Global Pulse

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  • Ransom note claimed Nancy Guthrie died after abduction

    Ransom note claimed Nancy Guthrie died after abduction

    Five months after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of prominent *Today Show* co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home in the middle of the night, new details have emerged about two ransom notes sent to the victim’s family and major news outlets in the weeks following the kidnapping.

    Nancy Guthrie was last seen alive at her residence near Tucson, Arizona, on January 31. According to senior law enforcement sources cited by CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. news partner, the first ransom note arrived just one day after she was taken from her bed in the dark of night. Addressed directly to Savannah Guthrie, the note demanded a multi-million-dollar ransom payment in bitcoin, and included specific, accurate details about Guthrie’s home layout, her bedroom, and the surrounding neighborhood — details that led investigators to believe the sender had direct knowledge of the abduction.

    A second, follow-up note was mailed on February 6. It used matching phrasing and handwriting styling consistent with the first communication, but abandoned all ransom demands. In this second message, the senders claimed Nancy Guthrie had died while in their custody, adding that the death was unintended and extending an apology to the Guthrie family for the tragedy.

    While authorities have not publicly confirmed whether they consider the two notes authentic, Savannah Guthrie and her family have stated publicly that they believe the communications are genuine. The notes were sent both to local Arizona news outlets and national U.S. media organizations including TMZ, and multiple news outlets confirmed that law enforcement requested they withhold detailed contents of the notes while the investigation moves forward.

    In a video statement released shortly after the second note was received, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings addressed the kidnappers directly. “We received your message, and we understand,” the NBC News host said. “We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. We would pay.”

    From the earliest days of the investigation, authorities and the Guthrie family repeatedly warned the public that Nancy Guthrie lived with chronic poor health and required ongoing critical medication that she would not have access to after being abducted. To date, no trace of the 84-year-old has been found.

    A combined reward of $1.1 million has been posted for information that leads to Nancy Guthrie’s recovery: the Guthrie family put forward $1 million, while the FBI added an additional $100,000 reward. In a public update on February 24, Savannah Guthrie acknowledged the family holds out hope but is prepared for the worst: “We know that she may be lost, she may already be gone, but we will keep hoping.”

    The Pima County Sheriff’s Department, which is leading the investigation alongside the FBI, has declined to confirm or comment on the contents of the ransom notes, but confirmed in a statement that the probe “remains active and ongoing.” “The Pima County Sheriff’s Department continues to work closely with the FBI as investigators follow up on leads, review information, and pursue the facts surrounding this case,” a department spokesperson said. The BBC has reached out to the FBI for additional comment on the investigation, and no new suspects have been publicly named as of this reporting.

  • A black jaguar oracle in Rio de Janeiro sniffs Brazil to beat Scotland in Group C challenge

    A black jaguar oracle in Rio de Janeiro sniffs Brazil to beat Scotland in Group C challenge

    As the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup builds up to a critical Group C showdown between Brazil and Scotland, a unique new animal oracle has thrown its weight behind Brazil – and most soccer fans are eager to see if its prediction will hold true. On Monday, Poty, a majestic black jaguar based at Rio de Janeiro’s BioParque, stepped into the global spotlight for a lighthearted pre-match forecasting event that drew crowds of local residents and curious soccer supporters.

    The event organizers set up two specially designed enrichment boxes for the big cat, each decorated to represent one of the two competing nations. As onlookers held their breath, Poty slowly approached the offerings, sniffing each box carefully to weigh her decision. After a few moments of consideration, she made her decisive move, selecting the box marked with Brazil’s national colors. But in a twist that has sparked discussion among the jaguar’s handlers, Poty doubled back after her initial pick to give the Scotland box a second, thorough inspection.

    That small, final gesture is not something to brush off, according to Caio de Souza Silva, a biologist who works closely with Poty at BioParque. Speaking to reporters after the event, Silva noted that the jaguar’s second look could signal a far more challenging match for Brazil than many fans expect. “Maybe it indicates a tough game for us,” Silva explained. “Maybe it’s a win, but it could also be a more complicated match. Hopefully we don’t concede a goal, but it may suggest a more physical game for Brazil.”

    Heading into Wednesday’s clash, which is set to take place in Miami, Group C standings remain tightly contested. Brazil currently sits as co-leader of the group alongside Morocco, with both nations holding four points. Brazil edges out Morocco on goal difference, putting them in a strong position to advance. Scotland, meanwhile, is not far behind with three points, and the side remains in contention to move on to the knockout stage regardless of the result of their match against Brazil. In the other Group C fixture matchday, Morocco will face Haiti, a side that has yet to earn a single point in the tournament so far.

    Animal oracle predictions have become a beloved quirky tradition for major international soccer tournaments, stretching back to the iconic Paul the Octopus who rose to fame for his perfect prediction streak at the 2010 World Cup. For many fans, these lighthearted forecasts add an extra layer of fun and anticipation ahead of high-stakes matches.

  • How 100 Romanian hospitals switched to pen and paper to defeat a national cyber-attack

    How 100 Romanian hospitals switched to pen and paper to defeat a national cyber-attack

    In early February 2024, a coordinated ransomware cyberattack swept through Romania’s healthcare network, triggering one of the most high-stakes responses to a global healthcare cyber incident in recent memory. What began as a quiet breach of a popular domestic medical software platform quickly grew into a crisis that put hundreds of thousands of patient lives at risk, and ultimately became a global case study for how nations can defend critical infrastructure against criminal hacking groups.

