Under 60 global leaders slated to attend COP30 climate summit

November 1, 2025

Fewer than 60 world leaders confirmed for COP30 — Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the main venue for COP30 earlier this month

Belem Braces: An Amazonian COP Like No Other

There is a particular kind of heat in Belem that feels like an invitation and a warning at once—a heavy, humid breath off the river that coats your skin and seems to make the air itself conspiratorial. The city, a gateway to the Amazon, is pulsing with preparations. Banners are being strung across narrow streets, volunteers practice welcome lines in university halls, and, improbably, two cruise ships are anchoring off the harbor to answer a demand for beds that the city’s hotels simply cannot meet.

For the first time in COP history, the summit of heads of state will be held a few days before the main climate talks. From 6–7 November, presidents and prime ministers will gather; the full COP30 runs from 10–21 November. Brazil has said fewer than 60 world leaders have confirmed for the pre-COP summit—57, according to Mauricio Lyrio, Brazil’s chief negotiator—far fewer than the 75 leaders who attended COP29 in Azerbaijan last year.

The numbers behind the bustle

Belem, a city of roughly 1.4 million people, expects about 50,000 visitors for the two weeks of negotiations. More than half of its residents live in informal settlements, and the sudden influx has exposed brittle urban infrastructure. Traditional hotel rooms were gobbled up months ago; organizers have scrambled to repurpose university dormitories, school classrooms and private homes. Even floating hotels—those cruise ships—have become temporary solutions. Prices for accommodation and basic services have shot upward, prompting criticism that COP30 risks being “the most exclusionary in history,” a phrase environmental NGOs have used to describe a conference made inaccessible to many civil society participants.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been an outspoken champion for hosting the talks in the Amazon—an unmistakable symbol of what’s at stake. In February he brushed off accommodation worries with a memorable line: delegates could “sleep under the stars.” Whether that was rhetorical theatre or an unorthodox plan, it captured the mood: Brazil wanted the world to come to the Amazon, feel its weight and its urgency.

Local life: hospitality, hustle, and concern

Walk the Ver-o-Peso market at dawn and you can taste this place. Vendors hawk steaming bowls of tacacá, pouches of açaí, and ripe mangoes beside fish stalls where the catch glints pink and silver. A woman with a weathered face and a tattoo of a small river on her wrist—Maria Costa, 46, who runs a street-food stall—shrugs when asked whether the city is ready.

“We welcome people. We are proud,” she says, flipping a tapioca on a hot griddle. “But this will change prices for us. The bread will get heavier to buy, the bus will be full. For two weeks we get money, yes—but after, what?”

Her ambivalence is echoed across Belem. Students rent rooms to visiting delegates; a local pousada owner, Rafael Mendes, says he has raised nightly rates by 40% to cover increased costs and demand. “There are ways to show the world our forest,” Mendes says, “but it shouldn’t be at the expense of our neighbors.”

Creative solutions—and strain

Organisers have rolled out imaginative fixes: repurposing stadiums for press centers, turning university dormitories into provisional hotels, and deploying a fleet of buses to shuttle participants from ships anchored 20 km away. Yet the improvisation underscores an uncomfortable truth. Belem was not built for this scale of global diplomacy; it was built for river-laced daily life, for markets and family gatherings, not for international media throngs and armored convoys.

Who’s coming—and who’s quiet?

So far, a modest roster of heads of state has confirmed attendance. European leaders including those from Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Norway have signaled they will come, alongside delegations from Colombia, Chile, Cape Verde and Liberia. Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin is also expected. China has said President Xi Jinping will be represented by Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang. Notably absent from confirmed lists are the United States and Argentina: neither country has said who, if anyone, will attend the leaders’ summit—an omission that fuels worry about whether geopolitical storms will drown out the climate conversation.

Confirmed leaders (high level): Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Norway, Colombia, Chile, Cape Verde, Liberia, Ireland (Taoiseach Micheál Martin)
China: Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang to represent President Xi Jinping
United States and Argentina: no confirmation at time of publication
Main COP30 conference: 170 delegations accredited

Fewer leaders walking the red carpet has consequences. High-level summitry can catalyze finance pledges and political momentum. Without it, delegates fear negotiations will become technocratic, focused on minutiae while the global narrative moves elsewhere.

Voices from beyond Belem

“The symbolism of the Amazon is enormous. If leaders don’t show up, it sends a signal,” says Dr. Aisha Bello, a climate policy researcher at the University of Cape Town. “But symbolism without action is hollow. We need measurable commitments to finance conservation, slash emissions, and support Indigenous stewardship.”

Local activists are not waiting. João Silva, coordinator with a regional NGO, says grassroots groups will swarm the outskirts of official venues: “We will create our own stage. Indigenous voices, riverine communities, youth—they will make sure the Amazon’s people are seen.”

Access and equity—an international debate

There is growing disquiet that COP30 could be tilted toward elite access. Many civil society groups are priced out or lack logistics to travel. The cost of flights, accommodation, and registration can run into thousands of dollars—money that small NGOs and Indigenous associations often do not have. That raises a critical question: What does it mean for a global climate summit to convene in the Amazon if the people who live closest to the forest—the stewards, the communities—cannot take part?

“We’re not tokens,” says Ana Pereira, a young Indigenous rights advocate traveling from the interior. “We are the ones who have been protecting this forest for centuries. If leaders and big donors come here just to be seen, without listening, we’ll be holding them accountable.”

Bigger picture: The Amazon on the global stage

This more intimate, messy COP in the Amazon forces a broader reckoning. The world has long leaned on the image of the Amazon as a carbon sink and a font of biodiversity. Yet deforestation, fires and climate change are eating away at that role. Global politics are fractured—trade wars, conflicts, and shifting alliances make high-stakes cooperation harder. That is precisely why this COP matters: it is an opportunity to tether geopolitics to planetary limits.

Will the global north translate rhetoric into robust financing for conservation and transitions? Will commitments respect Indigenous sovereignty and prioritize community-led conservation? These are not just policy questions; they are moral ones.

What to watch for

Which leaders actually attend the heads-of-state summit, and what pledges they announce.
Whether funding for forest conservation and loss-and-damage measures is scaled up meaningfully.
How accessible the conference remains to Indigenous and grassroots voices—and how they are centered in negotiations.

Belem will soon be a crucible. The city’s narrow streets and riverfront markets will host a global argument about survival, responsibility and justice. As night falls and the chorus of insects rises from mangroves and back alleys, ask yourself: if the world can convene in the lungs of the planet, will it listen? Will leaders turn presence into policy? Or will the Amazon, once again, be a dramatic backdrop for politicking rather than a partner to be protected?

For those who will be there—delegates, journalists, activists, and the people of Belem—the coming weeks are a test of imagination and solidarity. The Amazon deserves nothing less than the kind of collective action that recognizes not only its global value, but the dignity and rights of the people who call it home.

UN warns Ukrainian civilians face desperate struggle to survive amid conflict

hanad

November 1, 2025

UN warns of civilian fight for survival in Ukraine — The aftermath of a Russian air strike on the city of Sloviansk, Ukraine

Winter on the Line: Life, Loss and the Looming Energy Crisis in Ukraine

The air in many Ukrainian cities already tastes faintly of coal smoke and the metallic tang of generators. In high-rise buildings that once hummed with everyday life—children riding elevators to school, neighbors exchanging bread and stories in the stairwell—there is now a quieter, more wary rhythm: the drip of tap water when it comes, the clack of improvised heaters, the distant whoosh of drones slicing the sky.

