UN human-rights office struggles to survive amid steep funding cuts

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December 12, 2025

UN human rights office in 'survival mode' as funding cut — Volker Turk said that his office's 'resources have been slashed'

A United Nations office on fumes: what it means when human rights work is starved of cash

On a gray morning in Geneva, the corridor outside the United Nations Human Rights office felt smaller than it used to—desks empty, phone lines unanswered, the hum of conversation replaced by a brittle quiet. Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, walked into the press room and described a word that settled over the building like dust: “We are in survival mode.”

“Our resources have been slashed, along with funding for human rights organisations — including at the grassroots level — around the world,” he said, his voice steady but strained. It was not a rhetorical flourish. The numbers are stark: the Office of the High Commissioner has roughly €77 million less than it needed this year and has cut about 300 posts as a consequence. The arithmetic of shortfalls has real human reverberations.

When the tape measure of accountability gets shorter

Human rights work is not abstract. It is the long, patient labor of documenting abuses, visiting prisons and camps, interviewing survivors, and pushing states to live up to treaties. With those 300 posts gone, entire investigative missions have been delayed, country visits by independent rapporteurs have been cancelled, and dialogues meant to prod governments into compliance are being put on ice.

“We’re seeing essential work curtailed — in Colombia, the DRC, Myanmar, Tunisia — precisely at a moment when the need for scrutiny and presence is growing,” Türk warned. “All this has extensive ripple effects on international and national efforts to protect human rights.”

What those ripples look like on the ground

In Colombia, a human rights lawyer in Bogotá told me: “When monitors don’t come, the message to armed actors is clear: no eyes, no consequences.” She asked that her name not be used; her work makes enemies. Across the Atlantic, a field investigator in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo described towns where displaced villagers gather around a single generator for warmth and news. “We used to have report teams visit every few months,” she said. “Now they come once a year, if at all. People feel more abandoned.”

In Myanmar, journalists in Yangon whispered about the closure of inquiry windows into alleged atrocities against civilians. “The fewer the observers, the bolder the crimes,” a freelance reporter observed. In Tunis, human rights lawyers said the absence of international attention allows backsliding on freedoms that people fought hard for after 2011.

Sudan: a warning from the ashes of Al-Fashir

Perhaps nowhere is the danger more immediate than in Sudan. The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized Al-Fashir in late October, a blow in a war that has stretched more than two years and driven millions from their homes. Advances into Kordofan — and the seizure of the country’s largest oil field — have set off alarms.

“I am extremely worried that we might see in Kordofan a repeat of the atrocities that have been committed in Al-Fashir,” Türk said, invoking images that are recent and raw: burnt villages, mass graves, and crowded shelters where fathers whisper of what they had to do to survive.

A volunteer aid worker who fled north Darfur described walking through a market where vendors still hawk spices but where the faces are older and the gossip is about which road is safe. “When the international monitors left,” she said, “we were left with the forces of violence as the only law in town.”

Ukraine and Gaza: new weapons, rising tolls

It is not only conflict zones long on the news cycle that suffer. Türk highlighted a 24% rise in civilian casualties in Ukraine compared with the same period the year before, attributing much of the increase to the growing use of powerful long-range weapons. “These are not precision issues in most cases,” he noted, “they are strategies that place civilians directly at risk.”

In Gaza, where hospitals and bakeries alike have been damaged, rights monitors have found themselves struggling to document violations amid access restrictions and shrinking resources. A Palestinian doctor in Gaza City told me by phone: “We don’t just need bandages; we need witnesses to what is happening. When those witnesses vanish, the cycles of violence deepen.”

Why the world is failing its watchdogs

Donor fatigue is a phrase that has become painfully familiar. Governments and private foundations juggle competing emergencies — climate disasters, protracted humanitarian crises, migration pressures, and domestic austerity. But turning away from human rights work has a unique cost: without documentation, abuses are less likely to be prosecuted; without international pressure, state actors feel emboldened to violate rights with impunity.

“It’s not that money is unimportant anywhere else,” said a former UN budget official in New York, “but human rights monitoring is a public good that rarely draws headlines until it’s too late. That’s exactly when it should have full funding.”

Local color: the human geography of cuts

Walk through the markets of Al-Fashir now and you’ll hear storekeepers trading stories about the soldiers who came through with new power. In eastern Ukraine, elderly men in flat caps still sip tea on benches and swap rumors about where the next strike will fall. In Tunis, café owners lament the lost business of international delegates who once filled tables and conversations with hopeful, if nervous, debates about reform.

These are the textures that funding decisions erase. They are not statistics. They are the evenings when a mother tucks her children into bed and imagines a world where someone is keeping watch on the thin line between survival and atrocity.

Why this matters to you — and what you can do

When human rights institutions are underfunded, the consequences extend beyond the immediate places on the map. Impunity breeds instability; unaddressed abuses fuel migration and radicalization; silence corrodes the laws and norms many countries claim to uphold. What feels like a distant policy decision in Geneva filters down to decisions about whether a family can return home, whether a trial goes forward, whether evidence is preserved.

So what can readers do? The choices are not just for diplomats and funders. Citizens, donors, and civil society can press their governments to prioritize human rights funding, support grassroots organizations, and demand transparency in how aid is allocated.

Write to your representatives and ask them to restore and protect funding for international human rights monitoring.
Donate to reputable grassroots human rights organizations that operate on the front lines and often fill the gaps left by larger institutions.
Stay informed and amplify verified reporting on rights abuses so they remain in public view.

