MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s federal government has confirmed that the final Australian woman detained in a Syrian camp for family members of deceased Islamic State fighters will be allowed to repatriate to her home country, subject to unprecedented strict national security conditions, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke announced in a press briefing Thursday.
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South Africa reaches World Cup knockout round for 1st time with 1-0 win over South Korea
GUADALUPE, Mexico – For decades, South Africa’s men’s national football team carried the weight of unfulfilled World Cup dreams. Three previous tournament appearances – including a memorable run as hosts in 2010 – ended in elimination before the knockout stage. That long drought finally came to an end on Wednesday night, when a clinical first-half finish earned Bafana Bafana a historic 1-0 victory over South Korea and a spot in the next round of the competition.
The decisive goal came in the 63rd minute, when winger Tshepang Moremi delivered a pinpoint cross into the penalty box that found forward Thapelo Maseko, who slotted home the finish that would go down in South African football history.
With the result, South Africa secured second place in Group A, finishing behind tournament hosts Mexico, who completed a perfect group stage with three wins from three matches. The historic milestone sets up a blockbuster knockout round clash for South Africa on Sunday, when the side will face Canada – Group B’s second-place finishers – in Inglewood, California.
The road to this historic win was far from smooth for South Africa. The team opened its campaign with a 2-0 defeat to Mexico, before grabbing a late equalizer to secure a 1-1 draw with Czech Republic. Heading into the final group match, Bafana Bafana sat third in the group table, behind both Mexico and pre-match favorites South Korea, making their eventual upset of the Taegeuk Warriors all the more surprising.
For South Korea, the campaign remains in the balance for now. The side got off to a strong start, overturning a deficit to claim a 2-1 opening win over Czech Republic, before falling to a narrow 1-0 defeat to Mexico in their second group outing. While Wednesday’s loss drops them out of the current knockout qualification spots, their fate is not yet sealed: they could still advance to the knockout round depending on the outcome of other remaining group stage matches this week.
South Korea is no stranger to World Cup knockout stage success. The East Asian side made history as the first Asian team to reach the tournament’s knockout round in 2002, when it co-hosted the competition and went on to finish fourth overall. The Taegeuk Warriors have also advanced out of the group stage in 2010 and 2022, reaching the round of 16 on both occasions.
This report was contributed by Maya Koluder-Ramirez, a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
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This Indian state is trying to ensure no one grows old alone
Across the sun-faded living rooms of southern India’s Kerala, a quiet crisis is unfolding. For 70-year-old TO Dominic, every morning opens the same way: with a quick phone call to one of his two adult sons. One son built his career in neighboring Karnataka, while the other sought work opportunities in the Middle East. Both left their childhood home years ago, leaving Dominic and his 70-something wife MJ Martha to navigate daily life entirely on their own.
These daily calls bring small comfort, filled with routine checks on health and casual chatter about the weather. But when the couple faces a broken pipe, a medical appointment, or even just need an extra pair of hands to carry groceries, their sons are thousands of kilometers away, unable to step in. Once, their home echoed with the noise of growing children; today, long stretches of silence fill most days. “We rely completely on our neighbors for help,” Dominic explains. “Our children can only visit once every few years, and we have no close relatives living nearby. Every year, daily tasks get just a little bit harder.” Martha nods beside him, adding that persistent loneliness has become an inescapable part of their old age.
The Dominics’ story is far from unique. For centuries, multigenerational cohabitation was the unbroken norm across India, with adult children caring for aging parents in the family home. But decades of out-migration for work and higher education have steadily eroded this centuries-old tradition, particularly in Kerala — India’s fastest-ageing state, where demographic shifts and labor mobility have left a growing share of the elderly population living alone. To confront this rapidly growing public challenge, the Kerala state government announced last month the launch of India’s first standalone government department dedicated exclusively to senior citizen welfare.
Dr. Rathan Kelkar, the head of the newly formed department, outlines that the agency’s core strategy centers on the principle of “ageing in place” — a framework designed to help older adults remain in their own homes and local communities, rather than relocating to institutional care facilities. The department’s rolling policy agenda includes expanding affordable community and in-home care services, rolling out “social prescribing” initiatives that connect isolated seniors to regular group activities and social outlets, launching a state-certified caregiver training program to build a professionalized care workforce, and constructing new public infrastructure including elderly-focused parks, senior day-care centers, and accessible fitness facilities. A comprehensive statewide survey of the senior population is also underway to lay the groundwork for a long-term national “Silver Economy” development roadmap.
Kelkar emphasizes that ageing can no longer be sidelined as a narrow social welfare issue: “It intersects with every sector of public life — healthcare, housing, transportation, local governance, technology, employment, public safety, financial services, and community connection.”
Kerala already holds the distinction of having the highest share of elderly residents among all of India’s major states. A 2026 analysis from the Reserve Bank of India projects that by 2036, nearly one in four Kerala residents — 22.8% of the total population — will be over the age of 60, compared to a projected national average of just 14.9%. This rapid demographic shift stems from two overlapping trends: social progress and persistent out-migration. Decades of improved public healthcare have pushed life expectancy higher, while falling birth rates have slowed population growth, naturally aging the state’s population pyramid. At the same time, generations of working-age Keralites have left the state to seek higher-wage work in the Middle East, Europe, North America, and other parts of India, often leaving aging parents behind.
