Global Pulse

分类： world

  • A surge in violence followed Trump’s cuts to USAID programs in Africa, a study finds

    A surge in violence followed Trump’s cuts to USAID programs in Africa, a study finds

    A new academic study published Thursday in the journal *Science* has uncovered a clear correlation between former U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2025 sudden decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — a historic leading global aid provider — and a sharp, sustained rise in violent conflict across aid-dependent regions of Africa.

    For decades, USAID anchored international development and humanitarian support across Africa, channeling critical funding to fragile states grappling with insurgency, post-conflict recovery and civilian crises. The Trump administration’s dissolution of the agency terminated more than 90 percent of active foreign aid contracts, wiping out an estimated $60 billion in committed development funding. The sudden pullout disrupted ongoing aid operations, halted planned programming, and left gaps in staffing, service delivery and procurement across communities that relied entirely on USAID support, the study found.

    A team of researchers from European and American universities analyzed conflict patterns across African regions that had historically received the highest volumes of USAID assistance to reach their conclusions. While the study’s authors stop short of definitively attributing the violence increase solely to the aid cuts, they emphasize that the data confirms a key risk: large-scale, abrupt withdrawals of development aid can severely destabilize already fragile political and social contexts. Crucially, the researchers clarify the findings do not prove that increased foreign aid inherently reduces conflict — they only demonstrate the measurable destabilizing effect of sudden, unplanned disruption to long-standing aid programming.

    The study’s conclusions come amid growing alarm over rising extremist violence across Africa. A separate report released Wednesday by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) echoed this concern, noting that jihadist-linked violence has grown steadily across the continent over the past four years, with insurgents increasingly targeting civilian populations.

    Case studies included in the new *Science* study illustrate the gaps left by USAID’s exit. In northeast Nigeria, the agency had long supported civilian victims of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has displaced millions and killed tens of thousands since 2002. In Ethiopia’s war-ravaged Tigray region, local authorities depended heavily on USAID funding to launch post-conflict recovery after a two-year civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. And in northern Ivory Coast, a frontline in regional counter-extremism efforts, USAID had committed significant resources to programs blocking the expansion of al-Qaida and Islamic State-affiliated groups.

    Outside experts warn the damage from USAID’s abrupt dissolution will outlast the funding gap itself. Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study, noted that even if funding is eventually restored, much of the institutional knowledge and on-the-ground program experience built up over decades by USAID staff has already been lost.

    Ladd Serwat, senior Africa analyst at ACLED, added that many USAID programs were designed to stop conflict from spreading across borders and into stable communities. “We now see increasing insurgency and spillover, so some of those programs may have supported these communities against insurgent threats, and now they are no longer active,” Serwat explained.

  • Over 40% of Sudan’s population face high levels of acute food insecurity, monitoring group warns

    Over 40% of Sudan’s population face high levels of acute food insecurity, monitoring group warns

    CAIRO – As Sudan’s brutal civil conflict approaches its second full year, a leading global food security monitoring body has delivered a grim new assessment, revealing that more than two-fifths of the war-ravaged nation’s population is already suffering from extreme levels of acute hunger. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global initiative that tracks and grades food insecurity worldwide, published its updated analysis Thursday, laying bare the catastrophic humanitarian fallout of the 14-month-old war between Sudan’s regular army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.

    According to the report, nearly 19.5 million Sudanese are currently experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. Of this vulnerable population, 135,000 people are already in the most severe IPC Phase 5, a classification defined by catastrophic food shortages, widespread starvation, acute malnutrition at critical levels, and elevated mortality from hunger and preventable disease.

    The IPC’s assessment warns that the situation is on track to worsen dramatically in the coming months, as Sudan enters the annual June-to-September lean season, when crop supplies from the previous harvest are depleted before new yields can be harvested. Looking ahead to 2026, the group projects that roughly 825,000 children under the age of five will develop severe acute malnutrition – a life-threatening condition that disproportionately kills young children in conflict zones. That figure marks a 7% rise from 2024 levels, and a 25% jump from the rates of severe child malnutrition recorded before the war erupted.

    Even with limited aid access, more than 98,500 children have already received life-saving treatment for severe acute malnutrition in the first three months of 2025, according to IPC data. But widespread gaps in healthcare and humanitarian access leave hundreds of thousands more without the care they need to survive.