“You learn to listen for things you never thought you would,” says Oleksandra, a schoolteacher who has moved twice in two years to stay farther from front-line bombardment. “Sirens are not just a sound anymore. They are instructions.”

As Ukraine approaches its fourth winter since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the United Nations is warning that the fight has shifted from trenches and artillery to infrastructure—and civilians are paying the price.

The weaponization of power

“This is increasingly a technological war: a drone war,” Matthias Schmale, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, told reporters in Geneva. The numbers he presented were stark: this year has been deadlier for civilians than 2024, with a roughly 30% increase in civilian casualties, and about a third of recorded deaths and injuries in 2025 attributed to drone attacks.

Those figures are not just statistics on a chart. They translate into blocked hospitals, closed markets and families huddled in cold apartment blocks when the lights go out. Schmale warned that continued, concentrated strikes on energy production and distribution—which deliver the warmth, hot water and light that make winter survivable—could spark “a major crisis.”

“Destroying energy production and distribution capacity as winter starts clearly impacts the civilian population and is a form of terror,” he said. Repairs are happening, but where destruction outpaces rebuilding, whole neighborhoods can be stranded for days or weeks.

Everyday survival — a list of necessities

In the face of these threats, humanitarian planners are mapping the bare essentials people will need to get through months of cold and darkness. The UN’s winter response plan aims to reach more than 1.7 million people with:

Heating support
Cash assistance for families
Emergency water and sanitation services
Life-saving medical supplies
Winter clothing and shelter for displaced people

But the plan is only half-funded. Schmale says the appeal is 50% covered—leaving an enormous gap at the very moment the line between relief and catastrophe narrows.

Front-line life: small gestures, large costs

Walk through a market on the edge of a contested town and you will see a civilization improvising. A woman sells homemade pickles in plastic jars she boiled to preserve; a pensioner warms his hands over a tiny gas stove, exchanging grim smiles with neighbors who remember a time when power outages were rare. These are acts of endurance, yes—but also practical measures against the cold and uncertainty.

“People are exhausted,” says Serhiy, an electrician who volunteers with a local repair crew. “We fix transformers at night by flashlight, then come back in the morning to do it again. You can only patch so much with so little.”

More than 57,000 evacuees have sought assistance at transit sites, Schmale said, a sign that mobility and supply chains are fraying where the front lines shift. Markets close to the front are becoming “increasingly dysfunctional,” he added—meaning that even those who stay behind can struggle to buy basics.

A generation of psychological wounds

Resilience is real. So is fatigue. “I am amazed by the resilience of people,” Schmale told reporters, but he was quick to caution: “Let’s not romanticise resilience.” The mental-health toll is mounting and will linger long after the guns quiet; the UN coordinator warned Ukraine may have to grapple with the psychosocial consequences “for at least a generation, if not several.”

Dr. Nina Kovalenko, a clinical psychologist working with displaced families, describes the patterns she sees: interrupted sleep, chronic anxiety, children who respond to loud noises by freezing. “Survival creates adaptations,” she says. “But those adaptations can calcify into trauma if there are no services, no time to grieve, no safe space to process what has happened.”

Repair crews and the arithmetic of destruction

Engineers and utility workers are the unsung front-line responders. They drive into areas still under threat to reconnect lines, patch ruptured pipes and restart boilers. But their tools are finite. “We can rebuild poles and transformers, but every strike sets us back,” Serhiy says. “If the pace of destruction outstrips the pace of repair, it’s not just inconvenience. It’s a humanitarian emergency.”

Schmale put it plainly: “There is no way that with the available resources we would be able to respond to a major crisis within a crisis.” Those words underscore a chilling arithmetic: fewer resources, more attacks, harsher weather—and more people pushed to the margins.

Politics, funding and a weary world

Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting have not delivered a ceasefire. High-level calls to pause hostilities have been rebuffed or have failed to gain traction, and the UN is planning for a future in which the war continues. “Our basic planning assumption for 2026 is the war is continuing,” Schmale said. “We’re sadly, dramatically, in this for the longer haul.”

That reality collides with another: the global humanitarian space is crowded. Humanitarian budgets are being stretched thin across multiple crises—from climate-driven disasters to conflicts elsewhere. Donor fatigue, competing priorities and domestic pressures in aid-supplying countries mean that appeals—for heating, for emergency repairs, for trauma counseling—often come up short.

“When winter comes, the consequences are immediate,” says Elena Petrov, director of a Kyiv-based NGO providing cash assistance. “People don’t ask for political outcomes when their pipes burst. They ask whether they can heat their home for their family.”

Why this matters to the world

This is not just a Ukrainian story. The attacks on power and water systems in Ukraine are a cautionary tale about modern warfare: conflict increasingly targets the critical infrastructure that makes urban life possible. The weaponization of energy raises questions about international norms, civilian protection and how the world responds when basic services become strategic targets.

What does it say about our global priorities when the combination of military technology and insufficient funding can tip a winter from hardship into catastrophe? How will policymakers, donors and citizens respond if the next cold season brings tens of thousands more into the cold?

Looking ahead

On a cold morning in a city near the line, Oleksandra pours tea into paper cups for the families gathered in the hallway. Children are coloring; an old radio plays a folk song as if to defy silence. “We keep going because we have to,” she says. “But there are days you can feel the weight.”

Humanity’s response in the coming months will tell us a great deal about our capacity for solidarity. Will governments and donors close the gap in the UN’s winter plan? Will international law adapt to new forms of technological warfare that strike at the heart of civilian life? And, as winter deepens, will the stories that emerge be about endurance or neglect?

These are hard questions. They deserve honest answers—and swift action. The season is coming. The lights, and lives, are on the line.

Israel’s ongoing Gaza strikes put fragile ceasefire under strain

hanad

November 1, 2025

Israel continues attacks on Gaza, testing fragile truce — Palestinians in Gaza City gather where a charitable organisation distributes hot food as food crisis persists

After the Truce, the Echoes Remain: Gaza’s Fragile Quiet Shattered Again

The air over northern Gaza, when I last listened through telephone conversations with people on the ground, felt less like a pause and more like a held breath that will not stop trembling.

“We thought the silence would come with morning,” said Amal, a teacher from Jabalia, her voice catching like wind through shattered glass. “But the shells woke us up. My neighbor’s son walked outside for water and he didn’t come back.”

On the fourth day since the most recent outbreak of shelling, health authorities in Gaza reported new fatalities and more wounded. Three people were killed in fresh strikes, Palestinian officials said, bringing into sharp relief the brittle nature of a ceasefire many hoped would be a pathway to longer-term calm.

What the Ceasefire Promised—and What It Left Unsaid

When a US-brokered agreement was announced, it read like a compromise stitched together at speed: Hamas would release living hostages; Israel would withdraw, halt large-scale operations and allow an influx of humanitarian aid; prisoners and remains would be exchanged. But the truce left the most combustible issues unresolved—disarmament of militant groups, a timeline for Israeli withdrawal, accountability, and what comes next for Gaza’s governance.

