‘Not only has our past been destroyed but so has our future.’ A Palestinian journalist broke down into tears as he returned to northern Gaza to find his family home as a pile of rubble. Many Palestinians returning to the area are finding nothing left but destruction following Israel’s war.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
A car exploded outside a shopping mall in Ecuador’s largest city Guayaquil, killing at least one person and injuring several more. Authorities say the blast was a deliberate act by criminal groups as police hunt for those responsible.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
Oct. 15 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate is expected to vote Wednesday afternoon on a measure that would fund the government, and President Donald Trump said he plans to release a list Friday of “Democratic” programs he’s eliminated.
Today’s vote will be the 10th Senate vote to open the government, which has now been shut down for 15 days. Democrats and Republicans are still at odds on bills to reopen.
The ninth vote on Tuesday to fund the government until Nov. 21 failed 49-45 with six senators absent. To pass, it needs 60 votes.
Trump’s list of cut programs is scheduled to be released Friday.
“We are closing up Democrat programs that we disagree with, and they’re never going to open up again,” Trump said. “We’re able to do things that we’ve never been able to do before. The Democrats are getting killed.”
Though Trump has made funding available for service members to get their next paychecks, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said it’s a temporary measure.
“If the Democrats continue to vote to keep the government closed as they have done now so many times, then we know that U.S. troops are going to risk missing a full paycheck at the end of this month,” Johnson said at his daily press conference.
Democrats are holding out for healthcare subsidies from the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans recently cut from the appropriations bill, and approval for Medicaid funding. Millions of Americans are expected to see their health insurance premiums skyrocket when the subsidies expire at the end of the year.
The longest shutdown lasted 35 days in December 2018 and January 2019. Johnson said that “we’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history unless Democrats drop their partisan demands.”
A house was filmed floating away off Alaska’s coast after Typhoon Halong made landfall over the weekend, killing one person and leaving two missing. More than 1,300 people have been displaced by the storm, with residents saying they witnessed around 20 homes floating out to sea.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
US President Donald Trump says Hamas may need to be disarmed ‘violently’ as part of the Gaza peace plan. Hamas has so far not agreed publicly to give up its weapons. Soraya Lennie looks at the key questions over how the process is supposed to work.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
Ken BanksNorth east Scotland reporter and
Steven GoddenBBC Scotland
Police ScotlandA man has been jailed for life after being found guilty of murdering his girlfriend in a hot tub in Shetland.
Aren Pearson, 41, stabbed 24-year-old Claire Leveque to death at his mother’s home in Sandness on 11 February last year.
Pearson denied murder and claimed in court that Ms Leveque had stabbed herself – but a jury found him guilty after a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Judge Lord Arthurson said it was a crime of “exceptional depravity” and “feral butchery” and described Pearson’s evidence in court as “malicious” and “fabricated”.
He will have to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
Police said Pearson had a “controlling and violent” relationship with Ms Leveque, and had attempted to degrade and abuse her before the murder.
“The level of violence Aren Pearson inflicted is truly horrifying,” said Det Insp Richard Baird.
Claire LevequeMs Leveque was stabbed more than 25 times on her neck and chest during the attack.
The couple, who are both from Canada, had moved to Scotland in 2023.
The trial was told that Pearson’s late mother Hazel Pearson, who died in May, had dialled 999 on the evening of the murder.
She told police that her son had walked into the kitchen and returned with a knife.
He stabbed himself in the neck and told her that he had hurt his girlfriend.
Ms Pearson then found Ms Leveque in the hot tub, which was in a shed at her home.
“The water was red with blood,” she told police.
“Claire was covered with blood. She had severe injuries to her face.”
Ms Pearson also told detectives that her son had looked like “a zombie” after the attack.
During the 999 call, Pearson took the phone and confessed to the killing. He said he had stabbed his girlfriend about 40 times.
He also confessed to police officers at the crime scene and to a doctor while he was being treated in hospital.
However, giving evidence during the trial he claimed Ms Leveque had struck him, grabbed a knife and then jumped into the hot tub, where she stabbed herself four or five times.
Pearson claimed she had lost her temper after hearing him speak to her father Clint in Canada about how much alcohol she was drinking.
Police ScotlandAfter being detained by police, Pearson was taken to the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick.
The jury heard that he said he had stabbed himself in the neck, consumed brake fluid and driven his Porsche car into the water.
A&E consultant Dr Caroline Heggie treated him for two days following his arrest.
Prosecutor Margaret Barron asked Dr Heggie if Pearson had said something that stuck with her.
She replied: “He said: ‘I’ve been trying to get rid of her for a while’.”
Lord Arthurson said the evidence in the case had been “substantial and compelling”.
He told Pearson: “Your much younger girlfriend – your victim in this case – was isolated and vulnerable in Sandness.
“You had from almost the outset of her arrival there subjected her to a cruel campaign of violence and coercive control.”
The judge said Ms Leveque had died “a squalid death of quite unimaginable multifaceted violence”.
“This was a sustained episode of feral butchery,” he added.
