Global Pulse

分类： world

  • The British military says a ship caught fire after being hit off the coast of Qatar

    The British military says a ship caught fire after being hit off the coast of Qatar

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – A new flare-up of maritime violence has hit the Persian Gulf, with British military officials confirming that a commercial bulk carrier suffered a projectile strike and subsequent fire off Qatar’s northeastern coast on Sunday. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO), the body that monitors security for international shipping in the region, confirmed the incident took place roughly 23 nautical miles, or 43 kilometers, northeast of Doha, Qatar’s capital. Following the impact, a small blaze broke out aboard the vessel, but crews were able to quickly contain and extinguish the fire, with no injuries or fatalities reported among the ship’s crew as of Sunday’s update.

    This attack marks the latest in a string of maritime assaults that have rocked the already unstable Persian Gulf region, coming into effect after a fragile temporary ceasefire between the United States and Iran failed to resolve long-simmering hostilities. Just over 48 hours before the Qatar coast incident, the U.S. military launched strikes against two Iranian-owned oil tankers, with U.S. officials claiming the vessels were attempting to violate a Washington-imposed naval blockade on Iranian commercial ports.

    In response to that U.S. action, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy issued a sharp warning, stating that any future attack on Iranian oil tankers or other commercial vessels operating under Iranian jurisdiction will be met with an overwhelming, heavy retaliatory strike targeting U.S. military bases in the Middle East and enemy commercial and military ships operating in the region.

    Tensions have remained elevated in the region since the United States and Israel launched a joint military campaign against Iran on February 28. In the wake of that campaign, Iran has severely restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the critical strategic waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily global oil supplies. The restriction has triggered a sharp spike in global fuel prices and sent volatility through international financial and energy markets.

    Former U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly issued public threats to resume full-scale bombing campaign against Iran unless the Iranian government agrees to a deal that would fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz and roll back Tehran’s nuclear development program, further raising the stakes for a potential wider regional conflict.

  • Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Spain’s Canary Islands

    Hantavirus-hit cruise ship arrives in Spain’s Canary Islands

    A cruise ship grappling with a fatal hantavirus outbreak that has claimed three lives reached waters off Spain’s Canary Islands on Sunday, kicking off a tightly controlled evacuation operation for most of the nearly 150 people on board after weeks of sailing across the Atlantic.

    The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius, operated by expedition cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions, was escorted into the port of Granadilla de Abona by a Spanish Civil Guard patrol vessel, AFP correspondents on site confirmed, with vessel tracking data from VesselFinder independently verifying its arrival.

    Three passengers — a married Dutch couple and a German national — have already died from the rare viral infection, which is most commonly spread through rodent populations. Alarmingly, tests have confirmed the presence of Andes virus, the only strain of hantavirus capable of human-to-human transmission, among confirmed cases, prompting coordinated international public health monitoring.

    Speaking ahead of the ship’s arrival, World Health Organization (WHO) Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness Maria Van Kerkhove classified every person on board the vessel as a “high-risk contact” for exposure. However, she and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — who traveled to Spain to oversee the evacuation response — repeatedly emphasized that the overall risk to the general public and residents of the Canary Islands remains very low.

    In a public letter to the people of Tenerife, Tedros sought to quash comparisons to the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, writing, “This is not another Covid.” He added that he was confident Spanish authorities, who have been preparing for the operation for days, would carry it out successfully, noting “Spain is ready and prepared.”

    On the ground Sunday morning, AFP reporters observed white medical screening tents erected along the quay, with local police securing a restricted perimeter around the evacuation zone. Despite the high-profile public health response, daily life across Tenerife remained largely uninterrupted: residents swam at nearby beaches, shoppers visited local markets, and patrons gathered at outdoor cafe terraces. Local lottery vendor David Parada noted that while there was quiet underlying worry, most residents did not appear overly alarmed by the ship’s arrival.

    Regional authorities opted against allowing the vessel to dock permanently, a precautionary measure that means the MV Hondius will remain anchored offshore while the evacuation is carried out Sunday and Monday. Weather conditions only permit the operation during this narrow window, public health officials confirmed. Evacuation began around 7:00 GMT Sunday, with all passengers and a small core crew set to disembark before the ship sails onward to the Netherlands. Once they leave the vessel, evacuees will be transported directly to chartered aircraft organized by nationality for repatriation.

