Okt 28(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Dowlad Goboleedka Puntland, Mudane Siciid Cabdullaahi Deni, ayaa maanta kala diray Maxkamadda Ciidamada Qalabka Sida iyo Denbiyada Culus ee maamulka Puntland.
Suspect in assassination of former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe pleads guilty
A Quiet Courtroom, A Loud Beginning: The Guilty Plea That Reopened a Nation’s Wounds
There was a hush in the Tokyo courtroom that felt almost ceremonial, as if the public gallery itself were holding its breath. Then the words came—flat, unadorned, almost casual: “Everything is true.”
Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, standing under the pale glare of fluorescent lights, admitted what the nation had feared for three years: he killed Shinzo Abe. The man accused of firing a handmade firearm in the western city of Nara on a summer evening in July 2022 now stood before judges, lawyers and a watching world and pleaded guilty to murder and violations of arms control laws.
For many Japanese, the confession was not simply a legal footnote. It was the reopening of a wound—one that goes beyond a single act of violence and reaches into politics, religion, family and the unusual fragility of public life in a country that has long prided itself on safety and civility.
How a Campaign Stop Became a National Trauma
The scene that night in Nara has been replayed in photographs, video clips and court testimony: Mr. Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, addressing an outdoor crowd during an election campaign; the sudden, startling crack of a homemade weapon; the collapse of a man who had been on the global stage for years.
Yamagami was arrested at the scene. His motive, he later said and now confirmed in court, was personal: anger over the Unification Church, a religious movement founded in South Korea in 1954, which he said had devastated his family after his mother donated around 100 million yen—about $700,000—to the group.
“I lost my life because my family was taken apart,” he told investigators after his arrest, according to summaries disclosed in earlier hearings. In court today, his lawyer read from statements that traced a tale of resentment, financial ruin and obsession. Whether the murderous act can ever be reduced to a single grievance is another question—but the confession has made the grievance part of the public record.
The Unfolding Ripples: Politics, Religion and Public Trust
The assassination catalyzed revelations with reverberations inside Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Investigations that followed exposed connections—personal, ceremonial, sometimes informal—between more than a hundred LDP members and the Unification Church. The optics were corrosive: politicians attending church events, offering prayers, or simply counting on a religious organization’s network to mobilize support.
“It shook people’s trust,” said Mariko Fujii, who runs a small stationery shop near the Diet. “Politics felt remote before. But this—this felt personal. If a former prime minister could be felled like that on a campaign trail, what else is possible?”
That drop in public confidence was not merely sentimental. The LDP, long Japan’s dominant political force, saw support waver at a time when it could least afford distraction. The party’s current leader, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, is navigating a delicate balancing act: steadying a shaken governing coalition while preparing to host international talks that could not feel more incongruent with domestic unease.
In a striking coincidence, the trial opened on the same day Ms. Takaichi held a summit with visiting U.S. President Donald Trump—two leaders, a global audience, and a country grappling with the aftermath of political violence at home.
Japan’s Quiet Shock: Guns, Violence, and a Culture of Safety
Japan has among the lowest rates of gun violence in the developed world. Public spaces are built on the expectation of safety. So when a homemade weapon shattered that assumption, it wasn’t only a national tragedy; it was a cultural rupture.
“We don’t have much experience in the country with political assassinations,” observed Professor Kenji Nakamura, a political sociologist at a Tokyo university. “That is precisely why the event resonated so widely. It pierced a sense of ordinariness, and it forced a public debate about responsibility—of families, of political parties, even of religious organizations.”
Alongside that debate comes a legal reckoning. Yamagami faces charges under Japan’s strict arms control laws—specialized provisions aimed at controlling weapons, even improvised ones. The court has scheduled 17 more hearings before a verdict is expected on 21 January. The slow cadence of Japanese legal procedure will allow the nation to dissect motive, method and meaning, but it may also prolong the anguish for families and supporters who seek closure.
