NEWS

Last week, a prominent Saudi Sheikh, Mohammed Al-Issa, visited the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which signalled the end of the Nazi Holocaust. Although dozens of Muslim scholars have visited the site, where about one million Jews were killed during World War Two, according to the Auschwitz Memorial Centre’s press office, Al-Issa is the most senior Muslim religious leader to do so.

Visiting Auschwitz is not a problem for a Muslim; Islam orders Muslims to reject unjustified killing of any human being, no matter what their faith is. Al-Issa is a senior ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS), who apparently cares little for the sanctity of human life, though, and the visit to Auschwitz has very definite political connotations beyond any Islamic context.

By sending Al-Issa to the camp, Bin Salman wanted to show his support for Israel, which exploits the Holocaust for geopolitical colonial purposes. “The Israeli government decided that it alone was permitted to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz [in modern day Poland] in 1945,” wrote journalist Richard Silverstein recently when he commented on the gathering of world leaders in Jerusalem for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust event.

READ: Next up, a Saudi embassy in Jerusalem 

Bin Salman uses Al Issa for such purposes, as if to demonstrate his own Zionist credentials. For example, the head of the Makkah-based Muslim World League is leading rapprochement efforts with Evangelical Christians who are, in the US at least, firm Zionists in their backing for the state of Israel. Al-Issa has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem in what would, in effect, be a Zionist troika.

Zionism is not a religion, and there are many non-Jewish Zionists who desire or support the establishment of a Jewish state in occupied Palestine. The definition of Zionism does not mention the religion of its supporters, and Israeli writer Sheri Oz, is just one author who insists that non-Jews can be Zionists.

Mohammad Bin Salman and Netanyahu – Cartoon [Tasnimnews.com/Wikipedia]

We should not be shocked, therefore, to see a Zionist Muslim leader in these trying times. It is reasonable to say that Bin Salman’s grandfather and father were Zionists, as close friends of Zionist leaders. Logic suggests that Bin Salman comes from a Zionist dynasty.

This has been evident from his close relationship with Zionists and positive approaches to the Israeli occupation and establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, calling it “[the Jews’] ancestral homeland”. This means that he has no issue with the ethnic cleansing of almost 800,000 Palestinians in 1948, during which thousands were killed and their homes demolished in order to establish the Zionist state of Israel.

“The ‘Jewish state’ claim is how Zionism has tried to mask its intrinsic Apartheid, under the veil of a supposed ‘self-determination of the Jewish people’,” wrote Israeli blogger Jonathan Ofir in Mondoweiss in 2018, “and for the Palestinians it has meant their dispossession.”

As the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Bin Salman has imprisoned dozens of Palestinians, including representatives of Hamas. In doing so he is serving Israel’s interests. Moreover, he has blamed the Palestinians for not making peace with the occupation state. Bin Salman “excoriated the Palestinians for missing key opportunities,” wrote Danial Benjamin in Moment magazine. He pointed out that the prince’s father, King Salman, has played the role of counterweight by saying that Saudi Arabia “permanently stands by Palestine and its people’s right to an independent state with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.”

UN expert: Saudi crown prince behind hack on Amazon CEO 

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid of Israel’s Channel 13 News reported Bin Salman as saying: “In the last several decades the Palestinian leadership has missed one opportunity after the other and rejected all the peace proposals it was given. It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining.” This is reminiscent of the words of the late Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, one of the Zionist founders of Israel, that the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

Bin Salman’s Zionism is also very clear in his bold support for US President Donald Trump’s deal of the century, which achieves Zionist goals in Palestine at the expense of Palestinian rights. He participated in the Bahrain conference, the forum where the economic side of the US deal was announced, where he gave “cover to several other Arab countries to attend the event and infuriated the Palestinians.”

US President Donald Trump looks over at Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud as they line up for the family photo during the opening day of Argentina G20 Leaders’ Summit 2018 at Costa Salguero on 30 November 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina [Daniel Jayo/Getty Images]

While discussing the issue of the current Saudi support for Israeli policies and practices in Palestine with a credible Palestinian official last week, he told me that the Palestinians had contacted the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to ask him not to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. “The Saudis have been putting pressure on us in order to relocate our embassy to Jerusalem,” replied the Brazilian leader. What more evidence of Mohammad Bin Salman’s Zionism do we need?

