Five tunnels burrowing into a group of mountains, a large support structure and a wide security perimeter: That’s all you can see of Iran’s mysterious Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant from recent satellite imagery.

The secretive, heavily guarded complex built close to the holy city of Qom has been fueling speculation about its true nature and size since it was first made public in 2009.

A chunk of what we do know about it comes from a trove of Iranian documents stolen years ago by Israeli intelligence.

Its main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) beneath the ground – safe from any aerial bomb known to be possessed by Israel, making destroying the facility from the air a near-impossible task.

As Iran’s leadership reels from a series of devastating Israeli strikes, some analysts say that it is at Fordow that Iran may rush to convert enriched uranium stockpiles into a nuclear bomb.

Israel has targeted the facility in recent days but, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), so far it has either been unwilling – or unable – to damage it.

Tehran has long maintained the objectives of its nuclear program are peaceful, but Fordow has been at the heart of concern over Iran’s ambitions.

“The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” then US President Barack Obama said in 2009 as he, along with then French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown revealed the existence of Fordow to the world.

Just days before the announcement, the Iranians, apparently knowing Western agencies had learned about the facility, told the IAEA of their desire to build a new fuel enrichment facility. By that point construction at Fordow had been underway for years.

Tehran pushed back against the accusations, but condemnation even from ally Russia and concerns from China left it with little room to maneuver.

Construction started in the early 2000s

The US and its allies have not provided much detail on when the construction of Fordow started, but publicly available historical satellite imagery shows work at the site as far back as 2004, with photographs revealing two white square structures where the tunnel entrances are located today. The IAEA says it has additional imagery showing construction as far back as 2002.

“Fordow is actually a project that started during what we call the crash nuclear weapons program of the early 2000s,” said David Albright, head of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a nonpartisan institution dedicated to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. “The idea was they (the Iranians) would make weapon-grade uranium in that plant, and they would obtain low-enriched uranium from the civil nuclear program in Iran.”

In 2009, a large outside support structure was already fully built and excavation was ongoing for what experts believe to be a ventilation shaft, crucial to allow air circulation into the facility. That shaft was later concealed and camouflaged, more recent imagery also shows.

Tehran explained to the IAEA in a letter dated October 2009 that the decision to build the facility underground was a result of “threats of military attacks against Iran,” adding that Fordow would serve as a contingency for the nearby Natanz plant, which, it claimed, “was among the targets threatened with military attacks.”

Iran told the IAEA the facility could house up to 3,000 centrifuges.

Nuclear deal and Israeli accusations

The dangers posed by Fordow were largely tamed as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the so-called “Iran nuclear deal,” that required Iran to remove two-thirds of the centrifuges inside the facility, along with all nuclear material, after the facility was banned from any such work.

That process was slowly reversed when US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018.

Further details about the facility were made public by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018, after his country’s intelligence services seized more than 55,000 documents from what Israel said was Iran’s “atomic archive.”

Among the documents were detailed blueprints of Fordow and information on its objectives: To produce weapons-grade uranium, as part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, for at least one or two nuclear weapons per year.

“We never saw any, any inconsistency,” Albright, who has combed through the documents, said of Iran’s push to develop nuclear weapons. “It’s hundreds of thousands of pages. I mean you just can’t make that amount of stuff up. I don’t think anyone challenges it, and that’s probably why there is an (IAEA) Board of Governors resolution against Iran.”

At the time, then Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the revelations and Netanyahu’s comments “childish” and “laughable.” Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US had known about the material “for a while” and believed the documents were authentic.

Protected from even the largest bombs

Recent IAEA reports suggested Iran had ramped up production of enriched uranium to a level of 60% at the Fordow facility, which, according to experts and the IAEA, now contains 2,700 centrifuges.

“The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear-weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the IAEA said in a report on May 31.

“One of the things that elevated the tension, was they have no reason to do that, other than to be able to then go the next step and turn it into weapon-grade uranium,” Albright said.

“It was interpreted as they’re preparing themselves to be able to do it if they decide to. And if you’re 60%, you can turn it into weapon-grade uranium very quickly,” he added.

