Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Brazil reports drop in Amazon deforestation rates, pushing back on US tariff accusations

    Brazil reports drop in Amazon deforestation rates, pushing back on US tariff accusations

    SAO PAULO — In a direct challenge to one of the core justifications the Trump administration cited for imposing new trade barriers on Brazil, Brazilian environmental and space officials unveiled dramatic new data Thursday showing a steep decline in Amazon rainforest deforestation rates.

    According to joint figures released by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) and the Ministry of Environment, deforestation across the Brazilian Amazon fell 61.4% in May 2026 compared to the same month in 2025, marking the lowest May deforestation total ever recorded. Even with the sharp decline, 370 square kilometers (nearly 143 square miles) of forest were still cleared last month. In the Cerrado, a threatened central Brazilian savanna that has been heavily targeted by large-scale agribusiness operations, deforestation also dropped by 12% over the same period.

    Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco told reporters that May typically sees elevated deforestation activity, as it marks the beginning of the Amazon’s dry season, when land clearing operations become easier. Cumulatively, over the 10-month monitoring period from August 2025 through May 2026, Amazon deforestation is already down 37.5% compared to the same period a year earlier. Capobianco said the trend puts Brazil on track to hit its lowest annual deforestation rate on record once full-year data is finalized in the second half of 2026.

    The new data comes less than a week after the Trump administration formally proposed 25% additional tariffs on all Brazilian imports, claiming the South American nation engages in unreasonable trade practices that harm U.S. commerce. A U.S. Trade Representative investigation leading up to the tariff announcement specifically cited illegal deforestation in Brazil as a core complaint, alongside claims of unfair Brazilian trade policies.

    Capobianco argued that the updated deforestation numbers completely debunk the U.S. claims, saying “the unfair and unfounded accusation by the United States, which cited deforestation to justify imposing tariffs” has no basis in fact. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was present for the announcement, echoed the criticism, doubling down on his rejection of the U.S. framing.

    Lula noted that the Trump administration previously lied about a U.S. trade deficit to justify earlier tariffs on Brazilian goods last year, and has now shifted to false claims about deforestation. “They don’t understand the work we are doing to bring deforestation down to zero by 2030. This is not a decision by any COP or by the United Nations. It is a decision of our government,” Lula said. “It’s a matter of justice, of Brazil’s contribution to the planet, fulfilling our obligation to avoid deforestation as much as possible. Preventing deforestation benefits Brazil, benefits the Amazon and benefits the world.”

    Deforestation is the single largest contributor to Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions, which drive global climate change. As the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon plays an outsized role in regulating global climate patterns; scientific research has linked widespread Amazon forest loss to disrupted agricultural output as far away as the U.S. Midwest and Western Europe, alongside accelerating planetary warming.

    After declining for decades following record highs in the 1990s and early 2000s, deforestation surged again during the 2019–2022 presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration rolled back nearly all major environmental protections and enforcement for the Amazon. Since Lula returned to office in 2023, however, deforestation has fallen steadily, hitting its lowest annual level in a decade last year.

    Even with the recent progress, the Amazon still faces a range of ongoing and emerging threats. Forest degradation driven by wildfires, illegal logging, and drought now impacts roughly 40% of the rainforest, and in recent years has outpaced full clear-cutting as the leading source of forest damage. A strong El Niño event this year is expected to worsen these risks, bringing higher temperatures and drier conditions that increase the likelihood of large-scale wildfires across the basin.

    This climate and environmental reporting from The Associated Press receives funding from multiple private foundations, with AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • Deadly Sudan drone strike targets funeral procession

    Deadly Sudan drone strike targets funeral procession

    A devastating drone attack targeting a funeral gathering at a cemetery in the central Sudanese city of El-Obeid has left at least four people dead and multiple others wounded, two prominent Sudanese human rights advocacy organizations have confirmed. The Sudan Doctors Network and Emergency Lawyers have jointly placed responsibility for the strike on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the country’s main paramilitary faction fighting against the national army in the ongoing civil conflict.

    Emergency Lawyers added that the cemetery attack is just one incident in a sustained campaign of drone strikes that has rocked El-Obeid since Wednesday evening. Across this series of assaults, at least 23 people have been killed to date. The RSF has not yet issued any public statement or response to the allegations.