    The attack unfolded when criminals exploited a vulnerability in Hippocrates, a widely used medical management system developed by Bucharest-based software firm RSC. The system, used by more than 100 hospitals across Romania, handles every core function of hospital operations: from patient admissions and test result tracking to pharmacy inventory management and staff payroll. Cyber attackers deployed the BackMyData ransomware strain through the compromised software, quietly encrypting files across connected hospital networks before any IT team detected abnormal activity.

    The first alert came on a Sunday morning, when staff at Pitești Children’s Hospital, located northwest of Bucharest, spotted unexplained errors on their system. By dawn the next day, dozens of hospitals across the country reported that Hippocrates had gone completely dark, with all patient and operational files scrambled into unreadable gibberish. The attackers demanded a total ransom of €160,000 in bitcoin to unlock the encrypted data.

    At Romania’s national cybersecurity directorate (DNSC) in Bucharest, cyber chief Dan Cimpean faced an urgent, no-win decision. With the ransomware spreading rapidly from hospital to hospital through connected networks, Cimpean made the bold call to issue an immediate order: more than 100 affected and at-risk hospitals had to disconnect from the internet entirely to halt the attack’s progress.

    The decision stopped the hackers in their tracks, buying cybersecurity teams critical time to investigate the breach and contain the damage, but it threw day-to-day hospital operations into chaos. For frontline medical staff like surgeon Oana Goidescu, who was on shift at Buzău Hospital, 75 miles northeast of Bucharest, when the alert hit, losing digital access meant losing every tool the clinical team relied on.

    “An IT record is not just a list of patients,” Goidescu explained in the aftermath of the incident. “For every patient, we request lab tests, radiology scans, medicines and supplies. All of that was gone overnight.”

    Clinical teams across the country quickly improvised analogue workarounds to keep patient care running. Surgeons and doctors switched back to pen and paper for patient records. At Bucharest’s Carol Davila Hospital, medical director Vlad Paic said his team developed a custom offline registration system within hours, asked labs to deliver results on printed paper, and used offline spreadsheets to track care. Many clinicians noted that Romania’s relatively recent shift to full digital health records left many staff still comfortable with paper-based workflows, a surprising advantage during the blackout.

    While frontline staff managed patient care, cybersecurity investigators worked around the clock to map the damage and evict the hackers. Working closely with developers at RSC, the team confirmed that 26 hospitals had been fully infected with BackMyData, while the rest of the facilities had avoided encryption thanks to the early internet disconnection. DNSC leadership made a second critical, binding decision: no hospital would be allowed to negotiate with or pay the attackers, a stance that security experts widely back as a long-term deterrent to future ransomware attacks.

    The DNSC also leaned on open, consistent communication with the public and media to manage the crisis, a choice that DNSC leadership later cited as core to the response’s success. Public warnings urged patients to avoid non-urgent hospital visits to reduce strain on offline teams, though waiting rooms still filled with patients seeking care, and some frustrated visitors directed their anger at overstretched frontline staff.

    IT teams worked at breakneck speed to restore systems from existing backups. A key stroke of luck and preparation meant most hospitals maintained recent, intact offline backups of their patient data, allowing teams to restore systems much faster than many experts expected. Within five days of the attack being detected, nearly all hospitals were back online and operating near full capacity. Remarkably, there were no reported deaths or permanent serious harm to patients connected to the outage, though it took weeks for staff to re-input all the paper records generated during the blackout, and some small amounts of data were lost forever.

    In the months following the attack, Romania’s coordinated response has become a benchmark test case for disaster planners around the world. The incident also underscores a stark new reality for global healthcare: the FBI recently confirmed that healthcare has overtaken all other sectors as the most targeted area of critical national infrastructure for cyberattacks.

    Recent years have seen a string of devastating attacks on global healthcare systems that have caused measurable harm. In 2023, a breach of a UK blood testing firm that affected a dozen London medical centers was officially linked to a patient’s death, marking the first publicly confirmed fatalities from a healthcare cyberattack. The same year, U.S. healthcare payment platform Change Healthcare paid attackers a $22 million ransom after a widespread breach, and another major U.S. provider Ascension suffered a disruptive attack that shut down services across multiple facilities.

    Alina Bîzgă, a cybersecurity analyst at Bucharest-based global security firm Bitdefender, explained why criminal groups increasingly target hospitals over other sectors. “Hospitals handle time-sensitive, life-saving critical services, and criminals calculate that the more widespread disruption they cause, the more pressure hospital and government leaders face to pay a ransom quickly,” she said.

    Dan Cimpean, who led Romania’s response, noted that the risk of such an attack exists in every nation, regardless of size or development level. “The more technology you adopt, and the more digitized your healthcare system becomes, the greater your exposure to these risks,” he said. “This was not a problem unique to Romania — it could have happened anywhere.”

    As of mid-2024, Romanian police have declined to comment on the ongoing investigation into the identity of the attackers behind the BackMyData incident. In 2023, an international law enforcement operation took down the dark web website of a ransomware gang linked to the BackMyData strain, and four Russian suspects connected to the group were arrested outside of Russia, whose government does not cooperate with Western law enforcement on cybercrime prosecutions.

  • China slaps export controls on 10 US firms

    China slaps export controls on 10 US firms

    In a measured but firm response to Washington’s latest unilateral expansion of its so-called list of Chinese military-linked companies, Beijing rolled out two key countermeasures on June 22, 2026: adding 10 U.S. entities to its export control roster and banning Chinese government agencies from procuring goods from 46 American firms. This action comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Department of Defense added a new batch of Chinese companies operating in cutting-edge sectors including electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and robotics to its blacklist.

