money

Prince, also known by his recording name Dellyswagz, heard about the choir through a friend who was a member when he first moved to Venice in 2017. He was a singer in Nigeria, and his friend told him it was a good community, that they could help him get settled. When he first arrived, they gave him clothes, helped him find work and provided him with legal assistance to begin the process of getting a visa.

He is now 38, soft-spoken, but when he sings, he sways with feeling, and belting the lyrics, his voice strains and nearly breaks. He dresses in blue-tinted sunglasses, a black leather newsboy cap and a full denim outfit. “Like a king,” he says, smiling.

Shortly after he was born, his parents split up, and his primary caregiver was his mother’s father, who he was very close to. When his grandfather died in 2011, Prince no longer had ties to the Lagos suburb where he grew up and in 2015 decided to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean in search of a better life.

“Growing up a boy, your mom have to really pray a lot for you,” he explains. “Either you become a thug or a mafia.”

He lives in a shared apartment in Padua, 40km (25 miles) outside Venice, where he moved after losing his job in a factory and being evicted because he didn’t have his papers yet. His bedroom doubles as his recording studio, where on a cluttered desk with a large monitor, he is recording and producing Afrobeats songs for his first album.

In Nigeria, he was a professional dance teacher, by most accounts successful, yet he felt there was no future there. Friends and family had already left, including his father, who lived in the United Kingdom, yet he didn’t consider leaving until his uncle, who was living in Austria, called and suggested he make the trip with his uncle’s wife and three cousins. Prince gave away his speakers, clothes and sneakers to his students. Along with his family, he saved up thousands of dollars. He brought nothing with him and told his parents he’d already made up his mind.

“The journey was deadly,” he says with a serious expression. “My story comes with a lot of pain and loss.”

The first three weeks were spent on a large open-backed truck packed with dozens of people. They drove across the Sahara and slept on the sand each night. Some had to drink their own urine, he recounts, because they hadn’t brought enough water, and along the way, he saw bodies left in the sand. “I can’t count how many we buried,” he says without emotion, referring to the people who died on the journey. “We used sand to cover them up. There’s no details of a name or family to call.”

From Libya, he and his family members tried to cross the Mediterranean by boat eight times. The entire journey to Italy took him two years. Once, they were kidnapped by pirates when they were on a boat and released two months later after paying a ransom. Another time, he was held in a Libyan prison for four months. At one point, they ran out of money, and he worked as a security guard for seven months in a compound holding refugees and migrants.

Then, in October 2016, he and his family members tried to cross the Mediterranean again. They crowded onto a wooden boat with more than 200 passengers on board. In the middle of the night, water began to enter the boat, and it started to sink. As it capsized, people fell into the water. Prince jumped in to save his cousins. The sea was freezing, and everyone was shouting and screaming around him, and he remembers the dark water lit by stars. By the time he located his 14-year-old cousin Sandra, it was too late. She had drowned because she didn’t know how to swim.

He held her lifeless body floating on his chest with a life vest propped behind his neck for what he estimates was 25 hours before he and other survivors, including the rest of his family, were rescued by fishermen and brought back to Libya.

“I didn’t even know I was rescued because I was so tired,” he says. “My eyes were just seeing white. I wasn’t seeing any more because of the sea, the salt. I was so tired.” Prince and his family were never able to bury Sandra because he says her body was stolen by people smugglers.

In Libya, a fisherman from The Gambia taught him how to use a compass, and on his final voyage, he was the navigator, telling the boat captain in which direction to steer. Their boat was intercepted by a rescue boat off the coast of Lampedusa. “The journey is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy,” he says, shaking his head. The rest of his family, who had gone ahead separately, went to different parts of Italy and Austria.

Prince tried to live with his sister-in-law in Austria, but when the authorities threatened to deport him, he was brought back to Italy, where his asylum case was pending. His flight landed him in Venice. He doesn’t know why.

Life in Italy has been hard, he says. His father had warned him about living as an immigrant, telling him before he left, “It’s better to be a free man in your own country than a slave abroad.” Prince is starting to agree with him. When he was evicted from his apartment, he was homeless for seven months, sleeping on friends’ couches and in a garage.

For him, there’s nothing special to Venice. “All I do is go to work and come home, go to work, come home,” he says. If he could do it all again, he says, he would have stayed in Nigeria.

These days, he has a new job, but it is an exhausting night shift with a long commute that cuts into the time he has to make music. To save money, he has learned to subsist on one meal a day and has stopped painting, another favourite hobby. The choir is the only time he enjoys himself. “When I’m singing with them, I’m always smiling,” he says, “because that’s the only time I can be myself.”

Federal agents have fired flashbangs and tear gas towards crowds angered by the arrests of dozens of migrants in Los Angeles, United States, a city with a large Latino population.

The Department for Homeland Security said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Los Angeles this week had led to the arrest of “118 aliens, including five gang members”.

The standoff came on Saturday in the suburb of Paramount, where demonstrators gathered outside a reported federal facility, which the local mayor said was being used as a staging post by agents.

On Friday, masked and armed immigration agents carried out high-profile workplace raids across different parts of Los Angeles, drawing angry crowds and causing hours-long standoffs.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass acknowledged that some residents were “feeling fear” following the federal actions.

“Everyone has the right to peacefully protest, but let me be clear: violence and destruction are unacceptable, and those responsible will be held accountable,” she said on X.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said multiple arrests had been made after Friday’s clashes.

“You bring chaos, and we’ll bring handcuffs. Law and order will prevail,” he said on X.

The White House has taken a firm stance against the protests, with deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller describing them as “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States”.

Italians are voting in referendums on easing citizenship rules and strengthening labour protections amid concerns that low turnout may deem the poll invalid.

Voting began on Sunday and will continue through Monday.

The citizenship question on the ballot paper asks Italians if they back reducing the period of residence required to apply for Italian citizenship by naturalisation to five years.

A resident from a non-European Union country, without marriage or blood ties to Italy, must currently live in the country for 10 years before they can apply for citizenship, a process that can then take years.

Supporters say the reform could affect about 2.5 million foreign nationals living in the country and would bring Italy’s citizenship law in line with many other European nations, including Germany and France.

The measures were proposed by Italy’s main union and left-wing opposition parties.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said she would show up at the polls but not cast a ballot. The left has criticised the action as antidemocratic, since it would not help reach the necessary turnout threshold of 50 percent plus one of eligible voters to make the vote valid.

Meloni, whose far-right Brothers of Italy party has prioritised cutting undocumented immigration even while increasing the number of work visas for migrants, is strongly against it.

She said on Thursday that the current system “is an excellent law, among the most open, in the sense that we have for years been among the European nations that grant the highest number of citizenships each year”.

More than 213,500 people acquired Italian citizenship in 2023, double the number in 2020 and one-fifth of the EU total, according to statistics.

