Sep 08(Jowhar)-Ururka Xamaas ayaa sheegay in ay Maraykanka ka heleen hindisayaal loo soo marsiiyay dhexdhexaadiyayaasha oo ku saabsan sidii xabbad joojin looga gaadhi lahaa Qasa.
European leaders travel to U.S. for talks on Ukraine conflict
On a Knife’s Edge: After the Largest Air Raid, Hope for Talks and the Weight of Uncertainty
When Donald Trump stepped off Air Force One and into the glare of New York’s late-summer sun, photographers still had the echo of tennis crowds in their ears — he had been at the US Open. But the mood shifted immediately from sport to war. “Certain European leaders are coming over to our country on Monday or Tuesday individually,” he told reporters, adding that he would soon speak with Vladimir Putin. “The Russia-Ukraine situation, we’re going to get it done,” he said, a blunt promise that landed like a small, unstable raft in a very rough sea.
Those words were part reassurance, part diplomatic preview. Who, exactly, would travel to Washington and why remained unstated. The White House did not immediately clarify. In a world where every handshake and corridor conversation is scanned for meaning, the vagueness is its own message: diplomacy is sprinting and stumbling at the same time.
A night of sirens and smoke
Across Ukraine, the evening after Mr. Trump’s remarks was quieter only in the literal sense — the constant hum of drones, the whump of interceptors, the distant rumble of ordnance. Ukrainian officials described what they called the largest air assault since the full-scale invasion began: a barrage of missiles and drones that left smashed facades, gutted apartments and, by official tallies that night, four dead.
Cities from Zaporizhzhia to Kryvyi Rih and port-washed Odesa reported damage. In Kyiv, flames licked the government building; rescue workers in helmets and orange vests worked to douse hotspots while residents wrapped in quilts and blankets clustered on sidewalks, like a small, tired flock counting what remained.
“We woke up to a flash, like a firefly that turned malignant,” said Iryna, a teacher who stood on a block strewn with glass. “The kids are asking if the world will end. I tell them no, but I am not sure I believe it.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking in his evening address, voiced a plea that was both political and primal: “It is important that there is a broad response from partners to this attack,” he said. “We are counting on a strong response from America. That is what is needed.” The request echoed across Kyiv and along the lines where soldiers and volunteers watch for the next shadow in the sky.
The human arithmetic behind the headlines
Four deaths were the immediate, tragic count. The stories that fill the margins are the slow-burn ones: relatives piecing together where a family member slept that night; an elderly man who refuses to leave his block because the bread shop two doors down has his “lucky” patronage; a volunteer driver who has moved more bodies to safety than friends can name.
Since the conflict’s escalation in 2022, the human toll has been staggering: millions displaced, towns hollowed out, and economies bent to war-time shapes. Exact numbers shift with each report, but the unmistakable pattern is one of sustained civilian suffering. Aid convoys—small bridges of relief—try to thread through the ruins. They are an imperfect solution to an immense problem.
- Immediate casualties: Authorities reported four fatalities in the recent barrage.
- Regions impacted: Assaults were reported in Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
- Humanitarian picture: Millions displaced and sustained civilian infrastructure damage since 2022 have compounded hardship.
Washington’s calculus: sanctions, diplomacy and the heavy leash of geopolitics
Back in Washington, Mr. Trump’s language toggled between frustration and optimism. “I’m not happy” about the state of the war, he admitted. Yet he also said he was prepared to move to a “second phase” of sanctions on Russia — the clearest indication yet that his administration would consider escalating economic pressure.
What a “second phase” looks like was not spelled out. Sanctions can mean a spectrum: targeted freezes of assets, bans on technology exports, or broad restrictions on energy and finance that ripple through global markets. Each choice carries risks: political, economic, and humanitarian. The world remembers previous rounds of sanctions that battered economies but did not always change leaders’ calculations.
“Sanctions are a tool, not a silver bullet,” said an unnamed European diplomat waiting to board a plane. “They must be timed, coordinated, and big enough to bite—but not so broad they close the window for dialogue.”
There is a geopolitical backdrop that complicates the arithmetic. Russia has deepened ties with China, creating new economic and political buffers. For Moscow, that partnership offers alternative markets and diplomatic cover; for Kyiv and its backers, it narrows options. NATO states have reinforced political and material support, and billions in military and humanitarian aid have flowed into Ukraine since early 2022—a fact that both steadies and strains alliances.
Allies’ positions and the thorny subject of boots on the ground
European capitals issued swift condemnations of the latest attack and pledged continued support. But when the conversation turns to troops, the rhetoric grows cautious. The prospect of foreign soldiers operating inside Ukraine remains a red line for many governments wary of a direct military confrontation with Russia.
“We will bolster Ukraine’s ability to defend itself,” one European foreign ministry official said, “but that doesn’t mean we are ready to send a brigade over the border. There are limits to what public opinion will stomach, and limits to the calculus of escalation.”
Every head of state who considers a trip to Washington, every minister who drafts a statement, is wrestling with this same tension: stand firm and risk widening the war, or step back and risk Kyiv losing vital allies at a decisive moment.
What to watch next — choices that matter
In the coming days, there are three things to watch closely:
- Which European leaders meet Washington and what commitments they coordinate.
- Whether the United States follows through with a defined “second phase” of sanctions and what those measures target.
- How Ukraine’s civilian and military resilience evolves in the face of targeted strikes and ongoing supply challenges.
These are not abstract items for policy wonks; they shape the daily life of people in Kyiv, Odesa and countless other places—who wake to sirens, relearn the route to the nearest shelter and measure hope in the arrival of a delivery truck carrying generators or medicine.
