NEWS

United States President Donald Trump has ordered two nuclear submarines to travel closer to Russia, in his latest tit-for-tat with Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev.

On Friday, Trump posted on his platform Truth Social that the submarine movements came in response to the “highly provocative statements” Medvedev, a former Russian president, made this week.

A day earlier, Medvedev had warned that Trump should be mindful of “how dangerous the fabled ‘Dead Hand’ can be”, a reference to Russia’s Cold War-era nuclear weapons system.

“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote.

“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.”

In recent weeks, Trump has been enmeshed in an escalating war of words with Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council under current President Vladimir Putin.

Medvedev and Putin have a close relationship: When Medvedev served as president from 2008 to 2012, Putin was his prime minister. Afterwards, when Putin returned to the presidency, Medvedev served as his prime minister from 2012 to 2020.

But as Trump voices increasing frustration with Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, he has increasingly singled out Medvedev, a noted war hawk, as a target for his anger. Both men have hinted at their countries’ nuclear capabilities, and their public exchanges have grown increasingly tense.

A war of words

In a social media post earlier this week, Trump pivoted from a discussion of trade between India and Russia to an attack on Medvedev for his sabre-rattling remarks.

“I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care,” Trump wrote.

“Russia and the USA do almost no business together. Let’s keep it that way, and tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”

Medvedev, meanwhile, has appeared to relish how his words provoke the US president.

“If some words from the former president of Russia trigger such a nervous reaction from the high-and-mighty president of the United States, then Russia is doing everything right and will continue to proceed along its own path,” Medvedev responded in a post on Telegram.

Medvedev then proceeded to reference the zombie apocalypse series The Walking Dead, in an apparent nod to the devastation Russia has the power to cause.

“And as for the ‘dead economy’ of India and Russia and ‘entering dangerous territory’ — well, let Trump remember his favourite films about the ‘Walking Dead’.”

This week is not the first time Trump and Medvedev have taken their beef online. In late June, the two men likewise sparred and flexed their nuclear arsenals.

“Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the ‘N word’ (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran?” Trump wrote on June 23.

He then pointed to the recent US attack on Iran as an example of how the country might respond to other threats.

“If anyone thinks our ‘hardware’ was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have, 20 years advanced over the pack, is our Nuclear Submarines,” Trump wrote. “They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built.”

He also took a jab at Medvedev’s position under Putin, suggesting that Medvedev’s threats were irresponsible.

“I guess that’s why Putin’s ‘THE BOSS’,” Trump quipped.

Frustrations over Ukraine war

The high-stakes back-and-forth comes as Trump becomes increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress towards peace in Ukraine.

Since February 2022, a slow-grinding war has unfolded in the country, as Ukraine attempts to repel a full-scale invasion from Russia.

Trump entered his second term as president pledging to be a global “peacemaker and unifier”, and his administration has openly advocated for the Republican leader to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

But his efforts to resolve the dispute between Ukraine and Russia have stalled.

Early in his second term, Trump himself faced criticism for appearing to undermine Ukraine’s cause, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being a “dictator” and appearing to offer Russia concessions, including annexed Ukrainian territory.

By contrast, Trump initially took a warm approach to Putin, telling Zelenskyy in a fiery Oval Office meeting, “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.”

But in recent months, that relationship appears to have cooled, with Trump threatening Russia with sanctions as the war grinds on. On July 28, he announced that Russia would have “10 or 12 days” to stop its offensive, or else the economic penalties would take effect.

Then, on Thursday, as Russia shelled the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Trump slammed its continued military action.

“Russia — I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing. I think it’s disgusting,” he said.

But Medvedev has previously described Trump’s deadlines as “theatrical” and said that “Russia didn’t care” about the threats. He also warned that Trump’s aggressive foreign policy stance may backfire with his “America First” base.

“Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia,” Medvedev wrote on the social media platform X earlier this week.

“He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.”

Cambodia demands return of more soldiers held by Thailand as border tensions simmer between the two countries.

Thailand has released two wounded Cambodian soldiers who were captured following intense clashes near a contested border area, as the neighbours prepare for talks next week aimed at maintaining a shaky truce.

The soldiers were returned on Friday through a checkpoint connecting Thailand’s Surin province and Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey, the Cambodian Defence Ministry said.

Their homecoming comes amid continued accusations from both governments over alleged civilian targeting and breaches of international law during a five-day conflict that erupted last week.

Eighteen other Cambodian troops captured during skirmishes on Tuesday, hours after a ceasefire deal was reached, remain in Thai custody.

“The wounded soldiers were returned through a designated border point,” said Maly Socheata, a spokesperson for Cambodia’s Defence Ministry, urging Bangkok to repatriate the remaining captured troops “in accordance with international humanitarian law”.

The two governments have provided starkly contrasting versions of the soldiers’ capture.

Phnom Penh says its troops approached Thai positions with peaceful intentions, offering post-conflict greetings. But Bangkok disputes that account, alleging the Cambodian soldiers crossed into Thai territory with apparent hostility, prompting their detention.

Thai officials say they are adhering to legal protocols while assessing the actions of the remaining soldiers. No timeline has been given for their release.

The ceasefire has done little to ease simmering nationalist anger online, with social media platforms in both countries flooded by patriotic fervour and mutual recriminations.

Meanwhile, both nations have taken foreign diplomats and observers on guided tours of former combat zones. Each side has accused the other of inflicting damage, using the visits to bolster their narratives.

The recent round of violence involved infantry clashes, Cambodian rocket fire, Thai air strikes, and artillery exchanges. The fighting killed more than 30 people, including civilians, and forced more than 260,000 others from their homes.

Under the ceasefire terms, military officials from both countries are due to meet next week in Malaysia to discuss de-escalation measures.

However, these talks will exclude the underlying territorial dispute, which has remained unresolved for decades.

The General Border Committee, which coordinates on border security, ceasefires, and troop deployments, will meet between August 4 and 7, Thai acting Defence Minister Nattaphon Narkphanit told reporters.

“Defence attaches from other ASEAN countries will be invited as well as the defence attaches from the US and China,” a Malaysian government spokesperson told reporters, referring to the Southeast Asian regional bloc that the country currently chairs.

Separately on Friday, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol said Phnom Penh intends to nominate United States President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role in brokering the ceasefire.

