Maritime disputes across the vast South China Sea have ratcheted up in recent years as an increasingly assertive China militarizes disputed islands and confronts its regional rivals over their competing claims in the strategically important and resource-rich waterway.

Bracketed by China and several Southeast Asian nations, parts of the vital economic passage are claimed by multiple governments, with Beijing asserting ownership over almost all of the waterway in defiance of an international court ruling.

Over the past two decades, China has occupied a number of obscure reefs and atolls far from its shoreline across the South China Sea, building up military installations, including runways and ports.

Competing claimants, such as the Philippines, say such actions infringe on their sovereignty and violate maritime law.

And the United States agrees, regularly sending its Navy destroyers on freedom of navigation operations close to contested islands, leading to fears that the South China Sea could become a flashpoint between the two superpowers.

Here’s what you should know.

Why does the South China Sea matter?

The 1.3-million-square-mile waterway is vital to international trade, with an estimated third of global shipping worth trillions of dollars passing through each year.

It’s also home to vast fertile fishing grounds upon which many lives and livelihoods depend.

Much of its economic value remains untapped, however. According to the US Energy Information Agency, the waterway holds at least 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil.

Who controls those resources and how they are exploited could have a huge impact on the environment. The South China Sea is home to hundreds of largely uninhabited islands and coral atolls and diverse wildlife at risk from climate change and marine pollution.

Who claims what?

Beijing claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the South China Sea, and most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles from mainland China. The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan also hold competing claims.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.

China has ignored the ruling: Manila says Beijing continues to send its maritime militia to Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

In the southern portion of the sea is the Spratly Island chain, which Beijing calls the Nansha islands. The archipelago consists of 100 islets and reefs of which 45 are occupied by China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam or the Philippines.

In the northwestern part of the sea, the Paracels – known as the Xisha islands in China – have been controlled by Beijing since 1974 despite claims from Vietnam and Taiwan.

China’s ruling Communist Party also claims self-governing Taiwan as its own territory, despite having never controlled it.

What does China’s naval build up mean for the sea?

China has built the world’s largest naval fleet, more than 340 warships, and until recently it has been regarded as a green-water navy, operating mostly near the country’s shores.

But Beijing’s shipbuilding reveals blue-water ambitions. In recent years it has launched large guided-missile destroyers, amphibious assault ships and aircraft carriers with the ability to operate in the open ocean and project power thousands of miles from Beijing.

In addition, Western marine security experts – along with the Philippines and the United States – claim China controls a maritime militia that is hundreds of vessels strong and acts as an unofficial – and officially deniable – force that Beijing uses to push its territorial claims both in the South China Sea and beyond.

The US is not a claimant to the South China Sea, but says the waters are crucial to its national interest of guaranteeing freedom of the seas worldwide.

The US Navy regularly conducts freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea, saying the US is “defending every nation’s right to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.”

Beijing denounces such operations as illegal.

What has China built in the sea?

Most of Beijing’s military buildup is concentrated along the Spratly and Paracel island chains, where sustained land reclamation saw reefs being destroyed first and then built on.

Chinese vessels have been known to encircle various atolls and islets, sending dredgers to build artificial islands large enough to harbor tankers and warships.

“Over the past decade, the PRC has added more than 3,200 acres of land to its seven occupied outposts in the Spratly Islands, which now feature airfields, berthing areas, and resupply facilities to support persistent PRC military and paramilitary presence in the region,” US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Lindsey Ford told a House subcommittee earlier this week, referring to China by its official acronym, the People’s Republic of China.

Beijing’s military construction sped up in 2014 as it quietly began massive dredging operations on seven reefs in the Spratlys.

Since then, Beijing has constructed military bases on Subi Reef, Johnson Reef, Mischief Reef and Fiery Cross Reef, fortifying its claims on the chain, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Those facilities, according to Ford, are now bristling with some of China’s most advanced weaponry, including stealth fighters.

“Since early 2018, we have seen the PRC steadily equip its Spratly Island outposts — including Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross — with an increasing array of military capabilities, including advanced anti-ship cruise missiles, long-range surface-to-air missile systems, J-20 stealth fighter jets, laser and jamming equipment, and military radar and signals intelligence capabilities,” she said in a prepared statement.

China installed exploratory oil rigs in the Paracels in 2014 that sparked anti-China riots in Vietnam, a competing claimant.

More recently, cruise ships have taken Chinese tourists to the militarized reefs.

Why are tensions rising again?

Under President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the Philippines has taken increasingly assertive steps to protect its claim to shoals in the South China Sea, leading to several confrontations with Chinese vessels in waters off the Philippine islands.

