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  • ‘African Biden’: Somaliland president slammed for disastrous US interview

    ‘African Biden’: Somaliland president slammed for disastrous US interview

    A high-stakes diplomatic push by Somaliland to secure formal United States recognition has been derailed by a viral, widely panned interview performance by the breakaway region’s president that has drawn sharp criticism both online and from regional affairs experts. Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, president of the self-declared independent state that remains unrecognized by most of the international community except Israel, faced widespread backlash after a recent on-stage discussion at the Hudson Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank long seen as open to Somaliland’s sovereignty bid.

    Footage of the conversation, shared to the social platform X on Monday, captured Abdullahi appearing unprepared and flustered through most of the event, with visible moments of nervous giggling, incoherent mumbling, and long awkward pauses. The interview took place at the center of a planned visit to the US that regional and international media have framed as a make-or-break moment: Abdullahi arrived in Washington ready to present a sweeping offer of trade and strategic access to the Trump administration, including opening access to Somaliland’s ports and untapped mineral reserves for American investors, all in exchange for formal US recognition of the territory’s independence. For years, backers of Somaliland’s sovereignty have framed the region as a stable, reliable partner for Western and Gulf powers seeking to shore up security around the strategic Red Sea shipping lane.

    Yet when pressed by the moderator to name what specific critical minerals Somaliland could offer the US as part of this proposed deal, a cornerstone of the region’s offer, Abdullahi laughed off the question, admitting he had no expertise in the area. “I don’t know… maybe everything,” he chuckled. He stumbled even more noticeably when the discussion turned to the ongoing devastating civil war in Sudan, a conflict that has increasingly drawn in competing regional powers. The Sudanese regular army receives backing from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, while the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group is supported by the United Arab Emirates – Somaliland’s closest patron in the Gulf.

    Rather than offering any comment on the conflict, which has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, or clarifying his administration’s position amid the regional power dynamics at play, Abdullahi attempted to dismiss the conflict as too distant from his territory. He even compared Sudan’s distance from Somaliland to that of Venezuela – a comment that carried notable awkwardness, given Sudan’s northern border sits less than 750 kilometers from Somaliland. An visibly uncomfortable moderator quickly moved on from the topic after noting the discrepancy.

    Cameron Hudson, a former United States intelligence official focused exclusively on African affairs, summarized the broad reaction to the interview in a viral post on X: “This was a frail and ageing leader not fully able to deliver the brief that he came here to deliver to a skeptical Washington audience. It was like watching an African Biden.” Abdullahi’s inconsistent answers extended to the core question driving his entire visit: when asked why the United States should formally recognize Somaliland’s independence, he gave a meandering, contradictory reply. “Practically [Somaliland] is not part of Somalia,” he said with a laugh, before adding, “Somaliland theoretically is part of Somalia.”

    To understand the context of this sovereignty push, it is important to trace Somaliland’s modern political history. The territory gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960, just five days before neighboring Somalia secured its own independence from Italian colonial control. The two newly independent states quickly united to form the Somali Republic, but tensions between the two former colonial territories simmered almost from the start. These tensions boiled over into open conflict in the late 1980s, when then-Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre launched a brutal military crackdown on Somaliland. After a decade of armed conflict, Somaliland declared full independence in 1991, a move that allowed it to escape the widespread civil war and persistent instability that has plagued the rest of Somalia in the decades since. It has operated as a de facto independent state ever since, but has failed to secure recognition from most of the international community.

    Recently, Somaliland has reemerged as a focal point for great power competition in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, thanks to its long, strategically valuable coastline across from Yemen. In January 2026, Israel became only the second United Nations member state to formally recognize Somaliland’s independence, and Israeli officials have publicly explored establishing a military base at the key port of Berbera, where the UAE already maintains an active military presence. When asked about the diplomatic agreement with Israel during the think tank interview, Abdullahi again offered no substantive strategic context, framing the recognition as nothing more than a routine diplomatic exchange. He added only that Israel was the only country that responded to his requests for recognition sent to nearly every head of state around the world, before breaking into nervous giggles.

  • Israel trying to ‘eliminate’ living conditions for Palestinians in occupied West Bank, says report

    Israel trying to ‘eliminate’ living conditions for Palestinians in occupied West Bank, says report

    A damning new report from prominent Israeli human rights organization B’tselem has accused the Israeli government of pursuing a deliberate, state-backed campaign to eliminate livable conditions for Palestinians residing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Titled *The Elimination Project*, the investigation frames ongoing violence by Israeli settlers and military forces not as isolated incidents or a temporary crisis, but as a core component of a long-running political project operating within what B’tselem terms an Israeli apartheid regime rooted in settler-colonial ideology.