Voices from Nara: Grief, Anger, and Everyday Life
Nara itself—famed for its ancient temples, roaming deer, and scent of incense—has been a strange mix of the tranquil and the traumatized. Neighbors who once hawked street food near campaign sites now speak in softer tones. Teenagers swap theories on social media. Shops display small memorials; some passersby leave a single chrysanthemum.
“I cried when I first heard,” said Yuko Sato, a kindergarten teacher who lives three blocks from the site where the shooting occurred. “People here still remember him from his visits. It was like watching a peaceful corner of our life get hit.”
Others are angrier. “This is not just about one man,” said Daichi Watanabe, a postal worker who attended a memorial. “It’s about how power and belief get tangled up. We need transparency. We need to stop allowing institutions—political or religious—to operate above scrutiny.”
The Broader Questions: Accountability and the Public Sphere
As the trial unfolds, it will force Japan and observers worldwide to confront larger themes. How do democratic societies hold institutions accountable when informal ties affect public life? What obligations do politicians have to disclose affiliations and influences? How should societies respond when private grievances lead to public violence?
These are not questions unique to Japan. Around the globe, democracies wrestle with the interplay of religion, money and political influence—whether in campaign finance, lobbying or relationships that are more ceremonial than contractual. The Japanese case offers a stark vignette: a personal grievance, a secretive network of influence, and the lethal consequences of both.
What Comes Next?
The calendar now marks a slow, deliberate march toward a verdict. Seventeen hearings are scheduled by the end of the year, and the court expects to hand down a decision on 21 January. For the many who want finality, it will be a long winter.
Beyond the legal timetable, the political and social aftershocks will continue. The LDP must rebuild trust. The Unification Church and other religious organizations will face renewed scrutiny. Citizens will argue over transparency, over the responsibilities of public office, and over how to heal a wound inflicted in the most public way possible.
And for the family of Shinzo Abe, and for those who loved him, the courtroom’s sterile confession cannot easily return what was lost. As one of Abe’s former aides, who asked not to be named, put it quietly in a hallway outside court: “The law may punish the hand that pulled the trigger, but how do you replace a voice that led a country?”
Questions for the Reader
How should democracies manage the messiness of personal belief and public duty? Can transparency alone repair the fissures revealed by this case? And perhaps most quietly: what is the balance between seeking justice and seeking understanding?
As Japan prepares for months of testimony, and as the world watches, those are the conversations that will matter. They are legal and political. They are civic and moral. They are, in the end, deeply human.
5,435 Tahriibayaal Soomaali ah oo sanadkan galay Yurub.
Okt 28(Jowhar)-Tahriibka Soomaalida ayaa saddex jibaarmay sandkan, sida ay warbixin xusub ku sheegtay hay’adda DTM (Displacement Tracking Matrix).
Powerful hurricane heads toward Jamaica; authorities warn of catastrophic conditions
On the Edge of the Sea: Jamaica Waits as Melissa Creeps In
At dusk, Port Royal looked like a painting of a town holding its breath. Children chased each other along a wind-whipped shoreline while an elderly man tied a tarp to a weathered boat. Across the harbor, a row of shuttered shops and a palm tree stripped of its fronds testified to storms past. The air was heavy, tasting of salt and the impossibility of staying put.
“I am not moving. I don’t believe I can run from death,” said Roy Brown, a plumber and tiler, his voice steady but small against the roar of the gathering sea. He had lived through hurricanes before; he knows the stories of shelters flooded with mosquitoes, leaking roofs and sleeping mats that breed more fear than safety. “Those shelters—sometimes they are worse than the storm,” he added.
This is Jamaica today: an island braced for Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 behemoth lumbering toward its shores at a crawl of about 4 km/h—slower than most people walk. Late yesterday the U.S. National Hurricane Center placed the storm some 240 km from Kingston, its sustained winds whistling near 280 km/h (roughly 174 mph). Officials warned that Melissa could cut diagonally across the island, entering near St Elizabeth on the south coast and exiting around St Ann on the north.
