President Donald Trump spent the first month of his second term on an extraordinary mission — dismantling the global system the United States spent the past 80 years building.

It was always theoretically possible that the West could lose its resonance as World War II and the Cold War became increasingly distant memories. But no one expected to see a US president wielding the ax.

When Trump won last year’s election, there was a sense among some western diplomats in Washington that their governments knew how to handle a president who in his first term often made foreign policy by tweet. But the shock that drove European leaders to an emergency meeting in Paris this week suggests they underestimated just how destructive Trump’s second term would be.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth meanwhile told Europeans that they now need to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent” casting immediate doubt on security alliance NATO’s foundational creed of mutual self-defense.

America’s repudiation of its traditional foreign policy is being driven by both Trump’s particular obsessions and wider geopolitical changes. The United States remains the world’s strongest power — but it no longer has the might that can force others — like China — to live by its rules. Indeed, it now has a president who has no intention of observing any economic, trade, and diplomatic rules at all and is threatening to annex Canada.

Not only that, but the new administration is actively seeking to destabilize friendly democracies and fuel a global movement of rightwing populism. Vance’s speech warned that European governments threatened their own security more than China or Russia because of their policies on free speech and immigration. He also met the leader of the AfD, a far-right party in Germany with neo-Nazi roots and sought to boost far-right parties elsewhere who are challenging governments in France and Britain for example. Trump would rather deal with fellow travelers in a Make Europe Great Again (MEGA) movement than centrist leaders now in office.

So, what can Europe do now that America — the country that rebuilt the continent from the ashes of World War II — seems to be becoming an openly hostile power?

French President Emmanuel Macron, acting on the experience of his dealings with Trump during their first terms, has been warning for years that Europe needed to realize that America had become an unreliable partner. With doubts about the US military commitment to its allies, other members of NATO now have no choice but to hike shriveled military spending.

This will be painful since many of Europe’s governments are already struggling to balance the books and are under extreme pressure to maintain their popular welfare states. And getting all members of the European Union to agree on a more independent path will be treacherous. Some nations in Moscow’s old neighborhood – like Poland and the Baltic states – understand the Russian threat all too well, but some smaller, Western European countries perceive the danger to be more distant. And the EU now includes some leaders who’d love to help Trump do Putin’s work for him in dividing the western alliance — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for instance.

In only 31 days in office, Trump has already changed the world.

What to watch for next week

Barring a big surprise, the big international story will be Ukraine.

We may learn more about the prospects of a peace deal to end the war and how it would be implemented when Macron visits the White House on Monday and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer follows him on Thursday.

The visits will be critical to showing whether there is any scope for US-European cooperation on the war — after the continent was shut out of US talks in Saudi Arabia with Russia this week. Both Britain and France say they’re ready to send troops to Ukraine to monitor any eventual peace — but it’s hard to fathom that such an operation could take place without US air, intelligence, and logistical support. Is Trump prepared to do this and risk angering Moscow, which has already ruled out the idea of foreign troops in Ukraine?

Look out also next week to see if either leader shows up in the Oval Office with an offer to raise their own defense spending — to impress their host.

Macron plans to use his visit to try to insert some steel in Trump’s spine following his latest round of genuflecting to Putin and will appeal to the US President’s highly advanced sense of his own power. “I’m going to say to Trump, ‘Deep down you can’t be weak in the face of Putin, it’s not you, it’s not your trademark’,” Macron said Thursday.

The UK isn’t in the European Union anymore, but it’s been in lockstep with Macron and other leaders from the bloc this week. Starmer is seeking to restore the UK’s former role its traditional role as a bridge between its great friend the United States and Europe.

There’s just one problem. Trump doesn’t cross bridges. He burns them.

A rocket-propelled grenade believed to be more than 25 years old killed two cousins, a girl and a boy both 2 years old, when it blew up Saturday near their homes in rural northwestern Cambodia, officials said.

The accident happened in Siem Reap province’s Svay Leu district, where there had been heavy fighting in the 1980s and 1990s between Cambodian government soldiers and rebel guerrillas from the communist Khmer Rouge. The group had been ousted from power in 1979.

Muo Lisa and her male cousin, Thum Yen, lived in neighboring homes in the remote village of Kranhuong. Their parents were doing farm work when the two toddlers apparently came across the unexploded ordnance and it detonated. Experts from the Cambodian Mine Action Center determined afterwards from fragments that it was a rocket-propelled grenade.

Old unexploded munitions are especially dangerous because their explosive contents become volatile as they deteriorate.

“Their parents went to settle on land that was a former battlefield, and they were not aware that there were any land mines or unexploded ordnance buried near their homes,” CMAC Director-General Heng Ratana said. “It’s a pity because they were too young and they should not have died like this.”

Some 4 million-6 million land mines and other unexploded munitions are estimated to have littered Cambodia’s countryside during decades of conflict that began in 1970 and ended in 1998.

Since the end of the fighting in Cambodia, nearly 20,000 people have been killed and about 45,000 injured by leftover war explosives. The number of casualties has declined over time; last year there were 49 deaths.

“The war is completely over and there is fully peace for more than 25 years, but the blood of the Khmer (Cambodian) people continues to flow because of the remnants of land mines and ammunition,” Heng Ratana said on his Facebook page.

Cambodian deminers are among the world’s most experienced, and several thousand have been sent in the past decade under U.N. auspices to work in Africa and the Middle East.

Cambodia’s demining efforts drew attention earlier this month, when U.S. financial assistance for it in eight provinces was suspended due to President Donald Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign assistance. Heng Ratana said Thursday he had been informed that Washington had issued a waiver allowing the aid — $6.36 million covering March 2022 to November 2025 — to resume flowing.

