Global Pulse

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  • Pacific leaders at summit fail to reach unanimous condemnation of China’s ballistic missile launch

    Pacific leaders at summit fail to reach unanimous condemnation of China’s ballistic missile launch

    KOROR, Palau — At their annual regional summit held this year in Palau, Pacific island leaders have formally recorded collective concern over China’s recent ballistic missile test that landed in Pacific regional waters, but the body ultimately failed to secure the unanimous backing the bloc traditionally requires for official statements, falling short of issuing a harsher rebuke of Beijing’s actions, leaders announced Thursday.

    The effort to rally a unified regional response to the July missile launch had been widely framed as a key benchmark for measuring how intensifying great-power competition in the Pacific has strained cohesion among the bloc’s mostly small, low-lying island states. For years, rising geopolitical jockeying between Washington, Beijing and other major global actors has pulled Pacific nations in competing directions, creating growing rifts within the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) over how to engage with major powers.

    According to New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who attended the closed-door leaders’ retreat where the statement was negotiated, only the Pacific island nation of Nauru publicly dissented from the agreed text of concern. Nauru has steadily deepened its diplomatic and economic ties with Beijing over the past four years, and formally cut official ties with Taiwan earlier in 2024 to align with China’s One China policy. A second China-aligned Pacific nation, Kiribati, was entirely unrepresented at the daylong closed retreat, after Kiribati’s president skipped the full summit and sent his country’s former ambassador to China as a delegate instead.

    Luxon sought to downplay the significance of both Nauru’s dissent and Kiribati’s absence from the retreat, arguing that the PIF had still reached a usable, meaningful collective position despite the split. The PIF has long operated on a norm of unanimous consensus for all official communiqué language, a tradition that reflects the bloc’s emphasis on collective regional decision-making, with closed-door retreat negotiations limited to just leaders and a small handful of senior aides.

    “I think we’ve got to a very good place,” Luxon told reporters after the retreat concluded. “Yes, Nauru has dissociated itself from that statement, but that shouldn’t be a reason for why we shouldn’t be able to express a PIF position or a consensus position.”

    Even as the New Zealand leader framed the outcome as a success, the breakdown in consensus signals that navigating competing great power demands will remain an increasingly complex challenge for the Pacific bloc. Over the past decade, the vast Pacific region has grown dramatically in geopolitical importance, driven by its strategic location for global trade and security, and its abundant untapped natural resources. Major powers have competed fiercely to build diplomatic and economic ties with Pacific island states, offering large-scale infrastructure funding, aid packages and other incentives to win influence, creating a tangled network of competing allegiances that have upended longstanding regional dynamics.

    Palau, this year’s summit host, is one of the 12 United Nations member states that still maintain official diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, a status that has put it at odds with Beijing. Some regional analysts had privately suggested that the absence of key leaders from China-aligned states could be tied to Beijing’s diplomatic pressure over Palau’s position on Taiwan, though there is no public evidence to support that claim. Attendees of the summit noted that most absences of top leaders, all of whom sent senior government delegates in their place, were tied to domestic political commitments or personal health issues.

    The failure to reach full consensus on the missile statement also highlights deeper, long-simmering divides within the PIF that have emerged as great-power competition has intensified. The joint statement itself was largely a symbolic gesture — most regional nations had already criticized China’s missile launch publicly when it took place in July. But the bloc’s inability to agree on a unified text mirrors a similar breakdown weeks earlier at a PIF foreign minister retreat in Suva, Fiji, where a planned statement on the launch was scrapped after Nauru and Kiribati rejected the language.

  • ‘Secretive’ UAE and Swiss-based firms found to be major crude suppliers to Israel, says report

    ‘Secretive’ UAE and Swiss-based firms found to be major crude suppliers to Israel, says report

    A joint investigation by two leading research organizations, Oil Change International (OCI) and the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), has pulled back the curtain on a little-scrutinized network of oil traders that have become among the largest suppliers of crude oil to Israel during the ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The investigation identifies Swiss-based Vitol and Dubai-founded Heritage Petroleum FZCO as the key players in this supply chain, which collectively delivered around 22 million barrels of crude to Israel between October 2023 and June 2026, accounting for 11% of the nation’s total crude imports over that period.

    What makes the findings particularly striking is that the vast majority of shipments from both traders passed through Ceyhan, a major Turkish Mediterranean port, despite Turkey’s official embargo on Israeli-bound oil trade imposed in May 2024. Researchers also confirmed that two Heritage subsidiaries, classified as shipping servicing firms, are formally registered in Turkey’s national trade registry. While major Western oil giants including BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell have already faced widespread public backlash and scrutiny for their roles in supplying energy to Israel during the conflict, the activity of smaller, opaque trading networks in this supply chain has largely flown under the radar until now.