    As of Friday, the WHO had confirmed six cases of hantavirus out of eight initial suspected cases on board, with no new suspected cases remaining. The ship had previously sailed from Cape Verde, where three infected passengers were evacuated earlier this month. The voyage began back on April 1, when the MV Hondius departed Ushuaia, Argentina for an Atlantic crossing to Cape Verde. Local Argentine health officials have concluded that the first infected passenger had an “almost zero chance” of contracting the virus in Ushuaia, based on the pathogen’s incubation period and other available data.

    Health agencies across the globe have launched contact tracing operations for passengers who left the ship at earlier stops, as well as anyone who has had close contact with known infected people. A KLM flight attendant who had brief exposure to one infected passenger and developed mild symptoms tested negative for the virus, the WHO confirmed Friday. That infected passenger, the wife of the first fatality in the outbreak, was removed from a Johannesburg-to-Amsterdam flight before takeoff on April 25 and died the next day in a South African hospital.

    In Spain, a woman who was on that same flight and developed symptoms has been placed in isolation in a hospital in the eastern part of the country while awaiting test results. Two Singaporean passengers who were on the MV Hondius tested negative but remain in quarantine as a precaution, Singaporean health authorities announced Friday. British health officials also reported a suspected case on Tristan da Cunha, a remote Atlantic island settlement home to roughly 220 residents.

  • Militia kill at least 69 in NE DR Congo: local, security sources

    Militia kill at least 69 in NE DR Congo: local, security sources

    A brutal militia assault in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s restless northeastern province of Ituri has claimed the lives of at least 69 people, according to local and security sources who spoke to Agence France-Presse on Saturday. The massacre marks just the latest in a prolonged string of violent incidents that have rocked the gold-rich border region, which has grappled with years of destabilizing armed conflict.

    The attack, carried out by gunmen aligned with the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco) militia, was actually carried out at the end of April, sources confirmed. Ongoing instability driven by the persistent presence of Codeco fighters in the area prevented recovery teams from reaching the site to retrieve victims’ remains for multiple days, delaying the announcement of the full death toll.

    While security sources have confirmed a confirmed death toll of 69, Dieudonne Losa, a local civil protection official, told AFP the actual number of fatalities exceeds 70. A full accounting of victims is still ongoing as access to the area remains restricted.

    Codeco frames itself as a defender of the rights of the Lendu community, a population primarily made up of agricultural farmers, in long-running tensions with the Hema community, whose members largely work as pastoral herders. A second armed faction, the Convention for the Popular Revolution (CRP), operates in the province and says it advocates for the Hema community.

    The two groups are only among several armed actors active in the region. One of the most prominent is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a faction formed by exiled Ugandan rebels that has sworn loyalty to the Islamic State group. Just two days before Saturday’s announcement of the Codeco attack, local and security sources reported that ADF fighters had killed at least 36 people across two days of assaults in Ituri and neighboring North Kivu province.

    Since 2021, the Ugandan People’s Defence Force has operated alongside the Congolese national military in northern North Kivu and across Ituri to coordinate counter-insurgency operations against the ADF. A notable complicating dynamic in the conflict is that the Congolese army has occasionally deployed Codeco fighters as auxiliary forces in its operations against other armed groups.

    Earlier on Saturday, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) issued a public warning of an accelerating “deadly” wave of attacks targeting civilian populations across the country’s unstable eastern borderlands. “Dozens of civilians have been killed in recent days” across Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, the UN mission said, declining to share further details on the incidents at the time of the statement.

    Eastern DRC, a region teeming with valuable untapped mineral reserves, has been engulfed in overlapping cycles of armed conflict for nearly 30 years, involving dozens of militias, rebel factions, and national military forces. Civilians have consistently borne the brunt of the violence, with thousands displaced annually and hundreds killed in targeted attacks across the region.

  • Israeli settlers force Palestinian family to exhume father’s body in West Bank

    Israeli settlers force Palestinian family to exhume father’s body in West Bank

    In a shocking incident that has drawn widespread international rebuke, a Palestinian family was compelled by Israeli settlers to disinter the body of their late father from a West Bank cemetery on Friday, deepening ongoing concerns over escalating settler violence in the occupied territory. The confrontation unfolded near the recently reestablished Israeli settlement of Sa-Nur, located close to the city of Jenin. Settlers claimed the burial site, situated roughly 300 meters from the settlement outpost, violated their unstated proximity rules – a demand that ignored the fact the family of the deceased, Hussein Asasa, had secured all required Israeli government permits for the burial.

