Global Pulse

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大洋洲

  • Uncle of ISIS bride Zeinab Ahmad denounces terror group as ‘evil’ in bail bid

    Uncle of ISIS bride Zeinab Ahmad denounces terror group as ‘evil’ in bail bid

    In a historic Australian court hearing that marks the country’s first prosecution for slavery offences including crimes against humanity linked to the Islamic State (ISIS), a Melbourne mechanic has publicly condemned the terror group in unflinching terms as he pushes to secure bail for his accused niece, offering up a $75,000 financial guarantee and a permanent home in his household.

    Self-employed tradesman Abraham Abbas took the witness stand on the second day of 31-year-old Zeinab Ahmad’s bail application at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday. When asked directly about his stance on the terrorist organization, Abbas did not moderate his views. “I hate those bastards. Sorry Your Honour, I do,” he told the court. “Sorry for the language — they’re evil and they don’t represent anything we believe in Islam at all.” He confirmed he stood ready to house Ahmad and meet all bail conditions if the court granted her release.

    Ahmad and her 54-year-old mother Kawsar Ahmad made international headlines when they touched down at Melbourne Airport on May 7 after more than 12 years living abroad. Both were immediately taken into custody on slavery and crimes against humanity charges — the first time such charges have been laid against suspects in Australia. Court documents outline that the pair had been held at the Al Roj displacement camp in northern Syria, alongside several minor family members, after surrendering to Kurdish forces following the collapse of ISIS’s final territorial stronghold of Baghouz in March 2019.

    Prosecutors laid out the core allegations against the family during the opening days of the bail hearing, which began Thursday. They claim that Zeinab’s father Mohammed Ahmad, who remains detained in Iraq and has not yet been charged, purchased a 15-year-old Yazidi teenager as a slave for $10,000 in approximately June 2017. The victim was captured by ISIS as part of the terror group’s systematic ethnic and religious cleansing of the Yazidi community in northern Iraq, and was passed between 17 different ISIS fighters before being freed in 2019. In testimony before the court, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Senior Constable Marc Clendenning shared the victim’s account, which details repeated beatings, sexual assault, and forced unpaid labor at the hands of Mohammed Ahmad before she was resold to another ISIS fighter in late 2018.

    While Zeinab Ahmad is not accused of directly assaulting the victim, prosecutors allege she participated in the enslavement by mistreating the teenager, ordering her to complete household labor, and failing to intervene during sexual assaults. Clendenning added that social media posts and private communications from Ahmad to relatives in Australia demonstrate what police describe as “open support for Islamic State activities, objectives, and ideological principles.”

    Law enforcement has formally opposed bail, arguing that Ahmad poses an unacceptable risk to the Australian public, in large part because she has never publicly renounced her connection to the terror group. “The accused has never explicitly renounced or stated that she no longer supports the Islamic State since her surrender to Kurdish forces,” Clendenning told the court.

    Court records confirm that Zeinab Ahmad first traveled to Turkey separately from her family, before relocating to Syria to join ISIS alongside her parents, husband, and other relatives in January 2015. Multiple family members, including her husband Dawod Elmir and two brothers, were killed by coalition forces between 2016 and 2017, according to testimony.

    Defense lawyer Grace Morgan centered her cross-examination of Clendenning on the extreme constraints that women faced under ISIS rule, noting that Zeinab Ahmad was forced to marry three different ISIS fighters over a three-year period, a claim the officer confirmed. Morgan also pushed for details about the availability of state-backed reintegration programs and electronic monitoring that would allow for strict supervision of Ahmad if she is granted bail.

    The bail application was adjourned until June 15 to allow the defense to question AFP Detective Sergeant Greg Adams, who recorded a statement from the enslaved victim in Iraq back in September 2019. The court also confirmed that domestic intelligence agency ASIO had alerted the AFP that Ahmad may hold information about another Australian family currently connected to conflict zones in the Middle East. Kawsar Ahmad, Zeinab’s mother and co-accused, is expected to file her own bail application later this June.

