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Paris Saint-Germain beat Inter Milan 5-0 – a record in the Champions League final – to be crowned kings of European football in Munich.

Paris Saint-Germain are the champions of Europe after beating Inter Milan by a record 5-0 score line in the Champions League final.

At long last, the club that was transformed by Qatari billions, and bought and sold a succession of the world’s greatest players in an extravagant bid to get to the top, has its hands on the big one.

It was not only PSG’s first triumph in the final of European club football’s grandest prize, but the winning margin in the match in Munich is also a record for the competition’s final.

The trophy that not even Lionel Messi, Neymar or Kylian Mbappe could deliver to the French club was finally claimed by Luis Enrique, the Spanish coach who has overseen PSG’s shift from the era of galactico signings to one of genuine team-building.

Fitting then, that Desire Doue, the 19-year-old French forward emblematic of the club’s new generation, was the chief inspiration on a balmy night. He became the third teenager to score in a Champions League final, following Patrick Kluivert and Carlos Alberto.

Doue scored twice and set up another goal in little more than an hour on the field, before being substituted in the second half.

Achraf Hakimi, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and substitute Senny Mayulu, the fourth teenager to score in a final added to Doue’s double as PSG recorded the biggest win in a final in the Champions League’s 69-year history.

Now PSG can truly sit alongside the royalty of European football. Not by virtue of turnover or merchandising, but on the merits of its achievements on the field.

The Champions League is the ultimate barometer of the continent’s elite clubs, and up until now, PSG has been a flashy contender that always came up short.

That all changed at Allianz Arena, the home of Bayern Munich, one of the titans of Europe, and a fitting stage for PSG’s crowning moment. Not least because it was against Bayern that it lost its only other Champions League final in 2020, leaving Neymar in tears in an empty stadium in Lisbon where fans were locked out because of the pandemic.

On this occasion, thousands of PSG supporters were there to revel in the moment, waving flags, lighting flares and drowning out their rivals from Inter, many of whose supporters left the stadium long before the final whistle.

They’d been partying in the streets of Munich throughout the day, but that was nothing compared to the scenes of joy when Marquinhos held the trophy aloft in front of teammates, with fireworks and golden confetti exploding behind them.

PSG truly delivered when it mattered after so many setbacks in this competition. If there were any nerves from Luis Enrique’s players, it did not show as they dominated Inter from the start.

It took just 12 minutes for the French champions to go ahead with a move of speed and precision when Vitinha’s threaded pass into the box found the feet of Doue. The forward could have shot, but instead slid in Hakimi to tap into an open net.

Former Inter player Hakimi’s celebrations were muted, but PSG’s fans erupted.

Eight minutes later and the lead was doubled, although this time it relied more on luck than precision, as Doue’s shot from the right of the box deflected off Federico Dimarco and past Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer.

He got his second in the 63rd, sliding the ball into the bottom corner when through on goal.

Kvaratskhelia added a fourth 10 minutes later, and Mayulu then found the back of the net in the 86th, just two minutes after coming on, adding his name to the list of teenage scorers in a final.

May 31 (UPI) — President Trump plans to meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz next week in Washington, D.C., in the meeting between the two leaders.

Merz, who was elected May 6 in a parliamentary election, is scheduled to visit with Trump on Thursday in the White House, Germany government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Saturday in a news release to The Hill and Politico Europe.

Merz, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, replaced Olaf Scholz, who served since 2021 with the Social Democratic Party. Merz was first elected to the Bundestag in 1994 and was leader of the opposition since February 2022.

He will travel to the U.S. capital one day ahead, according to broadcaster n-tv.

They will focus on bilateral relations, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Middle East and trade policy, which includes tariffs, according to Kornelius.

A White House official confirmed the meeting to The Hill.

Like Trump, Merz wants a cease-fire in the war between Ukraine and Russia that began in February 2022.

Merz met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Berlin on Wednesday.

The chancellor said that Germany will increase financial support for Ukraine as part of a more than $5.5 billion agreement. That includes sending over more military equipment and increasing weapons manufacturing in Kyiv.

Members of the Trump administration have criticized Germany designating the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party as an “extremist” political entity.

“We have largely stayed out of the American election campaign in recent years, and that includes me personally,” Merz said in an interview with Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which is part of Politico, that was published on May 7.

Last Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul traveled to Washington and met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump spoke on the phone with Merz during his visit on May 10 with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to meet with Zelensky in Kyiv.

Macron, Starmer and Zelensky have already met with Trump in the White House.

Other foreign leaders who met with Trump since he took office again on Jan. 20 include Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Irish Prime Minister Micheel Martin, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Many heads of state, including Trump, went to the funeral for Francis on April 26 in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Merz wasn’t one of them.

Russia has confirmed it will send a delegation to Istanbul, but Kyiv has not yet accepted the proposal.

Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine have killed at least two people, according to officials, as Ukraine ordered the evacuation of 11 more villages in its Sumy region bordering Russia.

Russian troops launched an estimated 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine on Friday and overnight, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday, adding that three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets without causing damage.

The attacks came amid uncertainty over whether Kyiv will take part in a new round of peace talks early next week in Istanbul.

In the Russian attacks on Saturday, a child was killed in a strike on the front-line village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhia region, and another was injured, Zaporizhia’s Governor Ivan Fedorov said.

“One house was destroyed. The shockwave from the blast also damaged several other houses, cars, and outbuildings,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.

A man was also killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.

Moscow did not comment on either attack.

Meanwhile, authorities in Ukraine’s Sumy region said they were evacuating 11 villages within a roughly 30-kilometre (19-mile) range from the Russian border.

“The decision was made in view of the constant threat to civilian life as a result of shelling of border communities,” the regional administration said on social media.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said some 50,000 Russian troops have amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine’s top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said on Saturday that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Torets and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area.

Syrskii added that Ukrainian forces are still holding territory in Russia’s Kursk region – a statement Moscow has repeatedly denied.

The evacuations and attacks came just two days before a possible meeting between Kyiv and Moscow in Istanbul, as Washington called on both countries to end the three-year war.

Russia has confirmed it will send a delegation, but Kyiv has not yet accepted the proposal, warning the talks would not yield results unless the Kremlin provided its peace terms in advance.

Zelenskyy said Saturday it was still not clear what Moscow was planning to achieve at the meeting and that so far, it did not “look very serious”.

May 31 (UPI) — Militant Hamas said Saturday it would release 10 living hostages and 18 bodies in return for Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners and ending the war that began in October 2023.

Steve Witkoff, who is President Donald Trump‘s Middle East envoy, on Thursday submitted his proposal to mediators from Qatar and Egypt.

“As part of this agreement, 10 living Israeli prisoners held by the resistance will be released, in addition to the return of eighteen bodies, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners,” Hamas said in a statement obtained by CNN.

The group said it came to the decision “after conducting a round of national consultations.”

“This proposal aims to achieve a permanent cease-fire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas said in a statement also obtained by The Guardian.

The Hamas response is similar to an earlier proposal to release 10 hostages, as well as a number of hostages’ remains during the cease-fire in exchange for 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.

An unidentified Israeli official told Israeli reporters in Saturday that they are treating Hamas’ response as an “effective rejection.”

