Global Pulse

标签： Oceania

大洋洲

  • Fuel prices set to jump 32 cents a litre as government scraps cost-of-living relief

    Fuel prices set to jump 32 cents a litre as government scraps cost-of-living relief

    Australian motorists are bracing for an immediate 32-cent-per-litre jump in fuel prices after Energy Minister Chris Bowen confirmed this week that the federal government’s temporary cost-of-living fuel relief scheme will expire as scheduled on June 30, with no extension planned.

    Introduced in early April, the policy was designed to counter runaway global fuel prices triggered by heightened geopolitical tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, the critical maritime chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s daily energy shipments pass. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran pushed international benchmark crude oil from roughly $56 U.S. dollars per barrel in January to a temporary peak of $120 U.S. dollars per barrel, passing through the cost directly to Australian drivers at the pump.

    To offset this spike, the government implemented two key relief measures: it halved the national fuel excise tax, and arranged to return the unexpected GST windfall gained from higher fuel prices after state and territory governments agreed to cede their share of the extra revenue. Combined, the cuts have reduced fuel prices by approximately 32 cents per litre over the past three months, at a total cost to the federal budget of $2.55 billion.

    Bowen emphasized that the policy was always structured as a temporary intervention, not a permanent change. “We’ve been very clear, this was a temporary reduction in the excise that was always intended to be temporary,” Bowen told reporters on Saturday. “While the Prime Minister and treasurer have repeatedly confirmed they will monitor the latest market data, our stated intention has always been to let the measure expire at the end of this month.”

    The temporary tax cut has already had a measurable impact on Australia’s national inflation rate. Headline inflation hit a peak of 4.6% in March, before dropping to 4.2% in the following month, a decline driven in large part by lower transportation costs tied to the fuel excise reduction. With the policy set to expire, economists expect inflation will tick back upward in the coming third quarter, adding pressure to household budgets already strained by broad-based cost-of-living increases.

    Global oil markets have calmed somewhat since the April peak, with crude currently trading around $89 U.S. dollars per barrel ($126 Australian) amid ongoing diplomatic negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. However, industry analysts remain divided over how quickly full shipping traffic will resume through the Strait of Hormuz once a potential peace deal is reached, leaving future price trajectory uncertain. Under standard market dynamics, every $10 U.S. dollar increase in global crude prices translates to an extra 10 cents per litre for Australian consumers.

    Bowen also used the announcement to push back against criticism from the political opposition, accusing the Liberal-National coalition of “irrelevant scaremongering” over domestic fuel supplies. “First they predicted shortages around the Easter holiday period, then a couple of weeks ago the shadow minister claimed there would be widespread shortages in June,” Bowen said. “We are now in June, and Australia holds record volumes of fuel reserves. While this government has worked proactively to secure consistent supply, the Liberals have peddled misinformation and gotten the basic facts wrong. We have avoided fuel rationing, we have avoided shortages, and we hold more fuel reserves than at any point in the last several years. We will continue to adapt to international uncertainty and the ongoing regional conflict to guarantee adequate fuel supplies for all Australians.”

  • Hismile fined $138,600 by consumer watchdog for using staff in fake reviews

    Hismile fined $138,600 by consumer watchdog for using staff in fake reviews

    One of Australia’s most viral social media-first oral healthcare brands has been handed a substantial financial penalty by the national consumer and corporate regulator for deceptive advertising practices that tricked consumers into purchasing misrepresented products. Popular toothpaste and teeth care brand Hismile, whose products are stocked in major Australian supermarket chains Woolworths and Coles, has been ordered to pay $138,600 in total penalties following seven infringement notices issued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over false and misleading claims made across its social media channels.

    The ACCC’s investigation uncovered a core deceptive practice at the heart of Hismile’s marketing campaigns: the brand had shared short-form social media videos presenting paid employees as unbiased, random shoppers offering genuine, unsolicited praise for Hismile products. These fake organic testimonials were designed to convince viewers of the brand’s quality through seemingly authentic user experiences, a tactic that has become common in influencer and social media marketing.

    A second deceptive claim was tied to the brand’s now-discontinued Glostik Tooth Gloss product. Marketing videos for the item implied that it permanently removed existing stains from tooth enamel, but the product only delivered temporary cosmetic results that concealed stains rather than eliminating them entirely. The product has been pulled from shelves and Hismile’s product lineup following the regulator’s investigation.

