Nov 27(Jowhar)-Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliya oo ah madal mucaarid oo dhawaan lagu asaasay magaalada Nairobi ayaa yeelanaysa shirkii ugu horreeyay kaddib marka la dhammaystiro qaab dhismeedka Golaha.
Hurricane Melissa gains strength as it slowly approaches Jamaica’s coast
A slow, furious storm: Melissa’s march through the Caribbean
There are moments when weather stops being a headline and becomes a household sound — the river in the street, the low rumble of wind like an animal circling the house, the radio repeating caution in a voice that has grown hoarse. Hurricane Melissa is one of those moments. What began as a distant swirl over warm Atlantic waters hardened into a Category 4 monster, its outer bands already delivering deadly rain and landslides across the island of Hispaniola and threatening to strike Jamaica with full force.
Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center recorded sustained winds near 225 km/h as Melissa intensified, and warned that the storm could dump between 38 and 76 centimetres of rain over parts of southern Hispaniola and Jamaica. It was, at the time, roughly 190 km southeast of Kingston and about 450 km southwest of Guantánamo, Cuba — a massive system crawling toward populated coasts with the leisurely menace of something that refuses to hurry.
Lives overturned, landscapes erased
In Haiti, where fragile slopes meet precarious housing, the storm’s first kisses were cruel. Authorities confirmed three deaths linked to sudden landslides and flood-swollen rivers. In the Dominican Republic — where mountains and river valleys share intimate borders with communities — a 79-year-old man was swept away, and a 13-year-old boy has been reported missing.
“It felt like the house wanted to lift me out,” said Marisol, 66, a homemaker who left her neighbourhood on the southern plains as rivers rose. “My refrigerator floated like a little boat. We carried what we could and left the rest. You don’t feel brave; you feel very small.” She paused, listening to the rain. “You pray the walls hold.”
These are not statistics on a map. They are kitchen tables split by water, shoes piled in the yards of people who will not know whether the next rainy season will bring more or less. They are a reminder that vulnerability is uneven — shaped by wealth, terrain, and the old, unromantic geography of who can afford a sturdy roof.
Communities bracing — and fleeing
In Kingston, the mood was urgent. Prime Minister Andrew Holness urged people living in flood-prone areas to evacuate and not treat warnings as mere suggestions. “If your street flooded last season, don’t wait to see if this time will be different,” he told reporters. Officials closed Norman Manley International Airport and all seaports, a hard decision in an island economy that depends on tourism and trade.
At a makeshift shelter in a parish hall, volunteers handed out blankets and bowls of rice stew. “We set up beds, charged phones, listened,” said Carol Bennett, a shelter coordinator. “People here are proud, but when the water comes they come in together. You always see the same faces — fishermen, market women, teachers. The community is what will get us through the next 72 hours.”
Emergency alerts and red zones
Authorities in the Dominican Republic put nine out of 31 provinces on red alert, citing the imminent possibility of flash floods, rising rivers and landslides. Emergency services ran continuous checks on evacuation routes, and social services teams tried to reach remote hamlets where muddy lanes become impassable after an hour of downpour.
“Our priority is saving lives and moving people out of harm’s way,” said Jorge Alvarez, director of an emergency operations centre. “We know the places that flood first. We know the people who need help. It becomes a question of how fast we can act when a storm refuses to be fast.”
The costs of a slow-moving hurricane
There is a particular cruelty to a storm that crawls. Rapid intensification — the NHC noted that Melissa was expected to strengthen further even as it fluctuated in intensity — means destructive winds and prolonged rain. That combination drives two of the most lethal hazards in the region: storm surge and landslide. A seawall in Kingston already splashed and creaked under heavy rollers; further surge could overtop defences that have been patched and rebuilt over recent years.
For scholars of climate and weather, Melissa is part of an unsettling trend. Warmer sea-surface temperatures feed hurricanes’ engines, and a slower forward speed increases rainfall totals in localized areas. Scientists don’t point to a single storm and say ‘this is climate change,’ but the pattern of intense storms and prolonged rainfall is consistent with what many models predict. As climatologist Dr. Laila Chen put it: “We’re seeing a climate that amplifies extremes — storms that are stronger, slower, and wetter. That’s not distant theory; it’s the math of our daily news.”
What it means for the wider region
Melissa is the 13th named storm of the Atlantic season, which officially runs from June through November. The season already has offered surprises: earlier this year, Hurricane Beryl surged into Jamaica in July, an unusually early major hurricane that left at least four people dead. A string of such events strains disaster response systems and strains communities who are still rebuilding from the last blow.
Jamaica’s economy, which leans heavily on tourism and agriculture, faces immediate impacts when transport hubs, ports and airports close. Slips in sugarcane and coffee harvests, delays in shipping, and interruption of daily markets ripple through households. “When the ports shut, it’s not just the cruise ships,” noted economist Tanya Reid. “It’s fuel, it’s food imports, it’s the small exporters who sell fruit and flowers. A few days of closure can become a week of lost income.”
Practical steps — and human resilience
There are practical steps people can take now: confirm evacuation routes, keep water and medications ready, move valuables to higher ground, and stay tuned to verified official sources. But there is also the human instinct that statistics can’t measure: stories of neighbours carrying the elderly up staircases, of fishermen pulling boats inland, of students handing out flashlights to share news in creaky, candlelit rooms.
- Know your evacuation zone and nearest shelter.
- Store at least 72 hours of water and essential medicines.
- Secure loose outdoor objects and move furniture upstairs if possible.