“You have sought to blame Ms Leveque for your own assaults against her, and you have, in a grave insult to her memory and to her bereaved family, put forward a defence that Ms Leveque inflicted these catastrophic injuries upon herself – a defence that the jury have unanimously rejected.”
Ms Leveque’s father Clint said his daughter had been “happy, positive and so friendly to everybody”.
Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Mr Leveque said his daughter was “a typical daddy’s girl”.
“My daughter texted me every night: ‘I love you dad’. Every night of her life,” he said.
“There’s nothing negative that anybody could possibly say about her.”
Mr Leveque said his daughter, who grew up in Westloch, Alberta, had a love of adventure.
Speaking after the verdict, Ms Leveque’s cousin Hope Ingram described her as “a bubbly, fun girl who brought life to every room that she walked into”.
“I miss her terribly,” she said
“It’s so nice that we can now move forward and just remember Claire instead of thinking of this awful incident.”
She thanked everyone who had helped get justice for her cousin.
Ms Ingram said she hoped that as a result, other victims of domestic violence would be able to “move forward and come forward”.
Hope Saunders, who still lives in Canada, was a close friend of Ms Leveque.
“It’s sickening that someone so bright and so young and so beautiful could have her life taken away from her in the flash of a moment like that,” she said.
“It is hard to comprehend and it gives you that sick feeling in your stomach, and her being so far away in the Shetland Islands breaks my heart even more.
“I don’t want to even think about how scared she might have been in that moment.”
Andrea Manson, the convenor of Shetland Islands Council, said she hoped that the guilty verdict brought some closure to Ms Leveque’s family.
“In a normally safe and caring community the tragic loss of a beautiful young lass is a tragedy that’s being felt by everyone in Shetland,” she said.
The picture for the FIFA World Cup 2026 became a lot clearer on Tuesday when a number of top teams across the continents booked their place at football’s global showpiece.
The number of confirmed teams has now risen to 28 following the latest round of qualifiers, with another 20 still to be filled by various confederational playoffs, intercontinental playoffs, and – in Europe’s case – the main qualifying stage, which still needs to be completed.
list of 4 itemsend of list
England, South Africa and Qatar were among the headline names to book their place at the tournament on Tuesday.
Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at the tournament that the nations around the world are all vying to reach.
The tournament is being staged across the United States, Canada and Mexico. The first match will be played in Mexico City on June 11, while the final will be staged in New Jersey, US, on July 19.
Due to the expansion of the tournament – from 32 teams to 48 – the 39-day event is the longest in its history.
FIFA’s intercontinental playoffs will be the last chance saloon for teams around the world to reach next summer’s event. The finale of that route will be on March 31, 2026, less than three months before the World Cup kicks off. The European qualification process runs until March, but most of the remaining confederations will have finished their continental qualification processes long before then.
Once the respective confederations finish their qualification process, FIFA offers two final spots to be contested by the best-placed team from each of the six continental routes that have not already qualified.
Although we will not know the full list of teams for the event until the end of March 2026, the draw will take place on December 5, 2025.
28/48 ✅@Aramco | #WeAre26 pic.twitter.com/eaksBnrBYM
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) October 14, 2025
The draw will take place in the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. US President Donald Trump confirmed the location while speaking in the Oval Office at the White House, flanked by Vice President JD Vance and FIFA boss Gianni Infantino. He did not rule out overseeing the draw itself.
With the expansion to 48 teams, the World Cup will now feature 12 four-team groups. That in turn will lead to a round of 32, an extra knockout round to previous editions.
Indeed, the tournament has doubled in size since it was staged in the US in 1994, when only 24 teams competed.
Trump has been quite clear and consistent on the staging of games within the US, saying he will move the games from any cities that he deems to be unsafe.
On September 26, when Trump was asked about games being moved, he warned: “Well, that’s an interesting question … but we’re going to make sure they’re safe. [Seattle and San Francisco are] run by radical left lunatics who don’t know what they’re doing.”
The US will stage games in 11 cities: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey/New York (joint host region), Philadelphia, San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.
Canada will host 13 games in total, split between Toronto and Vancouver. Mexico will also get 13 games, which will be played in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
The US will stage the final, which will be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Argentina won the last edition of the FIFA World Cup, beating France in the final of Qatar 2022.
With the game level at 3-3 after extra time, Argentina won the penalty shootout 4-2.
The 2025 FIFA Club World Cup was staged in the US, and the heat and resulting thunderstorms proved to be a huge problem for the tournament.
Three stadiums – in Arlington, Atlanta and Houston – have retractable roofs that are expected to be closed due to the summer heat, while Inglewood and Vancouver have fixed roofs.
After the latest round of qualifying matches, here is a breakdown of the confirmed contenders from each of the six regions:
Hosts: Canada, Mexico, USA
Asia: Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Uzbekistan
Africa: Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia
Europe: England
Oceania: New Zealand
South America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay
Africa: Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Nigeria will play off for the final intercontinental spot from the continent. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced November 13 for the first matches, followed by a deciding match three days later.