They include standoffs between Chinese coast guard and what Manila says are shadowy Chinese maritime militia boats and tiny wooden Philippine fishing vessels; Chinese water cannons blocking the resupply of a shipwrecked Philippine military outpost; and a lone Filipino diver using a knife to sever a massive floating Chinese barrier.

“These recent incidents in the past year shows that China has become increasingly aggressive and confident in its actions against smaller countries like the Philippines. They’re beginning to cross certain lines,” said Jay Batongbacal, a maritime expert at the University of the Philippines.

The Philippine Coast Guard says it remains “committed to upholding international law, safeguarding the welfare of Filipino fisherfolk, and protecting the rights of the Philippines in its territorial waters.”

China’s Foreign Ministry has defended the behavior of its vessels in the waterway and said Beijing will “firmly safeguard” what it views as its territorial sovereignty.

What are the global implications?

Since taking office in 2022, Philippine President Marcos Jr. has taken a stronger stance over the South China Sea than his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, amid the wider power struggle that has been playing out in the region for years.

The South China Sea is widely seen as a potential flashpoint for global conflict, and the recent confrontations between Manila and Beijing have raised concerns among Western observers of potentially developing into an international incident if China, a global power, decides to act more forcefully against the Philippines, a US treaty ally.

Washington and Manila are bound by a mutual defense treaty signed in 1951 that remains in force, stipulating that both sides would help defend each other if either were attacked by a third party.

Marcos has strengthened US relations that had frayed under his predecessor, with the two allies touting potential future joint patrols in the South China Sea.

As the partners held their largest military exercise in April 2023, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned that US-Philippine military cooperation “must not interfere in South China Sea disputes.”

The US, however, has condemned China’s recent actions in the contested sea and threatened to intervene under its mutual defense treaty obligations if Philippine vessels came under armed attack there.

“The increasingly frequent run-ins between China and the Philippines speak to the new Marcos government’s willingness to stand up to Chinese bullying and coercion,” said Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

“Part of that is certainly attributable to the closer US-Philippines alliance which helps given Manila the confidence that Beijing will be deterred from overt military force lest it invoke the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.”

“I want to tell you that, yes, you can. You can dream and you can achieve your dreams,” he said.

Growing up with cerebral palsy in one of the poorest areas of Cali, Colombia, Aristizábal pushed himself to defy society’s expectations. He has dedicated his life to bringing therapy, education, and support to other young people with disabilities in his community so they can realize their potential.

Since 2016, his organization, Asodisvalle, has expanded in big ways, opening even more doors of opportunity for those he helps.

With his prize money and donations, Aristizábal and his organization purchased the land where they built a much larger rehabilitation center equipped with new technology and more medical tools for all the children’s needs. They’ve grown from helping some 400 young people to more than 1,000 today, he said.

Along with specialized therapies, his center provides students with free education and a host of programs, including dance, sports, and music. Older students can also learn job skills.

Not only has Aristizábal expanded his nonprofit, he was inspired to become a lawyer and graduated from law school three years ago.

“I realized that the world needs more people to defend the rights of those with disabilities,” he said. “My goal is to help change the laws of this country so that those with disabilities will have more opportunities.”

This year, he and his foundation realized yet another big dream: Building a university. Inspired by a group of older students from the program, the organization began construction two years ago.

“Today we have the first university for young people with disabilities in Latin America,” he said.

Now in its first year, with 300 students enrolled, the university offers a range of classes, including computer programming, 3D technology, graphic design, and languages. Students can also learn skills in culinary arts, carpentry, music, and tailoring.

“It has all the equipment so that people with disabilities can study in an accessible way,” Aristizábal said. “We have ocular technology, for example. Those who can’t move their hands or feet are operating computers with their eyes.”

Aristizábal says the focus is not only to help students attain their college education but to prepare them for employment so they can join the workforce, become providers in their families, and contribute to a variety of fields.

“The foundation is changing the concept of the word ‘disability,’ understanding that they can, that they’re capable,” he said.

The young people who inspired the idea for the university, Aristizábal says, started out learning to be bakers at the foundation. Now, they are employed at a local food production plant.

“Before, their families saw them as though they were not going to be able to do much,” he said. “Today, they have a job, they have a salary. They’re the ones who put food on the table.”

Ultimately, Aristizábal wants to show the world what anybody can achieve if given the chance.

“Jeison is a role model for us,” said Ayleen, who started at the foundation when she was 4 and plans to enroll at the university next year to become a teacher. “He’s shown us that there is no limitation, no disability, no nothing stopping us from achieving our dreams.”

At least 52 people were killed and dozens more wounded in what authorities believe was a suicide attack at a religious procession in southwest Pakistan Friday.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area, has seen a decades-long insurgency by separatists who demand independence from the country, citing what they say is the state’s monopoly and exploitation of the region’s mineral resources.