“It was always a minimum viable peace,” said Dr. Nadim Saleh, a political analyst in Amman. “These are ceasefire conditions, not durable settlement terms. If the underlying dynamics—occupation, weapons, security guarantees—aren’t addressed, we’ll keep returning to this loop.”

The pattern is painfully familiar. Since the ceasefire took hold three weeks ago, sporadic violence has flared and threatened to unravel the fragile calm. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, retaliatory strikes following the death of an Israeli soldier reportedly killed over a hundred Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Each side frames these actions as justified; civilians caught in between are left to tally the cost.

Numbers on Bodies, Numbers on Memory

There are facts that pierce the abstract policy debates: holes blown through apartment blocks, fetid lines outside hospitals, and the long, slow work of naming the dead.

This week the Red Cross handed over 30 bodies of Gazans it said had been detained during the fighting. A day earlier, Hamas delivered the remains of two hostages—small, wrenching exchanges in a barter of grief and diplomacy. The enclave’s health ministry says that 17 bodies of hostages had been returned previously, while 225 Palestinian bodies have been brought back to Gaza so far in the course of the post-war exchanges.

“We’re living with the dead in our living rooms,” said Fatima, who lost her brother when the neighborhood bakery collapsed. “You cannot bury him when you cannot find where he fell.”

Hamas has explained that locating the remaining hostages’ bodies is a slow, often impossible task; two years of relentless bombardment, they say, have erased the landmarks that once guided rescue teams. Egyptian teams, armed with earth-moving equipment, are now sifting through the rubble alongside local volunteers in an effort to reconstruct a map of loss.

Diplomacy on Edge: Istanbul and the Politics of a ‘Stability Force’

Beyond Gaza, capitals are quietly negotiating what support will look like if the current ceasefire is to hold. Foreign ministers from several Muslim-majority countries are scheduled to meet in Istanbul to discuss the next steps—the second stage of the accord, as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan framed it, including the possibility of a regional “stability force.”

“There are competing visions of what stability means,” Fidan said at a press conference. “We’ll discuss practical mechanisms for aid, security, and ensuring the situation does not deteriorate.”

But the idea of third-party security forces is fraught. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled strong opposition to Turkish personnel assuming any monitoring role inside Gaza. Trust is a scarce commodity. Each new proposal is weighed against a ledger of recent betrayals and unmet promises.

Families, Politics, and the Human Ledger

On both sides of the conflict, families press their own claims. Israeli relatives of hostages are demanding harder actions to ensure all captives are returned. Palestinian families want guarantees that Israeli troops will fully withdraw and that aid will reach the most desperate. The human stakes amplify political decisions in ways that make compromise both urgent and almost impossibly delicate.

“We are exhausted by waiting,” said Rachel Levy, whose brother was taken during the October attacks that triggered the war. “Every day without clear action makes this ache worse.”

At the same time, Gazan health authorities say the human toll is vast. They reported that more than 68,000 Palestinians have died over two years of conflict—a figure that shocks and plunges any conversation into the realm of emergency rather than policy debate. Whether these numbers are contested or corroborated by different sources matters a great deal for diplomacy, but for families they are a calendar of funerals.

On the Ground: Streets, Markets, and the Long Shadow of War

Walk through Tel al-Hawa—if you can—and you’ll find the smell of smoke lingering in corners where markets used to hum. A mother selling tomatoes now counts out ration cards; children chase plastic bags blown in the wind where playgrounds once sat. Calls to prayer still sound from makeshift loudspeakers, but they arrive through the noise of generators, the chatter of aid distributions, and the occasional rattle of distant gunfire.

“We keep the tea kettle on, even if few can afford tea,” said Omar, a cafe owner whose business was gutted. “It’s a way we remember life.”

Reconstruction remains a question without an answer. Who pays? Who decides? Who safeguards that aid won’t be siphoned away or become another instrument of control? These are not abstract queries. They determine whether tents remain the long-term shelter for families or whether whole neighborhoods can be rebuilt into something that resembles a future.

The Bigger Picture: What This Moment Asks of the World

What is asked of distant readers is also simple and profound: to care beyond headlines, to see the human curves beneath every statistic.

Consider these hard truths:

Fragile ceasefires collapse when core grievances are unaddressed.
Exchanges of bodies and prisoners, though necessary, are truncated forms of justice that do not heal communities.
International involvement—whether diplomatic, aid-based, or security-related—must be both accountable and sensitive to local realities.

How do we, as a global community, avoid becoming spectators to recurrent cycles of truce and retribution? Can mediation become preventive rather than episodic? These are not rhetorical urges; they are policy problems that demand sustained engagement, not press conferences and shorthand condemnations.

Closing: A Fragile Quiet, For Now

For families in Gaza and Israel, each day is a ledger of small calculations: send a child to the market or keep them home; trust the convoy of aid or wait for assurances. For diplomats and soldiers, there are maps and mandates. For everyone else, there is a broader question of moral imagination—how much compassion can be mobilized across borders, languages, and politics?

“If we can rebuild walls, we can rebuild trust,” Amal said softly. “But trust needs many small stones—consistency, visits, and people who listen.”

As the region braces for the next diplomatic meetings and the chance of renewed violence, the people in Gaza continue to live their lives in a tremulous present, collecting the names of the dead, searching for missing loved ones, and trying to imagine a future that does not begin and end with explosions. What would you do, if your world had been reduced to rubble and a single, fragile promise?

NASA Refutes Kim Kardashian’s Assertions Questioning the Moon Landing

hanad

October 31, 2025

NASA rejects Kim Kardashian's claim over Moon landing — NASA's acting administrator has hit back at Kim Kardashian's claims that the Moon landing did not happen

When a Reality TV Aside Reignites a Space Debate: Moon Landings, Misinformation, and the Return to Luna

It began, oddly enough, in the kind of place where celebrity and confession collide: a glossy living room on reality TV. A throwaway line — a skeptical aside about the most photographed event of the 20th century — ricocheted out of a streaming episode and landed in a familiar, uncomfortable orbit. The claim that the 1969 Moon landing “didn’t happen,” voiced on camera by a household name, reopened a conversation that historians, engineers and astronauts have been trying to close for decades.

What followed was the kind of public moment that feels both small and seismic. NASA’s leadership felt compelled to reply. In a crisp social-media message, the agency’s acting administrator pointed to the simple, stubborn record: humans have set foot on the Moon — six times — and a new era of lunar exploration is underway. It was a reminder that, in an age of instant amplification, even an offhand celebrity remark can force institutions to reassert facts that some people find inconvenient.

Why the Moon Still Matters

When Neil Armstrong slid down the ladder of the Eagle and planted that first footprint on July 20, 1969, it wasn’t just one nation’s triumph — it became part of the shared story of humanity. Between Apollo 11 and Apollo 17, astronauts of the United States completed six crewed landings: Apollo 11 (1969), 12 (1969), 14 (1971), 15 (1971), 16 (1972) and 17 (1972). Twelve people have walked on the lunar surface, collecting rocks, deploying science packages and forever expanding what we know about the natural satellite that hangs over our nights.

Those numbers are tidy, verifiable and backed by three decades of archival footage, telemetry, lunar samples and independent observations from other nations’ observatories and probes. Yet conspiracy theories about the Moon — and about science more broadly — have proved stubborn, continually adapting to new media and new audiences.