- Keep battery power for radios and have cash on hand.
Looking beyond the storm
When the rain finally eases and the wind drops, the immediate work will be to clear roads, assess the damage, and help families rebuild. But there is a longer conversation ahead: investment in resilient infrastructure, improved hill-slope management in places prone to landslides, and more robust early-warning systems that reach remote communities in time.
“We will clean up, yes,” said Rosa Mendoza, a schoolteacher in a highland town, “but when I look at the younger kids, I think of the next generation. Are we teaching them to live with these storms, or helping them change the conditions that make each storm a tragedy? We need both.”
What can you do right now?
If you have family or friends in the path of Melissa, reach out to them, share reliable updates, and offer support. If you’re farther away, consider donating to verified humanitarian organizations that work year-round in disaster-prone areas — it’s often the local NGOs and community groups who arrive first and stay longest.
And if you live near coasts or river valleys yourself: ask yourself hard questions. How prepared is your neighbourhood? How easy would it be for you and your neighbours to get to higher ground? Hurricanes don’t respect borders, but the choices communities and governments make in their aftermath do shape who recovers and who remains at risk.
For now, the Caribbean waits and watches, radios tuned to the NHC and the crackle of local stations. Families brace their doors, volunteers stack sandbags, and a region long accustomed to storms steels itself for what Melissa will leave behind. The numbers — 225 km/h winds, 38–76 cm of rain, 13 named storms so far — tell part of the story. The rest lives in the hands of the people who will clear the mud and lift the roofs, again and again.
Global leaders and press respond to Connolly’s election victory
A New Face in Áras an Uachtaráin: Ireland’s Presidency Meets a Moment of Change
On a cool October evening, under the honeyed lights of Dublin Castle, a crowd that felt older and younger at once watched as Catherine Connolly stepped into a role that is, by law, restrained — and by people’s hopes, anything but.
The new president-elect is 68, a former barrister turned outspoken lawmaker who surged from relative obscurity to what many are calling a landslide. With roughly 1.65 million ballots cast in the election and an unusually high number of spoiled ballots — approaching 13% — Connolly’s victory was emphatic: international outlets cited her share of the counted vote at around 63%. She will be the 10th person to serve as Ireland’s head of state and only the third woman to hold the title.
What the Result Felt Like on the Ground
Walk the Liffey at dawn and you’d hear talk of housing, neutrality and a sense that traditional politics is bending. “People my age were voting for a symbol,” said Maureen O’Donoghue, 72, a retired school principal who watched the returns with a cup of tea at a corner café off Grafton Street. “But the younger crowd — they want change that works for them: rent, jobs, dignity.”
At a pub in Galway, where Connolly’s roots run deep, a bartender named Liam shrugged as he stacked pint glasses—“She talks like someone in the room. That matters.” Across the city, a university student named Aoife tapped her phone. “She spoke straight to us about housing and the climate. That’s why we turned out,” she said.
Voices: Local, Religious and International
The congratulations poured in from an oddly global chorus. European and UK leaders reached out, faith leaders offered prayers for unity, and political figures from across the ideological spectrum acknowledged the new president’s mandate even as commentators parsed its implications.
A French diplomat noted the close ties between Dublin and Paris and sent a warm message emphasizing cooperation in culture and trade. “Ireland is our neighbor in the project of Europe,” he said. Scotland’s government expressed eagerness to deepen ties across the Irish Sea. A Presbyterian leader in Northern Ireland offered a measured blessing, urging the president-elect to be a bridge-builder in a society still healing from division.
Religious voices were diverse: one archbishop expressed hope that the next occupant of Áras an Uachtaráin would be guided by a commitment to peace and reconciliation on the island; a community priest in West Cork told me he expected the president to be “a moral compass in times of testing.”
From Los Angeles to Jerusalem: A Global Read
International press framed the result through different prisms. In the United States, newspapers highlighted Connolly’s leftist coalition and the political novelty of Ireland electing a candidate with clear ties to parties on the left, including endorsements from Sinn Féin. Spanish and Latin American outlets emphasized the generational rhetoric — housing as a right, public transport, and a desire for a political alternative to long-standing centre-right dominance.
But the coverage was not all celebratory. Several outlets focused on Connolly’s outspoken stances on foreign policy, especially her criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, and warned that while the presidency is largely ceremonial, the office carries moral weight and can reshape public conversation at home and abroad.
Others drew attention to a striking statistic: the unusually high share of invalid or spoilt ballots. “Nearly one voter in eight submitted an invalid ballot,” one international dispatch read. “Analysts say this signals profound frustration with mainstream options, and perhaps a protest against what many see as a stale political centre.”
What the Presidency Can—and Cannot—Do
It’s important to remember that the Irish presidency is intentionally limited. The president signs legislation, represents the state on ceremonial occasions, and has a handful of reserve powers. The real machinery of policy — budgets, housing plans, foreign policy decisions — sits with the government and Dáil Éireann.
That structural reality did not stop voters from imbuing the coming presidency with symbolic significance. “We chose someone who will speak up,” said Dr. Niamh Kearns, a political sociologist at Trinity College. “A president can’t pass housing law, but they can amplify issues, convene conversations, and be a moral spotlight.”
Connolly campaigned on a suite of issues that resonate with many younger voters: affordable housing, public transport, support for the Irish language, and a referendum on unification. She also positioned herself as a steadfast defender of Ireland’s neutrality — a topic of renewed debate since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing discussions in Europe around defence cooperation.
