Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Pope tells traffickers of migrants in the Canary Islands: Stop, repent or face God’s wrath

    Pope tells traffickers of migrants in the Canary Islands: Stop, repent or face God’s wrath

    On the final day of his weeklong trip to Spain, Pope Leo XIV delivered a stark rebuke to human traffickers operating one of the world’s deadliest migration routes, issuing a call for repentance and warning that they will face divine justice for exploiting vulnerable people seeking a new life in Europe. The pontiff made the remarks Friday during a gathering with humanitarian aid groups in San Cristobal de la Laguna, on the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago that has long served as a primary entry point for migrants crossing the perilous Atlantic from West Africa.

    Positioned just off the coast of Northwest Africa, hundreds of kilometers closer to the African continent than to mainland Europe, the Canary Islands have become the epicenter of one of the most dangerous migration pathways on Earth. Unlike the more heavily discussed central Mediterranean route, the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean and limited search-and-rescue infrastructure make this crossing far deadlier for migrants. Experts have documented entire boats drifting across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and Latin America, only to be found with all passengers dead after being pushed off course by trade winds and currents. Migrant arrivals to the islands peaked at nearly 47,000 in 2024, before dropping sharply to just over 3,000 in the first five months of 2026, a shift that has not eliminated the risk of deadly voyages.

    Addressing the criminal networks that profit from this crisis directly, Pope Leo issued an unflinching appeal. “Break those chains and free those you hold in bondage,” he said, adding, “Stop. Repent. For every life lost, every family deceived, every body subjugated, every woman threatened, every worker exploited, you will have to appear before divine justice. Repent while there is still time, for God’s mercy can reach even the most hardened sinner, but it enters only through the narrow gate of truth, justice and conversion.” Smugglers operating the route typically charge thousands of euros per passenger, often trapping migrants in debt bondage by withholding identity documents and forcing them into exploitation such as sex work or illicit labor after arrival. Many migrants also travel on self-organized boats: a large share are former Senegalese fishermen left without livelihoods due to widespread overfishing off West Africa’s coast.

    Leo’s visit to the Canary Islands fulfills a long-held wish of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who made migration advocacy a core priority of his 12-year pontificate, often clashing with right-leaning governments in the U.S. and Europe over restrictive border policies. As the first U.S.-born pope in history, Leo has positioned himself as a clear heir to Francis’ legacy, while adding his own public-facing style to the advocacy. The pontiff’s Canary Islands trip was designed to honor the thousands of migrants who have lost their lives attempting the crossing, a mission that comes amid rising anti-migrant sentiment across Europe and the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation campaign in the United States.

    Shortly after arriving on the islands Thursday, Leo carried forward a symbolic tradition established by Francis: he tossed a bouquet of flowers into the ocean from Tenerife’s “Dock of Shame,” the port site where thousands of migrants were forced to live in squalid, overcrowded conditions during a 2020 arrival spike. The gesture mirrored a 2013 trip Francis made to Lampedusa, Sicily, another key migration flashpoint, where he first denounced what he called the “globalization of indifference” toward people fleeing conflict, poverty and climate disaster. In a moment that revealed Leo’s more casual, youth-connected style, he embraced a viral social media hand gesture popular with young people after hearing testimony from a former migrant, drawing loud cheers from the gathered crowd.

    During his meeting with aid groups Friday, the pope also appealed to European host communities to welcome and integrate migrants, calling out the “silent shipwreck of abandonment” that leaves many survivors homeless and destitute on the streets after surviving their dangerous crossing. “A human conscience, and even more so a Christian conscience, cannot remain indifferent in the face of these graveyards of the sea, to the victims of shipwrecks and the lack of aid,” he said. “Every life lost on these routes is a failure for the human family.”

    Leo reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s core teaching of “welcome the stranger,” noting that integration of migrants into local communities offers an opportunity to share faith without imposing it on people with different religious backgrounds. He also emphasized that while migrants have a right to flee dangerous conditions, their home countries bear a responsibility to create the economic and security conditions that would allow people to choose to stay rather than risk their lives at sea. During a visit to the Las Raíces migrant reception center, the pope met directly with migrants, hearing firsthand accounts of their journeys, and went off-script to address the crowd in French and English, drawing applause from attendees. One Senegalese migrant, Bousso Diouf, shared her story of desperation and trauma, asking that all migrants be treated with dignity and respect.

    Leo’s trip to Spain wrapped up Friday, but his advocacy on migration will continue next month, when he plans to spend U.S. Independence Day on July 4 at Lampedusa, the site of Francis’ landmark 2013 address on the global migration crisis, to further amplify the call for greater global compassion toward displaced people.

  • A Myanmar rights group urges FIFA to drop Mytel’s World Cup rights over connections to military

    A Myanmar rights group urges FIFA to drop Mytel’s World Cup rights over connections to military

    BANGKOK, Thailand – A prominent Myanmar human rights advocacy organization is calling on global soccer governing body FIFA to scrap a controversial decision that awarded exclusive 2026 FIFA World Cup broadcast rights in Myanmar to a US-sanctioned telecommunication firm directly tied to the country’s military junta, which seized power in a 2021 coup.

    Justice For Myanmar confirmed to the Associated Press on Friday that the group only became aware of FIFA’s deal this week, after Mytel – the state-linked telecom at the center of the dispute – rolled out a local advertising blitz promoting its World Cup streaming and broadcast coverage.