    Sudan’s ongoing civil conflict ignited in April 2023, when years of festering power-sharing tensions between the national army and the RSF boiled over into open armed confrontation across the country. The fighting has already killed at least 59,000 people, displaced roughly 13 million Sudanese from their homes, and pushed vast swathes of the country to the brink of mass starvation. Currently, more than 30 million Sudanese – over two-thirds of the country’s pre-war population – require emergency humanitarian assistance to meet basic survival needs.

    While the IPC confirmed that no regions across Sudan are currently classified as being in formal famine, the organization warned that 14 local areas across three hard-hit provinces – North Darfur, South Darfur and South Kordofan – are at imminent risk of famine if conflict intensifies, food access continues to shrink, healthcare and sanitation infrastructure further collapses, and more people are forced to flee their homes. Famine was formally confirmed in two Sudanese locations last year: el-Fasher, the largest city in western Darfur, and Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan.

    Compounding the existing crisis driven by internal conflict, Sudan’s agricultural sector – the backbone of the country’s food supply – is facing new, external pressures that threaten to deepen food shortages in the coming months. Farmers across the country are bracing for a prohibitively expensive planting season, as key input costs for fertilizer, fuel for farm machinery, and diesel for irrigation pumps have skyrocketed, driven in large part by ongoing tensions in the Middle East that have disrupted global supply chains.

    More than half of Sudan’s imported fertilizer arrives via sea routes from the Gulf region, where hundreds of commercial vessels have been stranded in recent weeks amid heightened tensions around the Strait of Hormuz. The resulting supply disruptions have pushed domestic fuel prices in Sudan up by roughly 30%, making it even harder for small-scale farmers to plant the crops that would feed millions in the coming year.

  • Inside the rise of the Haftar family’s Dubai-based ‘money man’

    Inside the rise of the Haftar family’s Dubai-based ‘money man’

    As international powers push to unify Libya’s fragmented political and military factions, a 46-year-old Libyan businessman has emerged at the center of explosive allegations linking him to a sprawling network of illicit finance, war profiteering, and smuggling that props up Khalifa Haftar’s eastern Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF).

    Ahmed Gadalla, also known by the alias Ahmed Alushibe, has built a globe-spanning business empire spanning four countries, with a luxury lifestyle that matches his high-stakes commercial portfolio: he resides in Dubai, holds a citizenship-by-investment passport from Saint Kitts and Nevis, wears half-a-million-dollar luxury watches, travels exclusively on private jets, and stays at five-star central London hotels when visiting the UK. His assets include at least eight residential properties in the UAE, a $3.7 million luxury apartment in Toronto (where he maintains permanent Canadian residency and donates to elite private health institutions), and a web of controlled assets ranging from Libyan state-owned enterprises to commercial banks, oil refineries, shipping firms, and private holding companies registered in the UAE, Malta, and the United Kingdom.

    Gadalla’s rise to prominence began long before his current high-profile business dealings. A Benghazi native who earned an engineering master’s degree in the United States, he moved to Dubai as a resident in 2008, and worked selling automotive and household goods for an American firm during the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. After Gaddafi’s fall, he leveraged growing connections to Emirati business and political circles to expand his operations, making his first major international trade trip to Guangzhou, China, in 2012. Today, he openly leads the Alushibe Group, a loose collection of Dubai-based firms he controls, and holds prominent positions including chairman of a major Libyan state-owned steel company, owner of Dubai-based UDS Shipping Services LLC and Malta’s International Seaport Holdings, and director of a central London-based IT firm. UK corporate records even list him as a former co-owner of a retail off-licence in Birmingham between 2019 and 2021, listing his nationality as Kittitian and residence as the UAE. In 2023, he also acquired Benghazi’s notorious Libyan Cement Company, previously linked to fugitive Austrian executive and suspected Russian spy Jan Marsalek, whose ties to the collapse of Germany’s Wirecard remain under global investigation.

    But new, detailed reports from the United Nations Panel of Experts on Libya and U.S.-based investigative non-profit The Sentry pull back the curtain on Gadalla’s operations, alleging that his legitimate business portfolio is a front for a kleptocratic network that funnels billions in stolen Libyan public wealth to Haftar’s LAAF, which has controlled eastern Libya since 2014 with military backing from the UAE and Egypt.

    According to the reports, Gadalla climbed the ranks of eastern Libya’s political and economic system over the past decade with direct backing from Saddam Haftar, son of Khalifa Haftar, and sits at the core of a transnational network accused of money laundering, fraudulent letters of credit, fuel smuggling, and arms trafficking. Investigators allege that Gadalla used his control of multiple Libyan banks, including Wahda Bank and the Bank of Commerce & Development, to fraudulently secure hundreds of millions in letters of credit from Libya’s Central Bank with the backing of LAAF armed groups. One Benghazi-based bank controlled by Gadalla even actively blocked official investigations into the fraudulent credit schemes, the UN report found. The Sentry also claims that Gadalla’s banks helped circulate counterfeit Russian-printed Libyan dinars, destabilizing the country’s already fragile economy.