The founder of Friends of Zion Museum is American Evangelical Christian Mike Evans. He said, after visiting a number of the Gulf States, that, “The leaders [there] are more pro-Israel than a lot of Jews.” This was a specific reference to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, and his counterpart in the UAE, Mohammed Bin Zayed.

“All versions of Zionism lead to the same reactionary end of unbridled expansionism and continued settler colonial genocide of [the] Palestinian people,” Israeli-American writer and photographer Yoav Litvin wrote for Al Jazeera. We may well see an Israeli Embassy opened in Riyadh in the near future, and a Saudi Embassy in Tel Aviv or, more likely, Jerusalem. Is Mohammad Bin Salman a Zionist? There’s no doubt about it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Joint Sea-2025 exercises begin in waters near Russian port of Vladivostok and will last for three days, China’s Defence Ministry says.

China and Russia have begun joint naval drills in the Sea of Japan as they seek to reinforce their partnership and counterbalance what they see as a United States-led global order.

The Chinese and Russian governments have deepened their ties in recent years, with China providing an economic lifeline to Russia in the face of Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Joint Sea-2025 exercises began in waters near the Russian port of Vladivostok and will last for three days, China’s Ministry of National Defence said in a statement on Sunday.

The two sides will hold “submarine rescue, joint anti-submarine, air defence and anti-missile operations, and maritime combat”.

Four Chinese vessels, including guided-missile destroyers Shaoxing and Urumqi, are participating in the exercises, alongside Russian ships, the ministry said.

After the drills, the two countries will conduct naval patrols in “relevant waters of the Pacific”.

China and Russia have carried out annual drills for several years, with the “Joint Sea” exercises beginning in 2012.

Last year’s drills were held along China’s southern coast.

With this year’s drills in the Sea of Japan, in its annual report last month, Japan’s Ministry of Defence warned that China’s growing military cooperation with Russia poses serious security concerns.

“The exercise is defensive in nature and is not directed against other countries,” the Russian Navy Pacific Fleet said earlier this week, according to a report by the US Naval Institute’s online news and analysis portal.

On Friday, the Chinese Defence Ministry said this year’s exercises were aimed at “further deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership” of the two countries.

China has never denounced Russia’s more than three-year war nor called for it to withdraw its troops, and many of Ukraine’s allies, including the US, believe that Beijing has provided support to Moscow.

European leaders asked China last month to use its influence to pressure Russia to end the war, now in its fourth year, but there was no sign that Beijing would do so.

China, however, insists it is a neutral party, regularly calling for an end to the fighting while also accusing Western countries of prolonging the conflict by arming Ukraine.

Officials say the workers were conducting an emergency inspection of sewage pipes when the accident took place.

Four workers have died in Japan after falling into a manhole near Tokyo as they inspected sewage pipes, according to public broadcaster NHK, quoting police.

NHK reported on Sunday that the incident in the city of Gyoda in Saitama Prefecture, north of the Japanese capital, happened on Saturday, as the four men, all in their 50s, and other co-workers were inspecting a sewage pipe.

City officials say the workers were conducting an emergency inspection of sewage pipes that the central government had ordered municipalities to carry out, after a huge road cave-in in January.

Police were quoted by NHK as saying that during the inspection, one of the workers fell down the manhole, followed by three of his co-workers who were trying to save him.

According to police, the manhole is 60cm (24in) in diameter and more than 10 metres (33ft) in depth.

The fire department from the area also confirmed the incident to the AFP news agency.

Video clips published by NHK showed several emergency and rescue personnel near the manhole.

The department said rescuers detected hydrogen sulfide – a gas toxic in high concentrations – coming out of the manhole.

But city officials refused to be drawn on the cause of the initial fall.

“Detailed circumstances leading up to the accident are still unknown, so it’s too early for us to say anything about our responsibility,” a Gyoda city official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

The four workers were retrieved and taken to hospital, where they were pronounced dead, according to local media reports.

