Global Pulse

分类： world

  • Australian cockroach kingpin caught with 100,000 illegal insects in record bug bust

    Australian cockroach kingpin caught with 100,000 illegal insects in record bug bust

    In what Australian authorities have described as the largest seizure of prohibited exotic invertebrates in the nation’s history, more than 100,000 illegally kept live cockroaches have been confiscated from a commercial breeder in New South Wales, officials confirmed Friday. The operation, carried out in May, targeted a breeder operating in the regional city of Bathurst, taking two prohibited species off the black market: Madagascar hissing cockroaches and dubia cockroaches, with a total estimated street value of 200,000 Australian dollars, equal to roughly $142,000 US.

    Among the two species seized, the Madagascar hissing cockroach stands out for its extraordinary size: classified as one of the largest cockroach species on Earth, adult specimens grow between 2 and 3 inches long, far larger than the common native Australian cockroach which only reaches between 0.9 and 1.4 inches in length. Official government photos show the glossy brown invasive invertebrate is actually bigger than an average adult person’s finger.

    Australia is already a nation where cockroaches thrive, with its warm, subtropical climate supporting hundreds of native species across the country. But these two introduced species are banned entirely under Australian law: import, possession, breeding and commercial sale of Madagascar hissing and dubia cockroaches are all criminal offenses, regardless of how the specimens were originally obtained.

    Local Bathurst snake catcher Stefanie Lesser, who has experience dealing with exotic wildlife in the region, explained the illegal black market demand for these large insects to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She noted the roaches are primarily sold as a low-cost, convenient feed source for pet reptiles. Because of their large size, reptile owners require far fewer individual insects to feed their lizards and snakes, making the illegal roaches an attractive alternative to regulated feed options. In response, environmental officials are urging reptile and other exotic pet owners to turn to legal alternatives such as crickets or native wood roaches instead of purchasing prohibited invasive species.

    Australia maintains some of the strictest biosecurity border controls in the world, designed to protect its unique native wildlife, $100 billion agriculture and horticulture industries from destructive invasive pest outbreaks. Anyone caught smuggling undeclared or prohibited animal, insect or plant material into the country faces fines reaching thousands of Australian dollars, and can face criminal prosecution for repeat or large-scale offenses.

    In an official statement, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water emphasized that these exotic cockroach species have never undergone formal environmental risk assessment for introduction to Australia. If they were to establish wild populations, they could pose multiple threats to local ecosystems: they may carry and spread novel diseases to native invertebrate species, outcompete native cockroaches for resources, and disrupt local food chains, putting vulnerable native wildlife populations at risk. Authorities have warned that anyone found illegally possessing the prohibited invertebrates will face prosecution, though a department spokesperson confirmed no charges have been filed against the Bathurst breeder as of the announcement. All 100,000 seized cockroaches will be humanely euthanized to eliminate any risk of escape or release into the wild.

  • Pope Leo’s visiting Europe’s migration hot spots. Catholics hope he’ll ease political tensions

    Pope Leo’s visiting Europe’s migration hot spots. Catholics hope he’ll ease political tensions

    Early in his papacy, Pope Leo XIV is stepping into one of Europe’s most polarizing policy debates by planning back-to-back visits to two frontline migration hubs: Spain’s Atlantic Canary Islands next month, followed by Italy’s Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in early July. For years, these small, remote European outposts have borne the brunt of massive migration flows, with tens of thousands of mostly African migrants crossing one of the world’s deadliest migration routes to reach European shores. While overall arrival numbers have dropped this year, particularly in the Canaries, the issue continues to upend domestic politics in both Spain and Italy, two historically Catholic nations grappling with deep ideological divides over migration policy.

    Many faith leaders, aid workers and even the migrants themselves hope the papal visits will shift public conversation away from partisan fighting that has split right-wing factions and pitted them against progressive parties, and refocus the debate on human solidarity and compassionate support for new arrivals. “Stuck in the middle are the migrants,” explained Most Rev. José Mazuelos, bishop of the Canarias diocese that covers multiple islands in the archipelago. “So the church says, ‘Let’s give them a face, because we’re talking about people, not numbers.’”

    One such person is Eslim Jallow, a 27-year-old migrant who left Gambia with his younger brother in 2023, chasing the promise of a more stable, prosperous future before landing in the Canaries. After an initial difficult period of adaptation, Jallow mastered Spanish, completed professional coursework and now works full-time as a programmer and web developer based in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. “Perhaps the pope will change the way in which people here look at immigrants,” Jallow said. “Immigrants should be treated with dignity and respect, not ignored.” Though Jallow is not Catholic, like the majority of migrants arriving in the islands, he says he believes Pope Leo will amplify the voices of migrants and remind the global community that they are people first, not political talking points.

    Advocacy for just and humane migration policy has long been a core priority for the Catholic Church, dating back to the papacy of Pope Francis. Just one year into his tenure, Pope Francis made his first pastoral trip outside of Rome to Lampedusa in 2013 to honor migrants who died at sea, and three years later brought 12 Syrian Muslim refugees back to Vatican City with him from a visit to Lesbos, Greece. Pope Leo has carried on this legacy, repeatedly calling for dignified treatment of migrants across the globe – most notably decrying mass deportation policies in his home country, the United States.