More than 90 percent were from outside the EU, mostly from Albania and Morocco, as well as Argentina and Brazil – two countries with large Italian immigrant communities.

Even if the proposed reform passes, it will not affect the migration law many consider the most unfair – that children born in Italy to foreign parents cannot request nationality until they reach 18.

Italian singer Ghali, who was born in Milan to Tunisian parents and has been an outspoken advocate for changing the law for children, urged his fans to back the proposal as a step in the right direction.

“I was born here, I always lived here, but I only received citizenship at the age of 18,” Ghali said on Instagram. “With a ‘Yes’ we ask that five years of life here are enough, not 10, to be part of this country”.

Michelle Ngonmo, a cultural entrepreneur and advocate for diversity in the fashion industry, also urged a “yes” vote.

“This referendum is really about dignity and the right to belong, which is key for many people who were born here and spent most of their adult life contributing to Italian society. For them, a lack of citizenship is like an invisible wall,” said Ngonmo, who has lived most of her life in Italy after moving as a child from Cameroon.

“You are good enough to work and pay taxes, but not to be fully recognised as Italian. This becomes a handicap for young generations, particularly in the creative field, creating frustration, exclusion and a big waste of potential,” she told the Associated Press news agency.

The other four measures on the ballot deal with the labour law, including better protections against dismissal, higher severance payments, the conversion of fixed-term contracts into permanent ones and liability in cases of workplace accidents.

Opinion polls published in mid-May showed that only 46 percent of Italians were aware of the issues driving the referendums. Turnout projections were even weaker, at about 35 percent of more than 51 million voters, well below the required quorum.

Many of the 78 referendums held in Italy in the past have failed due to low turnout.

Polling stations opened on Sunday at 7am local time (05:00 GMT), with results expected after polls close on Monday at 3pm (13:00 GMT).

The senator’s wife says he ‘is fighting for his life’ after being shot at a campaign event in Bogota.

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, has been shot and wounded in the country’s capital, Bogota, according to authorities.

The 39-year-old senator, who was shot on Saturday during a campaign event as part of his run for the presidency in 2026, is now “fighting for his life”, his wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, said on X.

Uribe is a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Center party, founded by former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

The two men are not related.

The Democratic Center party released a statement calling the shooting “an unacceptable act of violence”.

It said the senator was hosting a campaign event in a public park in the Fontibon neighbourhood in the capital when “armed subjects” shot him from behind.

It described the attack as serious, but did not disclose further details on Uribe’s condition.

A medical report from the Santa Fe Foundation hospital said the senator was admitted in critical condition and is undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.

Videos on social media showed a man, identified as Uribe, being tended to after the shooting. He appeared to be bleeding from his head.

Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office, which is investigating the shooting, said the senator received two gunshot wounds in the attack, which wounded two others. The statement from the office said a 15-year-old boy was arrested at the scene with a firearm.

The government said it is offering some $730,000 as a reward for information in the case.

Colombia’s presidency issued a statement saying the government “categorically and forcefully” rejected the violent attack, and called for a thorough investigation into the events that took place.

Leftist President Gustavo Petro sympathised with the senator’s family in a message on X, and said: “Respect life, that’s the red line… My solidarity with the Uribe family and the Turbay family. I don’t know how to ease their pain.”

In a speech on Saturday night, Petro said that the investigation would focus on finding who had ordered the attack.

“For now, there is nothing more than hypotheses,” Petro said, adding that failures in security protocols would also be looked into.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the US “condemns in the strongest possible terms the attempted assassination” of Uribe, blaming Petro’s “inflammatory rhetoric” for the violence.

Reactions poured in from around Latin America. Chilean President Gabriel Boric said that “there is no room or justification for violence in a democracy”. And Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said, “We condemn all forms of violence and intolerance.”

Both presidents offered solidarity to the senator’s family.

In Colombia, former President Uribe said that “they attacked the hope of the country, a great husband, father, son, brother, a great colleague”.

Uribe, who is not yet an official presidential candidate for his party, is from a prominent family in Colombia.

His father was a businessman and union leader. His mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped in 1990 by an armed group under the command of the late cartel leader Pablo Escobar.

She was killed during a rescue operation in 1991.

Colombia has for decades been embroiled in a conflict between leftist rebels, criminal groups descended from right-wing paramilitaries, and the government.

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,

White House says the US president is deploying 2,000 guardsmen to address ‘lawlessness’ as protests against immigration raids continue.

United States President Donald Trump is deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to the city of Los Angeles, where a continued immigration crackdown has led to protests and clashes between authorities and demonstrators.

The White House said in a statement on Saturday that Trump was deploying the Guardsmen to “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester” in California.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, objected to the move and said in a post on X that the move from the Republican president was “purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions”.

More soon…

Israeli raids across Gaza have killed at least 75 Palestinians, with rescuers scrambling to find dozens of bodies under the rubble after the bombing of a residential building in Gaza City described by the enclave’s civil defence as a “full-fledged massacre”.

Palestinian Civil Defence spokesperson Mahmoud Basel told Al Jazeera that the military gave “no warning, no alert” before Saturday’s strike on the house in the Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City that left at least 16 people dead, including women and children.

“This is truly a full-fledged massacre … a building full of civilians,” said Basel, who added that approximately 85 people were believed to be trapped under the rubble.

“We woke up to the strikes, destruction, yelling, rocks hitting us,” said Hamed Keheel, a displaced Palestinian at the site, noting that the attack had taken place on the second day of the Eid al-Adha festival.

“This is the occupation,” he said. “Instead of waking up to cheer our children and dress them up to enjoy Eid, we wake up to carry women and children’s bodies from under rubble.”

Local resident Hassan Alkhor told Al Jazeera that the building belonged to the Abu Sharia family. “May God hold the Israeli forces and [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu accountable,” he said.

The Israeli military said afterwards that it had killed Asaad Abu Sharia, the leader of the Mujahideen Brigades, who it claimed had participated in the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023, according to a report in the Times of Israel published Saturday.

Hamas confirmed the killing in a statement shared on Telegram, saying that Abu Sharia’s brother, Ahmed Abu Sharia, had also been assassinated in the attack, which it said was “part of a series of brutal massacres against civilians”.

‘A handful of rice for our starving children’

Also on Saturday, Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians waiting near an aid distribution site run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in southern Gaza’s Rafah, the latest in a series of deadly incidents around the group’s operations that have killed 118 people and left others missing in less than two weeks.

Gaza resident Samir Abu Hadid told the AFP news agency that thousands of people had gathered at the al-Alam roundabout near the aid site.

“As soon as some people tried to advance towards the aid centre, the Israeli [forces] opened fire from armoured vehicles stationed near the centre, firing into the air and then at civilians,” Abu Hadid said.

One woman told Al Jazeera her husband had been killed in the attack after going to the aid point to get “a handful of rice for our starving children”.