    The most serious allegations tie Gadalla directly to Haftar’s disastrous 2019–2020 offensive on Tripoli, the UN-backed national capital, which killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Investigators say that in 2018, ahead of the planned invasion, Haftar’s network tapped Gadalla to manage offshore financing for the operation, which drew the bulk of its funding from the UAE and smaller contributions from Saudi Arabia. In 2019, Al Masraf bank, chaired by a Haftar family economic adviser, issued $300 million in loans to three obscure Dubai-based front companies controlled by Gadalla. The funds left the accounts almost immediately, with investigators confirming they directly funded LAAF’s military operations and most likely paid for the deployment of Russian Wagner Group mercenaries, who played a key combat role in the offensive. After the offensive collapsed, the $300 million in loans were never repaid, leaving the Libyan public to shoulder the entire loss while Gadalla avoided any accountability, The Sentry reported.

    Gadalla is also linked to ongoing illicit smuggling operations stretching across the Sahel and North Africa. The UN Panel of Experts found that Gadalla purchases diverted fuel from armed groups in both eastern and western Libya, then uses his shipping network to illicitly export the fuel to the UAE for resale at massive profit. In July 2025, EU Operation Irini, the mission enforcing the UN arms embargo on Libya, intercepted the Aya 1—a container ship owned by Gadalla’s UDS Shipping, named after his daughter—en route from the UAE to Benghazi. An inspection found 12 militarized vehicles hidden among the ship’s cargo, which the UN confirmed was destined for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Sudanese paramilitary currently fighting a brutal civil war in Khartoum. Gadalla is also accused of facilitating arms shipments that have been diverted to gold trafficking networks linked to the Islamic State in Niger, though he is not personally tied to that specific diversion.

    Gadalla has forcefully denied all allegations against him. In an interview with Middle East Eye, he rejected every claim made in both the UN and The Sentry reports, insisting he has always conducted business lawfully and transparently. He denied owning or controlling multiple Libyan banks, committing letter of credit fraud, financing the LAAF or the Wagner Group, engaging in fuel or arms smuggling, or owning the intercepted Aya 1 container ship. He noted that third-party investigations by global accounting firm Deloitte and Libya’s Attorney General Investigation Unit have already cleared the bank records in question, and said his legal team is formally challenging the allegations made by The Sentry, while he continues to engage with the UN Panel of Experts.

    The exposure of Gadalla’s alleged network comes at a pivotal moment for Libya, where the United States and its Western and regional allies are pushing to unify the Tripoli-based UN-backed government and Haftar’s eastern Benghazi administration after more than a decade of division. In April 2026, Libya’s rival legislative bodies approved a unified national budget for the first time since 2014, a move welcomed by all major global and regional powers including the US, EU states, the UAE, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. A week later, U.S. Africa Command held joint Flintlock military training exercises in Sirte, bringing together troops from both eastern and western Libya for the first time, as part of Washington’s push to reduce Russian influence in North Africa and unify Libyan security institutions.

    But investigators warn that networks like the one allegedly led by Gadalla continue to fuel a war economy that siphons off billions in public wealth, undermining efforts to build a stable, unified Libyan state. As diplomatic efforts for unification move forward, the case of Ahmed Gadalla lays bare how deeply entrenched kleptocratic and militia-linked networks have become in Libya’s post-revolution economic and political landscape.

  • Full list of Israel’s ceasefire violations in Gaza, seven months on

    Full list of Israel’s ceasefire violations in Gaza, seven months on

    Seven months have passed since the United States announced a mediated ceasefire designed to end Israel’s two-year military campaign in Gaza, but the fragile truce has failed to deliver on its stated goals, with consistent Israeli violations and a still-unresolved humanitarian disaster continuing to unfold across the Palestinian enclave. While the intensity of Israeli operations has dropped from the pre-truce level, near-daily military strikes and breaches of the agreement have become the new normal, and Israel’s crippling land, air and sea blockade remains firmly in place, leaving Gaza’s civilian population trapped in a worsening crisis.

    Israeli military officials have repeatedly attempted to justify their violations by claiming Palestinian armed factions have broken the terms of the ceasefire. However, verified data from Palestinian and international bodies confirms that the overwhelming majority of people killed, displaced and detained during this seven-month period have been unarmed civilians, including hundreds of children.

