High-level US and Chinese officials discussed potential talks between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the months ahead as the two countries press ahead on stabilizing communication in their increasingly contentious relationship.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan is wrapping up three days of talks with counterparts in Beijing, where he met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Central Military Commission vice chairman Gen. Zhang Youxia – the first meeting between a US official and Chinese military figure in that role since 2018.

The meetings follow efforts over the past year from both sides to repair fractured lines of communication, even as US-China relations remain fraught over a host of frictions including Beijing’s aggressions in the South China Sea and toward Taiwan, and US trade controls targeting China.

Beijing has also been carefully watching the upcoming US elections, where a change of administration in January could impact the trajectory of the relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

Readouts from both sides suggested that some sort of call or talks between Biden and Xi in the coming weeks could be on the cards even as the US president knows he will no longer be in the White House next year whoever wins the election.

In Sullivan’s meetings with Wang, the two sides “welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication, including planning for a leader-level call in the coming weeks,” a White House readout following meetings Tuesday and Wednesday said.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry readout said they discussed a “new round of interaction between the two heads of state.”

Expectations for significant progress on sticking points in the relationship during this meeting were low, especially as the US elections loom.

“For both sides, they have no strong motivation to push aggressively … because of the election, both are in a ‘wait and see’ mode” while looking to maintain current relations without incident, said Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor at the City University of Hong Kong.

Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to maintain a level of continuity with Biden’s China policy, while Republican candidate Donald Trump had a combative and mercurial relationship with China as president and has threatened to broadly expand American tariffs on Chinese imports if re-elected.

Military talks

Wang and Sullivan also discussed plans to hold a call between their respective military theater commanders, both sides said.

Such talks – part of a broader resumption of regular military discussions following a meeting between Biden and Xi in November – would involve commanders leading American troops in the Indo-Pacific and those leading Chinese strategy in the Southern and Eastern theater.

Wang and Sullivan’s discussion of military communication comes amid especially heightened tensions in the South China Sea, where Chinese and Philippine ships have been engaged in a series of violent, but non-lethal confrontations in recent months.

Commander of US Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Samuel Paparo earlier this week suggested the US could escort Philippine ships through the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost in its entirety despite a major international ruling to the contrary.

In his meeting Thursday with Zhang, a senior figure in China’s powerful Central Military Commission, Sullivan stressed “US commitment to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea” and “the importance of cross-Strait peace and stability,” in reference to Taiwan, according to a White House readout.

Sullivan also raised cyberspace, efforts to reach a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, and American concerns about what the US says is China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base as it wages war on Ukraine.

In introductory remarks ahead of the meeting, which took place at Chinese military headquarters in Beijing, Sullivan acknowledged how “rare” it was to have such exchanges.

“Given the state of the world and the need for us to responsibly manage US-China relations, I think it’s a very important meeting,” he told Zhang.

Zhang called on the United States to “correct its strategic understanding of China, return to a rational and pragmatic policy toward China, (and) earnestly respect China’s core interests,” citing Taiwan as the “core of China’s core interests,” according to a readout published in Chinese state media.

The general also called for both sides to “maintain stability in the military and security field.”

Fraught ties

Prior to those talks, Sullivan held two-days of engagements with Wang, marking the fifth time that the two officials have met over the past year and a half in multiple locations, including their last meeting in January in Bangkok.

The two agreed to advance areas of cooperation, such as counternarcotics and AI safety and risk – but, as expected, made little leeway on major frictions in the relationship.

Wang stressed the importance of US-China coexistence, while calling on the US to stop arming Taiwan and support China’s “reunification” with the island – a self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing.

The top Chinese diplomat also called on the US to “stop suppressing China in the fields of economy, trade, and science and technology,” calling American concerns about China’s manufacturing overcapacity “an excuse for protectionism.”

Sullivan said the US would “continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security” and expressed concern about China’s “unfair trade policies.”

The Biden administration earlier this year announced it would maintain a set of sweeping import tariffs in place on Chinese goods — with significant increases on categories like semiconductors and electric vehicles expected to be implemented soon. It has also instated controls on Chinese access to American high-tech that could have dual-use civilian and military purposes.

China has responded by limiting the export of certain materials key to produce high-tech goods.

The US has also included Chinese entities in tranches of sanctions targeting Russia’s war machine, including a set released Friday. US officials have repeatedly warned that China’s exports of dual-use goods to Russia were supporting its defense industry and enabling Moscow’s war in Ukraine – a charge Beijing denies.

Sullivan’s visit comes ahead of a series of high-profile multilateral summits in the coming months that could provide a platform for Biden and Xi to meet again in what would be the twilight of Biden’s presidency.

Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.

As tears roll down her face and her body shivers with pain, Hamida cradles her 4-year-old daughter and baby boy on her lap, comforting them as they cry for their father.

The 22-year-old ethnic Rohingya is surviving on the kindness of fellow refugees in a camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh – and trying to process the horrors she endured in neighboring Myanmar, where a civil war is raging between the country’s military and rebel groups including the Arakan Army.

“After they entered my home, they hit me, beat me, and I was struggling to get free when they raped me,” Hamida says. “For at least one hour, they tied me up.”

Hamida – who asked to only use her first name for fear of reprisals – says seven Arakan Army soldiers gang-raped her during the attack in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state in late July.

“I screamed, so they closed my mouth with their hands,” she says. “They raped me. They beat me with their guns. They kicked me. Still, I can’t move (without) pain.”

During the attack, she says her husband heard her screams and ran into their hut to save her – but he was pinned down and forced to watch.

“They slaughtered my husband after they raped me,” she says. “Four Arakan Army soldiers were holding him down tightly, and one slaughtered him with a big sharp knife.”

Known as the world’s biggest refugee camp, more than a million Rohingya Muslims are sheltering in makeshift tents near the town of Cox’s Bazar – most of whom fled there in August 2017, after Myanmar’s military killed an estimated 10,000 people in what United Nations experts labeled a genocide.

Now, new arrivals like Hamida are bringing reports of mass murder, bombing attacks on civilians, and burning villages – which bear hallmarks of the 2017 attacks, seven years later. But this time, the ethnic Rakhine rebel group Arakan Army is being blamed for the brutality.

‘It felt like the end of the world’

Witnesses say the deadliest day for attacks was August 5, when an estimated 200 people were killed as drones rained down bombs on those fleeing fighting in the town of Maungdaw.

Videos circulated widely online show piles of bodies – mostly women and children surrounded by their belongings – scattered around a mangrove forest along the shoreline, slaughtered as they tried to board boats to Bangladesh.

Abdul Bashar, a 48-year-old father who survived the drone attacks, says they took place around 6 p.m. that day.

“When we reached the border fence, we saw a large bomb fall on a group of people, killing many of them,” he says. “They were attacking with drones, gunfire, and heavy weapons. It felt like the end of the world.”

Bashar saw his 17-year-old son die, along with his sister, who was killed as she breastfed her 8-month-old daughter.

“I couldn’t look back because bombs were falling heavily,” he said. “I had two of my children with me, and I was bleeding.”

Bashar is now sheltering in a Cox’s Bazar camp with his 10-year-old nephew – whose parents and five siblings died in the attack. The boy survived despite severe shrapnel wounds to his arm.

“I feel that death would be better than living through this,” Bashar said.

A new report from human rights group Fortify Rights urges the International Criminal Court (ICC) to “investigate a massacre of Rohingya civilians perpetrated by the Arakan Army (AA).” A separate report from Human Rights Watch says the attacks “raise the specter of ethnic cleansing.”

He said AA fighters had “never targeted or killed innocent civilians,” claiming the August 5 drone attacks were carried out by the military.

In response to a separate question about Hamida’s testimony of gang rape, the AA’s Khaing Thu Ka said the group would “certainly investigate” her case.

The Rohingya people – a largely Muslim ethnic group with a distinct language and culture – have long been persecuted and denied citizenship in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, with official propaganda describing them as “Bengalis” or “illegal immigrants.” They are also denied official status in Bangladesh, making them known as “the world’s most unwanted people.”

Bangladesh’s new interim chief Muhammad Yunus has promised to continue supporting the Rohingya in his country, but has appealed for the fighting in Myanmar to end so they can return to their homeland with “safety, dignity and full rights.”

Overnight exodus

Tight controls remain in place along the 18-mile (30-kilometer) shoreline of the Naf River snaking between Myanmar and its neighbor – with Bangladeshi border guards under orders to try to keep the fleeing Rohingya out.

Refugees are now using the cover of darkness to try to evade capture, often setting out from Myanmar around 10 p.m. to make the 1.8-mile (3-kilometer) journey across the water.

All the phones on her boat had been switched off for security during the journey, so he went for hours without hearing an update.

“I am really very concerned,” said Mohammed, who didn’t want to use his real name. “This is my big sister.”

He’s worried that his sister, who can’t swim, could drown during the crossing. Many refugee boats have sunk in recent weeks, the bodies of their desperate passengers eventually washing ashore and buried in shallow graves on the beach.