According to the ISIS think tank, “Iran can convert its current stock of 60 percent enriched uranium into 233 kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,” enough for nine nuclear weapons.

That is why Fordow is a major focus of Israel’s attempts to degrade and destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But is it even feasible?

The US is the only country that possesses the kind of bomb required to strike Iran’s Fordow nuclear site, Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said in an interview with Merit TV on Monday.

“For Fordow to be taken out by a bomb from the sky, the only country in the world that has that bomb is the United States. And that’s a decision the United States has to take, whether or not it chooses to actually pursue that course,” Leiter said. But, he added, that wasn’t the only option: “There are other ways of dealing with Fordow.”

Destroying Fordow from the air would be almost impossible for Israel, according to a March report from the UK-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank and would require significant firepower and assistance from the United States.

It would not even be reachable by the US’ GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator bombs, which only reach about 60 meters deep, according to the RUSI report. And the GBU-57 can only be delivered by US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers, something Israel doesn’t have – even if the US would give it the bombs.

“Even the GBU-57/B would likely require multiple impacts at the same aiming point to have a good chance of penetrating the facility,” said the report.

Other analysts agree, saying, if the US were to try to hit Fordow, it probably couldn’t be done with one bomb.

Albright says there could be other ways to disable Fordow.

“Israel could probably destroy the tunnel entrances pretty far back, and certainly destroy the ventilation system,” he said. “If you destroyed (the tunnels) and the electric electrical supply, it would be months before they could really operate.”

Despite its crucial role in Iran’s nuclear program, Albright believes Fordow is just another piece of the puzzle.

“If you destroy it, it’s not the end of the line, because you then go to the next threat, which is, how many centrifuges has Iran made that they didn’t deploy at Fordow and Natanz? And where are they?” he said.

“I think people over-emphasize the need to destroy it by bringing down its ceilings, which admittedly, probably only the US can do.”

At least 51 people were killed and more than 200 others injured by Israeli fire as they waited for aid trucks to arrive in Khan Younis in southern Gaza early Tuesday morning, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

The incident marks the highest reported number of people killed while seeking aid over the past few weeks in the enclave. In total, nearly 400 Palestinians have been killed near aid centers since Israel lifted an 11-week total blockade on Gaza and allowed a trickle of aid to enter, according to the health ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a Tuesday statement that “a gathering was identified adjacent to an aid distribution truck that got stuck in the area of Khan Younis, and in proximity to IDF troops operating in the area.”

The IDF said it was “aware of reports regarding a number of injured individuals from IDF fire following the crowd’s approach,” that “details of the incident are under review,” and that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and operates to minimize harm as much as possible to them while maintaining the safety of our troops.”

“They went to bring bread for their children, just bread or flour. They killed us in cold blood,” Abu Abed said.

Video from the scene in Khan Younis on Tuesday shows dozens of bodies lying on the ground, covered in blood.

The latest scenes of death, violence and desperation underline a grim existence for over 2.1 million people living in Gaza – which the United Nations has warned is edging closer to famine.

Humanitarian organizations say that aid currently entering the enclave is only a tiny fraction of what is needed, with the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – the main supplier of aid in Gaza – coming under global scrutiny since it opened its distribution points late last month.

Palestinians en route to GHF distribution sites have repeatedly been fired upon since its inception, according to the health ministry, with some 3,000 people injured in addition to the fatalities. On Tuesday, eight people were also killed after coming under Israeli fire near an aid distribution site west of Rafah, the ministry said.

The GHF, an Israeli-US backed private contractor, has been criticized by multiple international aid agencies for setting up its distribution centers amid active combat zones. The organization has repeatedly said there has been no violence at their sites. But the GHF acknowledged earlier this month that there have been Palestinian casualties in the surrounding areas, which the organization described as “well beyond our secure distribution site.” A spokesman referred further questions to the Israeli military.

On Tuesday, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on X: “Israel has weaponized food and blocked lifesaving aid. I urge immediate, impartial investigations into deadly attacks on desperate civilians trying to reach food distribution centres.”

