Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday attended a public demonstration in Sao Paulo to protest against his ongoing Supreme Court trial in the South American country.

A couple of thousand people gathered on Paulista Avenue, one of the city’s main locations, in a demonstration that Bolsonaro, before the event, called “an act for freedom, for justice.”

Bolsonaro and 33 allies are facing trial over an alleged plot to overturn the 2022 presidential election results and remain in power.

They were charged with five counts related to the plan.

The former president has denied the allegations and claims that he’s the target of political persecution.

He could face up to 12 years in prison if convicted.

“Bolsonaro, come back!” protesters chanted, but the former president is barred from running for office until 2030.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court ruled last year that he abused his political power and made baseless claims about the country’s electronic voting system.

China on Sunday announced it is immediately resuming seafood products imported from some Japanese regions, ending a nearly two-year overall ban imposed due to worries over Japan’s release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

In a notice on Sunday, China Customs said seafood products from 10 prefectures – Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo and Chiba – will still be banned from entering the country.

Products from other regions will need health certificates, radioactive substance detection qualification certificates and production area certificates issued by the Japanese government for Chinese customs declarations, the notice said.

Chinese customs authorities said Sunday’s decision was made after no abnormality was detected following long-term international and independent Chinese sampling and monitoring of discharged wastewater.

China banned all imports of Japanese seafood in August 2023, shortly after Tokyo began releasing the treated Fukushima wastewater, prompting a diplomatic and economic backlash.

Sunday’s notice said China will strictly supervise Japanese seafood imports and will take measures if it finds any violations of relevant Chinese laws, regulations and food safety standards.

Riot police fired tear gas at thousands of anti-government protesters in Serbia’s capital on Saturday.

The major rally in Belgrade against Serbia’s populist president, Aleksandar Vucic, was called to back a demand for an early parliamentary election.

The protest by tens of thousands was held after nearly eight months of persistent demonstrations led by Serbia’s university students that have rattled Vucic’s firm grip on power in the Balkan country.

The huge crowd chanted “We want elections!” as they filled the capital’s central Slavija Square and several blocks around it, with many unable to reach the venue.

Tensions were high before and during the gathering. Riot police deployed around government buildings and close to a camp of Vucic’s loyalists in central Belgrade. Skirmishes erupted between riot officers and groups of protesters near the camp.

“Elections are a clear way out of the social crisis caused by the deeds of the government, which is undoubtedly against the interests of their own people,” said one of the students, who didn’t give her name while giving a speech on a stage to the crowd. “Today, on June 28, 2025, we declare the current authorities illegitimate.”

At the end of the official part of the rally, students told the crowd to “take freedom into your own hands.”

University students have been a key force behind nationwide anti-corruption demonstrations that started after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people on Nov. 1.

Many blamed the concrete roof crash on rampant government corruption and negligence in state infrastructure projects, leading to recurring mass protests.

“We are here today because we cannot take it any more,” Darko Kovacevic said. “This has been going on for too long. We are mired in corruption.”

Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have repeatedly refused the demand for an early vote and accused protesters of planning to spur violence on orders from abroad, which they didn’t specify.

Vucic’s authorities have launched a crackdown on Serbia’s striking universities and other opponents, while increasing pressure on independent media as they tried to curb the demonstrations.

While numbers have shrunk in recent weeks, the massive showing for Saturday’s anti-Vucic rally suggested that the resolve persists, despite relentless pressure and after nearly eight months of almost daily protests.

Serbian police, which is firmly controlled by Vucic’s government, said that 36,000 people were present at the start of the protest on Saturday.

Saturday marks St. Vitus Day, a religious holiday and the date when Serbs mark a 14th-century battle against Ottoman Turks in Kosovo that was the start of hundreds of years of Turkish rule, holding symbolic importance.

In their speeches, some of the speakers at the student rally on Saturday evoked the theme, which was also used to fuel Serbian nationalism in the 1990s that later led to the incitement of ethnic wars following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Hours before the student-led rally, Vucic’s party bused in scores of its own supporters to Belgrade from other parts of the country, many wearing T-shirts reading: “We won’t give up Serbia.” They were joining a camp of Vucic’s loyalists in central Belgrade where they have been staying in tents since mid-March.