“He said he felt he was walking towards death, I begged him not to leave. He insisted to find anything to feed our children,” she said.

The GHF, a shadowy United States-backed private group engaged by Israel to distribute aid under the protection of its troops and security contractors, began operations in late May, replacing existing networks run by the United Nations and charities that have worked for decades.

Critics say the group does not abide by humanitarian principles of neutrality, claiming that its operations weaponise aid, serving Israel’s stated aims of ethnically cleansing large swaths of Gaza and controlling the entire enclave.

GHF said on Saturday that it was unable to distribute any humanitarian relief because Hamas issued “direct threats” against its operations. “These threats made it impossible to proceed today without putting innocent lives at risk,” it said in a statement. Hamas told the Reuters news agency that it had no knowledge of these “alleged threats”.

The United Nations, which has refused to cooperate with the GHF, has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

‘Lost future generation’

As Israel continued its attacks amid the looming famine, it emerged that health authorities had recorded more than 300 miscarriages over an 80-day period in the enclave.

Expectant mothers face an increased risk of miscarriage and premature births, with basic medical supplies such as iron supplements and prenatal vitamins impossible to obtain.

Brenda Kelly, a consultant obstetrician at Oxford University Hospital, told Al Jazeera that Gaza was “losing a future generation of children”, alluding to a “staggering rise” in stillbirths, miscarriages and pre-term births.

“What we’re seeing now is the direct fallout of Israel’s weaponising of hunger in Gaza – impacting babies’ growth and growth restriction is one of the leading causes of miscarriages and stillbirth,” she said.

Severe malnutrition among pregnant women is compounded by severe stress and psychological trauma, as well as repeated displacement and a lack of safe shelter, she said.

Those babies that do survive face heightened health risks. “We know that famine experienced in-utero has lifelong consequences for children who then go into adulthood with much higher risks of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as mental health disorders,” she said.

Defending champions Spain face 2019 winners, and Iberian rivals, Portugal in Sunday’s Nations League final in Munich.

Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo acknowledged that he was “another generation” to Spain starlet Lamine Yamal but said Sunday’s Nations League final was more than just a battle between the duo.

The final in Munich has been framed as a showdown between veteran Ronaldo, 40, one of the game’s biggest names, and 17-year-old Yamal, the most exciting young talent in world football.

Ronaldo scored the winner to send Portugal past Germany into the final, and Yamal was named man-of-the-match after bagging a brace in Spain’s wild 5-4 semifinal win over France.

Ronaldo, however, said the focus on the two individuals was overblown, calling Spain “maybe the best national team in the world”.

“There are different generations, one is coming in and another is exiting the stage. If you want to see me as another generation, then that’s OK.

“When you talk about a clash between Cristiano and someone else, that’s not how it works. The media always try to hype things up, which is a normal thing, but it’s one team versus another team.”

“You’ve been talking about Lamine a lot and you’re right to do so because he’s very good,” Ronaldo told journalists, adding, “but I’d like to talk about the team.

“They’ve got Nico Williams, great midfielders like Pedri and their coach [Luis] de la Fuente is very good, very strong, very disciplined.”

Portugal last beat their Iberian neighbours in a competitive fixture 21 years ago, in a match which Ronaldo started.

Like Yamal, Ronaldo burst onto the scene at a young age.

Aged just 18, Ronaldo impressed so much for boyhood side Sporting in a 3-1 win over Manchester United in a friendly in Lisbon that the English club decided to buy him, bringing him to Old Trafford less than a week later.

Like a young Ronaldo, Yamal has consistently impressed since bursting onto the scene, winning a league and cup double with Barcelona this season after lifting the Euro 2024 title in Germany last year.

The Portuguese veteran asked the media to allow the teenager to grow and improve without pressure, reminding them the Spanish star “with funny hair” was just “three years older than my son”.

“The kid has been doing very well, but what I ask is for you to let him grow, not put him under pressure. For the good of football, we need to let him grow in his own way and enjoy the talent he has.”

Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said Yamal was “only 17, but very mature for his age. Well-prepared, intelligent – he lives life as if it’s all normal, and that’s what we want for him”.

De la Fuente said the national side were “trying to walk alongside [Yamal] in his education,” but added “you’d be surprised, shocked, how calm he is.

“He’s special. For some people, this would be a situation of maximum stress. But for him, he’s relaxed, he’s in control – he masters the situation.”

The coach also took time to praise Ronaldo, calling him “a legend in football and an example of the values I like: effort, work rate, sacrifice, getting better every day and never letting your guard down.

“Portugal are led by a footballer who will go down in history with an indelible legacy.”

Both Spain and Portugal have already won the Nations League. Spain are the current champions from their win in 2023, while Portugal won the inaugural tournament back in 2019.

Spain have won 16 and drawn two of their past 18 fixtures – and have not lost a competitive match since March 2023.

Spain forward Mikel Oyarzabal told reporters his side “do not think we are better than anyone,” but “we trust ourselves 100 percent and know we can compete in every game.

“We’ve shown that over the years. Our level is very high.”

It’s over: US president no desire to make up with Musk, who dredged up allegations of links to sex offender Epstein.

United States President Donald Trump has warned billionaire former ally Elon Musk against funding Democratic candidates in the country’s 2026 midterm elections as the pair’s volcanic break-up continued to play out on the world stage.

“He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” Trump told US network NBC News in an interview published Saturday, without spelling out what the repercussions might be for the tech mogul, whose businesses benefit from lucrative US federal contracts.

Trump aides, various Republicans, and key wealthy donors to the GOP  have urged the two to temper the bitter feud and make peace, fearing irreparable political and economic fallout.

But, asked whether he thought his relationship with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was over, Trump said, “I would assume so, yeah”.

The interview featured Trump’s most extensive comments yet on the spectacular bust-up that saw Musk criticising his signature tax and spending bill as an “abomination”, tensions escalating after he went on to highlight one-time links between the president and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

By Saturday morning, Musk had deleted his “big bomb” allegation that Trump featured in unreleased government files on former associates of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

“That is the real reason they have not been made public,” he said in Thursday’s post on X.

The Trump administration has acknowledged it is reviewing tens of thousands of documents, videos, and investigative material that his “MAGA” movement says will unmask public figures complicit in Epstein’s crimes.

Trump was named in a trove of deposition and statements linked to Epstein that were unsealed by a New York judge in early 2024. The president has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but he had a long and well-publicised friendship with Epstein.

Trump has denied spending time on Little Saint James, the private redoubt in the US Virgin Islands where prosecutors alleged Epstein trafficked underage girls for sex.

Just last week, Trump had given Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Vice President JD Vance said Musk was making a “huge mistake” going after Trump, though he also tried to downplay his attacks as the frustrations of an “emotional guy”.