A moment of choice

We are at an inflection point. The choice is not merely budgetary; it is moral. Will the global community continue to underwrite a system in which accountability is discretionary and protection is a luxury? Or will it recognize that safeguarding human dignity requires sustained, often unglamorous investment?

“Human rights are not a luxury in good times; they are a lifeline in bad ones,” Türk reminded reporters. That lifeline is frayed now, and every time a fact-finding mission is canceled or a rapporteur’s trip is postponed, the rope gets thinner.

As you close this piece, ask yourself: do we want a world where abuses are recorded and judged — or one where memory is curated by the victors? The answers we give will shape the lives of millions who will never stand in a Geneva press room but who desperately need someone there fighting in their name.

Mareykanka oo Baraaya Taariikhda Baraha Bulshada ee dhammaan dadka u safraayo dalkas.

By

hanad

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December 11, 2025

Dec 11(Jowhar)- Tallaabo dhalisay dood iyo muran, dowladda Mareykanka ayaa ku dhawaaqday qorshe ay ku bilaabayso shaandhaynta taariikhda baraha bulshada ee dhammaan dadka safarka ah ee caalamiga ah ee soo galaya dalka.

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Israel greenlights almost 800 new homes in West Bank settlements

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hanad

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December 11, 2025

Israel approves nearly 800 homes in West Bank settlements — New buildings in the West Bank settlement of Aliya

On the Ground Between Two Headlines: Homes Approved, Aid Denied

There is an odd silence that settles over certain stretches of the West Bank just after the sun dips, a quiet broken only by the barking of a shepherd’s dog or the distant thud of a forklift at a new construction site. It’s the sound of change being made — not in the measured cadence of urban planning, but in the raw, unsteady rhythm of politics and displacement.

On a gray morning not long ago, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, went public with a simple bureaucratic number: final approval for 764 housing units in three settlements across the occupied West Bank. He also tallied a larger figure — 51,370 housing units approved by the government’s Higher Planning Council since he took office in late 2022. For some Israelis, those are votes, security calculations and the fulfillment of long-held ideological claims. For many Palestinians, they are another line drawn across a map of land they seek for a future state.

What the numbers mean where people live

Numbers can sound abstract — until you stand under a tent in Gaza and count the days since the last full meal. Or until you walk past a grove of olive trees whose trunks are older than the state lines that now bisect the field. The 764 new units are slated for Hashmonaim, straddling the Green Line, and for Givat Zeev and Beitar Illit on the Jerusalem periphery — names that mean different things to different people: security buffer, biblical claim, or a tightening noose around Palestinian continuity.

“For us, all the settlements are illegal,” Wasel Abu Yousef of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee told reporters recently. “They are contrary to international legitimacy.” His words echo long-standing United Nations positions: most world powers consider settlement construction on territory captured in 1967 illegal, and multiple UN Security Council resolutions have called for a halt.

Palestinian officials have appealed to Washington to intervene. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, urged the US to press Israel to “reverse their settlement policies, attempts at annexation and expansion, and the theft of Palestinian land, and to compel them to abide by international legitimacy and international law.” It is a plea that mixes legal argument with raw human urgency.

Between Convoys and Crossings: Gaza’s Aid Shortfall

Across border crossings and checkpoints, another calculus is playing out — this one measured in trucks.

As part of a US-brokered truce with Hamas, Israel agreed to allow up to 600 trucks of supplies into Gaza each day. Yet an Associated Press analysis of Israeli military figures shows that between 12 October and 7 December, the average was about 459 lorries per day. COGAT, the Israeli military body coordinating aid entry, estimates roughly 25,700 deliveries during that period — well short of the 33,600 that should have crossed under the terms of the ceasefire.

Discrepancies in tallies add to the confusion. The UN, tracking cargo offloaded at Gaza crossings, records about 6,545 trucks during the same timeframe — about 113 per day — a figure that excludes shipments delivered outside the UN’s network. A Hamas document provided to AP put the number at 7,333. Which count you accept says as much about politics as it does about logistics.

Ceasefire target: 600 trucks per day
COGAT average (12 Oct–7 Dec): ~459 trucks/day
COGAT total deliveries reported: ~25,700 (vs 33,600 expected)
UN offloaded figure: ~6,545 trucks (~113/day)
Hamas tally: 7,333 trucks

These are not just numbers. “We see a continual stream of families arriving at our makeshift kitchens, asking not for aid as charity but as a lifeline,” said Miriam Haddad, a Palestinian aid coordinator based in Rafah. “A baby was brought to our tent last week with swollen, empty limbs. You cannot argue with the hunger in someone’s eyes.”

The human toll: winter, famine, and fragile shelters

Gaza — home to roughly two million people, many of them forcibly displaced during waves of conflict — is teetering under shortages that aid agencies call dire. UNICEF and other groups have sounded the alarm about malnourished infants and mothers. Tents, thin plastic tarps and corrugated shelters are all that stand between families and winter rains that turn ground into mud and light into a wet, piercing cold.

“Needs far outpace the humanitarian community’s ability to respond,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a recent report. They point to persistent impediments: insecurity, customs clearance hurdles, delays and denials of cargo and limited internal transport routes inside Gaza.

Humanitarian workers tell harrowing anecdotes: convoys that wait days at crossings, vital medical cargo stalled by paperwork, humanitarian corridors narrowed by security concerns. In one shelter, a volunteer named Yousra described handing out a hot meal while a child clutched a spotted blanket dyed with the muddy water of last night’s rain. “They ask for bread,” she said quietly, “and we measure our shame in how small the portion has to be.”

