The banging on the door started just after sunrise, when law student Iftekhar Alam was still sleeping in his fifth-floor apartment.

Around half a dozen armed police officers pushed inside, shouting obscenities and telling him he had wronged the nation of Bangladesh.

“Where is your phone? Where is your laptop?” the officers shouted as they pointed their guns at him and searched his apartment, Alam said. “They were like crazy, really crazy.”

“They put me in the black glass car, and right away, they handcuffed me. They blindfolded me,” he said.

Alam believes he was taken to Aynaghor, known in Bangladesh as the “House of Mirrors” – a notorious detention center at the headquarters of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) in the capital Dhaka.

Human rights groups say hundreds of people were tortured there during the 15-year rule of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who resigned in August after weeks of protest.

After Hasina fled the country by helicopter, some of the political prisoners detained in Bangladesh’s shadowy prison system have been freed and have started to reveal what took place there.

‘My life will end here’

Alam, 23, had been part of anti-government protests since they began in early July, and was close friends with one of the main protest leaders.

The protests started as student-led demonstrations against government job quotas, then later exploded into a nationwide movement to expel Hasina after she ordered a deadly crackdown, killing hundreds of people in Bangladesh’s worst political violence in decades.

During the interrogations, Alam said he was pressured to reveal the locations of the protest leaders. His captors threatened to “vanish” and kill him if he didn’t.

In detention, he says security personnel tortured him for hours – they beat him all over his body with metal pipes until they broke bones in his foot, then forced him to walk around in circles over and over, making him vomit from the pain.

They also extinguished cigarettes on his hands and feet, screaming at him that he would be punished further if he cried out in pain – calling it a “game,” he said.

Alam said his interrogators told him that the next phase was electric shocks and waterboarding – and gave him a “sample” of the electric shock on the back of his neck as a warning.

“There is no escaping from this, and my life will end here, and no one will know,” he said, reflecting on his mindset during those hours.

Rights groups say he’s far from the only victim.

During Hasina’s rule, detainees were subjected to torture at a network of other secret centres across the country, run by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and the Detective Branch of the police, according to Odhikar, a Bangladeshi human rights organization.

The RAB – a joint taskforce composed of the police, military and border guards – was sanctioned by the United States in 2021 for its alleged involvement in “serious human rights abuse.”

Odhikar estimates that 709 people were forcibly disappeared under Hasina’s rule. Some were later released, sentenced or found dead – 155 are still missing.

“Bangladeshi law enforcement agencies and security forces systematically committed enforced disappearances” mostly targeting “academics, journalists, dissenting voices, and political activists” which created a “climate of fear in the country,” Okhikar said in a statement on August 29.

International rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also published multiple reports documenting disappearances and torture by police and other security forces during Hasina’s rule.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohammed Yunus – who is leading the new interim government – has announced the creation of a commission to investigate the “disappeared” people, and has invited a UN fact-finding team to Bangladesh to independently probe alleged atrocities committed during the recent protests.

“The issue of enforced disappearances has a long and painful history in Bangladesh,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“The UN Human Rights Office looks forward to supporting the Interim Government and people of Bangladesh at this pivotal moment to revitalise democracy, seek accountability and reconciliation, and advance human rights for all the people in Bangladesh.”

Hours after Hasina fled and her government collapsed – and within 24 hours of his capture – Alam said he was released.

His captors dropped him on a quiet road before dawn, threatening to shoot him if he opened his eyes as they drove away.

Nearly one month after his release, Alam has had the plaster cast on his foot removed, and he is now moving around on crutches.

But he says the mental scars will take much longer to heal.

“It was like (a) nightmare,” he said.

Targeting protest leaders

Nusrat Tabassum – one of the most senior women coordinating the protest – was also pursued by the authorities.

“(It was a) very traumatic time for me,” Tabassum said. “They broke three doors. They took me with them, and oh my god, the physical torture, that was miserable.”

Tabassum says she was badly beaten during five days in detention from July 28 to August 1. She re-joined the protests the day after her release.

The 23-year-old political science student attends the prestigious Dhaka University, which became a central gathering point for the protests in July and early August.

On the university’s manicured campus sits Curzon Hall, a British colonial-era building surrounded by palm trees that offers an oasis away from the chaotic streets of the capital.

As Tabassum walks through the building’s historic arches, it’s clear that her bravery has turned her into a poster child for the movement.