    As one of Myanmar’s four major cellular service providers, Mytel operates as a joint venture between the Myanmar military and Viettel, a Vietnamese telecom firm controlled by Vietnam’s national military. Founded in 2018, the company generates consistent revenue that flows directly to Myanmar’s ruling junta, making it a top target for anti-coup activists and the subject of a widespread ongoing consumer boycott across the country.

    Myanmar has been locked in a devastating civil conflict since the military ousted the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi five years ago. Junta forces are now battling a broad coalition of long-running ethnic minority militias and newly formed pro-democracy armed groups that oppose military rule.

    “FIFA should immediately revoke Mytel’s media rights, uphold human rights and stop undermining sanctions,” said Yadanar Maung, spokesperson for Justice For Myanmar.

    “This is an insult to the many people of Myanmar who have given their lives resisting a brutal and illegal junta, who have been boycotting Mytel, and a slap in the face to Myanmar football fans,” Maung added. “FIFA needs to right this now.”

    As of press time, Mytel has not responded to multiple requests for comment, including phone calls, voicemail messages, and emailed inquiries. FIFA also has not issued an immediate response to requests for comment on the controversy.

    FIFA opened a public tender for Myanmar World Cup media rights in September 2025, and ultimately selected Mytel as its exclusive rights holder for the country. Last year, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Mytel to its roster of sanctioned Myanmar entities, citing that the firm’s “actions and activities that are contrary to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.”

    At the time of the sanction designation, the Commerce Department noted Mytel was added for “providing surveillance services and financial support to Burma’s military regime, enabling the regime to carry out human rights abuses through the tracking and identification of target individuals and groups.” The U.S. and other global bodies have also imposed separate sanctions on the Myanmar Economic Corporation, the military-owned parent firm of Mytel.

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup is currently hosted across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, with group stage and knockout matches running through mid-July. While Myanmar did not qualify for the 2026 tournament, soccer holds the title of the most popular sport in the country, and marquee events like the World Cup – as well as top European club competitions – draw massive television and online viewership. Top international sides including Brazil, England, Argentina, Portugal, and Germany count huge bases of passionate fans among Myanmar’s soccer community.

  • ‘I will come home safely’: Indian sailor’s last words to wife before a US strike killed him

    ‘I will come home safely’: Indian sailor’s last words to wife before a US strike killed him

    # Three Indian Sailors Killed In U.S. Gulf Of Oman Strike Leave Grieving Families Waiting For Answers

    For Patnala Bhargavi, what should have been a month of quiet celebration to mark 15 years of marriage has instead become a period of overwhelming grief. Her husband, 15-year veteran marine engineer Patnala Suresh, was one of three Indian crew members killed this week when the United States military struck the oil tanker MT Settebello in waters near the Gulf of Oman.

    The U.S. operation was framed as part of Washington’s ongoing enforcement of a blockade against Iran-linked maritime activity. U.S. Central Command confirmed the strike, stating that the tanker ignored multiple official warnings and was found to be carrying Iranian oil. This narrative has been forcefully rejected by the MT Settebello’s management, which says the vessel had no ties to Iran and received no advance warning before the attack. Twenty-one of the 24 crew members on board were rescued alive after the strike.

    Across India, the deaths of the three sailors have sent shockwaves through coastal and inland communities alike, where seafarers often take on dangerous overseas jobs to support their extended families back home. Beyond private grief, loved ones are united in their demands: a full accounting of the strike that killed their family members, and the swift repatriation of the sailors’ remains for funeral rites.

    India’s federal government has already moved to respond to the incident. Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal confirmed in a post on the social platform X that work is underway to coordinate the return of the sailors’ bodies, calling the deaths a “profound loss” for India’s large maritime workforce. New Delhi has also taken formal diplomatic action: it summoned a senior U.S. diplomatic official to lodge a strong official protest, and called for an immediate end to strikes targeting commercial shipping vessels in the already tense Gulf region.

    But for the families grappling with sudden loss, the details of geopolitical maneuvering feel distant and abstract. Their pain is rooted in broken promises and unfulfilled plans.

    Bhargavi still holds onto the last words her husband shared with her before contact was lost. “There have been attacks in this area and some people have been killed,” Suresh told her, “But don’t worry about me. I’ll come home safely, and we’ll celebrate our anniversary properly.”

    Now, surrounded by photos of Suresh, the couple’s two young sons, and the two nieces Suresh helped raise after Bhargavi’s older sister and brother-in-law passed away, the 39-year-old widow struggles to reconcile that promise with the new reality of life without her husband, who was the family’s only source of income.

    Suresh had built a 15-year career at sea, working his way up to chief engineer, a role that entitled him to six months of paid leave annually. His father Ramakrishna says Suresh rarely took the full time off, drawn to his work and committed to providing for his family. For years, the family adapted to his long absences: Bhargavi and Suresh spoke every few days over video call, often with other crew members popping in to say hello. But starting June 5, calls became patchy, and stopped entirely by June 9.

    Bhargavi initially assumed the issue was just spotty maritime connectivity. But after two days of silence, news of the strike reached her family. At first, they clung to hope that there had been a mistake, and that Suresh would turn up alive among the rescued crew. That hope faded quickly; on Thursday, the tanker’s management confirmed Suresh was killed instantly when the strike hit, as he was conducting a routine inspection of a faulty generator in the engine room. Centcom, the U.S. military command for the region, has released footage it claims shows the damage to the tanker’s engine room from the strike.