Speaking earlier in the capital, he thanked Trump for “bringing peace” and insisted the US leader deserved the award.

Similar nominations have recently come from Pakistan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both citing Trump’s interventions in regional disputes.

Fighting between the armies of Uganda and neighbouring South Sudan, which are longtime allies, erupted this week over demarcations in disputed border regions, leading to the death of at least four soldiers, according to official reports from both sides.

Thousands of civilians have since been displaced in affected areas as people fled to safety amid the rare outbreak of violence.

A gunfight began on Monday and comes as South Sudan, one of the world’s youngest countries, is facing renewed violence due to fracturing within the government of President Salva Kiir that has led to fighting between South Sudanese troops and a rebel armed group.

Uganda has been pivotal in keeping that issue contained by deploying troops to assist Kiir’s forces. However, the latest conflict between the two countries’ armies is raising questions regarding the state of that alliance.

What has happened?

There are conflicting accounts of the events that began at about 4:25pm local time (13:25 GMT) on Monday, making it hard to pinpoint which side struck first.

The two agree on where the fighting took place, but each claims the site as being in its own territory.

Ugandan military spokesperson Major-General Felix Kulayigye told reporters on Wednesday that the fighting broke out when South Sudanese soldiers crossed into Ugandan territory in the state of West Nile and set up camp there. The South Sudanese soldiers refused to leave after being told to do so, Kulayigye said, resulting in the Ugandan side having “to apply force”.

A Ugandan soldier was killed in the skirmish that ensued, Kulayigye added, after which the Ugandan side retaliated and opened fire, killing three South Sudanese soldiers.

However, South Sudan military spokesperson Major-General Lul Ruai Koang said in a Facebook post earlier on Tuesday that armies of the “two sisterly republics” had exchanged fire on the South Sudanese side, in the Kajo Keji County of Central Equatoria state. Both sides suffered casualties, he said, without giving more details.

Wani Jackson Mule, a local leader in Kajo-Keji County, backed up this account in a Facebook post on Wednesday and added that Ugandan forces had launched a “surprise attack” on South Sudanese territory. Mule said local officials had counted the bodies of five South Sudanese officers.

Kajo-Keji County army commander Brigadier General Henry Buri, in the same statement as Mule, said the Ugandan forces had been “heavily armed with tanks and artillery”, and that they had targeted a joint security force unit stationed to protect civilians, who are often attacked by criminal groups in the area. The army general identified the deceased men as two South Sudanese soldiers, two police officers and one prison officer.

The fighting affected border villages and caused panic as people fled from the area, packing their belongings hurriedly on their backs, according to residents speaking to the media. Children were lost in the chaos. Photos on social media showed crowds gathered as local priests supervised the collection and transport of remains.

What is the border conflict about?

Uganda and South Sudan have previously clashed over demarcations along their joint border, although those events have been few and far between. As with the Monday clash, the fighting is often characterised by tension and violence. However, heavy artillery fighting, which occurred on Monday, is rare.

Problems at the border date back to the demarcations made during the British colonial era between Sudan, which South Sudan was once a part of, and Uganda. Despite setting up a joint demarcation committee (unknown when), the two countries have failed to agree on border points.

In November 2010, just months before an anticipated South Sudanese referendum on independence from Sudan, clashes erupted after the Ugandan government accused the Sudanese army of attacking Dengolo village in the West Nile district of Moyo on the Ugandan side in multiple raids, and of arresting Ugandan villagers who were accused of crossing the border to cut down timber.

A South Sudanese army spokesperson denied the allegations and suggested that the assailants could have been from the forestry commission. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and South Sudan’s Kiir met a few days later and pledged to finalise the border issue, but that did not happen.

Little was reported on the matter for several years after that, but in October 2020, two Ugandan soldiers and two South Sudanese soldiers were killed when the two sides attacked each other in Pogee, Magwi County of South Sudan, which connects to Gulu district of northern Uganda. The area includes disputed territory. Some reports claimed that three South Sudanese were killed. Each side blamed the other for starting the fight.

In September 2024, the Ugandan parliament urged the government to expedite the demarcation process, adding that the lack of clear borders was fuelling insecurity in parts of rural Uganda, and Ugandan forces could not effectively pursue criminal cattle rustling groups operating in the border area as a result.

Following the latest flare-up of violence this week, the countries have pledged to form a new joint committee to investigate the clashes, South Sudan military spokesperson, General Koang, said in a statement on Tuesday. The committee will also investigate any recurring issues along the border in a bid to resolve them, the statement read.

Why does Uganda provide military support to South Sudan’s President Kiir?

Uganda’s Museveni has been a staunch ally of South Sudan’s independence leader, Kiir, and his Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party for many years.

Museveni supported South Sudan’s liberation war against Sudan, especially following alleged collusion between the former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group originally formed in Uganda but which regularly attacks both Ugandan and South Sudanese locations in its efforts to overthrow the Ugandan government.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in January 2011. In 2013, Uganda sent troops to support Kiir after a civil war broke out in the new country.

Fighting had erupted between forces loyal to Kiir and those loyal to his longtime rival, Riek Machar, who was also Kiir’s deputy president pre and post independence, over allegations that Machar was planning a coup.

Ethnic differences between the two (Kiir is Dinka while Machar is Nuer) also added to the tensions. Machar fled the capital, Juba, to form his own Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO).

The SPLM and SPLM-IO fought for five years before reaching a peace agreement in August 2018. About 400,000 people were killed in the war. Uganda deployed troops to fight alongside Kiir’s SPLM, while the United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNMISS), which was in place following independence, worked to protect civilians.

This year, a power-sharing deal has unravelled, however, and fighting has again broken out between South Sudanese forces and the White Army, a Nuer armed group which the government alleges is backed by Machar, in Nasir County, in the northeast of the country.

In March, Uganda again deployed special forces to fight alongside Kiir’s forces as fears of another civil war mounted. Kiir ordered Machar to be placed under house arrest and also detained several of his allies in the government.

Are there concerns about Uganda’s influence in South Sudan?

Some South Sudanese who support Vice President Machar, who is still under house arrest, are opposed to Uganda’s deployment of troops in the country, and say Kampala is overreaching.

Since the Monday skirmish with Ugandan troops, some South Sudanese have taken to Facebook to rail against the army for not condemning alleged territorial violations by Ugandan soldiers, and mocked the spokesman, Koang, for describing the nations as “sisterly”.