Asia: UAE and Iraq will vie for one intercontinental playoffs spot when they compete over two legs in the final stage of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifiers on November 13 and 18.
Europe: 53 of the 54 European teams vying for 16 qualification spots can still confirm their berths, alongside England, as their first-round matches will run until November 18. European qualification will run until March, just before the intercontinental playoffs begin.
North, Central America and the Caribbean: Three spots remain up for grabs, given the World Cup hosts take up three spots already. Bermuda, Costa Rica, Curacao, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have all advanced to the third round, with the winners to be decided by November 18. The three second-placed teams from each group will then fight for the intercontinental playoffs spot.
Oceania: New Caledonia have qualified for the intercontinental playoffs.
South America: Bolivia have qualified for the intercontinental playoffs, having missed out on one of the six automatic qualifying positions.
The TWZ Newsletter
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The next stage in the evolution of the Gray Eagle Short Takeoff and Landing (GE STOL) drone sees General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) team up with South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace for co-development and co-production of the uncrewed aircraft system, with work set to begin immediately. A demonstrator for the medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) drone has already operated from a South Korean amphibious assault ship, but the new partnership will see production of the Gray Eagle STOL for all customers taking place in South Korea.
GA-ASI and Hanwha Aerospace had an official signing ceremony at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual symposium today. That ceremony took place alongside GA-ASI’s company-funded Mojave STOL drone, which has been flying for years and is being used as a proof-of-concept demonstrator for the Gray Eagle STOL.
As for the Gray Eagle STOL, this is the latest iteration of GA-ASI’s MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS. At the center of the Gray Eagle STOL is its ability to operate from remote or austere locations with rough strips and limited logistical support. GA-ASI says the aircraft will be able to operate from semi-improved surfaces, including dirt roads, open fields, beaches, and parking lots. The same capabilities render it suitable for flying from aircraft carriers and big-deck assault ships, too.
In the past, GA-ASI has described the Gray Eagle STOL as its “most rugged UAS design,” although it’s worth noting that the basic MQ-1C Gray Eagle for the U.S. Army already put something of a premium on efficiency and usability. The original MQ-1C Gray Eagle was tailored for warfare in the Middle East, uses a heavy-fuel piston engine instead of a turboprop, and can be operated by a cadre of enlisted soldiers.
Under the new joint initiative, GA-ASI and Hanwha plan to build a production-representative Gray Eagle STOL aircraft, which should take to the air in 2027. The companies will, in the meantime, establish a production line that will be able to provide the Gray Eagle STOL to customers in the United States and South Korea, as well as globally, and which should result in cost savings for the drone. The first deliveries to customers should take place in 2028.
“GA-ASI and Hanwha are committed to investing in this project and building development and production capabilities in South Korea,” said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. “We’ll be leveraging the expertise of both companies to quickly bring the Gray Eagle STOL to global customers.”
“This landmark agreement marks the beginning of a new phase in U.S.-Korea defense cooperation, extending beyond traditional alliance structures to deliver next-generation, runway-independent UAS solutions that maximize commanders’ options in the face of evolving mission demands,” GA-ASI said in a statement.
The next steps will see GA-ASI and Hanwha Aerospace working closely together to complete the design phase for the drone and then establish a production facility in South Korea. The final assembly and manufacturing of the GE STOL will be the responsibility of Hanwha in South Korea, with GA-ASI handling the final integration. Meanwhile, GA-ASI will continue to produce other Gray Eagle models at its plant in San Diego, California.
GA-ASI says the new partnership “offers the fastest path with lowest risk to operational capability.”
“Co-producing GE STOL in South Korea and the U.S. will create jobs and help Hanwha secure talent in related fields as well as foster our domestic (Korean) UAS industry ecosystem,” said Jae-il Son, president and CEO of Hanwha Aerospace. “Hanwha is poised to become a comprehensive UAS company capable of executing everything from design to production and maintenance based on our capabilities, which span from fighter jet engines to radar and avionics equipment.”
For Hanwha, the Gray Eagle STOL also presents a way of gaining a foothold in the South Korean military. The country’s armed forces already operate a diverse drone fleet, including Israeli-supplied aircraft. However, on the domestic front, this segment is currently dominated by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) and Korean Air, both of which already build drones for the South Korean military.
However, GA-ASI has already been working closely with the South Korean Ministry of Defense as it continues to develop the Gray Eagle STOL drone.
Last year, the Mojave demonstrator was used in a demonstration when it took off from the Republic of Korea Navy’s amphibious landing ship ROKS Dokdo, as it was underway off the coast of Pohang, South Korea.
The Mojave has also been used for takeoff and landing trials aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales in 2023.
Other milestones for the demonstrator drone have included live-fire testing at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, using the Dillon Aero DAP-6 Minigun, and operations from a dirt strip to prove its STOL credentials, something we have reported on before. The stated performance of the Mojave includes a takeoff run of 400 feet for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, or 1,000 feet when armed with 12 Hellfire missiles.
Clearly, having Hanwha Aerospace onboard the Gray Eagle STOL program, including local production, should make the drone even more attractive to South Korea.