    A core stumbling block remains the failure to implement even the first phase of the ceasefire agreement, and Washington has been unable to push forward negotiations for the planned second stage. That phase was originally intended to deliver tangible progress: the disarmament of Palestinian armed groups, deployment of international peacekeeping stabilisation forces, large-scale reconstruction of war-damaged infrastructure across Gaza, and a full withdrawal of all Israeli military forces from the enclave. This stalled progress has cast deep uncertainty over the future of the already fragile truce, as Israel continues to amass additional military units along Gaza’s borders and issues repeated threats of a large-scale new ground offensive.

    According to official documentation released by the Gaza government media office, Israeli forces committed no fewer than 2,400 verified ceasefire violations between 10 October 2025 and 10 April 2026, with dozens of additional breaches recorded in the weeks since that six-month window. These violations break down into more than 1,100 air strikes and artillery shelling attacks, alongside 921 incidents of direct gunfire targeting civilian populations.

    Official figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health show that as of 14 May 2026, these ongoing attacks had killed at least 857 Palestinians and injured another 2,486 people. Of those killed, UNICEF confirms that at least 229 were children. The Gaza government media office also adds that Israeli forces have arbitrarily detained at least 50 Palestinians within Gaza during the ceasefire period.

    Documented violations span a wide range of targets: attacks on civilian community gatherings, strikes on internally displaced person camps, targeted killings of Palestinian police officers, journalists and international aid workers, and repeated incursions into civilian areas. Israeli naval units have also consistently opened fire on Palestinian fishermen and civilian communities along Gaza’s coastline, arresting multiple fishermen. In one high-profile incident last month, Israeli gunboats shot and killed an unarmed Palestinian woman off the northwestern coast of Gaza.

    Overall, the confirmed death toll from Israel’s military campaign, which began in October 2023, has now reached more than 72,700 Palestinians killed, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble of destroyed residential and public buildings across the enclave.

    The initial October 2025 ceasefire agreement included a core provision that all existing battle lines would remain frozen in place until subsequent phases of the agreement could be negotiated and implemented. This arrangement led to the creation of what Israel calls the “Yellow Line”, a unilateral Israeli demarcation that declared vast swathes of Gaza territory as off-limits to Palestinian civilians, barring them from returning to or accessing their own land. When the ceasefire was first signed, Israeli forces already controlled approximately 53 percent of Gaza’s total territory, spread across the enclave’s northern, southern and eastern regions. The agreement stipulated that future phases would include a gradual full withdrawal of Israeli forces from all of Gaza.

    Instead of withdrawing, however, the Israeli military has expanded the area behind the Yellow Line, bringing roughly 64 percent of Gaza’s total territory under direct Israeli military control and forcing the enclave’s 2 million-plus civilian population into just 36 percent of their own land. Israeli forces have also carried out near-daily home demolitions across the enclave, another clear violation of the ceasefire terms. While most demolitions have occurred in areas Israel now claims beyond the Yellow Line, multiple demolitions have also been recorded in areas officially designated as under Palestinian control. An analysis published by The New York Times in January 2026 found that Israel had demolished more than 2,500 residential and public buildings in just the first three months of the ceasefire.

    One of the most high-profile commitments Israel made under the ceasefire agreement was to ease its restrictions on humanitarian aid deliveries, and allow up to 600 trucks of food, fuel, medical supplies, emergency shelter materials and commercial goods to enter Gaza every single day. To date, these commitments have never been met, according to official United Nations data. Human rights organisations have repeatedly warned that ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid have prolonged the humanitarian catastrophe and severely limited the ability of relief groups to deliver life-saving support to Gaza’s population.

    By the end of April 2026, the Gaza government media office confirms that just over 4,500 aid trucks had entered the enclave – that is only 25 percent of the 18,000 trucks that were stipulated under the terms of the agreement. That works out to an average of just over 200 trucks per day, less than a third of the agreed 600-truck daily threshold. Even the limited aid that has been allowed in has excluded many of the most urgently needed supplies, including emergency shelter materials like tents and prefabricated mobile homes, as well as essential life-saving medications, medical equipment and fuel for civilian infrastructure and emergency services.