Editor’s Note: This article contains details that readers may find distressing.

Five years ago, a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of poor wage laborers from one of India’s most marginalized communities, was allegedly sexually abused by one of her neighbors in the village where she lived.

Her alleged abuser filmed it and police are investigating whether he used the images to blackmail and manipulate the girl into being raped and sexually abused by dozens of other men and boys over the next five years.

Police say the allegations only came to light after the girl, now 18, spoke to a counselor visiting her college in Kerala state and detailed the years of horrific abuse.

Charges have not yet been filed and the 58 men remain in detention. None of the accused has spoken publicly about the allegations. Under Indian rape laws, the girl has not been identified.

Violence against women is rampant in India due to entrenched sexism and patriarchy, despite laws being amended to include more severe punishments for abusers.

In August the rape and murder of a trainee medic in the eastern city of Kolkata sparked a nationwide doctors’ strike that brought tens of thousands into the streets to demand change.

The Kerala case has not sparked similar outrage.

Experts and activists say that’s because the victim is from the Dalit community at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, a 3,000-year-old social and religious hierarchy that categorizes people at birth and defines their place in society.

Dalits traditionally carry out occupations viewed as ritually “unclean” by Hindu scripture, such as manual scavenging, waste picking and street sweeping.

They are often banned from visiting temples and forced to live apart from higher-caste communities, often in squalor and farther from access to services.

Despite legislation banning discrimination based on caste, activists say the stigma leaves India’s more than 260 million Dalits vulnerable to abuse and less able to seek redress for crimes committed against them.

“When it’s Dalit women, in general the outrage is less across the country,” said Cynthia Stephen, a Dalit rights activist and social policy researcher.

There is a sense that “this girl is not ‘one of us,’” she said.

Manipulated, kidnapped and abused

At least three of her abusers promised to marry her, according to police. One threatened to kill her if she reported the abuse.

Some of the men acted alone, police said. But others are accused of gang rape. “It’s not that all the cases are connected. But in one case, there might be four or five accused,” said Begum, from Kerala Police.

Many of the men contacted the young girl on her father’s phone, through social media apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp, late at night after he went to sleep, police said.

The alleged abuse took place in private and public spaces, in homes and in cars, at bus stops and in fields. Some of the cases allegedly involved men who were strangers, living in towns dozens of miles away.

Some of the cases involve allegations of human trafficking, because the men forced the girl to travel outside her village, police said.

The allegations have sent shock waves through the girl’s village in the green hills of Kerala, where many work as wage laborers in low-paid jobs like construction and farming.

Police say the girl’s parents worked long hours and did not know about the alleged abuse of their daughter.

When the allegations emerged in January, some women in the community were sympathetic toward the accused and angry at the survivor, according to local media outlet The News Minute.

The women criticized the girl’s clothing and lifestyle and blamed her mother for not watching over her more closely, The News Minute reported.

One mother, whose son was among the accused, said he was innocent. She said he had known the girl since she was a baby and “had raised the girl in his arms,” according to the outlet.

‘Monsters in her own backyard’

More than half of Dalits in Kerala live in designated areas called “colonies,” known for cramped and harsh living conditions, after years of being denied land ownership under historical laws.

Madhumita Pandey, a professor in criminology and gender justice at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom, said the tight-knit nature of communities such as these colonies could explain why the alleged abuse of the teenage girl was not reported until recently.

“They could sometimes be your friend, uncle or neighbor,” she said.

It can be harder to report abuse when “the so-called monsters are in our own backyard,” she said.

Official statistics support her point: the alleged perpetrator is known to the victim in more than 98% of reported rape cases in Kerala, according to government data.

There were 4,241 reported cases of rape against women from oppressed castes in India, including Dalit women, in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau. That’s equivalent to more than 10 rapes per day.

There were more than 31,500 rapes reported overall in 2022, according to the NCRB.

However, given the difficulties in reporting such crimes, especially for the Dalit community, the true figure is likely higher.

Furthermore, in close communities, and especially in Dalit communities, women and girls also risk isolating themselves or being seen as bringing dishonor upon their families if they report abuse, Pandey said.

In at least 16 of the cases from the alleged Kerala village abuse, the accused men are from more privileged castes, according to police. If found guilty, these men could face harsher punishments under Indian laws designed to protect disadvantaged castes.

A 2020 report by the NGO Equality Now found that sexual violence is used by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls, who are often denied justice because of a “prevalent culture of impunity, particularly when the perpetrators are from a dominant caste.”

Even when Dalit women report sexual abuse, they face an uphill battle to justice.

The Equality Now report followed 40 cases of rape against Dalit women and girls, and the seven cases that resulted in convictions involved either rape and murder together or were committed against girls under the age of 6.

N Rajeev, the head of the Child Welfare Committee in Pathanamthitta, the Kerala district where the girl is from, said an increase in reported child sexual abuse cases was in part thanks to campaigns in schools that help children identify and disclose abuse. The number of reported child sexual abuse cases in the state has surged to 4,663 in 2023, more than four times the 1,002 reported in 2013, according to government data.

The Dalit girl is now living in a shelter where she is receiving counseling and support, Begum, the police officer, said. The girl’s mother is also being given counseling and has the option to stay in a women’s shelter if she feels unsafe in the neighborhood. Begum said police have dedicated “maximum manpower” to the case.

The case will likely take years to go through the courts.

Across India, rape has one of the lowest conviction rates of major crimes, with 27% of cases resulting in convictions in 2022, according to the NCRB.

While child sexual abuse continues to be a “a grim reality” in Kerala, the fact that the Dalit girl was able to report the case is a step in the right direction, Stephen said.

