Absences surge among US air traffic controllers, who have been working for more than a month without pay.
Published On 4 Nov 20254 Nov 2025
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Airports across the United States are experiencing major delays and cancellations due to an uptick in absences from air traffic controllers, who are under “immense stress and fatigue” from the ongoing, record-breaking US government shutdown, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
More than 16,700 US flights were delayed and another 2,282 were cancelled over the weekend from Friday to Sunday, according to FlightAware, a US website that provides real-time flight tracking.
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The delays continued into Monday evening in the US, as FlightAware counted more than 4,000 delays and 600 cancellations across major airports, like Chicago O’Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Denver and Newark.
The FAA said on X that half of its “Core 30” facilities at major US airports were experiencing staffing shortages due to the shutdown, with absences at New York-area airports hitting 80 percent.
Nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers have been working without pay for weeks, ensuring the safety of more than 50,000 daily operations across the national airspace system (NAS).
As we head into this weekend, a surge in callouts is straining staffing levels at multiple…
Air traffic controllers, who number nearly 13,000 across the US, are classified as “essential workers”, which means they have been working without pay since the shutdown began on October 1.
But the FAA said that there had been a surge in absences, which had forced it to reduce the flow of air traffic in the US to maintain safety standards.
“The shutdown must end so that these controllers receive the pay they’ve earned and travellers can avoid further disruptions and delays,” the FAA said on X on Friday. “When staffing shortages occur, the FAA will reduce the flow of air traffic to maintain safety. This may result in delays or cancellations.”
US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy told CBS News’s Face the Nation programme on Sunday that the delays will continue to maintain airline safety.
“We work overtime to make sure the system is safe. And we will slow traffic down, you’ll see delays, we’ll have flights cancelled to make sure the system is safe,” Duffy said, according to a transcript of the programme.
Duffy said that although air traffic controllers were using their absences to work second jobs elsewhere, they would not be fired. “When they’re making decisions to feed their families, I’m not going to fire air traffic controllers,” he said.
The government shutdown is due to enter its 35th day on Tuesday in the US, when it will tie with the 2018-2019 shutdown as the longest in US history.
At least 670,000 civilian federal employees have been furloughed due to the shutdown, while about 730,000 are working without pay, according to the Washington, DC-based Bipartisan Policy Center.
Here are the key events from day 1,349 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 4 Nov 20254 Nov 2025
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Here is how things stand on Tuesday, November 4:
Fighting
Russia said on Monday that its troops had advanced in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, an important transport and logistics hub that they have been trying to capture for more than a year, but Ukraine said its forces were holding on.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that Pokrovsk remained under severe pressure, though Russian troops had made no gains in the past day.
He also said that Russia was massing troops by the nearby town of Dobropillia, where Kyiv’s forces advanced earlier this year in a successful counteroffensive. He described the situation in Dobropillia as complicated.
Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said that Ukrainian forces had thwarted a Russian attempt to cut off a supply route to Pokrovsk from Rodynske, to the north.
Elsewhere, Russia said its troops had also attacked Ukrainian forces near another eastern city, Kupiansk, and dislodged them from four fortified positions in the industrial zone on the left bank of the Oskol River. Zelenskyy said that up to 60 Russian soldiers remained in Kupiansk, and that Ukrainian forces were trying to clear them.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces had carried out heavy overnight strikes on a Ukrainian military airfield, a military equipment repair base and military-industrial facilities, as well as gas infrastructure facilities that supported them.
Ukraine’s military said it hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region, adding that a successful strike and resulting fire had been recorded on one of the refining facilities.
Ukraine also said that it had hit Russian military logistical facilities in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.
Weapons
Zelenskyy announced that Kyiv will set up offices for arms exports and joint weapons production in Berlin and Copenhagen this year.
Zelenskyy added that Ukraine plans to launch mass production of its domestically produced missiles – the Flamingo and Ruta – by the end of this year.
He also said that a Ukrainian delegation would visit Washington, DC, next week for further talks on a US-Ukraine drone deal, which Kyiv hopes will bolster ties with the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Politics and diplomacy
The European Commission (EC) said in a draft text that Ukraine is showing “remarkable commitment” to joining the European Union, but must reverse recent negative trends in the fight against corruption and accelerate rule of law reforms, according to the Reuters news agency.
The agency reported that the EC also said that Kyiv needed to make more progress on judicial independence, fighting organised crime and respecting civil society.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin departed for a two-day visit to China, which the Kremlin said is significant and includes planned talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Economy
Zelenskyy said Ukraine still needs to raise $750m to secure gas imports for the upcoming winter. The government wants to increase natural gas imports by about 30 percent after Russia sharply intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector in recent weeks, focusing on gas facilities.
A worker who was trapped after part of a medieval tower collapsed in the heart of Rome, has died, according to hospital officials.
Octay Stroici was pulled free at 23:00 local time (22:00 GMT), nearly twelve hours after a section of the Torre dei Conti, on the edge of the famous Roman Forum and close to the Colosseum, gave way and trapped him beneath.
His heart stopped in the ambulance, and doctors at the hospital he was rushed to were unable to save him.
The Romanian foreign ministry said Stroici was a Romanian national, as was another worker among three others pulled from the rubble. One is said to be in a critical condition.
Stroici’s rescue was initially described as an exceptional feat by firefighters who had worked late into the night. Rescue teams used drones and rubble clearers to try to reach him, despite the risk that the fragile tower could collapse further.
He had been conscious and talking to the emergency workers throughout the rescue. His wife was also at the scene.
Stroici had been carrying out conservation work on the medieval tower which is part of the Roman Forum, one of this city’s busiest tourist sites. But this particular building had been empty and abandoned for many years.
The Rome Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the incident.
Efforts to rescue Stroici – reported to be in his 60s – were interrupted when a second section of the 29m (90ft) high tower began crumbling again, with bricks raining down, creating a huge cloud of dust.
Earlier, Rome prefect Lamberto Gianninihad described it as a “very complex situation”. Giannini said that after the initial collapse firefighters had “put up some protection” around the trapped man, so when the second collapse happened, “they obviously shielded him”.
He added that the rescue was a long operation due to having to “mitigate…the enormous risks faced by the people trying to carry out the rescue”.
One firefighter was taken to hospital with an eye problem, according to local media, but the rest were unharmed, eventually resuming their search for the man.
A police chief said there was no imminent danger that the tower will disintegrate.
“My thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to the person currently fighting for his life beneath the rubble, and to his family, for whom I sincerely hope that this tragedy finds a positive outcome,” wrote Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on X before the rescue was complete.
Another worker, 67-year-old Ottaviano, who was inside at the time of the collapse but escaped from a balcony uninjured, told the AFP news agency: “It was not safe. I just want to go home.”
Rome’s mayor and Italy’s culture minister visited the scene.
The 13th Century tower is part of the Roman Forum, a major tourist attraction in the centre of Rome, but it is separated from the main visitors’ area by a road. The streets all around have been taped off by police as a precaution.
The medieval tower was built by Pope Innocent III as a residence for his brother.
Bello Gambur dreads going to the stream before 2 p.m.
Every morning, he leaves home with a herd of over 30 cattle, with his staff slung across his shoulders as they head into the bush. For about five hours, he watches them as they graze, rest, and wander, but none can drink. The only stream in the community lies just a short walk away, yet he must wait until 2 p.m. to take them there.
Going earlier, he says, could have deadly consequences.