    The report details a widespread intensification of harm that touches every sphere of daily Palestinian life, from basic access to employment, education, and medical care, to the ability to maintain social connections, cultivate agricultural land, and participate in cultural and community life. In its analysis, B’tselem defines “elimination” not solely as mass physical violence, but as the systematic erosion of the conditions that allow Palestinians to exist as a cohesive people with their own territory, institutions, culture, language, collective history, and political future. The campaign, the report argues, is designed to restructure the region’s geography and social order: it consolidates contiguous, permanently institutionalized Jewish control across the territory while fragmenting Palestinian communities, rendering their existence precarious and dependent on Israeli goodwill. For Palestinians in the West Bank, B’tselem outlines only three stark outcomes under this project: surrender national claims to live under permanent Jewish supremacy, leave the occupied territory entirely, or face violent military crackdown for resistance.

    The release of B’tselem’s report coincides with a rapidly shifting international landscape, as a growing coalition of Western nations have recently announced new trade restrictions or bans on goods originating from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Last week alone, 12 countries including Canada, Denmark, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom confirmed they were either implementing new bans or considering formal sanctions on settlement trade, a move that aligns with longstanding international legal consensus that Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian territory violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.

    Top European Union foreign policy official Kaja Kallas has thrown her weight behind an EU-wide trade ban on settlement goods, drawing a parallel between the international response to Russian occupation of Crimea and the need for a unified European stance on Israeli settlements. Speaking to *The Irish Times* on Friday, Kallas argued the EU’s credibility on global rule of law is at stake as long as member states remain divided, urging nations to adopt a unified principled position. While the total volume of EU trade with settlements is currently small, Kallas emphasized that the policy would carry significant symbolic weight. Crucially, Kallas has proposed advancing the ban as a trade measure rather than a formal foreign policy sanction, a procedural change that would only require a majority vote of EU member states to pass — avoiding the unanimous approval requirement that has stalled past action due to opposition from countries including Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia.

    In the United Kingdom, the new government’s recent sanctions announcement has already drawn criticism from more than 130 British lawyers, former judges, and legal academics. In a formal six-page letter sent to Prime Minister Andy Burnham this week, the legal experts welcomed the government’s decision to align with international partners but argued the measures announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband fall far short of the UK’s legal obligations under a 2024 International Court of Justice ruling ordering states to oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

    Last week, the UK government formally declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal, with Miliband telling parliament he agrees that ethnic cleansing is currently unfolding in the West Bank. Government sources have confirmed that the UK’s new restrictions will not be limited to the West Bank, and will also cover Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.

    Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, at least 1,107 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to on-the-ground casualty tallies, underscoring the escalating violence documented in B’tselem’s new report.

  • Top Democrat opposes US sale of heavy bombs to Israel

    Top Democrat opposes US sale of heavy bombs to Israel

    A top congressional Democratic leader has formally announced his opposition to a proposed $2.8 billion arms package for Israel, throwing a spotlight on growing divisions within U.S. politics over American military support for the country amid ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

    Gregory Meeks, the ranking member of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee and a New York congressman, confirmed he will not back the planned transfer of 2,000-pound (900kg) bombs to Israel. His objection is rooted in deep concerns that the powerful munitions could be deployed in violation of international humanitarian law, according to his public statement.

    Meeks’ opposition comes on the heels of emerging reports that the Trump administration is preparing to send roughly 40,000 of these heavy bombs to Israel — weapons that Meeks described as some of the most destructive munitions held in the U.S. military arsenal. Even with the high-ranking lawmaker’s rejection of the deal, however, his objection alone lacks the legal weight to block the transfer. Current U.S. arms sale rules allow the sitting presidential administration to bypass congressional objections and move forward with the deal unimpeded.

    In his statement, Meeks emphasized that he remains steadfast in his commitment to Israel’s security, but stressed that the proposed transfer raises grave, unresolved questions about how these massive weapons would be used in the densely populated civilian regions of Gaza and southern Lebanon. He noted that Congress holds a core responsibility to guarantee that U.S. taxpayer-funded arms are used lawfully, responsibly, and with robust protections for innocent civilian life. The BBC has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington for comment on the controversy, and no response has been publicly released as of yet.

    J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy organization based in the U.S., offered a sharp rebuke of the planned transfer in a statement obtained by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, arguing that, “You cannot rebuild Gaza with 2,000lb bombs.”

    Under longstanding U.S. policy, the State Department is required to notify Congress of all arms sales that exceed a specific monetary threshold, which gives lawmakers the ability to place an informal procedural hold on the deal. To override a presidential push for the sale, however, Congress would need to pass a veto-proof resolution with the support of two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate — a high bar that is unlikely to be met in the current political climate. The current administration can also move forward immediately if the president declares a national emergency that requires an urgent transfer of arms.