Fifty-eight hostages are believed to still be alive. A total of 146 Israeli hostages have been freed or rescued from Gaza, including 25 during the truce.

The U.S. proposal called for a 60-day pause in fighting and renewed efforts toward long-term peace, as well as guarantees from Israel that it will not resume its offensive after Hamas releases hostages.

Negotiations toward a permanent ceasefire would begin immediately on the first day of the 60-day truce, according to the proposal.

Israeli negotiators accepted the deal, but Hamas has not backed it.

On Thursday, Hamas official Basem Naim said the U.S. proposal “does not respond to any of our people’s demands,” including lifting the humanitarian blockade on the Gaza Strip that has led to famine-like conditions among 2 million.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday threatened Hamas if it did not accept.

“The Hamas murderers will now be forced to choose: accept the terms of the ‘Witkoff deal’ for the release of the hostages — or be annihilated,” Katz said.

A cease-fire lasted from Jan. 19 to March 1.

Israel refused to move to a planned second phase that could have led to a permanent end to the war. Israel began fighting, including airstrikes.

In a ramped-up offensive, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza over the last 24 hours, Hamas-run health officials said. And 72 were killed on Thursday.

Negotiators have made little progress.

“Negotiations are ongoing on the current proposal,” Qatar’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ayla Ahmed Saif al-Thani said Friday. He noted the mediators from Qatar are “very determined to find an ending to the horrific situation in Gaza.”

For three months, Israel’s blockade has stopped virtually all humanitarian aid into Gaza.

“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving – and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the World Food Program said on Saturday.

The United Nations aid agency was allowed to bring 77 trucks loaded with flour into Gaza overnight, but the trucks were stopped by crowds of hungry people.

Lindsey Hutchison of Plan International said “having the military control aid and choose who they distribute it to in limited ways completely violates the way humanitarian operations are supposed to be conducted.”

She said the situation is not working.

“We saw chaos and despair at the distribution site, which is frankly masquerading as a humanitarian aid scheme. That’s not what this is,” she told Al Jazeera from New York.

More than 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began Oct. 7, 2023. Israel retaliated for a Hamas attack on the same da in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.

May 31 (UPI) — The Islamic State claimed responsibility for two bomb attacks in a remote region in southern Syria on Wednesday and Thursday.

The twin bombings mark the first time ISIS has attacked the new Syrian government that took power in December and occurred in the remote Sweida Province.

ISIS posted two online statements on Thursday claiming responsibility for the bombings that killed and wounded Syrian soldiers and militia members who are allied with the Syrian government, The New York Times reported.

An attack occurred on Wednesday and struck a Syrian Army reconnaissance group that was tracking ISIS activities in the remote desert area, CNN reported.

Those wounded in that attack are members of the Syrian Army’s 70th Division, and the man who died was assisting the soldiers, according to The New York Times.

ISIS used a remote-controlled land mine to target the vehicle in which they were traveling, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced.

That attack occurred in the eastern portion of the Sweida Province and was the first attack carried out by ISIS and targeting forces allied with the new Syrian government.

A second bombing occurred on Thursday in the same region, according to news reports and ISIS.

ISIS said it killed and injured seven soldiers for the “apostate Syrian regime” by using an explosive device on a road in the Talul al Safa area in the Suwayda province in southern Syria, Al Jazeera reported.

Both attacks occurred near Sweida in southern Syria, which is a mountainous desert area in which ISIS has operated for many years.

Neither the Syrian government nor the Free Syrian Army has commented on either bombing.

The United States backs the Free Syrian Army, which operates in the Sweida region’s al Tanf Deconfliction Zone that is located near Syria’s borders with Jordan.

The United States maintains a small outpost in the area.

ISIS also has operated in the area for a long time due to its “extremely rugged and dangerous” terrain, CNN reported.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump said he he was lifting “crippling” U.S. sanctions on Syria originally imposed to block flows of money into Syria, including aid, to put pressure on the brutal regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

He met with the country’s transitional leader, President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May14.

Al-Sharaa, who was appointed president in January, has promised to hold elections once a new constitution is in place in around four years.

General Anil Chauhan appears to confirm India lost at least one aircraft during the brief conflict with Pakistan earlier this month.

India’s chief of defence staff says the country suffered initial losses in the air during a recent military conflict with neighbouring Pakistan, but declined to give details.

“What was important is, why did these losses occur, and what we will do after that,” General Anil Chauhan told the Reuters news agency on Saturday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.

India and Pakistan were engaged in a four-day conflict this month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10. More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire on both sides, but there are competing claims on the casualties.

India says more than 100 “terrorists” were killed in its “precision strikes” on several “terror camps” across Pakistan, which rejects the claim, saying more than 30 Pakistani civilians were killed in the Indian attacks.

New Delhi, meanwhile, says nearly two dozen civilians were killed on the Indian side, most of them in Indian-administered Kashmir, along the disputed border.

The fighting between the two nuclear powers was triggered by an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 people, almost all of them tourists. New Delhi blamed Pakistan for supporting the armed group behind the attack, an allegation Islamabad denied.

During their conflict, Pakistan had also claimed to have downed at least five Indian military jets, including at least three Rafale fighters. But Chauhan on Saturday dismissed it as “absolutely incorrect”, confirming his country had lost at least one aircraft.

“I think what is important is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down,” he told Bloomberg TV in a separate interview in Singapore.

On May 11, a day after the ceasefire, India’s Air Marshal AK Bharti told reporters in New Delhi that “all our pilots are back home”, adding that “we are in a combat scenario, and that losses are a part of combat”.

Chauhan said on Saturday India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of conflict and established a decisive advantage.

“So we rectified tactics and then went back on the [May] 7th, 8th and 10th in large numbers to hit airbases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defences with impunity, carried out precision strikes,” he said.

Islamabad has denied it suffered any losses of planes but has acknowledged its airbases suffered some hits, although losses were minimal.

Chauhan said while the fighting had ceased, the Indian government had made it clear that it would respond “precisely and decisively should there be any further terror attacks emanating from Pakistan”.

“So that has its own dynamics as far [as] the armed forces are concerned. It will require us to be prepared 24/7,” he said.

Chauhan also said that although Pakistan is closely allied with China, which borders India in the north and the northeast, there was no sign of any actual help from Beijing during the conflict.

“While this was unfolding from [April] 22nd onwards, we didn’t find any unusual activity in the operational or tactical depth of our northern borders, and things were generally all right,” he told Reuters.

Asked whether China may have provided any satellite imagery or other real-time intelligence to Pakistan during the conflict, Chauhan said such imagery was commercially available and could have been procured from China as well as other sources.

May 30 (UPI) — More than 200,000 undocumented migrants have left the Dominican Republic this year, including at least 145,000 Haitians deported by immigration authorities.

The figure marks a 70% increase from the same period last year and is part of a plan by President Luis Abinader and the National Security and Defense Council to reduce the number of undocumented migrants in the country.

The Dominican Republic’s General Directorate of Migration has stepped up immigration operations and deportations of Haitians since October 2024, when a new immigration law took effect.

International organizations have raised concerns about the impact deportations have had on the Haitian community in the Dominican Republic. Many people now live in fear of being detained and expelled, which has limited their access to basic services such as healthcare and education.