One of those killed in Khan Younis on Tuesday was a 20-year-old man, who had traveled there in hope of returning with food for his family.

Speaking through tears, his mother said: “He didn’t go for a picnic. He went to bring food for his siblings and father.”

Nearby, at Nasser Medical Complex, hospital staff said that the entire ward was crowded with casualties. Video from the hospital showed dozens of people arriving with wounds, with others inside the hospital waiting for treatment as they laid on the floor.

One intensive care doctor told Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), an aid organization based in the United Kingdom, that the hospital had received on Tuesday “a large number of injured and killed from the Israeli army’s targeting of aid distribution points in Khan Younis.”

“The situation here is catastrophic beyond imagination,” the doctor said, adding that the morgue was completely full and that additional bodies had been placed outside the building.

“We are trying our best, but the numbers are overwhelming,” he said.

A tip from a member of the public to a popular Italian television show led to the arrest on a Greek island of an American man suspected of murdering a baby girl and hiding her mother’s body in a busy park in Rome.

“On June 13, in Skiathos, police officers of the island’s police department, in collaboration with (Italian) state police… identified and stopped an American citizen, credibly suspected of the murder of a newborn and the concealment of her mother’s cadaver, whose lifeless bodies were found in Rome on June 7 inside Rome’s Villa Doria Pamphili Park,” Rome police prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said in a statement Friday.

The body of the baby girl, thought by Italian state police to be between six and 10 months old, was found under bushes in a corner of Rome’s largest park on June 7.

A few hours later, a child playing in the park noticed an arm sticking out from under a black garbage bag, leading to the discovery of the naked body of a young woman, thought to be in her late 20s or early 30s.

DNA tests showed that the woman was the baby’s mother, police said in a press conference on June 11.

Initial autopsy reports were inconclusive in the cause of death of the woman, they said, adding that she had no visible wounds. The baby, whose stomach was empty, showed signs of strangulation.

Unable to identify the bodies, police released photos of the mother’s extensive tattoos. These tattoos were shown on June 9 on the popular missing persons TV show “Chi l’ha visto?” (“Who has seen him/her?”), which invited the public to call in with any information about the identities of the mother and child.

Several people came forward, including some who had seen the young woman and her baby in various soup kitchens in the city, and another who had witnessed an altercation between the woman and a man in a central square in Rome, according to witnesses featured in “Chi l’ha Visto.”

Police had been called to that incident and took the man’s details. No arrest was made at the time, but the information led to the man’s identification. The woman’s details were not taken at the incident.

Photos reported to be of the man, covered in blood from a head wound, sitting next to the woman and the baby also surfaced as a result of the TV appeal, as well as a photo of the man without the woman – with the clearly crying baby girl in his arms – talking to police just two days before the infant was found dead. The woman, whose body was in a more advanced state of decomposition than the baby’s, according to police, was not seen in the photo.

The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation also helped by tracing the man’s credit and SIM cards, police said during a press conference in Rome on Friday following the arrest.

The Italian prosecutor’s office said it will seek the man’s extradition from Greece, which could take up to three weeks.

The outcome of the defining conflict between Iran and Israel may depend on one simple number, which is at very best a rough estimate.

Israeli military data and expert analysis say Iran has fired about 700 of its medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) at Israel over the past 14 months, leaving it with anything between 300 to 1,300 left in its stockpile.

This remaining arsenal is subject to Israel’s fierce air assault of the past five days, with the IDF saying it has targeted at least a third of the surface-to-surface launchers that fire MRBMs, possibly further reducing Iran’s ability to strike back at Israel.

The depletion of its arsenal may compound Iran’s desire to negotiate its way out of the conflict and also intensify the ferocity of the Israeli campaign in the coming days, analysts have said, as Israeli airpower finds itself almost unchallenged and Iran’s nightly assaults on Israeli cities seem recently to have ebbed.

