An unusually strong cold front slammed Cuba’s north coast on Tuesday, with white-capped waves flooding streets with seawater, causing scattered power outages and littering the capital Havana with blowing trash and downed branches.

Gusts soared to 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) in western parts of the island as squalls and strong winds advanced south from Florida, which saw similar conditions earlier this week.

Havana residents hunkered down overnight as lights flickered on and off but slowly emerged onto the streets Tuesday morning bundled in jackets and hats as temperatures plunged to as low as 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius), unusually chilly for Cuba.

At dawn, the water flowed through some city streets like coastal rivers, moving jellyfish, seaweed and flotsam several blocks landward.

“This really is something new … we’re not used to this kind of cold,” said Havana resident Jaqueline Dalardes as she strolled along the city’s Malecón esplanade. “The climate has changed.”

Havana, a coastal city built centuries ago on the Gulf of Mexico, is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and strengthening storms brought on by human-caused climate change, scientists and city planners have said.

More than one-third of the 2.2 million inhabitants live in areas at risk from encroaching waters, according the UN Development Programme.

Rising sea levels threaten some coastal cities like Havana and could completely wipe from the map low-lying states in parts of the South Pacific Ocean.

Pakistan is on edge as the South Asian nation heads to the polls Thursday for a widely anticipated general election in which its charismatic – and widely popular – former leader is barred from standing.

Imran Khan, 71, is a former international cricket star who rose to Pakistan’s highest political office before he was ousted from power in a storm of controversy. Now the former prime minister is imprisoned on multiple convictions and banned from contesting the vote against his rivals – scions of the country’s elite political dynasties.

The vote, delayed by a year, comes as nuclear-armed Pakistan faces mounting challenges – from economic uncertainty and frequent militant attacks to climate catastrophes that are putting millions at risk. That sets the stage for a difficult road to recovery for whoever wins in a nation where no democratically elected prime minister has ever completed a full term in office.

Two blasts in separate locations in the southwestern province of Balochistan on Wednesday, a region plagued by decades of insurgency, killed more than 20 people and wounded dozens more, underscoring how political violence has spiked ahead of the vote.

The clear frontrunner in campaigning is Khan’s longtime foe, Nawaz Sharif. The 74-year-old former prime minister is seeking a historic fourth term as leader in what would be a remarkable political comeback following years of self-exile overseas after he was sentenced to prison on corruption charges.

Veteran Sharif will face a strong challenge, however, from first-time candidate for Prime Minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, 35, son of slain former leader Benazir Bhutto.

Confronted with increasing economic hardship and frequent terror attacks, analysts are questioning the credibility of the vote, accusing authorities of “pre-poll rigging” owing to a widespread crackdown on Khan – arguably the country’s most popular politician – and his aides.

Both the military and Pakistan’s caretaker government have denied suppressing Khan or the PTI.

However, in place of the usual campaigning fanfare that accompanies an election cycle, there is a sense of desolation among many of the country’s 230 million population, nearly 40% of whom are living in poverty, according to the World Bank.

Many young voters – the median age in Pakistan is just 22.7 – say they feel unseen and unheard, unable to pick the leader they want to guide the country for the next five years.

“Everyone can see where the preference lies. I wanted to give my first vote to Imran Khan but unfortunately, I don’t think that can happen now,” said Rabiya Arooj, a 22-year-old first-time voter from the capital, Islamabad.

“Our institutions are not working, the people responsible are not working for us, there is no freedom of speech. We are very distressed.”

‘Not much excitement’

Khan’s embattled Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party (PTI) has vowed to fight on in the polls, despite his absence from the ballot as he serves lengthy prison sentences for corruption, revealing state secrets and fraudulent marriage. Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, has also been jailed.

Khan, who captained Pakistan to cricket World Cup glory in 1992 and entered politics four years later, rose to power on a ticket of anti-corruption.

His party won elections in 2018, which many analysts say came with the approval of the country’s powerful military, a force that has dominated politics since Pakistan’s 1947 independence either through direct rule or behind the scenes.

Khan encountered multiple hurdles during his tenure as leader. From rising inflation to the Covid-19 pandemic, his government grappled with record slumps in foreign exchange, pushing the nation to the brink of economic collapse.

He was also accused of passing legislation against freedom of expression, with numerous journalists and activists critical of his establishment jailed on various charges.

Khan has also been embroiled in political controversy since he was dramatically ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022, for alleged mismanagement of the economy.

That moment set the stage for a months-long showdown between Khan and the military, who he accused of orchestrating his removal, prompting tens of thousands of his supporters to throng the streets in defiance of the army. The military denies Khan’s accusations.

Khan maintains widespread popularity among Pakistan’s largely young voters, who view him as a break from the political dynasties or military establishments that ruled the country for much of its independent history.

“Pakistan has had polls of dubious credibility in the past. This time around they are particularly significant,” said Farzana Shaikh, associate fellow at the Asia-Pacific program at The Royal Institute of International Affairs. “Not only because of the scale of repression but because the scale of the so-called ‘pre-poll rigging’ has rarely been matched in the past.”

Pakistan’s Caretaker Information Minister, Murtaza Solang, said the upcoming poll will be conducted democratically, adding “ample resources are in place to ensure free and fair elections.”

The PTI has been prohibited from using its famous cricket bat symbol on ballots, dealing a blow to millions of illiterate people who might use it to cast their vote, and television stations are banned from running Khan’s speeches.

