Titanic couple’s gold watch fetches over €2 million at auction

November 23, 2025

Titanic couple's gold watch sells for over €2m at auction — Isidor and Ida Straus drowned when the Titanic sank in April 1912

The Watch That Held a Century: How a Tiny Timepiece Rewrote a Big Story

There are objects that speak in whispers and objects that shout. On a damp Saturday in Devizes, a small 18-carat gold watch—its face dulled by a century of salt and sorrow—answered with a roar. The lot closed for just over €2 million, sending a ripple through rooms of collectors, historians and casual onlookers who, for a few intense minutes, felt the past press up against the present.

A room full of breaths and baited hearts

The auction house, Henry Aldridge & Son, sits in the warren of streets that curl through Wiltshire, a county of chalk hills and old stone farms. People who had traveled from London, from Europe, and from further afield filled simple wooden chairs, clutching catalogues and coffee. An auctioneer’s hammer tapped, a hush fell, then rose again. The watch—an 18-carat Jules Jurgensen, its case engraved with initials and history—rested on a cushion under glass, a small, precious relic of a catastrophe that continues to draw us like the edge of a map.

“When you see it in person there’s an intimacy that photographs simply cannot capture,” said Andrew Aldridge, the house’s managing director. “It’s not the gold we’re paying for—it’s the human life it tethered.”

The Strauses: a love story etched in metal

The watch had belonged to Isidor Straus, a German-born immigrant who found a place at the top of New York commerce as a partner in the department store that eventually took his name: Macy’s. Born in Otterberg, Bavaria, in 1845, Straus emigrated to the United States with his family in 1854, a boy with new languages and ambitious fingers. By 1888, the year he turned 43 and was elevated in the company, he was given that very watch—a gift that would later become one of the most poignant artifacts connected to the RMS Titanic.

Isidor and Ida Straus boarded the Titanic as first-class passengers in April 1912. If you have ever seen James Cameron’s 1997 film, you’ll recall a silent, devastating moment: an elderly couple sitting in deck chairs as the ship tilts and the sea takes the rest. That scene, a cinematic condensation of millions of small choices and a single act of devotion, stems from testimony that Ida refused a lifeboat without her husband and that Isidor refused to go before other men.

“There’s a moral clarity to their story that fascinates people,” said Dr. Emily Hart, a maritime historian. “In times of disaster the details of courage and loyalty become magnified. People go hunting for objects that can make those choices feel real again.”

Recovered from the sea, returned to memory

After the Titanic lurched beneath the freezing Atlantic on 15 April 1912—an event that claimed roughly 1,500 lives out of the approximately 2,224 aboard—the Strauses’ bodies were found in the water. Among Isidor’s personal effects, rescuers discovered the watch. It was returned to the family and, until this weekend, remained an heirloom woven into private histories.

Objects like this can feel almost indecent when put under glass and sold. Yet they also operate as conduits: through leather and gears and an engraved case we meet a person whose life once touched many others. “You can trace a life through possessions,” said Miriam Cohen, who follows family histories for a collective of Jewish heritage projects. “The watch belongs to Isidor, yes, but it also belongs to history. It’s testimony.”

Record price, familiar questions

The sale set a new high-water mark for Titanic memorabilia. It eclipsed last year’s record, when another gold pocket watch—presented to the captain of the vessel that rescued survivors—sold for €1.77 million. That rescue ship, the RMS Carpathia, famously took aboard 705 survivors in the immediate aftermath of the sinking.

Other items from the auction fetched notable sums: a letter written by Ida Straus on Titanic stationery sold for €113,000, a passenger list brought €118,000, and a gold medal given to the crew of the Carpathia by survivors brought €97,000. When the day’s hammering ended, Titanic-related items had brought in about €3.41 million in total.

“People aren’t bidding on brass and enamel,” said auction attendee and collector Thomas Bell, who traveled from Manchester. “They’re bidding on connection—on the chance to hold a fragment of the human story. That’s why things like this command attention, even now, more than a century later.”

Why do we buy tragedy?

The question feels uncomfortable but it matters. Are we commemorating? Are we collecting? Is there a darker commerce in grief? This sale sits at the intersection of remembrance and market forces. Museums, private collectors and descendants each have different impulses: preservation, investment, or familial closure.

“Material culture is how we narrate the past,” said Dr. Jonah Reyes, a cultural anthropologist who studies memory economies. “But markets also determine what stories are elevated. When a watch sells for millions, it forces us to ask which lives get attention and why.”

Isidor Straus’ story resonates precisely because it intertwines prosperity, immigrant ascent, public service and an intimate final act. He and his wife had traveled to Jerusalem earlier that year aboard the RMS Caronia, returning through Southampton and into the fate that would seal their names into global memory. Their devotion is the kind of narrative that movies, books and auctions love because it simplifies complex lives into a single, arresting image.

Beyond the price tag: what we carry forward

When the last bidder’s paddle was lowered and the watch wrapped and signed away, there was a moment that felt less like a victory and more like a communal inhalation. For many, the sale isn’t the end; it’s another chapter in a much longer story about how societies remember trauma and ritualize love.

So what does it mean when an intimate relic traded in a market becomes a public artifact again—tucked into the pad of a private collection or pledged to a museum’s climate-controlled archives? Does its meaning change? Does it lose the salt of the sea?

“Objects accumulate layers: personal, cultural, monetary,” Dr. Hart said. “Ideally, such pieces find homes where they can be studied and shared. That keeps memory alive and avoids fetishizing suffering.”