    Hismile has built a massive global social media following, amassing more than 5 million followers on TikTok alone, largely thanks to its viral, unconventional product collaborations — including a widely publicized KFC-flavored toothpaste that generated massive online engagement. That massive reach makes deceptive advertising all the more impactful, ACCC officials noted.

    “Misleading social media advertisements can reach millions of consumers and may impact their purchasing decisions,” ACCC Commissioner Luke Woodward said in a statement following the ruling. “All businesses must ensure they are not making misleading or deceptive claims on social media platforms.”

    Woodward emphasized that the deceptive content led consumers to purchase products that did not deliver the results Hismile advertised, a violation of Australia’s core consumer protection laws. “The ACCC has prioritised consumer and fair-trading issues relating to manipulative or deceptive advertising in the digital economy for several years,” he added.

    Hismile has admitted that its posted content was misleading and violated the Australian Consumer Law. As part of the resolution with the ACCC, the brand has committed to several binding changes to its future marketing practices: it will no longer misrepresent employees as unaffiliated members of the public when sharing product testimonials, reviews or commentary. It will also develop and roll out a formal company-wide compliance program focused on competition and consumer law, and will publish a public notice on its website and social media platforms detailing the ACCC’s enforcement action to inform past and future customers of the issue.

  • Blues clues: Mitchell Moses trains with the Blues in huge Origin boost as NSW players support Ashley Klein following gambling report

    Blues clues: Mitchell Moses trains with the Blues in huge Origin boost as NSW players support Ashley Klein following gambling report

    As the NSW Blues finalize preparations for Wednesday’s State of Origin II in Melbourne, the biggest question hanging over the camp all week has centered on five-eighth Mitchell Moses’ fitness – and a pivotal Saturday training session in Gosford has delivered a promising update just hours before the squad’s departure for the game.

    The Eels star’s participation in the full group session has put him firmly on track to reclaim his starting spot for the series-deciding match, marking a positive turnaround after a hamstring injury derailed his Origin I plans. Moses first tore his left hamstring during extra training just 48 hours before the opening game in Sydney, forcing officials to rule him out a day out from kickoff and prompt a last-minute call-up for Canberra Raiders standout Ethan Strange.

    Strange turned in a man-of-the-match caliber debut, partnering with halfback Nathan Cleary to fuel a stunning second-half comeback win for the Blues, and remains the ready-made replacement should Moses suffer a late setback. After training separately from the main squad on Thursday – a development that stoked widespread speculation about his game-day chances – Moses moved without visible limitation during Saturday’s session, quelling many of the lingering concerns about his condition. Blues coach Laurie Daley had flagged earlier in the week that getting through the full Saturday session was a non-negotiable milestone for Moses to be named in the side, and the playmaker has now cleared that key hurdle.

    Blues players have remained uniformly confident that Moses will be fit to take the field, even as he completes a modified, restricted training program this week. Hooker Reece Robson told reporters ahead of Saturday’s session that the squad has built-in contingencies for both scenarios, but that Moses himself is certain he will be ready. “Whatever happens, we’ve got plans in place for either outcome,” Robson said. “Mitch is confident he’ll be right, so we’re giving him every opportunity to get up to speed before kickoff. Even if he doesn’t get a full week of training in, most of us have played hundreds of reps alongside him at the club and representative level. When Ethan came in for Origin I with barely 24 hours notice, he stepped in and performed brilliantly, so we know we can adapt no matter what.”

    Prop Mitch Barnett echoed that confidence, saying he has no doubts Moses will take the field on Wednesday. “He’s straight up about how he’s feeling, and he’s 100% confident he’ll play,” Barnett said. “He’s out there running with us today, and I don’t have a single shadow of a doubt he’ll be good to go.”

    Off the field, the Blues have thrown their support behind Origin II referee Ashley Klein after reports emerged this week that the top NRL official previously battled a severe gambling addiction that saw him lose more than $400,000 on horse and greyhound racing. Klein has publicly stated that his past gambling never involved rugby league and never impacted his work as an on-field official, and Blues players say the former struggle is a personal matter that should not affect his appointment to Wednesday’s game.