Violence, Settler Attacks, and the Erosion of Trust

Adding to the tinderbox are rising incidents of settler violence. UN tracking noted at least 264 incidents across the West Bank in October, the highest monthly figure since records began in 2006. These attacks, ranging from arson to physical assaults to vandalism of property, deepen fear and harden narratives on both sides.

“Settlements are often framed as security measures,” said David Lurie, a scholar of Israeli-Palestinian land policy. “But when settlement expansion is accompanied by violence and impunity, it erodes the very security structures proponents say they want to protect. It also makes a two-state solution harder to achieve, because lines on maps become facts on the ground.”

What this says about the world beyond the region

What happens in the West Bank and Gaza does not stay contained. The events there serve as a mirror to global trends: rising nationalism and the politicization of territory; the weaponization of bureaucracy in controlling access to life-saving aid; and the erosion of multilateral norms when superpowers fail to enforce international law. They also bring into sharp relief a more human, universal question: how do societies justify progress for some at the expense of others’ basic rights?

There are no neat endings to this story. There are only choices: the choice of policymakers to press for adherence to ceasefires and aid commitments; the choice of international actors to demand accountability on settlement expansion; and the daily choices of ordinary people — the aid worker who pulls an all-nighter, the mother who cloaks her child against the rain, the planners who sign off on housing that others call occupation.

What would you do if your city were redrawn overnight? How much hope can withstand the slow, steady accretion of checkpoints and new concrete? These are questions that reverberate far beyond the dusty streets and makeshift kitchens of Palestine and Israel.

If there is a single, stubborn truth, it is this: statistics and statements on a press release tell one part of the story. The rest lives in the mouths of people who ask only for a future that is dignified, secure and recognized. Until those voices are central to policy — not peripheral to it — headlines will continue to alternate between approvals and appeals, while ordinary lives wait for the less noisy, enduring work of peace.

Nobel laureate pledges to return prize to Venezuela

By

hanad

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December 11, 2025

Nobel laureate vows to bring award back to Venezuela — The electoral authority and top court declared President Nicolas Maduro the election winner last year

A Quiet Escape, a Loud Welcome: Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel Moment in Oslo

There was a wind off the Oslofjord that morning sharp enough to make heads bow and flags snap like living things. On the balcony of the Grand Hotel, under a pale Scandinavian sky, a woman who had spent more than a year invisible to the cameras stepped into the light — not because she wanted to bask, but because the world wanted to see what Venezuela has been trying to hide. Maria Corina Machado, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, arrived in Norway in secret and, for a few hours, let herself be human again: hugged, sung to, filmed on dozens of phones, and loudly cheered by Venezuelans who have made the world their new address.

This is not a dry dispatch about ceremony and protocol. It is a story of exile and risk, of a people dispersed across continents and yet, for a single day, tightly cradled by one another’s presence. Machado’s journey to Oslo — a covert departure by boat to Curaçao, then onward on a private plane — reads like a spy novel. But the stakes are painfully real: she left a country where a decade-long travel ban and an expanded campaign of arrests chased her into hiding. Her return, she promises, will be deliberate, despite the danger.

“I came to receive the prize on behalf of the Venezuelan people”

“I came to receive the prize on behalf of the Venezuelan people and I will take it back to Venezuela at the correct moment,” Machado told reporters outside Norway’s parliament, a short, razor-edged statement that said more in what it left unsaid. When pressed on timing, she declined — because timing, in a life like hers, is strategy and life preserver rolled into one.

Her voice broke when she spoke of her children, who live in exile. “For over 16 months I haven’t been able to hug or touch anyone,” she told the BBC, wiping years of absence into a handful of hours. Imagine that: one of the world’s most visible dissidents, unable to embrace family for more than a year, suddenly reunited on a quiet Oslo morning. The crowd’s reaction — singing Venezuela’s national anthem, waving yellow, blue and red flags, and crowd-surfing smiles — felt less like fanfare and more like a communal exhale.

Faces in the crowd, voices with a history

Diana Luna, a Mexican-German woman who had travelled to Oslo for the ceremony, summed up what many felt: “After all these months in which she has been in hiding and her life has been in danger, seeing her together with the entire Venezuelan diaspora is a reassurance that she is safe, and it keeps our cause alive.”

Nearby, a teacher from Valencia with a permanent residency card in Madrid told me, “We carry our country in our pockets and in our passport photos. When she came out on that balcony I felt like I could breathe Venezuelan air again.”

A prize that is both personal and geopolitical

Machado’s Nobel acceptance, delivered in Oslo via her daughter Ana Corina Sosa Machado, was more than rhetoric. “Freedom is a choice that must be renewed each day,” the daughter read, a line that landed like a challenge aimed at anyone tempted to reduce Venezuela’s crisis to a regional problem. This is not only about one nation’s democratic backsliding; it is about what happens when institutions hollow out under the weight of political charisma, economic collapse, and the erosion of rule of law.

Venezuela has charted a grim course over the last two decades. Once among Latin America’s richest oil producers, the country has endured hyperinflation, infrastructure collapse, and mass migration. According to United Nations estimates, more than seven million Venezuelans had left the country by 2023 — a diaspora that now stretches from Bogotá’s crowded buses to Madrid’s kitchen tables to Miami storefronts. These are not abstract figures. They are the grandparents who skip birthdays, the doctors who requalify abroad, the children learning new languages and new griefs. Machado’s visit plugged a living, beating heart back into that statistic.

