Finance

Thousands gather demanding an end to the war and the release of Israeli captives in Gaza.

Thousands of Israelis rallied in central Tel Aviv, calling on the government to end the war on Gaza and secure the immediate release of Israeli captives held in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that in Tel Aviv, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli campaign group, held its weekly rally Saturday in “Hostages Square”, while another demonstration by families of captives is taking place outside the Israeli military headquarters.

A separate antigovernment protest is also occurring at Habima Square in Tel Aviv.

The Times of Israel reported that Shai Mozes, whose parents were held captive and released in separate exchange deals, told the crowd at the protest in Habima Square that Israel’s “real enemy is not Hamas, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is destroying Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”.

Netanyahu’s critics in Israel have accused the prime minister of extending the war for his own personal and political survival.

Haaretz also reported that protests are expected in other cities, including Jerusalem, Haifa, and Beersheba, as well as at dozens of other sites and intersections across Israel.

After Netanyahu announced an expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum criticised the move in a statement, saying the plan is “sacrificing” those still held in the Palestinian territory.

Hamas releases video of two Israeli captives alive in Gaza

Hamas’s armed wing released a video on Saturday showing two Israeli captives alive in the Gaza Strip, with one of the two men calling to end the 19-month-long war.

Israeli media identified the pair in the undated video as Elkana Bohbot and Yosef Haim Ohana.

The three-minute video released by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades shows one of the captives, identified by media as 36-year-old Bohbot, visibly weak and lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket.

Ohana, 24, speaks in Hebrew in the video, urging the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of all remaining captives.

Bohbot and Ohana were both abducted by Palestinian fighters from the site of a music festival during Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023.

Ras Baraka denies charge against him a day after he spent several hours in police custody.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has denied trespassing at a new United States federal immigration detention centre following his arrest and release.

Baraka, who has been protesting the centre’s opening this week, denied his trespassing charge on Saturday, a day after he spent several hours in police custody.

The mayor has gone head-to-head with the Trump administration over undocumented immigration, pushing back against the opening of the Delaney Hall Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 1,000-bed detention facility, arguing that it should not be allowed to open because of building permit issues.

Officials accused Baraka of trespassing and ignoring warnings to leave the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, New Jersey.

“I’m shocked by all the lies that were told here,” he said, adding he had been invited there for a news conference.

“No one else [was] arrested, I was invited in, then they arrested me on the sidewalk.”

Alina Habba, interim US Attorney for New Jersey, said on the social media platform X that Baraka trespassed at the detention facility, which is run by private prison operator Geo Group.

Habba said Baraka had “chosen to disregard the law”.

Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for public affairs with the US Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview with CNN on Saturday that the investigation was ongoing and that more video from the scene would soon be released.

She also accused Baraka of playing “political games”.

Baraka was taken into custody by the ICE agents in a scuffle at the facility.

He had joined several lawmakers at the detention centre for a demonstration on Friday.

Video of the incident showed that Baraka was arrested after returning to the public side of the gate to the facility.

Local elected officials swiftly condemned the federal agents’ actions, with the state’s governor, Phil Murphy, writing on X that he was “outraged by the unjust arrest”.

On an afternoon in mid-December, Rob Pyers notices something amiss. It’s months after the grueling 2016 election, a quiet time when consultants and candidates are taking long-deferred vacations.

But that matters little to Pyers, who sees that hundreds of rows of federal campaign contributions he’s carefully culled and coded have gone missing from the website of the California Target Book, the subscriber-based election guide he helps run. After 10 minutes of furious typing, Pyers is visibly relieved — he’s fixed the database.

Three years ago, Pyers was as far away from politics as one could imagine: a listless college dropout who’d been laid off from his job, eating cheap and binge-watching Netflix to pass the time.

Today, from his one-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, Pyers, 41, anchors the Target Book, one of the most trusted compendiums on state politics. For years, the publication has helped several hundred subscribers — mostly political consultants and party insiders who can afford its $2,700 price tag for a two-year subscription — identify the hottest legislative and congressional races to focus on. The guide uses publicly available information to provide an at-a-glance analysis of each district’s demographics, a rundown of the candidates competing in political races and data on voter registration and past election results.

Despite Pyers’ distaste for many aspects of the Sacramento political orbit, his work on the book has quickly made him the ultimate insider in the often-opaque world of campaign finance. His passion for organizing massive amounts of data has transformed the publication and made his Twitter feed a go-to resource for some of Sacramento’s top operatives.

It’s a transformation even he can hardly believe.

“If you would have put everything I’ve done in the past 18 months in front of me back then,” he says, “I would have thought you were on crack or something.”

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Pyers got to Hollywood the same way so many have before him: in a car stuffed full of his belongings and the hopes of making it big.

In early 2003 — harboring dreams of becoming a screenwriter — he drove as far as Interstate 10 would take him, from Jacksonville, Fla., to Santa Monica.

By 2011, constant rejection had withered those dreams, and Pyers was stuck at the same job at Walgreens he’d taken eight years earlier to pay the bills. It wouldn’t be long before he was laid off.

It was around then that he met Allan Hoffenblum, the longtime publisher of the Target Book and a fixture in West Hollywood social circles through which Pyers had made most of his friends. Hoffenblum was one of the few conservatives he knew in the community, something he and Pyers bonded over.

“It was just very easy to get along with him, even if you completely disagreed with him on something,” Pyers said of Hoffenblum.

When Pyers was living off a dwindling severance two years ago, Hoffenblum asked him for help redesigning his personal website. It had been decades since his last computer programming class, but after weeks of frustration and toil, Pyers finished the job.

A couple of months later, Hoffenblum asked Pyers to help with proofreading and research for the Target Book.

When Hoffenblum complained about how time-consuming it was to track down campaign finance data, Pyers looked for ways to automate the process with computer code.

He watched hours of online tutorials, took a couple of basic seminars and found himself in an obsessive trial-and-error loop for weeks.

“I think one of my great talents is being able to Google error messages,” Pyers said.

During the height of campaign season, Rob Pyers toiled 19-hour days, fueled by Coca-Cola and Red Bull. Many Sacramento political insiders have taken notice of his work.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times )

By June, he’d published his first data project on the book’s website. By September, he was getting an automated alert every time someone filed a new candidate committee or when a major campaign contribution came in. Hoffenblum chimed in with tips on how to make the new features more user-friendly and taught Pyers how to use Twitter.

But the next month, Pyers showed up to his mentor’s condo for a meeting and found that he’d died in his sleep. Hoffenblum, who had effectively run the Target Book virtually as a one-man show for 23 years, willed it to Darry Sragow, a friend and co-editor who had promised to carry it on.

But the question remained: Would subscribers remain loyal to a Target Book without Hoffenblum at the helm? Even if they did, Sragow wondered, who would do the work?

“Well, there was Rob Pyers, standing right there,” said Sragow, who first met Pyers at his friend’s memorial. “It really was providence.”

With the election fast approaching and subscribers counting on the book to handicap legislative and congressional races statewide, Pyers got to work.

He wrote candidate profiles and updated voter registration data for each of the 120 legislative districts and 53 congressional districts in California, while Sragow and co-editor Tony Quinn edited his work. He also continued to add to the list of online campaign finance data tools tracking the flow of state campaign money.

It was like “trying to fix an engine on an airplane while you’re mid-flight,” Pyers said. He was terrified, he recalled, but also engrossed.

“It gave me something to drive toward, to make better, to channel all my energy into,” he said.

In a year, he’s added charts to track top spending by outside groups and state parties, and features that show top donors in the intricate web of political action committees, information that would usually take hours of work to find.

On Twitter, where Pyers describes himself as “95 lbs. of concentrated tech geek,” he’s often the first to break news on new candidate filings or large sums of money dropped into a race by outside groups.

“Data has become an increasingly key part of running any political campaign, and that struck me as a way to remain relevant,” Pyers said of his digital approach to the Target Book, which has traditionally published its print edition three times a year.

During the height of campaign season, Pyers worked 19-hour days, fueled by Coca-Cola and four-packs of Red Bull. A wet bar in the corner of his living room gathered dust, and more than a year passed without him attending a party or concert with friends.

But many in the Sacramento political establishment began to take notice.

“I started seeing his stuff on Twitter over and over again, with information that was relevant and timely. I thought to myself, ‘How does this guy know that?’” said Matt Rexroad, a Republican political consultant who relied heavily on Pyers’ updates during the election season.