Fellow female students occasionally stop her to take selfies and ask about her time in detention.

“Our reunion will be at Aynaghor,” one shouts at her as she walks past – a sign of how many of the students spent time at detention centers. “Aynaghor” or “House of Mirrors” has morphed into a catch-all term for the various places political prisoners were held.

Tabassum says she was beaten for more than four hours, covering her in bruises, filling her mouth with cuts, and bursting her ear drum.

“Without (a) hearing aid, I can’t listen in my right ear,” Tabassum said. “Two teeth (became) loose because of the beating.”

During her detention, she was forced to make a joint confession with five other student leaders which was broadcast on television.

“They forced us to make a video statement that we stopped our protest, and there will be no more movement,” she said.

Making that video was “more traumatic” than the beatings, she said, because she feared the people of Bangladesh would feel betrayed.

“That was the most sad thing,” she said.

Bangladesh 2.0

Tabassum said that when word spread that Hasina had resigned her post, ending her authoritarian grip on the country, protesters felt their sacrifice had been worth it.

“I cried a lot after I heard the news,” she said. “It was like I lived for that moment my whole life.”

As she continues her recovery, Tabassum says she’s struggling with memory loss, and has trouble recalling events that occurred even before the beating.

But she is determined to help shape the new country – or “Bangladesh 2.0”, as people here call it.

Protest art and murals now line the streets of Dhaka with striking pop art-style designs and slogans such as “long live resistance,” “let your dreams fly,” and “this is new Bangladesh, made by Gen Z.”

The streets are alive with renewed optimism and civic pride – with micro-protests popping up across Bangladeshi cities, as interest groups try to make their voices heard during the reform process.

Previously, many people were too afraid to protest on the streets for fear of arrest or being “disappeared” under the time of Hasina.

But now even families are on the street, campaigning for the release of victims caught in Bangladesh’s shadowy detention system.

There’s cautious optimism that the country will change under new leadership, but some remain wary, as instability pervades every sector of society.

Yunus, the interim leader, has asked the public for patience as his team tries to address “mountain-like challenges” after “15 years of fascist rule.”

The students who brought him to power believe that he will uphold the country’s best interests.

Yunus has “guardian vibes,” Tabassum said.

“He cares about us, he cares about my country,” she said. “We like to keep our trust in him.”

But she acknowledges that “post revolution reformation is very hard.”

“My country is sick,” she said. “But our people, we (will) stand together.”

Delegations from dozens of African countries are gathering in Beijing for a three-day summit set to see China showcase itself as a lead partner for the continent, despite slowing lending for its development – and as it faces rising frictions with the West.

A procession of African leaders have arrived in the Chinese capital in recent days, greeted at the airport by honor guards and dance troupes with images flashed across state media, while Chinese officials have touted the gathering as the largest diplomatic event they’ve hosted in recent years.

The fanfare comes as Chinese leader Xi Jinping has much to signal to his visiting counterparts, and the world, as the summit gets underway Wednesday.

It is the first such gathering between Chinese and African leaders in the capital since 2018 and arrives at a critical juncture in ties between Beijing and a continent that’s home to its only overseas military base and where it has been the driving economic foreign power.

In recent decades, free flowing Chinese funding has driven the construction of highways, rail lines and power plants across Africa. The financing has filled funding gaps and expanded China’s political influence, but also generated criticism it was saddling countries with unsustainable debt.

Now, in the face of these concerns and its own economic slowdown, Xi and his officials will be likely pitching a new tune – what they posit as sustainable “small yet beautiful” investments and more collaboration on the green technologies in which China leads the world in producing.

This week will be Beijing’s most high-profile chance to telegraph that vision, as it seeks to point the direction forward for ties with a continent whose political backing is only growing more important amid Beijing’s rising frictions with Washington – and for Xi’s aim to position China as a champion of the Global South and alternative leader to the US.

How these changes play out for African leaders remains another question. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa bluntly called on China to “narrow the trade deficit and address the structure of our trade” during a bilateral meeting with Xi on Monday.

‘Critical questions’

A number of leaders are arriving for the three-yearly Forum on China and Africa Cooperation from countries grappling with heavy international debt, including from Chinese loans, and seek more investment and trade to boost their economies.

They will likely probe whether a 2021 pledge from Xi to import products worth $300 billion from Africa by next year will be achieved. They’re also likely to press for ways to ensure growing trade is not merely an exchange of African raw materials for Chinese manufactured goods.