Compounding Mohammed’s fears are the pre-dawn sounds of explosions and rifle fire just across the river – a reminder of why his sister and other Rohingya are fleeing.

On the Bangladesh side, it has become a game of cat and mouse for the coast guard to spot boats emerging from the inky waters before they make it onto land. The full moon casts a silver glow over the river, putting incoming boats in extra danger of being spotted.

Mohammed’s sister never appears that night, and by dawn, his panic starts to rise.

“The world is now dark for me,” he said. “I lost everything … in my life.”

Hours later, he hears that his sister made it to land further up the coast – but was kidnapped by brokers demanding payment for her release. Eventually she was able to reunite with Mohammed in the camps, but the family spent all of their money trying to get her to safety.

‘AA wants to wipe out Rohingyas’

Calls are now growing for Bangladesh to allow humanitarian access for the incoming refugees.

“UNHCR is calling on Bangladesh to provide access to safety for refugees escaping the violence in Northern Rakhine State, most recently in Maungdaw township,” said Shari Nijman, spokesperson for UNHCR Bangladesh. “Among new arrivals are many women and children, including some with critical injuries from gunshots and shelling.”

Jamila Begum, 45, made it across in a boat with four of her grandchildren, including a 6-month-old baby.

She said her family tried to run from their homes on August 5 during a pause in the fighting, but then bombs “fell on the roof of the house,” killing Begum’s daughter as she held her youngest child – along with her husband and 7-year-old daughter.

Begum fled with her surviving grandchildren and they hid for five days before boarding a boat to Bangladesh. But her eldest grandchild didn’t make it – he died from his injuries before they were able to find a boat, and she was forced to leave him on the beach.

After they left, she heard the AA had set fire to her village.

Now, Begum is safe in the camps but fears for the future of her grandchildren, as their only guardian.

“Sadness will not go from our lives,” she says.

More than 1 million people in southern Japan have been urged to evacuate as Typhoon Shanshan made landfall Thursday, leaving thousands of residents without power and lashing Kyushu island with gusty winds, torrential rain and dangerous storm surges.

The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a rare emergency warning for the storm, saying it was expected to bring damaging flooding and landslides to most of Kyushu, the country’s southernmost main island.

Japanese authorities on Thursday warned that a “life-threatening situation” was imminent for towns in Kyushu’s Oita prefecture and called on a further 57,000 people to evacuate and take “live-saving actions” as it issued its highest typhoon alert.

The center of the storm is now about 70 kilometers (40 miles) north of the city of Kagoshima after hitting the mainland with windspeeds of up to 185 kph (115 mph).

Video from Miyazaki, close to where the storm made landfall, showed downed electricity pylons and roads strewn with tree branches and other debris.

Shanshan weakened ahead of landfall but it’s dumping huge amounts of rain onto the island as it crawls north at 13 kph (8 mph). Slower storms can be more destructive, with strong gusts or rainstorms that pound the same areas for hours or days.

Already, rainfall has reached 0.5 meters (20 inches) in many areas and forecasters say totals could reach as high as 1 meter (40 inches) across some isolated and hilly regions.

More than 255,150 households on Kyushu were without power Thursday morning, according to Kyushu Electric Power.

And Japan’s two largest carriers, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA), announced more than 400 flight cancellations ahead of the storm.

Shanshan is expected to turn to the east and move through Kyushu, weakening to a tropical storm by the end of Thursday.

It will continue to move slowly over Japan’s southwest, before crossing into more central regions through the weekend and even into early next week, as a much weaker storm.

The main threat across the rest of Japan will continue to be widespread significant rainfall, with some areas in Shikoku and Honshu expected to see above 0.5 meters (20 inches).

In a city known for its private members clubs battling for exclusivity, one gilded room in Manhattan reigns supreme: a powerful club of countries within the United Nations headquarters that has resisted adding a new member for nearly eight decades.

The UN Security Council has been dominated by just five countries (the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom) since its inception from the ashes of World War II, when much of the world was still under colonial rule.

Today, countries around the world get to take turns in the council as non-permanent members, but no country in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America or the Caribbean has the permanent members’ crucial veto power.

The veto allows permanent members, known as the P5, to block any resolution, ranging from peacekeeping missions to sanctions, in defense of their national interests and foreign policy decisions.

But there is a renewed push to reform this colonial-era world order.

As world leaders prepare to return to the UN headquarters for the annual General Assembly this September, Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio has reiterated Africa’s longstanding pitch to reform the council, including two new permanent member spots for African countries.