The Caribbean nation has barred entry to pregnant Haitian women in their third trimester, saying its healthcare system cannot cover the cost of childbirth for undocumented foreigners.

The United Nations condemned the deportation of 900 pregnant or breastfeeding Haitian women from the Dominican Republic in recent months.

U.N. Secretary-General spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said the International Organization for Migration provided assistance at the border to an average of 30 such women each month during their deportation, calling the practice a violation of international standards.

Dujarric added that nearly 20,000 Haitians were repatriated from the Dominican Republic between April and May 2025, the highest number on record for that time period.

The Dominican Republic has tightened its immigration policy by partially closing its border with Haiti and building a 160-kilometer border wall equipped with sensors, cameras and watchtowers. The government said the measures aim to curb irregular migration, smuggling and insecurity.

The DGM defended the immigration operations, saying they comply with human rights standards.

“Our actions are carried out with strict respect for the fundamental rights of those involved, ensuring dignified treatment, proper safety and hygiene conditions, and due process in accordance with national and international human rights standards,” the agency said in a press release.

Haiti is facing one of the worst crises in its recent history, marked by widespread violence from armed gangs that control more than 80% of Port-au-Prince. These groups have carried out attacks on public institutions, mass killings, and prison breaks, displacing more than 1 million people and leaving the transitional government, led by the Presidential Transitional Council under Fritz Alphonse Jean, in collapse.

The insecurity has overwhelmed Haiti’s health system, forcing hospital closures, driving medical professionals to flee the country, and triggering outbreaks of diseases such as cholera. The crisis is compounded by severe food insecurity, with more than 5 million people struggling to access adequate food and thousands living in famine conditions.

May 31 (UPI) — With three days until the presidential election in South Korea, the candidates are making their final push to replace impeached President Yoon Sook-yeol with more than a third already casting their votes.

The two days of early voting ended at 6 p.m. Friday. Of the 44.3 million eligible South Korean voters, 34.74% have voted, according to the National Election Commission.

This is the second highest turnout since nationwide early voting was introduced in 2014, according to the NEC. It was 36.93% for the 2022 presidential election.

Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung and People Power Party candidate Kim Moon-soo encouraged people to go to the polls early.

In the latest poll, Lee led with 42.9% support followed by Kim with 36.8%, according to Yonhap. Lee Jun-seo, of the minor conservative New Reform Party, came in third with 10.3%.

“The morale at the Democratic Camp is much more energetic, especially after the historic impeachment trial,” David Lee, a Seoul-based journalist, told Al Jazeera. “PPP supporters, on the other hand, are navigating murkier waters.”

South Korean police said this week they had apprehended at least 690 people over related incidents, according to Yonhap.

Lee attended a rally in Pyeongtaek, around 37 miles south of Seoul, on Saturday.

Lee said he has been wearing a bulletproof vest and installed bulletproof glass at campaign rallies after threats on his life.

He called alleged opinion rigging by a far-right group as an “act of rebellion” that must be held accountable.

“How can they be manipulating comments, making fake news in this day and age, and systematically making preparations to ruin the election results,” he asked. “Can this be forgiven? We must root it out.”

On Friday, Lee visited Chuncheon and Wonju in Gangwon Province before heading to Chungju in North Chungcheong Province for his campaign rallies. This marks his first visit to Gangwon during the campaign period.

Kim launched a 90-hour nonstop overnight campaign tour across the country.

Kim, during a rally in the eastern Gangwon Province, called for the “banishing” Lee from politics.

“Lee has been found guilty of lying,” he said. “What would happen [to the country] if he becomes president?”

Kim said he would be a “clean” president if elected.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court sent Lee’s case back to the Seoul High Court for a retrial. They decided the lower court’s decision to acquit Lee of false statements during the previous presidential race in 2021.

Lee, appearing on cable broadcaster JTBC’s YouTube channel, called for a special counsel probe to fully hold accountable those involved in Yoon’s martial law bid.

“To bring the insurrection to a complete end, all those responsible or complicit must be identified and held accountable,” he said.

May 31 (UPI) — An three-judge federal appeals panel has kept in place a lower court’s decision to pause the Trump administration’s plans to downsize the federal workforce through layoffs.

Late Friday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision denied an emergency motion by the federal government to stay U.S. District Judge Susan Illston‘s order on May 9 that halted terminations at 21 agencies.

The layoffs are called reductions in force, or RIFs.

In a 45-page ruling, the appeals court in California wrote the challengers likely will win the case on the merits.

The appeal panel said the Trump executive order on Feb. 13 “far exceeds the President’s supervisory powers under the Constitution.”

The Trump administration has also asked the Supreme Court to decide and has not acted.

“A single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields told CNN in a statement. “The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda.”

Ruling for the plaintiffs were Senior Circuit Judge William Fletcher, an appointee of President Bill Clinton and Lucy Koh, selected by President Joe. Consuelo Maria Callahan, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote in her dissent that “the President has the right to direct agencies, and OMB and OPM to guide them, to exercise their statutory authority to lawfully conduct RIFs.”

Fletcher wrote: “The kind of reorganization contemplated by the Order has long been subject to Congressional approval.”

Illston, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton and serves in San Francisco, had backed the lawsuit by labor unions and cities filed on April 28, including San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore and Harris County in Houston. She questioned whether Trump’s administration was acting lawfully in reducing the federal workforce and felt Congress should have a role.

“The President has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganizations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch,” Illston wrote after hearing arguments from both sides.

“Many presidents have sought this cooperation before; many iterations of Congress have provided it. Nothing prevents the President from requesting this cooperation — as he did in his prior term of office. Indeed, the Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a temporary restraining order to pause large-scale reductions in force in the meantime.”

The coalition of organizations suing told CNN said after the appeals decision: “We are gratified by the court’s decision today to allow the pause of these harmful actions to endure while our case proceeds.”

After Trump’s executive order, the Department of Government Efficiency submitted a Workforce Optimization Initiative and the Office of Personnel Management also issued a memo.

During Trump’s first 100 days in office, at least 121,000 workers have been laid off or targeted for layoffs, according to a CNN analysis. There are more than 3 million workers among civilian and military personnel.

Some of them have taken buyouts, “including those motivated to do so by the threat of upcoming RIFs,” according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

That includes 10,000 at the Department of Health and Human Services through RIF as part of a plan to cut 20,000 employees. That includes 20% of the workforce of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agencies, run by Cabinet-level personnel, sued were Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State and Treasury, Transportation, Veterans Affairs. The Education Department, which Trump wants to dismantle, was not listed, but 50% of the workforce has been let go.

Six additional agencies with statutory basis elsewhere in the United States Code were named: AmeriCorps, General Services Administration, National Labor Relations Board, National Science Foundation, Small Business Administration and Environmental Protection Agency.

Elon Musk, who officially left Friday as special White House adviser, was named in the suit.

Taliban government to follow Pakistan’s move to designate ambassador to Kabul as tensions between the two nations ease.

Afghanistan has welcomed an upgrade in its diplomatic ties with Pakistan, signalling an easing of tensions between the South Asian neighbours.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday said the charge d’affaires stationed in the Afghan capital, Kabul, would be elevated to the rank of ambassador, with Afghanistan’s Taliban government later announcing its representative in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, would also be upgraded.

A charge d’affaires serves as an embassy’s chief of mission in the absence of the ambassador.