    Strategically positioned in Sudan’s oil-rich Kordofan region, El-Obeid is currently held by Sudan’s regular army and has emerged as one of the most critical battlegrounds in the country’s three-year civil war. The conflict erupted in early 2023 after a bitter power struggle between the army’s top leadership and RSF command collapsed the country’s transitional ruling agreement, breaking out into open nationwide fighting.

    Geographically, El-Obeid sits as a critical buffer between RSF-held territories in western Sudan and the majority army-controlled eastern regions. Analysts widely note that control of the broader Kordofan region grants effective command over Sudan’s entire national oil supply and a large portion of the country’s total land area, making the fight for El-Obeid strategically decisive for both warring factions.

    Beyond the cemetery strike, Emergency Lawyers documented additional drone strikes hitting civilian residential areas, the airport district, and zones surrounding a local army base. Thirteen of the total confirmed fatalities occurred when civilians gathered near previously destroyed homes to assess damage or search for missing loved ones, the organization said. Five more civilians were killed in earlier strikes earlier in the week, and a fourth attack on Thursday killed a truck driver who was transporting emergency food supplies to residents of the embattled city.

    Local residents described scenes of widespread destruction and despair following the strikes. “It is tragic. The roofs of houses collapsed on their occupants. When you look at some houses, you feel no-one could have survived,” one El-Obeid resident told AFP news agency in the hours after the latest attacks.

    The two rights groups have emphasized that the past week’s strikes are part of a systematic pattern of repeated attacks on civilian targets in El-Obeid that has stretched over multiple days. Three years into the conflict, Sudan now faces what the United Nations has called the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian crisis. More than 11 million Sudanese people have been displaced from their homes by the fighting, and an estimated 28 million people across the country face acute levels of food insecurity. While no fully verified, comprehensive death toll exists for the conflict, independent analysts estimate that at least 50,000 people have been killed since fighting began.

  • Sweden ditches plan to imprison 13-year-old serious offenders

    Sweden ditches plan to imprison 13-year-old serious offenders

    Sweden’s center-right government has abandoned its controversial proposal to allow imprisonment of serious offenders as young as 13, after failing to secure enough parliamentary backing for the two-year reduction in the age of criminal responsibility. Instead, the administration will push forward a more modest overhaul, lowering the current threshold of 15 to 15, the legislative text expected to be drafted ahead of September’s national general election. The policy shift comes as Sweden grapples with a growing national crisis of underage recruitment into violent organized criminal networks, a trend that has reshaped the country’s long-stable security landscape.

    Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer explained that the revised reform is designed to address gaps in the current justice system, which currently sentences convicted children under 15 to placement in state-run youth care homes, known as SiS homes. Under existing rules, youth convicted of violent offenses cannot be held in standard prison facilities. Strömmer argued that the current framework fails both public safety and offender rehabilitation, noting that SiS placements have been linked to higher rates of recidivism among young violent offenders. “By lowering the age of criminal responsibility, we can impose fairer, proportionate sanctions and create better conditions for rehabilitation than we can today,” he told reporters, adding that the core goal of the policy is to “protect society from life-threatening crime, and protect crime victims — who are often children themselves.”

    Eight existing adult prisons have already been instructed to set up dedicated, isolated sections to house young offenders, separated completely from the adult inmate population to prevent radicalization and exploitation. According to government data, more than 50 children under the age of 15 appeared in Swedish courts last year facing charges of murder or attempted murder, a statistic that underscores the severity of the youth violence crisis.

    The push for reform comes amid a decade-long shift in Sweden’s homicide trends: the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) recorded a substantial overall increase in homicides over the past 10 years, rising from 87 murders in 2014 to 121 in 2023, though the total fell to 92 in 2024 as law enforcement cracked down on major gang networks. Much of the recent violence can be traced to a brutal turf war between two of Sweden’s most powerful criminal organizations: the Foxtrot gang, led by fugitive Rawa Majid, and the rival Rumba gang headed by Ismail Abdo. The conflict, which peaked in 2023, has seen gangs increasingly exploit underage members to carry out high-risk attacks, from targeted shootings and bombings to contract killings. Abdo was arrested in Turkey in 2025, while Majid is believed to be hiding in the Middle East, and both the United States and United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Foxtrot and its leader last year over their alleged ties to foreign interference.

