Global Pulse

分类： world

  • After killing hundreds in boat strikes, US military expands campaign on land in Latin America

    After killing hundreds in boat strikes, US military expands campaign on land in Latin America

    One year after the U.S. military launched a lethal campaign of airstrikes targeting boats accused of trafficking drugs off Latin America’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that has killed hundreds of people, the second Trump administration is moving to expand this operation onto dry land — negotiating agreements to deploy American ground forces in partner nations across the region, a move that has already ignited fierce debate over national sovereignty and civilian harm.

    U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the announcement last week during an official visit to Panama, revealing that Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras had already signed on to allow joint U.S.-local military operations against organized criminal groups on their territory. Ecuador became the first country to launch such joint missions back in March, but Hegseth’s claim of a Guatemalan agreement has been flatly denied by Guatemala City.

    Speaking alongside troops during a jungle military drill in Panama, Hegseth framed the land expansion as a natural extension of the existing at-sea strikes. “Same effect on land,” he said. “And so we’re working with Ecuador. We’re working with Colombia. We’re working with partners to bring the fight to the (designated terrorist organizations) on land.”

    This planned expansion marks a definitive new phase of the Trump administration’s broader regional strategy, which aims to pressure Latin American governments to align with U.S. security priorities and cement what the White House describes as “American dominance over the Western Hemisphere.” In recent months, a growing wave of Trump-aligned conservative leaders have won election across the region, giving Washington a cohort of more receptive partners to advance its agenda. But independent analysts and regional observers warn that the widening U.S. military footprint carries severe risks: mounting civilian casualties, and a widespread popular backlash against American intervention that will outlive the current Republican administration.

    Michael Shifter, a leading Latin America expert at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue think tank, argued the campaign is less about cooperative counter-narcotics efforts and more about projecting American power. “What’s going on is an attempt to legitimize the increased use of the U.S. military in the region,” Shifter explained. “It projects power, demonstrates military superiority and enables Washington to impose its agenda. This is not cooperation, it’s obviously a very asymmetrical relationship.”

    The United States has maintained a military presence in Latin America for generations, providing allied governments with weapons, intelligence, and training to counter drug trafficking, but this history is marred by a controversial legacy of U.S. support for military coups and authoritarian dictatorships. Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, his administration has pursued the most interventionist U.S. policy toward the region in decades.

    To date, the administration has blacklisted 20 Latin American criminal groups as official “foreign terrorist organizations”, deployed U.S. special forces to Venezuela to capture former president Nicolás Maduro, and embedded CIA agents in drug lab raids across Mexico. The year-long boat strike campaign has killed more than 200 people in over 60 separate attacks across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, but the administration has released little public evidence confirming that those killed were actually “narco-terrorists”, prompting widespread scrutiny of the strikes’ legality and proportionality.

    William LeoGrande, a Latin America specialist at American University, noted that sustained frontline combat operations conducted jointly with local forces are a sharp break from past U.S. engagement in the region, and will test long-held regional sensitivities over national sovereignty and foreign military presence on Latin American soil. “This is new and different,” LeoGrande said.

    Hegseth released few concrete details about what the planned joint operations in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras will actually entail, including force levels, rules of engagement, or command structure. In Colombia, where Trump-backed President Abelardo de la Espriella just took office earlier this month, Hegseth raised the prospect of U.S. troops joining direct strikes against the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s last remaining large guerrilla group. According to Hegseth, de la Espriella has explicitly requested expanded U.S. military involvement. De la Espriella doubled down on this hardline position Saturday, vowing that ELN rebels would “pay a high price” for a recent drone attack on Colombian government troops.

    Hegseth framed the expanded campaign by equating drug trafficking groups with the transnational Islamic extremist networks that dominated U.S. national security strategy for decades after the 9/11 attacks. “Anywhere you traffic drugs or you threaten the American people or our partners, you are a target just like ISIS or al-Qaida,” he said.

    Ecuador already offers a clear preview of how joint operations function in practice. The country launched its bilateral raids with the U.S. earlier this year, even after 2025 a national referendum saw an overwhelming majority of Ecuadorian voters reject the establishment of any foreign military bases on Ecuadorian soil. A recent investigation by The New York Times found that one March strike targeting an alleged drug camp instead destroyed a working cattle farm, causing unreported civilian damage.

    The push for new agreements has made the most progress among the Trump administration’s ideological allies: conservative leaders who won recent elections on promises of aggressive crackdowns on rampant violent crime. Guatemala stands out as a key exception. While its progressive government has maintained close security cooperation with Washington despite political differences, President Bernardo Arévalo has explicitly denied agreeing to joint anti-drug operations, noting that any such agreement would be illegal without formal approval from Guatemala’s congress. Honduras, Colombia and Ecuador have not responded to requests for comment on Hegseth’s recent remarks. Mexico, a critical source and transit hub for fentanyl and other illicit drugs bound for the United States, has remained outside the emerging anti-trafficking alliance. Progressive Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has maintained close security cooperation with Washington, but has repeatedly resisted mounting U.S. pressure to allow American military forces to operate against cartels on Mexican territory.

    Adam Isacson, a defense analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, noted that even sympathetic right-leaning governments may ultimately balk at the terms of expanded U.S. military involvement. “Ultimately, the United States will have to define what ‘joint operations’ means in each of these countries. It may discover pretty quickly that this is something most governments — even governments on the right — are quite uncomfortable with,” Isacson said.