About 10 workers were at the scene of the inspection, ordered to clean the pipes of wastewater and sludge if necessary.

In May, Japanese rescuers recovered the body of a dead 74-year-old truck driver months after he was swallowed by a road collapse in Saitama prefecture.

An explosion rocked an oil facility in Novokuybyshevsk, Russia on Saturday.

Ukraine says its drones were used to attack the complex, one of a series of strikes on Russian military infrastructure over the weekend.

The governor of Russia’s Samara region said that an enemy drone had struck an industrial area of Novokuybyshevsk.

Former Fox News host Pirro secures Senate confirmation with 50-45 vote, becoming US attorney general for the nation’s capital.

The United States Senate has confirmed former Fox News television personality Jeanine Pirro as the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, filling the post after President Donald Trump withdrew his controversial first pick, conservative activist Edward Martin Jr.

Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed on Saturday, with a vote of 50-45. Before becoming the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia in May, she co-hosted the Fox News show The Five on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Trump.

Trump yanked Martin’s nomination after a key Republican senator said he could not support him due to Martin’s outspoken support for rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Martin now serves as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.

Other hires from cable news include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend, and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, a former reality TV show competitor and Fox Business co-host.

Pirro briefly entered politics in ill-fated attempts to run for the US Senate and for the New York attorney general, losing the latter race to Democrat Andrew Cuomo.

She began earning wider public exposure by hosting a weekday television show, Judge Jeanine Pirro, from 2008 to 2011. In 2011, she joined Fox News Channel to host Justice with Judge Jeanine, which ran for 11 years, and today, she is a co-host of the network’s show, The Five.

Pirro has also authored several books, including Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy, which was published in 2018. The Washington Post described the book as “sycophantic” in its support for Trump.

After promoting unfounded conspiracy theories alleging election fraud in 2020, Pirro was named a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which said that Fox had broadcast false statements about the company.

Fox News settled the case for nearly $800m.

Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send Pirro’s nomination to the Senate floor after Democrats walked out to protest Emil Bove’s nomination to become a federal appeals court judge.

Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990, before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.

In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro’s ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 on conspiracy and tax evasion charges.

A Ukrainian MP and other officials have been arrested after the country’s anti-corruption agencies uncovered what they call a large-scale bribery scheme in the purchase of drones and electronic warfare systems.

In a statement on X, President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Ukrainian MP, heads of district and city administrations and several National Guard service members had been exposed for their involvement, which involved state contracts with suppliers being signed at prices inflated by up to 30%.

Zelensky wrote that there can be “zero tolerance” for corruption in Ukraine, and thanked the agencies for their work.

The independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies was restored on Thursday, following nationwide protests.

Zelensky’s government faced an extensive backlash after introducing a bill that would strip the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, known as Nabu and Sap respectively, of their independence.

The president claimed the agencies needed to be “cleared of Russian influence”, and sought to give the general prosecutor the authority to decide who should be prosecuted in high-level corruption cases.

Many saw the move as a step backwards for corruption in Ukraine, resulting in the largest anti-government demonstrations since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

Zelensky acknowledged public anger and submitted a new bill restoring the agencies’ former independence, which was voted through by parliament just nine days after the original bill had been passed.

The head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), Kyrylo Budanov, thanked Zelensky for “hearing the public’s call” regarding the powers of anti-corruption agencies and “not making a mistake”.

The move was also praised by EU allies, who had voiced concerns over the implications of the original bill.

The fight against corruption is significant in Ukraine’s bid to join the EU. The creation of Nabu and Sap was a requirement set by the European Commission and International Monetary Fund in 2014, in order to move towards a relaxation of visa restrictions.

As a result, Kyiv was granted EU candidate status in 2022, bringing the nation another step towards closer ties with the West.

Since their establishment, Nabu and Sap have been involved in far-reaching investigations into the misappropriation of millions of dollars’ worth of assets and bribes across various ministries and sectors.

A joint investigation in 2023 resulted in the arrest of the head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court, Vsevolod Kniaziev, in connection with a $3m (£2.4m; €2.9m) bribe.

The BBC has launched an investigation into alleged drug use by two Strictly Come Dancing stars, it has been reported.