    In a troubling development that has drawn international attention, multiple recent attacks on Israeli-linked targets in Sweden — including an attack on defense contractor Elbit Systems’ Gothenburg facility and the Israeli embassy in Stockholm — have involved suspects as young as 13 and 14. Sweden’s domestic security service Säpo has publicly linked these plots to Iran, accusing the Iranian government of recruiting Swedish gang members to carry out attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe. Iran’s foreign ministry has repeatedly rejected the claims as “unfounded and biased,” asserting the accusations are rooted in misinformation spread by Israel. The 2025 US and UK sanctions explicitly cited Foxtrot’s role in carrying out “violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime.”

    Not all stakeholders support the government’s criminal age reform plan. Maria Frisk, secretary-general of leading Swedish children’s rights organization Bris, argued that the solution to youth violence lies not in lowering the age of criminal responsibility, but in strengthening the underfunded and overstretched SiS youth home system. “Nothing indicates that lowering the age to 14 will turn the situation around,” she said in a public statement. Critics have also pointed out that SiS homes themselves have increasingly become recruitment grounds for criminal networks in recent years, as young offenders are exposed to established gang members within the care system, perpetuating a cycle of violence.

  • Toronto police officer dies in raid linked to US consulate shooting

    Toronto police officer dies in raid linked to US consulate shooting

    A decades-long veteran law enforcement officer with Toronto’s police force has been killed in a deadly gunfight during a coordinated raid targeting suspects connected to a brazen March shooting at the United States consulate in downtown Toronto, according to official police statements.

    The confrontation unfolded in the early hours of Thursday at a residential high-rise, where members of the Toronto Police Service executed search warrants as part of their months-long investigation into the consulate attack, which both U.S. and Canadian authorities labeled a national security incident at the time of the original shooting. Forty-three-year-old Marc Pinizzotto, who had 18 years of service with the force and five years with the elite Emergency Task Force, was struck by gunfire during the exchange and later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

    A second suspect was also hit in the crossfire and rushed to hospital with critical, life-threatening injuries; police have not yet released the individual’s name to the public. A third suspect, identified as 19-year-old Zara Jabbi, remains at large, and law enforcement has warned the public that he is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw issued an urgent public appeal, urging anyone who spots Jabbi to contact emergency services immediately rather than approach him.

    Original details of the March consulate attack confirm two male suspects exited a vehicle, fired multiple rounds at the fortified building using what appeared to be a handgun, then fled the scene in the same vehicle. No personnel inside the heavily secured consulate were injured in that earlier incident. Thursday’s search warrants were also linked to other unsolved shootings across the city, though police have not released additional details about those cases.

    The fatal shooting of the officer was publicly acknowledged by U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra during a Canada-U.S. trade conference held in downtown Toronto the same day. Hoekstra extended condolences to Pinizzotto’s family and colleagues, noting that the ongoing joint investigation into the consulate attack is a testament to the close law enforcement cooperation between the two North American neighbors, and a reminder of the grave risks frontline officers take every day.

    Toronto Police Association President Clayton Campbell remembered Pinizzotto as a deeply valued and respected member of the policing community. A visibly emotional Demkiw told reporters Thursday that the entire city is reeling from the loss, saying “there is very heavy sorrow in our communities right now.” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow also issued a statement of tribute, calling Pinizzotto’s line-of-duty death heartbreaking news for the entire city.

    The violent incident comes just one day before Toronto is scheduled to host its first match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, where host nation Canada will face off against Bosnia and Herzegovina at the city’s BMO Field.

  • Sudanese paramilitary drone strikes kill at least 15 people in central region, officials say

    Sudanese paramilitary drone strikes kill at least 15 people in central region, officials say

    As Sudan’s brutal civil war enters its fourth year, a new wave of overnight drone strikes carried out by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s main paramilitary group, has left at least 15 people dead and dozens more injured in the central Sudanese city of el-Obeid, health officials confirmed Thursday. The rising reliance on unmanned aerial attacks has become one of the most dangerous and destabilizing features of the ongoing conflict, which has already plunged the nation into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

    The assault began late Wednesday, hitting multiple locations across el-Obeid including an area adjacent to a Sudanese military position, according to two health workers from el-Obeid Hospital, the main facility receiving casualties from the strikes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they lack official authorization to engage with media outlets. They added that more than 10 people were wounded, with several suffering critical injuries that require urgent advanced care.