All his life, the forty-year-old has lived as a herder in Mararaban Bare, a small community in the Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, where his ancestors migrated and settled a long time ago.
Over the years, the herders lived in peace with their host community, but in 2017, violence broke out over water. The clash claimed many lives, and several properties were destroyed. In October, security operatives stepped in to quell a similar incident.
So, Bello doesn’t mind his herd enduring hours of thirst if it helps keep the fragile peace.
Bello Gambur stands behind his herd in a grazing field at Mararaban Bare. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/HumAngle
He leads the cattle to the stream when most locals have finished using it and are back at their homes. Bello and the other herders go there between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to prevent coming in contact with the locals who visit the stream every morning to bathe, wash, and fetch water for domestic chores.
The rationing also requires the locals to leave before 2 p.m.
However, this arrangement has not ended the clashes between the groups, as locals believe it does little to address deeper grievances.
Tension keeps building
“Irrigation farmers use the water from the canal to farm. And other community members drink the water, the cattle also drink from it, so this is a problem,” Alphonsus Bosso, a 55-year-old farmer and resident of Mararaban Bare, told HumAngle.
He said the tension is unlikely to end soon, especially with the dry season approaching. This competition for access to the stream intensifies during this period.
Alphonsus said a lasting solution would be to provide the herders with their own water source “because we no longer co-exist”. In some other Adamawa communities, humanitarian organisations have already supported the creation of alternative water sources, which have helped ease similar tensions, a model yet to reach Mararaban Bare.
Alphonsus Bosso, a farmer and resident of Mararaban Bare. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/ HumAngle.
“We used to have canals that served as water sources for our cattle, and we barely used the stream until the canals began to dry up,” said Muza Alhaji Shenya, a 37-year-old herder in the area. He linked the recent drying up of water bodies in the area to industrial expansion, particularly the construction of embankments to store water for sugarcane plantations. HumAngle saw some of these embankments during a visit.
Herders said the construction of embankments for the irrigation of sugarcane plantations affected water bodies. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/HumAngle
However, environmental experts say the problem extends beyond industrial activity.
Hamza Muhammed Usman, the Executive Director of Environmental Care Foundation, a non-governmental organisation in Adamawa State that promotes a climate-friendly environment, food security, and peacebuilding, explained that prolonged dry spells, erratic rainfall, and deforestation, among other factors, are responsible for the shrinking water bodies in the state.
He said that overgrazing by livestock and human activities such as excessive farming on the same location and mining reduce vegetation cover, which disrupts the natural flow of water into its channels and bodies, especially in local government areas such as Numan, Fufore, some parts of Madagali, Maiha, Gombi, and the southern zone.
Hamza also noted that migration and growing birth rates in the affected areas have increased the competition for water. “There are people from Borno, Gombe, Taraba, and other places trooping into Adamawa for greener pastures. This leads to overdependence on the limited resources,” he said.
Muza Alhaji Shenya has been grazing in Mararaban Bare for over two decades. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/HumAngle
‘They pollute the water’
Locals insist that sharing the water with the cattle is unhealthy.
“The cattle are polluting the water with mud and urine,” said Silas Simon, the community leader. “We dilute the water with alum when we want to consume.”
Even this treatment becomes difficult during the dry season, which starts in October.
During the season, the herders in Mararaban Bare are left with two options: lead their cattle to the local stream or trek six kilometres into Bare, the nearest village with multiple water sources. The journey takes about six hours, making the local stream the closest option for many.
Some herders trek for six hours to Bare every day to access water for their cattle. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/HumAngle
One herder, who treks to Bare to avoid being attacked by locals, said his cattle often drink water once a day, mostly in the afternoon, and sometimes, in the evening while returning to their settlement. There, water is provided for them in small containers, but much priority is given to the calves since the water is not enough.
“The cows are getting thinner; their health has deteriorated over the years,” he said. “Every water source is drying up.”
“If we can have alternative water sources, then we won’t go to the stream for water where the people drink from,” Muza said.
There is a borehole in Mararaban Bare, but it barely functions.
Silas noted that if the borehole was functional, locals would use it as a water source and leave the stream for the herders, which would reduce the clashes.
“The borehole barely works. If it ever pumps water, it ceases at any time, so one has to wait for hours before the water runs again. Sometimes, people queue up from morning to evening and get unlucky because it ceases anytime,” he said.
The only borehole in Mararaban Bare barely functions. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/HumAngle.
‘No agreement’
Several meetings have been held between the locals and herders to resolve the conflict, but no lasting agreement has been reached apart from a temporary water-use arrangement. Silas said tensions remain high, as youths from both groups often act as the main instigators during clashes.
“We do not wish to provoke anyone; we are only after the welfare of the cattle,” said Alhaji Ngala, the chairperson of herders in the community. He also noted that farms have taken over grazing routes, leaving them with “no freedom”.
“If we can have access to grazing routes and enough water supply, then our minds will be at peace,” Ngala told HumAngle.
Hamza, the climate-friendly environment advocate, urged the government to invest in solar-powered boreholes as a way of promoting clean energy and sustainable water supply across communities facing similar challenges. He also called for stronger conflict-resolution mechanisms across the state.
A group of young herders watch cattle graze in the open fields of Mararaban Bare. Photo: Saduwo Banyawa/HumAngle.
“Water scarcity is not just an environmental issue but a driver of insecurity, because in a place where there is tension, certain groups can take advantage of the situation to infiltrate such communities and cause problems,” Hamza said.
Although the state government has collaborated with civil society organisations to adopt measures like afforestation, small-scale irrigation projects, and awareness campaigns, among other initiatives, to address the recurring clashes over water and limited resources. Hamza noted that many communities still lack the technical capacity and financial support to sustain these interventions.
“Some of the measures, like afforestation and proper waste management, are not owned properly by the locals,” Hamza said.
He further called for integrated water resource management and inclusive governance to protect watersheds and prevent further land degradation. “Degraded lands can be restored through rotation. Herders should not graze on the same spot for more than five years, and farmers should do the same,” he said.
He also stressed the need for interdependence; farmers relying on cow dung as manure, and herders being granted access to reserved grazing areas.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
Norway has become the latest customer of the pan-European NH90 helicopter to walk away from its acquisition, agreeing on an out-of-court settlement with manufacturer NH Industries (NHI). The NATO member follows Australia, whose departure from the program TWZhas discussed in depth in the past, and Belgium, which announced earlier this year that it would retire its Tactical Transport Helicopter (TTH) versions.
It was confirmed today that NHI would pay Norway €375 million ($432 million) to bring to an end the dispute around the Scandinavian nation’s long-contested NH90 contract, which involved 14 navalized versions of the helicopter. In a joint statement, Norway and NHI said that the 14 NH90s would be returned to the manufacturer together with spare parts, tools, and mission equipment. The aircraft and components will be recycled back into the program so they can be passed on to other customers.
An NH90 on the deck of a Royal Norwegian Navy ship. NHI
“This solution reflects the parties’ mutual agreement to bring all related disputes to a conclusive end,” the joint statement said.
Norway announced plans to buy the 14 helicopters in 2001, with these to be divided between the Royal Norwegian Navy and Norwegian Coast Guard, with deliveries planned between 2005 and 2008. The Navy was to get six examples outfitted for anti-submarine warfare, while the Coast Guard would receive the remaining eight configured for search and rescue.