    Barnett said he supports Klein and hopes he continues to receive any support he needs. “That’s a personal issue for him, and as someone who cares about other people, I hope he’s doing well and has all the help he needs,” Barnett said. “It doesn’t have any bearing on this game for me.” Robson echoed that sentiment, praising Klein’s long record of strong performance at the sport’s highest level. “He’s a great referee who has delivered on the biggest stage for years, that’s why he keeps getting these big appointments,” Robson said. “The other stuff is a personal issue he’s worked through, and I’m sure he has all the support he needs around him.”

  • US clears Paramount’s $111 bn Warner Bros. takeover

    US clears Paramount’s $111 bn Warner Bros. takeover

    After eight months of rigorous regulatory scrutiny, the U.S. Department of Justice has given unconditional approval to Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, a landmark media combination that reshapes the landscape of Hollywood and global streaming while drawing sharp criticism over potential political influence and antitrust harm. The department’s Antitrust Division concluded the tie-up would not undermine competition or harm U.S. consumers, even suggesting it could bolster competitive pressures in an increasingly crowded media space. The greenlight marks a defining victory for David Ellison, CEO of Paramount, whose father Larry Ellison—billionaire co-founder of Oracle and a close personal ally of former President Donald Trump—provided the bulk of the financing to seal the deal. The approval capped a contentious months-long bidding process that pitted Paramount against streaming giant Netflix, with Ellison’s personal financial guarantee ultimately winning over Warner Bros. Discovery’s board of directors after Netflix withdrew from the contest. Even as the federal government signed off, the merger faces significant remaining hurdles on multiple fronts. A coalition of 10 U.S. states, led by California, is preparing to file an antitrust lawsuit as soon as this month, with California Attorney General Rob Bonta confirming this week that the acquisition remains an active investigation. European Union regulators are also conducting their own parallel review of the combination, adding another layer of regulatory uncertainty. Critics of the merger have raised two core sets of objections. On one side, a group of Senate Democrats led by Senator Elizabeth Warren raised alarms that the deal could be tainted by political favoritism and corruption, calling on the Justice Department to base its decision solely on law and factual evidence rather than outside influence. On the other side, the Hollywood creative community has broadly opposed the combination, with hundreds of actors and directors signing an open letter warning the merger will further reduce production output in an industry already reeling from years of aggressive consolidation and widespread cost-cutting. The Justice Department directly rejected these industry concerns, stating that the evidence compiled during its eight-month review did not support claims that the merger would reduce media content production. The origin of the mega-deal stretches back to 2023, when Netflix and Paramount launched competing bids to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery and its vast, highly valuable catalog of classic film and television content. Many Hollywood stakeholders initially backed Netflix as a more favorable alternative to Paramount, but Paramount’s steadily rising offer—backed by the Ellison family’s deep financial resources—eventually pushed Netflix to abandon its bid, clearing the way for Paramount to lock up the board’s support. Once completed, the combined entity will control an unparalleled portfolio of media assets, including global news outlet CNN, Warner Bros. Pictures, one of Hollywood’s largest film studios, and the popular HBO Max streaming platform, creating a new media giant poised to compete with the largest streaming and entertainment companies in the world.

  • US deportation flight carrying Iranians lands in C.African Republic

    US deportation flight carrying Iranians lands in C.African Republic

    A U.S. deportation flight carrying dozens of migrants from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey and Georgia has landed in the Central African Republic (CAR), lawyers and human rights advocates confirmed Friday, marking the latest controversial third-country deportation carried out by the Trump administration as part of its aggressive immigration crackdown.

    The policy of deporting migrants—even those granted limited legal protection in the U.S.—to third countries with which they have no personal or familial ties has become a core pillar of President Donald Trump’s expanded immigration enforcement push. Notably, this flight included Iranian nationals who had previously fled their home country, despite Washington being officially at war with the Tehran government that Trump has labeled a “terrorist regime.” Legal representatives confirmed at least two Iranian women were among those on board, a group that included people granted “withholding of removal” status. This designation, which offers weaker protections than full asylum, was still recognized as a legitimate form of legal protection for migrants facing danger if returned to their home countries under previous U.S. administrations.

    The flight departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, Thursday evening, according to tracking data from ICE Flight Monitor, a project run by the non-profit human rights organization Human Rights First. After a scheduled stopover in Ghana—already a well-established regional hub for U.S. third-country deportations—the plane touched down in Bangui, the CAR’s capital, around 21:00 GMT. Immigration lawyer Alma David, who is familiar with the details of the operation, said it remains unclear whether any migrants disembarked in Ghana or all passengers were brought on to the CAR. Ghanaian immigration officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment from AFP.