“Critical questions are going to be asked –  and so African countries and their Chinese partners are going to be hard pressed to provide answers,” said Paul Nantulya, a senior China specialist at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington.

When it comes to investment, even before the pandemic, China had already been reducing funding for the big-scale infrastructure projects that saw the world’s second largest economy become Africa’s largest bilateral creditor over recent decades.

Chinese lending to African government or state-linked borrowers cratered during the pandemic, reaching a low of roughly $1 billion in 2022, according to Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. The data showed a modest recovery to $4.6 billion in 2023, a far cry from a peak of more than $28.8 billion in 2016.

Some African leaders holding talks in Beijing are facing steep challenges repaying debt from China and other lenders.

Kenya, whose president, William Ruto, is in Beijing this week, was rocked by protests earlier this summer over a finance bill introduced by the government to rein in public debt. That debt includes nearly $6 billion owed to China and more than $20 billion payable to multilateral banks, according to an April government statement.

Analysts say China is not the main cause of African debt distress in most cases, making up a comparatively small portion of the continent’s overall public debt. But the influx of Chinese loans increased the debt burden, and observers suggest China has moved too slowly or been inflexible in cases when it comes to helping countries that are heavily indebted to it get relief.

Beijing has defended its lending practices and its efforts to ease debt repayment but is unlikely to make debt relief a major theme of the multilateral summit, where it will focus on trade measures and promoting what it says is a shift to “small yet beautiful” investments.

The term, referring to projects with smaller budgets and environmental or social impact, has emerged as a key buzzword as Xi’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). That’s as the infrastructure drive for the developing world transitions to a new phase following a decade of growth – that saw some projects slammed for environmental costs or poor labor standards and others stalled.

“There will be fewer projects but a greater spotlight on them. In an ironic way, I think this will lead to a more sustainable path,” said Bhaso Ndzendze, an associate professor of politics and international relations at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa.

But “the African side is keen to accept almost anything that China has to offer,” he continued, pointing to limited alternative avenues of support.

Beijing is also expected to push to make Africa’s market a destination for its prolific production of green tech like solar panels and electric vehicles.

The move may be welcomed by African nations grappling with power shortages and climate threat, but also comes as such Chinese goods face hefty tariffs in the US, Europe and Canada, as those markets move to block what they see as a flood of unfairly subsidized products.

Competition with the West

Past gatherings of the twenty-four-year-old forum have included big promises of financing and boosting bilateral trade. Beijing will now be keenly aware that its commitments face competition.

In recent years, the US and its European partners have launched their own efforts to fund infrastructure in Africa, widely seen to be driven by their concern over China’s expansive footprint in the region – and its access to African critical minerals key for the fabrication of green tech.

“Now (China) has competition on the street … so that also might trigger them to keep the momentum going on infrastructure, because they don’t want to cede that space to the US,” said Ammar A. Malik, a faculty affiliate in public policy at William & Mary, who monitors China’s overseas spending.

Xi is also expected to use the gathering to project to the rest of the world the idea of solidarity between China’s view on the world and that of countries across Africa – a sign to Washington that despite pressure from the US and its allies, Beijing has numerous friends.

Visiting leaders are likely to continue to endorse Xi’s cornerstone rhetoric around building a global “community with a shared future,” a vision he sees as unlike the one that’s been unfairly dominated by the West. Attendees could also express a unified opinion on global issues like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

The forum has, in recent years, expanded beyond economic cooperation into areas like peace and security, alongside China’s own growing security interests in the region, where its companies’ sprawling mining operations have been subject to criminal attacks.

“China-Africa relations is going back to the basics in the sense that it started as a political relationship,” said Ovigwe Eguegu, a Nigeria-based policy analyst at the consultancy Development Reimagined.

Eguegu pointed to current Chinese Communist Party-funded initiatives to fund training for African political parties as well as African port calls from the People’s Liberation Army navy and joint military drills as part of a “ramping up of engagement in the political-security dimension.”

“China is preparing its diplomatic relationships across the world for a world that is expressing geopolitical tensions,” he said.

Uganda’s main opposition leader Bobi Wine has been “seriously injured” in a confrontation with police, his party the National Unity Platform (NUP) said Tuesday.

The NUP said in a post on social media that Wine was shot in the leg in an attempt on his life, just outside the capital Kampala. Local police said however that the injury was caused when the popstar-turned-politician “stumbled while getting into a vehicle.”

Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, was the main opposition frontrunner in the presidential elections in January 2021 and lost to President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni claimed at the time that he had been re-elected for a sixth term despite widespread allegations of fraud and intimidation.

The NUP said in a post on ‘X’ that Wine was in Bulindo to meet a lawyer when “the police and military … surrounded our vehicles and started firing live bullets, teargas canisters and other projectiles.”

According to the NUP, Wine “was clearly targeted” and shot in the leg.

“Security operatives have made an attempt on the life of President Bobi Wine,” the NUP claimed on ‘X’.

Images posted on his own ‘X’ account show Wine bleeding and lying in a hospital bed, with a bleeding injury on his shin. A statement on his account said he is being treated by doctors after the shooting.

“During the ensuing altercation, it is alleged that he sustained injuries. Police officers on site claim he stumbled while getting into his vehicle, causing the injury, whereas Hon. Kyagulanyi and his team assert that he was shot,” the police statement said, adding that an investigation is being conducted.

A man is on trial accused of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife, as well as encouraging dozens of other men to rape her in their home while she was unconscious, court documents show.

The alleged victim, Gisèle, 72, appeared in a courtroom in Avignon, France, on Monday for the opening of the trial, sunglasses on, her daughter and two sons by her side.

For the next four months, she will come face to face with her accused abusers, most of whom are complete strangers to her.

He faces nine charges including several counts of rape with aggravating circumstances, the drugging of a victim to commit rape, and the sharing of images related to those assaults.

Prosecutors were able to put together a case because Dominique documented a number of the alleged assaults on camera.

Held in pre-trial detention since 2020, courtroom sketches show the defendant entered the courtroom in a black t-shirt and sat facing his wife.

“He recognizes that he’s done what he has done,” his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro told journalists in court on Monday. “There was not an ounce of contestation during the whole investigation.”

In the dock, the men accused of taking part in these rapes sat with their heads down.

Police have identified at least 92 sexual assaults committed by 72 men, with ages ranging from 26 to 74, court documents show.

Fifty were identified, and most have been charged with either aggravated or attempted rape and are standing trial alongside Gisèle’s husband.

The ordeal lasted almost ten years, the first alleged assaults dating back to 2011.

The crimes came to light in 2020 when Dominique was caught filming under women’s skirts in a shopping center.

After police seized his phone and computer, they say they found evidence of the rapes. An investigation was opened and the wife was made aware of the abuse she had endured for almost ten years.

Court documents show that Dominique has told investigators that the other men were all aware his wife had been drugged without her knowledge, something a number of the other defendants deny.

Throughout the trial, Gisèle will see and hear what was done to her.

On Tuesday, she sat through a reading of the horrific acts she was subjected to, as well as the arguments from each of the defendants’ lawyers.

Last Friday ahead of the trial, another one of her lawyers, Antoine Arebalo-Camus told reporters “she had no idea what had been inflicted on her, so she has no memory of the rapes she suffered for 10 years.”

Gisèle’s daughter says her mother sought medical advice for the memory loss and extreme fatigue she was experiencing as a side effect of the drugs.

Speaking to French media in several interviews, she said that her mother “saw doctors, she saw neurologists,” and that the medical profession failed to detect the problem.

The daughter has now started an awareness campaign called “M’endors Pas,” meaning “Don’t put me to sleep” on drug-facilitated sexual assault.

The trial began on September 2 in the southern French town of Avignon, and a verdict is due on December 20 this year.

With its announcement that militants guarding Israeli hostages in the buildings and tunnels of Gaza had “new instructions” to kill them If Israeli troops closed in, Hamas signalled the opening of a chilling new chapter in an already brutal war.

Seizing on a spasm of public outrage in Israel at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inability to bring home the remaining hostages, Hamas released a comic-book style image of a kneeling figure threatened with a gun, followed by a video of Eden Yerushalmi, 24, a bartender at the Nova music festival and one of six hostages who Israel says were shot at close range in Hamas captivity last week before Israeli forces could reach them.

In cruel twist of timing – the funerals of the slain hostages had taken place on Sunday and Monday –  Hamas said it would drip-feed footage of what it described as the “final messages” of the remaining five. It released a second video on Tuesday, featuring Ori Danino, a 25-year-old who was abducted from the Nova music festival on October 7. Danino had helped other festival-goers escape the horror. It was not clear when any of the footage was filmed – not whether it was intended that the videos would be used in the way that Hamas is now doing.