“I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that’s not possible now because he’s gone so nuclear,” he said in the interview with comedian Theo Von, released Friday.

Trump also told NBC that it was the Department of Justice, rather than he, that had decided to return Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US, where he faces charges of transporting undocumented migrants inside the country.

Trump added that he had not spoken to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele about Abrego Garcia’s return.

The big break-up: The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has parted ways with the richest man in the world, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Once their friendship reaped rewards for both: Musk donated around hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s re-election campaign and the president created a role for Musk in his government.

But political, or fiscal, differences soured the relationship, and what was once a mutually beneficial alliance deteriorated into an exchange of insults on social media.

So, did Elon Musk’s position undermine US democracy?

And do Donald Trump’s friendships and interests influence US policy?

Presenter: Elizabeth Puranam

Guests:

Niall Stanage – Political analyst and White House columnist for The Hill newspaper

Dan Ives – Technology analyst and managing director of Wedbush Securities

Faiz Siddiqui – Author of, Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has reached an agreement with City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson to find the money to reverse the cuts to police hiring made last month by the council.

On Friday, Bass signed the 2025-26 budget approved by the council, which reworked much of her plan for closing a $1-billion shortfall. Among the council’s changes to the mayor’s spending plan was a reduction in the number of police officers hired in the coming fiscal year, which would drop from 480 to 240.

The following day, as part of her signing announcement, the mayor highlighted the separate deal with Harris-Dawson to ensure that “council leadership will identify funds for an additional 240 recruits within 90 days.” The budget year begins July 1.

The money for the additional officers would be allocated within the 90-day deadline, said Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl.

“No one got everything they wanted,” Harris-Dawson said in a statement. “There is still more work ahead, especially our commitment to work with the Mayor to identify the funds for an additional 240 recruits within 90 days.”

Restoring the 240 police recruits would require the council to free up an additional $13.3 million for the coming year. In 2026-27, the cost of those officers — who would be working their first full year — would grow to about $60 million, according to a city estimate.

Bass proposed a budget in April that called for laying off about 1,600 civilian city workers, one-fourth of them at the LAPD. The council voted last month to reduce the layoff number to around 700, in part by scaling back the mayor’s hiring plans at the LAPD and the Los Angeles Fire Department.

During their deliberations, council members said a slowdown in the hiring of police officers would protect the jobs of other workers at the LAPD, including civilian specialists who handle DNA rape kits, fingerprint analysis and other investigative tasks.

Bass, in her statement, thanked the council for “coming together on this deal as we work together to make Los Angeles safer for all.” She said the budget invests in emergency response, homeless services, street repairs, parks, libraries and other programs.

“This budget has been delivered under extremely difficult conditions — uncertainty from Washington, the explosion of liability payments, unexpected rising costs and lower than expected revenues,” she said.

During the budget deliberations, Bass voiced dismay about slowing down recruitment at the LAPD. In recent days, she had weighed whether to veto all or a portion of the budget, which could have led to a messy showdown with the council.

The council voted 12 to 3 to approve the reworked budget proposal last month. Because only 10 votes are needed to override a veto, Bass would have had to secure at least three additional votes in support of her position on police hiring.

Whether Harris-Dawson has the support of his colleagues to find the money — and then spend it on police hiring — is unclear. Unless the city’s labor unions make financial concessions, the council would likely need to either tap the city’s reserve fund or pull money from other spending obligations, such as legal payouts or existing city programs.

The budget provides funding for six classes with up to 40 recruits each at the Police Academy over the coming fiscal year. Bass had originally sought double that number, providing the department with 480 recruits.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the council’s budget committee, said she shares the mayor’s goal of restoring LAPD recruit classes — and looks forward to “working with her to make it happen.”

“The question has always been how to do it in a way that is fiscally responsible and sustainable,” Yaroslavsky said.

To increase police hiring and eliminate the remaining 700 layoffs, the council will need to turn to the city’s labor unions for additional savings, Yaroslavsky said.

The council’s budget provided enough funding to ensure the LAPD has 8,399 officers by June 30, 2026, the end of the next fiscal year. The $13.3 million sought by Bass would bring the number of officers to more than 8,600.

The LAPD had 8,746 officers in mid-May, down from about 10,000 in 2020, according to department figures.

Coco Gauff of the United States wins her second Grand Slam title beating Aryana Sabalenka of Belarus at the French Open.

Coco Gauff has won the French Open for the first time by defeating top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 in the final.

The second-ranked Gauff came out on top of Saturday’s contest that was full of tension and momentum swings to claim her second major trophy after the 2023 US Open, where she also came from a set down to beat Sabalenka in the final.

It was the first number one vs number two final in Paris since 2013, when Serena Williams defeated Maria Sharapova, and just the second in the last 30 years.

After Sabalenka sent a backhand wide on Gauff’s second match point, the 21-year-old American fell onto her back, covering her face with both hands before resting her forehand on the clay. After greeting Sabalenka at the net, she hugged film director Spike Lee and celebrated with her entourage, three years after she lost her first final at Roland-Garros.

Sabalenka started the deciding set strongly, sticking to her high-risk approach to hold her first service game.

Gauff responded by raising her level, winning a superb rally in the third game that drew loud cheers and applause from the crowd. After an intense exchange of drop shots, Gauff hit a lob that Sabalenka chased down before attempting a shot between her legs — only for Gauff to intercept it at the net and finish with a winner.

Gauff was consistent from the baseline and earned a break point, which she converted when Sabalenka double-faulted, giving her a 2-1 lead. Sabalenka turned towards her box and shouted in frustration, but then regained her composure, breaking back to level the match at 3-3.

She was broken again at love, however, and Gauff then held serve twice to claim the title after a match that lasted 2 hours, 38 minutes.

ZINEDINE Zidane rejected a blank cheque to join Manchester United as manager, according to his old team-mate.

Former Chelsea centre-back Marcel Desailly is adamant that Zidane is NOT driven by cash.

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Zidane has been approached by some of the biggest clubs in the world since quitting Real Madrid after failing to win a trophy in 2021.

The World Cup icon was heavily linked with a move to Man Utd before, during and after Erik ten Hag‘s rollercoaster two years.

One of the reasons he supposedly turned Old Trafford chiefs down was becasue he didn’t feel confident speaking English.

A few years on and ahead of the upcoming 32-team Club World Cup, Zizou was offered an eye-watering £84million to commit to a one-year contract at Saudi Pro League runners-up Al-Hilal.

And his former team-mate Desailiy has revealed how difficult it is for club’s to persuade him to join, and where he’s likely to go next.

Desailly said: “Will Zinedine Zidane be tempted by Saudi Arabia?

“Well he had a blank cheque on the table from Chelsea and a blank cheque from Manchester United and turned them down.

“He isn’t in it for the money. I don’t see why money will change anything, I know privately that he won’t change his lifestyle.