In a show of business as usual, Vucic handed out presidential awards in the capital to people he deemed worthy, including artists and journalists.

“People need not worry – the state will be defended and thugs brought to justice,” Vucic told reporters on Saturday.

Serbian presidential and parliamentary elections are due in 2027.

Earlier this week, police arrested several people accused of allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and banned entry into the country, without explanation, to several people from Croatia and a theater director from Montenegro.

Serbia’s railway company halted train service over an alleged bomb threat in what critics said was an apparent bid to prevent people from traveling to Belgrade for the rally.

Authorities made similar moves back in March, before what was the biggest ever anti-government protest in the Balkan country, which drew hundreds of thousands of people.

Vucic’s loyalists then set up a camp in a park outside his office, which still stands. The otherwise peaceful gathering on March 15 came to an abrupt end when part of the crowd suddenly scattered in panic, triggering allegations that authorities used a sonic weapon against peaceful protesters – an accusation officials have denied.

Vucic, a former extreme nationalist, has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power more than a decade ago. Though he formally says he wants Serbia to join the European Union, critics say Vucic has stifled democratic freedoms as he strengthened ties with Russia and China.

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog says US strikes on Iran fell short of causing total damage to its nuclear program and that Tehran could restart enriching uranium “in a matter of months,” contradicting President Donald Trump’s claims the US set Tehran’s ambitions back by decades.

While the final military and intelligence assessment has yet to come, Trump has repeatedly claimed to have “completely and totally obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear program.

The 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran began earlier this month when Israel launched an unprecedented attack it said aimed at preventing Tehran developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The US then struck three key Iranian nuclear sites before a ceasefire began. The extent of the damage to Tehran’s nuclear program has been hotly debated ever since.

US military officials have in recent days provided some new information about the planning of the strikes, but offered no new evidence of their effectiveness against Iran’s nuclear program.

Following classified briefings this week, Republican lawmakers acknowledged the US strikes may not have eliminated all of Iran’s nuclear materials – but argued that this was never part of the military’s mission.

Severe but not ‘total’ damage

Asked about the different assessments, Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan”: “This hourglass approach in weapons of mass destruction is not a good idea.”

“The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there,” he told Brennan, according to a transcript released ahead of the broadcast.

“It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage,” Grossi went on to say. “Iran has the capacities there; industrial and technological capacities. So if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.”

Grossi also told CBS News that the IAEA has resisted pressure to say whether Iran has nuclear weapons or was close to having weapons before the strikes.

“We didn’t see a program that was aiming in that direction (of nuclear weapons), but at the same time, they were not answering very, very important questions that were pending.”

Grossi stressed the need for the IAEA to be granted access to Iran, to assess nuclear activities. He said Iran had been disclosing information to the agency up until recent Israeli and US strikes, but that “there were some things that they were not clarifying to us.”

“In this sensitive area of the number of centrifuges and the amount of material, we had perfect view,” he said. “What I was concerned about is that there were other things that were not clear. For example, we had found traces of uranium in some places in Iran, which were not the normal declared facilities. And we were asking for years, why did we find these traces of enriched uranium in place x, y or z? And we were simply not getting credible answers.”

The initial Pentagon assessment said Tehran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked but Trump has insisted nothing was moved.

“It’s logical to presume that when they announce that they are going to be taking protective measures, this could be part of it (moving the material). But, as I said, we don’t know where this material could be, or if part of it could have been, you know, under the attack during those 12 days,” Grossi told Brennan.

Meanwhile, Tehran has made moves towards withdrawing from international oversight over its nuclear program.

Iran’s parliament passed a bill halting cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, while the Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, also said that the country could also rethink its membership of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits signatories from developing nuclear weapons.

Min Young-jae has not seen or heard anything about her eldest brother for 75 years. He was 19 and she was only 2 when, during the early days of the Korean War, he was kidnapped to the North.

Their peaceful days were shattered on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded the South. The three-year war would kill more than 847,000 troops and about 522,000 civilians from both sides, and tear apart more than 100,000 families, including Min’s.