    The deportation destination itself raises immediate alarm, as the U.S. State Department currently maintains a level 4 travel advisory for the CAR, urging Americans “do not travel to Central African Republic for any reason.” Though years of intervention by a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Rwandan defense forces and Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group have slightly reduced large-scale violence, armed rebel groups and anti-government factions still control large swathes of the mineral-rich, deeply impoverished country, leaving it one of the most unstable nations on the African continent.

    Emily Trostle, an attorney representing several of the deportees, warned that the migrants face extreme risk of being forcibly expelled onward to the countries they originally fled—a pattern that has repeated across other U.S. deportation operations in Africa. “These individuals are being removed from the United States and abandoned in a country where they have no status, no connection and no support network,” Trostle told AFP. “We fear they will ultimately be forced to return to the countries they originally fled.”

    The Trump administration has defended its third-country deportation policy, arguing that it is only prohibited from sending people with “withholding of removal” status directly to their country of origin, where they face verified danger. The administration claims this legal framework allows it to send such migrants to any other nation, even if those countries then choose to deport them onward to their original home. Past cases have already documented widespread abuse: deportees and their legal teams have reported unsanitary, overcrowded holding conditions in Ghana and prolonged, indefinite detention in Eswatini. In some cases, migrants deported to African hubs including Ghana and Equatorial Guinea have already been sent back to home countries where U.S. immigration judges previously ruled they would face persecution or harm.

    This landing in Bangui is believed to be the first U.S. deportation operation carried out under a new opaque deportation agreement between Washington and the CAR, one of several non-transparent deals the Trump administration has struck with African governments in recent months. Local civil society leaders say CAR authorities have refused to share any details about the agreement or the status of the incoming migrants. “We don’t know if these migrants who are coming to and will be received on Central African soil are in transit or if they are entitled to apply for asylum,” said Paul Crescent Beninga, a Central African political scientist and civil society leader. “The government doesn’t want to provide any answers, the government isn’t communicating.”

    A U.S. State Department spokesperson reiterated the administration’s hardline stance on immigration but declined to answer questions about the terms of the deal with the CAR, saying only: “we remain unwavering in our commitment to end illegal and mass immigration.” CAR authorities also did not respond to requests for comment.

    The controversial operation comes just one week after a landmark lawsuit was filed against the U.S. and Equatorial Guinea at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Africa’s top regional human rights body. The suit seeks to halt U.S. deportations to Equatorial Guinea, which has become another key transit hub for U.S. third-country deportations, and block the Equatorial Guinean government from expelling migrants onward to their high-risk home countries.

  • David Beckham gets Hollywood star as World Cup begins in US

    David Beckham gets Hollywood star as World Cup begins in US

    As the 2026 FIFA World Cup prepared to kick off its first match on U.S. soil, global football icon David Beckham received one of entertainment’s most prestigious honors – a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 51-year-old former Manchester United and England captain, who cemented his legacy as one of football’s most recognizable global ambassadors, received the honor on a sun-drenched Los Angeles boulevard Friday, with A-list friends, family and adoring fans in attendance.

    Hollywood legend and Beckham’s close personal friend Tom Cruise took to the stage to celebrate the English footballer’s transformative impact on soccer in the United States, an achievement he said deserves far more recognition than a star on a sidewalk. Reflecting on Beckham’s 2007 move to LA Galaxy, where he spent six seasons raising the profile of Major League Soccer (MLS), Cruise noted how the star’s arrival shifted American public perception of the sport forever.

    “When David arrived, Major League Soccer had just 13 teams. Today, it has 30. That’s the impact we’re celebrating today: not just an extraordinary playing career, but a legacy that changed the trajectory of a sport across North America,” Cruise told the gathered crowd. “People who had never watched soccer suddenly had a reason to tune in. Beckham changed this game in this country.”

    For his part, a humbled Beckham called the honor a surreal moment that he never could have imagined as a working-class kid growing up in England. “I’ve always been a dreamer, but I could never have imagined that an honor like this would come to a working-class English soccer player like me,” he said. “How fitting then that I am here today as we prepare to celebrate the opening here in the US of the 2026 World Cup. It’s a powerful moment to recognize how the sport I love so much has grown in this country over the past three decades.”