    Dr. Mohamed Elsheikh, spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network, an organization that monitors casualty figures across the country, told the Associated Press that RSF drones also targeted two additional civilian sites: a funeral gathering at a local cemetery, where four attendees were killed, and a functioning gas station. Dr. Elsheikh noted that he could not immediately confirm whether the casualties included only civilians, only combatants, or a mix of both.

    Aid workers on the ground report that drone strikes have intensified sharply across el-Obeid in recent days, with public gatherings of any kind repeatedly targeted. An anonymous aid worker with the global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps, speaking out of fear of retaliation from armed groups, explained that the escalating violence has forced local schools to suspend all classes, while city markets only operate partially as residents stay home to avoid attack.

    Emergency Lawyers, a Sudan-based aid and conflict monitoring group, released a statement Thursday warning that the final death toll is expected to rise, as drone sorties continued to fly over el-Obeid well into Thursday. The group documented that residential homes near the headquarters of the Sudanese military’s 5th Infantry Division were hit, alongside a truck transporting critical food supplies into the city. The truck’s driver was killed in the strike.

    “This series of attacks indicates a widespread pattern of targeting civilian gatherings, neighborhoods and infrastructure, including during rescue operations and funerals,” the group said, adding that it has grave concerns over the indiscriminate nature of these strikes, which put non-combatant residents at constant lethal risk.

    Sudan’s long-running conflict first erupted in April 2023, when decades of latent tensions between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF boiled over into open civil war. To date, the conflict has killed at least 59,000 confirmed people, displaced more than 13 million Sudanese from their homes, and pushed large swathes of the country into catastrophic famine conditions. The United Nations estimates that more than 30 million Sudanese — over two-thirds of the country’s total population — require urgent life-saving humanitarian assistance.

    As the conflict has dragged on, military control has become geographically split: the Sudanese military holds power across northern, eastern, and central Sudan, including strategic Red Sea ports and the country’s critical oil refining and pipeline infrastructure. The RSF and its allied militias control the entire Darfur region and large portions of Kordofan along Sudan’s border with South Sudan, both resource-rich regions holding major oil reserves and gold deposits.

    Security and conflict experts confirm that drone warfare has now overtaken other forms of attack as the deadliest threat to civilian populations in Sudan, with both warring parties receiving shipments of drones and other military equipment from multiple countries across the Middle East and beyond. Humanitarian workers add that the recent surge in drone attacks across Kordofan has severely hampered already fragile aid operations in the region, leaving vulnerable communities cut off from critical food, water, and medical support.

  • Opening of long awaited US-Canada bridge delayed again

    Opening of long awaited US-Canada bridge delayed again

    The much-anticipated cross-border infrastructure project linking Canada and the United States, the Gordie Howe International Bridge, has faced yet another unanticipated delay, pushing back the planned opening and its scheduled ribbon-cutting ceremony indefinitely, according to the Canadian authority managing the construction. The ceremonial opening was originally set to take place this Friday, a milestone that would have capped years of planning and construction for the crossing connecting Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, Michigan.
    Named for legendary Canadian NHL player Gordie Howe, who had a iconic career with the Detroit Red Wings, the bridge has been framed by both proponents as a transformative economic artery for North American trade and cross-border movement. In a formal statement issued this week, Chuck Andary, a representative of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA), confirmed that the two national governments had mutually agreed to postpone the opening to work through remaining unresolved issues. “The bridge will stand as a vital economic link for Canada and the United States, and the two sides are taking a collaborative approach to finalize preparations and set a firm new opening date,” Andary said.
    This latest delay does not come as a complete surprise. Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney acknowledged that the project might miss its original timeline, but downplayed growing public concern, noting there was “no big drama” surrounding the hold-up. Carney reaffirmed that all relevant teams were “working hard to make sure the bridge is open as soon as possible”, adding that “if it takes a little longer, it’ll take a little longer”. Notably, the WDBA has not released any details on the specific causes of this latest delay, nor given any indication of when a new opening date or rescheduled ribbon-cutting might be announced.
    The $6.4 billion CAD (£3.4 billion) project has been plagued by political and commercial disputes for more than a decade, even before construction kicked off in 2018. Past disruptions include widespread construction delays caused by global Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns, and repeated political interference from former and now returning US President Donald Trump, who has openly opposed the project since his first term in office.
    In February, during his second presidential term, Trump demanded that Canada cede shared authority and ownership of the crossing to the United States. The bridge is currently developed and owned by WDBA, a Canadian federal Crown corporation that operates independently from direct government control. Commercial opposition has also played a major role in delaying the project: the Moroun family, owners of the nearby privately owned Ambassador Bridge, the existing busiest crossing between Detroit and Canada, has spent years lobbying to block the Gordie Howe bridge. The family argues the new crossing would break their long-held exclusive right to collect tolls for cross-border vehicle traffic in this corridor.
    Supporters of the new crossing, including Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, US Senator Elissa Slotkin, and municipal leaders in Windsor, have long argued that the bridge will generate thousands of new local jobs and unlock billions in annual economic benefits for both countries by cutting severe congestion at the existing Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. The project was first negotiated by former Republican Michigan Governor Rick Snyder specifically to address chronic overcrowding on the two existing crossings between the two regions.
    The latest delay comes amid a sharp rise in bilateral tensions between Canada and the United States following Trump’s return to the White House. Over the past year, Trump launched a new trade war against Canada and other US allies by imposing sweeping new tariffs on Canadian goods, and triggered widespread diplomatic anger when he publicly suggested Canada should become the “51st state” of the United States. Just this week, during ongoing trade negotiations between the three North American nations, Trump cast doubt on whether he would renew the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the landmark trade pact that has integrated the North American economy for decades.
    These escalating trade tensions have already had tangible economic impacts on both sides. Estimates from the US Travel Association show that Canadian travel to the United States dropped by 20% over the past year, costing the US economy more than $4 billion in lost tourism revenue alone.