“We want Khan because he’s someone who can represent us and speak openly around the world,” said student Raja Ikram, 22, adding the only issue his generation cares about is Khan’s release from prison.

“We don’t want a sellout prime minister,” he said.

Some 370 kilometers (230 miles) south, in Khan’s hometown of Lahore, many young voters responded with equal disillusionment.

First-time voter Ameer Hamza, 22, said “there is not much excitement” for the upcoming vote. “People believe the election is always fixed,” the student said.

Manahil Ahmed, 23, called Pakistan’s political environment “particularly hostile” right now. “We are looking for basic rights of expression, dignity to life, right to free speech,” she said, adding she doesn’t relate to the “elitist and dynastic” candidates standing for prime minister.

‘Inches away from an implosion’

Insurgencies and militancy have plagued Pakistan but a steady drip of attacks recently has been especially grim, even if they have tended not to generate international news headlines.

For Pakistan’s military and police forces, the last year was the bloodiest in a decade. On Monday, for example, 10 police officers were killed in an hours-long battle with gunmen in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the kind of ambush that has become a regular occurrence for security forces.

Nearly 1,000 people were killed in terrorist attacks across the country in 2023, according to the Islamabad-based independent Center for Research and Security Studies.

Pakistan has had fraught relations with its historically hostile neighbor, India, to the east and the Taliban-led Afghanistan to the west. Compounding this were deadly airstrikes exchanged between Pakistan and Iran in January, leading to concerns that a steady hand is needed to ensure Pakistan’s internal problems don’t spill beyond borders in a simmering neighborhood.

“The first challenge for any elected party will be how to form the government that would give it stability to form a national consensus to solve Pakistan’s problems,” said Shaikh, the analyst.

Violence has broken out in several districts in the run-up to the election.

Last week, an independent candidate affiliated with Khan’s party was shot in a “targeted killing” in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to police. Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the attack, which also injured three others.

Meanwhile, four people were killed and five others wounded in a blast during a PTI campaign rally in restive Balochistan province, according to Khan’s party. No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack.

Also in Balochistan, the homes and offices of several candidates from the Pakistan’s People’s Party and the election office of the Pakistan Muslim League-N were attacked, injuring at least 15 people, according to authorities. At least one of the attacks was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army, a militant separatist group.

“The environment leading up to the elections is volatile, deeply polarizing and distrustful against the state and its key institutions,” said Hussain Nadim, Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow at Yale University.

Distrust of state institutions could “potentially lead to catastrophic results in the country where the Pakistan Army – in its pursuit to ‘manage’ the elections has pushed the political space into a tailspin,” he said.

“In short, the election environment is delicate and inches away from an implosion.”

‘Desperate for normalization’

Three-time Prime Minister Sharif, who once saw one of his terms ended in a military coup is widely expected to win the election, given his Pakistan Muslim League-N (PMLN) party’s popularity in the electorally significant Punjab province, where it is known for its mega infrastructure projects.

The former fugitive returned to Pakistan last October following nearly four years in self-exile, in a move welcomed by many in his home province. In the years running up to his return Sharif got most of his convictions overturned in the courts, with the final graft charge vacated in December, paving the way for him to stand for election once more.

Shoaib Tanveer, 39, said he was voting for the PMLN because of the facilities they have provided for Punjab’s residents.

“They’ve sorted out sewage and gas lines, they’ve cleaned up our streets, fixed streetlights, there has always been a representative of theirs available to get work done and completed,” the Punjab resident said.

Another voter, Baou Nadeem, 50, said the PMLN “represents progress and success.”

Shaikh, the analyst, said a path had been cleared for Sharif to return to the top job.

“Perhaps rightly or wrongly the leader of the PMLN is being groomed to take over and assume the role of PM once the playing field has been cleared for him,” she said.

And some believe Sharif might be what Pakistan needs during such a turbulent period.

“Sharif is a veteran. He’s always been adept at balancing United States and China very well. He’ll want good relations with India,” said Tim Willasey-Wilsey, a former senior British diplomat and professor at King’s College London.

But the likelihood of a PLMN victory could see an “an abysmally low” election turnout, analysts said.

“I don’t see vast numbers and masses of Pakistanis coming out to protest the results,” Shaikh said, adding that despite this, “people are desperate for normalization.”

“However disgruntled the Pakistani public might be, (they are) also desperate for some stability after months of chaos,” she said. “So out of resignation they will accept the results.”

Long lines in snowy weather to buy merchandise days in advance. Hordes of fans, some from other countries, filling up the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome, excitedly swapping homemade bracelets. People around the world feverishly calculating time zones and watching online flight trackers.

This is the Taylor Swift phenomenon – and the mania that has followed the pop superstar as she prepares to perform four nights of sold-out shows in Tokyo before potentially jetting back to Las Vegas to watch boyfriend Travis Kelce play at the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs.

The Tokyo leg of Swift’s Eras Tour – a multi-continent extravaganza that could end up as the highest-grossing tour of all time – kicked off Wednesday evening and ends Saturday night.

The area outside the Tokyo Dome was packed hours before doors opened on the first night Wednesday, with fans decked out in glitter, tassels, tiaras and kimonos.

Kane Ishiyone, 28, traveled from her home in Fukuoka, in southwestern Japan, to Tokyo for the concert – for which she has bought tickets to all four nights. She has loved Swift since 2009 – to the point she learned English to understand the song lyrics, and left her job to move about more freely during the tour.

“I’m taking a two-year break for going to her concerts,” she said, speaking outside the concert venue with pink stickers on her cheeks. “I quit my job when she announced this Eras Tour.”

