able to detect changes as small as one-tenth of a degree Celsius. As Pacific surface waters warm, research consistently shows that tuna populations are migrating eastward in search of cooler habitats — a shift that would pull stocks permanently out of Kiribati’s EEZ. For Kiribati, this potential migration carries cascading economic and food security risks. If tuna leave the country’s territorial waters, international fleets will no longer purchase fishing licenses, sending government revenue plummeting and creating extreme fiscal volatility. The Pacific Community, a regional development organization, has identified Kiribati as one of the nations worst impacted by projected tuna migration. Preliminary modeling from Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries estimates that if global greenhouse gas emissions remain at high levels, the country could lose more than $10 million in annual fishing access fees by 2050. Even in a best-case low-emissions scenario, where overall tuna biomass in Kiribati’s EEZ remains stable, local small-scale fisheries are still projected to see substantial catch declines. The Line Islands, one of Kiribati’s three island groups, could see local catches drop by two-thirds even under low emissions. These declines come as Kiribati’s population grows and rapid urbanization in the capital Tarawa puts additional strain on already limited land and food resources. Fish have long been the primary source of protein for Kiribati’s communities, with the average resident consuming 100 kilograms of fish per year — more than 10 times the average per capita consumption in the United States. As local stocks decline, households are increasingly turning to imported processed foods, which drives up household costs and reduces nutritional quality, especially for remote outer island communities. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warns that this shift is creating a growing food security crisis for the nation. Facing these overlapping threats, Kiribati and international partners are rolling out new adaptation strategies to build resilience and diversify the country’s economy. Last year, the United Nations Green Climate Fund launched a $156.8 million regional adaptation project covering 14 Pacific nations and territories, focused on supporting tuna-dependent economies like Kiribati. The initiative aims to strengthen early warning and stock monitoring systems to help Kiribati better predict tuna migrations, protect food security, and stabilize government revenue. According to Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries, the project is expected to provide roughly four million nutritious fish meals annually for local communities. The Kiribati government is also pursuing domestic economic shifts to reduce its dependence on foreign license sales. It is expanding domestic tuna processing and canning facilities to capture more value from its tuna resources, rather than exporting the raw catch via foreign fleets. Officials are also developing ocean aquaculture for species including milkfish, snapper, and sea cucumbers, to both boost domestic food security and create new export opportunities. Beyond the fishing sector, the government is working to diversify national revenue through expanding tourism, developing renewable energy infrastructure, and growing the country’s offshore sovereign wealth fund. “Kiribati retains grounds for optimism and strategic opportunity,” says Riibeta Abeta, permanent secretary for Kiribati’s Ministry of Fisheries. Still, the nation faces an existential threat from the broader impacts of climate change, with even the most ambitious adaptation measures dependent on global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow ocean warming.

  • With presidents, cowboys and A-listers – King Charles in US over the years

    With presidents, cowboys and A-listers – King Charles in US over the years

    For nearly his entire adult life, King Charles III has maintained a steady thread of official and unofficial visits to the United States, building connections with U.S. presidents, cultural icons, and communities across the country across more than five decades. Now, he is set to make his most high-profile U.S. trip yet: his first official state visit to the nation since ascending to the British throne following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

    The newly crowned monarch will touch down in the U.S. on Monday, kicking off a multi-stop itinerary that will take him to Washington D.C., Virginia, and New York, before he departs for the British overseas territory of Bermuda. This trip marks a major milestone: it is the first official state visit to the U.S. by a reigning British monarch in nearly 20 years, the last being Queen Elizabeth II’s 2007 visit hosted by then-President George W. Bush.

    To contextualize the significance of this upcoming historic visit, it is worth tracing the long arc of Charles’s connections to the U.S., dating back to his first official trip as a 21-year-old prince in 1970. During that debut visit, Charles took a seat in the White House Oval Office for a formal meeting with President Richard Nixon. That same trip, he and his sister Princess Anne enjoyed a distinctly American leisure activity: a baseball game at Washington D.C.’s iconic RFK Stadium, where they joined the children of the U.S. president and vice-president in the stands. In a 1974 stop during a naval deployment to San Diego, Charles traveled to Palm Springs to meet then-California Governor Ronald Reagan — a meeting that came six years before Reagan would be elected to the Oval Office. That same year, during a trip to Los Angeles, Charles visited the Warner Bros. set of *Funny Lady* where he met legendary American entertainer Barbra Streisand, sparking a decades-long personal friendship between the two.

