Global Pulse

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  • UN inquiry: Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children as part of genocide

    UN inquiry: Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian children as part of genocide

    The United Nations’ leading independent investigative body mandated to probe violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has issued a landmark 88-page report concluding that Israeli security forces have systematically and deliberately targeted Palestinian children, committing acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes across the Gaza Strip, alongside additional war crimes in the occupied West Bank. The report covers the two-year period from October 7, 2023, to October 7, 2025, documenting that at least 20,179 Palestinian children were killed and another 44,143 wounded in Gaza during this window, with children accounting for 30% of all fatalities and 26% of all injuries recorded.

    Srinivasan Muralidhar, the current chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem), emphasized that overwhelming on-the-ground evidence confirms Palestinian children have been intentionally targeted and killed by Israeli forces. He added that even after the ceasefire agreement reached in October 2025, the killing and maiming of children has continued, with Israel consistently ignoring the terms of the truce and its legal obligation to protect Palestinian children under international humanitarian law.

    Drawing directly from the provisions of the UN Genocide Convention, the inquiry concluded that the deliberate targeting of children constitutes clear evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, within Gaza. This finding builds on the commission’s September 2024 conclusion that Israel was carrying out genocide in Gaza, a finding that former commission chair Navi Pillay described at the time as the most authoritative genocide determination the United Nations had issued to date on the situation in Gaza.

    Unlike previous findings, the new report centers its analysis specifically on the impact of the conflict on children, examining direct violence, arbitrary detention, reproductive harm, and long-term psychological trauma. The inquiry documents a repeated, consistent pattern of children being struck by Israeli precision weapons, including fire from sniper units and attacks by reconnaissance quadcopter drones. Medical workers operating in Gaza documented hundreds of cases where children presented with single gunshot wounds concentrated in the head and upper torso.

    The report details two horrific, representative cases to illustrate this pattern: in April 2024, a 10-day-old infant was shot in the head by an Israeli quadcopter while breastfeeding inside a displacement tent in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. Four months later, in August 2024, a four-year-old girl was killed by a quadcopter strike to the head while eating a meal with her family in Khan Younis. Seventeen frontline medical practitioners who treated casualties in Gaza confirmed to the commission that this pattern of targeted head and upper torso wounds from sniper and drone fire was uniform across child casualties. One physician told investigators that Israeli soldiers appeared to be engaging in “deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice.”

    The commission has publicly identified specific Israeli military units it found responsible for these targeted killings, including the Kfir Brigade, the 162nd Division, the 98th Division, the 99th Division, and an elite drone unit known as the Refaim or Ghost Unit.

    The report confirms that lethal violence against children has not ended with the October 2025 ceasefire, which Israel has repeatedly violated despite the agreement’s mandate to end all hostilities. A prominent example cited is the killing of two brothers, aged 9 and 10, who were shot dead by an Israeli drone near Bani Suheila in southern Gaza in late November while collecting firewood. Israeli forces attempted to frame the children as “suspects” crossing a restricted military boundary known as the yellow line, but the commission dismissed this claim as entirely baseless. Investigators confirmed the boys were more than 300 meters from the nearest Israeli troops, their identity as children collecting firewood was unambiguous, and the drone operator had an unobstructed, clear view of the pair before launching the strike.

    Beyond direct targeted killings, the report details the total systemic destruction of Palestinian childhood across every aspect of daily life. As of October 2025, 459 of Gaza’s 564 school buildings had sustained direct military damage, leaving more than 668,000 school-age children completely cut off from formal education and forcing them to miss three full academic years. By January 2026, more than 335,000 children under the age of five face severe long-term developmental delays after the complete collapse of early childhood support services in the enclave.

    Attacks on neonatal medical infrastructure have directly caused hundreds of preventable newborn deaths, the inquiry finds. Before October 2023, Gaza operated 178 incubators across eight full neonatal intensive care units; by November 2024, only 54 incubators remained functional. The report records that miscarriage rates in Gaza have risen by as much as 300% since the start of the conflict, and as of March 2026, 70% of all newborns in Gaza are classified as premature or underweight due to widespread maternal malnutrition and collapsed healthcare.

    The inquiry also documented widespread abuse against Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces, finding that detained children are routinely subjected to torture, sexual violence, forced public nudity, coercive stress positioning, and deliberate denial of food, water, and emergency medical care. One case highlighted is that of a 17-year-old boy from Ramallah who died in Israel’s Megiddo Prison in March 2025 from severe, prolonged malnutrition; Israeli authorities withheld his body from his family for months after his death. The commission classified his death as a deliberate war crime of willful killing.

    Muralidhar emphasized that the harm inflicted on Palestinian children will outlast active hostilities: “Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight. The destruction of their health, education and development is irreversible.”