The Eras Tour had its first show in March 2023 and will continue through December 2024.

To date, Ishiyone has attended more than 20 concerts in eight cities – and is already planning future trips to Germany, Austria and the Netherlands to attend Swift’s shows there.

Childhood friends Sarina Saito, 18, and Aimi Satou, 19, said they were looking forward to doing TikTok chants at the concert. “We worked hard at part-time jobs (to afford) this,” they said.

Excitement among Swifties, as her fans are known, had been building for days.

Organizers began selling tour merchandise at the Tokyo Dome on Monday, with large crowds waiting outdoors in the snow and sleet for Taylor-branded hoodies and sweatshirts. One fan from the Philippines, who flew to Tokyo for the concert, said on TikTok she’d stood in line in temperatures hovering around zero for two and a half hours.

Fans have also prepared through rituals that have by now become established traditions among the Swiftie community: making personalized friendship bracelets to trade with other concert attendees, practicing crowd chants and curating carefully chosen Taylor-themed outfits.

“What we’ve seen with the Taylor Swift tour is something that we’ve not really seen before,” said Richard Clarke, an analyst at investment firm Bernstein. “It’s been a very well-timed post-Covid event, a sort of cultural event, everyone seems to want to go to this.”

“It’s been such a popular tour that people have found that their home markets are often sold out, and therefore have begun to travel to other markets to try and find tickets,” he added. “I’m sure that’s going to be the case with Asia as well.”

Two fans at the Tokyo Dome on Wednesday said they’d traveled from New Zealand for the concert. “We tried to get tickets to Taylor Swift in Australia, but we just could not, it was two weeks of pressing the refresh button, trying to get tickets, couldn’t get tickets, and (my friend) said, let’s try for Japan,” one said.

In a sign of just how international the crowd was, one attendee described hearing multiple Asian languages inside the stadium on Wednesday. But then Swift appeared, the music began playing and tens of thousands of people sang as one in the common tongue of her lyrics.

Super Bowl return?

Then there’s the question of whether Swift will make it back to Las Vegas in time for Super Bowl Sunday, given the long-haul flight and large time difference – prompting fans around the world to draw up spreadsheets, timelines and even PowerPoint presentations to track her journey.

Swift has been a regular at Kansas City Chiefs games since she turned up at Kelce’s family suite in September last year to watch them against the Chicago Bears. The pair later confirmed in separate interviews that they had already been seeing each other prior to that game.

Even the Japanese embassy in Washington weighed in to reassure fans, saying in a statement last Friday that “despite the 12-hour flight and 17-hour time difference … she should comfortably arrive in Las Vagas before the Super Bowl begins.”

Working in Swift’s favor is Japan’s position as the “land of the rising sun.” As one of the first countries to the west of the international dateline, it is a full 17 hours ahead of Las Vegas.

While Swift finishes her last concert on Saturday night local time, that’s still early dawn hours Saturday morning in Las Vegas, leaving her plenty of time ahead of the Super Bowl kick-off on Sunday evening Las Vegas time.

The Taylor Swift economy

Swift’s stardom holds such outsized power that experts say she may single-handedly boost Japan’s entire economy in just four days.

Up to 34.1 billion yen (about $229.6 million) are expected to be generated from Swift’s concerts, said Mitsumasa Etou, a representative of research site Economic Effects NET, and a part-time lecturer at Tokyo City University.

He called the tour Japan’s biggest ever musical event in terms of predicted economic impact – expected to surpass Fuji Rock, one of Japan’s biggest music festivals, which last year generated about 20 billion yen (about $134.6 million) in revenue.

The estimated numbers for Swift’s tour don’t even include the impact of international tourists coming to Japan for the show, he said.

Clarke agreed, saying: “If you add up the ticket prices, the restaurants … she was, on her own, a fairly significant impact on regional GDP.” Attendees are likely also sightseeing, shopping for goods and making other purchases, meaning “there’s going to be more taxes being used,” he said.

Part of the reason it’s so profitable is just how much Swift’s tickets cost. Prices for seats close to the stage are now double what they’d cost in 2018 when she performed at the Tokyo Dome for her Reputation tour, said Etou.

Not to mention, many superfans like Ishiyone bought tickets for multiple shows. 28-year-old Maiko Akazawa, who grew up listening to Swift’s music, bought tickets for all four nights in the VIP section for 46,000 yen (about $309) total.

Clarke cautioned that the economic impact will be milder in a metropolis like Tokyo – which has many hotels and thus can easily accommodate an influx of fans – than smaller cities. Some US towns saw up to 95% revenue increases for the nights of Swift’s concerts – whereas Tokyo will likely see an increase of about 25% each night, he said.

The difference is that people might be traveling much further for the Tokyo shows, as it’s one of only three locations she will visit in the Asia Pacific region. She will play six shows in Singapore – with tickets for those selling out within hours – and seven shows in Australia later in February.

“You will have some people that definitely will be like, ‘Well, look, I haven’t been able to get tickets in Los Angeles. It’s not that much different to go to Tokyo than it is to go to the East Coast,” said Clarke.

Australia is already bracing itself for impact, more than a week out from her scheduled concert. On Tuesday, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Michele Bullock said the “Taylor Swift inflation” effect has forced fans to adjust their spending elsewhere to afford tour tickets and other related costs, according to Reuters.

Reuters added that the tour is the first in history to gross over $1 billion, citing industry estimates – with fans spending billions more dollars on transportation and accommodation.