There are no easy answers. But if one thing is clear, it’s this: people still hunger for connection to the past. We gather around small things that have outlived their owners and, for a fleeting moment, we feel the people who once handled them breathe again.

What would you pay to hold a piece of history? And what responsibility comes with owning it? The watch—its hands long stopped—asks us, in its quiet way, to consider that time keeps moving even when our stories do not. How we honor them is, perhaps, the only answer we can choose.

Vietnam floods kill 90 people; 12 still missing

hanad

November 23, 2025

Vietnam flood death toll rises to 90, 12 others missing — Some locations in Vietnam are still cut off following major flooding

When the Rivers Took the Roads: Vietnam’s Floods and the People Left to Rebuild

It started as a sound: rain like a drumline, then a sigh, then a roar. By dawn some towns sounded like they were being rewritten—concrete humming, trees bowing, lives being rearranged by water. In the space of a week, south-central Vietnam has been forced to reckon with a season that arrived out of time and with a fury many here say they have not seen.

Official figures tell part of the story: at least 90 people have died and 12 remain missing after days of torrential rain and cascading landslides, the environment ministry reported. More than 60 of those fatalities were recorded in Dak Lak province alone, a well-known stretch of the Central Highlands where coffee farms and mountain passes meet the sky. Across five provinces, authorities estimate economic losses at roughly $343 million. And the human cost—homes soaked, livelihoods erased—extends beyond any single dollar figure.

The morning after the deluge

Walk into Nha Trang now and you’ll feel the oddness of a seaside city that has lost its shoreline routine: bungalows with mud-caked thresholds, scooters half-buried in silt, tourists stumbling through knee-deep water to get to hotels that once sold sun and surf. In Da Lat, the hills are scarred by landslides cutting through gardens of flowers and rows of pine trees. In Dak Lak, the coffee region, fields that should have been green with beans are a muddy ruin.

“Everything happened so fast,” said Mach Van Si, 61, a farmer from Dak Lak whose roof became temporary refuge when water rushed through his village. “We climbed on our sheet-metal roof at night. The water was up to the eaves. For two nights we watched the stars and the river take our house.”

His is a voice common across the flooded valleys: astonishment, exhaustion, a thread of anger. “Our neighbourhood was completely destroyed,” he told rescuers. “Nothing was left. Everything was covered in mud.”

Infrastructure, isolation, and the long chain of impacts

Bridges that once connected villages now hang like broken stitches—two suspension bridges in Khanh Hoa province were swept away, leaving communities isolated. National highways remain partially blocked by landslides, and railway lines have been suspended in several places. More than 129,000 customers are still without electricity after power cuts left over a million households in the dark at the height of the storms.

Beyond the immediate picture of damaged roads and powerless homes are the slow, grinding damages: over 80,000 hectares of rice and other crops ruined across Dak Lak and neighbouring provinces, and an estimated 3.2 million livestock and poultry killed or washed away in the floodwaters. For farmers who live week-to-week on harvests and the seasonal rhythms of planting, that loss is not just financial—it is existential.

On the ground: rescue, relief and small acts of mercy

When rivers rose and passes closed, helicopters became lifelines. The government deployed tens of thousands of personnel—soldiers, police, local volunteers—dropping food and medicine into cut-off valleys. Aid parcels have become intimate objects: a pack of instant noodles handed to a grandmother, water-purification tablets explained by a young rescue worker, warm blankets passed from hand to hand.

Helicopter airdrops of food and blankets for isolated hamlets
Tens of thousands of government personnel mobilized for rescue and distribution
Basic supplies prioritized: clothing, purification tabs, instant noodle packs, clean water

“We are focused on life-saving right now,” said a provincial official in a voice caught between duty and fatigue. “But we must also plan for the days after—the water recedes, but the problems multiply: illness, hunger, pricing shocks.”

NGOs and neighbours are filling gaps where they can. A rescue volunteer in Khanh Hoa described carrying an elderly man through waist-deep water to a waiting boat. “He kept apologizing because he scared us, but it was the other way round,” she said. “We were scared we wouldn’t make it back to the next hamlet.”

Why is this happening now? A climate crossroad

Vietnam typically braces for heavy rains between June and September; this onslaught arriving in late October and continuing into November is a reminder that weather regimes are shifting. Scientists increasingly point to human-driven climate change as a key amplifier—warmer air holds more moisture, storms stall longer, and rainfall intensity climbs. For coastal and highland communities, the result is more frequent, more intense events that test both natural and human defenses.

“There’s a clear signal: what used to be extreme is getting normal,” said a climate researcher who has studied Vietnam’s hydrology. “We are seeing a greater clustering of heavy precipitation events, meaning the soil doesn’t get a chance to recover. Infrastructure designed for a different climate now often fails to withstand these surges.”

Broader trends and local realities

Vietnam’s national statistics office places the broader picture in stark terms: from January to October this year natural disasters left 279 people dead or missing and caused more than $2 billion in damage. Those numbers are not abstract. They represent children out of school, towns with missing fathers, market stalls that will not reopen.

And while central government resources move to restore power lines and rebuild bridges, communities are left asking deeper questions: How do we protect farmlands inland from flood scouring? How do coastal resorts balance tourism and resilience? How do we support the smallholder farmers whose crops and animals feed whole regions?

What comes next—and what can readers across the world learn?

