Global Pulse

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  • The AP Interview: Cyprus president says EU needs a clear playbook on helping members under attack

    The AP Interview: Cyprus president says EU needs a clear playbook on helping members under attack

    As European Union leaders gather in Cyprus for a high-stakes summit this week, the island nation’s president is pushing for urgent progress on a long-unaddressed collective defense rule that has suddenly moved to the top of the bloc’s security agenda. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, President Nikos Christodoulides outlined his priority for the gathering: building a concrete operational framework for the EU’s mutual defense clause, Article 42.7, which has never been activated despite its placement in the bloc’s founding treaties.

    The treaty clause legally obliges all 27 EU member states to provide all possible aid and assistance to any member that faces armed aggression on its territory. However, decades after the clause was written, no standardized protocols exist to guide how member states should respond if a nation formally invokes the provision. “We have Article 42.7 and we don’t know what is going to happen if a member state triggers this article,” Christodoulides explained ahead of the summit, which will also host leaders from four Middle Eastern nations and focus heavily on the ongoing Iran war and its regional spillover risks.

    For Christodoulides, this push for clarity comes from direct, recent experience. Just one month ago, a Shahed drone struck a British air base on Cyprus’ southern coast, located only 129 miles from the Lebanese capital Beirut, from where Cypriot officials assessed the drone was launched. The incident marked the first drone attack on EU territory linked to the Iran war, prompting Christodoulides to activate a call for support from bloc partners. In response, Greece, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal quickly deployed anti-drone capable naval assets to help bolster the island’s defenses, highlighting both the willingness of members to assist and the lack of pre-planned coordination for such events.

    Two key unresolved points top the agenda for drafting the new playbook. First, Christodoulides noted that the majority of EU member states also hold membership in NATO, which has its own collective defense Article 5 that defines an attack on one ally as an attack on all. The EU’s new framework must clarify how dual-member states can coordinate their responses to an EU Article 42.7 call without conflicting with their existing NATO obligations. Second, leaders will need to resolve core unanswered questions: whether any response to an invoked Article 42.7 would be a collective bloc-wide effort modeled on NATO, or limited to neighboring states of the affected country, as well as what types of resources and tools would be deployed for different categories of security crises.

    Beyond the mutual defense planning, the summit will also advance a key Cypriot priority for the bloc’s current presidency: deepening strategic cooperation between the EU and Middle Eastern nations. Christodoulides said he has been encouraged by growing recognition among fellow EU leaders of the urgency of closer ties, which he is advancing through initiatives like the Mediterranean Pact, which delivers targeted programming in health, education and energy across regional partner states. Leaders from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan will attend the informal summit this week, creating a rare opportunity to turn dialogue into tangible, elevated strategic cooperation. Cyprus, he noted, holds unique trust as an intermediary between the Greater Middle East and EU institutions in Brussels. “We can represent the interest of the countries of the Greater Middle East to Brussels, but at the same time, the countries in the region trust Cyprus to represent them in the European Union,” he said.

    Christodoulides also used the interview to champion the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), an ambitious connectivity project designed to link European markets with India via the Middle East, which backers say will boost regional peace, stability and economic integration. Under the Cypriot EU presidency, a new “Friends of IMEC” working group has been launched to advance the initiative, which currently lacks a roster of specific actionable projects. One priority project, the Great Seas Interconnector — an undersea electricity cable that would link the power grids of Greece, Cyprus and eventually Israel — has faced repeated costly delays. Christodoulides added that he sees strong potential for collaboration with the United States to move IMEC forward, framing the project as a mutual benefit for both the EU and Washington.

    The ongoing Iran war has also refocused attention on the EU’s urgent need to diversify its energy supplies, a topic that will feature in summit discussions. Christodoulides confirmed he is in active talks with EU executive leaders about developing Cyprus’ offshore natural gas deposits as a stable alternative supply source for the bloc. He added that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will unveil detailed new proposals on Friday addressing energy costs and advancing the bloc’s goal of greater energy independence.