    Regional and security experts have raised widespread questions about whether a more militarized approach will actually deliver long-term improvements in public security. Shifter argued the campaign is at least partially a public demonstration of U.S. power, coming on the heels of the capture of Maduro in Venezuela, as the Trump administration seeks to offset high-profile foreign policy setbacks in other regions, most notably the Middle East.

    Other observers warn the strategy carries a high risk of civilian casualties, particularly in Colombia, where armed groups operate embedded within civilian communities and often function as the de facto ruling authority in remote regions outside government control. Jeremy McDermott, co-director of Bogotá-based investigative outlet InSight Crime, argued that large-scale military strikes are unlikely to eliminate these groups, and will instead push them to adapt in ways that harm local populations. “The U.S. bombs an ELN camp in Colombia or in Venezuela, what is the first thing the ELN are going to do? They’re going to dismantle all their camps and move into the villages and towns,” McDermott explained.

    In the long term, experts warn that deeper U.S. military involvement will put regional leaders in a difficult position, forcing them to balance domestic demands for greater security against widespread public anger over the surrender of national sovereignty. This pressure could ultimately constrain even the Trump administration’s closest allies. “All of these presidents, no matter how far right they are, face pressure to do something about security and to make a show of pursuing the ‘bad guys’ who are making people feel unsafe. There is broad agreement on that,” Isacson said. “But they also know there is only so much sovereignty they can cede before public opinion begins turning against them.”

    This report was coordinated by DeBre from Buenos Aires, Argentina, with additional reporting from Associated Press journalists based across the region: Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City, Marlon González in Tegucigalpa, and Astrid Suárez in Bogotá.

  • Ukrainian strikes kill six in Russia, acting governor says

    Ukrainian strikes kill six in Russia, acting governor says

    A fresh wave of reciprocal deadly strikes between Russia and Ukraine has left at least 13 people dead across both territories, escalating a rapid intensification of cross-border attacks that has marked the latest phase of the full-scale war now in its fourth year.

    Acting governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, a border area that has faced frequent attacks amid the conflict, Alexander Shuvaev, confirmed via a Telegram post Monday that six people were killed and four more injured in overnight Ukrainian missile strikes on the region. Among the wounded was a 14-year-old child, who was transported to a hospital for treatment, while two additional injured people received on-site medical care. The attack damaged a local building and set fire to a vehicle in the village of Koloskovo, located in Valuysky district just kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border.

    This latest strike came just 24 hours after Russian officials described what they called the largest-scale Ukrainian attack on Russian territory so far this year. That assault, launched Saturday night, saw Ukraine deploy a total of 822 drones across multiple Russian regions, with more than 600 of those unmanned vehicles targeting Moscow alone. Russian regional authorities called the assault on the capital one of the most massive drone strikes it has faced in recent years.

    Saturday’s attack left seven people dead across Russia: five in the southwestern Rostov region, one woman killed when a civilian bus in Belgorod was hit, and an 83-year-old man who died in a drone strike in the Moscow region. A major logistics warehouse belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest e-commerce retailer often dubbed the country’s equivalent to Amazon, was also damaged. Ukraine’s defense ministry confirmed Sunday that it has repeatedly targeted Wildberries facilities since July, and that the latest strikes have disabled seven out of the company’s 10 largest logistics hubs.

    Russia responded immediately to the Ukrainian drone offensive with its own intensified wave of missile and bomb strikes across Ukraine over the weekend, which left seven Ukrainians dead and more than 39 others injured. In Zaporizhzhia, one man and one woman were killed when a guided aerial bomb struck a private residence, with five additional fatalities recorded in attacks across other Ukrainian regions. On Monday, Ukrainian national energy company Naftogaz announced that Russian forces had targeted its energy infrastructure facilities 13 times across the country over the preceding seven days.

    One of the Russian strikes on Kyiv Saturday night hit an open-air book market in the city’s Pochayna district, leaving charred books scattered across the ground in images released to media. Russia stated that its strikes on the capital targeted two military-related facilities: a FirePoint production site manufacturing parts for Ukrainian Flamingo missiles, and a factory producing components for Ukrainian unmanned combat drones.

    Speaking this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that Russian attacks have hit 13 of the country’s regions over the past seven days, with Russian forces launching over 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles against targets inside Ukraine. Both Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly denied intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure and civilian populations, and each accuses the other of attacking non-military sites as a tactic of war.

    Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently maintains control of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory. Over recent weeks, Kyiv has dramatically stepped up the frequency and scale of drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, targeting infrastructure and military sites hundreds of kilometers from the front line.

  • Thousands in Indonesia await aid after quake kills 54, overshadowing Independence Day

    Thousands in Indonesia await aid after quake kills 54, overshadowing Independence Day

    As Indonesia marked its 79th Independence Day on Monday, thousands of survivors on the island of Flores remained stranded without critical assistance, just three days after a powerful seismic event devastated the region, claiming at least 54 lives, wounding scores of people and destroying or damaging hundreds of structures across the area.

    The weekend disaster upended life for communities across East Nusa Tenggara province, leaving residents to spend their national holiday mourning lost loved ones, searching for missing family members and enduring long waits for life-saving aid to reach cut-off villages that remain inaccessible after the quake. Official data from Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency confirms that more than 1,300 residential buildings suffered damage across the province, with nearly 250 homes completely reduced to rubble on Flores alone. The disaster forced roughly 5,000 people to flee their homes and seek refuge in temporary emergency shelters, while the total number of injured residents climbed to 135. On Sunday, the province’s governor officially declared a 14-day state of emergency to coordinate response efforts.