Recovery will be a mosaic of quick fixes and long-term transformation. Short-term needs are immediate and obvious: clean water, shelter, medicine, and repair of critical infrastructure. Mid-term demands include restoring livelihoods—seed and tool programs for farmers, compensation for lost livestock, and microloans for small businesses. Longer-term, this will be a test of planning: rebuilding roads and bridges that can withstand heavier rains, rethinking land-use on slopes, and investing in early-warning systems that reach even the most remote hamlets.

As you read this, ask yourself: how do we, globally, reimagine development in a warming world? What kind of insurance, social safety net, or public investments are required so that a storm does not become a lifetime sentence for a family? Those are big policy questions—but they are also about human dignity.

In the streets of Nha Trang and the highlands above Da Lat, resilience looks like small miracles: neighbours sharing a hot meal, a school opening its doors as a shelter, children splashing in water one day and clearing its mess the next. The headlines will move on; the water will recede. But for those whose roofs were stolen by the flood, rebuilding will take seasons—and the world will be watching, and perhaps learning, how to better protect our shared future.

Israeli air raids kill 20 people in Gaza, medical teams say

hanad

November 23, 2025

Israeli airstrikes kill 20 people in Gaza, medics say — Israeli forces bombed a vehicle in the al-Abbas area in western Gaza

Smoke over Rimal: a fragile ceasefire frays at the edges

The smell of burning rubber and metal hung heavy over Rimal as dusk fell—a scent that, in Gaza, has become its own kind of punctuation mark. A car, once just another vehicle threading beside apartment blocks and bakeries, was now an ember-strewn husk. Dozens of people ran toward it, some to pull bodies free, others to beat out the flames with blankets. A child watched from a distance, clutching a stuffed toy as if that small softness could steady the world.

“There was a flash, then smoke. We ran,” said a medic who asked not to be named. “We pulled charred bodies. There were people everywhere—passersby, the car’s occupants. We don’t even know who they were in those first moments.”

By midnight, local health authorities counted at least 20 people dead and more than 80 wounded from a series of Israeli airstrikes across Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat camp. Hospitals—already stretched thin—filled fast. The dead and injured were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where doctors worked under the yellow light of generators and the constant hum of anxiety.

The strikes and the counterclaims

Witnesses say the first strike struck the car in Rimal. Minutes later, the Israeli air force struck two houses in Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat, and then another home in western Gaza City. Medics reported at least ten killed in the central strikes and five in the western city attack—numbers that quickly made their way to hospital morgues and mobile phone cameras.

The Israeli military characterized the operations differently. It said a gunman had crossed into what it called “Israeli-held territory in Gaza” and used “the humanitarian road”—an aid route—creating what it described as a “blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement.” “When there are clear violations, we will act to protect our citizens and forces,” an army spokesperson said.

Hamas, for its part, rejected that account. “This is an excuse to kill,” a Hamas official told a local reporter. “We have honored the agreement; we did not carry out such an operation. The people you see dying did not deserve this.” Both sides have traded these accusations repeatedly since the cessation of large-scale hostilities.

Between the lines of a ceasefire

The airstrikes are a reminder that the truce holding over Gaza is brittle. The ceasefire—reached more than six weeks ago—did much that mattered: it allowed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to tentatively return to neighborhoods reduced to foundations; it pulled Israeli troops back from some urban positions; and it reopened aid corridors that were choked off at the height of the war.

Yet the statistics behind the headlines show a war that has not ended in any full sense. Gaza’s health ministry has reported that Israeli forces killed 316 people in strikes since the truce began. Israel, meanwhile, says three of its soldiers have been killed since the same moment and that it has struck numerous fighters. The broader, bloody arc of the conflict remains: Hamas-led militants killed roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel during the October 7 attack; Gaza health authorities report that more than 69,700 Palestinians have died in the subsequent Israeli offensive. These figures are contested and politically charged—so note the attributions: they come from local health authorities and public statements, not independent verification.

Hostages, bodies, and the barter of grief

The ceasefire was also transactional. Hamas handed over all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Remains of hostages and militants were traded in other grim accords: Hamas agreed to return the remains of 28 dead hostages in return for the bodies of 360 Palestinian fighters. So far, 25 hostages’ remains have been handed over; Israel says it has returned 330 Palestinian bodies. The arithmetic of life and death has become a currency of its own.

On the ground: daily life amid uncertainty

Walking through neighborhoods like Rimal, Nuseirat, and Deir al-Balah, you see resilience braided into the fabric of ruin. Water is collected with ritual patience from storage tanks; women carry containers with the same careful balance used in marketplaces; children play in debris-filled alleys that look like improvised obstacle courses. A vegetable vendor in Deir al-Balah, fingers stained with soil, shrugged when asked about the strikes: “We just try to sell, to eat. There is no other plan,” he said.

A UN aid worker, who has been operating in Gaza for years, described a common scene: “Convoys come like tiny miracles. People line up for food and water as if following an old prayer. But the infrastructure is broken—sewers, electricity. The ceasefire gave breathing room, not a cure.”

Local health authorities report at least 20 dead and 80 wounded in the latest strikes.
Since the ceasefire began, Gaza health officials say 316 people have been killed in strikes; Israel reports three soldiers killed during the same period.
The broader conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, with an attack that killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel; Gaza authorities report more than 69,700 Palestinian deaths in the following offensive.