Pyers has also become a source for political reporters, answering inquiries on the most expensive campaigns and the millions of dollars poured into local soda taxes. His analyses and constant flow of updates on Twitter helped the Capitol press corps assess the ever-shifting landscape of political spending in a record-breaking year.

“That’s a game-changer,” said Laurel Rosenhall, a reporter for the nonprofit news outlet CalMatters, who often called Pyers for a birds-eye perspective on money in the election. Rosenhall, who for years tracked money and influence in state politics for the Sacramento Bee, used to keep her own spreadsheets for races she was following, updating contribution totals manually as reports rolled in.

“That’s fine if you’re responsible for covering a couple legislative races,” she said. “But if you’re sitting in Sacramento trying to assess the landscape of 100 legislative races going on, that’s just not feasible.”

Though Pyers says that having a “virtual monopoly” on this information is good for business, he thinks the state’s campaign finance disclosure systems could be greatly improved.

“A system designed by a guy working out of his apartment shouldn’t be able to compete with that,” he said.

A self-described Libertarian with conservative leanings, Pyers believes in lifting all limits on campaign contributions and requiring immediate disclosure.

Philosophical questions aside, the current system is keeping him busy — and employed. He has grand designs for the Target Book: adding more robust coverage of ballot measure campaigns, redesigning the aging website and eventually covering congressional campaigns in other states.

He says he can’t see himself leaving the work any time soon. Pyers, who calls himself an introvert, is still getting used to the often-clubby world of Sacramento operatives and politicians.

“The Sacramento cocktail circuit strikes me as one of my own personal versions of hell,” he said.

But after the election, he met up with Rexroad in Hollywood, gleefully trading campaign post-mortems over coffee.

“Slowly coming into this and meeting people and getting new data and perspectives,” Pyers said, “it’s a learning experience — and one that I’ve enjoyed.”

[email protected]

For more on California politics, follow @cmaiduc.

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Updates on California politics

UPDATES:

7:25 p.m.: This article was updated to provide additional details about the California Target Book’s services.

This article was originally posted at 12:05 a.m.

India and Pakistan have agreed to an immediate ceasefire after days of military escalation, deadly cross-border attacks, accusations and counter accusations, had raised acute concerns that the two nuclear-armed neighbours would engage in an all-out war for the fifth time since 1947.

But violations of the truce were reported later on Saturday as explosions rang out across parts of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Military officials from both countries had spoken to each other and agreed that all fighting would stop at 17:00 Indian time (11:30 GMT) on Saturday, bringing a halt to all firing and operations by land, air, and sea. This followed heavy overnight exchanges Friday into Saturday.

India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the two military chiefs would speak to each other again on May 12.

“Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity,”  Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said.

The announcement had met relief and joyous scenes by residents in both countries and in the areas of disputed Kashmir that each administers.

But just hours after the ceasefire was announced, explosions were heard across the city of Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir, according to Omar Abdullah, chief minister of the federal territory. “What the hell just happened to the ceasefire? Explosions heard across Srinagar,” Abdullah posted on X.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Lahore, Pakistan, said, “People are welcoming the ceasefire, but we are also reminded how precarious it is; ceasefire violations are already happening across the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region.”

“We’ve been hearing from local sources that there has been an exchange of fire in multiple locations in the Kashmir region, and there are some projectiles that have entered the Pakistani airspace, as well”, he said.

“We’re also hearing the loud explosions in Srinagar, similar to what was heard early Saturday and in the afternoon. Air sirens are all across, and there’s a power shutdown,” journalist Umar Mehraj told Al Jazeera from Srinagar.

“I can see projectiles flying, projectiles in the sky. It’s very unclear if they are missiles or air defence intercepting these attacks. Similar reports of the explosions are being heard in Baramulla and Jammu,” said Mehraj.

Electricity was cut off across multiple localities, adding to the confusion. With no official clarification on the nature of the blasts, some residents described feeling “abandoned and unprepared”.

“One of the blasts was so powerful it made the walls tremble. Authorities are not clarifying what is going on; we do not have any shelters, nor did we hear any sirens. We do not know what to do. There is only fear,” one Srinagar resident told Al Jazeera.

The ceasefire appears to have been mediated by international actors, but there are conflicting reports as to which countries played a crucial role.

US President Donald Trump claims it was the US – he was first to declare it on Truth Social post: “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE”.

“Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence,” he wrote.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, noted, “There are questions about why the US did announce first. What sort of leverage does it have over India and Pakistan? We do know that it was a multilateral attempt to get a ceasefire. We do know, as well, that the United Kingdom has just signed a major trade deal with India, so it would also have great sway in this. Still, the US appears to be taking it further.”

However, Dar told broadcaster Geo News that Pakistan and India had agreed to a “full-fledged” and “not partial” ceasefire, adding that three dozen countries were involved in the diplomacy that secured it.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agreement also includes plans for broader talks at a neutral venue, which conflicts with a statement published on social media by India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting that says, “There is no decision to hold talks on any other issue at any other place.”

Broader Issues

Amid the cessation of hostilities, India and Pakistan have also agreed to a broader dialogue on various issues.

Two government sources told the news agency Reuters that all measures taken by India against Pakistan after April 22, including on trade and visas, remain in place.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Lahore, Pakistan, said that for the Pakistani side, the water issue is crucial “because India has suspended its related treaty with Pakistan, which affects the livelihood and agriculture in this country”.

Four government sources told Reuters that the Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 between India and Pakistan, remains suspended.

The treaty regulates the sharing of water from the Indus River and its tributaries between the South Asian nations. India pulled out of it last month. It is crucial to agriculture in both nations.

“There are real fundamental political issues that need to be addressed so we don’t find ourselves again in a militarised crisis,” Elizabeth Threlkeld, director of the South Asia programme at the Stimson Centre, told Al Jazeera.

“The timing is significant since there is significant water flow between India and Pakistan because of the season at the moment. But in a few months’ time, that will start to dry up,” she said.

India does not necessarily have the infrastructure to meaningfully divert water right now, but it will gain that capacity when there’s less flow. So, that will have to be on the agenda of the talks if the two sides are to come together,” she added.

‘God has been kind to us for now’

Following the announcement of a ceasefire, residents on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir expressed a sense of relief, with many praying for a lasting solution to the Kashmir conflict.

“I was extremely anxious about what was happening,” 25-year-old Rumaisa Jan, a resident of Srinagar in Indian-administered Kashmir who has her wedding scheduled next week, told Al Jazeera. “This is the wisest decision taken after so many lives have been lost. We want peace and an end to all these hostilities.”

Firdous Ahmad Sheikh, who runs a travel agency in the city, said he was frustrated by Kashmir being turned into a “battleground” by the two countries.

“My only fear is that things could escalate again in future. These countries must sit together and find a political solution to Kashmir once and for all. I pray our children don’t have to witness such times again.

“God has been kind to us for now.”

In Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, residents welcomed the ceasefire, saying they hope it will bring long-awaited relief to a region that has borne the brunt of recurring conflict.

“For us, peace means survival,” said Zulfikar Ali, a resident. “We’ve suffered enough. I’m glad that both Pakistan and India have made a sensible decision.”

New pontiff sets out vision, pledging to continue ‘precious legacy of predecessor Pope Francis.

Pope Leo XIV has held his first meeting with the world’s cardinals since his election as the head of the Catholic Church, identifying artificial intelligence (AI) as one of the most crucial issues facing humanity.

Leo, the first American pope, laid out a vision of his papacy at the Vatican on Saturday, telling the cardinals who elected him that AI poses challenges to defending “human dignity, justice and labour” – a view shared with his predecessor, the late Pope Francis.

Explaining his choice of name, the pontiff said he identified with the late Leo XIII, who had defended workers’ rights during his 1878-1903 papacy at the dawn of the industrial age, adding that “social teaching” was now needed in response to the modern-day revolution brought by AI.

The late Pope Francis, who died last month, warned that AI risked turning human relations into mere algorithms and called for an international treaty to regulate it.

Francis warned the Group of Seven industrialised nations last year that AI must remain human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools would not fall to machines.

In his speech, delivered in Italian, Pope Leo made repeated references to Francis and the mourning over his death, saying the late pontiff left a “precious legacy” and signalling that he would continue with his vision.

China controversy

Francis was pope for 12 years and often garnered criticism from conservative cardinals, who said he was watering down the Church’s doctrine on issues such as the inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics and women’s leadership.