Few reliable estimates for Iran’s stockpile exist, although US CENTCOM’s commander General Kenneth McKenzie said in 2023 that they had more than 3,000 missiles of different ranges. Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said likely 1,000 to 2,000 of these were medium-range, capable of spanning the 1,400 kilometers between Iran and Israel. He called the estimate “at best a back-of-the-envelope calculation.”

According to the IDF, Iran used 120 MRBMs in its April 13 attack last year on Israel, another 200 on October 1, and a total of 380 in the past five days. This tally would deplete its overall known arsenal by a total of 700. But whether it leaves Tehran with an existential crisis over its missile deterrence depends on both the size of its initial stockpile, and what damage Israel has done to Iran’s military infrastructure, since it began striking across the country on Friday.

Ben Taleblu suggested this might leave Iran with 1,300 MRBMs. Other estimates were more pessimistic. Dr. Eyal Pinko, a retired Israeli naval intelligence officer, now a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, said: “Taking into consideration that they fired around 400 to 500 in the last four days and Israel destroyed some of the arsenal of what they had, I believe they have now 800 to 700.”

The few glimpses of the damage done to Iran’s air defenses and missile production from Israeli strikes on October 26 have revealed a significant toll. Admiral Tony Radakin, the UK’s Chief of the Defence Staff, said in a December speech that 100 Israeli aircraft had fired as many missiles from as many miles away and “took down nearly the entirety of Iran’s air defense system. It has destroyed Iran’s ability to produce ballistic missiles for a year.”

But recently Israel has amplified the threat that Iran’s missile production poses. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, as Israel launched its air campaign, that Iran had sped up its manufacture of ballistic missiles to 300 a month, which could leave them with 20,000 in six years. He did not provide evidence for the claim.

Pinko said the 2024 strikes had “destroyed the main facilities for manufacturing ballistic missiles motors” in Iran, creating severe limitations to the country’s supply chain. Still, he notes that potential assistance from China in the coming months could boost production again.

Iran would not want its arsenal of MRBMs to sink “below four digits,” said Ben Taleblu.

“For the Islamic Republic, quantity has a quality of its own,” he said, adding that Iran excels “in crisis management but is actually a poor conventional warfighter. And having to expend these ballistic missiles during a time of war, rather than a time of crisis precisely puts it in this bind.”

Benjamin Netanyahu is once again firmly in control of Israeli politics.

The country’s longest-serving prime minister has pulled himself back from the abyss with what appears to be a wildly successful opening to a military campaign against Iran.

“Bibi had his Churchill moment,” said one Israeli official from within the coalition, using the prime minister’s nickname.

One day before launching what Israel dubbed Operation Rising Lion, Netanyahu’s government had faced a confidence vote from the opposition.

Two of the ultra-Orthodox parties threatened to vote against the government in what would have put major pressure on Netanyahu. But he survived the vote – with quite some margin.

Twenty-four hours later, Israel began attacking Iran. In one instant, Netanyahu’s political problems were swept away. No more ultra-Orthodox parties complaining about the military draft or far-right parties shouting about praying in the al-Aqsa compound.

“The cards are in his hands. If they weren’t a week ago, they are now,” said the official.

The weekly political protests – first over the judicial reform, then over the war in Gaza – that have dogged Netanyahu for much of his current term quickly vanished, with orders from Israel’s Homefront Command forbidding large gatherings of people. Netanyahu’s testimony in his trial on charges of corruption is on hold and out of the headlines. The stories of the hostages still held in Gaza for more than 600 days of war are no longer front-page news.

Netanyahu is well aware of the political consequences of such a successful military operation, according to an Israeli source in the prime minister’s orbit, though the source insists it’s not his focus right now

“If we are doing something good for Israel, it’s good to us,” the source said. “It’s good for you electorally, it’s good for you with the voters … He will harvest this in the future.”

The source also pointed out the complete reversal of the political opposition from attacking Netanyahu to supporting him.

“This time, we have unity almost all over the Knesset, except from the Arab parties, and we have unity in the people,” said the source.