While remittances from these migrant workers have lifted household incomes and overall living standards across Kerala, they have also created this growing social gap: millions of older Indians now spend their final years geographically separated from their children. For migrant children living abroad, the distance brings its own emotional toll. A Keralite IT professional based in Sydney, who asked not to be named, explains: “I send money home every month without fail, but financial support is never enough. Being there in person — for a medical emergency, or just to sit with them when they’re lonely — that’s something money can never replace.” When his parents fell ill with a viral infection last year, he could only coordinate care via phone and video calls from 10,000 kilometers away, saying, “I felt completely helpless, and that feeling never really goes away.”
Kelkar notes that Kerala is not starting from zero in its response to the ageing crisis: the state already runs successful existing programs including universal old-age pensions and the widely studied Vayomithram community palliative care initiative. What was missing, he argues, was a single centralized authority to coordinate across fragmented government sectors, close service gaps, and align long-term planning. “Before this, there was no single institutional body responsible for bringing all these different departments together, identifying unmet needs, building cross-sector convergence, and planning for decades to come,” he says.
Even with this new institutional structure, Kelkar acknowledges that bricks-and-mortar infrastructure and formal services alone cannot solve the crisis of senior isolation. “Loneliness and social disconnection have become one of the defining challenges of ageing in modern Kerala,” he says. To address this gap, the department is building out statewide volunteer networks and community connection programs to reach isolated seniors. “Our vision is simple: no elderly person in Kerala should feel invisible or abandoned, no matter where their children live.”
Medical experts across India warn that the crisis Kerala is now confronting is a preview of a coming nationwide challenge. Dr. Prasun Chatterjee, who leads the geriatrics unit at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital, says the question he hears most from his older patients is, “Who will take care of me when I can no longer take care of myself?” Many of his patients live alone after losing a spouse or watching their children relocate for work, and even minor emergencies become overwhelming: “They don’t just worry about long-term care. They worry about who will drive them to the hospital if they get sick at 2 a.m.”
Dr. Chatterjee also points to a critical systemic gap across India’s healthcare system: a severe shortage of specialized geriatric care providers, meaning most older adults rely on general healthcare services that are not designed to meet their unique physical and medical needs. He argues that what India needs is a broad, cross-sector support network that includes accessible day-care centers, community gathering spaces, age-friendly primary healthcare, and structured opportunities for seniors to maintain social connections. “No single government department can solve this problem on its own,” he notes.
Even with the launch of the new department, questions remain about whether Kerala’s ambition matches its available resources. This year, the state has allocated just 100 million rupees (approximately $1.05 million) to the new department, a figure many policy analysts call largely symbolic. Kelkar pushes back on this criticism, explaining that the initial funding is earmarked for building coordination capacity, supporting innovative pilot projects, and building the population data infrastructure needed to scale long-term policy. “The government views ageing not as a short-term welfare project, but as a long-term development priority for the entire state,” he says.
Some industry experts add that policy alone is not enough to address the gap. Srinivasan Govindaraj, CEO of Athulya Seniorcare, which operates assisted living facilities across India including in Kerala, argues that India still lacks a properly regulated private senior care market. “There are dozens of small, local providers across the country, but there are no uniform national quality standards or accountability measures,” he says. For Ker ala’s growing ageing population, he says, what is needed is not just government welfare schemes, but a trusted, regulated care ecosystem that can support low- and middle-income families who cannot afford full private pay care.
For 82-year-old MSR Dev, a retired scientist who lives in Kerala with his wife, the core of the issue is simpler than policy and funding: it is about keeping older people connected to the world around them. He says Kerala can draw lessons from nations like Sweden, where robust community support systems help older adults stay active and independent well into their later years. “Communication and connection are just as essential as food and healthcare,” Dev says. “As social beings, we all need places to go and people to talk to.”
Back in their small home, Dominic and Martha have not waited for government policy to improve their circumstances. Like many other elderly couples in Kerala, they continue to rely on the generosity of their neighbors, as they have for years. What Martha wants is not a grand policy overhaul, she says: it is just having someone they can call who will actually show up when they need help. Whether Kerala’s new dedicated department can deliver that simple promise, in a state where thousands of families are separated by oceans and time zones, remains to be seen.
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Cambodia’s Supreme Court to rule on treason appeal of 2 journalists jailed for photos
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A high-stakes legal decision on the appeal of two Cambodian journalists convicted of treason for their border clash reporting is slated for Thursday at the country’s Supreme Court, a ruling that comes amid intensifying scrutiny over the court’s political alignment.
Phorn Sopheap, a reporter with Battambang Post TV Online, and Pheap Pheara, of TSP 68 TV Online, were taken into custody last July following their reporting trip to the contested Cambodia-Thailand border. The pair stand accused of publishing photographs captured in a restricted military zone to Facebook, a charge they have repeatedly rejected. They maintain they received official authorization to access the area where they shot their imagery, and are now urging the Supreme Court to throw out their original convictions and 14-year prison sentences.