“This elevation in diplomatic representation between Afghanistan [and] Pakistan paves the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation in multiple domains,” the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on X on Saturday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan welcomes the decision of the Government of Pakistan to upgrade the level of its diplomatic mission in Kabul to that of an ambassador.

In reciprocity, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will elevate the… pic.twitter.com/ZY1S5TexAR

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Afghanistan (@MoFA_Afg) May 31, 2025

Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is due to visit Pakistan “in the coming days”, the ministry spokesman, Zia Ahmad Takal, said.

Only a handful of countries – including China – have agreed to host Taliban government ambassadors since their return to power in 2021, with no country yet formally recognising the administration.

Pakistan is the fourth country to designate an ambassador to Kabul, after China, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Russia last month said it would also accredit a Taliban government ambassador, days after removing the group’s “terrorist” designation.

For the past few months, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been rocky over security concerns and a campaign by Islamabad to expel tens of thousands of Afghan refugees.

Islamabad says armed groups which launch attacks inside Pakistan use Afghan soil. Kabul denies the allegation, saying such violence is Pakistan’s domestic problem to handle.

However, Foreign Minister Dar on Friday said relations between the two nations have improved since he visited Kabul last month. Last week, he also met Muttaqi and their Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, during a trilateral meeting in Beijing.

Following that meeting, China said it will “continue to assist with improving Afghanistan-Pakistan ties”.

Three wickets Abrar by followed fifties by Sahibzada and Nawaz as the hosts took a 2-0 series lead against Bangladesh.

Pakistan beat Bangladesh by 57 runs in the second T20 international in Lahore to seal the three-game series 2-0.

Opener Sahibzada Farhan was named Player of the Match after he top scored with 74 for the hosts, who won the toss at Gaddafi Stadium before posting 201-6.

It was a fair fight back from Bangladesh to restrict the hosts after Hasan Nawaz recorded the best strike rate of the innings with an unbeaten 51 off 26 balls.

Tanzim Hasan gave some respectability to the chase, which was reduced to 77-7, when, coming in at nine, the Bangladesh bowling allrounder added 50 off 31 balls.

Abrar Ahmed’s off-break spin was key to restricting the tourists as he claimed 3-19 off his four overs to help Pakistan to their first T20 home series win since December 2021.

“It feels very good … I didn’t know it was three and a half years,” the Pakistan captain Salman Agha said afterwards of the end of the barren run.

“It was a complete performance, and that is way better than anything else.

“Everyone is loving the team environment where everyone can come and enjoy playing for Pakistan.”

Pakistan, who won the first match by 37 runs at the same venue, brought in opener Sahibzada in place of Fakhar Zaman.

The decision was fully repaid with six sixes and four fours recorded by the right-hander in his 41-ball innings.

The match could not have got off to a worse start for Bangladesh with Shoriful Islam limping out of his first bowl. The left-arm seamer appeared to tweak a groin while fielding the ball in his follow-through and adds to a long list of absent pacers for the tourists.

“When Shoriful was injured, the momentum shifted,” the Bangladesh skipper Litton Das said.

“We have a lack of bowling, but we came back well because I would back our batters any day to chase 200 on this track.

“Whoever is batting well has to keep going, for 13 or 14 overs, but after four overs we didn’t bat well and there were back-to-back wickets.

“In cricket, you have to do the basics, we don’t do it at the moment.”

Bangladesh had reached 44-0 in the fourth over of the chase before the collapse that ended their hopes of bouncing back from the opening defeat.

Opener Tanzid Hasan struck 33 from 19 balls in the stand, but once he fell to the seam of Faheem Ashraf an inevitable end quickly formed.

The last match is on Sunday, also in Lahore.

May 30 (UPI) — A Defense Intelligence Agency worker has been charged with attempting to provide classified information to an officer or agent of a government because he was dissatisfied with the Trump administration, the Justice Department said.

Nathan Laatsch, 28, of Alexandria, Va., was arrested Thursday and was to make his initial court appearance Friday afternoon in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday, DOJ said.

Thinking he was communicating with a foreign official, Laatch unknowingly was in touch with an undercover FBI agent.

Since 2019, Laatsch was a civilian employee as a data scientist and information technology specialist in the DIA’s Insider Threat Division and held a top secret security clearance, according to the DOJ.

DIA headquarters are located in Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington.

The arrest affidavit didn’t list the name of the foreign country.

After his arrest, he allegedly told authorities he was requesting citizenship in the foreign country because of conditions in the United States.

“I’ve given a lot of thought to this before any outreach, and despite the risks, the calculus has not changed,” the affidavit obtained by Politico said. “I do not see the trajectory of things changing, and do not think it is appropriate or right to do nothing when I am in this position.”

Subsequently, the agency obtained video from the DIA office where Laatsch was seen writing notes and then hid them into his socks, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia obtained by ABC News.

Another DIA employee saw him placing multiple notebook pages in the bottom of his lunchbox, according to the affidavit.

In March, the FBI received a tip that someone was willing to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government. It initially wasn’t known that person was Laatsch.

The FBI obtained an email from someone who didn’t “agree or align with the values of this administration” and was “willing to share classified information” to which he had access. This included “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation,” DOJ said.

Laatsch transcribed classified information to a notepad at his desk and over about three days moved it from his workspace.

A meeting was scheduled with the suspect’s contact.

On May 1, FBI surveillance observed Laatsch go to a specified location at a park in Northern Virginia and left an item. After Laatsch departed, the FBI retrieved a thumb drive, which contained information marked “Secret” or “Top Secret.”

On May 7, Laatsch allegedly sent a message to the undercover FBI agent, which indicated Laatsch was seeking something from the foreign government in return for continuing to provide classified information. On the next day, Laatsch said he was interested in “citizenship for your country” because he did not “expect things here to improve in the long term.”

He told the agent he didn’t need “material compensation.”

Between May 15 and Tuesday, Laatsch again transcribed multiple pages of notes from his work station and put them in his clothing, DOJ said.

On Thursday, the suspect arrived at a prearranged location in northern Virginia. He was arrested when the FBI received the documents.

The FBI Washington Field Office is investigating the case with assistance from the U.S. Air Force Office of Investigations and DIA.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted Thursday on X: “This case underscores the persistent risk of insider threats. The FBI remains steadfast in protecting our national security and thanks our law enforcement partners for their critical support.”

Arab states are accusing Israel of weaponising hunger in Gaza, rejecting its new aid system as illegal. “Starvation is being used as a weapon of war,” said UAE envoy Mohamed Abushahab, speaking on behalf of 22 Arab League members at the UN.

On this date in history:

In 1790, President George Washington signed a bill creating the first U.S. copyright law.

In 1859, construction concluded and bells rang out for the first time from London’s Big Ben clock tower.

In 1889, a flood in Johnstown, Pa., left more than 2,200 people dead.

In 1902, Britain and South Africa signed a peace treaty ending the Boer War.

In 1916, the Battle of Verdun passed the 100-day mark. It would continue for another 200 days, amassing a casualty list of an estimated 800,000 soldiers dead, injured or missing.

In 1921, the Tulsa race massacre was set off when a mob of White residents attacked the Black residents and businesses in the Greenwood District. The total number of those killed in the violence is unknown, with an Oklahoma commission established in 2001 estimating between 75 to 100 people dead. The number of displaced Black residents was far greater.