    According to an official announcement from China’s Ministry of Commerce, the 10 listed U.S. companies operate across aerospace, defense, robotics, maritime services and rare earth industries. All exports of dual-use Chinese goods and technologies — items that have both civilian and military applications — to these entities are now prohibited. The order also requires that any ongoing export activities to the listed firms be halted immediately, and bans all third-party organizations and individuals from transiting or supplying Chinese-origin dual-use items to the sanctioned entities.

    A spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce emphasized in a separate statement that the countermeasures are a necessary and proportional response to the U.S. government’s malicious expansion of the so-called “Chinese military company list.” The U.S. updated list now includes more than 180 Chinese entities, with its scope expanding far beyond traditional defense industries to cover high-growth commercial sectors including cloud computing, AI, biotechnology and advanced robotics.

    Industry analysts note that Washington’s ongoing blacklisting campaign, designed to slow China’s technological development through targeted supply chain restrictions, has injected fresh uncertainty into bilateral relations that had just begun to show tentative signs of improvement following a landmark meeting between the two countries’ heads of state in Beijing one month prior.

    “China does not start conflicts, but it also will not allow unilateral bullying to go unchallenged,” explained Liao Fan, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “When other parties cross our national security red lines, we respond in accordance with international and domestic regulations to defend our core national interests, protect the development of our domestic industries, and uphold the rules-based order of global trade.” Liao added that the countermeasures will establish a clear deterrence mechanism, forcing U.S. policymakers to carefully consider the costs of future unilateral sanctions against Chinese entities.

    Data from a recent survey released by the US-China Business Council earlier this month already underscores the economic costs of escalating trade tensions. The survey found that growing operational uncertainty for U.S. businesses in China is increasingly driven by unpredictable U.S. export control policies, and the countermeasures that inevitably follow U.S. sanctions have compounded challenges for American companies operating in the Chinese market. Respondents warned that any further expansion of Chinese export controls would force U.S. firms to undertake costly, multi-year overhauls of their global supply chains to adapt to new trade restrictions.

    In the second of Monday’s countermeasures, China’s Ministry of Finance announced a government procurement ban targeting 46 U.S. companies, including major American defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. The ban also bars all affected firms’ subsidiaries from conducting commercial operations within Chinese territory.

    Cui Fan, a professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, pointed out that the targeted design of Beijing’s response — which sanctions specific entities rather than entire broad sectors, and excludes U.S.-invested enterprises that operate legally within China — signals that Beijing’s goal is to pressure Washington to reverse its unjust blacklisting policy, not to trigger a broader escalation of bilateral tensions.

    “This calibrated approach makes clear that China remains open to returning to dialogue and cooperation, but will not stand idly by while its core interests are undermined,” Cui noted.

  • How Andy Burnham could set Britain on a new course on Israel and Palestine

    How Andy Burnham could set Britain on a new course on Israel and Palestine

    For weeks, Andy Burnham, the incoming UK prime minister set to take office as early as next month, has intentionally avoided public discussion of foreign policy. Multiple anonymous Labour party sources confirm that Burnham and his campaign team judged that weighing in on international issues would do little to boost his chances in the Makerfield by-election, a predominantly white working-class constituency he ultimately won to secure his seat in parliament.

    During one of the few recent occasions he was pressed on the conflict in Gaza, Burnham refused to publicly label Israeli actions in the territory as genocide. “I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester,” he stated at the time, though he added that he held deep concerns over the “disproportionate nature of what has happened in terms of the destruction” and called for a full international investigation and accountability for all parties.

    The conflict has already claimed a devastating human toll since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel. Data confirms that Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded an additional 170,000 people to date.

    Now that Burnham has secured his parliamentary seat and is on track to become prime minister unopposed in what is widely described as a political coronation, long-simmering pressure over his foreign policy stance is set to intensify. To win over the bulk of Labour’s membership, which overwhelmingly backs tougher critical action against Israel, and to win back disillusioned left-wing voters who have abandoned the party in droves over the issue, Burnham will be forced to confront the topic head-on.

    Recent electoral data underscores just how costly the party’s current vague stance on Gaza has been. Polling from last month’s local elections shows that Labour lost more former voters to the left-wing Green Party than to the right-wing Reform UK. A subsequent study found that more than half of former Labour voters who plan to support another centre-left or left-wing party in the next general election cited Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a key factor in their decision to abandon the party.

    Labour MP Kim Johnson has urged Burnham to demonstrate the moral clarity that current leader Keir Starmer has repeatedly failed to show on the Gaza crisis. “If Andy wants to win back traditional Labour voters, especially those who feel abandoned on foreign policy, he has to show the moral clarity [Starmer] has too often lacked on Gaza,” Johnson told Middle East Eye. She added that Burnham must be willing to state openly what Starmer would not: that a genocide is ongoing in Gaza, and the party’s refusal to speak honestly and act decisively on the issue has come at a severe political cost.

    “People wanted Labour to call it what it is, to stand up for international law and to listen to the Palestine solidarity movement,” Johnson explained. “Instead, that silence has alienated core voters and driven support away from the party. Take the May local elections for example – Palestine was on the ballot for millions of progressive voters. We lost 58 percent of the seats we were defending in England and lost almost four times as many voters to the Greens than to Reform UK. We cannot deny that Gaza is a major reason many have walked.”
    Johnson emphasized that foreign policy is not a peripheral issue, saying: “Foreign policy isn’t a side issue. It’s about values, credibility and whose side you are on when it matters.”