African issues take up nearly 50% of the council’s daily business, and the bulk of its resolutions concerning peace and security. The continent is also home to more than a quarter of UN member states and more than a billion people but remains “grossly underrepresented in this vital organ of the UN,” Bio told a high-level meeting in August. Sierra Leone represents the African Group at the United Nations, comprised of the 54 countries from the continent.

The council, responsible for maintaining global peace and security, has the power to deploy peacekeeping missions, authorize the use of force, impose sanctions, and pass resolutions – many of which have enjoyed great effectiveness despite high-profile deadlocks on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.

More than a dozen peer-reviewed studies have found that the bulk of UN peace-keeping missions have helped curb violence and reduce conflict in countries such as Sierra Leone.

The yearslong push to reform the UN’s most powerful body is gaining political momentum: US President Joe Biden even made the case for permanent seats for Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean during a speech to the UN in 2022. Some diplomats are optimistic that September’s general debate – when national leaders address the assembly and which the UN hopes will be used as a critical moment to reflect on the future of the multilateral system – will see consensus around a roadmap for Security Council reform.

The summit’s draft document, ‘Pact for the Future,’ acknowledges the need to fix the “historical injustice against Africa as a priority” and Africa’s special status in negotiations going forward.

While September is unlikely to bring an expansion of the council, “we might see a track, a blueprint on how to get the expansion done in reasonable time,” according to Marschik. On Tuesday, the General Assembly adopted an oral decision reaffirming its central role concerning council reform, and voted to include the issue in the upcoming session’s agenda.

Growing stalemate

Deep divisions among the permanent members have led to growing frustration with the Security Council’s inability to stem the world’s biggest problems, from bloody conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, to the threat of nuclear weapons and climate change.

France and the United Kingdom have limited their use of veto power since 1989. But the post-Cold-War years have seen the US, Russia, and China use the chamber to “exonerate their allies and shield themselves from the consequences of their unpopular foreign policy decisions,” she added.

Sierra Leone’s foreign minister believes more equity in the council would help break the gridlock and lend it more credibility.

He added that in “a world that is more diverse, that is more globalized, interconnected, there is need for the council to be democratized for representation based on geography.”

Beyond the five veto-wielding powers, there are ten non-permanent seats, three of which go to Africa, on the council. The non-permanent seats don’t have veto powers, and they are elected by region by the General Assembly for a two-year term.

There’s agreement among the council’s permanent members and diplomats in the halls of the UN’s iconic midtown Manhattan complex that it is time to evolve. But rivalries and national interests among the UN’s 193 member states have blocked attempts to change as they struggle to agree on which countries to include, the scale of the enlargement of permanent and non-permanent members; and what their powers on the council will look like.

Brazil and India, for example, would like permanent spots on the council, a prospect that would not go down well with India’s longtime rivals, Pakistan and China, or Argentina and Mexico in Brazil’s case, said one UN diplomat.

Decades-long debate

Beyond the African Union push for two permanent and an additional two non-permanent seats on the council, there are at least five other constellations of UN member states that have their own separate ideas on what reform should look like.

There’s “more political momentum to this, but it doesn’t mean we’re necessarily any step closer to achieving reform,” he added.

But what could work is “lowercase reform,” say experts and diplomats, who point to a 2022 initiative tabled by Liechtenstein that was adopted by the General Assembly. It mandates that any veto case by the P5 be debated in the General Assembly. While the process cannot overturn a veto, it raises the political cost of the P5 exercising their unilateral power.

Enlargement is possible, say advocates, pointing to 1963 when the council was enlarged from 10 to 15 member states. “So maybe, on the other hand, maybe this is an opportunity,” said a senior diplomat at the UN. “I think the fact that people are talking about it, means there’s more traction,” the diplomat added.

“But we’re a long way away from real, operationalized Security Council reform.”

Abdul Rahman sleeps in a battered car seat, rocked by his mother Niveen Abu al-Jidyan. For the moment, he’s blissfully unaware of the drones overhead, or the incurable disease crippling his body.

Abdul Rahman is the first person in Gaza in 25 years to be diagnosed with polio – once one of the world’s most feared diseases, but now easily preventable with a vaccine.

Polio mostly affects children under 5 years old, and can cause irreversible paralysis and even death. It’s highly infectious and there is no cure; it can only be prevented by immunization, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

As a precaution, the Israeli military is already vaccinating troops on operations in Gaza.

But Abdul Rahman was not so lucky. Living amid war, he has not been able to receive the standard infant immunizations that would have protected him. Polio vaccination is generally recommended to begin within a few months of birth.

Before the war, Gaza had near-universal vaccine coverage, but it has since dropped to just over 80%.