  • ‘Justifiably grave concerns’ about ANU, but ‘nothing unlawful’, interim chancellor says

    ‘Justifiably grave concerns’ about ANU, but ‘nothing unlawful’, interim chancellor says

    The Australian National University (ANU), one of Australia’s most prestigious higher education institutions, has been roiled by years of escalating internal controversy that culminated in the high-profile resignation of former Liberal foreign minister Julie Bishop from the post of chancellor last month. Now, the university’s acting chancellor has publicly confirmed what critics and campus stakeholders have alleged for years: the institution faces deep, systemic problems across its governance, leadership, decision-making structures, and internal culture.

    Appearing before a Senate estimates hearing on Friday, Andrew Metcalfe, who stepped into the acting chancellor role following Bishop’s departure, delivered a blunt 22-word summary of the ongoing crisis that has already prompted six additional ANU Council members to resign and triggered regulatory scrutiny from the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). “There are justifiably grave concerns about many aspects of the governance, leadership, decision making and culture of the ANU in recent years,” Metcalfe told the committee. “It therefore follows that rebuilding confidence in the governance and leadership of ANU will require many practical actions and the resolve to sustain them.”

    Bishop’s exit came after weeks of intense public scrutiny over her governance of the institution, with the former cabinet minister citing what she described as “unprecedented and co-ordinated interference” from TEQSA in the operations of ANU’s governing council. In his testimony, Metcalfe acknowledged that long-running tensions and repeated controversies have created a traumatic environment for ANU’s staff and student body, noting that many stakeholders he has spoken with described the past few years as marked by anger, disillusionment, and a sense of being undervalued. Even so, he added, the vast majority of campus community members remain deeply committed to ANU’s core academic mission and have continued their work despite the ongoing upheaval.

    Years of controversy have already drawn critical scrutiny from official auditors: a scathing review from the Australian National Audit Office found ANU Council approved a controversial $250 million cost-cutting program without clear evidence the cuts were either urgent or necessary.

    In the wake of Bishop’s resignation, which triggered the wave of council departures, Metcalfe confirmed ANU Council is now cooperating fully with TEQSA as it moves forward to select a permanent new chancellor. The appointment process will be overseen by a largely independent selection panel that includes Metcalfe himself, a measure he framed as a first critical step to rebuilding public and internal trust. “We believe that this largely independent selection committee is one practical way for the Council to start to earn back the trust and confidence that has been lost,” he said.

    Pressed by Liberal Senator Maria Kovacic on the wave of council departures and questions over the legality of the institution’s approach to cooperating with TEQSA during the selection process, Metcalfe confirmed the council had received legal advice recommending against cooperation, but ultimately chose to proceed in what members determined was the best interest of the university. “We’re very confident we’ve done nothing unlawful. Quite to the contrary, we made a very sensible decision,” he said.

    Metcalfe also publicly defended Interim Vice-Chancellor Rebekah Brown, who has faced unsubstantiated attacks in media coverage that have damaged her professional reputation. The ANU Council has formally concluded Brown “acted properly and in the best interest of the university at all times” amid what Metcalfe described as “pernicious actions” targeting the interim vice-chancellor.

    Speaking after the hearing, Brown outlined the staggering tangible cost the ongoing crisis has already inflicted on the institution, projecting that reputational damage alone could reach $100 million. The harm has already impacted key revenue streams, including donor contributions and international student recruitment, which are core to ANU’s operations and financial stability. “The reputational damage to the ANU has been very significant,” Brown said. “We are still modelling the impact, some of the impacts are still live. Our modelling, from the end of last year, it’s in the reputational impact in terms of our impact on our donor pipeline and our impact on our international agents work with international student recruitment, it’s in the order of $100m.”

  • Australia seizes 100,000 cockroaches in bug-breeder bust

    Australia seizes 100,000 cockroaches in bug-breeder bust

    In a major crackdown on unregulated exotic insect trafficking, Australian environment and wildlife authorities have shut down an unlawful commercial cockroach breeding operation in regional New South Wales, confiscating a staggering 100,000 contraband bugs with an estimated black market value of over AU$200,000 (US$140,000).

    The raid was executed earlier this week at a breeding facility in Bathurst, a regional town located approximately 200 kilometers west of Sydney, the New South Wales state environment department confirmed in an official statement released Friday.