Why this matters to the world

Look past the immediate violence and you see larger themes pressing in: the difficulty of enforcing truces when neither side trusts the other; the role of mediators—Egypt, Qatar, and the United States among them—in keeping days without bullets; and the moral quagmire of civilian suffering in modern asymmetric warfare. “A ceasefire is not a peace,” said a political analyst in Jerusalem. “It is a pause. If the underlying issues—security, governance, reconstruction, and mutual recognition—aren’t tackled, pauses become prefaces to more violence.”

What should the global community demand? More than statements condemning the latest deaths, aid workers argue, the world should insist on sustained access for humanitarian convoys, independent investigations into alleged violations, and a durable architecture for reconstruction that includes local voices. “Rebuilding can’t be parachuted from a distance,” an international relief coordinator said. “It must be led by the people who will live there.”

Where do we go from here?

In Gaza tonight, families will mourn families; hospitals will tally bodies and stitch shrapnel wounds; politicians will update talking points. But the human scenes—the stove lit in a half-ruined kitchen, the neighbor sharing bread with another neighbor, the child who insists on running through an alley despite the danger—are the ongoing story. They are what peace must protect.

So I ask you, reading this from wherever you are in the world: what does justice look like to you in a place where history, grief, and politics intersect so densely? How do we balance immediate safety with the long, patient work of reconciliation? These are not rhetorical questions. They are the scaffolding upon which any lasting solution must be built.

For Rimal, Nuseirat, and Deir al-Balah, tonight is another test of a fragile ceasefire. For the rest of us, it is an invitation to watch closely, to demand better, and to remember that behind every statistic is a person lighting a candle in an empty room.

Bolsonaro Confesses Attempt to Disable Court-Ordered Ankle Monitor

hanad

November 23, 2025

Jair Bolsonaro admits he tried to damage ankle monitor — Jair Bolsonaro was transferred to the Brazilian Federal Police Headquarters in Brasilia

A burned bracelet, a gilded apartment and a country holding its breath

On a humid Brasilia evening, in a gated condominium that looks out over the austere concrete sweep of the nation’s capital, a small object has become the epicenter of a country’s unease: a singed ankle monitor, charred at the edges, its casing melted where a soldering iron had met plastic.

The footage released by Brazil’s Supreme Court is grainy and intimate; it lingers on the bracelet still strapped to Jair Bolsonaro’s ankle as smoke curls and the metal glows. In the video the former president — once a military captain turned carnival of right-wing populism — explains in a matter-of-fact tone that curiosity drove him to tinker with the device. “I wanted to see if it would break,” a voice attributed to him says. “I didn’t want to run away.”

For millions of Brazilians, whether supporters or opponents, the image meant something larger than a damaged electronic tag. It crystallized a question that has kept the nation awake since the 2022 election: how thin is the line between protest and plot; between ritual and rupture?

From house arrest to handcuffs

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil from 2019 to 2022 and remains a towering — and polarizing — figure for the country’s conservative base, had been serving house arrest after being convicted in September of leading a criminal organization aimed at subverting the transition of power that followed the 2022 elections.

The sentence against him, a lengthy 27 years behind bars, has been under appeal. But the Supreme Court, citing concerns that the ex-president was a “high flight risk,” moved to take him into police custody after concluding the damaged bracelet and a planned public vigil could be elements of an escape plan.

“This is a preventive measure,” Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes said in a late-night ruling. “We are not executing the sentence today — we are preventing the risk of escape and preserving democratic order.”

The role of a son’s rally

At the center of the court’s calculus was a demonstration called by Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flavio Bolsonaro. A video posted by Flavio urged supporters to “fight for your country” and to gather outside the condominium. The court warned that the assembly might generate “confusion” that could be exploited to facilitate an escape.

Flavio’s call-to-arms, which critics described as incendiary, resonated with many who still see Bolsonaro as a bulwark against what they call the excesses of the left. “If they think we will stand by quietly, they are wrong,” said one supporter outside a small vigil in São Paulo. “We are not violent people, but we will defend our leader.”

In the shadow of embassies and international scrutiny

Brasilia’s skyline — the modernist sweep of Niemeyer’s federal buildings and the neat lanes of embassies — lends the episode a cinematic geography. The Supreme Court noted the proximity of the condominium to the U.S. embassy and pointed to previous reports that Bolsonaro’s associates had discussed fleeing to foreign diplomatic missions, including the Argentine embassy, to seek asylum.

“When the stakes are this high, physical proximity becomes political risk,” said Mariana Couto, a professor of Latin American politics at the University of São Paulo. “Embankments of sovereignty and hospitality are suddenly potential escape routes in tense moments.”

International reactions have been predictable and pointed. Former U.S. President Donald Trump called Bolsonaro’s prosecution a “witch hunt,” reinforcing a transnational bond between right-wing figures that has reshaped political discourse from Brasília to Washington. Domestic leaders, meanwhile, voiced sharply different views: São Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas condemned the detention as an affront to “human dignity,” while other governors urged calm and respect for judicial independence.

Voices from the condominium, the street and the pulpit

Inside the glossy building where Bolsonaro lived under house arrest, neighbors spoke in whispers. A concierge, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the former president had kept to himself in recent weeks. “He would leave at odd hours for medical visits, but mostly he stayed with family,” she said. “You could tell he was restless. He’d look out at the trees behind the building a lot.”