From a TV couch to the control room: a modern echo

How does a throwaway remark on a reality series become ritual fodder for late-night think pieces and government replies? Because we live in a moment when celebrity platforms reach billions, and social platforms condense complex ideas into soundbites. A single line can be clipped, looped, memed and shared until it takes on a life of its own.

“When I heard it, I felt that old, weary tug between truth and entertainment,” said Ana Morales, a teacher from Miami who watches both space launches and reality shows. “If someone famous says something, it doesn’t matter if it’s wild — people listen. My students quote influencers more than textbooks.”

The effect is perhaps inevitable. More than four billion people now use social media around the world; ideas — good and bad — move with unprecedented speed. But speed doesn’t equal accuracy. And when popular culture questions consensus science, institutions that preserve and interpret knowledge are forced back into public-facing roles.

NASA’s Answer: Facts, Pride, and a New Mission

NASA’s response was simple and direct: yes, we have been there — six times — and the agency is preparing to go back. The Artemis program, now central to the agency’s public identity, is built to return humans to the lunar surface in a sustained way, and to establish a foothold that can support scientific exploration and future missions beyond the Moon.

Artemis is more than nostalgia for Apollo. It represents a shift from a sprint — the hurried geopolitics of the Cold War — to an effort that aspires to be international, sustainable and science-driven. NASA describes Artemis as a program that will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, and to work with partners around the world to build a lunar economy and infrastructure.

“We won the last space race, and we’re building to win this chapter by working with allies, scientists and private partners,” one NASA official told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss program strategy. “This is about exploration and inclusion, not trophies.”

Old controversies, new platforms

To be clear, skepticism about the Moon landings isn’t new. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has been the target of conspiracy theorists for decades: in 2002 he famously punched a man who had accused him of faking the Apollo 11 mission during a public event. That flash of human anger — an astronaut confronting a persistent and personal denial of his experience — feeds into the drama and the mythology.

“There’s an emotional kernel to these debates that facts alone don’t touch,” said Dr. Leila Hassan, a historian of science. “People invest identity, distrust and grievances into these stories. Sometimes a conspiracy becomes a way to express broader doubts about institutions, elites or expertise.”

When a celebrity repeats or amplifies those doubts, the effect is magnified. Fans may take the remark at face value, not because they’ve investigated the evidence, but because trust flows along social lines: from influencer to follower, from personality to tribe.

What the public response looks like on the ground

At the Kennedy Space Center, just north of Cape Canaveral, staff and tourists go about their routines under the same sky that once hosted Saturn V rockets. The gift shop sells patches and model rockets; school buses unload field trips like a steady tide. Yet beneath the cheer — the rainbow of T‑shirts and toddler-sized astronaut helmets — there’s a quiet urgency.

“We’re part museum and part classroom,” said Jenna Park, who leads tours at the center. “People come because the Moon is part of our story. We don’t want fact to be a private commodity. We want it to be shared so that the next generation knows what’s possible.”

A retired launch technician, sipping coffee outside the visitor complex, summed up the tension with a grin: “You can argue about a million things, but if you’ve handled that telemetry, if you’ve worked those hoses, you know what happened. That’s not something you can fake in a soundstage.”

Small numbers, big consequences

Conspiracy believers tend to be a minority, but their visibility can be outsized. Surveys across time have found that a persistent sliver of the public doubts the Moon landings, a reminder that scientific literacy and trust in institutions vary widely. For policy-makers and educators, those fractions matter: they shape support for funding, they inform curricula, and they determine which stories get told in public life.

So what do we do when entertainment and misinformation intersect? How do societies square the allure of celebrity with the need for shared facts? There are no easy answers, but a few paths stand out: robust science communication, better media literacy in schools, and responsible platform policies that limit the spread of demonstrably false claims.

A personal note and a question for you

Walking beneath the gantries at Cape Canaveral, you can still smell the salt and the old rocket fuel — the atmosphere carries a tiny, electric nostalgia. The Moon belongs to all of us in one sense: its cratered face is the same no matter who watches from Earth. But the story we tell about how we first reached it depends on shared witnesses and verifiable evidence.

So I’ll ask you, the reader: when a celebrity contradicts history, do you chalk it up to ignorance, performance, or something darker? And what responsibility do we all bear — as viewers, as voters, as parents — to nurture a public square where expertise is respected and wonder is not distorted?

These are not rhetorical indulgences. The way we respond will shape not only our memory of Apollo, but the future of exploration itself. If Artemis and other international efforts succeed, there will be new footprints, new samples and new data. Those will be harder to deny. But until then, we live in a world where a line on a TV show can send us all back to the basics: checking sources, asking for evidence, and remembering why the Moon captured our imaginations in the first place.

Russian strike in Ukraine injures 11, including four children

hanad

October 31, 2025

4 children among 11 injured in Russian attack in Ukraine — A view of the aftermath of a Russian air strike on a residential neighborhood in the city of Sloviansk yesterday

Nightfall over Sumy: A City on the Edge of Two Worlds

The night in Sumy should have been ordinary — the streetlights humming, samovars cooling in kitchens, and the quiet shuffle of slippers against linoleum. Instead, a series of explosions ripped through sleep like a rude alarm clock, leaving apartment facades pocked with shrapnel and a small city sitting once again in the uneasy place where war brushes up against daily life.

Ukraine’s emergency services reported that 11 people were wounded in the assault, among them four children. Multi-storey residential buildings, private homes, and infrastructure were struck. The blast that shook the railway depot, according to Governor Ihor Kalchenko, destroyed several carriages and left service buildings scarred — a stark reminder that even transport hubs on a regional line can become front‑line targets.

“We felt the house move,” said Olena, a teacher in Sumy, her voice thick with a mixture of adrenaline and fatigue. “My son ran out in his socks. We stood on the stairwell and just listened to the sirens. How long do you live like this, waiting to count the missing?”

Borderlands and the Slow Grinding of Conflict

Sumy lies in a strip of northeastern Ukraine that brushes the Russian border — a place where geography and geopolitics fold into the quotidian. Here, the risk of cross-border strikes is not an abstraction; it is the shape of the week. Drones and missiles, the new tools of a conflict that oscillates between open frontlines and high-tech skirmishes, have made infrastructure a strategic target. The calculus is cruel: damage the rails, and you choke movement; strike heating plants, and you threaten winter warmth.

“When the depot is hit, it’s not just a broken train carriage,” said Maksym, a rail worker who refused to give his full name. “It’s people who can’t get to work, medicines that might not arrive on time, and children stuck at home. It sneaks into everything.”

Across the Border: Heat and Fear in Oryol

On the other side of the border, the ripple effects of the same conflict were felt in a different key. In Oryol — a Russian city with onion-domed churches, birch-lined boulevards, and Soviet-era blocks — officials announced restrictions on heat and hot water after what they described as a Ukrainian drone strike on a pipeline at a local power plant.

“It will be necessary to limit the heat and hot water supply to buildings in the Sovetsky, Zheleznodorozhny and Severny districts,” wrote Andrey Klychkov, the governor of the Oryol region, on social media. For many residents, the announcement landed like a second blow: winter is not some distant season, but a looming threat to comfort and health.

