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“Get away with it”

Memusi Lochede sits on a bed as her 24-year-old daughter Chaula lies motionless on the floor of their home in Archer’s Post, in the shadow of the training grounds. A donated wheelchair sits in the corner. Her daughter’s right leg is gone; metal rods brace a body so badly injured that she struggles to hold up her head.

“I have so much pain in my heart seeing my daughter in this condition,” 46-year-old Lochede tells Al Jazeera, wiping the drool from her daughter’s chin. “I feel ashamed that she needs so much help, and I don’t know how to help her.”

In 2019, Chaula, then a teenager, says she was hit by a speeding BATUK vehicle while crossing the road. Her leg was amputated and, her mother says, she was left paralysed and spent nearly three years in hospital.

A BATUK representative later came to see Lochede, she says.

“He apologised for what happened and said they don’t want a court case and would take care of my daughter — anything she needs,” she recounts.

The MOD said it “has not located a record of an approach having been made by a BATUK representative to the family.”

When her daughter was discharged, BATUK paid the hospital bills — without receipts or disclosing the amount — and disappeared, Lochede says. For years, Lochede called its community liaison officer, the Kenyan official tasked with receiving complaints like hers, who never answered. Eventually she gave up.

The MOD told Al Jazeera in August that BATUK is aware of the claim that one of its drivers “hit and injured a minor” in 2019, “resulting in permanent injuries”.

It said legal representatives have been in contact with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights about the case and that a compensation offer has been made but the commission has not responded.

In late September, Al Jazeera asked the MOD what had been offered, when, and through whom. It did not provide those details, saying instead that BATUK “remains willing to engage with the child’s family, through an appropriate representative and on a without-prejudice basis,” but that “to date, we have been unable to establish contact with the family or an authorised representative”. Any resolution would have to rest on “verified medical and factual information” and, because the claim concerns a minor, be approved by a Kenyan court.

Ruth Getobai Nchagwa, a deputy director at the commission, says it has “never engaged with BATUK directly as our letters to them went unanswered”.

Chaula’s case “has not been addressed to date,” she notes, and the commission is not aware of any discussions about compensation. Lochede similarly says no one has ever approached her about compensation.

Before the accident, Lochede supported her five children by making beaded necklaces and selling them in Nairobi. Now she cannot leave her daughter’s side, and Chaula’s care costs about 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($230) a month — more than Lochede usually earns.

“It’s a shameful feeling to pick up the phone and call so many numbers for help, and no one picks up your call,” she explains, her lips quivering as she fights tears. “In those moments where I can’t provide for my daughter, I just lock myself inside the room and lie in my bed and cry.”

Her daughter, once healthy and active, now barely speaks.

“There are some days she wakes up and says just one word, like ‘food’ or ‘bathroom,’” Lochede says. “Those are the good days. Other days, she refuses to eat. I can see that she’s depressed and lonely. Inside, her soul is shattered.”

“These soldiers do these things because they know they can get away with it,” she adds sharply. “They know we don’t have money. We don’t have power. It’s extremely difficult for us to fight them.”

Cases like Chaula’s are far from isolated. Last year, a landmark two-year inquiry by Kenya’s parliamentary defence committee put decades of alleged BATUK abuses on the official record.

The 94-page report gathered testimony from hearings across Laikipia and Samburu, including a herder allegedly shot by a British sergeant; the alleged gang rape of 30 women at knifepoint in 1997; a boy who lost both arms and an eye to unexploded ordnance; and women with children their British fathers had never acknowledged.

BATUK declined to appear, citing its status and immunities under the defence arrangements. The committee condemned the refusal as contemptuous, calling it “emblematic of institutional contempt for the authority of Parliament and, by extension, the sovereignty of the people of Kenya”.

It concluded that BATUK “is increasingly seen as an occupying presence rather than a development partner”, with affected residents drawing parallels to colonial injustices. Witnesses told the committee that “suspected BATUK abuses are not only unpunished but actively covered up” — that whenever a BATUK member is implicated, police files often “go missing” and complainants are “intimidated into silence.”

An MOD spokesperson told Al Jazeera the UK “deeply” values its relationship with Kenya, “which has long been the UK’s defence partner of choice in East Africa”.

The MOD is “addressing concerns raised by Kenyan authorities and communities, focusing on legal accountability, ethical standards, environmental stewardship, economic benefit and social responsibility,” the spokesperson said.

Regarding road traffic incidents, the spokesperson said BATUK “cooperates fully with the local authorities and Kenyan Police”, that all such incidents are “investigated thoroughly” and that “where claims are made, BATUK submits to the jurisdiction of the Kenyan courts”.

When asked what progress the MOD had made on the concerns raised by the committee, and whether it was investigating any of the specific cases, it referred Al Jazeera to the written statement it submitted to the inquiry, which said it was “not aware of any evidence to support any allegation of collusion with security forces to suppress or dismiss complaints, or intimidate, bribe or coerce victims into silence”, and that any such evidence “would be taken extremely seriously and investigated accordingly”.

For Awino Okech, professor of feminist and security studies at SOAS University of London, the parliamentary report points beyond individual abuses. “This is no longer a case of a few bad apples but reckoning with what many will interpret as accepted militarised institutional culture,” she tells Al Jazeera.

“The fundamental question the British government is being asked to reflect on is their responsibility when there is a documented pattern of malbehaviour by their employees in a foreign country.”

Okech says the pattern cannot be separated from race. “We cannot ignore the racialised element. In this case, it is visible when crimes committed in Kenya are taken less seriously.”

Portadown, Northern Ireland – When the summer holidays arrived, Chris Nelson worried about his mother.

At night, he lay awake waiting for her to return. During the day, he rang family members to ask if she was safe. There were threats and letters through the door.

“I was afraid to leave the house,” he told Al Jazeera.

His mother, Rosemary Nelson, was a lawyer representing the Catholic residents opposing the Protestant Orange Order parade along Portadown’s Garvaghy Road in Northern Ireland in the late 1990s.

Every July, as marching season approached, there was a standoff.

Orangemen sought to return from Drumcree church along what they regarded as their traditional route. Residents opposed the passage of the anti-Catholic organisation through a majority Catholic street. In some years, police forced the parade through. In later years, it was blocked.

Rosemary would spend summer evenings alongside the residents on Garvaghy Road. Before leaving home each evening, she told her son that she was going to look after families and make sure their children were okay. She compared them to his friends at primary school.

“She was a big believer in helping the underdog,” said Chris, now 39. “She did a lot of work for free.”

His mother helped people from both sides of the community. When work allowed, the family went to Bundoran, across the border, and for a day the fear would pass.

But one night, during a standoff in 1997 when the state police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), used batons to clear Catholic locals from the road, “she was beaten by the police”, said Chris. “She was spat on”, bruised and bloodied.

“That was very traumatic. I was always thinking something was going to happen to my mum.”

On a Monday in March 1999, nearly a year after the Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the conflict, Rosemary drove away from her home in Lurgan.

As she braked at a nearby junction, a bomb beneath her car exploded. Her eight-year-old daughter, Sarah, was at primary school nearby and heard the blast. The family had spent the previous weekend in Bundoran together.

Chris, 11 at the time, and his older brother were away on a school ski trip when they received a phone call with the news of her death.

“That was hard”, he said, his voice tailing off.

A legacy of loss

Nearly three decades later, another standoff has recast these childhood memories into fears for the next generation, with a renewed attempt by the Protestant Orange Order to march through the Catholic neighbourhood, threatening to unravel a fragile peace.

The Troubles began in the late 1960s as protests by Catholics against discrimination were met by repression and violence. Republican paramilitaries fought for a united Ireland as loyalists and the army battled to preserve British rule, in a conflict that killed more than 3,500 people.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement established a framework for peace and power-sharing.

Under the agreement, the people of Portadown have lived in relative peace for the past 28 years.

But this was suddenly unsettled by a last-minute decision by the High Court to allow the march. In response, Catholic residents blocked the road. Many camped out as Orange men gathered at the top of the road, awaiting police permission to pass – an image of division that never truly left.

Many of the Garvaghy Road residents are now parents, and fear what their children might inherit from a dispute they hoped had been left behind.

Paul O’Connor, of the Pat Finucane Centre human rights group in Northern Ireland, said Rosemary Nelson is among 21 people whose deaths were linked to the Drumcree dispute.

Many are still being investigated, with families continuing to seek justice and pressing for public inquiries amid concerns about collusion between the British state and loyalist paramilitaries, many of which were members of the Orange Order.

“These murders encompass LVF (Loyal Volunteer Force) killings at that time, and are all linked to the Drumcree disputes. They were responsible for many of the killings around the Mid Ulster area at that time. They were trying to destabilise the peace process, with many riots spreading around, including into Derry,” O’Connor told Al Jazeera.

He worked with Rosemary Nelson and is now seeking a public inquiry into the murder of Sean Brown, another Drumcree-linked case, he believes. The 61-year-old father of six from Bellaghy, County Derry, was abducted and murdered in May 1997.

The following year, the three Quinn brothers – Richard, 10, Mark, nine, and Jason, eight – died after loyalists petrol-bombed their home in Ballymoney, County Antrim, as they slept. Their deaths, during the unrest surrounding Drumcree, brought widespread calls for the Orange Order to end its standoff.

Fear and loathing in Mid Ulster

In Portadown town centre, a Union flag flies among plinths dedicated to the Ulster Defence Regiment, a locally recruited unit of the British army and the Ulster Covenant – a document signed when nearly 500,000 people opposed a form of self-government for Ireland in 1912.

Around the corner, in the Edgarstown housing estate, Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) flags hang from lampposts, and the kerbs are painted red, white and blue, alongside a mural of a Rangers FC badge.

The area is one of the heartlands of unionism. The Orange Order was founded in 1795 in the village of Loughgall, a few miles from Drumcree.

The Orangemen say they have marched the route through Garvaghy Road since 1807. The parade has been blocked from Garvaghy Road since 1998, but the Orangemen have continued submitting requests to march.

The latest Parades Commission decision permitted 35 men to walk without music. Since then, Orangemen have repeatedly approached the police line before returning to the church.

Irish nationalists have criticised the police assessment underpinning the decision to allow the march, while unionists have denounced police for failing to forcibly remove protesters blocking the route.

Al Jazeera contacted the three main unionist parties – the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) – for comment but received no response.

Addressing around 200 supporters in Portadown, loyalist activist Jamie Bryson described protesters as “an unlawful snarling mob”.

He has called for the First Minister, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, and police Chief Constable Jon Boutcher to resign, and demands that the Orange men must be allowed to walk the Garvaghy Road.

O’Neill has faced criticism for standing beside the protesters.

At Drumcree Church, the Orangemen were not marching, but sitting down drinking tea and eating crisps. Around six men, one wearing his sash, huddled under a gazebo in the cold.

“We are waiting patiently for the chief constable to apply the law of the land,” Nigel Dawson, the Portadown Orange Order district master, told Al Jazeera.

“Portadown District has never in its history stopped a parade down the road to have a confrontation with its neighbours, ever. So I don’t know where the fear and trepidation comes from.”

Another Orangeman, who requested anonymity, added: “We are determined to get home after Sunday service … We just want to go home.”

Around a mile further down the Garvaghy Road, Irish folk band the Mary Wallopers performed to hundreds of residents and supporters.

Children danced and slid down the embankment, as parents watched from above. Palestine and Ireland flags flew in the wind.

Linda O’Neill, 51, a Garvaghy Road resident, told Al Jazeera the scene would have been unimaginable 30 years ago.

“It was horrendous growing up as a teenager. We stayed in our own community. We didn’t access the town centre … This community was a ghetto. And that was deliberate.”

Another resident, Ciaran O Ferghail, remembered summers spent surrounded by British forces.

“This community was turned into a war zone. There were tanks and British Army everywhere, thousands of RUC. This community was completely under siege every summer, by the Orange Order, the British military, the RUC and loyalist paramilitaries. We were surrounded on every road and in every direction.”

O’Neill said the confrontation changed as residents began asserting their rights.

In 1995, hundreds sat down on Garvaghy Road to block the parade. The ensuing violent standoff between security forces and Orangemen and their loyalist supporters ended in a compromise allowing the march through. Residents say they understood it would be the last.

But the following summer, the parade returned. Police initially blocked it, then reversed course after five days of widespread loyalist attacks. Officers forced residents off the road and beat them, sparking riots in Catholic communities.

In 1997, security forces sealed off the Catholic neighbourhood before dawn and allowed the parade through at midday amid loyalist threats to kill Catholics if it was stopped. Nationalist protests and violence followed. From 1998, the march was banned from Garvaghy Road. But for residents, summers remained marked by the army’s steel barricades until 2000.

Lessons from the past

Chris Nelson, almost 40, is around the same age his mother was when she was killed.

The Garvaghy Road protests mark the first time he has chosen to speak publicly about his mother.

He went on to study law at university, but says his life would have followed a different trajectory if she were still here.

The public inquiry into his mother’s death found no evidence that state security agencies had “directly facilitated” her murder, but it “could not exclude the possibility” that individual members of those agencies had helped the perpetrators.

The inquiry brought the past back repeatedly as he tried to get on with his life. But seeing photographs of families linking arms on Garvaghy Road brought back unavoidable memories of his mother.

“If she were here, that’s where she would be,” he said, “standing with the people of the Garvaghy Road”.

While there has been no violence in Portadown, in Derry’s Waterside, two recent nights of disorder saw petrol bombs and masonry thrown at police. Officers described the crowd on the second night as mostly young people.

The renewed attempt to bring the Orange Order parade through Garvaghy Road risks leaving its mark on children on both sides. With some schools closed, Chris Nelson worries about parents having to explain to their kids what is happening.

“Children don’t forget things“, he said. “They absorb everything.”

He remembers how it felt waiting for his mother each night, and how that worry followed him through the summer holidays. He wants something different for the children growing up now.

“Children shouldn’t grow up knowing the difference between Catholic and Protestant.

“It isn’t something that should be brought into the mind of a child.”

Saeed Ayed* watches over his livestock herd. The animals are starving and parched due to a two-week-long Israeli siege on the Ras al-Ahmar Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley.

Access to the community has been blocked since mid-September, as Israeli forces continue building a barrier through Palestinian land in the area, including a road for military patrols, trenches and embankments.

Since the road closures began, movement for Palestinians has been severely restricted. They are forced to move around at night, transporting water, fodder and milk via donkeys under the cover of darkness to avoid detection by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Ayed told Al Jazeera that no water had entered the community over the past three days after Israeli forces sealed the access points residents had been using to bring in supplies.

“The situation is dire. We are completely besieged, and the livestock cannot survive without water and food for this long,” Ayed said. “We own 15,000 head of livestock, and we fear they will perish because of the siege.”

Ras al-Ahmar is a 300-person village home to around 50 families who have lived off livestock and herding since the 1970s. Ayed said that Israeli settler attacks – part of a wider pogrom against Palestinians across the West Bank – had intensified since February, accusing settlers of trying to force residents out to seize their land.

“We have faced livestock theft, attacks on our dwellings, beatings of residents and vandalism of our homes. This was happening almost daily, yet we refused to leave. Now, they are completely besieging us to force us out,” he added.

The greatest challenge facing residents is restricted access to medical care as a result of the siege, a particular concern for the elderly.

Disease is also rampant among livestock, particularly newborn animals. And with veterinary teams unable to reach the area and treat the animals, deaths have been reported.

The military barrier – which Israel calls Crimson Thread and says it is needed for security – runs for roughly 20km (12 miles) through the northern Jordan Valley, with a width of up to 50 metres (165 feet).