“Otherwise, this would have just gone on unreported for years on end, then she would have nobody to help her.”

Tren de Aragua, MS-13 and the Sinaloa cartel are among the two gangs and six drug cartels the US has officially designated as foreign terrorist organizations, fulfilling a long-standing goal from US President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

Trump previously ordered the US to declare cartels terrorist groups in a January 20 executive order, but until US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s official announcement on Thursday, none of the cartels had been specifically named. During his first term, Trump had considered a similar maneuver but refrained at the request of then-Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

In an order published in the federal government’s Public Register, Rubio named two gangs: Tren de Aragua of Venezuela and MS-13 of El Salvador; and six Mexican drug cartels: Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Carteles Unidos, Cartel del Noreste, Cartel del Golfo, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

They join the ranks of other groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US, including ISIS, Boko Haram, and Hamas.

Here’s what you need to know about each of these groups:

Tren de Aragua

Tren de Aragua began as a prison gang in Venezuela, according to the US Treasury Department, with much of their criminal enterprise focused “on human smuggling and other illicit acts that target desperate migrants.”

TdA became a political talking point during the last presidential campaign, after police in Aurora, Colorado, said several suspects in a 2023 kidnapping there were members of the gang. As he stumped for the presidency, Trump held up Aurora and Tren de Aragua as an example of what he said were migration’s inevitable results, claiming that the gang had taken control of vast swathes of territory in Colorado. Aurora police, however, pushed back, saying that the gang’s presence in the city was “isolated.”

For Trump, “cracking down on Tren de Aragua is part and parcel of cracking down on the era of mass migration,” said Will Freeman, a Latin America fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

MS-13

MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, is a Salvadoran-American street gang and criminal organization, notorious for its brutality and its deep roots in the United States. MS-13 was a prominent theme of Trump’s first term, with the president often referring to the group as “violent animals.”

Unlike any of the other groups listed in Rubio’s order, MS-13 is technically native to the US. According to a history of MS-13 from InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in Latin America, a group of Salvadorans originally founded the group in 1980s Los Angeles.

In the following years, MS-13 began to grow and evolve as more Salvadorans arrived in the US, fleeing the civil war back home. Though the group began as a Salvadoran gang, according to a 2008 FBI threat assessment, its ranks have opened to others from Latin America, including Hondurans and Guatemalans. When US authorities began deporting members of MS-13 back to the region in the 1990s, it caused an explosion of gang activity in El Salvador and neighboring countries.

By 2015, El Salvador was the murder capital of the Western Hemisphere. Ten years later, however, the murder rate has plummeted. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has focused much of his time in office on curbing violence from gangs like MS-13, arresting nearly 1% of the country’s population and throwing thousands of gang members in prison.

MS-13’s addition to the designation list is a “curveball,” said Freeman.

“It’s a bit weird,” Freeman pointed out. “One of the main countries it drew its strength from was El Salvador. It’s really been dismantled there.”

Cartel de Sinaloa

The Cartel de Sinaloa or the Sinaloa Cartel is closely associated with its former leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, known for his numerous prison escapes and immortalized in rapper Gucci Mane’s 2012 single “El Chapo.” After the US extradited Guzmán from Mexico in 2017 and convicted him on 10 counts of federal drug-related crimes two years later, his sons – El Chapitos – partly took control of the group. The DEA alleged in a 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment that the Sinaloa Cartel operates with four different components cooperating without a single, formal leader.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Sinaloa Cartel’s international presence is unmatched by any other Mexican criminal group, with a diverse empire of extortion rackets, weapons trading, prostitution and oil theft alongside their drug business. In 2023, former US Attorney General Merrick Garland alleged the Sinaloa Cartel operates the “largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world.” In the same press release, the Justice Department alleged that the group is “largely responsible” for the manufacturing and importing of fentanyl for distribution in the US.

Cartel del Golfo

Journalist Ioan Grillo writes in his authoritative book “El Narco” that the Gulf Cartel got its start during the Prohibition era, smuggling heroin and whiskey over the border into the US. But it wasn’t until the 1990s and 2000s that CDG reached prominence under the stewardship of Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

Cardenas, whom Grillo describes as a “balding former car thief,” eventually enticed members of the Mexican Special Forces to join his syndicate as enforcers. Their unit eventually (and violently) branched off into Los Zetas Cartel in 2010, according to a 2022 report from the Congressional Research Service. Cardenas, meanwhile, was arrested and extradited to the US in 2007, where he was imprisoned. In 2024, the US handed him over to Mexico so he could stand trial on numerous charges there.

Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG, is one of the “most powerful and ruthless criminal organizations” inside Mexico, according to the DEA’s 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment.

CJNG is led by Nemesio Oseguero Cervantes, a former police officer better known as El Mencho, according to InSight Crime. A Justice Department indictment of Oseguero says his organization is active in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Veracruz, and has presences elsewhere.

The DEA alleges that the cartel “operates under a franchise business model,” allowing CJNG to rapidly expand and control significant swathes of narcotrafficking routes. Heavily involved in the production and trafficking of methamphetamine and fentanyl, the DEA claims that CJNG has deep connections with suppliers for chemical precursors in China. Jalisco exercises control over various maritime ports to import these chemical products and has an extensive network of smuggling routes.

Cárteles Unidos

In its latest incarnation, Cárteles Unidos formed in 2019 as an alliance of the Cartel of Tepalcatepec, Los Viagras, and other groups, with the shared goal of combatting CJNG and expelling them from Michoacán, according to InSight Crime.