Leo, the former US Cardinal Robert Prevost, was a relative unknown on the global stage, before he was elected pontiff, who spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru before serving as a senior Vatican official.

Saturday’s meeting took place in the same small Vatican auditorium where the cardinals had been gathering in the days before the conclave to discuss who should be the next pope.

Czech Cardinal Dominik Duka was cited by the Reuters news agency as saying the situation of Catholics in communist China had been raised as an issue.

The Vatican and China in 2018 signed a controversial deal on the appointment of bishops in the country, which gives Beijing some input into their selection.

Conservatives have attacked the still-secret deal as a sellout, but Duka told Reuters it was necessary to keep dialogue open in places where the Church is oppressed.

Who: Liverpool vs Arsenal
What: English Premier League
Where: Anfield, Liverpool, United Kingdom
When: Sunday at 4:30pm local time (15:30 GMT)

Follow Al Jazeera Sport‘s live text and photo commentary stream.

Liverpool were crowned Premier League champions in front of their fans two weeks ago when Arne Slot’s side thrashed Tottenham Hotspur 5-1.

Now they face an Arsenal side wounded by not only their third consecutive second-place finish in the English top-flight but also their elimination from the Champions League on Tuesday.

Manager Mikel Arteta has come out fighting with regards to what the Gunners need to do to take the next step in their hunt for silverware – and that starts with their visit to face the Reds.

What has Arteta said ahead of the game?

Arteta has urged Arsenal to use the frustration of having to give champions Liverpool a guard of honour on Sunday as fuel to win the Premier League title next season after admitting they have gone “backwards” this term.

“Something has to drive you, motivate you, and pain for this is a good one to use when you really want to do something. It’s the right thing to do, usually as a motivation for next season,” Arteta said of Arsenal’s guard of honour for the champions.

“They’ve been the best team, they’ve been the most consistent, and what Slot and the coaching staff have done has been fascinating, it’s been really good.

“They fully deserve it, and that’s the sport. If somebody is better, you have to accept it and try to reach that level.”

What happened to Arsenal’s Champions League hopes?

The Gunners were beaten 2-1 by Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday to end their bid to win the tournament for the first time.

It was a painful loss for Arsenal, who created a host of chances in the early stages of the second leg but could not find a way past inspired PSG keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.

When did Arsenal last win the Premier League?

After finishing as runners-up to Manchester City for the previous two seasons, the north Londoners remain without a title since 2004.

What is Liverpool’s take on the game?

Liverpool are in cruise control in the Premier League with a 15-point gap to Arsenal in second.

The Gunners themselves are only six points from slipping out of the Champions League qualification positions.

Mathematically, the Gunners could finish as low as seventh, which would also mean they finish outside the Europa League qualification spots.

“Both teams look forward to playing this game. Difficult to predict,” Reds boss Slot said when asked what kind of game he expects.

“There is a little bit at stake for Arsenal, as I presume they would rather finish second than third or fourth. Difficult to predict if it will be edgy, but it is a game to look forward to.”

A month to remember ❤️

Alexis Mac Allister is April’s @EASPORTSFC Player of the Month 💪 #PLAwards pic.twitter.com/32PsArRp6D

— Premier League (@premierleague) May 9, 2025

What was the result in the reverse fixture?

The sides shared a 2-2 draw at Emirates Stadium in October.

Bukayo Saka and Mikel Merino twice gave the Gunners the lead, with Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah coming up with the equalisers.

How can Arsenal bridge the gap?

Arsenal’s failure to sign a striker in the January transfer window was a big blow in a season marred by long injury absences for Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka at various stages.

“In January, it was clear or not? I made a very clear statement, and the statement continues the same. I want the best team, the best players. If we have three goal scorers over 25, bring them in, we’re going to be a much better team, yes,” Arteta said.

“We are there, we are providing the numbers that win you titles. We have to be a little bit luckier, but still do better to make sure that nobody has a season better than you.”

Head-to-head

Arsenal have not won at Anfield since 2012 – a match that Arteta played in for the Gunners.

The north Londoners are, however, on a five-match unbeaten run against the Reds, winning two of those.

Liverpool team news

Right-back Conor Bradley will start the match, as revealed by Slot in his pre-match news conference. Trent Alexander-Arnold, who has announced he will leave the club this summer, is set to be named among the subs as a result.

Joe Gomez is the only other major absentee for the Reds.

Arsenal team news

Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Magalhaes, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kai Havertz all remain sidelined for the Gunners.

However, midfielder Jorginho has returned to the match day squad following an injury.

The search and rescue group has found the remains of three unidentified bodies so far, according to anonymous sources.

A Qatari mission has begun searching for the remains of United States hostages killed by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group in Syria about 10 years ago, according to the Reuters news agency, citing two sources briefed on the mission.

Qatar’s International Search and Rescue Group began the search on Wednesday, with the help of several US nationals who wished to remain anonymous, the news agency reported.

So far, three unidentified bodies have been found by the group, according to the sources. The mission’s focus was on locating the body of aid worker Peter Kassig, who was beheaded by ISIL in 2014 in Dabiq, northern Syria, a Syrian security source told Reuters.

US aid worker Kayla Mueller as well as US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff were among other Western hostages killed by ISIL. Foley and Sotloff were confirmed killed in 2014. Mueller’s killing was confirmed in 2015.

“We’re grateful for anyone taking on this task and risking their lives in some circumstances to try and find the bodies of Jim and the other hostages,” said Diane Foley, James Foley’s mother. “We thank all those involved in this effort.”

The Qatari mission is getting under way as US President Donald Trump prepares to visit Doha and other Gulf Arab capitals next week and as Syria’s new government seeks relief from sanctions imposed by the US.

Washington, along with some other Western governments, has said it will wait to see how the new authorities exercise their power and ensure human rights before lifting any sanctions.

The United Kingdom last month removed its sanctions on 12 Syrian government entities, including the Ministries of Defence and Interior and the General Intelligence Directorate.

Longstanding commitment

ISIL once controlled vast swaths of Syria and Iraq, ruling over millions of people. At the peak of its power from 2014-2017, it beheaded numerous people in captivity, including Western hostages, and released videos of the killings.

A coalition of more than 80 countries, led by the US, was formed to fight ISIL in September 2014.

The war against the group officially ended in March 2019, when US-backed and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces captured the eastern Syrian town of Baghouz, the last sliver of land ISIL controlled.

Plans for the Qatari mission were discussed during a visit to Washington in April by Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and State Minister Mohammed Al Khulaifi – a trip also designed to prepare for Trump’s visit to Qatar, one of the sources told Reuters.

Another person familiar with the issue said there had been a longstanding commitment by successive US administrations to find the remains of the murdered US nationals, and that there had been multiple previous “efforts with US government officials on the ground in Syria to search very specific areas”.

The person did not elaborate, the report said. But the US has had hundreds of soldiers deployed in northeastern Syria that have continued pursuing ISIL’s remnants.

The person said the remains of Kassig, Sotloff and Foley were most likely located in this part of the country. Mueller’s case was different as she was in the custody of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the person added.

Two ISIL members, both former UK citizens who were part of a cell dubbed the “Beatles” that beheaded US hostages, are serving life prison sentences in the US.

On a typical day, Mai Rupa travels through his native Shan State, in eastern Myanmar, documenting the impact of war.

A video journalist with the online news outlet Shwe Phee Myay, he travels to remote towns and villages, collecting footage and conducting interviews on stories ranging from battle updates to the situation for local civilians living in a war zone.

His job is fraught with risks. Roads are strewn with landmines and there are times when he has taken cover from aerial bombing and artillery shelling.

“I have witnessed countless people being injured and civilians dying in front of me,” Mai Rupa said.

“These heartbreaking experiences deeply affected me,” he told Al Jazeera, “at times, leading to serious emotional distress.”

Mai Rupa is one of a small number of brave, independent journalists still reporting on the ground in Myanmar, where a 2021 military coup shattered the country’s fragile transition to democracy and obliterated media freedoms.

Like his colleagues at Shwe Phee Myay – a name which refers to Shan State’s rich history of tea cultivation – Mai Rupa prefers to go by a pen name due to the risks of publicly identifying as a reporter with one of the last remaining independent media outlets still operating inside the country.

Most journalists fled Myanmar in the aftermath of the military’s takeover and the expanding civil war. Some continue their coverage by making cross-border trips from work bases in neighbouring Thailand and India.