Hamas has presented its response to a proposal for a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza by calling for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the enclave during a four-and-a-half-month truce and a plan to permanently end the war.

The Palestinian militant group that rules Gaza has proposed a three-phase deal, each lasting 45 days, that would also see the release of hostages held in the enclave in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israel – including those serving life sentences – as well as the start of a massive humanitarian and rebuilding effort.

It hasn’t demanded an immediate end to the war. Negotiations for a permanent ceasefire would take place during the truce, it said.

The proposal was a response to a framework agreement presented by negotiators in Paris at the end of last month.

The Hamas response has been met with optimism by some of the parties involved but one Israeli official said Wednesday there was “no way” his country would accept it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed repeatedly that the war will not end until there is “complete victory” over Hamas, which includes killing Hamas leadership and that it “will take time — months not years.”

Under Hamas’ counterproposal, the first phase of the ceasefire would include the release of hostages in Gaza including women and children under 19 years old who aren’t enlisted in the Israeli military, as well as the elderly and the sick, in exchange for all Palestinian female, juvenile, sick and elderly Palestinian prisoners as well as 500 prisoners named by Hamas, including those with life sentences and convictions for serious crimes.

It would also include intensifying humanitarian aid, moving Israeli forces “outside populated areas,” a “temporary cessation” of military operations and aerial reconnaissance, the start of reconstruction work, and allowing the United Nations and its agencies to provide humanitarian services and establish housing camps.

It would also see the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes in all areas of the Strip and would ensure freedom of movement without obstruction.

In addition, this first phase would include starting indirect talks on “the requirements necessary for a complete ceasefire” and negotiations on the details for the second and third phases.

The second phase, Hamas has proposed, would see the conclusion of talks on a mutual cessation of hostilities. During the second phase, all male hostages in Gaza (civilians and military personnel) would be released “in exchange for a specified number of Palestinian prisoners” and Israeli forces would have to completely exit the enclave.

Phase three would aim to exchange bodies and remains of those killed on both sides. It also stipulates that all crossings from the Gaza Strip be opened for trade to resume and so people can move without obstacles. Israel would commit to provide Gaza with its electricity and water needs.

Finally, Hamas proposes that the guarantors of the agreement would be Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Russia and the United Nations. It does not include the US among the guarantors.

Hamas’ counterproposal has been met with optimism by those involved in the negotiations. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, which is mediating, said Tuesday Hamas’ response to Israel’s proposal was “positive.”

“The reply includes some comments, but in general it is positive. However, given the sensitivity of the circumstances, we will not tackle details,” Al Thani said in the Qatari capital Doha after meeting Blinken. “We are optimistic, and we have delivered the response to the Israeli party.”

Former Chilean President Sebastian Pinera has died in a helicopter crash in Chile.

The helicopter carrying the conservative billionaire crashed in the Los Ríos region of southern Chile, according to a statement from his office Tuesday. It was carrying four people, three of whom survived the crash and are “out of danger,” the Chilean Minister of Interior Carolina Tohá said.

At the time of the crash, there was widespread rainfall in the area, but it is unclear if the weather caused the crash. Pinera’s body has been recovered by the Chilean navy.

Pinera, who was 74 years old, was Chile’s president from 2010 to 2014 and again from 2018 to 2022.

A state funeral will be held for the late leader, and Chilean President Gabriel Boric has declared three days of national mourning – though it is unclear when it will start.

The country was already in a state of national mourning due to ongoing forest fires, believed to be the worst on record, that have killed more than 120 people.

Chile’s government “expresses its shock due to this tragedy, extends its hug in solidarity to the former president’s family, to those close to him, but also to all Chileans,” Tohá’s statement said.

Pinera was educated in Chile and at Harvard University in the United States. According to Forbes, the businessman-turned-politician was worth an estimated $2.7 billion. He founded the credit card company Banco in the 1970s and, during his first stint as president, honored a promise to divest his assets, the magazine reported.

Pinera’s first term began in 2010 when he succeeded Michelle Bachelet, a popular president who steered the country through the global economic downturn.

His second term was punctuated by massive protests and riots, which shook the country in October 2019 as protesters demanded better pensions, better education, and the end to an economic system that they said favored the elite.

The unrest led then-outgoing President Pinera to agree to a popular vote about the need to change the constitution inherited from the dictatorship.

He also presided over the country’s Covid-19 pandemic response, where the Andean nation of 19 million saw one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

“He genuinely sought what he thought was best for the country,” Boric said Tuesday. “For example, when he took on the reconstruction of the country after the February 27, 2010, earthquake, or when he took risks … to rescue the 33 miners from the San Jose mine, and more recently, in managing the pandemic in times of global uncertainty.”

Regional leaders mourned Pinera’s passing. “I met President Pinera several years ago. He always had a positive attitude towards Uruguay and me personally. As an example… his support with the logistics offered for the arrival of vaccines during the pandemic,” Uruguay’s President Luis Lacalle Pou wrote on X.

Argentinian President Javier Milei also sent his condolences in a post on X. “On behalf of the state of Argentina, we send our condolences to the family, friends, and people of Chile,” he wrote.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Militant rebels in Indonesia’s restive West Papua are urging their most feared comrade to release a New Zealand pilot held hostage for a year.

A group of armed fighters led by tribal warlord Eganius Koyega kidnapped Phillip Mehrtens on February 7, 2023, after his light plane landed on a delivery run in the rugged highlands of Nduga Regency in the heart of the province.