Anna, a pensioner who has lived in Oryol all her life, said, “We share stories of past winters — candles, old kettles on stoves. But now the cold comes with a new fear. Will we have enough heat? Will the pipes be fixed? What happens if the power goes?”

Kindergartens, Carriages, and the Weaponization of Everyday Life

The conflict’s reach has been thorough. Russia’s defense ministry claimed that its forces shot down 130 Ukrainian drones overnight, mostly over western regions and near Moscow and Yaroslavl. Local officials reported damage to infrastructure near Vladimir and a temporary closure of a kindergarten in Yaroslavl — around 280km northeast of Moscow — after a nearby strike.

It’s a brutal arithmetic: a kindergarten closed, a train carriage destroyed, a pipeline breached — each act reverberates beyond immediate physical damage. Schools shutter, supply chains wobble, hospital corridors stretch, and the fragile social fabric of civilian life gets torn in places that are hard to stitch back together.

What This Moment Tells Us

Look beyond the headlines and you see patterns that worry humanitarians and strategists alike. Attacks on energy and transport infrastructure are rising in intensity and frequency in this theatre. Whether intended to degrade military logistics or to pressure societies into political concessions, the result is the same: civilians bear the cost.

Consider the practical: in colder months, losing heat is not an inconvenience but a health risk. Elderly people with chronic conditions, infants, and those with compromised immune systems are disproportionately at risk when heating and hot water are curtailed. That is why statements from local officials — practical, prosaic, and sometimes painfully frank — often sound like pleas.

“Infrastructure isn’t a military target if it serves civilians,” said Dr. Iryna Petrov, an international humanitarian analyst based in Kyiv. “When power, railways, and water systems are hit, you don’t just degrade capability; you erode the threshold of normal life that keeps a society functioning.”

On the Ground: Shades of Resilience and Fear

Walk Sumy’s streets and you will see both the scars and the living pulse. Shopkeepers sweep glass away and set out fruit bowls. A grandmother sits with a thermos of tea at a corner table, as if to say: we will not be driven from our routines. But the resilience is threaded with exhaustion. Children speak of “the boom” like a weather report, and parents tuck emergency backpacks under beds on habit.

“We joke to keep from crying,” Olena, the teacher, said with a forced laugh. “We tell the kids stories about bed bugs and monsters — anything to put it off. But after the siren, no one jokes. You count who is here and who isn’t. You check phones for messages. That is how we measure the night.”

Questions for the Reader

What would you do if your water ran cold and stayed that way through winter? If trains you rely on to move goods or people were suddenly unreliable? If a preschool down the street closed because of a strike? These are not hypothetical exercises for many in Sumy, Oryol, and neighboring regions; they are the small, intimate dilemmas of survival during conflict.

And globally, how do we reconcile the increasing sophistication of remote warfare — drones, cyberattacks, precision strikes — with the ancient rules meant to protect non-combatants? Is there an ethical line we imagine inviolable that modern warfare is testing?

Looking Ahead: Winter, Politics, and the Human Ledger

Politically, the escalation of strikes on energy infrastructure aligns with a chilling reality: when diplomacy stalls, the tools of coercion multiply. Peace talks have hit dead ends in recent weeks, and both sides appear to be ratcheting pressure in the most immediate way they can — by targeting the arteries that sustain civilian life.

Practically, winter will be a test. Repairs to pipelines and rail depots take time, funds, and security guarantees. Humanitarian agencies watch with concern; local councils scramble to stock blankets and generators. But the long-term toll — on mental health, on education interrupted, on supply chains rerouted — will linger long after the woodsmoke dissipates.

“This is not just another round of claims and counterclaims,” Dr. Petrov added. “It’s an assault on the ordinary that keeps societies intact. And when ordinary fails, the consequences are measured in lost years and opportunities.”

Closing: The Human Shape of Headlines

War writes itself into the small things: the kettle left on the stove, the emptied bench, the child who learned to sleep with noise, the rail worker who counts carriages like fingers. Sumy and Oryol aren’t just coordinates on a map; they are places where people measure time in seasons and where the coming winter now has a new, sharper edge.

As you read this from wherever you are — a café with heat or a window watching rain — consider the kind of world we choose to protect. What is expendable, and what is not? The answers will say as much about us as any diplomatic communiqué. And for the families counting the wounded and the cities counting the costs, those answers aren’t academic; they are urgently, painfully real.

Prince Andrew loses royal titles, ordered to vacate royal residence

hanad

October 31, 2025

UK's Prince Andrew stripped of titles, forced out of home — Prince Andrew will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (file pic)

A Royal Severing: What It Feels Like When a Prince Becomes Andrew Mountbatten Windsor

There are moments when centuries of ceremony and the slow thrum of tradition shudder like glass under a thrown stone. On a crisp morning in Windsor, that stone landed with the force of a headline: Britain’s King Charles has stripped his younger brother, Prince Andrew, of his royal title and told him to leave the Royal Lodge on the Windsor Estate.

It reads like the end of an era—or at least the end of a particular chapter in a once-untouchable life. Andrew, who turns 66 this year, is the second son of the late Queen Elizabeth II and has spent much of his adult life framed by royal privilege. Now, Buckingham Palace says, he will be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, surrender the lease to the thirty-room Royal Lodge and relocate to private accommodation in eastern England.

The palace line and the public rupture

The official statement was spare but searing. “These censures are deemed necessary,” the palace said, “notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him.” It added that Charles and the wider family—Prince William among them—stand behind the decision and that the monarch’s sympathies remain with victims and survivors of abuse.

“This is not punishment for a man but a statement for survivors,” said a palace aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It’s an institutional move to demonstrate where we stand.”

That line—the monarchy lining itself up, visibly, with those who have been harmed—has weight. The palace has wrestled with reputation before, but few interventions have been so unmistakably public: a title removed, a house reclaimed, a family name recalibrated.

Windsor: a town of tourists, tea shops and whispered reckonings

Walk the narrow streets near the castle and you’ll see the incongruity of it all. Tourists clutch guidebooks beside pubs that still serve roast beef, while estate workers walk dogs beneath ancient trees. At a window table in a local tea shop, Sarah Bennett, who has lived in Windsor for decades, shook her head.

“We grew up on the stories of princes and pageantry,” she told me, stirring her tea. “But this—this is different. It’s intimate, awful. It makes you think about how much we assume about people behind the gates.”

Outside the wrought-iron gates of Royal Lodge, a small cluster of residents and reporters lingered like moths. One neighbor, a retired teacher who asked to be called Michael, summed it up bluntly: “He’s paid a price for associations and behavior many of us found troubling. Whether it’s enough—that’s another question.”

The weight of the allegations

The historical context matters. Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein— the financier who died in a U.S. jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges—has long dragged its shadow across royal corridors. In 2022, Andrew settled a civil claim brought by Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual assault. The settlement, and the painful public scrutiny that surrounded it, rattled a family that must balance private loyalties with public accountability.

“This is about trust,” said Dr. Hannah Lewis, a criminologist with experience in survivor advocacy. “Institutions—especially ones like the monarchy—are judged not just by the gravity of what occurred, but by how they respond. Removing a title is symbolic, yes, but symbols matter. They signal boundaries.”

The palace explicitly framed the move as such a boundary: a clear act of alignment with survivors. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse,” Buckingham Palace said. The family of Virginia Giuffre responded with a statement praising the decision and calling it a vindication of perseverance.