Hamas’ new tactics – which Yerushalmi’s family say amount to “psychological terror” – will further fan the fury in Israeli society. For the past three days, crowds have swelled in multiple Israeli cities, with protesters blaming Netanyahu for, in their view, sacrificing Israeli citizens to stay in power, as rightwing members of his coalition have threatened to bring down the government should he end the war.

But it is not yet clear whether they will compel Netanyahu to change Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza.

Some analysts say that unlike earlier in the war, Hamas may no longer believe that keeping hostages gives it leverage over Israel.

In a statement Monday evening, Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida said the new instructions had come into place after an “incident” in Nuseirat, seeming to refer to an IDF operation in June that rescued four Israeli hostages from a refugee camp in central Gaza.

The raid, which killed 274 Palestinians, occurred mid-morning when the streets were teeming with people shopping at a nearby market. Some of the captors were killed, and the IDF successfully retrieved the hostages unharmed, further weakening Hamas’ leverage in negotiations with Israel.

Since then, the IDF has rescued one more hostage – Farhan Al-Qadi, 52, a Bedouin Israeli citizen who was retrieved from a tunnel in Gaza last week.

When Hamas took some 250 people hostage from southern Israel on October 7, “they thought they could try to leverage them for a prisoner exchange deal,” Mustafa said. Although an exchange deal was struck as early as November, no further agreement has been reached 10 months later.

A ‘watershed’ moment

The successful rescues may have helped Netanyahu to argue that Israel’s twin war-aims of destroying Hamas and returning the hostages can be pursued simultaneously, making the cries for a ceasefire-for-hostages deal less urgent.

But, after the murder of the six hostages under Hamas’ new directive, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Monday to demand Netanyahu’s government strike a deal to free the hostages, in one of the largest demonstrations since the war began. Many wondered if the nationwide outrage might be enough to force his hand.

Instead, a defiant and bellicose Netanyahu used his first public comments since the discovery of the bodies to double down on his strategy in the Strip. He said Israel will retaliate strongly against Hamas for the killing of the six hostages, hinting that the response would be akin to the strike against Hezbollah in July that killed the Iran-backed group’s top commander Fu’ad Shukr.

He stressed again his commitment to fighting until Hamas is defeated and repeated his refusal to withdraw soldiers from the border between Gaza and Egypt – a new sticking point threatening once again to derail talks to reach a deal.

Although Netanyahu has refused to cede ground under growing pressure, analysts say the killing of the six hostages by Hamas has been a turning point, leading many in the country to ask whether Israel is reaching the limits of what its military power can achieve, and whether its offensive may be endangering the more than 100 hostages from the country still being held in Gaza.

“It became very clear that the presence of the IDF played a direct part in the decision of their Hamas keepers to kill them,” he said. “The sense that the Netanyahu government is incompetent, that Netanyahu is doing all of this for his own reasons, is now much more powerful for a lot of people. So I think it is a watershed moment.”

Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum and former senior adviser to the late Prime Minister Shimon Peres, said many Israelis have felt two waves of grief over the past three days: First, for the death of the six hostages, and then, following Netanyahu’s speech, “the realization that Netanyahu is determined to pursue an open-ended occupation of Gaza.”

New red line

The death of the six hostages also caused the latest spat between Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. According to reports in Israeli media, the two men argued furiously over whether, as part of any ceasefire deal, the Israeli military should leave the Philadelphi Corridor – a 14-kilometer (8.7-mile) stretch of land running along the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Although Netanyahu has recently begun to strongly insist that Israel maintain a military presence in the corridor for security reasons, Hamas has long been clear that the proposal is a non-starter. Gallant reportedly told Netanyahu that insisting on this condition means “there won’t be an agreement and there won’t be any hostages released.”

Regardless, the cabinet proceeded to vote on the plans Netanyahu presented, approving them by eight to one, with Gallant the only dissenter.

Novik, the former adviser to Peres, said the newfound focus on the Philadelphi Corridor is merely symbolic.

His “discovery” of the corridor and the effective elevation of its status to a holy site “has no security merit,” Novik said.

If anything, an occupation of the corridor – which runs alongside densely populated towns and cities – risks endangering Israeli troops, as Israel’s previous occupation of the territory that ended in 2005 showed, Novik warned.