Numbers That Mean Lives
The statistics that matter here are stark and immediate: three people in Jamaica have already died preparing for the storm—pruning trees and fixing roofs—while three died in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic. Meteorologists have forecast up to 100 cm (about 39 inches) of rain in places. Storm surge along Jamaica’s southern coast could push water as high as four metres—over 13 feet—creating “destructive waves” that will reshape beaches, roads and livelihoods.
There are roughly 880 shelters standing by across the island, but only 133 were reported to be occupied. “They should be seeing people now,” Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie said, urging those in vulnerable parishes to seek higher ground at once. Prime Minister Andrew Holness appealed to the country’s sense of communal duty: “The evacuation is about the national good of saving lives,” he said. “You have been warned. It’s now up to you to use that information to make the right decision.”
The Choice to Stay
Why do so many remain? Some, like Brown, distrust the shelters. Others simply cannot leave homes and livelihoods unattended. “We have fishermen who depend on their boats. If they don’t get back in time, they’ll lose their nets and we will be hungry,” said Jennifer Ramdial, who has fished these waters for decades. “I just don’t want to leave.”
In the Flagaman farming community of St Elizabeth, shop owner Enrico Coke opened his doors as a refuge. “I’m worried about the farmers and fishers,” he said. “They’ll be suffering after this. We’ll need help as soon as possible, especially clean water.” This small act—turning a shop into a shelter—is the kind of improvisation that often threads communities together in crisis.
Slow Motion, Catastrophic Consequences
Melissa’s lethargic pace is not a mercy. When a storm crawls instead of races, its destructive powers multiply: rain lingers over the same hillsides, saturating soils until landslides become inevitable; rivers swell and then crest, flooding settlements for days; persistent winds tear at infrastructure until power grids fail and communications go dark.
“Water kills a lot more people than wind,” cautioned Dr. Kerry Emanuel, a prominent meteorologist. The warning matters: the NHC has flagged the possibility of “catastrophic” flash flooding and landslides, and long-lasting outages of power and communications. The 100 cm rainfall forecast would overwhelm drainage systems in towns and wash out mountainous roads that already median the island’s fragile connectivity.
Comparisons and Context
People speak of Maria and Katrina in the same breath as Melissa—names that have come to symbolize loss, rebuilding and displacement. Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017. Katrina’s imprint on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is a reminder of how long recovery can take and how quickly social safety nets can fray.
The last significant hurricane to batter Jamaica was Beryl in July 2024, notable for being unusually intense for that time of year. Now, a Category 5 in the Caribbean threatens to surpass more than wind and rain; it threatens memory, history and livelihoods.
Why These Storms Are Getting Worse
Scientists are clear that the character of hurricanes is changing. Warmer sea surface temperatures give storms more fuel; a warmer atmosphere can hold roughly 7% more water vapor for every 1°C of warming, which translates to more intense rainfall during storms. Rapid intensification—where storms strengthen quickly over short periods—has become more common, and Melissa is an example of such a trend.
“Human-caused climate change is making all of the worst aspects of Hurricane Melissa even worse,” said climate scientist Daniel Gilford. “We aren’t just seeing one-off events; we’re seeing a shift in the baseline of risk.” For island nations like Jamaica—population approximately 2.9 million—this shift raises existential questions about infrastructure, food security and migration.
What Could Break—and What Might Hold
Officials have warned that much of the island’s western end may not withstand Category 5 conditions. “I don’t believe there is any infrastructure within this region that could withstand a Category 5 storm, so there could be significant dislocation,” Prime Minister Holness told CNN.
Anticipated impacts include:
- Widespread power outages affecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses;
- Road and bridge damage from landslides and flooding, isolating rural communities;
- Agricultural losses—sugarcane, yams, bananas and small-scale farms—that could reverberate through food prices;
- Damage to the fishing fleet and coastal infrastructure, threatening livelihoods for weeks if not months.
Stories in the Quiet Before the Storm
In a small parochial church in St Elizabeth, parishioners packed sandbags and prayed. “You cannot buy faith,” whispered a volunteer handing out bottled water. At a school gymnasium used as a shelter, mothers folded clothes and tried to calm toddlers who had never known the sound of a Category 5 wind.