    Finally, Christodoulides called for faster progress on EU enlargement, noting that the bloc’s repeated delays in accepting new prospective members over the past two years has eroded trust among candidate nations. “So we have a strong geopolitical tool that we are losing mainly because of our mistakes,” he said. While he acknowledged that decision-making has accelerated in recent months, he stressed that enlargement remains one of the EU’s most critical geopolitical tools, requiring concrete, timely action in the near term.

  • A specialized tour at the Berlin Zoo brings joy to people living with dementia

    A specialized tour at the Berlin Zoo brings joy to people living with dementia

    BERLIN — Standing before a foggy aquarium tank at Berlin Zoo, 86-year-old Christel Krueger stared through thick glass at a mother hippopotamus and her calf resting peacefully on a sandbar, caught in a moment of quiet wonder. Krueger was one of several dementia patients participating in a specialized guided tour organized last month by Malteser Deutschland, the German branch of the global Catholic humanitarian organization Malteser Order of Malta.

    On the same excursion, Ingrid Barkow observed roaming elephants from her wheelchair, while 85-year-old Monika Jansen stood on her tiptoes to catch a clearer glimpse of a rhinoceros. “When I get home, I’ll still be thinking about it,” Jansen said. “Maybe even at night, while I’m sleeping and dreaming about it.”

    These three women are part of Germany’s 1.6 million population living with dementia, per data from the country’s National Dementia Strategy office. Experts project that this number will climb to 2.8 million by 2050, mirroring a global growth trend that has pushed cultural and community institutions to develop more accessible programming for affected individuals.

    Over the past decade, cultural venues across the world have expanded their offerings to include barrier-free, specialized guided experiences for marginalized groups. These programs range from sign-language tours for Deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors, touch-focused exhibits for guests with blindness or low vision, to sensory-friendly outings for people on the autism spectrum. It is within this growing movement that Malteser Deutschland’s Berlin chapter launched its dementia-focused cultural program last year.

    “People with dementia aren’t very visible in our society. It’s still a major taboo subject, yet it actually affects a great many people and it’s important that they continue to be at the heart of society,” explained Christine Gruschka, the project’s coordinator. “They have a right to participate, just like everyone else.”

    Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of progressive cognitive conditions that cause gradual decline in memory, reasoning, language skills and other core brain functions. It can also alter personality, emotional regulation and even visual perception. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form, but dozens of other variants exist, each with distinct symptoms and underlying biological causes, affecting hundreds of millions of people globally.

    Malteser Berlin currently runs its dementia-friendly tours at four popular Berlin locations: Berlin Zoo, the Museum of Natural History, Britzer Garden and Charlottenburg Palace, with plans to expand the program to more sites in the coming months. Gruschka noted that standard public tours are rarely suited to the needs of dementia patients: “‘Normal’ tours — so-called normal tours — are often too fast, too loud, with too many people and too many distractions. That’s why we’ve made it our goal to create programs specifically for people with dementia: Where they still feel seen, where they feel comfortable, and where they can still show that they’re still here and can still be part of it.”

    During the Berlin Zoo excursion, tour coordinator Carola Tembrink deliberately skipped most of the zoo’s extensive collection to focus only on the hippo, rhino and elephant habitats, a choice designed to avoid overwhelming participants or leaving them fatigued. Tembrink explained that the zoo holds unique value for this program: “almost everyone who grew up in Berlin has been here as a child. And especially for people with dementia, childhood memories are often still present — they just need to be jogged a bit — and that happens naturally when they see the animals, smell the air as they enter the zoo, or when they go into the rhino house and catch a different scent.”

    Beyond the benefits for participants, the specialized tours have become a critical resource for family caregivers. For those navigating the daily challenges of caring for a loved one with dementia, these outings create space to connect with other people sharing similar experiences.

    Krueger received a formal dementia diagnosis just last year, though her daughter and caregiver Kerstin Hoehne said symptoms first emerged more than two years ago. “What’s nice is that it’s also with, let’s say, like-minded people, that you’re not alone, but that you have a sense of belonging because everyone else might have the same problem,” Hoehne said.