  • What is El Niño and why could it mean record temperatures?

    What is El Niño and why could it mean record temperatures?

    U.S. climate scientists have officially confirmed the formation of a new El Niño event, a naturally occurring climate pattern capable of triggering extreme weather disruptions across every inhabited continent, with forecasts indicating it could rank among the most intense events recorded since 1950.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the onset of the new El Niño phase after detecting consistent sea surface temperature anomalies of more than 0.5°C above long-term averages across the central tropical Pacific, paired with a measurable shift in atmospheric pressure: lower pressure over the central Pacific and higher pressure in the western Pacific. The Japanese Meteorological Agency has independently verified the presence of El Niño conditions, matching NOAA’s findings.

    What makes this event particularly concerning to researchers is the unusually high temperature of sub-surface Pacific waters, which have measured up to 6°C above average in some regions, per data from the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Historical climate patterns show that deep ocean heat typically rises to the surface over the course of an El Niño event, driving further warming. NOAA’s latest probability calculations put the chance of this El Niño reaching “very strong” or “super” status—defined as a sustained surface warming of 2°C or more across the central tropical Pacific—at 63%, meaning it will almost certainly rank among the most significant events in the modern observational record. The event is projected to persist at least through the early months of 2027.

    First documented by Peruvian fishermen in the 1600s, who named the warm December current El Niño de Navidad (the Christ Child) for its seasonal timing, the climate pattern forms when trade winds that normally blow east to west across the tropical Pacific weaken or reverse direction, allowing warm surface water that usually accumulates near Australia and Southeast Asia to spread eastward toward the coasts of North and South America.

    When combined with decades of anthropogenic global warming, this new El Niño is expected to push 2027 to become the hottest year ever recorded on a global scale. “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even farther, and cross borders with devastating speed,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned, urging nations to begin preparation for widespread disruptions immediately.

    WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo added that a strong El Niño will exacerbate already dangerous climate extremes, worsening droughts, extreme rainfall events, and heatwaves on both land and ocean as the Pacific transfers accumulated heat into the atmosphere.

    While no two El Niño events produce identical impacts, consistent historical trends outline broad regional effects. A strong event typically brings prolonged hot, dry conditions to parts of South America, Southeast Asia, and Australia, dramatically increasing the risk of severe droughts and destructive wildfires—conditions that mirror the devastating blazes that swept across Indonesia during the record 2015-16 El Niño event. It also tends to weaken the critical Indian monsoon, reducing rainfall across South Asia. In the southern United States, El Niño amplifies rainfall, raising the probability of life-threatening flooding. For tropical storm activity, the pattern increases cyclone formation in the eastern and central Pacific while suppressing activity in the tropical Atlantic, including off the southeastern U.S. coast. The impact on U.K. weather is less consistent, but the U.K. Met Office notes El Niño often increases the chance of a mild early winter followed by a cold late winter.