In 1940, a thick fog hanging over the English Channel prevented the German Luftwaffe from flying missions against evacuating Allied troops from Dunkirk.

Troops evacuated from Dunkirk on a destroyer about to berth at Dover, England, on May 31, 1940. File Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

In 1985, seven federally insured banks in Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska and Oregon were closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It was a single-day record for closings since the FDIC was founded in 1934.

In 1996, Israeli voters elected opposition Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister.

In 2003, Eric Robert Rudolph, the long-sought fugitive in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing and attacks on abortion clinics and a gay nightclub, was arrested while rummaging through a dumpster in North Carolina. Rudolph, whose bombings killed two people and injured many others, was sentenced to four life terms in prison.

In 2005, Mark Felt admitted that, while No. 2 man in the FBI, he was “Deep Throat,” the shadowy contact whose help to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the 1972 Watergate break-in led to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

File Photo by Alexis C. Glenn/UPI

In 2012, John Edwards of North Carolina, former U.S. senator and presidential candidate, was acquitted on a charge of taking illegal campaign contributions, and a judge declared a mistrial on five other charges against him.

In 2014, U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, 28, captured in Afghanistan nearly five years earlier, was released by the Taliban in exchange for five detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. In March 2015, the Army announced that Bergdahl had been charged with desertion.

In 2019, a shooting a a Virginia Beach, Va., municipal center left 12 victims and the shooter — a disgruntled former employee — dead.

In 2021, China announced plans to allow couples to have a third child, scrapping its controversial two-child policy amid a slumping birth rate and aging population.

File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI

Dimapur, Mokokchung, Wokha, Chumoukedima and Kohima, India — With its high ceilings, soft lighting and brown and turquoise blue cushioned chairs, Juro Coffee House has the appearance of a chic European cafe.

Sitting right off India’s National Highway-2, which connects the northeastern states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, the cafe hosts a live roastery unit that was set up in January by the Nagaland state government.  Here, green coffee beans from 12 districts in Nagaland are roasted live, ground and served, from farm to cup.

On a typical day, the cafe gets about a hundred customers, sipping on coffee, with smoke breaks in between.

Those numbers aren’t big – but they’re a start.

For decades, an armed rebellion seeking the secession of Nagaland from India dominated the state’s political and economic landscape. Thousands have been killed in clashes between security forces and armed rebels in Nagaland since India’s independence, soon after which Naga separatists held a plebiscite in which nearly all votes were cast in favour of separating from the Indian union. India has never accepted that vote.

The state’s economy has depended on agriculture, with paddy, fruits like bananas and oranges and green leafy vegetables like mustard leaves, the main crops grown traditionally.

Now, a growing band of cafes, roasteries and farms across the state are looking to give Nagaland a new identity by promoting locally grown Arabica and Robusta coffee. Juro Coffee House is among them.

While coffee was first introduced to the state in 1981 by the Coffee Board of India, a body set up by the Indian government to promote coffee production, it only began to take off after 2014.

Helped by government policy changes and pushed by a set of young entrepreneurs, Nagaland today has almost 250 coffee farms spread across 10,700 hectares (26,400 acres) of land in 11 districts. About 9,500 farmers are engaged in coffee cultivation, according to the state government. The small state bordering Myanmar today boasts of eight roastery units, besides homegrown cafes mushrooming in major cities like Dimapur and Kohima, and interior districts like Mokokchung and Mon.

For Searon Yanthan, the founder of Juro Coffee House, the journey began with COVID-19, when the pandemic forced Naga youth studying or working in other parts of India or abroad to return home. But this became a blessing in disguise since they brought back value to the state, says Yanthan. “My father used to say, those were the days when we used to export people,” he told Al Jazeera. “Now it’s time to export our products and ideas, not the people.”

‘Back to the farm’

Like many kids his age, Yanthan left Nagaland for higher studies in 2010, first landing up in the southern city of Chennai for high school and then the northern state of Punjab for his undergraduate studies, before dropping out to study in Bangalore. “I studied commerce but the only subject I was good in was entrepreneurship,” said the 30-year-old founder, dressed in a pair of smart formal cotton pants and a baby pink polo neck shirt.

The pandemic hit just as he was about to graduate, and Yanthan left with no degree in hand. One day, he sneaked into a government vehicle from Dimapur during the COVID-19 lockdown – when only essential services like medical and government workers were allowed to move around – to return to his family farm estate, 112km (70 miles) from state capital Kohima, where his dad first started growing coffee in 2015.

He ended up spending seven months at the farm during lockdown and realised that coffee farmers didn’t know much about the quality of beans, which wasn’t surprising considering coffee is not a household beverage among Nagas and other ethnic communities in India’s northeast.

Yanthan, who launched Lithanro Coffee, the parent company behind Juro, in 2021, started visiting other farms, working with farmers on improving coffee quality and maintaining plantations. Once his own processing unit was set up, he began hosting other coffee farmers, offering them a manually brewed cup of their own produce.

Gradually, he built a relationship with 200 farmers from whom he sources beans today, besides the coffee grown on his farm.

Yanthan sees coffee as an opportunity for Nagaland’s youth to dream of economic prospects beyond jobs in the government — the only aspiration for millions of Naga families in a state where private-sector employment has historically been uncertain. “Every village you go to, parents are working day and night in the farms to make his son or daughter get a government job,” Yanthan told Al Jazeera.

Coffee, to him, could also serve as a vehicle to bring people together. “In this industry, it’s not only one person who can do this work, it has to be a community,” he said.

Brewing success

So what changed in 2015? Coffee buyers and roasters are unanimous in crediting the state government’s decision to hand over charge of coffee development to Nagaland’s Land Resources Department (LRD) that year. The state department implements schemes sponsored by the federal government and the state government, including those promoting coffee.

Unlike in the past, when Nagaland – part of a region that has historically had poor physical connectivity with the rest of India – also had no internet, coffee roasters, buyers and farmers could now build online links with the outside world. “[The] market was not like what it is today,” said Albert Ngullie, the director of the LRD.

The LRD builds nurseries and provides free saplings to farmers, besides supporting farm maintenance. Unlike before, the government is also investing in the post-harvest process by supplying coffee pulpers to farmers, setting up washing stations and curing units in a few districts and recently, supporting entrepreneurs with roastery units.

Among those to benefit is Lichan Humtsoe. He set up his company Ete (which means “ours” in the Lotha Naga dialect) in 2016 after quitting his pen-pushing job in the LRD and was the first in the state to source, serve and supply Naga specialty coffee. Today, Ete runs its own cafes, roasteries and a coffee laboratory, researching the chemical properties of indigenous fruits as flavour notes. Ete also has a coffee school in Nagaland (and a campus in the neighbouring state of Manipur) with a dedicated curriculum and training facilities to foster the next generation of coffee professionals.

Humtsoe said the past decade has shown that the private sector and government in Nagaland have complemented each other in promoting coffee.

Nagaland’s growing coffee story also coincides with an overall increase in India’s exports of coffee beans.

In 2024, India’s coffee exports surpassed $1bn for the first time, with production doubling compared with 2020-21. While more than 70 percent of India’s coffee comes from the southern state of Karnataka, the Coffee Board has been trying to expand cultivation in the Northeast.