Meanwhile, a separate blast took place during Friday prayers at a mosque near Peshawar City in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least two people and injuring 11.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the explosion in Mastung.

Ul Munim claimed a senior police officer, who was killed in the explosion, was the target of the attack.

The critically injured have been transferred to hospitals in Quetta, the province’s capital, while others are being treated in a local hospital in Mastung, he said.

Achakzai said the bodies of the victims have also been moved to a hospital but that he expected the number of casualties to rise.

Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar strongly condemned the blast in a statement.

“The Prime Minister expressed his condolences to the families of those who died in the blast,” a statement from his office said. “Prime Minister’s prayers for forgiveness for the deceased and patience for the families.”

Police in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city some 600 kilometers (370 miles) from Mastung, have been instructed to tighten security and remain on “high alert” in wake of the blast, a statement from the inspector general said.

Balochistan has witnessed a spate of attacks in recent months.

Last month, an attack on Chinese engineers in Balochistan was thwarted by Pakistan’s military, leaving two militants dead and the Chinese workers unharmed, according to police.

In March this year, at least nine police officers were killed and 11 others injured in a suspected suicide blast.

Just hours after the blast in Balochistan, attackers targeted a mosque in the northwest of the country. Local police said two men on bikes had started shooting at their officers outside the Hangu mosque in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“I cannot think of any clearer case of bullying than this,” said Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr. “It’s not the question of stealing your lunch money, but it’s really a question of stealing your lunch bag, your chair and even enrollment in school.”

His comments follow increasingly assertive moves by the Philippines to protect its claim to shoals in the South China Sea during more than a month of high-stakes maritime drama.

While tensions between China and the Philippines over the highly-contested and strategic waterway have festered for years, confrontations have spiked this summer, renewing regional fears that a mistake or miscalculation at sea could trigger a wider conflict, including with the United States.

The region is widely seen as a potential flashpoint for global conflagration and the recent confrontations have raised concerns among Western observers of potentially developing into an international incident if China, a global power, decides to act more forcefully against the Philippines, a US treaty ally.

Recent incidents have involved stand offs between China’s coast guard, what Manila says are shadowy Chinese “maritime militia” boats and tiny wooden Philippine fishing vessels, Chinese water cannons blocking the resupply of a shipwrecked Philippine military outpost, and a lone Filipino diver cutting through a floating Chinese barrier.

Teodoro characterized the Philippines’ refusal to back down in the waters within its 200 nautical-mile exclusive economic zone as a fight for the very existence of the Philippines.

“We’re fighting for our fisherfolk, we’re fighting for our resources. We’re fighting for our integrity as an archipelagic state… Our existence as the Republic of the Philippines is vital to this fight,” Teodoro said in a sit down interview at the Department of National Defense in Manila. “It’s not for us, it’s for the future generations too.”

“And if we don’t stop, China is going to creep and creep into what is within our sovereign jurisdiction, our sovereign rights and within our territory,” he said, adding that Beijing wont stop until it controls “the whole South China Sea.”

Beijing says it is safeguarding its sovereignty and maritime interests in the South China Sea and warned the Philippines this week “not to make provocations or seek troubles.” It accused Philippine fishing and coast guard vessels of illegal entry into the area.

China claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all 1.3 million square miles of the South China Sea, and most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles from mainland China. Along with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan also hold competing claims.

Over the past two decades China has occupied a number of reefs and atolls across the South China Sea, building up military installations, including runways and ports, which the Philippines says challenges its sovereignty and fishing rights as well as endangering marine biodiversity in the resource-rich waterway.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.

But Beijing has ignored the decision and continues to expand its presence in the waterway.

What’s at stake

In his first sit-down TV interview with an international news outlet since he took the position in June, Teodoro was keen to stress whatever happens in the South China Sea impacts the globe.

Crucially, the waterway is vital to international trade with trillions of dollars in global shipping passing through it each year. It’s also home to vast fertile fishing grounds upon which many lives and livelihoods depend, and beneath the waves lie huge reserves of natural gas and oil that competing claimants are vying for.

With nations already suffering from inflation brought about by Russia’s war in Ukraine, there are concerns that any slow-down in travel and transporting of goods in the South China Sea would result in significant impact to the global economy.

“It will choke one of the most vital supply chain waterways in the whole world, it will choke international trade, and it will subject the world economy, particularly in supply chains to their whim,” Teodoro said, adding that if this were to happen, “the whole world will react.”

The defense secretary warned that smaller nations, including regional partners, rely on international law for their survival.

“Though they need China, they need Russia, they see that they too may become a victim of bullying. If they (China) close off the South China Sea, perhaps the next target may be the Straits of Malacca and then the Indian Ocean,” Teodoro said.

Risk of conflict

Only a few years ago the Philippines was treading a much more cautious path with its huge neighbor China.