Iran has been at the center of Netanyahu’s identity for nearly his entire political career. His time as Israel’s longest-serving leader is replete with warnings about Iran. Some have been borderline cartoonish, like when he held up a drawing of a bomb to warn of Tehran’s advancing nuclear program at the United Nations General Assembly in 2012. He has since returned to the same podium – and many others – to lecture the world repeatedly about the intent of the Ayatollahs.

Israel’s existential fear wasn’t a single one of its adversaries. It was all of them combined: an overwhelming attack from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Shiite proxies in Syria and Iraq. This was Israel’s nightmare scenario that Hamas tried to instigate with its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

It quickly became evident that each entity had its own interests.

Hezbollah began launching attacks against Israel on October 8, but it was far from the massive barrages which worried the military’s leadership. Iran launched two retaliatory attacks against Israel last year in April and October. The Houthis began firing drones and ballistic missiles at Israel from Yemen, but never more than one or two at a time.

Over 20 months of war, Israel was able to defang each of its adversaries. Hamas is a shell of its former self, Hezbollah has been shattered, and the Houthis don’t have the arsenal to pose a major threat.

That allowed Israel to turn its focus to Iran without fear of massive retaliation from another front. From Netanyahu’s political perspective, the risk was far lower, especially since Israel’s spy agency has treated Iran like its playground for years.

“At his age, he has much less of a political career left to lose,” Shapiro said. “So it’s easier to throw the caution that held him back in the past to the wind, especially to reach for a career-defining goal.”

But whether the military campaign against Iran buoys Netanyahu’s long-sinking polling numbers is not a foregone conclusion, according to Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israeli Democracy Institute.

Polling in recent months has repeatedly shown Netanyahu far behind political rival Naftali Bennett. Crucially, it has indicated he would fall far short of being able to build a coalition with his current political partners, ousting him from leadership.

The Iran operation may not ultimately deliver the political salvation Netanyahu wants, Plesner said, because it is an issue with broad agreement from the left and the right.

Israel is also mired in the ongoing war in Gaza with no clear exit and lacking a comprehensive day-after plan. A second war, even with far more tangible accomplishments, presents another risk to Netanyahu if it drags on.

“The ability of the government to translate the military successes into an advantageous diplomatic outcome is yet to be determined,” said Plesner.

Spain’s government said Tuesday that the massive April power outage across Spain and Portugal that left tens of millions of people disconnected in seconds was caused by technical and planning errors that left the grid unable to handle a surge in voltage.

Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen, who manages the nation’s energy policy, told reporters that a voltage surge led to small grid failures, mainly in the south of Spain, which then cascaded to larger ones and brought the system down in the two Iberian Peninsula nations.

She ruled out that the failure was due to a cyberattack.

The outage began shortly after noon on April 28 in Spain and lasted through nightfall, disrupting businesses, transit systems, cellular networks, internet connectivity and other critical infrastructure. Spain lost 15 gigawatts of electricity — or about 60% of its supply. Portugal, whose grid is connected to Spain’s, also went down. Only the countries’ island territories were spared.

“All of this happened in 12 seconds, with most of the power loss happening in just five seconds,” Aagesen said.

Several technical causes contributed to the event, including “poor planning” by Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica, which didn’t find a replacement for one power plant that was supposed to help balance power fluctuations, the minister said. She also said that some power plants that utilities shut off preventively when the disruptions started could have stayed online to help manage the system.

Power was fully restored by the early hours of the following day.

The government’s report will be released later on Tuesday – 49 days after the event – and included analysis from Spain’s national security agencies, which concluded, according to the minister, there were no indications of cyber-sabotage by foreign actors.

The government had previously narrowed down the source of the outage to three power plants that tripped in southern Spain.

In the weeks following the blackout, citizens and experts were left wondering what triggered the event in a region not known for power cuts. The outage ignited a fierce debate about whether Spain’s high levels of renewable power and not enough energy generated from nuclear or gas-fired power plants had something to do with the grid failing, which the government has repeatedly denied.