    Charles’s 1977 U.S. trip brought both protests and lighthearted moments. During a campus visit in Cleveland, Ohio, mounted police were deployed to manage demonstrations against British involvement in Northern Ireland. Later that year, a visit to a Los Angeles department store brought a playful encounter: Charles shared a laugh with actors posing as the King’s Guard during the event. In 1980, a polo match at Florida’s Palm Beach Polo Club ended with an unexpected health scare, when Charles was hospitalized and treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration after the game.

    As Charles’s public role evolved, so did the nature of his U.S. visits. In 1985, he and his first wife, the late Princess Diana, made a stop at a Springfield, Virginia, department store, where Diana browsed jewelry selections while Charles chatted with a sales clerk. The following year, during a trip to Austin, Texas, the mayor of the city presented Charles with a traditional cowboy hat, which he gamely wore for photographers.

    It would be 20 years before Charles made another landmark official U.S. trip, after his divorce from Diana and his remarriage to Queen Camilla (then Camilla Parker Bowles). In 2005, he returned to the White House for an official dinner with President George W. Bush. That same New York trip, Charles met future president Donald Trump and his wife Melania at a reception held at the Museum of Modern Art, and also took time to greet students at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. A decade later, in 2015, Charles returned to the Oval Office once again for a meeting with President Barack Obama during another U.S. trip.

    Across more than 50 years of visits, Charles has built a long history of engagement with American political, cultural, and civic life, making his first state visit as monarch a highly anticipated event that carries both historical weight and new diplomatic meaning for the special relationship between the U.K. and the United States.

  • What to know about King Charles’s state visit to US

    What to know about King Charles’s state visit to US

    Nearly 20 years after Queen Elizabeth II’s final state visit to the United States, Britain’s current monarch King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla have arrived for the first British state visit to the US in nearly two decades, set to run from April 27 to 30. Coming as the US prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence from British rule, the four-day trip is framed as a celebration of the longstanding, close diplomatic alliance between the two nations. Unlike official working visits conducted by British prime ministers, state visits are formal, head-of-state-level engagements hosted by the invited nation’s head of state, placing this visit on the highest tier of diplomatic exchange.

    The royal couple’s itinerary weaves together formal diplomacy, cultural exchange, and commemorative events across three jurisdictions: Washington DC, New York, and Virginia. Their first engagement on opening day will be an intimate afternoon tea with President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the White House, followed by a guided tour of the recently expanded White House Beehive on the South Lawn. Later that day, a garden party will welcome British and American guests at the official residence of the British ambassador to the US. This marks the first time a British royal garden party has been held on American soil in decades; the last such event was hosted by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the Washington embassy back in 1939.

    Day two of the visit will be centered on full formal diplomatic ceremonies at the White House. The Trumps will lead an official welcome featuring a full ceremonial military review, a tradition stretching back to the 1700s that will include the US Marine Band performing the national anthems of both countries and a 21-gun salute from the Presidential Salute Battery. Thousands of guests spanning cabinet members, congressional representatives, the British official delegation, military families, and students from the British International School of Washington will gather on the South Lawn to hear remarks from President Trump. After the welcome ceremony, the two heads of state will hold a bilateral meeting following a gift exchange and a formal receiving line for both national delegations. Parallel to this, Queen Camilla and First Lady Melania Trump will join American students for a cross-cultural education event that uses cutting-edge virtual reality headsets and AI-powered glasses to walk attendees through the shared history of the US and UK. In the evening, the Trumps will host a formal state dinner in the White House East Room in honor of the royal couple, where both President Trump and King Charles will deliver additional addresses. A key diplomatic highlight of the day will be King Charles’ address to a joint session of the US Congress, making him only the second British monarch ever to address the full legislative branch, following Queen Elizabeth II’s 1991 address during her state visit.

    The visit has not proceeded without pre-event turbulence. Just two days before the royal couple’s arrival, a suspected gunman attempted to force entry into the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington DC, prompting questions about whether security arrangements would force a postponement or adjustment to the trip. UK Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones confirmed that additional security consultations would be held immediately following the incident, but stressed that appropriate security measures would be put in place to mitigate any risk. By Sunday evening, Buckingham Palace issued an official confirmation that the visit would proceed unchanged, noting that “The King and Queen are most grateful to all those who have worked at pace to ensure this remains the case and are looking forward to the Visit getting underway tomorrow.” President Trump has expressed strong optimism about the trip’s impact on US-UK relations, telling reporters that the visit will absolutely repair and strengthen bilateral ties, praising King Charles as a fantastic, brave man with whom he has maintained a longstanding personal relationship.