But since taking office last year, Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr has taken a stronger stance over the South China Sea than his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.

On Friday, he defended the Philippine Coast Guard’s removal earlier this week of a floating barrier installed by China in the southeast portion of Bajo de Masinloc, also known as the Scarborough Shoal. A disputed area, the shoal a small but strategic reef and fertile fishing ground 130 miles (200 kilometers) west of the Philippine island of Luzon.

Marcos said his administration will not allow foreign entities to put up a barrier “that is within the Philippines,” according to the official Philippine News Agency (PNA).

“We are not looking for trouble. What we will do is continue defending the Philippines, the maritime territory of the Philippines, the rights of our fishermen who have been fishing there for hundreds of years,” Marcos said in an interview, while visiting the island of Siargao.

“We avoid trouble, we avoid heated exchange but our defense of Philippine territory is strong,” Marcos added, according to PNA.

Marcos has also strengthened US relations that had frayed under Duterte, with the two allies touting increased cooperation and joint patrols in the South China Sea in the future.

In April, the Philippines identified the locations of four new military bases the US will gain access to, as part of an expanded defense agreement analysts say is aimed at combating China.

Washington has condemned Beijing’s recent actions in the contested sea and threatened to intervene under its mutual defense treaty obligations if Philippine vessels came under armed attack there.

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Lindsey Ford reiterated Washington’s commitment to the mutual defense treaty in testimony before a US House subcommittee on Tuesday.

She said the treaty covers not only the Philippine armed forces, but also its coast guard and civilian vessels and aircraft.

“We have said repeatedly and continue to say that we stand by those commitments absolutely,” Ford said.

Defense secretary Teodoro has concerns about a possible escalation “because of the dangerous and reckless maneuvering of Chinese vessels” but he was clear that any incident – accidental or otherwise – the blame would lie with China “squarely on their shoulders.”

And he called global powers to help pressure Beijing over its moves in the South China Sea.

“Peace and stability in that one place in the world will generate some relief and comfort to everyone,” he said.

As part of the Marcos administration’s commitment to boost the Philippines defense and monitoring capabilities in the South China Sea, Teodoro said further “air and naval assets” have been ordered.

“There will be more patrol craft coming in, more rotary aircraft and we are studying the possibility to acquiring multi-role fighters,” he said, adding that would “make a difference in our air defense capabilities.”

Preferring cooler heads to prevail, Teodoro said that diplomacy would provide a way forward providing Chinese leader Xi Jinping complies with international law.

“Filipinos I believe are always willing to talk, just as long that talk does not mean whispers in a back room, or shouting at each other, meaning to say there must be substantial talks, open, transparent and on a rules-based basis,” he said, while also adding that talks cannot be used as a delaying tactic by Beijing.

The Philippines, he said, has “no choice” but to stand up to China because otherwise “we lose our identity and integrity as a nation.”

But conflict, he added, was not the answer or desired outcome.

“Standing up doesn’t mean really going to war with China, heavens no. We don’t want that. But we have to stand our ground when our ground is intruded into.”

The self-declared republic of Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist from next year after its president signed a decree dissolving state institutions following its defeat by Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani victory last week triggered a huge exodus of ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and marked the end of decades of conflict – and potentially the end of centuries of Armenian presence in the region.

President Samvel Shahramanyan’s decree called for all institutions and organizations of the Republic of Artsakh – which is not recognized internationally – to dissolve from January 1 2024. “The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases its existence,” read the decree.

Azerbaijan reclaimed control of the breakaway region last week after an offensive lasting just 24 hours.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan’s borders but has for decades operated autonomously with a de facto government of its own.

Azerbaijan has long been clear about the choice confronting Karabakh Armenians: Stay and accept Azerbaijani citizenship, or leave. The majority of the population has already voted with its feet: Tens of thousands have fled their ancestral home rather than submitting to rule by Baku.

How did this happen?

After generations of intermittent wars and brittle ceasefires, the suddenness with which Nagorno-Karabakh fell to Azerbaijani troops – and with which its ethnic Armenian population has scrambled to evacuate – has been startling.

Azerbaijan launched its offensive on September 19, firing missile and drones at the regional capital of Stepanakert in what marked the start of a third war fought for control of the region in as many decades.

Under the Soviet Union, of which Azerbaijan and Armenia are both former members, Nagorno-Karabakh became an autonomous region within the republic of Azerbaijan.

Karabakh officials passed a resolution in 1988 declaring its intention to join the republic of Armenia, causing fighting to break out as the Soviet Union began to crumble, in what became the First Karabakh War. About 30,000 people were killed over six years of violence, which ended in 1994 when the Armenian side gained control of the region.