    The family is now calling on the Indian government to provide urgent financial support to help them raise and educate the four children who depended entirely on Suresh’s income. “The entire family depended on his income. Now I don’t know how I’ll educate or raise the children,” Bhargavi says.

    The same unanswered questions and raw grief hang over the families of the other two killed sailors, hundreds of kilometers from Visakhapatnam. In India’s northern Himachal Pradesh state, Hamirpur district, the family of 23-year-old Aditya Sharma, an only son, is demanding answers of their own.

    “I want my son’s body to be returned to us. We should also be told what happened in his final moments,” Aditya’s father Rajesh Sharma told BBC Hindi. Rajesh Sharma also questioned the outcome of the rescue operation: “The others were rescued, so why couldn’t these three be saved?”

    More than 1,000 kilometers away, in Deoria district of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, 35-year-old Shivanand Chaurasia’s family is dealing with the same sudden loss. A skilled fitter, Chaurasia had left home eight months earlier to take up a contract with a foreign shipping firm. “We spoke to him the night before last. He told us everything was fine,” his father Ramji Chaurasia told Indian news agency ANI. “Now we have been told that he is no more.”

    Like Bhargavi, both families say their only priority right now is bringing their loved ones home for a proper burial. The geopolitical tensions that led to the strike are irrelevant to them; what matters is getting to see their sons, husbands and providers one last time, and getting clarity on how they died.

  • From terror suspects to clothing designers: Aussies listed on Interpol’s red list revealed as James Dalamangas arrested

    From terror suspects to clothing designers: Aussies listed on Interpol’s red list revealed as James Dalamangas arrested

    For nearly three decades, James Dalamangas avoided the long arm of international law, until Greek law enforcement officers detained the 55-year-old Australian earlier this week at a property in Aigialeia, central Greece. His arrest closes one of the longest-running fugitive cases in recent Australian history, tying back to the 1999 fatal stabbing of Sydney man George Giannopoulous at a nightclub in Belmore.

    Dalamangas’ 27-year evasion raises two pressing questions: who are the other Australian-linked fugitives still at large overseas, and what strategies allow suspects to remain undetected for decades? Criminology associate professor Xanthe Weston from Central Queensland University told reporters that low-profile behavior and identity fraud were the core pillars of Dalamangas’ long run from authorities. “Over 27 years, he must have secured a new identity and deliberately avoided drawing any attention to himself,” Weston explained. Successful long-term hiding relies on blending into local communities, establishing a quiet routine, and never standing out enough to trigger suspicion from residents or officials, she added.

    What may surprise many is that out of more than 3,000 suspects listed on Interpol’s global Red Notice – the organization’s official wanted person alert – only five have Australian citizenship or direct links to Australia. Weston says this tiny proportion is entirely expected, given Australia’s unique geographic and demographic profile. The country’s large landmass and sparse population, particularly in remote inland regions, make it an attractive hiding spot for fugitives fleeing other countries, rather than a place that produces large numbers of people fleeing overseas. “If you want to vanish, settling in a small outback village in Australia makes it surprisingly easy,” Weston noted. She added that while modern technological advances and the rise of social media have made long-term hiding far harder than it was in the 1990s, it remains possible for disciplined, low-profile suspects to stay off law enforcement radars indefinitely.

    The five Australian-linked fugitives currently on Interpol’s Red Notice list cover a wide range of serious charges, from terrorism to drug smuggling and fraud:

    The first is 45-year-old Meliad Farah, a Kogarah-born Australian who has been wanted for over 12 years for his alleged role in a 2012 suicide bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria. The attack targeted a bus carrying Israeli tourists departing Burgas Airport, killing five Israeli travelers and a Bulgarian bus driver, while injuring 32 more civilians. Farah, who also uses the alias Hussein Hussein, is accused of participating in planning the atrocity. Bulgarian authorities released his photograph in 2013 alongside co-accused Canadian Hassan al-Haj, and he is widely believed to be a Hezbollah operative.

    Next is 44-year-old Melbourne-based fashion designer Qui Shan Lian, who counts some of the world’s most high-profile celebrities among her past professional connections. She has been wanted since 2017 on drug smuggling charges, after Chinese authorities requested Interpol issue a Red Notice for her arrest.

    Third is 56-year-old Thi Hoa Trung Trinh, a Vietnamese national with confirmed ties to Australia who was added to the list four years ago. Limited public details are available about her case, but she is suspected of property misappropriation through breach of trust, and is wanted by Vietnamese law enforcement. She is described as 155cm tall, with black hair and dark brown eyes.

    Fourth is 55-year-old Abdulzagir Medjidov, a dual Australian-Russian citizen born in Russia’s Dagestan republic. He has been wanted for 13 years, with an initial arrest warrant issued in 2013 on charges of attempted murder and criminal preparation. He is fluent in both English and Russian, and is wanted by Russian authorities.

    The final fugitive is 65-year-old Australian national Thi Minh Phung Duong, who was born in Vietnam and has evaded capture for more than 12 years. Added to Interpol’s Red Notice list in 2011, she is wanted for fraud and property misappropriation through swindling, alleged to have committed her offenses in Vietnam. Few additional details about her case have been released publicly.

    Dalamangas’ recent arrest after 27 years on the run underscores what Weston emphasized: even for the most careful fugitives, it is impossible to hide forever.