    According to measurements from the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) just before 6 a.m. local time on Saturday. Immediately after the initial tremor, authorities issued a tsunami warning that sparked panic among local residents who fled to higher ground, before the alert was ultimately lifted hours later. In the days since the main quake, geological teams have recorded more than 995 aftershocks, though only 46 have been strong enough to be felt by local communities. The persistent risk of additional strong aftershocks has forced thousands of Flores residents to camp outside damaged or destroyed homes under makeshift tarpaulin shelters overnight, too afraid to return to unstable structures.

    An on-the-ground assessment by an Associated Press photojournalist revealed widespread destruction across the hardest-hit parts of the island. Fallen tree debris blocks critical access roads, while large boulders dislodged by earthquake-triggered landslides litter slopes and pathways. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, with many homes completely shattered or left structurally unsound. Parked vehicles were crushed when adjacent multi-story buildings collapsed during the initial tremor.

    For many long-time residents of Flores, the scale of destruction has brought back traumatic memories of a devastating 1992 earthquake and tsunami that struck the same island, killing an estimated 2,500 people. Rasyid Jafar, a clothing trader based in Reo – the epicenter of the latest disaster in Manggarai regency – shared that his entire home had been reduced to rubble in the quake. “We need food, medicine and clean water urgently,” Jafar said.

    Mariana Tewu, another Reo villager, echoed that frustration, noting that even as small amounts of aid have begun to trickle into the area, survivors still lack basic infrastructure to prepare meals. “We have nothing left … Why isn’t there a public kitchen?” Tewu said.

    In response to the disaster, Indonesian authorities have deployed more than 3,500 military and police personnel to the affected zone, and approximately 275 tons of relief supplies have been allocated to the region. However, significant logistical challenges, including damaged roads and blocked access routes, have slowed delivery of aid to many of the hardest-hit remote communities.

    Indonesia, an archipelago nation made up of more than 17,000 islands, is no stranger to seismic activity. Its location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire” – a horseshoe-shaped band of active seismic faults and volcanoes that circles the Pacific Ocean – leaves the country consistently at risk of major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The region has seen some of the deadliest seismic disasters in modern history: a 7.5 magnitude quake in 2018 triggered a tsunami on the island of Sulawesi that killed more than 4,400 people, and the 2004 9.1 magnitude quake off the coast of Sumatra unleashed a massive Indian Ocean tsunami that killed approximately 230,000 people across 12 countries, with nearly 170,000 of those deaths occurring in Indonesia’s Aceh province alone.

  • Nearly 13,000 displaced after deadly Indonesian quake

    Nearly 13,000 displaced after deadly Indonesian quake

    Two days after a powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Indonesia’s Flores Island, more than 12,800 people remain displaced from their damaged or destroyed homes, waiting for critical emergency aid as hundreds of aftershocks continue to shake the region.

    The shallow quake, centered just off Flores’ north coast, hit early Saturday, leaving 53 people dead and more than 100 injured. As of Monday morning, Indonesia’s national disaster agency (BNPB) confirmed no additional missing persons, but the scale of displacement has risen steadily, with thousands of survivors now sheltering in public facilities including schools, police stations and government compounds, or in makeshift camps assembled from scrap materials.

    Reporters from Agence France-Presse visiting Mbay, the small town closest to the epicenter in Nagekeo Regency, observed survivors living in hand-built tents constructed from tarpaulin and scavenged poles. Thirty-two-year-old Mbay resident Junaidin, who shares his tent with roughly 29 other people, explained why survivors refuse to return to their properties: many structures have either fully collapsed or developed severe structural cracks that make them uninhabitable. “We only go back home to get water, clothes, pillows, and then we spend the nights here,” he told AFP.

    For many island residents, the fresh disaster triggers traumatic memories of an identical 7.7-magnitude quake that hit Flores in 1992, which spawned a deadly tsunami that killed an estimated 2,500 people. That collective trauma has left survivors too afraid to sleep indoors even after the initial shaking stopped, with many spending consecutive nights outside.

    Junaidin echoed a widespread frustration among survivors, noting that no government aid had arrived in his community as of Monday, while national Independence Day celebrations were held with large-scale ceremonies thousands of kilometers away in Jakarta. “As for help from the government, there hasn’t been any — no tents, no medicine, no food, no drinking water, nothing,” he said. “Please open your eyes, government. We are your people, we are part of you. So please look after us.”

    Thirty-one-year-old Siti Saudah Daso, a Mbay mother of three, described the panic of evacuation that left her family with nothing but the clothing they wore. “We fled with nothing. Just the clothes on our backs. We’re victims; we’re going through a disaster,” she said. While promises of aid have been made, she added, “there’s no proof. So honestly, we’re a bit upset, disappointed.”

    In response to the disaster, the Indonesian Air Force has mobilized three aircraft — two Hercules transport planes and one Boeing jet — to airlift 13 tons of emergency supplies including food, clean drinking water, clothing and medical equipment. Helicopters will also be deployed to deliver provisions directly to cut-off, isolated communities that are hard to reach by land, according to the commander of El Tari Air Base in Kupang, speaking to Indonesia’s state-run Antara News Agency. Military personnel have also been deployed to coordinate aid distribution in the hardest-hit areas, but survivors say the critical supplies have not yet reached them.

    Search and rescue operations are still ongoing across the affected zone, with teams conducting both ground and air sweeps to confirm no victims are trapped or unaccounted for. “There haven’t been any reports on missing persons, but we are still scouring the area just to be sure,” search and rescue official Fathur Rahman told AFP Monday morning.