    Burnham’s history on Middle East policy is nuanced, leaving room for questions about what stance he will ultimately take. In 2015, he joined Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a pro-Israel party grouping, a move that positioned him as a non-radical alternative to strongly pro-Palestinian figures like then-party leader Jeremy Corbyn. During his unsuccessful 2015 Labour leadership bid, Burnham even stated that his first overseas trip as prime minister would be to Israel.

    But records also show Burnham has long been willing to criticize the Israeli government. Within days of Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election as Israeli prime minister in 2015, Burnham wrote on X that the news was “depressing,” noting that Netanyahu had run on a pledge to expand illegal Israeli settlements and adding that “Palestine will need more international support.” That same year, he told the Palestine Solidarity Campaign that he backed full recognition of Palestinian statehood, calling it “not a gift to be given but a right to be recognised,” and acknowledged that Israeli settlements and their ongoing expansion remain a core barrier to lasting peace.

    Burnham also has longstanding ties to the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), a leading UK policy group focused on the Middle East. He joined Caabu on a 2012 trip to the occupied West Bank, and in March 2025 praised the organization as a critical parliamentary partner, saying “in these times that we live now, Caabu is needed more than ever.”

    Caabu director Chris Doyle argues that the next UK prime minister must implement a dramatic shift in the country’s Middle East policy. A meaningful course correction, Doyle says, would require ending the current climate of impunity Israel enjoys, holding parties that violate international law accountable through tangible consequences including backing International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli officials, and guaranteeing full unimpeded access for UN and other humanitarian aid agencies to Gaza.

    Doyle added that the UK must embrace a more humble role in global conflicts: “We need to accept that we are a middle-ranking power, that we don’t have the ability to go and determine conflicts abroad. But where we can make a difference is through creative, imaginative, determined diplomacy rooted in international law, rooted in basic core principles of how to resolve conflicts.”

    In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attack and Israel’s subsequent siege and bombardment of Gaza, Burnham broke with Starmer’s Labour leadership to join London mayor Sadiq Khan and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar in calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire. In a column for The Independent, he warned Starmer against branding MPs who disagreed with the party line on the issue “as disloyal or as if they don’t care about innocent lives.”

    Just last month, Labour party delegates voted overwhelmingly at the annual conference to officially recognize that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and to back sanctions on Israel, a shock rebuke of the party’s current stance that underscores how deep support for a tougher line is among grassroots members.

    Caabu and the British Palestine Project have already outlined five core Palestine policy pledges they are demanding the next Labour prime minister adopt: ban all UK trade with goods and services produced in illegal Israeli settlements, uphold and enforce international law, guarantee unrestricted access for UN agencies and humanitarian organizations to Gaza, open occupied Palestinian territories to independent journalists, politicians and international investigators, and work with global allies to end all unlawful regional occupations.

    Doyle also notes that the next prime minister will need to resist intense pressure from the incoming second Trump administration to maintain the UK’s current uncritical support for Israel, rather than caving to unilateral American demands. Calls for a full ban on settlement goods are already growing among Labour backbenchers, and internal polling shows 87 percent of rank-and-file Labour members support such a ban, with just 6 percent opposing it. Privately, senior Foreign Office ministers have already acknowledged that a ban on settlement goods would align fully with the UK’s official stated position on the occupied Palestinian territories, sources confirm.

    Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, laid out clear expectations for whoever takes office at Downing Street: “Whoever walks into Downing Street next must do what Starmer would not to end these horrors: stop providing arms to Israel, stop trading with illegal settlements in the West Bank, guarantee unrestricted humanitarian access, and ensure that those responsible for crimes against humanity are held fully accountable. Respect for international law is measured by actions, not rhetoric. The next prime minister must not be an ally to atrocities.”

  • World Cup sees first weather delay as fans cleared from seats at France-Iraq match in Philadelphia

    World Cup sees first weather delay as fans cleared from seats at France-Iraq match in Philadelphia

    A sudden outbreak of heavy rain and an approaching severe thunderstorm disrupted the 202X FIFA World Cup group stage match between France and Iraq in Philadelphia on Monday, forcing thousands of spectators to evacuate their seats for shelter during the halftime break. This marked the first weather-related delay of the entire tournament, and forecast models also predicted heavy precipitation for the later scheduled match between Norway and Senegal in East Rutherford, New Jersey that same night.

    When the halftime interval began, France had already secured a 1-0 lead over Iraq. As storm clouds gathered rapidly, stadium officials triggered emergency safety protocols, posting alerts on the main venue scoreboard that instructed all attendees to move immediately to the stadium’s covered concourses and enclosed structures, with a clear warning that a severe thunderstorm system was imminent. Torrential sheets of rain poured down throughout the extended halftime, with crowds of fans huddling together in walkways and under concrete overhangs to wait out the downpour.

    Initially, game organizers anticipated the delay would add just 15 extra minutes to the standard 15-minute halftime break. But as unfavorable weather conditions persisted, the extension stretched on, and officials later updated the crowd that play would only resume once conditions were officially cleared as safe for players and spectators. FIFA’s official safety guidelines mandate that all matches must be halted and seating areas fully evacuated for a minimum of 30 minutes if lightning is detected within an 8-mile radius of the venue, with the 30-minute timer resetting after each new lightning strike.

    Long before the halftime evacuation order, the match had already been affected by wet conditions, as heavy rain began falling in the 37th minute of the first half. Many spectators pulled out waterproof ponchos to stay dry and chose to remain in their seats through the early downpour, only moving when the formal shelter order was issued at halftime. A small handful of attendees opted to ignore the initial warning and stay in their open seats, prompting stadium staff to issue a second public announcement requesting that they relocate to covered safety areas.

