Riyadh Calls for Talks Among Yemen’s Rival Factions

January 3, 2026

Riyadh urges dialogue between Yemeni factions — Convoy of armoured vehicles in Mukalla, southern Yemen

The Day the Market Fell Silent: Hadramawt’s New Fault Line

Morning in Mukalla usually arrives like a slow exhale — boats returning with silvery fish, the spice stalls filling the air with turmeric and cardamom, and the call to prayer rising from minarets that have watched trade cross the Arabian Sea for centuries. Last Saturday, the air smelled of cordite and dust instead.

“I’ve run this little shop for twenty years,” said Ahmed al-Mansuri, a lean man with a weathered face and a permanent stain of coffee on his shirt. “People came for bread, for gossip, for hope. Today they come to the window to watch the sky.”

Gunfire rattled across Mukalla and Seiyun as the Southern Transitional Council — a separatist movement backed by the United Arab Emirates — extended its recent offensive across wide stretches of Hadramawt, Yemen’s largest governorate by area and a province that has long been prized for its oil, gas and strategic ports. The Saudi foreign ministry, alarmed by the escalation and the prospect of a permanent split in Yemen, issued a public call for a comprehensive conference in Riyadh to gather “all southern factions” and hammer out a political path forward.

Old Rivalries, New Violence

At the heart of this crisis sits a familiar cocktail: local grievances steeped in history, foreign patrons with competing interests, and a war-weary population that has little appetite left for more bloodshed. The Saudi-led coalition — which intervened in Yemen in 2015 aiming to dislodge the Houthi movement from the north — now finds itself at odds with its erstwhile partner, the UAE, as each backs different actors in the fractured south.

“This is not merely a domestic quarrel,” said Dr. Leila Haddad, a political analyst who has followed the Arabian Peninsula for two decades. “It is the product of decades of external intervention layered atop local ambitions. When external patrons shift gears, the armed groups on the ground move with them. The result is more fragmentation, not less.”

Earlier in the week, the coalition targeted what it called an alleged weapons shipment bound for UAE-backed forces. By Friday, airstrikes — including an attack on the Al-Khasha military camp in Hadramawt — were reported to have killed around 20 people, according to the separatists. Residents of Seiyun said the airport and a nearby military base were struck, sending shrapnel into palm groves and shattering the brittle peace of the desert city.

In the Shadow of Shibam: Culture and Consequence

Hadramawt is not just cartographic space. It is the pulse of a cultural landscape famous for the mud-brick towers of Shibam — sometimes called the “Manhattan of the Desert” — and for frankincense routes older than many civilizations. In Seiyun, the grand adobe palace and the rows of mango trees tell a story of place and persistence. Here, identity has always mattered. But identity for some now means separatism.

“We have been overlooked by Sana’a, ignored by the central government, and used by those with money and guns,” said Fatima al-Habshi, a teacher in Seiyun whose classrooms have lost students to displacement and militia recruitment. “When leaders promise an independent South, some people hear dignity; others hear permanent war.”

What the Southern Transitional Council Says

The STC, which formally took shape in 2017 and has deep ties to the UAE, announced the beginning of a two-year transition towards declaring an independent southern state. The plan, officials said, would include a period of dialogue and a later referendum on independence.

“This is about self-determination,” said Major General Omar al-Saqqaf, an STC official, during a brief radio interview. “The south has been plundered and marginalized for decades. We will not accept another decade of neglect.”

Human Costs and Numbers That Don’t Tell Everything

Behind the maps and the statements lie human realities that simple tallies cannot fully capture. Yemen remains one of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises. More than 30 million people live in a country where services are frayed, markets wobble, and the basic infrastructure of daily life is a relic of a better era. The United Nations and humanitarian groups estimate that over 20 million Yemenis require some form of humanitarian assistance, and nearly 4 million are internally displaced.

“Each new front line frays the safety nets further,” said Rania Ahmed, a logistic coordinator for an international aid group in Aden. “When airports are hit, when roads are closed, the people who lose out are the children and the sick. Food prices spike, medicines disappear, and families face impossible choices.”

Geopolitics on a Narrow Strait

What happens in Hadramawt echoes beyond Yemen’s borders. The governorate’s coastal towns lie not far from the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a narrow maritime choke point through which a substantial portion of the world’s oil and container traffic passes en route to the Suez Canal. The prospect of a new, hostile border in the south of the Arabian Peninsula has strategic consequences not only for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi but also for global commerce.

“Instability in southern Yemen threatens maritime security and could drive up insurance premiums and shipping costs,” noted Captain Henrik Olsen, a maritime-security consultant based in Denmark. “Global supply chains are fragile; hotspots like Hadramawt matter.”

Voices from the Ground: Fear, Hope, and Weariness

In Mukalla’s quieter alleys, people speak in hushed tones. Some welcome the STC’s promises; others fear that independence will mean more blockades and fewer jobs. “We love our land, but we cannot feed our kids with slogans,” said Saeed, a fisherman who refused to give his full name. “If there is a referendum, I will go. But will anyone be alive to count the votes?”

Local healers and shopkeepers recounted the same weary sentiment: enough political promises, fewer empty stomachs. “We are tired of being a chessboard,” said Mariam Noor, who runs a small bakery. “Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi play their game here, and we are the pawns that suffer.”

Paths Forward — Or More of the Same?

Riyadh’s offer to host a comprehensive conference is, on paper, a sensible if overdue move. Talks could create a platform for rival southern factions, local leaders, and the internationally recognized government to negotiate protections, power-sharing and a credible timetable for any political transition. But such conferences have a chequered history in Yemen: they can be staging grounds for agreements, yes, but also for delays and disappointments.

What would a meaningful peace process look like? Observers say it must be inclusive, locally owned, and backed by enforceable guarantees — not only for elites but for the ordinary citizens who would vote in any referendum, who send their children to school, and who tend the palm groves that feed whole neighborhoods.

Include local councils and civil society, not only armed leaders.
Ensure humanitarian access before, during, and after talks.
Link any political plan to economic guarantees for livelihoods and services.

What Do We Do as Onlookers?