Before disbanding, a prior version of the group formed in 2010 to stop the advance of the Zetas into Michoacán and Jalisco, InSight reports. It was composed of members from many organizations from the Sinaloa Cartel, the Knights Templar cartel, Milenio Cartel, and the Familia Michoacana.

The broader organization is led by Juan José Farías Álvarez, known as “El Abuelo,” the former leader of the self-defense group that fought the Knights Templar in Tierra Caliente. Carteles Unidos also is involved in growing avocados, one of Mexico’s chief exports. The cartel devotes significant energy to extorting avocado producers, and one recent report found that 80% of the avocado orchards in Michoacan were established illegally.

Cartel del Noreste

The Cartel del Noreste (CDN) operates primarily in northeast Mexico along the US border. The cartel emerged when Los Zetas – itself a spinoff of the Gulf Cartel – splintered after a series of high-profile leadership losses, according to InSight Crime.

A 2024 Justice Department indictment against several members of the organization accused CDN and Los Zetas of “using terroristic violence to control large swaths of Northern Mexico, including along the border between Mexico and the United States.”

In November 2024, Homeland Security said that the group was involved in smuggling migrants into the US, claiming that “in recent years it has added human smuggling to its list of illicit money-making operations, with Facebook and social media becoming invaluable tools to facilitate its new venture.”

La Nueva Familia Michoacana

According to the US Treasury, La Nueva Familia Michoacana is led by José Alfredo and Johnny Hurtado Olascoaga with a presence in Michoacán, Guerrero, and the state of Mexico. The US State Department has alleged that the organization is involved in “migrant smuggling” into the US, alongside the fentanyl, cocaine, and methamphetamine trades.

The group’s founder, Nazario “El Chayo” Moreno, was known for preaching Bible verses and self-help phrases to the members of his organization, according to the Mexican attorney general’s office. Moreno famously “died” twice: Mexican authorities initially claimed they killed him in 2010 but couldn’t produce an image of his dead body. The official story drew suspicion up through 2014, when Mexico’s Public Security System said he was shot and killed during a raid, acknowledging their previous announcement was incorrect.

For days, they say they were locked inside a hotel in Panama, surrounded by tight security with limited contact with the outside world.

Nearly 300 migrants from Asia, all deported by the US, were held there by Panamanian authorities who agreed to take them in and eventually repatriate them. It’s part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, which it has pressured Latin American nations to help with.

But the conditions they have faced are distressing and may have violated their rights, the lawyers said.

Trapped in a hotel

The migrants started arriving in Panama City last week after being deported from the US. Some didn’t even know they were being flown to another country until they actually landed in Panama, according to attorney Ali Herischi, who said “they were told they’re going to Texas.”

The migrants were then sent to the Decapolis Hotel and forced to stay there for days without stepping foot outside.

Jenny Soto Fernández, a Panamanian lawyer who represents about 24 migrants from India and Iran, said her clients were living in isolation, fear and uncertainty.

She said a lot of them didn’t know their rights and weren’t given orders of removal upon being deported. They also face language barriers and are constantly worried about being repatriated, she added.

One of the migrants is Artemis Ghasemzadeh, an Iranian national who fled her country out of fear of persecution because of her conversion to Christianity.

“Under Islamic law, you cannot convert from Islam to any other religion,” said Herischi, who represents her.

Ghasemzadeh now worries her life will be at risk if she’s returned to Iran.

At the hotel, some migrants tried to voice their concerns by sending distress signals to journalists gathered outside. Standing in front of their windows, they held up pieces of paper with handwritten notes begging for support.

“Please help us,” one sign read. “We are not (safe) in our country.”

Another message was written with lipstick directly on the window. “HELP US,” it read in bold, red letters.

The migrants were not allowed to leave the hotel “for their own protection,” Panama’s Security Minister Frank Ábrego told a local radio program on Wednesday. He said they were held at the hotel, in part, because officials needed to “effectively verify who these people are who are arriving in our country.”

Soto argues that the migrants have the right to seek asylum because they’re fleeing persecution.

Soto said she tried at least four times to meet her clients at the hotel to sign legal documents required by authorities but was blocked by officials and never made it past the lobby.

“They actually were so emotional, screaming and said, ‘I want my lawyer! I want her. I want to talk to her. I don’t want to talk to these people here,’” Soto said.

She said that while they had comfortable beds and a place to stay, they were under “psychological pressure being closed in with security guards, immigration police, (and) officers there.”

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino on Thursday denied that authorities have violated any laws.

“These organizations are respectful of human rights. It’s false and I deny that we are mistreating them,” Mulino insisted.

Security Minister Ábrego said Wednesday that he hadn’t heard of any migrants requesting asylum there.

“But if they think they have the need, as any human being would, to request asylum, we have to pay attention to it and approve or disapprove it,” he added.

Bused to a migrant camp

The Panamanian government said that from Tuesday to Wednesday, about 97 migrants were taken out of the hotel and bused to a remote holding camp on the outskirts of the Darién Jungle. It happened after a New York Times report exposed the desperation of those stranded in the hotel in Panama City.

He said they described the site as tough and dirty, with limited access to medication and the internet.

One family has a sick child who could be heard crying in the background during a call between Herischi and Panamanian officials.

Sabalza said the family she represents was also taken to the camp.

She said Panamanian authorities had not yet provided them with guidelines on how the attorneys would be able to visit their clients at the camp or if they would need special permits to enter.

“It is urgent for us to have clarity about the mental and physical health status of our (clients),” she said.

When the migrants arrived at the gate on Wednesday morning, Herischi said the situation was so unorganized that the guards didn’t even have a list of the migrants’ names to identify them upon arrival. The guards later confiscated all the migrants’ cell phones.