After the war, the family kept the rusting doors of their tile-roofed house open, in hopes that their eldest would one day return. But over time, barbed wire has been installed between the two Koreas, and a modern apartment complex has replaced the house.

Though 75 years have passed without a single word about or from the brother, Min and her siblings remain hopeful that they will hear about him some day. Or, if not him, then his children or grandchildren.

A happy family

The family lived in Dangnim village, nestled between green mountains on the western side of Chuncheon city, nearly 100 kilometers northeast of Seoul. It was a village of chirping birds, streaming water and chugging tractors.

It was also dangerously close to the 38th parallel, which divided the peninsula after World War II.

Min Young-jae, the youngest of seven, does not remember fighting with any of her siblings growing up; only sharing tofu that her parents made, splashing in the stream and being carried around on her eldest brother’s shoulders.

Handsome, kind and smart, Min Young-sun was studying at the Chuncheon National University of Education, following in the footsteps of his father, the principal of Dangnim Elementary School.

“His nickname was ‘Math Whiz.’ He excelled in math, even his classmates called him Math Whiz,” Min Jeong-ja, the fifth child of the family, said.

Some days, students followed him all the way home, as he commuted via train and boat, asking him to teach math, the sisters recalled.

The sisters remember Min Young-sun as a caring brother. They caught fish and splashed in the nearby stream, now widely covered with reeds and weeds and almost out of water.

“We grew up in real happiness,” Min Jeong-ja said.

Torn apart

Living near the frontier between the newly separated Koreas – backed by the rival ideological forces of communism or capitalism – Min’s family was among the first to experience the horrors of the Korean War.

When Kim Il Sung’s North Korean troops invaded, Min Jeong-ja remembers seeing her grandmother running in tears, with a cow in tow, screaming: “We’re in a war!”

“We all spread out and hid in the mountains, because we were scared. One day, we hid the 4-year-old, Young-jae, in the bushes and forgot to bring her back because we had so many siblings. When we returned that night, she was still there, not even crying,” Min Jeong-ja said.

While the family was running in and out of the mountains, taking shelter from the troops coming from the North, Min Young-sun was kidnapped, taken to the North by his teacher.

“The teacher gathered smart students and hauled them (away). He took several students, tens of them. Took them to the North,” Min Jeong-ja said.

It is unknown why the teacher would have kidnapped the students to North Korea, but the South Korean government assumes that Pyongyang had abducted South Koreans to supplement its military.

“People called the teacher a commie,” Min Jeong-ja said.

That heartache was soon followed by another: the death of the second-eldest brother. He died of shock and pain, in deep sorrow from the kidnap of his brother, according to the sisters.

“The grief was huge. Our parents lost two sons… imagine how heartbreaking that would be,” Min Jeong-ja said.

For their father, the pain of losing two sons was overwhelming. He developed a panic disorder, she said, and would struggle to work for the rest of his life.

“He couldn’t go outside; he stayed home all the time. And because he was hugely shocked, he struggled going through day-to-day life. So, our mom went out (to work) and suffered a lot,” Min Young-jae said.

The mother jumped into earning a living for the remaining five children and her husband. Still, every morning she prayed for Min Young-sun, filling a bowl with pure water as part of a Korean folk ritual and leaving the first scoop of the family’s rice serving that day in a bowl for a son whom she believed would return one day.

“She couldn’t move house; in case the brother cannot find his way back home. She wouldn’t let us change anything of the house, not even the doors. That’s how she waited for him… We waited for so long, and time just passed,” Min Jeong-ja said.

The pain continues

Min Jeong-ja was 8 years old when the war started, but witnessed brutality that would overwhelm many adults.

“So many kids died. When I went out to the river to wash clothes, I occasionally saw bodies of children floating,” she recalled.

She remembers witnessing North Korean soldiers lining up people in a barley field, and shooting at them with submachine guns. “Then one by one, they fell on the barley field.”

“I saw too much. At one point – I didn’t even know if the soldier was a South Korean or North Korean – but I saw beheaded remains.”