Why this matters to you
Beyond the borders of Eastern Europe, this conflict tests the scaffolding of international order: alliances, trade, energy security, and the rules that try to limit war’s reach. It forces nations and citizens to answer uncomfortable questions about intervention, sovereignty and the global appetite for risk.
What do we, as a global community, owe to those living under the shadow of daily bombardment? How do we balance the moral imperative to act with the practical limits of geopolitics? These are questions that echo in the quiet rooms of displaced families and the marbled halls of diplomacy alike.
As you read these words, consider this: decisions being shaped behind closed doors in capitals and airplanes will ripple outward into streets where people wash shards of glass from their doorsteps and try to coax normalcy back into a coffee cup. The path from policy note to human consequence is short—far shorter than many of us imagine. What kind of world are we willing to create, and what are we prepared to do to protect it?
Trump threatens trade probe after calling Google ruling unjust
When Regulators and Presidents Clash: The Google Fine That Echoed From Brussels to Washington
There are moments when a line on a page—an official notice, a terse legal order—becomes a story that ripples through boardrooms, backrooms and breakfast tables across continents. This was one of those moments: Brussels had just told Alphabet’s Google that its ad-technology practices crossed a line, slapped a nearly €3 billion fine on the company and demanded an end to what it called “self-preferencing.” Within hours, the dispute had moved from legal briefs to diplomatic posturing, and from the ears of publishers to the feed of the U.S. president.
The European Commission’s decision to levy a €2.95 billion penalty marked another chapter in a decade-long tug-of-war between the EU and one of Silicon Valley’s largest players. It accused Google of skewing the market in its favour—tilting auctions, advantaging its own tools and crowding out rivals and independent publishers. The Commission gave Google 60 days to outline how it would comply, and left the door open to structural remedies, including possible divestments.
A signal and a warning
“Digital markets exist to serve people,” an EU official told me in Brussels, speaking on condition of anonymity. “When platforms become gatekeepers and games are rigged, public institutions have to act.”
For many in Europe’s publishing sector, the decision came as vindication. In a dimly lit café near the Commission’s roundabout, a small publisher from Lisbon—who asked to be identified only as Ana—told me, “We lost out for years. Our ad revenue is the thin bread on which our newsroom survives. If someone at the top is playing for themselves, that’s not competition. That’s theft.”
She is not alone. The complaint that triggered the investigation came from the European Publishers Council, a group representing newspapers and magazines worried about how programmatic ad markets shifted revenues away from traditional local media. Across the continent, publishers have watched market share of ad tech aggregate into a few hands, and the conversation shifted from irritation to alarm.
Washington reacts
Across the Atlantic, reaction was immediate and pointed. U.S. President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform to excoriate the ruling, framing it as an assault on “American ingenuity.” He warned of retaliation, invoking Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974—a powerful tool the United States has used in the past to impose tariffs in trade disputes.
“We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American ingenuity,” he wrote. “If it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these taxpaying American companies.”
The tweet-readers in Brussels and Washington both understood the subtext: this was not only about ad tech. It was about the geopolitical leverage of tech giants, the instruments of trade policy, and the delicate choreography of U.S.–EU relations.
Google’s stance
Google responded swiftly, vowing to challenge the decision in court. “The European Commission’s decision about our ad tech services is wrong and we will appeal,” a company representative said. “It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money. There’s nothing anticompetitive in offering services for buyers and sellers, and alternatives to our tools are more numerous than ever.”
That defense will land in a courtroom sooner or later. It is a familiar playbook—argue that proprietary integration is efficient and benefits consumers, and that any remedy risks fragmentation of a smoothly functioning digital economy. But regulators counter that what looks like convenience to users can mask systemic barriers for competitors.
Why the fine matters
The financial muscle of the penalty—€2.95 billion—is substantial, but not unprecedented. It joins a string of past EU sanctions against Google: €2.42 billion in 2017, €4.34 billion in 2018, and €1.49 billion in 2019. Those earlier cases touched search shopping, Android, and search advertising respectively. What makes this latest ruling noteworthy is less the size of the fine than the Commission’s demand that Google change the architecture of its business.
- 2017: €2.42 billion (shopping services)
- 2018: €4.34 billion (Android)
- 2019: €1.49 billion (search advertising)
- 2024/25: €2.95 billion (ad tech self-preferencing)
The regulator’s preliminary view that a divestment might be necessary signals a willingness to go beyond mere financial punishment toward structural fixes. It’s a stance that asks a broader question: when tech platforms are both platforms and players in the same marketplace, can markets remain fair?
On the ground: publishers, advertisers and the human cost
Walk into any newsroom in Europe and you will find a mosaic of anxiety, stubborn optimism, and old-fashioned tenacity. “Every ad euro we lose is an hour of investigation we can’t fund,” said Tomas, editor of a regional paper in Poland. “The more power the intermediaries have, the less we can do real journalism.”
For advertisers, the picture is mixed. Some welcome stricter rules as a way to increase transparency and reduce the layers between budget and audience. Others worry that forced unbundling might fragment supply chains, raise costs, and complicate campaign planning.
“We want trust and clarity,” said Petra Müller, head of digital buying at a Berlin agency. “If platforms are making both the rules and the game, transparency becomes impossible. But we’re also worried that sudden changes could disrupt campaigns and metrics we rely on.”
A window onto bigger debates
This dispute is also a prism through which to view larger global trends. Governments are increasingly comfortable challenging big tech power—Europe through regulation and litigation, the U.S. through trade levers and domestic probes. The result is a patchwork of rules and threats that could reshape global markets. Do we want global digital commons governed by rules that protect competition—even if those rules ruffle national champions? Or a laissez-faire digital order where market concentration is “corrected” by winners and losers?