Questions to Consider
Will an outspoken ceremonial president widen public debate or deepen polarization? Can a figure who openly champions causes like Palestinian solidarity act as a unifying head of state? And what does a high rate of invalid ballots tell us about the relationship between citizens and their institutions?
“Symbols matter more in times of social stress,” Dr. Kearns told me. “When people feel left behind economically or culturally, they look for someone who represents what they can’t get from party politics.”
Beyond the Headlines: Culture, Language, and the Pulse of Youth
There’s a cultural layer often missed by international dispatches. Connolly’s platform included a visible commitment to the Irish language and to cultural projects that celebrate local heritage—from traditional music sessions in sitting rooms to community-led arts festivals in Galway and Cork. For many voters, that cultural affirmation felt like a balm amid anxieties about global change.
At a Ceilí in a small town in Mayo, locals danced an old reel and toasted the election result with cider and laughter. “Younger people want dignity and a voice,” said Siobhán, who runs the local bingo. “And older generations want respect. Maybe she can give both.”
What Comes Next
Connolly will step into Áras an Uachtaráin with a public gaze both hopeful and skeptical. She inherits not just ceremonial duties but a symbolic platform that, if wielded with care, could prod the powerful, comfort the anxious and reframe public debates. If mishandled, it could sharpen divides.
For a country whose diaspora numbers in the millions and whose politics now draw headlines from L.A. to Jerusalem, what happens in Ireland quickly becomes part of the global conversation. The question for citizens, and for observers abroad, is this: Do we want a president who simply reflects the mood of the moment, or one who shapes the mood for the better?
On the morning after the vote, as seagulls wheeled above the Liffey and commuters moved through the city, one woman clasped her hands and said simply: “We needed someone to say what we’re feeling. Now let’s see what she does with it.”
Israel insists it maintains operational control in Gaza despite ceasefire
Between Bulldozers and Yellow Lines: Gaza’s Fragile Quiet
The convoy arrived at dawn like a small, awkward promise — low-loader lorries flying the Egyptian flag, a train of bulldozers and mechanical diggers, tipper trucks that flashed lights and honked in a rhythm more solemn than celebratory. They queued at Rafah as if waiting for permission to stitch up a wound that, for years, has been left to fester.
For residents of Gaza City, the sight was at once familiar and surreal. “We’ve seen machinery before, but never like this,” said Hiam Muqdad, a 62-year-old grandmother living in a tent beside the skeleton of her home. Her grandchildren, barefoot, scavenged twigs and plastic for a fire to heat water, playing among the blocks of concrete that were once a street. “When they said there was a truce, my heart leapt and then broke again. Children’s dreams have been buried under the rubble.”
Who Holds the Keys to Gaza’s Security?
At the core of the ceasefire that settled, uneasily, over Gaza is a single, thorny question: who really controls security inside the Strip? The deal, brokered with heavy U.S. involvement, envisions an international stabilization force — largely drawn from Arab or Muslim countries — to police a post-conflict Gaza. But Israel has been categorical: it will keep the reins in its own hands.
“Israel is an independent state,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers, repeating a theme that drew hard lines across the political spectrum. “We will defend ourselves by our own means and we will continue to determine our fate. We do not seek anyone’s approval for this.”
That insistence ripples through every element of the ceasefire. Government spokespeople later summarized the position bluntly: any foreign forces entering Gaza must first be acceptable to Israel. “It’s going to be the easy way or the hard way,” one spokeswoman warned. “Israel will have overall security control of the Gaza Strip.”
The Yellow Line and a Map Still Being Redrawn
Since the ceasefire took hold, Israeli forces have withdrawn to what they describe as the “Yellow Line.” But the line on a map is not the same as a return to normal life. Israel continues to approve humanitarian convoys crossing its controlled borders and has conducted strikes even after the truce was announced — moves intended, officials say, to keep militant networks from reconstituting.
U.S. diplomats have sought to stitch a narrative of gradual normalization: the international stabilization force would, over time, expand its footprint and the Yellow Line could shift. “Ultimately, the point of the stabilisation force is to move that line until it covers hopefully all of Gaza, meaning all of Gaza will be demilitarised,” a senior U.S. official told reporters. But such timelines are fragile promises when the memory of war remains fresh.
Convoys, Aid, and the Limits of Relief
Even as heavy machinery rolled in with Egyptian staff — a technical team cleared by Israeli authorities, their vehicles stamped with authorization — aid agencies warn that access remains painfully inadequate. Parts of Gaza still resemble a place under siege: families without steady food, empty hospital wards converted into morgues, children who have not seen a full school year in years.
“We are getting some assistance, but it’s not enough,” said an aid worker who has been operating near Al-Zawayda. “The logistics of moving large convoys, the approvals, the security concerns — they all slow life-saving aid. In the meantime, people are hungry.”
Statistics, cold and unforgiving, frame the scale of loss. According to figures from the Gaza health ministry — numbers widely cited by international agencies — more than 68,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the course of the conflict. The same reporting notes that Hamas has returned 20 living hostages and 15 bodies; the group says it still holds the remains of 13 captives — a tally that includes ten Israelis taken during the 7 October attack, one individual missing since 2014, plus a Thai and a Tanzanian worker.
Searching Amid the Rubble
The Egyptian heavy equipment was intended, in part, to assist in recovery operations — the grim task of locating remains in collapsed buildings. Local crews, families and international technicians worked side by side in a landscape of broken mortar and twisted rebar. “You don’t just clear debris,” said an Egyptian engineer. “You look for places where someone’s entire life might be buried.”
