Fossil Fuels

A vast oil spill from a leaking tanker reached Oman’s coastline on Wednesday, its environment agency said.

This oil spill threatens to become one of the world’s worst in years after spreading largely unchecked for several weeks, experts say.

On Monday, Oman said it was working to contain the spill, which had by then affected roughly 390 square kilometres (150sq miles), according to analysis by the country’s environment agency.

The slick now covers an area of more than 2,000sq km (770sq miles), said John Amos, an oil spill specialist who reviewed satellite imagery obtained by Reuters. It could affect about 40km (25 miles) of coast near Ras Madraka, as well as Masirah Island, Oman’s Environment Authority said.

Here’s what we know.

What happened?

Oil has been leaking from the tanker Caroline Bezengi since it ran aground about 22 nautical miles (41km) from the Omani coastal town of Sharbithat some time after the crew reported a suspected explosion on June 8. It had been en route from Russia to India.

Reuters reported that the tanker was carrying an estimated 800,000 barrels of sanctioned oil and that it ran aground on June 30.

An investigation by the news agency AFP found that the ship had been stranded for several weeks near Oman’s al-Qibliyyah Island.

In the meantime, the oil has been spreading towards Oman’s coastline.

The Oman News Agency (ONA) quoted the country’s environment authority saying that “today’s monitoring results showed that some beaches in the Ras Madrakah area were affected by oil pollution”.

The Indian Ocean town sits about 200km (125 miles) from al-Qibliyyah.

The slick is now concentrated around the Hallaniyat Archipelago off the southern coast, where a marine reserve was established last year to protect sensitive ecosystems home to diverse marine life, including rare sea turtles.

On Wednesday, the ONA reported that “a coastal stretch of up to 40 km in the [Ras Madrakah] area is expected to be affected”.

The southern beaches of Masirah Island, which lies 15km (nine miles) off the coast of Oman, could be contaminated “in the coming hours”, affecting a 10-20km (six-to-12-mile) stretch of coastline, it said.

An unnamed spokesperson for the United Nations International Maritime Organization said it was “closely monitoring” the leakage.

How did this happen?

British maritime security company Vanguard told AFP that the tanker had suffered “explosions” in early June as it sailed off the coast of Yemen, causing water to enter several sections of the vessel. It ran aground off the coast of Oman some time after this.

There has been no official explanation for the explosions and no party has claimed an attack. However, the vessel was navigating two separate wars on its journey from Russia to India. Tankers have been frequently targeted in the Gulf region in recent months as the US war on Iran has continued.

In April, the Caroline Bezengi sailed from the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, a flashpoint in the Russia-Ukraine war.

It is believed to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” used to circumvent Western sanctions on its oil exports. It last sailed under a Cameroonian flag.

Rentoor Shipmanagement and Villar Shipmanagement, both based in China, are registered as the ship’s owner and operator, respectively, according to the open-source database OpenSanctions.

Russia’s shadow fleet includes ageing vessels that have often been criticised for poor maintenance, lack of insurance and lacklustre safety standards.

Ukraine has previously carried out assaults on shadow fleet vessels believed to be carrying Russian oil.

The Caroline Bezengi then passed through the Suez Canal at the end of May, ship-tracking data shows, before sailing through the Red Sea and past Yemen, where the Iran-aligned Houthi fighters have entered a wider regional war between the United States, Israel and Iran and are targeting Saudi Arabia-flagged ships.

What damage could the oil spill cause?

Last week, advocacy group Greenpeace warned that the spill was on the verge of causing an “environmental disaster”.

Christopher D’Elia, a specialist in oil spills and a professor emeritus at Louisiana State University in the United States, told Al Jazeera the estimated 800,000 barrels of crude on board the Caroline Bezengi would amount to a “fairly large spill”.

“This spill raises a lot of issues,” D’Elia told Al Jazeera.

“These illegal tankers don’t comply with the ‘polluter pays’ principle that is the basis for how the US and other developed nations regulate spills,” D’Elia said.