    The commission has issued a series of binding calls for action: it demands Israel immediately halt all military operations in Gaza and the West Bank, release all detained Palestinian children, return the bodies of deceased children withheld from families, and end its years-long blockade of Gaza. The inquiry also urges all UN member states to immediately cease all arms transfers to Israel and impose targeted sanctions on Israeli officials responsible for the documented violations, and calls on the International Criminal Court to prioritize the investigation of crimes against children in its ongoing inquiry into Palestinian violations.

    Notably, Israel did not respond to 13 separate formal requests for information or access from the commission to conduct its investigation.

  • Sexual violence increasingly used as ‘weapon of war’ in Sudan, UN says

    Sexual violence increasingly used as ‘weapon of war’ in Sudan, UN says

    Three years into Sudan’s brutal civil conflict between the national army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the world is confronting staggering new evidence of human suffering and strategic escalation that has pushed the country into the worst humanitarian crisis on the globe today. A newly released report from the United Nations Human Rights Office has laid bare an alarming, widespread pattern of violence: sexual assault is being systematically deployed as a weapon of war to terrorize civilian populations, at a scale never before documented in the country’s recent history. The UN’s verified data records 546 confirmed incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, including gang rape and sexual slavery, affecting at least 838 people across Sudan – 539 women, 284 girls, 8 men and 7 boys. Senior UN officials emphasize these numbers represent only a fraction of the true harm, noting pervasive under-reporting driven by fear and restricted access to unsafe areas has obscured the full scope of the crisis. The report attributes the vast majority of verified cases to RSF fighters and their allied militias, though it also documents allegations of sexual violence committed by army personnel and their allies. “This is a war crime and, if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, a crime against humanity,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said of the systemic use of sexual violence. Neither the RSF nor the Sudanese army has issued a public response to the latest report, but both groups have consistently denied similar allegations of human rights abuses since the conflict began. Beyond the revelations of sexual violence, the international community is sounding urgent alarms over an imminent threat to the strategic city of el-Obeid, where intelligence indicates the RSF is preparing a full-scale ground offensive to seize control of the key hub. Seven Western nations – the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway – have issued a joint statement calling for an immediate end to hostilities in el-Obeid, warning the city of more than half a million residents (including 200,000 internally displaced people who fled violence elsewhere) is on the “precipice of atrocity”. UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper outlined the escalating threats facing the city: the RSF has already launched drone strikes targeting civilian infrastructure, blocked critical supply routes, and cut off access to basic necessities including clean water, food and healthcare for hundreds of thousands of trapped civilians. “There are now credible signs of an imminent offensive. This is a critical moment, and the international community must act,” the joint statement read. The Western powers explicitly urged the global community to act to avoid a repeat of the mass atrocities committed last year when RSF forces captured the city of el-Fasher in northern Darfur. A February UN report documented that more than 6,000 people were killed in just three days of fighting after RSF seized control of el-Fasher, and international assessors have concluded the killings bear the “hallmarks of genocide”. For displaced residents trapped in el-Obeid, the impending threat has created a state of perpetual terror. “As displaced people we feel we have come here only to die. We are afraid,” one displaced woman told BBC Arabic’s Sudan Lifeline programme. “We arrived here and this has become our fate. We cannot eat. We cannot drink. Where can we go? Where do we go from here?” Another resident described constant fear of drone attacks, adding, “We are terrified and feel psychologically and physically insecure.” Geopolitically, el-Obeid holds enormous strategic importance for both warring parties: it sits at the boundary between RSF-held territories in western Sudan and army-held regions in the east, and lies within Sudan’s major oil-producing Kordofan region. Analysts widely agree that whichever faction controls el-Obeid and the broader Kordofan region will effectively control Sudan’s national oil supply and a large swathe of the country’s territory. The ongoing civil conflict, which erupted in 2023 after a bitter power-sharing collapse between the army and RSF, has already triggered a humanitarian catastrophe unmatched globally. International aid agencies confirm that more than 11 million Sudanese people have been forced to flee their homes, and 28 million – more than half the country’s population – face acute food insecurity and hunger.