    Beyond immediate weather disruptions, the event poses serious risks to global food security. Droughts in major agricultural regions of South America and Southeast Asia could reduce crop yields at a time when global fertilizer distribution is already disrupted by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. A smaller harvest would tighten already strained global food supplies and push prices higher, worsening food insecurity for vulnerable populations. For South American fishing communities, the event reduces the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water that sustains popular commercial species such as anchovies, leading to smaller catches and economic hardship.

    Many researchers are drawing parallels to the 2015-16 El Niño, one of the strongest events on record. That event caused widespread water shortages in the Caribbean, a record-breaking tropical storm season in the central Pacific, and prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the combined climate shocks linked to that event left millions of people across the globe facing food insecurity.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted that El Niño events recorded since 1950 have been stronger on average than events between 1850 and 1950, though historical data from tree rings confirms that frequency and intensity have varied naturally since the 1400s. There is currently no clear scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change has altered the frequency or intensity of El Niño events, though some climate models project that El Niños may become more frequent and more intense as global warming continues. Regardless of its link to climate change, this El Niño’s impacts will be amplified by the long-term warming driven by greenhouse gas emissions, making extreme weather more dangerous than it would have been in a pre-warming world.

    El Niño is the warm phase of the Pacific’s natural ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) cycle, paired with its cooler counterpart La Niña. During La Niña events, central-eastern Pacific surface temperatures fall below average and atmospheric pressure patterns reverse, bringing wetter conditions to Australia, Indonesia, and equatorial South America and drier conditions to the southern U.S. El Niño and La Niña typically alternate, though repeated back-to-back events of the same phase are not uncommon. On average, the full ENSO cycle produces an El Niño or La Niña every two to seven years.

  • Pope condemns ‘indifference’ towards migrants on Canaries trip

    Pope condemns ‘indifference’ towards migrants on Canaries trip

    On the sixth day of his week-long trip to Spain, Pope Leo XIV traveled to Spain’s Canary Islands on Thursday, using the high-profile visit to deliver a searing rebuke of global indifference toward migrants risking their lives along one of the world’s deadliest irregular migration routes to Europe.

    Standing at the Arguineguin port on Gran Canaria, a site that has become synonymous with the regional migration crisis, the pontiff carried out a solemn ritual: throwing a floral wreath into the Atlantic Ocean to honor the thousands of people who have perished attempting to reach the archipelago from northern Africa. Following the tribute, he met with recent arrivals and the aid workers who support them, before blessing a handcrafted cross carved from timber salvaged from broken migrant boats that washed up on the islands’ shores.

    During a public ceremony, Pope Leo called out the systemic failures that fuel ongoing loss of life along the route. “Even today, monsters lurk in these seas: mafias that profit from despair, traffickers that enslave women and children, and those whose indifference allows the poor to be swallowed up by exploitation or forgetfulness,” he told the assembled crowd.

    Data from the International Organization for Migration underscores the scale of the crisis: nearly 1,200 people died or disappeared while crossing from Africa to the Canary Islands in 2023 alone, cementing the route’s status as one of the deadliest migration corridors on the planet. Pope Leo pushed back against the hardline policy shift that has swept much of Europe in recent years, driven by rising far-right political pressure. “Europe cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic becoming unmarked graves,” he added. He also called on origin and transit nations, where migrants flee persistent poverty and armed conflict only to fall prey to smuggling networks, to confront the crisis and reexamine their collective conscience.

    Attendees at the ceremony heard the harrowing testimony of a Nigerian woman who survived trafficking during her journey to Spain, who chose not to appear in person for security reasons. She shared the impossible choice that millions of migrants face: “I had to choose: live in suffering, or cross and risk it all. Die trying, or stay and not have anything.” After being forced into prostitution in Spain, she had her newborn child taken from her. Responding to her story, Pope Leo affirmed his commitment to honoring the humanity of all migrants, saying “I bow before the dignity of every migrant. You are not just numbers or files. You are people who have left behind families and homes. You have dreams that no one has the right to despise.”

    The Canary Islands have borne the brunt of rising irregular migration across the Atlantic in recent years. In 2024, more than 46,000 people arrived on the islands – a new annual record – most crammed into overcrowded, unseaworthy small vessels. Arrival numbers have fallen in the months following that record surge. The pontiff’s trip fulfills a long-planned goal of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who passed away one year ago before he could make the journey to the islands.