    BNPB spokesman Berton Suar Pelita Panjaitan confirmed that at least 914 houses across Flores have suffered severe damage, with hundreds more sustaining minor structural harm. Dozens of public buildings — including schools, health clinics and government offices — have also been damaged in the quake. Non-governmental organization Save the Children warned Monday that more than 8,000 children in the affected region now face heightened safety risks and widespread disruption to their education.

    Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologically active zone that sees frequent seismic and volcanic activity. The country has suffered some of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history, including the 2004 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Sumatra that triggered a massive Indian Ocean tsunami, killing more than 220,000 people across the region, 170,000 of whom were in Indonesia.

  • As machinery removes rubble, hopes for survivors from Colombian quake dwindle

    As machinery removes rubble, hopes for survivors from Colombian quake dwindle

    Seven days after a devastating 7.4 magnitude earthquake tore through western and southwestern Colombia, heavy machinery rumbles across flattened urban neighborhoods as rescue and cleanup crews work through rubble to locate any remaining survivors. Even as official prospects of finding people alive under collapsed structures fade, volunteer rescuers refuse to abandon their search, amid a growing national crisis that has already claimed hundreds of lives and left tens of thousands homeless.

    The quake, which struck last Monday, has killed nearly 300 people, destroyed thousands of residential and commercial buildings, and left at least 140 residents unaccounted for, according to Colombian government figures. Of the regions impacted, the western city of Pereira and southwestern hub Cali have suffered some of the worst damage. In Pereira, one of the epicenters of destruction, 30-year-old nursing student Andres Cano stood alongside fellow volunteer rescuers clad in orange safety vests and helmets, and acknowledged the grim shift in expectations. “The hope of locating survivors is much lower now,” Cano told reporters. “You feel exhausted, it’s mostly mental fatigue.”

    The disaster comes as an early, critical test for Colombia’s new presidential administration: right-wing President Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in just three days before the earthquake hit. Already, the new leader has moved to secure international support, asking United States President Donald Trump on Saturday to temporarily suspend bilateral tariffs to ease the country’s recovery burden.

    Across impacted communities, the scale of displacement remains staggering. Officials confirm nearly 27,000 homes were completely destroyed, leaving thousands of survivors without permanent shelter. Many have been forced to sleep on mattresses and makeshift beds in open public spaces, after evacuating damaged or structurally unsound buildings. To streamline aid efforts, emergency shelters have set up QR codes that allow affected residents to digitally report missing loved ones or property damage. In the hardest-hit urban zones, dangerous buildings at risk of secondary collapse are marked with large red X’s, blocking pedestrian access to avoid further injury.

    In Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, 41-year-old lawyer Jorge Leon stood beside a yellow moving truck loaded with the few belongings he managed to salvage from his ruined home, describing the disorienting pain of losing everything. “It feels like I’m living in a movie or a dream; I can’t quite grasp it,” Leon told Agence France-Presse. “It hurts to have to start all over again.” Cali mayor Alejandro Eder has projected that full reconstruction of the city will cost a minimum of $3.2 billion, a staggering price tag for a country already grappling with economic constraints.

    While the Colombian government has already received tens of millions of dollars in emergency aid from international partners including the United States and multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, officials warn that full recovery will take years. On the wall of a collapsed five-story apartment building in one hard-hit neighborhood, official rescuers marked a symbol indicating search operations for survivors had concluded: a red V crossed by a horizontal line. But volunteer teams have rejected calls to stand down, even though global emergency response standards hold that the chance of survival after 72 hours trapped under rubble drops drastically.

    Leading one volunteer rescue team called “Valentia” — Spanish for “courage” — 58-year-old university professor Juan Carlos Tabares says his team will keep searching to hold onto hope. “Although we’ve been told that several days have passed, we continue to search for lives because we want to keep hope alive,” Tabares said. As backhoes, cranes and bulldozers continue to clear debris across the impacted region, the quiet resolve of volunteers stands alongside the grief of families who have lost everything, as the country begins the long, slow process of rebuilding.

  • ‘Ghana was the crime scene’ – the country leading the demand for slavery reparations

    ‘Ghana was the crime scene’ – the country leading the demand for slavery reparations

    In 2026, the global discourse surrounding the transatlantic slave trade has shifted dramatically, with growing, unignorable pressure on former colonial powers and complicit institutions to issue formal apologies, cancel unjust national debts, and pay billions in reparations for one of the worst atrocities in human history. This movement finds its most vocal and unyielding leader in Ghana, a West African nation whose soil holds the deep scars of the trade and whose political and traditional leaders are driving a global campaign for reparatory justice.

    Earlier this year, Ghana spearheaded a landmark United Nations resolution that formally classified the transatlantic slave trade as “the greatest crime against humanity.” The vote laid bare global divides on the issue: while the resolution passed, the United States voted against it, and every European nation chose to abstain. Among Western powers that built vast wealth from the trade, the United Kingdom — which alongside Portugal controlled the largest share of the transatlantic trafficking network — has repeatedly rejected calls for reparations. This refusal comes as no surprise: independent estimates put the potential value of reparations owed by the UK to affected African nations in the many trillions of pounds.

    This resistance has done nothing to weaken Ghana’s resolve. As the first sub-Saharan African nation to win independence from colonial rule, Ghana has a long history of pan-African leadership, and the African Union has formally designated the country the global champion for reparatory justice. The nation’s connection to the atrocity is deeply personal: of the roughly 12 million African people forcibly kidnapped from their homelands and shipped across the Atlantic, 10 to 15% were taken from what is now modern Ghana, and millions more passed through its coastal trading forts before embarking on the deadly Middle Passage. “Ghana was the crime scene where these atrocities took place, so Ghana cannot afford to be silent on ensuring that we hold perpetrators accountable,” Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okuzeto Ablakwa explained in an interview.