  • A brutal gang rape in India revives painful memories of 2012 Delhi assault

    A brutal gang rape in India revives painful memories of 2012 Delhi assault

    Thirteen years after the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape that shook the world and forced India to overhaul its sexual assault laws, a new incident of comparable brutality has emerged from one of India’s most underdeveloped northern states, Bihar, reigniting long-simmering debates over systemic apathy toward gender-based violence across rural India.

    To protect the survivor’s identity in compliance with Indian law, the 28-year-old mother of four is being referred to as Soma, a pseudonym. Speaking to BBC Hindi from her hospital bed, Soma detailed the horrific attack that unfolded on the night of June 11 in her village in Begusarai district, a region officially classified as one of India’s most socially and economically backward.

    On that night, Soma had stepped into the outdoor toilet attached to her family’s cramped one-room home — a space with no door, only a thin cloth curtain for privacy — when five men barged in. The attackers stripped her, bound her hands, gagged her to muffle her screams, and slashed her chest with a blade when she fought back, before gang-raping her and inserting foreign objects, including an empty bullet casing, into her body.

    Trapped inside the home which the attackers had locked from the outside, Soma’s groans were initially mistaken for the sounds of a stray cat by her husband, an e-rickshaw driver. After growing suspicious, he called a neighbor to help break open the lock, and the pair discovered Soma’s battered, unconscious body.

    What followed the attack, women’s rights campaigners say, is a familiar pattern of neglect and insensitivity that sexual assault survivors routinely face from police and medical institutions across rural India. When Soma’s husband carried his wife to the nearest police station three kilometers away, officers refused to register an official complaint and turned the couple away, telling them to seek medical care instead. The local police station head, Rajiv Kumar, has since been suspended by district authorities over confirmed charges of negligence, apathy, and insensitivity. An official First Information Report (FIR) was only registered two days after the attack, on June 13.

    Access to proper medical care proved equally difficult in the immediate aftermath of the assault. A nearby private clinic turned the couple away, claiming it did not handle emergencies and had no on-duty physician. They were then directed to a government community health center, where Soma received only basic first aid before being referred to the district hospital.

    Soma told the BBC that initial medical treatment at the district hospital was deeply inadequate, recalling that even after she regained consciousness on June 12 and explicitly told medical staff she had been gang-raped, staff dismissed her report. Civil Surgeon Ashok Kumar of Begusarai disputed this account, telling the BBC that staff were only informed of the gang rape on June 13, after which an immediate medical examination was conducted. Soma was discharged after the initial exam, but collapsed and lost consciousness again the next day, forcing her return to the hospital. It was only on June 18, after a village midwife alerted the family that a foreign object remained inside Soma’s body, that a spent bullet casing fell out, prompting a second, more thorough examination where doctors removed other remaining objects from her body. District authorities have confirmed that Soma is now in stable condition and recovering.

    As of late June, Begusarai Superintendent of Police Maneesh (who uses a single name) confirmed that the official medical report has verified the sexual assault. Three of the five attackers have been named, two have already been arrested, and a dedicated Special Investigation Team has been formed to launch manhunts for the remaining three accused. Police confirmed that several of the identified suspects have prior criminal records, and have filed formal charges of gang rape against them.

    The horrific details of Soma’s attack have sent shockwaves across India, with countless public figures and activists drawing immediate comparisons to the 2012 Delhi gang rape, where a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was gang-raped and violated with objects on a public bus, later dying from her injuries. That 2012 case sparked global outcry and mass nationwide protests, pushing the Indian government to introduce harsher anti-rape legislation, including the provision of the death penalty for the most brutal cases. Four of the six convicted perpetrators were executed in 2020, one died in prison, and a minor offender was released after a three-year sentence in a youth reform facility.

    Despite the legislative reforms and increased national attention on sexual violence that followed the 2012 attack, official data still records more than 30,000 rape cases across India every year, and activists say the vast majority of cases go unreported, with many never reaching public attention. Anti-rape campaigner Yogita Bhayana argues that India has failed to learn the lessons of the 2012 case, noting that the threat of harsh punishment has never filtered down to rural and marginalized communities, and society has grown desensitized to extreme brutality against women. “Such cases keep happening because the message has not percolated down to every last corner of India that rape can get them capital punishment. Fear has not been instilled in society,” Bhayana told the BBC. She added that Soma’s case only received national media attention because of the shocking detail of the bullet casing, but that Soma’s survival is a small positive in an otherwise devastating case.

    Now recovering in the hospital, Soma says she is in constant pain and distracted by a steady stream of visits from journalists, politicians, and social workers. Her greatest worry remains for her four young children, who are currently staying with relatives 35 kilometers away from the hospital. “I am very worried about my children, they are so young,” she said. “I want to get back home to them soon.”

  • How Keir Starmer supported Israel throughout its genocide in Gaza

    How Keir Starmer supported Israel throughout its genocide in Gaza

    Keir Starmer’s sudden resignation as British prime minister, delivered less than two full years after he secured a historic landslide general election victory, has brought a abrupt end to a premiership undone largely by his inconsistent and deeply unpopular approach to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The collapse of Labour’s public support has benefited rising right-wing party Reform UK and left-wing rivals the Green Party, with new polling confirming more Labour voters defected to the Greens than to Reform in last month’s local elections.

    A recent survey of former Labour supporters who plan to back another centre-left or left-wing party in the next general election found that more than half cited UK collaboration with what they frame as Israel’s genocide in Gaza as the primary reason for abandoning Starmer’s party. These findings underscore how the Gaza conflict, and Starmer’s response to it, has come to define his toxic political legacy.