Mehrtens’ captors initially threatened to kill him unless New Zealand agreed to pressure Indonesia into allowing West Papua to secede from Indonesia, a seemingly impossible demand.

But a year on, that demand seems more distant than ever, and little is known about where Mehrtens is being held or how he’s surviving life in captivity surrounded by armed fighters, led by Koyega.

Rarely pictured without a machine gun, Koyega is a member of the West Papuan National Liberation Army (TPNPB) the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, which seeks independence.

The TPNPB is designated by the Indonesian government as a terrorist organization, and in the past, the group has taken hostages to further their cause.

But Mehrtens has been held for far longer than most captives, and now a rift has emerged between Mehrtens’ captors as to what to do with the 37-year-old husband and father.

In the lead up to the one-year anniversary of Mehrtens’s capture, the TPNPB leadership publicly pressured Koyega to release him “for the sake of humanity.” Koyega has not yet agreed.

“If the pilot dies at the hands of the TPNPB, it will be detrimental to the Papuan people who have been fighting for more than 60 years,” TPNPB Major General Terryanus Satto wrote in a statement on February 3.

Failed rescue efforts

Grainy proof of life videos sent by the rebels between February and November 2023 show Mehrtens growing thinner and more unkempt. Most often he appears surrounded by fighters armed with guns and bows and arrows.

One video shows at least a dozen guns held to Mehrtens’ head, and Koyega sporting both military fatigues and traditional dress, reflective shades and a necklace made of boar’s tusks.

The son of a West Papuan independence fighter killed by the Indonesian military,  Koyega has a reputation as a brutal paramilitary hardened by bloody clashes with Jakarta’s special forces troops.

For months, he  has led a game of cat and mouse with Indonesian soldiers through West Papua’s thick jungles as pressure builds on the Indonesian Army to free the foreign hostage.

In March 2023 Indonesian soldiers caught up to Koyega’s group, but they were pushed back after a fatal gunbattle.

Koyega has set several deadlines, threatening to shoot Mehrtens if his demands aren’t met, but hasn’t followed through.

Damien Kingsbury, an academic and conflict resolution expert who was involved in the initial negotiations to free Mehrtens, says New Zealand appears unwilling to negotiate directly with Koyega.

“There was an offer put to the New Zealand government last week to meet to discuss the process by which Mehrtens could be released, and the New Zealand government has not responded to that offer,” he said.

However, the New Zealand government this week acknowledged a new hostage video was filmed on December 22 that shows Mehrtens addressing his family from the Papuan highlands, telling them he is in good health.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said in a statement that officials are still concerned about his condition.

“We know that just before Christmas Phillip was able to contact some friends and family to assure them that he is alive and well, however we are still concerned at the length of time he has been held.”

“For the last year, a wide range of New Zealand Government agencies has been working extensively with Indonesian authorities and others towards securing Phillip’s release,” Peters wrote.

“The Indonesian response is dictated by the Indonesian military and their view is that they will hunt down this group, kill the leaders and release Mehrtens,” Kingsbury said.

“They have had contact on a couple of occasions and Indonesian soldiers have been killed. That indicates how nimble Koyega’s group is in the field and how unable Indonesia is to resolve it militarily, which is their preference.”

Stalled negotiations

With New Zealand seemingly unwilling to negotiate and Indonesia unable to rescue Mehrtens, the pilot’s fate rests entirely with Koyega, who will decide whether to oblige his superiors by freeing him.

Mehrtens “fate has been in the hands of Koyega since the day he was kidnapped and it has been primarily a matter of good fortune that he has been kept alive,” Kingsbury said.

While the TPNPB leadership wants Mehrtens released as an act of magnanimity, the saga is unlikely to have an immediate impact on geopolitics.

Both regional powers New Zealand and Australia have maintained a “willful non-intervention in Indonesia’s affairs in order to keep a strong relationship with Jakarta,” says Cammi Webb-Gannon, the Coordinator of the West Papua Project at Australia’s University of Wollongong.

“They are entirely committed to recognizing Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua.”

West Papua, a resource-rich former Dutch colony, was formally absorbed into Indonesia following a controversial referendum in 1969. Advocates of Papuan independence say that vote was neither free nor fair.

“Almost all indigenous Papuans will say, ’We want independence, we are part of the independence movement,’” says Webb-Gannon. “Many people see armed resistance as a last resort but a justified one,” Webb-Gannon said.

Nduga, where Koyega operates, has been turned into a warzone, Webb-Gannon says, as Indonesian troops have militarized the region in response to a massacre carried out by Koyega himself in 2018.

On December 2 that year TPNB fighters led by Koyega ambushed a construction site, killing 19 Indonesians workers there to build the Trans-Papua highway, a state-backed project intended to open up the largely inaccessible region.

The TPNB claimed the 19 killed were members of the military engineers corps, not civilian contractors.

“The military is just sending in more and more troops, people are fleeing their homes, their schools, their communities. There are ghost towns as people hide in the bush. There is mass starvation and a generation of kids out of school. There is very little access to healthcare. This is the context in which the pilot was taken hostage,” Webb-Gannon said.

As Phillip Mehrtens marks one year in captivity, Indonesians, including Papuans, are preparing to go to the polls for an election which has made West Papua a talking point, according to Human Rights Watch Indonesia Researcher Andreas Harsono.

The frontrunner is Prabowo Subianto, who in the late 1990s was a commander of an Indonesian elite special forces group that Human Rights Watch accuses of arbitrary arrests and beatings in Papua.