  • Disaster drills helped prevent more deaths when powerful quake hit the southern Philippines

    Disaster drills helped prevent more deaths when powerful quake hit the southern Philippines

    Five days after a 7.8 magnitude offshore earthquake — one of the most powerful seismic events to hit the Philippines in 50 years — struck the country’s southern region, local officials are crediting regular, long-running disaster preparedness drills with preventing a far worse human toll. As of Friday, official counts put the death toll at 55, with 31 people still unaccounted for, nearly 1,120 injured, and more than 45,000 residents displaced from their homes. Half of those displaced remain in temporary emergency shelters, after the quake damaged over 12,600 residential structures across rural farming communities and urban centers alike.

    Weeks of ongoing strong aftershocks have left many survivors too traumatized to return to their damaged properties, even after initial safety inspections. In the days following the quake, user-generated footage posted to social media has captured the chaos of the shaking, showing horrified crowds watching small structures crumble, and public flag-raising ceremonies thrown into disarray as the ground shifted. The quake struck on the first school day after the summer holiday break, putting student responses to the emergency in the spotlight.

    Multiple videos show students screaming in panic as the ground shook, but many remained orderly outside school buildings, following long-practiced emergency protocols: some stood still, others crouched and covered their heads with their hands, as teachers worked to calm panicked groups and guide responses. One video posted to Facebook has gone viral, racking up millions of views; it shows dozens of elementary students crying and screaming while seated in an open, tree-lined school yard, where the visible swaying of the ground threw the children off balance. A nearby tin storage shed collapsed moments after the shaking started with a loud crash, sending a handful of students running, though teachers quickly guided them back to their assigned safe positions. Remarkably, the Malita-based grade school in Davao Occidental province where the footage was recorded reported zero injuries from the quake.

    “This incident serves as a reminder of the importance of earthquake preparedness and the value of regular disaster response drills,” the Mahayahay Elementary School said in an official statement following the event.

    Teresito Bacolcol, director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), confirmed Friday that consistent public education and regular emergency drills over many years helped communities across the affected region anticipate and respond correctly to the extreme seismic event, a rare powerful quake for the archipelago in modern history. He added that additional good fortune played a role: the quake struck at 7:37 a.m. local time, just minutes before most workers and students were set to enter indoor offices and classrooms, when people would have been at higher risk of injury from falling debris or structural collapse.

    “It’s good that our efforts to educate people on what to do when earthquakes hit somehow paid off,” Bacolcol told the Associated Press. However, he also raised urgent concerns about the structural failures of several buildings that he said should have withstood the quake’s force if national building code construction standards had been properly followed during construction.

    Ednar Dayanghirang, regional director of the Philippines’ Office of Civil Defense for the 5 million-person affected region, noted that preparedness measures reduced fatalities in multiple critical ways, most notably by preventing deadly crowd stampedes that often occur during mass public emergencies. “We required all school principals to take one-day courses on incident management, then they appointed disaster-response teams among teachers to deal with earthquakes, tsunamis,” Dayanghircsang said. “They listened and they learned.”

    Located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped arc of active seismic faults that circles the Pacific Ocean basin, the Philippines ranks among the most disaster-prone nations on Earth, regularly facing major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tropical storms. Years of repeated disaster events have pushed the national government to invest heavily in public disaster preparedness training, a choice that officials now confirm saved hundreds if not thousands of lives during this month’s powerful quake.

  • Thai princess dies aged 47 after three years in hospital

    Thai princess dies aged 47 after three years in hospital

    Thailand’s royal household has confirmed the passing of Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s eldest daughter, at the age of 47. The announcement, made Friday, comes more than three years after the princess was hospitalized for a sudden illness that would ultimately claim her life. She died peacefully on Thursday evening after her abdominal infection led to a steady and irreversible decline in health, the Bureau of the Royal Household said in an official statement.

    Following royal tradition, the princess will lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace, and a state funeral will be held with the highest royal honors, the statement added. Popularly known to Thais as “Princess Bha,” Bajrakitiyabha was the only child from the king’s first marriage to Princess Soamsawali. She first fell ill in December 2021, and by May of this year, her condition had deteriorated to the point that she required continuous medical device support for her lung and kidney function alongside round-the-clock medication.

    A highly accomplished public figure beyond her royal status, Bajrakitiyabha built a diverse professional career as a trained prosecutor and diplomat. She pursued her education across three countries, earning a law degree from Cornell University in the United States after studying in Britain and her native Thailand, and went on to serve as Thailand’s ambassador to Austria. She also held multiple senior roles with the United Nations, and emerged as a prominent advocate for women’s rights, most notably pushing for improved living and working conditions for incarcerated women across the region. Speaking to students at her alma mater Cornell University during a 2012 visit, she described her multifaceted career as that of a “hybrid” professional, blending expertise in law, criminal justice and diplomacy.

    In a televised national address following the announcement, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul paid tribute to the late princess, noting she was deeply loved, respected and admired by people across the kingdom. He praised her as kind, talented and of exemplary conduct, adding that she dedicated her entire life to advancing justice, equality, human dignity and rights across Thai society. Anutin called on all Thai citizens to join in national mourning and hold up the princess as an inspiration for public service to the nation and monarchy.