Building a coffee culture in Nagaland is no easy feat, given that decades of unrest left the state in want of infrastructure and almost completely reliant on federal funding. Growing up in the 1990s, when military operations against alleged armed groups were frequent and security forces would often barge into homes, day or night, Humtsoe wanted nothing to do with India.

At one point, he stopped speaking Nagamese – a bridge dialect among the state’s 16 tribes and a creole version of the Indian language, Assamese. But he grew disillusioned with the political solution rooted in separatism that armed groups were seeking. And the irony of the state’s dependence on funds from New Delhi hit the now 39-year-old.

Coffee became his own path to self-determination.

“From 2016 onwards, I was more of, ‘How can I inspire India?’”

The quality challenge

Ngullie of the LRD insists that the coffee revolution brewing in Nagaland is also helping the state preserve its forests.

“We don’t do land clearing,” he said, in essence suggesting that coffee was helping the state’s agriculture transition from the traditional slash-and-burn techniques to agroforestry.

The LRD buys seed varieties from the Coffee Board for farmers, and growers make more money than before.

Limakumzak Walling, a 40-year-old farmer, recalled how his late father was one of the first to grow Arabica coffee in 1981 on a two-acre farm on their ancestral land in Mokokchung district’s Khar village. “During my father’s time, they used to cultivate it, but people didn’t find the market,” he said. “It was more of a burden than a bonus.”

Before the Nagaland government took charge of coffee development, the Coffee Board would buy produce from farmers and sell it to buyers or auction it in their headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. But the payments, said Walling, would be made in instalments over a year, sometimes two. Since he took over the farm, and the state department became the nodal agency, payments are not only higher but paid upfront with buyers directly procuring from the farmers.

Still, profits aren’t huge. Walling makes less than 200,000 rupees per annum (roughly $2,300) and like most farmers, is still engaged in jhum cultivation, the traditional slash-and-burn method of farming practised by Indigenous tribes in northeastern hills. With erratic weather patterns and decreasing soil fertility in recent decades, intensified land use in jhum cultivation has been known to lead to further environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change.

“Trees are drying up and so is the mountain spring water,” Walling told Al Jazeera, pointing at the evergreen woods where spring leaves were already wilting in March, well before the formal arrival of summer. “Infestation is also a major issue and we don’t use even organic fertilisers because we are scared of spoiling our land,” he added.

And though the state government has set up some washing stations and curing units, many more are needed for these facilities to be accessible to all farmers, said Walling, for them to sustain coffee as a viable crop and secure better prices. “Right now we don’t know the quality. We just harvest it,” he said.

Dipanjali Kemprai, a liaison officer who leads the Coffee Board of India operations in Nagaland, told Al Jazeera that the agency encourages farmers to grow coffee alongside horticultural crops like black pepper to supplement their income. “But intercropping still hasn’t fully taken off,” said Kemprai.

Meanwhile, despite the state’s efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, recent satellite data suggests that shifting cultivation, or jhum, may be rising again.

The future of Naga coffee

Though it is the seventh-largest producer of coffee, India is far behind export-heavy countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Italy.

And while the Nagaland government maintains that exports have been steadily growing, entrepreneurs tell a different story. Vivito Yeptho, who co-owns Nagaland Coffee and became the state’s first certified barista in 2018, said that their last export of 15 metric tonnes (MT) was in 2019, to South Africa.

Still, there are other wins to boast of.

In 2024, the state registered its highest-ever production at 48 MT, per state department officials. Yeptho said Nagaland Coffee alone supplies 40 cafes across India, of which 12 are in the Northeast region. And Naga coffee is already making waves internationally, winning silver at the Aurora International Taste Challenge in South Africa in 2022 and then gold in 2023.

“To aim for export, we need to be at least producing 80-100 MT every year,” Yeptho told Al Jazeera.

But before aiming for mass production, entrepreneurs said they still have a long way to go in improving the quality of beans and their post-harvest processing.

With a washing mill and a curing unit in his farm, where he grows both Arabica and Robusta varieties, Yanthan’s Lithanro brand is the only farm-to-cup institution in the state. He believes farmers need to focus on better maintenance of their plantations, to begin with.

“Even today, the attitude is that the plants don’t need to be tended to during the summers and monsoon season before harvest (which starts by November),” Yanthan told Al Jazeera. “But the trees need to be constantly pruned to keep them within a certain height, weeding has to be done and the stems need to be maintained as well.”

Even as these challenges ground Naga farmers and entrepreneurs in reality, their dreams are soaring.

Humtsoe hopes for speciality coffee from Nagaland to soon be GI tagged, like varieties from Coorg, Chikmagalur, Araku Valley and Wayanad in southern India.

He wants good coffee from India to be associated with Nagas, not just Nagaland, he said.

“People of the land must become the brand”.

May 30 (UPI) — Scientists at the University of Concepción in Chile have developed the world’s first patented probiotic designed to prevent gastric cancer. The oral supplement is 93.6% effective and targets Helicobacter pylori, a key bacterial factor in the disease.

The probiotic forms a protective coating along the stomach lining, preventing the bacteria from attaching when contaminated food or water is consumed. The supplement is approved for use starting at age 8 and also functions as an immunobiotic, helping regulate the body’s immune response.

Chilean biochemist and Ph.D. in biological sciences Apolinaria García led the research, using Lactobacillus fermentum as the base of the probiotic compound.

Gastric cancer is among the most common cancers worldwide and ranks as the fourth-deadliest. Often called a “silent killer,” its early symptoms are difficult to distinguish from more common and benign digestive conditions.

Helicobacter pylori is found in about half the global population and is linked not only to gastric cancer but also to precursor conditions such as stomach ulcers and MALT lymphoma.

In the United States, the American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 30,000 new stomach cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2025, with more than 10,000 deaths expected.

In Latin America, countries such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia report some of the highest incidence rates and lowest survival rates for gastric cancer, said Dr. Patricio Mardónez, president of Chile’s National Health Network.

He noted that countries like Japan and South Korea have significantly reduced mortality through widespread early detection and screening programs.

“Regionally, what was once a cancer seen mostly in people over 65 is now being detected in patients under 50,” Mardónez said.

While the exact causes behind the rise in gastric cancer diagnoses among younger people are still under investigation, several hypotheses have been proposed.

Changes in diet and lifestyle may be contributing, including increased consumption of highly processed foods high in sodium and low in fresh fruits and vegetables. Sedentary behavior and obesity are also risk factors, along with prolonged use of medications such as proton pump inhibitors (PPI), commonly prescribed for acid reflux.

Bokeo province, Laos – Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia.

The salary was good, he was told. He would be working on computers in an office.

The company would even foot the bill for his relocation to join the firm in Laos – a country of 7.6 million people nestled between China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

With the company paying for his flights, Khobby decided to take the plunge.

But his landing in Laos was anything but smooth.

Khobby discovered that the promised dream job was rapidly becoming a nightmare when his Ghanaian passport was taken on arrival by his new employers.

With his passport confiscated and threats of physical harm ever present, he endured months working inside a compound which he could not leave.

The 21-year-old had become the latest victim of booming online cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia – an industry that is believed to have enslaved tens of thousands of workers lured with the promise of decently paid jobs in online sales and the information technology industry.