The Min family is one of many torn apart by the war. More than 134,000 people are still waiting to hear from their loved ones believed to be in North Korea, which is now one of the world’s most reclusive states, with travel between the two countries nigh-on impossible.

Years after the Korean War, the two Koreas discussed organizing reunions for the separated families that have been identified from both sides through the Red Cross and both governments.

The first reunion happened in 1985, more than 30 years after the ceasefire agreement was signed, and the annual reunions kicked off in 2000, when many first-hand war victims were still alive, but occasionally halted when tensions escalated on the peninsula.

Once the two governments agree on a reunion date, one of the two Koreas selects families, prioritizing the elderly and immediate relatives, then shares the list with the other, which would cross check the family on its side to confirm the list of around 100 members.

The selected families would meet at an office specifically built for reunions at the Mount Kumgang resort in North Korea.

The Min siblings applied to the Red Cross at least five times and listed themselves under the South Korean government as a separated family. But there was never any word on their brother’s whereabouts from the other side.

As 75 years passed, the siblings grew up, got married, and formed their own families – but questions about their stolen brother linger.

Even worse, the annual reunions of separated families have been halted since 2018, following failed summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, while first-hand victims of the war age and pass away.

The Kumgang resort was dismantled by the North in 2022, also amid strained tensions.

But the siblings, following their parents’ wishes, still hope to connect with Min Young-sun, who would now be 94 years old.

“It’s been a long time since we were separated, but I would be so grateful if you’re alive. And if you’re not, I still would love to meet your children. I want to share the love of family, remembering the happy days of the past… I love you, thank you.”

She and the siblings remember the kidnapped brother by singing his favorite song, “Thinking of My Brother,” a children’s song about a brother that never returned.

“My brother, you said you would come back from Seoul with silk shoes,” Min Young-jae sang, while her sister wiped away tears.

Ecuadorian forces have revealed how they captured the country’s most-wanted man, drug lord Adolfo “Fito” Macías, more than a year after his brazen prison escape prompted the president to declare an internal armed conflict to crack down on the country’s most violent gangs.

After an almost 18-month manhunt for the leader of the criminal group Los Choneros, the Ecuadorian Security Bloc made a breakthrough on June 25. They obtained intelligence that alerted them to a luxurious home in the province of Manabí, the gang’s longtime stronghold for drug operations.

Authorities immediately traveled to the area and launched a 10-hour operation to try to find and capture the notorious gangster. To prevent the raid from being thwarted, the military and police shut down access within a 15-block radius so no one could enter or leave the site.

Special teams from the armed forces eventually entered the property to gather more information and take control of the house.

It was a fully equipped villa, featuring a pool, a gym, appliances, a game room, marble-like walls, and features that indicated the property was still under construction.

In one area of the house, there was a perfectly camouflaged hole in the floor, containing a bunker with hidden access and air conditioning.

“Police and armed forces on the scene began conducting a search with instruments to see where alias ‘Fito’ was hiding,” Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg said.

A surveillance flight had identified an irregular crop field behind the house, so authorities requested the use of excavators to locate the drug lord.

“They started to excavate. As soon as this happened, Fito panicked because if we continued, the roof of his bunker would collapse. At that moment, he opened the hatch, where the military was already located, and climbed out of the hole where he was hiding. That’s how we detained him,” Reimberg said.

Soldiers pinned Macías to the ground, pointed weapons at him and ordered him to say his full name out loud.

“Adolfo Macías Villamar,” he said while lying on the floor with his hands behind his back, footage from the army showed.

After the operation, authorities arrested Macías, along with four other men identified as part of his security detail.

Macías was immediately transferred to the Manta Air Base and then to the Guayaquil Air Base. From there, he was taken to the maximum-security La Roca prison, located in the Guayaquil prison complex, behind La Regional prison, from where he escaped in January 2024.

A photo later released by the interior ministry showed the drug lord locked inside his cell.

President Daniel Noboa said Ecuador is working to extradite him to the United States – where he faces drugs and weapons charges – and is awaiting a response from American officials.