    Critics across the UK left have condemned Starmer’s tenure as a betrayal of core progressive values. His predecessor as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told Middle East Eye that Starmer “swapped political principles for corporate donors – and leaves behind a legacy of broken pledges, grotesque inequality and complicity in genocide. If that isn’t moral bankruptcy, then what is?” Green Party leader Zack Polanski offered an equally scathing assessment, listing “shit in our rivers, pensioners jailed for protesting, migrants thrown under the bus, supporting a genocide” as Starmer’s core contributions to public life.

    To understand the roots of Starmer’s political downfall over Gaza, it is necessary to trace his shifting positions from his time in opposition through his premiership. The conflict began on 7 October 2023, when a Hamas attack killed roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel. In the months that followed, Israeli military operations in Gaza killed nearly 73,000 Palestinians, wounded more than 170,000, and left thousands more missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble of destroyed infrastructure.

    Immediately after the 7 October attacks, while still leading the Labour opposition, Starmer aligned firmly with the then-Conservative government’s pro-Israel stance. In an 11 October 2023 interview with LBC, when asked whether Israel’s siege of Gaza – involving cuts to power and water access for the entire enclave – was appropriate, Starmer replied: “I think that Israel does have that right, it is an ongoing situation, obviously everything should be done within international law but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has the right to defend herself.” He refused to condemn the collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population for days, only issuing a partial retraction of his comments on 20 October.

    That same November, Starmer ordered all Labour Members of Parliament to reject a Scottish National Party (SNP) parliamentary motion calling for an immediate end to the collective punishment of Palestinians. Weeks later, after an Israeli strike on a Gaza refugee camp killed more than 50 civilians alongside a Hamas commander, Starmer’s shadow foreign secretary David Lammy argued that “it’s clear to me that it’s wrong to bomb a refugee camp but clearly if there is a military objective it can be legally justifiable.”

    In early 2024, Starmer was accused of undermining parliamentary procedure to block a ceasefire motion: reports emerged that he had lobbied House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to break with longstanding convention and allow a watered-down Labour motion to be debated ahead of a stronger SNP ceasefire proposal, effectively killing the latter. The move triggered widespread procedural chaos, with SNP and Conservative MPs walking out of the chamber in protest before Labour’s watered-down amendment passed.

    It was not until later in 2024 that Labour began to draw modest distinctions between its position and that of the outgoing Conservative government. Lammy called on the Conservative administration to publish legal advice it had received on arms sales to Israel, accusing the then-foreign secretary of avoiding democratic scrutiny. In May 2024, Labour broke with the Tories to back the International Criminal Court after its chief prosecutor announced applications for arrest warrants for senior Israeli ministers.

    Once in office, Starmer maintained Britain’s deep military and intelligence cooperation with Israel throughout the campaign in Gaza. Under his premiership, the Royal Air Force conducted at least 518 surveillance flights over Gaza, with British officials claiming the flights were “solely to locate hostages” despite the operation being shrouded in official secrecy. British intelligence collected from these flights was shared directly with Israeli forces, including footage captured on days when Israeli strikes killed British citizens in Gaza.

    One high-profile case that exposed the secrecy around this cooperation was the April 2024 Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including former British Royal Marine James Henderson. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) held RAF surveillance footage of the strike site from the day of Henderson’s death, but repeatedly refused to release the footage under Freedom of Information requests, citing national security and defence exemptions.

    Starmer’s government also enshrined legal protections for roughly 2,000 British-Israeli dual nationals who served in the Israeli military during the Gaza campaign, formally recognising “the right of British dual nationals” to serve in Israeli operations.

    While Starmer never fully broke with the UK’s longstanding pro-Israel posture, his government did adopt some limited policy shifts that put it at odds with the Israeli leadership. Most notably, Starmer’s administration ended Britain’s longstanding objection to the ICC’s jurisdiction over territories occupied by Israel, and imposed sanctions on far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. In June 2026, it became the first British government to formally announce “that there should be no economic involvement in illegal Israeli settlements” in the occupied West Bank, and joined France, Norway, Canada, New Zealand and Australia in imposing new sanctions on networks that fund and enable violent settler attacks against Palestinians. Even so, Starmer resisted widespread calls from his own backbenchers to implement a full ban on imports of goods produced in illegal settlements.

    The most contentious domestic and international debate surrounding Starmer’s Gaza policy centered on UK arms sales to Israel. In September 2024, shortly after taking office, Starmer’s Labour government suspended roughly 30 direct arms export licenses to Israel after an official assessment concluded there was a “clear risk” UK-made weapons could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. This included a suspension of licenses for direct exports of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel. Critically, however, components sent to a global F-35 spare parts pool – which can still be diverted to Israeli aircraft – were exempted from the ban.

    UK-made components make up 15 percent of every F-35, one of the most advanced fighter jets in the world, which Israel deployed extensively across its Gaza campaign as well as strikes in Lebanon and Iran. The Starmer government argued that a full halt to all F-35 component exports would disrupt the entire global F-35 fleet and threaten international security, justifying the partial ban.

    Even with the partial suspension, Starmer’s government approved $169 million in new military exports to Israel in just three months – more than the total value of arms approvals granted by the Conservative government between 2020 and 2023. Lammy, who served as foreign secretary under Starmer, told parliament that most of the exports were “defensive in nature” such as helmets and goggles, and “not what we describe routinely as arms.” Official records show the shipments included 8,630 separate munitions exports classified as “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and other similar munitions.”

