Global Pulse

分类： world

  • US envoys Witkoff and Kushner are in Moscow in a new push for peace between Russia and Ukraine

    US envoys Witkoff and Kushner are in Moscow in a new push for peace between Russia and Ukraine

    As the Russia-Ukraine conflict enters its third year of full-scale combat and long-stalled peace efforts hang by a thread, two high-profile U.S. envoys have touched down in Moscow to reignite negotiations to end the devastating war, Russian state media confirmed Saturday. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a long-time diplomatic advisor, were greeted at the airport by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, according to Russia’s official state news agency Tass.

    This high-stakes visit comes against a sharp, deadly escalation of cross-border aerial attacks, with both Moscow and Kyiv ramping up strikes amid months of stalemate along the 1,250-kilometer front line where neither side has managed to secure significant territorial gains. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced a unilateral pause in Ukrainian airstrikes for the duration of the U.S. envoys’ trip and called on the Kremlin to match the gesture to create space for diplomatic progress. As of Saturday evening, Moscow had not issued a public response to Zelenskyy’s proposal.

    U.S.-led mediation efforts to end the war have lost significant momentum in recent months, as Washington has shifted its military and diplomatic focus to its ongoing conflict with Iran over the past six months. This is not the first diplomatic mission for Witkoff and Kushner: the pair last traveled to Moscow in January, where they held a closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin inside the Kremlin. The envoys have not yet traveled to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv during this diplomatic push, but Zelenskyy confirmed Saturday that he expects their arrival in Kyiv on Sunday.

    In recent weeks, Russia has taken advantage of Ukraine’s critical shortage of air defense systems to expand its bombardment campaign, launching round-the-clock strikes on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities that now extend into daylight hours, a sharp break from previous patterns of mostly nighttime attacks. Just one day before the U.S. envoys landed, a Russian drone struck Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) headquarters in central Kyiv, one of Ukraine’s most prominent government buildings and a key agency leading deep-strike operations inside Russian territory. Early Saturday, Zelenskyy confirmed overnight Russian strikes targeted Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport, linking the attack directly to the planned U.S. diplomatic visit.

    “Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the U.S. side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine,” Zelenskyy wrote in a social media statement Saturday. “We have taken note of this Russian move, and next week we will adjust our operation accordingly regarding Russian airspace, which has become dangerous because of our drones and missiles in the sky. Of course, there are and will be no threats to diplomacy from our side.”

    The intensifying air campaign has already claimed multiple civilian lives and left dozens injured across Ukraine. In southern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, five civilian employees at an industrial site were killed and five more wounded in a Russian attack, regional military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha confirmed. “A locksmith, an electrician, a plumber and a machinist. People of peaceful professions. They were simply working their shift. They were doing their job when enemy missiles cut off their lives,” Hanzha said. A separate strike on the region’s Nikopol district wounded a 62-year-old man and damaged multiple residential buildings. Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed the Dnipropetrovsk strikes targeted two metallurgical plants it described as “major suppliers of metal products for Ukraine’s military production.”

    Further strikes hit Kyiv region overnight, leaving two people wounded in Boryspil district, where a strike-sparked fire partially destroyed a nine-story apartment building. In the southern Mykolaiv region, Russian drones repeatedly struck a local shopping center overnight, igniting multiple fires and damaging retail space. A 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl were injured in the attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reported, noting that emergency response teams were repeatedly forced to pull back to safe zones to avoid being hit by follow-up strikes, only returning when lulls in the bombardment allowed.

    Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Russia launched a massive overnight assault, firing ballistic missiles from its Rostov and Voronezh regions and deploying 167 attack drones. The fleet included a large share of fast-flying jet-powered Shahed and Geran drones, as well as decoy drones. Ukrainian air defense forces managed to shoot down or neutralize 128 of the incoming drones, but unintercepted weapons still caused widespread damage and casualties. Air-raid sirens now sound repeatedly across Kyiv, becoming an inescapable part of daily life for the capital’s residents, who have been forced to adjust to constant risk of attack.

    Cross-border strikes are not limited to Russian attacks on Ukraine: Ukraine’s long-range strikes have repeatedly hit Russian military facilities, oil refineries and key economic hubs in a campaign to undermine the Kremlin’s war machine and force Russian civilians to experience the consequences of the war launched by their leadership. On Saturday, Russian local officials reported that a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s border Belgorod region wounded three people, including a 14-year-old girl. Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its air defenses shot down 53 Ukrainian drones during the overnight exchange of attacks.

    As of Saturday, the Kremlin has not commented on the substance of talks with the U.S. envoys, nor on Zelenskyy’s proposal for a temporary ceasefire in airstrikes. Diplomatic observers caution that the odds of a breakthrough remain low, given the hardened positions of both sides and the recent escalation of violence that has already raised tensions ahead of the negotiations.

  • Rescuers in Nepal pull a Chinese national and a woman alive 10 days after devastating floods

    Rescuers in Nepal pull a Chinese national and a woman alive 10 days after devastating floods

    Ten days after catastrophic floodwaters swept through mountainous regions of Nepal, rescue teams have pulled two survivors—one Chinese national and one local woman—from devastated sites, in a rare bit of hope amid a widespread tragedy that has left more than 1,300 confirmed dead and thousands more unaccounted for, Nepalese officials confirmed Saturday.