As a global audience, it is easy to reduce Yemen to headlines and to think of it as “someone else’s war.” But Yemen’s fracture challenges a simple truth: the consequences of conflict are transnational. They ripple through migration routes, global trade, and the moral ledger of how the international community responds to human suffering.

So ask yourself: when foreign capitals posture, whose voices are truly heard? When maps are redrawn in conference rooms, who counts the cost? The people in Mukalla and Seiyun are not abstractions. They are bakers, fishermen, schoolteachers, and parents. They deserve more than the fate of a pawn in a regional checkmate.

For now, the markets will empty and the prayers will be louder. For now, the bright mud towers of Shibam will stand amid an uncertain horizon. Whether Riyadh’s conference becomes a path toward dignified resolution or another refrain in a decade-long dirge remains in the balance. The world will be watching — and the people of Hadramawt will, as always, be waiting.

Maduro signals Venezuela’s openness to talks with United States

hanad

January 3, 2026

Maduro says Venezuela open to talks with US — Nicolas Maduro said he has not spoken to Donald Trump since 12 November (File image)

When a Dock Explodes: Venezuela, the U.S., and the Fog of a New Kind of War

There are places on Venezuela’s northern shore where mornings begin with the same small rituals: fishermen repairing nets under the shade of palm fronds, the smell of diesel and salt on the air, women selling warm arepas from makeshift stalls beside sun-beaten benches. On such mornings, life often feels stubbornly ordinary. This week, ordinary was punctured by an extraordinary claim — a U.S. president saying American forces had struck and destroyed a dock used to load boats with drugs. The Venezuelan government did not confirm the attack outright. The truth, for now, sits somewhere between an explosion on the sand and a declaration at a Florida resort.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” said the U.S. president at his Mar-a-Lago estate, according to statements reported widely. His words were precise and public; the location and chain of command were conspicuously vague. Was this a military strike? A clandestine CIA operation? Where exactly did it happen? The White House would only say it was “along the shore.”

The man in Caracas

On state television, President Nicolás Maduro sidestepped a direct confirmation. “This could be something we talk about in a few days,” he said, leaving the question suspended like a dropped coin under water.

Even as he avoided the exact claim, Mr. Maduro offered an olive branch of sorts. “Wherever they want and whenever they want,” he said about the prospect of talking with Washington — on trafficking, on oil, on migration. His tone was both defiant and transactional: a leader who denies involvement in narcotics yet insists he is open to negotiations that might ease the pressure on his country.

What’s been happening at sea

For months, U.S. forces have been operating in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, targeting vessels the Pentagon says are linked to drug smuggling. Those strikes, according to U.S. military disclosures, have involved at least 30 separate actions and have killed at least 107 people. Washington maintains these actions are aimed at the narcotics trade; critics call them an extrajudicial maritime campaign that raises grave legal and ethical questions.

International law scholars and rights groups warn that strikes without transparent evidence and judicial oversight can amount to unlawful killings. “When lethal force is used outside a clear battlefield, and without accountability, we open the door to abuse,” said Dr. Ana Pereira, an international law scholar based in Caracas. “States may claim necessity, but the rule of law must follow, or this becomes a precedent for anyone to target anyone at sea.”

Voices from the coast

In a small fishing hamlet two hours from the capital, María Torres — who has sold coffee and arepas for 25 years from a stall by the pier — said she woke to helicopters last week. “The noise shook my pots. My son called me from the water and said they heard a big boom,” she recalled. “We don’t know anything for sure. We only know people are afraid.”

A retired coast guard captain, who asked to be identified only as Luis for fear of reprisal, offered a more guarded take. “There are real trafficking networks that use our coves. There are also innocent fishermen. It is complicated. The sea is big. Intelligence is not perfect,” he said.

Oil, power, and the long shadow of geopolitics

To understand why a single dock detonates diplomatic temperature, you have to look beyond drug interdiction and into oil — Venezuela’s most tangible global asset. The country is widely credited with some of the world’s largest proven oil reserves, often cited at roughly 300 billion barrels, a resource that has shaped both its domestic politics and international relations for decades.

The Trump administration had intensified pressure on Caracas with measures ranging from expanded sanctions to seizure orders on tankers carrying Venezuelan crude. Washington’s rhetoric has been stark: call Mr. Maduro the head of a drug cartel, and lay out a campaign of economic and military coercion designed to squeeze his government. Caracas responds with counter-accusations — that the true aim is regime change, driven by an appetite for oil and influence.

Is sovereignty being redefined?

What we are watching may be more than one-off strikes. It’s a potential reframing of how powers think about sovereignty and use of force. “If a state can hit a shore to disrupt an alleged illicit flow without transparent legal authority, what does that mean for coastal states everywhere?” asked Professor Simon Jansen, a specialist in maritime security at a London university. “The precedent is worrying.”

That question matters to migrants who cross borders in search of work, to coastal communities reliant on fishing, and to global norms that have historically protected states from extraterritorial use of force. It also matters to multilateral institutions like the United Nations, which will be asked to adjudicate or at least respond if allegations of unlawful strikes multiply.

The human ledger: casualties, uncertainty, fear

The U.S. military’s own tallies — at least 107 killed across 30 strikes — offer a raw arithmetic of loss, but they do not include the ambiguous human costs: families who cannot confirm whether a missing relative was aboard a targeted boat; small towns where economic life depends on fragile coastal trade; fishermen who swap diesel for bread money.

“We are trying to feed our children,” said Carmen Delgado, whose husband works on a small outboard skiff and who has seen friends detained or worse. “If there are criminals on the water, we want them gone. But we also want the right questions asked. Who will answer when things go wrong?”

Broader themes: law, morality, and the drug war

There are broader currents here. The U.S. campaign against drugs has evolved beyond interdiction and domestic law enforcement into a cross-border, and sometimes cross-legal, struggle. Technological reach — drones, satellites, precision munitions — makes strikes more feasible. But precision is not the same as certainty. And the war on drugs has always had collateral—on families, institutions, and trust.

Observers point out that without clear evidence and transparent accountability, actions that are framed as targeted strikes risk alienating the very populations they aim to protect. “Security is not just about destruction,” said Dr. Pereira. “It is about building legitimate institutions and rule of law. Otherwise, you might be fixing one problem while creating many more.”