From the start, the program was dogged by problems, with the first example not being delivered until December 2011. The following year, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense announced that the slow pace of deliveries meant that another helicopter type might have to be purchased to fill the gap once the country’s Westland Lynx shipborne helicopters were retired in 2014. At that time, it began to be reported that Oslo was looking at the U.S.-made MH-60 Seahawk as an alternative to the NH90 for anti-submarine warfare.
A Norwegian Coast Guard Westland Lynx. Norwegian Armed Forces
By January 2016, six NH90s had been delivered, and two years later, a Norwegian Armed Forces report found that the NH90 fleet was not providing the required flight hours to meet its intended roles. The report recommended that all 14 helicopters be converted for the anti-submarine warfare role.
A subsequent Norwegian Armed Forces study, in September 2018, suggested that it might still be possible for the 14 NH90s to perform in both the Navy and Coast Guard roles. However, this would require the ready availability of spare parts, as well as sufficient overhaul capacity. The goal was to achieve this by 2022.
By 2022, however, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense was voicing more concerns over new delays and NHI’s alleged failure to meet contractual obligations. Once again, an alternative helicopter was on the agenda.
Finally, in June 2022, then-Norwegian Minister of Defense Bjørn Arild Gram announced that the NH90 contract would be terminated and that the helicopters would be immediately grounded. Oslo cited delays, errors, and excessive maintenance requirements and demanded compensation from NHI.
A Norwegian NH90 helicopter in the hangar. Norwegian Ministry of Defense
By that point, 13 NH90s had been delivered, but only eight arrived in a fully operational configuration, according to the Norwegian Ministry of Defense. Where the fleet was required to fly 3,900 hours a year, it was averaging just 700 hours annually.
“Regrettably, we have reached the conclusion that no matter how many hours our technicians work, and how many parts we order, it will never make the NH90 capable of … meeting the requirements of the Norwegian Armed Forces,” Gram said at the time.
Seahawk lands at Haakonsvern with Norwegian pilots lands at Haakonsvern for the very first time. This marks a historic milestone for the Navy and the phasing in of the new maritime helicopters in Norwegian service.
The Norwegian development is the latest blow for NHI in what has been a disappointing year.
In July, Belgium’s Minister of Defense Theo Francken said that the country will soon retire its four NH90 TTHs, describing the acquisition as a “bad purchase.” Belgium will continue to operate a similar number of maritime-tasked NH90s.
Like Norway, Australia cited difficulties with maintenance and availability when, in December 2021, it announced it was ditching its fleet of MRH90 battlefield utility helicopters, a variant of the NH90 also known locally in that country as the Taipan, and replacing them with U.S.-built UH-60 Black Hawks. The NH90 had entered Australian service in 2008, and the fleet of 46 Taipans was retired a decade ahead of schedule.
An Australian Army MRH90 provides support to the New South Wales government following a request for assistance in response to flooding across the state. Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Defense
“The performance of the MRH90 Taipan has been an ongoing and well-documented concern for [the Australian Ministry of Defense], and there has been a significant effort at great expense to try to remediate those issues,” then-Australian Minister for Defense Peter Dutton said at the time. “It is critically important that there is a safe, reliable, and capable utility helicopter available for our servicemen and women into the future, with reasonable and predictable operating costs.”
Norway’s neighbor, Sweden, has also been less than satisfied with its NH90s, of which it took nine each of the TTH and NFH, albeit modified to meet local requirements for specific search and rescue and anti-submarine warfare roles, respectively. Delays in getting the TTHs fully operational led to Sweden ordering 15 UH-60M Black Hawks as a stopgap, while in November 2022, the country revealed plans to replace its NH90 NFHs entirely.
Outside of these cases, other NH90 operators have faced a variety of problems with the helicopter, although these issues have rarely been consistent, especially since individual variants — more than 20 in all — can differ from country to country.
Examples include Germany, where the Army’s helicopters were revealed to have rear ramps too weak to support fully equipped soldiers, cabin floors that can be damaged by combat boots, among other faults. At one point in 2019, only around 12 percent of Germany’s NH90s were mission-capable, with the German Armed Forces blaming Airbus, which is part of the NHI consortium, for alleged failings in its maintenance services.
A German Army NH90 is loaded aboard an An-124 strategic airlifter at Leipzig/Halle Airport for transport to Mali in 2017. Bundeswehr/Mario Bähr
On the other hand, NHI has continued to trumpet the NH90’s successes, where they have occurred.
Last year, the company’s CEO, Axel Aloccio, said that he considered there were “lots of commercial opportunities” available for additional NH90 sales. He said that, in particular, there was “a lot” of interest from Middle East nations and identified an overall market for between “50 to 100” sales of the aircraft.
Meanwhile, 13 other operators continue to fly the NH90 in a variety of roles, and the helicopter is expanding into new missions, too. As part of its defense spending drive, the Netherlands announced last year that it would add to its NH90 fleet.
For the time being, however, the NH90’s loss in Norway, and previously Australia, further tarnishes the helicopter’s reputation but is certainly good news for Lockheed Martin, whose H-60/S-70 series is a readymade and well-proven replacement.
In October, manufacturing economies worldwide faced challenges, particularly due to weak demand in the U. S. and tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. Factories in the U. S. struggled with lower new orders and strained supply chains, leading to a decline in manufacturing activity for the eighth consecutive month. Manufacturers expressed concerns about the unpredictable tariff situation affecting future costs and the ability to expand production.
In the Eurozone, factory activity stagnated, with flat new orders and reduced workforce. Germany, a key player, showed minimal recovery, experiencing a slowdown in production growth. Engineering orders in Germany dropped sharply, while France’s manufacturing sector remained weak and Italy saw a slight contraction. Spain was the exception, with its factories performing better than in September. Analysts noted that growth in the Eurozone was primarily driven by strong domestic demand, but foreign orders remained a concern, especially from France and the U. S.
In Britain, outside the EU, factories reported their best month in a year, largely due to the resumption of production at Jaguar Land Rover following a cyberattack. Meanwhile, manufacturing activity in China grew at a slower pace, and South Korea saw a decline in exports amid cautiousness over U. S. demand. China’s official PMI indicated a seventh straight month of falling factory activity, with economists suggesting the economy lost momentum in October. Despite a recent agreement between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to ease tariffs, deeper trade tensions persist.
In Asia, India experienced a boost in factory activity driven by strong domestic demand, in contrast to some declines in Malaysia and Taiwan, while Vietnam and Indonesia saw improvements in their manufacturing sectors.
Video shows part of Rome’s medieval Torre dei Conti collapse for a second time during a restoration near the Colosseum. One seriously injured worker remained trapped Monday evening with firefighters continuing a high-risk rescue as the tower’s stability is assessed.
The announcement comes less than week after Amazon laid off 14,000 people.
OpenAI has signed a new deal valued at $38bn with Amazon that will allow the artificial intelligence giant to run AI workloads across Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure.
The seven-year deal announced on Monday is the first big AI push for the e-commerce giant after a restructuring last week.
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The new deal will give the ChatGPT maker access to thousands of Nvidia graphics processors to train and run its artificial intelligence models.
Experts say this does not mean that it will allow OpenAI to train its model on websites hosted by AWS – which includes the websites of The New York Times, Reddit and United Airlines.
“Running OpenAI training inside AWS doesn’t change their ability to scrape content from AWS-hosted websites [which they could already do for anything publicly readable]. This is strictly speaking about the economics of rent vs buy for GPU [graphics processing unit] capacity,” Joshua McKenty, CEO of the AI detection company PolyguardAI, told Al Jazeera.