“I wish the escalation would continue,” one poster wrote. “The reason why South Sudan is not peaceful is because of Uganda’s interference in our country’s affairs.”

“What did South Sudan expect when they cheaply sold their sovereignty to Uganda?” another commenter added.

Since joining forces to fight the rebel White Army, South Sudanese forces and the Ugandan Army have been accused by Machar and local authorities in Nasir State of using chemical weapons, namely barrel bombs containing a flammable liquid that they say has burned and killed civilians. Nicholas Haysom, head of the UN mission in South Sudan, confirmed that air strikes had been conducted with the bombs. However, Uganda has denied these allegations. The South Sudan army has not commented.

Forces local to Machar, including the White Army, have also been accused of targeting civilians. Dozens have died, and at least 100,000 have been displaced across northeastern South Sudan since March.

In May, Amnesty International said Uganda’s deployment and supply of arms to South Sudan violated a UN arms embargo on the country, which was part of the 2018 peace deal, and called on the UN Security Council to enforce the clause.

Italy has signed a deal with Albania, where it planned to process up to 36,000 asylum seekers per year.

The European Union’s top court has backed Italian judges who questioned a list of “safe countries” drawn up by Rome, as it prepares to deport migrants to detention centres in Albania.

The hard-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni denounced the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) ruling and said it “weakens policies to combat mass illegal immigration”.

Meloni’s plan to outsource migrant processing to a non-EU country and speed up repatriations of failed asylum seekers has been followed closely by others in the bloc.

The costly scheme has been frozen for months by legal challenges.

Italian magistrates have cited the European court’s decision that EU states cannot designate an entire country as “safe” when certain regions are not.

On Friday, in a long-awaited judgement, the Luxembourg-based ECJ said Italy is free to decide which countries are “safe”, but warned that such a designation should meet strict legal standards and allow applicants and courts to access and challenge the supporting evidence.

In its statement, the ECJ said a Rome court had turned to EU judges, citing the impossibility of accessing such information and thus preventing it from “challenging and reviewing the lawfulness of such a presumption of safety”.

The ECJ also said a country might not be classified “safe” if it does not offer adequate protection to its entire population, agreeing with Italian judges that had raised this issue last year.

Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, had signed a migration deal in November 2023, and last year, Rome opened two centres in Albania, where it planned to process up to 36,000 asylum seekers per year.

The detention facilities have, however, been empty for months, due to the judicial obstacles. Last week, a report found that their construction cost was seven times more than that of an equivalent centre in Italy.

Government’s approach ‘dismantled’?

The European court made its judgement considering a case of two Bangladeshi nationals who were rescued at sea by Italian authorities and taken to Albania, where their asylum claims were rejected based on Italy’s classification of Bangladesh as a “safe” country.

Dario Belluccio, a lawyer who represented one of the Bangladeshi asylum seekers at the ECJ on Friday, said the Albanian migrant camps scheme had been killed off.

“It will not be possible to continue with what the Italian government had envisioned before this decision … Technically, it seems to me that the government’s approach has been completely dismantled,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Meloni’s office complained that the EU judgement allows national judges to dictate policy on migration, “further reduc(ing) the already limited” capacity of parliament and government to take decisions on the matter.

“This is a development that should concern everybody,” it said.

Meanwhile, though the Albanian scheme is stuck in legal limbo, Italy’s overall effort to curb undocumented migration by sea has been successful.

There have been 36,557 such migrant arrivals in the year to date, slightly up from the same period of 2024, but far below the 89,165 recorded over the same time span in 2023.

Palestinians take Al Jazeera on journey showing how hard it is to get food at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution hubs. Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 people at GHF sites since May. Observers say Israel’s aid management is cruel and farcical.

England’s Gus Atkinson takes three wickets on the morning of day two to finish with five overall as India are bowled out for 224 in their first innings of the final Test at The Oval.

FOLLOW LIVE: England v India fifth Test – day two

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That year, the world seemed cursed. Naira was crashing against the dollar, and the price of a 50 kg bag of rice was nearing ₦50,000. Politicians, crisscrossing the country ahead of the general elections, offered no real answers to kidnappings, terrorist killings, and gunmen violence.

At Christ High Commission, a church in Ekiti, South West Nigeria, preparations for what many believed would be the rapture intensified. A pastor declared the end of the world, and members began to arrive from Kaduna, Kabba, Benin, and across the country. 

“We saw it in the time of Noah,” said Badakin, a member of the church who went with his entire family.

Now, over three years later, many followers are still camping with the pastor as the date for the rapture keeps changing. An expert is now warning that the exercise could end tragically for all involved, as the pastor’s actions are consistent with those who usually eventually end up committing suicide or mass murder, as we have seen happen in similar cases across the continent.

For this group, the rapture was not a metaphor. The church, to them, was literally a high commission, a gateway to heaven. The pastor, Ade Abraham, was consumed with the idea. In Kabba, where he first founded his church, he carefully prepared members.

“He taught us how to be worthy, the things the Bible teaches about sin – how to be holy in career, marriage, and worship,” said Dare Ikuenayo, who served as the church’s choir master. 

As members arrived in Ekiti, they camped in a gated compound in Araromi Ugbesi, a village in Ekiti East Local Government Area. The property, once a Cherubim and Seraphim Church, housed a residential apartment where Pastor Abraham lived, an auditorium that served as the church hall, and a modest hostel that accommodated communal dining and meetings.

There, at least 40 people, including workers who left their jobs, students who abandoned school, and a corps member who fled service, lived in daily anticipation of the rapture.

“His [Pastor Abraham’s] own son, who had just spent one month at NYSC, was withdrawn to come and wait,” said Badakin, referring to the compulsory National Youth Service for Nigerian graduates.

“His second son, who was in 300 level in FUTA, also came down…My daughter in Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, just finished her second semester examination in the second year,” Badakin continued. “On the second day, we all converged in Omuo … before Kaduna people came to meet us there.”

A prophet’s unravelling 

Pastor Abraham had only finished primary school when a relative took him from Omuo-Ekiti, his hometown, to Kaduna. He lived there for many years, learned welding and married Mary, the woman who would later follow him to Kabba, a town in Kogi State, North Central Nigeria. In Kabba, he began as a farmer, then moved into selling electrical appliances. Eventually, he founded a church.