He added that he plans to file legal action against Panama and the US in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and US federal court.

More than 100 migrants have asked not to be repatriated, Panamanian officials have said.

The IOM is expected to work with them and try to find a third country that will accept them, Security Minister Ábrego said.

Meanwhile, President Mulino said another group of migrants would be sent to the camp because “that’s where they can be more at ease.”

He added that 175 migrants who are still in the hotel have voluntarily agreed to return to their countries of origin. At least 13 have already been sent back.

Herischi said Panamanian authorities assured him they would not send Ghasemzadeh and other migrants back to Iran if they expressed fear of reprisals. Instead, officials said they would speak with the embassies of other countries to see if they can accept them.

Herischi concluded, “The only ‘luck’ that they got is that Panama has no relationship with Iran, so there is no Iranian embassy there.”

“That’s a good thing.”

Germans are going to the polls on Sunday in national elections. Opinion polls suggest the outcome will likely be a new chancellor and a new governing coalition.

Usually a little dry and often predictable, this election campaign by comparison has been eventful.

Last November, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) unceremoniously fired his finance minister. Scholz then lost a vote of confidence, triggering early parliamentary elections.

Shortly afterwards, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a confidant of the Trump administration, waded into the campaign, voicing his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Musk’s intervention sparked a national debate about how Germany remembers its own 20th-century history. The chancellor called Musk’s support for far-right politicians in Europe “disgusting.”

The AfD for its part is likely to break new ground in German politics, with opinion polls suggesting it may become the second-largest political group in the country – a first for a far-right party since the Nazi era.

Two key themes have dominated campaigning: curbing mass migration and righting the country’s flailing economy.

Who are the main candidates for chancellor?

FRIEDRICH MERZ

Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been the longtime frontrunner in this contest. Regularly polling at more than 30%, the Union party – composed of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU – seems destined to be Germany’s largest party and return itself to the helm of German politics.

The CDU has adopted a much more aggressive policy towards immigration than seen in the Merkel era of open borders.

In the final weeks of campaigning, Merz catapulted immigration to the fore – so much so, that he has been accused of leaving the door open to working with the far-right.

In late January, he caused nationwide consternation when he sought to push legislation imposing stricter controls on immigration through the Bundestag, or German parliament.

His willingness to use the support of the AfD to do so broke a long-held taboo in German politics – although he ultimately failed to pass a binding bill – and prompted massive protests in German cities.

Merz is not a newcomer to German politics, but this is his second iteration as a politician.

Between 1989 and 1994, Merz was a member of the European parliament (MEP) for Germany. He subsequently became a member of the Bundestag, representing the CDU there until 2009. He then left politics to work as a corporate lawyer, where he sat on many supervisory boards, including at investment giant BlackRock.

He now represents his hometown of Brilon and is widely reputed to be a millionaire with a private pilot’s license.

He made two failed attempts to become CDU head, in 2018 and 2021. He officially took over as head of the party in 2022.

ALICE WEIDEL

The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, its co-leader Alice Weidel, is staunchly anti-immigration.

The AfD had a successful 2024, performing strongly in regional elections. It became the largest party in Thuringia, a first since the Nazi era, and came a close second in another regional vote.

Opinion polls suggest that popularity has translated to the national level too. The party has been polling in second place, with around 20%, since the snap election was called and the figures have hardly budged.

OLAF SCHOLZ

The incumbent chancellor’s party, the SPD, could become the election’s biggest losers.

Having become the largest party in the 2021 election, opinion polls indicate they look set for a downward swing in votes by around 10 points. That would put them not only behind the AfD, but fighting it out with the Greens for third.

Scholz rode to power on a wave of post-Merkel optimism, but his “traffic light” coalition has been beset by infighting from the start. Many of those disagreements spilled out into public and the country grew weary of constant bickering.

All of that lead to some pretty dim views of Scholz and his SPD. One poll last September ranked Scholz as the least popular German chancellor since reunification.

Scholz’s popularity was so low that just before the election season kicked into full swing, there were rumors that his party wanted Boris Pistorius, the current defense minister, to replace him as the party’s Kanzlerkandidat.

ROBERT HABECK

The Green Party, polling nationally at around 13%, should also be considered one to watch.

It is unlikely to gather enough votes to be the biggest party, but it could play an important role in the formation of the next government. The Greens’ candidate for chancellor is Robert Habeck, currently the nation’s economics minister.

What are the main issues?

Immigration has been the major focus of this election, with concerns fueled in part by a series of high-profile attacks allegedly carried out by asylum seekers or migrants.

Scholz reintroduced checks on borders with neighboring European nations in recent months, a move many saw as him trying to curry favor with voters who may be turning towards the populist AfD.

Running a close second is the economy.

Usually a powerhouse, Germany’s economy has been stagnating, and the general view is that major reform is needed.

In January, the Federal Statistics Office of Germany said that the country’s GDP had shrunk for the second year running, by 0.2%, following a contraction in 2023 of 0.3%.

Many of the economic headwinds have been caused by issues outside of Scholz’s control but, nevertheless, voters believe that his government has done little to try to rectify the situation.

One major contributor to the hardships stems from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, Germany ended its usual heavy reliance on Russian gas.

That, coupled with the rising competition from China in the automotive sector – a huge cog in the economic machine of Germany – and a looming trade crisis with a belligerent Trump administration are all worrying prospects.

Connected to the debate on the economy will be a focus on reviving the country’s important automotive industry. The Central Bank has said that problems within the industry are “structural,” and are thus exacerbating the drag on the economy.

Major companies including Volkswagen, one of world’s largest car manufacturers, are facing the prospect of mass layoffs and plant closures.