    Beckham also paid tribute to Cruise, who first welcomed him to Los Angeles nearly 20 years ago, calling the opportunity to be honored by one of Hollywood’s biggest stars “mind-blowing.” “To stand here in front of my friend Tom Cruise, the greatest movie star of our time, is quite frankly overwhelming,” he said. “You welcomed us to LA 20 years ago, and you have been a loyal friend and an inspiration to me ever since.”

    Victoria Beckham, David’s wife, former Spice Girls member and now successful fashion designer and entrepreneur, emphasized that the honor comes at a pivotal moment for American soccer. “Soccer in America is entering one of the most exciting chapters in its history, which makes this incredible honor feel all the more timely,” she said, echoing the widely held view that the 2026 World Cup will cement the U.S.’s status as a major global soccer market.

    This year’s World Cup is co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada, marking the second time the U.S. has hosted the tournament after its debut as host in 1994. The U.S. men’s national team was set to play its opening match of the tournament against Paraguay in Los Angeles later the same day Beckham received his star.

    After retiring from professional playing in 2013 following a 20-year career stints with global powerhouses including Real Madrid, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain, Beckham has continued to shape the growth of American soccer. He co-founded Inter Miami CF, which shocked the global sports world in 2023 when it signed Argentine megastar Lionel Messi, leading the expansion club to its first-ever MLS title last season. Beyond sports, Beckham has also built a successful career in media and entertainment, launching content production company Studio 99 in 2019.

  • Bruce Springsteen music center set to open in New Jersey

    Bruce Springsteen music center set to open in New Jersey

    As one of the most iconic native sons of the Garden State, rock legend Bruce Springsteen is about to receive a permanent, heartfelt tribute from his home: the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, a new $53 million museum celebrating both his decades-long career and the broader tapestry of American music, is set to open its doors to the public this Saturday in Long Branch, New Jersey. This coastal town is Springsteen’s birthplace, and sits just minutes from Asbury Park, the working-class seaside community that fostered the young musician’s growth and carved its indelible mark on his artistic voice.

    Spanning two floors and covering roughly 3,000 square meters of exhibition space, the museum’s layout is designed to weave together the broader history of American roots and popular music with the specific story of Springsteen’s rise to stardom. One entire floor is dedicated to tracing the evolution of core American music genres, from blues, country and jazz to modern hip-hop. A central throughline of this section is highlighting the long tradition of protest music that has shaped American culture, featuring iconic artists from Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Nina Simone to Public Enemy, Kendrick Lamar, and Springsteen himself. Springsteen, a well-documented vocal critic of former President Donald Trump, introduces this theme in a 25-minute introductory film that greets all visitors upon arrival, where he frames himself as one messenger in a long, unbroken line of musical storytellers.

    Exhibition curators drew direct inspiration from Springsteen’s own words to shape the museum’s design. According to Jared Gilbert, an associate at lead architectural firm CookFox, Springsteen’s memoir *Born to Run* and the narratives woven into his song lyrics served as the core inspiration for many of the space’s key design choices. The museum’s collection features a host of one-of-a-kind artifacts loaned by artists or their estates, including a gold jacket once owned by Elvis Presley, a saxophone played by jazz legend John Coltrane, a guitar from rock icon Eddie Van Halen, and a signature cap from Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. Bob Santelli, the center’s executive director and a close personal friend of Springsteen, told reporters that securing these rare items was far simpler than many expected, noting that Springsteen’s reputation and name opened almost every door for the curatorial team. The entire project, which will house Springsteen’s personal professional archives, was funded primarily through donations from high-net-worth fans of the rock star, Santelli added.

    To make the collection accessible to all visitors, the museum integrates interactive listening stations and touchscreen displays that let guests explore hundreds of tracks across different styles and eras. Curators acknowledged one notable gap, however: popular dance genres including disco, funk, house and techno are not featured in the genre exhibition, a omission the team says was purely due to space constraints rather than an intentional choice.

    The museum’s upper floor is dedicated entirely to tracing Springsteen’s decades-long career, starting from his earliest live performances on the campus of Monmouth University, through the formation of his long-time backing group the E Street Band, his commercial breakthrough in the mid-1970s, and the global blockbuster success of his 1984 seminal album *Born in the U.S.A.*. A large, dedicated section of the exhibition unpacks the album’s iconic title track, clarifying its nuanced message for the many listeners who still misinterpret it as a straightforward patriotic anthem: the song was actually written to condemn the poor treatment of Vietnam War veterans after they returned home from service.