The resurgence of the virus – eliminated in most of the developed world – highlights the struggles facing Gaza’s two million residents, who have lived under Israeli bombardment since October last year. Many people in the enclave are deprived of food, medical supplies and clean water, with up to 90% of the population internally displaced.

To curb the outbreak, WHO says it will launch alongside UN children’s agency UNICEF a mass vaccination drive to inoculate 640,000 children under the age of 10 in the besieged enclave.

Vaccine coverage needs to reach around 95% of the targeted population to prevent polio from spreading. If the vaccination drive fails to reach that threshold, WHO warns it would be “just a matter of time” before polio infects thousands of children in Gaza.

But an operation of that scale under an ongoing Israeli military offensive that has killed more than 40,000 people and crippled infrastructure across the Palestinian enclave means the effort will likely be plagued with challenges – like the repeated evacuation orders that have forced thousands to flee their homes.

“We previously had 22 health centers across Gaza, only five of those are currently functioning. Bombardments in all areas of the Gaza Strip (mean there is) an increasingly shrinking space in which we’re able to operate.”

The vaccination drive will begin on August 31 if conditions allow.

COGAT, the Israeli government agency that coordinates movement into and out of Gaza, says it has allowed more than 25,000 vials of the polio vaccine into the strip, along with cooling equipment needed to keep the medicine at the required temperature.

But it is already too late for Abu al-Jidyan and her son.

“I feel helpless. It is difficult for me and the doctors because the situation is very bad,” she said.

All she wants now is for her boy to be able to walk. While there’s no cure for polio, there are treatments that can help alleviate the symptoms – but these will be hard to find for the Abu al-Jidyan family given the state of Gaza’s battered healthcare system.

From his mother, a plea: “Take him abroad for treatment or find a solution so my son can start walking and start moving again.”

The World Food Programme is freezing employee movement in Gaza after one of its vehicles was targeted with repeated gunfire just meters from an Israeli checkpoint, according to a statement by the humanitarian agency.

“Despite being clearly marked and receiving multiple clearances by Israeli authorities to approach, the vehicle was directly struck by gunfire as it was moving toward an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint,” the statement by the agency read.

The armored vehicle was one of two returning from a mission escorting humanitarian aid through the Palestinian enclave. A photo released by the WFP showed multiple bullet marks in the driver’s side window; at least 10 bullets hit the vehicle, according to the agency.

None of the employees onboard were physically harmed, it said.

The World Food Programme is the UN’s main food relief agency, and a key pillar of the humanitarian aid network in besieged Gaza, distributing food throughout the devastated territory, where famine has been spreading for months.

Humanitarian workers typically coordinate their routes with Israeli forces in order to move with relative safety. “As last night’s events show, the current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer,” WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said in the statement.

In April, aid workers from another hunger relief group, the World Central Kitchen, were killed in an Israeli attack while traveling through Gaza by car, despite coordinating with Israeli authorities on their route and itinerary. The airstrikes hit three cars in their convoy, killing three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian, and a Pole.

In a press briefing Wednesday, the UN Secretary General’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the WFP aid vehicle that was shot had been clearly marked, describing the WFP logo as “probably one of the most recognizable in the world” in conflict zones.

He said the UN had formally protested to Israel over the incident and emphasized the responsibility of United Nations member states to protect UN aid workers, who serve populations in some of the world’s most dangerous places.

“Whether it’s Gaza, whether it’s in Sudan, whether it’s in Chad, whether it’s anywhere else or in Ukraine, in places of fighting, they don’t operate on the whims of (Secretary General) Antonio Guterres,” he said.

“They operate on behalf of the United Nations… It is incumbent on all member states who are part of this organization to ensure the protection of humanitarian workers who work for them, so to speak.”

Pressure is mounting on Hamas, which governs Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seal a ceasefire and hostage release deal against the backdrop of severe starvation, dire water shortages, mass displacement and disease in the enclave.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 40,435 Palestinians and injured another 93,534 people, according to the Ministry of Health there. The Israeli military launched its aerial and ground assault in the isolated enclave after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and abducting more than 250, according to Israeli authorities.

After more than 300 days in Hamas captivity, a frail and malnourished Farhan Al-Qadi sat in a large tent set up by his family and friends in the Negev desert, where loved ones came by to welcome him home on Wednesday.

“I am well,” Al-Qadi told reporters, adding that he wishes “that the war ends for all Palestinian and Israeli families.”

“I know that there are negotiations in Cairo,” he said regarding ongoing discussions on a proposed ceasefire-for-hostages deal aimed at halting the fighting. “I wish to God that this is all resolved.”