Ask yourself: should a platform be allowed to run the marketplace and be the largest seller within it? And if answers differ between economies, what happens to global digital commerce?
What happens next
Google has 60 days to present a compliance plan. If regulators deem it insufficient, stronger remedies—including divestment—could follow. And if Washington pursues a Section 301 investigation, the matter could escalate into a broader trade spat between allies.
“This is a test of transatlantic trust,” said a trade analyst in London. “If a domestic trade response emerges, it will recalibrate how the EU regulates tech companies headquartered outside its borders—and how the U.S. protects its digital champions.”
Closing thoughts
The headline is about a fine. The deeper story is about power—who holds it, who checks it, and who pays for its consequences. For the small publisher in that Brussels café, for the advertising executive in Berlin, and for the policymaker pacing in Brussels’ corridors, this case is a pivot point.
It asks whether modern democracies can shape the destiny of digital markets before those markets reshape us. It asks whether law and policy can keep pace with technology without turning into protectionist blunt instruments. And it asks us, the readers and consumers, to consider what kind of marketplace—and what kind of public square—we want in the digital age.
China’s military parade: Do goose steps herald a new world order?
When Parades Become Proclamations: Beijing, Bluster and the New Geopolitical Dance
Walk through central Beijing the morning after the spectacle and you will find more than confetti in the gutters. There are conversations—sharp, curious, sometimes frightened—about what the footage meant, and what it will mean for the rest of the world.
At a street stall near Qianmen, an elderly tea vendor named Mrs. Zhang sips a steaming cup and watches a looped clip of the parade on a tiny phone. “They made it look eternal,” she says, fingers stained with tea, eyes on the screen. “But power is like tea—boiling now, cooling later. Nothing stays hot forever.”
That image—the theatrical projection of state power, set against tableaux of intercontinental missiles, synchronized troops, and sleek new weapons—wasn’t just domestic pageantry. It was a diplomatic broadcast, a message to audiences at home and abroad: that the axis of influence in global affairs is shifting, and fast.
Flags, Formations and the New Coalition
In Tianjin, not far from Beijing, leaders and delegations shuffled through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit with a mixture of frank commerce and theatrical solidarity. Once dismissed as a sleepy, regional forum, the SCO now brings together a constellation of states that collectively wield serious economic and demographic weight.
Analysts estimate SCO members are responsible for roughly 30% of global GDP and together account for a sizable share of the world’s population—figures that matter in an era when geopolitical muscle increasingly follows economic heft. That numerical reality is part of why the gathering felt like more than a meet-and-greet: it was an attempt to knit alternative institutions and norms to the fabric of global governance.
“This is the attempt to show that multilateralism need not look a certain way,” says Dr. Amina Rahman, a political economist who has studied rising regional coalitions. “When powers like China and India move in concert—even if imperfectly—the calculus for Washington, Brussels and Tokyo changes.”
Not a Monolith, but Not a Sideshow
Make no mistake: the forces on display are not a lockstep alliance of identical aims. New Delhi’s handshake with Moscow—warm in photographs but transactional under the surface—illustrates that point. India buys Russian oil and refuses to be boxed entirely into any one camp. Pakistan, Central Asian republics and even some African and Middle Eastern partners watch with a mixture of interest and wariness.
“We are trading partners, not foot soldiers of anyone’s court,” says a senior Indian diplomat who asked not to be named. “Countries pursue their national interests—sometimes the map looks like alignment, sometimes like coincidence.”
Rhetoric, Reality and the Rules of the Game
Words weigh heavy in this moment. In speeches and policy papers, the language has shifted away from abstract liberal universalism toward “sovereignty,” “development cooperation,” and “non-interference”—phrases that ring differently depending on whether you sit in a small island state or a capitals’ defensive planning room.
China’s leader framed his vision as a call for a “reformed UN” and a multipolar world where the powerful institutions better represent a world that no longer mirrors the post-1945 architecture. He spoke of “rejuvenation” and warned against the “law of the jungle.”
Behind the rhetoric, Beijing has been busy building alternatives: the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and a steady roll of trade deals. The aim is clear—create pathways for influence that don’t run through Washington, London, or Brussels.
But the Old Order Didn’t Retreat Without Leaving Scars
Washington’s recent turn inward—withdrawals from the Human Rights Council, reduced engagement with some multilateral bodies and a rip-and-restore approach to alliances—has left gaps. In practical terms, the U.S. remains an economic titan and security guarantor, but its selective embrace of international rules has created credibility costs in some quarters.
“If you pick and choose the rules, others will too,” notes Marco Bellini, a Brussels-based analyst. “We are already seeing a world where norms are contested and alliances are malleable.”
Between Conspiracy and Convenience: What These Partnerships Mean
It would be tempting—and comforting—to simplify the new arrangement as a neatly defined bloc poised to replace the U.S.-led system. The truth is messier. There are partnerships of convenience, points of friction and divergent long-term visions. Russia, China, North Korea: a tableau of mutual interests but also mutual suspicions.
“There is a lot of theatre,” says Dr. Mei Lin, a historian in Beijing. “But there are also real transfers of technology, trade flows and security cooperation that underpin those scenes. That is what policymakers really look at.”
Consider the case of dual-use technology transfers and energy purchases: these are not romance—they are lifelines. Russian oil sales help keep Moscow’s economy afloat; China’s purchases and shipments feed industries and military modernization. These ties complicate the calculus for European policymakers scrambling to reconcile values with strategic realities.