For relatives, each scoop of earth is a small, terrible hope. “There is no closure without a body,” said one father who has been searching for months. “You cannot grieve properly if you do not have something to bury.”
Politics at a Human Scale
Political actors, meanwhile, are locked in a cautious choreography. Israel refuses to accept certain countries’ participation in the stabilization force — explicitly wary of rivals it deems hostile — while Hamas insists that excluding it from the governance equation risks a security vacuum. “Excluding Hamas from maintaining stability could lead to chaos,” warned Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, arguing that a total sidelining of the movement would create a governance gap.
Hamas has also resisted immediate disarmament. Instead, its leaders have promised to pursue rival armed groups within Gaza, conducting internal crackdowns that they say are meant to maintain order. “We are not obstructing reconstruction; we are worried about external forces redrawing our community’s map,” said a local leader in Gaza City.
What Does “Demilitarised” Even Mean?
When politicians and diplomats speak of demilitarisation, what they often mean is a static, technical condition — the removal of heavy weapons, the dismantling of organized military capabilities. But on the ground, demilitarisation touches raw nerves about dignity, governance and who gets to decide daily life: who secures the streets, who opens crossings, who approves relief convoys, and who protects families from reprisals.
After months — years — of conflict, those decisions will shape whether Gaza rebuilds into a livable place or a fragile pause between more violence. “Rebuilding homes is one thing,” said a social worker. “Rebuilding trust is another. And trust cannot be decreed from a map or a negotiation table.”
Where Do We Go From Here?
As bulldozers trundle across the border and ministers trade ultimatums, ordinary people continue to live in the in-between: hungry, hopeful, terrified that the quiet is only the prelude to another storm. The ceasefire has bought a rare, brutal commodity — time. How it is used will be the test of every promise made in diplomatic backrooms.
So I ask you, reader: when policies are negotiated by leaders far from the sound of a child’s laughter or the hush of a family’s burial, whose voices are we really hearing — and whose lives are we truly putting first?
In Gaza, the answer will be lived out in tent camps, in the slow business of retrieving bodies and raising schools, and in the choices of those who will patrol the Strip. For now, the machines have arrived. The question is whether they will clear a path to reconstruction — or only trace the edges of another line that divides hope from despair.
Police Arrest Suspects in Theft of Jewels from the Louvre
Nightfall at the Louvre: How France’s Crown Jewels Vanished in Plain Sight
On a sunlit weekend in Paris — the kind of day when visitors drift from the Seine to the gardens of the Musée du Louvre as if following a collective invitation — a small band of thieves turned one of the city’s most iconic institutions into a theater for audacity.
They arrived not like ghosts but like something out of a heist film: a mobile crane telescoping toward a second-floor window, a harsh crash of glass, a sprint of masked figures, and the staccato bark of motorcycle engines as they sped into the city’s arteries. In less than ten minutes, eight pieces of France’s historic crown jewels had disappeared. A ninth, the emerald- and diamond-encrusted crown of Empress Eugénie, was later found abandoned nearby — dropped, sources say, in the hurry of escape.
This was not a robbery of cash or a haul for a local pawnshop; the pieces taken are heavy with history. Among them, an emerald-and-diamond necklace once gifted by Napoleon to Empress Marie-Louise and a diadem that belonged to Empress Eugénie, studded with nearly 2,000 diamonds. The estimated value: roughly $102 million.
The arrest that followed
By evening, the story bent toward the procedural. Two men in their 30s — both from Seine-Saint-Denis, a northern department of greater Paris often in headlines for its economic struggles and social tensions — were detained near Paris.
“One was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport around 10 p.m., moments before boarding a flight to Algeria,” said a senior prosecutor in Paris, speaking on condition of anonymity during the early stages of the investigation. “Both are known to police. The inquiry is ongoing.”
Le Parisien, which first published details of the arrests, reported that the men were already on law enforcement radars for other offenses. For now, police confirmed that while the crown of Empress Eugénie was recovered close to the scene, the eight other items remain missing.
What happened inside the museum
Witnesses described a surreal tableau: visitors in the galleries — some snapping selfies, others lingering in front of portraits — jolted into alarm as security alarms began to wail. A museum guard recalled the noise and the sight of ladders and a crane outside what many Parisian history-lovers know as the Galerie d’Apollon, where the crown jewels are traditionally displayed.
“You don’t expect the past to be stolen in daylight,” said Marie-Claude Dubois, a longtime guide at the Louvre who has led thousands through rooms lined with lacquered frames and vaulted ceilings. “It felt like watching our history peeled from its frame.”
A Louvre spokesperson, Antoine Leclerc, told reporters, “We are cooperating fully with investigators. The safety of our collections and our visitors is our top priority. We are shocked that a brazen act like this occurred right here.”
Why the theft matters beyond the price tag
These jewels are not simply ornaments; they are physical chapters of French history. Napoleon’s jewelry, the trappings of emperors and empresses — they are touchstones in narratives about monarchy, revolution, empire, and national identity. Their loss reverberates outward: for the nation’s cultural memory, for the global art market, and for the millions who travel from around the world to glimpse such artifacts.
The Louvre itself amplifies that loss. The museum, often cited as the world’s most visited, drew nearly 10 million visitors in 2019 before the pandemic reshaped global tourism patterns. What happens within its walls is scrutinized not just by Parisians but by a global audience that sees the Louvre as a public trust.