He built the church alone, said some Kabba residents who spoke with the Nigerian online newspaper ICIR in April 2022. “He can start any house from the scratch, roof it, put the electrical appliances and do the plumbing without any assistance.”

Although it is unclear if he went beyond primary school, Pastor Abraham conducted his services in English. For members who struggled with the language, he used an interpreter.

He was “too smart,” said one Kabba resident to ICIR. To his wife, Pastor Abraham was a caring man, the kind of “man every woman will love to have as a husband.” To the congregation, he was a strict and disciplined pastor. On Sundays, he locked the door at 8:00 a.m., so that no one could come in once the service had begun. 

“His ministry was different from other pastors,” Dare told me on the phone. “I went to his church because I believed what he believed. I believed Jesus, righteousness, holiness.”

Pastor Abraham would later establish a branch in Kaduna, where he appointed Badakin as pastor.

“Mostly, the teaching in Kabba was about the rapture and the preparation,” said Badakin.

“I saw Christ live, and I held Him live, and I felt Him live.”

A botched rapture 

At the camp, preparations went beyond prayers. Pastor Abraham assigned members the roles they would play in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

“I was selected among those who would coordinate work,” Anike, the pastor’s older sister and ex-church member, told me. “They said I wouldn’t work but would be paid. They said my office would be to the left.”

Villagers narrated how Pastor Abraham drove to the market several times and loaded his vehicle with tomatoes and other foodstuffs. Campers would cross the road to gather firewood, which they used to cook behind the hostel. In a video recorded at the camp in 2022, large cooking pots blackened from repeated use could be seen.

“You could not go out to buy food,” said Badakin.

Everyone bore the pastor’s surname, residents told me in the village. “If you asked, one might say, ‘My name is Joke Abraham.’ “

The day of the rapture, however, kept changing.

“He [Pastor Abraham] said whenever we heard the humming of a big vehicle in the middle of the night, we should hold any child we wanted to take along, climb onto the vehicle, and we would find ourselves in the Kingdom of Heaven,” said Anike.

“He once told us we were going the following week. But when the week arrived, he shifted it, saying some [of the campers] had done things Baba frowned at.” 

And Pastor Abraham is not the kind to joke with sin. 

“He almost flogged some, even those who were older than him,” Anike continued.

By April 2022, concern had started to grow outside the camp. A man whose sister and two children were inside began reaching out to journalists for help. His sister had taken the children to the camp without their father’s consent and had even sent a WhatsApp message to her son abroad, urging him to return home in time for the rapture.

When the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) spoke with one of the campers, she said, “We are not coming back.” 

The member, who sought anonymity, had pulled out of school to join the team. “… it’s hard to accept that I won’t attend school anymore and rapture is coming soon,” she said.

As one of the many chosen days neared, members of the group began to sell their belongings. The pastor himself, according to Anike, sold his three cars. 

Media reports would, however, bring the entire journey to a halt. It rattled Pastor Abraham. Some people believed his intention was to fleece his followers; others thought his followers were simply stupid. The police arraigned him over the ₦310,000 he had asked each member to pay into his account before coming to camp. The pastor would later describe the payment to journalists as “a sacrifice,” while Anike told me it was meant to grant them a pass at the gate of heaven.

The dark side of faith 

Faith that refuses to listen or acknowledge other people’s views could be interpreted as delusion, Chioma Onyemaobi, a clinical psychologist, told me.

Suicide bombers belong here, and charismatic preachers divorced from reality: Maitatsine. Jim Jones. Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteere, who in 2000 orchestrated a similar camping that ended in mass death.

Pastor Abraham shares many similarities with Joseph Kibweteere. Like him, he preached an apocalyptic end, when only members gathered at a spot would be saved. Like him, he set multiple dates for the end of the world, each passing without event. And like Kibweteere, his transformation didn’t fully take shape until he encountered Anabel, his choirmaster’s wife, after which his visions became more urgent.

Anabel’s careless prophecies eventually “scattered” the Kabba church, Badakin revealed.

The making of “God”

The man who arrived in Araromi Ugbesi in August 2021 was no longer the one who had founded a modest church in Kabba. He had seen death, the death of a member’s son right inside his church. 

The man who arrived in Araromi could lie. He had taken a church member’s wife and sent his own away. He had demolished the church he built alone, abandoned his home, and fled his base. 

Above all, the man who arrived in Araromi was no longer a man. He believed himself “God”.

In Kabba, Pastor Abraham had told his followers he was the leader of the end-time revival. But in Araromi, he wasn’t just a messenger anymore. He spoke of a Kingdom of Heaven where he would be king. 

The pastor was born Prince Adelegan Fasiku, and was the fifth and last child of a wife of Oba Abraham Fasiku, then Olomuo, ruler of Omuo-Ekiti Kingdom.

“He [Pastor Abraham] said, ‘Those of you still calling Jesus, Jesus has finished his own work,’ ” Anike told me in her late husband’s house in Araromi.

She spoke not with the affection with which one speaks of a younger brother, the one to whom you passed your mother’s breasts. Rather, she spoke with the tone of one who has been betrayed: “The bond of siblinghood is broken between us.”

“He said he saw the heart, and I made sure my heart was one with him,” said Anike.

“When he arrived, he told me never to call him Ade, so I called him ‘Father.’ “

In the Araromi church, no one mentioned the name of God, Anike told me. “Instead, we called ‘Baba’. He said he was Baba and his wife was Oluaye.”

“The moment we entered the church, they would lock the door behind us.”

“There were three red seats (arms made of iron) in front, where no one was allowed to sit. You must bend over while walking past them. He said they belonged to the elders.”

Recounting his encounter with Pastor Abraham, Rev. Taiwo Adewunmi, the immediate past chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in the LGA, told me in his office: “He never mentioned Jesus. He would say, ‘Baba.’”

“That was when we began to see that things were going wrong,” said Badakin. “The name of Jesus was no longer mentioned.”

He also used a different Bible from the standard one. Perhaps most surprising, however, was how easily his members, the same people he had once groomed in scripture and trained to be Christians, embraced his new doctrines.

When he became involved with Anabel, his choirmaster’s wife, under unclear circumstances, some of his members revolted. But when he was chased out of Kabba for refusing to let go of her, some members left with him.