    The Chinese survivor, a worker at the Trishuli 3A hydropower project, was extracted from a 225-meter access tunnel, deep below the flood-ravaged landscape, according to multiple official and media sources. He is the third worker pulled alive from the project’s tunnels in 48 hours: two Nepalese employees were pulled from the same tunnel system on Friday, officials from the prime minister’s office confirmed in a social media statement.

    The rescue operation was a joint effort between Nepalese military personnel and a team of South Korean disaster response specialists, the Nepalese Army shared in an official update. After being pulled from the tunnel, the man was airlifted via military helicopter for urgent medical care, with on-board medics monitoring his condition throughout the flight. Photos released by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV show two rescuers carrying the worker out of the tunnel entrance, while official Nepal Army imagery shows him receiving care mid-flight. He is currently undergoing a full health assessment to evaluate any long-term effects of his 10-day entrapment.

    In a separate, equally remarkable discovery in the flood-battered town of Nuwakot, a second survivor—a local woman—was pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed house 10 days after the floods struck. Nepal Army spokesperson confirmed the extraction Saturday, adding that the woman was also being airlifted to the capital Kathmandu for emergency medical treatment. Official photos from the scene show the woman covered in mud and debris when rescuers located her. Crews gave her emergency bottled water before moving her to safety, wrapping her in a warm gray blanket for the flight.

    These two discoveries come amid a grim backdrop to Nepal’s largest natural disaster in recent years. The August 26 floods, which researchers and disaster officials say were triggered by a sudden glacial collapse in the Himalayan mountains, have already claimed at least 1,300 confirmed lives, according to Nepal’s national disaster management agency. More than 5,000 people remain unaccounted for across flood-hit regions, with hundreds of workers confirmed missing at hydropower development sites scattered across the affected river valleys.

    Authorities estimate that roughly 900 workers from 12 different hydropower projects are currently missing, with around 500 of those unaccounted for believed to be trapped inside the network of construction and access tunnels dug for the projects. Rescue teams are working around the clock to reach trapped sites, but rugged terrain and ongoing flood damage have slowed progress across the region.

  • Is Russia proving better at protecting friends than fighting enemies in West Africa?

    Is Russia proving better at protecting friends than fighting enemies in West Africa?

    Last Saturday, a violent mutiny by dissident soldiers targeting a key strategic military installation in Niamey, Niger’s capital, brought Russia’s expanding regional footprint into sharp focus. In the aftermath of hours of fierce overnight clashes, Russia’s state-controlled Africa Corps stepped in to assist Niger’s ruling junta, helping pro-government loyalist forces retake full control of Air Base 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport.

    Unlike its predecessor, the notorious private mercenary group Wagner, Africa Corps operates under the direct command of Moscow’s Ministry of Defence, with an estimated 200 to 300 personnel currently deployed across Niger. Russia’s ambassador to Niamey, Viktor Voropaev, publicly confirmed the intervention, confirming that Russian troops helped suppress the attempted uprising.

    Security analysts frame the successful quashing of the mutiny as a pivotal symbolic victory for Moscow that extends its influence far beyond its stated mission of countering jihadist insurgency. For the military leaders that hold power in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, Russia now provides a far more critical service: direct protection for the regimes themselves.

    “This is seen as a symbolic victory that will continue to put them at the centre of not just the counter-insurgency campaign, but even in the protection and prolongation of military rule,” explained Beverly Ochieng, a senior analyst at global risk consultancy Control Risks. While the intervention was not enough to resolve long-term instability in the country, Ochieng notes it provided a critical political lifeline for Niger’s junta, while also laying bare the regime’s deep dependence on Moscow for its very survival.

    This is not the first time Africa Corps has intervened at the same airport: the group also played a central role in repelling a major extremist attack on the site in January 2025. Jacob Boswall, a security analyst who monitors jihadist activity for BBC Media Monitoring, says there is clear evidence that Africa Corps’ intervention was decisive in both cases. “Probably there is some substance to the claim that Africa Corps was able to restore power in that case [in January]. And I think, again, in this case as well, that intervention was very significant,” he said.

    Niger’s current junta, led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, seized power in a July 2023 coup, justifying its takeover by pointing to the deteriorating security crisis and the failure of ousted elected president Mohamed Bazoum’s civilian administration to curb jihadist violence. The junta also publicly blamed Western partners for their inability to contain the spread of militant activity. Three years on, however, the insurgency remains entirely unresolved: militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State continue to launch regular deadly attacks across the Tillabéri and Dosso regions, inflicting heavy losses on Niger’s security forces.

    Ochieng emphasizes that this latest mutiny stems from long-simmering grievances within Niger’s own military, compounded by relentless operational pressure on frontline counter-insurgency troops. “Counter-insurgency forces do not feel adequately supported by the military government,” she said. “There have been challenges in providing equipment and replenishments.” Today, Niger’s government faces threats on two separate fronts: extremist insurgents attacking state institutions from outside, and growing discontent within the very armed forces tasked with fighting that insurgency. While Africa Corps helped contain the internal threat this past weekend, it has yet to make meaningful progress against the extremist campaign.