“When I got there, I saw a lot of Africans in the office, with a lot of phones,” Khobby told Al Jazeera, recounting his arrival in Laos.

“Each person had 10 phones, 15 phones. That was when I realised this was a scamming job,” he said.

The operation Khobby found himself working for was in a remote area in northwest Laos, where a casino city has been carved out of a patch of jungle in the infamous “Golden Triangle” region – the lawless border zone between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand that has long been a centre for global drug production and trafficking.

He said he was forced to work long days and sleep in a dormitory with five other African workers at night during the months he spent at the scam centre in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.

Khobby recounted the original message he received from an acquaintance encouraging him to take the job in Laos.

“My company is hiring new staff”, he said, adding that he was told the salary was $1,200 per month.

“He told me it was data entry.”

Casino city

The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) where Khobby was lured to for work operates as an autonomous territory within Laos.

Leased from Laotian authorities by Chinese national Zhao Wei, whom the US government has designated the leader of a transnational criminal organisation, life in the GTSEZ is monitored by a myriad of security cameras and protected by its own private security force.

Clocks are set to Beijing time. Signage is predominantly in Chinese, and China’s yuan is the dominant and preferred currency.

Central to the GTSEZ city-state is Zhao Wei’s Kings Romans casino, which the United States Treasury also described as a hub for criminal activity such as money laundering, narcotics and wildlife trafficking.

During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city’s casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone’s throw from the Mekong river.

While luxury construction projects – including the recently completed Bokeo International Airport – speak to the vast amounts of money flowing through this mini casino city, it is inside the grey, nondescript tower blocks dotted around the economic zone where the lucrative online scam trade occurs.

Within these tower blocks, thousands of trafficked workers from all over the world – just like Khobby – are reported to spend up to 17 hours a day working online to dupe unsuspecting “clients” into parting with their money.

The online swindles are as varied as investing money in fake business portfolios to paying false tax bills that appear very real and from trading phoney cryptocurrency to being caught in online romance traps.

Anti-trafficking experts say most of the workers are deceived into leaving their home countries – such are nearby China, Thailand and Indonesia or as far away as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Ethiopia – with the promise of decent salaries.

Online ‘butchering’

Khobby told how his “data entry” job was, in fact, a scam known in the cybercrime underworld as “pig butchering”.

This is where victims are identified, cold-called or messaged directly by phone in a bid to establish a relationship. Trust is built up over time to the point where an initial investment is made by the intended victim. This can be, at first, a small amount of the victim’s money or emotions in the case of fake online relationships.

There are small rewards on the investments, Khobby explained, telling how those in the industry refer to their victims as pigs who are being “fattened” by trust built up with the scammers.

That fattening continues until a substantial monetary investment is made in whatever scam the victim has become part of. Then they are swiftly “butchered”, which is when the scammers get away with the ill-gotten gains taken from their victims.

Once the butchering is done, all communications are cut with the victims and the scammers disappear without leaving a digital trace.

According to experts, cyber-scamming inside the GTSEZ boomed during the 2019 and 2020 COVID lockdowns when restrictions on travel meant international visitors could not access the Kings Romans casino.

In the years since, the cyber-scam industry has burgeoned, physically transcended borders to become one of the dominant profit-making illicit activities in the region, not only in the GTSEZ in Laos but also in neighbouring Cambodia and in conflict-ridden Myanmar.

Though not as elaborate as the GTSEZ, purpose-built cyber-scam “compounds” have proliferated in Myanmar’s border areas with Thailand.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that cyber-scamming in Southeast Asia generates tens of billions annually, while the United States Institute of Peace equates the threat to that of the destructive fentanyl trade.

“Cyber-scam operations have significantly benefitted from developments in the fintech industry, including cryptocurrencies, with apps being directly developed for use at [cyber-scam] compounds to launder money,” said Kristina Amerhauser, of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

“Victims and perpetrators are spread across different countries, money is laundered offshore, operations are global,” Amerhauser told Al Jazeera, explaining that the sophisticated technology used in cyber-scamming, along with its international reach, has made it extremely difficult to combat.

Complicit victims?

About 260 trafficked scam-centre workers were recently rescued in a cross-border operation between Thailand and Myanmar. Yet, even in rare instances such as this when trafficked workers are freed, they still face complications due to their visa status and their own potential complicity in criminal activity.

Khobby – who is now back in Dubai – told Al Jazeera that while he was coerced into working in the GTSEZ, he did actually receive the promised $1,200 monthly salary, and he had even signed a six-month “contract” with the Chinese bosses who ran the operation.

Richard Horsey, International Crisis Group’s senior adviser on Myanmar, said Khobby’s experience reflected a changing trend in recruitment by the criminal organisations running the scam centres.

“Some of the more sophisticated gangs are getting out of the human trafficking game and starting to trick workers to come,” Horsey said.

“People don’t like to answer an advert for criminal scamming, and it’s hard to advertise that. But once they’re there, it’s like – actually, we will pay you. We may have taken your passport, but there is a route to quite a lucrative opportunity here and we will give you a small part of that,” he said.

The issue of salaries paid to coerced and enslaved workers complicates efforts to repatriate trafficking victims, who may be considered complicit criminals due to their status as “paid” workers in the scam centres, said Eric Heintz, from the US-based anti-trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM).

“We know of individuals being paid for the first few months they were inside, but then it tapers off to the point where they are making little – if any – money,” Heintz said, describing how victims become “trapped in this cycle of abuse unable to leave the compound”.

“This specific aspect was a challenge early on with the victim identity process – when an official would ask if an individual previously in the scam compound was paid, the victim would answer that initially he or she was. That was enough for some officials to not identify them as victims,” Heintz said.

Some workers have also been sold between criminal organisations and moved across borders to other scam centres, he said.

“We have heard of people being moved from a compound in one country to one in another – for example from Myawaddy to the GTSEZ or Cambodia and vice versa,” he said.

Khobby said many of the workers in his “office” had already had experience with scamming in other compounds and in other countries.

“Most of them had experience. They knew the job already,” he said.

“This job is going on in a lot of places – Thailand, Laos, Myanmar. They were OK because they got paid. They had experience and they knew what they were doing,” he added.

‘What are we here for? Money!’

High-school graduate Jojo said she was working as a maid in Kampala, Uganda, when she received a message on the Telegram messaging app about an opportunity in Asia that involved being sponsored to do computer studies as part of a job in IT.

“I was so excited,” Jojo recounted, “I told my mum about the offer.”

Jojo told how she was sent an airline ticket, and described how multiple people met her along the way as she journeyed from Kampala to Laos. Eventually Jojo arrived in the same scam operation as Khobby.

She described an atmosphere similar to a fast-paced sales centre, with Chinese bosses shouting encouragement when a victim had been ‘butchered’ and their money stolen, telling how she witnessed people scammed for as much as $200,000.

“They would shout a lot, in Chinese – ‘What are we here for? Money!’”

On top of adrenaline, the scam operation also ran on fear, Jojo said.

Workers were beaten if they did not meet targets for swindling money. Mostly locked inside the building where she worked and lived; Jojo said she was only able to leave the scam operation once in the four months she was in the GTSEZ, and that was to attend a local hospital after falling ill.

