Alarm as Ebola spreads into new areas of DR Congo
Cases are being identified in new health zones on a near-daily basis, warns the WHO’s head of epidemiology. By AFP and Reuters Published On 12 Jun 202612 Jun 2026 Ebola has spread to new areas of north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including a crowded displacement camp, raising fears that the country’s near-month-long outbreak is entering a more dangerous phase and larger scale than previously thought. The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, is showing signs of local transmission in newly affected communities as response measures lag, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) official warned on Friday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Since the outbreak was declared on May 15, there have been 676 confirmed Ebola cases, including 136 deaths in the Ituri province – the centre of the outbreak – as well as North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, according to WHO figures. A total of 32 patients have recovered. The United Nations agency reports a further 119 cases are suspected in the DRC, as the virus starts to spread to new areas. Olivier le Polain, the WHO’s head of epidemiology and analytics, said that cases were being identified in new health zones within the three affected provinces on a near-daily basis. “That reflects really the scale of this outbreak: a scale that is much bigger than what is being detected, and the high mobility of the population,” he said. Much more needs to be done to contain the virus, the WHO said, with isolation bed capacity far below the anticipated need, based on how it is spreading. No approved vaccines or treatments exist for the Bundibugyo species of the virus. ‘Blind spots’ Le Polain added that while in recent weeks, cases in new areas could be traced back to travel from hotspots, now “we also see local community spread in new areas”. Advertisement “There are still many blind spots in some areas that are high risk,” he said. “The full scale of the outbreak is not yet clear and we’ll get more clarity as surveillance improves.” Le Polain said contact tracing was getting better but was “still too low to ensure appropriate control”. “There’s a lot more that needs to be done across the board: more supplies to ensure that we’ve got safe spaces to isolate patients. Surveillance can scale up, but if you don’t have any space to put your patients safely, it becomes very difficult,” he added. The WHO official’s remarks came shortly after the UN’s refugee agency confirmed the first Ebola-related deaths in the crowded Kpanga displacement camp in Ituri province. DR Congo’s struggle to contain the disease has been complicated by the legacy of decades of conflict in the region. The government lacks full oversight due to the presence of armed rebels seeking control over the mineral riches in the area, leaving infrastructure poor or destroyed, and violence having chased huge numbers of people from their homes. According to an aid worker with knowledge of the cases cited by Reuters, those deaths occurred on May 31 and June 1. Cramped conditions at camps like Kpanga, where hundreds of people sometimes share a toilet, have fuelled concerns of rapid contagion. “We are all really worried that Ebola in these camps will spread extremely quickly and that there will be panic and people will flee all over whether or not they’re contacts, whether or not they’re ill,” Caitlin Brady, country director for the Danish Refugee Council in Congo, told Reuters. That will alarm neighbouring Uganda, which has confirmed 19 cases and two deaths but was reported recently by the African Union’s health agency to have the situation “under control”. Adblock test (Why?)
Stock markets surge as Trump calls off strikes on Iran, touts peace deal
Wall Street and Asian markets rally on hopes for an end to the US-Israel war on Iran. Published On 12 Jun 202612 Jun 2026 Stock markets have surged following US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he called off planned strikes against Iran and a peace deal with Tehran is imminent. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P500 index finished nearly 1.8 percent higher on Thursday, ending a three-day streak of losses for the biggest single-day gain since April. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.5 percent, while the older, blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 1.9 percent. The rally continued in the Asia Pacific on Friday, with markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia racking up gains. South Korea’s Kospi, the best-performing major index this year, surged more than 8 percent in morning trading, while Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 rose as much as 4 percent. Taiwan’s TAIEX gained about 2.4 percent, and Australia’s ASX 200 rose about 1.8 percent. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index was up more than 1 percent. Brent crude, the primary international benchmark for oil prices, fell about 1 percent to below $89.50 a barrel on hopes for a return to normality in the Strait of Hormuz, which in peacetime carries about one-fifth of global energy supplies. The market rebound came after Trump on Thursday suggested that a deal to end the war on Iran could be signed as soon as this weekend. “We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran… subject to finalisation of documents,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House. Iran has not publicly confirmed Trump’s claims, but a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman told reporters a memorandum of understanding with the US is “under consideration”. Advertisement “For the rally to be sustained, investors will want to not only see the actual deal being signed, but a complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Khoon Goh, head of Asia research for ANZ Bank, told Al Jazeera. “Only then will we see the gains extend.” Fabien Yip, a market analyst at the online broker IG Group in Sydney, Australia, said the rally reflected a “meaningful easing of geopolitical risk”, as well as anticipation over Friday’s market debut of SpaceX, set to be the largest of its kind in history. “The broader read on today’s Asian follow-through is that dip-buying interest remains genuine,” Yip told Al Jazeera. “That matters for how you characterise what’s happened over the past week. “This looks less like a structural break in the bull market and more like a healthy reset after a rapid, near-straight-line advance, the kind of consolidation that can potentially extend a rally’s longevity.” Adblock test (Why?)