    Manuela Grudda, whose mother Ingrid Barkow participated in the tour, said the outing deepened the bond between them. As Grudda pushed her mother’s wheelchair through the zoo, she pointed out animals and gently rested her hands on her mother’s shoulders. “I can’t really communicate with her in a normal way, of course, but I see that when I show her something, she looks at it, she’s paying attention, and that’s important,” Grudda said. “And it just makes me happy that she’s not just in her own world, but also in this one.”

    This report was produced by the Associated Press Health and Science Department, which receives funding support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP retains full editorial control over all content.

  • Phone tracking shows how Colombian mercenaries backed Sudan’s RSF – report

    Phone tracking shows how Colombian mercenaries backed Sudan’s RSF – report

    Three years into Sudan’s devastating civil war between the regular national army and the powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, a groundbreaking new investigation has delivered the first definitive proof of direct United Arab Emirates (UAE) backing for the RSF through a network of Colombian mercenaries. A new report by the Conflict Insights Group (CIG), an independent security analysis organization, ties this mercenary network directly to the RSF’s brutal 2025 capture of the strategic North Darfur capital el-Fasher — a turning point in the conflict that triggered some of its worst atrocities.

    CIG director Justin Lynch emphasized that while the organization has long tracked growing evidence of extensive Emirati military support to the RSF, this investigation marks the first time that link has been proven beyond doubt. “We are making public what governments have long known — that there is a direct, operational link between Abu Dhabi and the RSF’s war effort,” Lynch said in the report’s introduction.

    To build its case, CIG combined multiple open-source intelligence methods, most notably tracking more than 50 mobile phones belonging to Colombian mercenary operatives active across Sudan between April 2025 and January 2026. The tracking relied on commercially available location technology originally built for targeted advertising, supplemented by flight logs, satellite imagery, social media content, and peer-reviewed academic research. The team traced mercenary movements through a clear logistical and training pipeline originating in Colombia and routed through UAE-controlled facilities.

    One of the most striking pieces of evidence comes from the devices themselves, which were overwhelmingly configured to Spanish, Colombia’s official language. Investigators traced one device from Colombia to Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport, then to a dedicated Emirati military training facility in Ghayathi, where four other Spanish-language devices were also detected. Two of these devices later traveled to Sudan’s South Darfur state, with one moving on to Nyala, the RSF’s de facto capital in the region. While in Nyala — already identified by analysts as a key hub for RSF drone operations and Colombian mercenary activity — the device connected to public Wi-Fi networks explicitly named “ANTIAEREO” (Spanish for “anti-aircraft”) and “AirDefense.” In total, CIG documented more than 40 Spanish-language devices linked to mercenaries across the Nyala area.

    In another high-profile case, CIG tracked a Colombian mercenary’s device directly to el-Fasher during the final weeks of the RSF’s 18-month siege, which ended with the group seizing the city in October 2025. While operating inside el-Fasher, the device connected to a Wi-Fi network named “ATACADOR” — Spanish for “attacker.” Multiple other Colombian-linked devices were also detected in the city during the takeover, the report confirms.

    The mercenary network operates under the banner of the Desert Wolves brigade, with fighters serving as drone pilots, artillery operators, and combat instructors for the RSF. Multiple devices linked to brigade members connected to Wi-Fi networks named “DRONES” and “LOBOS DEL DISIERTO” — a Spanish spelling of “Desert Wolves.” According to Colombian digital outlet La Silla Vacía, the brigade is led by retired Colombian army Colonel Alvaro Quijano, who is based in the UAE and already subject to U.S. and UK sanctions for his role recruiting Colombians to fight in Sudan. The CIG report confirms the Desert Wolves are employed and funded by a UAE-based company with documented direct ties to senior Emirati government officials, matching evidence obtained by La Silla Vacía.

    Beyond Sudan, CIG also detected Spanish-language mercenary devices at two key regional logistics hubs tied to the UAE: a port in Somalia and a town in southeastern Libya that analysts have long identified as a key transit point for weapons flowing to the RSF, allegedly facilitated by the Emirates.