“Prabowo says [Indonesia] needs to increase security, as long as the West Papuan militants are fighting, creating so-called security disturbances,  [and insists] we need to be firm against them,” Harsono says.

One year after his kidnapping, the window to negotiate Mehrtens’s safe release could be shrinking.

The devastating wildfires tearing across large parts of Chile are believed to be the country’s deadliest on record, according to the United Nations disaster agency, as firefighters struggle to contain more than 160 blazes after days of burning.

The fires have claimed at least 123 lives and hundreds of people are still missing, according to Chilean authorities. Officials also said that 33 bodies have been identified and 79 autopsies have been conducted.

Hundreds more remain missing and the death toll is expected to rise, according to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The wildfires have devastated swaths of central and northern Chile, destroying thousands of homes and buildings and turning neighborhoods to ash.

President Gabriel Boric said Tuesday the fires are the “biggest tragedy” in the country since the deadly 2010 earthquake – a magnitude 8.8 that killed hundreds.

“The inhabitants of Viña del Mar, of Quilpué, of Villa Alemana, have gone through and are experiencing a situation that has been tremendously catastrophic, exceptional, unprecedented and painful,” he said Tuesday.

Boric declared a state of emergency Sunday as coastal cities including Viña del Mar and Valparaiso choked with smoke, when fires moved from forested to urban areas. Aerial shots of Viña del Mar show scorched streets and row upon row of destroyed homes.

The president declared Monday and Tuesday as days of national mourning for fire victims.

Chile’s catastrophic fires have been driven by the impacts of El Niño — a natural climate fluctuation that has a global heating effect — colliding with the longterm trend of global warming, which is fueling more intense and more frequent drought and heat waves.

For the last decade, Chile has been grappling with a “mega-drought,” the longest there in at least 1,000 years, putting pressure on water supplies and drying up the landscape, priming it for fire.

The country has also been scorched by abnormally high temperatures in recent days. Chile’s capital Santiago reached 37.3 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on January 31, the country’s third-highest recorded temperature in more than a century, according to the World Meteorological Agency.

The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in wildfire activity in Chile, according to a January study published in the journal Nature, as high temperatures, drought and strong winds have combined to create perfect conditions for intense and destructive fires.

A total of 1.7 million hectares have burned in the country over the last decade, the study found.

Displaced Palestinians crowded into tents in Rafah are waiting with dread for an anticipated Israeli ground assault on the city – with nowhere left to flee once troops move in.

One million people are estimated to be crammed into a tent city in the southern Gaza location, with satellite images showing that the makeshift shelter is rapidly expanding.

Others are packed into houses in the city, where rocket attacks are already commonplace.

He said conditions in Rafah are “very difficult,” describing a “large number of people, chaos, and high prices.”

Dahman, like countless others, found himself in the city after a “very arduous” journey through the besieged enclave. Rafah was the last refuge for Palestinians trekking south to avoid Israel’s air and ground campaigns, following orders from Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials for Palestinians to leave Gaza City, and then Khan Younis, as their ground campaign moved further south.

Rafah has experienced aerial assaults from Israeli forces for months, but the new anticipated ground campaign brings with it heightened fears of a bloodbath.

Those trapped in the city have no remaining escape route. The city borders Egypt, and the crossing into that country has been closed for months.

“The bombing is getting closer slowly in Rafah,” he said. “We do not know where we will go after Rafah.”

‘Everyone is afraid’

Israeli leaders have set their sights on Rafah in recent days, claiming the city is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and that the militant group’s leadership, including Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, is “on the run.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said the military would “soon achieve its goals” as it pushed into Rafah.

Gallant claimed in a televised briefing that Sinwar had no contact with his fighters and was forced to flee from one hideout to another with the IDF in close pursuit. “He is not leading the forces; he is busy with his own personal survival. He became, instead of the head of Hamas, a fugitive terrorist,” Gallant said.

“We are achieving our missions in Khan Younis, and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate terror elements that threaten us,” Gallant said in a previous statement from his ministry on Thursday.”

But for the more than one million Palestinians in the southern city, the expected push into Rafah is causing alarm and fear.

“Everyone is afraid of the expanding of the ground operation in Rafah,” Raed Al-Nims, Media Director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said on Monday.

More than half of the estimated more than 2 million people in Gaza are seeking refuge in the Rafah area, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA said Monday that refugees facing acute shortages of food, water, shelter and medicine are still pouring into Rafah as fighting worsens nearby.

“Electricity is almost non-existent,” he added, a fact which makes it difficult for Palestinians to see communications regarding the IDF’s approach. “We charge our phones using solar energy which is available at our friend’s house in Rafah,” he said. “There is no phone signal except on the Israeli and Egyptian networks.”

Dahman and his family left Gaza City in mid-October, days after Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel sparked an IDF bombardment on the city. In November, they went to Khan Younis, before again being uprooted in December and heading to Rafah.

A similar journey was made by Youssef Abu Kwaik, a 23-year-old displaced Palestinian who left Khan Younis for Rafah around three months ago.

“As for medical supplies, they are completely non-existent,” he added.

The UN’s humanitarian office has issued regular warnings about the situation on the ground, calling the city a “pressure cooker” last week.

“In recent days, thousands of Palestinians have continued to flee to the south, which is already hosting over half the Gaza’s population of some 2.3 million people. Most are living in makeshift structures, tents or out in the open,” a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jens Laerke, told a media briefing.

“Rafah is a pressure cooker of despair, and we fear for what comes next,” he said.