“They’re sitting ducks,” he said. “And if Hamas managed to kill our troops in 2004 before it had the kind of munitions and equipment that they have today, the results are going to be even more devastating.”

Since the issue of the corridor was raised last month, Hamas has said it will not agree to Netanyahu’s red line.

“At this point, they cannot accept anything short of the demands they are now calling for: A complete cessation of hostilities and the full withdrawal of Israeli troops,” Mustafa said. “If they were to accept anything short of what they’re demanding, that would be political suicide for the movement.”

Netanyahu’s defiant speech on Monday may have extinguished hopes that the killing of the six hostages could lead to a change in course. Former IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, who has become more critical of the government since leaving his post earlier this year, said about the remaining hostages after Netanyahu’s speech: “He sealed their fate.”

The insistence on maintaining troops along the corridor may also spell further tension between Israel and the United States, which has throughout the months-long negotiations insisted that Israel must fully withdraw from Gaza after the war.

When asked Monday whether Netanyahu was doing enough to reach an agreement, President Joe Biden said simply: “No.”

A man is on trial accused of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife, as well as encouraging dozens of other men to rape her in their home while she was unconscious, court documents show.

72-year-old Gisèle appeared in a courtroom in Avignon, France, on Monday for the opening of the trial, sunglasses on, her daughter and two sons by her side.

For the next four months, she will come face to face with her accused abusers, most of whom are complete strangers to her.

Prosecutors say the defendant, 71-year-old Dominique would recruit men online to rape his wife, after drugging her with sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication.

He faces nine charges including several counts of rape with aggravating circumstances, the drugging of a victim to commit rape, and the sharing of images related to those assaults.

Prosecutors were able to put together a case because Dominique documented a number of the alleged assaults on camera.

Held in pre-trial detention since 2020, courtroom sketches show the defendant entered the courtroom in a black t-shirt and sat facing his wife.

“He recognizes that he’s done what he has done,” his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro told journalists in court on Monday. “There was not an ounce of contestation during the whole investigation.”

In the dock, the men accused of taking part in these rapes sat with their heads down.

Police have identified at least 92 sexual assaults committed by 72 men, with ages ranging from 26 to 74, court documents show.

Fifty were identified, and most have been charged with either aggravated or attempted rape and are standing trial alongside Gisèle’s husband.

The ordeal lasted almost ten years, the first alleged assaults dating back to 2011.

The crimes came to light in 2020 when Dominique was caught filming under women’s skirts in a shopping center.

After police seized his phone and computer, they say they found evidence of the rapes. An investigation was opened and the wife was made aware of the abuse she had endured for almost ten years.

Court documents show that Dominique has told investigators that the other men were all aware his wife had been drugged without her knowledge, something a number of the other defendants deny.

Throughout the trial, Gisèle will see and hear what was done to her.

On Tuesday, she sat through a reading of the horrific acts she was subjected to, as well as the arguments from each of the defendants’ lawyers.

Last Friday ahead of the trial, another one of her lawyers, Antoine Arebalo-Camus told reporters “she had no idea what had been inflicted on her, so she has no memory of the rapes she suffered for 10 years.”

Gisèle’s daughter says her mother sought medical advice for the memory loss and extreme fatigue she was experiencing as a side effect of the drugs.

Speaking to French media in several interviews, she said that her mother “saw doctors, she saw neurologists,” and that the medical profession failed to detect the problem.

The daughter has now started an awareness campaign called “M’endors Pas,” meaning “Don’t put me to sleep” on drug-facilitated sexual assault.

The trial began on September 2 in the southern French town of Avignon, and a verdict is due on December 20 this year.

A Russian strike against a military educational facility in central Ukraine killed 47 people and injured at least 206 others, according to Ukrainian officials, in one of the deadliest single attacks since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said preliminary information indicated two ballistic missiles hit the facility in the city of Poltava and a nearby hospital on Tuesday morning.

“We say again and again to everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: air defense systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not somewhere in a warehouse,” Zelensky said in a statement.

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska announced the latest death toll in an update on Tuesday afternoon, adding: “This is a terrible tragedy for the whole of Ukraine. Russia is taking away our most valuable asset – our lives. We will never forget this.”

Speaking about the attack, President Zelensky repeated his call on Ukraine’s Western allies to supply Kyiv with more air defenses and lift restrictions on his country’s military using their weapons to strike inside Russia.

“Long-range strikes that can protect against Russian terror are needed now, not later. Every day of delay is, unfortunately, the death of people,” he added.