Professor Elise Mounier, an expert on cultural heritage protection at the University of Strasbourg, framed the theft within a broader problem. “Art and cultural property have become commodities in shadow economies,” she said. “The illicit trade in such objects is lucrative and transnational. Once these jewels leave the country, their provenance is erased and recovery becomes exponentially harder.”
Local color: reactions in the neighborhood
On a narrow lane behind the museum, in a café where waiters call out orders and morning croissants steam under glass cloches, locals traded disbelief for practical questions about policing and inequality.
“We love the Louvre, but we live with these contradictions every day,” said Karim, a barista originally from Seine-Saint-Denis. “It’s easy to point fingers, but poverty and lack of opportunity are part of the landscape. That doesn’t excuse crime, but it explains the desperation.”
A retired teacher, Simone, sitting at a corner table, shook her head. “Our museums are a mirror of who we were and who we want to be. That mirror was cracked today.”
Security under scrutiny
The how of the theft invites hard questions. A crane reaching an upper-floor gallery, a window smashed, and getaway motorcycles — the operation appears planned and rehearsed. Museum security experts will now comb through footage and protocols. Did technological and human safeguards fail? Were alarms and patrols circumvented? The answers will be pivotal not only for the Louvre but for cultural institutions worldwide.
“Museums balance openness with protection,” said Hugo Navarro, a security consultant who has worked with European museums. “Too much fortification alienates visitors; too little invites exploitation. After incidents like this, institutions often reconfigure physical barriers, surveillance systems, and visitor flow — but there’s no single fix.”
- Stolen: 8 crown-jewel pieces, estimated value $102 million
- Recovered: Empress Eugénie’s emerald-and-diamond crown (dropped nearby)
- Method: crane, smashed upstairs window, motorcycle getaway
- Arrests: two men detained, one at Charles de Gaulle airport
Looking ahead: justice, recovery, and memory
Can those jewels be recovered? The odds hinge on speed, luck, and international cooperation. Auction houses, smugglers’ networks, and collectors with questionable ethics can move items across borders in days. Interpol and cultural property units have had successes — many artworks are recovered each year — but precious jewelry, easily disassembled, presents particular challenges.
For now, investigators will pursue leads across borders and into online markets. Prosecutors in Paris will need to demonstrate whether the theft is the work of a small, local crew or part of a wider transnational operation.
And for the public, the robbery prompts a quieter question: what do we owe a nation’s cultural treasures? Are they museum pieces, state property, or the living memory of a people? When histories are stolen, who is impoverished?
As Paris breathes into another evening, the Louvre’s glass pyramid continues to glitter, anonymous tourists still photograph each other beneath it, and the city resumes its rhythm. Yet in the hush of its galleries, echoes of the theft linger: the shatter of glass, the flash of diamonds, the sudden exposure of vulnerability. The jewels are more than a headline; they are a test — of law enforcement, cultural stewardship, and a society’s commitment to protect the material threads that tie its past to its present.
What would you do if you stood before a crown that once graced the head of an empress? Would you feel the pull of beauty, of history, of loss? In the days to come, as investigators circle and the nation debates, that question will remain, shimmering and unresolved.
Trump won’t engage Putin until a credible war deal emerges
When a Summit Fell Apart: The Moment Sanctions Became a Statement
There are moments in politics that feel both intimate and seismic: a terse line in a press pool quote, a cancelled meeting, a sanction that lands like a pebble on the surface of a dark, wide sea. On the tarmac of those ripples this week stood a familiar, sharp image—President Donald Trump telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he would not sit down with Vladimir Putin “unless it was clear that the Russian President was serious about making a deal to end the war in Ukraine.”
“I’m going to have to know that we’re going to make a deal. I’m not going to be wasting my time,” he said, voice measured, eyes seemingly on both the immediate itinerary and a broader, unfinished ledger of diplomatic efforts. “I’ve always had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin, but this has been very disappointing.”
It was a line that condensed frustration and calculation: personal rapport battered by the realities of a brutal, protracted conflict, and the very public calculus of sanctions as both punishment and leverage.
Sanctions With a Purpose
On the same day, Washington announced sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil—two of Russia’s energy giants—actions mirrored by the European Union. These are not small players. Rosneft is the state-dominant behemoth; Lukoil, the country’s largest private oil company. Together they touch a large portion of Russia’s hydrocarbon exports, and hydrocarbons have been the main artery of Moscow’s public finances for decades. Oil and gas revenues have accounted for roughly four in ten rubles of federal revenue in recent years—an immense dependency on the fate of fossil fuels that has become the West’s leverage card.
“These measures are intended to be a signal,” said a sanctions analyst in Brussels, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak more candidly about internal strategy. “It’s meant to sharpen the cost of the war without escalating to direct military confrontation.”
For months, Mr. Trump had resisted calls to impose such sweeping penalties. Plans for a fresh summit with Mr. Putin in Budapest collapsed, and the patience that had held the sanctions at bay finally snapped. Yet even as he enacted these moves, Mr. Trump spoke of their possible temporariness, saying he hoped the sanctions would be short-lived, that “the war will be settled.”
Leaders React
Across the Atlantic, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the impact, calling the sanctions “serious” while insisting they would not unmoor the Russian economy. “It is an unfriendly act,” he said, adding that such measures “do not strengthen Russia–US relations, which have only just begun to recover.” Still, he left the door ajar: the Kremlin said he remained open to dialogue with the American president.