What should we watch for next?

Will Washington produce verified evidence of the dock’s use in trafficking? Will Caracas open investigations or insist the strike never occurred? Will international bodies demand transparency or launch inquiries into the legality of maritime strikes? These questions will shape not only Venezuela’s next few weeks, but global answers about how states wield force in an era of transnational crime and contested sovereignty.

For people on the beaches where children still splash in salty shallows and neighbors still trade gossip over coffee, the geopolitics are inconveniently close. They ask simple, human questions: Who will keep us safe? Who will tell us the truth? Whose wars will end up on our sand?

We should all be listening for answers. And we should be asking them — loudly, clearly, and in public.

Driver Joshua faces charges after fatal crash in Nigeria

hanad

January 3, 2026

Joshua driver charged over fatal collision in Nigeria — The case was adjourned to 20 January (file image)

When the Highway Stilled: Anthony Joshua, a Night of Mourning and Questions on Nigeria’s Roads

There are moments that seem to stop time — a shriek of metal, a wash of flashing lights, the hush that falls when people step out of their cars and realize the world has rearranged itself. That hush descended on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway after a crash that left two of Anthony Joshua’s close friends dead, the British-born heavyweight briefly injured and a nation asking, again, how so many tragedies play out along its busiest arteries.

On a stretch of tarmac known for speed and commerce — where long-haul trucks rub shoulders with clattering minibuses and roadside traders sell fried yam and sachet water to drivers who pull off for a breath — a Lexus SUV carrying Joshua collided with another vehicle and then a stationary truck. The accident, according to Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) preliminary findings, involved an apparent attempt at an unsafe overtaking manoeuvre at speed before the collision. Two of Joshua’s companions, identified as Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, were killed. Joshua, 36, suffered minor injuries and has since been discharged from hospital after checks. The episode felt painfully ordinary and shockingly public all at once.

Charges Laid, Court Date Set

By late afternoon the story had moved from the roadside to the courthouse. Ogun State police said the driver of the other vehicle, Adeniyi Mobolaji Kayode, 46, appeared before the Sagamu Magistrate Court and was charged with four counts, including causing death by dangerous driving. The case was adjourned to 20 January.

“We have filed charges following the preliminary investigations,” a police statement read. “The matter has been placed before the court to allow further processes to be conducted.” Authorities did not make the defendant available for comment, and Reuters did not immediately reach his legal counsel.

Faces in the Headlines: People Behind the Names

If the news cycle can feel abstract — figures and dates and fast edits — this one did not for the vendors and drivers who witnessed the aftermath. “I saw them pulling people from the cars,” said Aderemi Okonkwo, a roadside tea seller who has watched accidents become part of daily life on that highway. “There was shouting, a mother cradling a phone calling someone, it was like a film. But this time the names I heard — they were famous. That made it worse.”

For many in Nigeria and for the global boxing community, Anthony Joshua is more than an athlete: he is a symbol of diasporic possibility, a British champion with Nigerian roots who carries both national pride and international attention. The shock was therefore not just of loss but of vulnerability. “Celebrities are not invincible,” said Dr. Chioma Nwankwo, a sports psychologist. “When someone like Joshua is involved in a tragedy, it reframes the risk for everyone. It’s a reminder that our roads are indifferent to fame, status or wealth.”

Local Color: The Highway That Keeps Moving

The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is an artery of commerce — buses with names painted in flamboyant fonts ferry passengers; tricycles weave between lanes; produce trucks lurch under the weight of yams and tomatoes. It is also a route where impatience, commerce and insufficient infrastructure meet in dangerous ways. “People here are always rushing,” said Ifeoma Eze, who runs a hair salon five minutes from the road. “A man may lose his job if he comes late. So they drive like that. We pray and keep our doors open.”

Numbers That Haunt

Tragedies on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway are not isolated incidents. According to the World Health Organization’s global road safety reports and data compiled by local agencies, Nigeria’s road fatality rate is among the highest in Africa. The FRSC and local civil society groups have long warned that a combination of speeding, poor vehicle maintenance, unregulated overtaking and a dearth of safe road infrastructure drive a steady toll of deaths and injuries.

“We are fighting an epidemic of dangerous driving,” said Isaac Nwosu, a spokesperson for a local road safety NGO. “Every year, thousands die on Nigerian roads. When a high-profile case like this happens, policymakers pay attention — but the attention often fades.”

Law, Accountability and the Weight of Public Scrutiny

Legal proceedings will now play out in Sagamu. Charging the driver is a necessary step, but it opens questions: Was the other driver speeding? Were both cars roadworthy? How will witness evidence be collected when traffic flows resume and witnesses return to their livelihoods? “Charging a suspect addresses individual responsibility,” said Femi Adebola, a criminal law lecturer in Lagos. “But to reduce such tragedies we must also look at systemic issues: enforcement, road design and the economic pressures that push drivers to take risks.”

President Bola Tinubu issued condolences to Joshua and the families of those who died, calling it a “tragic accident.” The words were read across television screens and social feeds, but for people near the scene they were not enough. “Condolences help for a moment,” said Okonkwo, shaking his head. “We need to see roads fixed, lights installed, strict checks on how trucks move at night.”

When a Moment Becomes a Mirror

If you are reading from afar — from a city where highways hum and sirens wail at night, or from a country where drivers obey the rules and accidents are rarer — you might wonder why the death of two men on a Nigerian freeway matters beyond the immediate circle of friends and fans. It matters because it exposes something universal: the fragility beneath our daily commutes and the unevenness of what societies choose to protect. When roads fail, they fail everyone. They take the ambitious young man heading to a job, the grandmother carrying bread to sell, the famous athlete and his friends returning from a career high.

It also matters because moments like these can catalyse change. “Public outrage is a tool,” said Dr. Nwankwo. “When attention focuses on systemic flaws, there’s an opportunity — to redesign junctions, to equip traffic corps with better technology, to demand safer vehicles.”

What Comes Next?