    Among the seized specimens were two high-demand exotic species: Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a large-bodied insect famous for the distinctive hissing sound it produces as a defensive warning mechanism, and dubia cockroaches, a fast-breeding species commonly trafficked as a feed supplement for pet reptiles such as lizards. Released official photographs reveal just how large the Madagascar hissing cockroaches can grow: one adult specimen was large enough to nearly cover the entire palm of an average adult human hand.

    Officials emphasized that the unlawful operation poses a severe threat to Australia’s one-of-a-kind native ecosystem, which has evolved in isolation for millions of years and is extremely vulnerable to invasive species. A spokesperson for the environment department noted that illegal breeding and trading of exotic invertebrates has emerged as a growing black market in the country, and the operation is part of a broader enforcement push to curb this activity.

    “We take our job protecting Australia’s unique biodiversity and breaches of national environment law very seriously,” the spokesperson said. “We’re seeing illegal breeding and trading of exotic cockroaches and we’re putting pet businesses and pet owners on notice that non-compliance with biosecurity and environmental protection laws will not be tolerated.”

    Now, enforcement teams face the unenviable task of humanely euthanizing all confiscated cockroaches. The species is renowned for its extreme hardiness, a trait that spawned a widespread popular urban legend claiming cockroaches would be the only animals to survive a full-scale nuclear war. If the invasive species had been released or escaped into the Australian wild, experts warn they could have established persistent wild populations that outcompete native insects and disrupt local food webs.

  • ‘He understands’: Michael Maguire explains axing Ezra Mam and why he has no issues with Payne Haas’ fiery post-game comments

    ‘He understands’: Michael Maguire explains axing Ezra Mam and why he has no issues with Payne Haas’ fiery post-game comments

    Defending National Rugby League premiers Brisbane Broncos are fighting to rescue their disappointing season, and that fight has forced head coach Michael Maguire to make a difficult call: dropping star five-eighth Ezra Mam from the starting lineup ahead of this weekend’s critical clash against the Gold Coast Titans.

    Maguire has made it clear that the decision to move Mam to an extended reserves bench, promoting 23-year-old playmaker Tom Duffy into the starting halves combination for Saturday’s Suncorp Stadium showdown, is rooted purely in recent on-field form, not personal preference or locker room tension. The premiership-winning playmaker has struggled through a rocky start to the 2024 season, currently sitting atop the league’s rankings for most missed tackles and failing to deliver the dynamic attacking output that helped the Broncos claim the premiership last year. His poor form came to a head last weekend, when Brisbane suffered a humiliating home loss to the St George Illawarra Dragons — a side that had yet to register a win all season heading into the round.

    Beyond his spot in the Broncos side, Mam’s demotion also puts his place in the Queensland Maroons squad for the upcoming State of Origin II match on June 17 in serious jeopardy.

    In a press conference outlining his team selection, Maguire pushed back against any suggestion that the axing was a disciplinary move or a sign he has lost confidence in the star playmaker. “You make decisions around what you feel is right for the team. Obviously, Ezra’s been going through a rough patch with his form, and Tom Duffy has been turning out strong, consistent performances in reserve grade,” Maguire explained. “I’ve always believed that when a player is performing well, they deserve an opportunity to prove themselves at the top level. This is just a rough patch that Ezra is going through right now. He’s gone back to the training ground and has been working incredibly hard to fix his errors.”

    The coach noted that form slumps are a normal part of every elite athlete’s career, and how Mam responds to this setback will ultimately define his contribution to the team for the rest of the season. “Every player may go through that, or will go through that, at some stage in their career. It’s all about how you respond,” he said. “He’s fine with the call, he understands why I made it. I’m always very transparent about what I expect from the players, and to be honest, he knows his own game better than anyone. That self-awareness is a good thing.

    “This is just a chance for him to step back, put in the work in training, and get back to the level of play that we know ‘Ez’ is capable of. He’s a quality player … that’s exactly why he’s still in the match day squad on the bench. We’ll see how the game unfolds, and he’ll be ready if we need him.”