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“He likes to travel and always keeps an eye on the France national team. He’s ready because Didier Deschamps has started the transition.

“France will be one of the favourites for the World Cup and win or lose it’s not the end of this era for France.”

Zidane is the only manager in the world to have won a staggering three Champions League titles in a row during his first spell with Real.

And he followed that up by lifting two LaLiga titles during his second stint, having only managed the Spanish giants.

Desailiy believes that Zidane is most attracted to the France job because they have a new generation of superstars, including Champions League hero Desire Doue.

He added: Since 2016, France have been growing and growing. New players have come into the team constantly and now they have the right guys.

“Rayan Cherki is one of them alongside Ousmane Dembele, Kylian Mbappe is still there and on top of his game.

“There is a real dynamic. William Saliba is in defence with Ibrahima Konate, Bayern have Dayot Upamecano.

“There is a squad and a philosophy and Zidane will know how to take that on to rebuild his own team. For another eight years at least France will be at the top level in Europe.”

Zidane made a £4MILLION investment into a new sport project in February, which turned out to be a new padel centre in France.

2

Zidane’s managerial career

Zizou spent 18 months in charge of Real Madrid Castilla before being given his shot at the big time following the sacking of Rafael Benitez.

Zidane, 51, took charge of the first team in January 2016 and guided them to a second-place finish in his maiden season at the Bernabeu helm.

But he went one better in the Champions League, sealing Real’s 11th European Cup triumph with a shootout victory over Atletico Madrid.

The former Los Blancos star went one better in the league in the 2016-17 season, in which they also won the Uefa Super Cup and Club World Cup.

A second successive Champions League triumph also followed, with Real beating Italian giants Juventus at the Principality Stadium.

He would create history the following season by becoming the first manager to win the tournament three times on the bounce.

A 3-1 win over Liverpool saw Real become the first team to win Europe’s elite club competition three times in a row.

Zidane announced his resignation five days after the final, insisting the club needed a “change” of direction.

He would return to the Bernabeu in March 2019 following Santiago Solari and Julen Lopetegui’s short reigns.

A return to the summit of Spanish football would follow in the 2019-20 season, in which Real also scooped the Spanish Super Cup.

Zidane would leave the Bernabeu again in June 2021 after overseeing Real’s first trophyless season in 11 years.

Zinedine Zidane’s Honours:

– La Liga: 2016–17, 2019–20
– Supercopa de España: 2017, 2019–20
– UEFA Champions League: 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18
– UEFA Super Cup: 2016, 2017
– FIFA Club World Cup: 2016, 2017

Al-Nassr and Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo said he has no plans to play at Club World Cup, starting June 14 in the United States.

Cristiano Ronaldo says he’s almost certain he will not be playing at the Club World Cup, dealing a blow to FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s hopes of having one of football’s biggest attractions at the tournament.

The Portugal star confirmed on Saturday that he received “quite a few” offers from participating clubs to play for them at the tournament starting June 14, but had decided against accepting any of them.

“Some things make sense to talk about, other things don’t, and, as a person says, you can’t take part in everything,” Ronaldo said.

“You have to think about the short, medium and long term. It’s a decision practically made on my part not to go to the Club World Cup, but I’ve had quite a few invitations to go.”

Ronaldo was speaking in Munich a day before Portugal’s UEFA Nations League final against Spain.

The 40-year-old scored his 137th international goal in a 2-1 semifinal victory against Germany on Wednesday to book Portugal’s spot in the final.

“This is irrelevant right now,” Ronaldo said when first asked about the FIFA Club World Cup. “It makes no sense to talk about anything other than the national team.”

Throughout the various ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, western news outlets have repeatedly blamed their failure on Hamas. This week, we hear a perspective that rarely features in the coverage – the group’s own – on the negotiations and the media narratives that surround them.

Contributors:
Tahani Mustafa – Senior Palestine Analyst, International Crisis Group
Basem Naim – Politburo member, Hamas
Julie Norman – Associate Professor, University College London
Abdaljawad Omar – Lecturer, Birzeit University

On our radar:

Ukrainian drone strikes on multiple Russian airfields have further escalated the conflict, as peace talks come up short. Tariq Nafi reports on the messaging on the airwaves both sides of the border.

Is logging off the cure for ‘brain rot’?

After decades of increased connectivity, screen time and addictive algorithms, more and more young people are logging off.

The Listening Post’s Ryan Kohls looks at the community-based movements reevaluating their relationships with digital technology.

Featuring:
Monique Golay – Barcelona Chapter Leader, Offline Club
Hussein Kesvani – Technology and culture journalist
Adele Walton – Author, Logging Off

Since the mid-1960s, Israel has received significant military and diplomatic support from successive administrations in the United States. But never has it enjoyed such unconditional support as it has in the past eight years – under the first and second administrations of President Donald Trump and the administration of President Joe Biden. As a result, Israel has started openly pursuing its greatest Zionist dream: expanding state borders to achieve Greater Israel and accelerating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their homeland.

Although the Israeli state may appear more powerful than ever and overly confident that it will achieve regional dominance, its current position paradoxically reflects a strategic failure.

The reality is that after nearly eight decades of existence, Israel has failed to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the region’s peoples and lasting security for itself. Its present resurgence will secure neither. And that is because its foreign, domestic and military policies are based on a settler-colonial logic which makes them untenable in the long run.

Settler-colonial mentality

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has sought to convince the world and its Jewish citizens that it was created “on a land without a people”. While this narrative has successfully caught on – particularly among the younger generations of Israelis – the forefathers of the Israeli state openly spoke about “colonisation” and settling a land with a hostile native population.

Theodor Herzl, considered the father of modern Zionism, planned to reach out to well-known British colonialist Cecil Rhodes, who led the British colonisation of Southern Africa, for advice on and approval of his plan to colonise Palestine.

Vladimir Jabotinsky, a revisionist Zionist who founded the far-right Zionist group Betar in Latvia, strategised in his writings on ways to address native resistance. In his 1923 essay The Iron Wall, he wrote:

“Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing.”

This settler-colonial mentality played a central role in shaping the domestic, foreign and military policies of the newly founded Israel. Today, almost 80 years after the creation of the Israeli state, expansionism and aggressive military posturing continue to define the Israeli regional strategy.

Despite official rhetoric about seeking peace and normalisation of relations in the region, the Israeli aspiration to achieve a Greater Israel – one that includes not only occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but also parts of modern-day Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan – persists.

That has been apparent in public discourse and government actions. Settler activists have openly talked about an Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates river. Government advisers have penned articles about “reconquering Sinai”, “dismembering Egypt” and precipitating the “dissolution of Jordan”. Prime ministers have stood in front of the United Nations General Assembly, holding maps of Greater Israel.

The idea of Greater Israel has been widely accepted across the Zionist political spectrum, both on the right and on the left. The primary differences have been in how and when to advance this vision, and whether it requires the expulsion of Palestinians or their segregation.