The Israeli military said Tuesday that Al-Qadi is the eighth hostage to be rescued alive in Gaza by the Israeli military since the beginning of the war – but he is the first to have been reclaimed alive from inside Hamas’ tunnel network underneath Gaza

Al-Qadi sat at the center of long rows of plastic chairs, where visitors greeted him with long embraces and kisses on the cheek in a gathering near Tarabin – one of Israel’s many unrecognized Bedouin villages.

With limited power and water services, the village is about 20 miles from the Gaza Strip and is not protected by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. The closest city is Rahat, which is the largest Arab Bedouin city in Israel.

The Bedouin community – a Muslim, semi-nomadic, and ethnically Arab group – is considered a subset of Israel’s Arab population, which makes up about 20% of the total population.

While some identify as Bedouin Israelis, others see themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel. Unlike Jewish Israelis, Bedouins are not required to serve in the Israeli military, though some choose to volunteer, often serving in specialized units like the Gadsar 585, known as the Bedouin battalion, which operates in the Negev desert, where most Bedouins originate.

‘Isolated alone’

Fayez Sohaiban, Al-Qadi’s relative and the former mayor of Rahat city, said the former hostage had lived in captivity not knowing what his fate would be the next day, and food “was almost nonexistent.”

Al-Qadi was working as a security guard in Kibbutz Magen when he was taken 11 months ago.

He told reporters on Wednesday that he spent a lot of his time in a tunnel, adding that he did not meet other hostages during his time in Gaza. “No one, no. Not once,” Al-Qadi said. His brother, Juma’a Al-Qadi, said he was “isolated alone” the entire time.

Ali El-Ziyadne, whose brother and nephew were also kidnapped on October 7 and remain in Gaza, joined the Bedouin community to welcome Al-Qadi home. His brother, Youssef Ziyadne, and nephew, Hamza Ziyadne, have been held hostage by Hamas for 11 months, he said.

El-Ziyadne asked about his brother and nephew when he met Al-Qadi, but the former hostage did not see them, he said.

Before Israel’s founding in 1948, the Negev was home to 92,000 Bedouins, but only 11,000 remained after the Arab-Israeli war of that year, according to Minority Rights Group. Those who stayed are “treated harshly, uprooted time and again and forced to live in reservations,” the international human rights organization added.

According to the National Library of Israel, there are almost 250,000 Bedouins, many of whom live in towns that are yet to receive recognition from the state, while others live in unincorporated villages.

Al-Qadi’s rescue means there are now 103 hostages from the October 7 attack being held in Gaza, according to figures from the Israeli prime minister’s office and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Last week the bodies of six Israeli hostages were retrieved from Gaza during an overnight military operation in Khan Younis, Israeli authorities said.

Hopes of a ceasefire-for-hostages deal, which would halt fighting in Gaza and see the return of people held by Hamas, have repeatedly been raised and dashed in recent months.

Negotiators are continuing to work on a deal, and have met with increasing intensity in recent weeks. Talks made progress over the weekend, according to a senior US official familiar with the discussions in Cairo, Egypt, where mediators discussed “final details” of a potential agreement. An Israeli delegation is expected to head to Doha on Wednesday for ceasefire talks.

The past few weeks in the Ukraine war have felt like, to borrow an adage often attributed to Lenin, that decades have happened in them. It is perhaps the fastest moment of change in the conflict since it began, and heralds Kyiv throwing everything it has down on the table to try and bring palpable results before the US election alters its fate, maybe irrevocably.

Since the surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region in early August, Ukraine’s risk tolerance has rocketed. Its top brass unveiled Tuesday it had taken 100 Russian settlements, as reports emerged of its forces trying to break into Belgorod region too.

The shock incursion is now turning into a longer-term project, although Kyiv insists it is a buffer zone it seeks, and not a revenge occupation. It is remarkable how powerless the Kremlin appears to be to halt Ukraine’s progress, now three weeks in, despite having diverted 30,000 troops in that direction, according to a Ukrainian assessment given during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s annual news conference Tuesday. But this bold move has company.

The past months have seen Ukraine targeting Russia’s deepest infrastructure at will. Airfields. Oil refineries. Ammunition hubs. All daily. A Ukrainian drone attack last Wednesday seemed to get close to Murmansk, the northern naval hub on the Arctic circle, where much of Moscow’s nuclear submarine force is based, according to a local Russian official.

This Wednesday, flights were reportedly interrupted in Kazan, a city east of Moscow halfway to the Urals, after another apparent drone threat. The reach of Kyiv’s drones is a complication unimaginable to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 when he was told his war of choice would see his forces in Kyiv in a matter of days. Billowing smoke is not uncommon in Russia’s western and southern regions now. At some point, Moscow’s increased vulnerability, and the vast damage itself, will pierce the sanitary cordon of what state media allows to be said.