    The research team built its findings on trade and shipping data from analytics platform Kpler, cross-referenced with additional data from the London Stock Exchange Group and verified via satellite imagery confirming vessel arrivals at Israel’s Ashkelon port. Both Vitol and Heritage operate as dual charterers and traders, meaning they take full ownership of the crude they ship to Israel. Of more than 250 tracked shipments carrying over 200 million barrels of crude from 19 source countries to Israel, the two firms ranked among the largest charterers for Israeli-bound cargo.

    In response to the report’s findings, a Vitol spokesperson stated that the company conducts all its business activities in full compliance with applicable local and international laws. When Middle East Eye reached out to Heritage Petroleum for comment, no response was received prior to publication.

    Turkey’s foreign ministry has pushed back against suggestions that it is failing to enforce its own embargo, noting that all crude moving through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which carries Caspian Sea crude from Azerbaijan to Ceyhan, is required to adhere to Turkey’s ban on trade with Israel. “No vessel loading from Ceyhan is authorised or executed with Israel designated as the delivery destination,” a ministry source told Middle East Eye. The source explained that once tankers leave the Ceyhan terminal, cargo ownership can transfer to third-party buyers while in transit, opening a loophole for changes to the final destination. The ministry also clarified that Turkish state energy firms hold only minority stakes in the BTC pipeline project, and the firm operating Turkey’s section of the pipeline has no commercial authority over the sale or routing of cargo, adding that any sale of Turkish state-owned crude to Israel is “entirely out of the question.”

    Vitol, one of the world’s leading independent oil traders with a global footprint including major offices in London, Geneva, and Houston, has a long history of controversy tied to unethical business practices. The company pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges in 2007 for paying $13 million in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi officials to secure lucrative oil supply contracts. In 2026, it became the first firm to secure U.S. authorization to sell Venezuelan crude after the detention of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. When approached by OCI and SOMO for comment, Vitol denied profiting from war and conflict in Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, or Iraq, but declined to address its role as a charterer of Israeli-bound crude. Between October 2023 and June 2026 alone, Vitol shipped nearly 14 million barrels of crude to Israel, with its shipment volumes spiking sharply in 2023 after the outbreak of the Gaza conflict.

    Far less is known about Heritage Petroleum, which was only founded in December 2023 and sent its first chartered shipment of crude to Israel in November 2024, more than a year into the conflict. Despite its recent creation, it quickly rose to become Israel’s second-largest crude supplier, delivering a total of 8.3 million barrels, all of which departed from Turkish ports after the embargo was implemented. “Heritage has appeared out of nowhere to be a leading charterer of fuel to Israel, and its operations are very opaque,” noted Andy Rowell, contributing editor at OCI. “We still do not know who the board of the company are or who the people with significant control are.”

    Beyond the two registered Turkish subsidiaries, researchers found that little public information exists about the firms. Limosa Trading Logistics Inc., one of the two Heritage subsidiaries, took its website offline after SOMO’s strategic litigation lead Lydia de Leeuw reached out for comment, and phone calls went unanswered. The second subsidiary, Shiptech Maritime Ltd., initially provided a statement on behalf of both itself and Heritage, claiming the firms were not violating Turkey’s trade ban with Israel. When de Leeuw followed up with additional questions and presented corroborating data from LSEG and port control inspections confirming the shipments, Shiptech declined further comment. A conversation with Shiptech’s Turkish head of operations confirmed that Shiptech and Heritage are the same entity. No responses to Middle East Eye’s requests for comment were received from either subsidiary prior to publication.

    The investigation’s findings raise serious questions about how effectively Turkey is enforcing its embargo on Israeli energy trade. While researchers acknowledge that crude oil has legitimate civilian uses in Israel, they stress that the link between imported crude and Israeli military operations is unambiguous. “What we do know is that Israel relies heavily on imported crude oil,” Rowell explained. “In 2024, for example, the country imported 97 percent of its crude oil. The imported oil is refined in Ashdod and Haifa and both refineries have been clear that they are supplying the military. Bazan Group, which owns the Haifa refinery, has been clear that it supplies the Israeli military.”

    The report also highlights the enabling role that national governments hold over this ongoing energy flow, and puts forward clear policy recommendations. It calls on major oil-producing countries that supply the crude, including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria, to implement formal embargoes on Israeli-bound crude, and urges Turkey to strengthen enforcement against firms exploiting loopholes to facilitate shipments. It also notes that the countries hosting the traders’ headquarters – the United Arab Emirates for Heritage and the United Kingdom for Vitol – hold significant policy tools to restrict and halt these shipments.