    These ongoing restrictions have triggered a new wave of severe food insecurity in recent months, with many Gaza residents now fearing a return to the full-scale famine conditions that the United Nations officially declared in parts of Gaza in August 2025, during the height of Israel’s siege. Doctors from Gaza’s Ministry of Health and civil defence rescue teams have repeatedly stated that shortages of fuel and medical supplies have left them unable to provide even basic adequate healthcare to injured and sick civilians, or carry out effective rescue operations for people trapped under rubble after Israeli strikes.

    Another key commitment under the ceasefire agreement was that Israeli forces would withdraw from the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in southern Gaza, and allow unimpeded free movement of people through the crossing. With thousands of Palestinians suffering from severe war injuries requiring urgent specialist treatment that is not available inside Gaza, full reopening of the Rafah crossing was widely seen as a critical measure to reduce civilian suffering. Instead, Israel kept the Rafah crossing fully closed for nearly four months after the ceasefire agreement was signed.

    In February 2026, Israel began allowing a maximum of 50 Palestinians a day to enter Gaza from Egypt, while limiting the number of people allowed to depart Gaza for treatment or other purposes to roughly 150 people per day. Even these greatly reduced quotas have not been consistently respected, with Israel repeatedly blocking movement for travellers who had already received official approval, and shutting the crossing down for extended periods. One of the longest shutdowns came in late February, during Israel’s military strike campaign against Iran.

    Official data from the Gaza government media office shows that between 2 February and 30 April 2026, only 1,567 people crossed through Rafah, out of the 6,000 people that the agreement allowed to cross during this period. That puts Israeli compliance with the Rafah crossing terms at just 26 percent. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, these movement restrictions have contributed to the deaths of up to 10 Palestinian civilians every single day, who die before they can access the urgent medical treatment they need abroad.

  • Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation

    Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation

    On a historic Thursday visit to Rome’s La Sapienza University, the largest institution of higher education in Europe, Pope Leo XIV delivered a stark warning to the global community: unregulated investments in artificial intelligence and cutting-edge military weaponry are pushing the world toward a dangerous “spiral of annihilation.” The appearance marked a pivotal moment for the Vatican, coming 16 years after Pope Benedict XVI canceled a planned visit to the 14th-century campus amid widespread protests from faculty and students, a controversy that left a long shadow over Vatican-university relations.

    Unlike the fraught planned visit in 2008, Pope Leo was met with a warm welcome from the La Sapienza community, highlighted by a special greeting for a group of recently arrived Palestinian students from Gaza. These young scholars entered Italy this week via a humanitarian corridor organized by the Italian government in partnership with Catholic organizations, an initiative that has brought hundreds of Gazans to Italy for higher education and critical medical care since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.

    During his time on campus, Pope Leo met with several of the newly arrived Gaza students twice: once during an informal greeting at the university’s chapel, and again after his keynote address in the institution’s main lecture hall. La Sapienza, founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303, is one of the oldest continuously operating universities in the world, adding historic weight to the pope’s address focused on global conflict and ethical progress.

    In his speech, Pope Leo called out the dramatic surge in global military spending this year, with a specific note on exponential increases across Europe. He argued that this growth in military budgets has come directly at the expense of underfunded public education and healthcare systems, enriching a small cohort of elite stakeholders who show little regard for collective global well-being.

    The pontiff extended his critique to the rapid development of artificial intelligence, urging the creation of stricter, more transparent monitoring frameworks for AI innovation across both military and civilian sectors. He stressed that AI must never be allowed to remove human accountability for life-or-death choices, nor should it be allowed to worsen the already devastating human cost of ongoing global conflicts.

    “What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” Pope Leo told the assembled audience. He pushed back against this trend, arguing that education and academic research must chart a different course centered on the inherent value of human life—“the lives of peoples who cry out for peace and justice.”

    Addressing ongoing conflicts, Pope Leo explicitly repeated his call for immediate ceasefires and negotiated peace in both the Middle East and Ukraine, two conflicts that have dominated global headlines and displaced millions of people over the past several years. This address aligns with Pope Leo’s long-stated position that AI regulation is one of the most critical existential challenges facing humanity, particularly when it comes to its unregulated use in warfare and daily life. Vatican observers confirmed he plans to expand on these themes in his first encyclical, a major papal teaching document set for release in the coming weeks.

    For 19-year-old Nada Rahim Jouda, one of the Gaza students who met the pope just two days after arriving in Italy, the visit marked a surreal moment in a life upended by war. Jouda, who will study business science at La Sapienza, described Rome as “like heaven for me,” contrasting the city’s lush, calm landscape with the constant instability and destruction of Gaza, where “everything is gray and troubles everywhere and miserable people in the streets.”