After years of sporadic clashes, the Second Karabakh War began in 2020. Azerbaijan, backed by its historic ally Turkey, reclaimed a third of the territory of Karabakh in just 44 days, before both sides agreed to lay down their weapons in a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

But the third war was to last just a day. The Karabakh presidency said its army had been outnumbered “several times over” by Azerbaijani forces and had no choice but to surrender and agree to “the dissolution and complete disarmament of its armed forces,” by which time Azerbaijan had killed at least 200 people and injured many hundreds more. A second ceasefire – also brokered by Russia – came into effect at 1 p.m. on September 20.

The swiftness of Karabakh’s surrender was a measure of its military inferiority. Armed with Turkish drones, Azerbaijan won a crushing victory in 2020, attacking not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also Armenia itself. Unlike in 2020, Armenia’s armed forces did not attempt to defend the region during the most recent offensive – in part out of fear of further Azerbaijani aggression.

Karabakh’s despair was Baku’s triumph. In a speech to the nation Wednesday evening, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev announced his forces had “punished the enemy properly” and that Baku had restored its sovereignty “with an iron fist.”

Shahramanyan, the regions’ president, said Thursday he had signed the decree “due to the current difficult military-political situation.” The Azerbaijani presidency had previously insisted that the Artsakh government – as well as its armed forces – also dissolve itself. It warned if they did not do so, that the offensive would continue “until the end.”

What happens next?

The day after the ceasefire, Baku sent representatives to meet with Karabakh officials and discuss “reintegration.” Few details were released of the talks, but Azerbaijan has long been explicit about the choice confronting ethnic Armenians in the region.

In a speech delivered in May, he said Karabakh officials needed to “bend their necks” and accept full integration into Azerbaijan.

Aliyev claimed that the rights of Karabakh Armenians “will be guaranteed,” but Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and international experts have repeatedly warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing.

Anna Ohanyan, a senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said she feared what would happen to local residents who chose to stay and attempted to refuse Azerbaijani citizenship.

Will any Armenians remain?

More than half of the local population had fled Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia by Thursday morning. Many harbored no hope that they can ever return to their ancestral homeland.

Ohanyan said that the best case scenario would be that Azerbaijan erects “a Potemkin village” – that is, a sham settlement intending to paint a false picture to the outside world, the sort once used to impress Russian empress Catherine the Great.

“But in the long term, I think there will be a systematic push, continued demographic engineering to push Armenian communities outside the region,” Ohanyan said.

Poghosyan arrived in Armenia Thursday morning with her husband, twin children, parents and grandmother. She said what ordinarily would have been a 45 minute drive had taken the seven of them 35 hours, so snarled up was the road.

Who will take the refugees?

Pashinyan said in a speech Sunday his government “will welcome our sisters and brothers of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia with all care.”

But how prepared Armenia – a nation of some 2.8 million people – is to house up to 120,000 arrivals from Nagorno-Karabakh remains unclear.

Many of those on the move landed in temporary refugee camps set up in the border towns of Goris and Kornidzor. During a visit to Armenia, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power warned those arriving were suffering from “severe malnutrition.”

Nagorno-Karabakh has been under blockade since December 2022, when Azerbaijan-backed activists established a military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor.

Can everyone leave?

Vartanyan, of Crisis Group, said she was concerned about who would manage the routes into Armenia. “Will it be Russian peacekeepers, the ICRC, or will it be Azerbaijani authorities?” she asked. “Does it mean people will have to go through filtration camps? And then will people get detained – for example, the local men who took part in the fighting in the past, or those who were part of the local de facto authorities?”

Over the weekend, “one of the main things that people were doing in Stepanakert was burning all the possible documentation that could become evidence for the Azerbaijani authorities that they personally were part of the de facto government,” Vartanyan said.

On Wednesday, Ruben Vardanyan, a prominent Karabakh politician and businessman, was arrested at a border checkpoint at the Lachin corridor and taken to Baku, the border service said. Vardanyan was indicted for multiple charges Thursday, including financing terrorism, participating in the creation and activities of illegal armed groups, and illegally crossing Azerbaijani borders, according to state media.

The Azerbaijani State Security Services allege that Vardanyan funded “illegal military units” in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Baku has long maintained that the Artsakh government and its armed forces have operated illegally on Azerbaijan’s territory. A video published by the security services appeared to show Vardanyan in detention.

David Babayan, a local politician and adviser to president Shahramanyan, said Thursday he would hand himself in to Azerbaijan.

“You all know that I am included in the black list of Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani side demanded my arrival in Baku for an appropriate investigation,” Babayan wrote on Telegram. “My failure to appear, or worse, my escape, will cause serious harm to our long-suffering nation.”

In the decree signed Thursday, president Shahramanyan called on Azerbaijan to allow the “free, unconstrained, and unhindered passing of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the militants who laid down their weapons, with their property and transportation means through Lachin corridor.”