Expansionist policies have been applied under all Israeli governments – from those led by left-wing Mapai Labor to those led by right-wing Likud. Since the 1949 armistice, Israel has occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai (twice), southern Lebanon (twice) and now most recently, more parts of southern Syria.

Meanwhile, its colonisation of the occupied Palestinian territories has proceeded at an accelerated pace. The number of Jewish colonial settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was approximately 250,000 in 1993; by October 7, 2023, this number had risen to 503,732 in the West Bank and 233,600 in East Jerusalem.

Settlements in Gaza were dismantled in 2005, but plans are being made for recolonisation, as the current Israeli government eyes the full ethnic cleansing of the strip.

Today, there is no major political force in Israel that looks beyond the direct application of naked military power to maintain and protect colonisation activities. This mindset is not limited to politicians but is also a widespread conviction among the Israeli public.

A June 2024 survey found that 70 percent of Jewish Israelis think settlements either help national security or do not interfere with it; a March 2025 poll showed that 82 percent of Jewish Israelis support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.

No genuine peace camp

The settler-colonial mindset at the core of the Israeli state has precluded the emergence of a genuine drive for peace. As a result, successive Israeli governments have continued to pursue war, colonisation and expansion, even when seemingly embracing peace talks.

In the 1990s, Israel had the opportunity to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict by withdrawing from the territories occupied in 1967 and accepting the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Instead, it used the negotiations as a smokescreen to advance settler-colonial policies.

Even leaders like Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was hailed as a peacemaker and assassinated for it by a Jewish extremist, did not really envision Israelis and Palestinians living side by side. Under his government and during the peace negotiations, the expansion of Jewish settlements continued at a steady pace, while plans for a segregation wall on occupied Palestinian land were pushed forward.

Meanwhile, Rabin and other Israeli leaders involved in the peace negotiations focused primarily on normalising Israel’s existence as it was, without addressing the root causes of the conflict. They sought to pacify Palestinian resistance, rather than establish durable peace.

The absence of a peace camp is not only at the leadership level but also at the societal one. While the Israeli society has active movements for social causes, settlers’ coalitions, and now a movement pushing for continuing the prisoner exchanges with Hamas, it lacks a genuine grassroots peace movement that recognises Palestinian rights.

This is in sharp contrast to other settler-colonial societies, in which there was a push from within to end colonialism. During the French colonisation of Algeria, for example, an anti-colonial movement within France openly supported the Algerian armed resistance. During the apartheid era in South Africa, white activists joined the anti-apartheid struggle and helped sway domestic attitudes.

In Israel, Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights are so few that they are easily ostracised and marginalised, facing death threats and often feeling compelled to leave the country.

The absence of a genuine peace camp reflects the inherent flaw of settler-colonial Israel. It has no coherent political strategy to address broader issues, such as coexistence in the region, which requires acknowledging the interests of others, especially the national rights of the Palestinian people. This makes the settler colony incapable of peace.

Overreliance on Western support

Historically, settler-colonies have always had to rely on outside support to sustain themselves. Israel is no different. For decades, it has enjoyed far-reaching support from Western Europe and the United States, which have provided it with a significant strategic edge.

But this Israeli reliance on Western backing also poses a long-term strategic threat. It makes the country dependent and unable to function like a normal sovereign nation.

Other countries in the region will continue to exist even if they lose support from their Western allies, with only their regimes potentially changing. But that is not the case for Israel.

This unlimited and extravagant support for Israel, aimed at maintaining its dominance as the primary regional power, is likely to backfire.

The growing imbalance of power is generating pressure not only on antagonist countries like Iran, but on other regional players such as Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They increasingly feel that the Western push to defend Israeli interests is infringing on their own.

This situation is likely to push them to increasingly seek alliances beyond the Western bloc to counterbalance this influence. China offers a viable alternative, as it is not a strategic ally of Israel.

A gradual opening to China can shift the political dynamics of the region in the coming years, beyond the capacity of Israel and its allies to control them. That will certainly undermine the Israeli plans to establish regional hegemony.

But Israel faces not only the risk that Western dominance could be challenged from the East, but also that Western societies could pressure their governments to stop backing it.

The Israeli genocidal policies, especially since October 7, 2023, have spurred a profound shift in public opinion across the world, including in Europe and North America.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, its prime minister has an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court and Israeli soldiers are facing charges in many countries around the world.

As a result, the Israeli state has notably lost support among those on the left and centre of the political spectrum in the West.

While it still manages to maintain backing in high-level European and American political and military circles, this support is becoming increasingly unreliable in the long term. This uncertainty is further aggravated by the rise of isolationism on the right in the US. If these trends continue, Israel may eventually run out of dependable supporters in the West and lose its financial and military advantage.

The limits of the Israeli settler-colonial state strategy are increasingly becoming clear. The continued use of settler-colonial policies, characterised by excessive violence, along with the pursuit of regional hegemony, is pushing Israel into an untenable position.

The Israeli leadership may be living in a fantasy world, thinking it can pull off a “New World” model on Palestine and exterminate its population to fully colonise it; or to declare itself officially an apartheid state, seeking to make Palestinian subjugation legal.

But in the historical and geopolitical context of the Middle East, neither of these fantasies is viable. Global pressure is coming to bear. The expulsion of the people of Gaza has been outright rejected.

The Palestinian people, like any other nation that has survived brutal colonisation, will not leave their country and disappear, nor will they accept life under a colonial apartheid regime.

Israeli leaders may do well to start imagining the very real possibility of sharing land and accepting equal rights, and start preparing the Israeli society for it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai says Thailand reinforces military presence in response to Cambodia move.

Thailand has reinforced its military presence along a disputed border with Cambodia following an increase in troops on the other side, the Thai defence minister has said.

Tensions between the two Southeast Asian countries have been rising since a Cambodian soldier was killed on May 28 in a brief skirmish in an undemarcated border area.

Since the incident, the two governments have been exchanging carefully worded statements committing to dialogue.

Thailand’s Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who also serves as deputy prime minister, said on Saturday that Cambodia had rejected proposals in bilateral talks held on Thursday that could have led to a de-escalation.

“Furthermore, there has been a reinforcement of military presence, which has exacerbated tensions along the border,” Phumtham said in a statement.

“Consequently, the Royal Thai Government has deemed it necessary to implement additional measures and to reinforce our military posture accordingly.”

He did not provide further details on the extent of reinforcements by either side.

There was no immediate comment from Cambodia.

In a separate statement on Saturday, the Thai army said Cambodian civilians had also repeatedly made incursions into Thailand’s territory.

“These provocations, and the buildup of military forces, indicate a clear intent to use force,” the Thai army said, adding it would take control of all Thai checkpoints along the Cambodia border.