    This is not the first time the transfer of these specific bombs to Israel has sparked political controversy. Israel’s past use of General Dynamics-manufactured 2,000-pound bombs in Gaza has drawn widespread international condemnation, due to the extreme, widespread civilian harm they cause in densely populated urban areas. In 2004, then-President Joe Biden paused a scheduled shipment of these same bombs over humanitarian concerns, a policy that was immediately reversed when Donald Trump took office for his second term last year.

    The reported arms transfer would be funded through the U.S. Foreign Military Financing program, an initiative backed by American taxpayer dollars that allocates billions of dollars annually to Israel and other U.S. allies to purchase American-made military equipment.

    While broad bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel security relationship has remained a longstanding staple of American politics for decades, that backing has softened noticeably among Democratic lawmakers in recent years amid growing public concern over civilian casualties in Gaza. Just months ago, in July, Republican Representative Thomas Massie forced a full House vote on an amendment that would cut $3.3 billion in annual security aid to Israel. While Massie was the only Republican to support the measure, an unprecedented 103 House Democrats backed the cut, signaling a dramatic shift in the party’s approach to military aid for Israel.

  • Trump picks anti-Islam, pro-Israel Republican Wesley Hunt as next ambassador to Saudi Arabia

    Trump picks anti-Islam, pro-Israel Republican Wesley Hunt as next ambassador to Saudi Arabia

    In a Monday announcement that has sparked significant controversy, former U.S. President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has named Wesley Hunt, a hardline anti-Islam Republican and close personal ally, as his nominee for the next U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The nomination arrives at an extraordinarily tense juncture for U.S. relations with Gulf nations, coming months after the outbreak of ongoing U.S.-Israeli military operations against Iran that have sent shockwaves through the Middle East, disrupting regional stability and sending ripples through global energy and economic markets.

    Hunt brings a background deeply tied to the region through his U.S. military service. In 2006, he served as an Apache helicopter pilot in Baghdad, Iraq, completing 55 combat missions, before going on to two diplomatic liaison deployment postings in Saudi Arabia. He has repeatedly drawn on his time in the Middle East to justify his sweeping anti-Islam rhetoric.

    Speaking last November, Hunt argued that he had direct experience living under Islamic legal systems, saying, “I’ve lived in Saudi Arabia for two years. I’ve deployed to Iraq. I have seen firsthand what it looks like to live in countries governed under systems like Sharia law.” He doubled down on these incendiary claims in January, pushing back against critics who label his comments fearmongering by saying they “have never lived under it.” During his time stationed in the kingdom, Hunt claimed, “Public beheadings happened there not long ago. Women couldn’t even drive when I was there.”

    In a January 2026 appearance on the conservative program *Stakelbeck Tonight*, Hunt escalated his rhetoric further, claiming Americans should be “extremely concerned” about Islamic influence in the U.S., asserting that “the mandate that’s been given to Islam is to basically go to other countries and infiltrate them.” He went on to peddle the conspiracy theory that Muslim communities would grow their populations in Western countries and eventually “take over” governing control.

    Media coverage of Hunt’s past electoral campaigns in Texas has repeatedly called out his anti-Muslim framing. A *New Yorker* report on Texas congressional elections noted that Hunt and his fellow Republican opponents centered anti-Muslim rhetoric in their campaigning. Houston Chronicle opinion writer Chris Tomlinson has accused Hunt and other state-level Texas Republicans of deliberately “stoking fears of Islam” to mobilize conservative voters. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, a representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action (CAIR Action), echoed this criticism, noting that Republican candidates in the state have openly competed “who can be more anti-Muslim” to drum up anti-Muslim anxiety among Texas voters ahead of elections. Hunt has also framed immigration to the U.S. as a risk, warning that new arrivals could “import systems that destroy communities.”

    Beyond his anti-Islam views, Hunt is a well-documented staunch supporter of Israel, with deep ties to leading pro-Israel lobbying groups in the U.S. Speaking at a 2022 event hosted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Hunt claimed the U.S. only has “really one true ally” in the Middle East, “and it’s Israel,” tying this exclusive loyalty to what he called Israel’s shared “Judeo” cultural background with the U.S.

    While Hunt has expressed public support for the Abraham Accords normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states and has called for additional regional normalization deals, he has also warned that Washington should maintain a posture of suspicion even toward partners that have signed the accords. “Just because we have something set up like the Abraham Accords – which I think is good for the entire world, especially for the region – we cannot let our guard down,” he told the AIPAC audience.