    The capture of el-Fasher stands as one of the bloodiest episodes of Sudan’s three-year civil war, which has already spawned the world’s worst active humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands of people have been killed across the country, and more than 10 million have been forced to flee their homes. After the fall of el-Fasher, International Criminal Court prosecutors categorized the accompanying mass violence as war crimes and crimes against humanity, while United Nations investigators found the atrocities bore the “hallmarks of genocide.”

    “The scale of atrocities and the prolonged siege of el-Fasher would not have been possible without the specialized drone operations that these Colombian mercenaries provided to the RSF,” Lynch said, noting the mercenary network also directly supported the siege operation. The CIG report concludes that both the UAE and the Colombian mercenary network share responsibility for the war crimes committed in el-Fasher.

    The UAE has long rejected all claims that it provides military backing to the RSF, describing previous allegations as “false and unfounded” and condemning el-Fasher atrocities in the strongest terms. The BBC has requested comment from the Emirati government on the CIG’s new findings, and no response has been issued as of publication.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro has previously condemned the recruitment of Colombian citizens to fight in Sudan, calling the mercenaries “spectres of death” and framing the recruitment network as a form of human trafficking. Estimates place the total number of Colombian mercenaries fighting for the RSF in the low hundreds. U.S. authorities have already imposed sanctions twice on Colombian nationals and linked firms for mercenary recruitment activity in Sudan — most recently just last week — and have confirmed Colombian fighters supported the RSF’s el-Fasher capture, but have not yet drawn a direct official link to the UAE.

    Independent analysts have long agreed that sustained foreign military and financial support for both the RSF and Sudan’s regular army has been the single most critical factor allowing the civil war to continue and expand over the past three years.

  • Japan records 5th straight fiscal year of trade deficits as Trump’s tariffs hit auto exports

    Japan records 5th straight fiscal year of trade deficits as Trump’s tariffs hit auto exports

    TOKYO – Japan has extended its streak of annual trade deficits to five consecutive fiscal years, according to official data released Wednesday by the Japanese government. The nation recorded a 1.7 trillion yen ($10.7 billion) deficit in the 12-month period ending March 2025, marking the fifth straight shortfall despite modest growth in exports across the full year.

    Finance Ministry figures show that overall Japanese exports climbed 4% year-over-year in the full fiscal year, while import volumes edged up by only 0.5% amid shifting global demand and commodity price stabilization. The biggest drag on annual export performance came from the United States market, where former U.S. President Donald Trump’s legacy of elevated tariffs on Japanese and other Asian imports has hit the country’s key manufacturing sectors particularly hard. Total Japanese exports to the U.S. dropped 6.6% over the full fiscal year, with auto shipments — one of Japan’s flagship export categories — plummeting 16% amid the ongoing tariff regime.

    To mitigate the impact of U.S. trade policy shifts, most of Japan’s largest automotive manufacturers, including industry leader Toyota Motor Corp., have shifted the bulk of their production to North American and other regional facilities to build vehicles close to their end markets. Even with this strategic relocation, a number of Japanese automakers still ship a large share of their specialty and high-volume models directly from Japan to the U.S., leaving them exposed to ongoing tariff costs.

    Encouragingly, latest monthly data points to an emerging turnaround for Japan’s export sector. In March alone, the country’s trade surplus jumped 26% from the same month a year earlier, with overall exports surging nearly 11.7% year-over-year and imports rising by 10.9%. The strong March performance signals that Japanese exporters are gradually bouncing back from the macroeconomic shocks that dampened trade over the previous year.

    Beyond trade policy headwinds, Japan also faces growing energy security risks tied to ongoing conflict in the Middle East. As a nation that imports nearly 100% of its oil and natural gas to power its economy, Japan is deeply vulnerable to any disruptions to Middle Eastern energy shipments, particularly amid the Iran conflict that has threatened traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — the strategic chokepoint that carries the bulk of Asia’s energy supplies, which is effectively closed to commercial traffic due to the fighting.