  • No fuel for sale as Ukraine’s blockade of Russian-occupied Crimea takes effect

    No fuel for sale as Ukraine’s blockade of Russian-occupied Crimea takes effect

    As Ukraine ramps up its targeted campaign to cut off supply lines to the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, the occupied region is sliding into a deepening crisis marked by full suspensions of public fuel sales and spreading power blackouts that have upended daily life for local residents. The peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014 and remains internationally recognized as Ukrainian sovereign territory, has seen its critical transport and logistics links steadily degraded by Kyiv’s ongoing military operations.
    Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea’s occupation administration, announced a sweeping suspension of all public petrol station sales on Sunday, reallocating the peninsula’s remaining fuel stockpiles exclusively for official government and military use. Local residents have already documented the harsh impact of the new restrictions: one local told reporters he has switched to bicycle travel for most trips, only using his car when completely unavoidable. He explained that while fresh fuel deliveries arrived overnight ahead of the order, all sales were immediately halted after Aksyonov’s decree went into effect.
    In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city and a key strategic Black Sea port, one resident told the BBC he had purchased a backup generator to cope with rolling blackouts only to find himself without fuel to run it. Local authorities have expanded restrictions beyond fuel access to cut non-essential energy use: public transit, retail shops, and food service venues now only operate during daylight hours, and all street lighting has been turned off overnight to conserve power. Even before the full sales suspension went into effect, the Sevastopol resident noted fuel prices had skyrocketed, with filling a tank costing 50 percent more than the average price across mainland Russia.
    “It’s unclear how long this will last, and as for getting to work, I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do,” he said. The growing uncertainty has also sparked panic buying across local grocery stores, with multiple residents confirming widespread shortages of staple goods including sugar.
    The crisis in Crimea is part of a broader fuel shortage crisis that has spread across parts of Russia in recent weeks, driven by repeated Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries in multiple regions, including the Moscow area. Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the scope of the challenges facing his administration on Tuesday, while Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak framed the situation as challenging but manageable, adding that Moscow was prioritizing supplies to Crimea and occupied border regions. The Kremlin has already suspended exports of petrol and jet fuel, and is currently considering a full ban on diesel exports to shore up domestic stockpiles.
    In Crimea, the acute fuel shortage has been severely exacerbated by Kyiv’s targeted campaign to destroy key bridges connecting the peninsula to occupied southern Ukraine, part of what Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has dubbed a “logistics lockdown” that uses AI-enhanced drones to disrupt Russian military supply lines. Before the 2022 full-scale invasion, Crimea relied on two main connections to Russia: the 2018 Kerch Strait road-rail bridge, and a land corridor of road and rail links through occupied southern Ukraine. After Ukraine damaged the Kerch Strait bridge in a 2022 strike, the M14 highway through occupied southern Ukraine became the primary route for fuel deliveries to the peninsula.
    BBC Verify has confirmed that at least six key bridges across the region have been targeted by Ukrainian strikes in June alone, most notably multiple attacks on the critical Chonhar road and rail bridges connecting northeastern Crimea to the mainland. Satellite imagery shows Russian forces rushed to install temporary pontoon bridges to restore crossings, but these temporary structures created massive truck bottlenecks that have since been targeted by follow-up Ukrainian strikes, verified drone footage confirms.
    In the weeks leading up to the full fuel sales suspension, social media videos from Crimea showed massive queues of cars stretching for kilometers at filling stations, with residents complaining of repeated inability to top up their tanks. Some Russian tourists posted videos showing completely dry stations, with one visitor who traveled from mainland Russia recommending other tourists bring their own fuel supplies to avoid being stranded. The occupation administration has also taken the unusual step of shutting down all popular children’s summer camps across the peninsula, including the iconic Artek camp on Crimea’s southern coast. Multiple trains carrying children to the camps were halted mid-journey, with passengers reporting groups of children disembarking and leaving behind all their food and supplies.
    Ukraine’s long-range “middle-strike” drones, capable of hitting targets up to 200 kilometers behind the front line, have successfully disrupted the M14 highway route and other key supply corridors. In recent months, Kyiv has expanded the logistics lockdown campaign to target additional transport links, including the highway running north from Mariupol to Donetsk and key routes in Luhansk Oblast. This expansion has spread the fuel crisis into Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, a region already reeling from a two-year-long water shortage caused by the destruction of the Siverskyi Donets river water pipeline during the 2022 Russian offensive.
    One resident of occupied Donetsk told the BBC that running water is only available once every three days, fuel is the most expensive in the entire country, and residents have to purchase bottled water for drinking. Most cars have disappeared from city streets, he added, and there has been no large new wave of displacement because “everyone who could and did want to leave has already done so.” He warned that the growing scarcity is creating a life-or-death situation for vulnerable groups: “A shrinking range of goods and rising prices are not such a serious problem for people who are mobile and economically active, but for the elderly, children, and people living in refugee accommodation centres it becomes a matter of life and death.”
    While Russian supply routes into Crimea have become increasingly dangerous and costly to maintain, they have not yet been fully cut off. Military analysts note that Ukraine’s persistent targeting of key fixed bridges poses a greater long-term threat to Russian supply capabilities than strikes on roadway corridors, as permanent crossing replacements are far more difficult to execute than temporary repairs to damaged roads.