In the coming weeks, the court will hear the case against Mr. Kayode; investigators will compile reports; Joshua and the boxing world will prepare for the next fight on the calendar. Meanwhile, families will grieve, friends will remember, and vendors on the roadside will continue to pour tea into plastic cups for drivers who pull over to catch their breath.

What do you think should change? Is it stricter enforcement, better infrastructure, more public education, or some combination of all three? When a celebrity is touched by the same vulnerabilities as everybody else, perhaps it becomes easier to see our shared priorities. This is not simply a sports story or a legal brief — it is a mirror on public safety and collective responsibility. And until the engines on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway slow and the overtakes become safer, the same questions will keep returning to that stretch of road and to every country where speed still too often outpaces safety.

Finnish authorities make headway investigating undersea cable breach

hanad

January 3, 2026

Finland making progress in undersea cable breach probe — The ⁠vessel had departed from St Petersburg ‍in Russia ⁠and was headed to Haifa in Israel, according to Marine Traffic data

A snapped line under a cold Baltic sky: what the seizure of the Fitburg reveals

It was not, on the face of it, an overtly dramatic scene: a steel-cargo vessel idling in the grey sweep of the Gulf of Finland, tugs and patrol boats converging quietly, coastguard officers climbing down ropes and across gangways. But the silence of the sea that day hid something far more consequential than a stalled freighter.

Finnish authorities announced this week that the cargo ship Fitburg was seized while en route from Russia to Israel after investigators concluded it likely played a role in damaging an undersea telecommunications cable linking Helsinki and Tallinn. Two crew members have been arrested, two others barred from leaving Finland, and the rest — fourteen people in all, from Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan — are being questioned.

“The interviews have clarified the course of events and the different roles of the crew members,” Detective Chief Superintendent Risto Lohi of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation said in a terse statement, the kind of language that means the work is far from finished but is moving forward.

Not just a cable: why this matters

To most commuters on the ferries crisscrossing the Gulf, a telecommunications cable is invisible infrastructure — a thin line on a map. But the digital pulse of cities, banks, emergency services and governments depends on these arteries. Around 99% of global intercontinental internet traffic travels via undersea cables, and hundreds of such links lace the world’s seabeds. When one is severed, the effects are immediate, cascading and often quietly expensive.

Authorities in Finland say the cable is currently inoperable; the full extent of damage will take time to assess. For businesses in Helsinki and Tallinn, it means rerouted traffic, potential slowdowns and a reminder of how fragile the modern network really is.

Local voices: fear, irritation, and a flicker of resolve

“On the ferry, everyone was on their phones — and then it just slowed down to a crawl,” said Jaan, an IT support technician in Tallinn, sounding more annoyed than alarmed. “We rely on redundant systems, but redundancy doesn’t equal invulnerability.”

Marek, who has fished these waters for three decades, leaned on the railing and gestured at the shipping lane. “Ships anchor, ropes bite into the seabed,” he said. “But people talk of more than accidents now. There’s a weight in the air — like you’re walking on thin ice.”

A ferry operator on the Helsinki-to-Tallinn run, Anna, added, “We see ships from everywhere. Yesterday’s morning looked the same as any other — cranes, cables, containers. But the sea remembers. And so do we.”

The pattern: not an isolated incident

This episode sits against a worrying backdrop. In recent years the Baltic Sea has been the scene of several incidents where subsea cables, pipelines and power links were damaged. Last year, investigators pointed to the Russian-linked oil tanker Eagle S as having damaged a power cable and multiple telecoms links — a finding that added to regional unease.

Estonian President Alar Karis, while cautiously optimistic, summed up the region’s anxiety: he said the incident was “hopefully not a deliberate act, but the investigation will clarify matters.” For many in the Baltic capitals, hope is not the same as confidence.

Is this hybrid warfare by another name?

Europe’s security community has been wrestling with a thorny question: could these attacks be part of a broader pattern of so-called hybrid warfare — deliberate actions intended to disrupt, intimidate or coerce without crossing the threshold of open conflict?

Officials have voiced increased concern that such hybrid threats have risen since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow denies these accusations. The Russian embassy in Helsinki said it is in contact with Finnish authorities and “hopes that the situation will be resolved in a spirit of cooperation and in accordance with the relevant legal norms.”

Maritime-security analysts are reluctant to leap from suspicion to verdict, but they do warn that the sea is becoming an arena for low-visibility operations. “Undersea infrastructure is the soft underbelly of modern economies,” said a maritime security expert who has advised several European governments. “It’s cheap to disrupt, expensive to fix, and politically ambiguous — which makes it attractive to states and non-state actors alike.”

Technical realities: what repairing a cable entails

Repairing an undersea cable is not like fixing a snapped phone charger. It requires a cable ship, remote-operated vehicles, divers in severe cases, and often several days to weeks depending on weather and the depth of the damage. Boats must locate the break, haul the cable up, splice it, and test the line. Costs spiral quickly — into the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, for major failures.

Time to repair: days to weeks (depending on depth, weather, traffic)
Cost: potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of euros or dollars
Impact: slowed internet, rerouted traffic, disrupted services

In short, an attack or accident at sea can have an outsized economic and strategic impact on shore.

Questions for the reader: what would you protect?

Pause for a moment. Imagine your world without reliable connectivity for a week. How would your work change? How would emergency services cope? This is not hypothetical for the thousands who depend on these cables every day.

If a thin strand of fiber can bring cities to a standstill, what should nations do? Strengthen monitoring? Mandate more redundancy? Push for international rules to protect undersea infrastructure? There are no easy answers, but the argument for collective responsibility grows louder.

Looking ahead: investigation, accountability, prevention

For now, the Fitburg sits under Finland’s scrutiny while investigators piece together motives, mechanics and responsibility. Two detained crew members face legal processes. Questions remain about the ship’s behavior — it was seen dragging its anchor at the time — and about whether this was negligence, an accident, or something more deliberate.

“This is a test of our institutions,” the maritime security expert said. “Not just for law enforcement and international law, but for the public’s faith in the safety of critical infrastructure.”

Across harbors and cafes from Helsinki to Tallinn, people sip coffee and scroll the feeds, waiting for clarity. In the meantime, the sea keeps its own counsel, indifferent and deep. But beneath the indifferent surface, strings that bind modern life — wires, pipes, routes — hum with a fragile importance.