    Unlike the Wagner Group, whose private status allowed Moscow to maintain plausible deniability for its operations, Africa Corps is an overt instrument of Russian state power. “The whole point of Africa Corps is that it brings the power back under the control of the Russian Ministry of Defence,” Boswall noted. While the group’s official mandate is to support Sahel governments to combat Islamist militancy, the mutiny’s outcome sends a clear message to any dissidents considering challenging allied regimes across the region: Russian forces must now be factored into any planned unrest.

    Analysts agree Russia has no plans to withdraw from the Sahel in the near term. Moscow’s interests in the region are explicitly transactional: in exchange for security support for allied military regimes, Russia gains access to critical natural resources. In Mali, that commodity is gold; in Niger, it is uranium, a key energy resource Russia has prioritized protecting. Beyond economic gains, Moscow also benefits from the diplomatic support of these friendly regimes in international forums, bolstering Russia’s global standing.

    Like their counterparts in Mali and Burkina Faso, Tiani’s government has built its domestic legitimacy around a narrative of national sovereignty, pan-Africanism, and liberation from the influence of former Western colonial powers. All three regimes expelled French troops, formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), and withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), framing the new bloc as an assertion of regional independence. This narrative, however, stands in stark tension with the junta’s growing dependence on Moscow. Ochieng notes that the military governments argue they have chosen the partnership with Russia on their own terms, framing Moscow as a partner that respects their sovereignty, in contrast to former colonial power France, the European Union, and the United States.

    In the wake of the mutiny, a Nigerien military captain appeared on state television to accuse Western powers including France and Chad of orchestrating the unrest, while Russia’s foreign ministry labeled the mutineers “extremists seemingly incited by European former colonial powers”. France has repeatedly denied all accusations of attempting to destabilize Niger, while Chad’s government has not responded to requests for comment. Boswall argues that Niger’s junta deliberately downplays Africa Corps’ central role in the country’s security while overemphasizing its narrative of resource nationalism and independent anti-jihadist action, as part of a broader regional battle for control of public narrative.

    Russia’s ongoing full-scale war in Ukraine continues to shape the parameters of its Sahel strategy. The conflict consumes the vast majority of Russia’s military personnel and equipment, limiting Moscow’s ability to expand large-scale operations in Africa. “It’s quite a tightrope for Russia because ultimately its priority will always be Ukraine,” Ochieng explained. “It will maintain at least enough numbers to allow it to reassure the military governments in the Sahel that it continues to be a reliable partner. They’ll continue to deploy just enough weapons and supplies and logistics… to continue supporting Africa Corps.”

    That support has clear limits: Moscow cannot afford to launch a sustained large-scale counter-offensive to eliminate insurgent control across the Sahel’s vast territory. This reality helps explain why protecting allied regimes has emerged as the core of Russia’s regional strategy. Defending a capital or helping crush a mutiny requires far fewer resources than recapturing and holding huge swathes of insurgent-held territory. “These are quite limited interventions, but with an outsized impact,” Boswall said. “I think at that level they’ll be able to sustain that over the foreseeable future, even with the war in Ukraine.”

    While Russia’s intervention allowed Tiani to survive this latest challenge to his rule, it has done nothing to resolve the deep-seated grievances and structural vulnerabilities that fueled the mutiny in the first place. The conditions that could spark another challenge to the junta remain firmly in place.

  • At least two dead in blast at Bolivia military barracks

    At least two dead in blast at Bolivia military barracks

    A devastating explosion at a Bolivian military barracks has left a yet-to-be-confirmed number of people dead and dozens more injured, triggering emergency response operations and official mourning in the Andean nation.

    The incident unfolded shortly after 2:30 p.m. local time on Friday at the facility located in Viacha, a town situated roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) outside Bolivia’s administrative capital, La Paz. The barracks houses an artillery regiment of the Bolivian armed forces.

    Initial official statements from Bolivian Defense Minister Ernesto Justiniano confirmed that at least two people had lost their lives, and 58 others suffered injuries in the detonation of pyrotechnic material stored at the site. However, senior health official Rita Nebraska told local Bolivian broadcasters that preliminary on-site assessments put the likely death toll much higher, between 10 and 15 fatalities, indicating authorities are bracing for a rising number of confirmed deaths as search operations continue.

    Law enforcement officials confirmed that the blast caused widespread property damage in residential areas surrounding the military base. Dozens of private homes suffered shattered windows and structural damage from the force of the explosion, though no off-base injuries have been reported as of yet.

    Emergency response teams including police, firefighters and paramedics have been deployed to the site, where they are currently conducting search-and-rescue operations through collapsed rubble for potential missing survivors. Out of an abundance of caution, Nebraska warned the public that residual unstable material could trigger additional secondary explosions, and urged all civilians to maintain a safe perimeter of at least 150 meters from the barracks grounds.

    Police spokesman Roger Roca told Agence France-Presse that the military facility was storing large quantities of fireworks at the time of the blast. Authorities have not yet announced any definitive cause for the initial detonation, and an official investigation into the incident is ongoing.

    In the wake of the tragedy, local government authorities in Viacha have declared a three-day period of official mourning to honor the lives lost in the explosion.

  • UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows more accurately Africa’s size

    UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows more accurately Africa’s size

    In a landmark vote Friday, the United Nations General Assembly gave formal backing to a new global map projection that correctly depicts Africa’s actual geographic size, capping off a years-long advocacy campaign spearheaded by African nations and international geographic justice groups.