    Michele Pistone, a Villanova University professor who leads the institution’s new research center on migration, notes that staging these two visits so early in Pope Leo’s papacy sends a clear signal about how high of a priority migration is for the new pontiff. During his June 11 stop in the Canaries, Pope Leo will first visit the port of Arguineguín on Gran Canaria to hold a memorial for thousands of migrants who have died or gone missing while crossing the Atlantic. The following day, he will meet with migrants staying at a reception camp on Tenerife.

    In 2024 alone, the Canary Islands emerged as the epicenter of a major humanitarian crisis, with nearly 47,000 migrants from North and West Africa arriving on its shores, including thousands of unaccompanied minor migrants. Most Rev. Eloy Santiago, bishop of Tenerife whose diocese covers the small island of El Hierro, explained that half of all 2024 arrivals landed on El Hierro – a number nearly triple the island’s permanent resident population. Even though most migrants only stay for a few days before being transferred elsewhere, the influx pushed the island’s already limited public resources to a breaking point. “If a boat arrives, the couple of local doctors have to go out running to take care of them, and then the local residents who had their medical appointments can’t have them,” Santiago said.

    Catholic organizations and charities have been on the ground aiding migrants from the moment they step off the overcrowded, unseaworthy boats that carry them across the ocean. While stricter coastal controls along the African coast have cut arrival numbers dramatically this year, a long-term, unresolved challenge remains: supporting unaccompanied minor migrants who, after being placed in state care, are forced out into the streets with no job prospects or social support once they turn 18.

    For Jallow, this challenge hits close to home: his younger brother, who was paralyzed from the neck down in an accident shortly after arriving in the Canaries and currently lives in a Catholic hospital in Las Palmas, will turn 18 next year, and Jallow says he fears what will happen to him after that. Caya Suárez, secretary general for Caritas, the Catholic charity operating in the Canaries, has seen firsthand how this coming-of-age transition leaves young migrants disproportionately vulnerable. “That’s a very bad moment, even though they’d been waiting for it with hope, because they see they are still stuck without alternatives,” she explained. Caritas works to connect these young adults with housing and employment opportunities, and has even relocated a small number to mainland Spain, including Madrid and small rural communities in Galicia, even as many regional governments have refused to accept additional underage migrants.

    Many long-term Canary Islands residents report feeling abandoned by national and European institutions, left to manage a crisis they did not create as they struggle to stretch already limited resources to support new arrivals. Migrants themselves often come to the islands believing they will soon be able to travel to mainland Europe to build new lives, only to find themselves stuck on the outer edge of the EU, struggling to make ends meet, send money home to their families, or move onward. Compounded by the widespread perception that national and EU policymakers frame this as an “island problem” that local authorities must solve alone, the ongoing strain has eroded morale even among long-time island residents who are historically accustomed to migration flows between the Canaries and Latin America. Bishops across the islands say they hope the pope’s visit will renew energy for local residents who have poured years into supporting migrants. “The pope’s word can help so that in the middle of this fatigue, people can buck up again because they see they are supported,” said Santiago, who was born and ordained as a priest on the islands.

    At the national level, Spain’s Catholic Church has publicly thrown its support behind a new government measure that would grant temporary residency permits to more than half a million undocumented migrants currently living and working in the country, many of whom come from Latin America. The socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the church both note that these undocumented migrants often fill critical labor gaps in hospitality, agriculture and elder care, boosting Spain’s overall economy.

    Pablo Simón, a political science professor at Madrid’s University Carlos III, explains that the church’s pro-migration stance has put it in direct opposition to Spain’s right-wing and far-right political parties. This has created an open rift between the Catholic Church and far-right groups such as Vox, which often frames its anti-migration rhetoric in religious language but has repeatedly criticized the church’s welcoming stance. The Rev. Fernando Redondo, who leads the migration department of the Spanish bishops’ conference, says the church’s position follows the core Christian mandate to welcome strangers, but acknowledges that the church faces an uphill battle changing perspectives among many faithful who believe migrants take native jobs and rely on public welfare. “We have a big challenge, which is raising awareness among our faithful … that from the viewpoint of faith, to welcome a migrant person is to welcome Christ himself,” Redondo said. “Then, of course, there needs to be ways, proper social and political ways, so that migration doesn’t become a total mess.”

    Across the Canaries, ordinary residents have long been on the front lines of the crisis: local fishermen who hand out fresh water to migrants on flimsy rafts, vacationing sunbathers who run into the surf to help migrants who have reached shore, and volunteers who greet new arrivals in more than a dozen languages. Residents have also seen successful integration in action: one small, depopulating mountain village saw its population, local economy and school revitalized after a reception center for 36 migrant children opened there, even reviving participation in the local church’s annual feast procession.

    It is for this reason that many on the islands are hoping Pope Leo will bring a simple, deeply needed message of reconciliation that centers the human experience of migration rather than partisan politics. “The pope doesn’t support this slogan of ‘let’s go, open doors for the whole world here.’ Nobody supports that,” Mazuelos said. “When here comes a gentleman in a wooden boat after five days in the Atlantic, what are we supposed to do, kick him back? We’ve got to find a way to welcome him.”

    This reporting was contributed by Dell’Orto from Minneapolis, and is part of Associated Press religion coverage supported through a collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP holds sole responsibility for the content of this report.