Prince Harry has flown back to the United Kingdom to see his father, according to media reports, after the shock announcement on Monday from Buckingham Palace that King Charles III has cancer.

Harry, who arrived in London Tuesday from California, has been involved in a long-running, public falling out with his family in the years since he and wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, stepped back from royal duties, though the duke did make a brief visit to the UK for Charles’ coronation last year.

The Duke of Sussex was photographed being driven into the gates of Clarence House, the King’s London residence, at around 2.45 p.m. (9.45 a.m. ET). Harry was seen in the photograph seated in the back of a black SUV. Harry flew from Los Angeles to London overnight landing at about 12.30 p.m., British media reported.

Harry’s return has sparked speculation of reconciliation with his family, after years of estrangement. However, a royal source said there were no plans for Harry to meet his brother Prince William while he’s in London.

While Charles’ troubling health update stunned the nation, the British monarch called Harry before the palace issued its announcement. William and the King’s siblings – Princess Anne and Princes Edward and Andrew – similarly were informed personally.

It appeared that Meghan and the couple’s two children — Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet — did not make the last-minute journey with Harry. The Sussexes emigrated to the United States after stepping away from royal duties in 2020.

The King’s younger son visited the UK on several occasions last year — most recently jetting over in September for a brief visit to attend the WellChild Awards, a charity he has been patron of for more than a decade.

The fifth-in-line to the throne did not see his immediate family before flying out to Germany for the start of his Invictus Games in Dusseldorf. He also traveled to London as his legal proceedings against UK publishers continued.

It was also not immediately clear where Harry will stay while in Britain. The Sussexes last year vacated their official residence at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, which is around an hour’s drive from London. When he visited last year, he reportedly stayed in a hotel in the capital.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday he was thankful the King’s condition was “caught early” in what appeared to be off-the-cuff remarks during a radio interview with the BBC.

Harry’s ties with his family has been strained since he and Meghan stepped back in 2020 shortly after they relocated to California. The couple sat down with Oprah Winfrey for an incendiary interview that ignited a royal racism controversy. The relationship was further put under pressure by the release of the couple’s six-part Netflix series and Harry’s memoir.

The bad blood between William and Harry was compounded after “Spare” was published. In the autobiography, Harry claimed his elder brother had physically attacked him.

While the royal family are an institution, they are also a family. And many will be hoping that Harry’s return will bring a rapprochement with his the rest of the Windsors. For now, he appears willing to put other things aside.

The last time the pair reunited was when King Charles was crowned at Westminster Abbey in May. It was another brief visit with the duke staying long enough for the ceremony but leaving immediately after.

There have been signals of an improvement in relations between father and son, which at one point were so low that Harry once said Charles stopped taking his calls. But there has been little to suggest that the tensions between the brothers have softened.

Prince William is returning to public duties this week after taking time off to support his wife, Catherine, in her own recovery from abdominal surgery, Kensington Palace announced on Monday.

But as the direct heir to the British throne, he’ll likely be needed to help cover official duties and engagements, as Charles handles the daily red boxes and keeps across state business during his treatment.

The cancer diagnosis only 17 months into Charles’ reign has also become a moment of unity for the royal family.

While the number of working royals these days has dropped more than anticipated in recent years, and just two are under the age of 50, they will be keen to support the King during his treatment.

Five days after a devastating earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria last year, the world witnessed a miracle: Sezai Karabas and his 6-year-old daughter Sengul were pulled out of the rubble of his collapsed apartment block in Gaziantep province without a scratch.

He may have looked like the luckiest man on earth, but he didn’t feel that way. His wife Rukiye and 4-year-old son Mehmet had died.

They survived by pure luck. They were in another room grabbing winter coats when the building collapsed, he said – trapping them up under five stories of rubble in a long, meter-high pocket. After four days buried, he heard rescuers working above him, but said he didn’t shout because he knew they wouldn’t hear him. They were rescued a day later, after 132 hours.

“Even we don’t know how we survived,” Karabas said. “It was cold, we had no food, or water, but God gave us strength. We didn’t feel hunger, thirst or exhaustion even for a minute. We just waited, and tried to conserve energy.”

They have since moved to their family village and built a new house.

“Our relationship has become more intense. Of course, Sengul loved me before but now she doesn’t want to leave my side,” Karabas said.

Sengul doesn’t talk about her mother and brother, he added, not wanting to relive the traumatic memories of the earthquake.

Living in ‘container cities’

The initial earthquake on February 6 was 7.8 in magnitude; a second, 7.5 magnitude quake came hours later. The shaking lasted for only seconds but, a year on, it’s clear the impact will be felt for generations.

Parts of Hatay look almost like the earthquake happened yesterday, as badly damaged buildings await demolition. In the center of the ancient city of Antakya, there are few signs of life and even fewer buildings that look like anyone still lives in them.

According to official figures, 14 million people in Turkey were impacted by the earthquake. More than 850,000 housing units were either destroyed or badly damaged. And while most of the rubble has been cleared away, rebuilding is slow.

Last year, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to build 650,000 housing units for those who had lost their homes to the quake – 319,000 of them within a year.

His government promises that 75,000 will be finished in the next two months, but fewer than 20,000 have been fully completed so far.

The main roads between affected cities in southern Turkey are dotted with hundreds of temporary “container cities” that will be permanent for the foreseeable future. Almost 700,000 survivors still live in these camps – in trailers equipped with water and power, but little else.