“Some are still with him,” Dare, Annabel’s husband, told me. “The moment you believe someone, you believe them.”

Disappointed, however, some ex-members of Christ High Commission in Kabba no longer go to church, according to Dare.

After a botched rapture 

More than three years after the botched rapture, many are still camping with Pastor Abraham in Ekiti, including Anike’s daughter and her husband, whom the pastor had brought from Benin. 

Badakin’s three children are still camping with Pastor Abraham. One was a medical sales representative, who arrived at the camp in his official car.

“We’ve been to so many places to see what we can do, but at the end of the day, we’re still waiting for the court,” said Badakin, who believes it was God who got him out.

While a case is in court and the group has been driven from their original location, they’ve found shelter nearby. I visited their new camp, a modest bungalow owned by one of Pastor Abraham’s relatives in Kota, a neighbouring town to Araromi. His son told me the person who could have spoken with me was attending a meeting, and his father was too busy to entertain yet another journalist.

“There is something called delusional narcissism,” Chioma, the psychologist, told me. “People with narcissistic personality disorder can be delusional in the sense that they perceive the world differently (fantasy world). So now he [Pastor Abraham] is dragging people into this fantasy, or rather, the delusion he has created, and from the story, it doesn’t look like he is letting go.”

Disaster looming 

On March 17, 2000, after multiple failed apocalyptic prophecies, Joseph Kibweteere and other leaders of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God gathered their followers for a party in Kanungu, a town in the Western Region of Uganda. They had purchased 50 litres of sulphuric acid. Shortly after the members arrived, a massive explosion rocked the compound, killing all 530 people in what has been described as mass murder or suicide.

Anike believes their own rapture might have ended the same way. 

“I’m only grateful we did not take off on the chosen day,” she told me. “Who knows whether we would have been set ablaze?”

But danger still lurks. 

People suffering from narcissistic personality disorder or delusions have the tendency to commit suicide, said Chioma.

And in November 2023, when Pastor Abraham resurfaced in the press, he appeared to hint at it: “The prophecy is that I have concluded my job and I am on my way to the one that sent me.”

“I hope he isn’t too delusional to commit mass murder,” said Chioma. “But then, persons with narcissistic personality disorder or delusions have the tendency to commit suicide. If things like depression, despair, challenges, and failure are in the picture, then we have to be worried because suicidal thoughts are not far away.”

Rev. Taiwo believes anyone who’s not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission or any of the recognised religious associations in the country should not be allowed to own a church.

When asked, Badakin said Christ High Commission was never registered. Pastor Abraham had moved from the Living Faith Church, also known as Winners’ Chapel, to the Church of God of Prophecy, where he headed a branch, Badakin revealed. It was when a crisis divided the branch that he went with some members to start his own.

A news report may have saved most of the 40 members of Christ High Commission from a disastrous end, but the fate of the few still camping is uncertain.

England’s Chris Woakes was forced off the field on the first day of the fifth Test against India with a shoulder injury.

England paceman Chris Woakes is set to miss the remainder of the fifth and deciding Test against India at the Oval after suffering a shoulder injury, team management have announced.

Woakes injured himself late on Thursday’s opening day in south London in a desperate bid to prevent a boundary, landing awkwardly and then leaving the field with his left arm in a makeshift sling while in evident pain.

He was then assessed by team medical staff, and while Woakes could yet feature again in a dire emergency, an England spokesman speaking before the start of Friday’s second day ruled him out.

“England seamer Chris Woakes will continue to be monitored throughout the remainder of the Rothesay Fifth Test at The Kia Oval, following a left shoulder injury sustained on day one of the match against India,” the spokesman said.

“At this stage, the injury has ruled him out of any further participation in the Test.

“A further assessment will be conducted at the conclusion of the series.”

India, who must win the match to end a five-Test series level at 2-2, were 204-6 at Thursday’s close after being sent into bat.

Woakes is the only England pace bowler to have featured in every match of a gruelling series where five Tests have been squeezed into a schedule of seven weeks.

On generally flat pitches in the preceding four Tests, Woakes struggled to make an impact, taking 10 wickets. And on Thursday he had India opener KL Rahul chop the ball onto his stumps before suffering the injury.

Given his mediocre record away from home, Woakes already faced a tough task to gain selection for England’s upcoming Ashes tour of Australia, and, at the age of 36, this injury could threaten the Warwickshire all-rounder’s international career.

In the short term, his injury is set to leave an already depleted England pace attack a man down at the Oval, with substitutes only permitted to field, not bat or bowl.

England captain Ben Stokes, the leading wicket-taker this series, is missing the series finale with a shoulder injury, while pacemen Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse were both left out at the Oval following their previous workload in this series.

Express quick Mark Wood is a long-term absentee, while Olly Stone is only just returning to fitness following a knee injury.

It started with a violent crime. In June, in the centre of Torun, central-north Poland, a Venezuelan man stabbed 24-year-old Klaudia, a Polish woman, to death as she was walking home from work through a park.

That horrific incident led to a silent march by thousands of protesters through Torun on Sunday, July 6. Local media reported that the march had been organised by supporters of the far-right Konfederacja political alliance and people carried signs saying “stop illegal immigration”.

Then came the rumours and misinformation. On July 14, someone in Walbrzych, southwestern Poland, called the police to report a Paraguayan man who had allegedly taken pictures of children on a playground.

The police stopped the man but did not find anything incriminating on his phone. That didn’t stop two Polish men from beating him up soon afterwards. And, the next day, a group of about 50 people stormed the hostel he and other migrants were living in. Some people threw flares into the building, and the owner has since been forced to close the hostel down.

In recent weeks, anti-migrant sentiment in Poland has been on the rise, spurred by far-right rhetoric, which asserts that Poland has been flooded with “unconstrained illegal migration”. Claims that migrants take local jobs and that they pose a threat to Poles both physically and figuratively, with their “foreign lifestyle”, are common and even encouraged by lawmakers.

One MP from Konfederacja – Konrad Berkowicz from Krakow – told TOK FM radio: “Xenophobia is an important element of our national unity. Condemning xenophobia and stifling it in the West has led to rapes and terrorist acts, that’s why we should cherish xenophobia.”