  • Nazi party records released online shatter German family myths

    Nazi party records released online shatter German family myths

    For generations, German families have grappled with an unspoken, haunting question: What role did our ancestors play under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime? Today, that question can be answered with a few simple keystrokes — and the truth is upending decades of carefully constructed family myth across the country.

    In March, the U.S. National Archives published fully searchable digital scans of approximately 12 million Nazi Party membership cards online. The documents, originally seized by Allied American forces from Nazi Germany following the regime’s defeat in World War II, were previously only accessible to the public via cumbersome microfilm stored at a small number of physical institutions. With the mass digitization and online release, however, secrets hidden for nearly 80 years became available to anyone with an internet connection.

    Major German outlets *Die Zeit* and *Der Spiegel* quickly built free public search tools to help users navigate the vast archive, sparking a national reckoning. Headlines across the country bluntly asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Was grandpa a Nazi?” In the weeks since the archive launched, hundreds of thousands of Germans have searched for their ancestors’ names, going into the process knowing the results may shatter the stories their families passed down for generations.

    For 60-year-old Corinna, who requested her last name be withheld to protect her family’s privacy, the discovery was particularly jarring. Her 26-year-old daughter Helena found irrefutable proof in the digitized records that Corinna’s father had joined the Nazi Party in 1935 — two full years after Hitler seized total control of the German state. Corinna had always known her father fought and was wounded in France and the Soviet Union during the war, but he never revealed his Nazi Party ties. Growing up, she was raised to believe her father, born to a working-class mining family in Germany’s western Saarland region, had been a lifelong supporter of the Social Democrats, Germany’s center-left labor party.

    This collective act of family silence is not an anomaly across modern Germany. While the German federal government has spent decades educating the public, formally atoning for Nazi atrocities including the Holocaust, and preserving memorials to the regime’s victims, many private households have long avoided confronting their own connections to the Nazi past — sometimes even actively rewriting the story.

    Historical data shows that by the end of the Third Reich in 1945, more than one in 10 Germans were registered Nazi Party members. Historian Johannes Spohr, who has spent years assisting families researching their ancestors’ Nazi ties, explains that after the war, this generation created an unspoken family rule that certain topics were off-limits. “Many ex-Nazis didn’t just stay silent, as is often assumed — they actively constructed an alternate version of history,” Spohr told reporters. Most often, this alternate story cast them as reluctant victims of the Nazi regime, or even falsely claimed they were part of the small anti-Nazi resistance.

    Spohr notes that modern public opinion polls bear out this mythmaking: between 11% and 18% of contemporary Germans believe their grandparents actively helped people persecuted by the Nazi regime. But according to up-to-date historical research, the actual share of German families with that legacy is less than 1%.

    Felix Puelm, a 42-year-old history professor currently based at Thailand’s Silpakorn University, is one of many Germans who recently uncovered an unexpected ancestor tie in the new archive. He discovered that his late grandmother had joined the Nazi Party in 1940, when she was 19 years old. By that point, Puelm explains, his grandmother had already witnessed the Nazis launch invasive wars against neighboring European countries, and could clearly see the violent direction the regime was heading. “And yet she still made the decision to join,” Puelm said. He added that while his grandparents never expressed any pro-Nazi sentiment after the war, they chose to hide their past actions from the next generations. Puelm says he now wishes he had learned the truth earlier, so he could have asked his grandmother about her choices before she died.

    Historians say the archive’s records also help add context to ancestors’ choices, shedding light on whether membership grew out of ideological commitment or opportunism. Spohr explains that joining the party before Hitler took power in 1933, particularly in the 1920s, is a strong indicator of genuine ideological conviction. After 1933, however, many new members joined for opportunistic reasons: to advance their careers, secure access to government jobs, or conform to widespread social pressure. Spohr notes that certain professional fields, particularly civil service and education, had extremely high rates of Nazi Party membership, but stresses that no one was legally forced to enroll.

    Looking forward, Puelm says the new accessibility of these records could prompt valuable reflection on the current political moment in Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) now leads national opinion polls. He hopes the revelations of past family ties to extremist politics will push modern German households to examine the factors that lead people to join radical, anti-democratic parties today.

  • Mount Everest climber recounts moment he lost guide who survived alone for six days

    Mount Everest climber recounts moment he lost guide who survived alone for six days

    In an extraordinary story of survival that has stunned the global mountaineering community, a Nepali mountain guide has been found alive after six days stranded in Mount Everest’s unforgiving \”death zone\”, defying almost all expectations of making it out alive. Hillary Dawa Sherpa, the guide, went missing while descending the world’s highest peak alongside Chris Thrall, a former British soldier, following a grueling multi-day climbing expedition this season.

  • Thousands protest in Albania against Kushner real estate project

    Thousands protest in Albania against Kushner real estate project

    Thousands of Albanian demonstrators have gathered in the capital city of Tirana for the fourth straight day, rallying against a billion-dollar coastal tourism development project headed by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump. The four-day stretch of public unrest has brought widespread attention to long-simmering public concerns over environmental protection and government transparency, as protesters push for rollbacks of regulatory changes that cleared the way for construction in one of Albania’s most ecologically sensitive regions.