    Even as she begins her new life, Jouda carries the weight of the family she left behind. Her mother is recovering from leukemia and was unable to access consistent cancer treatment or check-ups amid the war, which forced her entire family to flee their home four times. Her two younger sisters, ages 13 and 17, remain in Gaza with her mother. “They all rely on me. I’m the only hope that they have,” Jouda said.

    This Associated Press religion coverage is produced through a collaboration between AP and The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP retains sole editorial responsibility for all content.

  • BBC at the scene of Russian strikes in Kyiv

    BBC at the scene of Russian strikes in Kyiv

    Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the capital Kyiv has faced repeated threats of air attacks, but a new wave of strikes stands out as one of the most intense assaults the city has seen in the entire conflict. According to on-the-ground reporting from the BBC, multiple civilian apartment blocks were directly hit in the latest offensive, bringing immediate danger to residential neighborhoods that are home to thousands of ordinary Ukrainians. The attack comes amid a prolonged period of heightened tensions across Ukraine, with Russian forces continuing to target infrastructure and populated areas in a campaign that has disrupted daily life for millions. BBC correspondents present in Kyiv in the aftermath of the strikes documented the extent of the damage, with visible impacts to residential buildings that serve as primary homes for local families. This assault marks a significant escalation in air activity directed at the Ukrainian capital, reinforcing the ongoing volatility of the conflict that has gripped Eastern Europe for more than two years. Local residents have been forced to seek shelter amid the attack, with emergency services responding quickly to the incident to assess damage, rescue trapped civilians, and address the aftermath of the strikes.

  • Stars flying into Cannes in private jets ‘obscene’, say ex-pilots

    Stars flying into Cannes in private jets ‘obscene’, say ex-pilots

    As the iconic Cannes Film Festival approaches, climate campaigners and former aviation professionals are shining a harsh spotlight on the luxury private jet travel habit of Hollywood’s biggest names, calling their excessive carbon and fuel use a deeply unethical indulgence amid a mounting global energy crisis.

    Last year’s festival alone saw 750 private jet flights carry A-list stars and industry executives to the French Riviera, according to new data compiled by Brussels-based environmental nonprofit Transport and Environment (T&E). That volume of travel burned through a staggering 2 million liters of jet kerosene — a footprint equal to the fuel consumption of 14,000 commercial passengers flying the route between Paris and Athens, T&E’s aviation lead Jerome du Boucher told AFP in an interview this week.

    Anthony Viaux, a former Air France pilot and one of the dozens of aviation professionals backing the campaign, argued that the wasteful consumption by the rich and famous is far more than just out of touch. “The rich and famous burning through scarce fuel to get to a film festival isn’t just tone deaf, it’s obscene,” Viaux said. With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East pushing global fuel markets into chaos and many nations facing acute fuel shortages, the global community can no longer justify reserving massive volumes of scarce fuel for elite luxury travel, campaigners say.

    At present, EU regulations leave two-thirds of all private jet flights exempt from carbon taxes under the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a loophole T&E traces back to EU policymakers’ fear of retaliatory action from the former U.S. Trump administration if private aviation were added to the scheme. This creates a stark double standard: ordinary commercial passengers flying within the EU are required to pay these carbon levies, while the world’s wealthiest elite escape the cost entirely.

    The call for reform has even won support from wealthy advocates for change. Julia Davies, an investor and co-founder of Patriotic Millionaires UK, pointed out that private aviation is a luxury accessible only to a tiny sliver of the global population, yet that same elite group avoids the fuel and carbon taxes that ordinary working people pay every day when they commute to work.

    Campaigners are pointing to a small but high-profile example to prove change is possible: last year, Chilean-American star Pedro Pascal — who gained global fame for his lead role in *The Last of Us* and *Narcos* — traveled to Cannes on a commercial economy flight, defying the unwritten rule that A-listers arrive via private transport. Former private jet pilot Katie Thompson argues there is no reason every other celebrity cannot follow Pascal’s lead, or opt for low-carbon train travel for short European routes to the Riviera.

    The current global fuel crunch, driven by months of heightened tension around the Strait of Hormuz following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, has created widespread disruption across European aviation already this year. France alone has canceled more than 500 flights in recent months, and up to 20 million passengers across Germany are expected to face scheduling disruptions and shortages during the peak summer holiday travel period, du Boucher noted. Against this backdrop, campaigners say the crisis presents a rare opening to force long-overdue reform of private aviation regulations.