    After wrapping up their two days of engagements in the national capital, the royal pair will travel to New York City on Wednesday. Their first stop in the city will be the 9/11 Memorial, where they will meet first responders and family members of victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani will attend the memorial event but has no plans for a private meeting with the King, per a statement from his office. While in New York, King Charles will also visit a local community organization and meet with a gathering of transatlantic business leaders, while Queen Camilla will attend a literary celebration marking 100 years since the creation of the beloved children’s character Winnie the Pooh. The day will conclude with a high-profile reception focused on supporting the creative industries, with widespread expectation that A-list celebrities will be in attendance, though no guest lists have been released to the public.

    On the final day of the state visit, the King and Queen will return to Washington DC for a formal farewell ceremony with the Trumps, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony honoring fallen service members from both nations, a tribute to the longstanding US-UK military alliance. From Washington, they will travel to Virginia to visit a national park, engage with Indigenous communities and learn about the region’s Appalachian cultural heritage, before joining a public community celebration marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. After concluding the US state visit, King Charles will travel to Bermuda, a British overseas territory of which he is head of state, for his first official visit to the territory as monarch, before returning to the United Kingdom.

    Several key absences and unresolved controversies have marked the lead-up to the visit. BBC sources have confirmed that the royal couple will not hold a meeting with Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and his wife Meghan, who stepped down as working royals several years ago and currently reside in California. Additionally, there have been growing public calls from US lawmakers and Epstein survivor advocates for King Charles to meet with survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The calls come after King Charles’ brother, Prince Andrew, who had well-documented close ties to Epstein, was arrested in the UK in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office; Prince Andrew has repeatedly and vigorously denied all wrongdoing against him. Buckingham Palace has confirmed that King Charles will not hold a meeting with survivors during this visit, citing concerns that such a meeting could compromise ongoing police investigations and legal proceedings. Queen Camilla, however, is scheduled to meet with representatives of organizations working to end domestic abuse and violence against women during one of her public events on the trip.

    In a series of informal interviews with the BBC ahead of the visit, everyday Americans shared their own suggestions for the royal couple’s downtime, with one lighthearted, widely shared recommendation: find time to try authentic American gelato during their stay across the country’s east coast.

  • Canada’s Carney has enjoyed a long political honeymoon. Now comes the test

    Canada’s Carney has enjoyed a long political honeymoon. Now comes the test

    One year into Mark Carney’s tenure as Canada’s Prime Minister, the former two-country central banker with elite academic credentials from Harvard and Oxford finds himself at an unprecedented high in public approval, capping a meteoric rise from political outsider to leader of a G7 nation that has defied all conventional political playbooks.

    Carney entered the political landscape 12 months ago, replacing Justin Trudeau as leader of the Liberal Party with a sterling professional resume but zero prior experience running for public office. Critics and political observers widely warned that his lack of elected experience would prove a fatal liability, but Carney defied those early expectations: he led the Liberals to a minority government in his first election, and within a year, secured a narrow parliamentary majority after five opposition Members of Parliament crossed the floor to join his caucus.

    His rapid ascent has earned him international acclaim matching his domestic popularity. Last week, Time Magazine included Carney on its annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. In a tribute written for the outlet, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde dubbed Carney a “rock-star” economist and politician, crediting him as the first global leader to clearly conceptualize the breaking point of the old geopolitical order, fractured in the wake of Donald Trump’s second presidential term in the United States. “I trust he will now reinvent cooperation among the willing for the common good of all,” Lagarde wrote.

    Carney’s high profile grew even larger following a January keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he emerged as a leading global voice pushing back against Trump’s unilateral agenda. In the speech, he openly called out the rupture of the post-WWII rules-based international order and urged middle powers to collaborate to counter the growing risks of the new era of great power rivalry. The address was widely praised for its candor, cementing Carney’s reputation both at home and abroad as a steady leader for turbulent times.

    Polling data from aggregate site 338Canada puts Carney’s current support at 46% — the highest approval rating of his tenure to date. David Coletto, CEO of leading Canadian polling firm Abacus Data, explains that a large part of Carney’s popularity stems from shifting voter priorities in Canada amid heightened tensions with the United States. Trump’s deeply unpopular policies, including steep sectoral tariffs on Canadian goods and repeated public comments suggesting Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, have left Canadians viewing external threats as the most pressing risk facing the country. This has upended long-standing Canadian political norms, where voters have historically prioritized domestic issues over foreign policy, Coletto notes. “It matters to Canadians that Canada has a leader that many in other parts of the world wish they had,” Coletto told the BBC, adding that the global acclaim reinforces public perception that Carney is “right for the job” at this moment of global uncertainty.