    Brisbane will already be missing two key players for Saturday’s clash: forward Pat Carrigan and utility back Gehamat Shibasaki, both sidelined with injury. Maguire is demanding a marked improvement from his side after the insipid performance against the Dragons that extended their losing run to four straight games, leaving the side at serious risk of tumbling out of the top eight finals race if they drop to five consecutive defeats.

    After the final whistle against the Dragons, star prop Payne Haas publicly called out his side’s lack of effort and fight, a criticism that Maguire says he fully supports. “I have no issue with what Payne said. We all share the same belief in this group, we all know what this team is capable of, but at the end of the day, you have to go out and show that on the field,” Maguire said. “We’ve had glimpses of our best form over the last couple of months, but we haven’t been able to put it together week in, week out. That’s the problem we have to fix, and we need to fix it fast. I know this group is capable of playing far better than we have been recently.”

  • ‘Sometimes people don’t like that’: Benji Marshall urges Terrell May to continue to speak freely following telling ‘loyalty’ comments

    ‘Sometimes people don’t like that’: Benji Marshall urges Terrell May to continue to speak freely following telling ‘loyalty’ comments

    Wests Tigers head coach Benji Marshall has publicly thrown his support behind star prop Terrell May, urging the forward to keep speaking openly after May’s bombshell comments that his loyalty lies exclusively with Marshall — not the club itself.

    In an appearance on the Unscripted podcast, May pulled no punches when discussing his stance on institutional loyalty in professional rugby league. “Benji showed a great deal of loyalty to me,” May explained. “I know it sounds harsh, and it will probably get taken out of context, but I will never pledge full loyalty to any club again. At the end of the day, every club operates as a business. My loyalty is to Benji, not the organization.”

    May doubled down on the clear stance: “As long as Benji remains at the Tigers, I will stay here for good. But if the club ever let Benji go, my loyalty to him means I would leave too.”

    The prop has built a reputation for unfiltered, honest commentary in media appearances, a trait Marshall is determined to protect at a time when most elite athletes are trained to stick to generic, risk-free talking points.

    Speaking to media on Friday morning, Marshall pushed back on criticism of May’s remarks, arguing professional rugby league sends a mixed message to its players. “It’s a strange dynamic, isn’t it? As a sport, we all say we want players to be honest, show their true personalities and express themselves openly. But when they actually do that and tell the unvarnished truth, a lot of people end up uncomfortable with it,” Marshall said.

    “One of the things I love most about Terrell is that he is unapologetically himself. We want him to keep being open, we love that he tells it like it is — even if that truth rubs some people the wrong way. What he says is his choice, and I fully encourage him to share how he really feels. Loyalty is a two-way street, after all. It means everything to me, and that’s the kind of honesty I want from my squad.”

    The controversy around May’s comments comes as the Tigers prepare for a high-stakes Sunday afternoon clash against competition favorites the Panthers. The match also looms as a critical opportunity for hooker Api Koroisau, who is fighting for a State of Origin recall to replace injured Cronulla star Blayke Brailey.

    A key talking point heading into the game is the availability of 18-year-old teenage sensation Heamasi Makasini, who has been named in the match day squad just one week after leaving the field early with a shoulder injury. Makasini’s return itself came only a week prior, after he spent more than a month on the sidelines with a foot injury sustained in round 7.

    Makasini did not return to the pitch for the second half of last weekend’s match against the Bulldogs, but his first 40 minutes of play impressed Marshall, even after a shaky performance against Brisbane that included multiple uncharacteristic errors. Initial fears that the forward had suffered a serious AC joint injury proved unfounded, Marshall confirmed.

    “We thought the AC injury was worse than it actually turned out to be. He was able to do light training all week, so he’s perfectly fit to play this weekend,” Marshall said. “I thought he was really good last week. He brought incredible energy to the pitch, he was playing against Stephen Crichton, who he’s looked up to for years, and he played with real intent right from the kickoff. He just picked up a little knock halfway through, that’s all.”

    Marshall added that the brief time off the pitch has been a net positive for the young player, who is still adjusting to the intensity of top-flight first-grade rugby league. “I think that little break did him a world of good. He’s only 18, so sometimes as a coach you have to know when to give a young player a short spell to reset. This break came at exactly the right time for him to come back fresh, and he’s looked sharp all week in training.”