“The ‘responsible party’ must finance the cleanup in the US. In this case, there is no responsible party.”

Meanwhile, Iranian media reported on Wednesday that a separate oil spill in the Strait of Hormuz had reached the island of Qeshm, affecting beaches and an environmentally sensitive mangrove forest.

State-run news agency IRNA said the slick had affected areas on Qeshm’s southern coast, as well as parts of the smaller neighbouring island of Hengam.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said pollution had been observed at three locations and on the sea surface, adding that its source seemed to be a “foreign bulk carrier”, without specifying the name of the ship.

The risk of oil spills in the Gulf has risen sharply because of strikes on tankers during the five-month US-Iran war. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has reported 65 incidents in the Strait of Hormuz and across the Middle East since the beginning of March.

“Any party that benefits from commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is legally and morally obligated to take action to compensate for and remedy the environmental damage caused to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman,” he said.

A spike in mortality

The tightening restrictions have forced the Cuban government to effectively ration care.

In February, Havana announced a package of emergency energy-saving measures. Among them was the suspension of all non-essential medical services across the island.

But non-essential does not mean unimportant. Fernandez, the paediatric anaesthesiologist, explained that preventive healthcare plays a major role in saving lives.

Under normal conditions, he said, preventive healthcare helps doctors catch potentially fatal conditions like appendicitis sooner.

But in recent months, Fernandez has observed patients arriving at his hospital in a “worsened” condition than they might otherwise have had.

“All the appendicitis cases we treat now present complications,” he said. “They demand more resources and antibiotics – supplies we don’t have.”

Deaths in Cuba have also escalated as years of increasing restrictions take effect.

Just last month, the Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) reported that survival rates for childhood cancer dropped from 85 percent to 65 percent amid the oil blockade.

Infant mortality has also steadily climbed. In 2017, at the start of Trump’s first term, Cuba had an infant mortality rate of four for every 1,000 live births. That figure climbed to 7.7 in 2024, just before Trump’s second term, and reached 9.9 in 2025.

The maternal mortality rate similarly rose to 44.1 deaths for every 100,000 live births by the end of 2025, up from 40.6 the previous year.

Lilian Delgado, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Cuba’s main maternity hospital, explained that the escalating humanitarian crisis has triggered a sharp rise in premature births and severe morbidity among pregnant women.

“Conditions are far from ideal at all the levels of the system,” Delgado noted. “There are shortages everywhere.”

The decision to prioritise emergency care can be deceptive. A wide range of medical procedures are considered “elective”. But just because they do not rise to the level of an emergency does not mean they are optional.

Typically, in Cuba, emergency surgeries are those that need to be urgently completed within 48 hours. Other necessary surgeries often fall into the “elective” category.

Mastectomies – a common breast cancer treatment – are among the surgeries often categorised as elective. So too are some organ transplants.

Healthcare advocates point out that, if certain elective surgeries are postponed too long, they too can result in deadly conditions.

More than 100,000 Cubans are currently on waiting lists for elective or reconstructive surgeries, a backlog MINSAP credited to the US sanctions.

Among those waiting are 5,152 cancer patients and approximately 12,000 children. Delgado said some of her patients have been languishing on such lists for months.

“Our surgical services are severely hampered by a lack of supplies,” she explained. “We have more women suffering from serious complications, and our operating rooms have become tied up with emergency cases, making it impossible to perform elective surgeries.”

Hospitals in Cuba largely have backup generators to weather the increasingly frequent power outages. But accessing even emergency medical care is tough when the fuel blockade is affecting basic services like transportation.

“Ultimately, if you have a cancer patient and cannot operate due to a number of factors – such as a nationwide blackout forcing the suspension of surgeries – then, whether you intend to or not, you are directly condemning that patient to death,” Delgado said.

The oil embargo has cost “human lives, both directly and indirectly”, she added.

A US strike on an oil tanker accused of transporting Iranian oil has killed three Indian sailors. It was the second attack in three days on a ship carrying crew members from India.

President Xi Jinping has called on authorities nationwide to learn from the incident.