The deal is also a major vote of confidence for the e-commerce giant’s cloud unit, AWS, which some investors feared had fallen behind rivals Microsoft and Google in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. Those fears were somewhat eased by the strong growth the business reported in the September quarter.
OpenAI will begin using AWS immediately, with all planned capacity set to come online by the end of 2026 and room to expand further in 2027 and beyond.
Amazon plans to roll out hundreds of thousands of chips, including Nvidia’s GB200 and GB300 AI accelerators, in data clusters built to power ChatGPT’s responses and train OpenAI’s next wave of models, the companies said.
Amazon already offers OpenAI models on Amazon Bedrock, which offers multiple AI models for businesses using AWS.
OpenAI’s sweeping restructuring last week moved it further away from its non-profit roots and also removed Microsoft’s first right to refusal to supply services in the new arrangement.
Image hurdles
Amazon’s announcement about an investment in AI comes only days after the company laid off 14,000 people despite CEO Andy Jassy’s comment in an earnings call on Thursday saying the layoffs were not driven by AI.
“The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,” Jassy said.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said the startup is committed to spending $1.4 trillion to develop 30 gigawatts of computing resources – enough to roughly power 25 million United States homes.
“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute,” said Altman. “Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”
This comes amid growing concerns about the sheer amount of energy demand that AI data centres need to operate. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that AI data centres will use up to 12 percent of US electricity by 2028.
An AP/NORC poll from October found that 41 percent of Americans are extremely concerned about AI’s impact on the environment, while another 30 percent say they are somewhat concerned as the industry increases its data centre footprint around the US.
Signs of a bubble
Surging valuations of AI companies and their massive spending commitments, which total more than $1 trillion for OpenAI, have raised fears that the AI boom may be turning into a bubble.
OpenAI has already tapped Alphabet’s Google to supply it with cloud services, as Reuters reported in June. It also reportedly struck a deal to buy $300bn in computing power for about five years.
While OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, which the two forged in 2019, has helped push Microsoft to the top spot among its Big Tech peers in the AI race, both companies have been making moves recently to reduce reliance on each other.
Neither OpenAI nor Amazon were immediately available for comment.
On Wall Street, Amazon’s stock is surging on the news of the new deal. As of 11:15am in New York (16:15 GMT), it is up by 4.7 percent.
The government has asked the media regulator to revisit its rules on phone companies raising their prices in the middle of a contract, after O2 unexpectedly announced it was raising prices by £2.50 a month.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said O2’s higher than expected price increase is “disappointing given the current pressures on consumers”.
“I believe we need to go further, faster. I am keen that we look at in-contract price rises again,” she wrote in a letter to the media regulator.
Ofcom said it shared the government’s concern “customers who face price rises must be treated fairly by mobile providers”.
O2 said in a statement: “We appreciate that price changes are never welcome, but we have been fully transparent with our customers about this change, writing directly to them and providing the right to exit without penalty if they wish.”
Ofcom has been given until 7 November to respond to Ms Kendall’s letter, and said it would respond to her specific questions shortly.
In January, new rules came in which cracked down on phone and broadband providers increasing prices in the middle of a contract without warning.
It was able to do this because the increase was not linked to inflation, and it has given customers 30 days to leave without penalty – so long as they pay off the cost of their device in full.
The company said it has not gone against the regulation and Ofcom’s rules do not stop providers from raising prices.
“A price increase equivalent to 8p per day is greatly outweighed by the £700m we invest each year into our mobile network, with UK consumers benefitting from an extremely competitive market and some of the lowest prices compared to international peers,” it said.
Ms Kendall said O2 went “against the spirit” of the rules in her letter to Ofcom’s chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes.
She has asked Ofcom to look into whether the 30-day switching period makes it easy enough for consumers to move to another provider.
“I would welcome your undertaking a rapid review on how easy it is for customers to switch providers,” she said.
“If companies are determined to increase pricing, it is beholden on us to make sure that customers are able to go elsewhere as easily as possible.”
She has also asked for an assessment into whether the January rules give consumers enough transparency into price rises during their contracts.
Ofcom’s rules require companies to tell customers how much their bills will rise by in pounds and pence before their contract starts.
O2 initially said its monthly prices would increase by £1.80 a month in April 2026 for current customers.
But the firm now says they will go up by £2.50 instead.
Ms Kendall said she wants phone providers to inform all their customers – including those whose contracts started before the new rules – how much their monthly prices will go up by.
“We’ve always said fixed should mean fixed,” said Tom MacInnes, director of policy at the Citizens Advice charity, and added the current rule “hasn’t gone far enough to protect customers”.
“If one company is able to get away with this, other providers could follow suit,” he said.
“The time has come for the regulator to banish mid-contract price rises for good.”
Meanwhile, telecoms analyst Paolo Pescatore of PP Foresight said UK network operators are “cash-strapped as margins are being squeezed”.
He added: “Striking the right balance between raising much-needed funds and investing in next-generation networks is never easy.”
But he said while other providers would have usually followed in announcing similar prices rises, “it seems highly unlikely that rivals will follow suit, given the consumer backlash and awareness generated thus far”.
A fuel blockade by al Qaeda-linked militants has severely impacted the capital of Mali, raising concerns that the jihadist group, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), might attempt to impose its rule in the country. While analysts believe that JNIM currently lacks the resources to seize control of Bamako, they view the blockade as a strategy to weaken the government by cutting off fuel supplies, which has led to school closures and affected local businesses.
The blockade aims to pressure the military government, which took power in 2021 after promising to combat the Islamist threat. Analysts speculate that JNIM seeks to provoke another coup in Mali, potentially the third since 2020, which could destabilize the nation further and provide JNIM with more opportunities to gain power and resources. A recent report warned that the government’s stability is at high risk in the coming weeks due to the increasing pressure from JNIM.
JNIM announced the blockade was aimed at the ruling authorities, accusing them of oppressing citizens, particularly outside the capital. The group has been advancing from northern Mali into central areas and neighboring countries, increasing its attacks on military posts and acquiring more weapons. Recently, JNIM reportedly received a large ransom for hosting Emirati hostages and has begun extending its operations in southern Mali, intensifying its focus on Bamako.
The blockade is viewed as both an economic tactic and a means of instilling fear among Bamako’s leadership and its residents. Although there haven’t been significant protests despite the fuel crisis, tensions among military leaders and the arrest of several generals could threaten the current regime’s stability. Observers caution that the potential collapse of Mali’s government could have a domino effect on neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, where military-led governments are in place, thus destabilizing the Sahel region.
Malians have remained relatively quiet about the fuel shortage due to fear of government reprisals. One resident explained the struggles of finding fuel, while the military continues to deal with internal challenges. Analysts believe that the situation may make the current military leaders vulnerable to being ousted, given the growing pressures from both political factions and armed groups.
If JNIM were to gain control of Bamako, it could lead to significant restrictions on daily life, as seen in areas previously occupied by the group. Recent warnings from foreign embassies have urged citizens to leave Mali, yet there hasn’t been a significant exodus or an increase in flight bookings at this time. The future remains uncertain, with risks of JNIM attempting to advance into the city still possible, according to diplomats.
US President Donald Trump has appeared on the CBS News programme 60 Minutes just months after he won a $16m settlement from the broadcaster for alleged “deceptive editing”.
In the interview with CBS host Norah O’Donnell, which was filmed last Friday at his Mar-a-Lago residence and aired on Sunday, Trump touched on several topics, including the ongoing government shutdown, his administration’s unprecedented crackdowns on undocumented migrants, the US’s decision to restart nuclear testing, and the trade war with China.