Construction expanded early this year, including the digging of trenches and the bulldozing of agricultural land that damaged wells, water networks and greenhouses. The Israeli military seized nearly 115 hectares, 85 percent of which is privately owned Palestinian land, according to Kerem Navot, which monitors Israeli land policies in the West Bank.

Abdullah Bisharat, head of the village council of Ras al-Ahmar and Atuf, a nearby rural area also facing the military blockade, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli blockade has stopped 51 schoolchildren from attending classes for two weeks because vehicles can no longer reach them.

Israeli forces confiscated a tractor belonging to the village council on Sunday, detaining its driver as he was delivering animal fodder and water to Ras al-Ahmar, Bisharat said.

“We reached out to human rights organisations, but unfortunately no one was able to break the siege. Hundreds of people there are suffering, the majority of whom are women and children,” Bisharat added.

Broader context

The targeting of Bedouin and herding communities in the Jordan Valley is part of a mounting pressure campaign on residents to abandon their properties by restricting access to land and pastures. The tactics include settler violence, the demolition of structures and the closure of roads and access points.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has described Bedouin and herding communities as among the groups most vulnerable to displacement in the West Bank. Dozens of Palestinian communities across the West Bank have been entirely or partially displaced since 2023, when Israel began its genocide in Gaza and ramped up its attacks on the West Bank after the October 7 Hamas attack.

OCHA has reported that at least 130 Palestinian communities have experienced full or partial displacement since January 2023, with 48 communities completely displaced, including 12 from January to August.

According to OCHA, more than 2,500 Palestinians were displaced in 2026 due to settler attacks and related access restrictions, out of a total of more than 6,400 displaced since 2023.

As the Israeli elections – scheduled for October 27 – approach, Palestinian analysts and rights advocates argue that the measures being implemented on the ground are entrenching a new reality that may persist regardless of the next government.

Hassan Mleihat, chairman of the al-Baydar Organization for Defense of Bedouin Rights, told Al Jazeera that settlers appear to be rapidly intensifying measures aimed at displacing Bedouin communities in the lead-up to the elections.

Mleihat said that Israel’s objective was to expel as many Palestinians as possible and seize control of their land.

“The road being constructed near Ras al-Ahmar aims to dominate the area’s land under security pretexts and to isolate Palestinian communities into tiny geographical pockets, effectively confining their presence there,” he said.

A new reality

Observers believe the significance of these Israeli measures against Palestinian communities extends beyond their immediate impact on the population, creating demographic, geographic and security-related changes that may prove irreversible even if the Israeli political landscape shifts after the elections.

Adel Shadid, an expert on Israeli affairs, told Al Jazeera that Israel currently exercises an unprecedented degree of control over Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Palestinians, he said, live in small, fragmented and scattered enclaves with Israeli control over security, military and economic matters, as well as the minutiae of daily life.

He said the change was not only limited to geography but also entails normalising the presence of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank so that they are viewed as an integral part of the region’s fabric, rather than a temporary presence or a reality subject to change.

“This shift is accompanied by the entrenchment of the perception that the West Bank is no longer viewed as a Palestinian area – or even a disputed one – but rather as a territory where Jews have the right to live in safety and security,” he said.

Shadid argued that this perspective also shapes how Israeli and Palestinian communities in the West Bank are perceived by the Israeli state. Israeli settlers are presented as a population requiring protection, while Palestinians are increasingly framed primarily as a security threat.

“This logic extends to how the land and the very elements of life are treated. A tree, for instance, might be viewed as a potential resource for acts targeting the Jewish community; consequently, cutting it down is seen, within this framework, as a security measure that warrants no intervention,” he said.

Shadid said this was also changing perceptions of the role of the Israeli army and police in the West Bank. He argued that the security forces’ role was increasingly seen as protecting settlers against a so-called “Palestinian threat”, rather than restraining settler aggression against Palestinians.

“This new reality is not tied to the current Israeli government. Rather, it creates a dynamic that will persist beyond the elections, regardless of the outcome,” Shadid said.

*Saeed Ayed is a pseudonym used at the individual’s request for security reasons.

A historic collapse

One factor in the widespread disillusionment has been the Banco Master scandal. The financial imbroglio has delivered a black eye to both ends of Brazil’s political spectrum.

A range of business leaders, political figures, regulators and judges have been swept up in the scandal.

A mid-sized lender, Banco Master grew aggressively over the last decade by selling high-yield deposit certificates. Some of those certificates offered returns of up to 140 percent relative to Brazil’s benchmark interbank rate.

But Banco Master did not have the assets needed to sustain that output.

It lacked the money to pay back its risky loans, and what assets it did have were diverted to shell accounts, according to prosecutors.

Brazil’s Central Bank ultimately liquidated Banco Master in 2025, as the lender faced a major funding squeeze.

Its owner, Daniel Vorcaro, was subsequently arrested, accused of an array of financial crimes, including money laundering and fraud.

The collapse of Banco Master triggered a nearly $7.7bn payout from Brazil’s Credit Guarantee Fund, the largest disbursement in the nonprofit insurance’s history.

Investigators have suggested that Vorcaro protected his fraud scheme by cultivating influence among power brokers among Brazil’s elite.

Among those implicated in the scandal is Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the presidential candidate.

Last month, the Supreme Court unsealed documents showing he is under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering in connection with Vorcaro.

Audio recordings have also surfaced, appearing to show Bolsonaro soliciting the disgraced bank leader for millions in funding. The money was slated as financing for Dark Horse, a film about his imprisoned father, Jair Bolsonaro.

Flavio Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing. He described the interaction as a private sponsorship opportunity, unrelated to the Banco Master scandal.

HE stole the show on last night’s opening episode of Celebrity Traitors, honestly announcing to the group that he was, in fact, a traitor.

Alongside his comical moments on the BBC show, actor Richard E Grant also gave some touching references to his late wife Joan Washington.

After host Claudia Winkleman selected the Withnail & I star as a traitor alongside presenter Maya Jama, Richard spoke about “love of his life” Joan, who passed away in 2021.

Delighted at being a traitor, he told viewers: “My wife said to me four days before she died, she said Richard try and find a pocketful of happiness in each day, and I feel like I’ve got a wheelbarrowful and then some.”

Richard’s heartfelt confession came just minutes before his now legendary Celebrity Traitors gaffe revealing his traitor status.

The relationship between Academy Award-nominee Richard, 69, and his wife of 35 years was so romantic it could have played out on the silver screen.

IN A JAM

Traitors winner thinks Maya Jama and Richard E Grant have made ‘big mistake’

HONEST MISTAKE

Claudia Winkleman breaks silence on Richard E Grant’s Celeb Traitors blunder

Richard met dialect coach Joan at a London studio, called The Actors’ Centre, in 1982, where she had been teaching an accent class.

At the time, Joan was married to someone else, and had a son called Tom, but Richard could not take his eyes off her.

In 1994, he told The Independent he was captivated, saying: “She was wearing a boiler suit and had fairly short, cropped hair and Kicker shoes, and was chain-smoking, which I thought was insane.”

But he added: “I thought she had the most wonderful voice and huge, sort of monkey eyes. She seemed fairly frenetic. I thought that she was really cute and all that.”

Joan gave Richard a lesson in developing an Irish accent and he says they “instantly” clicked.

But initially, and amusingly, Joan found him “annoying”.

She said: “I used to take a class of about 20 people and I actually used to find him quite annoying because he’d get the giggles at quite the wrong moment and I was a strict teacher.”

Giggling aside and getting to know Richard during private lessons, Joan quickly realised she was falling for him.

She previously described her then-marriage as “extremely bad at the time” and slowly found herself smitten with the handsome actor in her class.

Recalling the way she was feeling, Joan told The Independent that she soon realised she was “madly in love with him”, adding: “I do believe that there’s one person on the globe that’s meant for you.”

The pair became a couple a year later and their relationship went from strength-to-strength, even though their jobs often meant they spent great chunks of time apart.

Richard said he never believed in marriage until he met Joan.

“My parents were divorced when I was 11 and it made such a profound impression on my life that I suppose I thought that by not getting married, you could avoid your life being carved in two. But that changed,” he told The Independent.

Although they were often apart, Richard and Joan would speak on the phone regularly and write to each other daily.

Eventually, Richard decided it was time to make an honest woman of his girlfriend with a proposal that could have been straight out of a movie.

Arriving home to London for Christmas following six weeks away in Africa, he couldn’t wait any longer and popped the question at the airport.

Richard previously recalled: “So I came back and went on bended knee with my trolley at 6.30am at Heathrow Airport – and, luckily for me, she said yes.”

Richard, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and Joan married in 1986.

Richard once described their marriage as “the story of my adult life”, saying they began a conversation when they met and never really stopped.

Following their marriage, the newlyweds were keen to start a family together. Sadly, their journey was a difficult one.

Joan suffered three miscarriages. They were then left heartbroken when their first child, a daughter called Tiffany, died very soon after she was born.

Richard later told YOU magazine: “Until that time I had no idea how common it is to lose babies and what it actually meant.”

Thankfully, the couple later welcomed their rainbow baby – a second daughter, who they named Olivia, in 1989.

Richard has since described Olivia as his and Joan’s “miracle baby”.

In 2019, the devoted father looked proud as punch as he walked the red carpet with Olivia on his arm at the Oscars.

Speaking to ABC, he said at the time: “My daughter, absolutely gorgeous, she’s 30 and she works in casting so I’m guaranteed a job for life, hopefully.”

Richard and Olivia run a unisex fragrance company together, called JACK.

Speaking about her life with her dad, Olivia added: “I’m just proud. It’s been the best ride to go on together.”

Unlike dozens of other Hollywood stars, Richard and Joan’s beautiful relationship lasted the distance and their love for one another was unbreakable.

Speaking to The Guardian in 2015, he described their marriage as “gold dust”.

Tragically, in 2021, Richard confirmed on Instagram that his wonderful wife had passed away at the age of 74, following a battle with lung cancer. 

Sharing an emotional video of himself dancing with Joan, Richard wrote: “Joan – Love of my Life, giver of Life to our daughter Olivia.

“Our hearts are broken with the loss of your Life last night. 35 years married and 38 together. To be truly known and seen by you, is your immeasurable gift. Do not forget us, sweet Monkee-mine.”

The actor was left devastated at the loss and said experienced further heartbreak how some friends reacted to the news, claiming a couple stopped speaking to him and even crossed the road to avoid speaking to him about his grief.

He shared: “Subsequent to her death, I have had people cross the road rather than talk. Whether they think you’re going to fall apart and you’re an emotional wreck, I don’t know. But I will never speak to them again.”

Before she passed, Richard admitted she gave him a “hilarious” list of women he must never date after she passed – although he said he does not expect to fall in love again.

Two years ago, he admitted he still writes her letters every night to stay in touch. 

He told The Guardian: “I write to her every night. [I write down] everything. Stuff I know would amuse her… I have no spiritual or religious delusion that I’m ever going to get a reply.

“But after 38 years of marriage, I can hear what her response would be. It feels as close a connection as I can have. And I’ve found it very hopeful, that at the end of the day I’m having a conversation.”

In early September, Richard marked the fifth anniversary of her death with a touching tribute.

On Instagram, he wrote: “Five years ago today, my beloved wife Joan died at 7:30 in the evening. We were holding each other’s hands when she drew her last breath.”

In June 2026, Olivia and husband Florian Herbst – who wed in 2024 – welcomed their first child, a son, making Richard a grandfather for the first time.

The proud actor referred to his late wife on Instagram when he announced the news, calling the baby “our grandson.”

In an Instagram video in June 2026, an emotional Richard said: “I’m so grateful for the safe arrival of our grandson. Life truly is miraculous.”

In addition to this, in September he shared a clip of him carrying his grandkid on a walk, saying: “No better way to start my day bobbing our sleeping grandchild along Petersham meadow with Annie Lennox playing in my head.”

United Kingdom police have arrested a 25-year-old British-Iranian man in relation to a security incident at a Royal Air Force (RAF) station near Fairford, England, this week

The man, described by police as a “dual UK/Iranian national” and detained on suspicion of preparing “terrorist” acts, is the sixth person to be arrested in what British authorities said was potentially an Iran-backed plot. The five other people arrested earlier were released on bail on Monday.

The investigation began when British authorities were alerted early on Sunday about unusual activity near the airbase, including oddly parked vans and a group of masked men. After searching the vans, authorities found no weapons or explosives but did recover a “quantity of petrol”.

The RAF station has been used by the United States for military operations, including by bombers during the US-Israel war on Iran.

Here’s what we know about the latest development in the case:

What’s happened?

British counterterrorism police announced the arrest of a 25-year-old British-Iranian dual national in Westminster, London, on Thursday. Iran, however, does not recognise dual citizenship, and treats Iranians with a second passport solely as Iranian.

The man was detained on “suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006”, the same offence cited in the arrests of the five other suspects. In line with standard police practice, none of the suspects has been named ahead of any charges being made.

Police said they also conducted searches of two properties in the London area. They appealed to the public for any information that could assist the investigation.

What do we know about the suspect in custody?

The Times newspaper reported that the British-Iranian suspect is being investigated as a possible “recruiter” in the still-opaque plot or as someone otherwise believed to have played a significant role.

The media reported that the man was placed under surveillance after the arrest of the first five men. He has not been named.

What evidence is there that this was an Iran-linked plot?

The UK has pointed to an Iranian connection but has so far kept the reason for that assessment under wraps.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there are “strong indications” of Iran’s involvement in the incident and an “ongoing, complex and serious police investigation” is continuing.

He did not give information on what the suspects may have been planning or what intelligence has led the UK to suspect the involvement of Iran, saying only that he would “update people more in due course”.

In the US, President Donald Trump said the case “might be” Iran-linked and the US had been keeping tabs on the suspects “for a long time”. Trump criticised the UK’s decision to release the first five suspects on bail.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government had forewarned the UK about a potential “Iranian-sponsored attack” but did not specify if that was related to the same RAF base incident.

Iranian officials have firmly denied any connection to the incident. Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Majid Takht-Ravanch called the claims “false and ridiculous”.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned British Ambassador Hugo Shorter on Thursday to protest against the allegations.

What happened at RAF Fairford?

Authorities received two early-morning calls on Sunday alerting them to suspicious activity near the Fairford airbase, including three vans parked strangely and a group of hooded, masked men.

Unusually, the first call to the UK’s emergency line was made by one of the suspects who would later be arrested.

Police responded and arrested five British men in their early 20s in the nearby Whelford area, saying they were suspected of explosives offences. Counterterrorism police later took over the investigation and said the men were suspected of preparing “a terrorist act”.

The suspects were released on bail on Monday but remained subject to “stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others”, according to the UK’s head of counterterrorism policing, Laurence Taylor.

After searching the vans located near the airbase, police said they found no explosives but did retrieve a “quantity of petrol”.

Why were the men arrested at the scene given bail if this is a major incident?

That’s one of the big unanswered questions.

Under British “counterterrorism” law, police may hold suspects for up to two weeks before charging them. However, if authorities find little evidence to support their initial suspicion of “terrorism”, they have far less time – usually 24 to 36 hours, Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office, told Al Jazeera.

Other security experts told Al Jazeera that police likely released the first five suspects because they did not deem them to be an imminent security risk or found that their potential involvement in any plot was unwitting.

“In cases involving terrorism, suspects can still be released on bail when the authorities feel relatively confident that these individuals do not pose an imminent danger of either carrying out or organising a terrorist attack,” Andrew Silke, professor of criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London, told Al Jazeera.