  • Commentator stripped of Fifa credentials over Almiron rant

    Commentator stripped of Fifa credentials over Almiron rant

    A controversial moment at the 2026 FIFA World Cup has left one Paraguayan broadcaster without credentials, following an on-air outburst over a historic red card that made tournament history. During Paraguay’s 1-0 group stage win against Turkey, Paraguayan midfielder Miguel Almirón made history as the first player in World Cup — and men’s senior international football — to receive a red card for covering his mouth while talking to an opponent.

    The incident unfolded deep into first-half stoppage time, when Almirón, 32, held his hand up to obscure his mouth while exchanging words with Turkey defender Mert Muldur. Muldur immediately flagged the interaction to nearby match referee Ivan Barton, prompting a review from the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) team. After a short review, Barton issued a red card to Almirón, sending the Paraguayan playmaker off before the halftime break.

    The call triggered an immediate, unfiltered response from Jorge Vera, a veteran commentator working for Paraguayan media outlets ABC Cardinal Radio and ABC TV. Live on air, Vera launched into an expletive-laden tirade against FIFA, tournament president Gianni Infantino, and referee Barton, calling the officials and governing body “thieves” and accusing them of “killing football” with the controversial decision.

    Four days after the incident, FIFA confirmed it had stripped Vera of his World Cup media credentials, a sanction that bars him from any form of World Cup-related coverage for his employers, both inside stadiums and in remote broadcast settings. Vera has since publicly apologized for his outburst, taking full responsibility for his loss of composure in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

    “In the midst of my frustration over the expulsion of a player from my country, and feeling that my national team was being harmed, I used offensive and unacceptable expressions against the referee, FIFA, and its authorities,” Vera wrote in his statement. The commentator added that he had submitted a formal letter of apology to FIFA’s governing body, acknowledging that his reaction crossed professional lines.

    “Questioning a rule or disagreeing with a refereeing decision never justifies losing control the way I did,” he added. “I failed you in something fundamental: maintaining the composure and respect that this profession requires.”

    FIFA has not issued an official public statement on the sanction, but anonymous sources close to the governing body told reporters that Vera’s actions were deemed incompatible with the core standards of professionalism and respect required of all accredited media personnel and partners covering the tournament. The historic red card for Almirón has already sparked widespread debate among fans, players, and pundits over the enforcement of FIFA’s unsportsmanlike conduct rules, with many arguing the punishment was overly harsh for a relatively minor infraction.

  • ‘They spat in my face’: Palestinians describe abuse at Gaza crossings

    ‘They spat in my face’: Palestinians describe abuse at Gaza crossings

    For 38-year-old Palestinian academic Mahmoud al-Najjar, the Italian scholarship he had fought so hard to win was supposed to be a second chance at life. After losing his entire immediate family — his father, older brother, wife and all four of his children — in an Israeli bombardment of his Jabalia home in October 2024, al-Najjar had buried his grief to finish a master’s degree in international economics and publish research. Securing a place at Rome Tor Vergata University, with all the required applications, document certifications and interviews behind him, and official Israeli travel clearance already in hand, he saw the opportunity as the first step to rebuild after unspeakable loss.

    That promise of a new beginning was shattered in early June at the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) border crossing, where Israeli forces detained al-Najjar, interrogated him, and cut off all contact with the outside world. His traveling companions, part of a group trip coordinated by the Italian embassy, were eventually allowed to proceed, and later shared the news of his arrest with his family. For al-Najjar’s loved ones, the shock of the news was compounded by the unorthodox way they learned of his disappearance: through social media, with no official notification from Israeli authorities.

    “After we said goodbye to Mahmoud and felt happiness that he was starting a new journey, we were shocked to read the news of his arrest across social media platforms,” Mahmoud’s 28-year-old youngest brother Attia al-Najjar told Middle East Eye. “It was very harsh to find out about his arrest and disappearance while browsing social media, without receiving any official notification.”

    After days of outreach, Attia finally connected with the family of a fellow traveler who witnessed the detention. The witness, who was also interrogated before being released, confirmed he saw Israeli forces take Mahmoud into custody. The al-Najjar family has since been left in agonizing uncertainty: Israeli authorities have disclosed no information about Mahmoud’s whereabouts, health, or legal status. A single confirmation came from the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, which verified Mahmoud was being held in Ashkelon Prison with a ban on visitor access through June 15. But after that date passed, no human rights organization has been granted access to check on his condition.

    The family’s anxiety has been amplified by existing trauma: Attia’s mother has suffered severe health complications from the ongoing stress, compounded by the 2024 bombardment that killed multiple family members, and the fact that two more of Attia’s brothers are already being held in Israeli prisons following an arrest during a military operation in the family’s displacement camp during the war. Attempts by Middle East Eye to contact the witness family were unsuccessful, as they declined interview requests out of fear for their safety and their son’s future abroad.