    Data from TrackAIPAC, a non-profit organization that tracks the political influence of the pro-Israel lobby in U.S. politics, shows Hunt has received a total of $139,862 in campaign contributions from leading pro-Israel lobbying groups, including AIPAC, Americans for Prosperity (AMP), the Republican Jewish Coalition, and the United States Israel Political Action Committee (USI). As recently as May 2024, Hunt reaffirmed his unwavering support for Israel during an interview on Fox News, arguing, “Keep in mind, Israel put the Judeo in the Judeo-Christian.”

    As of publication, Saudi Arabian government officials have not issued any public response to the announcement of Hunt’s nomination. The appointment will also require a formal confirmation hearing and vote by the U.S. Senate before it can take effect.

  • Watch: How will higher interest rates impact US consumers?

    Watch: How will higher interest rates impact US consumers?

    As the Federal Reserve navigates persistent inflationary pressures and a shifting labor market, the decision to raise interest rates has once again put household financial stability under the microscope. In a recent on-the-ground reporting piece, BBC correspondent Samira Hussain breaks down the complex economic drivers that have pushed the central bank toward higher borrowing costs, while exploring the ripple effects that will touch every corner of consumer finance across the United States.

    The Federal Reserve has long relied on interest rate adjustments as its primary tool to cool overheated economic growth and rein in runaway inflation. When rates climb, borrowing becomes more expensive for everything from mortgages and auto loans to credit card balances and small business lines of credit. This dynamic is designed to slow discretionary spending, which in turn eases upward pressure on consumer prices. But for everyday American households, the transition to a higher rate environment does not play out evenly, with variable impacts depending on individual financial circumstances.

    For consumers looking to purchase a new home or refinance an existing mortgage, higher interest rates translate directly to steeper monthly payments, pricing many entry-level buyers out of a market already strained by limited housing inventory. Existing holders of adjustable-rate mortgages also face growing payment obligations as their rates reset to reflect the new benchmark. Credit card users, most of whom carry variable rates tied to Fed benchmarks, will see their interest charges jump almost immediately, increasing the burden of carried balances. Even consumers saving for retirement or large purchases can face mixed outcomes: while high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit start offering more attractive returns, the value of existing bond holdings often drops as new bonds come with higher interest payments.

    Hussain’s reporting also contextualizes the Fed’s balancing act: policymakers are walking a fine line between taming inflation and avoiding tipping the overall economy into a recession. A sharp enough slowdown in spending could trigger job cuts in interest-sensitive sectors like housing, construction and retail, which would ultimately feed back into consumer financial health. By speaking with economists, industry analysts and everyday households, the report lays out both the intended consequences of the Fed’s policy move and the unexpected risks that could hit consumers who are already grappling with lingering price increases from years of high inflation.

  • Two Britons among three killed in Swiss Alps light aircraft crash

    Two Britons among three killed in Swiss Alps light aircraft crash

    A tragic small plane crash in the Swiss Alps has claimed three lives, with two British nationals among the deceased, local law enforcement confirmed this week. The single-engine Cirrus SR22T aircraft, which departed from Sion Airport located in Switzerland’s Rhône Valley, went down in high-altitude mountain terrain near the resort town of Leukerbad in the southern canton of Valais on Tuesday, just 10 minutes after takeoff.

    For reasons still undetermined, the aircraft collided with a steep mountain slope. Eyewitnesses at the scene reported seeing flames and thick smoke billow from the wreckage immediately after impact. In response to the incident, a large multi-agency emergency response was mobilized quickly: teams from the Valais Rescue Organisation, cantonal police, and local fire services were deployed to the remote crash site, supported by three rescue helicopters to access the high-altitude location.

    Following the recovery operation, multiple official investigations have been launched to determine the cause of the crash. The Swiss Transportation Safety Board, the agency responsible for probing aviation accidents across the country, has opened a formal investigation. Parallel inquiries are also being conducted by Valais Cantonal Police and the Swiss Office of the Attorney General.

    As of Thursday, authorities are still working to complete formal identification of all three victims. The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has confirmed it is supporting the families of the two British citizens killed in the incident. “We are providing support to the families of two British nationals who died in Switzerland, and our officials are in close contact with local authorities,” an FCDO spokesperson said. “Our thoughts remain with the families during this incredibly difficult time.”

  • Photos show charred wreckage from deadly crash of news helicopter in LA

    Photos show charred wreckage from deadly crash of news helicopter in LA

    A devastating news helicopter crash in Los Angeles that claimed three lives has left the local media community and broader public in mourning, with federal investigators now launching a thorough probe into what caused the Tuesday night tragedy.

    On Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the independent U.S. government agency leading the investigation, released stark new photographs documenting the charred aftermath of the collision. Images show the burned-out hull of the helicopter and a scorched nearby storage container, as investigators worked through the day to collect evidence at the crash site. Once on-scene documentation is complete, the wreckage will be transported to a secured facility for continued detailed forensic analysis.