One of the images, which documented land mines in the border region, was widely shared by Thai media outlets and supported Bangkok’s claims that Cambodia had recently deployed new mines along the disputed frontier — mines that Bangkok said injured Thai soldiers patrolling the area. Cambodia has consistently denied the allegation, asserting it abides by international bans on land mine use and that any ordnance found in the area is likely leftover from decades of internal conflict that concluded in the late 1990s.
The border skirmishes, which erupted in two waves in July and December 2024, displaced hundreds of thousands of residents on both sides of the frontier and killed roughly 100 soldiers and civilians. While no new clashes have broken out since a ceasefire was reached in December, cross-border tensions remain elevated.
The case against the two journalists stems from a December 2024 conviction handed down by Siem Reap Provincial Court, which found them guilty of “supplying a foreign state with information prejudicial to national defense” and handed down the 14-year sentences. A lower appellate court upheld the convictions in March, prompting a joint open letter from more than a dozen domestic and international press freedom organizations urging Cambodian authorities to drop all charges.
Thursday’s hearing comes just days after the same Supreme Court upheld an incitement conviction against Rong Chhun, a high-profile opposition figure. That ruling has once again drawn international attention to the current government’s ongoing crackdown on dissent. The 56-year-old opposition leader was found guilty last year of inciting social unrest after meeting with villagers displaced by state-led infrastructure projects, a decision widely viewed as part of a broader pattern of legal action against government critics under Prime Minister Hun Manet’s administration.
Human Rights Watch has argued that recent rulings from the Supreme Court make clear that the judiciary remains tightly controlled by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Cambodian government officials have repeatedly pushed back against these claims, asserting that the court operates entirely independent of political influence.
The country’s political landscape has shifted little since Hun Manet, the American-educated son of long-time autocratic former Prime Minister Hun Sen, took office in August 2023. Under Hun Sen’s nearly 40-year rule, Cambodia faced widespread international condemnation for systemic human rights abuses, including harsh crackdowns on freedom of speech and association. To date, observers have documented almost no progress toward political liberalization under the new administration.
Earlier this year, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists accused the Cambodian government of leveraging broad, vague national security laws to criminalize routine, legitimate reporting in the case of Sopheap and Pheara. The 2025 World Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based press advocacy group, ranks Cambodia 161st out of 180 included countries and territories, placing it among the nations with a “very serious” press freedom situation.
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Aipac rebuffed as Mamdani-backed candidates sweep NYC Democratic primaries
In a landmark vote that sent shockwaves through New York’s Democratic Party, all three congressional candidates endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani secured upset victories in high-stakes Democratic primaries on Tuesday, marking the first major electoral test of the progressive mayor’s expanding political movement and cementing the left’s growing influence in state politics.
The night’s outcomes delivered multiple significant upsets for the party’s old guard. Former city comptroller Brad Lander ousted incumbent Representative Dan Goldman, while state assembly member and ex-union organizer Claire Valdez defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to claim the nomination for the seat being vacated by retiring Representative Nydia Velazquez. The most stunning upset of the evening came when first-time candidate and public defense investigator Darializa Avila Chevalier unseated five-term incumbent Representative Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Beyond the congressional races, the progressive wave extended to state legislative contests: Palestinian-American democratic socialist Aber Kawas won the Democratic nomination for a Queens state senate seat, defeating establishment-backed assembly member Steven Raga. Overall, seven of eight candidates endorsed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won their primary contests, a statistic that underscores the movement’s expanding grassroots power.
Progressive supporters immediately framed the clean sweep as far more than a series of isolated primary wins. They argue it confirms that Mamdani’s political project is not a one-off insurgency, but the start of a permanent ideological shift within New York’s Democratic Party, representing a clear rebuke to a centrist establishment that progressives say has long treated progressive voters as a constituency to be managed rather than a political force to be heeded.
Mamdani took an unusually public, hands-on role in the primaries, stumping alongside the three congressional candidates and rallying voters around a shared “affordability agenda” tailored to address New Yorkers’ widespread anger over the city’s crippling cost of living. The mayor’s political framework ties domestic economic hardship directly to U.S. foreign policy priorities, a connection that crystallized around the single clearest dividing line of the 2026 primaries: the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
The Israel-Gaza conflict emerged as a defining litmus test for candidates, reflecting a growing gap between Democratic Party leaders and the party’s grassroots base. Lander, a Jewish progressive, was an outspoken critic of what candidates and supporters describe as Israel’s genocide in Gaza, while his opponent Goldman — who received backing from the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC — positioned himself as one of Congress’s most prominent supporters of Israel. All three of Mamdani’s congressional nominees, alongside Kawas, held strong pro-Palestinian stances. Avila Chevalier previously helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, and Kawas centered her campaign on ending what she calls New York’s complicity in Israel’s actions in Gaza, pairing that foreign policy stance with domestic policy priorities including universal healthcare, tenant protections, immigration justice, and campaign finance reform.
After the wins, chants of “Free Palestine” rang out at the movement’s victory party, a moment that political observers described as historic. “Don’t underestimate the significance of a packed room full of supporters chanting ‘Free Palestine!’ at a victory party for a candidate who won a major party congressional primary while calling for Palestinian liberation and calling Israel out for genocide and apartheid,” sociologist Anthony Zenkus wrote on social media shortly after the results were called. Policy analyst Yousef Munayyer added that Palestine has become far more than a moral issue for voters: “it is increasingly a measuring stick for how out of touch with your voters you are. Hard to think of any issue, among any party, at any time in history, where there was a bigger gap between the party establishment and their voters.”