    Within Thailand’s hierarchical social structure, where the royal family occupies the highest position of public reverence, Bajrakitiyabha held significant ceremonial influence. She was widely known to be close to her father, and just one year before her hospitalization, she was appointed to a senior leadership position in the king’s personal bodyguard command. Even Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a prominent Thai scholar known for his public criticism of the monarchy, offered a warm reflection after her death, recalling meeting her in Singapore and describing her as someone who treated every civil servant with inherent kindness and respect.

    By Friday morning, crowds of mourners had already gathered outside Chulalongkorn Hospital, where the princess had received all her treatment since falling ill. Many held hand-signed portraits of the late princess, and dozens shared their grief with reporters. Sixty-six-year-old retiree Thanyaporn Arammekha, whose eyes were swollen from hours of crying, told reporters she had rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard the official announcement. “When I heard the announcement, I was very sad,” she said, noting that she had visited the hospital regularly throughout the princess’s treatment. She added that the Thai monarchy had long been a source of personal comfort for her after her parents’ divorce when she was a child, with former King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) serving as a father figure.

    Another retired provincial official, 67-year-old Kanokpan Chantarapetch, struggled to speak through her tears as she paid her respects. “I can’t really speak. I’m overwhelmed,” she told AFP. “I have loved Princess Bha since she was very young, and as a former government worker, I understand how much the royal family has done for the country.”

    Bajrakitiyabha’s death marks the second major loss for the Thai royal family in less than six months, following the death of King Vajiralongkorn’s mother, former Queen Sirikit, in October at the age of 93. The 73-year-old king, who has seven children from four separate marriages, has not yet publicly named an heir to the throne. Current Thai succession laws prioritize male heirs for the throne. Thailand’s strict lese-majeste laws, which carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison per charge for any criticism of members of the royal family, continue to heavily regulate public discussion of the monarchy.

  • Yangon’s furtive party scene belies junta claims of normality

    Yangon’s furtive party scene belies junta claims of normality

    Five years after Myanmar’s military seized power in a 2021 coup, the ruling junta has pushed a carefully crafted narrative that the country has returned to stable, normal governance: it points to recently held elections, a newly installed civilian government, and the December lifting of Yangon’s restrictive 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. curfew as proof the nation is moving past its post-coup unrest. But the shadowy, high-adrenaline underground party scene thriving in the country’s largest city tells a far different story – one of widespread fear, unaddressed trauma, and a desperate search for escape amid a still-raging civil war.

    Inside a sprawling, warehouse-turned-nightclub in Yangon, bass-heavy music blares at 150 decibels – as loud as a jet engine during takeoff – while cutting laser lights slice through clouds of cigarette and vape smoke. When the final set ends around dawn, many partygoers don’t rush to head home. Instead, they doze off on leather sofas scattered around the venue, a habit formed after years of avoiding late-night travel through streets controlled by military checkpoints and armed factions. “That became a habit, they’re used to it,” explained a 29-year-old veteran of Yangon’s underground elite party scene, who, like all other interviewees for this report, requested full anonymity out of fear of reprisal from military authorities.

    For many of Myanmar’s young people, the desire to cut loose from daily stress collides with a persistent dread of moving through the streets after dark. Widespread arbitrary detention, forced conscription campaigns by both the military and opposing armed groups, and ongoing violence have left nearly half of all young people reporting they feel “unsafe” or “very unsafe” walking alone after sundown, according to a 2025 United Nations report – that’s more than double the rate recorded before the 2021 coup. By late evening, most public streets in Yangon are nearly empty, deserted save for stray dogs and occasional military patrols.

    Local performer Sae Sar, who performs under a stage name to protect his identity, said this tension between the urge to connect and the fear of danger defines Yangon’s modern nightlife. “I know my fans are tired all day,” the 24-year-old artist said. “If they keep all their feelings inside, it can cause many problems.”

    On weekends, the first stop for many night owls is Yangon’s iconic Chinatown, where neon signs line 19th Street and open-air beer bars spill out onto the sidewalk. This strip is the only major late-night public gathering spot in the city; as midnight approaches, every surrounding street has long emptied out. One local street vendor selling individual sachets of hangover cure says that six months after the curfew was lifted, the number of people out for the night has stayed roughly the same. “People just want to be happy, even though they are worried,” she explained. “They’re still going home early.” Lyrics from busking performers drift out onto the street, capturing the collective mood: “Life is short as a drying drop of water. Don’t be sad. Things will get better. Try just to be happy.”

    Once 19th Street winds down around midnight, the party moves underground to the Sanchaung neighborhood. Once a center of anti-coup protests after 2021, the area has emerged as a hub for underground nightlife after security forces crushed the public pro-democracy movement. Many of the young activists who led those early protests have since joined anti-military resistance factions fighting in the country’s ongoing civil war, which has killed more than 70,000 people, displaced 3.7 million more, and pushed half of Myanmar’s population into poverty. Even when strict full-night curfews were in place in the years immediately after the coup, young people still gathered secretly to party, one local DJ told AFP. He argued that military authorities often turned a blind eye to these gatherings, reasoning that young people focused on partying “won’t focus on the resistance.”

    Today, regular nightlife carries a distinctly different energy than it did before the coup, according to everyone interviewed for this report. The trade in illicit party narcotics has exploded in recent years: ketamine, ecstasy, and homemade “happy water” cocktails that mix unpredictable combinations of stimulants and sedatives are now widely available at underground events. “These days people judge whether a DJ is good or bad based entirely on how well the music complements their drug high,” the 31-year-old DJ said. “It is supply and demand.”