    Carney has laid out an ambitious policy agenda for Canadians: the most sweeping housing construction plan since World War II, a push to position Canada as a global energy superpower, reduced economic dependency on the United States, and a forceful pushback against Trump’s tariffs. With high approval and a solid majority in parliament, expectations for transformative change run high. But as Carney enters his second year in office, political observers warn he has reached a critical inflection point: can he maintain his status as a global standard-bearer for progressive multilateral cooperation while delivering on core domestic promises to Canadian voters?

    In his first year in office, Carney spent weeks traveling abroad, courting investment and trade opportunities in key markets including China, India, and the United Arab Emirates. But that global focus has drawn criticism from opposition leaders, who argue critical domestic files have been sidelined. Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre has attacked Carney for lack of progress on renegotiating the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which is set for a mandatory review this summer. Steep U.S. tariffs on Canadian metals, automotive products, and lumber have already cost thousands of Canadian jobs, and as of yet, no formal negotiating date has been set for talks to resolve the dispute. Carney’s new U.S. Ambassador Mark Wiseman confirmed the timeline uncertainty to parliamentarians earlier this month. “What has Mark Carney really done in a year on this? He hasn’t held negotiations in five months,” Poilievre told reporters in Ottawa. “He’s done absolutely nothing on this file in the last year other than to stoke fear and distract from his catastrophic failings here at home.”

    Domestic affordability is also reemerging as a top voter concern, putting pressure on Carney to deliver results. Global oil price spikes driven by the ongoing U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran have pushed up fuel costs across Canada, home prices remain out of reach for millions of first-time buyers, and youth unemployment has stayed stubbornly high. Carney has moved to address immediate pain points, recently announcing a temporary fuel tax cut and a one-time grocery rebate that will be deposited directly to eligible Canadians’ bank accounts in June. But longer-term promises have lagged: his flagship pledge to double annual home construction to cool housing prices has faced criticism from experts, who note his first budget allocated insufficient funding to the effort, and instead relies largely on tightening immigration to reduce housing demand. In a post-budget op-ed for the Toronto Star late last year, Mike Moffatt, a Canadian economist and former advisor to Justin Trudeau, wrote that Carney’s housing pledges had effectively been “watered down.”

    Still, political insiders note Carney has room to deliver on his promises before the next general election, which is not scheduled until 2029 thanks to his newly secured parliamentary majority. “The country has been willing to give him a lot of rope to go out and do what he believes he needs to do in order to protect the country’s interests,” said Carlene Variyan, a veteran Ottawa-based political strategist who has worked with the Liberal Party for more than a decade, including a stint as the party’s national campaign spokesperson. The core question that will define Carney’s tenure, Variyan added, remains whether he can succeed as a global standard-bearer for a new multilateral coalition “while also taking care of his own people here at home.” Carney has acknowledged the growing pressure, releasing a 10-minute social media video last week reassuring Canadians that his administration “is acting and will continue to act” to solve the country’s most pressing challenges. But Poilievre argues that reassurances are not enough: Canadians need tangible action, not social media messaging.

  • Indian Dalit man’s alleged custodial death and a family’s wait for justice

    Indian Dalit man’s alleged custodial death and a family’s wait for justice

    Nearly two months after 26-year-old Akash Delison died in a Tamil Nadu government hospital, his body remains unclaimed in a morgue, held hostage by a grieving family’s demand for justice. Akash, a member of India’s marginalized Dalit community who aspired to become a lawyer to serve his people, died on March 8, just 48 hours after he was taken into police custody alongside a friend in an ongoing criminal case. What began as a local tragedy has now reignited national and international scrutiny of India’s long-running crisis of custodial death and police torture, a problem that disproportionately targets the country’s most vulnerable communities.

    Akash’s parents, Rajesh and Anandhi Delison, allege their son was brutally tortured by officers during his detention. Anandhi, who visited her son hours before he succumbed to his injuries, told the BBC he had been blindfolded and beaten severely; an autopsy later confirmed more than 20 external and internal injuries, including a fractured right leg, brain hemorrhaging, and swelling of the heart and lungs. Gopi, the second man arrested alongside Akash, remains in judicial custody. Local police have rejected the torture claims, asserting Akash suffered fatal injuries when he jumped off a bridge while attempting to escape custody.

    Widespread public outcry over the incident has already led to administrative action: six police officers have been suspended from duty, and the Tamil Nadu state government has ordered a full probe by the state’s top anti-crime agency. Still, Akash’s family refuses to retrieve his body for funeral rites until all officers deemed responsible for his death are taken into custody. Dalit organizations across the state have condemned the killing and thrown their full support behind the family’s campaign for accountability.