    Rowell particularly emphasized the implications of the findings for the UK, given new Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s pledges to reset the UK’s relations with Israel. “This will be a real test – Vitol has huge operations out of London; will the government take action against them?” he said.

    The report also notes that the full scope of the two traders’ roles may be even larger than documented, as roughly half of all Israeli-bound crude shipments analyzed for the investigation did not list a named charterer, leaving open the possibility that additional undisclosed activity by the two firms is unaccounted for.

  • Watch: JD Vance ‘extremely sceptical’ over alleged strike on Iranian wedding

    Watch: JD Vance ‘extremely sceptical’ over alleged strike on Iranian wedding

    A growing diplomatic and political controversy has emerged in recent days following Iranian allegations that a United States missile strike targeted a wedding gathering, leaving four dead including two young children – a claim that has now drawn public scepticism from prominent American political figure JD Vance, who says he remains “extremely sceptical” of the official Iranian account.

    Iranian government officials have directly leveled accusations against the U.S., framing the reported strike as a deliberate act of violence against civilians that qualifies as a war crime under international law. According to Iranian statements, the attack unfolded when a missile hit a venue hosting a wedding celebration, ending the lives of four attendees. Two of those killed were confirmed to be children, a detail that has amplified the anger and condemnation coming out of Tehran in the aftermath of the incident.

    The allegations come at a moment of already heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, with long-standing disputes over nuclear policy, regional military activity, and diplomatic relations creating a fragile geopolitical environment across the Middle East. Even as Iranian officials push their narrative of American culpability, Vance, a leading U.S. conservative voice, has pushed back against accepting the claim at face value, publicly stating that he doubts the official version of events that has been presented by Iranian authorities. Vance’s comments add a layer of domestic political conversation to the international controversy, as U.S. officials have not yet formally confirmed or denied involvement in the strike.

    Widespread international attention has turned to the incident amid competing claims, with global observers calling for a transparent, independent investigation to clarify who was responsible for the attack, confirm the details of the casualties, and determine what exactly took place at the wedding venue. The incident has already stoked new fears of further escalation between Washington and Tehran, at a time when the international community is already grappling with multiple ongoing conflicts across the Middle East.

  • Palestinian Islamic Jihad co-founder threatened with ‘unlawful’ deportation from Syria

    Palestinian Islamic Jihad co-founder threatened with ‘unlawful’ deportation from Syria

    Eleven months after Syrian security forces seized 71-year-old Adel al-Natour, a co-founder of the Palestinian armed faction Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the elderly Palestinian refugee remains in arbitrary detention with no formal charges, no access to legal representation, and limited contact with his family, his relatives have confirmed in an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye.

    Natour was taken into custody from his family home in a Damascus suburb on September 18 last year. What makes his detention particularly striking is that Natour officially cut all ties with PIJ nearly 30 years ago, back in 1995, after growing disillusioned with the group’s leadership and external influence. According to his family, only four supervised visits have been permitted since his arrest. When they finally saw him four months into his detention, they discovered he had lost 20 kilograms due to poor conditions behind bars.

    “Our entire immediate family is internally displaced in Gaza, living in tents after the recent war, and he was completely cut off from all news – he didn’t even know the conflict had ended,” said Israa al-Natour, Adel’s daughter and a public sector employee. For months, the family stayed silent amid repeated promises from Syrian security officials that Natour would be imminently released. Authorities initially claimed he was detained to protect him from unspecified threats to his life, offering no further details about the grounds for his arrest. That silence broke this weekend, when security officials notified the family that Natour would be deported from Syria within 10 days.

    A lifelong Palestinian political activist, Natour was born in 1955 to a poor refugee family in the Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He helped found PIJ in 1981 as a movement opposing Israeli occupation, but his activism has already led to decades of displacement and repeated detentions across the Middle East. Shortly after co-founding the group, he was detained without trial by Israeli authorities, then deported first to Egypt, then to Greece, before finding temporary refuge in Algeria. He was allowed to return to Gaza in 1986, only to be deported again ahead of the First Intifada. A third return in 1990 led to another expulsion, this time with a permanent ban on re-entering Gaza, forcing him to settle first in Libya before moving to Syria with his family in 1992.

    In 1995, Natour formally left PIJ, stepping away from all political and armed activity in protest of growing Iranian interference in the faction. “He believed Iran only funded PIJ as a tool to pressure Israel, not out of genuine commitment to the Palestinian cause,” Israa explained. “He also came to the conclusion that armed resistance only led to endless Palestinian deaths, without advancing the goal of ending occupation.”