    Protesters carried a range of provocative signs during Thursday’s demonstration, with many demanding the resignation of sitting Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama. One widely circulated banner depicted Rama handing over the symbolic keys to the country to Ivanka Trump, underscoring widespread public anger over what demonstrators frame as a surrender of national environmental heritage to foreign private interests.

    At the core of the controversy is the proposed $1.2 billion development, which plans to build multiple luxury hotels across the Vjosa-Narta protected area on Albania’s southern Adriatic coast, alongside a massive redevelopment of Sazan Island. Sazan, once a closed-off secret military base under Albania’s former communist regime, would be transformed into an upscale, glitzy tourist hotspot under plans first unveiled to the public two years ago. Opponents of the project argue that construction in the protected conservation zone will cause irreversible damage to the region’s unique ecosystems, which are already designated as a priority conservation area for the country.

    Public anger over the project boiled over in recent days following two key developments: first, a viral video showing construction bulldozers already conducting preparatory work on the project site along the beach, and second, an incident where on-site security guards assaulted a local man near the protected area boundaries. These events turned growing public discontent into sustained mass demonstrations, uniting a broad coalition of environmental activists, human rights organizers and ordinary citizens.

    Beyond canceling the Kushner-led project, demonstrators are demanding two major policy reversals: the full repeal of the controversial Strategic Investor Act, a law designed to cut through red tape and accelerate approval for large-scale private projects, and the rollback of recent amendments to the national Protected Areas Act that allow commercial hotel construction in officially protected conservation zones. Currently, 22 percent of Albania’s total national territory is designated as protected conservation land, a figure that activists warn could be eroded by the regulatory changes.

    Luciana Kokaj, a 31-year-old human rights activist who attended the protest, shared her own personal experience with predatory large-scale development, noting she had previously fought a major investor who attempted to seize her northern Albanian property using forged ownership documents. Even so, she emphasized that the current movement goes far beyond individual grievances. “But this is beyond my personal interest: it’s about protecting Albania for our children,” she told reporters from Agence France-Presse at the protest site.

    Etleva Merko, another participating demonstrator, pushed back against recent claims from Prime Minister Rama that protesters oppose all economic development for the country. “We are for development, we are for transparency, we are against construction in protected areas,” she made clear, framing the movement as a fight for responsible, sustainable growth rather than an rejection of investment entirely.

    In response to the growing unrest, Albania’s Special Prosecutor’s Office against Corruption and Organized Crime announced earlier this week that it had opened a formal investigation into the proposed project. Officials have not yet released any additional details on the scope or focus of the ongoing probe.

  • ‘Acts of revenge’: Israel arrests Palestinian women footballers and students

    ‘Acts of revenge’: Israel arrests Palestinian women footballers and students

    Before the first light of day filtered across the occupied West Bank, the sharp, sudden sound of pounding echoed through the entrance of Ahmed Safi’s apartment building in the town of Birzeit, north of Ramallah. When the 48-year-old Palestinian father jolted awake, he watched as Israeli soldiers streamed through the halls of his building, and assumed the incursion targeted another resident. He could never have guessed the operation would end with his own 20-year-old daughter, Sama – a psychology undergraduate at Birzeit University – in handcuffs.

    “We were stunned, completely shocked,” Safi told reporters from Middle East Eye in an interview. “We never had any indication this raid was meant for her.”

    Family accounts confirm soldiers entered the residential compound shortly after 2 a.m. on Tuesday, shouting orders in Hebrew as they cleared each floor and made their way to the Safi family’s unit. They demanded identification from Ahmed, his wife, and Sama, before presenting the 20-year-old with a sealed arrest warrant. When the family pressed for details on the allegations against her, commanding officers only offered that they would “learn the reason in court.”

    Before moving Sama out of the apartment, soldiers ransacked her personal study and bedroom, seizing her mobile phone, laptop, and multiple personal items. Among the possessions taken were framed photographs of her cousin, Ayser Safi, who was killed by Israeli forces in a separate 2024 incursion. Sama was then led down the stairs of the building, handcuffed behind her back, blindfolded, and loaded into an unmarked Israeli military vehicle.

    For the Safi family, the shock of the arrest is compounded by urgent fears over Sama’s chronic medical condition: she lives with Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF), an inherited autoimmune inflammatory disorder that requires daily, consistent medication to prevent life-threatening complications. Ahmed Safi said he repeatedly attempted to explain his daughter’s health needs to the raiding party, but soldiers refused to let him gather her medication or discuss her condition before taking her into custody.

    “Without her daily drugs, she suffers crippling high fevers, intense body pain, and other disabling symptoms,” Safi explained. “This disease triggers spontaneous autoimmune attacks. If she goes without her medication, it can cause permanent liver and kidney damage. We are extremely worried for her right now.”

    As of this week, Sama is being held at the Al-Maskubiya interrogation facility in Jerusalem, with her first scheduled court appearance set for next Tuesday. No formal charges against her have been released to the public.

    Sama is not alone in this latest wave of detentions: she is one of five Palestinian women taken into Israeli custody in a series of overnight raids this week, three of whom are current Birzeit University students, with one a recent graduate of the institution. Among the detainees are two active players on the Palestinian women’s national football team: 20-year-old Natalie Abu Diya and 20-year-old Rand Halawani. The other two detainees are third-year public administration student Julan Abu Awad and recent graduate Laila Nael Khalil.