Thailand and Cambodia have for more than a century contested sovereignty at various undemarcated points along their 817km (508-mile) land border.

Tension escalated in 2008 over an 11th-century Hindu temple, leading to skirmishes over several years and at least a dozen deaths, including during a weeklong exchange of artillery fire in 2011.

On Monday, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet said the government would file a complaint with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the border dispute.

“Cambodia hopes that the Thai side will agree with Cambodia to jointly bring these issues to the International Court of Justice… to prevent armed confrontation again over border uncertainty,” Hun Manet said during a meeting between MPs and senators.

Thailand has not recognised the ICJ’s jurisdiction since 1960 and has instead called for bilateral talks.

Efforts have been made by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is the current chair of the Southeast Asian ASEAN bloc, and China to reduce tensions, but the border remains disputed.

A meeting of the Cambodia-Thailand Joint Boundary Commission – which addresses border demarcation issues – is scheduled for June 14.

An Iranian spokesperson called the move a sign of a ‘supremacist and racist mentality’ dominating US policy.

Iran has sharply criticised United States President Donald Trump’s travel ban on its nationals and those of several countries, calling it “racist” and a sign of deep-rooted hostility towards Iranians and Muslims.

Trump earlier this week signed an executive order that bars and restricts travellers from 19 countries, including several African and Middle Eastern nations.

The policy, set to take effect on Monday, echoes measures introduced during Trump’s previous term in office from 2017-2021. In the executive order, Trump said he “must act to protect the national security” of the US.

Alireza Hashemi-Raja, who heads the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ department for Iranians abroad, said on Saturday that the decision reveals “the dominance of a supremacist and racist mentality among American policymakers”.

“This measure indicates the deep hostility of American decision-makers towards the Iranian and Muslim people,” he said in a statement.

The latest restrictions cover nationals from Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. A limited ban has also been applied to travellers from seven other countries.

Hashemi-Raja argued that the policy breaches international legal norms and denies millions the basic right to travel, based solely on nationality or faith. He said the ban would “entail international responsibility for the US government”, without elaborating.

The US and Iran have had no formal diplomatic relations since 1980, following the Islamic Revolution.

Despite decades of strained ties, the US remains home to the world’s largest Iranian diaspora, with about 1.5 million Iranians living there as of 2020, according to Tehran’s Foreign Ministry.

New NBA league in Europe moves a step closer as talks with International Basketball Federation continue.

The NBA’s talks with the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and other entities about the process of adding a new league in Europe are continuing, the game’s commissioner in the United States said.

Adam Silver noted it may take at least a couple more years to turn the ideas into reality, pinpointing the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 as a potential “launching pad” for another NBA competition.

He was speaking on Friday – an off day for the NBA Finals – at a league event to unveil a refurbished Boys & Girls Club in Oklahoma City and said it’s difficult to put a specific timeline on the Europe plans.

“I will say it’s measured in years, not months,” Silver said. “So, we’re at least a couple years away from launching.

“It would be an enormous undertaking. And while we want to move forward at a deliberate pace, we also want to make sure that we’re consulting with all the appropriate stakeholders, meaning the existing league, its teams, European players, media companies, marketing partners. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

Silver and FIBA Secretary-General Andreas Zagklis announced in March that the league and the game’s governing body are finally taking long-awaited steps to form a new league, with an initial target of 16 teams.

The idea had been talked about for years, even decades on some levels. Silver revealed that since the NBA and FIBA went public with their idea to move forward, talks have gotten more constructive.

Silver said the NBA has been talking directly with the EuroLeague and with some member clubs about a partnership. It’s his preference that the NBA work with the existing league on some level, though it’s still too early to say exactly what that means.

“Either way, we continue to feel there are an enormous number of underserved basketball fans in Europe and that there’s a strong opportunity to have another league styled after the NBA,” Silver said.

About one in every six current NBA players hails from Europe, including Denver’s Nikola Jokic (Serbia) and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) – who have combined for five of the last seven MVP awards – along with the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic (Slovenia) and San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama (France).

The NBA’s board of governors will talk more about next steps with the European plans in July, at their scheduled meeting in Las Vegas, Silver said. It’s possible that the European venture could be unveiled in some way – or possibly start – around the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, given how much attention will be on international basketball at that time.

“That might be a good launching pad for an announcement around a new competition,” Silver said.

Some of the cities that are expected to have interest in being part of the new venture include London, Manchester, Rome and Munich. There will be others, of course.

“We haven’t had direct conversations yet,” Silver said. “But there have been several organisations that have come forward and said they would be interested and potential owners in operating in those major markets in Europe.”

Lin Latt Shwe, 6, was detained along with her mother and other suspects in the killing of a retired general in Yangon.

Security forces in Myanmar have arrested a six-year-old girl, along with 15 other people suspected of involvement in the assassination of a retired army officer last month, state-run media report.

The 16 suspects – 13 males and three females – were arrested in four different regions of the country late last month, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said on Friday.

Those arrested include Lin Latt Shwe, the six-year-old daughter of the alleged assassin, Myo Ko Ko, who was reported to have at least three other aliases. The newspaper report said the child and her parents were arrested in the central city of Bagan.

A little-known armed group calling itself the Golden Valley Warriors claimed responsibility for killing retired Brigadier General Cho Tun Aung, 68, who was shot outside his home in Yangon, the country’s commercial capital, on May 22.

Other detainees include the owner of a private hospital, which is alleged to have provided treatment to the assassin, who, according to the newspaper report, suffered a gunshot wound during the attack.

Independent news outlet The Irrawaddy said the Golden Valley Warriors have denied that the 16 people detained were part of their operation.

The junta has arrested 16 people including a 6-year-old girl on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of retired Brig-Gen Cho Tun Aung in Yangon on May 22. Golden Valley Warriors claimed responsibility and said the 16 are not related to them. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/dtTCEJ1bF0

— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) June 6, 2025

The killing of Cho Tun Aung, who was a former ambassador to Cambodia, is the latest attack against figures linked to the ruling military who launched a takeover of the country in 2021 after deposing the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Since the coup and the outbreak of the civil war in Myanmar, targeted assassinations have been carried out against high-ranking active and retired military officers, as well as senior civil servants, local officials, business associates of the ruling generals and suspected informers.

Soon after carrying out the assassination, the Golden Valley Warriors said in a statement posted on Facebook that Cho Tun Aung had been teaching internal security and counterterrorism at Myanmar’s National Defence College and was, by his actions, complicit in atrocities committed by the military in the ongoing civil war.

Southern Shan State, Myanmar – Tian Win Nang squats on the hard-packed earth, balancing a kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of chocolate-coloured raw opium in each hand like a human weighing scales.

“Each kilogramme is worth around $250,” said Tian Win Nang, wearing worn white flip-flops and a black T-shirt.

The son of poppy farmers, Tian Win Nang appears to be barely out of his teens.