We can follow the investigation and hope for clear answers. Or we can do something more: ask our leaders to treat undersea infrastructure not as invisible plumbing, but as a shared global commons that needs watching, defending and repairing. The Gulf of Finland may seem small on a map, but what happens there matters to us all.

2026 brings spectacular lunar events for moon enthusiasts worldwide

hanad

January 3, 2026

2026 will be a good year for Moon lovers — The Wolf Moon is the first full moon of the year

There will be 13 full moons in 2026 — and one of them might welcome people back

On a cold January night, a family in a small town in Ireland pulled their chairs onto the porch, wrapped in wool blankets, and watched a silver coin rise above bare oak branches. The moon looked impossibly close, a bright witness to their laughter and to the neighbor’s dog barking at nothing. “It felt like a lantern for all of us,” the neighbor later said, voice soft and full of wonder. “You can’t help but think of stories—wolves howling, sailors navigating, lovers keeping secrets under its face.”

Stories are how humans have lived with the Moon for millennia. In 2026, those stories feel oddly modern and urgent: there will be 13 full moons this year, and for the first time in more than half a century, we are planning to send people back toward the lunar surface. What does it mean when a celestial body that shaped myths now becomes the scaffold of our next leap into the cosmos?

Names, seasons and a Blue Moon in May

Every full moon carries a name stitched from seasons and survival—labels born of farming calendars, hunting cycles and natural rhythms. In traditional Anglo and Native American calendars, January’s full moon is the “Wolf Moon,” February’s the “Snow Moon,” March the “Worm Moon,” and so on through the year.

January – Wolf Moon
February – Snow Moon
March – Worm Moon
April – Pink Moon
May – Flower Moon (and in 2026, a second ‘Blue Moon’)
June – Strawberry Moon
July – Buck Moon
August – Sturgeon Moon
September – Corn Moon
October – Hunter’s Moon
November – Beaver Moon
December – Cold Moon

Some of those names carry the scent of soil and harvest; others carry the bite of winter. “They are practical names,” explains Dr. Mira Santos, a cultural astronomer based in Lisbon. “They told people when to sow, when to fish, when to hunt. But they also held emotion—anticipation of spring, the mythic hush before winter. A society’s moon names are its calendar and its poetry.”

Because the lunar cycle is about 29.5 days, most years produce 12 full moons; occasionally, the timing shifts enough to gift us a thirteenth. That second full moon in a single month is the colloquial “Blue Moon” (no, not actually blue). In 2026 it falls in May—an extra chance to look skyward and remember that rhythms are not always neat, and neither are our stories.

Different faces and many myths

Look across the world and the Moon becomes a different image. Where some Western folklore talks about a man in the Moon, East Asian traditions often see a rabbit—the jade rabbit pounding herbs beside the moon goddess, Chang’e. In parts of Africa, the Moon is a grandmother; in Pacific islands, a navigator; in city skylines, a soft-backed lamp that makes neon less angry.

“The Moon is unavoidable,” says Akiko Yamamoto, a Tokyo schoolteacher who takes her class outside on clear nights. “Children in different neighborhoods notice the same disk and invent their own stories. It’s an early, gentle science—observing and storytelling at once.”

Back to the future: Artemis, habitats and a lunar village

For many, 2026 will be the year when myth meets machinery. NASA’s Artemis program—named after the twin of Apollo—has been billed as humanity’s return to lunar operations and as the first step toward living beyond Earth. Artemis II, a crewed mission that will carry astronauts into lunar orbit, has already stirred imaginations; the plan, if timeline and rails hold, is for Artemis III to attempt a crewed lunar landing soon after.

“Apollo was a sprint,” notes Dr. Laura Chen, a planetary scientist at the Lunar Research Institute. “Artemis is trying to build a relay. The aim isn’t just to plant flags and leave—this time the goal is sustainability: habitats, resource use, longer stays.”

The talk of a “lunar village” is no longer science fiction. Engineers, architects and planetary geologists are sketching settlements made of domes, buried modules and 3D-printed structures using regolith—the Moon’s powdery soil. Why use local materials? Because hauling tons of building material from Earth costs billions, and because local resources offer a lesson in resilience.

“Imagine a house built from bricks made of powdered lunar rock,” says Dr. Chen. “We’re testing prototypes on Earth now. The regolith can be sintered—melted and fused—or combined with binders to make structural elements. It could be the difference between a temporary outpost and a community.”

Problems that are purely human and purely cosmic

But building on the Moon is a different kind of architecture. Lunar settlements must shield inhabitants from cosmic radiation and micrometeoroids; they must withstand temperature swings from blistering sunlight to lunar-night cold. Earth’s atmosphere provides radiation protection and a gravitational cup that slows down tiny debris—on the Moon, there is no such luxury.

To cope, scientists are considering several strategies: burying habitats beneath meters of regolith, using lava tubes—natural caverns carved by ancient flows—as ready-made shelters, and designing electromagnetic or layered physical shields that reduce radiation exposure. Even then, staying long-term will require medical planning and new life-support systems. “We’ll need to solve chronic radiation exposure, not just acute events,” Dr. Chen says. “It’s about risk management over months and years.”

From Moon to Mars: the ladder to another planet

Why the Moon, if Mars is the ultimate prize? Think of the Moon as a test-bed. It is close—on average about 384,400 km away—and a trip takes roughly three days with current propulsion systems. Mars, by contrast, is a seven- to nine-month voyage at minimum, with far more complex resupply and emergency scenarios.

“You can practice life support, resource extraction, and planetary surface operations on the Moon in ways you can’t on a spacecraft,” says Dr. Samuel Okonkwo, an aerospace systems engineer. “If we can learn to live on, and rely on, lunar resources—for water, oxygen, and fuel—then we can export those lessons to Mars.”

That ambition folds into larger questions: Why explore at all? For many scientists and policymakers, exploration is practical (scientific knowledge, technology spin-offs, economic development) and existential (a species learning to expand beyond a single biosphere). For others, it is cultural—a new frontier for art, for stories, for redefining what it means to be human.

What will you do under the next full moon?