But staff at Shwe Phee Myay – a Burmese-language outlet, with roots in Shan State’s ethnic Ta’ang community – continue reporting from on the ground, covering a region of Myanmar where several ethnic armed groups have for decades fought against the military and at times clashed with each other.

Fighting to keep the public informed

After Myanmar’s military launched a coup in February 2021, Shwe Phee Myay’s journalists faced new risks.

In March that year, two reporters with the outlet narrowly escaped arrest while covering pro-democracy protests. When soldiers and police raided their office in the Shan State capital of Lashio two months later, the entire team had already gone into hiding.

That September, the military arrested the organisation’s video reporter, Lway M Phuong, for alleged incitement and dissemination of “false news”. She served nearly two years in prison. The rest of the 10-person Shwe Phee Myay team scattered following her arrest, which came amid the Myanmar military’s wider crackdown on the media.

Spread out across northern Shan State in the east of the country, the news team initially struggled to continue their work. They chose to avoid urban areas where they might encounter the military. Every day was a struggle to continue reporting.

“We couldn’t travel on main roads, only back roads,” recounted Hlar Nyiem, an assistant editor with Shwe Phee Myay.

“Sometimes, we lost four or five work days in a week,” she said.

Despite the dangers, Shwe Phee Myay’s reporters continued with their clandestine work to keep the public informed.

When a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit central Myanmar on March 28, killing more than 3,800 people, Shwe Phee Myay’s journalists were among the few able to document the aftermath from inside the country.

The military blocked most international media outlets from accessing earthquake-affected areas, citing difficulties with travel and accommodation, and the few local reporters still working secretly in the country took great risks to get information to the outside world.

“These journalists continue to reveal truths and make people’s voices heard that the military regime is desperate to silence,” said Thu Thu Aung, a public policy scholar at the University of Oxford who has conducted research on Myanmar’s post-coup media landscape.

On top of the civil war and threats posed by Myanmar’s military regime, Myanmar’s journalists have encountered a new threat.

In January, the administration of US President Donald Trump and his billionaire confidante Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

USAID had allocated more than $268m towards supporting independent media and the free flow of information in more than 30 countries around the world – from Ukraine to Myanmar, according to journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders.

In February, The Guardian reported on the freezing of USAID funds, creating an “existential crisis” for exiled Myanmar journalists operating from the town of Mae Sot, on the country’s border with Thailand.

The situation worsened further in mid-March, when the White House declared plans for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to reduce operations to the bare minimum. USAGM oversees – among others – the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which were both leading providers of news on Myanmar.

Last week, RFA announced it was laying off 90 percent of its staff and ceasing to produce news in the Tibetan, Burmese, Uighur and Lao languages. VOA has faced a similar situation.

Tin Tin Nyo, managing director of Burma News International, a network of 16 local, independent media organisations based inside and outside Myanmar, said the loss of the Burmese-language services provided by VOA and RFA created a “troubling information vacuum”.

Myanmar’s independent media sector also relied heavily on international assistance, which had already been dwindling, Tin Tin Nyo said.

Many local Myanmar news outlets were already “struggling to continue producing reliable information”, as a result of the USAID funding cuts brought in by Trump and executed by Musk’s DOGE, she said.

Some had laid off staff, reduced their programming or suspended operations.

“The downsizing of independent media has decreased the capacity to monitor [false] narratives, provide early warnings, and counter propaganda, ultimately weakening the pro-democracy movement,” Tin Tin Nyo said.

“When independent media fail to produce news, policymakers around the world will be unaware of the actual situation in Myanmar,” she added.

‘Constant fear of arrest or even death’

Currently, 35 journalists remain imprisoned in Myanmar, making it the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists after China and Israel, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The country is ranked 169th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index.

“Journalists on the ground must work under the constant fear of arrest or even death,” Tin Tin Nyo said.

“The military junta treats the media and journalists as criminals, specifically targeting them to silence access to information.”

Despite the dangers, Shwe Phee Myay continues to publish news on events inside Myanmar.

With a million followers on Facebook – the digital platform where most people in Myanmar get their news – Shwe Phee Myay’s coverage has become even more critical since the military coup in 2021 and the widening civil war.

Established in 2019 in Lashio, Shwe Phee Myay was one of dozens of independent media outlets which emerged in Myanmar during a decade-long political opening, which began in 2011 with the country’s emergence from a half-century of relative international isolation under authoritarian military rule.

Pre-publication censorship ended in 2012 amid a wider set of policy reforms as the military agreed to allow greater political freedom. Journalists who had lived and worked in exile for media outlets such as the Democratic Voice of Burma, The Irrawaddy and Mizzima News began cautiously returning home.

However, the country’s nascent press freedoms came under strain during the term of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government, which came to power in 2016 as a result of the military’s political reforms.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s government jailed journalists and blocked independent media access to politically sensitive areas including Rakhine State, where the military committed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya community and for which it now faces international charges of genocide.

But the situation for independent journalists dramatically worsened following the 2021 coup. As the military violently cracked down on peaceful protests against the generals seizing power, it restricted the internet, revoked media licences and arrested dozens of journalists. That violence triggered an armed uprising across Myanmar.

‘If we stop, who will continue addressing these issues?’

Shwe Phee Myay briefly considered relocating to Thailand as the situation deteriorated after the coup, but those running the news site decided to remain in the country.

“Our will was to stay on our own land,” said Mai Naw Dang, who until recently served as the editor of Burmese-to-English translations.

“Our perspective was that to gather the news and collect footage, we needed to be here.”

Their work then took on new intensity in October 2023, when an alliance of ethnic armed organisations launched a surprise attack on military outposts in Shan State near the border with China.

The offensive marked a major escalation in the Myanmar conflict; the military, which lost significant territory as a result, retaliated with air strikes, cluster munitions and shelling. Within two months, more than 500,000 people had been displaced due to the fighting.

With few outside journalists able to access northern Shan State, Shwe Phee Myay was uniquely positioned to cover the crisis.

Then in January this year, Shwe Phee Myay also received notice that USAID funds approved in November were no longer coming and it has since reduced field reporting, cancelled training and scaled back video news production.

“We’re taking risks to report on how people are impacted by the war, yet our efforts seem unrecognised,” editor-in-chief Mai Rukaw said.

“Even though we have a strong human resource base on the ground, we’re facing significant challenges in securing funding to continue our work.”

During staff meetings, Mai Rukaw has raised the possibility of shutting down Shwe Phee Myay with his colleagues.

Their response, he said, was to keep going even if the money dries up.

“We always ask ourselves: if we stop, who will continue addressing these issues?” he said.

“That question keeps us moving forward.”

Israel’s priority is a ‘wider colonial expansion’, the committee on Israeli practices in occupied territories said.

The world could be witnessing “another Nakba”, or the expulsion of Palestinians, a United Nations special committee has warned.

The committee sounded the alarm on Friday, accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and saying it was inflicting “unimaginable suffering” on Palestinians.

The comments come after Israel announced a plan earlier this week to expel hundreds of thousands of hungry Palestinians from the north of Gaza and confine them in six encampments.

For Palestinians, any forced displacement evokes memories of the “Nakba“, or catastrophe – the mass displacement that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.

“Israel continues to inflict unimaginable suffering on the people living under its occupation, whilst rapidly expanding confiscation of land as part of its wider colonial aspirations,” said the UN committee tasked with probing Israeli practices affecting Palestinian rights.

“What we are witnessing could very well be another Nakba,” the committee added, after concluding an annual mission to Amman.

“The goal of wider colonial expansion is clearly the priority of the government of Israel,” its report stated.

“Security operations are used as a smokescreen for rapid land grabbing, mass displacement, dispossession, demolitions, forced evictions and ethnic cleansing, in order to replace the Palestinian communities with Jewish settlers.”

‘Inhuman, degrading treatment’

The committee also noted Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.

“According to testimonies, it is evident that the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, is a systematic practice of the Israeli army and security forces, and is widespread in Israeli prisons and military detention camps,” it said.

“The methods read as a playbook of how to try to humiliate, derogate, and strike fear into the hearts of individuals.”

The committee’s mission took place as Israel’s weeks-long total blockade of aid to Gaza continues.

“It is hard to imagine a world in which a government would implement such depraved policies to starve a population to death, whilst trucks of food are sitting only a few kilometres away,” the committee said.

“Yet, this is the sick reality for those in Gaza.”

The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1968.

During the formation of Israel in 1948, approximately 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became known as “the Nakba”.