What are the possible outcomes?

Germany’s governments are almost always formed in coalitions as no one party manages to gather the 50%-plus votes needed to govern alone.

This time around will be no different, and there are multiple different options for potential coalitions. The winner of the election will look for a partner to form a majority, but it can take weeks or even months for a government to be formed.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, however, one thing is almost certain: The AfD will be blocked from being a partner in any coalition.

In a quirk of German politics, the governing coalitions are often given names. The previous coalition government, headed by the SPD (red), included the Green Party (green) and Liberal Party (yellow) – together they were known as the “traffic light” coalition.

Perhaps just one thing is clear – the next German government is not going to emerge fully formed after the polls close on Sunday night.

Hamas is in the process of releasing six Israeli hostages in Gaza – the final living captives whom the warring sides agreed would be released when a ceasefire began last month.

The first two were released in the southern Gaza city of Rafah Saturday morning. They were Tal Shoham, 40, who was kidnapped from kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023, and Avera Mengistu, 38, an Israeli from Ashkelon who crossed into Gaza in 2014.

Shoham was one of four of the six set for release who were kidnapped by Hamas-led militants on October 7. Eliya Cohen, 27, Omer Shem Tov, 22, and Omer Wenkert, 23, were all taken from the Nova music festival, and Shoham was taken from the kibbutz along with his two children, wife, and mother-in-law, all of whom were released in November 2023.

The other hostage to be released Saturday, Hisham al-Sayed, 37, an Arab-Israeli from a Bedouin community in southern Israel, walked into Gaza in 2015. Both he and Mengistu reportedly have serious mental health conditions.

Hamas on Friday said that it expects Israel to release 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange. Of those, 50 had been sentenced to life imprisonment and another 60 are serving long sentences, while 445 were detained in Gaza since October 7, 2023, and held without charge.

The six to be released on Saturday are the last living hostages whom Israel and Hamas agreed to exchange when indirect talks in Qatar last month culminated in a ceasefire agreement.

Just before being handed over to the Red Cross in Rafah, Shoham and Mengistu were paraded on stage, flanked by armed and masked militants. They were handed documents, and Shoham was forced to address the crowd.

The remains of another hostage, Shiri Bibas, arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday night.

Bibas’ remains had been expected to be among those of four hostages returned by Hamas on Thursday, alongside her sons, Kfir and Ariel, and another captive, Oded Lifshitz.

However, while forensic tests by Israeli authorities confirmed that the remains included those of the two boys and Lifshitz, the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas – and nor did it match that of any other Israeli hostage, prompting outrage and condemnation.

A convoy carrying Bibas’ remains, which Hamas had turned over to the Red Cross, arrived in Tel Aviv on Friday night.

“Last night, our Shiri was brought home. After the identification process at the Institute for Forensic Medicine, we received the news this morning that we had feared: our Shiri was murdered in captivity,” said a statement from her family provided by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Saturday.

After Saturday’s releases, Hamas and its allies will continue to hold 63 Israeli hostages in Gaza. At least 32 of those are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli government – one of whom, the soldier Hadar Goldin, has been held since 2014.

If another four hostage bodies are released next week as planned, the handover process for the first phase of the deal will be complete.

Israel and Hamas are holding indirect negotiations to extend the ceasefire. Those talks began more than two weeks late.

For weeks, an unpleasant dream haunted Md (short for Mohammed) Atik Ullah Khan. In his sleep, he heard machine guns and saw himself stuck in a fierce fight between a group of pirates and navy commandos. He woke up sweating.

“I was running and running… trying to go to a safe place, but I could not,” Khan recalls of the recurring nightmare.

Khan, 39, was the chief officer of Bangladesh-flagged merchant vessel Abdullah when it was hijacked on March 12, 2024, roughly 550 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.

The MV Abdullah was sailing from Mozambique to the United Arab Emirates with 55,000 tons of coal. Around 10 a.m. local time, an unidentified fishing boat appeared on the radar. Soon watchmen spotted six people with automatic rifles heading towards them in a speed boat. Six more followed in another vessel.

Ship crew put out a mayday call. “But nobody responded,” Khan said.

“Then I called the engine room and told them to cancel all speed limits and throttle to the maximum. But our speed was nothing compared to the pirates’ speedboat,” he added.

Minutes later, 12 pirates came onboard, fired rounds, took control of the ship and held its crew hostage.

After almost a decade of hibernation, Somali pirates have resurfaced. Their reemergence follows the Yemeni Houthi movement’s campaign to target Red Sea shipping in support of Hamas in its war with Israel. Analysts believe the Red Sea crisis has drawn the attention of counter-piracy naval resources deployed in the region and acted as a distraction, allowing the pirates to stage a comeback.

A report published in November by Lloyd’s List, a maritime industry journal, citing information provided by Seahawk Maritime Intelligence, warned that expanding ties between Somali pirates, Houthis and other regional actors could critically disrupt maritime commerce along vital Red Sea and Indian Ocean shipping lanes.

In December 2023, a month after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels started striking merchant ships, Somali pirates hijacked MV Ruen, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship from the Indian Ocean. That was the first successful hijacking of a merchant ship since 2017.

From January 1 to September 30, 2024, three vessels were hijacked, two were boarded and fired upon, and three reported attempted attacks in the waters off Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Compared to the previous phases of Somali piracy, the current threat is moderate, with piracy attacks assessed as being a “realistic possibility,” according to a December 2024 report from the EU Naval Force Maritime Security Centre.

At their peak in 2011, piracy incidents off the coast of Somalia reached a record high of 237, costing the global economy $7 billion that year, according to one report. More than 3,863 seafarers were fired upon with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in those 12 months.