    According to reporting from Israeli outlet Haaretz, settlers immediately began digging at the cemetery shortly after the funeral ceremony concluded, triggering tense physical confrontations between the settlers and local Palestinian residents who gathered to protect the grave. The Israeli military confirmed it dispatched forces to the scene, where personnel seized the digging tools the settlers had brought to excavate the site. Despite this intervention, the Asasa family ultimately said they had no choice but to remove the body themselves and reburry it at a separate cemetery, all under armed Israeli military escort. During the traumatic process, settlers pelted the grieving family with stones as they carried out the exhumation.

    The United Nations’ top human rights official in Palestine condemned the act in stark terms. Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN human rights office in the Palestinian territories, called the incident appalling, noting it was a clear example of the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians unfolding across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). “It spares no one, dead or alive,” Sunghay said of the ongoing pattern of abuse.

    Settler violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank is not a new development, but experts and local authorities have documented a dramatic surge in attacks since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023. Today, settlers carry out near-daily assaults on Palestinian villages and population centers, ranging from property vandalism and arson to forced displacement and violent physical attacks, many of which involve the use of firearms.

    Just last month, a deadly settler attack on a school northeast of Ramallah left two Palestinians dead, including a 15-year-old teenage student. Data collected by the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission underscores the scale of the escalating violence: since October 2023, at least 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers, with 15 of those fatalities recorded in the current year alone. The incident has renewed international calls for accountability for settler violence and protections for Palestinian civilians living under occupation.

  • Suicide bomber, gunmen kill 3 police officers in attack on security post in northwest Pakistan

    Suicide bomber, gunmen kill 3 police officers in attack on security post in northwest Pakistan

    On a late Saturday evening in northwest Pakistan, a coordinated militant assault combining a suicide car bombing and armed gunfire left at least three police officers dead, local law enforcement confirmed. The violence unfolded in Bannu district, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province along Pakistan’s volatile border with Afghanistan.

    According to senior local police official Zahid Khan, the attackers first detonated a vehicle packed with high explosives close to a security outpost. The powerful blast triggered multiple secondary explosions, reducing the security post and several adjacent civilian homes to rubble. Immediately after the detonation, several gunmen opened fire on security personnel, sparking a prolonged, intense firefight that was still ongoing as initial reports were compiled.

    Khan noted that an unconfirmed number of additional officers have been injured, with some believed trapped beneath the collapsed debris of the buildings. Rescue and security teams have since secured the perimeter of the attack site, working to clear rubble and neutralize remaining threats, though full casualty counts have not yet been finalized.

    As of Sunday morning, no militant organization had issued a public statement claiming credit for the attack. Security analysts however quickly pointed to long-running militant networks operating in the region as the prime suspects. Suspicion is widely expected to fall on Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, and its affiliated militant factions. The TTP, which is operationally separate from but closely aligned with the Afghan Taliban that retook control of Afghanistan in 2021, has carried out dozens of similar attacks on Pakistani security targets in recent years.

    Pakistan has faced a marked upward spike in militant violence across its northwestern border regions since 2021, marking one of the most serious security challenges for the country’s government in the last decade.

  • Rwanda-backed rebels accuse the US of falling short as a peace mediator in Congo’s conflict

    Rwanda-backed rebels accuse the US of falling short as a peace mediator in Congo’s conflict

    In a scathing rebuke of Washington’s role as a peace broker in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a coalition of Congolese rebels led by the Congo River Alliance has accused the Trump administration of failing to uphold impartial mediation amid ongoing bloodshed in the country’s mineral-rich eastern region. The open criticism, delivered via a formal letter addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obtained by the Associated Press on Saturday, comes months after a high-profile U.S.-brokered peace agreement between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda, a deal the Trump administration has repeatedly touted as a landmark diplomatic success.