    Natalie Abu Diya, a second-year media studies student at Birzeit, was taken from her on-campus student housing during what witnesses described as a violent overnight incursion. Her father, Samer Abu Diya, told Middle East Eye that Natalie had represented Palestine in international youth competition as a member of the national under-18 women’s football squad. The family was on a phone call with Natalie until roughly 10:30 p.m. the night of her arrest, when she told them she had 13 class assignments to finish and planned to stay up late to complete the work. By 3:30 a.m., her roommates contacted the family to say Israeli soldiers had broken into her room and taken her into custody.

    Natalie was later transferred to Israel’s Ofer Prison, where she has already met with her legal representation. The family says they still have no information about what charges, if any, will be brought against her.

    “Natalie is my youngest daughter. She is independent, determined, and exceptionally bright,” Samer Abu Diya said. “I do not doubt her ability to withstand this ordeal, but I am deeply heartbroken by the injustice that is being done to her.”

    The second national team player, Rand Halawani, was arrested after Israeli authorities summoned her for questioning in Jerusalem. A military court has extended her detention through Friday, and no further details on charges have been released.

    The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) issued a scathing condemnation of the detentions, calling the arrests “unjust” and part of a broader pattern of systematic targeting that has gone unchecked for years.

    “Their arrest is not an isolated incident; it is part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without any form of accountability,” the PFA statement read. “The PFA calls on FIFA, our continental confederations, and the entire global sporting community to move beyond empty statements and take concrete disciplinary action within the framework of international football to address these ongoing violations. The targeting of Palestinian athletes must end. The impunity must end. The double standards must end.”

    Julan Abu Awad, the third Birzeit student detained, was arrested during a pre-dawn raid on her family’s home in the West Bank. Her sister, Jenin Abu Awad, said the entire family was left stunned by the incursion.

    “We tried to ask why they were taking her, but they just told us we would find out in court, and that she would be detained for a long time,” Jenin told Middle East Eye. “They tore her room apart, searched every inch of it, and turned everything upside down.”

    The raid that led to Julan’s arrest came just one week after Israeli forces first raided the family home, interrogating all members, seizing personal items including a bottle of perfume and a pack of cigarettes, but leaving without making any arrests. Julan is currently being held at the Al-Maskubiya interrogation center, and like Sama Safi, she has a pre-existing chronic medical condition that requires regular medication: she experiences severe recurring migraines that can leave her incapacitated for days.

    “When she has a migraine, she vomits repeatedly, cannot stand any light, and needs complete silence. She needs strong painkillers and a sedative injection to get through an attack,” Jenin explained. “We are very worried about her health right now.”

    These five detentions are part of a much broader, ongoing pattern of daily incursion and arrest across the occupied West Bank. Palestinian prisoner rights organizations estimate that roughly 9,000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, with nearly half of that population detained without formal charges or trial.

    Abdullah Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a prominent advocacy group, said in an interview that Israeli forces have seen a sharp uptick in the detention of Palestinian girls and women in recent months, with a particular focus on university students and former political prisoners. Most of these arrests are carried out under the broad allegation of “incitement,” often tied to nothing more than social media posts expressing opposition to the Israeli occupation or solidarity with other Palestinian communities.

    Zaghari warned that detained Palestinian women face severe risks inside Israeli prisons, including documented abuse, systemic medical negligence, and prolonged solitary confinement. “The number of arrests of male and female university students has skyrocketed under this pretext, which has no basis in international law whatsoever,” Zaghari said. “These arrests are part of ongoing acts of revenge against the Palestinian people by the occupation.”

    Data from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club shows that the total number of Palestinian women held in Israeli facilities has risen to 89 as of this week. That population includes three minor girls, three pregnant women, and two women living with cancer. Most are held in Israel’s Damon Prison, while dozens more are still being held in temporary interrogation and detention facilities. At least 19 of the 89 detained women are held under administrative detention, a policy that allows Israeli authorities to imprison individuals without charge or trial, with detention terms renewable indefinitely.

  • Watch: Guide stranded on Everest for six days rescued

    Watch: Guide stranded on Everest for six days rescued

    A high-stakes mountain rescue operation on the world’s highest peak has concluded successfully, after a professional mountain guide spent six grueling days stranded in the deadly altitude of Mount Everest. The dramatic sequence of events that led to the guide’s entrapment and eventual safe extraction has been reconstructed through on-the-ground reporting by the BBC’s South Asia correspondent Rajini Vaidyanathan.

    Everest’s notoriously unpredictable weather and unforgiving terrain have long turned climbing expeditions into life-or-death tests, and this incident is no exception. Details of exactly what left the guide cut off from other climbers and descending teams have emerged gradually, with harsh wind chills, low visibility and sudden ice movement reported to have blocked his planned route off the mountain early last week. Left without a clear path to descend and unable to call for immediate help due to communication disruptions at extreme altitude, the guide was forced to hunker down in a exposed high-elevation campsite, surviving on limited emergency rations as rescue teams coordinated their response from base camp.

    Mountain rescue operations on Everest are among the most challenging in the world, requiring careful coordination between local Sherpa teams, expedition organizers, and air support units that can only operate in narrow windows of clear weather. Multiple days of poor visibility pushed the rescue effort back, extending the guide’s stranding to six full days, raising serious concerns among rescuers and expedition officials that he would not survive the exposure to sub-zero temperatures and oxygen deprivation at more than 8,000 meters above sea level.