    Pope Leo’s outspoken advocacy for migrant rights has already drawn political pushback: it has sparked public criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has implemented sweeping new restrictions on irregular migration since returning to the White House last year.

    For migrant communities and advocates on the ground, the visit carries profound meaning at what many describe as a critical juncture for the crisis. Mohamed Amjahdi, a 37-year-old member of the Spanish Islamic Commission who arrived in the Canary Islands from Morocco on a migrant boat when he was 17, spoke to AFP about the visit’s significance. “We really value this visit. It’s very important for us at such a critical moment,” he said. “We also appreciate the Catholic Church and the vital work it does for migrants. When it comes to helping migrants, there’s no distinction. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Christian or not, whether you’re white or black — everyone receives the same support.”

    Arguineguin port gained infamy as the “dock of shame” after more than 3,000 migrants were forced to sleep in the open or under flimsy makeshift shelters during a massive arrival surge in 2020. For Thursday’s ceremony, local organizers installed a large new banner renaming the site the “dock of hope.”

    The visit comes as the Spanish government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has broken with the broader European hardline trend, moving forward with a plan to regularize the status of around 500,000 undocumented migrants currently living in the country. Earlier in the trip, during an address to Spain’s parliament on Monday, Pope Leo outlined his policy vision for migration, calling for the creation of “safe and legal pathways” for migration and urging governments to extend “a respectful welcome and real opportunities for integration” to new arrivals.

    Thursday marks the penultimate day of Pope Leo’s week-long trip to Spain, which has already included stops in Madrid and Barcelona. The visit is set to conclude on Friday on the island of Tenerife, where the pontiff will tour another migrant support center.

  • UN mission in Afghanistan confirms death toll of 13 civilians in Pakistani airstrikes

    UN mission in Afghanistan confirms death toll of 13 civilians in Pakistani airstrikes

    Fresh cross-border violence has shattered a rare month-long lull in hostilities between Pakistan and Afghanistan, after the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed Thursday that 13 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in Pakistani airstrikes carried out in eastern Afghanistan a day earlier. The UN’s official count matches the casualty figures released Wednesday by Afghan government authorities, whose initial claims Pakistan quickly dismissed as false propaganda.

    According to UNAMA’s public post on social media platform X, the airstrikes conducted overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday left 13 civilians dead and another 10 injured, with the vast majority of casualties being children and women. The mission has renewed its urgent call for immediate steps to de-escalate tensions between the two neighboring states, calling for a permanent ceasefire, guaranteed protection for civilian populations, the reopening of long-closed border crossings to allow critical humanitarian aid to flow, and direct diplomatic dialogue to resolve long-standing bilateral disputes.

    The shared border between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been fully closed for months, a closure that has crippled cross-border trade and passenger transportation, leaving thousands of travelers stranded on both sides of the frontier. The latest clash comes after a period of heightened confrontation dating back to February of this year, when Islamabad officially declared it was in an “open war” with Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government. That declaration followed a retaliatory Afghan attack on Pakistani positions in response to an earlier Pakistani airstrike inside Afghan territory. Since February, hundreds of people have been killed in repeated clashes along the border, and multiple rounds of international mediation have failed to broker a lasting ceasefire that can hold.

    The root of the current bilateral dispute lies in Pakistan’s longstanding accusation that the Afghan government harbors militants responsible for high-casualty attacks inside Pakistan, most notably the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban). The TTP is organizationally separate from but closely aligned to the Afghan Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan in 2021 following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces from the country. Kabul has consistently denied Pakistan’s accusations that it provides safe haven to anti-Pakistan militants.

    Pakistan has defended its latest round of airstrikes, confirming that it carried out the strikes along the border Wednesday specifically to target militant training camps and hideouts. Speaking at a weekly press briefing in Islamabad Thursday, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi explained that the strikes were launched in response to a recent string of militant attacks inside Pakistani territory. “We carried out these strikes to target safe havens, masterminds and planners belonging to Fitna al-Khawarij,” Andrabi stated, using the official term the Pakistani government uses to refer to the TTP and other militant groups operating against the state. “We acted on credible intelligence, and there was selective targeting of their hideouts.”