    The 2024 accord, hailed by then-U.S. President Donald Trump after negotiations with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, was designed not only to end decades of cyclic conflict in eastern Congo but also to lay the groundwork for a trilateral economic partnership that would open the region’s untapped rare earth mineral reserves to American government access and private sector investment. Despite Trump’s repeated claims of a diplomatic win, active hostilities have continued unabated across eastern Congo, with armed factions and government forces trading blame for repeated violations of the ceasefire terms.

    The rebel coalition, which includes the Rwanda-backed M23 movement — the most powerful armed group operating in eastern Congo — argues that Washington has consistently turned a blind eye to alleged peace commitment violations by the Tshisekedi administration in Kinshasa, while disproportionately targeting opponents of the Congolese government and Rwandan entities with punitive sanctions. Last week, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, accusing him of funding and supporting rebel activities; earlier this year, Washington also blacklisted Rwanda’s military and four senior Rwandan officials over their documented support for M23. The letter charges that no comparable punitive measures or even public warnings have been issued against Tshisekedi’s government for its own breaches of the peace deal.

    “Your administration has neither imposed any sanctions nor issued even a simple warning to the leaders in Kinshasa, whose intransigent and arrogant attitude calls into question the impartiality and neutrality of the American Facilitator/Mediator,” the letter reads. It adds that the lack of consistent corrective action undermines confidence in U.S. mediation, noting that “the absence of clearly identifiable corrective measures fuels questions regarding the facilitation’s ability to preserve, over time, the requirements of impartiality and neutrality that are essential to its credibility.”

    Long-standing instability has plagued eastern Congo for generations, driven in large part by competition over control of the region’s vast deposits of critical minerals that underpin global technology and clean energy supply chains. More than 100 armed factions operate in the area, with M23 emerging as the most militarily capable. U.N. estimates show the group has grown from just a few hundred fighters in 2021 to roughly 6,500 today, a rapid expansion that the DRC government, U.S., and United Nations experts attribute to ongoing military support from Rwanda — a claim Rwanda has repeatedly denied. M23 launched a major offensive across eastern Congo in early 2024, seizing the regional capital Goma and other key population centers before the U.S.-brokered deal was reached.

    Independent regional conflict experts agree that while U.S. mediation reduced cross-border tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, it has failed to curb the escalating ground conflict. “While U.S. mediation has helped cool regional tension it has not stopped the escalating fighting on the ground,” Kristof Titeca, a University of Antwerp professor specializing in Central African governance and conflict, told the AP. The rebel letter’s public criticism adds new pressure on the Trump administration’s diplomatic efforts in the Great Lakes region, at a time when Washington is pushing to advance American economic interests in the region’s critical mineral sector. The Associated Press contributed reporting from Bonn, Germany, for this story.

  • Iran keeps US waiting for response on peace plan

    Iran keeps US waiting for response on peace plan

    Renewed naval hostilities in the Persian Gulf have thrown US-Iranian peace diplomacy into uncertainty, with Tehran leaving Washington waiting for a formal response to a US-backed truce proposal as both sides trade accusations of ceasefire violations. The unfolding crisis, which entered its 10th week following the opening US-Israeli strikes on Iran, has put fragile diplomatic efforts at risk and raised new concerns over global energy security and regional stability.

    On Friday, US President Donald Trump publicly stated he expected Tehran to deliver its answer to the latest negotiating proposal, shared via Pakistani mediators, by the end of the day. As of Saturday, no official public response had been announced, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirming only that the plan remained “under review”. In a call with his Turkish counterpart, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi cast serious doubt on Washington’s commitment to diplomacy, pointing to repeated US violations of the existing fragile ceasefire.

    “The recent escalation of tensions by American forces in the Persian Gulf and their numerous actions in violating the ceasefire have added to suspicions about the motivation and seriousness of the American side in the path of diplomacy,” Araghchi said, according to an account of the conversation published by Iran’s ISNA news agency. Trump nonetheless told French broadcaster LCI reporter Margot Haddad in a brief interview Saturday that he still anticipated receiving Iran’s response “very soon”.

    The latest escalation came Friday, when a US fighter jet attacked and disabled two Iranian-flagged tankers that Washington accused of violating its blockade of Iranian ports. A senior Iranian military official told local media that the Iranian navy had retaliated with defensive strikes against US assets. The incident followed a separate flare-up just one day earlier in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical chokepoint for global oil shipments.