Ismail Demir lives in one outside Islahiye, in Gaziantep province, with his pregnant wife and 1-year-old son. With arms outstretched, you can almost touch both walls. They have a space heater for warmth and a hot plate to cook. Because demand for housing far outstrips supply, he can’t afford to rent an apartment on his salary as a factory worker.

“Until (the government) gives us an apartment, we will have to stay here,” he said. the family lived in a rented apartment before the quake destroyed their home.

Search for the missing

Last year’s earthquake killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, and thousands more in neighboring Syria. It is difficult to get accurate information on the recovery efforts in Syria, but there is scant evidence of a large-scale coordinated effort to rebuild.

In Turkey, even a year later, there are at least 145 people missing, 38 of whom are children, according to Sema Gulec, who leads DEMAK, a group formed to represent their families. The group’s calls for a commission to find the missing have now twice been rejected by parliament.

Gulec’s 25-year-old son, Batuhan, is among those who are missing. His building in the seaside city of Iskenderun collapsed on February 6. For eight days, Gulec and her family helped search the rubble. Survivors were pulled out, bodies were found, but not Batuhan.

Weeks later, a woman responded to social media appeals for information saying she saw Batuhan on February 6 – covered in dust, but alive. She said an ambulance was too full to take him, so instead he was put into a white car. Gulec has never tracked down the driver.

DNA tests have failed to confirm a match with any unidentified bodies. She knows he is likely dead, but she can’t let go of the tiny bit of hope fed by the lack of certainty over his fate.

“Sometimes at night, I imagine him coming to my apartment and ringing my doorbell, and I take him inside and I feed him,” she says. “If I can’t find his body, then I will be waiting for him my whole life.”

Cigdem Nur’s brother Mehmet, his wife and their six-year-old daughter are also missing. She said they bought their apartment because it was newer, and thus more likely to withstand an earthquake. It didn’t. Nur has checked body bags, searched hospitals, morgues and cemeteries, and looked in orphanages for her niece. She’s never found any trace.

She says the builder is in jail pending trial. According to Turkey’s justice ministry, 267 builders have been convicted since the earthquake so far for building code violations.

The earthquake-affected region was home to almost half of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey.

Khaled Kassar, from the Syrian city of Homs, was trapped with his wife and three boys under the rubble for five hours in Antakya, Hatay province, before they were rescued.

“It was a miracle,” he said.

He recalls how for months afterwards his boys refused to sleep inside, fearing collapse. The family recently moved to a small studio apartment in relatively undamaged Gaziantep city. But because of Turkish law requiring Syrian refugees to remain in the province in which they were initially registered, his sons have been turned away from the local schools, Kassar said. Administrators instead suggested they return to Hatay to enrol. His former home there is now an empty lot.

His boys spend their days at home watching TV and trying to study a little too. His son Anwar, 7, is a year behind in school. Jamal, 10, is two years behind.

“My god, I worry a lot. The last school year was wasted, this year was wasted and I don’t know what will happen with them. I came here from Syria for my kids,” Kassar said.

There is no official data on the number of Syrian children unable to register in school in Turkey, but Mustafa Kara Ali estimates it’s in the tens of thousands. He runs Kids Rainbow, a non-profit based in a center off a Gaziantep alley offering support, Turkish lessons and other activities to keep kids off the streets and prepared for school – when or if they are able to enrol.

They organization helps 120 children, but has a waiting list of more than 500 children who are either working in informal jobs or just sitting at home all day.

“If we have that many kids on our waiting list, as one center in one small neighborhood, imagine how many there are across the city, or across the country. It’s a huge problem and the Turkish government should solve it,” he said.

Preparing for future quakes

Turkey’s government, led by Erdogan, came under sharp criticism in the aftermath of the earthquake for a slow emergency response and late mobilization of rescue teams. More broadly, the government was blamed for lax enforcement of building codes and delays in renewing building stock in a country prone to tremors.

The criticism was most acute in Hatay, where the opposition CHP controls the main city municipality. The government has, in turn, brushed off the criticism and at times accused the main opposition of incompetence that has hindered reconstruction that seems to be progressing more quickly elsewhere.

The weekend before the anniversary, Erdogan made a trip to the area, inaugurating two new hospitals in Hatay. One of the slogans for the trip was “We have turned the catastrophe of the century into the unity of the century.” The next day, Erdogan was campaigning for his party’s local mayoral candidate.

Erdogan suggested that cooperation would only come when local governments are controlled by his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). “If the local administration and the central government do not collaborate, if they are not in solidarity, nothing will come to that city. Did it come to Hatay? Right now, Hatay became lonely,” he said.

In Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has complained about a lack of cooperation with Erdogan’s national government hampering preparations for future earthquakes.

Istanbul has long been keenly aware of the danger it faces. A 7.4 magnitude earthquake in northwest Turkey in 1999 killed more than 17,000 people. Its epicenter was in Istanbul’s neighboring Kocaeli province. An epicenter closer to the city would be much more catastrophic.

At a press conference last week, Imamoglu laid out the sobering statistics. The city estimates that two-thirds of Istanbul’s buildings were built before the 1999 earthquake, after which stricter building codes came into effect. Some 200,000 buildings will not withstand the next major earthquake and are in urgent need of either replacement of reinforcement. Three million people live in those buildings. City efforts have barely made a dent in the numbers.

Many people either don’t know – or don’t want to know – that their building is at risk. Imamoglu added that city inspectors are often rejected by homeowners fearing the uncertainty – though this is less often the case since last year’s earthquake.