Local Color, Global Consequences
In Vladivostok, a ferry captain mutters about shipping routes and fuel costs more than ideology. “We sell what they buy,” he says. “Politics changes, but ships still need bunkers. People still need to eat.”
On the other side of the map, a market vendor in Karachi worries about loans and infrastructure projects jammed with strings. “They build roads,” she says. “But who owns the tolls later?”
So What Should Europe—and the Rest of Us—Do?
Europe is at a crossroads. Some leaders call for strategic autonomy: investing in defence, creating resilient supply chains, and speaking with one voice on trade and human rights. Others urge caution, reminding us that raw geopolitical rivalry will reshape economies and livelihoods in ways that hit ordinary people hardest.
“If Europe wants to be a moral and geopolitical actor, it has to be consistent,” says Kaja Müller, a policy adviser in Brussels. “You cannot credibly call for rules-based order while appearing to apply double standards.”
And the wider question hangs in the air: what kind of world do we want? One where might makes rules, or one where multilateral institutions—reformed, inclusive and effective—mediate conflicts and distribute opportunities?
Ask yourself: do you want global governance run like a club with exclusive membership, or like a city square where different voices are heard and negotiated? The answer will shape the next decades of trade, security, technology and human rights.
Closing, for Now
The banners will come down, the missiles will be returned to hangars, and the footage will feed endless commentary. But beneath the visuals, deep and durable shifts are quietly unfolding—trade lines being rerouted, institutions reimagined, and alliances that are sometimes adhesive, sometimes brittle.
History will have the final say about whether this week marked the beginning of a new, stable order or simply a particularly vivid episode in an ongoing struggle for influence. For now, citizens and leaders alike must navigate a world that refuses simple binaries—where theatre and transaction, symbolism and strategy, collide on the same stage.
How are you reading the signals? And more importantly, how will your country answer the questions being asked in capitals from Beijing to Brussels?
Villa Somaliya oo war kasoo saartay safarka madaxweyne Xasan uu ku tahay Addis ababa
Sep 07(Jowhar)-Madaxwaynaha Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya Mudane Dr. Xasan Sheekh Maxamuud ayaa soo gaaray magaalada Addis Ababa ee caasimadda dalka Itoobiya halkaas oo uu kaga qaybgali doono Meertada Labaad ee Shirka Cimilada Afrika.
Duqa Muqdisho oo furaay Waddada “ VIA MOSCOW”
Sep 07(Jowhar)-Guddoomiyaha Gobolka Banaadir ahna Duqa Magaalada Muqdisho, Dr. Xasan Maxamed Xuseen (Muungaab), ayaa maanta xarigga ka jaray wadada dib loo dhisay ee VIA Moskow, taas oo isku xirta buundooyinka degmooyinka Xamar Jajab iyo Waaberi.
Pope names first millennial saint, hailed as “God’s influencer”
Under the shadow of St. Peter’s dome: a new kind of saint for a wired world
On a clear Roman morning, St. Peter’s Square felt more like a global village than the centre of a city. Flags from distant parishes fluttered beside backpacks, teenagers with earbuds threaded under their scarves stood shoulder to shoulder with nuns in habits older than the century. The Vatican estimated roughly 80,000 people had come to witness what many described as a hinge moment between ancient ritual and contemporary life: the canonisation of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati.
The scene was all texture—tapestries unfurled across the basilica’s façade, papal banners catching the breeze, the smell of roasting chestnuts from nearby vendors mixing with incense. Smartphones lifted in unison produced a soft constellation of screens. English, Spanish, Tagalog, Italian, Portuguese and Polish stitched the air into a dozen conversations. “It felt like every continent had a seat in that piazza,” said Maria Lopez, a pilgrim from Colombia. “I came for the moment, but I stay for the people.”
“God’s Influencer”: a teenager in jeans and trainers
Carlo Acutis is not the sort of saint most art historians would have painted. Born in London in 1991 to Italian parents and raised in Milan, he died at 15 in 2006 after a brief battle with leukaemia. Yet his preserved body—dressed in jeans and Nike trainers—lies in a glass-walled tomb in Assisi and has become a destination for nearly one million pilgrims in the last year alone, according to the local diocese.
“Carlo was a normal teenager,” said Antonia Salzano, his mother, speaking quietly after the Mass. “He loved football. He loved computer games. But he loved the Eucharist more than anything. He believed that holiness is for everyone.”
Where older models of sainthood were forged in monasteries or on battlefields, Acutis built his devotion at a keyboard. A self-taught coder, he documented Eucharistic miracles online and taught friends how to merge their digital talents with their spiritual lives. That blending earned him the nickname that trailed in news reports and social feeds: “God’s Influencer.” Whether you find that label charming or jarring, it carries a simple truth—the Church is acknowledging that sanctity can be cultivated within the architecture of contemporary culture.
Miracles, the paperwork of heaven
Canonisation is not folkloric adoration: it is a painstaking process of investigation that, in modern practice, typically looks for two verified miracles attributed to the candidate’s intercession. For Acutis, Vatican investigators recorded two recoveries that doctors could not fully explain: firstly, the healing of a young Brazilian child born with a rare pancreatic malformation; secondly, the recovery of a Costa Rican student who survived serious injuries after an accident. In both cases, family members said they prayed to Carlo.
- Miracle 1: Brazilian child with pancreatic malformation (healing attributed to Acutis)
- Miracle 2: Costa Rican student, serious injuries reversed (also attributed)
“Science and faith are not enemies,” said Father Marco Bernini, a Vatican official involved with the cause. “The Church’s tribunals examine medical records, call experts, and weigh testimony. When doctors say there is no medical explanation, the Church acknowledges what the people of faith have experienced.”