“The only way to intercept them was to have the Patriot system or a SAMP/T air defense system because they are the only one capable of intercepting ballistic missiles,” said Kuleba, who added that he originally came from the Poltava region.

Ukraine has received a handful of Patriot air defense systems from the United States and Germany, although Kyiv has consistently said the number was insufficient to allow it to effectively defend itself.

The Biden administration said in June it was prioritizing critical air defense capabilities for Ukraine over other countries to “ensure Ukraine’s survival.” But Kuleba made it clear on Tuesday that new weapons cannot come soon enough.

“I don’t know how many more tragedies like this have to occur for all promises to be fulfilled and for all new commitments to be made,” Kuleba added, reiterating Zelensky’s calls for more defense systems to be sent to Ukraine.

Three days of mourning

Local authorities said Tuesday was a “terrible day for Poltava” and declared three days of mourning. No more details would be released about the strike due to “security issues,” they said.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a statement that emergency services have already contained a fire on the scene and pulled more than 10 people out of the rubble. They are now clearing the debris, he added.

Klymenko said the strike damaged a number of buildings in the area. Windows were smashed and the facades of high-rise residential blocks were impacted by shock waves from the attack, he said.

Moscow has not commented on the attack, but a well-known Russian military blogger Vladimir Rogov reported earlier on Tuesday that Russia struck a military school in Poltava.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

At least 12 people died when a migrant boat capsized off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez, in northern France, on Tuesday, according to French authorities.

Nearly 70 people were on board the vessel, according to Boulogne-sur-Mer mayor, Frédéric Cuvillier. The exact number is unclear.

Emergency crews rescued 65 people, the maritime prefecture said. Several of those were in critical condition and required urgent medical care.

Three helicopters, two fishing vessels and two boats have been deployed in the search and rescue operation.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is scheduled to visit the scene on Tuesday afternoon.

Dangerous small boat crossings of the English Channel have soared in recent years, with dinghies and other small vessels frequently being used to take large groups of people on the dangerous journey in the hope of seeking asylum in the United Kingdom.

The issue became a major political obstacle for the previous Conservative government, which was criticized by migrant rights groups for its hardline rhetoric against asylum seekers, and for the new Labour administration.

Tuesday’s incident is the latest in a string of tragedies to occur in the Channel. Last August, six people died when a boat carrying dozens of migrants capsized.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

More than 120 people have been killed in an attempted mass breakout from the largest prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the latest in a series of violent attacks on jails in the central African nation.

Prisoners tried to break out en masse from the Makala Central Prison in the capital, Kinshasa, at around 2 a.m. local time (9 p.m. ET) on Monday, Interior Minister Jacquemain Shabani Lukoo Bihango told reporters.

“The provisional human toll stands at 129 dead including 24 by gunshot after warning. The others died by jostling, suffocation and some women were raped,” Bihango said. He added that 59 people were receiving medical care.

One Kinshasa resident, Daddi Soso, told Agence France-Presse that gunfire rang out for several hours during the incident and that he later saw security vehicles removing bodies from the scene.

Extensive damage to several prison buildings was also seen in interior ministry video. A large hole is shown in one exterior wall, where bricks appear to have been removed, while the walls of other buildings are black and burnt out.

Video filmed inside the prison showed several ransacked rooms with debris, burnt office furniture and papers strewn across the floor.

Several prison buildings including offices, the registry, the infirmary and food depots were destroyed by fires during the attempted prison break, the minister told the press conference.

Interior minister Bihango convened a crisis meeting of the country’s defense and security services on Tuesday after receiving instructions from the country’s “senior hierarchy.”

The government is relieved “by the restored calm,” he said, adding that investigations into the incident are ongoing.

More than 12,000 inmates were held in the Makala prison before the attempted jailbreak even though the facility could only contain 1,500 people, according to a recent report by Amnesty International.

Prison breaks are common in the DRC, with several attacks being launched on correctional facilities in recent years.

More than 50 inmates, including the leader of a religious sect, broke free from the Makala prison in 2017 following an invasion by the group.

And in 2020, a rebel group linked to ISIS claimed responsibility for a jailbreak that freed nearly 1,000 inmates from a prison in Beni, in northeastern DRC. At least 11 people, including security personnel, were killed in that attack.