As well as operating from the two Dokdo class amphibious assault ships — the drone doesn’t necessarily need a catapult for launch or arresting gear for recovery — the Gray Eagle STOL could be a valuable addition to the South Korean military’s land-based units.
For the Republic of Korea Army, the Gray Eagle STOL’s runway independence would be a huge advantage during any kind of conflict with North Korea. In the past, GA-ASI has outlined the fact that the drone’s commanders “can choose virtually any bases of operation and take advantage of unconventional locations not normally affiliated with unmanned aircraft or aviation operations as an added level of survivability and surprise.”
In such a scenario, it would likely be in heavy demand for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA), as well as strike. Meanwhile, its manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capability could see it operate closely with the Republic of Korea Army helicopter fleet, including the AH-64E Apache.
The Gray Eagle STOL is also intended, from the ground up, to be rapidly deployed to remote locations by C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft, a type also operated by South Korea. GA-ASI says the drone can be ready to fly from austere locales in as little as 1.5 hours once rolled out the back of a C-130. This makes it ideal for different sorts of distributed and expeditionary operations.
As well as the aforementioned Mojave weapons, the Gray Eagle STOL is planned to be armed with launched effects, a capability that it inherits from the improved Gray Eagle 25M. The latter was developed to provide the U.S. Army with the option to procure a more advanced version of the MQ-1C, which would incorporate various enhancements to better meet the demands of a future conflict, likely to be expeditionary peer conflicts rather than a counterinsurgency fight.
GA-ASI has previously underlined the potential use of this drone to tackle enemy air defense systems in a large and very contested battlefield — just like the one that South Korea could face if it goes to war with its neighbor. In this scenario, the drone would lob its launched effects toward the air defenses before acting as a “quarterback,” relaying data gathered by the smaller drones to other friendly elements, be they aircraft, long-range fires, or other platforms.
At the same time, the growing questions around the survivability of drones like this need to be acknowledged. The Gray Eagle STOL and its relatives are potentially vulnerable even when faced by lower-end adversaries, a fact that has been underscored by the scale of losses suffered by U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones when faced by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. The use of LEs at standoff distances and the addition of self protection and electronic warfare pods, as well as combined force tactics, will help them in the fight in the years to come.
The Gray Eagle STOL would also port other advanced technologies over from the Gray Eagle 25M, including the EagleEye synthetic aperture radar, which can detect and track ground targets out to 50 miles and maritime targets out to 124 miles. GA-ASI is also working to introduce an increased-range active electronically scanned array (AESA) antenna, which is intended to allow it to operate beyond the weapons effects zone of many threat systems.
As we have highlighted in the past, the Gray Eagle STOL would also seem to offer a broad portfolio of capabilities that could be of particular relevance to the U.S. military as it prepares for a future high-end conflict, especially one fought in the Pacific against China.
In the past, GA-ASI has specifically said that the “Gray Eagle STOL might go with American forces into an expeditionary base deep downrange, co-locating with them as necessary to support missions, including delivery of supplies with the range to reach from island chain to island chain for units separate from the main body. Operating from a semi-prepared landing zone, a dirt road, or any paved surface, it expands commanders’ options.”
Other roles planned for the Gray Eagle STOL include logistics, and GA-ASI has explored the idea of underwing pods capable of carrying up to 1,000 pounds of cargo. This could be of particular interest for the U.S. military, as it looks increasingly at diverse distributed logistics chains as an essential requirement for supporting future operations in contested environments, especially in the context of a potential future high-end conflict, including in the Pacific.
With these kinds of peer and near-peer conflicts in mind, the Gray Eagle STOL is also intended to be more resilient to hostile electronic warfare jamming, especially to GPS networks. It will have vision-based navigation that can be used to overcome GPS jamming and have SATCOM anti-jam technologies.
Ultimately, the Gray Eagle STOL should emerge as a drone that’s able to fly a wide range of missions, from a variety of land bases and ships. It’s clear that, with their new partnership, GA-ASI and Hanwha Aerospace foresee interest from operators outside of the U.S. and South Korean militaries, too.
Contact the author: [email protected]
Oct. 15 (UPI) — Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday that one of the four bodies returned from Gaza in this week’s cease-fire deal did not belong to any of the hostages taken by Hamas.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it has completed the identification process and informed that the families of Uriel Baruch, Tamir Nimrodi and Eitan Levy that their remains have been returned to Israel.
“The government of Israel shares in the deep sorrow of the Baruch, Nimrodi and Levy families, and the families of the fallen hostages,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
The IDF said the fourth body has yet to be identified.
“Following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages,” the IDF said, according to NBC News. Hamas has returned the bodies of seven hostages out of the 28 bodies believed to be held in Gaza.
Israel’s far-right security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, called for a halt on humanitarian aid into Gaza, accusing Hamas of not putting enough effort into recovering the remaining dead hostages, The Guardian reported. Hamas negotiators said nine of the bodies weren’t able to be recovered amid rubbling from bombing.
“Enough with the disgrace,” Ben Gvir said.