    Natour’s history of detention in Syria predates the current government: he was arrested by the former Assad government in 2008 and held for three months in the notorious Palestine Branch prison before being released. When the 2011 Syrian revolution broke out, Natour opened his home in Damascus’ Yarmouk Camp to hide opposition activists, and advocated fiercely for Palestinian factions to remain neutral in Syria’s internal conflict. When fighting broke out in Yarmouk in 2012, he fled the camp, earning a reputation as a neutral humanitarian advocate who provided aid to displaced people regardless of their political alignment. “People called him the Godfather of Yarmouk Camp,” Israa said. “He trusted everyone, even when it put him in danger.”

    Today, Natour’s family is fighting to overturn the deportation order, but their efforts have hit a dead end. Because no formal charges have ever been filed against Natour, courts and lawyers have refused to take up his case. As Palestinian refugees holding only Syrian residency, not citizenship, the family says deportation would leave them stateless. Most countries routinely deny entry visas to Palestinians, and all of the family’s travel documents were seized during the original raid on their home. The family has explored seeking temporary entry to Malaysia, which allows Palestinian tourists to enter without a visa, but they have no guarantee Natour would be granted residency there, leaving him at risk of displacement yet again.

    “Given the option, my father would rather remain in prison than be deported,” Israa said. “Our lives, our work, everything is here – Syria is our second home.”

    Human rights groups have condemned Natour’s detention as unlawful, framing it as part of a broader pattern of arbitrary detentions under Syria’s new interim government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, which seized power in December 2024. “Even if he had broken a Syrian law, even if he is not a citizen, he is entitled to due process: a fair trial, the right to know the charges against him, the right to legal representation, and protection from torture and enforced disappearance,” said Bassam Alahmad, executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice. His organization has documented nearly two dozen cases of enforced disappearance and more than 12 deaths under torture in custody since the new administration took power.

    Natour’s son Muamen warned that the deportation would set a dangerous precedent for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who have made Syria their home for decades. “My father wanted to help build a new, free Syria after the fall of Assad,” he said. “But justice was supposed to be one of the core goals of the revolution. Oppression and forced disappearances have no place here.”

    As of publication, Middle East Eye had reached out to the Syrian Ministry of Interior for comment on the case but had not received a response.

  • A pregnant soldier mourns her 21-year-old husband at his funeral in Ukraine

    A pregnant soldier mourns her 21-year-old husband at his funeral in Ukraine

    KYIV, Ukraine — On a crisp Tuesday in Kyiv, a 21-year-old pregnant widow in a simple black dress stood at the head of her fallen husband’s casket, grieving a love story cut short by Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Yeva and Danyil Smyrnov, both 18 when they enlisted in Ukraine’s armed forces in 2023, tied the knot just two years later in July 2025. Eager to build a life together amid the chaos of war, the young couple rushed to start their family before Danyil’s deployment to the front lines.

  • Sharpeville massacre survivors file class action lawsuit in South Africa

    Sharpeville massacre survivors file class action lawsuit in South Africa

    More than 60 years after one of the bloodiest atrocities of South Africa’s apartheid era, survivors and bereaved relatives of the Sharpeville Massacre have taken a historic step to pursue long-denied justice, announcing a class-action lawsuit against the national government this Thursday.

    The announcement came during a press briefing held in the Sharpeville township itself, located just south of Johannesburg. Before the formal reveal, family members of those killed in the 1960 violence completed a quiet, solemn procession along the same path that the original 1960 protesters took, acting as living witnesses to the tragedy that still shapes the community today.

    On March 21, 1960, apartheid police opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators gathered to oppose the racist pass laws that tightly restricted Black South Africans’ movement and rights under the segregationist regime. The deadly crackdown immediately drew global condemnation, and the event became a defining turning point in the international movement to end apartheid. Today, the date is commemorated across South Africa as Human Rights Day, a national public holiday.

    Official apartheid-era police records list the official death toll as 69, with 180 people injured. But new research cited by the lawsuit plaintiffs puts the actual casualties much higher: at least 91 killed and more than 230 wounded. Many families still carry intergenerational trauma from the attack.

    Eighty-seven-year-old Abram Mofokeng is one of three lead representative plaintiffs for the class, which counts more than 70 survivors and relatives who have already committed to joining the litigation. Mofokeng was just 20 years old when he was shot in the foot and back while fleeing the gunfire, and a bullet remains lodged in his back to this day. “It is not possible to forget what happened in 1960,” he said. “I cannot go a day without thinking about how we have been affected.”