    Energy disruptions would carry ripple effects beyond just power generation for Japan: reduced oil supplies would cut production of naphtha-derived products, a core input for manufacturing medical supplies and a wide range of plastic goods critical to both industrial and consumer sectors. To ease public anxiety over potential shortages, the Japanese government has highlighted that the country holds 254 days of strategic oil reserves, a system established after the 1970s global oil crisis to prepare for exactly such supply emergencies. Authorities have already begun releasing portions of these reserves to keep global and domestic markets stable, and are also accelerating work to develop alternative oil shipping routes that bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

  • World’s biggest condom maker to raise prices due to Iran war

    World’s biggest condom maker to raise prices due to Iran war

    The ongoing conflict between Iran and the US-Israel coalition is rippling far beyond global energy markets, now threatening to push up consumer prices for a critical everyday product: condoms. Goh Miah Kiat, chief executive officer of Malaysia-based Karex — the world’s largest condom manufacturer — has announced that the company could raise retail prices by as much as 30%, with even steeper increases possible if hostilities continue to disrupt key raw material supplies.

    Karex is an industry powerhouse, churning out more than five billion condoms annually to supply major global brands including Durex and Trojan, as well as public health systems such as the UK’s National Health Service. In recent interviews with Reuters and Bloomberg, Goh explained that production costs have skyrocketed since the outbreak of the conflict, driven by widespread disruptions to oil and petrochemical supplies that the company depends on.

    The crisis centers on the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital maritime chokepoints. After Iran responded to US and Israeli airstrikes by threatening to target commercial shipping passing through the waterway, the strait has effectively been closed to regular traffic. Approximately 20% of the world’s crude oil, liquefied natural gas, and key petrochemical products normally move through this route, so the closure has sent shockwaves through global supply chains.

    For Karex, this disruption hits directly at its core production inputs. The manufacturer relies on petroleum-derived materials for its products: ammonia, a petrochemical byproduct used to preserve latex, and silicone-based lubricants, both of which have seen sharp price increases and supply shortages since the strait closure.

    Compounding the issue, demand for condoms has already jumped by roughly 30% globally this year. Elevated freight costs and widespread shipping delays have further tightened supplies, creating a perfect storm of constrained production and rising consumer need. Goh noted that this demand surge follows a clear trend during periods of economic and geopolitical uncertainty: when people face unclear job prospects and future instability, they are far more likely to prioritize avoiding unplanned pregnancies. “In bad times, the need to use condoms is even more because you’re uncertain with your future, whether you’d still have a job next year,” he told Bloomberg. “If you have a baby right now, you’ll have one more mouth to feed.”

    The impending price increase at Karex highlights a little-discussed downstream impact of the Iran conflict: while much of the global focus has been on rising energy prices, the disruption to petrochemical supply chains is pushing up costs for a huge range of consumer goods that few people connect to oil markets.

    As of Wednesday, the outlook for de-escalation remains uncertain. US President Donald Trump has announced he will extend a bilateral ceasefire between the US and Iran while peace negotiations progress, but there has been no clear update on the status of talks or a timeline for a lasting resolution.

  • Young Chinese use AI to launch one-person firms over job anxiety

    Young Chinese use AI to launch one-person firms over job anxiety

    Against a backdrop of persistent workplace anxiety and widespread age discrimination, a growing number of young Chinese professionals are turning to artificial intelligence to launch independent one-person companies, reshaping China’s startup landscape and offering a new path to address soaring youth unemployment.

    The so-called “curse of 35” has long been a source of unease for Chinese workers: in competitive sectors ranging from tech to government roles, an unspoken “invisible line” at age 35 often leaves workers facing re-evaluation, layoffs, or stalled career growth. Compounding this anxiety is the rapid advancement of AI itself, which many young professionals fear will displace their traditional corporate roles. This confluence of pressures has pushed a new cohort to strike out on their own, leveraging AI to build viable solo ventures.