    The search for escape from daily stress and trauma only ends at dawn, when bleary-eyed partygoers stumble out into the early morning light to head home, carrying the collective weight of the coup’s ongoing impact with them – a lingering post-coup hangover that no night of partying can fully wash away.

  • Pope ends Spain visit with migrant meetings

    Pope ends Spain visit with migrant meetings

    Pope Leo XIV is wrapping up his official visit to Spain this Friday, centering the final day of his trip on the urgent humanitarian crisis facing irregular migrants crossing to Europe, with scheduled meetings with displaced people and an open-air mass on the Atlantic island of Tenerife. As the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics around the globe, his closing appearances reinforce a clear message: the world must step up support for vulnerable migrants and crack down on the ruthless human trafficking networks that profit from irregular migration, a topic that remains one of the most divisive issues in contemporary European political debate. Tenerife forms part of Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago, a primary Atlantic entry point for tens of thousands of people fleeing poverty, conflict and instability in Africa and the Middle East who seek new, better lives in the European Union. On Friday, the pope will first address hundreds of migrants staying at the Las Raices migrant facility, a converted former military barracks that previously drew widespread public criticism for severe overcrowding and poor living conditions. Following that meeting, he will lead a large open-air mass for tens of thousands of worshippers gathered in Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s main port. The final leg of the papal trip began Thursday, when the pope arrived on Gran Canaria, another major island in the archipelago, after completing earlier visits to the Spanish mainland cities of Madrid and Barcelona earlier in the week. During his first day in the Canaries, he delivered a sharp rebuke of global indifference to the migrant crisis, holding a solemn ceremony to cast a memorial wreath into the waters off Arguineguin port to honor the thousands of migrants who have lost their lives attempting to cross the sea to reach the islands. “Human dignity has no passport,” he stated from the dock, before blessing a weathered blue wooden cross crafted from the remnants of a migrant vessel that washed ashore after a crossing. “Monsters lurk in these seas… traffickers who enslave women and children, and those whose indifference allows the poor to be swallowed up by exploitation or forgetfulness,” he added. Data from the International Organization for Migration confirms that nearly 1,200 migrants lost their lives or went missing on the dangerous crossing from North Africa to the Canary Islands last year alone, cementing the route as one of the deadliest migration corridors on the planet. With European national governments tightening migration policies amid rising political pressure from far-right parties across the continent, the pope pushed back against hardened approaches: Europe “cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic becoming unmarked graves,” he argued. He further emphasized that the ongoing tragedy demands a moral reckoning not just for destination countries in Europe, but also for nations of origin and transit, where widespread poverty and unaddressed conflict leave people vulnerable to exploitation by trafficking gangs. For migrant communities on the Canary Islands, the papal visit carries enormous weight during what many describe as a defining moment for the crisis. “We really value this visit. It’s very important for us at such a critical moment,” Mohamed Amjahdi, a Moroccan migrant who arrived on the islands by boat at the age of 17, told Agence France-Presse on the ground in Arguineguin. After concluding his events in Tenerife, the pope will depart for Rome, where he is expected to hold a press conference with traveling journalists aboard his return flight. Pope Leo XIV has made reforming global approaches to migration a core priority of his papacy, using high-profile international visits to draw global attention to the human cost of restrictive immigration policies and systemic indifference to displaced populations.

  • Ukraine hits fuel supplies to Crimea, sparking a fuel crisis on the Russian-held peninsula

    Ukraine hits fuel supplies to Crimea, sparking a fuel crisis on the Russian-held peninsula

    A sustained and increasingly effective campaign of drone strikes by Ukrainian forces has plunged the Russian-occupied Black Sea peninsula of Crimea into its most severe fuel crisis since Moscow’s illegal 2014 annexation, delivering a fresh blow to the Kremlin’s claim of progress in its four-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    The coordinated strikes have targeted critical energy infrastructure deep inside Russia, supply routes along the land corridor connecting mainland Russia to Crimea, and key transport links into the peninsula, leaving tanker trucks charred along highways, stranding motorists in multi-hour queues at gas stations, and forcing occupied authorities to implement strict fuel rationing. As the crisis unfolded as Russia marked its annual Russia Day holiday, the unofficial kickoff to the summer tourist season that Crimea’s economy depends heavily on, the damage has already rippled through the region’s vital hospitality sector.

    To understand the stakes of this escalation, it is necessary to contextualize Crimea’s long-standing strategic and symbolic importance to the Kremlin. First seized by the Russian Empire from the Crimean Tatars in the 18th century following a victory over the Ottoman Empire, the peninsula was transferred from Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine in 1954 by then-leader Nikita Khrushchev. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukrainian state, though Moscow maintained a large naval base at Sevastopol under a long-term lease. In 2014, following the ousting of a pro-Moscow Ukrainian president by a popular pro-European uprising, Putin deployed unmarked troops to seize control of Crimea, and oversaw a widely unrecognized referendum to formalize its annexation. The move triggered a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine that simmered until Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022; early in that invasion, Russian forces based in Crimea seized large swathes of southern Ukraine and secured the overland corridor to the peninsula that remains Moscow’s primary supply route today.