  • Nazi party records released online shatter German family myths

    Nazi party records released online shatter German family myths

    For generations, German families have grappled with an unspoken, haunting question: What role did our ancestors play under Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime? Today, that question can be answered with a few simple keystrokes — and the truth is upending decades of carefully constructed family myth across the country.

    In March, the U.S. National Archives published fully searchable digital scans of approximately 12 million Nazi Party membership cards online. The documents, originally seized by Allied American forces from Nazi Germany following the regime’s defeat in World War II, were previously only accessible to the public via cumbersome microfilm stored at a small number of physical institutions. With the mass digitization and online release, however, secrets hidden for nearly 80 years became available to anyone with an internet connection.

    Major German outlets *Die Zeit* and *Der Spiegel* quickly built free public search tools to help users navigate the vast archive, sparking a national reckoning. Headlines across the country bluntly asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Was grandpa a Nazi?” In the weeks since the archive launched, hundreds of thousands of Germans have searched for their ancestors’ names, going into the process knowing the results may shatter the stories their families passed down for generations.

    For 60-year-old Corinna, who requested her last name be withheld to protect her family’s privacy, the discovery was particularly jarring. Her 26-year-old daughter Helena found irrefutable proof in the digitized records that Corinna’s father had joined the Nazi Party in 1935 — two full years after Hitler seized total control of the German state. Corinna had always known her father fought and was wounded in France and the Soviet Union during the war, but he never revealed his Nazi Party ties. Growing up, she was raised to believe her father, born to a working-class mining family in Germany’s western Saarland region, had been a lifelong supporter of the Social Democrats, Germany’s center-left labor party.

    This collective act of family silence is not an anomaly across modern Germany. While the German federal government has spent decades educating the public, formally atoning for Nazi atrocities including the Holocaust, and preserving memorials to the regime’s victims, many private households have long avoided confronting their own connections to the Nazi past — sometimes even actively rewriting the story.

    Historical data shows that by the end of the Third Reich in 1945, more than one in 10 Germans were registered Nazi Party members. Historian Johannes Spohr, who has spent years assisting families researching their ancestors’ Nazi ties, explains that after the war, this generation created an unspoken family rule that certain topics were off-limits. “Many ex-Nazis didn’t just stay silent, as is often assumed — they actively constructed an alternate version of history,” Spohr told reporters. Most often, this alternate story cast them as reluctant victims of the Nazi regime, or even falsely claimed they were part of the small anti-Nazi resistance.

    Spohr notes that modern public opinion polls bear out this mythmaking: between 11% and 18% of contemporary Germans believe their grandparents actively helped people persecuted by the Nazi regime. But according to up-to-date historical research, the actual share of German families with that legacy is less than 1%.

    Felix Puelm, a 42-year-old history professor currently based at Thailand’s Silpakorn University, is one of many Germans who recently uncovered an unexpected ancestor tie in the new archive. He discovered that his late grandmother had joined the Nazi Party in 1940, when she was 19 years old. By that point, Puelm explains, his grandmother had already witnessed the Nazis launch invasive wars against neighboring European countries, and could clearly see the violent direction the regime was heading. “And yet she still made the decision to join,” Puelm said. He added that while his grandparents never expressed any pro-Nazi sentiment after the war, they chose to hide their past actions from the next generations. Puelm says he now wishes he had learned the truth earlier, so he could have asked his grandmother about her choices before she died.

    Historians say the archive’s records also help add context to ancestors’ choices, shedding light on whether membership grew out of ideological commitment or opportunism. Spohr explains that joining the party before Hitler took power in 1933, particularly in the 1920s, is a strong indicator of genuine ideological conviction. After 1933, however, many new members joined for opportunistic reasons: to advance their careers, secure access to government jobs, or conform to widespread social pressure. Spohr notes that certain professional fields, particularly civil service and education, had extremely high rates of Nazi Party membership, but stresses that no one was legally forced to enroll.

    Looking forward, Puelm says the new accessibility of these records could prompt valuable reflection on the current political moment in Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) now leads national opinion polls. He hopes the revelations of past family ties to extremist politics will push modern German households to examine the factors that lead people to join radical, anti-democratic parties today.