“Moments after opening the crossings to hundreds of trucks, Hamas very quickly returned to its known methods — to lie, to cheat, and to abuse families and the bodies. This Nazi terror understands only force, and the only way to deal with it is to erase it from the face of the earth.”
The Israel Defense Forces said Nimrodi, a member of the IDF, was taken alive at the age of 18 from the Coordination and Liaison Headquarters base in the Gaza Division, and is believed to have been killed at the beginning of the war.
Baruch, 35, a husband and father of two, was killed on Oct. 7, 2023. The IDF said he was fleeing the Nova music festival and his body was taken back into Gaza. The military had confirmed on March 26, 2024, that he had died.
Levy, 53, was also killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body was taken back into Gaza, the IDF said, adding that officials confirmed on Dec. 8, 2023, that he was dead. He leaves behind a son and a sister.
“The IDF shares in the families’ grief, continues to invest all efforts in returning the bodies of the fallen hostages and is preparing to continue implementing the agreement,” the military said.
Israel said Tuesday night that it had received the remains of four deceased hostages that Hamas had kidnapped during its surprise attack on Israel Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the two-year-long war. A total 251 hostages were taken that day.
The bodies were returned as part of the first phase of a 20-point peace plan that began to be implemented Monday when Hamas released 20 living hostages to Israel and Israel released nearly 2,000 detainees into Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
No living hostages remain in Gaza following Monday’s exchange, though it is believed that the bodies of 20 deceased hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel had said Tuesday that the bodies of the four deceased hostages were transferred to the IDF via the Red Cross inside the Palestinian enclave and were transported into Israel where they were received in a military ceremony.
Freed Palestinian detainee returns to the ruins of his Gaza home
After two years in an Israeli jail, Yousef Salem set out on a journey to his house in Gaza. The former detainee, who says he was tortured during his time in captivity, was confronted by the devastation of Israel’s onslaught when he finally arrived home. This is his story.
Share
Oct. 15 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump issued guarantees that Hamas will lay down its arms in line with his 20-point peace plan, but warned that if the terror group failed to comply, it would be disarmed, quickly and possibly by force.
Speaking to reporters in the White House at a bilateral lunch with visiting Argentinian President Javier Milei on Tuesday, Trump said that in indirect conversations with Hamas, the group had assured him they would disarm and that their weapons would be taken from them if they failed to do so — but he declined to say how.
“I don’t have to explain that to you. But if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them. They know I’m not playing games. It will happen quickly and perhaps violently. But they will disarm, do you understand me?
Asked how long he would give Hamas to disarm, Trump refused to provide a deadline but said they would be given a “reasonable period of time.”
The plan, as published by the administration, states that all military, terror, and offensive infrastructure in Gaza, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and that independent monitors would oversee a demilitarisation process, including “placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning.”
Until now, Hamas has always insisted that it would only disarm upon the establishment of a Palestinian State.
Trump’s comments came as Hamas was using a vacuum created by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from around half of the land area of Gaza in line with the first phase of the deal to reassert its authority, using its weapons to settle scores with rivals on the ground.
The group posted a video online on Tuesday showing Hamas fighters executing “collaborators and outlaws.” The eight men were kneeling down, hooded and shackled, as they were shot dead.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS News that he hoped the follow-up phases of his country’s deal with Hamas would go to plan and remain peaceful, but appeared to mirror Trump’s position, saying the president had been unequivocal that Hamas must disarm and demilitarize, or “all hell breaks loose.”
Netanyahu said he strongly hoped it would be the former, not the latter, and that Israel was “certainly ready to do this peacefully.”
“We agreed to give peace a chance. First, Hamas has to give up its arms. And second, you want to make sure that there are no weapons factories inside Gaza. There’s no smuggling of weapons into Gaza. That’s demilitarization,” added Netanyahu.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court to testify in his corruption trial, days after U.S. President Trump called for him to be pardoned. Protesters outside the court demanded the trial continue as a test of Israel’s democracy. Netanyahu denies all charges.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
Riot police used tear gas and water cannons to break up pro-Palestinian protests at Israel’s World Cup qualifier against Italy. Defeat for Israel in the match effectively ended the team’s hopes of automatic qualification.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
Dozens of dilapidated stone buildings are all that remain of the once-thriving border village of Martoli, in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand. Nestled in the Johar Valley and surrounded by Himalayan peaks, the most notable being Nanda Devi, once considered the tallest mountain in the world, this village had traded sugar, lentils, spices, and cloth for salt and wool with Tibetans across the border.
The nomadic inhabitants of several villages spent the winter months in the plains gathering goods to be traded with Tibetans in the summer. However, the border was sealed following an armed conflict between India and China in 1962, disrupting life in the high villages and leaving people with little incentive to return.
Kishan Singh, 77, was 14 when he left with his family to settle in the lower village of Thal. He still returns to Martoli every summer to till the land and cultivate buckwheat, strawberries, and black cumin.
His ancestral home has no roof, so he sleeps in a neighbour’s abandoned house during the six months he spends in this village.