Slovakia is getting ready to elect its fifth prime minister in just four years, and with Kremlin sympathizer Robert Fico’s opposition party leading the polls, it is one being watched with alarm in the West.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Slovakia has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies. The two countries share a border, Slovakia was the first country to send air defenses to Ukraine and it welcomed tens of thousands of refugees.

But all that could change if Fico comes to power. The former prime minister makes no secret of his sympathies towards the Kremlin and has blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Russia’s President Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Putin has used to justify his invasion.

Fico has called on the Slovak government to stop supplying weapons to Kyiv, and said that if he were to become prime minister, Slovakia would “not send another round of ammunition.” He is also opposed to Ukraine joining NATO.

Grigorij Mesežnikov, a political analyst and the president of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Slovak think tank, said that like many Russia sympathizers, Fico is framing his support for Moscow as a “peace” initiative.

Fico previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018.

He was forced to resign in March 2018 after weeks of mass protests over the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová. Kuciak reported on corruption among the country’s elite, including people directly connected to Fico and his party SMER.

Chaos and infighting

Voters turned away from SMER in the subsequent election in 2020 and elected the center-right Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO) party.

Originally seen as a breath of fresh air, OLaNO and its leader Igor Matovič ended up disappointing many of their voters. Matovič, a self-made millionaire, won the election on a strong anti-corruption platform, promising to “clean up” Slovakia.

But his anti-corruption credentials suffered several blows early on. He was forced to admit to plagiarizing his masters thesis and presided over a government plagued with infighting.

He was forced to step down after just over a year after his unilateral decision to buy Covid-19 vaccines from Russia sparked a rebellion in his coalition government.

Matovič switched places with his finance minister Eduard Heger, but the chaos continued. As the country struggled with the fallout from the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more infighting and personal conflicts led to the collapse of the governing coalition in December. Heger continued as a caretaker prime minister but he, too, ended up quitting in May and was replaced by a technocrat, Ludovit Odor.

The chaos of recent years has given Fico a new chance.

“A year after the last election, it looked almost like the party would completely disappear. But (Fico) has managed to rehabilitate himself and is now the frontrunner,” Mesežnikov said. “SMER still have a strong support among their core voters and this support is emotionally connected to (Fico), but they have also been helped by the many conflicts within the government and by some external factors, including Covid, high inflation, the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine.”

Slovakia has a complicated electoral system and fragmented political scene, with as many as 10 political groupings potentially capable of reaching the 5% threshold needed to enter the parliament.

That means that even if Fico’s party wins the election, he will likely need at least one coalition partner. He has not ruled out working with Republika, an extremist far-right party which claims that the war in Ukraine is a consequence of “NATO’s expansion policy” and Kyiv’s “aggression towards the Russian minority in eastern Ukraine.”

Disinformation and propaganda are winning

Government infighting and several high-profile corruption scandals have weakened people’s trust in public institutions and created fertile ground for propaganda and disinformation campaigns.

In the latest twist last month, Slovak police charged the country’s spy chief and several other top level security officials with conspiracy to abuse power. Fico, who is close to some of those embroiled in the scandal, described the situation as a “police coup.”

According to a survey by GlobSec, a Bratislava-based security think tank, only 40% of Slovaks believed Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, the lowest proportion among the eight central and eastern European and Baltic states GlobSec focused on. In the Czech Republic, which used to form one country with Slovakia, 71% of people blame Russia for the war.

The same research found that 50% of Slovaks perceive the United States — the country’s long term ally — as a security threat.

Dominika Hajdu, the policy director at GlobSec’s Centre for Democracy and Resilience, said Slovakia is uniquely vulnerable to Russian propaganda.

“Some of the parties that are currently leading in the polls are spreading the same narratives – for example that it is the West that is trying to ‘drag us’ into the war and that anyone who is pro-Ukrainian is automatically anti-Slovak,” she said.

She said the pro-Russian propaganda is resonating also because a large part of the population was always very pro-Russian and, even now, about a quarter of people view Russian President Vladimir Putin positively.

“Historically, there has always been a strong pan-Slavic narrative of Russia being the stronger brother who would protect Slovaks from the Hungarians and who then liberated Slovakia from the Nazis,” she added.

Slovakia has a complicated relationship with Hungary, having been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire for centuries. Hungarians are the biggest minority in Slovakia and many Hungarians still see the 1920 Trianon Treaty, which redefined national borders after World War 1, as an injustice against their country. That has led to nationalistic rhetoric on both sides of the border.

Věra Jourová, European Commission’s top digital affairs official, said the vote on Saturday will be a “test case” of how effective social media companies have been in countering Russian propaganda in Slovakia, because the issue is such a divisive line in the election.