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the move. “A strong and much-needed message that aggression will not go unanswered,” he said, words that landed with particular resonance for a country whose cities and lives have been scarred by war.
Voices on the Ground
Politics can feel distant in boardrooms and backchannels. But in the market stalls, neighbourhood cafés, and commuter trains of Europe and Russia, the consequences are immediate and personal.
In a small café near Maidan in Kyiv, a barista named Oksana wiped down a table, her knuckles raw from cold and worry. “What they do in Washington affects whether we have heat this winter,” she said, eyes travelling past a television screen showing footage of destroyed blocks outside Kharkiv. “This isn’t about abstract geopolitics. It’s about whether our children sleep warm and hungry.”
In St. Petersburg, a gas-station attendant named Sergei was more stoic. “I know it’s bad for business,” he said, shrugging. “But Russia is used to sanctions. We will adapt.” Adaptation is a phrase Russian public life has become practiced in over the last decade—workarounds, pivots to Asia, and domestic production drives.
An energy trader in Rotterdam leaned back in his chair and gave a tired smile. “The short-term market response is price jitter; the long-term story is market share,” he said. “If Russia’s oil exports get squeezed, other producers will try to fill the gap. And that feeds into longer debates about energy security and diversification in Europe.”
Markets, Strategy, and the Larger Picture
The sanctions land at the intersection of several global pressures. Europe’s dependence on Russian fuel has been a central strategic vulnerability since 2022; the energy price shocks that followed that year reshaped political conversations across capitals. At the same time, the global energy market has become more fluid, with tanker routes, buyers, and sanctions workarounds mutating rapidly.
“Sanctions do more than freeze assets,” said Dr. Maria Ivanova, a sanctions expert at a European university. “They rewrite economic relationships, force private companies and banks to rethink counterparty risk, and they send a political signal to other states. But they are not a silver bullet. The key question is whether they change behaviour.”
Beyond economics, there are wider questions about diplomacy itself. The aborted Budapest summit and the wary language from Washington raise a thorny issue: can personal rapport between leaders ever substitute for credible verification frameworks? And can sanctions and negotiations be sequenced in a way that makes compromise feasible without rewarding bad behaviour?
What Comes Next?
Sanctions are rarely final; they are a stage in an unfolding drama. The White House framed its move as conditional—removable if a real settlement emerges. The Kremlin framed it as a provocation that will be met with countermeasures at some future point. In the middle sits a war that shows no signs of a quick end, and millions of lives that have already been altered beyond recognition.
So what should readers take away from all this, beyond the headlines and the volley of quotes? Perhaps this: global politics increasingly feels like a relay race in which the baton keeps changing hands—sanctions, summits, markets, and ground truth all push the story in different directions.
Ask yourself: does punishment without a clear exit strategy change behaviour, or does it harden positions? Can diplomacy ever be effective without enforceable steps and credible trust-building? And what kind of global order do we want—one in which oil still underwrites power, or one where energy security is decoupled from geopolitical coercion?
There are no tidy answers. But as the actors reconfigure, the human costs remain plain and pressing. From a café in Kyiv to a petrol pump in St. Petersburg, from trading floors in Amsterdam to the corridors of power in Washington, the reverberations of this decision will be felt for months and perhaps years. For now, the summit that never was has set a new chapter in motion: one where sanctions are both sword and conversation starter—an imperfect tool wielded in hopes of something better on the far side of the storm.
Russia Confirms Successful Launch of New Nuclear-Capable Missile
A Kremlin Announcement, a Quiet Alarm
There are moments in politics that feel less like press releases and more like historical punctuation marks. On a crisp autumn morning inside the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin stepped into that kind of moment — delivering a short, cinematic declaration that Russia had completed “decisive tests” of a new weapon: the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile.
“The decisive tests are now complete,” Putin said, his voice steady in the video released by the Kremlin. “We must prepare infrastructure to put this weapon into service in the Russian armed forces.”
It was less a technical briefing than a performance — a place-setting for a new chapter in modern arms competition. But beyond the theater, the claims are concrete and unnerving: a missile Moscow says can travel for 14,000 km, that took some 15 hours in its most recent flight, and that its propulsion system grants it what Russian officials describe as essentially “unlimited range.”
What exactly is the Burevestnik?
The term “Burevestnik” — Russian for “storm petrel,” a bird famed in poetry as a harbinger of storms — is fittingly apocalyptic. Russian military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov added technical heft to the Kremlin announcement: the missile’s “technical characteristics” allow it, he said, “to be used with guaranteed precision against highly protected sites located at any distance.”
What makes the Burevestnik different from more familiar ballistic missiles is not speed but endurance. Unlike a missile that follows a ballistic arc and lands in minutes, a nuclear-powered cruise missile is designed to cruise for hours, refueling its engine with a compact reactor. In theory, that translates to range untethered to conventional fuel limits and the ability to evade detection or interception by flying long, unpredictable routes.
Here are the main claims Moscow has put on the table:
- Range: Up to 14,000 km during the latest test; Russian officials suggest this is not the upper limit.
- Duration: The October test reportedly lasted about 15 hours.
- Capability: Designed to strike “highly protected sites” with high precision, according to military statements.
Why that matters
To understand the alarm in the West and the gravitas in the Kremlin, picture a weapon that combines the low-altitude, terrain-following flexibility of a cruise missile with the endurance of a nuclear core. Defenders who rely on early-warning radars and missile interceptors may find the problem exponentially harder if an adversary can loiter near borders, alter course, and cross thousands of miles without refueling.