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Trump, who regularly appears on Fox News, a right-wing media outlet, has an uneasy relationship with CBS, which is considered centrist.
In October 2020, the president walked out of a 60 Minutes interview in the lead-up to the 2020 election he lost, claiming that the host, Lesley Stahl, was “biased”.
Here are some key takeaways from the interview:
The interview took place one year to the day after Trump sued CBS
The president’s lawyers sued CBS owner Paramount in October 2024 for “mental anguish” over a pre-election interview with rival candidate Kamala Harris that Trump claimed had been deceptively edited to favour Democrats and thus affected his campaign.
CBS had aired two different versions of an answer Harris gave to a question on Israel’s war on Gaza, posed by host Bill Whitaker. One version aired on 60 Minutes while the other appeared on the programme Face the Nation.
Asked whether Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, listened to US advice, Harris answered: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States – to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
In an alternative edit, featured in earlier pre-broadcast promotions, Harris had given a longer, more rambling response that did not sound as concise.
The network argued the answer was edited differently for the two shows due to time restrictions, but Trump’s team claimed CBS “distorted” its broadcasts and “helped” Harris, thereby affecting his campaign. Trump asked for an initial $10bn in damages before upping it to $20bn in February 2025.
Paramount, in July 2025, chose to settle with Trump’s team to the tune of $16m in the form of a donation to a planned Trump presidential library. That move angered journalist unions and rights groups, which argued it set a bad precedent for press freedom.
Paramount executives said the company would not apologise for the editing of its programmes, but had decided to settle to put the matter to rest.
The company was at the time trying to secure federal approval from Trump’s government for a proposed merger with Skydance, owned by Trump ally Larry Ellison. The Federal Communications Commission has since approved the merger that gives Ellison’s Skydance controlling rights.
On October 19, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East, were interviewed on 60 Minutes regarding the Israel-Gaza war.
President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025 [Mark Schiefelbein/AP]
He solved rare-earth metals issue with China
After meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last Thursday, Trump praised his counterpart as a “strong man, a very powerful leader” and said their relationship was on an even keel despite the trade war. However, he blamed China for “ripping off” the US through its dominance of crucial rare earth materials.
Trump told 60 Minutes he had cut a favourable trade agreement with China and that “we got – no rare-earth threat. That’s gone, completely gone”, referring to Chinese export restrictions on critical rare-earth metals needed to manufacture a wide range of items including defence equipment, smartphones and electric vehicles.
However, Beijing actually only said it would delay introducing export controls for five rare-earth metals it announced in October, and did not mention restrictions on a further seven it announced in April this year. Those restrictions remain in place.
Xi ‘knows what will happen’ if China attacks Taiwan
Trump said President Xi did not say anything about whether Beijing planned to attack autonomous Taiwan.
However, he referred to past assurances from Xi, saying: “He [Xi] has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president’, because they know the consequences.”
Asked whether he would order US forces to action if China moved militarily on Taiwan, Trump demurred, saying: “You’ll find out if it happens, and he understands the answer to that … I can’t give away my secrets. The other side knows.”
There are mounting fears in the US that China could attack Taiwan. Washington’s stance of “strategic ambiguity” has always kept observers speculating about whether the US would defend Taiwan against Beijing. Ahead of the last elections, Trump said Taiwan should “pay” for protection.
He doesn’t know who the crypto boss he pardoned is
When asked why he pardoned cryptocurrency multibillionaire and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao last month, Trump said: “I don’t know who he is.”
The president said he had never met Zhao, but had been told he was the victim of a “witch hunt” by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.
Zhao pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering in connection with child sex abuse and “terrorism” on his crypto platform in 2023. He served four months in prison until September 2024, and stepped down as chief executive of Binance.
Binance has been linked to the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial, and many have questioned if the case is a conflict of interest.
In March 2025, World Liberty Financial launched its own dollar-pegged cryptocoin, USD1, on Binance’s blockchain and the company promoted it to its 275 million users. The coin was also supported by an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates, MGX Fund Management Limited, which used $2bn worth of the World Liberty stablecoin to buy a stake in Binance.
This part of the interview appeared in a full transcript of the 90-minute interview, but does not appear in either the 28-minute televised version or the 73-minute extended online video version. CBS said in a note on the YouTube version that it was “condensed for clarity”.
Other countries ‘are testing nuclear weapons’
Trump justified last week’s decision by his government to resume nuclear testing for the first time in 33 years, saying that other countries – besides North Korea – are already doing it.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” Trump said, also mentioning Pakistan. “You know, we’re an open society. We’re different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it, because otherwise you people are gonna report – they don’t have reporters that gonna be writing about it. We do.”
Russia, China, and Pakistan have not openly conducted tests in recent years. Analyst Georgia Cole of UK think tank Chatham House told Al Jazeera that “there is no indication” the three countries have resumed testing.
He’s not worried about Hamas disarming
The president claimed the US-negotiated ceasefire and peace plan between Israel and Hamas was “very solid” despite Israeli strikes killing 236 Gazans since the ceasefire went into effect. It is also unclear whether or when the Palestinian armed group, Hamas, has agreed it will disarm.
However, Trump said he was not worried about Hamas disarming as the US would force the armed group to do so. “Hamas could be taken out immediately if they don’t behave,” he said.
Venezuela’s Maduro’s ‘days are numbered’
Trump denied the US was going to war with Venezuela despite a US military build-up off the country’s coast and deadly air strikes targeting alleged drug-trafficking ships in the country’s waters. The United Nations has said the strikes are a violation of international law.
Responding to a question about whether the strikes were really about unseating Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, Trump said they weren’t. However, when asked if Maduro’s days in office were numbered, the president answered: “I would say, yeah.”
A closed sign is displayed outside the National Gallery of Art nearly a week into a partial government shutdown in Washington, DC, the US, October 7, 2025 [Annabelle Gordon/Reuters]
US government shutdown is all the Democrats’ fault
Trump, a member of the Republican Party, blamed Democrats for what is now close to the longest government shutdown in US history, which has been ongoing since October 1.
Senators from the Democratic Party have refused to approve a new budget unless it extends expiring tax credits that make health insurance cheaper for millions of Americans and unless Trump reverses healthcare cuts made in his tax-and-spending bill, passed earlier this year.
The US president made it clear that he would not negotiate with Democrats, and did not give clear plans for ending the shutdown affecting 1.4 million governent employees.
US will become ‘third-world nation’ if tariffs disallowed
Referring to a US Supreme Court hearing brought by businesses arguing that the Trump government’s tariff war on other countries is illegal and has caused domestic inflation, Trump said the US “would go to hell” and be a “third world nation” if the court ordered tariffs to be removed.
He said the tariffs are necessary for “national security” and that they have increased respect from other countries for the US.
ICE raids ‘don’t go far enough’
Trump defended his government’s unprecedented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and surveillance on people perceived to be undocumented migrants.
When asked if the raids had gone too far, he responded: “No. I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by [former US Presidents Joe] Biden and [Barack] Obama.”
Zohran Mamdani is a ‘communist’
Regarding the New York City mayoral race scheduled for November 4, Trump said he would not back democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, and called him a “communist”. He said if Mamdani wins, it will be hard for him to “give a lot of money to New York”.
More than 70,000 people ordered to leave their homes as forecasters warn of torrential rains, strong winds and storm surges.