“I enjoy being in the mountains and the land here is very fertile,” he says.
In late autumn, he hires mules to transport his harvest to his home in the plains, where he sells it at a modest profit.
The largest of the Johar Valley villages had about 1,500 people at its peak in the early 1960s. Martoli had about 500 residents then, while some of the dozen or so other villages had 10 to 15 homes each.
Now, only three or four people return to Martoli each summer.
A few villagers are returning in summer to the nearby villages of Laspa, Ghanghar, and Rilkot, as they can now travel by vehicle to within a few kilometres (miles) of their villages on a recently built unpaved road.
Among the scattered remnants of earlier stone houses in Martoli, a new guesthouse has appeared to cater for a few trekkers who pass through the village en route to the Nanda Devi Base Camp.
SEOUL, Oct. 15 (UPI) — South Korea on Wednesday resumed an excavation project for the remains of soldiers killed in the Korean War at a battle site in the demilitarized zone, its military said, as Seoul looks to improve frosty inter-Korean relations.
“As part of measures to ease military tensions between the South and the North, the Ministry of National Defense has resumed the excavation of remains around White Horse Ridge in Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, which was suspended in 2022,” the ministry said in a message to reporters.
“This is an effort to return the remains of soldiers killed in the Korean War to their families … and is a practical measure to transform the DMZ into a zone of peace,” the ministry said.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has made efforts to rehabilitate relations between the two Koreas since he took office in June, with conciliatory gestures such as removing propaganda loudspeakers from border areas.
Lee has also said he would take “proactive and gradual steps” to restore the 2018 inter-Korean military pact that was suspended amid tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang during the administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol in 2024.
The pact established buffer zones along the border and included measures such as the removal of some guard posts in the DMZ and the banning of live-fire exercises in certain areas.
In April 2018, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to launch a joint project to retrieve remains of soldiers killed during the Korean War from Arrowhead Ridge, the site of one of the fiercest battles of the 1950-53 Korean War.
However, after the failed 2019 summit in Hanoi between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the North refused to participate.
South Korea began excavation work alone on the site in 2019 and retrieved remains of some 424 soldiers. Seoul later expanded efforts to White Horse Ridge, where teams found the remains of 67 soldiers, but the project was suspended in 2022 amid deteriorating ties with the North.
Former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has died at the age of 80, family sources have told the BBC.
Odinga died on Wednesday while receiving medical treatment at a hospital in India. He collapsed during a morning walk and was taken to Devamatha Hospital, which said he had suffered a cardiac arrest. It said he did not respond to resuscitation measures and was “declared dead at 09:52” local time (04:22 GMT).
In recent weeks, there has been speculation about his health, although family members and political allies had dismissed reports suggesting he was critically ill.
Former President Uhuru Kenyatta – a long-time rival – said Odinga’s death had “left a silence that echoes across our nation”.
Other Kenyan politicians and world leaders have been sending their condolences, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who described Odinga as a “towering statesman and a cherished friend of India”.
His supporters have been pouring onto the streets to mourn, especially in his political strongholds of western Kenya and parts of Nairobi.
A political mobiliser and towering figure in Kenyan politics, Odinga ran unsuccessfully for the presidency five times. He rejected the results on each occasion, often saying that victory had been stolen from him.
He was vindicated by Kenya’s highest court after the 2017 elections, when it annulled Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory and ordered fresh polls. However, he boycotted the rerun, demanding electoral reforms.
The disputed election of 2007, in which Odinga claimed he was cheated of victory by Mwai Kibaki, led to the biggest crisis in Kenya’s history.
Violence erupted around the country, resulting in 1,200 deaths and about 600,000 people were forced to flee their homes.
To resolve the crisis, a power-sharing agreement was brokered by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, leading to the formation of a unity government in which Odinga became prime minister.
He has often reconciled with the incumbent president after contentious elections.
After his most recent defeat in 2022, he later joined President William Ruto in a so-called broad-based government, which brought several of his allies into key positions.
He defended the move as necessary for national unity, coming in the aftermath of watershed nationwide protests last year that culminated in the storming of parliament. Dozens of protesters were killed in confrontations with security officers.
The Ruto administration backed Odinga’s bid to become chairperson of the African Union Commission, in elections held earlier this year. Despite strong regional support, he lost to Djibouti’s Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.
Odinga inspired a passionate and loyal following throughout his political career, especially in western Kenya, where he was from.
His supporters called him “Baba” (Father), “Agwambo” (Act of God), and “Tinga” (Tractor) – drawn from his party’s symbol during the 1997 elections.
He was widely regarded as a master strategist and mass mobiliser, often drawing huge crowds to his political rallies, and he had a deep ability to connect with ordinary people.
He will be remembered for his unwavering fight for democratic freedoms and human rights.
He was a former political prisoner, and holds the record for being Kenya’s longest-serving detainee. His struggle against one-party dictatorship saw him detained twice (from 1982 to 1988 and 1989 to 1991) during the rule of Daniel arap Moi.
He was initially imprisoned for trying to stage a coup in 1982, which propelled him on to the national stage.