    Ablakwa has laid out a clear vision for reparatory justice that goes beyond one-off cash transfers. He proposes a systemic framework that would fund need-based educational grants across Africa, provide seed venture capital for young African entrepreneurs, and support long-term research into intergenerational health issues linked to the malnutrition and violence of enslavement. While he emphasizes that the campaign is not aimed at lining the pockets of African political leaders, one core demand agreed at the June reparations summit in Accra — which drew delegates from 80 nations — is full cancellation of odious debts owed by former slave-trading affected states to Western powers. The foreign minister also called out individual Western institutions that amassed wealth from slavery to step forward and accept accountability, singling out the Church of England as a key example.

    Historical records confirm the Church of England was deeply complicit in the trade: in the 18th century, its missionary wing operated slave plantations and owned hundreds of enslaved people, while scores of independent clergy owned enslaved people themselves. A recent internal audit of the Church’s endowment fund also confirmed the institution made massive, profitable investments in the transatlantic slave trade that generated wealth that persists to this day.

    In July, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, made a high-profile visit to Ghana, one of her first international trips since taking office. Her itinerary included a stop at Cape Coast Castle, a British-built coastal fortress where tens of thousands of enslaved people were held in overcrowded, inhumane dungeons before being marched through the iconic “Door of No Return” to waiting slave ships bound for the Americas. After touring the dark holding cells and walking through the door, a visibly moved Mullally stopped to pray, and later prayed in the castle’s 17th-century chapel — a space built directly above the dungeons where enslaved people were held.

    “For me that is such a stark illustration of the way the Church was involved in the slave trade,” Mullally told reporters. “How can the church have sat above the horrors that were going on below?” The Archbishop acknowledged that the Church of England has previously apologized for its role in the trade, but said action must match words. In response, the Church established a £100 million ($135 million) social impact fund to support communities still grappling with the intergenerational legacy of slavery. Even so, the fund has faced internal resistance from Church leadership, mirroring the broader global pushback against national reparations.

    Critics of reparations often argue that some African leaders and communities were complicit in the capture and sale of fellow Africans, a point used to deflect blame from Western powers. Ablakwa has forcefully rejected this framing, calling it a deliberate divide-and-conquer tactic designed to obscure the core responsibility of Western colonial powers. “The entire architecture of chattel enslavement was curated by Western slave-owning powers, who simply utilised local actors to help carry out their plans,” he said, noting that no African representatives were present when Western powers drafted the laws, insurance policies, and financial systems that underpinned the trade. “We denounce and totally reject those claims that Africans are as guilty and complicit as those who masterminded this whole atrocity,” he added.

    Within Ghana itself, however, the conversation about local complicity is far more nuanced, and some traditional leaders have argued that acknowledging local involvement in the trade is a necessary step toward national and global healing. Earlier this year, King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, the Ga Mantse and traditional leader of Ghana’s Ga people, made history with a public apology for the role his ancestors played as middlemen for European traders. For centuries, the Ga people operated as intermediaries, trading gold, ivory, and eventually captured enslaved people from internal African conflicts to British and Dutch traders in exchange for manufactured goods including textiles, alcohol, and firearms.

    “I stand on the same point of apologising on behalf of all traditional authorities and my ancestors and forebears for the part they also played in the slavery of our brothers and sisters,” the king said. “It has affected lives and societies up to now, and to be able to go forward, you have to look at your past. It dawns on us to admit our fault and correct it.” King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II also committed to contributing to financial reparations, arguing that taking responsibility for local involvement does not weaken the case against Western powers — instead, it strengthens Africa’s moral standing and sets an example for accountable global healing.

    Beyond its diplomatic campaign for reparations, Ghana has also led the way in efforts to heal the intergenerational trauma of the slave trade through its high-profile initiative to invite members of the African diaspora — particularly African-Americans who trace their ancestry to enslaved people shipped from West Africa — to visit and reconnect with their ancestral homeland. The initiative was originally framed as a people-centered effort to repair broken family and cultural ties, bringing a shared sense of closure for a trauma that has separated communities for centuries.

    But not all observers are satisfied with how the initiative has evolved. Yaw Asare, a Ghanaian PhD student at Howard University who previously worked for Ghana’s Presidential Diaspora Office, which administers the program, said that while the initial gatherings of diaspora and local communities were profound and focused on healing, the Ghana Tourism Authority quickly co-opted the initiative to drive commercial tourism growth. Over time, the program shifted away from trauma-informed repair to hitting visitor revenue quotas, he said, with diaspora visitors increasingly framed as a source of foreign currency rather than people seeking healing.

    Asare explained that the commercialization of the initiative has driven up local prices for basic goods and services, pushing low-income local Ghanaians to the economic margins. Even more concerning, he argues, is that the focus on profit has overshadowed the deep psychological work that is needed for both local Ghanaians and returning diaspora members to address intergenerational trauma. The impact of that trauma remains visible in Ghana today, he points out: in Accra’s historic Jamestown district, the oldest settlement built around a British slave fort, residents still build their homes in tight, clustered arrangements, a habit rooted in centuries-old fear that people living further from the community core would be kidnapped by slave traders.