Macías is one of Ecuador’s most notorious gangsters and is the only founding member of Los Choneros believed to still be alive. In 2011 he was sentenced “for a string of crimes, including homicides and narcotics trafficking,” according to think tank Insight Crime, but sprung out of jail in February 2013 before being recaptured months later.

Little is known about his life prior to crime, but he gained a reputation for being the gang’s money laundering expert while incarcerated for over a decade.

Before he fled prison in 2024, the government was planning on moving Macías to a higher-security facility. Noboa’s press secretary told a local channel that the news had likely reached Macías and prompted him to make his escape.

A peace agreement brokered by the White House to stem the bloodshed in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a militia allegedly backed by Rwanda occupies vast swaths of land, will be signed in Washington D.C. on Friday by officials of the two African nations.

But many remain unconvinced that the accord – portrayed as a “wonderful treaty” by United States President Donald Trump – can end the complex and long-running conflict, while the militia itself has yet to commit to laying down its weapons.

Trump was upbeat about the prospects for peace when teams from Rwanda and the DRC initialed a draft agreement on June 18, while at the same time suggesting that he would not get credit for his role in ending this or other conflicts.

On June 20, he wrote on Truth Social: “This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World! I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this.”

He added: “I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

Trump touts himself as a “peacemaker” and has expanded his interest in global conflicts to the brutal war in the mineral-rich eastern DRC. His peace deal could also pave the way for America’s economic interests in the region, as it eyes access to the DRC’s critical minerals.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will preside over the signing of the peace agreement by DRC Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner and her Rwandan counterpart Olivier Nduhungirehe on Friday.

More than 7,000 people have been killed, and some one million others displaced since January, when the M23 militia waged a fresh offensive against the Congolese army, seizing control of the two largest cities in the country’s east.

There has been increasing reports of summary executions – even of children – in occupied areas, where aid groups say they are also witnessing an epidemic of rape and sexual violence.

A complex war

The crisis in the eastern DRC, which shares a border with Rwanda and harbors large deposits of minerals critical to the production of electronics, is a fusion of complex issues.

In that genocide, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu militias.

Rwanda criticizes the DRC, which faces problems with militia violence, for integrating a proscribed Hutu militia group into its army to fight against the mainly Tutsi M23.

M23, which first emerged in 2012, is one of the most prominent militias battling for control of the DRC’s mineral wealth. The rebel group also claims to defend the interests of the Tutsis and other Congolese minorities of Rwandan origin.

UN experts and much of the international community believe that Rwanda backs M23 and supports the rebels with troops, leaving the nation on the cusp of war with the DRC over this alleged territorial violation.

The Rwandan government has not acknowledged this claim but insists it protects itself against the Hutu militia operating in the DRC, which it describes as an “existential security threat to Rwanda.”

M23 occupies strategic mining towns in the DRC’s eastern provinces of North and South Kivu.

In a report in December, the UN Group of Experts on the DRC said they found evidence that minerals “were fraudulently exported to Rwanda” from the DRC “and mixed with Rwandan production.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame drew outrage last year when he admitted in a public address that Rwanda was a transit point for minerals smuggled from the DRC but insisted his country was not stealing from its neighbor.

What’s contained in the US peace deal?

Washington’s peace accord contains provisions on “respect for territorial integrity and a prohibition of hostilities,” including “disengagement, disarmament, and conditional integration of non-state armed groups,” according to a joint statement issued by the US, Rwanda and the DRC on June 18.

Other points include “facilitation of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as humanitarian access” and the establishment of a “regional economic integration framework” that could attract significant US investments into Rwanda and the DRC.

Asked whether AFC would surrender its arms, Victor Tesongo, a spokesperson for the coalition, said it was “not there yet” and that it was waiting on developments in Doha. He did not confirm whether airports in the eastern DRC that had been shut by the rebels would reopen for aid supply.

Why US efforts may fail

Previous truce agreements have failed to bring lasting peace between M23 and the Congolese armed forces.

In April, the rebels jointly declared a truce after meeting with representatives of the DRC during negotiations led by Qatar. Fighting flared up days after.