As the calendar gives us a bonus full moon this year, as space agencies prepare harbors in lunar orbit and sketch villages of domes and regolith bricks, we might ask ourselves what return to the Moon should mean. Is it a vanity project for nations? A test laboratory? A practical step toward survival? Or a mirror—forcing us to look at the Earth and see what needs fixing here before we export our mistakes into space?

On a coastal night, a fisherman in Nova Scotia told me: “The moon has always told us the tide’s story. Now it will tell a new story—people’s. I hope we bring our humility with us.”

Humility, ingenuity, curiosity—these are the human supplies that travel better than metals and fuel. Whether you see the Moon as a storybook, a science lab, or a future neighborhood, 2026 is giving us a rare, poetic overlap: more full moons to admire, and a serious plan to go back. Look up, and ask yourself: what will you carry with you when we walk beneath that familiar light again?

First fatality in Swiss bar fire identified as young Italian national

hanad

January 2, 2026

First victim of Swiss bar blaze named as young Italian — Le Constellation remains sealed off in Crans-Montana

The Night the Music Stopped: A New Year’s Tragedy in Crans-Montana

Crans-Montana is a place that trades on glitter — snow that catches the light, chalets with carved balconies, and the promise of a perfect New Year’s Eve at altitude. But in the small hours after midnight, beneath a ceiling that should have kept people safe, a routine celebration became a scene of devastation.

At about 1:30 a.m. on New Year’s morning, Le Constellation — a popular bar in the resort town — erupted in flames. What had been a long night of music, champagne and dancing turned into one of Switzerland’s darkest emergencies in recent memory. Officials say 40 people have died and 119 were injured; many of those hurt are critically ill. Authorities stress the totals are provisional but stark enough to make this a national catastrophe.

From Sparkles to Inferno

Initial findings point to a familiar — and deadly — party prop: fountain candles or so‑called Bengal lights perched on champagne bottles. Prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud told reporters investigators believe the sparklers were raised too close to the ceiling and ignited something there. “From that small flame, a rapid and widespread conflagration unfolded,” she said.

Witnesses’ accounts and social media footage uploaded in the panic show staff parading bottles with sparklers — a celebratory flourish that in an instant sent orange light skittering across the rafters. What followed was horror: smoke filling the room, people stumbling in the dark, others trying ineffectively to beat back the flames.

“We thought it was a little fire at first,” said Mathys, a neighbor who arrived on scene. “By the time we realized the danger, it looked like an apocalypse.”

Why the Fire Spread So Quickly

Investigators are not yet finished. Aside from the sparkler hypothesis, they are examining whether the ceiling’s insulation — possibly foam material — helped the blaze to leap and grow. If flammable materials in the structure accelerated the spread, questions about building standards, inspections, and enforcement will follow.

“We will determine if negligence played a role,” Pilloud said. That determination could have legal consequences for individuals and establishments, and it will certainly shape how mountainside nightlife is regulated going forward.

Faces Behind the Numbers

Numbers are necessary, but they cannot convey the human fracture left by the night. Families are waiting at hospitals. Parents sift through social feeds for the last picture, the last message. Funeral vans arrived in nearby Sion as authorities began the painstaking process of identifying victims — a task made harder by the severity of the burns. Officials are using dental records and DNA and warn families that confirmation will take time.

“The uncertainty is unbearable,” said Laetitia, whose 16‑year‑old son Arthur is still unaccounted for. “I’ve been searching for him for more than a day. If he’s in a hospital, I don’t know which one. If he’s gone, I don’t know where they took him.”

Young people who were laughing on a slope the night before are now entangled in a cross-border emergency: of the injured, 113 have been identified so far. That list includes 71 Swiss, 14 French, 11 Italian, four Serbian nationals, and single cases from Bosnia, Belgium, Poland, Portugal and Luxembourg — a reminder of how international winter resorts are and how grief knows no borders.

Marco, a 20‑year‑old from Milan, waited outside the bar with a group of friends. “Twenty of us were supposed to be together,” he said. “Some are safe, some are hurt, and for others — nothing. No messages, no clues.”

Medical Response and International Support

Local hospitals were swiftly overwhelmed. Around 50 of the most severe burn victims were, or will be, transferred to specialized burn units in other European countries — Germany, France and Poland among them. The European Union and several national governments have offered medical cooperation. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland stood ready to admit 14 patients at Switzerland’s request.

Swiss authorities are coordinating with embassies to make sure families abroad receive consular help. President Guy Parmelin called the tragedy “a calamity of unprecedented and terrifying proportions” and ordered flags to be flown at half mast for five days.

Scenes of Quiet Aftermath

Outside Le Constellation, the street is somber. Police have erected white screens around parts of the site; candles and floral tributes line barriers where revelers once spilled onto the pavement. In nearby squares, small vigils formed as people struggled to make sense of the sudden loss. The Irish embassy in Bern lowered its flag in solidarity; other diplomatic missions are monitoring their citizens’ fates.

“You could feel the whole resort holding its breath,” said Eleonore, 17. “We’re posting pictures, calling hospitals, texting every person we know. It’s how you look for people now — in a world of phones and fear.”

What This Means Beyond Crans-Montana

This is not just a local story. It is a modern cautionary tale about how entertainment culture, safety standards and combustible building materials can collide with deadly results. Sparkler displays are common in nightlife venues worldwide. Foam insulation is common in building roofs. The deadly combination here prompts questions every city and resort should be asking.

Who bears responsibility when a celebratory prop becomes a weapon? How robust are safety inspections of nightlife venues? When do tradition and spectacle need to be reined in by regulation? And in our age of instant content, do viral party moments create new risks?

Policy debates will follow the investigation. For now, there is a different kind of work: comforting those who are grieving, treating the injured, and ensuring that families can find their missing relatives and get clear answers.

How You Can Help — and What to Keep in Mind

For relatives seeking information: contact local embassies and official Swiss hotlines; authorities are coordinating lists of the injured and deceased but insist on verification before releasing names.
Medical aid: European hospitals are accepting transfers for severe burn cases — coordination is underway through official channels, not social media.
Solidarity: small vigils, donations to verified family support funds, and respectful sharing of verified information are immediate ways to help.