    “We are dealing with humans, we are dealing with people. We cannot reduce them to, ‘come see this site, pay this entrance fee’,” Asare said, noting that it is particularly problematic that diaspora visitors are charged the same high entrance fees as white European tourists at sites like Cape Coast Castle, even though the initiative is meant to address their trauma. For Asare, true reparatory justice must prioritize human connection and healing over financial gain and tourist revenue. “We have to remove the band-aid and then look at the sore, the gaping wound that’s present,” he said. “And see how we can dress it and nurse it and heal.”

    The BBC will air a full documentary on Ghana’s reparations campaign on its program *Global Eye* on BBC Two at 19:00 Monday for UK viewers.

  • Thailand has a gun problem – 10 million of them

    Thailand has a gun problem – 10 million of them

    Just three days after a 14-year-old gunman killed eight people at a provincial school before taking his own life, a second fatal shooting in the same Thai province laid bare the kingdom’s long-running and deeply troubling relationship with civilian gun ownership.

    The incident involved 71-year-old Chalong Riewrang, a former local politician, who entered a regional administration building to confront the office chief Thongchai Yenprasert – a man Chalong describes as a personal friend – over an unpaid large sum of money Chalong claims he was owed. What began as a scheduled discussion quickly devolved into violence: Chalong drew a handgun and fired four shots through the window of Thongchai’s parked car, striking both Thongchai and his driver. Thongchai later succumbed to his injuries.

    After fleeing the scene, Chalong contacted a journalist he knew mid-way through her live YouTube broadcast to confess to the shooting. Police intercepted him shortly after and took him into custody, where he spoke to reporters while casually smoking a cigarette, showing no visible distress over the killing. Chalong told reporters he “did not intend to shoot his friend”, claiming he opened fire only after the driver drew a weapon. Investigators did recover two guns from Thongchai’s car, but confirmed neither was in a condition to be fired.

    This double tragedy was far from an isolated event on that same day. In Prachinburi, a province east of Bangkok, a police sergeant shot his wife in the head during an argument while she was driving the pair to pick up their young son. After the car crashed, the sergeant turned the gun on himself, and his wife later died in hospital treatment. Local analysts estimate many more unreported gun deaths occur across the country each day.

    While Thai authorities do not track an official annual count of gun-related fatalities, independent estimates place the yearly death toll between 2,000 and 3,000. To put this in perspective, the United Kingdom – which has a roughly similar population to Thailand – records fewer than 50 gun deaths annually.

    Gun use in hired robberies and contract killings is not unheard of in Thailand, where hitmen can be hired for relatively low fees. But most gun fatalities stem from ordinary conflicts: domestic arguments, financial disputes, and alcohol-fueled bar fights. With more than 10 million civilian-held guns circulating nationwide – 4 million of which are unregistered – even minor disagreements can quickly escalate into deadly violence.

    “It’s very unfortunate that Thailand has a very high tolerance for violence,” explained Boonwara Sumano, a researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute. “Guns are seen as a status symbol, and there are so many ways that civilians can get them. Also, showing strength, wielding power, is seen as the right thing to do in Thai society. So, when you have a norm that promotes the possession of weapons to show your strength, and access to those weapons, this is the result.”

    On paper, Thailand’s gun laws appear relatively strict. Prospective buyers must first obtain a purchase permit, then apply for a separate possession permit after buying a firearm, and a third permit to carry the weapon outside the home. Imported firearms, which make up most of the country’s supply, carry steep price tags. But major loopholes undermine these rules: possession permits are valid for life, no mandatory mental health screening is required for gun owners, and there are no rules mandating safe gun storage. This is how the 14-year-old school shooter gained access to his grandfather’s legally owned gun and ammunition to carry out his attack.

    A long-running government program also amplifies the illegal gun market: the scheme allows police officers and public officials to purchase firearms at heavily discounted prices. Since launching in 200, an estimated 200,000 firearms, mostly sourced from the United States, have been imported through the program. Permit holders are allowed to resell the guns after five years, turning the program into a lucrative black market trade that has faced repeated corruption investigations. Combined with unregistered locally manufactured guns from informal artisans, the program is a major source of illegal firearms across the country.

    In response to the latest string of attacks, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has ordered immediate emergency measures to strengthen gun control: the discounted government purchase scheme has been suspended, and all new purchase permit approvals have been halted. Anutin has also proposed limiting the validity of possession permits, offering an amnesty to encourage unlicensed gun owners to surrender their weapons, ordered parliament to draft new gun legislation, and promised harsher penalties for gun law violations.

    However, this pattern of response is nothing new for Thailand. After a 2022 mass shooting that killed 36 people at a rural nursery, carried out by a former police officer, and a 2023 mass shooting at Bangkok’s busiest shopping mall by another 14-year-old gunman, Anutin – who was serving as interior minister at the time – ordered identical crackdown measures. The discounted purchase scheme was suspended, then quickly reinstated. A ban on civilian gun carrying was also imposed after a school shooting in February 2024, but enforcement has been lax.

    Experts say the problem extends far beyond inadequate regulation. The massive existing stockpile of firearms, widespread systemic corruption, lax enforcement of all national laws, cultural glorification of gun ownership, and decades of military influence in Thai society all combine to create the current crisis. Even among sitting government ministers, gun ownership is common: public asset declarations show more than a dozen current ministers own guns, with the justice minister holding 10, the environment minister owning 12, and one female member of parliament declaring 48 registered firearms.