Pier Giorgio Frassati: the mountaineer of charity
The other figure today lifted to the altars was Pier Giorgio Frassati, an earlier kind of youthful luminary. Born in 1901 and dying in 1925 of poliomyelitis at age 24, Frassati was an engineering student who spent weekends climbing the Alps and weekdays caring for the poor of Turin. His life—equal parts risk on the rock faces and risk for the destitute—has long been a touchstone for young Catholics drawn to action as prayer.
“Pier Giorgio taught that joy and service are bedfellows,” said Sister Lucia Pellegrino, who runs a shelter in Turin inspired by Frassati’s example. “He was irreverent, and he was real. That is why young people still come to him.”
For Frassati, the second miracle needed for sainthood was recognised in 2024: the unexplained healing of a young American man who had been in a coma. With that recognition, the path was clear for today’s elevation.
What this moment says about youth, faith and the internet
Look closer and you’ll see patterns that explain why two young men—one a mountaineer, one a coder—were chosen now. Nearly 1.3 billion people identify as Catholic worldwide. Yet the Church, like many long-standing institutions, is wrestling with how to retain the attention of a generation whose attention is fragmented across apps, global crises and rising secularism. Carlo’s story answers an anxious question: Can holiness be visible in the lived, messy middle of everyday modern life?
“I told my friends about Carlo on Instagram,” said Eleanor Hauser, a 15-year-old American on a school trip. “They laughed—then they Googled him. That’s how it works now. Faith travels through networks as much as it does through catechism books.”
Experts point out that this is not merely a PR move. “Canonising younger models is a pastoral strategy and a theological statement,” said Dr. Emiliano Rossi, a theologian at the Gregorian University. “It signals to youth that sanctity is not the exclusive domain of elders or monks; it can be lived in school corridors, soccer pitches, and online forums.”
Faces in the crowd: local color and human stories
There were simple, human moments that the cameras missed. A vendor from Trastevere joked about the spike in sales of rosaries and espresso. A retired teacher from Poland sobbed quietly as she displayed a battered photo of Carlo clipped to a rosary she’d carried for years. Young Italians compared pilgrimage routes to hiking maps—Assisi versus Rome—while a Brazilian mother traced the name of the child healed by Carlo’s intercession on her palm.
“He’s not a statue to me,” said Filippo Bellaviti, 17, who came from Milan. “He’s someone who shows faith can fit inside homework and football practice. That’s hopeful.”
Beyond the rituals: questions to take home
Standing beneath tapestries that showed both young saints, one felt the pull of larger questions: What does holiness look like in an age of screens, algorithms, and global churn? How do communities form meaning today, and who gets to be a model? The canonisation of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati asks us to expand our imagination of virtue—toward courage, yes, but also toward creativity, compassion, and the courage to be ordinary and extraordinary at once.
Are saints suddenly more relatable because they wore jeans or scaled mountains? Or is this a deeper call—to see divine possibility in skills and passions we might otherwise consign to the mundane? As you read this, somewhere someone is livestreaming a Mass, teaching a prayer on TikTok, or knitting a scarf for a stranger. Small acts. Big faith.
Whether you stand within Rome’s cobblestoned squares or watch the ceremony from a living room halfway across the world, the message reverberates: sanctity adapts to culture, but it never loses its essentials. It asks for kindness. It asks for courage. And, increasingly, it asks us to notice where the sacred and the secular quietly intersect.
UN: Wildfires are brewing a toxic cocktail of air pollution
When the sky goes on a journey
Some mornings the light in my city turned the color of steeped tea. The sun rose, but it wasn’t warm—it was filtered through a haze that made faces softer and thoughts narrower. Children in schoolyards coughed; laundry dried with a faint film of soot that flaked off onto the balcony rail.
We were not living next to a factory or a coal plant. The smoke, when traced back, came from places thousands of kilometres away: fires in boreal forests, peat burning in tropical basins, farmers setting fields alight after harvest.
That is the unnerving truth the World Meteorological Organization laid out this year in its fifth Air Quality and Climate Bulletin: air pollution does not respect borders. When wildfires ignite, they create a moving, complex cloud of particles and gases that can travel across continents, changing the air you breathe in ways that are immediate and dangerous.
A witches’ brew on the winds
Wildfire smoke is not a single ingredient. It is a shifting cocktail of soot, organic carbon, volatile organic compounds and chemical fragments that react in the atmosphere. Scientists call many of these particles “aerosols.” Some reflect sunlight; some absorb it. Some seed clouds; others accelerate melting on distant glaciers when dark carbon settles on snow.
“What leaves the pyre is a witches’ brew,” said Lorenzo Labrador, a WMO scientific officer who coordinated this year’s bulletin. “Those components can travel, mix, age, and then arrive in valleys and cities hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.”
The most dangerous of those particles are PM2.5—particulate matter finer than 2.5 micrometres. They slip past the body’s defenses, embedding deep in lungs and entering the bloodstream. The World Health Organization links outdoor air pollution to more than 4.5 million premature deaths each year. The 2021 WHO air quality guideline now recommends an annual PM2.5 exposure of 5 micrograms per cubic metre or less—levels most of the world still struggles to meet.
Where the numbers spiked in 2024
The WMO bulletin mapped places where wildfire seasons pushed PM2.5 above seasonal norms in 2024: Canada’s forests, Russia’s Siberia, pockets of central Africa—and most dramatically, the Amazon basin. Smoke episodes from Canada even left a fingerprint on European air quality in certain meteorological setups. The message is blunt: a fire that ignites in one hemisphere can darken skies in another.