    The non-binding resolution, put forward by Togo with unified support from the entire African Union bloc, passed with overwhelming global backing: 164 UN member states voted in favor of the measure, while only the United States cast a opposing vote. Six nations — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine — chose to abstain from the vote.

    The resolution calls on governments and multilateral institutions worldwide to phase out the centuries-old Mercator projection, a mapping standard that has dominated global cartography since the 16th century, in favor of the Equal Earth projection, a modern alternative that geographers and advocacy leaders confirm renders continental proportions with far greater geographic accuracy.

    First developed in 2018, the Equal Earth projection accounts for the Earth’s natural curvature to display all landmasses in their true relative sizes. By contrast, the Mercator projection, originally created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator to aid 16th-century European maritime navigators, systematically distorts continental sizes: it inflates the apparent area of polar-adjacent landmasses including North America and Greenland, while drastically shrinking the size of equatorial regions including Africa and South America. One striking example of this distortion sees the Mercator projection depict Greenland as roughly the same size as Africa; in reality, Africa is 14 times larger than the Arctic island.

    UN officials emphasized that the resolution does not implement an outright ban on the Mercator projection, nor does it force any entity to adopt the Equal Earth model. Instead, it acts as a formal global endorsement encouraging voluntary adoption of the more accurate projection for general use, from education to public policy and digital mapping.

    Speaking ahead of the vote, Togo’s Foreign Minister Robert Dussey framed the shift as more than a technical cartographic adjustment. “Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey told the assembly. “They guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”

    Advocacy groups that led the multi-year campaign to secure UN backing welcomed the resolution as a critical step toward correcting long-standing geographic bias. Africa No Filter, one of the leading organizations behind the push, noted in a statement that the group now aims to see the accurate projection integrated into everyday global systems: “We want to see accurate maps in schools, textbooks, newsrooms, businesses and on the digital platforms billions of people use every day.”

    International leaders also celebrated the vote as a small but meaningful step toward greater geographic and historical accuracy. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on social platform X following the vote: “Changing the map obviously doesn’t change the world. But correcting a representation that distorts it is already an act of truth.”

    Geographers have long backed the shift away from general use of the Mercator projection, noting that its only practical, valid application remains the original purpose for which it was designed: maritime navigation. Mark Monmonier, a veteran geography professor at Syracuse University, summed up the widespread academic consensus in comments on the resolution: “Outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.”

  • Hussam Abu Safiya: Abducted Palestinian doctor still subject to torture by Israel

    Hussam Abu Safiya: Abducted Palestinian doctor still subject to torture by Israel

    A prominent Palestinian paediatrician detained without charge by Israel since late 2024 has alleged he faces persistent physical abuse, threats, and cruel treatment at the hands of his Israeli custodians, according to accounts shared by his legal representative and human rights advocates.

    Hussam Abu Safiya, the former medical director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, told his lawyer during a recent visit that Israeli guards have repeatedly beaten him across multiple areas of his body—including sensitive regions—using their hands, feet, and batons. The mistreatment does not end with physical violence: Abu Safiya also reported that guards deliberately disrupt his sleep overnight with constant noise and repeated public announcements, a deliberate tactic to inflict psychological distress. He added that the assault took place shortly before his lawyer’s most recent meeting, and that guards have explicitly threatened him against disclosing the horrific conditions of his detention to outside parties.

    Abu Safiya was taken by Israeli forces in December 2024 and has remained in custody without any formal charges or trial. He is being held under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law, a piece of legislation that independent United Nations human rights experts have long ruled violates core tenets of international humanitarian and human rights law.

    Back in July 2026, a group of UN special rapporteurs—including leading rights experts Francesca Albanese, Tlaleng Mofokeng, Morris Tidball-Binz, and Ben Saul—issued an urgent call demanding Israel immediately release Abu Safiya and all other healthcare workers being held in arbitrary detention. The experts argued that Abu Safiya’s ongoing detention without due process is not an isolated incident, but rather a reflection of a systematic Israeli campaign targeting Palestinian medical personnel and dismantling Gaza’s already fragile healthcare system. In their statement, they warned that this deliberate targeting is designed to impose conditions that would lead to the collective physical and mental destruction of the Palestinian people living in Gaza.

    The allegations of ongoing abuse have renewed international calls for action, with public health and human rights advocates adding their voices to the demand for Abu Safiya’s immediate release. Dr. James Smith, a lecturer in Humanitarian Policy & Practice at University College London and an emergency physician who completed volunteer deployments in Gaza in both 2023 and 2024, published an op-ed earlier this July repeating the urgent call for Abu Safiya’s liberation, a call shared publicly by independent outlet Middle East Eye on July 9, 2026.

    Physicians for Human Rights, the organization that confirmed the details of Abu Safiya’s account alongside his legal team, has echoed the UN experts’ demands, highlighting that the abuse of a detained healthcare worker represents a fundamental violation of international law that protects medical personnel and detainees in conflict zones. The case continues to draw international scrutiny over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian detainees and its targeting of Gaza’s health infrastructure amid the ongoing regional crisis.