The Sun on Sunday claimed that the cocaine use by the stars – who have not been named – was widely talked about on the show.

It added that the corporation had hired law firm Pinsent Masons to lead the probe.

The BBC said it had “clear protocols and policies in place” for dealing with any serious complaints raised with it.

According to the newspaper, the claims of alleged drug use were made in a legal submission to the BBC in March by law firm Russells on behalf of a former celebrity contestant.

The Sun claims others had also reported allegations of drug taking on the show to the BBC.

In a statement on Saturday night, a BBC spokesperson added: “We would always encourage people to speak to us if they have concerns.

“It would not be appropriate for us to comment further.”

It is understood that it is not unusual for the corporation to appoint external law firms to help it deliver BBC-led investigations. In these cases, they would report back to an internal team.

Strictly, which has been airing since 2004, has faced multiple controversies over the past year relating to the behaviour of some of its professional dancers and celebrity guests.

Professional dancers Giovanni Pernice and Graziano Di Prima left the show last year following allegations about their behaviour towards their dance partners.

The BBC announced new welfare measures for Strictly last July. These include having chaperones in all rehearsal rooms, adding two new welfare producers and providing additional training for the professional dancers, production team and crew.

In January, Welsh opera singer Wynne Evans, who had been a celebrity dancer in last year’s series, made what he described as an “inappropriate and unacceptable” comment during the Strictly live tour launch.

He took time off from his BBC Radio Wales daytime show after the incident, and the BBC said in May that he will not be returning to it.

EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick was suspended by the BBC last month after The Sun reported that he used a slur against people with disabilities while backstage during Strictly rehearsals in November. Borthwick apologised and the BBC said his language was “entirely unacceptable”.

Without evidence, Trump and his allies accuse former US special prosecutor of illegal political activity.

Officials in the United States have launched an investigation into Jack Smith, the former special prosecutor who led two cases against Donald Trump, US media outlets are reporting.

The Associated Press, NBC News and other US news outlets confirmed on Saturday that the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, has opened an investigation into Smith on allegations of illegal political activity.

Without offering any evidence of wrongdoing, Trump and his Republican allies, including Senator Tom Cotton, have accused Smith of violating the Hatch Act, a federal law that bans certain public officials from engaging in political activity.

In a social media post this week, Cotton accused Smith of being a “partisan Democrat who weaponized the law” against Trump in the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election that he ultimately won.

“I’ve asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate his actions that likely violated the law to influence the election,” Cotton wrote on X on Wednesday.

Smith was named as special counsel to investigate Trump by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022.

He led two federal cases into the Republican leader’s alleged mishandling of classified government documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump had denied any wrongdoing, claiming US prosecutors were politically motivated.

Smith ultimately dropped the cases — neither one had gone to trial — after Trump was re-elected in November 2024, which would have shielded him from prosecution under a longstanding Justice Department practice.

Smith then resigned from the department shortly before Trump was inaugurated in January.

US prosecutors said in a report at that time that if Trump had not won the 2024 race, he would have been convicted for “criminal efforts to retain power” following the 2020 election.

The White House had no immediate comment on the Office of Special Counsel’s investigation into Smith, AP said on Saturday.

Fifteen people have been arrested after protests across England outside hotels used to house asylum seekers.

Anti-migrant groups and counter demonstrators clashed in London and Newcastle, and before a march in Manchester city centre.

Nine people were arrested in the capital, seven for breaching Public Order Act conditions, the Metropolitan Police said.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says she wants to “restore order and control” to the asylum system by fast-tracking the appeals process.

She told the paper changes to the way appeals on asylum are handled will take place in the autumn, adding: “If we speed up the decision-making appeal system and also then keep increasing returns, we hope to be able to make quite a big reduction in the overall numbers.”

The Home Office has said the number of hotels being used for asylum seekers has decreased from more than 400 in summer 2023, to less than 210.

It also announced plans to end the use of hotels to house migrants by 2029, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves says will save £1bn a year.

A series of protests outside the migrant hotels have been taking place in recent weeks.

The protest in London on Saturday was held outside of the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in Islington, with a counter-protest led by the group Stand Up To Racism.