Another prison break was recorded the following year at Matadi, one of the country’s oldest prisons, which saw the escape of 189 prisoners. More than 200 other detainees escaped from the same prison in 2022 after seizing weapons from the facility’s armory.

He is 87 years old and in recent years has battled health difficulties and begun using a wheelchair. But Pope Francis is currently on the longest trip of his pontificate.

On Tuesday, he landed in Indonesia kicking off a marathon 12-day visit of four countries in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific which also includes Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.

It is one of the longest foreign trips any pope has embarked on and marks the furthest geographical distance (32,814 kilometers or about 20,000 miles ) that Francis has traveled since his 2013 election. And on arrival in Jakarta, Pope Francis commented that the more than 13 hour flight over was the longest he has yet done.

The landmark visit will allow this pope to highlight key themes of his pontificate, including inter-religious dialogue and protection of the environment.

The trip also underscores a significant shift taking place inside the Catholic Church: its tilt to Asia.

During his pontificate, Francis’ 44 previous foreign visits have included South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. He has also appointed cardinals from the Philippines (Luis Antonio Tagle) and South Korea (Lazarus You Heung-sik) to senior positions in the church’s central administration.

The Catholic Church is no longer a Eurocentric or western institution but one where churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America have a growing voice. Francis, who as a young man wanted to be a missionary in Japan, has spoken favorably about male and female church leaders coming from countries outside of Europe.

Catholics in Asia are often in the minority, although they frequently punch above their weight when it comes to running schools and charitable works.

“The pope is interested not so much in the number of Catholics as the vibrancy,”said Spadaro, who will be travelling with Francis. In many Asian countries, the Jesuit priest explained, the church seeks to act as a “leaven”in trying to serve the “common good,” while Asia “represents the future at this time in the world”.

Interfaith declaration

Often a minority, the churches in Asia are focused on dialogue with other religions, something that will be a central theme of the trip.

While in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority country, the pope will take part in a meeting with religious leaders at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, the largest in Southeast Asia. Afterwards, Francis will sign an interfaith declaration with the grand imam of Indonesia and is also expected to visit an underpass linking the mosque and the Catholic cathedral next door known as the “tunnel of friendship.”

“The pulse of the churches here is quite different from say, those in Europe or US where issues like polarization, secularization and abuse have dominated the headlines,” she added.

Spadaro said the “pope wants to give a signal about dialogue with Islam,” and points out that in East Timor, the government has adopted a landmark human fraternity document — signed by Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb – as a national text.

East Timor is unusual for Asia as 97% the population identifies as Catholic, the highest proportion outside of the Vatican City State.

Michel Chambon, who works at the National University of Singapore and is an expert on Asian Catholicism, said the pope’s visit will help build relations and mutual understanding with these countries.

“The key thing is that the Vatican is not a European state, it is much more than that,” he said.

A giant in the background

Meanwhile, the Vatican’s relationship with China, an officially atheist state where religious practice is heavily curtailed by the government, will be in the background to this visit with Francis pushing ahead with trying to rebuild diplomatic relations with Beijing.

Catholicism is one of five state-recognized faiths in China. But, state-sanctioned Catholic churches were, for decades, run by bishops appointed by Beijing, not the Holy See, until the two sides reached an agreement in 2018. Details of the accord have never been made public and many within China’s underground congregations who have remained loyal to Rome and long faced persecution fear being abandoned.

Although the Holy See-China agreement has faced criticism, the Vatican says the deal is already paying off and hopes to open a permanent office in China. The pope has repeatedly said he would like to visit the country.

Supporters of the patient diplomacy strategy point to the Holy See’s improved relationship with another Communist-governed country: Vietnam. After years of talks, the pope was able to appoint the first resident ambassador in Hanoi at the end of last year.

Francis’ trip will also see him in a part of the world at risk of rising sea levels and natural disasters, with Papua New Guinea a country on the front line of the climate crisis. During his pontificate, the pope has insisted that the protection of the planet is a pressing moral issue, and his trip to the pacific is a chance once again to urge world leaders to take stronger action.

Making this lengthy trip now, after more than 11 years as pope, sends a message to those, including at senior levels in the church, hoping that this pontificate is running out of steam. Spadaro says it underlines the “liveliness of the pontificate at this moment.”

Francis will travel, as normal, with a doctor and two nurses. There are risks with making such a long and gruelling visit at his age. But this is a pope willing to take risks and pull off surprises. And he is determined to make one of the most ambitious trips of his pontificate.