Voices from the frontlines
“We wake up and our throats are raw. My grandson’s asthma has become worse during these months,” said Rita Singh, 62, who farms rice and wheat in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. She described mornings when a persistent fog sits low over the fields, not merely a seasonal mist but a pall augmented by burning crop residue and household smoke.
On the other side of the globe, Aleksandr Petrov, a volunteer firefighter in Siberia, recalled hands blistered by heat and lungs made sore by ash. “You carry a smell with you for days,” he said. “Even in the village house, the curtains smell of smoke. We know the forests will grow back. The people do not have that patience.”
Dr. Maya Chen, an air-quality researcher at a university in Singapore, explained the science in plain terms: “When you have prolonged heat and drought—driven by climate change—fuels dry out. Fires are bigger, they burn hotter and longer, and they loft particles much higher into the atmosphere where winds can take them far.”
The human and economic toll
Air pollution is more than an abstract statistic. It is missed school and work days; it is births complicated by maternal exposure; it is harvests shorn by reduced sunlight and crops coated in ash. The economic ripples are enormous—lost wages, extra healthcare costs, and reduced labor productivity. Global assessments suggest the welfare and productivity losses from air pollution run into the hundreds of billions annually, if not more.
On the Indo-Gangetic Plain, where over 900 million people live, winter fog episodes laced with PM2.5 are becoming longer and more persistent—partly because millions of tonnes of agricultural residue are burned each year. “This fog is no longer just weather,” the WMO warned. “It is a symptom.”
What works—and why isolated fixes aren’t enough
The story is not all bleak. Eastern China, for instance, has seen sustained declines in PM2.5 in recent years thanks to a mix of regulations, cleaner fuels, and industrial controls. Paolo Laj, the WMO’s global atmosphere chief, pointed out that when countries commit to air quality strategies, the atmosphere records the change.
“Take a decade-long view,” Laj said. “Cities that regulate, switch to cleaner heating, and invest in monitoring see tangible improvements.”
Yet there is no single silver bullet. Switching to electric cars helps in urban centres, but it doesn’t stop a wildfire on a distant continent from pushing PM2.5 into your city. Cutting coal is necessary for climate and local pollution, but massive wildfire seasons—aggravated by heat and drought—require land management, firefighting investment, and cross-border cooperation.
Practical levers for change
- Build dense monitoring networks—satellite data helps, but ground stations capture the health-relevant details.
- Reduce routine agricultural burning by offering alternatives—mechanization, incentivized residue management, and market-based disposal.
- Strengthen early warning and air-quality alerts so schools can plan recess and cities can limit outdoor exposure during peaks.
- Address black carbon specifically—reducing short-lived climate pollutants protects both health and ice sheets.
- Invest in community health responses—clean cookstoves, masks distribution during peaks, and access to care.
Beyond borders: why this should matter to everyone
Ask yourself: what is the value of a blue sky? To many of us, it is aesthetic. To billions, it is life. This is a global issue because climate change lengthens fire seasons and makes extreme heat and drought more likely. It is a public health issue because PM2.5 is a silent killer. It is a social justice issue because the burden falls hardest on those who can least afford air purifiers and healthcare—children, outdoor workers, older adults and low-income communities.
There are moral and practical reasons for nations to cooperate more deeply. A soot-laden plume drifting from Canada across the Atlantic is a reminder that our atmospheric commons needs stewardship as much as any river or ocean.
Where we go from here
Somewhere between the farmer burning stubble to clear a field and the policymaker drafting emissions rules, there is an opportunity for new thinking—and for old habits to be reframed. Technology can help. Better weather forecasting, coupled with targeted advisories and international data sharing, can limit harm. Financial tools can smooth transitions for farmers and support reforestation rather than repeated combustion.
“We have examples where policy works,” Dr. Chen said. “Now we need scale and political will. People notice when the air clears; they demand action. That is how change happens.”
So what will you do when the sky turns brown where you live? Will you ask your leaders whether their air-quality plans consider distant fires as well as local emissions? Will communities push for incentives that keep fields from burning and invest in early-warning systems? The air is a daily commons—it carries our breath, our business, our future. Treating it as such may be the most practical form of solidarity we can muster.
Reform UK’s momentum keeps building, as support continues to rise
Theatrics at the NEC: Politics as Prime-Time
On a damp Birmingham morning, the National Exhibition Centre—the glass-and-concrete cathedral for conferences of every stripe—was buzzing like a festival ground rather than a political assembly.
Stalls hawked turquoise jerseys, enamel badges and glossy leaflets while conference-goers queued for coffee beneath banners that unfurled the party slogan in bold type: Make Britain Great Again. Sparks of staged pyrotechnics and strobe lights threw the hall into moments of wrestling-arena drama as speakers strode onstage to pulse-pounding music.
Jeremy Kyle, known to many as a television provocateur, prowled the aisles in the new role of roving reporter, his microphone prodding delegates and party heavies alike. He was one of the weekend’s most literal reminders that this was as much a media event as a policy convention—a show designed to be filmed, clipped and shared.
Song, Sequins and a Singing Mayor
There were lighter, stranger moments too. Andrea Jenkyns—recently elected Mayor of Lincolnshire—took the stage in a glittering sequin jumpsuit and sang a song called “Insomnia,” which she co-wrote two decades ago. Not everyone in the crowd rose to their feet in applause for the vocal performance, but the sight of a local mayor closing a political conference with a rendition of the national anthem felt like a deliberate recalibration of how politics can be staged.
“It was bonkers,” said one delegate, an exhausted but smiling man from Stoke. “You come for speeches, you get a pop concert and a singalong. That’s politics now—if you can’t get people’s attention, you’re not speaking to them.”