Avila Chevalier’s defeat of the well-funded, longtime incumbent Espaillat proved particularly notable, with progressives arguing it proves that traditional advantages of incumbency, establishment fundraising, and institutional party backing no longer guarantee protection from primary challenges in New York City.
Alongside anger over U.S. policy toward Gaza, the progressive sweep was fueled by widespread New York voter anxiety over housing and economic affordability, an issue Mamdani has centered since his own mayoral campaign. The mayor’s core political argument — that working and middle-class New Yorkers are being priced out of their homes, squeezed by rising costs for rent, childcare, and healthcare, and failed by an economic system that prioritizes landlords, corporate interests, and the wealthy — resonated across all of the winning candidates’ campaigns. The group framed their candidacy as part of a new generation of Democrats that treats economic justice issues as the core, not an afterthought, of anti-establishment politics.
The victories also come amid heightened anxiety among Democratic voters over the agenda of second-term President Donald Trump, who has ramped up restrictive immigration policies, attacked public services, and expanded executive power. Progressives say the results show that Democratic voters want candidates who will confront Trumpism with an ambitious agenda that addresses both domestic material hardship and voter anger over U.S. foreign policy in Gaza.
Online and political reaction to the primary results was sharply polarized. Progressive activists, Palestinian rights organizers, and DSA members celebrated the sweep as a long-awaited breakthrough for a movement that spent years building local power through grassroots tenant organizing, mutual aid networks, and anti-war mobilization. Many compared the outcome to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s historic 2018 primary upset that first catapulted a New York democratic socialist to Congress. Political commentator Zachary Donnini summed up the mood of progressives, writing, “The Democratic Tea Party is here. Tonight is shaping up to be one of the more consequential nights in recent Democratic politics, with Mamdani- and DSA-endorsed candidates reforming the party.”
But the wins also triggered alarm among centrist Democrats and conservative commentators, who warn the party risks shifting too far left, alienating voters in competitive swing districts ahead of November’s midterm elections. President Trump seized on the results to argue that Democrats are abandoning the political center, and top Democratic Party leaders have privately raised concerns that the rise of the progressive left will complicate general election campaigns in closely divided districts. The growing divide has already put Mamdani on a collision course with establishment Democratic figures, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who backed incumbent Dan Goldman in his primary against Lander.
Going into November’s midterm elections, debates over the future of the Democratic Party are only expected to intensify, as the party attempts to balance energizing its progressive base with competing for competitive general election seats. Still, the immediate takeaway from Tuesday’s voting in New York is unambiguous: Mamdani’s progressive coalition has proven it can win beyond the mayor’s office, defeating entrenched incumbents and establishment-backed candidates in high-stakes congressional races. For a Democratic Party grappling with widespread voter anger over affordability, Trump’s agenda, and the war in Gaza, the message from New York is clear: the insurgent progressive left is no longer a marginal force in the party.
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How one Indian textile worker copes with extreme heat in factory work and cramped living quarters
Long before the first hint of sunrise stains the sky over Surat, India’s sprawling synthetic textile manufacturing hub, 35-year-old migrant worker Sibaram Pradhan is already awake. Seated cross-legged on the concrete floor of a cramped plywood cubicle he shares with nine other migrant men, Pradhan breaks into a sweat before his day even begins. This summer, climate-amplified extreme heat has left no corner of India untouched, wrapping both days and nights in a suffocating blanket of humidity and high temperatures that lingers even at 6 a.m.
Like hundreds of thousands of fellow migrants from Odisha, the eastern Indian state he calls home, Pradhan commutes 2,000 kilometers to work in one of Surat’s thousands of power loom factories. He is one of millions of South Asian workers trapped in a cycle of grueling labor: substandard overcrowded housing and brutally hot, poorly ventilated, deafening factory floors, conditions that grow more dangerous by the year as climate change intensifies regional heatwaves.
“I’m a poor person. I have come all this way from Odisha to Gujarat just to put food on the table,” Pradhan explains. “We have no choice but to work to survive.”
The first task of his long day is a quick video call to his wife and two children, who remain in Odisha. Once that is done, he offers a quick prayer to a small portrait of his deity taped to the plywood wall of his cubicle, then joins a queue stretching down a dark, narrow hallway for access to the shared bathroom facilities. Up to 100 workers share just two toilets and a handful of water taps, relying on buckets to bathe.
More than 200 migrant workers are housed across two converted warehouse floors split into thin plywood cubicles. With only a handful of ceiling fans to circulate stagnant, warm air, the entire complex offers almost no ventilation. This summer, temperatures have already climbed past 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), turning both factories and worker housing into oppressive, stifling spaces that offer little relief from the heat. Pradhan rushes through his morning routine: any late arrival to the factory means a dock in his daily pay.
Inside the factory walls, Pradhan’s shift stretches up to 12 hours. He is responsible for loading polyester yarn onto power looms, monitoring for broken threads, checking bobbin placement, and maintaining uniform fabric quality across up to 15 machines at once. He moves constantly between the units, enveloped in a constant roar of noise that can reach 130 decibels — a volume equivalent to a gunshot fired at close range, or a high-speed train passing just meters away.