Voices on the ground
Not every Russian greeted the announcement with applause. Outside a metro stop in central Moscow, a café owner named Irina wiped espresso rings from a tray and shrugged. “Weapons sound grand on television,” she said. “But for us, it’s the doubled cost of everything and the worry that follows. I remember 2019 — the stories, the fear of radiation — people talk about that.”
An elderly pensioner, Vladimir, sat on a bench and folded his hands. “When they say ‘unique,’ they mean they can scare the world,” he said. “Scare it — and then sell their power back to us as security.”
Across borders, analysts spoke with sharper concern. “If these claims are true,” said an arms-control researcher who requested anonymity, “the strategic calculus changes. Extended flight times and roadless routes make conventional interceptors less reliable. We are returning to an era where technical novelty outpaces treaty language.”
History, hazards and a long shadow
This is not a wholly novel idea. The Cold War flirted with nuclear-powered flight. The U.S. Project Pluto in the early 1960s sought to create a nuclear ramjet engine for cruise missiles; it was ultimately canceled due to radiation risks and technical challenges. The Soviet Union explored similar ideas.
Then there are the environmental memories that linger. In 2019, an accident during weapons testing in northern Russia — widely reported and linked by many observers to experimental propulsion work — caused localized radiological anomalies and deaths among engineers. Moscow denied some details, while independent investigators pointed to the dangers of testing advanced nuclear systems in populated or fragile ecological areas.
“You can design a brilliant weapon on paper,” said Dr. Elena Markova, a former Russian aerospace engineer now teaching in Europe. “But nuclear propulsion introduces contamination risks that are not easily mitigated. An accident during testing or a crash in peacetime could create long-term ecological consequences.”
Numbers that put the claims in context
Context matters: Russia remains one of the two nuclear superpowers, with several thousand warheads in its arsenal. Global inventories have shifted only slightly in recent years, but modernization programs across nuclear states mean the character of deterrence is changing even if the raw numbers wobble within the same order of magnitude.
Meanwhile, high-profile military spending and technological contests are on the rise. In 2024, NATO defense spending and modernization efforts continued to climb, driven in part by the war in Ukraine and the perception of growing Russian military capability. The Burevestnik announcement now sits in that larger tapestry — an emblem of technological brinkmanship and strategic signaling.
What the rest of the world is likely thinking
From capitals in Europe to think tanks in Washington, the question is not merely whether the missile flies but what it does to strategic stability. Does a weapon that can loiter for hours create incentives for pre-emption? Does it complicate arms-control verification? Does it spur an arms race in new propulsion, detection, or cyber tools?
“This is symbolic as much as it is strategic,” said Michael Anders, a European security analyst. “The Kremlin is demonstrating capability and resolve. The West must respond with careful diplomacy and a measured modernization of defenses — but also with renewed urgency for transparency and restraint.”
Where do we go from here?
There are no easy answers. The announcement invites a cascade of responses: technological counters, diplomatic protests, perhaps new sanctions, and calls for revisiting treaties written in an earlier era of mutual assumptions. It also raises simpler, deeper questions about human priorities. What do we want our ingenuity to build? How much risk can societies accept for the sake of deterrence?
As you read this, consider the image of that missile — not as an abstract headline but as a long, humming machine crossing oceans in silence, watched by satellite arrays and anxious governments. Think about the coffee shop owner in Moscow, the pensioner on the bench, and the engineer who worries about radiation. They are the quiet ledger of any national decision to pursue weapons innovation.
Will this development reset the global arms conversation, or will it become another layer in a familiar, escalating script? The answer will unfold in boardrooms and backchannels, in parliaments and at kitchen tables. For now, the Burevestnik has landed in the public imagination, a storm petrel calling the weather. Are we prepared to read what it means?
UK Police Re-Arrest Asylum Seeker After Earlier Accidental Release
Handcuffs in the Park: When a System’s Slip Becomes a Community’s Fear
It was a grey, ordinary morning in Finsbury Park — cyclists threading around dog walkers, coffee cups steaming, the city’s usual hum — until police led a man in a high-visibility vest toward a waiting van. Neighbors paused, forks mid-bite, eyes following the procession. By mid-morning a cordon had been set up and journalists were already piecing together a story that would stretch from an Essex prison to protests outside hotels across England.
The man arrested was 38-year-old Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, an asylum seeker who had been mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford, the prison service confirmed. He was taken into custody in connection with a conviction that had sent ripples through a small Essex town and, later, across the country: Kebatu had been jailed in September for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.
“Nothing about this felt routine,” said one local witness in Finsbury Park. “You can smell how these things make people nervous. It wasn’t just an arrest — it felt like the end of an anxious wait.”
The Anatomy of an Error
Official accounts say Kebatu was scheduled to be transferred from HMP Chelmsford to an immigration removal centre, with deportation proceedings pending. Instead, an administrative error — the kind that reads like bad fiction when isolated on paper — resulted in his release. A manhunt followed.
Prison Service spokespeople moved quickly to frame the incident. “We are urgently working with police to return an offender to custody following a release in error at HMP Chelmsford,” a spokesman said. “Public protection is our top priority and we have launched an investigation into this incident.”
For trade unions and prison workers, the mistake was a blunt instrument of failure. Aaron Stow, president of the Criminal Justice Workers’ Union, called it “a profound failure of duty,” arguing that the incident exposed gaps in an already pressured system. “Staff shortages, shifting procedures, and relentless caseloads create the conditions where errors like this become possible,” he told reporters.