Published On 3 Nov 20253 Nov 2025
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Thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate from coastal areas in the eastern Philippines before Typhoon Kalmaegi’s expected landfall.
Forecasters have warned of torrential rains, storm surges of up to 3 metres (10ft) and wind gusts of up to 150km/h (93mph) as the centre of the storm was expected to come ashore on Monday.
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More than 70,000 people in the coastal towns of Guiuan and Salcedo on Samar Island and Mercedes in Camarines Norte province were ordered to move to evacuation centres or buildings certified as sturdy enough to withstand the impact of the typhoon. Authorities also prohibited fishermen from venturing out to sea in the east-central region.
The storm is predicted to make landfall in either Guiuan or nearby municipalities.
Guiuan is no stranger to typhoons. It was badly hit in November 2013 when one of the most powerful tropical cyclones on record smashed into the Philippines. The storm left more than 7,300 people dead or missing and displaced over four million people.
Human-driven climate change
Kalmaegi is forecast to travel westwards overnight before hitting central island provinces on Tuesday. This includes Cebu, which is still recovering from a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in September.
The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms annually, and scientists are warning that they are becoming more powerful due to human-driven climate change.
The archipelago was hit by two major storms in September, including Super Typhoon Ragasa, which toppled trees, tore the roofs off buildings and killed 14 people in neighbouring Taiwan.
The Philippines is also regularly shaken by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake has shaken northern Afghanistan, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 500, a health official says, adding that the numbers could increase.
The quake’s epicentre on Monday was located 22km (14 miles) west-southwest of the town of Khulm, and it struck at 12:59am (20:29 GMT on Sunday) at a depth of 28km (17 miles), the United States Geological Survey said.
Sharafat Zaman, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Health, said 534 injured people and 20 bodies had been brought to hospitals in Balkh and Samangan provinces. Rescuers were on the scene and the figures were changing, he added.
In the nearby province of Badakhshan, the quake damaged or destroyed 800 houses in one village in the Shahr-e-Bozorg district, said Ihsanullah Kamgar, spokesperson for the provincial police headquarters.
However, due to a lack of internet service in the remote area, there were still no accurate casualty figures, he added.
Yousaf Hammad, a spokesperson for the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority, said most of the injured suffered minor wounds and were discharged after treatment.
In the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Ministry of Defence announced that rescue and emergency teams had reached the quake-affected areas in Balkh and Samangan, which suffered the most damage, and were transporting the injured and assisting others.
The Defence Ministry said a rockslide briefly blocked a main mountain highway linking Kabul with Mazar-i-Sharif but the road was later reopened. It said some people who had been injured and trapped along the highway were transported to hospital.
There will be increased visible patrols at mainline stations over the coming days, the Transport Secretary said
There will be a review of rail security in the UK following a mass stabbing on a train, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has said.
A man has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder after the knife attack on a Doncaster to London service on Saturday night.
Alexander told the BBC the government would “review security arrangements” and respond “swiftly and in a proportionate way”.
But she did not think airport scanning technology “is the right solution for stations in the UK”.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is expected to make a statement about the attack to MPs in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon.
Questions about passenger safety on the UK’s rail network have been raised after a a black British national, who boarded a train at Peterborough station, attacked passengers with a knife.
Eleven people were treated in hospital including a member of train staff who is said to be in a “critical but stable condition”.
Anthony Williams, 32, from Peterborough has been charged with 10 counts of attempted murder, one count of actual bodily harm and one count of possession of a bladed article, British Transport Police (BTP) said on Monday morning.
Alexander told BBC Breakfast that BTP officers would increase visible patrols at mainline stations over the coming days “because I do understand that people will want to feel reassured following what happened”.
“Thankfully incidents like this on the public transport network are very, very rare,” she added.
She said the rail network in the UK was a “low crime environment” and for every one million passenger journeys only 27 crimes were committed.
Asked what steps the government would take to improve security on trains, she said: “We are investing in improved CCTV in stations and the Home Office will soon be launching a consultation on more facial recognition technology which could be deployed in stations as well.”
Asked about luggage scanners similar to those used in some major train stations abroad she said: “At the moment that type of airport scanning technology I don’t think is the right solution for stations in the UK.”
‘Real concerns’
Andy Trotter, former British Transport Police Chief Constable told BBC Breakfast Saturday’s attack illustrates “people’s real concerns about being trapped with an offender or with someone causing disorder”.
“I hope this results in a broader review of security, the need for more British Transport Police, the need for more security from the rail companies themselves.”
Asked about reports that BTP had carried out a training exercise a few months ago based on a scenario similar to what happened he said: “I know they did have a very similar exercise, as in the few weeks before 7/7 we had an exercise similar to the outcome on that day as well.
“It does make it work a lot better on the day, you learn from experience from those exercises what went well what didn’t go well.
“The police and the other emergency services also look at every event immediately afterwards to make sure you do learn lessons.”
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he was calling for “a dramatic increase in the use of stop and search to take knives off the streets and potentially prevent attacks like the one was saw on the train”.
When asked for what reason the suspect in Saturday’s stabbing should have been stopped and searched before boarding the train when only his age, gender and ethnicity was known, he said “it would depend if there was an indication of suspicion”.
“But in high crime hot-spot areas there should actually be stop and search undertaken without suspicion,” he added.
Asked if he was suggesting the man should have been stopped and searched purely based on the colour of his skin he said “categorically not I am absolutely not saying that”.
The Conservative government in 2024 described laws on knife crime in England and Wales as “already among the toughest in the world”.
Challenged on why these same laws were no longer good enough, he said: “We need to go further with tougher knife crime laws, with more stop and search, and the use of technology like live facial recognition to identify wanted criminals and dangerous people so they can be arrested.”
Senior Reform UK politician Zia Yusuf on Sunday said he would not like to see increased security at train stations.
He told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme it would impose “enormous friction” on the lives of law-abiding people “as a result of the actions of a tiny minority”.
He argued for a significant increase in the use of stop-and-search powers “to saturation”, saying this would remove deadly weapons from circulation.
There is no single knife crime statistics publication in the UK but as far as England and Wales goes, police recorded 51,527 offences across both nations in the year to June 2025, according to the latest figures, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
However, these figures show knife crime is falling by 5% compared with the same period last year and 7% compared with five years ago. Homicides involving a knife also fell by nearly a fifth in the latest year to 196 offences, compared with 239 the year before.
On Tuesday, voters will determine the fate of redistricting measure Proposition 50. But if you’re eager to vote in person, you don’t have to wait. You can easily pop into the polls a day early in many parts of California.
Where to vote in person on Monday
In Los Angeles County alone, there are 251 vote centers that will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday. (They’ll also be open again on Tuesday, election day, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.) At vote centers, you can vote in person, drop off your vote-by-mail ballot, or even register to vote and cast a same-day provisional ballot, which will be counted after officials verify the registration.
“Avoid the rush,” said Dean Logan, the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk. “Make a plan to vote early.”
Also on Monday, San Diego County’s 68 vote centers are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Orange County’s 65 vote centers from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Riverside County’s 55 vote centers and Ventura County’s nine vote centers between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
All of those vote centers also will be open on election day Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Other counties have fewer in-person polling locations on Monday
San Bernardino County, however, only has six designated early voting poll stations. They’re open on Monday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and also on election day from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Otherwise, San Bernardino County residents who want to vote in person on Tuesday can go to their assigned neighborhood polling location.