Qatar has been facilitating talks after Angolan President João Lourenço quit his mediation role following months of inability to broker peace.

One of those root causes, he said, was the “unfair distribution” of the DRC’s mineral wealth, which he claimed, “benefits a small elite and foreign powers, while ordinary Congolese, especially in the east, suffer displacement and misery.”

The DRC is roughly the size of western Europe and is home to more than 100 million people. The Central African nation is also endowed with the world’s largest reserves of cobalt – used to produce batteries that power cell phones and electric vehicles – and coltan, which is refined into tantalum and has a variety of applications in phones and other devices.

However, according to the World Bank, “most people in DRC have not benefited from this wealth,” and the country ranks among the five poorest nations in the world.

Kubelwa said another trigger for the conflict in the DRC was the country’s “weak institutions” and “suppression of dissent.”

A fragile peace

The DRC foreign minister’s office said it would comment on the deal after the document is signed.

Congolese human rights activist and Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege has described the deal as “vague” and tilted in Rwanda’s favor.

After details of the draft agreement were announced last week, he posted a statement on X criticizing it for failing to recognize “Rwanda’s aggression against the DRC,” which he wrote, “suggests it (the peace accord) benefits the unsanctioned aggressor, who will thus see its past and present crimes whitewashed as ‘economic cooperation.’”

He added: “In its current state, the emerging agreement would amount to granting a reward for aggression, legitimizing the plundering of Congolese natural resources, and forcing the victim to alienate their national heritage by sacrificing justice in order to ensure a precarious and fragile peace.”

For Kubelwa, “a true and lasting solution must go beyond ceasefires and formal agreements. It must include genuine accountability, regional truth-telling, redistribution of national wealth, reform of governance, and a broad national dialogue that includes all Congolese voices not just elites or foreign allies.”

“Without this, peace remains a fragile illusion,” he said.

More than a third of the population of Tuvalu has applied to move to Australia, under a landmark visa scheme designed to help people escape rising sea levels.

The island nation – roughly halfway between Hawaii and Australia – is home to about 10,000 people, according to the latest government statistics, living across a clutch of tiny islets and atolls in the South Pacific.

With no part of its territory above six meters, it is one of the most at-risk places in the world to rising seas caused by climate change.

On June 16, Australia opened a roughly one-month application window for what it says is a one-of-a-kind visa offering necessitated by climate change. Under the new scheme, Australia will accept 280 visa winners from a random ballot between July and January 2026. The Tuvaluans will get permanent residency on arrival in Australia, with the right to work and access public healthcare and education.

“The opening of the Falepili Mobility Pathway delivers on our shared vision for mobility with dignity, by providing Tuvaluans the opportunity to live, study and work in Australia as climate impacts worsen,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement.

According to Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo, more than half of Tuvalu will be regularly inundated by tidal surges by 2050. By 2100, 90% of his nation will be regularly under water, he says.

Fongafale, the nation’s capital, is the largest and most populated islet in Tuvalu’s main atoll, Funafuti. It has a runway-like strip of land just 65 feet (20 meters) wide in some places.

“You can put yourself in my situation, as the prime minister of Tuvalu, contemplating development, contemplating services for the basic needs of our people, and at the same time being presented with a very confronting and disturbing forecast,” Teo told the United Nations Oceans Conference this month in Nice, France.

“Internal relocation in Tuvalu is not an option, we are totally flat,” the prime minister said on June 12. “There is no option to move inland or move to higher ground, because there is no higher ground.”

The visa scheme is part of a broader pact signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023, which binds Australia to defending Tuvalu both militarily and against rising seas.

Tuvalu, which claims 900,000 square kilometers of the South Pacific, is considered by Canberra as a crucial player in its ongoing struggle with China for regional influence.

Recognition is something Australia has said it will guarantee for Tuvalu, even if nobody can live there in the future. “The statehood and sovereignty of Tuvalu will continue, and the rights and duties inherent thereto will be maintained, notwithstanding the impact of climate change-related sea-level rise,” their treaty reads.