  • Argentine court clears return of Nazi-looted portrait to Jewish dealer’s heir

    Argentine court clears return of Nazi-looted portrait to Jewish dealer’s heir

    BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A decades-long battle for the restitution of a World War II-looted Italian portrait has reached a pivotal resolution, after an Argentine court greenlit a landmark agreement that will see the artwork returned to the sole surviving heir of its original Jewish owner. The deal comes after the daughter of a fugitive high-ranking Nazi official agreed to surrender all ownership claims to the piece in exchange for avoiding criminal prosecution.

    The 18th-century work, long known as *Portrait of a Lady*, was part of the massive, world-renowned collection assembled by Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Dutch-Jewish art dealer operating in pre-war Europe. When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Goudstikker fled Amsterdam with his family, but died in a shipwreck shortly after his escape. His entire collection — numbering more than 1,100 works by masters including Rembrandt and Vermeer — was seized and sold under extreme duress, with a large portion falling into the hands of Nazi leader Hermann Göring, Hitler’s infamous right-hand man who amassed one of the largest stolen art collections of the war.

    The portrait in question ended up in the hands of Friedrich Kadgien, a top Nazi financial official who served as Göring’s adviser on confiscated property sales, foreign currency, and precious metals. Kadgien evaded justice for his Nazi-era crimes after Germany’s defeat, fleeing first to Switzerland before settling in Argentina, where he died in 1978 without ever facing arrest or charges. The painting passed to his daughter, Patricia Kadgien, who lived with her husband Juan Carlos Cortegoso in the coastal Argentine city of Mar del Plata.

    The modern legal saga that led to the portrait’s recovery began in August 2025, when Dutch journalists investigating Kadgien’s post-war escape spotted the artwork hanging above a green velvet couch in an online real estate listing for the couple’s rustic Mar del Plata home. Within hours of the Rotterdam-based newspaper Algemeen Dagblad publishing its discovery, the listing was taken down. Argentine police launched multiple raids on Kadgien and her sister’s Mar del Plata properties, but failed to locate the painting. More than a week later, Kadgien’s legal team turned the artwork over to authorities. Last year, the couple was formally charged with aggravated cover-up, accused of deliberately hiding the looted painting while knowing Argentine and international investigators were actively searching for it.

    Under the terms of the court-approved deal, obtained by the Associated Press, Kadgien and Cortegoso have relinquished all legal claims to the portrait and consented to its transfer to Goudstikker’s heir, Marei von Saher, a Connecticut resident who has spent decades working to recover her family’s stolen art. In exchange, the pair avoid a public criminal trial, and will instead serve two years of court-supervised probation. As part of the agreement, they will also make charitable donations to a local Mar del Plata hospital, and are required to notify authorities of any changes to their residence during the supervision period.

    For decades prior to its recovery, the portrait was formally attributed to Italian Baroque painter Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, matching the attribution listed in Goudstikker’s original pre-war collection records; it was even exhibited under Ghislandi’s name in Amsterdam before the Nazi invasion. However, a court-ordered forensic analysis by Argentina’s National Academy of Fine Arts reattributed the work to another 18th-century Italian master, Giacomo Antonio Melchiorre Ceruti. Independent experts have since authenticated the piece as part of Goudstikker’s original collection, and valued it at approximately €250,000 (equivalent to $290,000 U.S.).

    In a nod to the years-long investigation in Argentina, von Saher has agreed to allow the portrait to be exhibited in the country before it is transferred to her custody. During the 2025 raids on Kadgien family properties, police also seized two additional 19th-century paintings, along with a collection of prints and engravings. Argentine authorities have confirmed they are still conducting provenance investigations into these additional works to determine if any were also looted during the Nazi era.

    Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.

  • UAE-linked networks supplying weapons and fighters for Sudan atrocities, UN finds

    UAE-linked networks supplying weapons and fighters for Sudan atrocities, UN finds

    A United Nations-led independent international investigation has delivered a damning new assessment of Sudan’s 16-month-old civil conflict, concluding that cross-border flows of foreign weaponry, advanced military technology, and contracted mercenaries are prolonging the war and enabling widespread attacks on civilian targets that may rise to the level of war crimes. The long-awaited report from the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan, released publicly Thursday, confirmed there are reasonable grounds to believe a coordinated transnational network has provided the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s main paramilitary opposition group, with a steady stream of arms, logistical backing, combat training, and foreign personnel.

    Investigators traced the sprawling network, which includes private companies, middlemen, and individual actors, to operations based in or transiting through the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Colombia, Chad, Libya, and Somalia. While the UAE has repeatedly denied all accusations of supporting the RSF, extensive independent reporting from Middle East Eye and other open-source research has long linked the Gulf state to arms and supply shipments to the paramilitary group. In recent weeks, global human rights organizations have submitted two formal communications to the International Criminal Court, calling for investigations into the role of foreign actors—specifically senior UAE officials—in aiding and abetting alleged RSF atrocities.

    Beyond the RSF’s foreign support, the UN mission also uncovered preliminary evidence that foreign-provided drone technology has drastically expanded the long-range strike capacity of Sudan’s official Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), allowing the military to hit targets deep in territory held by the RSF. “The consequences of this external support are being felt most acutely by civilians,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the fact-finding mission. “This external support has not brought greater protection for civilians. Instead, civilians are paying the price through attacks on homes, hospitals, schools, markets and places of refuge.”