    Starmer faced the most damaging internal criticism in March 2025, when a close ally and former cabinet member accused him of deliberately suppressing evidence of Israeli war crimes. Former Health Secretary Wes Streeting told the News Agents podcast that he had shared a dossier of war crime evidence collected by British doctors who had worked in Gaza, only for Starmer to accuse him of leaking the document for political gain. Streeting explained: “I had met British doctors, I had been distressed by what they told me, I had seen serious and substantial allegations of war crimes being committed and I felt this country had a moral and legal responsibility to respond.” Starmer has consistently refused to publicly describe Israeli actions in Gaza as war crimes, and previously walked back comments by Lammy that Israeli operations amounted to a “breach of international law.”

    Throughout his premiership, Starmer’s Gaza policy was marked by growing contradictions. In July 2025, his government announced it would formally recognise a Palestinian state, but infuriated left-wing Labour MPs by tying recognition to a series of preconditions related to Israeli security demands. It ultimately extended recognition in September 2025, triggering a furious diplomatic backlash from the Israeli government.

    These contradictions extended to other areas of foreign policy as well. After aligning closely with United States foreign policy during his time in opposition, Starmer clashed with US President Donald Trump earlier this year even as he continued to cooperate with US military operations against Iran. Starmer initially announced Britain would not participate in February 2026 US strikes on Iran, and told the US it could not use British military bases for the attacks. He quickly reversed course, however, allowing the US to launch strikes on Iranian missile sites from British bases – a move legal experts described as a violation of international law. Starmer then campaigned in last month’s local elections on the claim that he had kept Britain out of the war with Iran.

    At home, Starmer’s government drew accusations of authoritarianism for its crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy. In July 2025, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper designated direct action group Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist organisation, making any public expression of support for the group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison. The High Court initially ruled the proscription was “unlawful” and “discriminatory” following a legal challenge by group co-founder Huda Ammori, but the Court of Appeal overturned that ruling last week after a government appeal. Since the ban was first introduced, thousands of people across the UK have been arrested on terrorism charges for holding pro-Palestine Action signs at silent vigils.

    Last month, high-profile American progressive political commentators Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker were barred from entering the United Kingdom, a move widely attributed to their public criticism of Israel. By contrast, senior Israeli military and political figures have remained welcome in the UK under Starmer: in November 2024, Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi made a secret visit to London to meet UK Attorney General Richard Hermer, and the government granted him special diplomatic immunity for the trip. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar visited in April 2025 to meet Lammy, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a formal meeting with Starmer in London that September.

    Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, summed up the widespread criticism of Starmer’s legacy on Monday, saying: “Starmer’s ‘international record will forever be marred by half measures and inaction in the face of Israel’s atrocities. Under Starmer’s leadership, the UK continued to provide arms to Israel while its forces bombed Gaza’s hospitals into rubble and deliberately starved an entire population of the food and medicines they needed to survive.”

    Ultimately, Starmer’s inconsistent approach to Gaza left him unpopular with virtually all segments of the British electorate. He imposed a partial arms embargo but rejected a full ban, shared British intelligence with Israel while calling for an end to the war, and left office facing accusations from his own former cabinet of covering up evidence of war crimes. It remains to be seen whether the next British prime minister will shift course on UK policy toward Israel and Gaza.

    This article is produced by Middle East Eye, an independent outlet providing unrivaled reporting and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and global issues connected to the region.

  • World Cup what to know: Cristiano Ronaldo aiming to get on track after disappointing start

    World Cup what to know: Cristiano Ronaldo aiming to get on track after disappointing start

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup has already delivered no shortage of star power and memorable storylines through its opening matches, with global superstars Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland living up to their billing as tournament favourites. But one iconic name has found himself at the centre of unexpected scrutiny: 41-year-old Portugal legend Cristiano Ronaldo.

    Ronaldo arrived in North America for this World Cup chasing a unique piece of history, aiming to become the first player to score in five different men’s World Cup tournaments, extending his record to six straight editions. Instead, his opening outing against debutants Congo was far from memorable: the forward squandered two clear second-half scoring chances as Portugal were held to a surprising 1-1 draw, leaving the Portuguese camp hungry for a bounce-back performance. Ronaldo and his side will get that opportunity on Tuesday, when they face Uzbekistan in Houston as they look to get their Group K campaign back on track.

    Portugal entered the tournament as one of the pre-tournament favourites to lift the trophy, and a three points against Uzbekistan are critical to stay in contention for knockout stage qualification. Group K opened with Colombia claiming a full three points in their opener against Uzbekistan, while Congo earned a historic point in their first World Cup appearance in 52 years. The Group K doubleheader concludes on Tuesday night when Colombia face Congo in Guadalajara, Mexico, looking to lock in their place in the knockout round just two matches into the group stage.

    Colombia, who missed out on qualification for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, got off to a flying start in their opener: Liverpool winger Luis Diaz notched one goal and one assist in a 3-1 victory over Uzbekistan, putting them on the cusp of early progression. However, they will face a tough test against a well-organized Congo side that already proved they can frustrate elite opposition by holding Portugal. Congo will look to forward Yoane Wissa, who made history for his nation by scoring their first World Cup goal in 52 years, a first-half stoppage-time header against Portugal, to repeat his heroics against Colombia.

    Alongside the Group K action, three critical Group L matches will unfold across North America on Tuesday, headlined by England’s showdown with Ghana in Foxborough, Massachusetts. English captain Harry Kane has already made history in this tournament, notching a brace in the Three Lions’ opening 4-2 win over Croatia to bring his career World Cup goal tally to 10, matching Gary Lineker’s all-time record for an English player. The result also pushed Kane into a seven-way tie for seventh on the men’s World Cup all-time scoring charts. Against Ghana, Kane has a chance to climb further: one more goal will draw him level with Germany legend Jürgen Klinsmann and Hungary great Sándor Kocsis for sixth on the all-time list. A win over Ghana would also book England’s spot in the knockout stage for the third consecutive World Cup.