Zelensky also let slip that another new capability has had an impact: the newly arrived NATO F-16 fighter jets, which he opaquely said had intercepted Russian missiles this week. This step change in Kyiv’s abilities to project air power will only grow in the months ahead and stymie Russia’s singular, long-term advantage – control of the skies and the ability to bomb at will. Moscow has responded to attacks on its territory and infrastructure with the only way it has known – in strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, hotels, and civilian targets, in horrifying waves night after night. Bu the numbers of dead have been relatively small and those of interceptions large, Kyiv has insisted.

And while Zelensky appears to be throwing all he can into the fight, Putin seems stuck peddling a familiar tune. The Kremlin is casting the Kursk debacle as if it were a natural disaster, some analysts have noted. The billowing smoke is something local officials must extinguish but Putin seems able to mostly ignore. Moscow talks of foreign mercenaries assisting Kyiv while its missiles target Western journalists in a Donetsk hotel.

It may be clumsy and ignorant as a response, but Russia’s wider aim remains unchanged and in reach. Tens of thousands of Russian troops are bearing down on the Ukrainian military hub of Pokrovsk, as they have been since Moscow captured the last small-ish town in the east, Avdiivka, in February. The goal, the tactics, the geography, the pace – always the same. Yet it is usually successful.

This is the wider gamble Zelensky appears comfortable with. The fall of Pokrovsk may be weeks away, by current assessments of the pace of Russian advance and speed of Ukrainian collapse in both positions and morale. It may, at best, submit to another slow, horrific winterlong grind before it falls. But the fall appears likely.

After Pokrovsk, there is truly nothing to defend – no major town or position – until the city of Dnipro itself, on the other side of the vast Zaporizhzhia region, about a two-hour drive away. Unless the Kursk gambit causes Russia to stretch so thin that its Donetsk operations stall, Kyiv will need to wildly fortify the rear behind Pokrovsk, or risk a pacy Russian advance across open ground that could truly alter the future shape of Ukraine.

Zelensky is, it seems, happy to accept that risk and has calculated that the damage he can do to Putin’s prestige – by taking out oil infrastructure and military targets deep inside the Motherland and annexing part of his borders – is a necessary and an urgent war aim, regardless of how oblivious Putin and his public seem to be to this embarrassment.

It gives Ukraine a “win,” at least, which may fix two of Kyiv’s urgent problems: the will of NATO allies to provide arms to a losing campaign, and the willingness of Ukrainian men to fight in a losing war. He has assessed that the loss of Pokrovsk may be inevitable, and a sacrifice Ukraine can make in the pursuit of wider damage to the Kremlin’s borders.

The heavy intwining with US politics was also evident when Zelensky said Tuesday he would in September present his ‘secret’ plan for victory – likely intense drone strikes, perhaps also using US-supplied longer-range weapons – to President Joe Biden, and candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. He is daring them to refuse him this chance, and trying to make being a Russia hawk part of the November election calculus. It may backfire, but more likely lead to some silent acquiescence, and Kyiv inflicting what damage it can as Moscow adapts again.

Yet an unfamiliar new paradigm is emerging, one which Zelensky addressed directly too. The threat of Russian escalation is almost absent in the conversation. It is as if the limit of their conventional powers has been exposed by the humiliation of Kursk, along with the emptiness of their nuclear rhetoric. The latter cannot be entirely ignored, if the Kremlin feels an existential threat so grave it is willing to risk the overwhelming conventional NATO response it will likely face from nuclear escalation. But Putin’s powers appear very diminished.

Zelensky has divined Ukraine’s moment is now, and that after November there is a 50% chance Trump will impose an unpleasant peace, or that NATO cohesion will slowly erode, or that he will struggle to fill his own trenches with willing Ukrainian soldiers. And in the weeks ahead, he is willing to leave huge swaths of territory vulnerable, as well as cross every one of Russia’s red lines – once hallowed yet now shifting daily – in the pursuit of a point at which Moscow breaks and decides to yield. He must hope the pressure is being felt as acutely by Putin.

The Greek-flagged crude oil tanker Sounion that was recently attacked by Yemen’s Houthis is still on fire in the Red Sea and now appears to be leaking oil, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday.

The Sounion was targeted last week by multiple projectiles off Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah. The Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous regions, said they attacked it in the Red Sea, as the Iran-aligned group has been attacking ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Pentagon spokesman Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said a third party had tried to send two tugs to help salvage the Sounion, but the Houthis threatened to attack them. He said the tanker was carrying about 1 million barrels of crude oil.