“Every storm is different,” said Dr. Amara Reid, an emergency response coordinator. “Preparation is never perfect, but timing is everything. A fast evacuation can save lives; too slow, and you get trapped. The sad reality is that the most vulnerable—elderly, disabled, poor—are the least able to move.”
After the Eye
After crossing Jamaica, Melissa is expected to move toward eastern Cuba. The path beyond is uncertain; storms of this magnitude often leave a trail of damage and a long, messy recovery. International aid, regional cooperation and resilient local plans will determine how quickly communities stitch themselves back together.
For now, the choice in the hands of each Jamaican is intensely personal: to stay and ride out history, or to seek refuge and hope the floodplain is not their history. What would you do if faced with that decision—stay in a familiar home you have weathered before, or step into a crowded shelter and cede control to the unknown?
In the end, Hurricanes like Melissa are both meteorological events and moral tests: of leadership, of communal solidarity, of whether we treat preparation like an act of love. If you are reading this from afar, consider this a witness’s account—and an invitation to lean into compassion for those who will, tonight, sleep with the sound of the sea at the door.
Villa Soomaaliya oo wali xal u raadineysa khilaafka siyaasadeed ee kala dhexeeya Jubaland
Okt 28(Jowhar)-Madaxtooyada Soomaaliya ayaa weli ku jirta jahawareer siyaasadeed oo ku saabsan sidii heshiis rasmi ah loola gaari lahaa maamulka Jubbaland, iyadoo qodobada miiska yaalla ee la xiriira awood qaybsiga iyo maamulka doorashooyinka ay weli yihiin kuwo adag oo aan xal rasmi ah laga gaarin.
Agony and despair: the human toll of Sudan’s forgotten conflict
When a Country Becomes a Headline No One Clicks: Sudan’s War, in Voices and Numbers
Close your eyes for a moment and picture a city where the hospital is a series of mattresses in a living room, where children nibble at animal feed because the markets are empty, and where the Nile—ancient, forgiving—flows past people who have nowhere safe to draw a glass of water. That is Al-Fashir today. That is much of Sudan, two and a half years into a war that has folded ordinary life into a calamity few outside the region seem to notice.
The scale, in blunt numerals
Numbers only go so far, but they help us map the breadth of this collapse: roughly 12 million people displaced within their country; 24 million confronting acute food shortages; as many as 150,000 dead or missing. Around 260,000 people remain trapped in Al-Fashir, in Darfur, under siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). These are not abstractions. They’re neighbors, cousins, teachers, patients.
- Displaced: ~12 million
- Facing acute food shortages: ~24 million
- Dead or missing: up to 150,000
- People trapped in Al-Fashir: ~260,000
And yet, as one humanitarian put it, “Sudan has been turned upside down. Not a single corner of the country that hasn’t been affected.” Daniel O’Malley, who leads the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Sudan, tells it plainly: the main hospital in Al-Fashir has been struck again and again—more than a year and a half of pounding, and surgical teams are operating in people’s homes. “This is not the kind of surgery that should ever be happening in a living room,” he said.
Al-Fashir: a city under glass
Walk a mile in the streets of Al-Fashir through accounts from activists and aid workers: the town is described as an “open-air morgue.” Internet blackouts make documentation rare and dangerous. When a drone and artillery strike hit a displacement camp on 11 October, local groups later reported scores killed—children and elders burned, families vanished. Photographs were few. The world’s attention was thinner still.
“We sat and watched our food disappear,” says Amal, a volunteer who fled nearby villages and now helps cook for displaced families in a cramped community kitchen. “Sometimes the electricity comes for two hours at night. We boil what we can. We count who is still alive the next morning.” Her voice—quiet, exhausted—remembers the names of those who didn’t make it.
Everyday people paying the price
On the other side of the world, in a small town in County Kerry, Dr Rania Ahmed wakes up to messages about relatives she cannot reach. A Sudan-born anaesthetist and president of the Sudanese Doctors Union of Ireland, she has watched the health infrastructure collapse in real time.