    The other lead plaintiffs, Paulina Mathinye and Ishmael Poho, both lost their fathers in the massacre when they were small children. Poho emphasized that the lawsuit extends far beyond individual financial compensation, noting that the harm of the massacre has rippled across the entire Sharpeville community for generations. “This is not a case for an individual as such,” he said. “It is a case for every other person who suffers an injustice.”

    Central to the legal fight is a demand to strike down the 1961 Indemnity Act, a law enacted by the apartheid government immediately after the massacre that has remained on South Africa’s books ever since. The legislation shields apartheid-era officials from all legal liability for the massacre and wiped all existing victim compensation claims off the books. After the massacre, 250 claims were originally filed, but only around a third received any discretionary payments, with the total amount coming to less than 4% of what victims had originally requested.

    If the court strikes down the 1961 law, the plaintiffs will be able to move forward with formal damages claims. Lawyers from Lawyers for Human Rights, which is bringing the case alongside international human rights law firm Leigh Day, note that the legislation violates the current South African constitution’s guarantee of access to the courts. Compensation amounts will be individualized for each claimant, set with input from independent experts, and no total collective value has been announced yet.

    The legal action also addresses gaps in the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, which only granted formal reparations to 51 Sharpeville Massacre survivors, leaving hundreds of affected people without recognition or support. As of press time, the current South African government has not issued any public response to requests for comment on the new lawsuit.

    This legal push is part of a growing nationwide movement to confront unresolved apartheid-era injustices. In recent years, South African courts have reopened inquests into the suspicious deaths of dozens of prominent anti-apartheid activists, including Steve Biko, the Cradock Four, and Chief Albert Luthuli. Dan Leader, a partner at Leigh Day supporting the South African legal team, described the Sharpeville case as core to the country’s unfinished democratic project. “This is a time of reckoning for modern South Africa,” Leader said.

    Charne Tracey of Lawyers for Human Rights added that the lawsuit is intended to pressure the government to enter good-faith negotiations with survivors and families over reparations, noting that “they are under no illusions that they must carry a legal stick if their voices are going to be listened to.”

  • Venezuelans’ pride is bruised by deal to give US one-fifth of their oil reserves

    Venezuelans’ pride is bruised by deal to give US one-fifth of their oil reserves

    For more than a century, oil has been the foundational thread weaving together every aspect of modern Venezuelan identity. Rooted in the national consciousness is the deeply held belief that the country’s unmatched reserves of crude – the largest on the planet – belong not to political leaders or private corporations, but to every Venezuelan citizen. That long-held conviction, and the collective pride of a nation that has weathered decades of turmoil, suffered a major blow last week when acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez signed an agreement granting U.S.-backed entities control over roughly one-fifth of the country’s total proven oil reserves.

    While the deal holds the long-term potential to unlock billions of dollars in investment for an oil sector and broader national economy crippled by decades of mismanagement and international sanctions, it has been widely decried by ordinary Venezuelans as an unprecedented surrender of national sovereignty. Many have linked the agreement to the January U.S. military operation that targeted former President Nicolás Maduro, arguing that seizing control of Venezuela’s vast energy wealth was the unstated core goal of the intervention that left Rodríguez in power.

    “For ordinary citizens like us, there is nothing we can do to stop this – it is not just worrying, it is outrageous,” said Lisandro Castro, an architect based in the capital Caracas. “Across the country right now, there is real, widespread anxiety about what is unfolding before our eyes.”

    Oil has shaped every corner of Venezuelan life since commercial deposits were first discovered in the country’s northwest in the 1920s. What began as a new energy sector transformed a poor, largely agrarian nation into an urbanized regional economic power almost overnight. American energy workers who relocated to Venezuela introduced and popularized baseball, constructing fields across oil-producing regions that turned the sport into a national pastime for working-class communities before it spread across the entire country.

    The boom created unprecedented economic opportunity that drew waves of European migrants fleeing post-World War II hardship. Portuguese immigrants opened neighborhood bakeries that remain community staples today, while Italian architects designed iconic buildings that still define Venezuelan cityscapes. As a young democracy, Venezuela came to rely almost entirely on oil export revenues rather than domestic taxes on citizens and businesses, creating a dynamic where politicians used oil wealth to secure public support, explained Ronal Rodríguez, a researcher at the Venezuela Observatory at Colombia’s Universidad del Rosario.