    Andrabi added that the safety and security of Pakistani citizens remains the government’s top national priority, and counterterrorism operations against militant hideouts will continue. “We continue to undertake military strikes with precision and accuracy, eliminating terrorist hideouts,” he said. When asked directly about UNAMA’s civilian casualty report, Andrabi declined to issue an immediate official comment, noting that Pakistani authorities would first need to review the full UN document. He did, however, question the methodology UNAMA used to document and confirm the casualty figures. “What is their methodology for measuring that? Our strikes were precise and targeted at the hideouts and camps of these terrorists,” he said.

    Most of the fighting between the two states has been concentrated along the shared border, but Pakistan has previously launched airstrikes deeper inside Afghan territory, including one strike in March that hit a drug-treatment center in Kabul. Afghan officials claimed that strike killed more than 400 people, a death toll Pakistan has repeatedly disputed, maintaining the strike targeted an insurgent ammunition depot and did not intentionally target civilians.

    Wednesday’s airstrikes came months after China brokered and hosted peace talks between delegations from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Following the talks, Beijing announced that both sides had agreed to avoid further escalation of tensions and work toward a negotiated solution to their disputes. Pakistani authorities say China and other neutral friendly countries continue to encourage both sides to negotiate a durable peace agreement, though progress has yet to materialize after the latest outbreak of violence.

  • First group of Nigerians returns home after anti-immigration protests in South Africa

    First group of Nigerians returns home after anti-immigration protests in South Africa

    JOHANNESBURG and LAGOS — In a move that underscores deepening tensions over immigration and xenophobic violence across Southern Africa, the first planeload of Nigerian citizens touched down in Lagos on Thursday, the start of a government-ordered repatriation effort for people fleeing deadly anti-foreign unrest in South Africa.

    Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the incoming flight carried 262 returning passengers plus three government officials. Prior to the arrival, authorities had announced that more than 1,000 Nigerians residing in South Africa had already registered to take advantage of the voluntary repatriation program, which was launched after a wave of violent anti-immigration demonstrations swept across parts of South Africa starting in April.

    The repatriation effort has already sparked a public disagreement between the two African nations. South African officials assert that all the Nigerians processed for return were staying in the country without valid immigration documentation, a direct contradiction of Nigerian officials’ framing that the evacuees are escaping life-threatening xenophobic attacks. As of Thursday, Nigerian officials had not issued any formal response to the South African claim in response to inquiries from the Associated Press.

    The current unrest stems from long-simmering frictions between native South African workers and foreign migrants. Since April, recurring anti-immigration protests have escalated into targeted attacks on foreign-owned businesses and foreign residents, with demonstrators arguing that migrant workers are taking scarce job opportunities from local South African citizens. South African national authorities have publicly condemned the violence as explicitly xenophobic, though the attacks have continued to prompt panic among foreign communities across the country.

    Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu said the repatriation order came directly from the Nigerian presidency, authorizing the “evacuation of imperiled Nigerian citizens who consider their lives at risk by continued stay in South Africa.” In a public address to people preparing to return home, the minister emphasized that personal safety far outweighs material loss: “The price of your peace, and the safety of your children is worth any sacrifices you have to make, or any assets you have to leave behind when fleeing a conflict zone or hate-infused environment.”

    Nigeria is not the first African nation to organize large-scale repatriation from South Africa amid the current wave of unrest. Ghana previously evacuated roughly 1,000 of its own citizens from South Africa, and South African officials similarly noted that most of the returning Ghanaians were undocumented. Liberia has also raised urgent alarms over the safety of its citizens living in South Africa, with local media quoting President Joseph Boakai as saying the Liberian government is prepared to take all necessary steps, including arranging similar repatriation flights for any Liberians who wish to return.

    In a further development that complicates cross-border relations, South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs has announced that all Nigerians processed for repatriation will face a five-year ban on re-entering the country. To date, the department says 586 Nigerians have completed processing for repatriation after being found to lack valid immigration status, with the next group of returnees scheduled to depart for Nigeria on Monday.

    South African Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber explained that the Nigerian High Commission issued emergency travel documentation for the returnees, after which they were formally declared “undesirable persons” barred from re-entry for a half-decade. “Foreign nationals must ensure that their immigration status remains compliant with South African immigration laws at all times and to regularize their stay,” Schreiber said.

    Associated Press reporter Mogomotsi Magome contributed on-the-ground reporting from Johannesburg for this story.