“Hospitals are in ruins. The only cancer centre in the country is destroyed,” she says. “My aunt had a stroke and had to go to three different cities for help. Most hospitals turned her away. I don’t think she’ll survive.” Her anger and grief are tethered to facts: at least 15 million children out of school, clinics destroyed, supply chains severed.
Dr Ahmed’s plea is simple and bitter: “No one is talking about it. We need to push the world—Europe, the US—to act.” It’s a plea that echoes through Sudanese diasporas from Khartoum to London to Toronto: when the camera shutters close, the hunger keeps growing.
Health threats multiply: cholera and a ruined water system
War has not been the only killer. Disease has followed the fighting. Before the war Khartoum ran 13 water-treatment plants. Today, those plants are destroyed or inoperable. People drink Nile water and fall ill. By early September, the Ministry of Health in Sudan recorded over 100,000 suspected cholera cases and more than 2,500 deaths. Preventable illnesses gain ground when hospitals are rubble and pumps are silent.
Foreign hands, local wounds
External interests have not only watched; many have helped stoke the flames. Analysts say more than ten countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia have been entangled in Sudan’s fighting. The United Arab Emirates has been accused of providing the RSF with funding and arms—claims it denies, but which some experts and lawmakers judge credible. Egypt and, to a lesser degree, Saudi Arabia have aligned with the Sudanese Armed Forces.
“It’s not that outside actors started this war,” says Dr Walt Kilroy, co-director of a conflict institute who has worked in the region. “But outside interests have played a big role in prolonging it. When war acquires an identity component—as it has in Darfur, where non-Arab communities have been targeted—it gets a poisonous life of its own.”
Why would foreign states be involved? The reasons are complex—strategic influence, regional rivalry, access to resources. “Sudan, for better or worse, has some gold,” Kilroy said. In a place where politics, ethnicity, and resource extraction intersect, violence finds fuel.
Donor fatigue, a yawning funding gap
The arithmetic of indifference is stark: the UN asked for roughly €3.57 billion for urgent humanitarian and protection work in Sudan this year. Donors have delivered only about €917 million—a funding shortfall of around 74%. Cuts to major aid streams, including reductions in USAID allocations, have left grassroots organisations carrying an impossible burden.
“At one point Khartoum had 1,800 community kitchens. Now there are around 600—dropping every month,” O’Malley reports. And yet, community volunteers keep cooking. “We share what little we have,” says Hassan, a former math teacher turned volunteer cook. “If I had a car I would take my students food every day.”
What does the world owe?
These are questions not of charity alone, but of responsibility. How do we think about conflicts that don’t fit neatly into our breaking-news cycles? How do we weigh the lives of people in Darfur or Khartoum in the same way we count others closer to global power centers?
International diplomacy has tried—last month the US, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt called for a three-month humanitarian truce, then a permanent ceasefire. The so-called Quad has clout, and yet leverage on the ground appears to be pushing toward continued fighting, not talks. “Mediation and leverage are both essential,” Kilroy said. “But right now the leverage is pulling toward war.”
What you can do, and why your attention matters
So what can a reader do when faced with such immensity? First: bear witness. Read. Share reliable reporting. Support organisations that operate on the ground—local NGOs, medical charities, water-and-sanitation teams—because they are the ones whose budgets have been slashed but who continue to feed the hungry and stitch up the wounded.
Second: ask your policymakers to keep Sudan on the agenda. Sanctions, arms embargos, pressure on external backers—these are levers. “Sometimes international pressure moves policies,” Dr Ahmed says. “We must not let this descend into a forgotten catastrophe.”
Finally, consider the human face behind the numbers. Think of Amal stirring a pot in a house that smells of smoke and boiled soup. Think of the teacher-turned-volunteer counting children’s names as if inventorying the living. Think of a surgeon in a living room, hands steady despite everything.
We live in an age where images travel fast and attention travels faster. But what if the stories we encounter are the ones we choose to keep alive? What if turning our gaze to Sudan today can help stop the next catastrophe tomorrow? The choice, in small acts or big policies, is ours.
Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro files appeal against prison sentence
Locked Doors, Loud Streets: Brazil’s Latest Political Earthquake
Early one gray morning in Brasília, a city of concrete wings and whispered power, a handful of lawyers slipped into the marble-clad corridors of Brazil’s justice system carrying a document that could reshape the nation’s near future.
Their client is unmistakable even in shadow: Jair Bolsonaro, the combative former president whose name still makes crowds roar and opponents tremble. His legal team has filed an appeal against a staggering 27-year prison sentence handed down by the Supreme Court for what judges described as a coordinated attempt to overthrow the elected government after his 2022 defeat.
“We are asking the court to set aside a decision full of ambiguities and contradictions,” said one of Bolsonaro’s lead lawyers, his voice low but fierce. “This ruling threatens not only my client’s rights but the very notion of fair process in Brazil.”
What the judgment did — and what the appeal challenges
The Supreme Court found that the plot in question went beyond political maneuvering: prosecutors portrayed it as a blueprint that envisaged the assassination of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, and one of the judges who later sat in judgment, Alexandre de Moraes.
Prosecutors told the court that the plan collapsed not because of moral conscience or mercy, but for a far more mundane reason — a failure to secure crucial backing from some of the top brass in the military. “There are plans that die for want of allies,” a federal investigator told me. “This was one of them.”
Bolsonaro has been confined to house arrest since August. Under Brazilian law, he will not be sent to a penitentiary until his appeals are exhausted — hence yesterday’s motion. The legal process here is labyrinthine: Supreme Court judges have no formal deadline to examine the arguments presented in an appeal, and that can stretch patience to its breaking point.
Voices from the street
At a coffee stand near the cathedral in Brasília, a vendor named Rosa stirred sugar into a cup and watched the world walk by. “We lived through an election and an invasion of our institutions,” she said, speaking for many exhausted by the political roller coaster. “All I want is for someone to explain to me how we stop doing this to one another.”
Across the country in São Paulo, a young engineer wearing a yellow-and-green flag around his shoulders said, “He’s my man. They can’t just lock him up for politics.” Nearby, a retired teacher sighed. “Locking people up isn’t the answer. We need truth and reconciliation. Otherwise this keeps coming back.”
Law, health, and political maneuvering
Experts say the appeal might succeed on technical grounds. Thiago Bottino, a constitutional law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, told AFP recently that while it is unusual for Brazil’s Supreme Court to overturn its own rulings, the court has shown it can — and sometimes does — adjust the length or nature of its sentences when procedural issues are raised.
“The bench is not monolithic,” Bottino said. “Judges can and do reassess elements when new legal arguments are persuasive. That said, the substantive criminal findings are weighty.”
There is also another practical element playing out like a second subplot: Bolsonaro’s health. The 70-year-old was recently diagnosed with skin cancer and has endured a series of hospital episodes — violent bouts of hiccups, vomiting and low blood pressure that briefly landed him in intensive care last September. He still carries the scars of the 2018 stabbing that transformed him into a political martyr for many followers and continues to complicate his medical profile.
In Brazil, the health of a convict can be grounds for serving a sentence at home. In May, a precedent appeared when former president Fernando Collor de Mello was permitted to serve a nearly nine-year corruption sentence under house arrest on health grounds. Bolsonaro’s team has already signaled it could pursue the same route if appeals fail.
Amnesty bills, disqualifications and the 2026 chessboard
Beyond the courtroom are the loftier corridors of Congress where political allies once pushed an amnesty bill that could have wiped clean the records of hundreds who stormed government buildings days after Lula took office in January 2023. The proposal, however, fizzled after large protests made it politically toxic.
Even before the conviction, Bolsonaro had been barred from running for office until 2030 after being found ineligible over claims that he defrauded the voting system — claims that have been widely rejected by courts but remain powerful political narratives for his base.