The descendants of some 160,000 Palestinians who managed to remain in what became Israel presently make up about 20 percent of its population.

The committee is currently composed of the Sri Lankan, Malaysian and Senegalese ambassadors to the UN in New York.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States has reported a second radar outage for the airport in Newark, New Jersey, in less than two weeks.

The incident raises continuing questions about the state of air traffic control in the US, increasing the pressure on the administration of President Donald Trump to address aviation safety.

On Friday, the FAA reported that, around 3:55am local time (07:55 GMT), a facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lost its telecommunications signal for about 90 seconds, preventing it from monitoring communications and radar signals for the Newark Liberty International Airport.

A recording reviewed by the news agency Reuters captured some of the frustration amid the outage.

“FedEx 1989, I’m going to hand you off here. Our scopes just went black again,” a controller told the pilot for a shipping flight.

“If you care about this, contact your airline and try to get some pressure for them to fix this stuff.”

This was the second time a 90-second outage was reported for Newark, a major air terminal that serves metropolitan areas like New York City.

On April 28, a similar incident occurred, resulting in hundreds of delays and dozens of diverted flights. Five air-traffic controllers also went on leave after the incident, using a federal law that allows them to take time off after traumatic incidents.

In the wake of Friday’s incident, The Associated Press reported that delays and cancellations at Newark were also up, citing statistics from the website FlightAware.com.

The White House briefly addressed the second outage at its daily news briefing with journalists, pledging upgrades in the coming months.

“There was a glitch in the system this morning, especially at Newark airport,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

“That glitch was caused by the same telecoms and software issues that were raised last week. Everything went back online after the brief outage, and there was no operational impact.”

Leavitt added that the FAA and the Department of Transportation would “address this technical issue tonight to prevent further outages”.

While every second matters in aviation, industry insiders say air traffic controllers and pilots have training to handle outages, to minimise the dangers.

“The system is wired to run really well when everything’s functioning. But the most important part is that it’s prepared to function when things go wrong,” Captain Dennis Tajer of the Allied Pilots Association told The Associated Press.

“Even when it sounds frightening, know that the air traffic controllers and the pilots have training, and we go to that.”

The latest outage, however, has heightened scrutiny on the Trump administration, which has seen several high-profile aviation mishaps since taking office in January.

On January 29, nine days into Trump’s second term, a mid-air collision took place over the Potomac River near Washington, DC, killing everyone on board both aircraft: an American Airlines passenger jet and a military Black Hawk helicopter.

Trump initially suggested that diversity initiatives under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, were to blame for the crash, though he offered no evidence to substantiate that claim.

Later, in February, his administration faced criticism for cutting hundreds of FAA personnel, as part of its crackdown on alleged waste in the federal government.

Critics, however, warned that air traffic control and related jobs were understaffed, raising the likelihood of mistakes and malfunctions. Some of the affected positions included airline safety inspectors and maintenance mechanics.

US Congress member Josh Gottheimer, who represents a district in New Jersey, released a statement earlier this week calling for an increase in staffing at the FAA, framing the issue as a question of aviation safety.

“I am demanding that the Trump Administration add more air traffic controllers to cover Newark Airport to immediately help reduce shortages — and pay all the workers accordingly,” Gottheimer wrote.

“The bottom line is that this isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a matter of public safety. It’s about fixing a system that needs fixing.”

Trump officials, meanwhile, have slammed past administrations for doing too little to update the existing air traffic control systems.

Earlier this week, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced he would lead a modernisation of those systems, including the replacement of copper cables with fibre optics and replacing older radars and radios.

“Building this new system is an economic and national security necessity, and the time to fix it is now,” Duffy said in his news release.

But the project will likely require approval and funding from Congress, leaving its future up in the air.

After working in the outdoor industry for three years at Smith, which makes helmets and goggles, Cassie Abel realised there were not many brands built exclusively with women in mind. In 2016, she founded Wild Rye, a rural Idaho-based outdoor apparel brand for women.

Building her business was a labour of passion and included big risks, such as leveraging her house for capital. It was not until 2021 that she became profitable. Now, her business faces yet another existential threat: High tariffs will drive up her costs, and she’s unsure how long she can keep her business alive.

Abel is expecting $700,000 worth of purchase orders arriving in July, which encompasses the brand’s full fall lineup, which she ordered in December from suppliers in China. She says Wild Rye, which imports twice a year, will now be subject to $1.2m in tariffs for its upcoming shipment.

“I don’t have the cash to pay for these tariffs. These tariffs are due upon entering the country. I won’t have time to sell this product before the tariffs are done. We could be out of business in the next four months,” Abel said.

Since taking office, United States President Donald Trump has imposed a 145-percent tariff on China and 10 percent on all other countries. The president has claimed the tariffs incentivise businesses to bring manufacturing back stateside. But that has left hundreds of small businesses like Abel’s scrambling to find ways to manage the hefty fee.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a group of reporters at a White House briefing last week, “The goal here is to bring back the high-quality industrial jobs to the US. President Trump is interested in the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past. You know, we don’t need to necessarily have a booming textile industry like where I grew up again, but we do want to have precision manufacturing and bring that back.”

His comments put additional pressure on employers like Wild Rye. To weather the storm caused by the Trump administration’s tariffs, Abel has frozen hiring, paused salary increases for her 11 full-time employees, and stalled new product development. She said she will need to raise prices on her products for the fall, ranging from 10 to 20 percent.

On April 29, she and hundreds of members of the outdoor apparel community met leaders in Washington to push for assistance. Abel said Democrats were unsure what they could do amid Republican control of the House of Representatives and Senate, while Republican leadership feared retribution if they went against the president.

“I was hearing it [concern] from both sides of the aisle. There’s frustration, it’s like it’s hard to find a path forward. Everyone understands that small businesses are going to crumble, and everyone feels like there’s no playbook for this,” Abel told Al Jazeera.

The US Chamber of Commerce has also pushed the White House to carve out exceptions for small businesses like Wild Rye, which the Trump administration quickly dismissed.

No comparable US alternative

Abel says she started as a made-in-USA brand, but that was not financially sustainable.

“That almost tanked the business before we launched because the US simply doesn’t have the capability or capacity to produce technical apparel,” Abel said.

Most textile products like clothes and shoes that Americans buy are not made in the US. The US imports about 97 percent of clothes, mostly from Asian countries including China, which has been hit hard by the 145-percent tariffs, but also from Vietnam and Bangladesh.

But it’s not just the apparel industry facing this challenge. It’s the entire small business community – defined as a business with 500 employees or less – a portion of the economy that employs roughly 61.7 million Americans, representing 45.9 percent of the US workforce and accounts for 43.5 percent of the US gross domestic product (GDP).

The broader economy has also already felt shockwaves from the tariffs that will impact small businesses. The US GDP fell in the first quarter, per the US Commerce Department, by 0.3 percent after a 2.4 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2024. According to ADP, job growth stumbled to 62,000—a more immediate metric than the US Labor Department’s jobs report, which lags by a month and shows 177,000 jobs added.

Consumer confidence hit a 13-year low, and consumers are pulling back spending amid fears of further rising costs — which, in turn, means fewer people could buy products ranging from outdoor apparel to single-origin teas and spices.

‘In a tough place’

In 2014, Chitra Agrawal founded Brooklyn Delhi, an Indian cuisine-inspired food brand in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband Ben Garthus.

Over the last decade, they have created a range of products, including 14 different condiments and simmer sauces, that started as handmade and have since grown into a large-scale business distributing to major retailers like Whole Foods and Kroger, as well as meal kit services like HelloFresh and Blue Apron.

Because hers is a specialty brand, sourcing certain ingredients from other parts of the world is not just part of the brand’s allure, it is also a necessity.

“We are making these authentic Indian products that require ingredients that are just not grown or available at scale in the US. It kind of puts us in a tough place,” Agrawal told Al Jazeera.

Agrawal said 65 percent to 70 percent of the ingredients she uses come from outside of the US, primarily from India, and a handful from Mexico and Sri Lanka, as well as glass from China.

Like Agrawal, Anjali Bhargava faces a similar challenge. The founder of Anjali’s Cup, a brand that makes single-origin spices and teas from around the world, sources ginger from Vietnam, turmeric from Thailand, and tea from India, ingredients that, in her view, make the brand so special.

In 2024, the United States was the largest importer of both ginger and several different varieties of tea, including black and green, according to Tridge, a global food sourcing data analytics firm.