Michelle Bolsonaro, the ex-president’s evangelical wife, posted an image of hands clasped over a Bible and wrote that she trusted “the Lord will provide the way out.” Her message — a mix of faith and defiance — is emblematic of a broader phenomenon: evangelical churches in Brazil have become a potent force in politics, marshaling votes and offering moral narratives for political actors.

“For many, this isn’t about one man,” explained Father Carlos Menezes, a community priest in Rio de Janeiro. “It’s about a story of identity and dignity. When institutions crack, people look for a hero to hold on to.”

Lawyers, health and legal maneuvers

Bolsonaro’s legal team called the detention “deeply perplexing,” arguing that it was premised on the threat of a prayer vigil and that their client — who still bears the scars of a 2018 stabbing that punctured his campaign and required multiple surgeries — was in frail health.

“We will exhaust every legal avenue,” said one of his attorneys. “If the judiciary now uses preventive detention as a political tool, we will see that in appeal.” The court, however, cited the altered circumstances — the damaged monitor, the public call to gather, and prior discussions of asylum — as reasons to deny house detention under current rules.

What this moment means for Brazil — and the world

Look beyond the singed plastic. What this episode reveals is a broader global pattern: the fragility of democratic norms when charismatic leaders weaponize public emotion and mistrust. It is a story that has played out in parts of Europe, the U.S., and Latin America over the last decade. And it resonates here in Brazil, where the Amazon, inequality and political polarization remain unresolved flashpoints.

Consider these facts to anchor the conversation: Bolsonaro’s administration presided over economic reforms that pleased portions of the market but also saw increased Amazon deforestation and a contentious public health response during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2026 presidential election looms, and with Bolsonaro sidelined for now, Brazil’s large conservative electorate finds itself without its central, polarizing champion.

So what happens next? Will Bolsonaro’s appeal process proceed, and will it be resolved before 2026? Can Brazil balance judicial enforcement with political reconciliation? And perhaps most urgently: can institutions respond in ways that restore faith rather than fuel further division?

Questions that stay with you

As you read this from wherever you are — a cafe in Lisbon, an apartment in Tokyo, a suburb in Johannesburg — consider this: if a democracy allows its leaders to undermine its foundations without consequence, who will be left to protect the rules? If, conversely, courts wield their power without transparency or restraint, how will the public trust them again?

Brazil today walks a tightrope: between accountability and vengeance, between law and spectacle. The image of a burned ankle monitor will not, by itself, decide the nation’s fate. But it captures a moment when the machinery of justice, the fervor of followers, and the frailties of a man once at the center of power collided in a way that will reverberate far beyond a single condominium gate.

And you — how would you judge a democracy that must tether its former leader to a bracelet to keep order?

Christian group reports 315 students abducted from Nigerian school

hanad

November 22, 2025

315 kidnapped from Nigerian school, Christian group says — The dormitory after gunmen attacked a boarding school and abducted 25 girls in Kebbi state on Monday

A Schoolyard Silenced: Morning Raids, Missing Children

At first light in the rivers of red dust that mark central Nigeria’s dry season, St Mary’s school in Papiri should have been a place of chalk, laughter and shouted arithmetic. Instead, the compound went quiet when masked men arrived, and by the day’s end the numbers that filled the town’s whispering circles were stark and terrible: roughly 315 people — students and teachers — had been taken.

This is not a single headline to scroll past. It’s a rupturing of everyday life: classrooms emptied, mothers who will not sleep, and a nation that has been bruised repeatedly by kidnappers who treat schools as soft targets. The Christian Association of Nigeria, after what it called a verification process, said the total was 303 students and 12 teachers. To put that in human terms: nearly half of the school’s 629 pupils were taken that morning.

What Happened and Who Was Affected

Witnesses say gunmen arrived with coordinated speed. One local trader, Mariam Musa, described it to me over a cup of tea: “They came like a storm. I saw boys running, some fell. Mothers screamed. The teachers tried to hide the children, but there were too many.”

Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, the Catholic bishop for the area, later told visitors that an initial tally of escapees was incomplete. “We checked and checked again,” he said in a statement that was passed around the community. “People we thought had gotten away were captured when they tried to flee.”

Authorities in neighbouring states — Katsina and Plateau — ordered temporary school closures as a precaution. The Niger state government has shut down many schools, and the federal government temporarily postponed the president’s international travel plans, signaling the depth of alarm in Abuja.

The Broader Pattern: Not an Isolated Crime

This attack comes on the heels of another recent abduction in Kebbi state where 25 girls were taken. Across northwest and central Nigeria, kidnapping for ransom has evolved from episodic criminality into a profitable, organized industry. Analysts estimate hundreds — perhaps thousands — have been snatched in similar operations over the past several years.

Bandit gangs operating in a vast, porous forest that straddles several states — Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger — have perfected hit-and-run tactics. A UN source told journalists that some of the children taken from Kebbi may have been moved toward the Birnin Gwari forest in Kaduna state, a known transit and hideout zone.

Voices from the Ground

“My son never came home,” said Fatima Bello, a mother whose youngest son had attended St Mary’s. Her voice wavered but she was clear-eyed. “We were told they are safe when they are found, but how many times have promises been broken?”

Security experts warn that the lines are blurring between financially motivated bandits and ideologically driven extremists. “Bandits began as criminals chasing ransom,” explained Dr. Aisha Kadir, a security analyst at the Abuja Centre for Conflict Studies. “Now there are documented cases of alliances with jihadist groups. That changes the game: it brings training, weaponry, and ideology into the mix.”