Fear of the Chinese bosses who ran the operation not only permeated their workstations but in the dormitory where they slept.

“They told us ‘Whatever happens in the room, we are listening’,” she said, also telling how her co-workers were beaten when they failed to meet targets.

“They stopped them from working. They stopped them from coming to get food. They were not getting results. They were not bringing in the money they wanted. So they saw them as useless,” she said.

“They were torturing them every day.”

Khobby and Jojo said they were moved to act in case it was their turn next.

When they organised a strike to demand better treatment, their bosses brought in Laotian police and several of the strikers – including Jojo and Khobby – were taken to a police station where they were told they were sacked.

They were also told they would not be paid what was owed in wages and their overseers refused to give their passports back.

Khobby said he was left stranded without a passport and the police refused to help.

“This is not about only the Chinese people,” Khobby said. “Even in Vientiane, they have immigration offices who are involved. They are the ones giving the visas. When I got to Laos, it was the immigration officer who was waiting for me. I didn’t even fill out any form,” he said.

With help from the Ghanaian embassy, Khobby and Jojo were eventually able to retrieve their passports, and with assistance from family and friends, they returned home.

The IJM’s Heintz, said that target countries for scammer recruitment – such as those in Africa – need better awareness of the dangers of trafficking.

“There needs to be better awareness at the source country level of the dangers associated with these jobs,” he said.

Reflecting on what led him to work up the courage to lead a strike in the scam centre, Khobby considered his childhood back in Ghana.

“I was a boy who was raised in a police station. My grandpa was a police commander. So in that aspect, I’m very bold, I have that courage. I like giving things a try and I like taking risks,” he said.

Jojo told Al Jazeera how she continues to chat online with friends who are still trapped in scam centres in Laos, and who have told her that new recruits arrive each day in the GTSEZ.

Her friends want to get out of the scam business and the economic zone in Laos. But it is not so easy to leave, Jojo said.

“They don’t have their passports,” she said.

May 30 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Friday accused China of violating a trade agreement with the United States.

“I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen. Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy! That is the good news!!!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”

The president did not specify which trade agreement China was violating.

Just over two weeks ago, the United States and China reached a deal to pause tariffs between the countries for 90 days. China also reduced tariffs on American goods to 10%, down from 125%, while American officials cut tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30% as part of the deal.

Trump in early April announced he would enact tariffs on several countries worldwide. He later upped the number to 145% on China after that country responded to the initial levy with duties of its own on U.S. goods.

China later said it could punish other countries that side with the United States in the trade war.

Earlier this week a federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration from enacting the tariffs on most American trading partners.

“President Trump is carrying out the long-overdue work of rebalancing the global economy to the benefit of the American people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on X Thursday.

“I am confident that the Chinese, and the rest of our trading partners, will come to the table thanks to his leadership.”

Bessent also called trade talks in general with China “a bit stalled.”

At the time the agreement was reached in Geneva, Switzerland, Bessent said the two sides engaged in “very robust discussions.”

Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer led the American delegation during discussions.

The “United States did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Chinese are slow rolling their compliance,” Greer told CNBC in an interview Friday.

Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a statement of protest against the head of the United States mission to the island, Michael Hammer.

In a news release published on Friday, the Foreign Ministry accused Hammer, a career diplomat, of “unfriendly and meddling behaviour” since his arrival in Cuba in late 2024.

“By inciting Cuban citizens to commit extremely serious criminal acts, attacking the constitutional order, or encouraging them to act against the authorities or demonstrate in support of the interests and objectives of a hostile foreign power, the diplomat is engaging in provocative and irresponsible conduct,” the Foreign Ministry wrote.

“The immunity he enjoys as a representative of his country cannot be used as cover for acts contrary to the sovereignty and internal order of the country to which he is assigned, in this case, Cuba.”

The Foreign Ministry said the message was delivered by its director of bilateral affairs with the US, Alejandro Garcia del Toro.

Friday’s statement is the latest indication of increasingly rocky relations between Cuba and the US, particularly since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.

A history of tensions

Diplomatic ties between the two countries, however, have been icy for decades, stretching back to the Cold War in the 1960s. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the US government imposed strict trade restrictions on the island and backed efforts to topple the newly established Communist government.

But there have been efforts to ease the tensions, notably during the administrations of Democratic presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the US.

In 2016, for instance, Obama sought to normalise relations with Cuba, only to see those efforts rolled back during the first Trump administration, starting in 2017.

Likewise, President Biden – who formerly served as Obama’s vice president – removed Cuba from the US’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism” in the waning days of his term in January.

But upon taking office for his second time on January 20, Trump reversed course once more, putting Cuba back on the list that very same day.

Trump also included in his presidential cabinet several officials who have taken a hardline stance towards Cuba, most notably former Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Born to Cuban immigrants, Rubio is an outspoken supporter of continuing the trade embargo against the island.

The Cuban government, meanwhile, has continued to accuse the US of attempting to destabilise its leadership.

In Friday’s statement, the Cuban Foreign Ministry accused Hammer of “public and insulting manipulation” for his recent visit to the tomb of a 19th-century national hero, Jose Marti.

The US Embassy to Cuba posted a video of the visit with a voiceover of Marti’s words, “Respect for the freedom and thoughts of others, even of the most unhappy kind, is my passion: If I die or am killed, it will be for that.” Critics have interpreted that citation as an implied endorsement of dissent on the island.

Ramping up pressure

In recent months, there have also been signs that Trump plans to once again tighten the screws on the Cuban government, in a return to the “maximum pressure” campaigns that typified foreign policy during his first term.

In February, for instance, the Trump administration announced it would yank visas from anyone who works with Cuba’s medical system, which sends thousands of healthcare workers abroad each year, particularly in the Caribbean region.

Critics have criticised the healthcare programme for its low pay and hefty restrictions on its employees. Trump and Rubio, meanwhile, have claimed the medical system amounts to a form of “forced labour” that enriches the Cuban government. But leaders in Havana have denied that allegation.

Then, in April, the US government condemned Cuba for re-arresting a group of dissidents, among them prominent figures like Jose Daniel Ferrer and Felix Navarro.

Cuba had initially agreed to release Ferrer and Navarro as part of a bargain brokered by the Vatican earlier this year.

Cuba was expected to release 553 prisoners, many of whom were swept up in antigovernment protests, and in exchange, the US was supposed to ease its sanctions against the island. The sanctions relief, however, never came.

An additional measure was taken against Cuba just this month. The Department of State, under Rubio’s direction, determined that “Cuba did not fully cooperate with US counterterrorism efforts in 2024”. It accused Cuba of harbouring 11 fugitives, some of whom faced terrorism-related charges in the US.

“The Cuban regime made clear it was not willing to discuss their return to face justice in our nation,” the State Department wrote in a news release. “The United States will continue to promote international cooperation on counterterrorism issues. We also continue to promote accountability for countries that do not stand against terrorism.”

As punishment, Cuba was labelled as a “not fully cooperating country” under the Arms Export Control Act, a designation that limits its ability to buy weaponry and other defence tools from the US.

Furthermore, Hammer had recently signalled that new sanctions were on the way for the island.

But in the face of Friday’s reprimand, the State Department indicated it was undeterred and would continue to support dissidents against Cuba’s “malign influence”.