“Slovakia has been chosen (by Russia) as the country where there is fertile soil for success of the Russian pro-Kremlin, pro-war narratives,” said Věra Jourová, European Commission’s top digital affairs official.

Mesežnikov said Fico and his allies were tapping into a growing fatigue and anger among Slovak voters over the government’s unequivocal support for Ukraine.

“The government took a very quick and firm decision — and I’d say in doing so found itself on the right side of the history — to support Ukraine,” he said. “Slovakia became a proactive member of the EU in proposing sanctions on Russia and sent all the equipment it could to Ukraine.”

Slovakia’s decision to send air defenses just weeks after the invasion started was followed by the delivery of armored vehicles, helicopters, howitzers and other equipment. It also took in more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees — a noticeable number for a country of just 5.4 million.

However, Mesežnikov said that a large group of Slovaks did not agree with that approach — and that SMER and Republika were quick to start courting them.

“Their other argument, besides the peace one, is that we shouldn’t be helping Ukraine because it’s at the expense of Slovaks. They say it is too expensive and that we should worry only about ourselves,” Mesežnikov said.

That is a powerful argument for voters who have been struggling with a cost-of-living crisis, but Mesežnikov said it is not based entirely on facts as most of the support is subsidized with European Union funds.

To inspire the most trust in those you interact with during video meetings, ensure you have plants or books strategically positioned behind you. That’s according to new research, which looks at how people’s choice of Zoom background could be helping or hindering them.

Researchers from the United Kingdom’s Durham University set out to see how the way we interact online impacts first impressions and the judgments we form. Their findings were published Wednesday in the journal Plos One.

The team used 72 photos of 36 adults from a photo database – each one was pictured with both a happy and a neutral expression. These were then superimposed on various virtual backgrounds and framed with a Zoom border “to simulate the experience of a video conference call.”

The six backgrounds selected for the study were categorized as: home (living room), blurred home, bookcase, plants, blank wall and novelty – in this case a walrus in front of an iceberg.

A cohort of 167 participants, aged between 19 and 68, were then asked to complete an online questionnaire about how trustworthy and how competent the people in each image appeared to be.

“Faces presented on the plants and bookcase background were consistently rated as the most trustworthy and most competent, contrasting the home and novelty backgrounds which received lower trustworthiness and competence ratings,” the authors of the study said.

“We tested over 160 people and we found that the background of plants and bookcases led to higher trust and competency responses. And we found that the living room and novelty backgrounds were the worst,” he said.

‘The new business suit’

Analyzing the findings, he said: “I think people know that’s how other people work. Not everyone has a home office but yet there’s something that still seems a little unserious [about a home or novelty background].

“It’s like you haven’t put any thought into how you are presenting yourself and so this seems less competent than someone… who seems able to keep plants alive, or someone with a bookcase who looks like they are trying to better themselves.”

Ross said that a carefully selected video call background “seems to be the new business suit.”

“Whereas for a job interview you used to have to think about what you were wearing and how you would look,” he said, adding that the focus is now on the environment of your backdrop.

Another important factor, however, was the person’s demeanor in each shot.

“We found that generally smiling makes you look more trustworthy and competent, no matter what the background,” he said.

Overall, women inspired more trust, the study found.

“Female faces were also rated as more trustworthy and more competent, regardless of the background they were using,” the researchers wrote.

The team now plans to carry out further research using actual simulated video calls, rather than still images.

Ross added: “We are creating actual recorded Zoom videos of people at the start of a job interview and what we’re planning to do is change the background and ask people not just about first impressions, but bigger decisions too.

“If it makes a difference to people’s hiring decisions then we could really help people to give themselves the best chance of getting a job.”

Four army officers were arrested in Burkina Faso, a military prosecutor said, a day after the country’s ruling military junta announced it had thwarted a coup attempt.

Two other officers were “on the run,” according to a statement from the public prosecutor’s office at the military court in Ouagadougou, the capital city.

Burkina Faso’s military junta said in an earlier statement that intelligence and security services had foiled a “proven coup attempt” on Wednesday.

“A number of officers and other alleged actors involved in this destabilization attempt have been arrested, while others are being actively sought,” the statement said.

Junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traore later said on X, previously known as Twitter, that he was “committed to the liberation” of the country.

“I assure you of my determination to bring the Transition to a successful conclusion, despite adversity and the various manoeuvres designed to halt our inexorable march towards sovereignty,” his post added.

Traore seized power in the West African nation in a coup on September 30 last year in a day marked by gunfire and confusion in Ouagadougou. The coup was the second in eight months – with the leaders of both vowing to restore security after years of violence in the country.

Earlier this month, Burkina Faso’s military leaders signed a mutual defense pact with the juntas in Mali and Niger.