The Met said the protest was organised by local residents under the banner “Thistle Barbican needs to go – locals say no”.

But police said it had been “endorsed by groups from outside the local community which is likely to increase the number of people attending”.

The MP for Islington North, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had urged people to join the counter-protest.

The police had imposed special restrictions ahead of the London demonstration, including setting out specific areas where each group had to remain.

In Newcastle, a protest and counter-protest took place outside The New Bridge Hotel.

Four people were arrested and remain in custody, according to Northumbria Police.

“The right to lawful protest is a key part of any democracy, which the police uphold,” a spokesperson for the force said.

“However, we will not accept people using them as a means to commit crime or disorder.”

About 1,500 people waved England and Union flags in a march organised by the Britain First group from Manchester Piccadilly rail station to outside the Central Library, where they held a rally.

About 250 people were also estimated to be at a counter-demonstration led by the Stand up to Racism organisation, with police keeping the groups apart in St Peter’s Square.

Greater Manchester Police said that a “number of demonstrations passed by peacefully” with “no incidents of note”.

But two arrests were made during a confrontation at the start of the march, the statement added.

One person was arrested for theft and the other for obstructing an arrest.

Anticorruption agencies arrest four suspects after government forced to backtrack on push to strip them of autonomy.

Ukrainian authorities have detained several officials over a “large-scale corruption scheme” in the defence sector, just days after lawmakers restored the independence of the country’s two main investigative bodies.

The National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) said in a joint statement on Saturday that they made four arrests in connection with the scheme, which involved the procurement of military drones and signal jamming systems.

“The essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices,” they said, adding that the suspects had received kickbacks of up to 30 percent of the contract amounts.

NABU and SAPO said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of National Guard personnel taking bribes. The suspects were not identified in Saturday’s statement.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs also said it had suspended the suspected National Guard members.

The announcement comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came under criticism last month for trying to take away the anticorruption agencies’ independence and place them under the control of his prosecutor-general.

The agencies regained their autonomy after Zelenskyy’s move sparked the first antigovernment demonstrations in Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022.

Zelenskyy, who enjoys far-reaching wartime powers, initially said he needed to bring the agencies under his control because they were inefficient and under “Russian influence”.

But he then said he had heard people’s anger and submitted a bill restoring the agencies’ independence, which was passed by lawmakers on Thursday.

“It is important that anticorruption institutions operate independently, and the law passed on Thursday guarantees them all the tools necessary for a real fight against corruption,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine’s European allies praised the about-face, having voiced concerns about the original defanging of the agencies.

Top officials had told Zelenskyy that Ukraine was jeopardising its bid for European Union membership by curbing the powers of its antigraft authorities.

In a statement about Saturday’s arrests, Zelenskyy said he was “grateful to the anti-corruption agencies for their work”.

A government-backed pay rise of 4.2% for police officers in England and Wales “barely treads water”, the association representing front-line officers says.

The Police Federation said the pay rise was “worth the price of a Big Mac per shift” and would not stop “record levels of resignations, record mental health absences or the record number of assaults on officers”.

The organisation, which represents more than 145,000 officers, said it would now ask its members whether they accept or reject the award.

The home secretary said the increase, which is marginally above the current rate of inflation of 4.1% and is recommended by an independent review body, was “a clear signal of our gratitude”.

The amount is also above the 2.8% proposed by ministers in December, for which police forces budgeted.

It will mean the starting salary for a police constable will go up by £1,256 to £31,164. The typical salary for a constable who has been in post for six years will be £50,256 and the average salary for a chief superintendent will be £98,500.

In addition, on-call, away from home and hardship allowances will be increased by £10 and London weighting will also rise by 4.2%.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Our brave police officers work day and night, often making enormous sacrifices to keep us safe.”

She added: “We are committed to investing in the front line and supporting officers who work every day to tackle crime, keep our streets safe and protect our communities.”

The pay award will be supported by £120 million from the Home Office to “help protect police force budgets”, the government said.

The Police Federation said while it welcomed the government’s decision to reject police chief constables’ calls for a pay rise of 3.8%, the award was not enough.