Spain is at the forefront of Europe’s transition to renewable energy, having generated nearly 57% of its electricity in 2024 from renewable energy sources like wind, hydropower and solar. The country is also phasing out its nuclear plants.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed back against such speculation and defended the country’s rapid ramping up of renewables. He asked for patience and said that his government would not “deviate a single millimeter” from its energy transition plans, which include a goal of generating 81% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

For the first time since the global outbreak of Covid-19, researchers claim to have pierced North Korea’s ironclad information blockade to reveal how some ordinary citizens endured the pandemic.

While Pyongyang insisted for more than two years that not a single case had breached its hermetically sealed borders, a new report paints a far darker picture, of a deadly wave of largely untreated illness that swept the country, but was barely talked about.

The 26-page report also details testimony of deaths by counterfeit or self-prescribed medicine, and official denial leading to a culture of dishonesty.

“Doctors were lying to the patients. Village leaders were lying to the party. And the government was lying to everybody,” said Dr. Victor Cha, one of the report’s lead authors.

Released by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in partnership with the George W. Bush Institute, the paper is based on 100 in-person interviews conducted discreetly inside North Korea between September and December 2023.

The testimony – gathered through informal, conversational methods known as “snowball sampling” – span all nine provinces and the capital Pyongyang. The result is what the authors describe as “arguably the first glimpse” inside the country’s most extreme period of isolation in modern history.

Snowball sampling is a recruitment method often used when studying hidden or hard-to-access populations. Researchers begin by identifying one or two trusted participants, who then refer them to others in their networks. Over time, the pool of participants “snowballs,” growing through word-of-mouth and personal trust.

While it lacks the scientific rigor of more conventional surveys, this method is often the only way of getting raw, subjective testimony from people living in repressive and totalitarian states, such as North Korea.

Cha, a former White House adviser and Korea Chair at CSIS, said the findings were evidence of “a total failure on the part of the government to do anything for the people during the pandemic.”

“Everybody was effectively lying to everybody during the pandemic,” he said. “Because of a government policy that said there was no COVID in the country. When they knew there was.”

Cha said Pyongyang’s policy of denial didn’t just attempt to deceive the outside world – it forced North Korea’s more than 26 million people into mutually enforced silence.

When North Korea closed its borders in early 2020 – as the virus made its way across the globe, on its way to infecting and killing millions – state media claimed it had kept the virus out entirely; no infections, no deaths. The world was skeptical. But the regime’s total control over borders and information made independent verification nearly impossible.

Two years later, North Korean television aired scenes of a military parade in Pyongyang. Crowds filled Kim Il Sung Square. Masks were scarce. Not long after, reports of a mysterious “fever outbreak” began appearing in state media. By early May, Pyongyang confirmed its first Covid-19 case. Three months later, it declared victory – claiming just 74 deaths out of nearly 5 million “fever” cases.

But according to the new survey, Covid-19 had by that point been circulating widely inside the country for at least two years.

Ninety-two percent of respondents said they or someone close to them had been infected. Most said 2020 and 2021 – not 2022 – were when outbreaks were at their worst.

“Fevers were happening everywhere, and many people were dying within a few days,” one participant reported. Another, a soldier, described a military communications battalion in which more than half the unit – about 400 soldiers – fell ill by late 2021. In prisons, schools, and food factories, respondents described people collapsing or missing days of work due to fever.

Even under normal conditions, the country’s isolated and underfunded healthcare system struggles to meet the needs of its people. But a pandemic-level event, coupled with official denial and an initial refusal to accept foreign vaccines, left people dangerously exposed, the report claims.

With virtually no access to testing, diagnoses came from Covid-19 symptoms that most of the world had grown familiar with: fever, cough, shortness of breath. Some respondents said even these symptoms were taboo. One woman recalled being told by a doctor that if she said she had those symptoms, “you will be taken away.” Another said bluntly: “They told me it’s a cold, but I knew it was COVID.”

In place of official care, citizens turned to folk medicine: saltwater rinses, garlic necklaces, even opium injections. One woman said her child died after being given the wrong dosage of adult medication. Another respondent described neighbors overdosing on counterfeit Chinese drugs. In total, one in five respondents reported seeing or hearing of deaths due to misuse of medication or fake pharmaceuticals.

