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Two drugs are being trialled in the Ituri region in a programme set up just six weeks after the outbreak was declared, with hopes it will reduce mortality ratesThere is no approved drug to help the medical teams scrabbling to save lives in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – but there are hopes that could change within months as the first patients are enrolled in a treatment trial.It is a record pace to set up and start this kind of research, scientists said, with patients enrolled just six weeks after the outbreak being declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 17 May. Continue reading...

Discontent with Trump-backed government mounts as Chávez heirs struggle to respond to disaster for which they seem ill-preparedEven before two powerful earthquakes reduced the OPPE 25 government housing project to an anarchy of shattered concrete and broken lives, the foundations of Hugo Chávez’s populist “Bolivarian” revolution were shaking in what was once a hotbed of support.Gabriel González remembers his elation when, in 2013, he received the keys to his freshly completed apartment in one of the 12-floor tower blocks El Comandante had ordered to be built in an affluent corner of the resort town of Caraballeda. Continue reading...

A Miami businessman wanted in Albania for alleged drug money laundering is suspected of faking deeds to the land where Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hope to build a multi-billion-dollar resort, new reports show.Albania's anticorruption prosecution service is investigating whether Artur Shehu transferred land to Albania Land Development, a Kushner-linked company, with forged deeds and falsified titles, according to reporting by Al Jazeera and Reuters."Prosecutors allege Shehu and his associates funnelled proceeds from cocaine trafficking into Albanian property, using falsified titles to disguise the money’s origin, and have since frozen roughly 110 million euros ($126m) tied to the sale in a notary’s account," Al Jazeera reported.Shehu’s lawyer Kujtim Cakrani denied the allegations to Reuters. “Nothing that has been alleged regarding Mr Artur Shehu’s character is true,” he told Reuters. "Mr Shehu is aware of the allegations made by the Albanian prosecution. These allegations do not concern him because he maintains that the truth is entirely different from what the prosecution claims."A Justice Department spokesperson declined Reuters' request for comment.Ivanka and Kushner's announcement that they plan to build a $1.6 billion luxury resort on Sazan Island, a protected nature preserve and Albania's largest island, already sparked mass protests. It hasn't stopped the couple from moving forward with the deal and snapping up coastal land. Neither Ivanka, Kushner nor Albania Land Development has been accused of wrongdoing in the case.Shehu sold a strip of pristine Albanian coastline to Kushner's company in April, according to reporting by Reuters."Reasonable suspicions are formed, based on evidence, that the above-mentioned assets were acquired through the use of forged documents," according to case files reviewed by Reuters. Reuters also reported that an Albanian organized crime-fighting agency issued a warrant seeking Shehu's arrest for laundering money for South American cocaine traffickers shipping drugs into European ports.Cakrani confirmed Shehu was a target but said he was unconcerned about the arrest warrant, telling Reuters it was "widely believed" that Albanian prosecutors operate under the influence of politicians and business figures.