The unrelenting heat forces Pradhan to work in only a sleeveless undershirt and shorts. He drinks water almost nonstop and regularly wrings sweat out of his clothing to keep it from becoming soaked and heavy. The job requires constant vigilance around the unguarded, fast-moving heavy machinery: “Even if we’re exhausted, we have to stay focused, because people lose fingers to these machines all the time,” Pradhan says. “If you get hurt, you have to pay all your own medical bills, and you don’t get paid for the days you can’t work.”
Nearly all factories rely on nothing more than ceiling fans to cool machinery and workers, with no systemic ventilation to flush out accumulated heat. After hours of exposure to the sweltering conditions, many workers report frequent dizziness, splitting headaches, and persistent chronic fatigue. Heat exhaustion and dehydration-related illnesses and even deaths are alarmingly common among the workforce, says Siba Malik, a leader of Surat’s power loom worker union. Experts warn that national heat-related death tolls are almost certainly drastically undercounted, due to inconsistent reporting protocols on death certificates, leaving reliable official statistics out of reach.
Virtually all of Surat’s textile workforce is made up of internal migrants, the vast majority of whom hail from Odisha’s Ganjam district, one of India’s regions most vulnerable to climate-driven natural disasters. Workers report that repeated cyclones, flooding, and erratic rainfall have destroyed small-scale farming, the traditional livelihood in the district. Combined with chronic water shortages and a lack of local infrastructure and alternative work opportunities, these climate shocks have pushed hundreds of thousands of people to seek factory work in Surat. A 2023 nonprofit report estimates that as many as 800,000 Ganjam district natives currently work in Surat’s textile sector.
“There is simply no work to be found in our home villages,” says Seemanchal Sahu, another power loom worker who has lived and worked in Surat for more than 15 years. “If we could make a living there, we would never have left.”
Malik, a former power loom worker himself, notes that the vast majority of these workers lack health insurance, paid leave, or any other basic labor protections, leaving them extremely vulnerable to illness or injury. Any interruption to work means an immediate stop to their income. He has spent years organizing workers to collectively demand better working conditions and basic benefits, but progress has been slow. Workers have little leverage to push for change: they are dependent on the meager wages factories offer, which range from 600 to 750 Indian rupees (approximately $6 to $8) per day, or pay based on how many meters of fabric they produce.
After finishing his 12-hour shift around 7 p.m., Pradhan walks back to his housing complex, where the heat offers no reprieve. Nighttime temperatures in Surat regularly hover around 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), so the cubicles remain just as hot and stuffy after dark as they are during the day. If the bathroom queue is not too long, he will take a quick second bucket bath, then head to the on-site canteen for dinner, which usually consists of lentils, rice, and cheap seasonal vegetables like eggplant or potato. Fish is only served once a week.
After eating, Pradhan usually spends an hour or so socializing with other workers at a nearby street tea stall, since sitting inside the overheated cubicle is unbearable. When he finally returns to his room to sleep, the conditions still work against him. “It’s just as hot inside the room at night,” Pradhan says. “We can’t sleep properly. I wake up three or four times every single night.”
Even with his grueling seven-day-a-week schedule, Pradhan spends roughly one-fifth of his income on rent and food at the complex, but still manages to send roughly 6,000 rupees ($63) home to his family in Odisha every month. His routine rarely changes, broken only by rare holidays like Diwali or the Odia New Year, when he travels back to his home state to visit his family.
Through all the hardship, Pradhan holds onto one hope: that his children will be able to build a better life than he has. He is saving to send them to school, so they can get stable, professional jobs that do not require the backbreaking, dangerous labor he endures every day. “I know exactly how hard this work is,” he says. “I will never let my children end up here.”
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US Congress welcomes Taiwan’s parliamentary leader to Washington, affirms support for the island
Against a backdrop of shifting U.S.-China tensions and a pending review of a major arms deal, over 30 bipartisan members of the U.S. House of Representatives gathered Wednesday in Washington D.C. to reaffirm robust U.S. backing for Taiwan, during an official reception welcoming Han Kuo-yu, the president of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan.
The high-profile gathering, held at the Longworth House Office Building, drew some of Capitol Hill’s most prominent figures from both major parties, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu (D-CA), and former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX). Opening the welcome remarks, McCaul left no ambiguity about U.S. congressional sentiment, stating, “It’s very important to me to say that the United States supports you, Mr. Speaker.” Echoing this unified stance, Pelosi emphasized that cross-party and bicameral support for Taiwan is long-standing, framing the backing as rooted not just in a commitment to regional peace, but also in critical shared economic interests tied to global maritime trade security.
Han is leading an eight-person parliamentary delegation that arrived in Washington Tuesday evening, following a preliminary stop in Phoenix, Arizona. That stop highlighted the deep economic interdependence between the U.S. and Taiwan: Phoenix is currently the site of new, cutting-edge fabrication facilities being built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker whose products underpin the global artificial intelligence boom. TSMC’s expansion in Arizona has become a leading example of Taiwan’s outsized importance to the U.S. economy and tech supply chain. Before meeting with House members, Han held closed-door discussions with U.S. senators; the delegation declined to share specific details of those talks, but noted the warm reception from senators matched the enthusiastic welcome House members extended.