In Santa Barbara County, if you’ve lost or damaged a vote-by-mail ballot, you can request a replacement ballot through county’s elections offices in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria or Lompoc. Otherwise, voters can cast ballots at their assigned neighborhood polls on Tuesday.
How to drop off your vote-by-mail ballot
All Californian registered voters were mailed a vote-by-mail ballot. There are various ways to drop it off — through the mail, or through a county ballot drop box or polling place.
You can also send your ballot through the U.S. Postal Service. No stamps are needed. Note that your ballot must be postmarked by Tuesday (and received by the county elections office within seven days).
But beware: Officials have warned that recent changes to the U.S. Postal Service earlier this year may result in later postmarks than you might expect.
In fact, state officials recently warned that, in large swaths of California — outside of the metros of Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento area — mail that is dropped off at a mailbox or a post office on election day may not be postmarked until a day later, on Wednesday. That would render the ballot ineligible to be counted.
As a result, some officials are recommending that — at this point — it’s better to deliver your vote-by-mail ballot through a secure drop box, a vote center or a neighborhood polling place, rather than through the Postal Service.
“If you can’t make it to a vote center, you can go to any post office and ask at the counter for a postmark on your ballot to ensure you get credit for mailing your ballot on time,” the office of Atty. Gen. Robert Bonta said.
Most common reasons vote-by-mail ballots don’t get counted
In the 2024 general election, 99% of vote-by-mail ballots were accepted. But that means about 122,000 of the ballots, out of 13.2 million returned, weren’t counted in California.
Here are the top reasons why: • A non-matching signature: 71,381 ballots not counted. • Ballot was not received in time: 33,016 ballots not counted. • No voter signature: 13,356 ballots not counted.
If the voter didn’t sign their ballot, or the ballot’s signature is different from the one in the voter’s record, election officials are required to reach out to the voter to resolve the missing or mismatched signature.
Other reasons included the voter having already voted, the voter forgetting to put the ballot in their envelope, or returning multiple ballots in a single envelope.
In December 2014, an incumbent president lost a re-election bid for the first time in Nigeria’s history.
It was a time characterised by widespread anguish and anger at how insecure the Nigerian life had become. Boko Haram, the extremist insurgent group fighting to establish what it calls an Islamic State, had intensified its violence, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions more, and abducting hundreds of teenage girls from school. Bombs were also being detonated in major cities at an alarming rate. For Nigerians, the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan simply had to go. And so Muhammadu Buhari was voted in with unflinching hope that things would get better. That hope quickly turned into disillusionment and, in some cases, anger as things began to take a different turn than was hoped for.
Today, July 13, the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, passed away at 82, signalling the conclusion of a significant political chapter. As tributes from dignitaries continue to emerge and headlines reflect on his ascent and legacy, HumAngle analyses the impact of his presidency on the lives of Nigerians beyond the halls of power, in displacement camps, remote villages, and troubled areas.
An examination of the security legacy
During his time in office from 2015 to 2023, Nigeria faced increasing violence on various fronts: the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East, a resurgence of militants in the Niger Delta, and the rising threat of terrorism and conflicts between farmers and herders in the North West and Middle Belt.
Buhari’s administration initiated multiple military operations, including Operation Lafiya Dole, Operation Python Dance, Operation Safe Corridor, etc., yielding mixed outcomes and levels of responsibility. While some campaigns succeeded in pushing back armed groups, others faced criticism due to evidence of excessive force, extrajudicial killings, and displacements within communities. Non-kinetic counter-insurgency operations such as the Operation Safe Corridor, which was launched in 2016, also came under heavy criticism. Though the programme was designed for Boko Haram members or members of similar insurgent groups in the northeastern region to safely defect from the terror groups and return to society, HumAngle found that civilians were finding their way into these programmes, due to mass arbitrary arrests prompted by profiling and unfounded allegations. The International Crisis Group also found that, beyond innocent civilians being forced to undergo the programme, other kinds of irregularities were going on.
“The program has also been something of a catch-all for a wide range of other individuals, including minors suspected of being child soldiers, a few high-level jihadists and alleged insurgents whom the government tried and failed to prosecute and who say they have been moved into the program against their will,” the group said in a 2021 report. At the time, more than 800 people had graduated from the programme.
The programme also did not – and still does not – have space for women, and HumAngle reported the repercussions of this.
During Buhari’s reign, terrorists were also forced out of major towns but became more entrenched in rural communities. The former president launched aggressive military campaigns against them, reclaiming villages and cities. Boko Haram retreated into hard-to-reach areas with weaker government presence, operating in remote parts of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States. In these areas, the group imposed strict rules, conscripted fighters, and punished dissenters, often with brutal force.
A HumAngle geospatial investigation also showed how insurgency wrecked hundreds of towns and villages in Borno state. Many of the rural settlements were overrun after Boko Haram lost urban ground under Buhari’s watch.
Even with significant investment in security, a large portion of rural Nigeria remains ungoverned to date. As the former president failed to curb the forest exploits of Boko Haram, the terror group expanded control over ungoverned spaces, particularly in the North Central and North East regions. In Niger State alone, terrorists took over communities in Shiroro, Rafi, Paikoro, and Munya LGAs, uprooting thousands and launching multiple attacks. The lack of accessible roads and communication infrastructure made rapid response nearly impossible, allowing the terrorists to operate with impunity.
HumAngle found that, under Buhari, Nigeria lost many forest areas to terrorists, especially in Niger state. In areas like Galadima Kogo, terrorists imposed taxes, enforced laws, and ran parallel administrations. The withdrawal of soldiers from key bases emboldened the terrorists. This shift from urban insurgency to rural domination underscores the failure to secure Nigeria’s vast ungoverned spaces. Analysts who conducted a study on alternative sovereignties in Nigeria confirmed that Boko Haram and other non-state actors exploited the governance gaps under Buhari’s administration to expand their influence, threatening national security.
Perspectives from areas affected by conflict
For individuals beyond Abuja and Lagos, Buhari’s governance was characterised more by the state’s tangible influence than by formal policy declarations.
In Borno and Yobe, civilians faced military checkpoints and insurgent violence. School abductions like the Dapchi abduction and many others were recorded..
In Zamfara and Katsina, the president’s silence on mass abductions often resounded more than his condemnations. In Rivers and Bayelsa, the Amnesty Programme faltered, and pipeline protection frequently took precedence over human security.
What remained unaddressed
While some lauded his stance against corruption, numerous victims of violence and injustice during Buhari’s time in office did not receive restitution or formal acknowledgement of the wrongdoing. The former President remained silent during his tenure, as significant human rights violations were recorded. The investigations into military abuses, massacres, forced disappearances, and electoral violence either progressed slowly or ultimately came to an end.
Police brutality was a major problem during his tenure, leading to the EndSARS protests that swept through the entire nation in October 2020, with Lagos and Abuja being the major sites. The peaceful protests sought to demand an end to extrajudicial killings and extortion inflicted by the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). For two weeks, Nigerians trooped into the streets with placards and speakers, memorialising the victims of police brutality and demanding an end to the menace. The protests came to a painful end on the night of October 20, when the Nigerian military arrived at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos and fired live rounds into the crowd of unarmed civilians as they sat on the floor, singing the national anthem. It is now known as the Lekki Massacre. Though the government denied that there was any violence, much less a massacre, a judicial panel of inquiry set up to investigate the incident confirmed that there had, in fact, been a massacre.
No arrests were made, and activitsts believe some protesters arrested then may still be in detention to date.