Protective gear was nearly nonexistent. Just 8% of respondents said they received masks from the government. Many made their own, reused them, or bought them at black-market prices. One mother said her children had to sew their own because adult-issued masks were too big.

Cha says the failure was not just in what the government withheld, but in how it blocked the kind of grassroots survival that had helped North Korea’s “resourceful” citizens endure past disasters – including the 1990s famine, known inside the country as the “Arduous March.” That crisis gave rise to private marketplaces, which emerged as a lifeline when the state-run ration system collapsed. During the pandemic, however, those markets were shut down – officially to contain the virus, but also, Cha suggests, to limit the spread of information.

“They didn’t allow the people to find coping mechanisms,” he said. “Just shut them down, quarantine them, lock them down – and then provided them with nothing.”

The suffering extended beyond illness. With internal travel banned and markets shuttered, food shortages became acute. Eighty-one percent of those surveyed said they faced hunger. Respondents spoke of trying to survive quarantine periods with no rations, no access to medicine, and no way to seek help.

The rationing system, long unreliable, collapsed entirely under the weight of the lockdown. “If you didn’t have emergency food at home, it was really tough,” one soldier said.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they had no access to Covid tests at any point in the pandemic. Fewer than 20% received any vaccine — and most of those were administered only after Pyongyang acknowledged the outbreak in 2022 and accepted limited Chinese assistance. Soldiers reported receiving three shots as part of a campaign later that year. Civilian respondents described group vaccinations administered at schools or workplaces – months after the rest of the world had rolled out full vaccination programs.

Even the basic act of reporting illness became a risk. According to the report, local clinics and neighborhood watch units were required to report cases to central authorities. But only 41% of respondents ever received any information about those reports. Most said the results were either never shared or filtered through rumor. One respondent said: “I realized that serious illnesses and deaths were not reported because they were told not to call it COVID.”

This system of denial created what Cha calls a “double lie”: the government lied to its people, and the people lied to each other and to their government – each trying to avoid quarantine, censure, or worse.

The survey also documented a deep well of frustration with the regime’s response – and its propaganda. One participant said: “Our country can build nuclear weapons, but they can’t give us vaccines.” Others noted the contrast between their conditions and what they heard about other countries: free testing, access to medicine, the ability to travel.

In one of the report’s most striking findings, 83% of respondents said their experience did not align with what the government or its leader Kim Jong Un told them. More than half said they explicitly disbelieved the regime’s Covid-related announcements.

“When I saw the Supreme Leader touting his love for the people, while so many were dying without medicine,” one respondent said, “I thought of all the people who didn’t survive.”

India and Canada signaled a reset of relations on Tuesday, agreeing to reestablish high commissions in each other’s capitals, after nearly two years of strained ties following Ottawa’s accusations that New Delhi was allegedly involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist on its soil.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney, who took office in March, announced the move after meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 7 summit in the Canadian Rockies.

Ottawa and New Delhi agreed to “designate new high commissioners, with a view to returning to regular services to citizens and business in both countries,” according to a statement from Carney’s office following their meeting

The move comes nearly two years after former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other Canadian officials publicly accused New Delhi of being involved in the murder of prominent Sikh separatist and Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in a Vancouver suburb in 2023.

Canadian authorities said they shared evidence of that with Indian authorities. However, Indian government officials repeatedly denied Canada had provided evidence and called the allegations “absurd and motivated.”

Relations between both countries plummeted in the wake of the accusation, prompting tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, the temporary suspension of visa services and allegations from India of Canada harboring “terrorists” and encouraging “anti-India activities” – a claim the Canadian government rejects.

Carney invited the leaders of several other nonmember countries — Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Ukraine, Australia and South Korea — to also attend this year’s gathering.

There were no signs of tension on Tuesday as Modi and Carney shook hands in the western Canadian province of Alberta with the Canadian prime minister calling it a “great honor” to host the Indian leader at the G7.