    The three victims have been formally identified: two employees from NBC Los Angeles – veteran pilot George Marciniw and photojournalist Eliana Moreno – and 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, a pedestrian on the ground. According to NBC News reports, Mejia was a Guatemalan national who had only arrived in Los Angeles earlier that week. Two additional people were injured in the crash and transported to local hospitals for treatment.

    At the time of the crash, the helicopter, NewsChopper4, which also served NBC’s sister Spanish-language outlet Telemundo 52, was on assignment covering a separate deadly bus crash in a Los Angeles suburb that had already killed two people. Multiple other news helicopters were also operating in the same airspace covering the bus crash, which has already resulted in the arrest of the bus driver on suspicion of murder.

    Investigator-in-charge Fabian Salazar told reporters during a Wednesday press conference that a preliminary public update on the crash will be released within 30 days, but a full final report pinpointing the root cause of the crash could take as long as 18 months to complete. When asked about widely circulated social media video that appears to capture footage from the helicopter’s on-board camera in the seconds before the crash, Salazar confirmed the clip is currently considered “probably the most important evidence” in the ongoing investigation.

    Officials have emphasized that no definitive cause has been determined at this early stage. Those close to the case have noted that Marciniw was a highly experienced pilot, ruling out inexperience as an obvious contributing factor. The tragic loss has also drawn renewed attention to Los Angeles’ unique reliance on helicopter news coverage: unlike many other major U.S. metro areas, local LA stations regularly deploy aerial crews to cover everything from high-speed police chases and wildfires to accidents, protests, and holiday traffic, making constant use of unscripted live aerial broadcasting a staple of local news.

  • No fire alarms or sprinklers at Pakistan neonatal unit where fire killed 14, report finds

    No fire alarms or sprinklers at Pakistan neonatal unit where fire killed 14, report finds

    Last month, a devastating blaze that broke out in the neonatal intensive care unit of Pakistan’s largest public hospital, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad, claimed the lives of 14 newborns, most of whom were premature or medically fragile. Now, a government-ordered official inquiry has exposed a cascade of preventable systemic and institutional failures that turned a small electrical spark into an unconscionable catastrophe.

    The investigative committee, led by a retired senior civil servant, confirmed that the blaze most likely originated from an overheated electrical cable connected to a faulty air conditioning unit in the ward, matching initial accounts from authorities released on the day of the fire. While the exact electrical defect remains unconfirmed, the report documents how the fire spread rapidly through flammable plastic medical equipment and waste containers unchecked, amplified by a complete lack of basic fire safety infrastructure.

    Most alarmingly, the inquiry confirmed the neonatal unit had no functioning smoke detectors, fire alarms, or automatic sprinkler systems to suppress the blaze or alert staff and visitors in its earliest stages. Back in 2018, the hospital received official approval to replace and upgrade all outdated air conditioning units across the facility, but eight years later, the critical upgrade was never carried out. The unit had recently undergone routine maintenance, but the report emphasizes that general maintenance does not replace mandatory electrical safety inspections.

    Witnesses and first responders described chaotic conditions that compounded the danger. The first sign of trouble was recorded on corridor CCTV at 6:38 a.m. on August 26, when a nurse was spotted fleeing the neonatal ward to call for help, returning just 20 seconds later with a security guard. Another nurse, Razia Noreen, rushed into the smoke-filled ward immediately and emerged seconds later with the only infant who survived the disaster. Within one minute of the first alert, dense smoke completely obscured the CCTV camera feed.

    For many patients and visitors inside the hospital that morning, the only warning of the fire came from shouted alerts from staff, not official alarms. Abdul Ghafoor, who was in a nearby ward with his hospitalized mother when the fire broke out, told the BBC he ran upstairs to help after hearing the warnings. “The entire ward was filled with smoke, we could not see anything,” he recalled. Hivsa Walid, who was in an adjacent ward with her sister-in-law and newborn niece, added that widespread panic left no coordinated response: “There should have been fire extinguishers and protocols, but no one was doing anything. Everyone was just running.” Ghafoor and a small group of civilian bystanders broke glass corridor panels to vent toxic smoke before emergency crews arrived, the only proactive response to the emergency.

    The inquiry also confirmed multiple critical failures that delayed and blocked rescue efforts. Emergency services were not notified of the fire until 6:54 a.m., nearly 16 minutes after the first staff member spotted the blaze. First responders arrived on scene at 7:01 a.m., but encountered locked and blocked escape routes and entry points, the report found. A serving firefighter, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said rescue teams had to break through glass windows to enter the building because all access doors were locked. “Even after getting inside, the doors leading towards the ward were locked,” he explained. The firefighter, who arrived after the blaze was extinguished, described a horrific scene: “It was difficult for me to even describe what we saw. The medical equipment above the babies had melted and collapsed onto them.”