Elmi Abdi, 62, a Somali who came to Poland in 1996 as a refugee, told Al Jazeera: “Today, migrants are seen as responsible for all of Poland’s problems; we are scapegoats that all parties attack, even though politicians know it’s all untrue.” Today, Abdi is head of the Good Start foundation, which supports migrants, offering help with access to language classes, legal assistance and other matters.

“It is sad because we [immigrants] do everything to work safely here, pay taxes, and integrate into society.”

As misinformation – such as in the Walbrzych incident – about immigrants spreads, the Polish Migration Forum, a rights group, has called the atmosphere in Poland “pre-pogrom-like”.

“What distinguishes today’s situation is the violence. We are in a very bad place,” said Agnieszka Kosowicz, head of the forum. “Acts of violence already take place, people are subject to insults, threats and displays of hostility and contempt. This is a very alarming situation that requires a decisive response from the state.”

Rumours of ‘illegal returns’

On July 7, Poland reinstated border controls with Germany and Lithuania. That followed similar restrictions Germany imposed earlier in the year to discourage asylum seekers from entering through Poland.

Poland is also now actively monitoring the return of migrants – both asylum and non-asylum seekers – by the German police, as per European Union rules. These are people who arrived in Poland from outside the EU before crossing to Germany.

These returns of migrants by the German authorities are legal, but as rumours on the internet about “illegal returns” of migrants continue to spread, unofficial, far-right patrols have appeared at the borders to monitor the situation and make “citizen arrests” of individuals they believe to be entering the country illegally – so far without much success.

The EU accused Belarusian and Russian authorities of fomenting the EU’s migration crisis to destabilise the continent, by encouraging people from the Global South to travel to Belarus and then onwards into Europe via Poland.

In 2022, Poland built a fence along the border with Belarus to prevent migrants from entering the country irregularly. The fence, however, did little to physically stop migrants from coming in.

So, in March this year, Poland suspended the right to claim asylum altogether in a bid to deter people from coming.

All of this has served to stir up anti-migrant fear in Poland, which has been further amplified by far-right groups for their own political purposes.

‘We are being humiliated’

The hysteria reached a new high nearly two weeks ago, when, on Saturday, July 19, anti-migrant marches organised by the far-right Konfederacja party and football fans swept through 80 Polish towns and cities, shouting racist slurs and slogans.

Sixteen-year-old Nikola, who did not want to give her surname, told Al Jazeera that she had travelled 125km (80 miles) from her home in Gorlice, southern Poland, to attend the march in Krakow. She said she came along after watching videos on YouTube claiming that, in Western Europe, people are “afraid to leave their homes” because of the number of undocumented immigrants.

She said it was important to her to join a cause that “unites Poles today”.

“I wanted to be part of a community. People are showing those at the top that they care about security and that Poland is our country. We should do everything we can to prevent what’s happening in Western Europe,” she said.

“I’d like to feel safe in my city, and I’ve already seen a few people who looked like they are not from here,” she added.

On the march, Nikola joined a large column of several hundred people, many of them wearing Polish patriotic T-shirts and emblems of the Wisla football club, walking to Market Square. On the way, they passed tourists, some of whom were filming the protesters.

Three elderly women proudly waved white-and-red Polish flags among the football fans. “The nation has had enough of what’s happening. It’s waking up because we’re living under terror, being humiliated,” said Danuta, 60, who also did not want to give her full name. “The borders are not sealed and have to be defended by civilians,” she added, referring to the right-wing groups who patrol the Polish-German border.

On Market Square in the centre of the city, the march crossed paths with a smaller counterdemonstration organised by local left-wing groups, and the two groups exchanged insults while separated by the police.

The police did not record any major incidents during the day. But Abdi and other migrants Al Jazeera spoke with by telephone said they did not dare to leave their homes on Saturday.

Fake news fans the flames

According to experts, anti-migrant sentiment in Poland has been spurred by misinformation and fake news about the number of people entering the country, which does not reflect reality.

“Poland is not experiencing any large-scale irregular migration,” said Kosowicz. “Within the Dublin procedure [under EU rules], Germany returns people who claimed asylum in Poland and then crossed into Germany. In 2024, there were 688 such people, and this year – 318. This is nothing new.”

According to the International Migration Outlook report for 2024 from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2.2 percent of Poland’s population was foreign-born in 2023. This is low compared with other European countries such as the UK (15.4 percent), Germany (18.2 percent) and France (13.8 percent).

In 2022, 152,000 immigrants obtained residence permits for more than one year in Poland, the OECD said.

At the Polish-Belarusian border, which has been used by migrants from Global South countries trying to reach Europe since 2021, incoming numbers of migrants have not been particularly high, either. According to official data, from January to late June this year, 15,022 illegal crossing attempts were recorded, of which only 5 percent were successful.

In 2024, there were nearly 30,000 attempts, out of which, by contrast, one-third (10,900) were successful. In 2021, before Poland built a fence at the border with Belarus, the number of attempts reached 52,000.

Kosowicz also blames the government, which she says has failed to build awareness about the costs and benefits of development and migration, making all foreigners potential victims of hate attacks.

“A study by Deloitte and UNHCR says that 2.7 percent of Polish GDP comes solely from the work of Ukrainian refugees. But this isn’t the information we hear from politicians,” she said.

Abdi, who is married to a Polish woman with whom he has two children, worries greatly about their future.

“When I arrived here, the Poles welcomed me wonderfully, and I care deeply about Poland; it’s my home. I want it to be safe for everyone,” he told Al Jazeera in fluent Polish.

“At the marches, people shout that they want a white Poland. I’m old enough, I’m not afraid of anything. But I am worried about my children.”

US president condemns Russian attacks on Kyiv as Ukraine’s Zelenskyy calls for ‘regime change’ in Moscow.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened new sanctions while slamming Russia’s military actions in Ukraine as “disgusting”.

“Russia – I think it’s disgusting what they’re doing. I think it’s disgusting,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, the same day Moscow’s attacks on Kyiv killed more than a dozen people.

Trump also said he would send his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, currently in Israel, to visit Russia next.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already met Witkoff multiple times in Moscow, before Trump’s efforts to mend ties with the Kremlin came to a grinding halt.

Washington has given Moscow until the end of next week to cease hostilities in Ukraine, under threat of severe economic sanctions.

Trump reiterated the deadline on Thursday.

“We’re going to put sanctions. I don’t know that sanctions bother him,” the US president said, referring to Putin.