    Ghana head into the match surprisingly tied with England atop Group L, having earned a dramatic 1-0 opening win over Panama thanks to Brandon Thomas-Asante’s goal in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time. The Black Stars are targeting their first trip to the World Cup knockout round since a historic quarter-final run in 2010, and enter the match with historical context: England has never lost to an African nation at the World Cup, holding an unbeaten record of five wins and three draws across 88 years of tournament play.

    The day’s opening Group L fixture, which kicks off in Toronto before England face Ghana, is a do-or-die clash between Panama and 2018 runners-up Croatia. Both sides suffered opening-match defeats, leaving them rooted to the bottom of the Group L table, two points back from England and Ghana. For both nations, a loss will all but end their hopes of progressing to the knockout round, while a win keeps their tournament dreams alive. Panama looked set to earn a credible point against Ghana before Thomas-Asante’s late strike broke the deadlock, while Croatia, who finished third in Qatar 2022 and second in Russia 2018, are already on the brink after a 4-2 defeat to England in their opener.

    The busy day of World Cup action is bookended by a series of the tournament’s latest off-field and on-field milestones. Defending champion Argentina already booked their knockout spot after a 2-0 win over Austria, where Messi scored his 17th and 18th World Cup goals, breaking Miroslav Klose’s all-time record of 16 World Cup goals. Messi also notched an unwanted personal record: his first-half missed penalty marked his third non-shootout penalty miss in World Cup play, one more than Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan for the most all-time, while he also set the record for most penalty kicks taken in tournament history.

    Additional late tournament updates include United States star Christian Pulisic returning to team training after missing his side’s last group match with a soft tissue injury, Germany defender Nico Schlotterbeck being ruled out of the rest of the tournament with an ankle injury, and the tournament already seeing a record-breaking goal surge, with 121 goals scored across the first 40 matches, with many analysts crediting the official tournament match ball for the open play scoring surge.

    For fans looking to tune into the full slate of June 22 matches, all fixtures will be broadcast across Fox Sports networks and Peacock in the United States, with Telemundo providing Spanish-language coverage. The full kickoff schedule (in EDT) is as follows: Portugal vs Uzbekistan at 1 p.m. in Houston, England vs Ghana at 4 p.m. in Foxborough, Panama vs Croatia at 7 p.m. in Toronto, and Colombia vs Congo at 10 p.m. in Guadalajara.

  • Iranian foreign minister declares ‘major progress’ in peace talks

    Iranian foreign minister declares ‘major progress’ in peace talks

    High-stakes peace negotiations hosted in Switzerland have achieved “major progress” toward regional de-escalation, Iran’s top diplomat announced late Sunday, even as belligerent threats from former U.S. President Donald Trump and ongoing Israeli military assaults in Lebanon have created severe risks of derailing the talks.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi highlighted that tireless mediation efforts from Pakistan and Qatar have delivered key breakthroughs aligned with the recently signed memorandum of understanding (MOU), including binding commitments to launch a specialized deconfliction cell tasked with overseeing the full termination of Israeli military operations across Lebanon.

    Beyond the Lebanese ceasefire framework, Araghchi confirmed that negotiators have reached consensus on three additional critical points: an end to the long-running U.S. economic blockade on Iran, the unfreezing of a portion of Iran’s overseas sovereign assets, and the adoption of a major national reconstruction and development plan tailored for Iran.

    The Iranian delegation departed the Swiss negotiating venue shortly after Trump issued extreme threats that included vows to assassinate Iranian diplomatic personnel and forcibly “take over” the sovereign state of Iran. These threats directly violate core terms of the existing MOU, which mandates all participating parties to refrain from any threat or use of military force against one another.

    In a joint official statement released Sunday evening, the governments of Pakistan and Qatar, the two lead mediating nations, confirmed that negotiators have finalized a 60-day roadmap to reach a binding final peace agreement. The framework clears the way for immediate technical talks to begin, laying the groundwork for sustained progress.

    “In addition, a direct communication line between the relevant parties has been established to prevent unintended incidents and miscommunication, with the core goal of guaranteeing safe passage for commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,” the joint statement added. “The mediating parties will continue to exert every possible effort to maintain a constructive negotiating environment and advance toward a comprehensive final agreement.”

    The optimistic outlook from Araghchi and the mediator governments comes after the first round of formal talks got off to a rocky start. The Iranian delegation initially delayed its arrival to Switzerland in response to a deadly wave of Israeli airstrikes that targeted southern Lebanon late last week.

    Notably, Israeli leadership is not a participating party to the Swiss negotiations, and it has repeatedly refused to end its military occupation of southern Lebanon — a key sticking block that remains a major obstacle to a final deal ending the broader conflict that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran in late February. Iran has repeatedly stated that the Trump administration must pressure Israeli authorities to end their offensive in Lebanon as a core condition for any final agreement.

    Over the weekend, as talks unfolded in Switzerland, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reaffirmed his government’s hardline stance in a social media post. “Israel has no intention of withdrawing from the Beaufort, which is an integral part of the security zone in Lebanon and essential for the defense of the Galilee settlements and IDF forces,” Katz wrote. He added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and he have repeatedly made clear that Israel will not withdraw from its occupied security zone in Lebanon, leaving a key unresolved hurdle for the ongoing negotiation process.