The escape and the risks

Her exfiltration — leaving by boat to Curaçao and then flying privately to Oslo — was handled by security aides close to her camp, according to sources briefed on the operation. It was clandestine out of necessity: Venezuelan authorities had barred her from travel and, after a disputed election that led to heightened arrests of opposition figures, stealth became survival. The electoral authority and the top court had declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner in that vote; the opposition contests that result and published ballot-level tallies they say prove their candidate won. Either way, the political temperature in Caracas has been near boiling.

Machado has not softened her words about the sources of the regime’s endurance. She has named illicit funding streams — drug trafficking, black-market oil, arms and human trafficking — as the fuel for a powerful repression apparatus. “We need to cut those flows,” she told reporters in Oslo, standing beside Norway’s prime minister. It is hard to argue with the logic that money lubricates power; whether alleged links can be proved in court is another matter entirely.

Alliances, controversies, and a Nobel dedicated to an unlikely figure

One of the more eyebrow-raising moments of Machado’s Oslo appearance was her partial dedication of the prize to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has loudly claimed he himself deserved a Nobel. Machado has aligned with hawks close to Trump, and has argued that Maduro’s government has ties to criminal groups that threaten regional security. That stance has made her a polarizing figure, both within Venezuela’s fractured opposition and across an international audience wary of militarized interventions.

“There’s a real debate here,” said José Ramírez, a Caracas-based political analyst following the events from exile. “Her moral clarity about democracy is unquestionable. But questions remain about the means and the allies one chooses. History will judge those choices — and the Venezuelan people will decide their path.”

What does this moment mean — for Venezuela, and for the world?

When Joergen Watne Frydnes, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, compared Machado’s struggle to figures like Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa, he was gesturing toward a lineage of dissent that forced regimes to reckon with the human cost of repression. Yet he also cautioned against expecting moral purity in political struggle: the choices activists confront under dictatorship are often between the difficult and the impossible.

That ambivalence matters. It asks us as observers: whom do we support, and under what terms? Do we accept simple narratives of good versus evil, or do we interrogate the messy, pragmatic alliances forged by those who remain on the ground? Machado’s actions — her flight, her alliances, her pledge to return — invite those hard questions.

Looking ahead

“Of course I’m going back,” Machado told reporters, a line that carried both bravado and calculation. She says Maduro’s exit is inevitable, but that the timing will depend on the work she still needs to do. For the Venezuelan diaspora in Oslo, Madrid, Bogotá, and Houston, the moment was both a celebration and a summons. The Nobel has spotlighted their cause in a way that will not simply fade from social feeds.

So where do we stand today? With a woman who risked everything to accept an award in the open, a community that keeps vigil across continents, and a country whose pain has become a global question of migration, resources, and power. Does the prize change anything on the ground in Caracas tomorrow? Perhaps not in the immediate sense. But it alters the narrative: it forces international attention, reinforces solidarity networks, and, for a few fragile hours in Oslo, allowed a mother to touch her children again.

What will you remember from this day — the balcony, the anthem, the clandestine boat crossing to Curaçao, or the image of a smiling portrait in the Oslo City Hall? Maybe all of it. Maybe the more enduring memory will be the palpable reminder that democracy, once lost, is not a relic but a daily choice that demands courage, planning, and a willingness to keep showing up — even when the cameras are pointed elsewhere.

Caught on camera: Parachutist left hanging from plane’s tail mid-air

By

hanad

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December 11, 2025

Watch: Moment skydiver left dangling on plane's tail

Dangling by a Thread: The Cairns Skydive That Turned Into a Midair Rescue

On a crisp morning south of Cairns, a skyline usually reserved for coral, clouds and the distant shimmer of the Great Barrier Reef became the stage for a jaw‑dropping near‑miss that reads like a scene from an action film — only this was real life, and the stakes were very high.

What began as a carefully choreographed 16‑way formation at roughly 4,600 metres dissolved into chaos the moment the first jumper reached the plane’s door. Dramatic footage released later by Australia’s transport safety investigators captures the sudden, terrifying choreography: a skydiver’s reserve parachute snagging on the aircraft’s tail, the canopy blooming like a bright orange flower and then wrapping itself around metal and rivets. For a breathless moment, the person hung there, thousands of metres above the land, tethered to the plane by fabric and fate.

The Moment the World Stood Still

The video — grainy in parts, cinematic in others — shows the reserve parachute deploying prematurely as its activation handle became caught on a flap of the aircraft. The jumper was violently thrown backward, their legs colliding with the side of the plane. The reserve’s lines then wound around the tail, turning flight into a precarious descent into the unknown.

“I thought I was watching a movie,” recalled one onlooker who watched crews prepare for the jump that morning. “Then someone shouted, and I saw the chute wrapped around the tail. You could hear the silence from the ground, like everyone was holding their breath.”

The camera operator who had been straddling the aircraft’s edge to film the 16‑way also went into freefall after being struck. In the footage, the first jumper is seen briefly placing hands to their helmet — a small human reflexive gesture that belies the enormity of what was happening.

A quick, cold decision that saved a life

While hanging over a void only sky can offer, the jumper reached for a hook knife and cut through the reserve lines. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), which later released the footage as part of its investigation, said that once freed, the person deployed their main canopy and landed safely. The aircraft, however, did not fare as well; the tail sustained substantial damage and the pilot issued a mayday call before managing a controlled landing.

“Carrying a hook knife — although it is not a regulatory requirement — could be lifesaving in the event of a premature reserve parachute deployment,” ATSB Chief Commissioner Angus Mitchell said in the bureau’s statement. His words are stark and simple: small tools, prepared in advance, can be the difference between a rescue and a tragedy.