    Additional interactive and personal exhibits include a virtual library holding the key books that shaped Springsteen as an artist – the singer, who dropped out of college, shares in a recorded video that he only developed his love of reading at age 28 – and a replica recording studio where visitors can experiment with mixing their own musical tracks. Notably, while Springsteen used his 20-date U.S. tour completed in May to openly criticize former President Trump at every stop, the former president’s name does not appear anywhere in the museum’s permanent exhibitions. Santelli explained that the center has intentionally kept its core narrative apolitical, noting that Springsteen’s personal political views are his own, not the institutional stance of the museum. To address the intersection of music and politics that runs through Springsteen’s work and American music broadly, the center will launch a six-month temporary exhibit alongside the opening, titled *Chimes of Freedom: Politics, Protest and the Power of Song*, which will explore that theme in depth.

  • Plane trouble delays pope’s return after migrant-focused Spain visit

    Plane trouble delays pope’s return after migrant-focused Spain visit

    Pope Leo XIV’s seven-day visit to Spain, a trip defined by its laser focus on the global migrant crisis, concluded Friday with an unexpected twist: a last-minute technical fault with his chartered Iberia flight forced a three-hour delay to his return journey to Vatican City.

    The 70-year-old head of the global Catholic Church, which counts 1.4 billion adherents worldwide, had already boarded the aircraft at Tenerife’s airport and been formally waved off by Spanish King Felipe VI when the flight captain notified passengers of an unserviceable engine issue. Pope Leo immediately disembarked, and arrangements were quickly made to fly him back to Rome aboard the Spanish royal air force’s Falcon jet, which had carried King Felipe to the Canary Island earlier in the day. The rest of the papal entourage, including accompanying journalists and Vatican officials, were set to depart on a backup plane Iberia dispatched from Madrid.

    The departure delay capped a final day heavily focused on the migrant experience in the Canary Islands, which has become the primary entry point for thousands of people undertaking dangerous sea crossings from North Africa to reach European soil. Before traveling to the airport, Pope Leo led an open-air mass at the Port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, drawing an estimated crowd of 40,000 worshippers and attendees.

    Earlier that morning, during a meeting with local migrant support organizations, the pontiff shone a light on the often-overlooked struggles migrants face after reaching European shores, warning of a “silent shipwreck” that leaves many isolated, unemployed, and disconnected from social support. “Too many arrive only to be left alone in a city, without a voice, without community ties, stable work or a sense of security,” he said. He also issued a forceful rebuke to human traffickers who profit from dangerous irregular migration routes, urging them to “stop and repent” — a comment that drew loud applause from the gathered crowd.

    During his public remarks, Pope Leo also laid out clear guidance for migrant integration, urging new arrivals to learn the language of their host country, respect local laws, and engage with national customs. He doubled down on a core message of his papacy earlier in the trip: “Human dignity has no passport,” a line he delivered after laying a wreath at sea in Arguineguín, Gran Canaria, to honor the thousands of migrants who have died attempting to cross to the Canary Islands. He also blessed a weathered blue wooden cross crafted from debris from a migrant boat that made landfall on the island.

    Attendees at the papal events praised the pope’s unwavering focus on migrant issues. Candida Feo, a 54-year-old local who brought her two children to see the pontiff, told Agence France-Presse that drawing global attention to the crisis was a critical step forward. “If people come here, it’s for a reason. Anything that helps focus attention on the issue seems very good to me,” she said. For 16-year-old Aliu Ceesay, a Gambian migrant who arrived in the Canaries by boat just one month prior to seek work to support his family, the pope’s message felt deeply personal. “He is so kind, so good. He doesn’t care if we are black or white, Muslim or Christian. He wants to help us,” Ceesay said while waiting to catch a glimpse of the pontiff.

    Data from the International Organization for Migration underscores the severity of the crisis: nearly 1,200 people died or went missing on the crossing from Africa to the Canary Islands last year alone, making it one of the deadliest irregular migration routes on the planet.