Showmanship Meets Messaging
If there was a theme to the weekend, it was that Reform UK has embraced spectacle as a tool. The turquoise jerseys—selling briskly—were intentional theater: a visual shorthand that recalled the red MAGA caps of America’s populist moment. It was an aesthetic choice with a political message; style here is policy-adjacent.
“It’s about creating an identity,” a campaign strategist said, asking not to be named. “You make a brand people can wear, and they do your thinking for you on the train home.”
Discipline, Discord and a Return to the Fold
But underneath the glitter, the conference also exposed the cleavage between brand and governance. Party leader Nigel Farage used his closing speech to remind members that, for all the razzmatazz, discipline matters. It was a pointed note after a year in which the party weathered public rows with former insiders—most memorably a fallout with ex-chair Zia Yusuf and public spats that spilled onto social media.
Mr Yusuf, who had publicly criticized a parliamentary intervention by the party’s Sarah Pochin, later returned to take a leading policy role. The episode, observers say, is emblematic of a party still trying to reconcile insurgent energy with the day-to-day business of political management.
“You can’t run a movement like a band,” a former local councillor grumbled. “At some point someone has to do the boring, hard graft of policy and compromise. Otherwise it’s just noise.”
Policy, Promises and the Limits of Spectacle
The weekend also revived controversial policy headlines. The party’s pledge to deport up to 600,000 asylum seekers—an idea that would require leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, its backers say—remains a flashpoint. Critics point out that the ECHR is a core element of the Good Friday Agreement: removing the UK from the convention would have implications for peace arrangements in Northern Ireland and require complex renegotiation.
“Sovereignty talk without logistics is fantasy,” said Dr. Amina Hassan, a lecturer in international law. “Rights conventions are enmeshed in treaties across borders. You can’t just sign out of one document and expect the rest of the architecture to stand unscathed.”
When questioned, Mr Farage insisted the policy was workable, arguing the ECHR clause had been “tacked on” and would not derail peace accords. Opponents retorted that such assurance underestimates legal pathways, diplomatic consequences, and the practicalities of mass removals.
Immigration, Welfare and Fractured Lines
Inside the conference, voices were not monolithic. Sarah Pochin, one of the party’s MPs, told reporters she personally favors a policy that would limit access to benefits and NHS care for recent arrivals—a stance she acknowledged was not yet party doctrine. “If we’re serious about fairness, you have to start with residency,” she said in a conversation clearly meant for cameras.
These internal debates are signs of a party still constructing its playbook: bold headlines on the one hand, messy debates on the practical mechanics on the other.
Momentum, Money and the Lobbyists
Attendees noted an unusually robust presence of lobbyists and former Conservative operatives. “You wouldn’t see this at the Lib Dems,” one veteran of dozens of conferences observed. It’s a telling barometer: where money and influence shadow an event, people infer electability.
Some polls have suggested that Reform UK has been polling strongly in recent months—often cited figures place the party around 30% in certain national surveys since last year’s local elections—prompting nervous glances from Westminster. Whether that momentum can be sustained, and whether it translates into the concentrated support needed to form a government, are open questions.
Defections, Alliances and the Long Chess Game
High-profile defections—such as former Conservative ministers and aides flirting with the party—feed fears that Reform could become a de facto home for disaffected Tories. Nadine Dorries’ recent move and the presence of people like Jacob Rees-Mogg at fringe events underline a porous political landscape. “Politics is about coalitions,” the Rees-Moggs’ presence seemed to declare to anyone willing to read it.
But there is a paradox: absorbing more mainstream defectors risks diluting the insurgent identity that fuels Reform’s energy. If the party becomes seen merely as an offshoot of the Conservatives, it may lose its distinct appeal.
What Does This Mean for Britain—and for Us?
At the NEC, there was an unquestionable verve. Thousands left with new jerseys, brochures and a sense that they had witnessed something consequential. Yet spectacle is not governance. Glitter doesn’t draft legislation. Singalongs don’t negotiate treaties.
So ask yourself: are you drawn to politics that entertains or politics that deliberates? Is it comfort or competence you want in the places where policy meets people’s lives?
As Britain heads toward future elections, this conference may be remembered as the moment Reform UK graduated from insurgent movement to institutional contender. Or it may be seen as a high-water mark of performance politics—a clever, combustible mix of image, anger and improvisation that peaks before the hard reality of administration arrives.
“Momentum is fragile,” a campaign analyst said as the lights came down. “You can ride a wave of discontent—and sometimes that’s enough. But waves crash, and then you have to build a harbor.”
For now, the turquoise jerseys will take their place in cupboards across the country. The bigger questions—about policy coherence, international obligations, and the trade-offs between theatricality and governance—remain unresolved. And that uncertainty is where the real story lies.
Russian strikes on Ukraine kill three, including a child
Smoke over Pecherskyi: A Morning When the City Held Its Breath
When dawn broke over Kyiv, the skyline was not the familiar silhouette of cupolas and cranes but a ribbon of smoke stitching itself into the pale sky. It rose from the heart of the city — the government quarter in Pecherskyi — and from residential blocks far from the gilded domes, where ordinary life had been abruptly interrupted by an overnight barrage of drones and missiles.
Three people were killed, officials said: an infant, a young woman, and an elderly woman sheltering in the Darnytskyi district on the east bank of the Dnipro. Eighteen others were wounded, and scores of buildings — apartments, high-rises and the very seat of municipal power — smoldered or bore the jagged scars of impact.