“India has been coming to the G7 I believe since 2018… and it’s a testament to the importance of your country, to your leadership and to the importance of the issues that we look to tackle together,” Carney told reporters.

Modi’s comments toward Carney were similarly welcoming.

“Had an excellent meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney,” he wrote on X. “India and Canada are connected by a strong belief in democracy, freedom and rule of law. PM Carney and I look forward to working closely to add momentum to the India-Canada friendship.”

The Canadian prime minister’s office said the two discussed opportunities to “deepen engagement” in areas such as technology, the digital transition, food security, and critical minerals.

Neither leader publicly mentioned discussing recent strained relations or the killing of Nijjar.

Nijjar, who was gunned down by masked men in June 2023 outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, was a prominent campaigner for an independent Sikh homeland in northern India, which would be known as Khalistan.

Campaigning for the creation of Khalistan has long been considered by New Delhi as a national security threat and outlawed in India – and a number of groups associated with the movement are listed as “terrorist organizations” under Indian law.

But the movement garners a level of sympathy from some in the Sikh community, especially in the diaspora, where activists protected by free speech laws can more openly demand secession from India.

Some demonstrators expressed outrage over Modi’s visit, while others demanded justice over Nijjar’s killing.

When asked about the murder of Nijjar during a news conference after speaking with Modi, Carney said: “There is a judicial process that’s underway, and I need to be careful about further commentary.”

Carney also told CBC’s Radio-Canada last week that he had spoken with Modi about Nijjar, when asked about the Sikh separatist and ongoing police investigation.

A volcanic eruption in Indonesia sent an enormous ash cloud more than six miles into the sky, disrupting or canceling dozens of flights to and from the tourist island of Bali.

Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted at 5:35pm local time on Tuesday, unleashing a 6.8-mile (11-kilometer) hot ash column over the tourist island of Flores in south-central Indonesia, the country’s Geology Agency said.

Images showed an orange mushroom-shaped cloud engulfing the nearby village of Talibura with sightings reported up to 93 miles (150km) away.

Officials issued the country’s highest alert and urged tourists to stay away.

Dozens of flights were halted in Bali, according to Denpasar International Airport website, which marked the disruptions “due to volcano.”

They included domestic routes to Jakarta and Lombok as well as others to Australia, China, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Fransiskus Xaverius Seda Airport was closed until Thursday, “to ensure the safety of the passengers,” airport operator AirNav said in an Instagram post.

Singapore’s Changi Airport website shows Jetstar and Scoot canceled flights to Bali Wednesday morning while AirAsia called off its midday flight to the Indonesian capital.

Holidaymakers Athirah Rosli, 31, and her husband Fadzly Yohannes, 33, woke up this morning to discover that their Jetstar flight home from Bail to Singapore was canceled.

“My husband and I looked at new flights, booked more accommodation and insurance and then had breakfast at our hotel,” she said.

“I see it was a blessing in disguise that we’re safe and well.”

Recent rumblings

The volcano’s eruption follows significant volcanic activities, including 50 in two hours, up from the average eight to 10 activities per day.

The 5,197-foot (1,584-meter) twin volcano erupted again Wednesday morning, spewing a 0.62-mile (1km) ash cloud, officials confirmed.

Dozens of residents in two nearby villages were evacuated, according to Avi Hallan, an official at the local disaster mitigation agency.

A danger zone is in place around five miles (8km) from the crater and residents have been warned about the potential for heavy rainfall triggering lava flows in rivers flowing from the volcano.

Tourists affected

More than a thousand tourists have been affected, particularly those traveling to Bali and Komodo National Park, famed for its Komodo dragons, according to a local tour operator.

Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki’s last erupted in May when authorities also raised the alert level to the most severe.

A previous eruption in March forced airlines to cancel and delay flights into Bali, around 500 miles (800km) away, including Australia’s Jetstar and Qantas Airways.

In November, the volcano erupted multiple times killing nine people, injuring dozens and forcing thousands to flee and flights to be canceled.

Indonesian, home to 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes and experiences frequent seismic activity.

The archipelago sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.