    Karen Dai, founder of Shanghai-based entrepreneur community SoloNest and author of *One Person Company*, explains that AI has fundamentally lowered the barrier to entry for solo entrepreneurship. “In the past, it was nearly impossible to run an entire business alone,” she notes. “Now AI can handle a huge range of routine tasks, making the model not just feasible, but accessible.” Every weekend, Dai hosts sold-out idea-swapping events for aspiring solo founders; her most recent gathering drew nearly 20 attendees in their 20s and 30s, all eager to chart their own independent paths.

    For many, the model is already delivering tangible results. Wang Tianyi, a 26-year-old who quit his corporate product manager role at a major Chinese internet firm last year, now earns up to 40,000 yuan ($5,800) per month creating AI-generated commercial advertisements for small and medium businesses. He frames the rise of one-person AI-powered companies as an inevitable shift, pointing to transformative efficiency gains from technological empowerment. “AI lets one person do the work that once required an entire team,” he says, predicting solo entrepreneurship will become a major trend in China’s economy in the coming years.

    Wei Xin, a 34-year-old Shanghai resident who previously worked as a document reviewer at a foreign consulting firm, began preparing for her transition before AI displaced her role. After returning to China from completing a degree in the United States, she trained on Google’s Gemini AI model, experimented with building an AI-generated digital twin of herself, and ultimately launched a social media content creation business. “There is a bit of AI anxiety, but I see it as an opportunity,” she explains. “If I avoided learning and using it, I would be eliminated sooner or later.”

    This grassroots shift has aligned neatly with both national policy goals and local government efforts to tackle youth unemployment. Beijing has prioritized advancing technological self-reliance, and local municipalities across China have rolled out targeted incentives to support these AI-powered ventures, officially dubbed “OPCs” (one-person companies) — a rare use of English initialism in official Chinese policy.

    In November, Suzhou, a major manufacturing and tech hub in eastern China, announced plans to cultivate more than 10,000 OPC talents by 2028, with 700 million yuan ($100 million) in earmarked funding for AI robotics, healthcare, smart transportation, and other AI-focused sectors. Last month, Chengdu, the capital of southwestern Sichuan province, launched a subsidy program offering up to 20,000 yuan for new college graduates who launch AI-driven one-person firms.

    Kyle Chan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on China’s technology development, describes these incentives as “carrots to help these startups get off the ground and be successful.” For local governments, supporting OPCs is a low-cost strategy to address China’s persistent youth unemployment crisis, where roughly one in six people aged 16 to 24 remain out of work. “The cost of supporting an OPC for local governments is very low compared to attracting large corporate investments,” Chan notes, making the model an attractive policy option.

    Still, challenges remain for these new solo ventures. Wang notes that while launching a business has become far easier with AI, many new founders struggle to commercialize their offerings and turn a consistent profit. “Getting started isn’t the hard part — the hard part is learning how to sell your work,” he says.

    Despite these hurdles, for many young founders, the model offers something traditional corporate roles cannot: autonomy. “Young people are building backup plans, and asking themselves: can I, with my own two hands and the help of AI, explore the things I actually want to do?” Dai says. “This comes with a real sense of control, and of creativity that you can’t find in a traditional job.”

    The trend mirrors a broader global shift: small, AI-powered solo startups have already grown popular in Silicon Valley and other global tech hubs, where AI is both a threat to traditional corporate jobs and a catalyst for a new wave of small-scale entrepreneurship. In China, the combination of grassroots anxiety, technological advancement, and government support has accelerated this shift, turning the one-person AI company from a niche experiment into a growing economic force.

  • Mexico officials say Teotihuacán gunman carried material related to US mass shooting

    Mexico officials say Teotihuacán gunman carried material related to US mass shooting

    On April 21, 2026, a premeditated shooting at one of Mexico’s most iconic tourist landmarks, the ancient Pyramid of the Moon in the Teotihuacán archaeological complex, left one person dead and 13 others injured, prompting a swift response from national authorities who have moved to reassure the public ahead of this summer’s FIFA World Cup.