President Donald Trump is a desperate man. With the midterms on the horizon and his approval ratings under water, he doesn’t want to talk about affordability. Nor does he want to talk about his war with Iran. And he certainly doesn’t want to talk about Jeffrey Epstein.What does he want to talk about? Communists.Over the last two weeks, Trump has ratcheted up his overheated rhetoric in response to democratic socialists’ victories in primary elections in Colorado, New York, Washington, DC, and elsewhere.During a speech to Christian conservatives at a Faith and Freedom Coalition convention in Washington on June 26, he called democratic socialists “animals” and said, “We have to stop this horrible threat of cancer that’s permeating our country called communism.” He went on to say that the “godless” communists in the Democratic Party pose a particular risk for Christians. “They will close your churches in this country,” he warned. “They will kill your people. And that’s what they’re about.”It’s not as if Trump and his fellow Republicans haven’t hurled the communist epithet before, but over the past six months they have upped the ante.Heading into the 250th birthday celebration on the National Mall, Trump continued his tirade. Speaking at Mount Rushmore on July 3, he not only besmirched Democrats, but immigrants as well. “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success,” he said. “...You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.” He made no secret that he is trying to salvage Republican candidates’ chances in November. “America will never be a communist country,” he said. “We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms if we are foolish, stupid, and unwise.”Trump was only slightly more restrained on July 4 at the National Mall. After introducing a handful of World War II veterans and lauding them for their heroism, Trump ahistorically declared: “Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We’re not going to let it happen.” (In fact, American troops, along with troops from Great Britain and communist Soviet Union, defeated fascism in World War II.)The GOP’s Red-Baiting TraditionIt’s not as if Trump and his fellow Republicans haven’t hurled the communist epithet before, but over the past six months they have upped the ante. According to a recent Washington Post analysis of statements, social media posts, and podcasts, from January to June, they applied the word “communist” or “communism” to Democrats an average of 626 times per week, 43% more than during the same time frame in 2025.Right-wing pundits have entered the fray, too. Megan McArdle, a self-described “right-leaning libertarian” columnist at The Washington Post, recently wrote that democratic socialist victories represent “a heady moment for the left, because socialism’s tainted brand has recovered from the vivid failures of the Soviet Union.”Likewise, historian Arthur Herman, writing for Fox News, disingenuously equated democratic socialists’ policy agenda with that of the Soviet Union in a July 3 column. “In June, Marxist radicals calling themselves democratic socialists swept the New York City primaries...” he wrote. “...Communist-style socialism has brought poverty, mass starvation, and subsistence misery to tens of millions worldwide.”Such attacks are nothing new. Republicans denounced Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as “socialism” and even “communism.” In 1961, then General Electric spokesman Ronald Reagan warned that government health insurance would lead to socialism. Over the following decades, however, Republicans largely abandoned that mantra in favor of attacks on “big government” and the welfare state.Trump is a throwback to an earlier time. In his 2020 State of the Union address, Trump attacked socialism, claiming it “destroys nations.” Like Reagan before him, he specifically denounced a “Medicare for All” proposal endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and 130 other members of Congress at the time, calling it a “socialist takeover of our healthcare system.”During the last election, Trump often called Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris a “Marxist,” tying her to her father’s economic perspective on markets and inequality. More recently, he labeled New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, a “communist,” and dubbed Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist who won last month’s Washington, DC, Democratic mayoral primary, a “Communist adherent.”Democratic socialists in the Democratic Party are not communists. If they are a member of any organization, it likely would be the Democratic Socialists of America, which does not function as a party. Communist organizations still exist in the United States, but they are politically marginal and have no representation in Congress or in any state legislature.Americans Support Democratic Socialist PoliciesLikewise, democratic socialism is not synonymous with Soviet communism, which fell apart 35 years ago. The countries that democratic socialists in America hold up as models can be found in Western Europe. They are multiparty democracies with market economies, strong unions, and robust social safety programs that include universal healthcare. Their economic models are nothing like the one-party command economy of the Soviet Union and, as I pointed out in detail in a December 2025 essay, they do a much better job of ensuring their citizens live long, healthy, and prosperous lives than the United States does.While only about 17% of Americans have a favorable view of democratic socialist politicians, their policies are quite popular. For example:According to a new Economist-YouGov poll, 52% of Americans support eliminating private health insurance companies and replacing them with a national health plan. Only 30% oppose the idea.Public support for a higher federal minimum wage has remained strong for years. A 2021 Pew survey found that 62% of Americans supported raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, while a 2019 Pew survey found support at 67%.A February Pew survey found that 69% of Americans favor requiring employers to provide paid family leave. Even 59% of Republicans support it.Finally, 63% of Americans favor raising taxes on large corporations, according to a March 2025 Pew poll, and 58% favor raising taxes on households earning more than $400,000 annually.Perhaps what is holding democratic socialists back is how they identify themselves. The term “socialist” just may have too much baggage. After all, many Americans still associate the word with the Soviet Union, whose official name was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, even though it was a communist dictatorship.New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, told The Washington Post earlier this week that political labels should not be an issue. “What matters is the legislation, your proposals, the ideas before us,” she said. “How a person identifies in their economic view of the world is less important to people than if we’re making their groceries more affordable.”Maybe. But Trump and the GOP are betting that calling Democrats “communists” will matter to enough voters to overshadow their concerns about the cost of food, gasoline, housing and healthcare. November will reveal whether that Cold War strategy still works.