    T&E is currently lobbying European national governments to enact a full ban on private jet travel, arguing that scarce kerosene reserves should be reserved for essential travel rather than elite luxury. The group is also calling for EU policymakers to close the existing ETS loophole, requiring all private jet flights and international routes into the bloc to pay full carbon taxes, regardless of external political pressure. “EU policymakers shouldn’t let Trump’s administration dictate the rule,” Viaux said.

    T&E data shows that even a simple shift from private to commercial travel for all Cannes attendees would put the festival 40 percent of the way to meeting its 2030 carbon emissions reduction target, a meaningful step forward for an event that has pledged to cut its climate impact. AFP has reached out to the Cannes Film Festival organizing committee for comment on the campaign’s demands, and no response has been issued as of yet.

  • Rescuers search rubble of Kyiv flats after massive Russian strikes kill two

    Rescuers search rubble of Kyiv flats after massive Russian strikes kill two

    Three straight days of deadly Russian aerial assaults have rocked Ukraine, leaving at least two people dead and 40 others injured after a massive overnight barrage of missiles and drones targeted multiple cities across the country, including the capital Kyiv. Ukrainian officials confirmed the attacks marked a sharp escalation of hostilities that began immediately after a three-day US-brokered ceasefire expired late Monday. The truce, which saw only minor violations along the frontline and no large-scale air attacks, gave way to renewed violence on Tuesday, when nine Ukrainians were killed. An additional six people lost their lives in strikes across the nation on Wednesday, three of them in the western city of Rivne.

    In Kyiv, one of the hardest-hit targets in the latest overnight wave of attacks, a nine-story residential apartment building suffered partial collapse after being directly hit. Emergency rescue teams launched a search operation at dawn Thursday to pull any remaining survivors trapped under the rubble of the destroyed structure. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klychko, who toured the damaged site early Thursday, confirmed that 18 apartments were completely destroyed in the strike, and critical civilian infrastructure was also damaged, disrupting the capital’s municipal water supply for local residents. As of Thursday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that dozens of people had already been pulled from the rubble, though emergency workers still hold fears that more victims remain trapped beneath the debris.

    Beyond the partially collapsed apartment block, the overnight attack left damage to multiple other civilian sites, including additional residential buildings, a local school, and a veterinary clinic, Zelensky added. In a public statement following the strikes, Zelensky pushed back against any suggestions that Russia is seeking to de-escalate the conflict, saying the large-scale assault was “definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end.” He called on Ukraine’s international allies to speak out firmly against the renewed attacks, rather than remaining silent.

    Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko described the assault as an “especially difficult night for Kyiv,” and noted that Russian drones and missiles targeted regions far beyond the capital. Strikes were also reported in Kremenchuk, Bila Tserkva, Kharkiv, Sumy, and Odesa, spread across central, eastern, and southern Ukraine. In a social media post, Svyrydenko made an urgent appeal for international support: “Ukraine needs help in strengthening its air defense. This is the only way to save our people and our cities.”

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha condemned the attack as “barbaric” and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of prioritizing aggression and terror over diplomatic efforts to end the war. He pointed out that the large-scale assault coincided with a high-stakes summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and urged the two world leaders to use their diplomatic leverage to force Moscow to end its invasion. “I am certain that the leaders of the United States and China have enough leverage over Moscow to tell Putin to finally end the war,” Sybiha said.

    The latest round of military escalation comes as Ukrainian officials are also grappling with a domestic political corruption scandal. In a separate development in Kyiv on Thursday, a Ukrainian court ordered 60 days of pretrial detention for Andriy Yermak, formerly one of Zelensky’s closest top aides. Yermak is currently a suspect in a money laundering investigation tied to a £7.5 million luxury construction project built outside Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s national anti-corruption agencies. The court ruled that Yermak could be released on bail of £2.35 million ($3.2 million) if he wears an electronic monitoring tag, but Yermak says he does not have the funds to cover the bail amount and will seek financial support from friends and acquaintances. Yermak has forcefully denied all the allegations against him, calling them baseless. He says he will appeal the ruling, and has no plans to leave Ukraine, stating publicly: “I’m staying in Ukraine. I have nothing to hide.”

  • Dust storms and lightning kill at least 96 people in northern India

    Dust storms and lightning kill at least 96 people in northern India

    Deadly extreme weather has left northern India reeling, with official confirmation Thursday placing the death toll from a wave of dust storms, heavy rainfall and lightning at no less than 96, with dozens more injured. The destructive weather system swept across multiple districts of Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state by population, late Wednesday, leaving a trail of destroyed property and disrupted communities in its wake.