“I am going to have to pay the tariffs on those things if it comes down to it, if I want to continue making those products. [Not being able to make these products] is not negotiable for me,” Bhargava said.

She says that in order to cut costs, she is trying to find domestic alternatives for aspects of her production, like packaging, a big expense. Pre-tariffs, she imported tins from China. Once her stock runs out, she may have to discontinue four to six of the 11 products she offers because she cannot afford the extra cost for imports.

“Basically, to keep the business moving, I’m being forced to undertake a complete overhaul of my retail packaging [which can be produced stateside], which means redesigning, re-photographing, and that comes with a cost,” Bhargava added.

She says she will need to move away from tins, which she imports from China and explore other kinds of packaging options like pouches. The unexpected one-time costs of $10,000 to $20,000 will eat into her already slim margins, Bhargava says. She is the only full-time employee, but hires freelancers and outsources to other businesses for tasks ranging from packaging to delivery.

Prices go up

Unlike larger companies, it’s much harder for small businesses to absorb the tariffs.

“We’ve seen that it’s hard for small businesses to balance those costs as they have very small margins. They are the ones who are going to get hit hardest,” said Alexis D’Amato, director of government affairs for Small Business Majority, an advocacy group for small businesses.

“They’re bracing for impact on how they’re going to either eat these costs or pass them on to the consumer, which nobody wants to do,” D’Amato added.

Raising prices in response to market pressures does not guarantee they will fall when costs decline. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions forced producers to increase prices. But even after costs eased, grocers kept prices high because consumers continued paying them — and no policy or market force compelled reductions.

That burden weighs on Agrawal.

“Once you make that change and say at one point, I want to roll back those price increases, there’s no guarantee that on the shelf, the prices will decrease. It’s very difficult when you’re working with grocery stores to get your prices to be lowered again. We have to really be very careful about this move. We’re still contemplating it,” said Brooklyn Delhi’s Agrawal.

But these looming concerns have led consumers and businesses to import goods before tariffs kick in, to stock up on key items that may help them avoid raising prices, at least for some time.

In the first quarter, US imports surged by 41.3 percent, including by entrepreneurs like Sean Mackowski, owner of Tallon Electric, a company that makes guitar pedals in Columbus, Ohio.

“We did stock up a lot. I think everybody did their best to scramble, hoping that that will bridge the gap to this going away. But if we get to the end of that bridge, we’ll either need to find a different way or we’re going to start running out of stuff,” Mackowski told Al Jazeera.

The tribunal will hold Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ministers to account for the invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv’s European allies have endorsed the creation of a special tribunal to hold top Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, to account for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

European Union foreign ministers, who met in the Ukrainian city of Lviv on Friday, signed off on the tribunal, named the “Lviv statement”, to mark the conclusion of the technical work to draft the legal body.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, told reporters there was no space for “impunity”.

“Russia’s aggression cannot go unpunished and therefore establishing this tribunal is extremely important,” Kallas said.

“This tribunal will ensure that those most responsible for the aggression against Ukraine are held accountable,” she added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said the tribunal was part of the continent’s moral duty to hold Russia accountable for the war.

“A strong tribunal for the crime of aggression can – and must – make any potential aggressor think twice,” he said in a video address to the meeting.

Meanwhile, Russia declined to respond to news of the tribunal. “We are not reacting to this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, according to the TASS state news agency.

An EU official told the Reuters news agency that the tribunal would have to respect Putin and his officials’ immunity while in office, but a prosecutor could investigate and propose an indictment ready for when the immunity is dropped.

Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel welcomed the move and told Reuters that the tribunal was a good step because it “fills a void that currently exists”.

“Which is how can you prosecute the leadership for the crime of aggression against another country,” he said.

While the tribunal could start operating this year, it is not the only legal instrument being used against Russia for its war on Ukraine.

In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Putin and other Russian officials for the forced deportation of children and attacks on Ukrainian energy sites.

Frozen Russian assets

Elsewhere on Friday, France announced that it would begin tapping into income from frozen Russian assets to help maintain about 60 French-made Caesar howitzers delivered to Ukraine.

France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that using the funds will ensure the “continued maintenance of the Caesar cannons it has supplied to Ukraine to help resist Russian attacks”.

“We want peace, and today the only obstacle to peace is in Moscow, parading around under the name of Vladimir Putin,” said Barrot, adding that pressure must be put on the Russian leader to agree to a ceasefire.

In Lviv, the EU’s Kalas also pledged to disburse one billion euros ($1.1bn) from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to Ukrainian arms companies.

“We have just made available 1 billion euros for the Ukrainian defence industry so that Ukraine could better defend itself,” Kallas said. “This funding will directly support Ukrainian defence companies and secure additional military aid over the coming months, which are critical.”

The West has frozen around $300bn of Russian central bank assets – most of which are located in Europe – over Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.

Friday’s developments came as Putin told a military parade in front of key allies, including China’s Xi Jinping, that Russia would be victorious in Europe.

Russia has marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II with a massive military parade on Red Square in Moscow.

Attended by President Vladimir Putin, alongside foreign leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the “Victory Day” spectacle, celebrated on May 9, is Russia’s most important secular holiday.

The parade and other ceremonies underline Moscow’s efforts to project its global power and cement the alliances it has forged while seeking a counterbalance to the West amid the conflict in Ukraine that has dragged into a fourth year.

The fight against the Nazis in World War II – known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War – is a rare event in the nation’s divisive history under communist rule that is revered by all political groups. Putin has used that sentiment to encourage national pride and underline Russia’s position as a global power.

The Soviet Union lost 27 million people as it fought Germany’s forces in 1941-45, an enormous sacrifice that left a deep scar in the national psyche.

Speaking at the parade, Putin hailed Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, saying that “we are proud of their courage and determination, their spiritual force that always has brought us victory”.

The event featured at least 11,500 soldiers and more than 180 military vehicles, including tanks, armoured infantry vehicles and artillery used on the battlefield in Ukraine. As a reminder of Russia’s nuclear might, launchers for the Yars nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles rolled across Red Square.

Fighter jets from the air force’s aerobatic team flew by in close formation, followed by jets that trailed smoke in the colours of the national flag.

After the show, Putin shook hands with Russian military officers. He also talked to a group of medal-bedecked senior North Korean officers who watched the parade, hugging one of them.

Last month, Putin thanked North Korea for fighting alongside Russian troops against Ukrainian forces and hailed their sacrifices as Pyongyang confirmed their deployment for the first time.

Putin had declared a unilateral 72-hour ceasefire starting on May 8 to coincide with the Victory Day celebration, but warned that Russian troops would retaliate to any attacks.

The events were overshadowed by Ukrainian drone attacks targeting Moscow and severe disruptions at the capital’s airports.

Russian flag carrier Aeroflot on Wednesday morning cancelled more than 100 flights to and from Moscow, and delayed at least 140 others as the military repelled repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on the capital.

Russian authorities tightened security ahead of the parade and mobile phone internet outages were reported amid electronic countermeasures aimed at foiling further drone attacks.

India and Pakistan are locked in a rapidly escalating military exchange that threatens to explode into a fully fledged war, triggered by a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 in which 26 civilians were killed, but rooted in decades-old hostilities.

On May 7, India launched a wave of missiles into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, striking at least six cities and killing at least 31 people – including two children – according to Islamabad. Since then, Indian drones have hit major Pakistani cities and military installations, and India has accused Pakistan to launching a barrage of missiles and drones at its cities and military facilities.

Alongside the missiles and drones, the nuclear-armed neighbours have also traded allegations and denials. India says its May 7 missiles only struck “terrorist infrastructure” while Pakistan insists civilians were killed. Pakistan denies that it launched missiles or drones towards India, and both claim to be victims of the other’s aggression.

Yet the origins of this latest crisis between India and Pakistan go back to their very formation as sovereign nation states in their current form. Here is a recap of the state of near-constant tensions between the South Asian neighbours.

1940s-50s: A tale of two countries

The Indian subcontinent was a British colony from 1858 until 1947, when British colonial rule finally ended, splitting the subcontinent into the two countries. The Muslim-majority Pakistan gained its independence on August 14 that year as non-contiguous and culturally distant zones, West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The Hindu-majority but secular India gained its independence on August 15, 1947.

The partition was far from smooth, causing one of the largest and bloodiest human migrations ever seen, displacing about 15 million people. The process also sparked horrific communal violence and riots between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs across the region, in which between 200,000 and two million people died. Border disputes and separatist movements sprang up in the aftermath.