Nonetheless, the recent rise in piracy attacks has added another layer of complexity to global maritime commerce, which is already grappling with the strategic shocks of the Red Sea crisis.

“We are potentially at a critical point where any further disruption will be very tangible to consumers all over the world. That is the critical concern,” said Ian Ralby, a senior fellow at the US-based Center for Maritime Strategy think tank.

JP Morgan Research calculated in February 2024 that the crisis had led to a near fivefold surge in shipping costs from Asia to Europe, with implications for the prices of imported goods – from clothes and electronics to gas and food grains.

To avoid the Houthi strikes, merchant ships have detoured around the Cape of Good Hope, incurring an estimated additional $1 million cost per vessel through increased fuel, insurance, and operational costs.

The Houthi attacks led to a 50% drop in trade in the first two months of 2024 compared to a year earlier through the Suez Canal, the shortest maritime route between Asia and Europe, the International Monetary Fund said in a March 2024 report. The longer route also resulted in a delay of 10 days on average to the shipment delivery times, hurting businesses with limited inventories, the report said.

A fishing community’s anger gave birth to Somali piracy

Going back to the 1990s, the agony of the local fishing community over unregulated commercial trawling was a catalyst for the rise of piracy. Many experts say that it started as an armed uprising of local fishermen against the aggressive presence of foreign trawlers in Somalia’s territorial waters, which was depriving the community of its traditional livelihood.

Somalia’s marine waters, rich with fisheries of species such as yellowfin tuna, blue marlin, swordfish and sardines, have historically helped the country’s fishing communities thrive.

But in the absence of stable governance and effective regulations since the 1991 civil war, foreign fishing trawlers have deployed ruinous techniques to exploit the rich fishing environment.

“(They) use big machines which destroy the hills where fish hide in the sea,” said Merem Mohammed Amber Khamis.

Khamis, 35, is a fisherman from Eyl, an ancient port town reputed to be the birthplace of piracy in Somalia. He earns $90 every two weeks to feed a family of 14.

Khamis said he joined a pirate group in around 2003. That year, foreign industrial fishing reported a catch of 337.2 million metric tons of fish from Somali waters, while 32.4 million metric tons were caught by local fishermen, according to a report published in the World Affairs journal in 2017.

For two years, he worked as a foot soldier when needed, Khamis said, transporting fuel and weekly rations to hijacked ships for a daily rate of between $200 and $400.

“I came to my family, and there was no food on the table,” he said. “The only option which was available was to do this activity.”

At that time, with commercial fishing encroaching on their traditional livelihoods, most people in his town decided to take up piracy, Khamis asserted.

In its initial phase, between 1990 and 2005, pirate attacks were sporadic and contained mostly in the Gulf of Aden. After 2005, criminal entities emerged on the scene and attacks gradually became more organized and frequent, expanding to Somalia’s eastern coast.

The next shift, in both the number and geographical range of piracy incidents, came around 2007, when those involved began commandeering larger boats for use in storming commercial carriers hundreds of nautical miles from the Somali coast.

“It is very difficult to justify that and multi-million dollar payouts by virtue of illegal fishing,” he added.

Khamis observes that piracy has evolved with the participation of wealthy people from Somalia’s cities, often with political power, coming in and replacing the smaller ragtag groups. He believes they mobilize traditional fishing communities to fulfil their ambitions.

Today, Somali pirates operate a strong network comprised of people working in defined roles; those who gather intelligence on potential targets, foot soldiers who take part in attacks, skilled mariners responsible for controlling hijacked ships – from large commercial vessels to fishing boats – and financiers who bear the cost of operations, according to Troels Burchall Henningsen, an assistant professor at the Royal Danish Defence College.

‘One day, we will go home’

Khan recalls how he spoke to his wife on the morning of the pirates’ attack. He mentioned that the region he was crossing through was infamous for piracy. “My wife got scared,” he said. He shared a picture of the guide map that confirmed the ship was voyaging miles away from the area demarcated as the most risk-prone. Khan did not want her to get anxious as she was five months pregnant.

When the attack happened, the 23 crew members were still in disbelief. Their vessel had been on a busy shipping route since leaving Mozambique; they thought they were safe, Khan said.

Despite the MV Abdullah transiting through a region renowned for having some of the world’s deadliest pirate groups, there were no armed guards present on board at the time of the attack. The ship’s crew was told that armed guards were not required as their travel path did not fall within the demarcated High Risk Area (HRA), Khan said.

Footage from the attack reveals that MV Abdullah lacked physical barriers, such as barbed wire fencing and water cannons – provisions recommended in Best Management Practices 5 (BMP5), a guidance manual provided by international maritime trade organizations for merchant ships to help deter piracy in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea.

After taking control, the pirates took the ship closer to the coast. Once anchored, about 60 pirates stormed in and set up – with their weapons – across all the areas of the ship. They also brought an interpreter on board to communicate with the Bengali- and English-speaking crew.

The hostages were forced to confine themselves to the bridge, Khan said – the 160 square meters (roughly 1,700 square feet) command deck of the ship, where they also had to sleep.

They had little drinking water and hygiene levels dropped dramatically when the additional 60 pirates boarded. Khan developed a severe skin infection from sharing the bathroom, and he could only wash himself once a week.

The fungal infection spread to three of the crew members within days. Khan had to quarantine himself to save the rest from contamination.

In daylight hours, pirate watchmen worked in shifts during which they would oil, service and test-fire their guns. The most capable of them were reserved for duty during the hours of darkness. At night, they would turn all the lights on, chew stimulant khat leaves and remain prepared for military operations.