  • Teenager accused of attempted hijacking at Avalon Airport wanted to flee Australia, court told

    Teenager accused of attempted hijacking at Avalon Airport wanted to flee Australia, court told

    A Victorian court has approved transferring the high-profile case of a 19-year-old man accused of an attempted plane hijacking to an adult higher court, after ruling the gravity of the alleged offending outstrips the sentencing capacity of the juvenile justice system.

    The accused, who was a minor when he was arrested in March last year at Avalon Airport, has been linked to a brazen pre-planned plot to seize control of a commercial Jetstar flight bound for an domestic destination. Court documents outline that the teenager travelled from his home in Victoria’s Ballarat region to Geelong, where he cut a hole in an airport security perimeter fence, disguised himself in high-visibility work clothing to avoid detection, and boarded the aircraft carrying a disassembled shotgun, homemade molotov cocktails, and a fake explosive device.

    Once on board, prosecutors allege the teen approached cabin crew and quietly told them he had bombs in his luggage, demanding immediate access to the cockpit. At the time, 173 passengers and crew were either on the plane or in the process of boarding. Before law enforcement officers could arrive, the suspect was quickly tackled and restrained by a brave passenger and members of the flight crew, ending the immediate threat to the aircraft and everyone on board.

    Court testimony has revealed conflicting accounts of the accused’s mental state and motivation. Following his arrest, the teen told responding officers that the people who stopped him were “heroes”, and that he felt a profound sense of calm and relief after being restrained. His defence team, led by senior defence barrister Patrick Doyle SC, told the court the accused was experiencing severe mental distress at the time of the incident. The defence says it will argue the teen is not criminally responsible for his alleged actions on the grounds of mental impairment. According to testimony given to the court by a psychiatrist, the teen claimed he had been exposed to traumatic, violent events including an alleged abduction, which left him believing he had no option but to hijack a plane to flee Australia. The defence has also pushed back against prosecution claims of ideological or political motivation, arguing the teen’s statements about political thinking were inconsistent, incoherent, and clear signs of mental confusion.

    Prosecutors, led by King’s Counsel Paul Holdenson, argued that the Children’s Court’s available penalties would be insufficient to match the severity of the alleged offending. Holdenson told the court the plot had been planned over an extended period, and that the teen held ideological and political motives for the attack, claims the defence disputes. A court suppression order remains in place, barring media from reporting on any individuals or foreign groups the teen is alleged to have had contact with. There is also disagreement among medical experts over whether the teen had any such contact, or was suffering an acute psychotic episode at the time of the incident.

    In his ruling on the jurisdiction transfer request, Children’s Court President Judge Jack Vandersteen said the alleged offending was of an exceptionally serious nature. On the evidence presented, he said, the teen carried out a deliberate, pre-planned attempt to take control of a commercial passenger jet, including advance research and extensive preparation. “The risks inherent in such conduct are self-evidently extreme,” Judge Vandersteen wrote in his decision. He added that he could not be confident that penalties available under the Children’s Court could adequately address the gravity of the alleged crimes. In response to the ruling, the accused simply stated, “I understand, Your Honour.”

    The teen faces eight total criminal charges, including attempted aircraft hijacking, endangering the safe operation of an aircraft, assaulting flight crew, and illegal possession of weapons. He is scheduled to reappear in court later this month, where legal teams are expected to set a timeline for the upcoming committal hearing.

  • Putin to confront weak economy at ‘Russian Davos’, under threat of Ukrainian drones

    Putin to confront weak economy at ‘Russian Davos’, under threat of Ukrainian drones

    As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, Vladimir Putin is set to deliver a keynote address Friday at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the country’s premier annual investment gathering, long nicknamed “Russia’s Davos.” His appearance comes amid mounting economic headwinds and a fresh wave of brazen Ukrainian drone strikes that have underscored the Kremlin’s ongoing security vulnerabilities even on home soil.

    The cumulative costs of the war have pushed Russia’s economy into its most challenging stretch since the 2022 invasion. Official data shows gross domestic product contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2025, marking the first quarterly decline in three years. In the first four months of 2025, the federal government recorded an $80 billion budget deficit, equal to 2.5% of full-year GDP and already exceeding the deficit target set for the entire 12-month period.