What stuck out as a major sticking point between the neighbours was the question of where the Muslim-majority Himalayan region, Kashmir, would go. The monarch of Kashmir initially sought independence and the area remained disputed.

In October 1947, the first war over Kashmir broke out when armed Pakistani tribesmen invaded the territory. The monarch of Kashmir asked India for its assistance in driving out the tribesmen. In return, the monarch accepted India’s condition for help – that Kashmir join India.

Fighting continued until 1948, when it ended with Kashmir divided. Pakistan administers the western part of Kashmir, while India administers much of the rest, with China holding two thin slices of Kashmir’s north. India claims all of Kashmir, while Pakistan also claims the part that India holds but not what China, its ally, holds.

1960s: Failed Kashmir talks and the second war

The decade started with a promise of better ties. In 1960, India and Pakistan signed the Indus Waters Treaty, a World Bank-mediated deal under which they agreed to share the waters of the six Indus Basin rivers they both relied – and still rely – on.

The treaty gives India access to the waters of the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej. Pakistan, in turn, gets the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. After the April 22 Pahalgam attack, India has suspended its participation in the treaty but until recently, the deal stood as a shining example, internationally, of a water-sharing pact that survived multiple wars.

One of those wars would take place in the 1960s.

In 1963, the then-foreign minister of India, Swaran Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, held talks over the disputed territory of Kashmir. These talks were mediated by the United States and the United Kingdom.

While exact details of the discussions were not made public, no agreement was reached. In 1964, Pakistan referred the Kashmir case to the United Nations.

In 1965, the two countries fought the second war over Kashmir after between 26,000 and 33,000 Pakistani soldiers dressed as Kashmiri residents crossed the ceasefire line into Indian-administered Kashmir.

As the war escalated, Indian soldiers crossed the international border into Pakistan’s Lahore. The war ended inconclusively, with a ceasefire. In 1966, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Mohammad Ayub Khan signed an agreement in Tashkent, mediated by the Soviet Union, restoring diplomatic and economic relations.

1970s: Bangladesh and the first step towards a nuclear race

In 1971, East Pakistan and West Pakistan went to war after then-president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto refused to let Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the East Pakistan-based Awami League, assume the premiership. This was despite the fact that the Awami League won the majority of seats in Pakistan’s 1970 parliamentary elections.

In March, the Pakistani military began a crackdown in East Pakistan’s Dhaka and in December, the Indian army got involved. The Pakistani army eventually surrendered. East Pakistan became the independent country of Bangladesh.

In 1972, Bhutto and Indian PM Indira Gandhi signed an agreement in the Indian town of Simla, called the Simla Agreement where they agreed to settle any disputes by peaceful means.

The agreement established the Line of Control (LoC) between the two countries, which neither side is to seek to alter unilaterally, and which “shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognised position of either side”.

In 1974, Kashmir’s state government affirmed that it “is a constituent unit of the Union of India,” an accord rejected by Pakistan.

In the same year, India detonated a nuclear device in an operation codenamed “Smiling Buddha”. India deemed the device a “peaceful nuclear explosive”.

1980s: The rebellion in Kashmir

By the early 1980s, Kashmir was back at the centre of India-Pakistan tensions. A separatist movement took root, as popular sentiment started turning against the elected government of Indian-administered Kashmir, which many locals felt was betraying their interests in exchange for close ties with New Delhi.

A tipping point was the 1987 election to the state legislature, which saw the National Conference, a party committed to the Indian Constitution, win amid widespread allegations of heavy rigging to keep out popular, anti-India politicians.

By 1989, a full-blown armed resistance against India had taken shape in Indian-administered Kashmir, seeking secession from India.

New Delhi has consistently accused Islamabad of financing, training and sheltering these armed groups, who India describes as “terrorists”. Pakistan has insisted that it only offers “moral and diplomatic” support to the separatist movement, though many of those groups have bases and headquarters in Pakistan.

1990s: More agreements, nuclear tests and the Kargil conflict

In 1991, both countries signed agreements on providing advance notification of military exercises, manoeuvres and troop movements, as well as on preventing airspace violations and establishing overflight rules.

In 1992, they signed a joint declaration banning the use of chemical weapons.

In 1996, after a series of clashes, military officers from the countries met at the LoC in order to ease tensions.

In 1998, India detonated five nuclear devices. Pakistan responded by detonating six nuclear devices of its own. Both were slapped with sanctions by many nations – but they had become nuclear-armed states.

In the same year, both countries tested long-range missiles.

In 1999, Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee met with Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif in Lahore. The two signed an agreement called the Lahore Declaration, reaffirming their commitment to the Simla Accord, and agreeing to undertake a number of “confidence building measures” (CBMs).

However, later in the same year, the Pakistani military crossed the LoC, seizing Indian military posts in the Kargil mountains, sparking the Kargil War. Indian troops pushed the Pakistani soldiers back after bloody battles in the snowy heights of the Ladakh region.

2000s: Tensions and the Mumbai attacks

Tensions across the LoC remained high throughout the 2000s.

In December 2001, an armed attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi killed 14 people. India blamed Pakistan-backed armed groups for the attacks, that led to a face-to-face standoff between Indian and Pakistan militaries along the LoC. That standoff only ended in October 2002, after international mediation.

In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, amid Western pressure following the 9/11 attacks, pledged that Pakistan would combat extremism on its own soil, but affirmed that the country had a right to Kashmir.

In 2003, during a UN General Assembly meeting, Musharraf called for a ceasefire along the LoC, and India and Pakistan came to an agreement to cool tensions and cease hostilities. In 2004, Musharraf held talks with Indian PM Vajpayee.

But in 2007, the Samjhauta Express, the train service linking India and Pakistan, was bombed near Panipat, north of New Delhi. Sixty-eight people were killed, and dozens injured. Hindu extremists were charged by the Indian government at the time, but have subsequently been set free.

In 2008, trade relations began to improve across the LoC and India joined a framework agreement between Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan on a $7.6bn gas pipeline project.

However, in November 2008, armed gunmen opened fire on civilians at several sites in Mumbai, India. More than 160 people were killed in the attacks.

Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker captured alive, said the attackers were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Kasab was executed by India in 2012. India blamed Pakistani intelligence agencies for the attacks.

In 2009, the Pakistani government conceded that the Mumbai attacks may have been partly planned on Pakistani soil, but denied that the plotters were sanctioned or aided by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies.

2010s: ‘Jugular vein’ and Pulwama

In 2014, Pakistan’s then army chief General Raheel Sharif called Kashmir the “jugular vein” of Pakistan, and that the dispute should be resolved in accordance with the wishes and aspirations of Kashmiris and in line with UN resolutions.

In 2016, armed fighters killed 17 Indian soldiers in Uri, Indian-administered Kashmir. As a response, India carried out what it described as “surgical strikes” against bases of armed groups across the LoC.

In 2019, a suicide bomber killed 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir. Jaish-e-Muhammad claimed the attack.

In the aftermath, the Indian Air Force launched an aerial raid on Balakot in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, claiming it targeted terrorist hideouts and killed several dozen fighters. Pakistan insisted that Indian jets only hit a forested region and did not kill any fighters.

Later in 2019, India revoked Article 370, which granted Kashmir a special, semi-autonomous status and began a crackdown that saw thousands of Kashmiri civilians and politicians arrested, many under anti-terror laws that rights groups have described as draconian.

2020s: Pahalgam and the drones

On April 22 this year, an armed attack on tourists in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, killed 26 men.

An armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF), which demands independence for Kashmir, claimed responsibility for the attack. India alleged that TRF was an offshoot of the Pakistan-based LeT. Islamabad denied allegations of its involvement in the attack and called for a neutral investigation.

On May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor, carrying out missile strikes on multiple targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistani authorities have claimed that at least 31 people were killed in six targeted cities.

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There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen. The past few weeks have certainly fallen into the latter category, with remarkable intensity.

Since Donald Trump’s Liberation day announcements, stock markets have made a round trip. After an initial collapse we saw one of the strongest and fastest rebounds in recent history.

For the moment, things seem to have calmed down. Still, we are clearly not out of the woods yet. Or to put it in market terms: expect volatility to persist.