“There’s a hunger for a leader who promises to shake things up,” said Ana Souza, a political analyst in Rio. “Whether Bolsonaro can remain the personification of that hunger is another matter. Names like São Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas and even Michelle Bolsonaro are already circulating as potential heirs to the conservative mantle.”
And then there is Lula, who turned 80 yesterday. Once trailing in the polls at the start of the year, he has staged a recovery. Part of that rebound came after a trade skirmish with Washington that he managed to navigate with a mix of defiance and diplomacy — an episode that, paradoxically, burnished his image at home as a defender of national sovereignty.
“Lula showed statesmanship when he needed to,” said a former diplomat. “Politics in Latin America is often a tug-of-war between domestic legitimacy and international pressure.”
Why this matters beyond Brazil
Ask yourself: what happens when a major democracy convicts a former president of plotting a coup? How do societies repair the rift between rule of law and political legitimacy?
These are not merely Brazilian questions. Across the globe, democracies wrestle with populist currents that weaponize grievance, with politicians who transform personal survival into political spectacle. Brazil’s courtroom drama is a reminder that the health of democratic institutions depends not just on laws, but on the patience of voters, the independence of judges, and the willingness of political actors to accept results.
For now, Brazil waits. The appeal will wind its way through legal corridors, through petitions, medical evaluations, and perhaps new political bargains. Protesters on both sides may return to the streets. Families will still queue for coffee at dawn. And the clock toward the 2026 elections will tick on, indifferent to the human drama it times.
What would you do if your country was split between those who see justice and those who see persecution? In a polarized age, that question is as urgent as any ballot box.
Ten charged in online harassment case against France’s first lady
A Trial, a Rumour, and the Quiet Town at the Center of a Storm
In a hushed courtroom in Paris, ten ordinary faces will stand before a judge accused of a decidedly modern crime: weaponizing the internet to erode a woman’s dignity. The charges are precise — sexist cyber-harassment directed at France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron — but the reverberations are anything but. This is a case about rumor, age, gender and the strange energy of online mobs. It is also a story about how a small northern city called Amiens became the unlikely epicenter of an international spectacle.
“You feel like you’re watching a slow-motion assault that no one can touch,” said Marie Lefèvre, who runs a tiny pâtisserie three blocks from the Trogneux family confectionery in Amiens. “People used to visit for the macarons and the quiet streets; now they whisper about things they read on a phone in another country.”
What’s at Stake
Ten people — eight men and two women, aged between 41 and 60 — are due before a Paris criminal court, accused of making repeated malicious comments about Brigitte Macron’s gender and sexuality and of equating the couple’s 24-year age difference with criminality. If convicted, they face up to two years behind bars, a reminder that French law has tangible teeth when it comes to harassment and defamation.
The legal case is the latest chapter in a long-running saga that began in earnest during Emmanuel Macron’s rise to the presidency in 2017. Since then, a rumor — now repeatedly described by prosecutors as unfounded — has circulated: that Brigitte Macron was assigned male at birth. That rumor has been amplified by far-right commentators, conspiracy-minded circles in France and abroad, and a handful of online influencers.
A timeline of escalation
Consider how the story moved from gossip to government-level action:
- 2017 — Rumours began surfacing during Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign.
- 2021 — A long-form YouTube interview alleges a family connection and identity confusion.
- August 2024 — Brigitte Macron files a complaint in France prompting investigations into cyber-harassment.
- December 2024 & February 2025 — Police make arrests connected to the online posts and harassment.
- July 2024 — The presidential couple files a separate defamation lawsuit in the United States against a conservative podcaster.
- Present — Criminal trial of ten defendants in Paris.
Faces and Voices
Among the defendants is Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, a 41-year-old publicist who has cultivated an online presence under the name “Zoe Sagan” and is often associated with conspiracy communities. Also named is Delphine J., a 51-year-old self-described spiritual medium who goes by Amandine Roy; she was already the subject of an earlier libel case.
“It’s not just about one person’s dignity. It’s about the permissiveness of our public spaces,” said Laurent Dubois, a Paris-based cyberlawyer who has followed the case. “When rumors about private life are weaponized for clicks, they don’t just harm reputations. They degrade public discourse.”