    The report’s casualty figures underscore the devastating human cost of these externally enabled attacks: between January and May 2026 alone, more than 1,000 civilians were killed in drone strikes across the country. Investigators documented deliberate strikes on protected civilian infrastructure by both warring parties, including an RSF attack on a kindergarten, displacement camp, and hospital in Kalogi, South Kordofan, in December 2025. Successive RSF drone strikes hit the Nabaa al-Hanan kindergarten, first responders who rushed to the scene, and a nearby rural hospital, killing 114 people—roughly 60 of whom were children—and wounding 35 more. The mission’s investigation found no evidence that either the kindergarten or the hospital was being used for military purposes, stripping the attack of any legal justification under international law. The RSF also carried out a lethal strike on a former International Organization for Migration building that sheltered displaced families in Kulba, killing at least five civilians including multiple children.

    On the SAF side, the mission confirmed the military carried out a major strike on Ad-Da’ein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur on the first day of Eid al-Fitr in March 2026. The attack killed at least 70 people, injured 146 more, and completely disabled the only major referral hospital serving more than two million people in the region. Even after investigating claims that wounded RSF fighters were receiving care at the facility, the mission emphasized that providing medical treatment to injured combatants does not revoke a hospital’s protected status under international humanitarian law. The report also attributed strikes on the Abu Zaima market in North Kordofan and the Yabus market in Blue Nile to the SAF, finding no identifiable military targets at either impact site. Investigators noted that deliberate attacks on clearly civilian sites meet the legal definition of potential war crimes.

    The report dedicated specific analysis to the RSF’s foreign supply lines for its operations in Darfur, where the mission previously found evidence of acts bearing the hallmarks of genocide against non-Arab communities. It traced weapons, personnel, and supplies through interconnected air, maritime, and land routes that pass through Bosaso in Somalia’s Puntland region, southeastern Libya, and Chad. Among the military equipment supplied to the RSF are Chinese-made NORINCO AH-4 howitzers, FK-2000 air defense systems, and CH-95 reconnaissance and strike drones. Investigators noted that much of this materiel matches specifications of equipment previously exported to the UAE, a finding that reinforces existing links between Emirati-linked entities and the RSF supply chain.

    Witness testimony collected by the mission documented repeated cargo flights departing from the UAE, transiting through Chad, before moving supplies and foreign contractors into RSF-controlled territory. While investigators stopped short of holding the Emirati state officially responsible for the network’s actions, they concluded that individuals and entities registered, based, or linked to the UAE play a “significant role” in recruiting, financing, and transporting military contractors and delivering other critical support to the RSF. In its response to investigators, the UAE rejected all allegations of arms supplies or mercenary facilitation, insisting it has remained neutral in the conflict and that internal inquiries found no evidence linking entities under its jurisdiction to mercenary activity in Sudan. Even so, the fact-finding mission urged Emirati authorities to launch more robust investigations and take enforcement action against companies and individuals operating from its territory that support the RSF.

    Colombian contractors emerged as a particularly critical component of the RSF’s advanced weapons operations, the report found. Investigators estimate that as many as 2,000 former Colombian military personnel have been recruited to support the RSF since August 2024. Multiple witnesses confirmed that some of these contractors received combat training at a military-style facility in Ghayathi, UAE, before traveling to Sudan via Somalia, Libya, or Chad. Contractors belonging to a unit calling itself the “Desert Wolves” were present in el-Fasher before, during, and after the RSF’s seizure of the city, operating drones, artillery, and other advanced weapons systems.

    “This support fed into RSF operations in Zamzam camp and later during the takeover of el-Fasher, where the mission documented grave violations and international crimes, including conduct displaying hallmarks of genocide,” said Mona Rishmawi, a member of the fact-finding mission. The mission has previously confirmed that RSF forces and their allied militias committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the el-Fasher campaign, and that their systematic targeting of non-Arab communities meets the criteria for potential acts of genocide.

    While investigators identified multiple unpublicized foreign individuals and entities linked to the support network, the report only publicly names individuals already sanctioned by the UN Security Council’s Sudan sanctions committee. That list includes retired Colombian colonel Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, founder of one of the main recruitment firms in the network, who was based in Abu Dhabi. His wife, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, is accused of coordinating recruitment activities inside Colombia. Both were sanctioned by the Security Council in April for their role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian soldiers to Sudan. The mission confirmed it maintains confidential dossiers on other unnamed suspects, which it will share with international judicial and accountability bodies as needed.

    Colombian authorities have acknowledged that Colombian companies and individuals have recruited contractors for deployment to Sudan, but the state has denied directing or supporting these activities, and the fact-finding mission made no finding of official Colombian state responsibility for the network. Under international criminal law, any individual who knowingly provides practical assistance that substantially contributes to the commission of international crimes can be held liable for aiding and abetting, even if their support was not strictly indispensable to the crime.

    “Accountability cannot stop with those who carry out the attacks,” said mission member Joy Ngozi Ezeilo. Investigators are calling for full inquiries that trace accountability through the entire chain of command, including individuals who order, finance, supply, or otherwise facilitate international crimes in Sudan.