For students, the fear is immediate. “We used to recite poetry and sing him the national anthem,” said one teenage girl who escaped by hiding in a latrine and later made her way back to the village. “Now I don’t want to go back to school. Is a school no longer safe?”

Historical Wounds — From Chibok to the Present

The memory of Chibok — where Boko Haram in 2014 abducted nearly 276 schoolgirls — casts a long shadow over every subsequent school attack. Some of those girls are still missing, and the collective trauma has not healed. That abduction became a symbol for a wider failure to protect children and an emblem of how political attention can come and go.

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, home to over 200 million people. Education is one of its most fragile investments: UNESCO data shows significant regional disparities in school attendance and infrastructure. When schools close or become targets, entire communities are robbed of the chance to lift themselves out of poverty.

Why This Keeps Happening

Several factors converge: a thin state presence in rural areas; immense tracts of difficult terrain that provide sanctuary for armed groups; the economics of ransom — estimated in many cases at tens of thousands of dollars — and porous borders that allow weapons and people to move with relative ease. Climate stress and sectoral neglect compound the misery, pushing young men into criminality or into the arms of militant groups.

Approximately 315 people were reportedly abducted from St Mary’s school in Papiri.
Other recent incidents include 25 girls abducted in Kebbi state and a deadly church attack in western Nigeria.
Banditry and kidnapping have escalated in northwestern and central Nigeria over recent years.

Responses and the Human Cost

The government has said it will intensify security operations. Local authorities and security agencies often rely on a mix of military pressure and negotiated settlements to recover captives. But each rescue, each ransom paid, can create perverse incentives: success breeds imitation.

“There are no easy answers,” said Colonel Suleiman Ade, a retired military officer turned security consultant. “You can storm a camp and free some people, but unless you dismantle the logistics, the revenue streams, and the social drivers, the cycle will continue.”

Meanwhile, families bear the psychic and material toll. Parents sold livestock, borrowed money, and slept in the schoolyard waiting for news after earlier abductions. The loss of schooling, particularly for girls, has generational consequences.

Looking Outward: Why the World Should Care

When schools are not safe, development stalls. When teachers are targets, the profession becomes untenable. This is not only a local tragedy: the destabilization of parts of West Africa creates migration pressures, regional insecurity and humanitarian crises that spill across borders.

So this begs a question: how do we value education in a world where classrooms can be converted into prisoner pens overnight? And what responsibility do national governments and international partners have to ensure safe learning environments?

What Comes Next

The immediate priority is finding the abducted and ensuring their safety. Next comes the longer work: repairing trust, bolstering local security, and rebuilding the fragile ecosystem that keeps schools open. That means investment in local institutions, better intelligence, community policing partnerships, and aggressive prosecution of ransom networks.

As night falls in Papiri and lamps burn low across kitchen tables, people count names and light candles. They pray, they bargain with fate, and they hold to a hope that the stolen laughter will return to the schoolyard. For a world watching the headlines, the question is whether this will be a moment for sustained action or another headline soon eclipsed by the next crisis.

How long, the mothers ask, will children have to do their sums under the shadow of armed men? How long will education be a casualty of profit and violence? The answers will shape not only Nigeria’s future, but a global conversation about safety, schooling and the sanctity of childhood itself.

COP30 compromise avoids fossil-fuel commitments in final agreement

hanad

November 22, 2025

Compromise deal at COP30 sidesteps fossil fuels — Attendees listen to COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago during a plenary session of the climate change conference

Belem’s heat, a gavel and a compromise: What COP30 left on the table

Belem is a city that smells of river and açaí, where morning markets burst with voices and the humid air clings to your clothes. For two weeks, the same humidity seemed to hover in the halls of the COP30 conference—part steam, part apprehension—where negotiators from nearly 200 countries wrestled with questions that will determine whether millions of people can stay in their homes as the climate changes.

The summit ended in the small hours, with a deal that leans hard on finance for vulnerable countries but sidesteps an explicit, muscular plan to move away from fossil fuels—the very engines of planetary warming. The outcome feels, to many, like a truce rather than a breakthrough.

Scenes from the Amazon city that hosted the world

Outside the convention center, the Ver-o-Peso market hummed as usual: boats sliding up to docks, sellers shouting their prices, and a string of hammocks under the shade. “We’ve been watching these talks for years,” said Ana Pereira, açaí vendor and Belem native. “We want trees and rivers to survive so our children can fish and sell fruit. But promises come and go like the tide.”

It’s the same tide that negotiators tried to capture—a current of urgency about flooding coasts, retreating glaciers, baked agricultural lands and hotter cities. Scientific assessments say the global average temperature is now about 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, and every fraction of a degree matters. Yet the language in the final political text was circumspect where many delegates expected bluntness.

The deal: finance first, fossil fuels put on a side table

What COP30 did secure was a stronger push on money. The headline commitment calls on wealthy nations to at least triple the funds they send to developing countries for adaptation by 2035, and launches voluntary initiatives to accelerate pledged emission cuts.

For low-lying island states, sub-Saharan farmers, and river communities in the Amazon, finance for adaptation is not abstract. It buys seawalls, drought-resistant seeds, early-warning systems, and hospital capacity. “When the rains stop, we die,” said Jiwoh Emmanuel Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s climate minister. “Adaptation finance is the difference between survival and despair.”