    In the end, a break in the weather allowed a specialized rescue team to reach the stranded guide, pull him to safety and transport him to lower elevation for medical evaluation. As of the latest update, the guide is reported to be in stable condition, receiving care for mild frostbite and altitude sickness.

    The incident has once again drawn attention to the persistent risks mountaineers and professional guides face every climbing season on Everest, even as safety technologies and expedition protocols continue to improve. Climbing officials have noted that the successful rescue stands as a testament to the skill and courage of the Nepalese rescue teams that operate in some of the harshest conditions on Earth.

  • Ireland facing EU court case over peat extraction

    Ireland facing EU court case over peat extraction

    ### European Commission Initiates Legal Action Against Ireland at Court of Justice Over Peat Extraction Regulation Failures

    The European Commission has announced it is referring the Republic of Ireland to the European Court of Justice, the bloc’s highest judicial body, over persistent claims that Irish authorities have failed to fully enforce strict EU environmental regulations governing commercial peat extraction. This latest development comes years after Ireland implemented a national ban on the sale of peat for fuel use over widespread environmental concerns, but the practice of commercial mining for horticultural compost production remains active.

    While the EC has openly acknowledged that Ireland has taken “significant action” to curb large-scale peat cutting, most notably reining in operations by the state-owned extraction firm Bord Na Móna over the past six years, it argues that regulatory and enforcement gaps remain for smaller extraction sites covering less than 50 hectares. According to the commission, numerous active extraction operations on these smaller sites proceed without required planning permissions or mandatory environmental impact assessments (EIAs) — core requirements under EU law for projects expected to cause major ecological harm. “Despite evidence of these ongoing illegal activities, enforcement action at the local level is not being taken,” the EC said in its official statement announcing the legal referral.

    Peat extraction itself is not banned under EU legislation, but it is subject to stringent oversight due to the severe ecological damage unregulated extraction can cause. Peatlands are recognized globally as one of the most critical carbon sinks, capable of storing far more carbon per hectare than most forest ecosystems, making them a key natural defense against climate change. They also provide unique, rare habitats for a wide range of native Irish wildlife species.

    Irish environmental advocacy groups have welcomed the commission’s legal move. Tristram Whyte, policy officer for the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, a leading charity focused on protecting Ireland’s native bogs, described the long-term damage caused by unregulated commercial extraction. “They go into a bog, strip off the surface and then also drain the bog into the local rivers and lakes,” Whyte explained in an interview with BBC News NI. He added that this practice creates what he calls “brown deserts” across Ireland’s midlands, with far-reaching consequences: silt clogs waterways, and drained peat converts to ammonia, which kills aquatic life. Whyte also noted that commercial peat extraction generates large profits for the horticultural industry, with much of the harvested resource exported abroad, while Ireland is left with permanent ecological damage and degraded habitats.

    Irish government bodies have pushed back on the commission’s claims, pointing to existing regulatory frameworks and enforcement efforts already underway. Ireland’s Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment has emphasized that commercial peat extraction is a formally regulated activity in the country. Under current Irish rules, any extraction on sites larger than 50 hectares requires a pollution control license from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For sites between 30 and 50 hectares, both local authority planning permission and an EIA are mandatory. For sites smaller than 30 hectares, planning permission and an assessment are required if the project is expected to cause significant environmental harm, the department explained.

    The department also noted that the EC has already acknowledged the “significant enforcement” carried out by the EPA against unauthorised extraction on sites larger than 50 hectares, work that has pushed some private operators to end their activities. All EPA inspection reports are published publicly on the agency’s website and shared with the European Commission, the department added. When it comes to enforcement on smaller sites, the Department of Climate stated that responsibility falls to local planning authorities and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

    That claim has drawn clarification from the Department of Housing, which says it has no direct role in enforcement or penalty imposition beyond creating the underlying legislation. According to the department, city and county councils hold full responsibility for planning enforcement, including addressing violations of planning rules. If an operator fails to comply with an official enforcement notice, local planning authorities can refer the case to the national courts, where guilty findings can result in criminal convictions, fines, and even prison time.

    This latest dispute over peat extraction comes against a long backdrop of tension over peat policy in Ireland. For centuries, cutting peat (known locally as turf) for domestic heating has been a deeply rooted cultural tradition for rural Irish families, passed down through generations. More than a decade ago, the introduction of EU restrictions on turf cutting at 53 protected bog sites sparked large, defiant protests across rural communities. In 2022, the Irish national parliament, the Dáil, voted to ban the commercial sale of turf, but carved out explicit exemptions for small-scale domestic cutting for personal use.

    Whyte emphasized that the current legal action brought by the EC does not target these domestic exemptions at all, and will not change the existing rules for personal turf cutting. Instead, the case focuses exclusively on unregulated industrial-scale commercial peat extraction, which continues to operate despite its well-documented environmental harms. “Ireland must demonstrate that it takes its environmental responsibilities seriously,” Whyte added.

    The Court of Justice’s core mandate is to ensure that EU law is interpreted and applied uniformly across all 27 member states of the bloc. A ruling against Ireland could result in financial penalties and force the country to tighten enforcement across all sizes of peat extraction sites.