    Inflation has spiked across consumer goods, while the central bank has lifted borrowing costs to a two-decade high to cool price growth. Tax increases have squeezed households and businesses alike, widespread labor shortages have disrupted production lines across multiple sectors, and hundreds of businesses have been forced to cease operations. Compounding these pressures, intensifying Ukrainian strikes on key Russian energy infrastructure — including oil depots, refineries and export hubs — have put Moscow’s single largest source of state revenue at growing risk. In a strike loaded with symbolic significance, a Ukrainian drone hit an industrial facility in Saint Petersburg earlier this week as forum delegates began arriving, leaving a thick plume of black smoke visible to assembled dignitaries.

    Alexander Kolyandr, a leading Russian economy expert based in London, told Agence France-Presse ahead of Putin’s address that the Russian economy has now entered a period of prolonged stagnation. “I don’t see the Russian economy collapsing into the chaos of the 1990s or anything similar — it’s just a slow degradation of everything,” he explained.

    Once a magnet for Western investors eager to capitalize on Russia’s energy and natural resource wealth in the early years of Putin’s presidency, SPIEF has been fundamentally transformed by the war and Western sanctions. Where foreign business leaders once mixed with Russian political and business elites to strike multi-billion dollar deals, today the forum features public displays of military drones and machine guns, and top-tier attendees now come almost exclusively from neutral and allied nations such as China and Saudi Arabia. Attendees from the United States and Europe are extremely rare, with the small Western contingent led by high-profile pro-Putin figures: American right-wing commentator Candace Owens, former Hollywood actor and long-time Putin ally Steven Seagal, and members of parliament from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party.

    Putin has used past SPIEF addresses to push back against claims of economic collapse, argue that Western sanctions backfire by hurting European and North American economies more than Russia, and reassure the public that the state can afford the massive costs of its military operation while keeping domestic life stable. Speaking to reporters Thursday, he pushed back on narratives of imminent economic crisis, quoting Mark Twain’s famous quip: “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

    But far from the forum’s keynote stage, small and medium-sized business owners across Russia report growing struggles that threaten their survival. Svetlana, a 40-year-old owner of a maternity and children’s apparel brand in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk, told AFP her business is on the brink of closure. “People are having fewer children, they’re tightening their belts, and our operating costs keep going up,” she explained. Government-mandated internet blackouts, implemented to disrupt Ukrainian drone strike coordination, have repeatedly knocked out her card payment terminals, leaving her unable to serve many customers. “We are going back to life 18 years ago, when there was no internet or social media,” she said. “I’m tired of worrying about fines under new laws and the endless stream of new requirements that keep popping up.”

    Vera, a 42-year-old beauty salon owner in the Moscow region, said her supply costs have doubled so far this year. Having survived a near-collapse of her business in 2022, however, she remains optimistic she can weather the current challenges, calling ongoing difficulties “just unpleasantries.”

    Expert Kolyandr warned that the current trajectory of slow economic degradation will become irreversible unless the Kremlin makes fundamental political changes, including ending the war in Ukraine and restructuring the country’s growth model. Since the invasion began, Russia has operated a two-tier economy, prioritizing resources for the state-dominated defense sector above all other civilian industries. While higher global oil prices driven by regional tensions following the Iran war have boosted energy revenues, Kolyandr noted the increase has not been large enough to close the country’s growing budget gap. Persistent labor shortages have also worsened, with an estimated 30,000 working-age men conscripted into the military each month to support the war effort.

    “There is no good solution,” Kolyandr said. “They will continue to kick the can for as long as possible.”

  • Political blows fly ahead of Trump’s White House UFC fight

    Political blows fly ahead of Trump’s White House UFC fight

    An unprecedented moment in U.S. political and sports history is set to unfold on June 14, when a UFC pay-per-view event will be hosted on the South Lawn of the White House — the same day former President Donald Trump celebrates his 80th birthday. What was expected to be a straightforward celebration of Trump’s deep ties to the wildly popular mixed martial arts world has instead devolved into open infighting, with prominent fighters and key MMA voices raising loud objections over the event’s logistics, cost, and political implications, just weeks before the first step into the Octagon.