Across the Atlantic, the controversy has slipped into America’s culture wars. The Macrons filed a defamation suit in the U.S. in July against a prominent conservative podcaster who produced a series claiming Brigitte Macron was born male. The French couple have signaled they will produce “scientific” evidence and photographs in that lawsuit, according to their U.S. lawyer — a striking move that turns intimacy into exhibits.
How the Internet Became a Megaphone
Online harassment is not a uniquely French problem. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 41% of adults reported experiencing some form of online harassment, and about 22% said they had been targeted with severe harassment or stalking. Women, public figures and marginalized people disproportionately bear the brunt.
“The algorithms don’t judge; they amplify,” said Dr. Anaïs Morel, a researcher in digital culture who studies how conspiracy narratives spread. “A salacious or absurd claim is ideally suited to travel quickly because it provokes outrage, confusion and repeat sharing. After a while, repetition substitutes for evidence.”
In Amiens, that repetition has real-world effects. Shopkeepers speak of strangers showing up at the family’s former chocolate shop looking for answers; locals have received messages, and the town — known for its gothic cathedral and riverside promenades — has had to contend with a new kind of pilgrimage: rumor-seekers with smartphones.
“We sell Trogneux chocolates,” said Luc Chardin, 58, who runs a souvenir stall near the cathedral. “People come to enjoy the town and suddenly conversation turns. They ask questions about things that are not true. You can feel the strain. It’s not only about politics — it’s about respect.”
Broader Patterns: Gendered Lies as a Political Weapon
Brigitte Macron is far from the only woman targeted by grotesque disinformation about gender or sexuality. High-profile figures including Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris and New Zealand’s late prime minister Jacinda Ardern have all been subject to similar lies. Why this pattern?
“Sexist narratives travel well because they elide complex realities in favor of a single, salacious hook,” said Sophie Tremblay, director of a French NGO working on online safety. “They make audiences complicit — people who might never otherwise engage in political violence end up circulating dehumanizing material.”
This weaponization of gender talkers cuts across borders, feeding into global anxieties about identity, legitimacy, and power. In the United States, transgender rights have become a polarizing flashpoint; in France, a country prizing laïcité and republican values, the attacks have leaned heavily on intimate slander and moral panic.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The trial itself will be more than a legal bellwether. It is a test of how democracies respond when digital rumor slides into harassment, and when public curiosity tramples on private life. Will criminal penalties deter future mobs chasing virality? Will legal avenues provide meaningful reprieve for public figures whose private histories are stripped and sold online?
“People love a story where the powerful are somehow not what they seem,” observed Camille Martin, a sociology professor who studies rumor and political communication. “But you have to ask: at what cost? The cost here is human dignity and the integrity of information.”
As the courtroom prepares for testimony and the town of Amiens resumes its slow rhythm of market days and church bells, there is an unsettled question that extends beyond one couple or one rumor: how do we protect truth and human dignity in an era when anyone with a phone can be a witness — or a weapon?
Think about the last time you saw a rumor online and scrolled past it. What did you assume about the person who posted it? About your own role in circulating it? At the end of the day, the digital spaces we inhabit are built on our choices, shared in tiny acts: click, share, retweet, comment. What will we choose to build with them?
Wariye sare Cabdi casiis Golf oo loo magacaabay Agaasimaha Warfaafinta madaxtooyada Soomaaliya
Okt 27(Jowhar)-Madaxtooyada Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya ayaa maanta ku dhawaaqday isbeddel maamul oo lagu sameeyay Xafiiska Agaasimaha Warfaafinta iyo Xiriirka Warbaahinta ee Madaxtooyada.
Mareykanka oo madaxweyne Xasan kala hadlay xiisada siyaasadeed iyo muranka doorashooyinka
Okt 27(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha Soomaaliya Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud ayaa khadka taleefanka kula hadlay Mr. Massad Boulos, oo ah la-taliyaha sare ee arrimaha Afrika ee dowladda Maraykanka.
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