    Sumano points to the deep cultural roots of gun acceptance in Thailand, shaped by decades of military rule that continues to influence society even under elected civilian government. “If you notice every Children’s Day in Thailand, instead of taking children to a museum or park, many families take their children to an army or air force base to see the weapons, take photos holding guns, this kind of thing,” she explained. “It’s in the culture. You see big men in the military looking so powerful, they kind of make you want to become one of them.”

    Thailand stands out as an outlier among Southeast Asian nations. With a population four times larger than Thailand’s, Indonesia only has 82,000 registered civilian guns, while Malaysia counts just 107,000, and both nations see extremely rare gun homicides. Only the Philippines shares Thailand’s pervasive gun culture and high rates of gun violence.

    Some Thai gun rights advocates argue that new restrictions on legal ownership will not solve the crisis, and will only penalize responsible gun collectors. Yod, a 53-year-old Bangkok businessman who owns a collection of more than 70 guns that he describes as luxury collectibles, most of which he has never fired, says “Most of the gun crimes in this country are carried out by illegal weapons. New measures to control legally owned guns are not the right solution. There are blank guns and spare parts which can be assembled as real guns being imported legally into the country. Why hasn’t that been chased up?”

    Another gun shop owner with a collection of more than 40 guns, Sathit, says widespread crime and weak law enforcement are why ordinary people choose to arm themselves. “Look around this country nowadays. There are crimes every day. It is not safe. Drugs are rampant. People need to protect themselves because there are not enough police officers. People should have access to guns to survive, for their own safety.”

    As Chalong waits in custody to be charged with the murder of his friend, the former politician, who once held permits for nine guns and had reduced his collection to just one, expressed shock at how quickly a routine financial dispute turned deadly. “I can’t believe I’m in this position, sitting here. Throughout my life, I have never had to come to a police station,” he told reporters. For Chalong, and for Thailand as a whole, one easily accessible gun was enough to end a life and upend decades of normality.

  • Trump envoy Kushner meets Hamas leader to push Gaza peace plan

    Trump envoy Kushner meets Hamas leader to push Gaza peace plan

    Nearly 21 months after the outbreak of the latest Israel-Gaza war, a new round of high-level diplomacy aimed at breaking the region’s long-running deadlock has gotten underway in Cairo, with rare high-level talks between a senior U.S. envoy and Hamas leadership.

    Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy for former U.S. President Donald Trump and head of the globally focused Trump-led Board of Peace, held discussions Sunday with a Hamas delegation led by the group’s new top leader Khalil al-Hayya, a Palestinian official confirmed to the BBC. The meeting marks the first senior-level engagement of its kind since a ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip last October.

    The talks centered on advancing the 15-point U.S.-backed Gaza peace plan that the Board of Peace agreed to last month, which includes provisions for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed factions in Gaza, a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the enclave, and the reconstruction of Gaza under a new civilian Palestinian administration. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the framework, defying Washington by insisting that complete, verifiable disarmament of Hamas must be completed before any Israeli troop withdrawal can proceed. Netanyahu’s position has held despite ongoing Israeli strikes targeting areas of Gaza that have continued in violation of the 2024 ceasefire, with the most recent operations targeting areas the Israeli military claims house Hamas militants in Khan Yunis and Nuseirat.

    The current conflict traces its origins to the October 7, 2023, attack led by Hamas on southern Israel that killed approximately 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Israel’s subsequent large-scale military response has killed more than 73,000 people in Gaza, per health ministry figures verified as reliable by the United Nations. The humanitarian catastrophe that has unfolded has displaced 90% of Gaza’s population, or roughly 1.9 million people, according to UN estimates.

    Joining Kushner and Hamas representatives in Sunday’s Cairo talks were Board of Peace envoys Nickolay Mladenov and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, alongside mediators from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey—three longstanding players in regional Gaza peace efforts. No official communique has been published following the closed-door discussions, which sources indicate also covered the expansion of life-saving humanitarian access to Gaza, alongside the core issues of weapons decommissioning and troop withdrawal. On the same day of the Hamas talks, Kushner also held a bilateral meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a key regional mediator for the conflict.

    Netanyahu’s rejection of the peace plan drew swift international condemnation Sunday, as eight Muslim-majority nations—Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia—jointly stated that Israel’s position poses a direct threat to the Trump-led Board of Peace’s efforts to broker a lasting end to the conflict. Following the Cairo negotiations, Kushner, Mladenov and Blair are set to travel to meet Netanyahu on Monday to push for progress on the plan, even as deep divisions remain between all parties over the sequencing of core peace provisions.

  • Moroccan security forces arrest nearly 300 migrants trying to reach Spain’s Ceuta

    Moroccan security forces arrest nearly 300 migrants trying to reach Spain’s Ceuta

    Two weeks after one of the deadliest migration crises in recent North African history left at least 90 people dead, Moroccan security services have intervened to block a new coordinated attempt to breach the border with the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. According to reporting from Morocco’s state television, hundreds of migration hopefuls and people accused of facilitating their journeys were taken into custody on Saturday, as joint Moroccan-Spanish security operations ramped up patrols and movement restrictions across the border region.

    Local state broadcaster Medi 1 TV confirmed that out of the 355 people arrested, 294 were sub-Saharan African migrants attempting to reach Ceuta, while the remaining 61 were Moroccan nationals charged with aiding and abetting the unauthorized crossing attempts. The crackdown came in direct response to a widespread campaign of social media posts that called on migrants to organize a new mass crossing of the heavily fortified border. Faced with the prospect of another large-scale humanitarian crisis, both Moroccan and Spanish authorities moved quickly to reinforce border posts, expand security deployments, and restrict civilian travel into high-risk border zones.