Yet many negotiators and civil-society groups felt money alone cannot replace clear commitments to transition away from fossil fuels. The conference presidency placed mentions of coal, oil and gas into a separate “side text”—a procedural compromise designed to avoid a full breakdown, but one that left a bitter aftertaste for those who had pushed for stronger language.

Why fossil fuels mattered at COP30

Fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—are the main source of the greenhouse gases warming our planet. Roughly three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry come from burning these fuels. Many countries, particularly vulnerable ones, argued that without an honest reckoning and a roadmap for phase-down, finance will only be a bandage on a wound that will continue to deepen.

“We cannot agree to a document that ignores the simple physics of our climate,” said a negotiator from Colombia during one late-night session. “Talking about adaptation without confronting fossil fuels is like treating fevers without diagnosing the infection.”

Lines in the sand: who pushed, who resisted

The fissures were regional and economic. A coalition of more than 80 countries and ideological allies had earlier called for a clear commitment to phase out fossil fuels; wealthy blocs like the European Union pushed for stronger wording. But some oil-producing countries, backed by a swath of allies, insisted that any explicit mention would be unacceptable.

That impasse forced a procedural workaround: the main political agreement omits direct fossil-fuel language; instead, negotiators produced separate side texts on fossil fuels and on forests. These documents now sit in the archive of COP outcomes—important, but not front and center.

For countries like Panama and Uruguay, the omission was egregious. “A climate decision that cannot even say ‘fossil fuels’ is not neutrality; it is complicity,” a Panamanian negotiator told the closing plenary.

What the money pledge really means—and why it may not be enough

Calls to triple adaptation finance by 2035 are historic in rhetoric, but the devil is in delivery. Global climate finance flows are estimated to be in the low hundreds of billions each year; adaptation consistently receives a minority share of public finance. Meanwhile, economists and development banks warn that adaptation needs run into the trillions when you account for infrastructure, health systems, and agricultural transformation across the Global South.

“The finance anchor is good news, but it’s a down payment, not the mortgage,” said Avinash Persaud, special adviser to the Inter‑American Development Bank president. “We’ve had promises before. The priority now is faster releases, predictable grants, and mechanisms that reach the people at risk tomorrow.”

Loss and damage—compensation for irreversible harms like land loss to sea-level rise—remains another sore spot. Countries where coastlines recede or entire communities vanish have been calling for funds and fast payouts since the Glasgow and Sharm el-Sheikh agreements. COP30’s text nudged the conversation forward on finance but fell short of delivering a fully operational, well-funded mechanism.

Local voices and global questions

Back at the market, a fisherman who gave his name as José watched with quiet skepticism. “They make big promises in glass buildings,” he said. “My nets come up empty. The river changes. I don’t care about each committee—do the work that helps us.” His impatience is a sentiment echoed from coastal Bangladesh to the Sahel and the Pacific Islands.

So what does COP30 really leave us with? It leaves a partial victory: recognition that adaptation must be funded at scale. It leaves a fracture: deep disagreements over how to address the source of the problem. And it leaves an open question: will the separate texts and new initiatives become springboards for action, or will they gather dust as political realities reassert themselves?

Why this matters to readers everywhere

Whether you live inland in Europe, on a flood-prone Mississippi bend, or under the shadow of a glacier, the decisions at COP30 ripple outward. Trade rules that the agreement asks to examine—how tech and tariffs influence the clean-energy transition—will shape supply chains and consumer prices. Money pledged for adaptation could be the difference between displacement and resilience for millions.

But beyond technicalities lies the moral frame: who pays for a crisis they did less to cause? The conference exposed the deep inequities embedded in climate politics. It also underscored a simple truth: money plus half-measures on fossil fuels may slow some impacts, but it won’t spare us from the harder, costlier choices ahead.

What to watch next—and how you can stay engaged

If you want to follow how COP30’s promises turn into policies, watch three things closely over the next 12–24 months:

Whether wealthy nations provide predictable, multi-year adaptation grants and expand access to rapid-disbursement funds for loss and damage.
How the so-called side texts are moved into concrete national plans, and whether major emitters set clearer pathways for reducing fossil-fuel reliance.
Efforts to align trade policies with climate goals so clean technologies can spread without punitive barriers.

Ask yourself: are we treating this as a moment that demands structural change, or as another cycle of commitments and delay? The answer will shape not just policymaking rooms in capitals and conference halls, but daily life in places like Belem, where the Amazon breathes and communities feel the first blows of a warming world.

The COP30 gavel may have dropped, but the work of translation—turning words into budgets, laws and lives saved—has only begun. If you care about the future, now is the time to press for speed, fairness and clarity. The river will keep rising; our response must not continue to lap at the shore.

What’s Included in Donald Trump’s 28-Point Plan for Ukraine?

hanad

November 22, 2025

Explained: What is Trump's 28-point Ukraine plan? — The size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces will be limited to 600,000 personnel under the draft plan

Paper Peace, Real Lives: Inside the Controversial 28-Point Plan That Could Redraw Ukraine

On a late spring morning that felt ordinary in Kyiv — vendors selling hot varenyky on a street corner, children in bright backpacks weaving between trams — the world quietly received a document that could upend everything people here have fought to protect.