    According to official details released by Mexican leadership at a Tuesday press briefing, the attacker was 27-year-old Mexican national Julio César Jasso Ramírez. When he carried out the attack, he brought a loaded handgun, dozens of extra ammunition cartridges, a knife, and printed materials referencing notorious violent incidents that have occurred around the world. Top law enforcement officials confirmed that Jasso Ramírez planned and executed the attack entirely on his own, with no connections to larger extremist groups or organized criminal networks. After a standoff with responding law enforcement, the attacker ultimately died by suicide on the site.

    The dead victim of the attack was identified as a 32-year-old Canadian tourist. Thirteen other people ranging in age from 6 to 61 were injured in the shooting; seven of those injured suffered gunshot wounds, including two minor tourists from Colombia and Brazil. Responding officers included a member of Mexico’s National Guard and a local municipal police officer, who scaled the steep steps of the ancient pyramid to corner the attacker. The National Guard member shot Jasso Ramírez in the leg in an attempt to disable him before the attacker turned the gun on himself.

    Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters that preliminary investigations show the attacker displayed clear signs of unaddressed psychological distress and had been radicalized by prior high-profile mass shootings carried out abroad. State of Mexico Attorney General José Luis Cervantes Martínez confirmed that among the attacker’s belongings, investigators found documents, imagery and written materials referencing the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the United States. One eyewitness tourist told Reuters that Jasso Ramírez explicitly referenced the Columbine attack during the shooting, which took place exactly 27 years to the day after the 1999 massacre.

    Investigators added that the attack was far from impulsive. Jasso Ramírez had made repeated trips to the Teotihuacán complex, located roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) northwest of Mexico City, in advance of the attack, and arrived at the site shortly before noon local time on Monday. Witness cell phone footage captured from the scene captured the chaos of the incident: visitors can be seen scrambling for cover as multiple gunshots ring out, while Jasso Ramírez can be heard making threats against crowds of tourists.

    In the aftermath of the attack, the entire Teotihuacán archaeological site — a UNESCO World Heritage Site that draws roughly 1.8 million visitors annually — was closed to allow for forensic investigation and security adjustments. President Sheinbaum announced the site will reopen to visitors on Wednesday with newly implemented enhanced security protocols. The president also acknowledged that prior to the attack, most Mexican archaeological sites including Teotihuacán did not have entrance security checkpoints in place. In response, she has ordered immediate security upgrades at all tourist and archaeological sites across the country, including the installation of permanent metal detectors at Teotihuacán and other high-traffic landmarks.

    With less than two months to go before the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Mexico City on June 11, President Sheinbaum moved quickly to reassure domestic and international audiences that security for the global tournament will be fully guaranteed. The president noted that she has already held in-depth talks with FIFA organizers to review logistics and security planning for the tournament. She emphasized that Mexico remains a safe destination for travelers, pointing to the 16 million international visitors that entered the country between January and February of 2026 as evidence of the country’s ongoing ability to welcome tourists safely.

  • Delicate extraction: Malaysia offers rare earths alternative to China

    Delicate extraction: Malaysia offers rare earths alternative to China

    Against a backdrop of growing global anxiety over China’s control of the global rare earths market, Australian mining giant Lynas is expanding its rare earth refining operations in eastern Malaysia, positioning itself as a leading alternative supplier for the critical minerals that underpin modern technology and clean energy.

  • Domestic workers legally recognised in Indonesia after ’22-year struggle’

    Domestic workers legally recognised in Indonesia after ’22-year struggle’

    After more than two decades of stalled negotiations and persistent grassroots advocacy, Indonesia’s parliament has finally enacted a groundbreaking law that formally recognizes and protects the rights of the nation’s 4.2 million domestic workers, a workforce overwhelmingly made up of women.

    For years, this critical segment of the Indonesian labor force existed in a legal gray area: prior to this new legislation, domestic workers were not officially classified as workers under national labor regulations, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and poverty with no formal recourse. An estimated 90% of all domestic workers in Indonesia are women, many of whom have long faced systemic marginalization in informal work arrangements that lack basic social protections.