    Akash’s death is not an isolated incident. It marks the third reported custodial death in Tamil Nadu alone in 2026, putting a fresh spotlight on a pattern of unlawful violence that stretches across the entire country. Just weeks before Akash’s arrest, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) concluded that the 2025 custody death of 27-year-old Ajith Kumar, a temple security guard held in connection with a false robbery complaint in Sivaganga district, was directly caused by police excessive force. Earlier in April, a special court in Madurai handed down death sentences to nine police officers for the 2020 custody killings of a father and son, a case that previously sparked massive nationwide protests.

    Official data from India’s federal home ministry underscores the scale of the crisis: between 2025 and March 15, 2026, 170 custodial deaths have been recorded across the country. The northern state of Bihar reported the highest number at 19, followed by Rajasthan with 18 and Uttar Pradesh with 15. Beyond formal custody deaths, rights groups also document widespread extrajudicial “encounter killings,” staged confrontations that police use to eliminate suspects without going through the formal legal process, a practice disproportionately reported in Uttar Pradesh and Assam.

    The crisis has drawn sharp condemnation from the international community. In its 2026 Global Torture Index, the World Organisation Against Torture ranked India as a “high risk” country for torture and ill-treatment by security forces, placing it alongside Pakistan, Nigeria, Colombia and Mexico. The report explicitly notes that severe abuse, including beatings and forced confessions, disproportionately targets marginalized groups: Dalits, Adivasi tribal communities, Muslims, LGBTQIA+ people, and informal migrant workers.

    In February 2026, United Nations human rights experts sent an open letter to the Indian government calling for independent, transparent investigations into what they described as “alarming allegations of hundreds of extrajudicial killings and torture-related deaths.” The letter raised particular alarm over the normalized practice of “encounters” and “half-encounters,” warning that the routine use of unlawful violence risks eroding the rule of law. To date, Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, confirmed the Indian government has not responded to the letter, and the 60-day deadline for a reply has expired. The BBC has reached out to India’s federal home ministry, Tamil Nadu’s home secretary, and the state’s police director general for comment on Akash’s case and the broader allegations, but has not received a formal response as of publication.

    Legal experts and human rights activists say that while holding individual officers accountable for high-profile cases like Akash’s is a critical step, deep systemic reform is the only way to end the ongoing crisis. India’s constitution and existing criminal code already include formal legal safeguards against custodial abuse, but consistent enforcement remains weak across the country. Anupama Arigala, a New Delhi-based legal consultant, argues that police, magistrates, and prosecutors must shift away from a culture prioritizing arrests and convictions over due process.

    “These three parties must carefully analyze if there’s really a need for police or judicial custody, or if the accused can participate in the investigation just as effectively while out on bail,” Arigala explained. She added that magistrates must proactively screen for signs of torture when suspects are brought to court, a step that is often skipped due to overloaded dockets and systemic understaffing that plagues India’s judicial system.

    UN experts and activists alike have also called on India to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture, a step that would require the country to pass a standalone national law explicitly criminalizing torture—legislation that does not currently exist on India’s federal books. While activists acknowledge that a new law will not eliminate custodial abuse overnight, they say it would mark a critical formal recognition of the crisis and create a framework for long-term institutional change.

    For Rajesh Delison, that change cannot come soon enough. He told the BBC his family has yet to recover from the shock of losing Akash, a young man who worked in his shop while studying to become a lawyer to help his marginalized community. “They have snuffed out the life of an active young man who had big dreams for the future,” he said. For now, his family remains resolved: they will continue to leave Akash’s body in the hospital morgue until they get the justice they have pledged to fight for.

  • Syria begins trial of first Assad-era official in Damascus

    Syria begins trial of first Assad-era official in Damascus

    On a landmark Sunday morning in central Damascus, Syria, a metal cage was positioned at the heart of the courtroom in the Palace of Justice, steps from the bustling al-Hamidiyah souk. Shortly before 11 a.m., Atef Najib, the cousin of ousted former president Bashar al-Assad and a one-time top security official, was led into the enclosure. Clad in a brown striped prison uniform and wearing a blank, unreadable expression, he took his seat as the courtroom fell quiet.

    Najib stands accused of orchestrating one of the earliest and deadliest crackdowns on anti-government demonstrators that erupted at the start of the 2011 Syrian uprising, with formal charges of “crimes against the Syrian people” brought against him. Mounted directly opposite the defendant’s dock was a portrait of Hamza al-Khatib, the 13-year-old boy who became a global symbol of the uprising’s human cost after he was killed and tortured by security forces in 2011.