Trump has previously threatened that new measures could mean “secondary tariffs” targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners, such as China and India. This would further stifle Russia, but would risk significant international disruption.

The US president began his second term with his own rosy predictions that the war in Ukraine, raging since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022, would soon end.

In recent weeks, Trump has increasingly voiced frustration with Putin over Moscow’s unrelenting offensive.

Call for ‘regime change’

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his allies to bring about “regime change” in Russia, hours after the deadly attack on Kyiv.

Speaking virtually to a conference marking 50 years since the signing of the Cold War-era Helsinki Accords on Thursday, Zelenskyy said he believed Russia could be “pushed” to stop the war.

“But if the world doesn’t aim to change the regime in Russia, that means even after the war ends, Moscow will still try to destabilise neighbouring countries,” he said.

Russia’s predawn attacks on Kyiv on Thursday killed 26 people, including three children, and wounded 159, Ukraine’s interior ministry said on Friday.

On Thursday, officials said the drone and missile strikes had killed at least 18 people, and reduced part of a nine-storey apartment block in Kyiv’s western suburbs to rubble.

Among the victims was a six-year-old boy who died on the way to hospital, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, posted on Telegram.

From late Wednesday to early Thursday, Russia fired at least 300 drones and eight cruise missiles at Ukraine, with Kyiv the main target, the Ukrainian air force said.

Zelenskyy late on Thursday denounced the “unimaginable scale of terror and brutality” of the Russian strikes.

The Russian army, meanwhile, claimed to have captured Chasiv Yar, a strategically important hillside town in eastern Ukraine where the two sides have been fiercely fighting for months.

Moscow has stepped up its deadly aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent months in the conflict, resisting US pressure to end its nearly three-and-a-half-year invasion as its forces grind forward on the battlefield.

The government will restrict civil service internships to students from poorer families as part of a drive from ministers to make Whitehall more working class.

The main internship scheme designed to attract university students to the civil service will now only be available for students from “lower socio-economic backgrounds”, judged by what jobs their parents did when they were 14.

Those who are successful on the internship will then be prioritised for entry to the Fast Stream, the main graduate programme for entry to the civil service.

Conservative shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood said: “No young person should be told they’re not welcome based solely on leftist social engineering.”

The change has been driven by Pat McFadden, who as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is responsible for civil service reform.

He told the BBC: “We need to get more working class young people into the civil service so it harnesses the broadest range of talent and truly reflects the country.

“Government makes better decisions when it represents and understands the people we serve.”

Currently around a quarter of higher education students are from a lower socio-economic background, but the group represented only 12% of successful applicants to the Fast Stream in 2024.

Some Labour ministers have come to believe in their first year in office that parts of the civil service are too privileged, with people who have come from similar backgrounds.

A summer internship programme already exists. The programme is for undergraduates in their final two years of university, lasts six to eight weeks and is paid, with a salary of £430 per week.

Under the scheme, which will open to applicants in October with the first cohort starting in summer 2026, the intake will be restricted only to students from poorer backgrounds.

The programme will give around 200 undergraduates experience of civil service work including planning events, writing briefings for ministers, shadowing senior civil servants and carrying out research for policy development.

Those deemed to have performed well will then be fast-tracked to the final stages of the Fast Stream selection process if they decide to apply to work in the civil service after graduation.

The government is also trying to establish more career paths into the senior ranks of the civil service outside of London, announcing earlier this year that by 2030 half of the placements on the Fast Stream will be located outside of the capital.

The Labour government has been strikingly critical of some of the practices of the civil service since coming to office in July last year. In December, Sir Keir Starmer said that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline,” incurring criticism from civil service unions.

The prime minister has also said he wants to “rewire” the way the state works.

Conservative shadow cabinet office minister Mike Wood said the UK’s public services “deserve talent chosen on ability”.

In a statement Wood said: “We believe in opportunity based on what you can do, not where you come from.

“We all want to see greater opportunity for working-class young people. But this scheme sends the message that unless you fit a particular social profile, you’re no longer welcome.

“No young person should be told they’re not welcome based solely on leftist social engineering.”

AFP via Getty Images

US allies: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia

What about China and India?

Asean countries face very different outcomes

How did other countries in the region fare?

April 3, 2005. It’s 02:00 in Washington.

Stephan Weiler is woken by a “dreaded call”. A voice said: “Is Becky Zerlentes your wife?’

“I said ‘yes’, and the official from Denver Health Medical Center and Hospital told me I need to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Her condition was deteriorating.”

Up until that day, a female boxer in the United States had never died in a sanctioned fight.

In succumbing to that devastating blow, Zerlentes – who three years previously won a regional boxing title – had rewritten history.

While the tales of fighters like Johnny Owen and Jimmy Doyle, external are enshrined in history, the impact of Zerlentes’ death on the community in Denver and on those who loved her has remained private.

Zerlentes’ love affair with combat sports defined her life, an overwhelming rush every time she stepped inside the confines of a boxing ring or MMA cage.

Like most amateur fighters, 34-year-old Zerlentes embraced a career away from the ropes, working as a geography and economics professor at Front Range Community College’s Larimer County campus, earning a master’s and PhD.

The buzz she enjoyed inside the classroom was complemented by her love of sport, especially in combat.

On that fight night, Weiler remained in the capital of the US, continuing his three-year stay at the Federal Reserve, the country’s central banking system.

He had constantly been asked by Zerlentes to return to Fort Collins, the former military outpost nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and promised he soon would.

Facing Heather Schmitz, Zerlentes was taking part in the Colorado State Boxing Senior Female Championships at the Denver Coliseum in Colorado, a venue that has crammed more than 10,000 people in when the Rolling Stones or Rage Against the Machine have been in town. Both women wore protective headgear.

For two rounds Zerlentes worked, trading punches with Schmitz until the third.

With a blow to the head, just above her left eye, Zerlentes staggered forward, struck the canvas and fell unconscious – a state she would remain in until her death the following morning.

“The doctor in the ring said her pupils were fixed and dilated when he saw her first and already there was a chance that brain damage had occurred,” Weiler, now a professor, said.

By 06:30 Weiler was on a flight to Denver and immediately made his way to the hospital. There he saw Zerlentes.

“The amount of damage to Becky’s brain was remarkable given that it was a fairly glancing blow,” he said.

“It was not a hard hit… but the brain had become bruised to such an extent that it could no longer operate.”