The pirates seemed keen to know if the hijacking was making any headlines. They monitored news channels and showed the hostages how their families were suffering on TV.

Meanwhile, Khan and his colleagues did not have much to do. They could only leave the bridge for short periods to conduct routine maintenance work. They mostly spent their time playing cards and board games.

But after a while, they got bored of the games too. Tensions ran high among them and some developed acute anxiety, Khan said.

They all kept thinking about their families. Since the pirates had seized their phones, those few who had managed to hide secondary phones did not dare to use them in the open.

Khan often daydreamed, he recalls, telling himself: “One day, we will have a beautiful day, and we will go home.”

A land-based problem with maritime symptoms

From 2012, the number of Somali piracy attacks declined sharply as counter-piracy measures – a greater international naval presence; legislation to prosecute suspected pirates within the region; ships carrying armed guards and best management practices – proved effective, experts say.

Since piracy was no longer as lucrative as before, the enterprise metamorphosed into “generic criminal networks that are specialized in maritime activities,” said Burchall Henningsen, of the Royal Danish Defence College.

The pirates turned their attention to the illicit trade of drugs, weapons and human trafficking, he said.

Over the years, the international response to Somali piracy has predominantly been centered on addressing offshore dynamics. “There has not been much about the onshore dynamics, that are dismantling the criminal networks,” said Omar Mahmood, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, an NGO working towards mitigating deadly conflicts. “And also addressing local concerns and livelihoods.”

“The root causes of piracy were never addressed,” said Raj Mohabeer, officer in charge at the General Secretariat of the Indian Ocean Commission – an inter-governmental organization of the South-West Indian Ocean island states. Pirates kept the millions of dollars they gained from ransoms and illegal trades, he said, and all but Mohamed Abdi Afweyne, the kingpin who was released from prison in January 2025, remained beyond the reach of prosecution. “And you know that the piracy, its main driver is funds,” he added.

In late 2023, Houthi attacks in the Red Sea destroyed the equilibrium that was achieved by the counter-piracy measures of the previous decade and made piracy a remunerative choice again.

Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Houthi rebels have attacked navy and commercial ships transiting through the Red Sea. Between November 2023 and October 2024, they launched nearly 190 strikes. These lethal attacks using advanced weaponry prompted global powers to move their intelligence assets and warships from the Indian Ocean region to the Red Sea, Burchall Henningsen said.

Analysts believe the redistribution made the merchant ships that were detouring around the Cape of Good Hope vulnerable to piracy in the western Indian Ocean.

But that is not the only factor in the current resurgence.

Maritime trade organizations removed the Indian Ocean High Risk Area (HRA) in January 2023, citing the “significantly improved piracy situation in the region.”

The removal of the HRA from the Somali basin increased confidence among shipping companies and seafarers. Commercial ships operating in the area stopped using armed guards and frequently ignored protective practices, said former UN Military Observer Lars H. Bergqvist.

The UN Security Council’s decision in 2022 not to extend a resolution allowing international navies to neutralize piracy threats in Somalia’s territorial waters – on the basis that such operations exacerbated regional instability – has also been a factor, experts say.

Today, there is a concern over the growing capabilities of Somali pirates based on their purported alliance with regional actors like the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militant group and the Houthi rebels.

Gulel Ahmed, an expert on terrorist financing, said the pirates’ association with al-Shabaab was known earlier, but now the alleged partnership with the Houthis has made them “more lethal than before.”

The Houthis rely on pirates for smuggling oil and weapons, Ahmed said. They also share intelligence on ships heading towards the Red Sea through the Gulf of Aden, he added.

The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen documented an increase in weapons smuggling involving Somalia’s al-Shabaab and Yemen’s Houthis in its October 2024 report.

According to a Lloyd’s List report citing Seahawk Maritime Intelligence, “This strategic alliance allows the Houthis to exert control over shipping routes while financing their operations through illicit piracy proceeds and arms smuggling.”

Ahmed is monitoring the new Trump administration’s policy decisions. He anticipates that an aggressive US response this time may disrupt the alliance.

The Houthis have promised to stop their attacks on cargo ships in the Red Sea, and on Israel, so long as the fragile ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is maintained. However, they reiterated that aggressions from the US, UK, or Israel could lead to escalations. On January 22, they freed the crew of a cargo ship hijacked more than a year ago.

In his first week in office, President Donald Trump re-designated the Houthis as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO), days after outgoing President Joe Biden designated them a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” (SDGT) entity. The Biden administration had previously delisted the Houthis as a FTO in February 2021, citing the need to enable humanitarian aid to Yemen.

Trump’s move triggered speculation as to how it might impact regional stability.

On the morning of their release last April, Khan sensed a charged environment on the MV Abdullah. He saw pirates dressing and packing their belongings.

After 32 days in captivity, Khan returned home to Bangladesh. Months later, he remains reluctant to go back to sea but is afraid he will end up returning, as there are few opportunities for him on land.

Whilst the return of Somali piracy has posed a threat to global maritime commerce, it has affected seamen engaged in regional shipping disproportionately. They operate in a low-profit environment, which makes the owners of those ships unwilling or unable to afford armed guards onboard, said Burchall Henningsen.

“When it comes to actual attacks, the seafarers and their families have to bear the consequences,” said Khan.

The wages are not worth the personal risk, he continued. “My daughters say they don’t want toys, but me.”

Credits

Reporter & Writer
Soham Mitra
Data & Graphics
Lou Robinson, Soham Mitra and Rachel Wilson
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Patrick Gallagher
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Louis Leeson
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Toby Hancock
Visual Editors
Mark Oliver and Sarah-Grace Mankarious
Editors
Hannah Strange and Laura Smith-Spark