Human responses in an impersonal sky

There is something elemental about watching a person separated from the plane, midair: it strips the spectacle from sport and leaves only the human. The jumper’s decision to cut themselves free and then deploy their main canopy speaks to split‑second training, muscle memory, and perhaps a quiet, fierce will to survive.

A senior instructor at a local drop zone who declined to be named reflected on the split‑second choices: “You rehearse for emergencies, but this is where preparation turns into instinct. People ask if fear helps. It doesn’t — training does. The knife is not about drama; it’s another layer of preparedness.”

The aircraft, the people, and the aftermath

The pilot, confronting an aircraft now partially entangled, had limited control and broadcast a mayday. Yet despite the damaged tail and the chaos, the crew brought the plane safely back to earth. Ground crews and emergency services responded, and investigators later took possession of video and wreckage to understand how a routine stunt went so quickly awry.

“We can never eliminate risk, but we can learn from moments like this,” said an aviation safety analyst in Brisbane. “A layered approach — quality aircraft maintenance, rigorous crew training, mandatory safety equipment and a culture that prioritizes conservative decision‑making — all reduce harm.”

What this incident says about modern risk and responsibility

Skydiving has always been an exercise in managed risk. Modern safety measures — from automatic activation devices (AADs) that deploy reserves if a jumper is incapacitated, to more robust equipment checks — have made the sport safer than in earlier decades. Yet as this incident demonstrates, even experienced teams face failures that are sudden and unexpected.

Consider these realities: formations at altitudes above 4,000 metres allow for extended freefall time and complex aerial choreography; camera operators often position themselves at the door to capture the action; and reserve parachutes are engineered to deploy reliably — but mechanical reliability is not infallible when human movement and aircraft structure intersect.

Use of manual safety tools, such as hook knives, can be critical in entanglement scenarios.
Redundancy — backup gear, backup procedures — is a common feature in high‑risk activities.
Clear communication and conservative cut‑off decisions by pilots and jumpmasters reduce exposure to danger.

Local color, local lives: Cairns and the culture of risk

There is a particular culture in northern Queensland where the sky and sea are livelihoods and passions. Tourists flock here for reef tours, rainforest walks and — for many thrill seekers — skydives that offer a postcard view of turquoise waters and lush hinterland. For locals, the sky is both workplace and playground.

“We live with nature here,” a drop zone manager told me. “People come for the rush, for the view, for the story they’ll tell back home. We teach respect for the sky. This morning everyone learned a lesson about humility and the small things that keep us safe.”

Questions we should keep asking

What should be mandated, and what should remain personal responsibility? Is it time for regulators to consider mandatory carry of certain tools like hook knives for specific types of jumps? How do we balance the freedom of adventure sports with systemic measures that reduce preventable harm?

These are not theoretical issues. They sit at the intersection of technology, regulation and human judgment. They call on us to think about how we design safety into systems that rely on courage and choreography.

Closing: A narrow escape, and an invitation to reflect

The jumper’s survival is a testament to training, quick thinking and perhaps a good measure of luck. The damaged aircraft, the mayday call, and the investigation by the ATSB are reminders that even experienced crews are vulnerable to sudden failures.

When you see a clip like this, it’s easy to gawk. But take a moment to ask: what would you do at 4,600 metres? How much trust do we place in technology, in gear, in people? And how much preparation is enough?

Across continents, people pursue the same rush of wind and wonder. Incidents like this should humble us, and spur conversations about safety, community responsibility, and the tiny tools that can mean the difference between tragedy and the kind of story someone tells for years — about the day they came back down to earth.

At least 30 killed in Myanmar airstrike near a hospital

By

hanad

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December 11, 2025

At least 30 dead in Myanmar airstrike near hospital — A military jet bombed the general hospital of Mrauk-U in western Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh

Nightfall over Mrauk-U: A Hospital in Ruins and a Community Asking Why

There are places whose names carry the weight of history. Mrauk-U is one of them: an ancient city of stone pagodas and misty river mornings on the edge of Rakhine state, where monks chant at sunrise and fishermen mend nets on the Kaladan. On a recent night, though, those same streets were pierced by the sound of jet engines and the thunder of an explosion that turned a place of care into a scene of grief.

“We were trying to keep the doors open,” said a weary aid volunteer who was at the general hospital when the aircraft struck. “Then the roof fell in. We pulled people from the rubble — children, elders, people who only came for fever checks. We counted 31 dead. There are dozens more injured and we’re still finding bodies.”

The strike, blamed on a military jet, hit Mrauk-U General Hospital in western Rakhine state one evening this week. Local health responders and the Arakan Army’s (AA) health department reported at least 31 fatalities and 68 wounded — numbers that may yet rise as rescue teams struggle to reach parts of the damaged facility. The AA also said that ten patients died instantly when the blast tore through the wards.

The explosion and its echo

Mrauk-U’s hospital is not a military installation; it is a lifeline for townspeople, rice farmers, boatmen, and monks. Witnesses describe a scene that reads like a catalogue of modern civilian vulnerability: practitioners scrambling with limited supplies, patients on gurneys, and electricity cut off as the night thickened with smoke.

“We treated people with simple illnesses, then they became targets,” said a nurse who asked to remain anonymous. “You could hear the planes first, the way birds fall silent. Then the building shook.”

The strike comes as Myanmar’s ruling junta accelerates a military offensive ahead of elections the junta has scheduled to begin on 28 December. The generals present the vote as a route to stability, but critics — from United Nations monitors to regional analysts — say the campaign of air attacks, forced conscription, and ground offensives is a grim effort to regain territory lost to powerful armed groups.