    Mahmoud’s detention is far from an isolated incident, according to human rights advocates and testimonies collected from Gaza travelers. Since the partial reopening of the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings under the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire agreement, hundreds of students have attempted to travel abroad to resume their studies or take up academic opportunities, but widespread accounts of arbitrary detention, prolonged interrogation, physical abuse and humiliation have gone largely unreported, silenced by fear of retaliation.

    Mohammed Ahmed, a Gaza student who spoke to MEE under a pseudonym after successfully crossing to Europe to resume his studies, said that most students who have faced abuse refuse to speak out even anonymously. Ahmed himself had faced threats over his work as a journalist during the war, but passed security screening and received his travel permit, and ultimately crossed without incident. That luck did not extend to a colleague with a similar name who traveled shortly after him for the same scholarship program.

    “I was shocked when my colleague told me that he was interrogated by the Israeli army and questioned about journalistic work that I had done while I was in Gaza,” Ahmed said. “Despite telling them that he does not work as a journalist and has a different specialism, they stripped him of his clothes, beat him, abused him and humiliated him, simply because of the similarity of our names, before allowing him to leave.”

    Ahmed added, “Many students have gone through this humiliating experience, but fear for their lives and their families drives them to silence.”

    Lina al-Tawil, director of the Palestinian Center for the Defence of Prisoners, told MEE her organization has collected dozens of similar reports from travelers leaving Gaza — including students, medical patients, and their companions — documenting hours of arbitrary detention, intrusive interrogation, and in some cases, complete denial of exit permission, even for travelers who had already received official clearance.

    “We received direct testimonies from travelers or their families about being subjected to detention and security interrogations, which included questions about places of residence, relatives, movements inside the Strip, affiliations, and details with no direct relevance to travel or treatment,” al-Tawil said. While the organization cannot release a precise number of affected people due to limited access during ongoing conflict, al-Tawil confirmed that “the cases are recurrent and not isolated.”

    Testimonies collected by the center align with longstanding human rights warnings that Israeli authorities are using border crossing approvals as a pretext to detain and abuse Palestinians. Common abuses documented include handcuffing, blindfolding, and public humiliation, with intrusive questions about family members’ whereabouts, political affiliations, and connections that have no connection to travel eligibility.

    Abuse is not limited to Palestinians leaving Gaza: travelers returning to the Strip face identical mistreatment at Israeli checkpoints. Abdel Rahim Abu Toaima, a 39-year-old Gaza resident who traveled to Egypt in 2025 for his son’s open-heart surgery, spoke to MEE about his ordeal after being forced to undergo emergency knee surgery for a ruptured tendon before returning home.

    When Abu Toaima’s bus arrived at the Rafah checkpoint, he was called in for interrogation. After he repeatedly denied knowing the individuals Israeli soldiers asked about, he was beaten and humiliated. Despite informing soldiers of his recent knee surgery, they forced him to stand for two hours in extreme heat without a seat, stripped him naked, forced him to remove his surgical bandage, spat on him, and called him degrading slurs. When he asked for water, his request was denied.

    “After slapping and punching me, the army forced me to strip off all my clothes without respecting my privacy, especially in the presence of female soldiers,” Abu Toaima said. “They also forced me to unwrap the bandage from my knee, even though I could not bend my back. They spat in my face, called me the vilest names, and forced me to stand for two hours in intense heat. Whenever I told them I was tired and I could not stand, they insulted me more.”

    After hours of abuse, soldiers finally allowed Abu Toaima to enter Gaza, but confiscated his phone and other electronics. When he opened his suitcase back at his displacement tent in western Khan Younis, he discovered his and his son’s medication and most of their clothing had been stolen. Left without a phone in a Gaza market where replacement devices cost exorbitant sums out of reach for most residents, Abu Toaima now suffers from persistent swelling and bruising to his knee that requires ongoing treatment at Nasser Medical Hospital.

    “I left Gaza with my injured son, and I returned with a knee injury that has not yet healed, and a harsh, unexpected interrogation experience from whose pain I will never recover,” he said.

    According to Gaza’s government media office, of the 19,600 people who applied to exit Gaza through Rafah after its partial reopening, only around 7,000 — most of them critically ill patients — have been allowed to travel through after security screening. No official data exists for the number of people exiting through Karem Abu Salem, and only around 1,500 people have been allowed to re-enter Gaza through Rafah amid strict movement restrictions. For the al-Najjar family, outreach to the Red Cross and prisoner rights organization Addameer has yielded no new information about Mahmoud’s fate, leaving them trapped in limbo after every other loss they have endured.

    “We never expected this to happen, especially since he had obtained travel clearance from the Israeli side,” Attia al-Najjar said.