    To curb the ongoing flow of weapons fueling the conflict, the mission urged the UN Security Council to expand the existing partial arms embargo covering only Darfur to the entire territory of Sudan. It also called on all UN member states to halt all transfers of weapons, drones, and military technology to any Sudanese party when there is a substantial risk the equipment will be used to facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

    Sudan’s ongoing civil war erupted in April 2023, triggered by a bitter power struggle between SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti. The conflict has killed at least tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 13 million from their homes, and pushed more than 19.5 million Sudanese to the brink of famine. The UN and European Union have both described the crisis as the world’s largest humanitarian and displacement emergency currently unfolding. Both warring parties have faced widespread accusations of systematic atrocities, and repeated international diplomatic efforts to negotiate a lasting ceasefire have all collapsed to date.

  • UAE president pardons Egyptian poet Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi

    UAE president pardons Egyptian poet Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi

    In a move that follows widespread international pressure from human rights organizations and United Nations experts, the United Arab Emirates’ president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has granted a pardon to Egyptian dissident poet and activist Abdul Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who had been sentenced to a decade in prison in the Gulf state, Emirati state media has confirmed.

    The pardon, issued Friday, comes less than three months after Qaradawi’s conviction on August 27 by the Cybercrime Circuit of the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal, which handed down the 10-year custodial sentence alongside a fine of 200,000 Emirati dirhams (equivalent to roughly $54,450).

    A dual Egyptian-Turkish national, Qaradawi was first apprehended by Lebanese security officials in January this year, before being extradited to the UAE to face charges of spreading “fake news” and “disturbing public security”. The charges stem from a social media video he recorded during a visit to Syria, in which he publicly criticized the governments of Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Both Cairo and Abu Dhabi submitted formal extradition requests for the activist, and Lebanese authorities ultimately moved to enforce the UAE’s warrant on January 8.

    In the more than 200 days that followed his extradition to the UAE, Qaradawi was held in what human rights outlet Middle East Eye described as “forced disappearance”, with no public confirmation of charges or official indictment. The unacknowledged detention sparked fierce international pushback, with leading rights groups and UN experts repeatedly calling for his immediate release.

    London-based Amnesty International, one of the most vocal organizations calling for Qaradawi’s freedom, warned early in the case that his extradition represented a “flagrant violation of due process guarantees and other international human rights obligations, notably the principle of non-refoulement”. By March, a coalition of UN independent human rights experts issued a public statement raising alarm over Qaradawi’s ongoing unacknowledged detention, calling on UAE authorities to immediately disclose his location and ensure fair legal process.

    The experts also raised pointed concerns over the unusual legal mechanism that enabled the extradition: an arrest warrant issued through the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council (AIMC), a relatively obscure regional security body. The coalition argued the entire process was politically motivated rather than rooted in neutral legal criteria, warning that the AIMC’s cross-border arrest framework “is being abused by some states to silence criticism, shut down dissent, and pursue activists beyond their borders”.

    Amnesty International further confirmed that during Qaradawi’s initial detention in Lebanon, he was interrogated over two separate cases: a 2017 in-absentia verdict from an Egyptian court that convicted him of spreading false information in a widely condemned politically motivated case, and the separate extradition request from the UAE. The 2017 verdict added a five-year prison sentence to Qaradawi’s record in Egypt.

    Reaction to the news of the pardon has been largely positive among human rights advocates, though many have called for urgent action to complete Qaradawi’s release and allow him to reunite with his family. Samar Elhussieny, executive director of the Egyptian Human Rights Forum, welcomed the pardon in comments to Middle East Eye, urging Emirati officials to speed up final administrative procedures. “I hope the procedures will be finalised as soon as possible for him to be reunited with his family,” Elhussieny said. “Then he can live his life with his daughters in peace and safety, and heal from this traumatic experience.”

    Qaradawi, a well-known figure in Arab political and cultural circles, was a prominent public supporter of the 2011 Egyptian revolution that ousted long-time authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak. He also worked on the presidential campaign of former International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammed el-Baradei, who ran for Egypt’s highest office following Mubarak’s resignation.

    In the years after 2011, Qaradawi was banned from publishing work and appearing on media outlets in Egypt, and joined hundreds of other Egyptian dissidents in self-imposed exile in Turkey. His family has also faced repeated pressure from Egyptian authorities: his sister Ola has been arbitrarily detained in Egypt for four years on unsubstantiated terrorism-related charges, widely seen as retaliation for the activist’s work. Qaradawi’s father, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the most prominent and widely published Islamic scholars in the modern Arab world, died in Qatar in 2022.

  • ‘There was blood everywhere’: Survivors recount US strike on wedding in Iran

    ‘There was blood everywhere’: Survivors recount US strike on wedding in Iran

    What was supposed to be the most joyful milestone in the lives of young Iranian couple Maryam Mallahi and Ziaeddin became one of the deadliest civilian tragedies of the latest round of US military strikes across Iran, leaving five people dead and dozens injured, many of them children.

    On the evening of September 1, around 350 guests gathered in the small coastal community of Kuhestak, located in Sirik County along Iran’s Hormozgan province eastern shore, to mark the couple’s marriage. Following long-held local custom, the celebration was split across two separate venues: male guests assembled at a relative’s residence, while women and children waited for the newlyweds at the bride’s family home. Strings of colored lights were strung across the property, guests dressed in vibrant traditional attire, and anticipation built as the crowd waited for Maryam and Ziaeddin to make their entrance.

    The idyllic scene shattered at approximately 9 p.m., as the United States launched a sweeping new wave of air attacks across southern Iran. Multiple explosions echoed across Kuhestak, a small settlement where the wedding venue sat just 200 meters from a telecommunications tower that was among the initial targets hit. Moments after the first blasts, a projectile tore through the roof of the bride’s single-story home, where dozens of women and children had gathered.