Between pagodas and frontlines: Rakhine under the Arakan Army

Rakhine state has become one of the defining battlegrounds of Myanmar’s grinding civil war. The Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine force that predates the 2021 coup, now controls most of the state — reportedly all but three of Rakhine’s 17 townships. Its fighters emerged as a potent opponent to the junta, joining other ethnic and pro-democracy forces in a conflict that has shifted dramatically since 2023.

“People here know how to live with the river and with the monasteries,” said U Hla, a local monk who has spent decades tending to Mrauk-U’s temples. “We teach compassion. But violence has come to our doorstep. The wounded cannot find care. The festival lights are dimmer this year.”

The Arakan Army has been part of a broader alliance of rebel groups that mounted a significant offensive beginning in 2023, which forced the military to replenish its ranks with conscripts and to rely more heavily on air power. Two of the initial members of that “Three Brotherhood Alliance” negotiated ceasefires this year under Chinese mediation, leaving the AA as one of the most prominent armed actors still contesting the junta’s control.

Why a hospital?

Attacks on medical facilities are among the most jarring indicators of a conflict’s descent into lawlessness. International humanitarian law is clear: hospitals and healthcare workers are protected. Yet, in Myanmar there have been repeated reports — from local groups, the UN, and aid agencies — that hospitals and ambulances have been struck with increasing frequency as the junta ramps up its aerial campaign.

“When hospitals become targets, it isn’t just buildings that collapse,” said a humanitarian law expert who has tracked the region’s violence. “A whole chain of trust is severed: people stop coming for treatment, vaccinations fall behind, and small wounds become deadly. This has long-term effects that outlast any single battle.”

Numbers, narratives, and wider consequences

Here are some of the hard facts that can’t be ignored:

Casualties at Mrauk-U General Hospital: Local responders report at least 31 dead and 68 wounded from the strike; numbers may rise as rescue operations continue.
Control in Rakhine: Conflict monitors say the Arakan Army now controls all but three of the state’s 17 townships.
Political backdrop: The junta seized power in a 2021 coup, ending a decade-long democratic experiment and setting off a wider insurgency across the country.
Elections: The military has scheduled polls to start on 28 December, a move criticised by the United Nations and many international observers as lacking legitimacy and unlikely to reduce violence.

Beyond these numbers lies an almost impossible human arithmetic: how many children will grow up without vaccinations? How many livelihoods will be disrupted as patients avoid clinics and markets shrink? How many culturally significant sites in and around Mrauk-U will be left to the elements while the smoke clears?

Voices from the ground

In the market near the old pagodas, vendors now fold up their tarpaulins early. “People are afraid to stay late,” said Ma Nyein, a vendor who sells dried fish. “If you hear a jet, you run. That’s how life is now.”

An AA statement from its health department confirmed the immediate casualties and described frantic efforts to evacuate the injured to clinics beyond the frontline. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the junta did not deny carrying out airstrikes against “terrorist elements” but said the military took measures to avoid civilian harm. The claim did little to reassure a city whose hospital is being counted among the dead.

What now — for Mrauk-U, for Myanmar, and for the world watching?

When hospitals are struck, the global legal frameworks meant to protect life feel fragile. The international community has routinely condemned strikes on medical facilities in Myanmar, and nations like China have urged a return to “social stability,” arguing for a path that includes the elections. Yet on the ground, civilians see little evidence of a political off-ramp.

“Words from afar don’t stitch our wounds,” said an aid coordinator who has worked in Rakhine for years. “We need safe corridors, neutral zones, and real guarantees that healthcare will be protected. Otherwise, this is a slow-motion calamity.”

So what should you — a reader in Tokyo, Lagos, London, or Dhaka — take away from this? First, that the war in Myanmar is not a distant story confined to headlines. It is about hospitals, markets, and temple courtyards where life persists amid fear. Second, that elections created by those who seized power rarely end wars on their own; they might entrench grievances if large swaths of society are excluded. Finally, it highlights a universal question: when institutions meant to safeguard life are targeted, how should the world respond?

There are no simple answers. What is clear, though, is the image of a hospital ward in Mrauk-U — beds overturned, a lullaby interrupted, a community trying to pull itself back together under a sky that felt, for one terrible night, like it belonged to the fighters and not the people.

Will international pressure be enough to protect hospitals hereafter? Will humanitarian aid find secure routes into the hardest-hit zones? For now, the pagodas stand; the river still moves. And the people of Mrauk-U, like millions across Myanmar, will face another dawn carrying the evidence of a night that should never have happened.

Trump says US seized oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast

By

hanad

-

December 11, 2025

Trump oo ku Dhawaaqay in Mareykanka uu qabsaday Markab Saliid ah oo ku sugan Xeebaha Venezuela

The Day the Tanker Stopped: Oil, Power and the Rising Temperature in the Caribbean

There are moments when a single act — a rope tossed, an anchor lowered, a hull boarded — suddenly reframes everything. Thursday felt like one of those moments on the ragged blue edge of Venezuela: the United States, President Donald Trump announced, had seized a “very large” oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast. The words landed hard and fast in a world already brimming with anxiety about energy, sovereignty, and the use of force.

What happened — and why it matters

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually,” President Trump said, the cadence of his announcement doing as much to steer attention as the action itself.

Officials briefed on the seizure — who insisted on anonymity — said the operation was led by the US Coast Guard. The vessel has been linked by maritime risk analysts to the name Skipper, though it previously sailed under the name Adisa, a name tied up in sanctions over alleged Iranian oil trading. Washington has slapped penalties on the ship, and this interdiction is the most dramatic physical enforcement move yet in a long-running campaign of economic pressure.