“Chinese traders pay us in advance for the harvest,” he said, showing Al Jazeera three dinner-plate-sized mounds of opium.

“We don’t know what happens after,” he says of the journey that will see the opium go “north to the labs” where it will be processed into morphine and eventually refined into heroin.

“We do this to survive,” he adds.

The sun is high and the air is still in the poppy fields blanketing the hills in this part of southern Shan State in eastern Myanmar.

Men and women, young and old, their faces shielded with scarves and straw hats, move with quick, practised motions as hands use sharp tools to score green poppy pods before silently progressing on to another plant.

A milky fluid slowly oozes from the wound inflicted on the pod. When it has dried to the consistency of gum, the same hands will scrape off the sticky substance, gather it together and leave it to dry in the sun until it reaches the toffee-like consistency of raw opium.

This is a daily ritual for many farmers in this part of Shan State near where drug shipments have flowed along these mountain roads near the town of Pekon for decades. The routes wind towards the borders with neighbouring Thailand, Laos and China.

Armed conflict between Myanmar’s military and ethnic armed organisations in these regions has fuelled opium farming and drug production for generations, but the trade has surged in step with the country’s intensifying civil war.

Alliances have long existed, experts say, between high-ranking Myanmar military officers, ethnic armed groups, local criminal networks and transnational syndicates that handle the drug trade’s logistics, refining and distribution.

“Drug trafficking in Myanmar has been facilitated by the military since the 1990s,” said Mark Farmaner, director of the London-based Advance Myanmar charity and an expert on Southeast Asia. “Many officers profit personally, and the institution as a whole reaps political advantages,” he said.

One of the most powerful regional syndicates is Sam Gor, a sprawling network made up of an alliance of rival Chinese triad gangs that operates across China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and beyond.

Despite the 2021 arrest and extradition to Australia of Tse Chi Lop – a Canadian national of Chinese origin widely believed to be the leader of Sam Gor – the network remains largely intact.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that the Sam Gor syndicate generated at least $8bn – and possibly as much as $17.7bn – in 2018 from controlling between 40 and 70 percent of the wholesale methamphetamine market in the Asia Pacific region.

Despite the high-profile arrest of Tse Chi Lop, the regional drug trade is flourishing with more than 1.1 billion methamphetamine pills seized across Southeast Asia in 2023 – a historic record, according to UNODC.

‘We oppose the production, trafficking and use of narcotics’

Most of the methamphetamine originates from laboratories hidden in the mountains of northern Shan State and other areas on Myanmar’s eastern borders, which have become the region’s epicentre of synthetic drug production and are part of the “Golden Triangle” – the lawless territory encompassing the shared borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos.

But before the explosion in methamphetamine production, the Golden Triangle was infamous for its opium crops and the heroin it produced while under the rule of the self-styled drug lord Khun Sa – the undisputed drug kingpin of the 1980s and 1990s regional drug trade.

Khun Sa is believed to have commanded a personal army of some 15,000 men and under his direction much of Shan State became the global centre of heroin production. He surrendered to the military government in Myanmar in 1996 and died in Yangon in 2007, under the protection of the same generals who had shielded him for years.

“In the early 1980s, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration estimated that 70 percent of the heroin consumed in the US came from his organization ,” Kelvin Rowley, a lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, wrote after Khun Sa’s death.

“The US government placed a $2 million bounty on [Khun Sa’s] head – an amount reportedly less than what he earned in a single month,” Rowley said.

Opium has now made a comeback in the Golden Triangle.

After the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2022, Myanmar returned to being the world’s top producer of opium.

In 2023, according to UNODC estimates, Myanmar’s poppy fields stretched over more than 47,000 hectares (more than 116,000 acres), and by 2024, some 995 tonnes of raw opium was produced – an increase of 135 percent since the military takeover in 2021. The gross value of the opium and heroin trade in Myanmar last year was estimated to be between $589m and $1.57bn, according to UNODC.

The scale of drug production, the UN reports, is also tied to the civil war in Myanmar, which is now in its fourth year.

Myanmar’s economy has collapsed since the military coup in 2021, and with options narrowing, people have traditionally turned to poppy cultivation as a means to survive.

The UN notes that opium poppy cultivation in Southeast Asia has long been linked to poverty, lack of government services, economic challenges and insecurity.

“Households and villages in Myanmar that engage in poppy cultivation and the broader opium economy do so to supplement income or because they lack other legitimate opportunities,” the UN said.

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But now parts of Pekon, long a military stronghold and a key drug trafficking corridor, are under the control of the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF) and other Karenni armed groups fighting the ruling military.

They say they want to change things.

“We oppose the production, trafficking, and use of narcotics,” said Maui, a deputy commander of the KNDF.

“When we capture Burmese soldiers, they’re full of meth,” Maui said.

“We ask where it comes from and they tell us, without hesitation, it’s distributed by their superiors to push them to the front lines,” he said.

“Once the war is over, we’ll go after the opium too. We want it to be used only for medical purposes,” he added.

As part of those antidrug efforts, Karenni police forces stop and search motorcycles and vehicles on roads in the areas of Shan State they now control.

“We are stopping cars and motorbikes we don’t recognise to search for drugs,” said Karenni police commander Win Ning Thun, standing at a checkpoint just outside a village in Pekon district.

“We’re looking for yaba pills,” said Win Ning Thun, using the local name for methamphetamine pills.

“Until recently, this area was under military and pro-junta militia control,” Win Ning Thun said.

“Meth was moving freely under their supervision. They took a percentage of the profits from every shipment passing through,” he said.

‘I was supposed to make a lot of money’

Deep in the forests surrounding Pekon, a small prison holds rows of detainees arrested by Karenni police.

“Everyone here has been arrested for drug trafficking. Some were carrying yaba pills to the Thai border. Others were internal couriers,” a Karenni police official told Al Jazeera.

“These are the pills we confiscated just this past month,” he said, holding up a plastic bag stuffed with small red yaba pills that are easy to conceal, sold cheaply, but represent a trade that is worth millions of dollars.

Among the detainees in the prison was Anton Lee, who wore glasses and a calm, unassuming look.

“They stopped me at a checkpoint with 10,000 pills,” Lee said.

“I was taking them to the Thai border. I was supposed to make a lot of money,” he said, offering no further details, only to say that the profit he hoped to earn would have fed his family for a year.

Now, he faces a long time in prison.

Not too far from the prison, the civil war grinds on in Myanmar as the military regime buys more advanced weaponry, and the rebel forces try to hold out and extend their advances.

The military’s air raids, drone strikes and artillery fire hammer schools, hospitals, homes and religious sites, turning entire villages into targets.

Yet, even under fire, here in southern Shan State, some appear to be trying to staunch the flow of drugs.

With limited resources, they tell of doing what they can in another battle inside a much larger war.