    Iran has long sought greater control over the strategic waterway as a tool to exert economic leverage against the US and its Western and regional allies, a goal Washington has repeatedly described as unacceptable. The US proposal delivered via Pakistan would extend the current fragile truce across the Gulf to create space for negotiations on a permanent end to the conflict, which began 10 weeks ago with joint US-Israeli military strikes on Iranian targets.

    Beyond the direct military clashes, the conflict has already created new environmental and economic risks. Satellite imagery collected by global monitoring firm Orbital EOS shows an oil slick spreading across more than 20 square miles off the west coast of Iran’s Kharg Island, the linchpin of the country’s oil export industry and a core asset for its war-battered economy. By Saturday, the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory reported the slick had shrunk significantly, adding that the leak likely stemmed from damaged or neglected oil infrastructure affected by ongoing conflict. Iran shut down most traffic through the Strait of Hormuz immediately after the war began on February 28, sending shockwaves through global energy markets and pushing oil prices sharply upward. The US responded with a full blockade of Iranian ports, and earlier this week Trump announced he was ending a short-lived US naval mission aimed at reopening the strait to commercial shipping.

    On Saturday, Britain announced it would deploy HMS Dragon, a Royal Navy destroyer, to the region as part of a joint British-French coalition planning to support commercial shipping and mine clearance once a durable ceasefire is reached. UK defence officials said the deployment is part of “prudent planning” intended to boost confidence among commercial vessel operators navigating the strategic waterway.

    Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate received support from Qatar, whose Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with US Vice President JD Vance in Washington DC Friday to discuss Pakistan’s brokered peace initiative. Qatar has nonetheless been drawn into the conflict: Iran has launched multiple attacks on Qatari territory in recent weeks, citing the country’s hosting of a major US military air base.

    Tensions are also running high on the conflict’s secondary front in Lebanon, where a parallel ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah is also teetering amid daily cross-border exchanges of fire. Eight people were killed in Israeli air strikes across southern Lebanon Saturday, according to Lebanese authorities, while state media reported additional raids on a highway south of Beirut, an area outside Hezbollah’s traditional southern strongholds. An AFP correspondent on the scene documented two destroyed vehicles and emergency response teams working roughly 12 miles outside the Lebanese capital.

    Hezbollah retaliated Saturday by launching an armed drone attack targeting Israeli soldiers in northern Israel. The Israeli military confirmed multiple explosive drones crossed into its territory, reporting one army reservist suffered severe wounds and two other service members sustained moderate injuries in the attack. The fresh escalation comes just days before Lebanon and Israel — which have been officially at war since 1948 — are set to hold direct peace negotiations in Washington next week, a process Hezbollah has publicly and vehemently opposed.

  • Indonesian police arrest 321 foreigners in an operation to crack down on banned online gambling

    Indonesian police arrest 321 foreigners in an operation to crack down on banned online gambling

    JAKARTA, Indonesia – In one of the most sweeping anti-illegal betting operations in the nation’s recent history, Indonesian national police announced Saturday that more than 300 foreign nationals have been taken into custody following a raid on a transnational online gambling hub based in central Jakarta.

    The 321 detainees, the vast majority of whom are Vietnamese citizens, were apprehended in a commercial building located near Jakarta’s Chinatown district, according to law enforcement officials. Investigators confirmed that the site functioned as the operational center for at least 75 separate online gambling platforms, all designed to target bettors based outside of Indonesia. Evidence collected from the raid, including digital server records and marketing materials, confirms the cross-border scope of the network.

    Wira Satya Triputra, director of general crimes for the Indonesian National Police, outlined the breakdown of detainees at a Saturday press briefing: 228 are from Vietnam, 57 are from China, and the remaining detainees hold citizenship from Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Triputra added that law enforcement is still actively tracing the network’s core leadership and shadowy financial backers who have overseen the operation.

    “We apprehended all suspects while they were actively engaged in gambling-related work,” Triputra told reporters. He explained that the criminal enterprise was structured like a formal corporate operation, with hired workers assigned specialized roles ranging from customer support and telemarketing to processing illegal financial transactions. Law enforcement investigations estimate the illegal operation had been running for roughly two months before the raid.