Why does one seized ship send shivers through markets and capitals? Because oil remains Venezuela’s financial lifeline. Last month the country exported more than 900,000 barrels per day, its third-highest monthly average this year, according to local and international trade tallies. Even as Venezuela’s production has been battered by mismanagement and sanctions, those barrels — heavy, difficult, strategically vital — still matter.

Voices from the shore

On the fisherman’s quay of Puerto Cabello, a port town whose name means “beautiful hair” but now feels anything but, people watched the sky and the horizon with a collective, low hum of unease.

“We fish by dawn and sell to make bread,” said María Ruiz, a woman who has watched tankers pass her town since she was a child. “But when the world fights over our sea, all we fear is that our nets will catch only silence.” Her hands, split from salt and wind, made the kind of gesture that has no words: small, worried, endless.

Inside a dim office at PDVSA — the state oil company that has become synonymous with both Venezuela’s riches and its decline — a mid-level engineer who asked not to be named described a growing sense of siege. “Every seizure, every sanction, chips away at our routes,” he said. “We’ve had to import more naphtha to dilute our heavy crude. That costs money. That costs trust.”

Markets and metrics

Markets reacted, predictably and nervously. After trading briefly in negative territory, Brent crude futures rose by $0.27 to settle at $62.21 a barrel; US West Texas Intermediate moved up $0.21 to close at $58.46. These were not dramatic leaps by historical standards, but each ripple is a reminder that supply perceptions — even the notion that supply might be intercepted on the high seas — can tilt prices and investor mood.

Analysts cautioned against exaggerating the immediate supply shock. “Seizing this tanker further inflames prompt supply concerns, but it doesn’t immediately change the situation fundamentally because these barrels were already going to be floating around for a while,” said Rory Johnston of Commodity Context. His observation is practical; oil is a global commodity that often spends weeks piled up in storage — on land or at sea — before reaching a refinery.

Pressure on the ground — and in the air

The seizure forms part of a wider American escalation. President Trump ordered a military build-up in the region that officials say includes an aircraft carrier, fighter jets and tens of thousands of troops. The White House has, in recent months, ratcheted its rhetoric about Venezuela’s embattled leader, Nicolás Maduro, who insists the moves are a prelude to a US-backed regime change.

“They want our oil. They always want what we have,” Maduro declared in a televised address, accusing the US of designing a campaign to wrest control from Caracas. Whether one reads his words as defiant bluff or genuine alarm, they highlight a raw truth: Venezuela’s oil is not just fuel; it is leverage, identity, and the country’s main revenue stream.

Since early September, the US has also carried out more than 20 strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels in Caribbean and Pacific waters. Those strikes, which US authorities say targeted illegal trafficking, have been controversial. Reports say over 80 people were killed in these attacks, and some experts have questioned the legality and necessity of sinking boats and using lethal force without publicly shared evidence.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll captured a fissure back home: a broad segment of Americans opposed the campaign of deadly strikes, including roughly one in five Republicans. That statistic hints at an unusual domestic unease about the use of military power, even among some of the president’s base.

Is this about law enforcement or geopolitics?

Officials say the seizure targeted a vessel with links to sanctions-busting networks and alleged Iranian oil trade. Vanguard, a British maritime risk company, flagged the ship Skipper as potentially involved. Beneath the operational language of interceptions and sanctions sits a broader debate: when does law enforcement become geopolitical posturing? When does economic pressure cross a line into kinetic confrontation?

“We have to be careful not to confuse enforcement with escalation,” said Ana Delgado, a Latin America scholar at a Washington think tank. “Seizures can be legitimate under international law, but they also send messages — to allies and adversaries alike — about intent and reach.”

What this portends for the region — and the world

This episode is not just about one tanker. It is a moment in a wider story about the waning of post-Cold War assumptions in the Western Hemisphere. The United States has publicly declared a renewed focus on reasserting influence in the region; for many Latin Americans, that language recalls older days of intervention and inequality.

At the same time, global oil markets are being squeezed by a constellation of forces: Russian and Iranian sanctioned barrels shifting customer relationships, American shale reshaping supply, and a world economy sensitive to disruptions. Venezuela, with its heavy, exportable crude that requires dilution, has been forced to deeply discount its oil in major markets such as China, losers in a dance where the music is sanctions and competition.

So ask yourself: when a tanker is seized far from home, what are the true costs? Is it a tactical victory against illicit trade? A provocation that risks a much larger clash? A strategy to squeeze a regime’s finances? Or all of the above?

Looking ahead

For the families on Venezuela’s coasts, the engineers at PDVSA, and the traders in New York and London, the answer will depend on what follows. Will diplomacy reassert itself? Will seizures become routine? Will foreign policy and energy strategy finally align in a way that reduces harm to ordinary people?

There are no easy answers. But as the sun sets and tankers dot the horizon like dark punctuation marks, one thing is clear: power these days often flows through pipes, pipelines, and tankers as much as it does through parliaments and podiums. And when those arteries are threatened, the effects are felt where they are least expected — in fishermen’s nets, in a family’s grocery budget, in the quiet of a refinery yard at dawn.

We will be watching — and listening. Will you?

RW Xamsa oo la kulmay safiirka dowladda Sucuudi Carabiya

By

aden

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December 11, 2025

Dec 11(Jowhar)-Ra’iisul Wasaaraha Xukuumadda Federaalka Soomaaliya Mudane Xamsa Cabdi Barre ayaa qaabilay safiirka Boqortooyada Sacuudi Carabiya Danjire Axmed Bin Muxamad Saalax Al-muwalad.