This volatility originates from both the geopolitical and economic domains. As Neil Howe so eloquently argues in his book “The Fourth Turning Is Here,” a fourth turning is unfortunately a period marked by wars and geopolitical tensions — an era in which extremist parties, both from the left and the right, gain strength, while the centre becomes smaller, weaker and increasingly powerless to make the decisions that, in the end, everyone knows must be made.

It is also a point in history during which sitting presidents, parties, and governments of any colour, shape or ideology are typically voted out.

The second big source of uncertainty and volatility originates from the economic sphere and is closely related to the first one. In a fourth turning, globalisation is under pressure. In our book “The New World Economy in 5 Trends,” Koen De Leus and I discuss not deglobalisation but multi-globalisation.

China, a pole of economic and military power

We are no longer looking at a unipolar world solely centred around the US. Say hello to the multipolar world in which China is rapidly becoming a pole of economic and military power. Meanwhile, the old continent is struggling to speak with one voice and remain relevant.

Just to say that the economic volatility that we are witnessing is closely related to the geopolitical fragmentation. Not so long ago, when the world was still truly globalised, we had one global business cycle. All the major blocks tended to move together on the waves of global expansion and global contraction.

In this world, central banks’ action would sometimes differ a bit in an amplitude, but generally the direction would be the same. Today, it is not so hard to envision the US and the European economies to grow at a different pace and central banks as a consequence conduct and all together different policy.

Also, China will, depending on the policies conducted, grow at a different speed. Japan is finally exiting more than four decades of deflation and its interest rates are on the rise, while in most other parts of the world they are coming down.

We should look at this new economic reality in terms of tectonic plates. The blocks are no longer moving at the same speed in the same direction. Instead, the plates are shifting unpredictably at different speeds.

It’s no wonder that we’ll see collisions, leading to massive volatility in currency and interest rate markets as a logical consequence.

In this world, volatility will be more the rule than the exception. The main conclusion of our book “The new world economy in 5 trends” is that after the COVID-19 pandemic, we have moved into a new economic paradigm in which both interest rates and inflation will be structurally higher than from 1982 until the pandemic.

It all comes and goes in waves, it always does. And a huge wave is coming. The drivers of this totally new environment are the massive debts, aging of the population, multi-globalisation (including a new arms race) and climate change.

Innovation may play a mitigating role and may in an extreme scenario be even powerful enough to counter the four other forces.

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Investors should focus on real assets

All of this has deep and profound consequences for investors. Even though volatility will be huge, holding too much cash is not an option as inflation will eat up its purchasing power.

Above all, investors should focus on real assets like equities, real estate, wine and gold and silver, for which the bull market has only just has begun. The same goes for the commodity space. We are only in the very first inning of the largest commodity bull market in time due to massive supply shortages that we foresee.

For companies, it means that they should put in place hedging techniques for navigating a world of higher interest rates, higher inflation and higher and more volatile commodity prices.

Countries have a unique opportunity to outperform in a fourth turning, at least for those who understand the rules of the new game. Those who don’t will have a hard time keeping the bond vigilantes off their backs.

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Maybe in 30 years’ time we will look back on today as both the start of the European Renaissance and the end of US Exceptionalism. This would bode well for both the euro and European equities.

However, it will not be a walk in the park. The road that the old continent will have to travel to be once again a voice on the world stage will be long, hard and winding.

Philippe Gijsels is Chief Strategy Officer at BNP Paribas Fortis.

Calls for restraint and fact-checking continue as New Delhi and Islamabad report drone and artillery attacks.

Tensions continue to mount as India and Pakistan traded accusations and attacks across their frontier in Kashmir overnight.

New Delhi and Islamabad accused one another on Friday of launching drone attacks as well as “numerous ceasefire violations” over the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed territory. The ongoing hostilities have provoked further calls for restraint as the risk of an escalation between the two nuclear powers grows.

Pakistan launched “multiple attacks” using drones and other munitions along India’s western border on Thursday night and early Friday, the Indian army said, claiming it had repelled the attacks and responded forcefully, although it did not provide details.

Islamabad has denied any cross-border attacks and instead accused Indian forces of sending drones into Pakistani territory, killing at least two civilians. The Pakistani military claims to have shot down 25 Indian drones in recent days.

Local officials in areas near the Line of Control reported an unusually intense night of artillery exchanges that left at least four civilians dead and wounded 12, with firing continuing well into Friday morning.

Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the Indian army statement was “baseless and misleading”, and that Pakistan had not undertaken any “offensive actions” targeting areas within Indian-administered Kashmir or beyond the country’s border.

Islamabad had earlier denied attacking Pathankot city in India’s Punjab state, Srinagar in the Kashmir valley, and Rajasthan state’s Jaisalmer, saying the accusations were “unfounded” and “politically motivated”.

South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman warned that the spread of “disinformation is escalating as rapidly as the hostilities”.

“Both are very dangerous for different reasons. Follow the fact checkers,” he posted on social media, urging the public to rely on verified sources.

‘None of our business’

India launched “Operation Sindoor” on Wednesday targeting what it described as fighter camps inside Pakistan in retaliation for an attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.

New Delhi has accused Islamabad of backing the perpetrators, an allegation Pakistan strongly denies.

Since then, exchanges of fire, drone activity, and airspace violations have intensified, leaving nearly four dozen people dead, the majority in Pakistan.

The ongoing clashes mark one of the worst escalations between the nuclear-armed rivals in recent years. The pair has fought three full-scale wars over Kashmir, which both claim, since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

World powers from the United States to China have called on both sides to exercise restraint.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with leaders in both countries on Thursday and urged “immediate de-escalation”, his spokeswoman said.

Vice President JD Vance echoed the call but added that the US would not get involved.

“What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business,” he told Fox News.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, currently visiting New Delhi, also urged restraint. “We hope that India and Pakistan will prevent the escalation of tension in the region,” he said upon arrival.

China, a close ally of Pakistan, called India’s cross-border strikes “regrettable” and urged both governments to show restraint.

“India and Pakistan are and will always be each other’s neighbours,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “We urge both sides to act in the interest of regional peace and stability and refrain from any actions that could worsen the situation.”

Minnesota Timberwolves pulled away for a 117-93 win over the Golden State Warriors in Game 2 of their Western Conference semifinal series.

The Minnesota Timberwolves were stewing over their rough start in Game 1 against Golden State, a reaction coach Chris Finch was pleased to see.

Julius Randle had 24 points and 11 assists to help the Timberwolves capitalise on Warriors star Stephen Curry’s absence in a 117-93 victory Thursday that tied the second-round series at a game apiece.

The foundation was laid in an ornery film session with Finch and his staff the day before.

“He was unhappy, and he let us know he was unhappy, and we felt that,” Randle said. “We were pretty motivated as a team.”

Anthony Edwards finished with 20 points after an injury scare for the Wolves, who more than tripled their 3-point output (going 16 for 37) from their Game 1 loss when Curry was sidelined by a left hamstring strain that likely will keep him out at least until next week.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker added 20 points to spearhead a superb performance by the bench, combining with Donte DiVincenzo and Naz Reid to go 10 for 22 from deep.

“We looked a lot more like ourselves,” Finch said.

Jonathan Kuminga (18 points) and Trayce Jackson-Davis (15) combined to shoot 14 for 17 from the floor for the Warriors. They took nearly five minutes to score, finally breaking through down 13-0 on Jimmy Butler’s 3-pointer.

With the NBA’s career leading 3-point shooter next to him on the bench, coach Steve Kerr used a kitchen-sink experiment with 14 players getting time.

“But I would still like to win,” Butler said. “The biggest lesson is don’t start off in a hole like we did tonight, and the game maybe could have ended up a little bit differently.”

Kuminga, the seventh overall pick in the 2021 draft who dropped out of the rotation at times during the regular season and missed significant time with a sprained right ankle, was a bright spot off the bench. But this Warriors team was already thin on offence with a healthy Curry.

“We have to figure out what we’re going to be able to do in this series without Steph,” Kerr said. “So we gave a lot of people a lot of chances, and some guys really stepped up.”

Against the Wolves and their athletic, long and versatile defence, there wasn’t much to lean on. Without Curry to worry about, the Wolves had an easier time keeping shooters Buddy Hield and Brandin Podziemski quiet.

The Warriors put up their lowest first-quarter score (15) in the playoffs since Game 6 of the 2016 NBA Finals, according to Sportradar, when they had 11 in a loss to Cleveland.

Draymond Green picked up his fifth technical foul of the playoffs, two short of an automatic one-game suspension, for elbowing Naz Reid after Reid had just fouled him.