“Individuals may have been involved unknowingly or in a peripheral manner to potential terrorist activity. This seems possible in the current case,” he added.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow in international relations and security at Loughborough University and a former senior RAF officer, agreed that police likely have assessed that the five released suspects do not pose “any immediate danger”.

“We can reasonably assume that police judged that these individuals did not present any immediate danger nor did they have any credible means or intention of creating further danger to the public or to government installations,” Ashraf told Al Jazeera.

However, he said their release on bail should not necessarily be taken to mean the incident in question “was minor or that the Iranian-involvement hypothesis has been rejected”.

What happens next?

British authorities said they are continuing to investigate all aspects of the case, including the possibility of it being a foreign-backed “plot”.

Silke said authorities will likely be thoroughly analysing all suspects’ communications and interactions, looking for information on contacts who may have organised their involvement and for any payment the suspects may have received.

“The authorities can investigate all of these links to establish if they lead back to foreign government sources or agencies,” he said.

Silke added that authorities will also look into any links between the RAF airbase incident and previous plots carried out on British soil.

Phillips said he believes the suspects could have been recruited online by foreign actors to carry out some type of malicious activity, such as “setting fire to something”.

He said both Russia and Iran have allegedly paid “stooges” to carry out such acts in recent years. “At first glance now, it seems that that may be the case, but time will tell,” Phillips added.

Iran and Russia have also previously been accused of orchestrating plots in the UK. Those plots have involved “surveillance, sabotage, arson or physical violence”, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said last year.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The phone hasn’t stopped ringing in recent days. Raf*, a leader of refugees from Myanmar who are living in Malaysia, receives more than 100 calls a day, and they follow a common pattern.

“They are crying, asking me to do something,” Raf told Al Jazeera.

The Malaysian government on Tuesday deported nearly 1,500 refugees, part of its stated plan to send back at least 5,000 refugees as part of a deal with the military government of Myanmar. That move, from a country that had long taken in the refugees, has sparked fear among the tens of thousands of other refugees from Myanmar in the country, who have one question at the top of their minds: Who might be next?

The deportation was carried out during escalating raids on refugee communities by immigration officials, which have led to the detention of more than 50,000 refugees this year alone. Those working with refugees in Malaysia said the frequency of the raids has increased since June when Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the repatriation agreement with Myanmar.

“[We’ve seen] a sharp increase. Raids are happening every single day. There’s up to 50 raids or more happening every day,” said Heidy Quah, founder and executive director of the Malaysian nonprofit Refuge for the Refugees.

Minister of Home Affairs Saifuddin Nasution told local media that the government has conducted more than 9,700 such operations from the beginning of this year until September 17. That’s an average of 37 operations a day.

There are now more than 10,000 Myanmar nationals in Malaysia’s immigration depots, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

In all, Malaysia is home to more than 215,000 refugees, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Nearly 194,000 are from Myanmar. There are more than 126,000 Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, where they have been the target of widespread hate speech on social media in recent months. Apart from the Rohingya, the Myanmar refugees in Malaysia include nearly 16,000 from the Chin community and 33,000 from other Myanmar communities. The non-Myanmar refugees in Malaysia include small numbers of Pakistanis, Yemenis, Somalis, Afghans, Syrians, Sri Lankans, Palestinians and Iraqis.

The Myanmar refugee community in Malaysia has yet to identify any Rohingya among the first nearly 1,500 people deported on Tuesday, community leaders told Al Jazeera. Instead, many are from Myanmar’s other ethnic minorities, who are more likely to have valid national identification documents, community leaders said.

“The Rohingyas are a problem for deportation because Myanmar denies their citizenship,” Raf said. “So I don’t think that Myanmar will agree and accept all those Rohingyas.”

Myanmar officially treats the Rohingya as Bangladeshi immigrants despite the community’s long roots in Myanmar and their distinct ethnic identity. The Myanmar army has repeatedly cracked down on the Rohingya minority, including a wave of violence in 2017 that many rights groups have described as genocide. It set off a major refugee crisis when hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, Malaysia, India and other neighbouring nations.

Myanmar community leaders also said the raids this year appear to have targeted locations highlighted in anti-refugee videos on social media in which content creators filmed refugee-populated areas, portraying them as hubs of chaos. These videos have been shared thousands of times on platforms such as Threads, TikTok and Facebook.

Al Jazeera contacted the Immigration Department to verify the link between the videos and raids but had not received a response at the time of publication. Accounts that had posted and shared antirefugee sentiment also did not respond to requests for comment.

Decline in resources

The increase in hostilities towards refugees in Malaysia coincides with a sharp decline in the capacity of local and international aid groups to support them, especially since the closure of the United States Agency for International Development in July 2025.

In Malaysia, this severely shrank resources for organisations helping refugees with basic needs, such as healthcare, Quah told Al Jazeera.

“Then slowly, United Nations organisations were being defunded, and even within the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Malaysia, they lost a lot of staff,” Quah said. The job cuts reflected global retrenchments by UNHCR last year.

The agency continues to struggle with a funding crisis, saying on Tuesday that it faces a $5.79bn funding gap and, as of July, has received 32 percent of the funds it needs this year.

In Malaysia, this has led to even less protection for refugees and higher rates of exploitation, Quah said.

“Even UNHCR cardholders are arrested and remanded for about 14 days [while the] cards are verified,” she said.

For instance, an asylum-seeking woman who had scheduled an appointment to meet UNHCR representatives this month was recently detained, and immigration authorities demanded a letter from the organisation to prove that she was an asylum seeker, Quah said.

Although UNHCR confirmed the woman was seeking asylum, she remains in detention, Quah said.

Ongoing violence in Myanmar

UNHCR and rights groups in Malaysia have urged the Malaysian government to stop the deportations as violence continues in Myanmar.

A day before Malaysia’s deportation of the refugees on Tuesday, an air strike by Myanmar’s military was reported to have killed at least 33 people in Rakhine state, the historical home of the Rohingya. The Arakan Army group said the victims included vendors, shoppers and pedestrians. In June, the UN said Myanmar’s military was responsible for more than 700 civilian deaths over a six-month election period that started in August last year.

The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) said that while Malaysia is not a party to the Refugee Convention of 1951, the principle of nonrefoulement has become part of customary international law and Malaysia, therefore, is bound to abide by it. The principle protects people from being returned to a place where they face a real risk of persecution, torture or other serious harm.

Particular attention should also be given to children, SUHAKAM said, highlighting that Tuesday’s deportation included 27 children, some reportedly as young as eight years old.

“No child should be returned to danger. Their safety, dignity and best interests must come first,” it said.

Myanmar community leaders in Malaysia told Al Jazeera the ships that departed on Tuesday will arrive in Yangon on Sunday.

“After that, we will [learn] whether they are allowed to leave the port safely [or are detained],” said one community leader who requested anonymity due to the increase in violence towards refugees in Malaysia.

Still, even those who are allowed to leave the port may need to spend months or years in Yangon because it is unsafe to travel across the country, the community leader said.

Call for independent access

Rights groups further criticised the Malaysian government’s framing of the deportations as “voluntary”, saying individuals should have sufficient information about conditions in their home countries before making such a decision.

“While authorities say the returns are voluntary, those returned had been held in immigration detention. This raises serious questions about whether decisions to return were genuinely free and informed,” UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Edem Wosornu said.

The Malaysian government said people were selected for deportation based on a list of names shared by the Myanmar government in an official diplomatic note.

“Such [a] ‘voluntary’ decision must be determined by an independent authority, such as the UNHCR, and not by the Immigration Department,” SUHAKAM said .

UNHCR told Al Jazeera that it was not involved in the latest return process and did not have access to the individuals concerned. “[We were,] therefore, not in a position to independently ascertain the voluntariness of their decisions to return,” it said.

“We continue to encourage the government to ensure that return processes include individual assessments, access to protection procedures and safeguards to ensure that any decision to return is free, informed and genuinely voluntary,” it said.

Malaysia registering refugees

The deportations come at a time when Malaysia is simultaneously positioning itself as welcoming to refugees and their needs.

In 2015, the Malaysian government launched a Refugee Registration Document (DPP) programme. On paper, it is supposed to help register refugees, giving them official documentation.

Raf welcomed the DPP as long as the registration and documentation of refugees in Malaysia leads to access to work, education and healthcare.

“If these three things are provided, I think that’s a good solution for temporary refugees staying here.”

But the Malaysian branches of Amnesty International and Asylum Access said the latest deportations raise profound concerns about the purpose of the DPP. The programme should not be used to fast-track unlawful deportations, the groups said in a joint statement.

*Name changed to protect the individual’s identity

WHEN we mourned the loss of Dolly Parton in August, it was an especially emotional time for Carly Pearce. 

The much-missed Queen of Country — and theme park owner — once referred to Carly as “The Little Dollywood Girl”. 

As I discover, their lives became inextricably linked for more than two decades. 

“I never thought there would be a day without Dolly Parton,” Carly tells me. “I always loved her, right from when I was a kid.” 

Aged just 15, she successfully auditioned for the Country Crossroads show at Dollywood, the sprawling park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, not far from the Great Smoky Mountains where Dolly was raised in a humble log cabin with her 11 siblings. 

“At 16, my parents let me quit high school,” says Carly, picking up her story, “and my mom and I moved to Pigeon Forge, about a four-hour drive from our hometown in Kentucky. 

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“I jumped into six shows a day, five days a week, at Dollywood.” 

“It was then that I first met Dolly, as one of her performers,” she adds, recalling the moment she couldn’t help staring at the singer who gave us Jolene and I Will Always Love You, hardly believing she was real. 

Today, Carly, 36, is forging a stellar career of her own and has just released a career-defining album, Honest Woman. 

She’s on her tour bus in Chicago, where it’s 9am, and I’m in London when we’re connected via video call. 

“For a day on the road, it’s too early for me to be ready yet,” she exclaims with her cloud of blonde curls framing a big smile. 

“Well, you look amazing to me,” I reply, before turning to talk about her life, her album and her beloved dogs, Johnny and June. 

But first let’s hear more about her connection to the incomparable Dolly Parton. 

By a twist of fate, it was up to Carly to lead the Grand Ole Opry’s tribute show for Dolly at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the spiritual home of country music. 

It took place on August 29, just four days after Carly’s guiding light passed away. 

She opened her set with a moving rendition of Those Memories Of You, a song recorded by Dolly, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris for their 1987 album Trio. Carly says: “It was kind of odd because I was already scheduled to play the Opry to celebrate my album.  

“Then it just so happened that the show to honour Dolly fell on the same day — so I got to run the show. I was everywhere.  

“I think it was meant to be because she had been such a big part of my life and such a part of my origin story.  

“It was a heavy thing for me to be there and realise she’d gone but it was a big honour.” 

Years after her Dollywood stint, Carly and Dolly met again when both were appearing on TV promoting albums at the same time. 

“So I got to remind her of who I was,” says Carly. “After that, I’d see her during my time in Nashville.  

“But then I had the crazy, crazy surprise of my life. I thought I was doing a commercial for Dollywood, which I thought was a cool thing to do.” 

On June 17, 2021, Dolly suddenly appeared backstage at the shoot and told Carly, “You are now an official member of the Grand Ole Opry.”  

It was an invitation to the most exclusive and historic club in country music. Carly says: “There are three moments in my life which I think of as favourite career moments. And that is number one. 

“The other two are winning Female Vocalist Of The Year at the CMAs (2021) and a Grammy (2023, with Ashley McBryde for their duet, Never Wanted To Be That Girl).” 

Before we move on to more about her life story and her new album, I ask Carly what she admired about Dolly. 

“She had a way of telling a story that was unapologetic and honest,” she replies. 

“She was uniquely her own person in a way that freaked people out in the beginning. The way she looked and how she spoke. She was such a pioneer for women.” 

It’s clear that Dolly, along with the likes of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, paved the way for female country singers in what could be — and still is to some extent — a male-dominated world. 

Carly says: “Oh my God, I’m not trying to be mean, but there are so many songs on the radio that could be ten different dudes all sounding the same. 

“I have to say, as a female, you can distinctively tell who is who.  

“You have to have backbone and grit to break through — and I think you’re seeing that a lot right now with females in country music.” 

Listen to Carly’s new album, Honest Woman, a vibrant song cycle drawing on country pop, old school country and bluegrass, and you’ll detect some of that fierce determination. 

“I’ve always written from an honest and vulnerable place,” she says. “I don’t really know how to not be myself, which can be great and also a curse.” 

The rousing opener Dream Come True suggests that success doesn’t always bring happiness. 

Reflecting on being a single woman, unlucky in love, she sings: “Bought me a house at the end of a cul-de-sac. Four bedrooms but I only use one.” 

Later, she’s “sittin’ on the couch, cryin’ in the dark. Every plaque on the wall is a broken heart.” 

Carly says: “Dream Come True was the first song I wrote for the album. I was feeling a lot of pressure to write a hit.” 

She considered where her life had taken her, which, she confesses, made her cry — but she came up with a song straight from the heart. 

“I’ve chased this dream from the time I was a kid,” she says. “I think of the sacrifices I’ve made, that it comes with a price.  

“I saw young women my age with husbands and children and a more simple life that wasn’t as isolating as mine — and I wondered if I was missing out.” 

Carly’s dream of being a singer began, she says, “with my McDonald’s microphone when I was five-years-old”. 

“My parents loved music though not country music. But the only thing that would keep me from crying as a baby was (country star) Vince Gill. 

“My mom was so upset because she loved Fleetwood Mac, Heart and Black Sabbath. My dad loved the Grateful Dead and The Doobie Brothers.” 

However, Carly’s maternal grandparents, the Pearces, were into traditional country and bluegrass — artists such as Buck Owens and Ralph Stanley. 

She continues: “When I was six, my mom convinced a vocal coach to take me on. I don’t know why but she believed I had talent. 

“For the rest of my childhood, she supported that side of my dreams, whether it was making costumes for talent shows, driving me to recording studios, buying me karaoke CDs or getting me a guitar.” 

Carly’s move to Dollywood and into Dolly Parton’s orbit at 15 was her first big step into country music but another female pathfinder also inspired her.  

She was Loretta Lynn, the rags-to-riches singer whose turbulent story was told in Coal Miner’s Daughter with Oscar winner Sissy Spacek in the lead role. 

Carly says her new song You Can Have Him, with its trad country vibe, “is Loretta in spirit”. 

“I loved Loretta so much growing up,” she says. “I didn’t get to meet her, but there’s a song on my album 29: Written In Stone called Dear Miss Loretta. She sent me a voice text about it which I still have.” 

As for You Can Have Him, she adds: “Doing that was cool. I felt that traditional country was always such a big part of my story but I’d never honoured it on an album before.  

“So I went old school and wrote this tongue-in-cheek song about a guy with a wandering eye. 

“It takes me back in time. It’s as if I was Loretta Lynn singing at the Opry in the Sixties when she was 30-something.”  

Next, we talk about Carly’s “absolute favourite” song on Honest Woman, He Don’t Like My Dogs. 

It’s about an ex who got the boot because he didn’t take to the two loves of her life — shih tzus Johnny and June, named after the first couple of country music, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. 

“Here they are on the back of my phone case,” says Carly, holding up her phone to show me pictures of two fluffy white balls of hair. 

“I love my dogs so much and always wanted to write a song about them, but it felt a bit cheesy. 

“Then I had a situation when someone was not nice to Johnny. So Johnny and I talked and he said, ‘Mom, you know what to do’.  

“So I wrote this song that I think a lot of people can relate to. If you’re a dog person and somebody doesn’t like your dog, get out!” 