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Shirkii Madasha Mustaqbalka ee Nairobi oo si rasmi ah u baaqday

By

aden

-

December 11, 2025

Dec 11(Jowhar)- Ilo wareed lagu kalsoonaan karo ayaa xaqiijiyay in shirkii ay Madasha Mustaqbalka kuqabsan lahayd magaalada Nairobi uu si rasmi ah u baaqday, kaddib khilaaf gudaha ah Madasha ah.

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US to screen social media histories of all international travelers

By

hanad

-

December 11, 2025

When Your Instagram Becomes a Visa Question: A New Era of Border Screening

Imagine packing for a trip to New York — the suitcase half-zipped, a coaxing text from a cousin about bagels, a tab still open to a Broadway show. Then, before you can breathe, a government form asks you to hand over your Facebook posts, Instagram handles and every tweet from the last five years.

That scenario moved abruptly toward reality this week when the U.S. administration published a plan that would make social-media histories a mandatory part of travel pre-clearance for visitors from 42 countries — nations that currently enter under the Visa Waiver Program. The list reads like a map of modern travel: Britain, France, Japan, Australia and Ireland among them. If implemented, travelers who today simply apply online for an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) would be required to disclose years of online activity, previous phone numbers, a decade of email addresses, family details and biometric information.

What the rule would change — in plain terms

The proposal embeds social media into the very architecture of cross-border movement. Instead of an ESTA that asks for passport details and a few questions about criminal history, applicants would face a broader probe into their digital lives. Officials have framed this as a national-security measure — a way to better identify threats. Critics see something darker: a new normal of normalized surveillance across democratic borders.

Key elements of the proposal

Mandatory disclosure of social media identifiers and history covering the previous five years.
Collection of “high-value” data: phone numbers from the past five years, email addresses over the last ten years, familial relationships and biometric data.
Applies to visitors from 42 countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program who currently use ESTA for admission.
Public comment window of 60 days before any final rule is set.

Voices on the ground: fear, frustration, bewilderment

On the corner of Dublin’s Temple Bar, Máire O’Sullivan — who runs a small guesthouse — sips her tea and watches tourists drift by. “We rely on Americans,” she says, tapping a leaflet for local tours. “If people feel like they’re being read through a microscope every time they go on holiday, that will change who comes here in the first place.”

Across the Atlantic, a border-security official who asked not to be named described a different pressure: “We’re juggling public safety and civil liberties. The tools we could gain are powerful, but so are the risks.”

Privacy advocates are blunt. “This is a mass collection of intimate data that can chill free expression,” says Dr. Lina Morales, a researcher at a European digital-rights think tank. “People will alter how they communicate online if they expect their accounts to be scrutinized by foreign governments.”

And then there’s sport. With the U.S., Canada and Mexico preparing to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup — an event that will bring millions of fans across borders — the stakes feel immediate. “If fans believe their online activity or past phone numbers could be used against them, they might decide to stay home,” a travel industry executive warned. “That’s not hypothetical. Tourism is an industry built on trust.”

The global backdrop: more travel, more scrutiny

To understand the potential ripple effects, step back a beat. In 2019 — the last fully “normal” year before pandemic upheaval — the United States received roughly 79 million international visitors. Business travel, tourism, family visits, and investment meetings all rely on relatively frictionless movement. Tightening that movement with a digital sieve could reshape patterns of commerce and culture.

And it’s not only a U.S. conversation. Governments around the world have been experimenting with new border technologies: facial recognition at airports, automated passport gates and expanded biometric databases. Those tools promise speed and security, but they also raise questions about consent, data security and whether democracies want to slide toward the kind of mass surveillance typically associated with authoritarian regimes.

Whose data — and who protects it?

“Collecting social media history is one thing; protecting it is another,” says information-security expert Anil Kapoor. “We’ve seen repeated breaches of even well-protected systems. Ask yourself: if a foreign power or a bad actor accessed these databases, what’s at stake?”

Data retention policies, access controls, and cross-agency sharing are all part of the debate, and they’re not fully answered by the notice published in the Federal Register. That ambiguity is fueling concern in boardrooms and family kitchens alike.

Economic consequences: more than tourism

It’s easy to think of this as a travel story, but business ties could fray too. Foreign direct investment is a relationship built on people-to-people connections; entrepreneurs, tech teams and investors cross borders to meet, negotiate and build trust. “If prospective American partners believe our nationals will be deterred from traveling, it could cool dealflow,” notes an Irish trade official. “Conversely, our start-ups may find it harder to recruit U.S. talent if reciprocity were to follow.”

Questions worth asking

Would you hand over your private messages because you want to watch a baseball game in Minnesota? Would a family visit for a graduation be worth exposing a decade of email addresses? Where is the line between safety and intrusion?

Ultimately this proposal asks more than the usual policy question of effectiveness; it asks us what kind of global society we want to be. Do we open borders while guarding privacy, or do we trade far more for the promise of security?

What happens next

The rule is not yet final. A 60-day public comment period provides a window for citizens, companies and civil-society groups to make their voices heard. Lawmakers in Europe and trade bodies will almost certainly raise concerns about reciprocity and the commercial impact. And judges — eventually — could be asked to weigh in on constitutional or human-rights grounds.

For travelers and locals alike, the coming months will reveal whether this is a temporary flashpoint or the start of a deeper shift in how states view movement, information and control.

So, reader: if you were planning to catch a U.S. road trip next summer, what would you do now? Cancel the booking? Open a blank, scrubbed account? Or simply send your ESTA, click “agree,” and let the system decide? The answer you’d pick says a lot about how you balance liberty and safety — and about the world you want to cross.