    Hospital leadership previously defended the locked ward door, claiming access was restricted for security reasons following past incidents of infant abduction from Pakistani public hospitals. However, the inquiry rejected this justification, noting that “ordinary access restrictions may be legitimate for security purposes… they cannot render designated emergency routes inaccessible when needed.”

    Beyond infrastructure and access failures, the report found no evidence that neonatal unit staff had received any fire safety training or participated in emergency evacuation drills for the ward, which houses medically vulnerable newborns many dependent on continuous oxygen support. Staff also had no training to shut off oxygen supplies in an emergency, and while oxygen likely intensified the heat of the blaze, the inquiry found no evidence it facilitated the fire’s spread.

    The inquiry also highlighted that PIMS management ignored explicit prior warnings about fire safety gaps. Just one month before the neonatal unit fire, a separate blaze broke out at the hospital’s on-site nursing hostel, which already exposed major deficiencies in smoke detection, alarm systems, and overall emergency preparedness. The report concludes that PIMS and its senior leadership “bear the principal institutional responsibility for failing to convert known risks, prior warnings and assigned duties into an effective safety system.”

    In response to the inquiry’s findings, Pakistan’s Prime Minister has ordered that all short-term fire safety reforms outlined in the report be implemented within three months, and mandated comprehensive fire safety audits for all public and private buildings across the country. Eight senior PIMS officials have already been suspended from their posts, and the prime minister has directed that criminal proceedings be initiated against the officials held responsible for the failures that led to the deaths. Funeral services were held for the 14 newborn victims in the weeks following the tragedy. PIMS has not yet issued any public comment on the inquiry’s findings.

  • The End Times: How Silicon Valley absorbed ‘techno-religious’ doomerism

    The End Times: How Silicon Valley absorbed ‘techno-religious’ doomerism

    A recent bombshell interview with U.S. Vice President JD Vance has pulled back the curtain on a deeply troubling convergence of apocalyptic religious ideology, tech elite power, and anti-democratic political ambition that is reshaping the global political landscape.

    In comments to a Christian podcaster, Vance displayed chilling indifference to the prospect that his political actions could trigger an apocalyptic end of the world. “I’m trying to focus on doing as much of God’s work as possible. And if that leads to the end times, okay,” he stated plainly, with no trace of irony.

    Vance’s rapid rise in politics is not an organic success story: it is almost entirely a product of patronage from Peter Thiel, the reclusive tech billionaire and co-founder of Palantir. Thiel, who identifies as a small-o orthodox Christian, is notorious for his obsessive fixation on the idea of an Antichrist that he claims will bring about the apocalypse. The pair first connected in 2011, when Vance, then a Yale Law School student, attended a lecture by Thiel – an encounter Vance later described as the most transformative moment of his time at the university, pushing him to pursue a career in technology. Vance went on to join Thiel’s venture capital firm Mithril Capital in 2015, before securing Thiel’s financial backing to co-found his own VC firm, Narya Capital. Like Palantir and Mithril, Narya draws its name from J.R.R. Tolkien’s *The Lord of the Rings*, a common cultural touchstone for Thiel’s ideological circle. When Vance shifted into electoral politics, Thiel poured $15 million into his 2022 Senate campaign and is widely reported to have helped secure a coveted endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

    Thiel first amassed his fortune as a co-founder of PayPal alongside Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter). In private, off-the-record lectures, Thiel has claimed the Antichrist will emerge as a luddite opposing scientific progress – and he has infamously named 23-year-old climate and pro-Palestine activist Greta Thunberg as an example of this figure. Journalist Gil Duran traces Thiel’s core ideological beliefs to the controversial book *The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State*, which argues that democracy has become obsolete in the digital age, and that this collapse should be welcomed, accelerated, and exploited by a select class of elite investors. This worldview is a form of accelerationism, a white supremacist ideology that frames violence as a necessary tool to trigger inevitable societal collapse, clearing the way for a new global order rooted in apocalyptic eugenics: a utopia for the “strong, deserving” few who survive, and a dystopia for everyone else.

    Thiel has long stated that he sees technology as an “incredible alternative to politics,” and has openly declared, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Today, billionaire elites who share this accelerationist, apocalyptic worldview are actively preparing for a coming collapse, pouring billions into underground survival bunkers and funding far-right political movements pushing to create segregated, fortressed ethnostates. Musk, for example, has collaborated with far-right movements across 18 countries, amplifying harmful “great replacement” conspiracy theories at rallies from Germany to the United Kingdom, and has used his control of X to elevate extreme right-wing voices and marginalize opposing perspectives. Thiel’s Palantir already provides surveillance technology used by U.S. authorities to track migrants for deportation, facilitates mass surveillance and targeting of Palestinians by Israel, and has embedded its systems into core public services including the UK’s National Health Service.