White House shows off cage match arena as corruption lawsuit looms
NewsFeed White House officials previewed the grounds where they’ll host a cage match to celebrate US President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday on Sunday. A lawsuit is being considered to halt the event, raising questions of corruption and impropriety on the president’s role in setting up the event. Published On 12 Jun 202612 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Bosnia’s Esmir Bajraktarevic: Child of Srebrenica
Game Theory How does a football penalty become a story about survival? As Bosnia and Herzegovina prepare to face Canada in their 2026 World Cup opener, many eyes will be on Esmir Bajraktarevic. Born in the US, to a family affected by the Srebrenica genocide, his journey is about far more than just football. Published On 12 Jun 202612 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
LIVE: Mexico vs South Africa – World Cup 2026
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Follow our live build-up, with full opening ceremony and team news coverage, ahead of our text commentary stream.
Trailer: Israel’s Darkest Weapon | Al Jazeera Originals
Israel is the only state to have legalised torture through a ruling by its own Supreme Court. An expert who has documented these violations since 1983 says, “What the world knows today is less than 5% of what has actually occurred.” In Bodies of Evidence, an Al Jazeera original investigative documentary, we examine the use of sexual violence, torture, and degradation against Palestinian detainees, practices that rights groups and experts say have been systematically employed by Israeli military, intelligence, and prison authorities for decades. Contributors to the documentary include Francesca Albanese, Raji Sourani, Kifaya, Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Ben Marmarelli, Judge Cuno Tarfusser, and survivors whose identities are protected. Published On 11 Jun 202611 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Firefighters on scene at Pentagon during ‘hazardous materials incident’
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Department of Defense spokesman says ‘shelter-in-place order’ given after air quality issue detected. Published On 11 Jun 202611 Jun 2026 Firefighters are investigating a hazardous materials incident at the Pentagon, the sprawling facility that houses the US Department of Defense, according to authorities. In a statement on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the “department is executing standard protection protocols, including a shelter-in-place order for the affected area”. “The Pentagon has sophisticated systems to ensure the safety of the building and its occupants,” Parnell said. “Those systems have detected an air quality issue necessitating precautionary measures until we determine its significance.” In a post on X Arlington County fire and rescue said its “units, including our Hazardous Materials Team, are currently operating at the Pentagon in support of PFPA’s Hazmat Team during a hazardous materials incident”. Further details were not immediately available. The 600,000 square meter Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building. Nearly 30,000 military and civilian personnel work at the facility each day. More to come… Adblock test (Why?)
Sanctions on settlers not enough: Target Israeli gov’t, say campaigners
Israeli settlers and far-right ministers have been slapped with new Western sanctions. But human rights groups and Palestinian campaigners say the measures fail to address systemic state complicity in the occupation of Palestinian territories. While the latest actions have been framed as a decisive stand against settler violence, political analysts and legal experts argue that isolating individual actors serves to deflect from the lack of broader institutional penalties against the Israeli government itself. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list On June 9, 2026, the United Kingdom, alongside Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Norway, announced coordinated sanctions against networks financing and executing settler violence. The UK targeted six entities and one individual, while France banned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, three settler group leaders, and 21 settlers from entering the country. Smotrich and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have been censored by several European countries previously for their rhetoric against Palestinians and support for settler violence. ‘Too little, too late’ Critics point out that the limited scope of the sanctions does not match the scale of the crisis. Jennifer Larbie, Christian Aid’s head of UK influencing, described the decision to sanction so few entities as “derisory” and a clear example of the UK government doing “too little too late” while Palestinians are forced from their land. This sentiment was echoed by Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative. He told Al Jazeera Arabic that Western leaders are facing unprecedented public backlash for their ties to Israel. Advertisement “These governments are trying to cover up their shortcomings with low-value measures,” Barghouti said, arguing that the sanctions reflect a need to manage public anger rather than a genuine shift in state policy. He stressed that the Israeli government itself is the entity that plans, funds, and executes settlement expansion. Israel has undermined the Oslo Accords, which called for the freezing of settlements. At the time of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, some 250,000 settlers lived in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlement population has now grown to more than 700,000, while some three million Palestinians live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Despite international legal obligations – and a July 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion explicitly stating that all states are under an obligation not to recognise or assist Israel’s illegal occupation – the European Union has largely failed to implement a blanket ban on trade with settlement-based entities. While EU guidelines state that agreements with Israel do not apply to the occupied territories, member states have routinely stopped short of imposing binding economic embargoes, allowing goods produced on stolen Palestinian land to continually enter European markets. Products such as Medjool dates, avocados, wines and cosmetics, among others produced in the occupied West Bank settlements, are exported to Europe. Shielding the architects By focusing on individual settler outposts or far-right figures like Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, Western states risk creating a false distinction between “extremist” settlers and the Israeli state apparatus. Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International UK’s crisis response manager, stated that targeting settler financing networks while ignoring the ministers who are running settler campaigns is not meaningful accountability. “It leaves the architects untouched,” Benedict said, calling on the UK to sanction Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and other senior officials. Netanyahu and Gallant face International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for war crimes. An inquiry by the United Nations has previously found that Israeli authorities were directly involved in settler attacks that have killed, injured, and displaced Palestinians, with Israeli forces actively providing protection. Both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have long track records of inciting violence and expanding the occupation. Following a deadly settler rampage in the Palestinian town of Huwara in early 2023, Smotrich notoriously declared that the village should be “wiped out” by the Israeli state. Advertisement Furthermore, Smotrich has used his dual role in the Defence Ministry to quietly transfer administrative powers over the West Bank from the military to civilian control, a move legal experts describe as de facto annexation. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir has personally distributed thousands of assault rifles to settler “national guard” members, and has frequently praised settlers accused of murdering Palestinians, portraying them as heroes defending Israel. Mohanad Mustafa, an academic and expert on Israeli affairs, noted that figures like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir do not regularly travel to Europe and rely primarily on political and financial ties with the United States. “These sanctions do not target the Israeli government,” Mustafa told Al Jazeera Arabic, explaining that the measures inadvertently create a comfortable narrative for Israel by portraying the extremism as isolated to specific ministers rather than a state-sponsored enterprise. For its part, Israel swiftly rejected the sanctions. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Oren Marmorstein called them “disgraceful measures” and an attempt to impose a political stance regarding the “right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel”. Under international law, Israel’s settlements built on Palestinian lands are illegal. A UN resolution in September 2024 called for an end to the occupation within a year, but Israel has failed to comply. In fact, it has doubled down and announced more settlements. Israel routinely denies that its troops protect violent settlers, claiming such acts are rogue incidents that violate military protocol. But numerous reports by media and rights groups show Israeli forces’ complicity in attacks on Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians have been jailed without trial, and Palestinians have recounted horrific abuse inside Israeli custody. The arms and trade loophole Campaigners point out that Western countries’ actions come as they continue to sell arms and engage in free trade with Israel, which faces a case of genocide at the ICJ. Most rights organisations and genocide scholars have said that Israeli actions in Gaza do constitute genocide. The UK government recently updated its business guidance to explicitly advise against economic activity in illegal settlements, but it stressed that it continues to support trade with Israel within its 1967 borders. Larbie called
Bill Gates appears before Congress to testify over Epstein files
NewsFeed Microsoft founder Bill Gates appeared before Congress to voluntarily testify in a congressional probe into the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Gates said he hoped his testimony would support efforts to secure justice for victims. Published On 10 Jun 202610 Jun 2026 Click here to share on social media share-nodes Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
US diplomat found dead in Myanmar, Thai woman in custody
The US Department of State confirms the fatality, but refuses to provide more information about the person’s death in Yangon. Published On 10 Jun 202610 Jun 2026 A United States diplomat has been found dead in Myanmar’s largest city, according to the US Department of State, and three members of the diplomatic community in Yangon say a Thai woman has been detained by police in connection with the investigation. The US State Department confirmed to the Associated Press news agency on Wednesday that a US diplomat serving at the US Embassy in Yangon had died. The department did not provide further details about the circumstances surrounding the person’s death or its cause. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “Out of respect for the privacy of the family and loved ones, we have no further information to provide at this time,” it said. According to three people in the diplomatic community in Myanmar, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the case, Myanmar police are treating the death as a possible murder. They said the person was found dead two weeks ago at a hotel about 1.5 kilometres (one mile) from the US Embassy. The facility, with long-term rentals, is popular with diplomats, business people and other international visitors. Myanmar police have not publicly commented on the case. Thailand’s Foreign Ministry said it has provided consular assistance to the woman in custody and notified her family, but would not comment further. Situation in Myanmar Myanmar is in the midst of a civil war that began more than five years ago when the country’s democratically elected government was overthrown in a military coup. The military leadership that now governs Myanmar is estimated to control just 21 percent of the country after years of fighting against ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy forces. Advertisement More than 96,000 people have been killed, according to the international monitor the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). At least 3.6 million have been displaced, according to the United Nations. In April, former leader Aung San Suu Kyi was moved to house arrest after President Min Aung Hlaing pardoned and commuted the sentences of thousands of prisoners. Suu Kyi, age 80, still has 13 years of detention remaining. Adblock test (Why?)