Spanish officials are throwing up their hands over Donald Trump's contradictory ultimatums on military spending, with the country's top diplomat essentially dismissing the president's chaotic demands as inexplicable, Politico reported Friday.The confusion stems from Trump's erratic behavior at this week's NATO summit in Ankara, where he attacked Spain as a "terrible partner" for refusing to commit to spending 5 percent of its gross domestic product on defense. Then, on Wednesday, the president ordered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to "cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits"—a threat that appeared to be in earnest when a U.S. official confirmed Thursday that the Treasury and Commerce Departments were drafting "a menu of Spanish products that may be embargoed in the coming days."Trump then backed down after creating the international incident."I did have issues with Spain, and I still do, but Spain came back all the way today," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, claiming Madrid had "honored a request for lots of payment." He added, "They were very generous today -- you know, I told them I was going to stop trading."Pressed on what happened, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares expressed bewilderment, telling national broadcaster RTVE that he had no idea what Trump was referring to. "Only he can explain," the diplomat said dryly.Politico reported Spanish government officials were still scrambling to make sense of Trump's comments, ultimately concluding he must have been referring to Spain's compliance with existing NATO commitments to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense—not any new spending increases."No, we understand [Trump] was referring to the data showing we've satisfactorily complied with the 2 percent target," a Spanish government spokesperson told Politico.

Innocent man lynched by mob in West Bengal as police killing of suspect further escalates tensionsProtests have engulfed the Indian state of West Bengal after the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, the subsequent lynching of an innocent man and the police killing of one of the accused.Outrage erupted on Sunday after the body of a missing girl was recovered from a pond in a town just outside the state capital, Kolkata. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's boast on Truth Social that his tariff war spurred Toyota to move its Tacoma truck manufacturing operations to the U.S. was drowned in derision by the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal this week.The conservative WSJ board on Thursday rained on Trump's parade by pointing out that the manufacturing move should be celebrated, but, in the larger picture, his tariffs have been a disaster and Americans are still furious."The President is right that his tariffs are at work—in destroying U.S. jobs and raising prices," the editors wrote. "Mr. Trump’s Section 232 national security tariffs on autos and parts have cost $35.2 billion through April of this year, and his steel and aluminum tariffs another $17.5 billion, according to U.S. government data."Since taking office in January, the U.S. has hemorrhaged roughly 75,000 manufacturing positions. More than one-third evaporated directly from the automotive and related parts sectors—the industries Trump claims to be protecting.The board argued the administration's tariff experiment has obliterated American manufacturing. "Mr. Trump and his advisers claim that foreigners pay his border taxes, but the evidence shows that U.S. companies, workers and consumers are picking up most of the tab," the board wrote.Add to that, they asserted Trump is forcing consumers to balk at buying new cars over economic uncertainty."Many are driving clunkers for longer—and paying more for repairs if they break down—or buying used cars," the editorial stated. "New vehicle sales have averaged 15.9 million in the first half of this year, down from the 17 to 18 million in the five years before the pandemic. "When people buy fewer cars, auto makers don’t need as many workers. His trade oscillations and border taxes are a major reason the economy hasn’t performed as well as during his first term, and why Americans are so unhappy."

Unesco report shows children lost out to servicing debt in 113 countries, with 18 spending five times more on loansMost developing countries spent less on education than they did repaying debt last year, according to the UN, at the same time as global aid to education is predicted to decline by up to 30%.More was spent on servicing foreign debt than on education in 113 developing countries in 2025, according to research by the UN’s culture and education agency, Unesco. In sub-Saharan Africa, countries spent 3.6 times more on debt than education. Continue reading...