    Majid, a 41-year-old guest at the nearby men’s gathering whose wife and five-year-old child were both wounded in the strike, described the chaos that unfolded in the attack’s immediate aftermath. “We were talking to other guests when suddenly we heard a terrifying sound. At first we thought it was an earthquake. We panicked and ran outside,” he recounted to Middle East Eye. “We rushed toward the bride’s house and saw smoke and fire everywhere. I pulled my wife and my child out from under the rubble. Screams came from every direction, there was blood everywhere, and everyone was scrambling to pull the wounded to safety.”

    Ali Mallahi, the bride’s father and owner of the destroyed home, told reporters he heard a second and third blast, and immediately realized the explosions were centered on his property. “The first explosion completely destroyed the single-story house and left it uninhabitable. The second struck the courtyard, damaging a car and other parts of the property. The house is not a home any more. It is gone,” he said.

    One projectile left a 1.5-meter-deep crater in the floor of one of the home’s main rooms, according to local on-site reporting.

    Mina, a female guest who was trapped under rubble before being rescued and transported to Abolfazl Hospital in nearby Minab, described the casual horror of the moment the attack hit. “We were eating ice cream – the weather is still very hot in Hormozgan this time of year, you know – and we were waiting for the bride and groom to arrive when suddenly we heard this terrifying explosion nearby,” she said. “A second blast hit the house almost immediately and tore a hole through the roof. Bricks and chunks of ceiling and walls came crashing down on us. Everyone was screaming, everyone was calling for help, nobody knew what had happened. I was trapped under the rubble. I was just lucky to get out alive.”

    Nineteen-year-old Zahra, another wounded guest, recalled the gruesome scene inside the home that had been decorated just hours earlier for a celebration. “Every carpet in the house was stained with blood. The shoes, the serving dishes, the lights they had put up for the wedding all had blood on them,” she said.

    Local residents launched a frantic search for survivors before formal emergency response teams could reach the remote site. A Red Crescent rescuer who arrived moments after the strike, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said that uninjured guests and nearby neighbors had already begun pulling survivors from the rubble by the time his team arrived. “People who had escaped the building and others who saw the attack from outside were already trying to pull the wounded and survivors out from under the rubble,” he said. “They were so terrified that we had to spend a large part of our time just calming them down. Of course they were terrified. This was a real tragedy. It took only a few moments for their wedding to turn into mourning.”

    Fifteen ambulances were deployed to the area, with most casualties transported to hospitals in Sirik and Minab, and the most severely injured admitted directly to intensive care units. Iranian officials initially recorded two deaths and 50 injuries, but the toll climbed steadily in the days after the attack. The final confirmed death toll stands at five: 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri, 43-year-old Kolsoum Mallahi-Nezhadnia, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, four-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi, and 22-year-old Asieh Molaeinejad, who succumbed to her injuries in hospital on Thursday.

    Provincial authorities confirm 68 people were wounded in total, 19 of whom are children under the age of 10. Fatemeh, a lightly injured guest who knew Amir Mohammad and his family, shared the devastating heartbreak of the young boy’s death: “Amir Mohammad was supposed to start preschool in just a few days, when the new school year began. Now his parents have to attend his funeral. The grief is unbearable.”

    To date, no official Iranian or US statement has confirmed exactly what type of weapon struck the wedding venue. Witnesses interviewed by Middle East Eye gave conflicting accounts, with some identifying the projectile as a missile and others saying it came from a drone. Razieh Alishvandi, deputy for international and humanitarian affairs at the Iranian Red Crescent, has officially characterized the incident as a projectile strike on a private residential home during a civilian wedding. All residents and witnesses interviewed confirmed the home was purely residential, with no military, security, or intelligence infrastructure located nearby.

    The Kuhestak strike was part of a broader wave of US attacks across Hormozgan and other regions of southern Iran that night. Iranian officials confirmed additional strikes and explosions in Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, Jask, Konarak, and Chabahar. In Kuhestak, the strike also damaged the local telecommunications tower, portions of the town pier, and critical electricity and communications infrastructure, cutting mobile phone and internet service for Kuhestak and the nearby village of Mishi for several hours.

    For local residents, the attack immediately stirred traumatic memories of a February strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab that killed 156 people, most of them children, on the first day of US-Israeli strikes against Iran earlier this year.

    US officials have not publicly confirmed what the intended target in Kuhestak was. US Central Command said in a statement that the night’s strikes targeted Iranian radar, communications, and maritime capabilities, adding that the US military does not intentionally target civilians. US Vice President JD Vance later stated that Washington was launching an investigation into the incident.

    Maryam and Ziaeddin survived the attack only by chance: neither had arrived at the bride’s home when the projectile struck. While the couple escaped physical harm, all of the dead and injured are close relatives, friends, and guests they had invited to celebrate their marriage. A close friend of the bride, who requested anonymity, said Maryam remains in deep shock and fragile mental health. “Maryam is in a very bad state – very, very bad,” she said. “She had dreamed about this night for so long. She wanted to celebrate the beginning of her married life with her family and friends. Now her mental state is so fragile that we honestly do not know how she will cope with this tragedy.”