    Venezuela went on to become a founding member of OPEC, and by the 1970s, when the country boasted the highest per capita income in Latin America, the government nationalized the entire oil sector with the creation of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., known universally as PDVSA. Under the nationalized model, foreign firms were only permitted to operate as minority partners in joint ventures, and PDVSA’s revenues funded an extensive network of public benefits: heavily subsidized gasoline for all citizens, scholarships for international study, free healthcare and countless other social programs.

    “Every single Venezuelan grows up understanding that oil is a collective right that every one of us can claim,” researcher Ronal Rodríguez noted.

    Over the decades, Venezuela’s history has been defined by the repeated cycle of oil booms and crippling busts. When global crude prices plummeted in the 1980s, the economy collapsed, forcing the government to secure a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and eliminate core public subsidies. The resulting social unrest paved the way for the rise of Hugo Chávez, a young military officer who first gained national attention for a failed coup attempt.

    After being elected president in 1998, Chávez expanded the country’s social safety net dramatically – including expanded access to public health, affordable housing and free education – fueled by a resurgence in global oil prices that generated an estimated $981 billion in revenue for PDVSA between 1999 and 2011. The government distributed everything from new homes to household appliances to free medication, and millions of families secured stable, well-paid jobs across public and private sectors. Emboldened by widespread popular support, Chávez tightened state control over PDVSA, sidelining major U.S. oil firms including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in the process.

    But PDVSA’s fortunes declined sharply as oil prices fell again in the 2010s. Systemic corruption and decades of mismanagement eroded production capacity and profits, first under Chávez and then under his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro, who took office following Chávez’s death in 2013. By that time, the country was already sliding into a catastrophic economic crisis, worsened by sweeping U.S. sanctions imposed over concerns about democratic backsliding and human rights abuses that gutted the oil sector and the broader economy.

    What was once a magnet for global migrants became a source of mass emigration: severe food shortages and widespread deprivation linked to economic collapse pushed more than 7 million Venezuelans to leave the country. Even today, while grocery store shelves are fully stocked, soaring hyperinflation has left basic goods out of reach for most working people. Public sector employees now earn an average of roughly $160 per month, while private sector workers averaged around $237 per month in 2024.

    “Something is better than nothing,” said Romel Abreu, a former PDVSA worker who now works as a security guard in Cabimas, the heart of Venezuela’s historic oil region in the country’s northwest. Referring to Venezuela’s current crude production of roughly 1 million barrels per day, he added: “If we had no oil production at all, we would be completely lost.” Like many residents of the oil belt, Abreu holds out hope for another boom that would bring back well-paying jobs for the next generation.

    The new oil deal has deepened widespread skepticism among Venezuelans of all political stripes. After Maduro’s capture in January, many Venezuelans hoped that would end the ruling party’s 27-year hold on power. When that did not materialize – with the Trump administration backing Rodríguez over opposition leaders – many held out optimism that the easing of crippling U.S. sanctions would deliver long-overdue economic improvement. A February regulatory overhaul that opened the door to expanded private investment in the oil sector was widely seen as a sign of coming progress.

    But for critics like Castro, the January intervention was always just a stepping stone to this moment. “Everything that happened on January 3 was just a strategy to get us to where we are today: full U.S. control over our energy sector for their own gain, not to benefit ordinary Venezuelans,” he said.

    Under the terms of the agreement, the U.S. is entering a joint venture with North American Blue Energy Partners, Venezuela’s second-largest private oil operating company, trailing only industry giant Chevron. Rodríguez has granted the joint venture 100-year exploitation rights to 17 oil fields holding 65 billion barrels of proven reserves – roughly one-fifth of Venezuela’s total 300 billion barrel reserve base.

    Industry experts warn that because Venezuela’s energy infrastructure has fallen into severe disrepair after decades of underinvestment, it will take years of large-scale capital investment before production increases significantly.

    Speaking in Caracas this week, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Trump administration’s mission in Venezuela “is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity and prosperity to the people.” In a national address Saturday, Rodríguez defended the agreement, saying she aims to restore Venezuela’s status as a global “energy powerhouse.”

    For residents of Cabimas, the deal leaves them torn between conflicting fears and hopes. “On one hand, you have to acknowledge that we are handing over control of one of our largest reserve holdings,” said Erwin Ayala, a current oil sector worker, outside his home in Cabimas. “But if this is for the good of the country and for future generations, then we can support it. What good does it do us to hold all this oil in the ground if we have no machinery, no technology, to get it out and use it to improve our lives?”