Money, mansions and questions of stewardship

What fed the latest decision were not only the allegations but a storm of scrutiny over Andrew’s finances and his use of royal premises. British newspapers recently reported that he had not paid rent on Royal Lodge for years—decades, in some accounts—while bankrolling at least £7.5 million in renovations. A parliamentary committee even questioned whether it was appropriate for him to continue living in the estate’s prized house.

“It’s a question of stewardship,” said Olivia Carter, a governance expert. “Public resources, even those tied to tradition, are expected to be used responsibly. When public servants—or symbolic figures—appear to benefit without accountability, the public’s tolerance thins quickly.”

Whether the decision will settle matters is another story. Legal wrangling, reputational fallout and private grief all swirl alongside a nation’s appetite for clarity. For many, the picture is not clean-cut: the palace has opted for distance rather than a legal verdict. Andrew continues to deny the allegations against him.

What this moment reveals about power and scandal

Look beyond the particulars and you find larger questions: Who is answerable when power is inherited rather than earned? How do institutions balance loyalty to individuals with duty to society? And how should societies reckon with the people who are accused of grave wrongdoing when those people occupy symbolic roles?

“We are in an era where institutions cannot hide behind their age anymore,” Dr. Lewis said. “Social media, investigative journalism, and survivor networks have shifted the axis of accountability. This is not about individual humiliation; it’s about collective standards.”

The palace move is also a reminder of how private pain becomes public spectacle. A family that has appeared unassailable—its rituals and residences watched by millions—now faces a domestic reckoning that is also a national conversation.

The human layer beneath the headlines

At its heart, this is a human story: a brother stripped of title, neighbors whispering over garden fences, survivors seeking recognition, a monarch making a painful, political calculation. It invites questions that are both local and universal. How do we treat those in power who fall short? Where do we place compassion—toward survivors, toward a family, toward the nation?

“If you look at it purely legally, this might be a closure,” said a legal analyst I spoke with. “But emotionally, for victims and for the community, closure is messy and nonlinear.”

So what will become of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? He will move. He will live outside the official residences. The title is rescinded but not the bloodline, the history, the conflicting memories. In Windsor, life goes on: the castle bells will toll, the tourists will take photos, and the town will continue to calibrate what royal life means when the scaffolding of privilege is publicly questioned.

And for readers across the world: what do you think this moment says about accountability, about institutions, about the ways we balance heritage with justice? The question is not just British. It is global, timeless—and, somehow, painfully contemporary.

Israel launches deadly cross-border incursion into southern Lebanon

hanad

October 31, 2025

Israel carries out deadly incursion in south Lebanon — Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Ej Jarmaq

Dawn in Blida: A Quiet Village Fractured by Gunfire

Before dawn, Blida lay half-asleep beneath a pale sky, its battered houses still bearing the scars of last year’s war — gables missing, shuttered windows boarded with plywood, a few stubborn strings of laundry snapping in the cool wind.

Then the shooting came. A municipal building that for years had felt like a refuge for sleepy clerks and local paperwork became, in a matter of hours, the scene of a life extinguished and a village jolted awake.

An employee, Ibrahim Salameh, was found dead where he had slept on duty. Blankets and a thin mattress were stained; a pair of glasses lay among scattered papers and a half-smoked cigarette. The scene — doors riddled with bullet holes, windows blown out — read like a catalogue of a community that has learned how quickly normal life can be stolen.

Voices from the Street

“We heard them all night,” said a woman at the small bakery just off the main square, her flour-dusted fingers pausing mid-knead. “At first we thought it was rockets. Then we saw the lights, and we knew. Ibrahim used to come here for tea. He was on duty, he shouldn’t have been here — not like that.”

“They took the building in the dark,” the village mayor told a reporter, his face lined by more winters than his hair suggested. “He was sleeping here because there was no electricity at his home. We demand answers.” His voice carried the double weight of communal grief and the rawness of a population that has seen sovereignty traded for zones of influence.

What Happened — Two Perspectives

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out an operation in southern Lebanon, saying troops had been targeting what they described as Hezbollah infrastructure when soldiers encountered a “suspect” inside the municipal building and opened fire. “An immediate threat against the troops was identified,” a brief statement read, adding the incident was under review and accusing Hezbollah of using civilian structures for militant activity.

Lebanese officials saw the strike differently. President Aoun — speaking from the presidential palace — ordered the Lebanese army to “confront any Israeli incursion into liberated southern territory,” a stern instruction that framed the raid as an attack on national sovereignty. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam described the action as “a flagrant aggression against Lebanese state institutions and sovereignty.”

On the ground, ordinary people did not speak in diplomatic phrases. “Ibrahim was not a fighter,” a neighbor said, wiping her eyes. “He was an employee, like my brother or many men in this village. We want the truth, and we want our lives back.”

Key Facts at a Glance

Lebanon and Hezbollah reached a ceasefire with Israel in November 2024 after two months of open war that followed the outbreak of fighting in October 2023.
Despite the ceasefire, Israel maintains troops in five sectors of southern Lebanon and has continued regular air strikes, citing threats from Hezbollah.
The UN rights commission reported that 111 civilians have been killed in Lebanon since the ceasefire took effect.
US and international diplomats have been pressing Lebanese authorities to bring weapons under state control, a contentious issue tied to Hezbollah’s strength and Iran’s influence in the region.

The Wider Context: Why Blida Still Matters

Blida is not merely a tragic footnote. It sits on a fault line where local lives meet international strategy. The ceasefire of November 2024 stopped a full-scale conflagration, but it did not erase the daily, grinding interactions of surveillance, raids, and air strikes that continue to puncture life along the Blue Line.

“A ceasefire on paper is not the same as security on the ground,” said Dr. Leila Mansour, a Beirut-based conflict analyst. “When one side retains forces in key points across the border and the other keeps an armed non-state actor embedded in communities, the tinder remains. Small incursions can flare into broader confrontations.”

Hezbollah, which launched cross-border strikes into Israel after the Gaza war erupted in October 2023, emerged from last year’s fighting notably weakened, according to analysts — but not dismantled. Washington has intensified pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the Iran-backed group, and at a recent meeting of ceasefire monitors in Naqoura, the US envoy welcomed a “decision to bring all weapons under state control by the end of the year,” urging the Lebanese army to implement its plan.

On the Ground: The Human Cost

Walk through Blida and you feel the arithmetic of war in every cracked wall and abandoned café. Olive trees that once shaded generations stand with trunks scorched by shelling. A boy in a soccer jersey scuffs a makeshift ball along a rubble-strewn lane; an elder sits by an improvised shrine of photographs and candles, praying softly in a rhythm that has long outlived certainty.

“We live by the rhythms of the land — harvest, weddings, funerals,” the baker told me, wiping his hands on his apron. “Now every dawn we wake to sirens or the thud of helicopters. The young ones ask if the world will ever be normal again.”

Such scenes are mirrored across dozens of villages that bore the brunt of last year’s fighting. The municipal building where Ibrahim slept had served as a small anchor for civil life — permits stamped, births recorded, elections run. The use of a civilian facility as an alleged militant hideout, whether true or not, underscores the tragic entanglement of civilians and combatants in asymmetric warfare.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Every incursion, every raid, every retaliatory strike chips away at fragile steps toward stability. The Lebanese army has been ordered to respond to incursions, but it also stands between a government stretched thin and a populace exhausted by loss. The United States and other international actors press for weapons to be centralized under state control, but implementing such a plan in a polarized, politicized environment is easier said than done.