The tri-border region has become the epicenter of the violence that began in neighboring Mali in 2012 but has since spread across the arid expanse of the Sahel region south of the Sahara Desert.

A couple of dozen people pile into a van meant for 13. They’ve crossed a river on a makeshift raft and hope to ride 20 or so miles to get to their next stop. But after a short while, the van stops and everyone has to get out.

The passengers – children and their parents, older couples and single adults – have paid to get from Ciudad Hidalgo in Mexico, a small town on the border with Guatemala, to Tapachula, the nearest city.

But they entered Mexico without permission or papers so the van driver tells them to duck around a checkpoint and get picked up on the other side by him or another vehicle.

The families grab their belongings and head along a tarmacked path as we join them, long grass mostly hiding them from the view of the highway and Mexican officials.

It’s no secret that this is happening, just as everyone knows about the rafts bringing people across the Suchiate River and the international border.

Occasionally, Mexican officials shout out across the grass to the walkers and tell them to come back to the main road.

No one pays the officials any notice. The migrants just keep marching, at times signaling to each other to crouch lower to keep out of view.

We saw no officials bothering to chase them as they walked the unofficial migrant route, just yards from National Route 200 that heads from the border northward.

This static game of cat and mouse will play out several times past several checkpoints on the route. Each stop leads to a trek of 20 or 30 minutes and nerves about whether the promised transport will be there on the other side.

In Tapachula, they said they planned to request asylum or permission to transit Mexico legally in hope of reaching the United States.

Two families from Venezuela said it would be their first contact with officials since fleeing their troubled country. They say they have traveled through Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

By sunset, they reach Tapachula, their stop for the night. They may be in the city several days, but none expect to stay forever.

Their eyes are set on the US – “el pais de oportunidades,” the land of opportunity, they say.

Tears well up in one woman as she sits back in a van after one checkpoint is skirted successfully. A fellow traveler tells her to perk up. “Didn’t you want the American Dream?” he calls out. “Hold onto that.”

The formation of a new “supercontinent” could wipe out humans and all other mammals still alive in 250 million years, researchers have predicted.

Using the first-ever supercomputer climate models of the distant future, scientists from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom predicted how climate extremes would intensify after the world’s continents merge to form one supercontinent, Pangea Ultima, in around 250 million years.

They found it would be extremely hot, dry and virtually uninhabitable for humans and mammals, who are not evolved to cope with prolonged exposure to excessive heat.

Researchers simulated temperature, wind, rain and humidity trends for the supercontinent and used models of tectonic plate movement, ocean chemistry and biology to calculate carbon dioxide levels.

They found that not only would the formation of Pangea Ultima lead to more regular volcanic eruptions, spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and warming the planet, but the sun would also become brighter, emitting more energy and warming the Earth further, experts noted in the paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.

“The newly-emerged supercontinent would effectively create a triple whammy comprising the continentality effect, hotter sun and more CO2 in the atmosphere,” Alexander Farnsworth, senior research associate at the University of Bristol and lead author of the paper, said in a release Monday.

“Widespread temperatures of between 40 to 50 degrees Celsius (104 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit) and even greater daily extremes, compounded by high levels of humidity would ultimately seal our fate. Humans – along with many other species – would expire due to their inability to shed this heat through sweat, cooling their bodies,” Farnsworth added.

The increased heat, Farnsworth noted, would create an environment without food or water sources for mammals.

While there are large uncertainties when making predictions so far into the future, the scientists said that the picture appears “very bleak,” with only around 8% to 16% of land on the supercontinent habitable for mammals.

Carbon dioxide could be double current levels, according to the report, although that calculation was made on the assumption that humans stop burning fossil fuels now, “otherwise we will see those numbers much, much sooner,” Benjamin Mills, a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Leeds and a report co-author, said in the release.

This grim outlook is no excuse for complacency when it comes to tackling today’s climate crisis, the report authors warned. Human-caused climate change is already resulting in millions of deaths around the world every year.

“It is vitally important not to lose sight of our current climate crisis, which is a result of human emissions of greenhouse gases,” co-author Eunice Lo, research fellow in climate change and health at the University of Bristol, said in the release.

“While we are predicting an uninhabitable planet in 250 million years, today we are already experiencing extreme heat that is detrimental to human health. This is why it is crucial to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible,” Lo added.

Climate change is on course to transform life on Earth, with billions of people and other species due to reach points where they can no longer adapt unless global warming is dramatically slowed, according to a major UN-backed report published last year.

Scientists have warned for decades warming needs to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with the window to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic changes that would transform life as we know it rapidly closing.

The last mass extinction occurred some 66 million years ago, when an asteroid slammed into Earth and killed off the dinosaurs and most life on the planet.