In 2022, at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Tuvalu announced that it sought to become the first nation in the world to move entirely online. The government has since developed a plan to “digitally recreate its land, archive its rich history and culture and move all government functions into a digital space.” Australia now recognizes Tuvalu’s “digital sovereignty,” which the country hopes will allow it to “retain its identity and continue to function as a state, even after its physical land is gone.”

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last year his country shared a vision for a “peaceful, stable, prosperous and unified region.”

“It shows our Pacific partners that they can rely on Australia as a trusted and genuine partner.”

Australia’s support for the Pacific island nation has stood in stark contrast in recent months to US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has imposed sweeping crackdowns on climate policies and immigration.

Tuvalu is among a group of 36 countries that the Trump administration is looking to add to the current travel ban list, according to the Associated Press.

The ban fully restricts entry of nationals from 12 countries: Afghanistan; Myanmar, also known as Burma; Chad; Republic of the Congo; Equatorial Guinea; Eritrea; Haiti; Iran; Libya; Somalia; Sudan; and Yemen. People from seven countries also face partial restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The 36 countries, including Tuvalu’s Pacific neighbors Tonga and Vanuatu, had been told to commit to improving vetting of travelers and take steps to address the status of their nationals who are in the United States illegally or face similar restrictions, the AP reported, citing a diplomatic cable sent by the State Department.

Dara Ojo was once afraid of spiders, particularly the biting, venomous kind. How times have changed. Not only is the photographer willing to get up very close and personal with arachnids of all stripes, he’s passionately conserving insects through this work.

Ojo, 34, is a master of macrophotography — extreme close-up shots, in this case of wildlife — showing tiny critters in all their odd, beautiful glory.

For the photographer, who describes himself as a conservation storyteller, it is about “shining the light on these tiny little details that people just walk past because they’re small.”

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, and now living in Canada, Ojo’s first encounter with photography was using his father’s Nikon camera as a child. He photographed birds, snakes, frogs and other creatures. Much later, he was teaching English in China when the Covid-19 pandemic struck and began photographing insects as a remedy to the boredom of lockdown.

But there was another purpose too: amid the deluge of photographs of different animals he saw online, Ojo noticed relatively little high-profile work of nature’s smallest creations. He wanted to fill this gap, “and also create some positive publicity for insects.”

Eyes like speakers, posterior like pagodas

Ojo first learned how to shoot macrophotography from YouTube tutorials and took a course called “Bugs 101: Insect-Human Interactions” at the University of Alberta, Canada. In 2020 he created his first macro image, of a dragonfly. Two years later, his photos of a white-striped longhorn beetle taken in China went viral.

The beetle is typically 20-40 mm long, but Ojo’s image of the insect makes it feel human-size, with an intimidating yet intriguing poise. Its eyes look like speakers, and details invisible to the naked eye, like its microscopic facial hairs, are on full display.

His work has circulated the internet, with some Instagram posts hitting almost a million views. It has also caught the attention of the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed who shared some of them on X, to mark the 2025 World Biodiversity Day.

But the recognition brings certain pressures. “Now that eyes are on me, globally, I have to keep the bar higher than the last, each time I shoot. Also, as a black person, I feel like a role model, giving a voice as people of color who are not usually seen in this kind of field. I therefore can’t stay comfortable,” he says.

Some other striking images are of the primrose moth, with distinct vivid pink and yellow coloring; a spiny-backed orb weaver spider with a pagoda-like posterior; a katydid — a type of cricket — with a face akin to a church dome; and a wolf spider eating a frog.

Ojo says, “I’m in awe of them when I am shooting. I see in them how God is a perfect designer, and the need for us to protect them.”

He has photographed more than 40 types of spiders, 50 moths and 30 butterflies species, over 20 dragonflies and at least 70 damselflies. Among all the fauna he’s photographed, the state of bees worries him the most. “Bees are rare and really endangered even though they are essential to our existence because of their pollination.” Ojo says.

Now, his work is being featured in “Insect Apocalypse,” the first episode of the documentary “Bugs that Rule the World,” which is being shown in the US and Canada. The four-part series focuses on the decline of insects and how this is detrimental to the ecosystem and to human existence, and includes photographs Ojo took in Costa Rica.