Deputy national chair Brian Booth said: “After more than a decade of real terms pay cuts, this award does little to reverse the long-term decline in officers’ living standards or address the crisis policing faces.”

British Transport Police Federation chair Stuart Cowan said 4.2% “is simply nowhere near enough”.

He said: “Officers who are battered and bruised and stretched to their physical and psychological limits are worth so much more than repeated paltry pay increases.”

But the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said the 4.2% increase was above inflation and “it is essential that we attract and retain the best people into policing through competitive pay”.

NPCC lead for pay and conditions, Asst Ch Officer Philip Wells, said the pay award “is what we believe our officers deserve and reflects the nature of the work they are required to undertake to keep our streets safe”.

He added it was “vitally important that additional costs for pay are fully funded if we are to maintain services and be able to continue to invest in areas such as neighbourhood policing and technology”.

Kin yi aure da wani soja wanda kuka gina rayuwa da shi kuma kuka haifi ’ya’ya shida. wata rana, an tura shi yaki ba sake dawowa ba.

Shekaru da yawa bayan haka, yayin da barazanar tayar da kayar baya ta fara bayyana a cikin garinku, ɗanku ya taka bam da ya fashe. Ba ku da tabbas ko zai tsira, kuka garzaya da shi asibiti a babban birnin tarayyar Najeriya, da fatan ba shi damar yin rayuwa.

Bayan shekaru goma, har yanzu ba za ku iya komawa gida ba. Rikicin ya ci gaba da yaduwa. Yanzu, ana fitar da ku daga sansanin da kuke zama inda kuka zauna tsawon shekaru. Me zaku yi? Ina za ku je?

Mai Gabatarwa: Rukayya Saeed

Marubuciya: Sabiqah Bello

Muryoyin Shiri: Sabiqah Bello

Fassara: Rukayya Saeed

Edita: Aliyu Dahiru

Furodusa: Alamin Umar

Babban Furodusa: Anthony Asemota

Babban Mashiryi: Ahmad Salkida

At least 100 people are involved in search operations at the world’s largest underground copper mine.

Rescue teams in Chile are searching for five miners trapped after a partial collapse triggered by a tremor killed one colleague and halted operations at the world’s largest underground copper mine.

At least 100 people were involved in the perilous search effort, said Andres Music, general manager of El Teniente mine in Rancagua, some 100km (62 miles) south of Santiago.

“So far, we have not been able to communicate with them. The tunnels are closed, they are collapsed,” he told reporters on Friday.

The miners had been working at a depth of more than 900 metres when the collapse happened. Their exact location has been pinpointed with specialised equipment.

“We will do everything that is humanly possible to rescue the five trapped workers,” Maximo Pacheco, the president of Chile’s state-owned mining company Codelco, told a news conference on Friday afternoon.

“All of our experience, all of our knowledge, all of our energy and all of our strength are dedicated to this cause and to seeing this through,” he added.

Codelco cancelled a presentation of its first-half financial results, set for Friday morning, due to the rescue efforts.

Temporary closure

Mining minister Aurora Williams earlier announced the temporary cessation of activity at the mine, which began operating in the early 1900s and boasts more than 4,500km (some 2,800 miles) of underground tunnels.

Last year, El Teniente produced 356,000 tonnes of copper – nearly 7 percent of the total for Chile.

The cave-in happened after a “seismic event” on Thursday afternoon, of which the origin – natural or caused by drilling – is not yet known, according to authorities. The tremor registered a magnitude of 4.2.

“It is one of the biggest events, if not the biggest, that the El Teniente deposit has experienced in decades,” said Music, adding: “We are making every effort to try to rescue these five miners.”

“The next 48 hours are crucial,” the manager said.

The search team included several of the rescuers who participated in successfully surfacing 33 miners trapped in a mine for more than two months in the Atacama Desert in 2010, attracting a whirlwind of global media attention.

Chile is the world’s largest copper producer, responsible for nearly a quarter of global supply with about 5.3 million tonnes in 2024. Its mining industry is one of the safest on the planet, with a death rate of 0.02 percent last year, according to the National Geology and Mining Service of Chile.

It also lies in the seismically active “Ring of Fire” that surrounds the shores of the Pacific Ocean.