    Beyond his work highlighting migration, Pope Leo’s week-long visit included several major stops across mainland Spain. In Madrid, he addressed the Spanish parliament, where he repeated his call for “safe and legal pathways” for migration and a “respectful welcome and real opportunities for integration” for new arrivals. He also celebrated an open-air mass that drew more than one million attendees, and held a private hour-long meeting with six survivors of clerical sexual abuse — a longstanding priority for the modern papacy. In Barcelona, he marked the 100th anniversary of architect Antoni Gaudí’s death by blessing the final completed tower of Gaudí’s iconic Sagrada Família Basilica. The new tower, the tallest of the basilica’s 18 spires, brings the structure to its full planned height of 172.5 meters, making it the tallest church in the world.

    The pope’s focus on migrant issues will continue next month, when he is scheduled to travel to Lampedusa, the Italian island that has also emerged as a key entry point for migrants arriving in Europe, further cementing the issue as a defining priority of his early papacy.

  • UK faces hard choices over military spending: analysts

    UK faces hard choices over military spending: analysts

    The recent high-profile resignations of two senior British defence officials have thrust long-simmering tensions over the United Kingdom’s military resourcing and future strategy into the global spotlight, leaving Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new administration facing a series of unenviable decisions over the country’s defence priorities. Just days after former Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns stepped down in protest of the government’s upcoming, still-unreleased 10-year Defence Investment Plan (DIP), Starmer appointed Dan Jarvis, a veteran ex-Parachute Regiment officer with a decades-long record of security service, to take the helm of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Thursday.

    At the core of the controversy is a projected £28 billion funding gap in the MoD budget between the present day and 2030, a deficit that has already eroded military readiness and forced difficult trade-offs between modernisation, infrastructure upgrades, and global operational capability. In his scathing resignation letter, Healey accused Starmer and the Treasury of failing to allocate the critical resources needed to protect UK national security amid a rapidly growing global threat environment, noting that promised additional defence funding had been “backloaded” to the final years of the 10-year plan. Fenella McGerty, a senior analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, explained that this funding structure creates a so-called “hockey-stick” growth trajectory, where nearly all spending increases do not take effect until the end of the decade, leaving the military underresourced for immediate readiness needs.

    Pressure to increase defence spending has also come from across the Atlantic, where former US President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on NATO allies to raise their own defence contributions and reduce reliance on US security support. Starmer has already made public pledges to incrementally raise UK defence spending: the target is set to reach 2.5% of GDP next year, rising to 3% by 2029 if the Labour Party wins the next general election, and hitting 3.5% by 2035. However, defence analysts argue even these increases will not be enough to fund a truly global military posture. “This would only cover operations very much focused on the mainland and the near vicinity of the UK,” explained Jamie Gaskarth, a senior research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House.

    Nick Reynolds, a land warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute, emphasized that the UK faces unavoidable hard choices about which military capabilities it can afford to maintain. Both the British Army and Royal Navy require extensive refurbishment of existing aging equipment, he noted, a process that will demand a significant budget increase even before any major modernization efforts can begin. Recent operational challenges have laid bare these resource gaps: when conflict erupted in the Middle East earlier this year following US-Israeli strikes on Iran, it took the Royal Navy several weeks to deploy just one single vessel to the region to reassure allied partners. Gaskarth attributed this delay to a long-running strategic shift toward maintaining fewer, more technologically advanced platforms, a trend that has left the UK with too few deployable assets to respond to multiple global crises simultaneously. “It actually means in a crisis you can no longer rely on the idea that you will have assets in place in different regions around the world,” he said.

    Beyond underfunding, the second major point of contention from the resigning ministers is the DIP’s perceived lack of innovation, particularly its failure to prioritize emerging technologies that have already proven decisive on the battlefield in Ukraine. Carns, who resigned shortly after Healey, publicly criticized the plan for being designed to “fight the last war rather than the next one”, arguing it failed to incorporate critical lessons from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. He called for increased investment in uncrewed systems, famously noting that “data is the new gunpowder” for modern warfare.

    Unnamed senior military sources quoted by The Times have echoed this criticism, arguing the unpublished plan overemphasizes expensive traditional hardware such as new warships, main battle tanks, and fighter jets at the expense of next-generation capabilities including AI-enabled command software, space and cyber defence tools, hypersonic weapons, and low-cost attack drones. Reynolds explained that drones offer a uniquely cost-effective lethal capability for modern militaries: “Drones are a cheap, highly precise artillery system and give a lot more range than traditional artillery. So it’s essential they are part of the force structure, because they can grant an affordable volume of lethal capability.” While the UK has already begun investing in drone technology, Gaskarth noted that it has not yet made the wholesale strategic shift needed, with current policy focused on domestic production rather than rapidly scaling capabilities through partnership with Ukrainian manufacturers. Gaskarth added that while senior policymakers, military leaders, and politicians all acknowledge that threats to the UK are growing and immediate, the pace of defence reform remains glacial.