    This latest attempted crossing comes on the heels of a devastating mass push two weeks prior, when tens of thousands of migrants driven by widespread poverty and false online misinformation rushed the Ceuta border in an event that marked one of the deadliest migration episodes the region has ever recorded. Official government data puts the death toll from that event at a minimum of 90 people across both sides of the border, but independent human rights organizations have documented far higher casualty numbers.

    Morocco has maintained a heavy security presence along its borders with Ceuta and Melilla, the two Spanish exclaves located on Morocco’s northern Mediterranean coast, for decades. When contacted by the Associated Press for comment on Saturday’s arrests and the scale of current security deployments, Morocco’s interior ministry declined to respond to requests for information. A senior anonymous Moroccan diplomat previously revealed that the country deploys more than 20,000 security personnel to the Ceuta border on a daily basis, an operation that costs the national government hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

    For years, Morocco has served as a key transit route for migrants fleeing conflict, economic instability, and systemic poverty across Africa. Thousands of migration hopefuls arrive in the country each year, drawn by the prospect of crossing into Europe via the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, with the ultimate goal of reaching mainland Spain to access better economic and living opportunities.

  • Houthi missile barrage hits Mocha port as fighting escalates in Yemen

    Houthi missile barrage hits Mocha port as fighting escalates in Yemen

    After more than two years of relative calm across Yemen, large-scale violence has re-erupted, as the Houthi movement has launched a wave of fresh missile and drone strikes against government-held territories that have left civilians dead, injured, and displaced, while forcing a key strategic port to halt all commercial operations. According to Yemeni government officials and multiple regional media reports, the latest escalation of hostilities has shattered the informal truce that had largely held across most of the country since April 2022, with fighting spreading across four key provinces in recent weeks.

    Authorities in Marib Governorate confirmed that over the weekend, Houthi forces launched six ballistic missiles and four unmanned aerial drones targeting residential neighborhoods in the densely populated provincial capital of Marib. The governorate’s media office stated that the strikes wounded at least four civilians and caused extensive damage to private homes, civilian vehicles, and other civilian infrastructure. One of the projectiles directly hit a local bakery in the al-Sharika district, located just north of Marib city, leaving one baker with serious injuries. Photographs released by the governorate after the attack show a large impact crater in a residential neighborhood and the burned wreckage of a civilian vehicle damaged in the strike.

    Officials have emphasized that the ongoing offensive puts not just local residents at risk, but also the thousands of displaced Yemenis who have sought shelter in camps across Marib Governorate, which has long been a safe haven for people fleeing violence in other parts of the country. The Marib media office has issued an urgent appeal to the global community, calling for immediate condemnation of what it describes as deliberate crimes against civilian populations, displacement camps, and civilian infrastructure, and urging the international community to formally document these attacks as violations of international humanitarian law. The strikes on Marib match earlier reports of multiple missile and drone attacks targeting civilian sites across the province, which were confirmed by both Yemen’s state-run Saba TV and government-aligned Aljoumhouria TV, which reported widespread explosions across the city over the weekend.

    Further south, repeated Houthi attacks on the Red Sea port city of Mocha have forced a full suspension of all commercial and maritime operations at the strategic facility, according to port director Abdulmalik al-Sharabi. Sharabi told Yemen’s state-run Saba news agency that the strikes have killed seven people: four security personnel assigned to protect the port and three civilian port employees. Total economic damage from the attacks is estimated at $16 million, he added.

    Located in southwestern Taiz province just off the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a key global shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, Mocha port has faced more than 25 missile strikes since August 9. This marks the first time the facility has been targeted since the 2022 truce went into effect. The attacks damaged six wooden commercial fishing vessels and a large dredger that was being used for a port expansion project designed to increase the facility’s capacity to receive critical humanitarian and commercial shipments. With all operations halted, approximately 1,300 port workers have been left without any source of income, Sharabi said. Just days earlier, the government-aligned National Resistance Forces reported that Houthi forces had launched 40 ballistic missiles, 46 drones, and several explosive-laden boats targeting Mocha, its port, and surrounding civilian sites in the preceding week.

    Houthi officials have pushed back on government claims, stating that their strikes only targeted legitimate military objectives: military gatherings, weapons storage depots, and military vessels operating in the area around Mocha.

    The resurgence of violence has not been limited to Marib and Mocha. Clashes have also intensified in southwestern Taiz province, where Yemeni military officials reported that three Houthi fighters were killed and multiple others, including senior field commanders, were wounded in a Yemeni army drone strike on Saturday. A military source told Saba TV that the drone attack targeted Houthi personnel and vehicles on the Maqbanah front, located west of Taiz city.

    In the weeks since the relative calm that followed the 2022 truce collapsed, fighting has intensified across Marib, al-Jawf, al-Dhalea, and Taiz, undoing most of the progress toward stability that the truce had enabled.

    Yemen’s nearly decade-long conflict began in September 2014, when Houthi forces seized the capital Sanaa and large swathes of northern and western Yemen, forcing the internationally recognized Yemeni government into exile. The ensuing conflict has dragged Yemen into what the United Nations has repeatedly described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian and economic crises, with more than 21 million Yemenis in need of humanitarian assistance and millions facing acute food insecurity.

    Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s internationally backed Presidential Leadership Council, warned that the recent attacks on Mocha port pose a direct threat to regional shipping traffic and to the flow of critical food and fuel supplies into Yemen, a country that relies on imports for more than 90 percent of its food. The disruption of port operations, he said, threatens to push Yemen’s already catastrophic food crisis even further.