    Authorities note that transnational gambling syndicates regularly shift their base of operations across Southeast Asia to avoid detection, and often rely on low-cost foreign labor to run customer-facing digital services. Triputra confirmed that nearly all of the detained suspects entered Indonesia on short-term tourist visas, and had overstayed their immigration permits while working at the gambling hub. “In addition to charges of illegal gambling and money laundering, we have also uncovered widespread immigration violations across the group,” he said.

    Along with the arrests, police seized a large cache of evidence and contraband: cash held in multiple global currencies, hundreds of work computers and mobile phones, personal passports, and specialized networking equipment used to run the offshore betting platforms.

    As of Saturday evening, 275 of the detained people have been formally designated as criminal suspects, while the remaining 46 are still undergoing questioning to determine their level of involvement. If convicted on all charges, suspects face up to nine years in prison under Indonesian criminal and immigration law, plus a maximum fine of 2 billion Indonesian rupiah, equal to roughly $116,000 U.S. dollars.

    The Jakarta raid is part of a growing pattern of transnational cybercrime crackdowns across Indonesia. In the weeks leading up to this operation, similar large-scale busts have been carried out in Surabaya, Bali, and Batam, highlighting a growing shift of illegal gambling and scam networks into the country following crackdowns elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

    Untung Widyatmoko, secretary of Indonesia’s Interpol bureau, explained that after neighboring Cambodia and Myanmar implemented strict new enforcement measures against offshore gambling and scam operations, criminal groups have begun relocating their infrastructure to other Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia. “We anticipated this shift after enforcement actions in Cambodia, and we have been preparing to respond,” Widyatmoko said.

    Recent weeks have already seen a string of high-profile busts of transnational cybercrime rings across Indonesia: On Wednesday, immigration and security officials arrested 210 foreign nationals from Vietnam, China, and Myanmar in a Batam Island apartment complex on suspicion of running illegal cross-border investment fraud. On Friday, authorities in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, announced the arrest of 44 Japanese and Chinese citizens accused of running a transnational phone and online scam where they impersonated police officers to defraud victims overseas. That case stems from the arrest of 13 Japanese men in Bogor, West Java, back in March.

    Just last month, 16 suspects from a Chinese, Malaysian, and Taiwanese scam network were arrested in Sukabumi Regency, West Java, while 26 alleged online scammers from the Philippines and Kenya were deported from Indonesia after being taken into custody in Bali.

    Online gambling is strictly illegal across Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, and authorities have ramped up enforcement efforts in recent years amid growing concerns about links between unregulated online betting, organized transnational crime, and cross-border cyber fraud. Indonesian police say the ongoing investigation into the Jakarta gambling network is expected to lead to additional arrests as they untangle the network’s connections to larger international criminal groups.

  • Steve Rosenberg: This year’s Victory Day parade in Moscow felt very different

    Steve Rosenberg: This year’s Victory Day parade in Moscow felt very different

    For veteran foreign correspondent Steve Rosenberg, who has covered dozens of Victory Day parades on Moscow’s iconic Red Square, the 2026 iteration stood out as fundamentally unlike any he had witnessed before. In years past, Rosenberg recalled scrambling from media drop-off points near St. Basil’s Cathedral to claim a usable spot in the overcrowded press pen, a race that was completely unnecessary this year. Attendance for international press was sharply curtailed: most foreign news outlets were denied press credentials entirely, leaving only a tiny handful of foreign journalists on site.

    When Rosenberg took his place on the press stand, a Russian television crew approached him to film a segment framing his presence as proof that international access remained open. Rosenberg’s dry response cut through the narrative: he could not spot a single other foreign reporter on the entire square.

    Beyond the depleted press corps, the event saw far fewer dignitaries in the guest stands, with only a small handful of foreign leaders traveling to Moscow for the annual commemoration. But the most striking departure from tradition only became clear once the parade officially got underway: none of the massive rolling military armor that the Kremlin typically displays to project Russian power to a global audience – no tanks, no rocket launchers, no intercontinental ballistic missiles – rolled across Red Square this year.

    Russian authorities explained the dramatic downsizing by citing urgent security concerns, revealing that intelligence pointed to a high risk of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting the Red Square event. For President Vladimir Putin, the choice to scale back the parade – a carefully choreographed centerpiece of Russian national pride that has long been used to showcase military strength – was undoubtedly a difficult one, but the threat of an attack left no other viable option.