“These are simply reckless acts of terrorism which continue to destabilize global and regional commerce, put the lives of innocent civilian mariners at risk and imperil the vibrant maritime ecosystem in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Houthis’ own backyard,” Ryder said.

He added that the US military was working with other partners in the region to determine how to help the vessel and mitigate potential environmental impact.

The Iran-aligned group has sunk two ships and killed at least three crew members in their 10-month campaign, which has upended global ocean shipping by forcing vessel owners to avoid the Suez Canal shortcut.

The Houthis said they attacked the tanker in part because Delta Tankers violated its ban on “entry to the ports of occupied Palestine,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree had said in a televised speech.

The Sounion was the third vessel operated by Athens-based Delta Tankers to be attacked in the Red Sea this month. The attack caused a fire onboard, which the crew extinguished, Delta Tankers said in a statement.

The largest recorded ship-source spill was in 1979, when about 287,000 metric tons of oil escaped from the Atlantic Empress after it collided with another crude carrier in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Tobago during a storm, according to International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation.

With the success of Beyoncé’s newest album, “Cowboy Carter,” and the rise of artists like Nigerian American singer Shaboozey, Black country music is having a moment. Tapping into that energy is Dusty & Stones.

Cousins Gazi “Dusty” Simelane and Linda “Stones” Msibi grew up working together on their grandparents’ farm in the rolling southern hills before forming their country music band. Theirs may sound like the archetypal country band origin story, but rather than the southern United States, this duo hails from Mooihoek, in the tiny African country of Eswatini (formerly called Swaziland).

The concerns of rural America might seem a world away from southern Africa, but when Dusty’s older brother introduced him to the music of Donny Williams and Dolly Parton, he recognized in their ballads about small-town life a story like his own. The duo’s grandfather was a pastor who played the harmonica in his youth and taught them the values of patience and hard work, key elements of a country star’s upbringing.

Dusty & Stones’ songs tell stories of their community and personal experiences. “Mooihoek Country Fever,” their debut album from 2022, touches on subjects ranging from family to faith.

“I also have stories, I also have experiences I’d like to share with people. I feel like I’m able to share those things way better through a country song,” Dusty said.

The pair play guitar and write their own songs, catering to local music tastes by making their music easy to dance to and singing in their native language of siSwati as well as English. Despite these differences, the duo insists their music is still firmly country.

International breakthrough

After getting their break at a local music festival, Dusty & Stones have gone on to receive international recognition, winning the Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards Duo of the Year award in 2017, the first Africans to claim that accolade.

Since their win, another artist from Eswatini, Cleopatra Methula, has gone on to claim three awards at the same event. More artists, including Zwelly Masuku, Sbutjas Dlamini, Cousinwhy and Alfred Gama have entered the Swazi country music scene in recent years.

Dusty & Stones reached new heights in 2023 when they performed at the Grand Ole Opry, in Nashville, Tennessee, the pinnacle of success for country musicians. Founded in 1925, the radio station and associated music venue has seen performances from scores of country legends.

The duo has been playing for years, but their recognition comes with country music at an inflection point. With the release of Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” Black country artists are clamoring to be heard, and for their contributions to the genre to be acknowledged.

Black artists have influenced country music since its inception in the early 20th century, emerging from a background of folk, blues and gospel. Artists like Charley Pride, whose career began in the 1960s, and Ray Charles with his hit country album “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music,” are just two Black musicians who have influenced the genre.

Today, both African American and African musicians play country. The careers of artists like Willie Jones, Breland and Rvshvd from the United States, and Esther Konkara and Sir Elvis of Kenya and Ogak Jay Oke of Nigeria testify to the presence of Black artists in the genre.

Stones pointed out that country music existed in Eswatini before Dusty & Stones, too. They were inspired and guided by Zombodze Dlamini, the late president of their local country music association, which staged a country festival in 2018 and continues to support jamborees and country music shows.

Despite their historic and current contributions, Black country artists often say they face challenges in an industry that is predominantly White. A documentary about Dusty & Stones’ experience at the 2017 Texas Awards captured the hostility they faced from a member of the local backing band, and numerous Black country artists have come forward to share their experiences of racism in the industry.

Dusty & Stones want to see more opportunities for country artists in Eswatini. At the same time, they want people to know that country music already lives beyond the borders of the United States, especially in Africa, and that is nothing new.

“Country music is no longer an American genre. Yes, that’s where it started, but it’s a global genre right now,” Dusty said.