The 28-point framework, circulated in draft form and reportedly backed by former US President Donald Trump, reads like a legal roadmap and a geopolitical Rorschach test at once. It promises reconstruction funds, diplomatic thawing with Moscow and a ceasefire enforced by an American-led “Peace Council.” It also requires Ukraine to codify limits on its own sovereignty — constitutional language forbidding NATO membership, lines on maps that leave Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk effectively under Russian control, and freezes on contested territories such as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The contours of the offer

At its core the plan is transactional: security guarantees for Kyiv in exchange for territorial accommodation. It proposes a comprehensive non-aggression pact between Russia, Ukraine and European states, mediated talks between NATO and Moscow, and an American-Russian working group to police compliance.

There are also promises of money. The draft suggests deploying $100 billion of frozen Russian assets into a US-led reconstruction effort in Ukraine, with the United States taking half the profits; European partners are asked to add another $100 billion. It proposes reintegrating Russia into global institutions — rejoining the G8 and lifting sanctions contingent on compliance.

And there are details that strike at the daily lives of Ukrainians: obligations to keep the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant under IAEA supervision with power shared between the two countries, a commitment to discharge prisoners and reunite families, and a 100-day clock to elections in Kyiv.

What this would mean on the ground

“It sounds like a tidy contract on a laptop,” said Olena, 42, a schoolteacher in a suburb of Dnipro whose brother returned home last year after being wounded. “But you can’t trade a city for a promise.” Her voice tightened. “People live in these places. They loved them. They planted trees there. You can’t simply write them off.”

For millions of Ukrainians, the war has been a catalogue of dislocations. UN agencies estimate that well over 8 million people fled the country since 2022 while several million more remain internally displaced. Cities have been shredded in places; WHO and humanitarian groups report thousands of civilian deaths, with infrastructure and industry damaged on a scale that development institutions have warned will cost hundreds of billions to restore.

Imagine, then, a line on a map where whole neighborhoods, schools and hospitals fall on one side or another. For families in towns like Beryslav or parts of Kherson, the proposal to “freeze” front lines is a reminder that frozen conflicts seldom stay frozen for long.

Money, reconstruction and the heavy ledger

“Rebuilding Ukraine will require sustained international finance and technical support,” said Dr. Amal Hassan, a reconstruction economist who has worked with the World Bank on post-conflict planning. “Estimates vary, but comprehensive recovery will run into the low hundreds of billions, and not all of that can be shouldered by one nation.”

The draft’s notion of using $100 billion in frozen Russian assets feels at once tempting and legally thorny. Western countries froze hundreds of billions in Russian reserves and private assets in the early phase of the war; converting those holdings to finance reconstruction would involve delicate legal pathways, claims by victims, and questions about precedent. The plan’s stipulation that the US would receive 50% of profits from such investment will raise eyebrows in capitals already wary of perceived inequity.

Red lines, nuclear risk, and NATO’s shadow

Arguably the most combustible elements are the security provisions: Ukraine would be required to constitutionally renounce NATO membership and limit its armed forces — a cap cited in the draft at 600,000 personnel. NATO would agree not to station troops on Ukrainian soil, and European fighter jets would be redistributed to neighboring Poland.

“Security guarantees on paper are only as credible as the institutions that enforce them,” said Marin Petrovic, a former NATO staffer now at a Brussels think-tank. “If enforcement comes from a council chaired by a party with inconsistent relations with Russia, you have to ask whether guarantees would withstand pressure.”

The plan also touches a nerve with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, proposing IAEA-supervised operation and a division of its electricity. The plant has been at the center of international safety concerns since 2022; any arrangement that ties energy to political concessions will be scrutinized by nuclear experts and international monitors.

Voices from Kyiv, Kherson and beyond

“I want peace,” said Ivan, a market vendor outside Kyiv who remembers blackouts and air raids. “But peace that comes from letting someone take my town? That’s not peace.”

From Moscow, the narrative is different. An unnamed Kremlin adviser told a Russian outlet that diplomatic reintegration would be a “necessary step to stabilise European security,” reflecting a view that sanctions are a lever for negotiations rather than permanent punishment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled willingness to discuss proposals, saying he would consider any plan that guarantees his people’s safety and sovereignty — though he has also repeatedly said that no decisions that “compromise the nation” will be taken without broad public consent. “We do not bargain with the land our ancestors bled for,” a senior Ukrainian official told me on condition of anonymity.

Why the world should care

This is not just a regional contest over borders and oil. It is a test of how the international system balances principles — territorial integrity, the norm against conquest — against the pragmatic need to halt violence. The draft taps into broader currents: great-power realignment, debates over the utility of sanctions, and rising concerns about nuclear safety in conflict zones.

Ask yourself: would you accept stability if it required accepting the loss of another people’s homeland? What price do we place on a ceasefire? On justice? These are not abstract queries. They are the decisions that will shape reconstruction budgets, refugee returns, and whether Europe’s security architecture will hold or be refashioned.

Questions left in the draft’s wake

Who decides the lines on the map? Who is held accountable for violations? How do you balance resettlement rights, property claims, and the legal and moral imperative to seek accountability for war crimes amid an amnesty clause? The draft answers some of these with firm language — and leaves others open to interpretation.

The document on the table is a beginning, perhaps; a tantalizing chance to stop the guns, perhaps; a surrender disguised as diplomacy, perhaps. It depends, as with all treaties, on who signs it, how it is enforced, and the lived realities of the people whose lives it would reconfigure.

In the end, the people in the markets, the hospitals, the shattered suburbs will bear the consequences. As debates ricochet through capitals and committee rooms, remember: peace negotiated without the voices of the vulnerable is unlikely to last. Whose voices will be heard when the ink dries?

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