    The roots of this trial stretch back 15 years to the 2011 Arab Spring, when a group of teenagers in the southern Syrian city of Deraa spray-painted anti-regime slogans on a local school wall. One line, “Doctor, it’s your turn,” cut directly at Assad, a trained ophthalmologist. The detention and brutal torture of those young children by security forces sparked the first widespread anti-government protests across the country. At the time, Najib was the top political security chief in Deraa, overseeing the sweeping campaign of mass arrests and violent repression that followed.

    Sunday’s opening session marks the first public trial of a senior Assad-era official since the fall of the former government in December 2024. Najib was among the first high-ranking figures arrested, taken into custody on Syria’s coast in January 2025, just weeks after Assad fled the country to Russia. For more than a year, families of victims of the Assad regime’s crackdown have waited for this moment of accountability.

    In the courtroom, emotions ran high as victim’s families passed the dock in front of international and local reporters. A young woman held aloft a photo of Hamza al-Khatib, as chants broke out across the room: “The martyrs are the heroes. Atef, you are the dog.” The trial comes as Syria’s new transitional authorities work to demonstrate progress on long-awaited transitional justice, a key demand from Syrians who spent 14 years under the repressive Assad regime during the civil war.

    Just two days before Najib’s trial opened, Syrian security forces announced the arrest of Amjad Youssef, the primary suspect in the 2013 Tadamon massacre, where nearly 300 unarmed civilians were executed and dumped into a mass grave. Footage of Youssef personally shooting victims before they were thrown into the pit was widely circulated after the massacre, and his arrest in the Al-Ghab Plain area of Hama province near his hometown was publicly shared by the interior ministry to broad attention across the country.

    Since Assad was toppled on December 8, 2024, Syrians have consistently demanded full accountability for the thousands of crimes committed under his government. But the transitional justice process has moved slowly in a country fractured and worn down by 14 years of violent conflict.

    Addressing the court on Sunday, Damascus Public Prosecutor Hosam Khatab framed the trial as a foundational step for the new Syrian justice system. “Transitional justice begins with him, trust the state and justice,” Khatab told the court. He called Najib “the first ‘pharaoh’ when he gave the orders to fire on protesters,” using the term Syrians have adopted to refer to abusive former regime officials. “This will be neither the first nor the last. We will pursue them all.”

    Turning directly to Najib in the dock, Khatab raised his voice: “Our God has given us what we wanted. And as for you: did your God, Bashar al-Assad, give you what he promised?” Najib offered no response. The prosecutor then went on to announce a list of 10 additional high-profile suspects who will face trial in coming months, topped by Bashar al-Assad himself. Other names on the list include Assad’s younger brother Maher al-Assad, who commanded the elite 4th Armoured Division — the regime’s primary armed wing that led multiple crackdowns; Wassim al-Assad, another close relative of the ousted president; former Grand Mufti Ahmed Badreddin Hassoun; and multiple other military and security officials arrested in recent months. Bashar al-Assad, who remains in exile in Russia, will be tried in absentia.

    Sunday’s opening session was limited to preliminary administrative and legal procedures, and the judge did not question Najib directly. A second full hearing is scheduled for May 10.

    Currently, Syria retains the death penalty as a legal punishment, but the legal definitions of crimes against humanity and war crimes have not yet been formally codified into the country’s national law. An independent observer monitoring the trial’s impartiality on site spoke to Middle East Eye, noting the challenge of upholding judicial standards in the wake of mass atrocities. “We must maintain a degree of neutrality and avoid overly political language to meet the standards of justice, even if it is difficult in the face of victims,” the observer said. “It will happen gradually. This was the first day.”

    As Najib was led out of the courtroom at the end of the session, the iconic chants from the 2011 uprising rang out across the chamber once again: “Syria is ours, not the Assad family’s.”

    Outside the Palace of Justice after the hearing, dozens of victim’s families from Deraa waited for buses to carry them back to their southern home city, sitting on plastic chairs as traffic slowed around the building. Many mothers, their eyes wet with tears, embraced one another, comforting each other after the emotional day.

    Among them was 50-something Warda, whose son — an unarmed bystander — was killed when security forces stormed the al-Omari Mosque area in Deraa in late March 2011. Dozens of protesters were killed that day when forces used tear gas and live ammunition to break up weeks of ongoing sit-ins and demonstrations. Warda said she believes Najib will ultimately face the death penalty for his role in the violence. “This is the most beautiful day of my life. God has put him in a cage. We hope justice will prevail,” she told Middle East Eye.