Consider three uncomfortable questions this raid forces us to face:

What protects civil servants and civilians when the structures of governance become targets or collateral?
Can a national army realistically absorb and control all armed groups without provoking new violence?
How many more lives will be lost before the international community moves from statements of concern to enforceable measures that protect people, not just borders?

Closing: A Village Reminds Us of the Stakes

At dusk, Blida tries to stitch itself back together. Neighbors share tea; a radio crackles with a melancholy song; a man mends a shutter that bears the arc of a bullet. Mourning becomes community work — a way of refusing to let a loss be the last word.

“We are not statistics,” the mayor said quietly as the light fell. “We are mothers and fathers, bakers and clerks. We want life, not headlines.”

As global readers, what do we owe to places like Blida? Perhaps, at the very least, the focused attention to see faces rather than maps, to press for accountability rather than acquiesce to inevitability, and to remember that every geopolitical calculus has a human ledger. When the morning paper lists another “raid” or “strike,” will we pause — and ask who was sleeping in that room, and why the rest of the world let it happen?

Who’s driving Sudan’s devastating war? Main armed groups and leaders

hanad

October 31, 2025

Who are the actors in Sudan's devastating war? — Children walk past a Sudanese army parade in the streets Gedaref in eastern Sudan (file image)

Smoke Over the Nile: Sudan’s Invisible War and the Foreign Hands That Tighten It

When I arrived in Khartoum — the city where the Blue and White Nile meet and where the dust always seems to taste faintly of iron — the skyline was broken by more than just unfinished apartments and telephone wires. Thin columns of smoke rose from neighbourhoods that had once been full of children’s cries and the smells of fresh bread. Street vendors who used to sell steamy cups of black tea spoke in whispers. A doctor at a makeshift clinic told me, “You get used to the sound of distant booming. You don’t get used to the silence after the ambulances stop coming.”

This is Sudan in the third year of a conflict that began between two men who once stood shoulder to shoulder.

The Two Generals, One Country Torn

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo — known to many as Hemedti — were once partners in a military transition that followed the 2019 ouster of Omar al-Bashir. In October 2021 they formalized power in a coup, and by April 2023 their partnership had cracked into open warfare. The fighting has killed tens of thousands, forced nearly 12 million people from their homes, and pushed Sudan into a humanitarian abyss that reverberates across the Sahel and Red Sea coasts.

Today, the army nominally governs from Port Sudan on the Red Sea, with a new prime minister, Kamil Idris, installed in May 2025. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose lineage traces back to the Janjaweed militias — horse and camel-mounted fighters accused of atrocities in Darfur two decades ago — have carved out their own administration in Nyala and now control much of western Sudan.

Lines on the Map, Threads from Afar

What started as a power struggle between two military leaders has become a patchwork of battle lines fed by accusations of foreign meddling. Each side accuses the other of importing weapons, mercenaries, and the technical means to strike from afar. The United Nations has repeatedly urged nations to “refrain from external interference,” but the calls have had the brittle ring of a plea thrown into a storm.

Who is accused of what?

Egypt: Cairo treats General Burhan as Sudan’s legitimate authority and has hosted him. Khartoum’s RSF has accused Egypt of providing direct military support — a claim Egypt denies.
United Arab Emirates: The army accuses Abu Dhabi of supplying the RSF with drones and even mercenaries. The UAE has denied interference despite UN and open-source reports suggesting otherwise.
Libya and Khalifa Haftar: Forces aligned with eastern Libyan strongman Haftar are accused of backing RSF offensives; Haftar denies these charges.
Chad: The army claims that Chad has been a conduit for supplies to the RSF — a charge that has splintered local politics in N’Djamena, which denies the allegations.
Turkey: Ankara has shown support for the army and, according to several outlets, supplied drones used against the RSF.
Iran: Diplomatic ties with Khartoum were restored in October 2023; the RSF has accused Iran of arming Burhan’s forces.
Russia: Long-standing military ties under the Bashir era and recent cooperation agreements keep Moscow in the background, with past talk of a Red Sea base that reverberates across regional security calculations.
Kenya: Weapons reportedly labelled “Made in Kenya” were found in RSF caches — an accusation Nairobi says is misleading. Kenya also hosted the RSF’s political wing at a founding meeting.

Voices from the Ground

“They fire at night,” said Mariam, a mother of four from Omdurman who now sleeps in a neighbour’s garage. “Not because our streets are military, but because they want the sky.” Her voice is weary, but precise. The fear she describes is not only for bullets but for the fragile infrastructure that pushes water into taps and keeps hospital lights on.

A humanitarian worker who has worked in Darfur and Khartoum for years told me, “The war used to be about farms and oil; now it’s about the drones and the supply chains. Whoever gets the advanced technology decides the tempo.” This worker asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

From Cairo, an analyst close to Egyptian policy said bluntly, “Egypt sees stability in Sudan as a matter of national security — Burhan is their guarantor.” In contrast, a diplomat in Abu Dhabi told me, “The UAE has strategic interests in the Red Sea, but we do not operate mercenaries in Sudan.” Both statements were made with the careful cadence of those who balance public posture with private posture.

Humanitarian Numbers and the Slow Burn

The scale of the crisis is not abstract. UN agencies and independent monitors estimate nearly 12 million people displaced within and outside the country. Hospitals are broken, wheat imports are threatened, and the Red Sea — a choke point for global shipping — hums with a new volatility as external powers maneuver for influence.

“This isn’t just a civil war,” said Professor Fatima El-Sayed, a political scientist who studies the Horn of Africa. “It’s a geopolitical contest remade by drones, deep pockets, and proxy logistics. When external actors arm, fund, and diplomatically prostrate themselves to local militias, they make the violence last longer, and they make it deadlier.”

What’s at Stake Beyond Sudan’s Borders?

The war in Sudan ripples beyond Khartoum’s burnt markets. It touches migration routes to Europe, destabilises neighbouring Chad and Libya, and threatens shipping lanes that feed the world. In the context of a resurgent great-power jockeying in Africa, Sudan is a mirror for wider competition: access to ports on the Red Sea, influence in the Horn of Africa, and the shadow economy of commodity trafficking.

Are we watching the future of interstate conflict — fought with outsourced fighters, remotely piloted aircraft, and deniable supply chains? Or is Sudan a tragic outlier, where local ambition meets reckless international appetite? The answer matters not only to policymakers but to the millions whose daily reality is fear, hunger, and the impossible task of rebuilding lives between intermittent truces.

Where to from Here?

There are no easy answers. The UN’s calls for restraint ring hollow without enforceable mechanisms. Local ceasefires can hold for days, sometimes weeks, but the underlying rivalry — a collision of two military machines and their patrons — endures. If anything, the international community’s failure to coordinate a clear, consistent response has been an accelerant.

“We need a regional compact,” said an African Union negotiator. “Not speeches. Not press releases. A real plan that ties reconstruction funding to disarmament and reconciles security needs with civilian governance.” Whether such a compact will emerge, or be powerful enough to tie the hands of external actors, is uncertain.