Expressing just what Johnny and June mean to her, Carly continues: “I don’t have children, but they fulfil that need for me so much. I mean, I just FaceTimed them before I got on this call. They’re with my dad while I’m on tour.” 

Moving on to other aspects of Carly’s album, I guess you can judge her by the company she keeps. 

There’s a guest appearance by breakthrough star Riley Green on stirring duet If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay. 

“I always target my duet partners,” says Carly. “Riley’s having a serious moment, especially in the States.  

“I’ve known him for a long time and knew I wanted to do this song with him.” 

Elsewhere, How Long is one of several songs to feature bluegrass powerhouse, guitarist and singer Dan Tyminski, known for his work with Alison Krauss & Union Station. 

Carly says: “I know he’s not in Union Station any more but they were my favourite band growing up. 

“I wore out their live CD from Louisville, Kentucky. My band jokes with me because I play every song on air guitar or air fiddle.  

“For years, I said Dan was my celebrity crush but nobody even knew who he was. I would just say, ‘You know, the guy who was George Clooney’s singing voice on O Brother Where Art Thou?’” 

How Long also features sublime harmony vocals by Morgane Stapleton, wife of big, bearded country superstar Chris and a formidable talent in her own right. 

Carly explains: “When I did my song with Chris, We Don’t Fight Anymore, first I had to figure out how to get the song to him.  

“I thought, ‘OK, I probably have a better chance if I DM his wife on Instagram. 

“That’s what I did. Morgane wrote back and asked me to call her. She was the reason that song got to Chris and we became friends.” 

When it came to the sessions for Honest Woman, Carly called her new pal. 

“No offence to Chris — I love Chris,” she says. “But I wanted his wife on this album so I sent her a message. She came to the studio and crushed it.” 

The record ends with Why God Why Me, a heartfelt acoustic ballad reflecting Carly’s abiding faith.  

“The song is my North Star for this entire project,” she affirms. “Faith has been the one constant in my life in this wild ride through the ever-changing music industry.” 

Why God Why Me is also an example of how this unflinchingly “honest woman” goes about her work. 

Carly says her songs “help me state the way I feel, just like Dolly did”. 

CARLY PEARCE 

Honest Woman 

★★★★★

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said the UK’s security services have “strong indications” of Iranian involvement in the incident at a British Royal Air Force (RAF) station near Fairford this week in which five men were arrested before they were released on bail.

The five British men were spotted near the airbase and arrested on Sunday on suspicion of “terrorism” and explosives offences, before they were released.

The United States has used the British base to carry out operations in various conflicts, including to deploy bombers in its war against Iran.

Iran has strongly denied any involvement with the airbase incident, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying British authorities are “barking up the wrong tree”.

So, what do we know about the incident, and is there evidence Iran played a role?

What happened at the airbase?

Authorities were alerted to suspicious activity near the base early Sunday morning, including three vans parked oddly and a group of hooded, masked men.

Police responded and arrested five British men in their early 20s in the nearby Whelford area, saying they were suspected of explosives offences. Counter Terrorism police later took over the probe and said the men were suspected of preparing “a terrorist act”.

The suspects were released on bail Monday, but remain subject to “stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others,” according to the United Kingdom’s head of counter terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor.

On Tuesday, after three days of investigations, including using a bomb disposal team, police said they had found no explosives in the vehicles that were parked the near the base, but had retrieved a “quantity of petrol”.

Who is linking the incident to Iran, and have they cited evidence?

Officials in the UK, the US and Israel have all pointed to Iran but offered no details.

Burnham on Wednesday spoke of “strong indications” of Iran’s involvement and said an “ongoing, complex and serious police investigation” is continuing.

However, the prime minister did not give any details on what the suspects were planning or why the UK thinks Iran was involved, saying only that he would “update people more in due course”.

In the US, President Donald Trump said the case “might be” Iran-linked and that the US had been keeping tabs on the suspects “for a long time”. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the case “clearly involved the hands of a foreign actor”, without naming a specific state.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had forewarned the UK about a potential “Iranian-sponsored attack”.

How has Iran responded?

Iran has firmly denied involvement.

In a statement on Monday, Iran’s embassy in London said it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns” any attempts to link Iran to the individuals arrested near the airbase.

It said the spread of such “fabricated speculations” fuel “Iranophobia propaganda” and that Iran reserves the right to “take appropriate legal measures”.

On Wednesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the UK was “barking up the wrong tree” by pointing to potential Iranian involvement.

Why has the UK released the suspects on bail?

It is unclear. Under British “counterterrorism law”, police can hold suspects for up to two weeks before charging them. However, if authorities find little evidence to support their initial suspicion of “terrorism”, they would have far less time – usually 24 to 36 hours, said Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office.

“If it’s not an actual terrorist attack, then the police don’t have anywhere near as long to keep them in custody,” said Phillips. “I think the police just need more time to do their enquiries.”

Andrew Silke, professor of criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London, said the suspects could have also been released on bail while under suspicion of “terrorism” if “authorities feel relatively confident that these individuals do not pose an imminent danger of either carrying out or organising a terrorist attack”, such as if they had “peripheral” or “unknowing involvement”.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow in international relations and security at Loughborough University and a former senior Royal Air Force officer, said the bail release does not necessarily indicate that the “Iranian-involvement hypothesis has been rejected” but it does mean “police have judged that these individuals did not present any immediate danger”.

Taylor, the head of counter terrorism policing, said the men’s release on bail was an “investigative decision” based on “experience and careful considerations of policing powers.” He stressed that the men are bound by “stringent conditions on their movement and contact with others” as the investigation into them continues.

But their release drew backlash in the US from Trump, who said British authorities “should not have done that”.

“How do you give bail to a terrorist?” Trump asked.

Iran’s Araghchi appeared to suggest that the suspects’ release supported Iran’s position that it was not involved.

“I can confirm Iran’s belief that releasing supposed terrorists working for foreign states really says it all,” wrote Araghchi in a post on X.

What questions about the case are still unanswered?

Questions remain about the circumstances in which authorities were initially alerted to suspicious activity near the base, the extent to which they believe the suspects are linked to Iran and what the suspects may have been planning.

According to the BBC, police received two early-morning calls on Sunday regarding suspicious vehicles near the base, the first of which the media understands was made by one of the suspects themselves.

The Times of London reported that police are looking into the suspect’s motives for making such a call, including “whether he got cold feet or whether it was part of the plan”.

Authorities are also probing whether the incident was a form of “surveillance, a ‘dry run’ to test security or a stunt to send a message to the British government”, reported The Times.

Meanwhile, police have suggested they are looking into whether the suspects could have been unwittingly acting on Iran’s behalf.

In an updated briefing on Tuesday, Taylor said officials were examining whether the activity could have been “committed by proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state”.

He also spoke more generally about the “increasing breadth and complexity” of threats facing the UK, saying threats often emerge first as small-scale criminal activity, “committed by individuals whose primary aim is not terrorism but a quick financial gain”.

Phillips told Al Jazeera he believes the suspects could have been recruited online to carry out some type of malicious activity that falls short of a “terrorist attack”.

“It sounds as though these people have been paid online to do some naughty work”, such as “setting fire to something”, said Phillips.

He said both Russia and Iran have allegedly paid “stooges” to carry out such acts in recent years. “At first glance now, it seems that that may be the case, but time will tell,” Phillips added.

Royal Holloway’s Silke also said he believes the evidence suggests “a proxy explanation”.

“Certainly, there have been recent cases in Europe where individuals have been used unwittingly as proxies by foreign governments to carry out activities which have a hostile intent,” he said. “The UK authorities in this case may have assessed that something similar had happened here, and that the individuals involved had no inherent terrorist motivation themselves, but had been caught up unintentionally in a larger plot.”

Has Iran previously been accused of plots in the UK?

Yes. MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in October 2025 that the agency had tracked “more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots” in the UK within a year.

McCallum alleged that Iran, along with Russia, has resorted to “ugly methods,” such as “surveillance, sabotage, arson or physical violence”.

British Security Minister Dan Jarvis has said Iran often uses criminal proxies to “obfuscate” its involvement in attacks, which have targeted Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli people in the country.

In March this year, British police arrested four people on suspicion of helping Iran spy on the local Jewish community. The month after, police said they were probing possible Iran links to a series of arson attacks on Jewish targets ‌in London.

In June, two Romanian men whom British prosecutors said had acted as proxies for Iran’s government were handed lengthy jail terms for stabbing a British journalist of Iranian origin who wrote for an Iranian media outlet critical of Iran’s government.

Iran’s government has repeatedly denied involvement in any illegal plots or attacks on British.

Indirect talks between the United States and Iran aimed at ending the seven-month-long war continue – most recently via Qatar as mediator on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York – but the two sides still disagree about the agenda.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left New York on Tuesday after telling state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) that he expects an official response to Tehran’s proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by the end of the day. The proposal, which Iran said would see the strait reopened within seven days, was first passed to the US via Qatari mediators last week.

United States President Donald Trump was reported to have rejected that offer, under which Tehran would reopen the strait in return for Washington lifting its naval blockade, waiving sanctions, releasing an estimated $12bn in frozen Iranian assets and enforcing a wider regional ceasefire that includes Lebanon.

Under Iran’s proposal, wider peace talks, including discussions of its nuclear programme, would begin only then

Despite Trump’s public rejection, Araghchi says he has not yet received a formal response from Washington. Meanwhile, US media reports that Trump may well be willing to relax sanctions and unfreeze Iranian assets have been strongly denied by the US president.

Instead, US officials say, the US wants a deal that resolves all outstanding issues, particularly Tehran’s nuclear programme, in one go, rather than pursuing a gradual, step-by-step approach.

Here’s what we know about the talks:

Qatari mediators met Araghchi in New York on Monday to discuss how to advance Tehran’s proposal for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and then progressing to wider peace talks.

In a post on Telegram, Araghchi insisted that the talks focused solely on the Strait of Hormuz. He denied that the US had formally rejected the Iranian proposal.

“Despite what the US president said, I said that we were waiting for the official US response through the mediators … They [Qatar] had ideas, and we discussed them. They are going to raise this issue with the American side again, and then the final response from the American side will be conveyed to us through the Qatari mediator,” Araghchi said late on Monday.

Araghchi also said negotiations had become more “serious”, but cautioned that Tehran’s position has not changed.

“I state firmly that there has been no change in Iran’s position. Our conditions for opening the strait are clear. Our position on other issues is also clear. At present, there has been no discussion at all about flexibility,” he added.

Tehran’s proposal includes elements of the Islamabad memorandum of understanding (MoU), which was signed by both the US and Iran on June 17.

Is Trump willing to accept some Iranian demands?

A US official told The Associated Press news agency last week that Trump is not willing to make a final peace deal with Iran until the issue of its nuclear programme is addressed. According to the official, who has not been named, the US president would be willing, however, to grant Iran sanctions relief and release some frozen funds if progress is made on the nuclear file.

Then, on Monday, US-based news outlet Axios also reported that Trump had offered Iran sanctions relief in return for concessions on its nuclear programme. The report also cited US officials, one of whom told Axios that the indirect talks had been “positive and constructive”, adding that Tehran had indicated it was “flexible” on nuclear issues.

Trump, however, angrily denounced the story as a “hoax” in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns. He said the story was “not true” and demanded Axios remove the article.

Iran has been heavily sanctioned for decades. The restrictions have severely affected Iranians’ quality of life, including their access to essential medicines and healthcare.

In August, the US announced yet more sweeping economic sanctions on Iran and countries that trade with it as it sought to apply more economic pressure to isolate the country from the global economy during the diplomatic deadlock in their war.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the campaign as the “economic asphyxiation” of Iran.

It is difficult to quantify exactly how many Iranians have been killed by what Tehran views as “economic warfare”. However, a study published last year by the highly regarded medical journal The Lancet Global Health concluded that more than 564,250 people worldwide die annually as a result of US sanctions.

What does the US want?

In late February, just before the US launched its first strikes on Iran, the two sides were already holding talks hosted by Oman, which included the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme.

But before those talks could conclude, the US and Israel launched strikes, triggering the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas is shipped in peacetime, by Iran. The closure of the strait has since become the primary point of contention between the two sides, when it had not been an issue before the war began. The strait is currently subject to blockades by both sides.

Throughout the war, Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to strike a deal with Tehran. However, serious differences between the two sides will need to be resolved first, including the order in which issues are addressed for the purpose of peace talks.

Iran wants to establish its control of the Strait of Hormuz, have sanctions lifted and assets unfrozen, as well as ensure an end to US-Israeli strikes before it will go back to negotiating other issues, such as its nuclear programme. This was the order of events laid out in the MoU agreed between Iran and the US in June, but which quickly fell apart.

The US, however, wants everything to be on the table at the same time – it does not want to agree to anything relating to these Iranian demands before it addresses the other issues.

Scott Lucas, professor of US politics and international relations at University College Dublin, told Al Jazeera that Washington effectively wants Iran to surrender.

“The Strait of Hormuz has become a fundamental issue. The question here is, will both sides give? The memorandum of understanding clearly gave Iran a role in the management of the strait,” Lucas said.

“When the Trump administration pulled away from negotiating on the basis of the memorandum, they effectively went back to the idea of Iran having to completely allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz with no guarantees over it, in terms of not only what it means for Iran financially, but [also] in terms of Iranian security. The Iranian government is not going to agree to that, so we’re stuck in this limbo right now,” he added.

“Are the Trump folks going to come back to the talks on the basis of the memorandum of understanding or something that is a revised version of it, or are they going to try and break the government with economic warfare until at least after the US elections in November? That’s where we are right now.”

What does Iran want?

After half a century of bitter enmity with Washington, Iran wants to consolidate what it sees as the strategic gains it has made during a war it did not start. This specifically includes its newly established ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, sending global energy markets into a tailspin and placing additional pressure on the Trump administration.

Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28, Hormuz has dominated talks aimed at ending the war and emerged as Tehran’s greatest point of leverage. Prior to the conflict, Iran did not exert control over the waterway and all commercial shipping passed through freely.

For this reason, Iran will not move on to wider peace talks until it has leveraged its control of the strait to get its demands met. “Our discussion is clear. Right now, it is only about the Strait of Hormuz,” Araghchi said late on Monday.

“The opening of the Strait of Hormuz is also subject to the fulfilment of a series of conditions that we announced to the other side.”

Ali Salehian, director of the Center for Intellectual Diplomacy at the Governance and Policy Think Tank in Iran, told Al Jazeera that Tehran does not believe Washington will honour any future deal as it did not honour what was agreed under the Pakistan-brokered June MoU.

“For Iran, the bottom line of every negotiation with Trump, considering all of his misbehaving and [military] targeting of Iran during negotiations, is the Islamabad MoU,” Salehian said.

“Tehran thinks that if the US doesn’t fulfil its commitments based on the MoU, there is no guarantee that any kind of future deal would be sustainable.”

What is likely to happen next?

It does not look likely that the diplomatic standoff will be eased anytime soon, analysts say.

Both the US and Iran have indicated throughout the war that they would prefer a diplomatic settlement to a continuation of the war. However, Trump has continued to threaten Iran with more strikes if it does not agree to a deal, and Araghchi told US news outlet NBC on Sunday that Tehran is also prepared to resume fighting, even though it has not abandoned diplomacy.

“We are fully prepared for the time for the war to be resumed, and I repeat, we stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war,” he said.

Trump said last week that he expects a deal will be reached, but not until after the US midterms on November 3.

“For the moment, the Trump administration is going to try to make the Iranian government capitulate through economic warfare,” Lucas said.

However, a deep sense of distrust remains between the two sides. Senior Iranian officials believe Trump will restart the war after the midterms on a far greater scale and that Israel would also participate.

If that theory proves true, Tehran may well prefer the fighting to resume before November’s elections, as it would allow Iran to impose a greater cost on Trump.

“The reaction of the Iranians to that might be to actually trigger the war themselves, early, right before the midterm elections in order to maximise the pain that [it] will impose on the US president,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the US-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Al Jazeera earlier this month.

Mohammed Abu Hijleh still finds it hard to believe that his mother passed away just over a week ago; she had suffered from nothing more than diabetes. But the restrictions Israel imposes on various cities, towns, and villages in the occupied West Bank can alter a Palestinian’s life in an instant.

Zahriya Abu Hijleh, 66, was attending her niece’s wedding reception in her hometown of Deir Istiya, northwest of Salfit, on September 20, when she suddenly felt dizzy and collapsed.

After she was taken to the town’s medical centre, the doctor immediately ordered her transfer to Salfit Governmental Hospital, a facility just an eight-minute drive from Deir Istiya.

Mohammed requested an ambulance, but the vehicle could not enter the town because the iron gate operated by Israeli forces at the entrance was closed. Instead, an ambulance from the medical centre transported her to the gate, and from there, she was taken off the stretcher, carried past the gate on foot, and transferred to a second ambulance waiting on the other side.

It is a scenario that happens repeatedly in the occupied West Bank, Mohammed told Al Jazeera.

“My mother was breathing her last; had the gate been open, we wouldn’t have lost her on the way,” he said.

Medics later determined that Zahriya had suffered a pulmonary embolism and required urgent treatment, according to her family.

“Sadly, she died due to the delay,” Mohammed said. “She had no prior health issues other than diabetes.”

Comprehensive closures

The military checkpoints and iron gates erected by Israel in the West Bank have become a significant source of misery for Palestinians.

They disrupt daily life, causing delays for people trying to reach work, schools, and universities, while also posing a daily threat to the lives of the sick.

Israel periodically imposes closures on the West Bank for various reasons, including Jewish holidays. The current closure runs from September 27 to October 3, coinciding with the Jewish festival of Sukkot.

While Israeli settlers move freely between West Bank cities, and even storm Palestinian villages and towns under Israeli army protection, Palestinians are forced to wait for hours at closed checkpoints.

Ibtihal Mansour from Nablus endured such an ordeal last Friday while visiting her in-laws’ home in the village of al-Janiya, near Ramallah.

The family left the village at 10am, hoping to reach Nablus within 45 minutes. But they encountered closures at the Atara and Ein Siniya checkpoints north of Ramallah, effectively trapping them in the area.

“We tried taking alternative routes west of Ramallah, but were surprised to find the road between Ramallah and Nablus blocked by settlers, with all vehicle traffic completely halted. We remained on the roads, trying to find any way through, until midnight, a span of more than 14 hours,” she told Al Jazeera.

Her children were crying, exhausted after spending so long confined in the vehicle. Passing through one roadblock near Nablus, in an area called al-Lubban Asharqiya, a soldier forced Ibtihal to wake the children. When her 11-year-old son did not wake up, she said that the soldier punched him in the head, causing him to jolt awake crying.

“The scene was heartbreaking; I felt a deep lump in my throat and profound sorrow. Long hours of waiting in the vehicle ended with an assault like this, and the ordeal didn’t even end there,” she said, explaining that they had to turn back. “We were forced to spend the night at my sister-in-law’s home in Ramallah before setting out early the next morning for Nablus.”

Like Ibtihal’s family, many Palestinians travelling between cities and villages are forced to stay overnight in hotels or at relatives’ homes. Some municipalities have converted wedding halls and mosques into shelters for those stranded, providing meals donated by residents of towns near the checkpoints.

The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) recorded 942 checkpoints, closure points, and obstacles across the occupied West Bank as of September 25, up from 793 in March 2024.

The total length of the obstacles amounts to approximately 107.7km (70 miles), according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The CRRC says the closures effectively fragment Palestinian communities, making access to workplaces, schools, medical facilities, and agricultural land dependent on whether roads and crossings are open.

Al Jazeera has reached out to Israeli authorities for comment on the road closures and the allegations from Palestinians in this article, but has yet to receive a response.

Strangling Hebron and Jerusalem

In Hebron – which has an Israeli settler presence in the centre of the Old City – the Israeli army has closed the Ibrahimi Mosque to Palestinians and tightened restrictions at checkpoints and gates leading to the site until Wednesday, all while securing access for settlers to celebrate Jewish holidays.

Issa Amro, coordinator of the Youth Against Settlements group, told Al Jazeera that soldiers have closed checkpoints and imposed curfews in several city neighbourhoods, restricting resident movement and making it increasingly difficult to reach the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque.

“The area west of the mosque contains settlements and closed zones, while access from the east is limited to a few roads. These measures make reaching the site both more difficult and more dangerous,” he explained.

The situation in occupied East Jerusalem is also fraught, as Israel imposes strict restrictions on Palestinian movement and access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, while thousands of Israeli settlers enter the site and move about unhindered under heavy security escort.

Activist Fakhri Abu Diab told Al Jazeera that Israel’s closures in occupied East Jerusalem during the Jewish holidays are part of attempts to impose religious sovereignty over the city.

Abu Diab explained that Israeli settlers and hardliners head either to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque or to synagogues to perform religious rituals, while Palestinians are forced to remain at home.

He described how the closures disrupt daily life in East Jerusalem, shutting shops, schools, and workplaces, and halting movement.

“Israeli police restrict the movement of Jerusalemites. Families and vehicles attempting to move about risk being attacked by extremists and settlers, while the latter are permitted to roam freely and dominate the streets,” he said.

LONG before Hollywood relied on CGI, making The Mummy meant dragging a crew into the depths of the Sahara Desert – and paying a brutal price for it.

From near-fatal accidents to deadly wildlife, the set was plagued with so much off-screen drama that crew claimed the ancient pharaohs had put a curse on production.

Despite the chaos, the film became a smash hit that helped launch the careers of its charismatic leads, Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

It also proved so popular that it led to two direct sequels and a hit spin-off over the next nine years.

Now, 25 years after it debuted, the beloved film is back for a fourth installment – scheduled for release in October next year – with Brendan and Rachel back at the helm.

New photos show librarian-turned-action heroine Evelyn O’Connell, played by Rachel, in character, looking as glamorous as ever at the age of 56.

A WHALEY GOOD TIME

Brendan Fraser gets Bafta nod after piling on 7stone for The Whale

BIG MOMENT

Brendan Fraser breaks down as his movie The Whale gets standing ovation

However, here are seven near-disaster stories from the original set that prove The Mummy filming was as perilous as its plot…

Brendan Fraser’s near-fatal noose

When the heroic character of Rick O’Connell is nearly executed at the start of the film, the horror wasn’t entirely just acting. 

Brendan Fraser stood on his tiptoes with a tight, real noose around his neck for a close-up shot.

When a stuntman pulled the tension a fraction too far, it instantly cut off Brendan’s airway, knocking him out cold.

He blacked out, and woke up to the stunt coordinator slapping his face back to reality. 

The crew’s comforting reaction? “Welcome to the club – the same thing happened to Mel Gibson on Braveheart.”

Oscar nominee Brendan said on the Kelly Clarkson Show: “I was standing on my toes like this with the rope and you only got so far to go. 

“Stephen [Sommers, the director] ran over and he said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t really look like you’re choking. Can you sell it?’

“And then the next thing I knew, my elbow was in my ear, the world was sideways and there was gravel in my teeth.” 

Venomous snakes

Filming in the Moroccan desert meant sharing space with some of the world’s deadliest creepy-crawlies. 

Scorpions, venomous spiders, and deadly snakes routinely slithered into tents and boots.

The danger was so severe that production kept medical helicopters on 24/7 standby, airlifting multiple victims out of the Sahara to rush them to anti-venom treatment before it was too late.

While he avoided getting bitten, Brendan shared to Entertainment Weekly: “They sent a memo out describing a type of snake. I think it had yellow dots on it. 

“They said, ‘If you see this kind of snake, do not go near it. Because if it bites you, at best, they’ll amputate your limb.’

“Anyway, there I was, pissing down a rock, and I look down and there’s the yellow-dot snake. I was like ‘f***!’ I just ran for it.”

Kidnap Insurance

Shooting near volatile border zones in Erfoud, Morocco, came with its own political challenges. 

Universal Pictures was so terrified of their stars being targeted that they took out kidnap-and-ransom insurance policies on the lead actors. 

Brendan explained: “[Producer] Jim Jacks said, ‘I took out million-dollar kidnapping insurance policies on you.’ We were like, ‘So, basically, you put a bounty on our head?’ He’s like, ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’”

On top of that, the King of Morocco provided military protection, leaving the cast to perform their scenes surrounded by soldiers carrying loaded assault rifles.

Brendan Fraser’s broken bones

Playing the action hero came at a staggering physical cost for Brendan, who insisted on doing his own stunts. 

By the time the franchise wrapped, he had sustained multiple injuries including a torn spinal disc and a cracked rib, which led to numerous surgeries over several years.  

He told Vogue: “By the time I did the third Mummy picture in China, I was put together with tape and ice – just, like, really nerdy and fetishistic about ice packs. I was building an exoskeleton for myself daily.”

Speaking about the long-term impact of his stunts on his body, he told The Telegraph: “I was doing stunts that were getting more and more demanding, and my body was just giving out… I was trying to fulfill expectations that I thought were required of me, but eventually, you hit a wall.”

Dehydration measures

The film was shot in the grueling, scorching heat of the Sahara Desert, which meant extra care had to be given for the cast and crew’s wellbeing.

To combat the threat of extreme dehydration and heatstroke, the production’s medical team provided a special, foul-tasting electrolyte rehydration drink.

Every cast and crew member was required to consume this concoction every two hours to prevent fainting, severe heat sickness, and collapse.

Apocalyptic sandstorms 

If the heat and wildlife weren’t enough, mother nature repeatedly tried to hinder filming.

The lost city of Hamunaptra was constructed inside a dormant volcanic crater, which proved challenging.

The desert weather frequently interrupted production, with unpredictable dust storms sweeping through the Sahara location, shutting down filming and forcing cast and crew to seek shelter. 

Kevin O’Connor, who played Beni Gabor, told EW: “You’d see one little black cloud and you’d think, ‘What is this?’ 

“This little black cloud would turn into a sandstorm that was blinding and threw the camera equipment around. It was insane.”

For weeks, the streets of Serbia were teeming with young people rallying against the government. At the height of the protests in March 2025, more than 100,000 took to the streets.

The student movement had called for early elections for nearly two years, and President Aleksandar Vucic, who resigned on Sunday, finally heeded their call earlier this month. He announced snap parliamentary elections for October 25.

With the elections originally not due until December 2027, the early vote is seen as an attempt by governing populists to cling to power despite widespread discontent.

Vucic is vying for the prime minister’s post, a role he has held before, appearing to yield to protesters’ demands not out of goodwill but in the hopes of ushering in a result that keeps him in office, analysts say.

But experts warn that elections will hardly solve the underlying political tensions gripping the country, triggered after 16 people were killed in 2024 when a concrete canopy collapsed at a railway station. Student protesters blamed the disaster on government negligence and alleged corruption.

The move “is essentially about reducing political risk”, Viktor Stamenkovic, a researcher at Belgrade’s Institute for Political Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Given the circumstances, the ruling camp is choosing the electoral sequence it considers least dangerous,” he said, referring to Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Saving his skin: Elections a cling to power

Vucic could stall no more – both the presidential and parliamentary vote would have had to be held next year.

“Vucic has, for some time, been aware that further delay is unlikely to work in his favour,” Stamenkovic said.

Vucic’s presidential term expires before the mandate of the current parliament, said Stamenkovic. Serbia’s recent political history explains the order of the elections – the parliamentary before the presidential, the analyst added.

Presidential elections can fundamentally alter the parliamentary dynamics that follow – which is how Vucic’s party came to power, Stamenkovic explained.

Vucic cannot run for a third term under Serbia’s constitution, and no other SNS figure is as popular as him.

“In 2012, the presidential victory of the SNS candidate Tomislav Nikolic changed the political momentum so dramatically that the bloc, which had previously appeared capable of forming a parliamentary majority, was ultimately unable to do so,” said Stamenkovic. “The presidential result altered the calculations of the parliamentary parties and paved the way for a government led by SNS.”

Vucic, therefore, has good reason to fear the same scenario being repeated.

Vucic has built a personalised political system centred on himself rather than his party or any successor, said Stamenkovic.

“He therefore has to find a way of transferring his own political strength from the presidency into the parliamentary arena … effectively staking his political future on the parliamentary election.”

For Milica Vojinovic, an investigative reporter at the Serbian outlet KRIK, the goal of the governing party is to stay in power at any cost.

“They [want to] continue their corruption projects, which usually means finding new ways and public procurements through which they can take money… [including from] public budgets,” Vojinovic told Al Jazeera.

She cited irregularities in past elections, such as vote buying by the SNS, documented by election observers and human rights organisations, and feared that the next elections will see an “escalation of these tactics, now that the student movement is actually threatening to win the election and take power from Vucic’s party”.

The vote will not resolve country’s discord

Since 2024, the governing party has lost a sense of political legitimacy, said Stamenkovic.

“Even if – and this is a big if – SNS wins another parliamentary majority, it is difficult to envisage a return to a situation in which it can govern normally and claim the kind of broad social legitimacy it once enjoyed,” he said. “Virtually all polling shows that a majority of the country believes Serbia is heading in the wrong direction and that the time has come for change.”

Mass demonstrations have not taken place in Serbia for some time, as the student movement has shifted from organising large rallies to election campaigning.

The youth movement recently submitted their election list to state election authorities after a jubilant march through the capital of Belgrade, formally entering the race.

Polls show that this vote could bring representatives of the student movement into parliament and state institutions, said the Serbia-based Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA).

“This is important for Serbia’s democracy … [They] will definitely improve the legitimacy of the parliament as the representative body,” the group said.

Transparency and anticorruption are priorities for most citizens, with the social and political reality in the country having changed in the two years since the railway station incident, the organisation added.

Vojinovic, however, predicted that if Vucic’s party continues to hold power, “we are to expect the most repressive measures seen so far against everyone who has been criticising, or in any way opposing, the government”.

Criminal cases have already been brought against some activists in the student movement, as well as a political analyst, she said.

According to Human Rights Watch, foreign agent laws, first introduced by Russia and seen being picked up by other nations, have been used to brand independent civil society, media and other dissenting voices as illegitimate and acting on behalf of foreign interests. Such a law was proposed in Serbia in 2024.

“Recent smear campaigns against my newsroom, as well as other independent media outlets and NGOs, lead us to believe that they may be a precursor to the introduction of a ‘foreign agents law’ in the near future, should Vucic’s party remain in power,” Vojinovic added.

EU rift no matter

Meanwhile, Serbia is no closer to joining the European Union, but that is not a real priority for Vucic, the experts said.

“It is widely understood that Serbia cannot make meaningful progress towards EU membership under the current system of government,” said Stamenkovic. “What matters much more to Vucic is avoiding serious political pressure and criticism from Brussels.”

Ratko Mladic’s funeral illustrates this balancing act: Serbia hosted the semi-official honouring of the former Bosnian Serb army general – who died while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia – but Vucic did not attend, he said.

“In some ways, the relationship between Vucic’s government and the EU resembles a couple trapped in a disastrous marriage who nevertheless do not divorce because both sides continue to benefit from the relationship.

“Vucic cooperates with the EU on issues that matter to Brussels, while the EU has for years been willing to overlook a great deal about the increasingly authoritarian nature of his rule,” he added.

The two are also at odds over Russia, which Serbia has ties with.

A public opinion poll in June by the CRTA and Stanford University’s Democracy Action Lab showed that among SNS voters, 15 percent wanted closer ties with the EU while 60 percent favoured relations with Russia.

“There is every reason to expect election day itself to be highly contentious,” said Stamenkovic.

Tulkarem, occupied West Bank – Hakim Mar’i spends his days lying on a single bed, his disfigured leg raised. The windows of Mar’i’s dilapidated apartment, his latest temporary shelter, are covered with old blankets. Unable to work, Mar’i has no money for electricity, so the blankets have to do. At night, his family lives in near darkness.

The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp. For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary. But now, even the physical structure – their home – that tied those generations together is gone.

The apartment is just around the corner from mounds of rubble and gnarled iron structures that mark one entrance to the now-emptied Tulkarem refugee camp. For Mar’i and other Palestinians, the camp was a home once considered temporary. But generations lived there, and now, the physical structure – their home – that tied his family together over the years is gone.

Impoverished, Hakim’s family is in disarray. With its debts mounting and its members facing another eviction, he said he has considered taking his life several times over the past year and a half.

Mar’i cannot afford treatment for his debilitating leg injury, which has developed severe infections. He said he sustained it while working as a labourer inside Israel in 2019. The wound worsened after Israeli soldiers severely beat him when they forced his family from the Tulkarem camp. Diabetes and other untreated conditions have piled on, but he is unable to pay for the needed medical care.

“This joint here is completely gone,” he said, gesturing at the swollen, blackened lower leg that prevents him from working.

“The medicine – by God, the medicine, I haven’t been able to get. My wife and kids tell me: get out travel. Go to America, Turkey – so I can the medical treatment I need… I’m a sick man.”

His mother, Salwa, sat beside him, less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) from their former four-storey home. She wept when asked about the family home that was built floor by floor after they were first displaced in 1948 from al-Khudayra, the Arabic name for Hadera, a city in Israel. “We really put a lot into that house,” she said.

After their removal, the Israeli military razed the Mar’i home so a road traversing the now-emptied camp could be built. “Seeing it destroyed was really painful for us – all of us,” she said.

It has been more than 20 months since Israeli forces emptied the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps in a sweeping military operation in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians whose families had already been refugees for three generations. Constantly renewed orders for a closed military zone now prevent their return.

Since January 2025, Hakim’s family has been forced to move four times. First, they fled to a converted youth centre before landing in a cramped apartment with their four children, all under 15.

Unable to pay rent, the family could see the landlord’s generosity run its course as this once-temporary housing arrangement now has no end in sight. Hakim owes money at the local shops for food he bought on credit. Some nights, the children eat at neighbours’ houses.

“I have children. I have food. I have drink,” he said. “My hands are empty. Nobody is with me. Nobody is standing beside me.”

‘We’re already at the brink’

The Mar’i family is among more than 33,000 Palestinians forcibly removed from the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps by Israeli forces in early 2025. This is the largest single episode of forced displacement in the West Bank since Israel’s occupation began in 1967, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

UN satellite imagery shows that 20 percent of all buildings across the three camps have been destroyed and another 28 percent are damaged.

“The level of destruction we are seeing is severe and unprecedented,” said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

According to Friedrich, 85 percent of those displaced have no regular income after many lost jobs when the camps were emptied. More than 80 percent of residents are renting, an unfamiliar expense for families who never paid for housing or utilities inside the camps.

The closed military zone covering the camps is renewed every two months, Friedrich said, with no indication of when – or whether – residents will be allowed to return. “What we saw there is forced displacement,” Friedrich said. “The UN’s position is very clear: People have to be allowed to return. The camps must be rebuilt.”

Unlike after the 2000-2005 second Intifada when the Jenin camp was rebuilt, displaced families and UNRWA staff fear there is no return plan this time.

The Israeli military stated the camps were emptied for “operational security” in its effort to root out fighters from the camps. Friedrich worried the aim of the military operations is to “change the geographical expression of the Palestinian refugee issue”.

Now more than 20 months into what was meant to be an emergency response, funding shortages have left UNRWA unable to cover the vast needs of the displaced population. It has moved some operations to keep schools and basic health clinics functioning. With funds dwindling, the agency has shifted to a “targeted approach”, leaving thousands without support.

Friedrich pointed to a rise in gender-based violence linked to the economic strain on families and to growing depression and anxiety among displaced children observed by UNRWA’s psychosocial teams. “We’re already at the brink now,” he declared.

‘Everyone went their own way’

While Hakim’s displacement plays out in the shadow of the camp, the family of Khadija Zbeidat face their own imminent eviction on the outskirts of Tulkarem. They live in the neighbourhood of Dhinnaba, where sparse houses are interspersed with greenhouses. They are unable to afford a residence closer to the city centre.

As Khadija sat on a couch in the middle of the yard, her many children and grandchildren ran past a small patch of plants she has planted – one of her few remaining joys. “I love plants,” she said. “We had many flowers in our home in the camp. Having the plants here is all I have to feel like myself,” she told Al Jazeera.

Khadija, a widow, shares a tiny spartan room with nine family members, nearly all children, along with a small bathroom and a kitchen barely big enough for one person to cook in. A worn couch takes up one corner. The ceiling is peeling above it.

The room was given to them rent free by a relative of Khadija’s brother-in-law after they spent four months crammed into her daughter’s house with nine other people. “It got really cramped, the pressure on each other,” Zbeidat said. “And we became a burden too.”

Khadija’s family was displaced in January 2025 from the Tulkarem camp’s Haret al-Nadi section, a significant part of which has been destroyed, she said.

“The camp was excellent,” she said of their life before. “I swear, I wish they’d take us back. Everything was close to us, dear – … the closeness, that sense of belonging and the warmth, the company and the neighbours.”

The memories that she cherishes most dearly and that bring her to tears are of food: the stuffed grape leaves and the maamoul cookies made as a neighbourhood together for Eid. This year, there was none of it.

“Nothing. No cookies,” she said. “Nobody even had it in them to do anything any more. Everyone went their own way – scattered.”

Like the Mar’i family and others, they were not allowed to bring their belongings during their abrupt displacement. Some residents have since been allowed to retrieve belongings once or twice from their homes in the camps, but much of what they own remains left behind. Khadija’s daughter-in-law at one point returned to the ruins of the camp – at the risk of being shot – to retrieve a doll left behind that Khadija’s granddaughter Sandy would not stop crying about.

In Tulkarem, displaced families live either in the poorest areas closest to the camp, like the Mar’is, or on the cheaper outskirts, like the Zbeidats, remaining close enough to the health and schooling services that UNRWA still provides. But even a simple trip to buy groceries requires Khadija, who has no car, to travel 2km (1.2 miles).

At night, the family sits outside rather than in the stifling heat of the poorly ventilated room, watching Israeli military drones pass low overhead. “What to do? We’re used to seeing them, to having them around, to them raiding houses,” Khadija said. “It doesn’t matter any more.”

The military raids that always haunted life in the refugee camps have now come to wherever the displaced refugees have fled to. “We don’t feel safe,” Khadija said. “Nor the kids. It’s dangerous. When they want to go out somewhere, my heart stays busy until they come back.”

Waiting to be kicked out again

For months after the displacement, landlords, relatives and shopkeepers absorbed much of the shock, allowing families to stay for free or buy food on credit. But as the emergency stretches to almost two years now, that informal safety net is fraying. The pressure is felt particularly in economically moribund Tulkarem, where many families had relied on jobs inside Israel before Palestinian work permits were revoked after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel and the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023.

The owner of the property where Khadija’s family is staying recently sent his sister to tell Khadija’s family to leave. “They think it’s been too long,” Khadija explained. “They want the land, to benefit from the land and the room. … But where can we get money, where to pay from? The rent is very high, and we can’t afford it. We don’t know what to do if she comes again and kicks us out.”

Hakim’s family is on the brink of eviction too. Like others, he received from UNRWA a one-time rental subsidy of 3,000 shekels ($985) and a separate 1,700-shekel ($560) multipurpose cash payment for short-term assistance. “Every minute, I am waiting for the landlord to kick us out,” he said.

Khadija’s family survives on credit from shopkeepers who know their situation and, for now, still extend it – but patience is wearing thin.

Hakim said this goodwill is collapsing: “You tell them: ‘Give me a day, two days. Be patient with me.’ They won’t bear it.”

As distant as a return to her family’s lands in 1948 feels now, Khadija still hopes to return to the camp one day. But she worries that her children may inherit an even more precarious existence than the one that preceded this latest dispossession – refugees for generations displaced yet again. “Only God knows what tomorrow will bring us,” Khadija said.

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Gaza City, Gaza Strip – The partially collapsed roof above Masada Abu Jarad’s apartment is now made up of broken concrete with twisted steel bars protruding from its edges.

And underneath the section of the room that is now open to the elements after the building’s partial collapse, Masada’s family have pitched a tent to provide shelter.

The 60-year-old knows the structure is dangerous. The Palestinian Red Crescent and the Civil Defence visited the family last week and warned them that they should leave. But in Gaza, where Israel refuses to allow proper reconstruction to take place after almost three years of its genocidal war, there are few places for them to go.

“We have no options,” Masada says. “I want to leave, but who will give me an alternative?”

She has lived in the building in Gaza City’s Palestine Square area for the past year, after returning to northern Gaza from displacement earlier in the war. But this still isn’t home. Masada’s family is originally from Beit Lahiya in the far north of the Strip, but had to leave early in the war after Israel decimated the area. They are still unable to return.

After repeated displacement, the prospect of moving again without a safe destination has become exhausting. And even if they could move, the cost is prohibitive.

“Even if there is a better place, tell me how I can afford to rent it,” Masada said.

Masada’s experience reflects a wider housing crisis across Gaza for the Palestinians who have survived Israel’s war, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians.

A joint assessment by the United Nations, World Bank, and European Union found that 371,888 housing units, 76.6 percent of the housing stock, had been destroyed or damaged as of October 2025. The assessment also found that rebuilding Gaza will need more than $71bn over the next decade.

The dangers of Gaza’s depleted and damaged housing stock became starkly visible on September 16, when a six-storey war-damaged residential building in Gaza City collapsed, killing 21 people, including 12 children, according to the UN and Gaza Civil Defence.

The collapse has become a warning for families living in other damaged structures.

‘I stay awake so they can sleep’

Abdullah Abu Hajar, 40, lives with his wife and five children in the al-Najma building in Gaza City’s southern Remal neighbourhood.

The six-storey building is severely damaged and unstable. About 17 families, roughly 50 to 60 people, are living there, according to Abdullah.

On the outside walls, municipal notices warn residents and passers-by that the building is unsafe and at risk of collapse.

At night, while his wife and children try to sleep, Abdullah stays awake and listens.

Every unfamiliar sound, such as concrete shifting, stones moving or an unexplained creaking somewhere inside the building, puts him on alert.

“I stay awake all night, keeping watch,” he said. “I can’t close my eyes. I keep just listening to sounds around me.”

Abdullah explained that he feels worried for his children, even though they have adapted to the danger. But he has not.

And after the September 16 building collapse, he grew even more fearful. Since then, he said, he has barely slept.

“I’m already on edge,” he said. “But I don’t know where I can go.”

Abdullah and his family were displaced from Beit Hanoon in northern Gaza after it was attacked by Israel, and moved repeatedly during the war, eventually finding the al-Najma building.

His extended family faces the same uncertainty. Abdullah said that one of his relatives has been moving between southern and northern Gaza, looking for a place where he can pitch a tent.

“I told him to come and stay with us,” Abdullah said. “But he is hesitant because of the condition of this building. At the same time, he has nowhere else to go.”

A room among the rubble

For Islam Hassanein, 36, the same fears are entwined with the place she calls home.

A mother of five, Islam has spent nearly a year living with her family in a single room on the third floor of a damaged building.

She found the room after searching for somewhere to stay. It was filled with rubble and debris.

“We cleaned it and stayed in it,” she said.

The building is leaning and visibly damaged. The plumbing doesn’t work, so the family uses a bathroom outside. There is little that resembles a family home.

But leaving has proved no easier than staying. “We keep looking, but we can’t find anywhere,” she says. “They might even force us out of here. What are we supposed to do?”

Islam says she would leave immediately if she were offered a safe place.

“If they find us a good place and provide us with a tent, we will leave from the morning,” she says. “But where is this place? And where is the tent?”

The building itself regularly reminds her of the dangers.

“Every day, you hear the cracking,” she says. “People who live here tell us, ‘It’s cracking.’ Then a column fell, and they took us out of the building temporarily.”

The potentially deadly risks will become harder to manage as winter approaches, with its colder and wetter weather.

Water can enter through exposed roofs and walls, and the already weakened structure will face additional pressure from heavy rain.

“Last winter was terrifying,” Islam said. “We were constantly afraid that the building would collapse. I spent most days in my family’s tent because this building was full of openings and would flood whenever it rained.”

“Now, I am very afraid of this winter, and I don’t know what we are going to do.”

The UN says thousands of people are sheltering in damaged buildings considered unsafe because better housing options are unavailable.

Israeli restrictions on the entry of tents, tarpaulins and other essential shelter materials are making the situation more difficult, leaving Gaza in a state of limbo, unable to move on from the war, particularly as Israel can choose to escalate the conflict at any time.

UNICEF estimates that nearly 84 percent of Gaza’s population, more than 1.76 million people, are living in overcrowded displacement sites or damaged and inadequate shelters, with little protection from cold, heavy rain and flooding.

Islam says the war has forced families to take risks they once would have considered unthinkable.

She worries about her five children, but sees few choices available to her.

“They are all afraid,” she said. “But what can we do? If there is an alternative, I will leave. We leave it to God.”

NOTHING But Thieves have spent the past decade playing arenas and huge festivals around the world.

But it’s been coming home to play to smaller crowds that’s reminded them just how far they’ve come.

On Saturday, the Essex band played three gigs in three countries to celebrate the forthcoming release of their fifth studio album, Stray Dogs.

“Sweaty and close enough to see everybody’s faces,” is how frontman Conor Mason described the final gig of the day at Camden’s Underworld following earlier gigs in Netherlands and Belgium.

“In London, there was nowhere to hide. You can feel every flaw, every moment of tension.

“The whole day was about letting a little chaos back in and seeing what survives when we take it back to the bigger rooms.”

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The whirlwind day followed the band’s homecoming show at Chinnerys in Southend earlier in the month, which reminded the five-piece of the journey they have been on.

“When you see that in your home town, it’s quite bizarre,” says Mason. “It makes you appreciate how far we’ve come.”

For guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown, it led to a moment of reflection outside the venue, right on Southend’s seafront. “I was just looking out at the estuary at one point, thinking, ‘This is f***ing mental’,” he says.

I meet Mason and Langridge-Brown in their East London local where they are enjoying a quiet day at home before the new album is released.

Taking a sip from his pint, Langridge-Brown says that whenever they started working on previous albums, they always asked each each other what Nothing But Thieves actually sound like.

But on this new album, the band deliberately tried to capture their live sound rather than making a record and then figuring out how to play it live.

Guitarist/lyricist Langridge-Brown says: “Every record, we’ve always been trying to reinvent ourselves.

“But I feel like we’ve answered the question — I know what we are in 2026.

“I feel like now we’ve done it with this album. It’s like a foundational reset.

“In a way, it’s not going back to roots. It’s figuring out what they always were.”

That confidence extended to the studio, with guitarist and keyboardist Dom Craik taking the lead on production while the band retained creative control.

“Dom produced the record, but we controlled the record,” says Langridge-Brown.

“If you’ve written a record that is meant to sum up how you sound live, no one knows how we sound better than we do at this point.”

With Stray Dogs, Mason and Langridge-Brown said they also wanted to rebel against the short attention spans of their fans.

Mason says: “You’re told all the time by your label and just by the world that if you don’t make something within the first five seconds that someone’s going to love, they’ll move on to the next thing.

“We’ve made something specifically quite slow in moments and intentionally long-form.

“If people want to get it, they have to sit and really listen to it.

“That’s how you listen to albums. Like the first time you listen to [Pink Floyd’s] The Dark Side Of The Moon, it was from start to finish.”

“Not that it’s as good as that record,” interjects Langridge-Brown. “I just want to get that clear for everyone.

“I don’t want people to only listen to a song for five seconds — it’s our job to try and buck this trend.”

He continues: “This is definitely the best quality of work we’ve created. There’s a lot of attention to detail on this record.

“When you listen to it, it runs as a Nothing But Thieves show — the track list is a set list. We’ve taken crowd noise from our own shows and put it within the record.”

That attention to detail was also important for the album’s lyrics, with the band turning their focus closer to home rather than looking at the wider world.

“Moral Panic and Dead Club City were both very outward-looking,” Langridge-Brown says.

“With Moral Panic, I was basically studying Twitter and seeing this moral panic, this fear and anxiety spread.

“Then Dead Club City was almost the continuation of it, looking to the future.

“So this was, like, ‘OK, let’s not look outwards for now. Let’s look inwards and see what’s in our world and what we’ve created’ — on a bit more of a personal level.”

The first song written for the album was the intense, heavy-guitar title track.

“Stray Dogs was the first song and the lyrics were great,” he continues. “We were like, ‘This feels right. This feels like where we’re heading’.”

Elsewhere on the album, the band push that experimentation in different directions. On Baby Kool (Evelyn), they deliberately throw different sounds together.

“It’s got a glam verse and then it goes into this really grungy Sonic Youth chorus,” says Langridge-Brown.

“Those two worlds don’t naturally mix, but sometimes that’s where the magic is.”

Other standouts include the cinematic Death In The Backseat, the experimental #5 (Dehumanised) and the emotionally vulnerable If You Don’t Have Someone To Love.

AI.Jesus tackles their unease about artificial intelligence and what it could mean for humanity and creativity.

While Testosterone turns its attention to masculinity, with one of its lyrics inspired by a drunken comment Langridge-Brown overheard at a wedding.

Mason says: “I don’t think we are able to be fully macho, and I wouldn’t want to be.”

A Different Kind Of Happiness brings the record to a close, completing an album deliberately structured like a live show, with Stray Dogs opening the “set” and A Different Kind of Happiness as the finale.

The album was also the first to be written in one focused period rather than while on tour.

“We wrote the whole record in the building across the road and we’d have a drink in here after work,” says Mason. Langridge-Brown adds: “This record was very different in that we wrote it in a five-month period once all the touring was finished. We’d never done that before.

“It was always written on the road before — on the back of a tour bus or in between tours.

“But the touring got so huge and so extensive that we just couldn’t give it the time it needed.

“We’ve written about pack mentality in a negative way before, so I’d say this was probably more about community and the pack in a positive light.

“I think Stray Dogs really sums up what we do and who we are — our world, our crew and the fans. We have our own lives and when we meet up, we make a load of noise together.”

The band’s relationship with their fans comes with a huge sense of responsibility on stage.

“People pay a lot of good money to come and see us,” says Mason.

“If we’re not up to scratch, we make sure we are. It’s important.”

For the singer, this means taking care of his voice, which is central to the band’s sound.

He says: “Early on, I used to go out all the time with the boys and I just ruined my voice.

“A producer gave me a slap on the wrist so now, on tour, I treat myself like an athlete. I look after my body and get as much sleep as I can.

“I’m also classically trained so I look after my voice on stage for that hour-and-a-half.”

“He sounds amazing,” Langridge-Brown adds. “On that last tour, he sounded the best he has in years, which is great.

“The central thread running through all our music is Conor’s voice. As a writer, it’s amazing to have that to write for.”

Despite the success of their previous albums — Dead Club City gave them their first No1 in 2023 — chart positions have never dictated what Nothing But Thieves write.

“We never went out to chase a No1 record,” says Langridge-Brown. And Mason adds: “It wasn’t an intention and it wasn’t that commercial. We just write what we want to write.”

In February, Nothing But Thieves will head out on their biggest ever UK arena tour, returning to The O2 six years after their first headline show at the venue.

“The next day, we were, like, ‘What now?’,” says Mason. “I just want to wake up to my job every day in my life and be, like, ‘This is awesome’.

“There’s a lot of people that don’t get to do this so I feel very privileged.” And with five albums now behind them, the band have enough material to be more creative with their live set, building different moods throughout a show.

Stray Dogs also reflects a band increasingly secure in who they are.

That growing sense of self has been personal for Mason, who says that his thirties have changed his outlook on life.

“I had my 30th birthday and it was almost like the next day, I said to myself, ‘It’s time to grow up now’.

“I want to live my life with real gratitude for what I have and presence for what I have.

“I want to just be who I am as a man here and now and enjoy this.

“That was a really big shift for me.”

The band members all grew up together and while things have changed over the years, their friendship has remained a constant.

“We’re constantly evolving,” says Mason.

Langridge-Brown adds: “If you look at the lyrics throughout our career, change is mentioned a lot. It’s just something that we’re drawn to.

“There can be a bit of an identity crisis, but we are grounded as a band because we were mates first.

“And with success you don’t want to lose that.” Mason adds: “You hear a lot of horror stories about bands who break up almost every album, and it’s just, like, ‘How the hell do they function?’.

“The personal relationships and the working relationships were so, so integral to keep alive and to nurture, and that’s been a real foundation for us.”

That closeness continues away from the band. Four of the five still live within roughly a mile of each other and they still socialise regularly.

“You need to come off tour and have some time to yourself,” says Mason.

“But we still meet for gigs, trips to the pub, football and Wimbledon,” adds Langridge-Brown

“We went and watched Queens Of The Stone Age together the other day and our wives and partners are friends as well.

“It’s still quite tight-knit in that way.”

As our chat comes to an end, it’s clear that enduring friendship has kept the band together, but it hasn’t dulled their ambition.

“Stray Dogs is definitely the best album we’ve made, but I don’t think we’ve made our classic album yet,” says Langridge-Brown.

“That’s kind of the aim still — there’s more in the tank.” 

Mason agrees: “I’m really excited to further press this process. We’re not done yet.” 

Nothing But Thieves 

Stray Dogs 

★★★★☆

The red carpet was rolled out, and a trade truce was extended. Yet, beneath the pomp and pageantry of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit with US leader Donald Trump on Thursday, Washington and Beijing remain locked in a much deeper strategic rivalry.

Xi arrived in Washington, DC on Wednesday evening for talks on Thursday, and Trump was there to meet him personally on the tarmac.

The meeting was the first state visit by a Chinese leader to the US in 11 years. But it is also the third time in less than a year that the two men have met face to face, as the two powers remain uneasily gridlocked in competition over AI, rare-earth metals, the question of Taiwan, and the Iran war.

Overhanging it all is the paused, but simmering, trade war between their two nations.

Almost as soon as Trump began his second term in the White House in January 2025, up went tariffs on Chinese goods as he accused China of facilitating the flow of fentanyl, a deadly drug, to the US. Beijing responded with its own levies, then restricted exports of valuable rare-earth metals which are crucial for the development and manufacture of everything high-tech, from smartphones to fighter jets. At one point, tariffs were heading towards 150 percent before being paused to allow time for talks.

Finally, the two leaders called a truce on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on October 30, and they met once more, in May, when Trump travelled to Beijing.

As Xi landed in Washington on Wednesday this week, the Trump administration announced that the two countries had agreed to extend an October 2025 truce which had offered some respite from the punishing tariffs, produced an agreement from China to buy more soyabeans from the US and delayed the ban on rare-earth exports from China until January 10. The prospect of a much-longed-for trade deal appeared to be in the air when US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News he had met Chinese ‌Vice Premier He Lifeng before Xi’s visit to “see if we could ⁠do a bigger deal as opposed to just a series ⁠of smaller things”.

But analysts have, for the most part, shot down such hopes. Beyond tariffs, they say, the simmering conflict between the two powers now encompasses new US sanctions on buyers of Russian oil – namely China – and sweeping investment and research restrictions, never mind the intensifying race for dominance in artificial intelligence.

“The two-month extension isn’t a bridge to a grand bargain – it’s a temporary sandbag holding back a structural flood,” Beijing-based Einar Tangen, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation, told Al Jazeera.

Theatrics or continued thaw in tensions?

In fact, the truce is little more than “transactional theatre” – an attempt at good optics before the upcoming US midterm elections – Tangen said.

Trump’s deeply unpopular war on Iran has already inflicted severe damage to his chances in that vote. Democrats are leading in the polls amid concerns about the rising cost of energy, triggered by the war which the US started. Trump ultimately needs wins on other issues.

The current truce with China serves a purpose, therefore, but is fragile enough to be undone the moment political utility shifts for Trump, Tangen said.

“Success in January won’t be measured by what is solved, but by whether the knot is left tight enough to hold, but not kill,” said Tangen.

Phillippe Le Corre, professor of international relations and Asian studies at France’s ESSEC Business School, said the length of the truce extension indicates clearly that a more permanent deal remains out of grasp.

“The extensions are getting shorter and shorter, which means they haven’t found a common ground on many issues,” Le Corre told Al Jazeera.

“The two-month extension is a terrible outcome for the US. Nothing is resolved, and many Damocles’ swords are still hanging over Washington’s head,” he added.

Trump’s entire China policy, Le Corre argued, is in fact short-sighted. “That is bringing the world a lot of uncertainty,” he said.

Some analysts are more hopeful, but not much. Sun Chenghao, a fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, described the extension of the trade truce as a “useful interim step”. It shows that both sides want to preserve the recent easing of tensions, which is meaningful progress, he said.

“From China’s perspective, a sustainable agreement needs reciprocal benefits and greater policy predictability,” Sun told Al Jazeera. “Additional purchases cannot indefinitely compensate for uncertainty over tariffs, technology restrictions and market access.”

The extension’s value, however, will depend on whether it produces “concrete commitments” from Beijing and Washington, Sun added.

A game of ‘economic chicken’

There is motivation to get a deal done, analysts say. Any escalation in the US-China trade war will be costly for both sides.

But there is some way to go. A Congressional Research Service report in July 2026 noted that Chinese goods exported to the US still face tariffs of 36.5 percent, while US goods entering China are taxed at 31 percent.

Any higher, and they will raise import and manufacturing costs in the US, squeeze margins and increase pressure on consumer prices, said Sun. They would also hurt US farmers and industrial exporters, he added, just as the US faces pressure from the rising costs of its war on Iran, which have pushed it into a record national debt of $40 trillion two years earlier than expected.

“Washington is playing a high-stakes game of economic chicken with a $40 trillion debt load, an inflationary sword of Damocles, zero fiscal cushion to absorb a truce collapse and a dependence [on] Chinese industrial and manufacturing inputs,” Tangen said.

US consumers and the economy in general will find it tough to survive yet another inflationary shock from renewed tariffs “at a time when the federal budget already operates like a high-wire Ponzi scheme”.

Then there is the AI race, which no one can afford to lose. According to Jon Bateman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a partial “decoupling” of US and Chinese technology ecosystems is under way. US policymakers have pushed to become less dependent on Chinese tech and “to secure America’s technological future in the context of a rising China”, Bateman writes.

But that will not help if there is a collapse in valuations of companies in the AI sector, which currently drive global stock markets. An AI valuation collapse, Tangen warned, “could trigger a financial tsunami that makes 2008 look tame – making technological decoupling meaningless as the world is plunged into a depression”.

Despite the trade war and Trump’s tariffs, China’s trade with other countries has risen sharply, with the country registering a $1.2 trillion global trade surplus last year. But an escalation of the trade war with the US would nevertheless spell increased pressure on export orders, employment in exposed industries and business confidence, said Sun.

Beijing does hold one crucial ace card – it is sitting on 60 percent of the world’s known deposits of rare-earth minerals, said Le Corre. It processes 90 percent of them, too. These are the metals that all countries need supplies of for semiconductors, technological components and the manufacture of weapons, to name but a few. Last year, China began to make use of that leverage by restricting exports of five of the 12 rare-earth metals it mines in April. Then, in October, it prepared to restrict seven more – until the trade truce happened. Plans for the export restrictions are not shelved, however, merely on hold.

“[China] understood this over the past year and they are certainly not going to give up on this,” said Le Corre.

“Washington is hostile, but it is hooked,” Tangen said. “You cannot threaten China with secondary sanctions on energy while desperately needing its rare-earths to fuel your military-industrial base.”

A drawn-out path to durability

The path to a lasting US-China trade deal will be long and rocky. First, any new tariff reductions will need more coverage and duration, said Sun.

For a deal to last, it would also require “more predictable licensing and actual deliveries of rare earths and critical minerals; restraint in expanding technology restrictions; and market access reflected in regulatory approvals and completed transactions”, he said.

A durable agreement also needs regular consultations and a process for resolving complaints. If all this can be hammered out then, just maybe, there might be a chance, Sun said.

Tangen and Le Corre were less optimistic, however. “The US view of China as an existential threat has to change before there can be solutions,” said Tangen.

Le Corre, meanwhile, said that while China is a long-term planner, “durable is a word that can hardly be associated with Trump.”

The existing trade truce also risks breaking down if there are new unilateral tariffs, broader technology or mineral restrictions, or disputes over whether commitments have been fulfilled, said Sun.

Tensions over Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, but for which the US approved an $11.1bn arms sale in December last year, could also trigger a breakdown in trade relations, the analysts said.

“Taiwan remains the ultimate low-probability, catastrophic-impact tail risk – where a single round of arms sales can snap a multibillion-dollar trade truce in an instant,” Tangen noted.

In a small coastal town just south of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, a young Rumesh Pathirage daydreamed about running away from school to a field where he could practise fast bowling, running, or anything other than being buried in books.

Academic excellence was not the promised path to glory for him. No, his path was on a synthetic rubber track, from which he would launch his javelin until it landed in the history books and made him world number one. Pathirage was destined to carry Sri Lanka to the upper echelons of sporting glory.

Losing is not in Pathirage’s vocabulary for 2026. Since February, he has won all but one of the competitions he has contested. He is the only thrower this year and the fourth in history to breach the 92-metre mark twice in a season — rare in the javelin books — and the only Sri Lankan to win the prestigious Diamond League final, the island nation’s first Commonwealth gold medallist in 20 years and the only South Asian to win a medal at the inaugural Ultimate Championships this month.

Come Saturday, the 23-year-old from Kalutara will attempt to win his final title of the season — the Asian Games gold — and attempt to break the 92.97m Asian record en route to continental triumph.

“The biggest prize is winning Olympic gold for Sri Lanka,” a nonchalant Pathirage told Al Jazeera in an online interview after the Zurich Diamond League victory, which saw him cross the 92m mark for a record second time. Given his track record, the 6-foot-1-inch (185.4cm) phenom could very well make that happen too.

An Olympic gold would be a first for Sri Lanka, as many of Pathirage’s accolades have been. But an Olympic podium finish was first achieved by Susanthika Jayasinghe, Sri Lanka’s track star who won bronze in the women’s 200m sprint at Sydney 2000, before it was upgraded to silver due to a doping disqualification.

Like Pathirage, Jayasinghe found international success in the junior circuit before bagging major wins in the big league. Her legacy, however, was bittersweet, marred by political interference, alleged tampered drug tests and sexual violence by federal sports officials, and next to no support from Sri Lanka’s athletics federation. But it paved the way for young athletes like Pathirage to dream of a future as track and field’s biggest stars.

Pathirage is already paying his success forward. When well-wishers offered financial assistance to replace his javelins broken days before the Asian Games, he requested that the money be redirected to struggling athletes instead. After all, he was in their shoes not too long ago.

His main source of support has been the Sri Lankan air force, which Pathirage represents as an athlete, and a generous diaspora have helped fund his training, equipment and extensive international travel for competitions.

That no major international sportswear brand has signed Pathirage, despite him being world number one, speaks volumes about the European chokehold that overshadows success from South Asian athletes like Pathirage and Pakistani javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem.

“If you take athletes of my level, I’m the only one who doesn’t have international brand sponsorship,” Pathirage rued of the “sorry situation”, although he understands that Sri Lanka is a small market for sportswear giants. In comparison, European athletes who are nowhere near the top even in their region have sponsorship deals with brands like Adidas, Puma and Nike.

That the Sri Lankan diaspora has repeatedly stepped up to support Pathirage en route to sporting greatness reflects just how much his triumphs at this level mean to them.

They have followed him across the Diamond League circuit, cheering and waving the Sri Lankan flag, stepped in spontaneously to translate English to Sinhalese for media interviews, and waited patiently for an autograph after he’s bagged yet another gold medal.

Many were Pathirage’s age when they fled Sri Lanka during the devastating 1983-2009 civil war. For them, he is the future of a nation they never experienced, his translator Ranil Jayaneththi told Al Jazeera from Zurich, Switzerland, where the Sri Lankan businessman is now based.

“He’s the most exciting thing to happen to us since Susanthika,” said Jayaneththi, whose smile seemed permanent from the night before when he saw the javelin star in all his glory.

“To go through the history that Sri Lanka went through,” he paused before continuing, “it was sports that gave people hope.”

Meanwhile, his family has always been his pillar of strength, safety net and loudest cheerleaders.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without them,” Pathirage said of his parents and two siblings. “Right from when they let me pursue athletics full-time instead of academics till my early career, I owe them everything.”

Athletics is somewhat of a family thing; Pathirage occasionally mentors his younger brother in javelin, which he switched to after excelling in discus throw, the event their father contested decades ago.

Sri Lanka is not a sporting powerhouse, nor does it boast exceptional facilities, but it gave the likes of Pathirage and Jayasinghe a grassroots platform to springboard to global stardom.

Across the country, school- and regional-level competitions prepare younger athletes for the national stage under the guidance of local coaches, some of whom receive international training. Coaching and sports management are also offered at several Sri Lankan universities now.

Under the tutelage of Tony Prasanna, Pathirage’s throws have steadily progressed from the 60m range in 2019 to mid-80m figures more recently that have secured gold at the Asian Throwing Championships. He also competes regularly in Australia, home to a sizeable Sri Lankan population who fled the civil war.

It was there that Pathirage met Ella Wardlaw, an athlete representative who manages his competition schedule, media commitments and sponsorships.

“Rumesh is unstoppable; he’s been hungry for wins all season,” Wardlaw told Al Jazeera from Zurich. The Australian lawyer-turned-manager has seen Pathirage’s rise from an underdog nervously navigating the international stage to dominating it.

“He thrives on pressure, but he’s really in competition with himself a lot of the time.”

When asked whether the goal is consistency with his wins or 90m-plus throws, Pathirage said, “The goal is to improve on what I have achieved … My mindset is to stay a winner. I concentrate on achieving what I can.”

He is indifferent to the media hype that many of his competitors crave. “I’m only doing this interview because my manager said I have to,” he joked. Neither does he care for celebrity status. His humility is apparent in the low-key social media presence he maintains, the demure victory celebrations born of a performance that does all the talking for him.

What he really wants is to be a role model for future athletes in the cricket-crazy nation.

“I want to inspire the younger generation to see my success and know that other pathways await them,” said Pathirage.

Kovalam and Mumbai, India – When Sugar Shanti Banarse and Kamali Moorthy entered their first surfing event in 2022, the girls could scarcely have imagined they would end up representing India at the Asian Games within a few years.

Though the competition at the Covelong Classic in Kovalam, about an hour’s drive from Chennai in Tamil Nadu, southern India, featured just seven women among about 50 competitors, the possibility of winning was an afterthought. Their intention was to simply get a taste of competition.

At 12, Moorthy was the youngest of the lot, thrilled to surf alongside some of the senior girls. She failed to catch a single wave, but the experience stayed with her. She vowed to train harder and return stronger.

Finishing second was a decisive moment for Banarse, then aged 16. A recreational surfer until then, she loved the competitive aspect of the sport. In that moment, she knew she wanted to be a professional.

The duo has come a long way since then. Alongside their male counterparts Kishore Kumar and Sivaraj Babu, they will take on the best continental talent at September’s Asian Games in Japan, where surfing makes its debut and runs from Friday until Tuesday.

“We’ve been putting in the work over the last couple of years and made good progress. It’s our time to shine now,” Banarse told Al Jazeera.

Even though India has thousands of miles of coastline and breaks of different kinds, it’s taken a while for surfing to catch on.

India’s team coach Samai Reboul comes from the first generation of Indian surfers, who had few resources at their disposal. He would watch holidaymakers surf near his home in Auroville, Tamil Nadu in the late 1990s and had a go when they lent him a board. He was soon hooked.

“I grew up at a time when there were no coaches, no access to training material and no surfboards. [It was] really frustrating,” he told Al Jazeera.

Surf schools started cropping up along the coast over the next few years. This is how Banarse, now 20, got her first opportunity back home in Mandrem in Goa, when she decided to accompany a friend. Moorthy, now 16, was luckier – her uncle is a surf instructor who gave her the first lesson off the coast of Mahabalipuram in Tamil Nadu.

Kumar, 18, and Babu, 22, hail from families who fish for a living in Kovalam and Mahabalipuram, respectively. They started out by jumping into the sea on hot summer days, then body surfing, before finally hopping onto a board.

“A local school in Mahabalipuram would let us use surfboards in exchange for chores. There were a few boards and many boys, so a lot of fights once the patience ran thin,” Babu told Al Jazeera.

Though their lives revolved around the sea, it was difficult to get their families to understand what they were chasing.

A beating awaited Kumar when his family discovered he was sneaking away to surf – they considered it a waste of his time.

Babu was expected to help his father with his fishing, as his elder brother had done.

Moorthy’s mother, who runs a beach shack, knew what the harsh sun could do to her daughter’s complexion and asked her to stay out of the water.

“She was worried I would get [too dark], but at the back of her mind, she knew I was enjoying surfing and that it would reach a point of no return. And here I am today,” Moorthy says, laughing.

More importantly, the sport lacked structure. Though the Surfing Federation of India (SFI) was launched in 2011, there were no regular competitions, and participants had to fend for themselves when it came to travel and accommodation. Babu doubled up as an instructor and banked on community support to make money to compete. He once had to camp in a forest during an event in Mangaluru.

“My family didn’t quite understand the scope of what I was doing. But I had some imagination of what I wanted to achieve and persisted against their wishes,” Babu says.

Turning point

Circumstances improved after Arun Vasu took over as the president of the SFI in 2020. As chairman and managing director of the prominent Indian conglomerate TT Group, he secured money from the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility funds to support a handful of athletes. The older surfers were encouraged to pursue their coaching and judging licences to improve the level of domestic competitions.

Meanwhile, Vasu worked towards getting the SFI recognised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. That moment arrived in March 2025, and changed the trajectory of the sport. Besides the injection of funds through the government-run Sports Authority of India, it brought stability for the SFI. Its members could now focus all their energy on growing the sport.

“The first generation of Indian surfers worked really hard without much support. They’ve brought us to this point where we are enjoying the benefits,” Moorthy says.

The goal was to prepare the athletes for the Asian Games. Reboul started monitoring the team and refining their technique during camps. A sports psychologist worked on the mental aspect of competition, while other staff focused on improving physical conditioning.

“Besides quality equipment, what really changed was access to cameras and software for video analysis. Even outside of camp, they could send across videos through which I could offer feedback,” Reboul said.

Over the last few years, the SFI has hosted prestigious competitions such as the World Surf League series and the Asian Surfing Championships, which have allowed Indians to rub shoulders with top international surfers. Trips across Asia have given them a feel for different conditions as well as elite competitions.

“It’s very different from a few years ago when we had limited opportunities to train systematically,” Banarse says.

The Olympic dream

Their performances have shown promise. Ramesh Budihal took bronze at the Asian Surfing Championships in August 2025, and a few months later, Kumar won silver at the Asian ProAm Surf Series.

“At the Asian Championships last year, [Kumar] beat Ikko Watanabe of Japan, a country that is up there [with the best]. So we know it’s possible [to compete],” Reboul says.

The focus is also on developing the next generation of surfers. SFI has joined the Asian Surf Ecosystem’s Grom Patrol – youth surf training camps and competitions – and runs three age group contests (under-12s, under-14s and under-16s), with the winners qualifying for the final in Bali.

Besides the talent that usually comes from fishing communities along the coast, it has attracted young surfers from cities such as Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai. And more importantly, girls who are ready to test the waters.

“We’ve struggled to find women surfers, so it was really encouraging to see 15-odd girls in every competition,” Vasu says. “Parents see a future, and these kids are hungry to learn. It makes us realise we are doing something right.”

Indian surfers still face a number of challenges. The monsoon season means surfers need to constantly shuttle between the two coasts or travel abroad to train year-round, which requires resources. There is also a need to create a deeper pool of skilled coaches to work with young athletes.

“More of the older surfers are getting into training. This year, we brought down an experienced coach, Ivan Villalba, to conduct a programme for them,” Reboul said.

“Good training and a competitive surf culture is what is required to put India on the map, rather than get a particular athlete to win.”

In the world of Asian surfing, India is still a young nation compared to the likes of Indonesia and Japan. Competing at the Asian Games will be valuable exposure for the current crop, especially ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

“A lot has happened for Indian surfing in the recent past. Some of the guys I’ll be competing against are my idols and I know I can put up a good fight for the podium,” Kumar says.

“The dream is to represent India at the Olympics.”

Australian authorities have raised the alarm after OpenAI-powered models hacked into a government health data system in June, slipping past its digital defences and accessing files without authorisation.

This is the first publicly known case of artificial intelligence (AI) “agents” – AI-powered software systems that can carry out tasks autonomously – breaking into a government website, and the latest of several AI breaches of external systems.

The disclosure comes as top AI firms warn of the risk of humans losing control of AI, calling for its development to slow to a pace that allows it to be safely regulated. Global powers must cooperate to ensure this, they have said.

A research scientist at AI firm Anthropic, Evan Hubinger, went so far as to say he believes there is a greater than 10 percent chance AI could “kill all humans” within a decade.

Addressing the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said there is a risk of AI moving “so fast that people can no longer follow what’s happening or intervene when needed”.

“This would obviously be terrible,” he said. “And we should not train models that we cannot make an extremely strong case that we will be able to keep under human control.”

What do we know about the AI breach in Australia?

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed the breach on Wednesday, saying an OpenAI agent had made its way into the public-facing medical statistics portal of Medicare, the country’s universal health insurance system, on July 18.

When OpenAI accessed the government portal while conducting research on public medical spending, Albanese said the AI agent circumvented “blocks” that should have prevented it from breaking into the portal.

“The AI agent found a way around those blocks – didn’t accept no for an answer,” said Albanese.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said the information the OpenAI agent accessed was “not particularly sensitive” and was later publicly released.

Still, Albanese called the situation “obviously unacceptable” and said Australia had relayed its “extreme concern” to OpenAI, which had failed to notify the government of the breach until September 10.

Albanese also said several other government websites may have been affected by rogue OpenAI agents, though he did not confirm any other breaches.

He added that an inquiry into the breach would look at how Australian security agencies missed it initially and whether criminal charges could be brought against OpenAI.

How has OpenAI responded?

In a statement, OpenAI said it had “identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as our models attempted to look up answers” and “took actions we did not intend”.

The company said the incident occurred as its models searched for statistics on medical spending, and that they are not believed to have obtained personal medical records.

OpenAI learned of the incident in August only as it conducted a review of “misaligned model activity”, it added.

Last week, OpenAI said it had put in place a new system to monitor, probe and disclose cases of “misalignment”. That includes instances of AI models that operate “without authorisation, coordinate with other models, or evade oversight”, it said.

Have there been previous AI breaches?

Yes. The Australia data breach is the latest of several instances in which AI agents belonging to OpenAI, Google or Anthropic have accessed external systems without authorisation.

In July, OpenAI reported that two of its most advanced AI models had broken out of a controlled test and hacked another AI company, Hugging Face. OpenAI later said it had detected its AI models communicating with each other and gaining internet access without authorisation months before that hack occurred.

In August, rival Meta AI said its AI model had hacked another company during cybersecurity testing. It said the model made changes to the internal systems of the hacked company, which it did not name, after accessing the public internet because of an error in the setup of its testing environment.

What does this mean for AI safety?

Maurice Chiodo, an Australian mathematician who works at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, told the Reuters news agency the breach appeared to be “a significant escalation in seriousness from similar incidents we have ‌seen ‌in recent months”.

Experts say the Australia data breach highlights the growing dangers AI poses to cybersecurity as well as possible gaps in monitoring and disclosure capabilities.

“The important matter here is not what OpenAI says its agent can do, it is what the agent actually does when it hits a barrier,” Niusha Shafiabady, a professor of computational intelligence and head of the IT discipline at the Australian Catholic University, said in comments published by science news portal Scimex.

“The deeper technical risk is that autonomous AI does not always know when it is wrong, and humans may not be able to see why it made a decision,” added Shafiabady. “Without strong verification and hard boundaries, probabilistic errors can quietly become operational failures.”

Raffaele Fabio Ciriello, a senior lecturer in business information systems at the University of Sydney Business School, said OpenAI’s delay in reporting the breach was “concerning”.

“The incident occurred in June and only came to light months later,” said Ciriello. “Even if OpenAI did not detect the activity immediately, that still points to weaknesses in detection, escalation, and external notification.”

Sept. 22, 2026 7:39 AM PT

Why has it been so hard for USC football to compete for a national title after setting the standard in college football during Pete Carroll’s tenure?

(Harrison Freeman / Los Angeles Times Studios )

Times USC beat reporter Ryan Kartje spent the past four years conducting more than 100 interviews, gaining new insight into the football program’s dramatic rise, fall and difficult push to return to national relevance.

Today, we begin sharing that story with you in “House of Troy,” a new narrative podcast from L.A. Times Studios available now on Spotify and Apple.

Check out Episode 1: “Win Now.”

In the late 1990s, USC football was in desperate need of a revival. The school turned to an unpopular choice: Pete Carroll, a former NFL coach. What happened next would transform USC into a college football powerhouse and Carroll into the face of a modern dynasty. In the first episode of “House of Troy,” Kartje takes us back to the beginning of the Carroll era and the drama that unfolded on and off the field.

Listen to “House of Troy” now on Spotify and Apple.