  • EU observers back Colombia vote count amid challenge to results

    EU observers back Colombia vote count amid challenge to results

    BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – In a preliminary finding released Tuesday, an independent European Union electoral observation mission has formally confirmed that Colombia’s recent presidential runoff vote count was conducted with full transparency and adherence to national law, directly contradicting repeated fraud allegations from sitting Colombian President Gustavo Petro. Petro has openly questioned the integrity of the electoral process since his preferred progressive successor failed to gain a lead in Sunday’s tightly contested second-round vote.

    The EU mission, which has monitored Colombian electoral processes since the first round of voting in May, deployed roughly 150 independent observers across the country to oversee all stages of Sunday’s runoff. With only a tiny fraction of ballots left uncounted, official preliminary results put conservative outsider candidate Abelardo de la Espriella – who has secured endorsement from former U.S. President Donald Trump – ahead by a narrow 1-point margin, equaling nearly 251,000 votes.

    Mission chief Esteban González Pons told reporters in his press briefing that no systemic or meaningful irregularities were detected during the vote count process. “We have not observed any irregularities,” Pons stated. “And as far as we have observed, Colombian legislation has been followed completely.”

    The credibility of the result has been thrown into political dispute by Petro and his ally, progressive candidate Iván Cepeda, who have both vowed to challenge the outcome. This is not the first time Petro has raised unsubstantiated fraud claims: he already made similar accusations after Cepeda failed to win an outright majority in the May first round. Cepeda has announced his campaign will contest results at more than 30,000 individual voting stations nationwide, and has refused to accept the preliminary outcome until a full nationwide recount is completed. Colombian electoral authorities are on track to wrap up that recount process by the end of this week.

    Sunday’s runoff drew more than 26 million voters to the polls, marking a historic turnout record for Colombian presidential elections. Of those ballots, more than 426,000 voters selected the “none of the above” option on the ballot, a mechanism for voters to express dissatisfaction with both leading candidates, while an additional 29,000 ballots were left intentionally blank.

    This election cycle has been one of the most polarizing in recent Colombian history, driven largely by widespread public fears of a return to the decades-long internal armed conflict that plagued the country through the late 20th century. Both candidates put forward drastically different policy approaches to tackling persistent violence, including the car bombings, kidnappings, forced disappearances, and mass displacements that marked decades of civil strife. The winner of the election will be inaugurated for a four-year presidential term on August 7.

    In the lead-up to Sunday’s vote, the campaign season devolved into increasingly heated rhetoric, with escalating personal verbal attacks between the two candidates and widespread accusations of fraud, vote-buying, and voter intimidation exchanged on both sides. Beyond his broad claims of systemic irregularities, Petro has also raised specific objections to the digital vote-tallying software used by Colombian electoral authorities.

    Pons noted that the mission found it particularly unusual that the sitting head of state was advancing fraud allegations that even the candidate himself had not formally presented ahead of the official challenge. “It surprises us, and continues to surprise us, that the President of the Republic is denouncing irregularities that the candidates haven’t denounced,” Pons said. “It seems pointless to point this out, but he’s not a candidate.”

    The EU mission will remain in the country to observe the ongoing official recount process, and plans to release its full, final report on the 2024 Colombian presidential election cycle in September.

  • Trump to attend World Cup final and present trophy

    Trump to attend World Cup final and present trophy

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup, the first 48-team edition of the global men’s football showpiece co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States, is heading toward its July 19 decider at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, and a high-profile political figure is set to take center stage for the trophy presentation. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has confirmed that former U.S. president Donald Trump, 80, will join him for the final’s trophy handoff to the tournament’s champion.

    Speaking to Fox News, Infantino, who has described himself as a close personal friend of Trump, said, “We will be together with the president enjoying the final and handing the trophy to the winner, of course.” When pressed to confirm the pair would present the trophy jointly, Infantino added, “Of course, we are together all the time.”

    Notably, Trump has not appeared at any World Cup match over the tournament’s first five weeks, which kicked off June 11. Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House’s World Cup task force, told The Daily Telegraph that Trump’s packed public schedule is the reason for his absence so far, adding that the former president prefers to “leave people watching” rather than draw attention away from matches ahead of the final.

    This won’t be Trump’s first high-profile appearance at a major global sporting event hosted in the U.S. this year. Just last week, he attended a UFC event held at the White House, and earlier this month he became the first sitting U.S. president to attend an NBA Finals game, where he was loudly booed by the New York crowd during the national anthem at Madison Square Garden. That game saw the eventual champion New York Knicks fall 115-111 to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 3.

    Trump also has prior experience presenting major FIFA honours at MetLife Stadium. During last summer’s Club World Cup final, he remained on the winner’s podium after handing the trophy to Chelsea captain Reece James, catching players and organizers off guard. James later explained, “They told me that he was going to present the trophy and then exit the stage and I thought that he was going to exit, but he wanted to stay.”