  • How Syria’s captagon trade shifted to Sweida after Assad’s fall

    How Syria’s captagon trade shifted to Sweida after Assad’s fall

    Eighteen months after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, a new chapter of the global captagon trade is unfolding in the country’s southern border province of Sweida, where dismantled drug networks have reconstituted themselves amid fragmented governance and rising regional tensions. Once a key transit corridor for Assad’s multi-billion dollar narcotics empire, the strategically located province has rapidly evolved into one of Syria’s most active captagon production and smuggling hubs, presenting a major test for Damascus’s new transitional government and neighboring security forces alike.

    Under Assad’s decades-long rule, captagon – an inexpensive, highly addictive amphetamine – functioned as a de facto source of state revenue. Western and regional security officials repeatedly documented that the regime’s elite Fourth Armoured Division, commanded by Assad’s brother Maher, and the Military Intelligence Directorate ran an extensive industrial network of captagon factories. At the trade’s peak, the UK government confirmed in 2023 that this network produced roughly 80% of the world’s entire captagon supply. When the new transitional government led by President Ahmad al-Sharaa took power in December 2024, it launched an aggressive nationwide crackdown on this legacy infrastructure, with official data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) showing that by November 2025, authorities had shuttered 15 large-scale production labs, 13 smaller storage facilities, and seized more than 500 million tablets across Syria.

    But while the national crackdown has succeeded in disrupting networks in most regions, Sweida has emerged as a stark exception. Local investigations reveal that as production hubs were dismantled elsewhere, trafficking factions in Sweida retained local control and reorganized their operations, turning the province into a strategic reserve for captagon raw materials and stockpiles left over from the Assad era. For decades under the former regime, Sweida’s position along the Jordanian border made it the primary transit route for narcotics heading to Jordan and consumer markets across the Gulf, with the Assad government relying on alliances with local Bedouin and Druze communities to facilitate cross-border smuggling. That structure has not only survived the regime’s collapse but grown more powerful following sweeping political changes in the province.

    In July 2025, sectarian violence erupted in Sweida that left an estimated 1,700 people dead and triggered the withdrawal of Damascus government forces from most of the province. More than 40 local Druze factions merged into the Druze-led National Guard, which now holds de facto control over Sweida, with explicit political and military backing from Israel. Israel has long positioned itself as a protector of Syria’s Druze minority, and views an autonomous, fragmented southern Syria as a critical strategic buffer against a unified central government in Damascus.

    Security data collated by Syria Weekly confirms that cross-border smuggling from Sweida into Jordan has surged by more than 325% since the National Guard seized control of the province. Between January and July 2025, Jordanian border forces intercepted just 21 trafficking attempts originating in Sweida; over the subsequent nine months, that number skyrocketed to 128 interceptions. Local reporting from Sweida-based outlet Suwayda 24 estimates that 12 to 15 captagon production facilities are now operating across the province, ranging from permanent industrial factories to mobile pill presses hidden inside civilian vehicles. One newly built facility was documented operating in a dense residential neighborhood in the center of Sweida city, directly overseen by National Guard forces, who use local civilian residents as human shields to deter potential airstrikes. The report adds that the operation relies on local technicians who received advanced training from Hezbollah experts prior to Assad’s fall – a continuation of the longstanding alliance between the Iranian-backed Lebanese group and the ousted Syrian regime. Hezbollah has repeatedly denied any involvement in the captagon trade.

    Jordanian intelligence assessments have concluded that Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, the Druze religious leader who heads the National Guard, has intentionally built a permissive operating environment for traffickers in exchange for significant revenue, replicating the corrupt financial model that propped up Assad’s rule for decades. For Jordan, the expansion of captagon production on its northern border represents one of the most pressing national security threats, prompting Amman to launch direct military action inside Syrian territory. In early May 2026, the Royal Jordanian Air Force launched F-16 airstrikes targeting at least six suspected captagon facilities across Sweida, an operation officially named “Operation Jordanian Deterrence” that targeted factories, storage warehouses, and smuggling staging hubs. This strike marked the fifth cross-border attack Jordan has carried out since Assad’s fall, and the third since the National Guard took control of Sweida.

    Retired Jordanian Major-General Mamoun Abu Nowar framed the strike as a clear strategic message in comments to Al Jazeera, stating: “This is a warning to groups inside Sweida cooperating with Israel, and to Israel itself: do not advance destabilizing projects along our border. Jordan will not hesitate to strike these smuggling nests.” Retired Air Force Colonel Abdullah al-Sarhan added that the strikes were a pre-emptive measure, noting that traffickers have rapidly adopted increasingly sophisticated smuggling technologies to evade detection, from small quadcopter drones to large GPS-guided helium balloons fitted with timed remote release mechanisms that can carry far larger loads across the border at a fraction of the cost.

    A Jordanian government official confirmed that Amman will not tolerate active drug production hubs operating along its shared border, stressing that the May 2026 strikes were coordinated with Damascus’s transitional government, consistent with a January 2025 bilateral agreement to establish a joint security committee to combat cross-border smuggling of narcotics and weapons. As part of this growing cooperation, Jordan recently hosted a 300-strong cohort of Syrian Internal Security Forces officers at the Jordanian International Police Training Centre for advanced training in modern counter-narcotics tactics, physical fitness, self-defense, and weapons handling. Trained officers are set to deploy soon to rural areas of Sweida still under central government control to bolster border security.