    Across the Atlantic, the UK’s far-right Reform Party recently received a record-breaking £7 million donation from just two crypto billionaires, and has pushed to create an American ICE-style domestic agency to oversee mass deportations of undocumented migrants. Reform’s former head of policy James Orr, who was forced to resign after an undercover investigation caught him apparently attempting to circumvent UK electoral law, has longstanding ties to Thiel and hosted Thiel’s Antichrist-themed lectures at the University of Cambridge.

    Beyond political meddling, these elites are pouring resources into outlandish tech-driven escape plans: Musk funds fantastical projects to colonize Mars and push for a transhumanist AI takeover of global society. Other billionaires are investing in private artificial island communities or so-called “freedom cities” – unregulated, tax-free havens run by AI robots and funded by cryptocurrency, designed to shelter the elite as climate change and perpetual conflict drive mass displacement and widespread deprivation across the globe. Thiel himself has relocated to Argentina, where libertarian pro-Israel President Javier Milei has taken office promising to “destroy” the Argentine state from within. A leaked website cache also revealed that Thiel has invited dozens of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful figures to secret closed-door retreats for his “Dialog” society, where discussions have ranged from cult building to prepping for World War III.

    The most alarming dynamic? As these powerful figures plan their escapes to a private tech-driven utopia, they continue to profit massively from the fossil fuel and arms industries that are actively accelerating the very climate breakdown and global conflict they claim to be preparing for.

    Vance’s public comments have thrown a clear spotlight on the overlapping ideological project that unites two seemingly disparate groups: Christian alt-right nationalists and Silicon Valley libertarian billionaires. Both groups share a core apocalyptic vision that divides the world into a “saved” elite and a “damned” mass that will be left behind when collapse comes. Academic research confirms the dangerous political implications of this worldview: a study by political scientist James Piazza found that Christian nationalists with apocalyptic beliefs are far more likely to hold hostile attitudes toward marginalized social outgroups, reject democratic norms and civil discourse, and normalize political violence against political opponents.

    While apocalyptic religious ideas have long circulated as an undercurrent in American society among Evangelicals, Christian nationalists, and Christian Zionists, Piazza notes these voices have grown dramatically in influence in recent years, and now constitute a mainstream political force, counting among their ranks senior U.S. officials including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Christian Zionists like Huckabee and Hegseth argue that Jews must return to what they call the Holy Land – encompassing modern Israel, the occupied West Bank, and parts of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan – to fulfill biblical prophecy and trigger the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. At the same time, they view Israel as a model for the high-tech theocracy they hope to implement in the United States. Huckabee has publicly called Israel the “land that God gave…to a people that he chose” and stated he would be unbothered by Israeli expansion across nearly the entire Middle East. In his first worship service at the Pentagon following the outbreak of conflict with Iran, Hegseth publicly prayed for “overwhelming violence” against U.S. enemies, while senior U.S. military commanders have reportedly told troops that the war with Iran is “all part of God’s divine plan”, aligned with biblical prophecies of the end times. For Christian nationalists, the apocalypse is pre-ordained and inevitable, Piazza explains – so it must be ushered in, not resisted.

    This same apocalyptic framework has permeated Silicon Valley’s approach to artificial intelligence, argues tech journalist Karen Hao in her book *Empire of AI*. Hao writes that a quasi-religious cult has formed around the myth of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the hypothetical idea of an AI system that can outperform humans at nearly every cognitive task. As far back as 2014, Musk told MIT students that developing AI was “summoning the demon” and represented humanity’s “biggest existential threat.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has described AI as a “genie that can grant any wish”, while acknowledging it “will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there will be great companies created.” Thiel once infamously paused for an extended period when asked if he believed humanity should survive, offering no clear answer.

    In a recent high-profile move, Altman, Musk, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei agreed to an industry-wide AI development slowdown, after multiple whistleblowers raised alarms that unregulated AI development could lead to human extinction within a decade. OpenAI has also asked U.S. Congress to bypass antitrust laws that would regulate the company’s market power, and has ruled out going public in 2025, citing unaddressed safety concerns.