    The 2026 World Cup, which has already drawn record crowds across the three host nations, has 78 of its total 104 matches hosted on U.S. soil, with the final capping the tournament at the 82,500-seat MetLife Stadium outside New York City. Ahead of the final, the tournament has already made headlines for security operations that have seen more than 300 drones seized at U.S. match venues, alongside ongoing debate over rule changes to the expanded group stage that some argue have created unfair conditions for competing teams.

  • UN adopts resolution to ensure perpetrators of crimes against peacekeepers face justice

    UN adopts resolution to ensure perpetrators of crimes against peacekeepers face justice

    UNITED NATIONS – In a landmark move to protect global peacekeeping personnel, the United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution Tuesday that creates new formal mechanisms to guarantee perpetrators of violent crimes against U.N. peacekeepers are brought to justice.

    Data from the U.N. Department of Peace Operations underscores the urgent need for this action: since the U.N. launched its first peacekeeping mission in 1948, close to 1,100 peacekeepers from nations across the globe have been killed in the line of duty, and thousands more have sustained lifelong injuries. Despite this staggering toll, the newly adopted resolution confirms that prosecution rates for killings and other violent offenses targeting peacekeeping personnel have remained stubbornly low for decades.

    Drafted by Pakistan and Denmark, the resolution drew broad international support, with more than 150 member states signing on as co-sponsors. The text is designed to close long-standing gaps in the global accountability framework. It formally authorizes U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to oversee systematic evidence-collection following any future attacks on peacekeepers, and to provide direct support to national and international investigations and prosecutions of all violent acts against peace personnel.

    Addressing the council after the vote, Denmark’s U.N. Ambassador Christina Lassen emphasized that the resolution sends an unambiguous message to the more than 50,000 peacekeepers deployed across mission hotspots from Lebanon and Cyprus to South Sudan and the Central African Republic: attacks on their personnel will not be met with international silence or allowed to end in impunity.

    “To the perpetrators of any crimes, wherever and whoever they are,” Lassen said, “it sends a firm message that the international community is watching, that crimes will not go unpunished, that accountability and justice will be pursued and will be upheld.”

    Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Asim Ahmad noted that in recent years, attacks on peacekeepers in multiple active mission zones have grown both in frequency and tactical complexity, with very few perpetrators ever facing legal consequences. While condolences after fatal attacks are a necessary gesture, Ahmad argued that what peacekeepers and their families truly deserve is justice. “Most importantly, this resolution is a strong expression of the council’s political will to stand by the peacekeepers,” he added.

    This is not the first time the Security Council has taken action on this issue: a 2021 resolution already sought to strengthen accountability frameworks for crimes against peacekeepers. The U.N. peacekeeping department reports that measurable progress has been made since that vote, with a sharp rise in national investigations and a growing number of alleged perpetrators identified, detained, or prosecuted. Since 2020 alone, 103 individuals have been convicted of offenses connected to the killings of 35 peacekeepers and two U.N. experts across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, and Mali.

    Still, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric welcomed Tuesday’s resolution while stressing that systemic gaps remain, and far more work is required to deliver consistent accountability.

    The new resolution requires the secretary-general to present the Security Council with a full set of policy options to strengthen accountability frameworks within 120 days. “This will help the council assess what is working, where gaps remain, and what further action may be required,” Ahmad explained. Lassen added that the council is prepared to review the proposals promptly and work collaboratively to turn them into tangible, meaningful progress for peacekeepers worldwide.

  • Tech stocks tumble on concerns over AI spending

    Tech stocks tumble on concerns over AI spending

    Global financial markets were jolted into a stark reality check on Tuesday, as a sudden broad sell-off across major technology equities sparked fierce debate over whether the months-long AI-driven rally has finally hit its ceiling. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped roughly 2% by market close, with losses dragging down semiconductor manufacturers and chip industry indices around the world, ending a relentless 90-day upward climb that had pushed valuations to unprecedented levels.

    The sudden shift in sentiment also spilled over to one of the most high-profile new public listings of 2026: Elon Musk’s aerospace giant SpaceX. Just days after its 12 June initial public offering (IPO), the company endured an extraordinarily choppy trading session, with its share price dipping below the $150 IPO mark at one point before clawing back to a close of roughly $157, defusing some but not all of the day’s market anxiety.

    For months, global stock exchanges have been lifted by unbridled investor optimism around artificial intelligence, with widespread bets that AI would revolutionize corporate productivity and drive massive revenue growth for tech hardware and software providers. That enthusiasm pushed major indices to repeated record highs, but it also left valuations looking increasingly stretched, with the broader tech sector more than doubling from 2022’s cyclical lows by the start of June. On Tuesday, that momentum collapsed as investors began asking a question that had loomed over the rally for months: can real-world corporate AI adoption ever justify the sky-high share prices currently baked into the market?