    Data from independent analysts shows the scale of the smuggling challenge: Charles Lister, Senior Fellow and Syria Director at the Middle East Institute, reports that Jordanian forces have intercepted at least 46 million captagon pills from Sweida since July 2025, most of which were being smuggled via GPS-guided helium balloons. In mid-May 2026, Syrian authorities announced they had foiled a plot to smuggle 142,000 pills into Jordan using the same balloon technology, underscoring how rapidly trafficking networks are refining their tactics to evade enforcement.

    Today, the majority of captagon flowing through Sweida originates in Lebanon, where remnants of Assad’s regime have taken refuge alongside Hezbollah, which maintained a close alliance with the ousted president for decades. Syria’s transitional government has cracked down heavily on Hezbollah-linked trafficking operations across the country, and official data from Syria Weekly shows that in the past six months alone, Syrian authorities have seized nearly 33 million captagon pills entering from Lebanon – accounting for 77% of all captagon seized by the government nationwide. In one major operation in January 2026, Syrian counter-narcotics forces in Yabroud, just 20 to 25 kilometers east of the Lebanon border, seized 226 smuggling balloons, 106 kilograms of hashish, 650,000 captagon pills, 238 grams of crystal meth, and $30,000 in counterfeit currency, all originating from Lebanon and bound for Jordan and the Gulf.

    In response to the shared threat, security cooperation between Damascus and Lebanon’s new government has expanded dramatically in recent months. In April 2026, coordinated operations between anti-narcotics agencies from Syria, Lebanon, and Kuwait dismantled an international trafficking ring plotting to smuggle 85 kilograms of narcotics to Kuwait. The same month, Syrian authorities arrested one of Lebanon’s most wanted captagon traffickers after he crossed into Syrian territory, and later transferred him back to Lebanese judicial authorities through the Masnaa border crossing in a demonstration of growing cross-border judicial cooperation. Beyond Jordan and Lebanon, Syria’s transitional government has also launched joint counter-narcotics operations with Iraq and Turkey over the past six months.

    Despite these coordinated efforts, regional security analysts warn that trafficking networks have proven remarkably adaptable to post-Assad political shifts, exploiting gaps in central government authority to re-establish their operations in weakly governed areas like Sweida. The combination of fragmented local control, foreign patronage, and persistent demand across the Middle East has ensured that what was once Assad’s state-run captagon empire survives in new form, threatening regional security years after the former regime’s collapse.

  • Satellite imagery appears to show damage at US air base in Kuwait after Iranian attack

    Satellite imagery appears to show damage at US air base in Kuwait after Iranian attack

    Fresh open-source satellite analysis released by Soar Atlas has cast significant doubt on official U.S. military statements claiming no successful Iranian strikes hit American infrastructure in Kuwait Wednesday, amid a escalating cross-regional attack that has already left one civilian dead and dozens more injured.

    Newly released high-resolution imagery of Ali Al Salem Air Base, a key U.S. military outpost located in northern Kuwait, shows clear signs of destructive impact at the site: one aircraft shelter appears completely destroyed, while the surrounding terrain is visibly charred and dotted with multiple fresh impact craters from incoming munitions. These observations directly contradict a public statement issued shortly after the attack by U.S. Central Command (Centcom), which insisted all missiles and drones launched toward the base had been “defeated” before reaching their targets.

    Centcom’s initial account of the cross-regional strikes claimed Iran launched a volley of ballistic missiles targeting sites across the Middle East, but argued all projectiles missed their intended targets. Per the command’s official statement, the two missiles Iran fired toward Kuwait either fell short of their targets or broke apart mid-flight, while three missiles directed at neighboring Bahrain were successfully intercepted by allied air defense systems before they could hit any sites.

    However, official accounts from Kuwait directly conflict with this narrative. Kuwait’s foreign ministry confirmed Wednesday that multiple Iranian missiles struck Kuwait International Airport and several diplomatic missions within the country’s borders. Local Kuwaiti authorities reported one fatality from the attack, later identified as an Indian national working in the country, alongside 60 injured people. Video footage captured at the airport in the immediate aftermath of the strikes shows extensive structural damage: Terminal 1 was engulfed in large fires, a section of the terminal roof collapsed, and thick plumes of black smoke billowed over the site.

    Following the attacks, Kuwaiti defense ministry spokesperson Brigadier General Saud al-Otayan issued a formal condemnation of what he labeled “criminal Iranian aggression” against the country. Iran, for its part, has pushed back against blame for the airport strike, claiming the damage to the site was actually caused by a errant U.S. Patriot interceptor missile — a claim Centcom immediately rejected as false. Iran’s state-aligned Tasnim News Agency also cited a statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) denying the group ever targeted Kuwait International Airport at all.

    U.S. officials have pushed back firmly against Iran’s denials, reiterating that the strike on Kuwait’s airport was a deliberate, pre-planned, and unjustified attack by Iran on sovereign Kuwaiti territory. The conflicting accounts of the attack’s scope and impacts have raised new questions about escalation risks across the already tense Middle East region, as competing official narratives leave key details of the strike unconfirmed.