Five years before this, on December 13 and 14, the Nigerian military opened fire on a religious procession in Zaria, containing members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), killing many and leaving others wounded. The incident is now known as the Zaria Massacre. HumAngle spoke to families of some of the people who were killed and children who were brutalised during this time.
Though these massacres have all been well documented, there has been little to no accountability for the aggressors or compensation for victims and their families.
“My life became useless, losing three children and my husband to soldiers for committing no offence…I have never gone three days without my husband and all my children. This has affected my last-born, who is now in a psychiatric facility,” Sherifat Yakubu, 60, told HumAngle.
“I feel a great wrench of sadness anytime I remember the injustice against my people, and I don’t think the authorities are ready to dispense justice,” another victim told HumAngle in 2022, highlighting the gap and lack of trust in the system created by the absence of any accountability after the incident.
Key achievements
Beyond the headlines, Buhari played a crucial role in establishing a framework for centralised security authority. Choices regarding law enforcement, military presence, and national security circumvented local leaders and established institutions, exacerbating conflicts between the central government and regional entities. This centralisation continues to influence Nigeria’s democratic journey, disconnecting many experiences from those who are supposed to safeguard them.
Buhari rode into power on a widely hailed anti-corruption campaign, a promise honoured with the swift implementation of the already-proposed Single Treasury Account (TSA). By 2017, the programme, which consolidated up to 17,000 accounts, had saved the country up to ₦5.244 trillion. Buhari’s Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA) eliminated over ₦54,000 ghost jobs, and Nigeria reclaimed ₦32 billion in assets in 2019. Under the same administration, Nigeria got back $300 million in Swiss-held Abacha loot.
From 2.5 million MT in 2015, rice production rose to four million MT in 2017. In an effort to deter rice, poultry and fertiliser smuggling, the former president closed Nigeria’s land borders on August 20, 2019, a move believed to have bolstered local food production significantly. His government’s Presidential Fertiliser Initiative also produced over 60 million 50 kg bags, saving about $200 million in forex and ₦60 million yearly.
Infrastructural achievements under the late president include the completion of the Abuja-Kaduna, Itakpe-Warri and Lagos-Ibadan railway projects, as well as the extension of the Lagos-Ibadan-Port Harcourt rail line. Notably, his government completed the Second Niger Bridge and the Lekki Deep Seaport.
Fatalities from Boko Haram reduced by 92 per cent, from 2,131 deaths in 2015 to 178 in 2021. Under the same administration, over a million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were resettled, and 13,000+ hostages, including some Chibok and Dapchi schoolgirls, regained freedom. The same government acquired 38 new aircraft and Nigeria’s first military satellite (Delsat-1).
In 2021, the Buhari government signed the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), restructuring the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC) into a commercial entity and setting the stage for significant transformation in the country’s oil and gas sector.
Confronting the past may be the path forward
The passing of a president demands more than mere remembrance or the crafting of political narratives. It should create an opportunity for national reflection. As Nigeria faces fresh challenges of insecurity, displacement, and regional strife, Buhari’s legacy presents both insights and cautions.
As official tributes accumulate, Nigerians reflect not only on what Buhari accomplished but also on what remains incomplete.
Taiwan has brushed off China’s protest over a meeting between its representative and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at last weekend’s APEC summit, calling the encounter “very normal.” Beijing lodged a formal complaint with Tokyo after Takaichi met Taiwan’s APEC representative Lin Hsin-i on the sidelines of the summit in South Korea.
Takaichi had posted about the meeting on her X account, describing Lin as a senior adviser to the presidential office a remark that drew Beijing’s ire, as China claims Taiwan as part of its territory. Lin, a former economy minister, told reporters in Taipei that all APEC delegations “participated on an equal footing” and that such meetings were routine.
Why It Matters
The exchange underscores Taiwan’s determination to engage internationally despite China’s diplomatic pressure. APEC is one of the few global platforms where Taiwan participates, though its presidents are barred from attending. The meeting also signals Japan’s willingness to maintain contact with Taiwan amid growing regional tensions.
Taiwan: Reiterates its right to equal participation and rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
China: Continues to oppose any official or symbolic recognition of Taiwan by other governments.
Japan: Balances unofficial ties with Taiwan while seeking stable relations with Beijing.
United States: Watches closely as Tokyo and Taipei deepen cooperation, given its own security interests in the region.
What’s Next
Beijing’s protest is unlikely to derail Japan-Taiwan engagement, but it could add friction to China-Japan ties already strained over regional security. With Prime Minister Takaichi’s past remarks about forming a “quasi-security alliance” with Taiwan, any future interactions between Tokyo and Taipei at multilateral events will be closely monitored by both Beijing and Washington.
India is celebrating after winning a first women’s World Cup title, drawing comparisons to the men’s memorable 1983 triumph.
Published On 3 Nov 20253 Nov 2025
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the tributes to India’s women cricketers following their “historic” triumph in the World Cup final on Sunday, while team captain Harmanpreet Kaur hoped it would be a watershed moment for the women’s game in the country.
After suffering heartbreak in the final of the 2005 and 2017 editions of the 50-overs showpiece, India beat South Africa by 52 runs to secure their first title in front of 40,000 delirious home fans at Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium.
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Three defeats in a row earlier in the tournament had nearly derailed India’s campaign before they bounced back to storm into the semifinals, where they pulled off a record chase to eliminate seven-time champions Australia.
India’s Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and teammates celebrate with the trophy after winning the ICC Women’s World Cup Cricket final against South Africa at DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai, India on November 2, 2025 [Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters]
‘Dream big and chase those dreams’
“The team showed exceptional teamwork and tenacity throughout the tournament. Congratulations to our players,” Prime Minister Modi said on social media. “This historic win will motivate future champions to take up sports.”
The Indian cricket board announced the team would receive a reward of 510 million Indian rupees ($5.8m) for their title triumph, a victory which the Indian Express newspaper termed “Herstoric” on its front page.
Harmanpreet said it could be a turning point for the women’s game in the cricket-mad country.
“We have been talking about this for many years – we’ve been playing good cricket, but we had to win one big tournament,” the batter said.
“Without that, we couldn’t talk about change. At the end of the day, fans and the audience want to see their favourite team win.
“It’s not that we weren’t playing good cricket, but we were waiting badly for this moment, and today we got a chance to live it.”
The fairytale triumph of the Indian men’s team at the 1983 World Cup is considered the catalyst for the country’s rise to becoming a powerhouse of the game, both on and off the pitch, and batting great Sachin Tendulkar said Sunday’s win was “a defining moment in the journey of Indian women’s cricket”.
“1983 inspired an entire generation to dream big and chase those dreams,” he wrote on social media.
“Today, our women’s cricket team has done something truly special. They have inspired countless young girls across the country to pick up a bat and ball, take the field and believe that they too can lift that trophy one day …”
Mithali Raj, who led India to the 2017 women’s final, said the victory for Harmanpreet’s side had made her dreams come true.
“I’ve seen this dream for over two decades, to watch the Indian women lift that World Cup trophy,” she wrote on X.
“Tonight, that dream finally came true. From the heartbreak of 2005 to the fight of 2017, every tear, every sacrifice, every young girl who picked up a bat believing we belong here, it all led to this moment.”
A spectacular win by the Indian team in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 Finals. Their performance in the final was marked by great skill and confidence. The team showed exceptional teamwork and tenacity throughout the tournament. Congratulations to our players. This…