The life support Zerlentes had been placed on was beginning to fail, and that “clinically she was probably already dead in the ring”, Weiler recalled.

And then he had to make a choice.

“At about noon that morning, the decision was made, knowing that her condition was deteriorating, I made the choice that it was time,” he said.

The reaction to her death was immediate.

Tributes flooded in across Denver. Colleagues, students and others who knew Zerlentes described the warmth and tenacity of one of the college and community’s pillars.

US envoy Steve Witkoff to visit aid distribution sites in Gaza to assess ‘dire situation on the ground’: White House

United States President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Gaza to inspect aid distribution as pressure mounts on Israel over its starvation policy in the war-torn Palestinian territory.

Witkoff will travel to Gaza on Friday with US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to inspect aid distribution as condemnation of Israel grows over famine in Gaza and reports that more than 1,000 desperately hungry Palestinians have been killed since May at food distribution sites operated by the notorious US- and Israeli-backed GHF.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Witkoff would visit “distribution sites and secure a plan to deliver more food and meet with local Gazans to hear firsthand about this dire situation on the ground”.

“The special envoy and the ambassador will brief the president immediately after their visit to approve a final plan for food and aid distribution into the region,” Leavitt said.

The visit by the top US envoy comes a day after more than 50 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the territory and health officials reported the deaths of two more children from starvation, adding to the Gaza Health Ministry’s confirmed death toll of 154 people who have died from “famine and malnutrition” – including 89 children – in recent weeks.

Witkoff met with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after his arrival in the country on Thursday, the Israeli leader’s office said.

Earlier this week, President Trump contradicted Netanyahu’s insistence that reports of hunger in Gaza were untrue, with the US leader saying the enclave was experiencing “real starvation”.

The United Nations and independent experts had warned for months that starvation was taking hold in Gaza due to the Israeli military blockade on humanitarian relief, and this week, they said that “famine is now unfolding”.

Angered by Israel’s denial of aid and ongoing attacks on Gaza’s population, the United Kingdom, Canada and Portugal this week became the latest Western governments to announce plans to recognise a Palestinian state.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said that France will recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September, following Spain, Norway and Ireland’s lead.

Some 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

Following a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said “the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is beyond imagination”.

“Here, the Israeli government must act quickly, safely and effectively to provide humanitarian and medical aid to prevent mass starvation from becoming a reality,” he said.

“I have the impression that this has been understood today.”

Once a vibrant centre of Palestinian life, much of Gaza has been pulverised by Israeli bombardments and more than 60,000 Palestinians killed, and almost 150,000 wounded, since October 2023, after the Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed an estimated 1,139 people.

The surge comes following announced investments in AI after the company laid off thousands of workers earlier this month.

Microsoft is now the second company ever to surpass $4 trillion in market valuation, following artificial intelligence giant Nvidia.

Microsoft, which is traded under the ticker “MSFT”, is continuing to surge and as of noon in New York City (16:00 GMT) on Thursday, it is up 4.6 percent from the market open.

The technology behemoth said it will spend $30bn in capital spending for the first quarter of the current fiscal year to meet soaring artificial intelligence (AI) demand. Microsoft also reported booming sales in its Azure cloud computing business on Wednesday.

“It is in the process of becoming more of a cloud infrastructure business and a leader in enterprise AI, doing so very profitably and cash generatively despite the heavy AI capital expenditures,” said Gerrit Smit, lead portfolio manager, Stonehage Fleming Global Best Ideas Equity Fund.

Redmond, Washington-headquartered Microsoft first cracked the $1 trillion mark in April 2019.

Its move to $3 trillion was more measured than that of technology giants Nvidia and Apple, with AI-bellwether Nvidia tripling its value in just about a year and clinching the $4 trillion milestone before any other company on July 9.

In its earnings report, revenue topped $76.4bn.

‘Slam-dunk’

“This was a slam-dunk quarter for MSFT [Microsoft] with cloud and AI driving significant business transformation across every sector and industry as the company continues to capitalize on the AI Revolution unfolding front and center,” Dan Ives, senior analyst at Wedbush Securities, said in a note provided to Al Jazeera.

Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar bet on OpenAI is proving to be a game-changer, powering its Office Suite and Azure offerings with cutting-edge AI and fuelling the stock to more than double its value since ChatGPT’s late-2022 debut.

Its capital expenditure forecast, its largest ever for a single quarter, has put it on track to potentially outspend its rivals over the next year.

“We closed out the fiscal year with a strong quarter, highlighted by Microsoft Cloud revenue reaching $46.7bn, up 27 percent [up 25 percent in constant currency] year-over-year,” Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft, said in a statement.

However, Microsoft’s surge in market value is overshadowed by a wave of layoffs at the tech giant. Earlier this month, the company laid off 9,000 people, representing 4 percent of its global workforce, while doubling down on AI.

Lately, breakthroughs in trade talks between the United States and its trading partners ahead of US President Donald Trump’s August 1 tariff deadline have buoyed stocks, propelling the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record highs.

Meta Platforms also doubled down on its AI ambitions, forecasting third-quarter revenue that blew past Wall Street estimates as artificial intelligence supercharged its core advertising business.

The social media giant upped the lower end of its annual capital spending by $2bn – just days after Alphabet made a similar move – signalling that Silicon Valley’s race to dominate the artificial-intelligence frontier is only accelerating.

The Hind Rajab Foundation is using Israeli soldiers’ own social media footage as evidence for war crimes investigations. Al Jazeera’s Hind Touissate spoke to its founder to explain how dozens of complaints have been filed in more than 10 countries, targeting Israeli military personnel.

Sudan has been struggling with a devastating conflict for more than two years.

Now it faces yet another challenge.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has announced a parallel government to rival the one led by the army chief.

The African Union has rejected the move, and the army has dismissed it as a desperate attempt by the RSF to cling to power.

But analysts say the move carries a real risk, one that could further divide an already fractured country.

So how will this new power struggle play out both inside Sudan and more widely?

And how could it affect the Darfur region, where the RSF still wields control?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Hafiz Mohamed – Director of Justice Africa Sudan, an advocacy organisation and research institute

Kholood Khair – Sudanese political analyst and founder of Confluence Advisory, a think tank formerly based in Khartoum

Cameron Hudson – Senior associate in the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies