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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.

When the shooting starts, Sara tells her children to lie flat on the ground; the bullets, she said, can go straight through her family’s tent.

Sara, who asked that her real name not be used, has been arbitrarily detained for nearly a decade in Roj camp in Syria’s far northeast, which holds more than 2,300 children and mothers, many of whom are held on the basis of alleged family or other associations with ISIL.

Her children have grown up behind guarded fences topped with barbed wire and tangled with rubbish that often blocks the view of the barren, windswept landscape beyond.

United Nations experts and human rights groups describe open-ended detention in camps such as Roj as a breach of international law.

In recent months, women in the camp told Al Jazeera that the situation has steadily escalated: gunfire at night, stones thrown by guards and a boy left with a serious head injury.

Complaints to the administration, they say, bring promises but little else. “Every cry for help results in another wave of aggression,” one mother said.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify their accounts, but they match reports by UN investigators and NGOs.

On September 8, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria told the body’s Human Rights Council that conditions in Roj had worsened over the past year, with regular night raids, extortion and violence by camp security.

It described the camp as the world’s largest site of mass arbitrary detention of women and children on security grounds.

Who really controls the camp?

The violence comes amid sweeping change in the region.

On August 25, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), once a key US ally in the fight against ISIL, announced it would dissolve as an independent military force under an agreement with Syria’s central government in Damascus.

After a government offensive in January, the SDF lost much of the territory under its control and agreed to merge with the national army.

Its commander, Mazloum Abdi, has since been appointed a presidential adviser.

Roj, which the SDF had controlled until last month, is now the Syrian state’s responsibility.

But inside the camp, detainees said the transition has been anything but smooth.

One woman described to Al Jazeera a divided security presence, with those who accepted integration with the government on one side and holdouts who refused or were rejected on the other, and tensions between them that play out over the heads of the women and children.

In an open letter published on Monday, 11 mothers in Roj wrote that many of the same guards remain.

“While individuals’ [affiliations] may have changed,” one woman told Al Jazeera, “the people themselves remain the same”.

No legal basis for detention

Children from more than 50 countries remain stranded in Syria.

None has been given an individual legal process to determine why they are held, or for how long.

Fionnuala Ni Aolain, who served as UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights from 2017 to 2023 and now sits on its inquiry commission, visited the camp in 2023.

Upwards of 70,000 people were once detained in al-Hol, another larger camp in the northeast holding the families of alleged ISIL fighters. In 2023, more than 52,000 people – mostly Syrians and Iraqis – were held in al-Hol and Roj, including an estimated 12,000 foreign nationals.

She found that conditions met “the threshold for torture under international law”. The violence women and children face now, she told Al Jazeera, is worse.

“It is utterly unacceptable that women and children who have never been convicted of any crimes, who have never been subject to any legal process, are being detained in this way,” she said.

There is no legal basis for their arbitrary detention, she said, adding that the remedy is release.

In January, order at al-Hol collapsed in chaos. The fate of thousands who had been held there remains unknown.

Beatrice Eriksson, a spokesperson for the Swedish branch of the rights organisation Repatriate the Children, which has been in contact with hundreds of mothers in the camps since 2019, told Al Jazeera that boys have been taken from their mothers as young as 12 or 13 and initially held in so-called rehabilitation centres.

Some have since been transferred to Iraq, she said, where they were detained in a makeshift prison for adult alleged ISIL fighters. The whereabouts of others remain unknown.

Eriksson argues that integrating former SDF-controlled forces and administrative structures into the Syrian government could provide an opportunity for change.

She said responsibility for the families has shifted from a non-state group to an internationally recognised government with which most of their home countries have diplomatic relations.

However, some detainees told Al Jazeera that they feel trapped. Governments tell them to reach out to an embassy, but their detention makes that impossible.

Ni Aolain said the responsibility does not just lie with the Syrian government, which is “doing its best to manage the massive post-conflict needs of the population as a whole”.

Instead, she said part of the blame clearly lies with foreign governments, “who have remained persistently stony-faced and unwilling to accept responsibility for their nationals”.

“It is not consistent with solidarity and support for a transitional state, and it’s an abdication of both their human rights and their security responsibilities to Syria”, she said.

For the women and children in Roj camp, the current situation is not sustainable.

“We want the next steps to begin where we’ll see an end to the suffering of our children,” one woman told  Al Jazeera, “even if that means going to prison back home.”

At the time of publication, Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the reports of violence at Roj as well as the government’s plans for the camp and its detainees.

The camp administration also did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

SHE has faced a tough few years, but standing centre stage in a pop-up stadium built and named in her honour, Shakira has well and truly nailed her big comeback. 

Nearly quarter of a century after her debut UK hit Whenever Wherever, she is about to embark on a sold-out residency in Madrid.

Over 21 nights, she will perform for more than 600,000 fans after pulling off one of the most impressive career revivals ever.

The concerts are the finale to her 127-date Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran World Tour — the highest-grossing Latin tour of all time, and the fifth most lucrative female tour in history.

And Shakira herself is enjoying it just as much as her rapidly- expanding fan base.

In an exclusive chat, the Colombian superstar — who, despite her age-defying looks, turns 50 in February — said: “I feel more secure and more confident than ever; so much more than when I was in my 20s, which is something I never would have believed or expected.”

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She added of her pop renaissance: “I’ve never been more in love with my career, so I’m grateful to still be able to do what I do and just know that people are connecting to that.”

This year has been a game-changer for Shakira. Her World Cup anthem with Burna Boy, Dai Dai, topped charts globally and became one of the biggest hits of 2026 so far.

The video has had more than 1billion views since May, contributing to her becoming the most-watched female artist on YouTube.

The same month, she performed to over 2million people in a single night on Copacabana Beach in Rio De Janeiro — one of the highest- attended concerts ever.

But in Dai Dai, she sings: “You’ve been this brave all along, what broke you once made you strong.”

It is a reflection of her last few years, when life was challenging.

Shakira’s 2017 album, El Dorado, was not received as well as expected, and five years later came her highly-publicised split from Spanish footballer Gerard Pique.

The couple, who never wed but have sons Milan, 13, and Sasha, 11, announced their separation after 11 years together in a public statement.

He was alleged to have moved on with another woman while they were together, although he has not spoken about the circumstances.

Things were made worse when Shakira was dragged into court by Spanish authorities over a tax dispute, in which she claimed she had not spent enough time in the country to pay the taxes they said she owed.

In 2023, she settled on one case of tax evasion, forking out €14.5million in unpaid taxes plus interest, a €7.3million fine and a €432,000 payment to waive a suspended three-year prison sentence.

At the time, things were looking bleak. But she started to turn it around, funnelling her anger into her music, which attracted a whole new generation of fans.

Then in May, a Spanish court ordered the country’s tax authority to refund €55million of taxes, ruling that the cash was improperly collected during the dispute.

Her epic, two-and-a-half hour concert tells the story of a wronged woman who comes out the other side.

At one point in the show, during song TQG,she is seen trying to reprogramme men’s behaviour.

Later, she is depicted as a lone wolf protecting her cubs, and then duets with her sons, who appear on screens for the track Acrostico.

The message is clear as she tells the crowd: “Love is beautiful. But self-love is more beautiful.”

The gig features a set of some 25 songs, more than a dozen extravagant costumes, fireworks, flamethrowers, twerking and Shakira on the drums and guitar.

It is a triumphant moment of celebration and, during her carnival-inspired, multi-coloured performance of Waka Waka (This Time For Africa), she beams from ear to ear.

Shakira hopes her concerts leave fans, especially women, optimistic about the world, as that’s certainly how she feels after the ordeal she has gone through in recent years.

She told me: “I hope women walk away feeling empowered and excited about what’s ahead of them, knowing that they are the ones who decide how to tell their story and what they want to take away from everything life throws at them.

“It’s been such a revelation to realise that the worst I ever imagined could happen . . . and that I can still find this level of happiness again.”

In Madrid, as well as the temporary stadium built in her honour, there is an entire 30-hectare village of attractions based on the Hips Don’t Lie singer.

And she’s bound to rake it in as there are high-profile sponsorships, including a museum about Shakira in partnership with Amazon.

A whole Disney area inspired by the star’s voice role in Zootropolis 2 is another key attraction, along with a library, in partnership with Penguin, promoting authors from South America.

During the residency, hotel bookings in Madrid are up 15 per cent from 2025, while Ryanair added 225,000 seats on flights to the hotspot ahead of the shows, which are generating hundreds of millions for the city’s economy.

Shakira, who has sold 100million records during her career, has now relocated from Spain to Miami with her sons to start afresh — and she is flying high.

She proved as much on the global stage when an estimated 1.5billion footie fans watched her perform at the inaugural World Cup halftime show in July.

And although she sang alongside acts including Madonna, BTS and Justin Bieber, it was Shakira who stole the spotlight.

Her success is a testament to her grit and temerity, with music insiders revealing she is hands-on with every detail of her career.

A source said: “Shakira has worked harder than anybody for this comeback — it’s taken blood, sweat and tears.

“There have been sleepless nights, relentless workouts and a back-breaking schedule, but she loves it and wants to prove to other women what is possible. She pulled an all-nighter with her band last Wednesday just to rehearse for the show in Madrid, not finishing until 8.30am.

“This is very serious to her. She wants to stay at the top for years to come.”

Shakira also teamed up with another in-demand pop star, Zara Larsson, earlier this summer for a remix of her song Eurosummer.

And last week, she released a collaboration called Agua with fellow Colombian star Maluma.

Now, all eyes are on what’s next for Shak, who has barely stopped in her quest to win back her superstardom.

As for a 13th studio album and future collaborations, she teased: “I’ve definitely chatted with a few people recently who would be really fun and unexpected, but I won’t ruin the surprises . . . ”

Although her tour is coming to an end, Shakira shows no signs of slowing down.

She has hinted that she wants to return to the UK, where she has not performed since 2018.

On the prospect of headlining Glastonbury, where she sang on the Pyramid Stage in 2010, she has said: “It’s such an iconic place to perform.

I’d love to go back to England and perform at Glastonbury.

“That would be like the cherry on top for this amazing year I’ve been having.”

As for a break? I wouldn’t count on it. She said: “I take days here and there to rest, but as long as I still have energy and inspiration, I love to stay working.”

Abbotsford, British Columbia – Every second day, 28,000 litres of raw milk leave Casey Pruim’s farm in Abbotsford in western Canada, entering a distribution system built on the assumption that the milk and the products made from it will have somewhere to go.

While most is consumed in Canada, some had been sold across the border to the United States.

Those sales have largely come to a standstill since US President Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariff on $20bn in Canadian goods, including dairy products, came into effect on August 22.

Pruim, who is also chair of the British Columbia Dairy Association representing about 400 dairy farmers across the province, told Al Jazeera that Canadian farmers do not individually decide which products are exported.

Instead, producers such as Pruim –  whose farm has 330 cows milked three times a day  –  sell into the provincial milk-marketing system, which distributes milk to processors according to demand, including for products exported to the US.

If a processor loses US demand, it may require less milk, with the impact then spread across the provincial pool.

Dylan Kruger, director of public affairs at BC Dairy, told Al Jazeera “there is still considerable uncertainty around the impact of the US tariffs”.

He said it was too early to know how the industry would be impacted or whether milk no longer sold to the US could be sold elsewhere, mitigating financial losses.

But the tariffs and wider trade tensions have already introduced uncertainty and instability for businesses.

“If the processor who’s exporting some of his product to the United States can no longer sell into that market because he’s now priced out of the market with a 50 percent tariff, that’s how it would impact the dairy farm,” Pruim said.

Pruim said if processor demand is squeezed, farmers would be forced to dump the milk. In the worst-case scenario, the herd has to be cut.

“Cows aren’t like a tap; you can’t just turn them on or off,” he said.

His warning captures dairy’s particular vulnerability in a tariff war: Milk is highly perishable, collected on a tight schedule and dependent on processors whose demand can change much faster than farmers can adjust production.

“These tariffs are completely unwarranted,” David Wiens, president of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, told Canada’s CBC News, adding that they would affect “the supply chain, not only in Canada but in the US as well”.

Supply-management system

Dairy trade between Canada and the US has largely operated under a free trade agreement between the US, Mexico and Canada, known as CUSMA in Canada.

Canada manages the supply of dairy, poultry and eggs through a national agricultural policy known as supply management. The system uses production quotas and import controls, including tariffs, to provide farmers with more stable and predictable prices while maintaining domestic supply.

Critics describe the system as protectionist and as a government-backed cartel.

Washington argues that Canada’s supply-management system restricts US dairy exports. Trump posted on Truth Social that “Canada had been ripping off the United States of America for years” and accused it of imposing “ridiculously high tariffs” that made life impossible for US farmers.

Canadian producers reject that argument, saying the existing trade agreement already gives US imports substantial tariff-free access that is not fully utilised.

Canada’s dairy trade deficit with the US has grown significantly since CUSMA came into force on July 1, 2020, according to the Dairy Processors Association of Canada.

In 2020, Canada exported 241.3 million Canadian dollars ($173m) in dairy products to the US and imported 647.4 million Canadian dollars ($462.7m) worth of dairy and dairy products. In 2025, Canadian dairy exports had risen to 308.7 million Canadian dollars ($220.7m) while dairy imports from the US had more than doubled to 1.355 billion Canadian dollars ($968.5m), accounting for 13.8 percent of total value of US dairy exports, according to the association.

Bryan Yu, chief economist at Central 1 credit union, said the immediate shock of losing a major market could be difficult for Canadian producers to absorb because replacement buyers cannot be found quickly.

“There is going to be pain in the near term for a lot of our producers,” Yu told Al Jazeera.

“You really can’t quickly adjust to a 50 percent tariff, because it’s uncharted waters for a lot of industries … and ultimately it shuts [Canadian producers] out, because a lot of them don’t have the margins that they can play with,” he said.

Yu said Canadian consumers might absorb some of the additional supply while exporters search for new markets and higher-value products, but neither adjustment is instantaneous.

“There are global markets as well, especially when you talk about chilled, chilled beef, chilled products and really it’s a question of whether … other types of markets that could be available.”

Canada has also imposed retaliatory tariffs, which came into effect on September 8 and cover $20bn worth of US products.

Dairy products are among the targeted goods. The list includes a 50 percent tariff on milk, cream and whey products and a 25 percent tariff on many cheeses imported from the US.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has framed Ottawa’s response as both retaliation and an attempt to build greater economic resilience.

Announcing the collapse of the latest negotiations, he said Canada would match Washington’s new tariffs “dollar for dollar” to protect workers, farmers, families and businesses.

But retaliatory measures carry risks of their own.

“Canada’s new retaliatory tariffs will help some industries but hurt most and weaken economic growth across the country by raising costs for producers and consumers,” Oxford Economics said in a report.

For now, geography remains important for perishable goods like dairy products that once moved quickly across the US border and cannot be redirected overnight to a distant market without new buyers, logistics and regulatory approvals.

Ottawa’s Trade Commissioner Service is advising affected companies to check their CUSMA compliance, explore available relief and contact trade commissioners about potential new markets.

Yu predicted that the US and Canada could reach a tariff deal in the following months but said the interim period could bring “higher prices, weaker economic activity and deeper mistrust”.

For Pruim, the uncertainty is as destabilising as the tariff threat itself.

“I think, like [for] any Canadian, it’s disappointing to have these trade talks collapse again and just the uncertainty around it.”

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – A handful of electronic components, a few wires and a basic programmable circuit board are enough to bring a group of curious children around a table in central Gaza to learn about robotics.

Students at The Next Gen Team: Rising Robotics Engineer Project in Deir el-Balah learn how to integrate sensors into alarm systems, study robotics, understand how motors and drive units work, as well as get firsthand experience with programming.

The children’s research could save lives in the future. The robotics and early warning systems they are working on could make way for bigger developments such as early detection of gas leaks and fires or help rescue workers access hard-to-reach areas, such as victims trapped under rubble.

Today’s lesson will also teach students the sciences of the future and help them keep pace with technological advancements happening outside Gaza’s borders.

Before the war, students had access to schools, universities, incubators and training programmes to pursue an interest in technology.

With much of that infrastructure now destroyed or damaged during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, there are few places and tools for students to work with.

But their interest in robotics and will to learn are helping them maintain their skills and ambitions for the future, something they hope will be of benefit when the bombs stop falling on Gaza.

Hamza al-Atrash, 16, is a student taking part in the “Next Gen” project and learning how electronic components can be used to develop robots and early-warning systems. To do this, he is using an Arduino controller – a programmable circuit board which connects sensors – and some other electronics.

Students work with what they have, but a shortage of equipment and electricity outages make studying a challenge.

“We have capabilities and aspirations that we want to develop, and we try to take advantage of every available opportunity for learning and training,” Hamza tells Al Jazeera.

Hamza hopes the skills that he and his cohort learn in class will benefit his community and provide new opportunities for young people in Gaza.

“The lack of devices and equipment doesn’t mean we’ll stop. It pushes us to look for solutions and make the most of the simple tools we have,” he said.

The challenges facing these students are part of a wider disruption to Gaza’s technology and innovation sector.

Before the war, Gaza had several incubators that supported technology projects and startups. Bahaa al-Masri, head of the training team for the Early Warning Systems and Robotics Project, said it provided a rare bit of hope for children and young adults in the besieged enclave.

“These incubators provided an environment for training and development. They helped innovators and entrepreneurs turn their ideas and projects into prototypes and ventures,” he told Al Jazeera.

The war severely damaged this ecosystem: training spaces were lost, equipment difficult to find, and students and innovators left with limited opportunities to experiment and develop their ideas.

Although challenges remain, the trainers are continuing their mission of educating budding tech experts in Gaza.

“We have a generation of students who possess genuine passion and talent in technology and digital systems,” he told Al Jazeera. “They need the environment and tools to develop these abilities and turn their ideas into projects that can serve their community and their future.”

Education pays the price

The near-collapse of Gaza’s technology sector has coincided with the widespread destruction of the education system, with schools, universities and research facilities repeatedly targeted by Israel during the war.

Preliminary estimates from the Government Media Office in Gaza put direct losses to the education sector at approximately $4bn. Seventeen higher education institutions have been completely or partially destroyed since October 2023, preventing about 620,000 high school students and 90,000 university students from continuing their education.

Approximately 20,228 students and 830 teachers and educational staff have also been killed, along with 194 scientists, academics and researchers.

For students seeking to enter technical fields, the loss of such educational facilities and teachers means fewer opportunities to gain practical experience and hone their skills.

Before the war, the IT industry was one of the promising sectors of Gaza’s economy and a rare source of foreign income, said Ahmad Abu Qamar, an economic affairs specialist and board member of the Palestinian Economists Syndicate.

It was also an opportunity for employment for thousands of university graduates entering a job market with high unemployment, with roughly 80 percent of its economic activities directed towards foreign markets.

Abu Qamar estimates that the IT sector now runs at less than 25 percent of pre-war levels, while more than 70 percent of IT companies in Gaza have completely or partially halted operations.

But even if a company’s offices or equipment survived the war on Gaza, damage to digital infrastructure has also made it difficult for companies to continue functioning.

Prices of some technical equipment – including computers, mobile devices, servers, routers, fibre-optic lines, and cabling – used in the industry have increased by more than 600 percent due to the difficulties of importing devices during Israel’s ongoing siege on the enclave.

According to his estimates, about 30,000 IT professionals have lost their jobs since the war began. General unemployment is at nearly 80 percent and poverty at more than 90 percent in the enclave.

Brain drain

A severe shortage of vital IT equipment – such as storage devices, routers, and laptops – has been compounded by the destruction of supporting internet and electricity infrastructure, including primary and secondary networks, according to technology and digital economy expert Abdullah Altahrawi with the UCAS Technology Incubator. This makes the task of rebuilding Gaza’s IT sector an even bigger challenge than before the war, particularly with Israel’s more crippling siege on Gaza.

“The repercussions have extended to dealings with foreign markets, including the purchase of servers and electronic services, the management of digital accounts, the use of cards and e-commerce,” Altahrawi said.

Before the war, Gaza’s five main incubators provided training, mentoring, workspaces and support for tech startups. Perhaps most crucially, it also gave students a place to develop their skills, connect with foreign markets, and find job opportunities.

Just two incubators – the UCAS Technology Incubator, affiliated with the University College of Applied Sciences, and the Ma’an Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubator, have resumed operations since the October 2025 ceasefire. But their capacity has not managed to exceed 20 percent of pre-2023 levels.

Due to the damage caused by three years of Israeli bombing and a shortage of real estate, just 1 percent of technology companies now have offices, while only 10 percent of business incubators have an operational office space.

Companies looking to rebuild and universities ready to teach a new cohort of tech students have also been hit by a brain drain in the sector, severely hindering development and innovation.

“More than 80 percent of highly skilled and experienced professionals in the technology and digital fields have left the Gaza Strip,” Altahrawi said. “Gaza’s future is inseparable from its ability to restore and develop its technology sector.”

TV host Jeff Brazier admits he has made too many mistakes bringing up sons Bobby and Freddy.

He became a single dad after his ex, Big Brother star Jade Goody, died from cervical cancer in 2009 aged just 27.

Jeff — who has since had years of therapy — believes that if model Bobby, 23, and Race Across The World star Freddy, 21, had been raised by the man he is today, they may have escaped some of the trauma, turmoil and family fallouts.

He told the Sun on Sunday: “You always look back with hindsight and feel like, ‘If only I was the version of myself I am today 20 years ago, how much of a better experience of me they would have had’.

“Maybe that might have eliminated some of the bumps in the road we’ve had . . .  you look at the things you could have done better.”

Those “bumps” have at times proved particularly painful for Freddy, with much of the family tension centred around his close bond with his maternal grandmother Jackiey Budden, 69.

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Jeff has always considered Jade’s mum to be a bad influence on the boys.

And Freddy, who has been to rehab, been sectioned and suffered manic episodes, has previously claimed Jackiey got him “hooked” on cannabis.

Things got so bad that last year, a concerned Jeff started legal proceedings in a bid to keep Jackiey away from his son.

Yet despite their clashes, Jeff and Freddy have always found their way back to each other — most recently in March following the arrival of Freddy’s daughter Isla with his on-off girlfriend Holly Swinburn.

Jeff, 47, says: “Thanks to all the mistakes and all the lessons and the learnings along the way, I get to love Isla with a sense of confidence.

“The strength of connection you can have with a grandchild is really special.

“With Isla, it just feels ­natural, effortless and easy, and there’s no ­complications around it.”

Jeff can often be seen on This Morning, has worked with The One Show and TNT Sports and now fronts the Let’s Save Water campaign, urging families to make small changes to help tackle Britain’s shortage after the hot summer.

But the TV star admits he has struggled since his sons moved out of the family home in Essex.

“When they left, I went through nine months of what felt like ­absolute grief,” he admits.

“It’s not just the absence of your children. It’s more the grieving of the role that you played, that you got really comfortable playing.

“It felt like a slow relinquishing of control and responsibility, to the point where you feel redundant.

“Life is a lot quieter right now — the peace can be deafening — but there’s also part of you that’s, like, ‘Shouldn’t I be doing something for someone somewhere?’ ”

Jeff’s home is also quieter following the end of his seven-year ­marriage to PR executive Kate Dwyer last year.

Yet Jeff, who first found fame on reality show Shipwrecked in 2001, is learning to embrace this new chapter and finally put himself first.

He is also discovering how to play again so that he can be the best grandfather possible.

It was Freddy, who suffers from ADHD, who first told him he needed to loosen up, while they filmed Celebrity Race Across The World in 2024.

Jeff, who spent much of his ­childhood in foster care, said: “He ­basically hit the nail on the head.

“As a child, I probably didn’t play that much, or feel safe to play. I’m trying to undo that.”

In a bid to become more playful, Jeff has even signed up to wrestle strangers after discovering the ­unusual kind of therapy at a ­spiritual festival.

“The more you do it, the more you free something up and heal something,” he says.

“Obviously, no one’s allowed to hurt anyone. But to go and enjoy retreats like that, you’re basically taking your inner child with you.

“That’s where I hope I will be in ten years — running a retreat on a renovated farm in the countryside.

“I would still be exercising and showing up for people, and I’d be looking after numerous grand- children and feel all the love.”

Could that future also include finding love again?

“I hope so,” he says. “Yeah, I believe that will happen to me.”

TOMORROW night in Philadelphia, Ed Sheeran is expected to return to the stage for the first time since the biggest crisis of his career began.

Venues and promoters removed rapper Macklemore as the opening act on his US tour for voicing pro-Palestinian views on stage — prompting a legion of musicians, many of whom were British megastar Ed’s friends, to publicly turn against him over the past week.

This evening at Lincoln Financial Field, Ed will perform to 60,000 fans alone, with just his guitar and his trusted loop pedal, after Irish singer Aaron Rowe and Danish group Lukas Graham pulled out as support acts.

Irish folk group Beoga have performed with Ed on every night of the Loop World Tour — but they have also withdrawn, along with Billie ­Eilish’s brother Finneas, who was due to open six of Ed’s south ­American dates later this year.

“The world feels like a very lonely place for Ed right now,” an insider tells me.

“He couldn’t have done more to change the situation. He genuinely tried everything. This pile-on has been awful.”

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I’m told dad-of-two Ed, 35, is ­planning on pushing ahead with the concert this evening before taking a view on the remaining ten dates across the US before his shows in South America.

My insider explained: “He wants the tour to continue for fans.

“They will have spent a lot of money on travel and hotels and will want to see him perform.

“The plan is to see how it goes tonight and then Ed and his team can take a view on whether they will carry on or not.”

Last night local action groups Philly Palestine Coalition and Shut Down D&Z confirmed they would be demonstrating at the train station closest to the venue.

Police said they would be increasing patrols in the area and were dispatching extra officers to the area around Lincoln Financial Field before the concert starts at 8pm.

Jasmine Reilly, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department, said last night: “Our officers are talking to Ed’s team to make sure all appropriate measures are taken.”

A second source told me: “A nightmare scenario is if unrest begins inside before or during the show. It’s a possibility because of the heightened emotions with everything that is going on right now.

“Naturally Ed and his team’s concerns are for the safety of the people inside and outside the venue.”

Tonight’s gig will take place 15 days after Macklemore lit the touchpaper under Bad Habits hitmaker Ed.

The rapper — real name Benjamin Haggerty — played his pro-Palestinian protest song Hind’s Hall in New Jersey before telling the crowd: “A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in ­stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: Free Palestine.”

The next day he stood on stage again at the MetLife Stadium and declared: “To all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”

Two days later, the Israeli-American Council published a ­petition calling for Macklemore to be removed from Ed’s shows.

On September 8, Jewish singer Pink ramped up emotions when she shared a statement on Instagram with her 11.7million followers.

She blasted Macklemore for going on stage “in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them.”

Three days later Macklemore was removed from Ed’s tour. US promoters Messina Touring Group said that it had been notified by venues on Ed’s US tour that they “will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the line-up.”

In a statement calling Ed a “brother”, the rapper said: “Nothing I’m writing here is out of spite or because I want to tear down his character.

“But as I told Ed multiple times on the phone, our friendship can’t change my responsibility to tell the truth about what happened.”

Macklemore explained that Ed had told him billionaire Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots American football team and their Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts, would not allow him to play the two dates there on September 25 and 26.

Macklemore added: “Ed was in a f***ed-up position.

“His typical apolitical stance was being challenged in a way it never had been before.

“He told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. I told him that if those words were more ­offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those ­people stood and where I stood.

“But he couldn’t get past his public-facing, ‘I don’t take sides.’ ”

The next day Ed addressed the ­situation in a statement to his 47million Instagram followers and revealed the lengths he had gone to in a bid to get everyone back on board.

He said he had spoken to “activists on both sides” as well as the owners of stadiums to find unity and that he was “appalled” by the conflict.

Ed added: “I am not complicit. I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care.

“Macklemore coming off the tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine.

“I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work.”

Explaining his decision to remain apolitical, he said: “There is a ­reason I do not use my professional platform for politics.

“My audience includes young people, often children, of all backgrounds.

“Those who come to my shows do not expect a political forum. I respect Macklemore’s strength of purpose to stand up and shout for what he believes in.

“However there is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace.”

He concluded: “I have spent this week trying to build bridges, to find a solution, and unfortunately I was unable to do so.

“I know who I am, both as a person and as an artist, and those who know my heart know my values too.”

Despite his attempts to make amends, Ed was left flattened the following day as the artists on his tour started to pull out.

In a statement, Irish group Beoga said: “To play in venues that silence anyone advocating for Free Palestine is simply not an option for us.”

Pro-Israeli billionaire Kraft then came out fighting in Ed’s corner.

Shortly after Macklemore announced he was donating his $1million fee for the tour to humanitarian organisations providing aid to Palestinians, Kraft said Ed had been in touch before asking to match a donation he had made.

Kraft said: “I have dedicated much of my life to building bridges between all people.

“I believe deeply that all lives are worth protecting.

“Earlier today, before Macklemore challenged me to match his donation, Ed called me and asked me to commit $2million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis.

“Ed now plans to reach out to other venue owners and our goal is to continue to work together to build bridges.”

Kraft also pointedly recalled Macklemore’s stunt in 2014, where he performed on stage in a costume which featured anti-Semitic tropes.

Macklemore apologised and said he did not mean to offend anyone but conceded the outfit could have looked like a “Jewish caricature”.

In the days prior to tonight’s show, high-profile stars have waded into the row, including British singer Paloma Faith, Hacks actress Hannah Einbinder and Formula 1 champ Lewis Hamilton.

The controversy also spilled over into politics, with US senator ­Bernie Sanders blasting Kraft.

The Democrat wrote: “In the United States of America, billionaire stadium owners should not be able to silence artists because they speak out on political issues.

“Today it is the genocide in Gaza. What’s next? If they can silence one artist, they can silence anyone.”

Since his statement, Ed has not spoken and is, insiders tell me, “staying focused” on the hours ahead of the concert.

A source said: “Ed has never faced anything like this before.

“It’s been devastating. He is trying to do the right thing by everyone. Sadly that isn’t always possible.

“As he said in his statement he has his own views on the conflict.

“Just because he has not been public in speaking about them, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care or hasn’t actively been helping in whatever way he can.”

Sanaa, Yemen – Ahmed Yahya, 28, fills his taxi with 10 litres of petrol as he begins his workday early in the morning.

“I feed my taxi with fuel first so that it can help feed my family,” Yahya, a taxi driver, said as he wiped the dust from his front window at a petrol station on the outskirts of Sanaa.

Up until earlier this week, Yahya used to pay 4,750 Yemeni riyals, the equivalent of roughly $8.90 in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. The price had remained unchanged for about four years in territory under the rebel group’s control – including the capital Sanaa.

But then, on Monday, the Houthis announced a roughly 10 percent increase in the price of petrol, up to 5,250 Yemeni Riyals ($9.80). After years of economic misery, Yahya described the price hike as another “painful surprise to an already devastated people”.

The Houthi-run Yemen Petroleum Company said the diesel and petrol price increase was the result of a “global increase in fuel prices”, and promised that it would be temporary. The increase in global oil prices this year comes off the back of the impact of the United States-Israel war on Iran. But, more recently, the Houthis’ own capture of Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast from government forces last week, and attacks on Saudi Arabia, have played a major role in increasing prices.

“When I heard the announcement of the new fuel price, I was shocked and frustrated. We’re hardly surviving, and this price increase will make survival even harder,” said Yahya, as he lamented another burden in a country where 18 million already face acute food insecurity – a lack of reliable access to enough food.

‘Rent or food?’

Yahya, a father of three, has been working as a taxi driver for five years. Although the job helps make ends meet, he feels financially insecure, especially with the ongoing changes in food and fuel prices.

“My family spend about 75,000 Yemeni riyals [$140] a month on food expenses such as flour, rice and cooking oil. With the fuel price rise, we will need at least 85,000 Yemeni riyals [$159] a month for the same food items,” said Yahya.

The resumption of fighting in Yemen in the past few months, after a four-year period of relative calm in the country’s war, has contributed to the price rises. But for Yahya, relatively safe in Sanaa, it’s the increased expenses that are the more troubling development.

“When prices rise, they affect what we eat, drink, and how we live,” he said. “Let me give you an example: I pay 25,000 Yemeni riyals [$47] in rent every month. With the increase in food prices, putting money aside to pay the rent has become more challenging. What is the priority? Rent or food?”

An April report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said that Yemen’s internal conflict has led to significant macroeconomic vulnerabilities and a marked decrease in income per capita, leaving more than half of the population in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

“It [the conflict] has caused widespread food insecurity, disease outbreaks, mass family displacement, and limited access to clean water,” the report said.

Risky and costly transportation

One of the links between the renewed fighting and the increase in prices is the longer distances needed to transport products across the country, as truckers avoid roads near the front lines.

“A truck carrying goods from the south to the north or vice versa now takes up to a week to reach its final destination. Before the renewed fighting, a similar journey would have taken three days or less,” explained Saleh Abdullah, a shopkeeper in Sanaa.

The increased transportation costs, including the higher fuel prices, are passed on to the consumer.

“This means no family is immune to this trouble,” Abdullah said. “Whether it is the flour, the baby milk, the fruits, the vegetables, or anything else, families will feel the pain of price increases.”

“Some customers become angry at us when we sell products at a higher price,” he added. “We didn’t impose prices. We just react and adapt to the changes in the country or the region.”

Ibrahim Abdu, an employee at the Nehm customs checkpoint in Sanaa governorate, said the number of trucks arriving in the capital has declined over the past few weeks.

“Fighting has cut off many roads, and merchants have avoided risking their products and drivers,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘A hunger multiplier’

Years of war have taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s economy, disrupted businesses, and pushed millions of people into poverty and food insecurity. Against this bleak backdrop, the country’s humanitarian tragedy has been worsening.

Ahmed Mohammed, a former humanitarian worker in Hodeidah, describes the fuel price rise as a “hunger multiplier” in war-torn Yemen.

“If a breadwinner struggles to buy a family three meals a day, he may be able to afford only two given the rising price of food commodities. This will deepen hunger among families,” said Mohammed.

He added: “War is ugly, and one of its ugliest aspects is seeing a family unable to afford a kilogramme of flour, sugar or rice.”

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned this week that the violence threatens to trigger a humanitarian crisis as more people are displaced, pressuring communities with limited resources.

A multi-faceted impact

Wafiq Saleh, an economic researcher and executive director of the Taiz Centre for Yemeni-Gulf Studies, said the 10 percent hike in fuel prices in Houthi-controlled areas deals a blow to Yemeni consumers.

“Its impact will manifest as a major inflationary wave, placing a heavy burden on the most vulnerable and income-deprived segments of society,” Saleh told Al Jazeera.

While this price increase may appear modest in percentage terms, its effects extend far beyond the petrol station, rippling through various goods and services and creating new hardships, according to Saleh.

“Petroleum products serve as intermediate inputs for a wide range of goods and services. Consequently, a 10 percent rise in fuel prices does not merely increase people’s expenses by 10 percent; it triggers a cascading effect on prices,” he said.

“The most severely affected sectors include agriculture – which relies on diesel for crop irrigation – and the transport and services sectors, where rising costs immediately drive up passenger fares and food prices.”

He added that the increase would also affect water and electricity services, many of which rely on diesel-powered generators, further increasing the cost of basic services.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises are similarly affected.

“Small enterprises are operating on narrow profit margins, and they may be forced to either cease operations or pass the increased costs on to the final consumer,” Saleh said.

Taiz, Yemen – Hajja Fatima Mohammed Saleh, a 70-year-old Yemeni woman, is among the countless people and families displaced from Taiz governorate, southwest Yemen, in recent fighting between government forces and the Houthis.

The Iran-backed rebel group, also known as Ansar Allah (supporters of God), now controls most parts of northwestern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.

Saleh’s village in Maqbanah district, on the border of Yemen’s western coast, is situated at the epicentre of last week’s Houthi assault in which the group captured the whole of the Red Sea coast, including the port city of Mocha.

At least 100,000 people have now fled their homes following renewed fighting between the two sides, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency, most leaving with few belongings due to the speed of the Houthi offensive.

Saleh said she had to leave her wheelchair behind as it was unsuitable for the rugged terrain her family had to navigate to find shelter.

“The attack was massive, we had never seen anything like it before. Shells were falling heavily on the village, and bullets were flying in every direction,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We had no choice but to leave and flee to a safe place. We left everything we owned and walked a long distance on foot. For me, I suffered especially because I am disabled and cannot walk, so I had to crawl – using both hands – for a long distance through rain and floods before we found a vehicle to carry us.”

UN agencies and the internationally recognised Yemeni government say that Taiz governorate has witnessed most of the displacements, with Taiz City among the Houthis’ next targets after their victory on the Red Sea coast. This means the humanitarian situation could worsen even further.

Ali al-Shumairi, director-general of the Executive Unit for the Management of IDP Camps in Taiz governorate, told Al Jazeera that 65,845 people were displaced between August 10 and September 15. About 95 percent of those displaced come from the five districts which witnessed the heaviest fighting: Jabal Habashi, al-Maafer, Maqbana, al-Wazi’iyah and Mawza.

Fighting has intensified on several fronts in Yemen as government forces have carried out air attacks on Houthi positions in attempts to retake Mocha, days after the group captured the strategic port city, tightening its grip on the Red Sea – a vital shipping lane.

This development has placed the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the strategic waterway that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean, at the heart of the war between the United States and Iran, and amplifies pressure on global trade routes.

Yemen’s more than 10-year civil war was reignited in July, threatening a United Nations-brokered truce that halted large-scale violence in 2022, after the Houthis declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia and began targeting its ships in the Red Sea.

Forces affiliated with Yemen’s internationally recognised government have launched a campaign against the Houthis on a number of fronts since last week. They have retaken some positions and are advancing in the southwestern Taiz province as clashes intensify.

Osama al-Wafi, supervisor of the Mushrifa camp in Wadi Bikhawlan in Taiz governorate and a representative of the Yemeni government’s Executive Unit in Jabal Habashi district, described the situation as “dire and tragic”.

“These people have been displaced and have lost all the basic necessities of life, after having homes, farms, and livestock. Now they are only looking for a shelter to house them,” al-Wafi told Al Jazeera.

He said the number of displaced people arriving at the camp is steadily rising, with more than 1,500 families entering over the past six days, most living in the open due to a lack of shelter.

The al-Munij camp in the al-Bireen area, about 40 kilometres southwest of the semi-besieged city of Taiz, has become a temporary refuge for Yemenis fleeing the area after another bout of conflict between government and Houthi fighters in 2020.

Over the years, al-Munij has extended over a space of two square kilometres to house more displaced families, while other larger camps have been established in the area. Most residents complain they lack access to the most basic services – such as sporadic drinking water supplies and few toilets – in the camps.

Hajj Saif Qaed Thabet, 73, has been living with his wife and four children in an exposed space with no doors since arriving at al-Munij on September 10. He left behind a farm and livestock from his home in al-Kadaha, western Taiz governorate.

“We were displaced because of the war, fleeing bullets and artillery shells falling over our heads. Since arriving at the camp, we have been living like this, waiting for our situation to be addressed and for us to be housed in a suitable place,” said Thabet. “Praise be to God in all circumstances.”

Malouk Ahmed Ali, 55, from the al-Kadaha area in Taiz, said her family of 14 all escaped drones, shelling and gunfire on foot, including five children under her care, seven under her daughter’s care, and her elderly grandmother.

“We fled to an area near our village in the hope that the war would calm down quickly and we would return to our homes, but the clashes expanded until they reached us, so we were displaced again to here aboard a military vehicle that came to transport the threatened homeless people,” she told Al Jazeera.

“When we arrived at this camp, we were received and placed in this small tent as temporary housing for all members of the large family. Although they took all our information, our situation has not improved much so far, and we still hope it will improve.”

Ali hopes the war will end soon so she can return home but believes her family’s possessions, including solar panels and a battery, will have gone.

“As for our livestock, most of them died, some fled to the mountains and valleys, and what remained was looted,” she said.

The United States has acknowledged deploying space weapons in orbit of the Earth.

US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink confirmed on Monday that the so-called “space control weapons” would be used to defend US forces on the planet, marking a significant new chapter in the militarisation of space – or at least the transparency of it.

The announcement, which Meink framed as a message to US rivals China and Russia, could turn Earth’s orbit into an increasingly contested military domain, experts warn. Warfare could include countries targeting each other’s satellites, which provide critical services such as GPS, communications and intelligence to military forces on the ground, as well as civilian infrastructure.

“Space Force doctrine describes ‘space control’ as having the outcome of space superiority, which they define as the ability to operate at the time and place of their choosing, while denying the same to an adversary,” Victoria Samson, chief director of Space Security and Stability for Secure World Foundation, a private non-profit focused on military space and security issues, told Al Jazeera.

So, what do we know about the US-deployed weapons in space? And do some countries already have them?

What do we know about these space weapons?

Not a lot. Air Force Secretary Meink said the US has stationed “weapons” in Earth’s orbit, but did not specify when they were placed there, how many there are, or what they are designed to do.

“Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist,” Meink said at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference. “This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”

However, he did not give any details about what sort of weapons these may be, where they are positioned or what they are designed to do.

Samson said the keyword from Meink’s announcement is “weapons” in the context of “space control”. “Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain – employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities,” Meink said, adding that “these capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes”.

“That’s the first time any official has acknowledged an actually designed weapon has been placed in space,” Samson told Al Jazeera. “It’s always been ‘systems with capabilities’ prior.”

Experts say these weapons are likely to be space-based communications jammers rather than kinetic ones that launch strikes. Kinetic weapons – for instance, a suicide satellite designed to ram into an adversary’s satellite – would likely cause fast-moving debris to be launched dangerously into space.

Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor in astropolitics at Durham University in the United Kingdom, told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: “We don’t know exactly what the mechanism of the weapon is. I would expect there to be some kind of electronic warfare or radio-jamming platform. This would be a non-destructive kind of anti-satellite weapon, and these variants already exist on Earth.

“Less likely would be a kinetic kill vehicle of some sort, so a vehicle that would release a projectile of some sort that would ram into a satellite and destroy it.”

What is the US Space Force?

The US Space Force is the newest branch of the US military, created in December 2019 under President Donald Trump’s first term, responsible for organising and conducting US military operations in and through space.

Unlike NASA, which focuses on civilian space exploration, Space Force is part of the US Air Force and comes under US Space Command, which is headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

Its responsibilities include operating and protecting military satellites, providing satellite communications and positioning services, monitoring objects and potential threats in space, and supporting US forces on Earth.

“China and Russia are developing new space systems to enhance military effectiveness and end any reliance on US space services,” the Space Force’s website says. “China and Russia are also testing and fielding sophisticated counterspace capabilities with the intent to disrupt and degrade US space-enabled capabilities.”

Aren’t there treaties limiting weapons deployments in space?

Yes, but they do not amount to a blanket ban on weapons in space.

The key agreement is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits countries from placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or stationing them in outer space. It also bans military bases and weapons testing on the moon and other celestial bodies.

However, the treaty does not expressly prohibit conventional weapons from being placed in Earth’s orbit. That means systems such as conventional anti-satellite weapons, electronic-warfare systems, or other counterspace capabilities are not automatically prohibited.

Such gaps leave room for interpretation and are at the heart of current international efforts to enhance military activities in space.

How have Russia and China reacted to the US announcement?

China’s Foreign Ministry opposed the move, warning against the “weaponisation of outer space, turning it into a battlefield, as well as an arms race there”.

“We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space,” ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news briefing.

Russia called for space to be kept “free of any weapons”.

“We are counting on broad international consolidation to continue working towards the complete demilitarisation of space,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Are Russia and China developing space weapons too?

Independent reports from research groups and think tanks note that both China and Russia are developing a broad range of counterspace capabilities designed to interfere with, disable, or potentially destroy satellites and other space systems.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, DC, identified both countries as possessing or developing kinetic and non-kinetic counterspace weapons.

A 2025 CSIS report notes that both Moscow and Beijing have direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, as well as capabilities involving jamming, spoofing, and cyber operations.

Samson of the Secure World Foundation (SWF) told Al Jazeera that her team has highlighted in their reports that “China and Russia have space-based jammers”. Therefore, she told Al Jazeera, “I always thought it would be strange that the US didn’t have them too.”

Bowen told the BBC: “In the last 10 years, Russia and China have been doing a lot more manoeuvres in space – rendezvous and proximity operations, as we call them – so, flying up really close to Western satellites, inspecting them, taking pictures. And on another occasion, the Chinese have demonstrated a ‘space tug’ capability. So, a vehicle that goes up to a satellite can grapple it and then move it into a different orbit.”

China has executed such a manoeuvre only with one of its own old satellites, which needed to be moved away from its location, he added.

What about other countries?

The emerging space-weapons race is not limited to the US, Russia and China: India has also demonstrated an ASAT capability and is developing technologies that could allow spacecraft to operate alongside other satellites.

France is also reported to be developing co-orbital capabilities, while the UK has conducted on-orbit cooperative operations with the US.

A 2026 report by SWF also notes how Iran, for instance, illustrates the less visible side of space warfare, relying increasingly on jamming and spoofing satellite-based services. Israel, meanwhile, has developed significant military space and electronic-warfare capabilities, although there is no public record of it conducting a debris-generating ASAT test.

Countries like North Korea and South Korea are also racing to develop more sophisticated space-based tech.

Is space the next frontier of war?

Samson told Al Jazeera that the US announcement of deploying weapons in Earth’s orbit is not essentially disruptive in the context of space technology. “What this does is normalise weaponising space,” she said.

“Space has always been a domain with the potential of being a flashpoint for conflict; this just turns up the heat there,” Samson added.

A US Space Force spokesperson told ABC News that the US “capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands”. The spokesperson noted that Washington “has warned about Russian and Chinese weapons testing and operationalisation since 2007”.

“Due to their actions, it is no longer a question that space is a warfighting domain,” the spokesperson said. “Open communication strengthens deterrence, prevents adversary miscalculation, and normalises space operations alongside the other services.”

Samson further noted that Meink’s statement “crosses a line”, and would “either encourage China and Russia to also declare weapons in space, or will make US allies and partners want to also place weapons in space”.

“Counterspace capabilities have been proliferating already – this speeds up that trend,” she said, adding that this “is incredibly destabilising and will work against US national security goals”.

“By opening the door to weaponising space, the US loses the most,” Samson noted. “Every person on this planet uses space-based data and services in some way. Any interference with access to or use of space will affect everyone, not just space powers.”

KILLER drug fentanyl has long had a vice-like grip on the US, devastating everyone from high profile celebrities to everyday families across the country.

Just today it was revealed that actress Hayden Panettiere, who died last month age 36, had allegedly taken a pill laced with fentanyl before she passed away.

The mum-of-one was found dead of a suspected overdose of oxycodone at a luxury AirBnB in South Carolina on August 17 just days before her 37th birthday.

Cops are said to be “zeroing in” on her alleged long-term dealer from whom she is suspected to have purchased several black-market prescription drugs from.

Toxicology reports are still pending but, according to the US news outlet, the working theory within law enforcement is that it was the suspected fentanyl-laced oxycodone pill killed Hayden.

But she is far from the first celebrity to have succumbed to the drug.

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Others include music icon Prince, who died age 57 from an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2016, long before many had even heard of the drug.

Rappers Mac Miller and Coolio, rock star Tom Petty and actors Michael K Williams and Angus Cloud all lost their lives to the drug, while singer Demi Lovato survived but was left with life-changing side effects.

And the fentanyl crisis is showing no signs of going away as dealers use it to lace other drugs to maximise their profits.

A former NYPD chief of detectives James Essig explained: “Fentanyl is relatively cheap while heroin is expensive. 

“You take a kilo of heroin and then add in a tiny bit of fentanyl and stretch it out for more profitability.”

Fentanyl is an opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.

Opioid addiction became rife in America during the 90s when pharmaceutical companies flooded the market with super-strong painkillers.

But when the government began to crackdown in the 2000s, the Mexican drug cartels spotted a gap in the market and moved in with heroin, and before long they started adding fentanyl to juice up its potency.

Raymond Donovan, former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) chief of operations, says: “That really started the wave of the opioid crisis that we are in now. 

“Very quickly it went from increasing the strength of heroin to pure fentanyl. You had kilos coming across the south west border.

“The Mexican cartels started buying fentanyl directly from China, pressing it into pills and then selling it as if it was a known opioid, like something that was made by a scientist in a laboratory, but it is not, it is a fake pill.”

It was two years after Prince’s death when investigators finally released their findings.

They had found counterfeit Vicodin pills in his house, laced with fentanyl – but police were unable to establish who had provided the drugs.

Prince’s death put fentanyl in the headlines, but it wasn’t long before another famous name was tragically linked to the drug.

The following year rock n roll legend Tom Petty was found dead – and two forms of illicit fentanyl were found in his system. 

He was also using a medically supplied fentanyl patch for pain caused by a fractured hip.

His family released a statement saying they wanted his death to act as a wake-up call in a bid to save others from suffering their heartbreak.

But the opioid crisis was only just starting. In 2018 more than 30,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses – up by 10 per cent – and in July that year singer Demi Lovato almost lost her life.

The star had been open about her struggles with drug addiction and had been in and out of rehab.

Entertainment journalist Chris Witherspoon explains: “Despite years of sobriety Demi Lovato went out with some friends in Hollywood, ran into a dealer she knew and she got some heroin that was laced with fentanyl.”

Speaking about her ordeal Demi said: “I had three strokes, I had a heart attack. I suffered brain damage from the strokes. I can’t drive any more.

Her survival was down to being given the drug Narcan in hospital which helps to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

It was a huge wake-up call with celebrities including Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Ariana Grande sending her public messages of support.

But another celeb was not going to be as lucky as Demi. Just two months later rapper Mac Miller was found dead at the age of just 26.

Like Demi he had been open about his own struggles with addiction, writing about it in his music.

Investigators discovered he had been looking to buy oxycodone, but ended up with something laced with fentanyl.

Miller’s drug dealer and the men who supplied him with the drugs were later jailed.

But it isn’t just celebrities that have fallen victim to the fentanyl crisis sweeping America.

Thousands of ordinary families have been left grieving the deaths of their loved ones, too.

Matt Capelouto lost his college student daughter Alex to the drug in December 2019.

“We didn’t know anything about fentanyl at the time,” he says. “Lots of things were going through my head and this was a period of shock.”

Alex, 20, had contacted a drug dealer on Snapchat looking to buy the prescription painkiller Perocet.

But what he, in fact, delivered to her was counterfeit pills made with lethal doses of fentanyl.

“My daughter took half of one of these pills before going to bed and my wife found her dead in her bed the next morning,” says heartbroken Matt. 

“I wanted to find out who this drug dealer was. Who sold my daughter death?”

They eventually got into Alex’s phone and discovered the identity of the drug dealer.

But the family were told that the dealer was unlikely to face any charges as California does not have a death by dealer statute that holds dealers responsible for users’ deaths.

But the case was taken over for federal prosecution, which has a different burden of proof, and the dealer, Brandon McDowell, was charged with one count of distributing fentanyl resulting in death and jailed for nine years.

Matt says: “Locking up a drug dealer won’t bring my daughter back, but it will save someone else’s child.”

Michael K Williams, star of TV series The Wire and Boardwalk Empire, was the next celeb to lose their life after taking fentanyl-laced heroin in 2021.

He had been open about his battle with addiction, and just five days before his death spoke on a podcast about how acting offered him a road to recovery.

Two weeks after he passed away the New York City Medical Examiner said he died from an unintentional overdose from a deadly mix of drugs including fentanyl.

In April 2023, drug dealer Irvin Cartagena pleaded guilty to selling the mix of heroin and fentanyl to Williams that resulted in his death. He was jailed for 10 years.

In September 2021 comedian and presenter Kate Quigley went to a party in Venice, California, where she and her friends thought they were using cocaine, but it contained fentanyl.

Kate passed out, fell over and was unconscious for 17 hours. She woke up disorientated, unable to move her legs, and then made a harrowing discovery.

Three of her friends were lying dead; comedian Fuquan Johnson, Natalie Williamson and Enrico Colangeli had suffered fatal overdoses.

The dealer was never identified.

Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff says: “One of the many tragedies of the fentanyl epidemic in the United States is this repeat of mass overdose events.

“A group of friends partying together and they think they are buying cocaine or some other drug, and they don’t know that what they are buying is laced with fentanyl and because they don’t have any opioid tolerance, they drop dead. 

“So that’s why we have seen horrible crime scenes with three, four, five adults on the floor at a party where they have literally died in a couple of minutes.”

In July 2022, cops discerned a shocking new twist in the fentanyl story. 

The drug was now being used as a weapon by robbery gangs, and a famous fashion designer was one of their victims.

Katie Gallagher, who had designed for Rita Ora and Lady Gaga, was found dead in her bed.

Police told her parents that Katie had died from an overdose – but she had been murdered.

Detectives had uncovered a robbery crew that was using drugs laced with fentanyl to incapacitate victims before using facial recognition technology to open their phones and empty their bank accounts.

Police believed Katie had been given what she thought was cocaine, but it was laced with fentanyl.

Police arrested and charged Kenwood Allen, 33, in relation to five deaths and a drugging and robbery spree targeting a total of 21 victims. 

He pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

In September 2022, rapper Coolio became the next victim of fentanyl. 

At first it was thought he had died of an asthma attack, but the medical examiner’s report revealed he had died from an accidental overdose of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl.

The authorities are struggling to stop the flow of fentanyl from Mexico into the US.

The drug is so compact and so potent that it is easy for the cartels to smuggle it across the border.

In 2023, Homeland Security launched Operation Blue Lotus to try to stop the flood.

And the US targeted the Chinese suppliers that were selling fentanyl to the cartels.

But despite the Government efforts the fentanyl crisis continued to spread across America and claimed the life of yet another of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

Actor Angus Cloud was just 25 when he died at his family home in California.

He shot to fame playing a drug dealer in the hit series Euphoria. But his own struggle with addiction after suffering an ankle injury and losing his dad to cancer made him vulnerable.

He was found to have died of an accidental overdose of a cocktail of drugs, including fentanyl.

Art as propaganda

Chavez’s eyes still gaze from walls across Caracas. So too do the eyes of other figures, like Maduro and independence leader Simon Bolivar. Some images are faded. Others are accompanied by slogans like “To doubt is treason”.

Forastero has worked on government projects, including under Rodriguez. But he is critical of some of the newer images. He remembers a time when he painted murals of Chavez playing with children or riding a bicycle, not slogans.

“When Chavez was alive, people painted Chavez because we loved him very much. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

In recent decades, he argues that Venezuela’s public art has fallen increasingly under government control, with murals commissioned to carry explicitly political messages.

“Muralism is a story told on a wall,” Forastero said. “What we really see on the walls now are propaganda posters. I’m a chavista, and I’m disgusted by it.”

Still, the removal of the artwork is another form of propaganda, in Forastero’s eyes. He believes the Rodriguez government is seeking to project a more “neutral” appearance to better appeal to the US.

He also accuses Rodriguez of abandoning ideals key to the chavismo movement: namely, anti-imperialism and revolution. He pointed to the US’s role in shaping Venezuelan policy.

“The United States is forcing our government to behave this way,” Forastero said.

Rafael Araujo, a Venezuelan activist, has a different view of the changing landscape.

To him, there was something “jarring” about seeing chavista figures plastered across city walls, especially the leaders who have caused the country so much pain.

During their time in power, Chavez and Maduro both faced allegations of overseeing human rights abuses, including through the violent suppression of dissent. Venezuela’s last two presidential elections have been widely denounced as illegitimate.

Known in Caracas as Senor Papagayo, Araujo has used colourful, handmade kites to protest against government violence and economic policy.

He sees the Chavez murals as a form of oppression, an ever-visible reminder of a repressive government apparatus.

His kites are a way of sending a different message. His favourite carries aloft a single word: “Freedom”.

“Freedom is what all countries need. Democracy is the most balanced system a citizen can live under,” Araujo said.

Fort Portal, Uganda – When King Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV of Tooro was buried on September 12, the ceremony unfolded under the shadow of a bitter dispute over who should succeed him.

Prince Edward Rukidi Kijanangoma, a 56-year-old news anchor and editor at Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, had been selected by the royal clan to succeed Oyo. During the burial at the Karambi Royal Tombs in Fort Portal, he formally assumed power by casting nine coffee berries into the king’s grave, part of the traditional handover ritual.

But the succession remains contested.

Oyo’s mother, Queen Mother Best Kemigisa, and his sister, Princess Ruth Komuntale, have opposed Kijanangoma’s selection, saying the late king’s will named a son as his heir.

Oyo never married and was not publicly known to have children. After his death, Tooro’s Prime Minister Calvin Armstrong Rwomiire Akiiki announced that the king had left a son whose identity would be revealed at an appropriate time. The child has not been publicly identified.

Oyo’s family says a 2022 will named a son whom he described as his lawfully recognised biological son as heir to the throne. But Babiito clan elders, who are responsible for guarding the Tooro royal lineage, determining succession and safeguarding the kingdom’s traditions, say Oyo had not introduced the child through the customary process and instead backed Kijanangoma as his successor.

“The will is not a determinant of who is supposed to be a king; it is a document that expresses one’s wish,” said Reverend Father Charles Oyo, a Babiito clan elder. “The Musuuga [Babiito clan leader] is above the will.”

Princess Komuntale has accused the elders of trying to take over the throne.

“King Oyo was a very peaceful man, a very humble man,” she said. “I just don’t want these evil vultures to come and steal what he worked so hard for. I continue to stand with my brother.”

The dispute has divided opinion over who should be regarded as Oyo’s legitimate successor. The Ugandan government also became involved in talks aimed at resolving the dispute before the burial.

The child king

Oyo’s own path to the throne began when he was just three years old.

He became king in 1995 after the death of his father, Patrick David Matthew Kaboyo Olimi III, and was recognised as the world’s youngest reigning monarch.

As a child, Oyo was homeschooled, with the palace serving as his classroom. When he later joined primary school, childhood friends remember him as a kind and warm person.

During school holidays, he sometimes sneaked out of the family’s private residence in Buziga, Kampala, to play football in the neighbourhood.

Martin Odong, a radio journalist and childhood friend, remembers him as “friendly, social and compassionate”.

Oyo would stop football games to check on an injured player, regardless of which side they were playing for, Odong said.

His love of football continued into adulthood. He promoted local tournaments, including the Tooro Kingdom MTN Masaza Cup, which was suspended as his health deteriorated.

Oyo died on August 27, aged 34, in the United States while receiving cancer treatment. His body was returned to Uganda for nine days of mourning before his burial at the Karambi Royal Tombs, which coincided with Empango, the anniversary of his coronation.

At St John’s Cathedral, Queen Mother Best Kemigisa remembered her son as someone who had always protected her.

“He was my shield who always stood for me,” she said.

She recalled praying for his life when she was in hospital.

“When I was in the hospital, I said, ‘God, please leave my son alone; take me first,’” she said. “He [God] decided to take him [King Oyo] first. I said, ‘Why? Because he was closer to You than me.’”

Princess Komuntale described her brother as a “funny person” who “always brightened my day”.

Although he was younger than her, she said, he often behaved like the older sibling and protected her and their mother after their father “left to be with the Lord”.

Father Charles Oyo remembered him as a “handsome king who loved his kingdom so much”.

He said Oyo died just as he was “beginning to demonstrate his abilities and capacity as a king”.

A king without political power

Uganda is a constitutional republic, and its traditional kings have no formal political authority. But the kingdoms retain cultural influence and command loyalty among many of their communities.

Uganda abolished its traditional kingdoms in 1967. They were restored in 1993 under President Yoweri Museveni.

Oyo was guided by regents while he was a child and took on the full responsibilities of the monarchy as an adult.

His unusual position meant he met presidents, royalty and other world leaders from a young age. Among them was former South African President Nelson Mandela, who reportedly wanted to meet the young king during a visit to Uganda. Oyo, however, was more interested in playing with his toys behind the VIP tent.

As an adult, he used the platform of the throne to promote issues beyond the kingdom.

In 2020, he climbed the Rwenzori Mountains to draw attention to climate change and the retreat of the glaciers there.

He also supported a campaign to plant 10 million trees across Tooro over five years.

He promoted healthy living and took part in cancer awareness runs. Komuntale called him her “best workout partner”.

Before his death, Oyo had allocated land and begun fundraising for a paediatric hospital in Kyenjojo district. Clan elders have since appealed to the government to complete the project and establish a specialised cancer facility and an international stadium in his memory.

His final months

Oyo’s illness was kept largely private.

According to his sister, he began experiencing pain in his back and rib cage last year. The family initially thought it might be linked to strenuous exercise or ulcers.

He later travelled to Kenya, where he was diagnosed with angiosarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer, before travelling to Germany for treatment and eventually to the US.

“He told us to keep it private, and we respected that,” Komuntale said.

She said that shortly before his death, Oyo spoke to key workers in Uganda about returning home. He wanted to celebrate Empango, the anniversary of his coronation, with his people.

He never made it home.

For Komuntale, the king remained her younger brother even after he became one of Africa’s most recognisable traditional rulers.

She remembered playing dodgeball with him and his love for his three dogs.

“Even though you were crowned a king, you were still a kid who loved to play,” she said.

“I will keep your legacy, what you loved, and we will talk about you every day.”

Gaza City, Gaza Strip – For more than four hours, Hajj Rabhi al-Fairi, 79, has been standing outside his home in Gaza City with his children and neighbours waiting their turn to use a small generator.

The generator’s owner pours in the fuel, starts a timer and switches on the machine.

Each family gets a few minutes to operate a pump that pushes water up to a storage tank on the roof, before the generator moves on to the next house.

For al-Fairi and his neighbours, this is how they get water.

“We have an old water pump, but there is no electricity to run it. We have to rent a generator,” al-Fairi tells Al Jazeera.

Since the family returned to their home in October 2025, after fleeing a month earlier during Israel’s assault on their neighbourhood, the generator has become a familiar sight on the streets of Nassr.

When it arrives, residents gather around it, each carrying a jerrycan of diesel to operate the machine, which they have to pay for themselves.

“We came back and found the place a tragedy,” he says.

Their neighbourhood and home were badly damaged from years of Israeli bombing, with no municipal electricity or water supplies functioning. The family depends on an old pump – but without electricity, it cannot bring water up to the rooftop tank.

Each family needs only about seven or eight minutes to fill up their tanks, but with the number of flats in their building, the generator needs to be rented for about an hour.

The cost has also risen. Al-Rabhi says families used to pay about 80 to 90 shekels ($26-30) to rent a generator for an hour. At different times, the price has risen to about 100 or 120 shekels ($33-40) an hour, excluding the cost of diesel.

A generator on wheels

Khalil Abu Ouda, 39, takes a machine mounted on a horse-driven cart from one house to another. The generator’s metal body is covered in black soot and grease, and white smoke rises from the engine when it operates.

At each house, Abu Ouda connects long electrical cables to the water pump. The cables stretch across the street as neighbours gather around the machine to wait their turn.

“Go on, switch it on,” someone calls.

For Abu Ouda, this machine is both a service for the neighbourhood and an essential source of income for his family.

He says there are very few small, mobile generators, like his, left in working condition in Gaza. Many have broken down, while spare parts are difficult to find or too expensive to source due to Israel’s siege.

Mechanics are also expensive to hire, while fuel and engine oil are increasingly scarce and costly.

“If I could, I would lower the price as much as possible,” he says.

At the same time, demand has never been higher.

“People are under pressure and they need water. If I stayed working until morning, I would keep working,” Abu Ouda says.

To cope with the demand, he often works for 10 to 12 hours a day, putting pressure on himself and the machine.

“But this is our livelihood. There is no alternative,” he said.

When the home stops providing

With most Palestinians in Gaza having no home or losing their possessions due to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, they have to rent or hire items or services for the most basic household chores.

This includes washing clothes, something once done at home but now impossible to do with no power.

Earlier in the war, Abeer Ghorab, 52, used to wash everything herself. Now she gathers clothes from her tent and takes them to a nearby laundry, where they can be washed and dried in far less time and with less effort.

“When these laundries started opening, they gave us some relief,” Ghorab said.

The difference is particularly important in winter, when heavy clothes, blankets and bedding can take time to dry.

“In winter, the tracksuits are heavy. They need another day to dry,” she said. “When I bring them here, they wash and dry them for me, and I get them back clean and dry. That really helps.”

But due to a limited income, Ghorab cannot afford to use this laundry service every day.

Before the war, Ghorab had a washing machine, a refrigerator and regular electricity at home.

“Things we once took for granted have become dreams. Now we have to pay for every little thing we used to do at home.”

The loss of the household

Across Gaza, the infrastructure that once allowed families to carry out everyday tasks at home has been severely disrupted.

A recent United Nations assessment found that 91 percent of surveyed households experienced moderate-to-high water shortages in early August.

A separate damage assessment by the authority found that 107,941 of the 178,632 housing units inspected – about 60 percent – were severely damaged, destroyed or otherwise considered uninhabitable.

Water systems, electricity, sanitation and household appliances, which families relied on to manage daily life, have also been disrupted.

For families living in damaged homes, tents or makeshift shelters, everyday tasks must be paid for.

A laundry adapting to shortages

Fadi Abu Shawarb, 23, has worked at his family’s al-Hurriya laundry for six years.

Before the war, the business relied on large, 50kg (110lb) washing machines for carpets, blankets and other heavy loads. But due to the high cost of operation, these machines are far too expensive to run.

“We started replacing the 50kg machines with 25kg ones because there is not enough electricity,” Fadi says. “There are no solar panels, no reliable power, and the generators are always breaking down.”

Most of his customers are displaced families who lack electricity, water or washing machines at home.

The laundry now handles about 20 to 30 loads a day, with clothes-washing among the most in-demand services.

A load costs six shekels ($2) when the laundry can use solar power and 12 shekels ($4) when it relies on a generator.

But even that is hard for people to pay. “People’s situation is difficult,” he says.

For Ghorab, the laundry is only one of the many expenses she now has to budget for.

“I feel like I’m going through a difficult time,” she says. “I have to pay for every little thing in my day, and with how difficult things are, it’s hard to keep up with everything.”

On Tuesday morning, 12-year-old Sundus al-Hamamdeh left her home in the Masafer Yatta village of Khirbet al-Fakhit, and went to school.

It was the third day of the new school year in the occupied West Bank.

But when the sixth-grade student at al-Fakhit Secondary School returned from her classes, the house she had left behind was gone.

Israeli forces had carried out a large-scale demolition operation in Khirbet al-Fakhit, destroying homes, livestock shelters, water infrastructure, and solar-power installations.

For al-Hamamdeh, her house was more than four walls and a roof. It was her safe space, the place she came back to every day.

For children in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, the spectre of demolition is always present.

Much of Masafer Yatta lies in Area C of the West Bank, where Israel has control over planning and construction. Israeli authorities justifies the demolition orders by saying that the structures were built without permits; Palestinians, backed by the United Nations, note that such permits are nearly impossible for them to obtain.

And it’s not just their homes that are under threat, but their schools.

On August 4, Israeli forces surrounded Shaab al-Butum school, according to Bassam Jabr, the director-general of education in Masafer Yatta.

An Israeli military bulldozer then demolished two rooms used by teachers and administrators, and a storage room.

The UN independently documented the demolition of the rooms, saying Israeli authorities had cited the lack of an Israeli-issued building permit.

Things could still get worse; the main school building remains under a demolition order.

Focus of attacks

Established in 2015, the school serves about 60 students from kindergarten through 11th grade. Its remote location makes transferring students to other schools particularly difficult, Jabr said.

Education officials have appealed to Israeli courts, and called on the United Nations and foreign governments to intervene.

But the schools remain under threat. Even as the Israeli military and settlers’ pogroms against Palestinians continue across the West Bank, Masafer Yatta is especially targeted.

The remote communities there have little ability to defend themselves and conditions are harsh. In addition, the Israeli military has designated large parts of the area a military firing zone, another justification for forcing out the Palestinian population.

Masafer Yatta’s schools are a central part of the effort to keep Palestinians here – ensuring that families do not have to travel far for their children to be educated. Palestinians argue that is why the schools have been particularly targeted.

Intisar Omar Abu Sabha, an administrative director at the Masafer Yatta Directorate of Education, says schools in the communities of Zif, ar-Rifaiyah, Umm Qussa, Umm al-Kheir, Jinba, Shaab al-Butum, Khirbet al-Daba, and al-Majaz are among those facing demolition orders.

In addition to the threats to their schools, students and teachers also have to navigate road closures, checkpoints, and the presence of settlers to reach their classrooms.

Abu Sabha said schools have also faced damage and settler incursions or harassment in and around their grounds. She describes a cycle in which children risk losing both their homes and their schools.

“Imagine a student who is at school, then returns home and finds their home demolished … and comes back the next day to find their school demolished,” she said.

Yasmeen Sallaq, a Palestinian lawyer, says the threat to the Masafer Yatta schools directly undermines children’s right to education.

But Sallaq says that Israeli restrictions on movement, military raids, arrests, displacement, and attacks affecting students and education workers make that right increasingly difficult to exercise.

“We face the demolition of schools every day, making the continuation of the educational process almost impossible,” Sallaq said.

‘The only outlet’

At Zif Secondary School for Girls, headteacher Hanaa al-Salameen says about 250 students attend the school.

It first received a demolition notice in 2016. Years of legal proceedings followed, but an appeal against demolition was dismissed this year, with efforts continuing to obtain an interim injunction.

The uncertainty has already taken a toll. Some girls are experiencing fear and anxiety, while others have transferred to different schools, al-Salameen said.

“The school is not just a place for education,” she said. “This school is the students’ only outlet.”

She fears the school’s demolition could push some girls out of education altogether if alternative schools are too far away or require them to travel along unsafe roads.

At Zif, 10th-grade student Rabiha Yousef Jibril described the school’s importance.

“I am growing up in this school, and my dreams are growing with me day by day,” Jibril said, adding that while students fear its demolition, they insist they will continue to attend.

“Even if they demolish the school, we will continue to study, even under the trees,” she said. “Even if they confiscate the books, we will keep them in our hearts, as well as our minds.”

The rapid Houthi advance down Yemen’s Red Sea coast this week is an astonishing military victory, but not quite the game-changer it is being portrayed as.

The group has been able to threaten the vitally important shipping route, but they have been doing so since 2023. This new victory consolidates that control, proving that Yemen’s government is not currently in a position to defeat them.

The prior Houthi control over the northern section of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, including the major port city of Hodeidah, has allowed the Iran-allied rebel group, for years, to first attack shipping linked to Israel and the United States – and then, in recent months, Saudi Arabian-linked vessels.

That control also damaged the global economy. Long before the US war with Iran and the transformation of the Strait of Hormuz into a tool to throttle international trade, Houthi attacks around Yemen had turned Bab al-Mandeb into a similar weapon, and led to bombing campaigns against the Houthis by the US, the United Kingdom, and Israel.

Houthi officials themselves have emphasised this, with one leading official, Abdulqader al-Murtada, saying earlier this week that the group did “not need control over Bab al-Mandeb, for the blockade [on Saudi ships] is already in place”. Al-Murtada could point Saudi ships that have avoided Bab al-Mandeb since the Houthis began attacking them in July, even before their latest progress.

However, the Houthi lightning advance makes it even easier for the group to disrupt shipping. They now have access to the Red Sea’s narrow entry point and several islands in it, allowing them to use shorter-range weapons and more easily reach vessels they want to attack and board, as well as potentially using sea mines to further restrict shipping.

Not going away

The increase in the Houthi ability to target shipping – even with the caveats outlined above – does have an impact on market sentiment. Oil prices have increased as traders price in the ability for Iran and its allies to disrupt shipping in Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, the two maritime chokepoints of the southern Arabian Peninsula.

However, the consequences of this advance are not limited to the increased ability of the Houthis to attack shipping, but to the increasing reality that the Houthi problem on the Red Sea is not going away.

For months, after Saudi Arabia backed a Yemeni government campaign against southern Yemeni separatist forces earlier this year, the mood had shifted in the country’s anti-Houthi camp.

The perception was that the Yemeni government, led by the Presidential Leadership Council, had finally gotten its act together. President Rashad al-Alimi repeatedly spoke of a unified military chain of command, allowing the military to overcome the divisions blamed for its inability to defeat the Houthis.

Yemeni and Saudi officials had hinted at an anti-Houthi campaign all year. The Red Sea coastline was a possible location: the largely flat geography suited the government, allowing Saudi Arabia to effectively use its air power; much of the population is not made up of the Houthis’ traditional support base; and prior Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping meant that there would likely be international buy-in for such a campaign.

The seizure of the Red Sea coastline has broken all of those narratives.

The momentum the Yemeni government thought it had, even at the start of this week when it claimed advances in al-Jawf, to the east of the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, is now gone.

After months of projecting unity, Yemen’s anti-Houthi camp is once again turning on itself, trading accusations of blame for the defeat.

Saudi dilemma

The message the Houthis have for Saudi Arabia is clear: ‘Your partners in Yemen can’t defeat us.’

Therefore, the potential Houthi argument is that Saudi Arabia has to make a deal with them and agree to their terms, including Riyadh funding public sector salaries, access to income from Yemen’s oil and gas reserves, and no restrictions on flights and shipping to Houthi-controlled ports.

The Houthis have an incentive to lock in their gains and raise the cost of escalation before Saudi-backed Yemeni forces can reorganise.

Their attacks on Saudi Arabia, escalating in the past week, have been damaging, and the group is promising more if Riyadh increases its military support for the Yemeni government.

The risk of any such intervention is clearly there for Saudi Arabia. But so is the risk of inaction. The Houthis have repeatedly demanded more concessions when they were in positions of strength.

With the Yemen war unresolved, the Houthis may decide to escalate again in the future, even if a deal is agreed now.

And so, policymakers in Riyadh could determine that it makes more sense to make a concerted effort to deal with the problem head-on now, rather than allow it to fester into the future.

SHE’S in her eighth decade but Chaka Khan has no intention of slowing down. 

In fact, the legendary singer, 73, is about to release her 13th studio album, a record she describes as “ageless music”. 

Called Chakzilla, she believes it can connect with “everybody, every age”. 

And after 50-plus years of making music, when asked about her proudest achievements, the Grammy-winning star says: “My legacy is that I stayed alive and that I’m still here. That’s a big deal.” 

She is chatting from her home in Georgia where she is resting on her 80-acre farm before she heads back to the UK.  

Tomorrow she headlines Radio 2 In The Park in Stirling, a week before the release of her new album, her first in seven years. 

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“I didn’t plan it, or anything like that,” she says. “It just happened. I was just working — you know, working hard with my band. 

“We were doing a lot of gigs, and that’s always fun. Everybody’s happy because they’re getting paid. And in that time, it just so happened that I met Sia.” 

Sia is the Australian singer-songwriter behind huge hits such as Titanium and Unstoppable, who Khan met through her sister and manager Tammy McCrary. McCrary is a huge fan of Sia, who became central to the album’s creation. 

“I didn’t have to work hard at all,” says Khan. “It was just easy for me and for her. She loves to write poetry and she’s a brilliant lyricist. 

“I haven’t met anyone like her ever. I’m just happy that she’s my goddaughter now.” 

The pair clicked so well creatively, they became family after Sia asked her to be her godmother and Khan agreed. 

“I’m just happy that we’re together and that we’re part of each other’s life,” says Khan. “I’m really, really blessed.” 

And it was this close relationship that started Chakzilla, with Sia bringing in celebrated producer Greg Kurstin to shape the album’s sound. 

Khan says: “Greg did some writing with Sia and when she played these songs to me, it was just the most beautiful thing. I mean, she gets me. She knows me. 

“And Tammy and I listened to the album a lot in the car. We keep playing it over and over again. We don’t get tired of it. 

“When I am not tired of listening to my own music, that says a great deal because I often get tired quickly. That’s deep. That’s a beautiful thing.  

“It’s fun for me to sing. All the songs are so good. My background singers and my band feel the same way. Everybody loves it. We’re feeling really special about this. 

“So, I think people are going to feel the same way and they’re going to discover songs they like. 

“They’re very sincere songs and very true about me. Heart Of Gold is the sweetest song and Dreamy Stuff is really true about me too. Curious Subject is another good one — because I am. That’s what my family is always saying about me.” 

That sense of fun also runs through the album’s title, Chakzilla, inspired by Khan’s lifelong love of monster movies.  

“I’ve loved horror and monster films my whole life,” she says. “I’ve been watching Godzilla and Mothra (the giant moth-like creature from the Japanese Godzilla films) since I was a little girl and I never got tired of them.  

“I loved the fact there were good monsters and bad ones — the ones that tore things up and the ones that fixed things. 

“So, I thought, ‘OK, I could be the Zilla that comes and fixes everything up. A positive monster, because I’m not a curlicue, I’m not a sweetie pie, so it works for me. 

“Chakzilla is something I really love.” 

The new record is packed with collaborations. The sultry Cool U Down sees Sia guest, while the joyous Boogie’s In My Soul has Snoop Dogg. The funky Bring The Party features Lenny Kravitz on guitars and vocals. 

“Sia told me she wanted to write a song called Boogie’s In My Soul and I thought, ‘Oh that sounds horrible’,” Khan says honestly.  

“Then I heard what she had in mind and thought, ‘This is brilliant’. She said, ‘All we need is a good rapper’. And I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I know just the guy’.  

“I really admire Snoop. He’s so smart and such a great guy, so it was perfect. And the words are brilliant. She says, ‘Show the world your light. Show the world of joy’. 

“I thought, ‘Yes, right on, sis’. It’s beautiful. It’s like old school.” 

Snoop opens the track with a playful nod to Khan’s 1984 Prince-penned hit I Feel For You, echoing Grandmaster Melle Mel’s famous “Chaka Khan” chant. 

Khan says: “Yeah, it sounds great, even though I’m so sick of that song. But it fits. It fits.  

“I’m just glad he’s not saying ‘Chaka, Chaka, Chaka, Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan’, like the start of that record.” 

Straight-talking with a larger-than-life personality, Khan is refreshingly honest when asked whether it was fun making the video with the rapper. 

“No, I worked my ass off. Let me tell you that thing went on until the night.” 

Working with old friend Lenny Kravitz on Bring The Party was long overdue, she says, as he is someone who shares much of her outlook on life.  

“I’ve known Lenny for many years,” says Khan. “I have friends, but I don’t really have friendships in the way I’d like to because of the life I lead. 

“He pulled up some songs from an album he did over 20 years ago. It was some old rock and it was brilliant, and I sang on some of that old stuff with him. I guess he’s going to bring some of it into the future now. 

“So, he then played guitar and sang with me on this cut. It was great to bring in some friends that I love and do good work. 

“And Lenny lives a lot like I do. If I wanted to go and hang out with him, it would be easy and vice versa. We live in similar ways. 

“He’s living on an island (Kravitz, lives part of the year on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera), growing beautiful plants and food, with a great studio in the middle of it all. 

“He’s moved, like I am, by being in the real world and loving what God has put here for us.” Around four years ago, Khan left California for Georgia, where her grandma was from and where she lives a very different life. 

She says: “I came back to Earth, to the trees and lakes and plants, to real living, with no sirens and craziness around me. It’s brilliant. 

“I can look at the sky every morning when I wake up. I look at my lake every day, my animals, and I’m eating right. 

“My sister and I are in the middle of opening a plant-based restaurant, and I’m growing my own food. I’ve got greenhouses and I’m learning how to live on the planet and from the planet, rather than having to go to stores and buy crap.” 

Georgia has given Khan space, peace and proper time with her family.  

“I really am enjoying it,” she tells me. “I’ve never felt so happy to come home off the road before. 

“Touring is hard work. It always has been. But now I come home, close the gate and it’s really nice. My family can come and stay for a week or two and we get proper quality time together. 

“I just spent a whole month with all my grandchildren and great-grands. They wore me the hell out but I had the best time ever.” 

Last year Khan joined soul legends Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Stephanie Mills for the historic Queens tour, which had extra dates in May this year. 

“It was an amazing feat that we finished it,” says Khan. “I took it on because I thought, ‘This is a one-time thing — Gladys, Patti, Stephanie and myself. A one-off. 

“It was an amazing show. It was tough because we were working like back in the day.  

“Stevie Wonder came to the opening night and sang with me, which was lovely. 

“We were really cool. Nobody was tripping, there was no drama. It was beautiful. And between the four of us, you could imagine how diverse the audience was. I saw families, I saw men bringing their sons. It was really special.”  

Earlier this year, I’m Every Woman — The Chaka Khan Musical opened in London starring Alexandra Burke as Khan.  

Did Burke nail the role? 

“What could Alexandra do wrong? She’s amazing. She’s really something. I didn’t realise she was already such a big star. She’s no joke. 

“I was amazed by her staying power. She and the whole cast had stamina like you’ve never seen.  

“Nia Hill, who wrote the book for the show, is an old friend. She knows me inside out. We’ve had very deep conversations, and she’s been there for me through some really hard knocks.  

“She would ask me which songs we should use, and I suggested songs that people don’t often get to hear. 

“That’s what I’m trying to do now, bring back songs I did years and years ago that I still love. 

“I’m going to do a show with that old stuff. Young kids today are so savvy, they know a good song when they hear one.” 

Khan’s admiration for younger generations also connects back to her own political awakening. 

As a teenager in Chicago, she was involved with the Black Panther Party and says the battles facing young people today feel both familiar and far broader.  

She says: “It was crazy then too, but in a different way. With the Panthers, the focus was mostly on fundamental racism. Today, it’s that and so much more that these kids are dealing with. My heart goes out to them because they’re not afraid. They’re fearless, beautiful beings and they get it. They understand what’s right and what’s wrong.  

“I’m really happy about young people today. I love that they’re not afraid, because fear will tear it all down.” 

With our time up, Khan says how much she is ready to return to the UK this weekend. 

“I love Scotland and love the big shows, I can’t wait. I’m going to play the favourites. Absolutely.  

“It’s important to keep the music going. I’m still here. Yeah, in every way.  

“We lost Prince, and the big stars like Aretha and Whitney. 

“There are not a lot of those musicians and artists like that any more. So, I’m enjoying that I’m still making new music and playing shows. 

“I’m up for the challenge. Absolutely, that’s how I live. That’s me. 

“I love that line, ‘I may be small, but I’ve got this’. 

“It doesn’t matter what size you are, it’s what you’ve got.” 

•  Chaka Khan headlines Radio 2 In The Park on Saturday night and the set will be broadcast on BBC iPlayer and Radio 2, and at 10pm on BBC Two. The album Chakzilla is released on September 18. 

CHAKA KHAN 

Chakzilla 

★★★★☆

*Some interviewees asked that their surnames be withheld because of the political nature of the interviews.

Malmo, Sweden – A very Swedish political tradition is playing out in Malmo, the country’s third-largest city. Rows of twee campaign booths, known as “election cottages”, are packed into a corner of the central square.

National polls have Sunday’s election on a knife-edge, with the centre-left opposition bloc led by the Social Democrats just a few percentage points ahead of the right-wing group – a gap that has tightened over the past month.

In the middle of the row, representatives of the Left Party and the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD), bitter rivals from opposite ends of the political spectrum, campaign a metre apart.

Migration is a key election issue. Multicultural Malmo, with more than a third of the city’s 368,000 residents born outside Sweden, has become the centre of the debate.

For the right, the city represents failures of integration, a cautionary tale it says of what happens when immigration goes unchecked. Beyond Sweden, Malmo draws disproportionate interest.

In 2017, the populist English politician Nigel Farage branded it the “rape capital of Europe”, a claim a leading Swedish criminologist dismissed as nonsense, while Germany’s far-right AfD has used it in its narratives about the dangers of immigration.

Strength in diversity

In the city’s town hall, a grand building with a Dutch Renaissance-style facade, Anfal Mahdi, an opposition councillor in Malmo for the Left Party, sits amid the splendour of green velvet chairs, historical oil paintings and royal portraits.

Right-wing politicians ignore the socioeconomic challenges of living in the areas built under Sweden’s “Million Programme”, she said, referring to an ambitious scheme to build one million new homes between 1965 and 1974.

It began as a social housing initiative for working-class Swedish families. In later decades, as many of those families moved out, the apartments were allocated to migrant and refugee newcomers.

Observers say what began as a utopian welfare project gradually became the physical framework of today’s segregated suburbs.

Mahdi, whose family fled Iraq after the Gulf War, grew up in one of these areas during cuts to the welfare state that had defined modern Sweden, as public spending tightened after its early-1990s economic crisis.

But what they lacked in welfare, they made up for in diversity, she said.

“I had friends from Bosnia, Palestine, Somalia and when we grew up we did not have much, but we leant on each other,” she said.

The city’s most famous son, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, grew up in Rosengard, a Million Programme estate on Malmo’s eastern side that police still classify as a “particularly vulnerable area”. The famous footballer regularly credits the area for shaping the skill and confidence that defined his career.

“It’s often in these neighbourhoods that people can shine; there is a sense of community that doesn’t exist elsewhere,” said Adam*, a 20-year-old florist who also grew up in one of the areas Sweden officially labels “vulnerable”.

He rejects the stereotypes associated with Malmo, saying young people here are far more concerned with the cost of living, finding work and the everyday pressures of getting by.

Mahdi shared this sentiment, saying “wallet politics”, relating to healthcare and unemployment, are central issues for all sections of society.

Healthcare tops voters’ concerns nationally, while unemployment in Malmo, at around 11 percent, is among the highest of any Swedish municipality.

But not everyone sees it that way.

Lena, a 78-year-old campaigner for the Moderate Party, which leads the right-wing bloc, believes integration along with schooling are taking centre stage. At the last election cycle, it was care for the elderly, she said.

Jacob, a 19-year-old resident who was speaking to representatives of various parties, said a taboo has been broken with more young people turning right, including towards the SD, now polling as Sweden’s second-largest party.

The far-right party with neo-Nazi roots could enter government for the first time if the right-wing bloc wins: Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has promised cabinet posts, including the migration portfolio.

‘Divisive politics’

Sara, a woman in her twenties of Palestinian heritage, said “divisive politics” are normal now. The rhetoric around immigration and Islam in particular has left her feeling some “don’t want integration or even assimilation, they just want you to leave”.

Under the current right-wing government, many teenagers who grew up in Sweden with their families were ordered to leave on turning 18 while their parents were allowed to stay. The government paused the separation in March after a public outcry and moved to reform in June.

In February, the Swedish Migration Agency ordered an eight-month-old boy born in the country, Emanuel, to be deported alone to Iran while the rest of his family kept their permits.

The system concerns Binto Drammeh, whose father is of Gambian heritage.

“Our uncle was made to leave as he didn’t meet the income threshold,” she told Al Jazeera.

The government has repeatedly raised the salary threshold for work permits, most recently in June, when it increased from 80 to 90 percent of the Swedish median wage.

Failing to meet it could ultimately lead to a deportation order.

Criminal networks

Crime is another main election issue.

With a population of 10.6 million, Sweden has one of Europe’s highest rates of deadly gun violence, even though lethal violence fell last year to its lowest level since 2012.

Among the challenges, criminal networks are recruiting children as young as 12 to transport weapons, sell drugs and carry out contract killings. In 2024, Danish gangs were found to be hiring Swedish teenagers to carry out shootings and bombings.

How to tackle the problem divides the parties.

The right prioritises punishment and deterrence, while the left and centre-left emphasise tackling root socioeconomic causes, rehabilitation and preventive social work. The lines are not always clean, however: the Social Democrats backed lowering the age of criminal responsibility, while the Left, Green and Centre parties voted against it.

TikTok politics

Young voters appear more engaged than at the last election.

Lena of the Moderate Party said: “I haven’t met one person who said they won’t vote,” while Mahdi said the Palestine issue has had a galvanising effect.

“Right now, all the posts on my TikTok page are from party accounts; they got a lot of likes and views and many videos are trending,” said Jacob, the 19-year-old resident.

Yet some are undecided about whom to vote for, partly because of Sweden’s unusual bloc system. Built on the idea of consensus, it means a vote for one party’s policies may be diluted in coalition, or are hard to push through.

“I will be honest, I have not voted yet,” Adam said, as he looked out at the array of campaign booths next to his flower stand. “Young people are interested in politics, but many of us think that no matter who comes, nothing will really change.”

THEY’RE known for their sexy outfits and saucy scenes, but Bond Girls are just as iconic as 007 himself.

And we may not have long before a new bevvy of beauties turn heads, as the hunt for the next James Bond may now be over.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today show, 007 writer Steven Knight was asked whether he had written the film with the chosen actor in mind or based on what he already knew about the character.

He replied that it was “a bit of both”, seemingly confirming that an actor had been picked.

The next Bond will fill the shoes of Daniel Craig, who last played the secret agent in 2021’s No Time to Die.

Slow Horses actor Jack Lowden remains one of the frontrunners for the coveted role, while a host of other stars have been linked to the part since Craig’s departure.

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As fans know, the world’s slickest spy is rarely seen without a glamorous Bond Girl – or three – in tow, but no news has yet been released on who could be in the running. 

Many of the show’s most iconic moments centre around 007’s striking counterparts – and here, we look back at some of the original Bond Girls, and where they are now…

Ursula Andress – Dr. No – 1962

Ursula Andress launched the archetype of the Bond Girl as Honey Ryder in 1962’s Dr. No, alongside Sean Connery.

The image of her emerging from the ocean in a white bikini with a knife remains one of the franchise’s most defining moments. 

Ursula went on to pose nude for Playboy before starring with Elvis Presley in 1963’s Fun in Acapulco, with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas, and with Laurence Olivier and Harry Hamlin – the father of her son Dimitri – in 1981’s Clash of the Titans.

After starring in films throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she gradually retired from acting to focus on her art collection and private life. 

Ursula, 90, said she felt “such pain” on hearing the news of Connery’s death in 2020 – saying they had “perfect chemistry” on screen.

The actress, who only married once – to American actor John Derek from 1957 until their divorce in 1966 – said: “He was a great man, today men like that just don’t exist, they are all too narcissistic, too taken with themselves.

”Today finding someone like Sean is very difficult. He was a great friend and a fabulous actor.”

Earlier this year, Italian authorities seized £17.3million worth of assets in Tuscany, including property, vineyards and olive groves, which had allegedly been bought with money embezzled from Ursula.

The former Bond Girl had filed a complaint in her native Switzerland alleging a “progressive and significant depletion of her assets” by individuals charged with managing her finances, Italy’s financial crimes police said in a statement.

Shirley Eaton – Goldfinger – 1964

Brit actress Shirley was hailed as the ultimate sex symbol after suffering the most famous Bond girl fate in the franchise, in 1964’s Goldfinger.

Her character, Jill Masterson, was murdered by being covered in gold paint from head to toe –  causing “skin suffocation.”

The iconic scene sparked a rumour she had died in filming, and she even appeared on a 2003 TV show to dispel the myth.

In fact the golden girl, now 89, gave up her career to bring up two children, Grant and Jason, with husband Colin Rowe.

Jane Seymour – Live and Let Die – 1973

For a character named Solitaire, Jane Seymour’s Bond Girl spends little time alone after meeting 007 and ending up in his bed in Live and Let Die.

A voodoo medium whose psychic powers depend on her virginity, she is seduced by Roger Moore’s Bond and loses her unique gift in the process.

The British star, who recently turned 75, went on to star in East of Eden, the TV series Dr Quinn Medicine Woman and The War with Grandpa, with Robert de Niro.

Outside of acting, she has built a massive lifestyle brand, written self-help books, and launched significant charitable foundations. 

Jane has been married four times, and was left “beyond bankrupt” by property deals involving second husband David Flynn.

In 2018, the mum-of-four became the oldest woman to pose for Playboy, at the age of 67. 

The spread came 45 years after appearing in the magazine the year she did Bond, and she said she now feels sexier than ever.

Britt Ekland – The Man with the Golden Gun – 1974

Swedish Britt Ekland brought charisma and comedic timing to her role as MI6 operative Mary Goodnight in 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun opposite Roger Moore.

Needless to say her duties as Bond’s PA went beyond taking notes and keeping his diary – and a ‘good night’ was had by all.

Beyond 007, she was a regular fixture of 1970s pop culture, famous for her high-profile romances and busy film career.

She divorced comedian Peter Sellers, father to daughter Victoria in 1968, after a four-year marriage.

She went on to have a son with record producer Lou Adler and a high profile romance with Rod Stewart, which ended in 1977 after two years.

At 42, she married Stray Cats drummer Slim Jim Phantom, who was 23 at the time. They divorced in 1992.

Following Bond, she went on to star in the comedy Royal Flash and the 1989 movie Scandal, as well as a host of TV Miniseries, including Valley of the Dolls.

In 2010, she took part in I’m A Celebrity…, falling out with fainting campmate Gillian McKeith, and also appeared in The Real Marigold Hotel.

Britt, now 83, has also spoken candidly in recent years about “destroying her looks” with lip fillers in her 50s.

Barbara Bach – The Spy Who Loved Me – 1977

Barbara Bach broke the mold of the traditional damsel in distress by playing the formidable Soviet agent Anya Amasova in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.

Despite attempting to murder Bond on their first meeting, inevitably, the pair end up as lovers, and the film ends with them floating off to sea in an escape pod after defeating evil Russian Karl Stromberg at his secret sea base.

In real life, she did float off into the sunset with another British icon – The Beatles’ drummer Ringo Starr – after divorcing her first husband, who was an Italian count.

As well as starring in a handful of films, Barbara co-founded charity, the Lotus Foundation, alongside her husband, who she wed in 1981.

Since stepping out of the spotlight, Barbara, who is now 80, earned a degree in psychology and devoted her life to humanitarian work. 

Grace Jones – A View to a Kill – 1985

Singer Grace Jones turned the Bond universe on its head as the fierce, muscular, fashion-forward villain May Day in 1985’s A View to a Kill. 

In the Roger Moore film, she played the memorable henchwoman to villain Zorin.

Jamaica-born Grace was already a household name when she took the role in 1985.

She went on to release her iconic album Slave To The Rhythm the year after.

Grace, now 78, dated former bodyguard Dolph Lundgren and launched his acting career by getting him a role in the Bond film.

She has had one brief marriage – to Atila Altaunbay – and has a son by graphic designer Jean Paul Goude.

Not one to settle into retirement, she has maintained a legendary career as a music star and continues to tour and perform at music festivals.

Michelle Yeoh – Tomorrow Never Dies – 1997

With her martial arts skills and speed in a motorbike chase, Michelle Yeoh’s character Wai Lin certainly kept Pierce Brosnan on his toes in Tomorrow Never Dies.

Performing her own dangerous stunts, she redefined what an action heroine could be in a modern blockbuster. 

Her Bond turn opened doors to global stardom, leading to acclaimed roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians, Avatar, and recently, Wicked. 

In 2023, she made history by winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once. 

Michelle, 64, lives with former rally driver Jean Todt.

Halle Berry – Die Another Day – 2002

Starring as Jinx Johnson, opposite Pierce Brosnan’s suave spy, Halle spent a good deal of her time in a bikini and upped her fan base in the process.

But she wasn’t just a pretty face in 2002’s Die Another Day. 

Jinx was a trained assassin sent to kill a North Korean agent, and bedded Bond to get the information she needed to carry out her deadly task.

Before starring in Bond, she already had a Best Actress Oscar win under her belt, for Monster’s Ball in 2001.

She went on to play Storm in the X-Men movies, and appear in Moonfall and The Mothership.

Over the two decades since, she has built an expansive career as a Hollywood A-lister, action star, film producer, and director. 

In her personal life, Halle, 60, has been married three times and is now engaged to singer Van Hunt. 

In 2012, Halle went through a bitter custody battle with former partner Gabriel Aubry over their daughter, Nala, born in 2008.

She also has a son with third husband Olivier Martinez, although they separated in 2015, after two years of marriage.

In 2000, Halle pleaded no contest to charges of leaving the scene of a car accident in Hollywood, and was sentenced to three years’ probation, fined $13,500 and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

Earlier this year, the Oscar winner says she is having “the most amazing sex” with Van after her three divorces and is now with the “love of her life”.

Bettiah, India – Neyaz Miya was adjusting a kitchen handle. Mehadi Hassan was fixing a bracket for a bed.

They were at different construction sites – Miya in a half‑constructed home, a little higher up the hill, while Hassan was on the ground floor of Ganesh Hotel, closer to the Trishuli River that flowed through Syafrubesi, a bustling market town near the Nepal‑Tibet border, now wiped off the map by the August 26 flash floods.

More than 1,200 bodies have been recovered since then, at least 4,000 people remain missing, and more than 13,000 have been rescued.

“First came the terrifying loud sound. Then the ground trembled, and dark clouds descended upon us,” recalls 34‑year‑old Miya, who ran further up the hill with his phone and slippers that morning, five or six others running alongside him.

Hassan, lower on the slope, did not wait to reach for his slippers or his phone. He just ran, climbing a narrow, stair‑like path, up the hill, stopping only when he reached roughly 60 metres (200ft) above the road.

At some point, Miya and Hassan found each other. Around them were 60 to 70 other survivors who had also gathered high up on the hill.

A decade earlier, Miya had arrived in Syafrubesi as a carpenter. Three years later, he brought Hassan with him – both men from Bihar’s Bettiah district. Over the years, they built the town’s interiors – sofas, beds, almirahs, and kitchens for hotels and homes.

On that Wednesday morning, they watched all of that washed away. The multi‑storey hotels where they had worked – Red Panda, Garden Hotel, Buddha Hotel, Sunrise Hotel – were all swallowed by the flood.

“The town was gone in a blink,” Miya recounts, now sitting in his home in Turhapatti village of Bihar, India, just across the Nepal border. “There were only three kinds of people who survived that day: Those who were out of town, those who were at work and managed to run, and those who lived a little higher up the hill.”

Based on what he witnessed, Miya says only a few hundred people in Syafrubesi, a town that had a population of 2,271 in the 2011 census, likely survived.

Miya and Hasan are among them. Three of their close friends and colleagues, also migrant workers from Bihar, are not.

A workday like no other

When the floods reached Syafrubesi, the men were already at work: Their shifts began at seven in the morning.

“To start at seven, we would wake up at four or five,” Miya recalls. They would leave with empty stomachs and were fed tea with doughnuts or biscuits at the construction site by building owners. Their first break came at 11am, when they returned to the rented one‑room space (3,500 Nepali rupees or $23 a month) that housed five to seven migrants at a time.

On the morning of August 26, they left for work alongside 34‑year‑old Arman Ansari, 20‑year‑old Samir Ansari, and 52‑year‑old Mukhtar Ansari, all migrants from Miya’s Turhapatti village.

In the rented room, two teenage boys, Arman’s 14‑year‑old son, Salman Alam, and his friend Shibu Alam, 17, remained asleep. They had come a month earlier to visit the hills.

“My father had cooked meat bhaat (rice with meat),” Salman recounts. He was waiting for his father to return at 11am so they could eat together.

Arman, his father, was working beside Hassan on the ground floor, pasting sunmica onto the same bed. Samir and Mukhtar were on the top floor of the Full Moon Hotel.

When Hassan ran out of the under-construction building and up the hill, he believed Arman was behind him. But by the time Hassan and Miya met higher up, there was no sign of the other three: Arman, Samir and Mukhtar.

Miya and Hassan found the boys, Salman and Shibu, terrified, on the hill. “Salman was crying, howling and searching for his father,” Hassan said.

The flood, which came with a high speed, took half an hour to recede. Soon, helicopters started hovering above them, airlifting the critically injured.

The four of them – Miya, Hassan and the boys – walked down the hill on foot to search for the three missing in the debris. They found nothing but sludge. Miya’s furniture-cutting tools and machines, worth 80,000 Nepali rupees ($530), were buried in the debris.

When they got back to their room, perched high on a slope, they found that it had survived.

But the army had taken charge, and soldiers herded survivors away from tenements near the river. “They said it [the flood] might come again,” Miya recalls.

They slept that night in a government school building in a village, he says. “At night, we were given daal bhat (rice and daal), and we wrapped ourselves in tarpaulin and slept.”

The next morning, a helicopter took them to another village. From there, another helicopter carried them to an army compound in a town. In the evening, they teamed up with five other migrants and hired an SUV to reach Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, each paying 3,500 rupees ($23).

The next morning, on August 28, they hired another SUV, which charged them 950 rupees ($6) each for a distance of 290km (180 miles) to Birgunj, a town on the India-Nepal border. They then crossed the border on foot before boarding buses for their villages.

It wasn’t the homecoming Indian migrants who work in Nepal usually plan.

‘No regular work’ back home

Turhapatti is among thousands of villages tucked along the 1,715km (1,066-mile) stretch of the India-Nepal border, where generations have crossed back and forth in search of work.

The two countries share an open border, and on both sides, especially in Bihar, the bond is known as a roti-beti ka rishta (a relationship of food and daughters), alluding to ties of livelihoods and matrimonial kinship. People live, work, and marry across the border.

Kathmandu is as close to Turhapatti as is Patna, the capital of Bihar. Per its 2021 Population and Housing Census, Nepal had 700,000 foreign-born residents, 97 percent of them from India.

Miya and Hassan say the wages for a carpenter or a mason on the Indian side are between 600-700 rupees, while for the same work in Nepal, wages are about 900 rupees. That drives migrant workers from India over the border into Nepal.

Nepal, for its part, is facing a major out-migration crisis — its per capita income is the lowest in South Asia, barring Afghanistan, and hundreds of thousands of young men and women leave each year to find work elsewhere. This creates a demand for migrant workers from Bihar, India’s poorest state that lies just across the border.

In Turhapatti, Miya owns only 0.03 hectares (0.06 acres), not enough to feed his family of six children, wife and parents. In recent years, he transitioned from being a carpenter to a contractor, which allowed him to bring in more workers from Bihar.

He had been sending 30,000 Indian rupees ($315) back to his family every month.

Hassan has even less back home: He inherited a 6×8-metre (20×25ft) room from his father and no agricultural land. “There is no regular daily work here,” he says. He would send 15,000 Indian rupees ($157) home from Nepal each month for his wife and four children.

Their story echoes in most homes in Turhapatti. The village had a population of 16,000 people in the 2011 census, India’s latest one. In nearly every household, men have left to work in other parts of India and abroad as carpenters, masons, or labourers mixing cement and sand into mortar.

The destinations are Kashmir, where close to 700 men from the village work; Nepal, with nearly 600; and thousands scattered across Indian cities: Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai. About 100 men have migrated to Dubai, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

The houses they built in Turhapatti stand in stark contrast to those of those who remain in India. The marble-fronted and iron-gated homes belong to men working in the Gulf, while semi-permanent dwellings belong to those who stayed behind.

Migrants in Nepal fall in between: Miya has been able to raise a brick house.

‘My body shivers at the thought’

This economic reality is what drove Arman Ansari to Syafrubesi. On July 26, Arman left for Nepal with Samir and Mukhtar. Arman’s son and his friend Shubu went with the three adults; the teenagers were on a trip to the hills.

Now, Arman’s brother-in-law. Jameel Miya, a carpenter in Kathmandu, scours the city’s hospitals for Arman’s body, telling authorities that his brother-in-law’s right hand and chest had deep scars, cut by shards of glass when he was young.

Arman’s wife, Sahrun Khatun, has only her last phone call with Arman to hold on to. They spoke two hours before the floods swept him away. “He was about to get his wages on September 1 and return home,” she says.

Salman, who had tagged along with his father to see the hills, hasn’t been able to sleep since the flood.

“The moment I close my eyes, I feel the flood is coming for me,” he says.

Mukhtar’s family lives a few lanes away.

Since the floods, Kasmun Khatun, Mukhtar’s wife, has been glued to the internet for any news of her missing husband. Joining her in that remote search are her daughter Asmana (18) and son Sadre Alam (14).

Her eldest son, Osama, 25, a tailor in Kathmandu, has been busy searching for his father in city hospitals.

“After waiting for a week and watching the videos, I submitted my DNA samples,” he says over a phone call. Osama manages to send home 6,000 rupees ($63), but that is no longer enough – his mother needs eye surgery that has already been delayed and cannot be put off much longer.

“The guardian has gone, all of a sudden,” he says, referring to his father.

At the far edge of Turhapatti stands the home of Samir Ansari, the youngest among the missing migrants and youngest of his five migrant brothers.

The Ganesh Hotel project he was working on was only three days from completion.

“He said he found another site to work on,” recalls his father, Hasmuddin Miya, remembering their last phone call on the evening of August 25.

Samir was a mason who specialised in marble tiles, a skill he had learned in Kashmir while working under his elder brothers at construction sites.

The three families are preparing to host a bhoj, the funeral feast – a custom of feeding hundreds of people – having given up on hope.

Meanwhile, the two survivors, Miya and Hassan, are already making calls to find work again. This time, their search turns towards Nepal’s plains. They pledge never to return to the hills.

“My whole body shivers at the thought of going there,” says Hassan.