From Chelmsford to Epping: A Short, Troubling Journey
Kebatu had been living at the Bell Hotel in Epping before his imprisonment. Court records show he arrived in the UK on a small boat only days before the incidents that led to his conviction in July. He was found guilty of multiple offences after a three-day trial at Chelmsford and Colchester magistrates’ courts and received a 12-month sentence in September.
At sentencing, the court noted Kebatu’s “firm wish” to be deported — a detail that became crucial when the Home Office prepared to transfer him to an immigration removal centre. That move, the authorities say, was underway before the inexplicable release.
A prison officer has been temporarily removed from duties related to prisoner discharge while the investigation continues, officials added. The discovery has prompted urgent questions: How did a man due for deportation walk out of a secure facility? Where are the checks and balances that should stop this?
When Protests Follow Prison Doors
In Epping, a town better known for its beech-lined streets and Victorian high street than headline-making confrontations, the news of the conviction and later the release provoked something hotter than local gossip: protests. Demonstrators and counter-protesters gathered outside hotels used to house asylum seekers, turning quiet lanes into media stages. Onlookers described an atmosphere charged with fear and frustration.
“We’re a small place. Things don’t stay private for long,” a Bell Hotel staff member said. “One day it’s just guests checking in; the next it’s picket lines and police tape. It’s hard on everyone — the staff, the other residents, the families around here.”
The unrest points to a wider pattern: the long-standing political and social debates around asylum accommodation and the use of hotels to house people awaiting decisions. In recent years, local communities across Britain have seen similar flashpoints, where national policy intersects with local life.
Beyond the Headlines: A Strain on Systems and Sympathy
It’s worth stepping back for a moment. The individual story of Kebatu — the crime, the conviction, the intended deportation, the accidental release, and eventual rearrest — is nested within larger systems under public scrutiny. The UK’s asylum system has been under strain for several years: long delays in processing, rising numbers of arrivals via small boats, and a patchwork of temporary accommodations have left both migrants and host communities in precarious positions.
“This isn’t just about one mistake,” said a criminal justice expert at a London university. “It’s about a system operating at full tilt: prisons stretched thin, immigration processes backlogged, and public services trying to keep pace.”
Meanwhile, public safety and accountability demand answers. How can a correctional facility lose track of an individual in its care? What safeguards failed? And crucially for readers everywhere: what does such an error tell us about trust in institutions that hold people — both offenders and asylum seekers — in states of dependency?
Voices from the Street
A local mother in Epping, who asked to remain anonymous, summed up the emotional fallout in a simple sentence: “We want security and explanations. Not cover-ups.”
Across the country, hospitality workers who have found themselves suddenly housing asylum seekers say they feel caught between humanitarian responsibilities and local pressures. “Most of us are just doing our jobs,” said one hotel manager. “We open doors, we make beds. But when politics and crime get mixed together, it becomes something else entirely.”
What Now? Accountability, Reform, and Questions We Must Ask
With Kebatu back in custody, the immediate threat to public safety has been addressed — but not the deeper questions that remain. An internal Prison Service probe will determine where procedures faltered and who, if anyone, will face disciplinary measures. The Home Office will likely review transfer protocols to ensure detainees slated for deportation are not mistakenly freed.
But inquiries and apologies can feel abstract in the face of bruised communities and polarized public debates. This episode raises urgent policy issues: the adequacy of prison staffing and training; the robustness of discharge checks; the transparency of communication between prisons and immigration authorities; and the social consequences of housing asylum seekers in dispersed, often ill-equipped accommodations.
So I ask you, the reader: when a system designed to protect the public fails in such a visible way, what should be the balance between swift accountability and measured reform? Do we demand firmer hands at the levers, or do we also ask for a humane, structural overhaul that prevents such crises from occurring in the first place?
Closing Notes
For residents of Epping and for those who watched the morning arrest in Finsbury Park, the story will likely be remembered less as an administrative footnote and more as a moment that exposed the seams of a system pushed to its limits. The arrest closed one chapter; it has opened others. Conversations about security, migration, and institutional competence are not going away.
In the weeks to come, the inquiry will publish findings and politicians will make promises. Protesters will quieten or escalate. But the most important work — the quiet, difficult work of fixing processes, rebuilding trust, and balancing compassion with protection — will persist long after the cameras have moved on.
How should a democratic society ensure both safety and dignity when the machinery of justice and immigration creaks? That’s a question worth holding onto as this story continues to unfold.
Itoobiya oo Qunsul cusb usoo magacawday Puntland oo gaaray Garoowe
Nov 26(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha maamulka Puntland Siciid Cabdullaahi Deni, ayaa maanta Qasriga Madaxtooyada ee Garoowe ku qaabilay Qunsulka cusub ee Dowladda Itoobiya u soo magacowday Puntland, Major General Tagesse Lambamo Dimbore.
Baarlamaanka Jabuuti oo wax ka bedelaya da’da qofka madaxweynaha noqonaya oo xadidneyd
Nov 26(Jowhar)-Madaxweynaha dalka Jabuuti Ismaaciil Cumar Geelle, waxa uu todobaadkii la soo dhaafay uu qaaday tallaabo hadal hayn weyn ka abuurtay baraha bulshada ee dalkaas taas oo ahayd in uu meesha ka saarayo xeerkii xaddiday da’da laga doonayo qofka madaxweyne dalkaas ka noqonaya.
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