  • The Chinese sports brand taking on Nike and Adidas

    The Chinese sports brand taking on Nike and Adidas

    In the late 1980s, as China began opening its economy to the world, 17-year-old high school dropout Ding Shizhong arrived in Beijing carrying 600 pairs of sneakers produced at a relative’s local factory. What began as a small street selling venture would evolve into one of the world’s fastest-growing sportswear powerhouses, challenging the long-held dominance of Western giants Nike and Adidas. Today, that humble startup is Anta Sports – a multinational multi-brand group with a portfolio that includes household names like Fila, Arc’teryx, Salomon, Wilson, and a major stake in Germany’s Puma, with bold ambitions to capture market share across the globe.

    Anta’s origin story is deeply tied to the rise of Jinjiang, a small agricultural county in China’s southeastern Fujian province that grew into the self-styled “shoe capital of the world.” As part of China’s targeted industrial development policy for coastal regions, Jinjiang built a specialized manufacturing ecosystem that drew investment from global sneaker brands seeking lower production costs. At the heart of this boom was Chendai town, a 40-square-kilometer hub home to thousands of factories and specialized suppliers for every part of a shoe, from laces to soles to technical fabrics, paired with streamlined logistics that turned designs into finished retail goods in record time.

    By 2005, United Nations estimates showed Fujian province alone produced nearly 20% of the world’s total footwear output, with one-third of Jinjiang’s workforce employed in the footwear sector, turning the region into one of China’s highest-earning economic districts. Fei Qin, an associate professor at the University of Bath who studied China’s coastal manufacturing clusters in the 2000s, notes this level of concentrated industrial specialization was unprecedented globally at the time. As foreign brands placed bulk orders with Jinjiang factories, local manufacturers gained far more than just revenue: they mastered cutting-edge production techniques, learning to deliver higher quality, faster turnaround, and more consistent output than competitors anywhere else in the world.

    It was within this ecosystem that Anta cut its teeth, first producing bulk footwear for Western labels before building a robust domestic distribution network across China and gradually building its own brand recognition. Unlike many domestic manufacturers that remained stuck in low-margin subcontracting work, Anta prioritized growing its own brand, opening retail locations across China and sponsoring top domestic sports competitions from basketball to table tennis. In 2007, the company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising HK$3.5 billion ($450 million) – at the time, the largest ever IPO for a Chinese sports firm.

    Branding consultant Wei Kan, who has worked with major global brands including Nike and Converse in China, says Anta stood out from its domestic competitors from an early stage thanks to its fully integrated production hub, which allowed it to design and bring new products to market far faster than most rivals. It was also one of the first Chinese brands to target the same mid-to-premium consumer segment that Western giants had long dominated. As Kan explains, firms that start as contract manufacturers for global brands gradually master end-to-end business operations, build strength in China’s massive domestic market, and naturally evolve into global competitors in their own right. Anta is far from the only example: Chinese tech giant Xiaomi started as a software developer customizing Android systems before launching its own line of smartphones, electronics, and now electric vehicles; drone leader DJI began making third-party camera and drone components before becoming the world’s top consumer drone manufacturer; and BYD, once a battery supplier for Tesla, is now the world’s largest electric vehicle producer. “Each of these firms are now giants in their fields,” Kan notes.

    Today, Anta operates more than 12,000 stores across China and 460 outlets in international markets, with plans to expand to 1,000 locations across Southeast Asia alone over the next three years. In February 2026, the company opened its first standalone US flagship store in Los Angeles’ upscale Beverly Hills neighborhood, marking a major milestone in its global expansion push. This expansion comes amid a shifting global trade landscape, as former US President Donald Trump’s tariffs aimed at bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US have highlighted both the competitiveness and indispensability of Chinese manufacturing supply chains.

    Anta’s global push has not been without its challenges. Chinese brands have long faced a persistent perception gap in Western markets, where many consumers still associate Chinese-made goods with low quality and low cost. Additionally, rising geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Western capitals, particularly Washington, have created additional headwinds for Chinese firms expanding abroad. To navigate these barriers, Anta has adopted a deliberate multi-brand acquisition strategy, rather than pushing its core Anta label directly into crowded Western markets.

    The strategy first proved successful in 2009, when Anta acquired the brand rights for Fila in China, turning the century-old Italian athletic label into one of the company’s top revenue generators. In 2019, Anta purchased a controlling stake in Finland’s Amer Sports, gaining ownership of premium outdoor brands Arc’teryx and Salomon, as well as American sporting goods maker Wilson – the official supplier of game balls for the US National Basketball Association. Most recently, in 2026, Anta acquired a 29% stake in German sportswear giant Puma, with plans to accelerate the brand’s growth in China’s massive domestic market.