A gas explosion at a coal mine in China has killed at least 90 people.

State media Xinhua said 247 workers had been on duty underground when the blast ripped through the Liushenyu mine in Qinyuan county, Shanxi province, on Friday.

China’s coal mines are considered among the deadliest in the world due to poor safety standards, weak regulation, and corruption as companies seek to profit from the country’s rapidly expanding economy.

Rescue operations were ongoing as emergency crews continued searching for survivors of the explosion, the deadliest mining disaster reported in China in more than a decade.

The blast occurred shortly after a carbon monoxide alert was issued, with some reports claiming gas levels had exceeded safe limits.

According to state-run broadcaster CGTN, the person responsible for overseeing the mine has been arrested while authorities investigate the cause of the explosion.

President Xi Jinping has urged authorities across China to intensify efforts to prevent major accidents in the wake of Friday’s blast.

“All regions and departments must learn from the lessons of the accident, remain vigilant regarding workplace safety, thoroughly investigate, rectify all types of risks and hidden dangers, and resolutely prevent and curb the occurrence of major and serious accidents,” Xi said.

Video footage posted online from the scene showed several ambulances gathered near the mine.

Shanxi province, where the incident occurred, is China’s main coal-mining region. More than one billion tonnes of coal were extracted there last year, almost a third of the country’s total output.

China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, accounting for more than half of global consumption.

The country is also the world’s largest annual greenhouse gas emitter, while being the biggest producer of renewable energy.

Military and law enforcement clashed with demonstrators outside La Paz, Bolivia, in an attempt to clear roadways that had been blocked as part of nationwide antigovernment protests.

As many as 3,500 soldiers and police were deployed as part of the operation that began in the early hours of Saturday. Around 57 people were arrested, according to the citizens’ rights ombudsman’s office.

Miners, schoolteachers, Indigenous groups and unions have helped to organise the protests, which aimed to convey outrage against the government of centre-right President Rodrigo Paz.

Bolivia is in the grips of an historic economic crisis, considered the worst the country has seen in decades.

The government’s foreign currency reserves have cratered, as exports from Bolivia have slowed down.

Key among those was natural gas. Vast reserves of the fuel were discovered in the late 20th century, and for nearly three decades, those natural gas deposits powered Bolivia’s economy, transforming the South American country into a major energy exporter.

But in 2022, the dynamic switched, amid mismanagement and dwindling supplies. Since then, Bolivia has had to import fuel from abroad, exacerbating its economic crisis.

Currently, many parts of the country have experienced long lines for fuel and shortages of basic supplies like food.

Paz, who was elected in October, had campaigned on alleviating the economic stress. But since taking office, he has spurred outrage by ending a two-decade-old fuel subsidy and pushing to privatise state-owned companies.

Earlier this month, the protests forced the repeal of a land reform measure, Law 1720, that critics claimed could be used to dispossess small, rural landowners, in favour of bigger holdings.

The Bolivian government has estimated that 22 roadblocks have been erected across the country in recent weeks.

Some of the protesters have demanded Paz’s resignation: His election in October marked the end of nearly two decades of rule by the Movement for Socialism (MAS).

But Paz’s office has blamed the demonstrations for cutting off key supplies to cities like La Paz, which holds the seat of government.

Food prices have increased since the blockades began, and the government claims three people have died after being unable to reach hospitals.

According to presidential spokesperson Jose Luis Galvez, Saturday’s crackdown on the protesters was designed to create a “humanitarian corridor” to ensure the free flow of supplies to hospitals in La Paz.

Earlier this week, Paz also thanked his Argentinian counterpart, Javier Milei, for delivering humanitarian assistance to Bolivia.

“This gesture of solidarity not only strengthens the historic bonds of brotherhood between our nations, but also represents vital relief for our communities in times of great need,” Paz wrote on social media on Friday.

Milei responded by denouncing the protesters as anti-democratic.

“Argentina stands with the Bolivian people and supports their democratically elected authorities against those who seek to destabilise the country and obstruct the path toward freedom and progress,” the Argentinian president said.