    According to local officials, most fatalities stemmed from falling trees, collapsing poorly built structures, and direct lightning strikes, common hazards during pre-monsoon storm events. Emergency response teams including police and disaster management units quickly mobilized, deploying chainsaws and heavy cranes to clear fallen vegetation that blocked critical road and railway links across hard-hit districts.

    Pre-monsoon storms are a routine seasonal occurrence across northern India between March and June, when hot summer temperatures give way to the annual south Asian monsoon rains that replenish the region’s water supplies. But this latest event brought unusually intense and destructive conditions that have caused widespread harm.
    Narendra N. Srivastava, a senior local administrative official, noted that emergency crews have already been deployed across all impacted areas. Damage assessments confirm widespread destruction to residential buildings, agricultural crops, and electrical power infrastructure, with rural communities bearing the brunt of the impact.

    Residents of the hardest-hit districts described sudden, terrifying onslaughts of extreme wind that upended daily life in minutes. In Prayagraj district, local resident Ram Kishore recalled the rapid onset of the storm, saying that within just a few minutes of the storm’s arrival, the entire sky turned pitch black. Flying tin roofing sent residents scrambling for shelter indoors, he added, with the sound of falling trees echoing through neighborhoods throughout the evening.

    In neighboring Bhadohi district, another local resident, Savitri Devi, shared her family’s narrow escape after their mud-built home was severely damaged by strong winds. Devi said the family fled outside immediately when their home’s walls began shaking from the force of the wind; the roof collapsed just moments after they escaped. The family spent the night taking shelter at a relative’s home, left homeless by the storm.

    In response to the disaster, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has issued urgent orders for all involved agencies: complete full relief operations across affected areas within 24 hours, and expedite the distribution of financial compensation and emergency life-saving aid to all families impacted by the extreme weather.

  • Heavy Russian strikes on Kyiv kill one, wound 31

    Heavy Russian strikes on Kyiv kill one, wound 31

    Fresh waves of Russian drone and missile attacks have targeted Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, leaving at least one civilian dead and 31 others wounded, including a child, local officials confirmed Thursday. The assault comes just days after a short-lived three-day ceasefire brokered amid international diplomacy, ending with Moscow resuming full-scale offensive operations across Ukrainian territory.

    AFP correspondents on the ground in Kyiv reported air raid sirens blaring across the city hours before a sustained barrage of loud explosions echoed through residential neighborhoods overnight. Thousands of residents rushed to underground metro stations and other bomb shelters to escape the incoming fire, which stretched into the early hours of Thursday morning.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released a statement on social media outlining the scale of the assault: Russian forces launched more than 670 attack drones and 56 missiles in the operation, with most strikes concentrated on targets within Kyiv and its surrounding regions. “These are definitely not the actions of those who believe the war is coming to an end,” Zelensky wrote, adding that he had received preliminary reports of multiple people still trapped beneath rubble at damaged sites. The Ukrainian leader emphasized that Kyiv expects its international partners to condemn the attack explicitly, rather than remaining silent on the escalation.

    Preliminary damage assessments show more than 20 locations across Kyiv sustained damage, including multiple civilian structures: private residential apartment blocks, a public school, a veterinary clinic and other critical community infrastructure. Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, initially reported one fatality and 16 injuries in the capital proper, before Ukraine’s State Emergency Service updated the overall casualty count for the broader Kyiv region to 31 wounded.

    Military officials confirmed the strikes hit six districts within Kyiv city limits and an additional six districts in the surrounding suburbs. By dawn Thursday, AFP photographers captured rescue teams combing through collapsed building debris for survivors, with crews pulling one wounded resident out of a partially destroyed residential block. Search and rescue operations remain ongoing as of Thursday afternoon.

    The resumption of large-scale hostilities followed Russia’s formal end to its three-day ceasefire on Tuesday. The temporary pause in fighting was announced last week by former U.S. President Donald Trump, just hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a scaled-back annual Victory Day military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

    Zelensky has publicly called on Trump to push for a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict during his scheduled meetings this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The overnight attack on Kyiv marks the second major Russian barrage in as many days: on Wednesday, a wave of at least 800 Russian drones targeted regions in western Ukraine, killing six people and wounding dozens more.

    Russia has carried out sustained bombardment campaigns across Ukrainian population centers for more than four years, with large-scale drone and missile attacks typically launched under cover of darkness. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered the most severe armed conflict on the European continent since World War II, with casualty estimates reaching hundreds of thousands of people killed and more than 14 million Ukrainians displaced from their homes, according to United Nations data.