    Since the start of the full-scale war, Ukraine has systematically targeted Russian assets in and around Crimea to erode Moscow’s control. Ukrainian strikes have sunk multiple Russian warships at Crimean bases, severely degrading Russia’s Black Sea Fleet capabilities and forcing most of the fleet to redeploy to the far eastern Russian port of Novorossiysk. Ukraine has also repeatedly targeted the Kerch Strait Bridge, the iconic fixed span that directly connects mainland Russia to Crimea, which Putin has long framed as a symbol of his regime’s success in annexing the peninsula. An October 2022 truck bombing on the bridge killed five people, destroyed two large spans, and required months of reconstruction, with additional successful strikes following in 2023 and 2025.

    After repeated attacks on the Kerch Bridge left it unsafe for large-scale fuel shipments, Russia shifted most fuel and critical supplies to the overland highway and rail corridor running through occupied territories along the Sea of Azov coast, a route that Russian military planners once considered far more secure than the bridge. That assumption has proven catastrophic: last month, Ukrainian drones struck a convoy of fuel trucks traveling the corridor, leaving dozens of vehicles burned out. In recent weeks, the strikes have only intensified. This week alone, Ukrainian forces repeatedly hit the Chonhar Bridge, another key crossing linking occupied mainland Ukraine to Crimea, disrupting all movement across the span and forcing occupation authorities to deploy temporary pontoon bridges to restore limited access. Ukrainian military officials confirmed the Chonhar strike was intended to cut off Russian military movements of troops, ammunition and fuel into and out of the peninsula.

    Compounding the supply crunch, Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has targeted refineries, oil storage depots and pipeline infrastructure hundreds of kilometers inside Russian territory, eroding Russia’s total domestic fuel production capacity even as demand rises ahead of the summer travel season. The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has highlighted the strategic synergy of Ukraine’s dual strike campaign: long-range attacks cut Russia’s ability to produce fuel, while mid-range strikes on supply lines disrupt what little fuel Russia is still able to route to occupied Crimea.

    “The long-range strike campaign is therefore reducing Russia’s production capacity, while the midrange strike campaign is hurting Russia’s ability to transport the gasoline Russia is still able to produce,” the ISW explained in its recent analysis.

    The acute fuel shortage is already being felt acutely by civilian residents and tourists in Crimea. While the peninsula has experienced periodic supply disruptions from Ukrainian strikes in past years, current shortages represent the worst crisis since the 2014 annexation. In late May, occupation authorities introduced strict rationing, capping sales at just 20 liters of gasoline per vehicle per week, distributed via prepaid coupons. The entire allocation of coupons sold out within minutes of being released on an official government messaging channel, leaving motorists waiting for hours in snaking lines at the few stations still selling fuel.

    Social media platforms have been flooded with residents sharing tips for locating scarce fuel and pleas for assistance, while authorities have launched a dedicated hotline to assist tourists who have found themselves stranded without fuel. While ferries have supplemented fuel shipments from mainland Russia after Kerch Bridge traffic was restricted, and private motorists are allowed to bring up to 100 liters of fuel into Crimea per vehicle from the mainland, the additional supply has been far too little to meet demand. Unregulated black market speculators are now selling gasoline at twice the official market price.

    The crisis has already delivered a severe blow to Crimea’s tourism sector, which is the backbone of the local economy. The peninsula drew nearly 7 million Russian tourists in 2024, and occupation officials had projected an even higher number for the 2025 summer season. However, business daily Kommersant reports that roughly 80% of hotel bookings were canceled in late May and early June as travelers avoid the unstable region. Some hotels have even begun offering free gasoline as a booking incentive to attract hesitant visitors, offers that were immediately taken up by the few travelers still planning trips.

    Recent attacks on passenger rail lines have further eroded traveler confidence. Earlier this week, a Ukrainian drone strike hit a passenger train traveling from Moscow to Crimea, wounding the engineer and killing his assistant, forcing a temporary suspension of all rail service and the evacuation of passengers by bus. A prior strike on a commuter train in Crimea killed one person and injured three others, prompting occupation authorities to cut daytime service over security concerns.

    In a rare public acknowledgment of the scope of the crisis, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed this week that widespread fuel shortages exist and pledged that authorities are taking urgent measures to resolve the issue. The Russian Defense Ministry has remained publicly silent on the repeated strikes along the Crimean land corridor, but prominent Russian pro-war military bloggers have fiercely criticized the military establishment for failing to anticipate the Ukrainian campaign and mounting a glacial, ineffective response. Some bloggers have called for mandatory military escorts for all fuel convoys traveling the corridor, while others have urged the Russian military to escalate strikes on Ukrainian energy and transport infrastructure in retaliation.

    As the fuel crisis and internal criticism continued to unfold, Ukraine delivered an additional symbolic blow to Moscow this week, striking a historic landmark in Sevastopol that houses a massive panoramic painting commemorating the 19th century Russian defense of the city during the Crimean War. According to Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Kremlin-appointed mayor of Sevastopol, the painting was completely destroyed in the fire that followed the strike. Given Putin’s long-standing framing of the 2014 annexation of Crimea as a fulfillment of Russian imperial and historical destiny, pro-war blogger Valery Shiryayev noted the attack would be particularly infuriating to the Russian leader.

    “It’s hard to find another work of art, another part of national heritage, whose destruction would be as painful for Putin,” Shiryayev said.

    As of Thursday, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its 1,569th day, surpassing the total duration of World War I, with Russian frontline advances having ground to a near standstill even as Ukraine demonstrates growing capability to strike deep into Russian-held and Russian territory.