When Celebration Becomes Remembrance

There is a particular kind of sorrow when a night designed to welcome the future instead becomes a ledger of loss. In the quiet after the sirens, neighbors, families, staff and rescuers will carry memories of a bar where confetti used to fall and where people came together to start a year with laughter.

Have you ever paused to consider the unseen risks in spaces where we celebrate? In the shadow of Crans‑Montana’s tragedy, perhaps we will. For now, the priority is simple and humane: treat the injured, identify the lost, support those who remain. Only then can conversation turn to prevention, regulation and the small reforms that might prevent another night like this from ever happening again.

“We owe it to the victims to get the answers right,” Mathias Reynard, head of the Valais canton government, said. “That work must be done carefully because the information is so painful — and our duty to families is to be absolutely certain.”

U.S. pledges consequences if Iran kills anti-government protesters

hanad

January 2, 2026

US vows action if Iran kills protesters — Iran has seen the biggest protests in three years over economic hardship

The Quiet Bazaar, the Shouts in the Streets: Iran on Edge

There is a particular hush that falls over Tehran when shopkeepers lock their shutters in protest. The clang of metal against wood is not just a sound; it is a public punctuation mark—an exhale of frustration that ripples from the alleys of the Grand Bazaar to kitchen tables in high-rise apartments. On Sunday that hush spread, then fractured into anger, as clashes between protesters and security forces in multiple cities left at least six people dead, according to Iranian state and semi-official outlets.

In Lordegan and Azna, provincial towns nestled in the rugged western highlands, local outlets reported two and three deaths respectively. State television added that a member of security forces was killed overnight in Kouhdasht. For many inside Iran the numbers are both shock and déjà vu—small in scale compared with the nationwide convulsions of 2022, yet fatal and raw enough to risk another lurch toward escalation.

Why People Are Back on the Streets

At the heart of this resurgence are economy-driven grievances: soaring prices, stagnant wages, and a sense that daily survival is getting harder. Shopkeepers in Tehran, who closed their doors in protest, cited prices for basic goods that have outstripped earnings. “The shelves are full, but our customers are gone,” said an anonymous seller of spices near the bazaar’s eastern gate. “What good is a shop if no one can afford to eat?”

The strike that began in the capital quickly bled outward—neighbors, relatives, and commuters closing stores, standing in small groups, demanding relief. These are not the mass, sustained demonstrations that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, but they are meaningful: grassroots, spontaneous, and rooted in material desperation rather than a single flashpoint.

Economic Squeeze, Political Flashpoints

To understand why a sewn shutter can feel like a provocation, look at the broader context. Years of economic contraction, recurrent currency collapses, and international sanctions have eaten into household budgets. Unemployment, especially among young people, remains a chronic problem. While official statistics are often contested, independent observers and regional analysts point to consistently high consumer-price inflation and shrinking real incomes as the stew in which social unrest simmers.

“When economic pressure reaches a certain threshold, people start asking political questions,” said an Iranian political analyst who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. “It’s not just about the price of eggs or petrol; it’s about dignity and choices. Those questions are hard to suppress forever.”

International Tension: “Locked and Loaded” and the “Red Line”

Across the globe, the protests drew immediate geopolitical commentary. U.S. President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social account that the United States was “locked and loaded and ready to go” if Iran “shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom.” The statement was swift and stark—part warning, part declaration of solidarity.

Tehran responded in kind. Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, wrote on X that “Iran’s security is a red line,” warning that any external attempt to attack Iran’s security would be met with a response. The rhetoric on both sides sharpened tensions at a time when both domestic instability and external pressure already sit uncomfortably close to flames.

Voices from the Ground

In a tea shop in a narrow street near Azadi Square, a retired schoolteacher stirred her cup and shook her head. “We have lived under sanctions, and then we were told to be patient while leaders negotiated,” she said. “Patience runs out. The younger ones do not want to repeat the same cycle.”

A protester in Kouhdasht, speaking quietly after clashes had died down, said, “We are tired of being invisible—taxed for everything, protected by no one. We want to live with dignity, and because we shout that, we are criminalized.”

Human-rights advocates note a pattern: small, distributed protests driven by bread-and-butter issues can be especially unnerving for governments because they are harder to isolate and extinguish. “These are not coordinated revolts with a clear leadership,” one rights worker said. “They’re a thousand small decisions to say ‘no’ to doing more with less.”

Reminders from 2022—and the Risk of Repetition

It is impossible to talk about unrest in Iran without mentioning the protests of 2022, triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in custody after her arrest over her dress. That movement spread nationwide and left an indelible mark: estimates of fatalities ranged into the hundreds, with dozens among security forces. The memory of those months—brushing up against a more visible, emboldened civil society—is alive in both the government’s alarm and the protesters’ caution.

Yet the dynamics today differ. The current unrest is smaller and explicitly driven by economic pain rather than a single galvanizing event. And while international statements—overtures of support or threats of intervention—can rally diaspora communities or shift the diplomatic winds, they also risk inflaming nationalist sentiment at home. Many Iranians who disapprove of their government also recoil at the idea of foreign intervention.

What Comes Next?

No one can say for certain whether these strikes and street clashes will grow, stagnate, or fizzle. What is clear is that the conditions that gave rise to popular dissent—economic hardship, constrained freedoms, and generational disillusionment—remain unresolved. And those conditions are not unique to Iran; they are part of a larger global conversation about the social contract in an era of economic polarization.

So I ask you, reader: how should the international community balance moral support for protesters with the dangers of escalating intervention? And at home, how do ordinary citizens reckon with the tension between national sovereignty and universal human rights?

Final Notes: Small Acts, Big Meanings

Back in Tehran, as dusk settled over the city, a solitary shopkeeper re-opened his stall and counted the day’s takings: minimal. He shrugged and smiled—worn, wary, defiant. “We close today, we open tomorrow. We keep working because we must,” he said. “But when enough people are tired of surviving, they will want to live.”

These are not tidy narratives with predictable arcs. They are messy, fragile, and human. They are also reminders that politics often begins over the kitchen table and not in the halls of power. In the thread between shutter and shout, the future is being listened for—one small sound at a time.