  • UN report details foreign networks fueling war in Sudan

    UN report details foreign networks fueling war in Sudan

    BRUSSELS – Nearly two years into the brutal civil war pitting Sudan’s regular army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a new United Nations investigation confirms that transnational foreign networks have dramatically escalated the violence, turning what began as a power struggle into a humanitarian catastrophe that has killed tens of thousands and pushed millions to the brink of starvation. The conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has already left at least 59,000 people dead according to the latest UN accounting, forced roughly 13 million to flee their homes, and pushed entire regions of the northeast African nation into catastrophic food insecurity approaching full-scale famine. In a public summary of the investigation released Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk outlined clear evidence that cross-border networks anchored in companies based in the United Arab Emirates, Colombia, and Chad have funneled critical resources to the RSF, including weapons, military training, and foreign contractor personnel. “The mission finds reasonable grounds to believe that a transnational network supplied the Rapid Support Forces with weapons, logistics, training and foreign personnel, including Colombian contractors involved in advanced weapons and drone systems,” the summary reads. The investigation specifically highlights that individuals and corporate entities connected to, operating from, or formally registered in the United Arab Emirates hold a central role in these networks, overseeing recruitment, financing, transportation, and deployment of foreign military contractors to provide direct military support that benefits the RSF. Abu Dhabi has repeatedly and publicly denied all accusations that it provides military backing to the paramilitary group, a position it has maintained even amid growing international scrutiny. While the report’s most concrete findings focus on support to the RSF, investigators also note that externally supplied drones have expanded the Sudanese army’s aerial strike capabilities, adding that additional research into external support for the military remains ongoing and preliminary. Beyond mapping external support, the UN probe documents widespread attacks on civilian targets that may qualify as war crimes committed by both warring parties. Investigators specifically tied foreign-trained fighters to two brutal massacres carried out in 2025 at the Zamzam internally displaced persons camp and the city of El Fasher. More than 100,000 residents have fled El Fasher since the violence erupted there, and surviving witnesses describe RSF fighters systematically gunning down unarmed civilians in their homes and on city streets, leaving corpses scattered across urban areas. Subsequent analysis of commercial satellite imagery has provided visual evidence suggesting RSF units have attempted to conceal the killings by disposing of remains in unmarked mass graves or through open burning. When it comes to cooperation with the UN investigation, the report notes that authorities in Chad, Colombia, and the United Arab Emirates engaged with investigators, but no substantive response has been received from governments in Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan, and Somalia. Panama, whose offshore finance sector has long faced global accusations of large-scale industrial money laundering, requested additional time to provide a formal response. Notably, neither Sudan’s official military leadership nor the RSF have agreed to cooperate with the UN probe. The UN findings align with an earlier Associated Press investigation published in July that uncovered evidence Colombian mercenaries had been recruited to train child soldiers to fight for the RSF. Human rights organizations have further alleged that these Colombian fighters were recruited by a state-linked firm based in the UAE, a claim the UAE continues to reject alongside broader accusations of military support to either Sudanese warring party. In line with its findings, the investigative panel has called on the UN Security Council to expand and extend the existing arms embargo imposed on Sudan, stressing that all cross-border flows of weapons, financing, personnel, and advanced military technology that sustain the conflict must be cut off to create space for peace talks. The United States has already thrown its support behind new multilateral action, circulating a draft Security Council resolution in August that was reviewed by the Associated Press. The draft resolution condemns the steady influx of external military aid, weapons, and ammunition to both warring parties, noting that outside support prolongs the conflict and undermines international mediation efforts. It specifically calls out the operation of drone and unmanned aerial system programs launched from third-party countries to support the Sudanese war effort, and demands that all nations immediately end any direct or indirect support – whether logistical, financial, or military – that allows the conflict to continue.

  • Body of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic to be flown to Serbia, president says

    Body of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic to be flown to Serbia, president says

    BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed Wednesday that the remains of former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who died last week while serving a life sentence for war crimes and genocide at a U.N. detention facility in the Netherlands, will be transported to Serbia for burial this Thursday. The United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, based in The Hague, has not yet issued an official statement on the release of Mladic’s body following his death in a Dutch hospital.

    Vucic told reporters that Mladic’s family will release detailed funeral arrangements in the coming days, but warned local security officials are bracing for an unprecedented turnout of the convicted war criminal’s supporters. Even after his 2017 conviction for some of the worst atrocities committed on European soil since World War II, Mladic retains widespread heroic status among large segments of the Serbian public. Vucic noted that Serbian police and state intelligence agencies currently project that tens of thousands of admirers could gather for the funeral, creating significant security challenges for authorities.

    “It will be hard to secure and guarantee security to everybody,” Vucic said. “It will be a demanding job for our security services and we will use everything at our disposal to provide security.”