A child among the casualties
“An entire family’s life collapsed in the span of a few minutes,” said a woman who declined to give her name, standing outside a temporary aid station where volunteers wrapped blankets around survivors. “There was a baby. A life that hadn’t even begun. How do you sleep after that happens?”
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote on Telegram that a fire had broken out at the government building in the city centre after an attack that began with drones and was followed by missile strikes. Reuters journalists and witnesses saw thick black smoke billowing from the building in the Pecherskyi district, the smoke threading across the city as if to remind everyone below of the fragility of normalcy.
Neighborhoods scarred: Pecherskyi, Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi
In Darnytskyi, state emergency officials described a residential building where two of its four stories were on fire and structural parts had been destroyed. In the western Sviatoshynskyi district, several floors of a nine-storey residential block were partially collapsed. Drone debris, they said, set further fires in a 16-storey building and in two more nine-storey apartments.
“The walls have been blackened, but the worst is the silence of the neighbours who no longer answer their doors,” said Ihor, a shopkeeper from Sviatoshynskyi who spent the morning salvaging what he could from his store. “You don’t plan for this. You never imagine your life will be split between ‘before’ and ‘after’ like a seam ripped open.”
Scenes from the city
Photos circulating from emergency services showed facades crumbled, stairwells exposed to the sky and smoke pouring out of shattered windows — images that mirror, in hundreds of cities across Ukraine, the human cost of modern, urban warfare. Fire crews in fluorescent jackets navigated rubble as neighbours handed over water and warm coats. Volunteers set up cots in school gyms. Churches opened doors to those seeking quiet and shelter, another familiar tableau from the war’s long months.
Beyond Kyiv: ripples across the country
The strikes were not confined to the capital. Explosions rattled Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, cutting power to parts of the city; Odesa in the south reported damaged civilian infrastructure and fires in apartment blocks; Kryvyi Rih saw attacks targeting transport and urban infrastructure, officials said — although, in that case, no injuries were immediately reported.
“This is not just about damaged buildings,” said Marina Petrenko, a volunteer with a regional aid network. “When a transport hub, a school or an apartment block is hit, it fractures the web of everyday life. The elderly lose access to pharmacies. Parents lose access to childcare. The ripple effects are enormous.”
The tactics: drones, missiles, and civilian spaces
What began as a cascade of small, unmanned drones — the kind of weapon that has repeatedly blurred the line between battlefield and backyard — was followed by heavier missile strikes. Officials in Kyiv accused the attackers of intentionally striking civilian targets; Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, wrote on Telegram that Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets.”
Whether launched to hit military or logistical nodes or to terrorize, the effect is often the same: civilian spaces become targets, making ordinary routines — walking to the store, taking a child to school, sleeping — fraught with danger.
Why drones matter
Drones have become a grim protagonist in this conflict. Small, relatively cheap and increasingly sophisticated, they can evade traditional air defences and strike with a precision that is maddening in its potential for harm. Across Ukraine, as of mid-2024 and into 2025, militaries on both sides have adapted to this new normal: layered air defences, mobile interceptors, and constant civilian alerts.
“We’re fighting a war where the sky is no longer a benign space,” said a military analyst who researches aerial threats and asked not to be named for security reasons. “Drones lower the threshold for damage, and when used in series they can saturate defences and inflict both material and psychological damage.”
Human cost and the wider picture
Three people killed, eighteen injured. These are numbers recorded on paper, but each digit represents a family, a set of routines upended, and a neighborhood that now has an empty place at table. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war has caused widespread loss: millions displaced internally and abroad, billions in infrastructure damage, and a toll on civilian life that is not fully captured by casualty tallies alone.
“If you walk through Kyiv today, the cost isn’t just the blackened walls,” said Dr. Olena Hrynenko, a psychologist working with trauma survivors. “It’s the mistrust, the sleepless children, the grandparents who no longer dare to walk to the market. Recovery will take years — perhaps a generation — and the healing work has to begin now, even as the war continues.”
International echoes
With western Ukraine under threat, Poland activated its own and allied aircraft to ensure air safety, according to the operational command of the Polish armed forces — a reminder that the conflict’s shocks reverberate beyond Ukraine’s borders. Governments and international bodies continue to juggle diplomatic pressure, sanctions, military aid, and humanitarian assistance, even as the violence reshapes neighborhoods and national conversations about security.
What does resilience look like?
Amid the rubble and alarm, ordinary acts of kindness persist. Volunteers ferry medicines across checkpoints. A bakery in Sviatoshynskyi handed out loaves for free to those queuing at the temporary shelters. Strangers shared their powerbanks. In a country used to defying the shock of each fresh assault, small rituals of solidarity have become, paradoxically, the architecture of endurance.
“We cannot let this define us,” said a young teacher who spent the morning registering displaced children at a makeshift classroom. “There will be mourning, yes. There will be anger. But there must also be school, there must be birthdays, there must be bread. That is how we keep our humanity.”
Questions to sit with
As you read this from wherever you are in the world, consider: what does it mean when civilian spaces are no longer safe? How should communities and governments balance immediate protection with long-term recovery? And what role do global actors play when the lines between military targets and everyday life blur?
These are not rhetorical exercises. They are the contours of policy, aid and empathy that will shape what comes next — for Kyiv, for Ukraine, and for any city that learns in the hard way that the modern battlefield reaches into living rooms and nursery rooms alike.
For now, Kyiv holds its breath and then exhales in small, stubborn acts: a bowl of soup shared on a cold stairwell, a firefighter going back into the smoke, a volunteer sewing warm hats for children who woke up to ash on their lips. The headlines will say “attacks” and “tally”; the city knows the softer, more painful ledger by heart.
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