Extreme weather disproportionately harms low-income communities, deepening economic and social inequality

hanad

January 2, 2026

Climate extremes disproportionately hit poor communities — 2025 saw devastating conditions across the world, including worsening heatwaves, droughts, storms and wildfires

When the Weather Turns: Lives, Limits and the New Normal of 2025

They call it “just weather” until it becomes the thing you cannot afford to ignore. In 2025, storms, fires, droughts and blistering heat did not simply make headlines — they rewrote the calendars, budgets and futures of millions. From coastal towns shoring up against higher tides to smallholder farmers staring at cracked soil, the year left a bruise on the map of human life. And according to a coalition of climate scientists, the bruise is only getting deeper.

The numbers that won’t let us forget

A new synthesis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) scanned the year’s catastrophes and tallied 157 extreme events that met its humanitarian-impact criteria. Of those, floods and heatwaves led the count at 49 apiece, followed by 38 major storms, 11 wildfires, seven droughts and three cold spells. When researchers dug deeper into 22 of these occurrences, they concluded that 17 were made more severe or more likely because of human-driven climate change; five were inconclusive, often because of patchy data or limits in modelling.

Those numbers sit atop a worrying climatological milestone: the three-year global temperature average is projected to have crossed the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C threshold for the first time. This is not a symbolic crossing. Scientists say sustained warming at or above 1.5°C raises the odds of faster sea-level rise, the unraveling of critical ecosystems and the approach of irreversible “tipping points.” And perhaps most strikingly, this happened even as La Niña conditions — usually associated with cooler global temperatures — were in play.

On the ground: heat, floodwater and ash

Walk the streets of any affected place and the abstractions in reports become people and possessions. In southern Europe, summers baked on a scale that emergency rooms were not prepared for. One WWA-linked study estimates that a single heatwave this year was responsible for around 24,400 deaths across Europe — a number that keeps rising as public-health systems grapple with delayed counts and underreporting.

“My neighbor’s hands were still shaking from the heat when the ambulance came,” says Elena, a volunteer in a coastal Spanish town battered by late-summer flames. “We lost olive trees that have been in my family for generations. The summer tastes like smoke now.”

In Asia and Southeast Asia, a run of tropical cyclones and storms struck simultaneously, claiming more than 1,700 lives and causing billions in damage. Across the Caribbean, Hurricane Melissa carved a path of ruin through Jamaica just weeks before. The rhythm of repair — rebuilding roofs, replacing crops, resettling families — has become a seasonal refrain in many communities.

Droughts stripped whole regions bare. Central Africa, western Australia, central Brazil, parts of Canada and swathes of the Middle East endured some of their driest years on record. Water shortages forced cities to ration taps; fields that once fed markets yielded little more than dust. Wildfire seasons, too, grew longer and harsher: from the Palisades in Los Angeles to scrublands in southern Spain, the likelihood of major blazes was significantly amplified by warmer, drier conditions.

The inequality behind the storm

What these events share is not just climate fingerprints, but human ones. Vulnerable and marginalised communities — the poorest neighborhoods, the remote farmers, people depending on informal economies — consistently bore the worst of the impacts. It is both a moral and practical failure: those least responsible for historical emissions suffer first and worst.

“We are already at the edge of what we can adapt to,” says Dr. Ana Martínez, an adaptation specialist who has worked with rural communities in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. “When you talk about adaptation limits, you are talking about families who have exhausted savings, replaced their seed banks once too often or moved their livelihoods three times in a decade. After that, there are no backstops left to buy them time.”

That vulnerability extends into the science itself. The WWA flagged a striking inequality in data and modelling capacity: there is far less observational data from the Global South, and fewer resources devoted to regionally-appropriate modelling. That gap not only obscures the true toll on these communities, it impedes planning and aid.

“This year we have also seen a slide into climate inaction, and the defunding of important climate information initiatives,” warns Theodore Keeping, a researcher at Imperial College London. “In 2026, every country needs to do more to prepare for the escalating threat of extreme weather and to commit to the swift replacement of fossil fuels and avoid further devastation.”

Voices from the frontline

“You can sense the change in the air,” says Mamadou, a millet farmer in the Sahel. “Rain comes either too early or not at all. Last year we harvested half. My son wants to move to the city. I don’t blame him.”

In a flooded neighborhood outside Jakarta, community organizer Sinta describes a different dimension: “We have weathered storms before, but the scale has grown. It takes us longer to recover, and more people are losing their livelihood. The government pumps water, but the money runs out.”

And in a seaside town in northern Canada, an Inuit elder named Noah looked across a thawed shoreline and said, “When the ice is not the ice we knew, our stories change. The animals move. The foods move. We change with them, but not without cost.”

What now? Choices at the crossroads

WWA’s blunt conclusion returns us to a hard truth: mitigation — cutting planet-warming fossil-fuel emissions — remains the most important policy lever to avoid the deadliest outcomes. But mitigation alone is not sufficient. Adaptation investments, early-warning systems, preservation of data networks, and equitable funding to support communities in the Global South are all urgently required.

Reduce emissions quickly and equitably to slow warming and reduce the frequency of the most extreme events.
Invest in climate information systems, especially in data-poor regions, so warnings reach people in time.
Support adaptation measures that prioritize the most vulnerable — from water infrastructure to social safety nets.

“Each year, the risks of climate change become less hypothetical and more brutal reality,” said Professor Friederike Otto, WWA co-founder. “Decision-makers must face the reality that their continued reliance on fossil fuels is costing lives, billions in economic losses, and causing irreversible damage to communities worldwide.”

Questions to sit with

As an individual, what do you feel responsible for? As a voter or a consumer, which voices do you elevate? As a global community, how do we ensure that those living closest to climate’s consequences are not the last to have the tools to respond?

These are not easy questions. They are the kind that demand policy, money and a change of collective will. They demand that we treat weather not as a series of inconveniences but as a force reshaping where and how people can live.

In the end, the data from 2025 is less a final verdict than a plea: for urgency, for equity, and for imagination. When the world’s thermostat keeps creeping upward, every policy choice is a vote for the kind of world we want our children to inherit. What will yours say?

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