    Sports business analyst Rufio Zhu of global marketing firm IMG explains that this approach allows Anta to enter foreign markets through established, well-regarded Western brands first, avoiding consumer skepticism around Chinese-owned labels. “These are moves that help Anta avoid ‘forcing’ its goods into every market and instead use its Western brands as a gateway,” Zhu notes. Celebrity endorsement deals, a cornerstone of global sportswear brand building, have also been a key focus: Anta has already signed top athletes including NBA stars Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving, and counts Olympic freestyle skier Eileen Gu – a figure who became polarizing in Western media after choosing to compete for China instead of the US at the Winter Olympics – among its brand ambassadors. Still, the company has yet to land a game-changing global endorsement deal on par with Nike’s iconic 1980s partnership with Michael Jordan. As Wei Kan puts it: “Brands like Anta need to be ready to navigate the fine line between Chinese and Western markets, a challenge that comes with being a global Chinese brand.”

    Anta’s global rise comes at a moment when its main Western rivals face mounting challenges both in China and abroad. Nike and Adidas have seen their earnings squeezed by US tariffs on Asian-manufactured goods, and Nike has struggled to revive sales in China after a misjudged post-pandemic e-commerce push amid a broader slowdown in Chinese consumer spending. Zhu says these struggles have created a unique opening for Anta, as global consumers increasingly show appetite for alternative sportswear brands. “The question isn’t whether Anta will raise their profile. It’s whether competitors can adapt quickly enough to defend their home turf,” Zhu says.

    Fei Qin adds that China’s ongoing investment in factory automation is positioning its manufacturing sector for long-term global competitiveness, allowing for faster production and further cost reductions that will benefit firms like Anta. Standing in Anta’s new Beverly Hills flagship, where shelves are lined with performance sneakers and basketball shoes designed to compete directly with Nike and Adidas’ core product lines, company representatives acknowledge they have a long road ahead to build brand recognition in the US. Still, they remain optimistic about the future. “We’re realistic about the competition but the global sportswear landscape is not a zero-sum game,” an Anta spokesperson said. “We are confident that sports lovers will recognise Anta’s innovations and brand value.”

  • Global voices meet Confucian culture in Nishan

    Global voices meet Confucian culture in Nishan

    Between April 24 and 26, 2026, Qufu, the ancient birthplace of the renowned Chinese philosopher Confucius located in Jining, Shandong Province, opened its gates to a special cross-cultural gathering. Hosted under the theme “Nishan Sacred Land: A Vision Shared with the World”, the event welcomed 28 digital content creators from more than a dozen nations across the globe, including the United States, France, and Russia, inviting them to dive deep into centuries-old Confucian heritage.

  • What it was like in the room during gunshots at Trump event

    What it was like in the room during gunshots at Trump event

    The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a high-profile gathering that typically brings together Washington’s political elite, journalists, and public figures, was abruptly thrown into chaos earlier this week when gunshots rang out near the venue. In a firsthand account shared with audiences, BBC correspondent Tom Bateman, who was on site covering the event, has offered a vivid, unfiltered look at what unfolded in the moments after the first shot was heard.

    Bateman described how the room, which had been buzzing with quiet conversation and pre-dinner networking just seconds before, descended into sudden panic. Attendees who moments earlier had been mingling, checking their notes, and chatting with colleagues froze, before a wave of urgent movement swept through the crowd. “You could instantly feel the shift in the energy,” Bateman recounted. “One moment everyone was going about their business, the next, people were diving under tables, scrambling for exits, and pressing themselves against walls to get out of the line of fire.”

    Security personnel, who are routinely deployed in large numbers for White House-linked events, reacted within seconds, Bateman said. Teams of armed Secret Service agents and local law enforcement rushed through the room, blocking potential access points, directing terrified attendees to safe shelter, and conducting an immediate sweep of the building to locate the source of the gunfire. Event organizers quickly locked down the venue, suspending all scheduled programming as the situation unfolded.

    In the immediate aftermath, as attendees waited in secured areas for the all-clear signal, the room was filled with a mix of anxiety and quiet confusion, Bateman added. Many pulled out their phones to alert family and friends that they were safe, while others clustered in small groups to share what they had seen and heard. As of the latest updates, preliminary investigations into the incident are ongoing, with authorities working to confirm the origin of the gunshots, whether there are any casualties, and what motive may have been behind the incident.

    The incident has sparked renewed discussion about security protocols for high-profile political events in the United States, coming amid a broader rise in threats against public figures and political gatherings. For attendees and journalists on site, the interruption to what is normally a ceremonial, light-hearted event served as a sharp reminder of the persistent security risks that accompany political discourse in the country today.