    But critics argue the push for an AI slowdown and focus on existential risk is a convenient PR move for an industry facing deep economic troubles. Virginia Tech professor Lee Vinsel, who coined the term “criti-hype” to describe how overstating technology’s risks can actually validate the industry’s own claims of transformative power and inflate stock prices, notes that nearly all AI firms are currently losing massive amounts of money – with the sole exception of Nvidia, which sells AI infrastructure and finances unprofitable AI firms through a web of circular deals that have inflated the so-called AI bubble. The technology has also failed to deliver on its promised productivity gains, with many companies rehiring laid-off workers after AI failed to meet performance expectations.

    Vinsel explains that apocalyptic doomerism about AI is an effective marketing tool because it taps into deep cultural narratives from science fiction and religious end-times prophecy. Today, it is not just outside critics spreading these doomsday claims – AI companies themselves are actively broadcasting the idea that AI poses existential apocalyptic risk, turning the technology into a kind of messianic force for true believers in the industry.

    “Silicon Valley has absorbed a techno-religion that brings together science fiction, century-old transhumanist aspirations…and American apocalyptic brands of Christianity,” explains Robert Geraci, a professor of religion, science, and technology. While superintelligent AI may not be technically impossible, Geraci notes that the vision advanced by the industry is profoundly religious and not rooted in rigorous logic or economics, relying on unproven assumptions of exponential growth that ignore the hard reality that all systems have natural limits.

    Eryk Salvaggio, a fellow at Tech Policy Press, points out that AGI lacks any concrete, agreed-upon definition or clear success criteria, leaving space for believers to fantasize about either monstrous or messianic outcomes lurking in the technology. In a 2025 academic paper, Salvaggio and a cross-disciplinary group of experts found that while massive amounts of investment are flowing into AI based on promises of machine superintelligence, current AI systems have little ability to deliver on those lofty claims.

    Mona Sloane, an assistant professor of data science and media studies at the University of Virginia, agrees that while unregulated AI poses very real near-term harms, the idea of “existential AI risk” is a deliberately moving target that distracts from current harms. “When there is this level of uncertainty, we latch onto narrative structures we are familiar with – in the case of machines and automation, that is the utopia-dystopia or boomer-doomer nexus,” Sloane explains. “Many powerful actors in the AI world believe in technology being deterministic,” she adds, revealing “their bleak and narrow understanding of humans as not having any agency”, while conveniently letting AI industry leaders avoid responsibility for the harms their technology already causes. “Having this threat always in the future keeps those who built AI systems in their powerful position, even when these systems become mundane and lose their magical aura – as is happening with AI.”

    The risks of this inflated AI bubble are already on the radar: one major U.S. credit rating agency recently warned that if global markets lose faith in the AI industry’s ability to deliver returns on investment, a major market crash could follow, likely triggering a U.S. recession that would ripple across the entire global economy. While claims that AI will imminently eliminate all human jobs are widely overhyped, a market crash driven by inflated AI valuations could easily trigger mass unemployment. Beyond economic risk, unregulated AI poses immediate tangible harms: massive carbon emissions from energy-intensive data centers that worsen climate change, a range of social harms from cognitive decline to rising rates of mental health issues, and growing risks from autonomous weapons and widespread cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

    “The reality is that U.S. tech giants are causing real harm, right now to people and planet,” says Donald Campbell, director of advocacy at digital rights organization Foxglove Legal. “What is clear about the tech billionaires is their staggering indifference to the human suffering their companies and platforms are causing – and their determination to ensure that there are no laws or regulations which could stand in their way.”

  • Watch: Leaked photos reveal extensive damage at US bases in Gulf

    Watch: Leaked photos reveal extensive damage at US bases in Gulf

    Newly leaked photographs obtained from an active-duty U.S. military service member have pulled back the curtain on the full scale of destruction inflicted on American military installations located in the Persian Gulf region in the wake of recent Iranian strikes. The visual evidence, which has not been previously released to the general public, offers an unvarnished on-the-ground look at the aftermath of the attack that escalated tensions between the two nations dramatically.

    Among the most striking damage documented in the imagery is a military radar aircraft that has been completely severed, its structure split apart by the impact of ordnance from the strikes. The photos also show multiple mobile trailer facilities that have been completely flattened, crushed under the force of blasts that hit the base compounds. Permanently constructed buildings on the installations are also depicted with extensive structural damage, with compromised load-bearing walls, collapsed roofing, and shattered infrastructure throughout the affected areas.

    The leak comes at a moment of already heightened geopolitical friction across the Middle East, with the release of the images raising new questions about the actual extent of damage from the strikes, which had previously been the subject of conflicting official accounts. The authenticity of the photos has been confirmed by the source, who is currently deployed to the region and provided the materials on condition of anonymity to protect their identity and military standing. Military analysts note that the level of damage shown in the images indicates that the strikes were more powerful and accurately targeted than some initial assessments suggested, with potential implications for future military positioning and regional security strategy.