The Taiwan issue remains one of the most contentious flashpoints in U.S.-China relations. Beijing formally claims Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and has repeatedly vowed to take control of the self-governing island by force if necessary. Under the long-standing Taiwan Relations Act, a U.S. domestic law, Washington is legally required to provide Taiwan with sufficient defense capabilities to deter any potential invasion from mainland China. The $14 billion arms sales package at the center of current debate already received preliminary approval from Congress months ago, but the Trump administration has held up the deal amid ongoing review. President Donald Trump, following his May diplomatic trip to Beijing, has publicly described the package as a potential bargaining chip in broader U.S.-China negotiations, a framing that drew sharp pushback from U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has stated that long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged, but multiple members of Congress used Wednesday’s reception to press the Trump administration to move forward with the arms deal immediately. “I’m here today … to affirm in the strongest terms that Taiwan is not a bargaining chip. It is an island of freedom. And we need to do all we can to preserve it,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), adding that the U.S. should expedite delivery of every defensive weapon Taiwan requests. Ted Lieu directly criticized the administration’s delay, saying, “I urge the administration to reverse that and to allow their arms sale to proceed.”
A member of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, Han struck a collaborative tone in his address, praising the U.S.’s 250-year legacy of democratic governance and noting that Taiwan shares the U.S.’s core commitments to freedom, democracy, and upholding a rules-based international order. He highlighted the deep economic ties between the two sides: the 23-million-person island has recently surpassed Germany to become the United States’ fourth-largest trading partner, a shift driven largely by global demand for Taiwan’s advanced semiconductors and other high-tech hardware.
Han also used his visit to urge U.S. congressional support for expanding Taiwan’s international participation. Due to Beijing’s territorial claims, no United Nations member state can maintain formal diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan, leaving just 12 small governments and the Holy See to formally recognize Taipei. Beijing has also successfully blocked Taiwan’s membership in most major intergovernmental organizations, including the World Health Organization. “On the international stage, Taiwan feels very lonely in its heart,” Han said. “I am here asking Taiwan’s good friends in Congress … to help us participate in global activities.”
After his meetings in Washington, Han is set to depart Friday on the inaugural nonstop flight between Washington Dulles International Airport and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport operated by Taiwanese carrier EVA Air, a new route that has been framed as another marker of deepening people-to-people and official ties between the U.S. and Taiwan.
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UN: RSF used rape and sexual slavery as weapons of war in Sudan since 2023
Three years into Sudan’s brutal civil war between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), a bombshell new report from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has laid bare the systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, placing the overwhelming majority of documented abuses at the feet of the RSF and its allied militias. The analysis, which covers the period from the outbreak of open conflict in April 2023 through mid-April 2026, documents 546 verified incidents of conflict-related sexual violence across 16 of Sudan’s 18 states, impacting at least 838 people—most of whom are women and girls. The UN’s findings confirm that these acts are not isolated crimes of war, but coordinated, widespread tactics that may rise to the level of crimes against humanity and even genocide.
According to the report’s verified data, 87 percent of all documented sexual violence incidents were carried out by men in RSF uniforms, affiliated fighters, and allied Arab militias. While smaller numbers of abuses were also linked to the SAF, associated security groups, the Joint Forces, and other armed movements, the scale and planning of RSF-perpetrated violence stands apart. The report outlines a clear pattern of coordinated operations: perpetrators arrive in armed convoys, divide operational roles—with some securing locations while others carry out assaults—and target communities along ethnic and political lines. More than 25 percent of verified incidents are gang rapes, in some cases involving 10 or more attackers assaulting a single victim. At least 85 women and girls were held as sexual slaves, forced to complete unpaid domestic labor for fighters and in some cases coerced into generating income for their captors. Many victims were chained, blindfolded, and held hundreds of kilometers from their homes, with at least 59 confirmed pregnancies resulting from rape.
Ethnic targeting has been a central feature of the violence, the report confirms. In West Darfur, Masalit women were explicitly forced to identify their tribe before being assaulted, with perpetrators stating they aimed to force Masalit women to bear the children of Arab fighters. During the 2025 RSF offensive on the internally displaced persons camp at Zamzam, women were targeted based on whether their male relatives were affiliated with the SAF, with sexual assault used as punishment and intimidation. Zaghawa women and girls were disproportionately targeted during the RSF’s final 2025 offensive on el-Fasher. The report documents grotesque, firsthand accounts of atrocities: one victim saw her mother shot dead after begging for her daughter’s safety, before the daughter was gang-raped; another child witnessed her younger sister gang-raped to death. Even in detention facilities across seven states, sexual violence is rampant, with men making up an unusually high 20 percent of victims in these cases, including one Masalit man who died in 2025 from untreated injuries and psychological trauma sustained during sexual torture in RSF custody.
OHCHR concluded there are reasonable grounds to confirm the RSF and its allies have committed widespread war crimes across Darfur, including rape, sexual slavery, torture, and cruel treatment. The coordinated, geographically widespread pattern of abuses in hotspots including El Geneina, Ardamata, Zamzam camp, and el-Fasher meets the threshold for systematic, widespread attacks on civilian populations, meaning these acts may also qualify as crimes against humanity. These findings echo a February 2026 conclusion from the UN fact-finding mission in Sudan that the RSF’s capture of el-Fasher bears the hallmarks of genocide, with sexual violence as a core component of the assault that targeted females ranging in age from 7 to 70 years old, including pregnant women.