  • US allying itself with Colombian ‘narco-traffickers,’ Petro accuses

    US allying itself with Colombian ‘narco-traffickers,’ Petro accuses

    Colombia’s sitting President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left-wing head of state who is constitutionally ineligible to seek reelection, has launched a scathing rebuke of former US President Donald Trump over his intervention in Colombia’s upcoming presidential runoff. Petro claims Washington has broken a previous non-interference agreement by backing a hard-right candidate tied to the same drug trafficking networks the US claims to fight.

    The controversy erupted after Trump threw his full weight behind Abelardo de la Espriella, a 47-year-old conservative lawyer who rose to shock wealth by representing drug-trafficking linked paramilitaries, white-collar fraudsters and high-profile soccer athletes. De la Espriella pulled off an unexpected upset in Sunday’s first-round voting, defeating leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda – a close ally of Petro and architect of the administration’s landmark peace strategy – setting the stage for a head-to-head runoff on June 21.

    In an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse held at the Colombian presidential palace, Petro did not mince words about the US endorsement. “Their allies in Colombia come from the narco-paramilitary regime; they are genocidal and drug traffickers,” he stated, speaking as he sampled chocolate produced by former coca farmers who transitioned to legal cocoa cultivation under his administration’s alternative development program.

    Trump’s move to back de la Espriella marks the latest in a pattern of the former US president interfering in Latin American elections, consistently throwing his support behind hardline right-wing candidates who take aggressive stances on crime and migration, while painting left-wing opponents as dangerous Marxists. De la Espriella has already pledged to deepen US-Colombia bilateral ties “like never before” should he win the runoff, and counts hardline former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe among his most powerful backers. Uribe has long faced allegations of colluding with paramilitary groups responsible for the mass murder of thousands of civilians during the bloodiest decades of Colombia’s 60-plus year internal conflict.

    For Petro and his ally Cepeda, these ties are not just political coincidence. Both leaders have repeatedly accused paramilitary forces of carrying out a systematic “genocide” of left-wing political organizers and leaders, a list that includes Cepeda’s own father – a communist senator assassinated in 1994.

    In response, the Colombian political right and Trump’s circle have pushed back against Petro, claiming he has taken an overly soft stance on remaining left-wing guerrilla groups, many of which still operate outside state control and fund their activities through cocaine trafficking. Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, a fact that has long been a flashpoint in bilateral relations between Bogota and Washington.

    Tensions between Petro and Trump run deep: Last year, the former US president imposed sanctions on Petro, labeling him a “drug leader” over his failure to curb rising cocaine production and trafficking. The pair have also clashed repeatedly over Trump’s hardline migrant deportation policies and his campaign of lethal airstrikes targeting suspected drug trafficking vessels off Latin America’s coasts. The two leaders seemingly de-escalated these tensions during a February meeting at the White House, where Petro says the pair agreed the US would not interfere in Colombia’s 2025 election. Trump’s recent endorsement, Petro argues, is a clear violation of that pact.

    “What they are implementing is an ideological policy that divides the world between those who think like them and those of us who don’t,” Petro added, expressing deep regret that “figures and governments who want to fight drug trafficking are actually helping to bring crime to political power in Colombia.”

    The Colombian presidential election is unfolding against a backdrop of rising security instability: the country is currently facing the worst wave of political and criminal violence since the 2016 landmark peace deal between the state and former Marxist rebel group FARC. While much of Colombia has seen economic and social progress in the decade since the agreement, large swathes of rural territory remain under the control of armed factions fighting for control of cocaine smuggling routes, illegal gold mining operations and extortion rackets.

    The two runoff candidates represent starkly different ideological paths for Colombia’s future: De la Espriella has rejected Petro’s signature “total peace” policy of negotiated talks with remaining armed groups, vowing instead to crush all insurgent and criminal factions through full-scale military force. Cepeda, by contrast, who helped negotiate the 2016 FARC peace deal, has pledged to continue prioritizing dialogue, economic development and social investment in regions long controlled by armed groups.