    The long-delayed DIP is currently scheduled for publication ahead of the upcoming NATO summit set to take place in Turkey on July 7, Starmer has confirmed. In terms of identifying the UK’s most pressing security threats, analysts and officials broadly agree that Russia remains the most urgent immediate threat following Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while China poses a growing long-term challenge to global security norms. Carns, in a post on social media following his resignation, argued that Britain has spent a decade shrinking its global influence at a time when major powers are rewriting the rules of global communications, energy, and trade. “Right now the rules on communications, energy and trade are being rewritten. By China. By Russia. By countries that take their own security seriously. We need to be at that table. That’s a choice we must make,” he wrote.

  • Ebola spreading into new areas in northeast DR Congo: WHO

    Ebola spreading into new areas in northeast DR Congo: WHO

    In an urgent alert issued Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is spreading into previously unaffected zones, with a far larger caseload than initial detection efforts have captured. The global health body emphasized that current response capacity falls drastically short of what is needed to rein in the virus, particularly as isolation bed infrastructure lags behind projected demand driven by the outbreak’s rapid spread.

    According to the WHO’s most recent official data, 676 confirmed Ebola cases and 136 confirmed deaths have been recorded since the outbreak was first formally declared on May 15. An additional 119 suspected cases are under investigation, and 32 confirmed patients have successfully recovered from the virus to date.

    Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks in the region, the current event is driven by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which no universally approved vaccines or targeted treatments currently exist. The outbreak is centered primarily in the DRC’s Ituri province, but confirmed cases have now been documented in two additional neighboring provinces: North Kivu and South Kivu.

    “The outbreak continues to expand both in terms of case numbers but also in terms of geographic spread,” explained Olivier le Polain, WHO’s lead for epidemiology and analytics for the outbreak response. Speaking to reporters from Beni in North Kivu, le Polain noted that new cases are being identified in previously untouched health zones across the three affected provinces on an almost daily basis.

    He attributed the rapid expansion to two key factors: the outbreak’s larger underlying scale than official counts reflect, and the high rate of population movement across the region. While early new cases in unexposed zones were linked to travel from established outbreak hotspots, le Polain confirmed that community transmission is now occurring within these new geographic areas. “There are still many blind spots in some areas that are high risk,” he added.

    Contact tracing, a core tool for halting Ebola spread, has improved but still remains below the threshold needed for effective control. Currently, just over 70 percent of known close contacts of confirmed cases are being monitored appropriately. “That’s a huge improvement from where we were about a week or two ago, but it’s still too low to ensure appropriate control,” le Polain said.

    Even as surveillance efforts expand, the lack of adequate isolation infrastructure creates a major bottleneck for the response. With only 250 isolation beds currently available across all affected provinces, le Polain warned that capacity is already insufficient given the outbreak’s current trajectory, and a rapid scale-up is critical. “Surveillance can scale up, but if you don’t have any space to put your patients safely, it becomes very difficult,” he noted.

    The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF has issued a separate warning that child infections are likely to rise in coming weeks due to increased household transmission, following patterns seen in past Ebola outbreaks. Douglas Noble, UNICEF’s global incident manager for Ebola, who recently returned from a visit to Ituri’s capital Bunia, highlighted that more than half of children under five in the province already live with chronic malnutrition, leaving them exceptionally vulnerable to severe outcomes if infected.

    “These are already very vulnerable children,” Noble told reporters. “As the outbreak evolves we must be prepared for increasing household transmission, which means we may see more children affected in the days ahead.” He added that UNICEF has already begun adjusting its interventions to prepare for this projected increase in child cases.

    The outbreak has already crossed international borders, with Uganda reporting 19 confirmed cases and two deaths to date. The African Union’s health agency announced Thursday that the situation in Uganda remains under control. The WHO currently assesses the Ebola risk level as very high within the DRC, high for Uganda, high for all countries that share land borders with the DRC and Uganda, and low for the rest of the world.