Beyond documenting the violence itself, the report highlights the critical danger of persistent impunity for perpetrators. Only 48 of the 546 verified incidents have ever been reported to law enforcement, and just two have moved to formal investigation. In areas under RSF control, no functional formal justice system exists to prosecute abusers. The report also criticizes the SAF: a 2024 amnesty offer for RSF defectors did not explicitly exclude those responsible for sexual violence, creating a pathway for perpetrators to avoid prosecution. In one disturbing case, a woman who was held and sexually assaulted by the RSF was later charged with collaboration by SAF-aligned security forces, and at least one woman has been sentenced to death on similar false charges.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk emphasized that unchecked impunity is deepening harm and locking Sudan into a decades-long cycle of violence. “Sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war. This is a war crime and, if committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack, a crime against humanity,” Turk said. “All perpetrators, including those exercising command responsibility, must be held fully accountable, and victims must be guaranteed access to effective remedy, including reparation.”
The release of the report coincides with growing international alarm over the RSF’s ongoing offensive on el-Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan state, where sustained drone strikes have targeted civilian infrastructure, including key supply routes, fuel stations, and power grids. More than 500,000 people, including 200,000 internally displaced persons, have been cut off from access to basic services. On the same day the OHCHR report was published, six European nations—France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom—issued a joint warning that the atrocities witnessed in el-Fasher must not be repeated in el-Obeid, which UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called “on the precipice of an atrocity.”
While the joint statement called out unnamed external actors fueling the conflict, it stopped short of naming the United Arab Emirates, which has been widely documented as a key backer of the RSF. The UAE has repeatedly denied providing weapons or support to the RSF, but multiple independent investigations since mid-2023 have confirmed weapons transfers to the RSF via a dedicated airbridge through eastern Chad, with the UAE repeatedly identified as the primary supplier. Most recently, Middle East Eye revealed in April 2026 that the RSF receives covert support from an Ethiopian army base in Asosa, with matching military vehicles documented at the Port of Berbera in Somaliland, where the UAE maintains a permanent military base.
On the same day the report was released, a human rights investigator told the UK Parliament that the British government failed to act to prevent atrocities in el-Fasher, citing “political capture” by the UAE and London’s desire to protect its economic and diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi. Nathaniel Raymond, who delivered more than two dozen private briefings with warnings of impending mass atrocities, told lawmakers that the UK— as the UN penholder for Sudan—was the best positioned global power to prevent mass slaughter, but its warnings were repeatedly ignored. “The British government prioritises economic, security, and diplomatic relationships with the UAE above preventing the intentional starvation, forced displacement, and the genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians living in el-Fasher and its surrounding communities,” Raymond told Parliament’s International Development Committee.
International efforts to hold perpetrators accountable are already underway, though they have yet to end the violence. The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on four senior RSF commanders over Darfur atrocities, and the United States formally recognized that RSF actions constitute genocide, sanctioning RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti) in January 2025. The International Criminal Court at The Hague is currently investigating both RSF and SAF commanders for individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since the conflict began.
After three years of war, Sudan faces what the UN and European Union describe as the world’s worst humanitarian and displacement crisis. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced more than 13 million, and pushed over 19.5 million to the brink of famine.
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‘Genocidaires’ delight’: Israeli Ben & Jerry’s flavour sparks social media backlash
A new Israel-exclusive ice cream flavor from the locally independent Ben & Jerry’s operation has ignited fierce online controversy, reigniting long-simmering tensions between the ice cream brand’s Vermont-based co-founders, its global parent company Unilever, and its Israeli licensee over the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Palestinian rights.
Unveiled this week via the official X account of the Israeli government, the new flavor, dubbed “Milk and Honey,” has been framed as the country’s “official ice cream flavor,” with promotional materials noting that all proceeds from the product will go toward supporting communities in southern Israel. Every ingredient used in the new batch carries explicit regional ties: milk and cream are sourced from Kibbutz Alumim, a community located meters from the Gaza separation fence that was targeted in the October 7, 2023 attacks; the chocolate Star of David inclusions are produced at a facility in Be’er Sheva in the Negev (Naqab) desert; and the honey comes from beehives maintained at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, another southern Israeli border community.
Since the 2022 sale of Ben & Jerry’s Israeli operations to local licensee Avi Zinger, the franchise has operated entirely independently of the global Ben & Jerry’s brand, but the release of Milk and Honey has drawn sharp criticism from social media users worldwide, many of whom have tied the launch to Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has been widely condemned by international bodies and human rights groups. Critics have taken to social media to mock and condemn the flavor, with some editing product packaging to rename it “Genocidaires’ Delight,” while others left cutting comments such as “Mmm…tastes like genocide.” The release coincided with the publication of a new United Nations commission of inquiry report released the same week that concluded Israel has deliberately targeted Palestinian children and committed acts of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, as well as additional war crimes in the occupied West Bank. This finding aligns with multiple previous conclusions from leading genocide scholars, legal experts, and major global human rights organizations that have reached the same determination that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.