Timelapse video from Indonesia shows Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupting on Flores island, sending ash 10 kilometres above its 1,584-metre peak. It’s the volcano’s third major eruption since July.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share
In November 2024, an empty field suddenly turned into a bustling scene. Women streamed in carrying baskets of tomatoes, while others unwrapped sacks of oranges. At the time, teenage girls hawked in the crowd with trays of boiled groundnuts balanced on their heads. Along the roadside, two trailers lined up a few metres away as young men tossed heavy sacks of maize into one and rice into the other.
This was the Tumba Ra Ngabili market.
For a trader like Asmau Abubakar, she never imagined a market like this could exist, especially when she reflects on the years when the Boko Haram insurgency was at its peak. She says her fear grew the first time she heard the insurgents had arrived in Madagali in 2014, a few towns away from Michika, her hometown, both in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria.
When rumours spread at the time that the insurgents would not harm women, Asmau urged her husband to flee while she stayed behind with the children. But he refused, insisting the family remain together.
Then came the news that the insurgents were unleashing violence in Gulak. And knowing Gulak was close, Asmau’s family fled to Uba, a neighbouring town, where they passed the night before returning home the next morning.
But the fear never left Asmau. Soon again, word spread that Michika itself would be attacked on a Sunday.
“Before they came, on that Sunday at dawn, my husband got us a car that took us to Yola [the Adamawa State capital] while he fled on foot, passing several villages to reach Gombi,” Asmau recalled. “We were at Mararraban Mubi when I heard the insurgents had entered Michika.”
Many families, like Asmau’s, fled for safety. But that Sunday in September 2014 carried the memory of gunfire echoing in the air, houses burning in flames, and, of course, the lives taken in cold blood. The insurgents did not only stop at attacking Michika, they in fact seized the town and spread into nearby villages, inflicting fear and hardship on the locals. It was a period when they were expanding across northeastern Nigeria in their bid to carve out an Islamic caliphate.
Boko Haram’s violent campaign had started five years earlier in 2009, first as an uprising in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, before spreading across the region. In its wake, families mourned their loved ones, schools and markets were left destroyed, and dozens of communities were turned to ruins, with over a million people uprooted from their homes.
Michika was soon trapped in this same cycle of bloodshed and chaos that forced people across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe to live with fear as part of daily life. Meanwhile, the insurgents held the town captive for months until January 2015, when Nigeria’s military finally drove them out. So, as locals began to return, they discovered that what awaited them were wrecked houses and the loss of nearly everything they owned.
“The walls of my house were riddled with bullets,” Asmau told HumAngle. “They destroyed doors and windows and looted some of our belongings.”
Even as Asmau and other families in Michika began to rebuild and piece their lives back together, they realised that the insurgency had sown deep distrust between Christians and Muslims. The divide between the two faiths grew so intense that, according to locals HumAngle spoke with, it spread into the main Michika market, where Christians chose Saturdays to sell their farm produce and Muslims traded on Sundays when most Christians were in church.
Asmau has not forgetten that period when she moved between the main Michika market and those in Bazza and Lassa to buy and sell bags of maize, beans, and groundnuts.
“Relations between us Muslims and the Christians became strained,” she explained. “They thought the majority of Muslims were Boko Haram.”
HumAngle also learned that, at the time, Muslims said their children could not have relationships with children from Christian families, and Christians equally insisted their children would not relate to Muslim families.
This situation persisted in Tumba Ra Ngabili, Asmau’s community, until 2020, when the British Council, in partnership with the Women and Youth Economic Advancement and Health Initiative (WYEAHI), brought women from the area into its Managing Conflict in Nigeria (MCN) programme.
About 200 women from Christian and Muslim households received training in peacebuilding, conflict management, and Early Warning and Early Response (EWER).
“We learned that due to the insurgency, these women lost their livelihoods. So we felt it would be good that after the training, we should also empower them,” said Aishatu Margima, WYEAHI’s Executive Director.
The women were organised into groups of 20, with each member receiving ₦30,000 to start a business or support an existing one.
“I was happy when my name made it to the list of women selected for the training and even more when I got empowered with ₦30,000,” shared Asmau, recalling it was a time when her business was struggling due to low capital and disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted movements and closed markets.
The micro-funding and training also transformed Christiana Emma’s life. She had lived in Tumba Ra Ngabili for 20 years and fled to Yola only when the insurgency struck. Though she lost her house and belongings, she returned after Michika was liberated because the feeling that it was her home did not leave her.
“We started rebuilding with my husband through the grace of God, and to support him, I was selling tomatoes, bananas, and oranges,” Christiana said. She would travel to Besso and Kirchinga villages in Michika and Madagali to collect goods on loan, sell them, repay the loan, and keep the profit.
“The ₦30,000 I got helped me grow my business. I later built a capital of ₦150,000 that allows me to buy goods upfront without taking loans,” she noted. “Today, the proceeds help me cover my family’s bills, from education to feeding and healthcare.”
In their 20-member group, 16 were Christians and 4 were Muslims. The training enlightened them on love and peaceful coexistence.