  • Air India crash families’ year-long battle to identify remains of victims

    Air India crash families’ year-long battle to identify remains of victims

    June 12 marks one year since one of the deadliest aviation disasters in India’s history, when an Air India passenger flight crashed just 32 seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, killing 260 people — 241 on board the aircraft and 19 more on the ground. Only one passenger survived the catastrophic impact, which left emergency response teams and forensic experts facing an unprecedented challenge to identify the hundreds of victims.

    Among those killed were London residents Ashok and Shobhana Patel, who were heading home after their trip. Their son Miten Patel, who traveled to Ahmedabad just hours after the crash with his brother to deliver his parents’ dental records, still carries the trauma of the chaotic aftermath. With no other commercial options available, the pair flew Air India to reach the city, and Miten credits his parents’ decision to teach him the local Gujarati language for helping him navigate the overwhelming logistics of recovering his parents’ remains.

    It took more than a week for the Patels’ remains to be repatriated to the United Kingdom, but the ordeal was far from over. Four days after the remains arrived in London, local police contacted Miten to request an urgent evening meeting, refusing to share details over the phone. Further imaging revealed that Shobhana Patel’s casket held mixed remains: alongside her body were additional skeletal fragments belonging to an unrelated unidentified man. UK authorities asked Miten to keep the error secret for weeks, but he pushed to meet with the coroner directly to demand separation of the remains. The family was forced to wait another full month to hold a joint cremation for both of his parents, delaying Ashok’s final rites to allow the separation and reprocessing to be completed.

    Today, almost 12 months after the crash, the unidentified man found in Shobhana Patel’s casket remains unrecognized. UK Coroner Fiona Wilcox confirmed during a hearing this week that palm prints and DNA samples have been sent to Indian authorities for matching, but no confirmation of identity has been received to date. She noted that opening an inquest almost a year after a death is an extraordinary step, adding that she remains hopeful the man’s identity will be confirmed.

    The Patel family is not alone in their suffering. At least one other family affected by the crash has reported a major identification error: Amanda Donaghey returned to the UK last year believing she was bringing home the remains of her 39-year-old son Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, only to discover she had been given the body of 70-year-old Indian woman Vasuben Narendrasinh Raj. Wilcox confirmed this week that authorities have only recently connected with Raj’s son, and Donaghey is still waiting to recover her son’s remains.

    Forensic experts who responded to the crash say the scale of the disaster created unavoidable challenges for victim identification. The aircraft broke apart on impact after crashing into a block of medical student accommodation, scattering wreckage and human remains across 37,000 square meters — an area roughly equal to five full-sized football pitches. Ninety percent of victims suffered severe charring from the post-crash fire, with extreme thermal damage destroying fingerprints, facial features and other common visual identifiers. Forensic teams spent months working through the rubble in 40-degree-plus Celsius heat, surrounded by decomposing remains, a working environment many describe as permanently traumatic.

    Dr Deepak Venkatesh, an independent forensic expert deployed to the crash site to assist with identification, explained that in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, emergency responders prioritized search and rescue over strictly segregating recovered remains. “The recovery environment presented challenges for maintaining the separation of remains, which can contribute to commingling,” he said, noting that commingling — the mixing of remains from multiple individuals — was an unavoidable risk given the conditions. After the initial rescue effort wrapped up, teams conducted a systematic grid search of the entire crash site to recover all remaining fragments.

    India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has formally acknowledged the systemic gaps exposed by the crash, and in January 2026, released updated victim identification guidelines that use the Air India crash as a core case study. The guidelines note that prior to the disaster, comprehensive disaster victim identification had not received adequate systematic attention in India’s national disaster management framework. At the time of the crash, protocols prioritized DNA verification over the globally recognized faster, more reliable method of dental identification, which created a crippling bottleneck at the only regional forensic laboratory in Gandhinagar. The sudden influx of hundreds of highly degraded DNA samples overwhelmed the lab’s capacity, the NDMA report found, concluding that India needs to expand regional DNA testing infrastructure and integrate more dental identification into standard protocols.

    Despite the procedural changes that have come from the tragedy, grieving families say they have yet to receive the transparency and accountability they deserve. James Healey-Pratt, the lawyer representing both Miten Patel and Amanda Donaghey, argues that even with the unprecedented scale of the disaster, authorities owe families a full accounting of what went wrong. “There still needs to be transparency and accountability, because the families deserve it,” he said, adding that no senior Indian authority has accepted responsibility for the identification errors more than a year later. “It’s highly embarrassing, and it makes them look incompetent.”

    For Miten Patel, the fight for accountability is a way to honor the parents he lost. Most days, he sets his grief aside to focus on his advocacy, but late at night, he retreats to a private room to watch old videos of his parents. “At the end of the day, my mother came back home with somebody else,” he said. When he thinks about the future, he says he only wants one thing: to be able to tell his parents he did everything he could after they were gone. “I want them to say to me, Beta (son), we are so proud of you. You did everything you could after we went.”

    The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry, the Ahmedabad hospital that led on-site identification, and the UK Foreign Office for comment on the ongoing inquest and identification errors, but has not received a response. Last July, roughly one month after the crash, the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement that authorities had “carried out identification of victims as per established protocols and technical requirements” and “handled all mortal remains with utmost professionalism and with due regard for the dignity of the deceased.”