    In a last-minute turn of diplomacy, former U.S. President Donald Trump brokered a temporary ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv that eliminated the immediate threat of an attack during the event. In the end, the parade concluded without any security incidents. Still, Kyiv’s public framing of the ceasefire move drew sharp pushback from the Kremlin: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued an official decree “permitting” Russia to hold its parade on Ukrainian territory that Moscow currently occupies, a deliberate act of political trolling that Kremlin spokespeople rejected out of hand, noting that Russia required no permission from any third party to hold its national commemorations.

    While live military hardware was absent from the streets of Red Square, the Kremlin found a work-around: pre-recorded footage of tanks, multiple rocket launchers, fighter jets, submarines and other advanced weapons systems was broadcast on massive digital screens erected across the square. It was a clear signal that the leadership remained determined to highlight its military capabilities, even without a live display.

    In his keynote address to the gathered crowd, Putin struck a familiar defiant tone, declaring “We always were and always will be victorious!” The 2026 parade marks 81 years since the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, a historical event Russia calls the Great Victory – a milestone that holds deep legitimate national meaning, marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of an invading aggressor.

    Yet the context of 2026 casts a very different shadow over the commemoration. More than four years have passed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and as the parade unfolded, there was no visible path to a Russian victory in the ongoing conflict, turning this year’s muted celebration into a quiet reflection of the current strains of Moscow’s ongoing military campaign.

  • Indonesia rescuers retrieve hiker’s body after volcanic eruption

    Indonesia rescuers retrieve hiker’s body after volcanic eruption

    Three hikers are dead after a sudden eruption of one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, and rescuers have recovered the first of the victims’ remains as hazardous conditions forced a temporary pause in search operations, Indonesian disaster management officials confirmed this weekend.

    Mount Dukono, located on Indonesia’s Halmahera Island in North Maluku, erupted Friday, blasting a dense ash plume 10 kilometers (6 miles) into the atmosphere. The eruption did not threaten populated areas nearby, with no towns or villages located close enough to face immediate danger, according to geological officials. However, the blast hit a group of 20 hikers who had entered the closed exclusion zone surrounding the volcano’s crater.

    Local police chief Erlichson Pasaribu confirmed Friday that three hikers were killed: two citizens of Singapore and one Indonesian national. The remaining 17 members of the hiking group, including seven other Singaporeans, were evacuated from the dangerous area unharmed, authorities said.

    On Saturday, a joint team of search and rescue personnel recovered the body of one victim, found alongside the hiker’s backpack at approximately 2:30 p.m. local time (0530 GMT), said Iwan Ramdani, head of the local search and rescue agency. Ramdani did not release the victim’s nationality prior to formal identification. The remains were transferred to a nearby local hospital for official identification processing. Photos released by the rescue agency show the recovery team carrying the victim, sealed in a black body bag, down the volcanic slope on a hand-built stretcher.

    Search operations for the two remaining victims have been temporarily suspended due to heavy rainfall and persistent volcanic ash in the area, Ramdani added. Teams are scheduled to resume their search on Sunday, weather conditions permitting.

    Indonesia’s national Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation reported that Mount Dukono continued to experience fresh eruptions through Saturday, including one blast that sent an ash column 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) into the sky. Abdul Muhari, spokesman for Indonesia’s national disaster mitigation agency, said preliminary positioning data places the two remaining Singaporean victims roughly 20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 feet) from the volcano’s crater rim.

    Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed it is coordinating with the country’s embassy in Jakarta to provide consular support to affected citizens and their families, according to local Singaporean media reports.

    Mount Dukono has been classified at level two on Indonesia’s four-tiered volcanic alert system since 2008, marking it as an active, potentially dangerous volcano. In December 2024, Indonesian geological authorities expanded and enforced a 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) exclusion zone around the volcano’s crater, restricting all public access to the dangerous area, confirmed Lana Saria, head of the national Geology Agency.

    Despite repeated warnings, the group of hikers intentionally ignored both official warning signs posted at the trail entrance and public appeals shared on social media to stay out of the restricted zone, police chief Pasaribu said Friday.

    As a sprawling archipelagic nation located along the Pacific Ring of Fire, the geologically active boundary where multiple tectonic plates collide, Indonesia experiences hundreds of seismic and volcanic events every year. The country is home to roughly 130 active volcanoes, making it one of the most volcanically active regions on Earth.