Many social media commentators also highlighted the deep internal rift that has split the Ben & Jerry’s brand for years, noting that the global company’s co-founders and original board have repeatedly publicly endorsed Palestinian rights and have already labeled Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide. One commenter argued the new flavor was fittingly “the most Israeli ice cream in the sense that it was stolen from the original owners and Israelis are pretending it belongs to them.”
The controversy is the latest chapter in a years-long dispute over the brand’s longstanding commitment to social justice activism, which its co-founders say has been systematically sidelined by parent company Unilever. The rift first opened in 2021, when co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announced they would end sales of Ben & Jerry’s products in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and declined to renew their license agreement with the Israeli franchise. Unilever, which acquired the brand in 2000 under a merger agreement that guaranteed the co-founders autonomy to pursue social justice values, responded by selling the entire Israeli operation to Zinger, prompting the co-founders to file suit against the company for breach of contract. The suit was eventually settled for an undisclosed sum.
Tensions escalated dramatically after the outbreak of the 2023 Gaza war. Ben & Jerry’s global leadership filed a second suit against Unilever, accusing the parent company of silencing its repeated attempts to speak out in support of Palestinian rights. The brand alleges it was blocked from issuing four separate public statements: one calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, one advocating for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, one expressing support for pro-Palestinian student protesters on university campuses, and one calling for safe passage for Palestinian refugees fleeing Gaza to the United Kingdom. In 2025, co-founder Jerry Greenfield resigned from his position on the board, citing the complete erosion of the values-based autonomy he and Cohen had negotiated with Unilever, saying the company’s original mission had been fully silenced.
Cohen has continued his campaign to “free” the brand from Unilever and its affiliate Magnum Ice Cream, and has become a high-profile activist calling for an end to the Gaza war. He was arrested in May 2025 during a protest against U.S. support for Israel at a U.S. Senate health committee hearing. Last year, he announced plans to release a watermelon-flavored ice cream — a well-known symbol of Palestinian solidarity — that would raise awareness of Palestinian suffering under occupation and call for permanent peace. Unilever blocked the planned release, prompting Cohen to announce he would produce the flavor independently.
Middle East Eye reached out to Ben & Jerry’s Israel, Ben & Jerry’s USA, Cohen, Greenfield, and Zinger for comment on the new flavor and the ongoing controversy, and had not received responses at the time of publication.
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Powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake strikes off northern Japan. No tsunami warning
A 6.9-magnitude seismic event shook the offshore area of Japan’s northern Iwate Prefecture on Thursday morning, prompting routine safety checks and emergency preparedness protocols across the country’s northeastern region, with no immediate reports of casualties or widespread destruction confirmed. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) quickly issued an initial assessment, placing the quake’s depth at approximately 50 kilometers, or 31 miles, below the ocean floor. The United States Geological Survey matched JMA’s magnitude reading, aligning on the key details of the seismic activity.
This tremor hit during the bustling morning commute, a time when millions of Japanese residents were traveling to work and school, and light shaking was even felt as far south as the capital city of Tokyo. Critically, the JMA confirmed immediately after the quake that there was no threat of a tsunami following the seismic shift.
The epicenter sits in a seismically active zone that has seen multiple significant tremors in recent months. In December alone, a separate quake in the same broader region triggered a seven-day national advisory warning for potential large-scale seismic activity.
Top Japanese government officials moved quickly to coordinate response efforts. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, the country’s top government spokesperson, confirmed that as of initial assessments, no injuries or structural damage had been documented. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo that the government’s emergency response task force had activated immediately, placing public safety as its top priority. The prime minister added that teams are actively collecting on-the-ground data and standing by to launch relief operations if any damage is reported. She also issued a public warning for residents across affected northeastern prefectures to remain alert for possible aftershocks in the coming hours and days.
On-the-ground reports from local communities echoed the official assessment of no major harm. Tomoko Nagane, principal of a public elementary school in the Aomori Prefecture town of Hashikami, spoke to public broadcaster NHK about the experience. She said she was en route to the school when the national earthquake early alert system activated on her phone, and she felt sustained moderate lateral shaking while driving. All students who had already arrived at the campus were unhurt, she confirmed, though a number of young children cried out of fear during the tremor. School officials canceled classes for the remainder of the day, and all students were safely returned to their families by mid-morning.
NHK correspondents reporting from two of the closest major population centers, Sendai and Morioka, told viewers they felt shaking that lasted roughly two minutes, but had not observed any visible damage to infrastructure during initial checks. Broadcast footage from the region showed commuters continuing their daily routines as normal shortly after the tremor passed.
In line with standard safety protocols, East Japan Railway Co., which operates intercity and local rail services across the Tohoku region, temporarily halted service on several bullet train and local commuter lines to allow structural and safety inspections of tracks and infrastructure.
One key reassurance came for facilities with major seismic risk: government spokesperson Kihara confirmed that all nuclear facilities in the affected area, including the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant – the site of the 2011 meltdown following a massive quake and tsunami – and a spent fuel reprocessing facility in Aomori Prefecture, had not recorded any abnormalities from Thursday’s tremor.
Japan sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, an active tectonic boundary that makes it one of the most earthquake-prone nations on Earth, with a highly developed early warning and emergency response system designed to reduce harm from regular seismic activity.