Ojo is working to release the first coffee table book of his works in 2026, and plans to add three more in the next five years.

Yet photography is not Ojo’s full-time occupation. He works as a data analyst at the University of Alberta, and has an MBA in information technology from Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, United Kingdom.

His tech background, he says, gives him an edge with processing the pictures, which are best taken at night and early morning when insects are asleep or resting, he explains. He captures multiple photographs at different depths of field and combines them using stacking software so the whole insect is in pin-sharp focus. Since the images are shot without alterations, he then digitally edits them, mainly to enhance colors.

Though he occasionally sells prints of his photography, his advocacy for his subjects is his main motive, Ojo says. Insect populations around the world are in peril. Among his once-feared spiders, for example, scores are categorized as critically endangered.

“The primary goal is to use my images to reveal the beauty of insects and other small creatures,” he says. First he draws people in, then shares a conservation message, then, hopefully, people will take action, Ojo explains.

“When people are blown away by the pictures, they are curious and develop empathy to conserve them.”

Iran’s defense minister has traveled to diplomatic and economic ally China on his first reported trip abroad since a 12-day clash with Israel that briefly dragged the US into a new regional conflict.

Aziz Nasirzadeh is one of nine defense ministers that Chinese state media say attended a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a China- and Russia-led regional security grouping that has grown in prominence as Beijing and Moscow look to build alternative international blocs to those backed by the United States.

The two-day gathering began Wednesday in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao, a day after a ceasefire between Iran and Israel quelled what had been days of aerial assaults between the two, punctuated by a US strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities.

The SCO gathering coincided with a meeting of NATO leaders at The Hague, where US President Donald Trump said the US would meet with Iran “next week” about a potential nuclear agreement.

Beijing’s gathering, part of events for its rotating SCO chairmanship, spotlighted China’s role as a key international player, even as it remained largely on the sidelines of the Israel-Iran conflict – and the importance Tehran places on its relationship with Beijing.

Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun did not directly address the conflict in remarks to gathering nations Wednesday, as reported by Chinese state media, but aimed to position China as a country with an alternative vision for global security.

“Unilateralism and protectionism are surging, while hegemonic, high-handed, and bullying acts severely undermine the international order, making these practices the biggest sources of chaos and harm,” Dong said, employing language typically used by Beijing to criticize the US.

The Chinese defense chief called for SCO countries – which, in addition to China and Russia, include India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus – to enhance coordination and “defend international fairness and justice” and “uphold global strategic stability.”

Attending countries “expressed a strong willingness to consolidate and develop military collaboration,” according to China’s official news agency Xinhua.

Iran’s Nasirzadeh “expressed gratitude to China for its understanding and support of Iran’s legitimate stance,” Xinhua also reported.

The minister “hopes that China will continue to uphold justice and play an even greater role in maintaining the current ceasefire and easing regional tensions,” he was quoted as saying.

Chinese officials have condemned Israel’s unprecedented June 13 attack on Iran, which took out top military leaders and sparked the recent conflict, as well as the subsequent US bombing. It’s also backed a ceasefire and criticized Washington’s foray into the conflict as a “heavy blow to the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.”

A key diplomatic and economic backer of Iran, Beijing has moved to further deepen collaboration in recent years, including holding joint naval drills. Chinese officials have long voiced opposition to US sanctions on Iran and criticized the US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

In recent days, China has appeared unwilling to become further entangled in the conflict past its diplomatic efforts, analysts say, instead using the situation as another opportunity to paint itself as a responsible global player and the US as a force for instability.

Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to combat terrorism and promote border security, the SCO has grown in recent years in line with Beijing and Moscow’s shared ambition to push back against a US alliance system they see as suppressing them.

While not an alliance, the group says it aims to “make joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region.”

The SCO has long been seen as limited, however, by overlapping interests and frictions between members, including Pakistan and India, which earlier this year engaged in a violent conflict, as well as China and India, which have longstanding border tensions.

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh also attended the Qingdao meeting, the first visit from an Indian defense chief to China since a deadly 2020 border clash between the two countries.