    Semiconductor firms that have led the AI rally, including industry giants Nvidia and Intel, bore the brunt of the selling, as analysts warned that investors may have moved far too fast to price in demand for the AI hardware that powers corporate AI deployments. The anxiety quickly spread to newly listed growth stocks like SpaceX, which became the latest high-profile firm caught in the crossfire of shifting tech sentiment.

    Since its public debut, SpaceX has seen extreme price swings that highlight how sensitive unproven, high-growth newly listed companies are to broader market shifts. While some bullish traders viewed the stock’s quick rebound from sub-IPO levels as evidence of solid underlying fundamentals and sustained long-term investor interest in the fast-growing commercial space industry, sceptics argue that the wild volatility is just further proof of the speculative froth that has built up in today’s growth stock market.

    Market analysts are now deeply divided over what the sell-off means for the future of tech investing. Optimists, including Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya, frame the pullback as a healthy, temporary pause after a historic rally, arguing that profit-taking is a standard market movement after months of consistent gains. In a recent note to clients, Arya argued that persistent inflation paired with strengthening long-term demand for AI hardware will ultimately push sector earnings forecasts higher. He added that the tech industry is simply moving past the early phase of proving AI’s ROI, and entering a new stage focused on solving physical infrastructure and power supply constraints that have limited large-scale deployments.

    On the other side, a growing camp of sceptics counter that the days of easy double-digit market gains for AI stocks are over, pointing to cooling corporate IT budgets and ongoing broader macroeconomic pressures that will weigh on technology spending. Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at UK-based investment platform AJ Bell, noted that the relative lack of large AI-focused tech stocks listed on London exchanges actually helped the FTSE 100 end the day in positive territory, even as major indices on Wall Street slumped.

    As the trading week progresses, all eyes will remain on upcoming corporate earnings reports from the world’s largest tech firms, which will be forced to demonstrate that their massive investments in artificial intelligence are delivering tangible bottom-line profits, rather than just generating hype to drive share prices higher.

  • Ronaldo becomes first player to score in six World Cups with goal against Uzbekistan

    Ronaldo becomes first player to score in six World Cups with goal against Uzbekistan

    HOUSTON – In a moment that redefined men’s World Cup records, 41-year-old Portuguese icon Cristiano Ronaldo etched his name deeper into global soccer folklore on Tuesday, becoming the first male player in history to score at six consecutive FIFA World Cup tournaments. The landmark goal came just six minutes into Portugal’s match against Uzbekistan, when a pinpoint cross from teammate João Cancelo found Ronaldo in the box, who converted a clinical right-footed strike to put his side up 1-0. Immediately after the ball hit the back of the net, the forward sprinted toward the Portuguese bench to share the celebratory moment with his coaching staff and teammates, capping off a milestone that had been months in the making after a shaky opening match.

    Ronaldo’s history-making strike comes on the heels of widespread public criticism that followed his goalless performance in Portugal’s 1-1 opening draw against Congo. For many observers, the early tournament drought sparked questions about whether the aging star would get another chance to add to his World Cup scoring tally in what is widely expected to be his final run at the international competition.

    This year’s tournament already marked a shared piece of history for Ronaldo and Argentina’s captain Lionel Messi: the pair are the only two male players ever to compete at six different World Cup tournaments. But Ronaldo’s goal on Tuesday cemented a unique record that separates him from his long-time rival. Messi, who appeared at every World Cup since 2006 alongside Ronaldo, failed to find the back of the net at the 2010 tournament in South Africa, leaving Ronaldo as the sole holder of the six-tournament scoring streak.

    Ronaldo’s scoring run stretches back to his World Cup debut in 2006, with goals added in every iteration of the tournament since: 2010 in South Africa, 2014 in Brazil, 2018 in Russia, 2022 in Qatar, and now the 2026 edition. Tuesday’s strike pushed his all-time World Cup goal total to nine. For comparison, Messi extended his own record-breaking tally to 18 total World Cup goals this tournament, notching a hat trick in Argentina’s opening match against Algeria and adding two more in a recent fixture against Austria to claim the title of the tournament’s all-time leading goalscorer.

    Beyond the scoring milestone, Tuesday’s match marked the 230th senior international appearance of Ronaldo’s career – a total that stands as the most in the history of men’s international soccer. Widely considered to be playing in his final World Cup, Ronaldo already holds an unparalleled collection of top-tier trophies: he led Portugal to a UEFA European Championship title in 2016, and claimed five UEFA Champions League titles during his storied club career with Manchester United and Real Madrid.