    Mladic was found guilty of overseeing three of the conflict’s most infamous atrocities: the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that killed more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys, the 44-month siege of Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo that killed more than 10,000 civilians, and the systematic establishment of concentration camps where thousands of non-Serb civilians and enemy combatants were abused and executed. The Srebrenica massacre remains the first legally recognized act of genocide on the European continent since 1945; the enclave was designated a U.N. safe haven for Muslim refugees before Mladic’s forces overran the area, executed the civilian population, and buried their remains in unmarked mass graves.

    The Bosnian War, which broke out in 1992 after Bosnian Serb militias backed by Belgrade seized control of large swathes of Bosnian territory to form a separate breakaway state, ended in 1995 with a U.S.-brokered peace deal. The 3-year conflict left more than 100,000 people dead and displaced more than 1 million from their homes, leaving the region deeply ethnically divided decades later. Within hours of Mladic’s death being announced last week, thousands of Serbs gathered for public vigils and marches to honor his memory, a demonstration that drew sharp condemnation across the Balkans from survivors and political leaders.

    For surviving family members of Mladic’s victims, the 2017 conviction represented a long-delayed measure of justice for their murdered loved ones. But attitudes in Serbia, which is currently pursuing European Union membership, remain deeply defiant over the country’s role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict. Last week, Vucic launched a sharp attack on the international tribunal, accusing the court and Western powers of systemic bias that only holds Serbs accountable for war crimes while ignoring atrocities against Serb civilians. He previously condemned the tribunal for what he called “uncivilized behavior” after it denied requests to release Mladic on compassionate grounds to allow him to die at home in Serbia.

  • Dozens missing, 5 dead after migrant boat is found drifting near Spain’s Canary Islands

    Dozens missing, 5 dead after migrant boat is found drifting near Spain’s Canary Islands

    A devastating maritime disaster off the coast of Spain’s Canary Islands has left at least five migrants dead and dozens more missing, with activists reporting an even higher death toll following the vessel’s catastrophic breakdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Only 44 people from the overcrowded boat were pulled to safety by Spanish rescue crews this week.

    Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service confirmed Thursday that a surveillance plane first detected the unstable, drifting vessel around 120 kilometers south of Gran Canaria on Wednesday afternoon. Responding quickly to the distress call, rescue teams immediately airlifted three of the most severely injured survivors to a Gran Canaria hospital by helicopter, while the remaining 41 passengers were transported to shore by rescue vessel. The group disembarked early Thursday at Arguineguín port, where local Red Cross teams stood by to provide urgent medical care and support.

    José Antonio Rodríguez Verona, a Canary Islands-based Red Cross spokesperson, told reporters that all 44 survivors are men, including several underage passengers, who originated from Mali and Senegal. In an interview with the Associated Press, Rodríguez Verona explained that the survivors arrived in a fragile state: many were severely disoriented and dehydrated, with a large number collapsing or vomiting immediately after setting foot on land after weeks adrift at sea.

    Due to the survivors’ poor physical and mental condition, it took responders time to piece together the details of the fatal voyage. Survivors told aid workers they departed from Gambia nearly a month earlier, and had been stranded adrift for far longer than anyone anticipated. When their food and fresh water supplies ran out, desperate passengers were forced to drink seawater to survive, a choice that left many gravely ill.

    The survivors also shared chilling accounts of the scale of the disaster: they told the Red Cross that more than 100 people, including multiple women and one infant, were originally on board the small vessel. As passengers died of dehydration and illness over the course of the journey, surviving passengers threw the bodies overboard, until they eventually became too weak to continue the practice.

    Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service stated in an official emailed statement that rough sea conditions, including 2.5-meter-high waves and strong gusting winds, prevented crews from recovering the remains of five deceased passengers found still on the boat when rescuers arrived.

    In a separate update, Helena Maleno, founder of migrant rights organization Walking Borders — a group that tracks fatalities and missing persons along migration routes leading to Spain — has put the total death toll from this voyage at 83, including three women and the infant. Maleno confirmed via a post on the social platform X that the boat departed Gambia 27 days before the rescue. Maleno’s organization regularly receives distress messages from relatives of missing migrants and coordinates rescue requests with Spanish authorities. The Associated Press has reached out to Maleno and Walking Borders for additional context, but has not yet received a response.

    This disaster highlights the ongoing deadly risk of the West African Atlantic migration route to the Canary Islands, which remains one of the most dangerous migration crossings into Europe. While the number of migrant arrivals to the Spanish archipelago has dropped sharply over the past year, tens of thousands of migrants have died or gone missing on the route in recent years. In multiple extreme cases, overcrowded migrant boats have become lost and drifted all the way across the Atlantic Ocean as far as the Americas before being found.