    The Domestic Workers Protection Law, which was first introduced to legislative chambers back in 2004, delivers sweeping new guarantees for domestic workers across the country. Under the new framework, workers will be legally entitled to paid rest days, public health insurance coverage, and formal pension benefits. The legislation also bars recruitment and placement agencies from withholding any portion of workers’ wages as placement fees, and imposes an outright ban on child domestic labor, making it illegal to hire any person under the age of 18 for full-time domestic work.

    Emotional reactions greeted the final passage of the bill, with many long-time advocates and domestic workers describing the moment as the fruition of a decades-long fight for dignity. “It feels like a dream,” Ajeng Astuti, a domestic worker, told BBC Indonesian. “This is our 22-year struggle as marginalized women to gain protection.” Jumiyem, a domestic worker based in Yogyakarta, echoed that sentiment, saying “We’ve been longing for this [law], and now we can feel it.”

    The legislation faced repeated setbacks over its 22-year journey to passage: after its initial introduction in 2004, the bill hit one legislative roadblock after another, with parliamentary discussions put on hold for more than a decade before being revived for debate in 2020. Now that the bill has been signed into law, national regulators have one year to develop detailed implementing regulations that will lay out how the new protections will be enforced across the country.

    Before the new law, even as domestic workers played an unseen but foundational role in Indonesian households and the broader national economy, millions remained completely outside the protection of existing labor laws. Most worked in informal arrangements with no written employment contract, many logging 12-hour or longer workdays for substandard wages, and reports have documented children as young as 12 being pushed into full-time domestic work.

    While human and labor rights organizations have widely praised the law as a historic step forward for worker protections, they caution that the work to secure dignity for domestic workers is far from finished. Lita Anggraini, a representative of Jala PRT, one of Indonesia’s leading domestic worker advocacy groups, told AFP that widespread public education campaigns will be critical to inform employers of their new legal obligations under the law.

    Advocacy groups point to ongoing systemic abuse that the new law must address: between 2021 and 2024, Jala PRT documented more than 3,300 reported cases of violence against domestic workers, including instances of severe physical assault and ongoing psychological abuse. The new legal framework marks the first major national effort to curb these abuses and bring millions of marginalized workers under the protection of the law.

  • Alicia Gardiner: Australian actor to take stand in hearing over alleged breast twist assault

    Alicia Gardiner: Australian actor to take stand in hearing over alleged breast twist assault

    A high-profile Australian television actor is scheduled to take the witness stand this week as a legal hearing examines a contentious assault allegation stemming from a pro-Palestinian protest inside Victoria’s Parliament House in Melbourne.

    Alicia Gardiner, widely recognized for her long-running role on the hit series *Offspring* and more recent appearances in *Deadloch*, stands accused of intentionally twisting a female parliamentary staff member’s breast on the afternoon of May 7, 2024. The incident unfolded moments after a group of protestors were removed from the building’s public gallery for demonstrating against the Israel-Hamas conflict. Security body-worn camera footage played in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday captured the crowd chanting slogans including “free free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea” as they were escorted out of the parliamentary complex.

    Prosecutors claim the alleged assault took place just after 1 p.m. near the door to the state’s legislative chamber, where the staff member was stationed. One witness testifying at the hearing told the court he pushed back a woman in blue—who prosecutors identify as Gardiner—when she attempted to enter the restricted chamber area. He told the court he then observed her in a physical tussle with his colleague, the alleged victim. The witness added that moments after the confrontation, police protective services officers arrived on the scene, and when he checked on his colleague afterward, she appeared visibly shaken and shocked by the encounter.

    Gardiner has repeatedly denied that she intentionally assaulted the staff member. Her defense lawyer, Angeline Centrone, told the court Wednesday that any physical contact between her client and the complainant was accidental. Centrone explained that Gardiner had raised her hands to steady herself amid the chaotic crowd crush that followed the protest dispersal, and any contact with the staff member was an unintended result of that movement.

    The ongoing hearing, overseen by Magistrate Malcolm Thomas, continued Wednesday with Gardiner expected to give her own testimony to the court later that afternoon. No verdict has been delivered as the proceedings are still underway.