The group began holding weekly meetings every Sunday to strengthen relationships and discuss business challenges. And in one of those meetings, they decided to establish a market in Tumba Ra Ngabili.
The women approached the community chief, Lawan Yakubu, who, after consulting with his council members, approved their request and allocated land a few metres from his house for the market.
They believed the local market would make it easier to run their businesses and improve their earnings without the need to travel to nearby villages or the main Michika market. At the same time, they wanted the market to serve as a space for unity where people from all faiths could trade freely.
At first, the women traded in an open field until the Danish Refugee Council, an international humanitarian organisation, while implementing a different project in the community, learned about the market and decided to support and expand the women’s efforts by constructing a block of 16 roofed tents where traders could display their goods.
In the two years since it opened, the Tumba Ra Ngabili market has transformed both business and relationships in the community, especially with Christian and Muslim women trading side by side.
Blessing John, a widow and member of the group who now sells Gwanjo (second-hand clothes), remembers how isolated she once felt and how difficult it was to keep her business running or get help when challenges came.
“Now, I know I can turn to any member of the group, whether at the market or at home, whether a Christian or a Muslim, and get support,” said the 40-something-year-old mother of eight.
Blessing explained that to make it convenient for everyone, the women agreed that the market would mainly operate on Sundays immediately after morning church services.
“The market also opens on Wednesdays, but Sunday has become the main trading day,” she told HumAngle.
Traders troop into the market, mostly during the harvest period, to buy bags of food crops ranging from maize, rice, beans, groundnuts, and even tomatoes, which are then transported in big lorries to Mubi, Maiduguri, and other parts of the country.
Each trader at the market pays ₦50 to the local government as tax on every market day.
The women have also started an Adashe (savings pool) system. Every Sunday evening, after trading, they gather to repeat sessions on “maintaining peaceful coexistence with one another,” and each member contributes ₦1,000.
The collected ₦20,000 is kept in a wooden box made by a local carpenter. The box has four keys, each held by a team of four members, and it can only be opened when all group members are present. If a member is sick or unavoidably absent, a representative from her family or relations can stand in to ensure the box can be opened.
After collecting the contributions, any member needing a loan can borrow from the pool and repay it with 10 per cent interest within a month. For example, if a member borrows ₦10,000, she will repay ₦11,000. In the early days of the system, Asmau often borrowed from the pool to strengthen her business capital.
“It helps me make more profit since the capital is much larger when I combine my initial empowerment money with the loaned amount,” Asmau said. From the profit, she buys foodstuffs each market day and contributes to the savings pool.
“I have children and pay their school fees with a part of the profit,” she added.
When no one needs a loan, the wooden box is locked and kept by the group’s treasurer, Manga Musa, who shared that the group also has a social fund, to which each member deposits ₦50 weekly.
“It’s the savings we use in case any of us gets sick. We can then support the person without asking for repayment,” she said.
And by December each year, a week before Christmas, the group gathers to share all the money in the savings pool before taking a break and returning in January for the new year.
“We buy Christmas food and clothes for our children in December after sharing the earnings,” noted Christiana. “For Muslims, during their festive seasons, if they need to borrow money from the pool, we give it to them.”
However, despite their success stories, some challenges raise questions about how sustainable the women’s efforts are without institutionalised support.
During the rainy season, the market does not come alive like it does in the dry months. When HumAngle visited on a Wednesday, the tents were empty. And even on Sunday, the main market day, only a few items, such as vegetables, fruits, and small household goods, were on display. There were no food crops.
Locals told HumAngle that this is because most traders are occupied with farming at this time of the year and do not come to the market as often.
Last year, the community suffered a flood, and most traders whose farmlands were flooded did not harvest many food crops that could be brought to the market.
Still, the poor roads leading to Tumba Ra Ngabili, along with a river that traders from distant villages must cross, also limit the amount of produce that reaches the market.
On the other hand, Blessing admitted that business has slowed in recent months. “People focus more on looking for what to eat than buying clothes,” she explained.
Manga said the women’s savings pool is directly tied to market activity. When sales drop, some members struggle to make their weekly contributions, which sometimes delays their cycle of lending and repayment.
Even with the gaps, Blessing dreams of opening a shop to stock clothes instead of pushing them around in a wheelbarrow. Others hope to see the Tumba Ra Ngabili market upgraded into a standard marketplace with proper shops and storage facilities.
Together, the women want their savings pool to grow strong enough to sustain members and extend support to other women in the community.
Now, what remains uncertain is whether the peace they have built can withstand the challenges that still surround them.
This story was produced under the HumAngle Foundation’s Advancing Peace and Security through Journalism project, supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Morning Live stars Gethin Jones and Kimberley Walsh announced exciting news on Wednesday
Source link
Football fans celebrated in Qatar as the country’s football team qualified for next year’s FIFA World Cup, with a 2-1 win over the United Arab Emirates. It’s the first time Qatar has reached a World Cup through competitive qualifiers after hosting the tournament in 2022.
Published On 15 Oct 202515 Oct 2025
Share