For now, the streets of Sudan wait. Markets will reopen. People will plant their small plots again. But the scars of this war — the bodies, the uprooted communities, the fractured trust — will take a long time to stitch together. And every time a foreign weapon arrives, every convoy that crosses a dusty border, the possibility of peace slips a little further away.

How willing is the world to defend the idea that borders should not be battlefields for others’ ambitions? And how long can ordinary people — those who knead bread, tend camels, teach children their letters — keep living under the shadow of foreign strings pulled far away?

Caribbean battered by Hurricane Melissa as death toll nears 50

hanad

October 31, 2025

Nearly 50 dead as Hurricane Melissa thrashes Caribbean — Residents rest amid debris of a damaged house after the passage of Hurricane Melissa in Boca de Dos Rios village, Santiago de Cuba

When the Sea Stayed and the Rain Kept Coming: The Wake of Hurricane Melissa

There are mornings when the island air smells like salt and coffee; there are mornings now when it smells like mud. Hurricane Melissa has left a ledger of loss across the northern Caribbean, and the numbers are more than statistics — they map out lives altered in an instant. Official tallies place the confirmed death toll at 49. But each figure is a neighbor, a child, a farmer — and for many communities, the accounting is still unfinished.

Haiti, spared a direct hit but not the storm’s mood, reported the heaviest toll: at least 30 dead and roughly 20 still missing after relentless rains turned rivers into roaring beasts. In Petit-Goavé, a southern town, one river overran its banks and swallowed whole families; local officials say 23 people — including 10 children — perished there. “The water arrived like a wall,” recounted Marie Toussaint, 42, whose cousin is among the missing. “We could hear shouts and then nothing.”

Jamaica, stunned by an unprecedented landfall, counted at least 19 fatalities and braced for more. Melissa struck southwestern Jamaica as a Category 5 storm — the most powerful hurricane to make landfall on the island in recorded memory — and left a landscape of torn roofs, downed power lines and fields scattered with debris. “It’s like a hand just swept across the parish,” said Corporal Deon Clarke of the Jamaica Defence Force, who has been coordinating rescue teams. “We’re still finding homes that are gone.”

On the Ground: Scents, Sounds and the Work of Rescue

In Montego Bay, supermarket entrances were ringed by anxious lines; pumps were dry or offline. “There is no petrol in most stations,” said Chevelle Fitzgerald, a visitor who’d been trying to reach the capital. “The roads were blocked with trees — it took six hours where it usually takes two.”

Seventy percent of Jamaican electricity customers were still without power days after the storm, Energy Minister Daryl Vaz reported. Ambulances and army personnel have had to tuck through paths cleared on foot to reach isolated pockets of the country. Satellite images show swathes of defoliated areas and neighborhoods reduced to skeletal frames — a visual silence that implies months of rebuilding ahead.

Across Cuba’s eastern provinces, authorities evacuated some 735,000 people — an extraordinary logistical feat that likely saved many lives. Yet preliminary reports indicated 241 communities remained isolated, communications down and up to 140,000 residents affected. “We were moved to a school with blankets and faces I’d only seen in the market,” said Rosa Elena, a teacher from Santiago de Cuba. “We’ll go back, but we don’t know if what we left will be standing.”

Numbers That Tell a Story

Some figures are blunt instruments: AccuWeather calculated damage and economic loss across the western Caribbean at between $48 billion and $52 billion. The forecaster also described Melissa as the third most intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean and one of the slowest-moving storms — a speed that multiplied the rainfall and the damage.

At 3 a.m. Irish time on the day after landfall, Melissa was a Category 2 storm roughly 264 km west of Bermuda, with sustained winds of about 161 km/h, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Bermuda braced but breathed relatively easy as authorities closed causeways and suspended schools and ferries “out of an abundance of caution.”

In the Bahamas, warnings were lifted but officials resisted a full “all clear,” cautious about returning islanders to homes still under threat of unseen damage. U.S. search-and-rescue teams were dispatched to Jamaica to bolster recovery operations, and international pledges of aid began to trickle in — the U.K., for instance, announced an additional £5 million in emergency funding and supplies targeted at shelter and lighting for families without power.

Voices from the Rubble

Alone in a neighbourhood in St. Elizabeth, a 77-year-old man named Alfred Hines waded through mud and splintered boards, barefoot and bewildered. “One minute the water was up to my waist, then my neck,” he said, hands still trembling. “I thought I’d be gone.”

First responders tell similar stories of small rescues that felt like miracles: children pulled from roofs, elders ferried to temporary shelters in church halls, families reunited at a relief station by a bowl of hot soup. “We can’t replace a home in a day,” said Lieutenant Miriam Powell, a relief coordinator in Kingston. “But we can bring a blanket, wire a radio, tell someone they’re not alone.”

Climate, Preparedness and the Larger Reckoning

Melissa’s path is also a stark chapter in the larger story of warming oceans. Scientists long ago warned that higher sea surface temperatures would give storms more fuel, increasing both intensity and the prevalence of slow-moving systems that dump extraordinary amounts of rain. Caribbean leaders, already battered by successive storms, have amplified calls for financial support and climate reparations from high-emitting nations.

In 2023 the United Nations set up a fund to help developing countries access fast, reliable financing when disasters hit. But pledges have lagged and donations have not met targets — a gap the region is feeling now in the form of delayed reconstruction and strained emergency services. “We need predictable funding windows,” said Dr. Ana Morales, a climate adaptation specialist. “Right now, many countries are forced into a cycle of short-term relief rather than long-term resilience.”

What Comes Next?

As relief flights and aid convoys arrive, the immediate logistics — food, water, temporary shelter, power restoration — are urgent. But recovery will stretch beyond roofs and roads. Farmers need seeds and fertilizer; children need schoolbooks and stability; mental health services will be vital for communities that watched their lives wash away.

Immediate priorities: search-and-rescue, water and sanitation, power restoration.
Short-term needs: shelter kits, medical care, distribution of fuel and food.
Long-term tasks: rebuilding resilient infrastructure, debt relief, and climate adaptation funding.

International donations, however, can’t be the entire answer. Robust, locally led rebuilding — with building codes that consider rising seas and stronger winds; solar microgrids that replace fragile transmission lines; community-based flood defenses — will determine whether the Caribbean simply recovers, or finally becomes more resilient.

Looking at the Horizon

On streets strewn with palm fronds and corrugated iron, there’s a stubbornness that will not be catalogued by any list of needs. Children still play where there’s a patch of dry ground, elders sit under makeshift tarps and trade news, and volunteers map out the next push for relief. “We’ll put it back together,” said a woman setting up a community kitchen in Jamaica’s west. “It will take time, but people here know how to fight.”

So what does the world owe these communities? Immediate aid, yes. But also the conviction to treat Melissa not as an isolated calamity but as a warning. Will global systems choose to finance transformation over mere repair? Will conversations about emissions translate into hard cash for adaptation and debt relief? The answers will shape not just how quickly lives are rebuilt, but whether the next storm finds the same vulnerable shoreline waiting.

Until then, islands will sweep their beaches by hand, count their losses, and plan — stubbornly, lovingly — for tomorrow. And the rest of us, watching from far-flung coasts, might ask ourselves: when weather crosses borders, what does solidarity look like?

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