World
Ukrainian men face sexual torture in Russian detention centres: UN
Sexual violence against Ukrainian men in Russian detention is significantly underreported due to the “stigma and perceived emasculation” attached to the crime, a United Nations agency has warned.
The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) says the official Ukrainian figure of 114 men who have been subjected to sexual violence since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 is likely an underestimate.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office recorded those cases, as well as those of 202 female survivors.
The UNFPA says it is likely that for each incident that was recorded, there were a further 10 to 20 cases that went unreported.
In September, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022, revealed the systematic use of sexual violence as a method of torture, often targeting men, in detention centres by Russian authorities.
The findings of its investigation included detailed testimonies from inside detention centres in the occupied areas of Ukraine and Russia, with reports that higher-ranking Russian personnel “ordered, tolerated, or took no action” against such treatment.
Men in detention face sexual torture
The UNFPA told Al Jazeera that although the vast majority of victims of this crime were women and girls, this kind of violence was also commonly used against men, boys and people of diverse gender identities.
All survivors of conflict-related sexual violence face significant barriers when seeking support, Massimo Diana, the UNFPA Ukraine representative, told Al Jazeera.
This can include structural barriers such as limited resources and systems still being developed during the ongoing war but also others that are “deeply personal, rooted in stigma, shame, and fear”, Diana said.
“For male survivors, these barriers are often compounded by concerns about being labelled or misunderstood, including fears of being associated with sexual minorities,” he said.
Mental health professionals working with a UNFPA-supported centre for survivors in Ukraine, which provides free, confidential services to communities along the front line, say many victims are burdened with a sense of shame after being abused.
Psychologists have also faced challenges in building trust and securing the anonymity of survivors when digital tools are used to amplify footage and photographs of sexual torture.
The UNFPA, citing psychologists working with victims, has reported that Russian forces have sent videos of male Ukrainian detainees being raped to their relatives for blackmail or simply to humiliate them.
In July, Oleksandra Matviichuk and her Nobel Prize-winning Centre for Civil Liberties, a Kyiv-based human rights group, told Al Jazeera that in interviews with hundreds of survivors of Russian captivity, many had told her and her colleagues that they had been beaten, raped and electrocuted.
Sexual violence and armed conflict
In recent years, the world has seen heightened levels of conflict-related sexual violence fuelled by armed conflict, according to the UN.
Al Jazeera has reported on the use of rape as a weapon in the ongoing war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which erupted in April 2023.
In March, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said rape had been used as “a defining – and despicable – characteristic of this crisis since the beginning”.
There have also been reports of rape against male Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
In August, a video emerged of a gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert, southern Israel.
In November, UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese said Dr Adnan al-Bursh, one of Gaza’s most prominent doctors, was “likely raped to death” in Israeli detention.
World
‘Criminal Minds’ Star Paget Brewster Tells TV Journalist to ‘Work at a Shelter’ After Mixed Review, Sparking Outrage From Other Critics
“Criminal Minds” star Paget Brewster lashed out at ScreenRant staffer Shealyn Scott over X on Saturday afternoon for her story lamenting the changes Paramount+ has brought to the long-running procedural drama.
“Hello critic Shealynn Scott,” Brewster wrote in the since-deleted post. “You’re young. You don’t know that bad pics and bad reviews can lead to 350 people losing their jobs. Sell vintage. Work at a shelter. Do something better than what you do now. Because right now you suck.”
Film and TV critics were quick to hit back in the replies. David Rooney, chief film critic at The Hollywood Reporter, wrote in his response to Brewster, “This is a very bad look. An actor on a long-running show attacking a young reviewer who contextualizes her respectful criticisms with obvious knowledge of the material — says way more about u being thin-skinned than it does about her professionalism. ‘Work at a shelter,’ really?!”
Senior ScreenRant writer Andy Behbakht also came to the defense of Scott, writing, “This is disgusting behavior on your part, and really tragic to see you tearing down a young female journalist whom you are literally telling that she ‘sucks’ and that she shouldn’t be in the field that she is in. I stand by my colleague, and you owe her an apology.”
Brewster released an apology for the post on Sunday. She wrote on X, “Hi guys, I was mean to Shealyn Scott last night and I profoundly regret it. Shame on me for insulting a human being for doing their job. I’m very sorry, Shealyn. And I’m sorry to those who follow me that you saw me behave like that. Turns out, last night, I sucked.”
“Criminal Minds” premiered its 15th and final season on CBS in 2020, and then was revived for Paramount+ in 2022 under the title “Criminal Minds: Evolution.” Scott’s piece discussed the changes “Criminal Minds” underwent when it went from linear to streaming.
“From details as small as a ratings change to TV-MA— which allows David Rossi (Joe Mantegna) and Emily Prentiss (Paget Brewster) the occasional heated expletive— to new main cast members like Tyler Green (Ryan-James Hatanaka), there’s no doubt that ‘Criminal Minds: Evolution’ has its own unique identity,” Scott wrote in her story. “Plenty of the continuation’s changes have been received warmly, and ‘Criminal Minds’ unquestionably still works as a gripping crime drama, but there are just as many tweaks that feel more like downgrades— including the new 10-episode season structure. Though logical in theory, the shortened seasons are unfortunately working against ‘Criminal Minds’’ greatest strengths.”
World
Meloni’s spat with Trump is calculated strategy to boost her approval ratings: expert
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s escalating feud with President Donald Trump is nothing but a calculated political strategy aimed at boosting her standing at home, a leading Italian political analyst told Fox News Digital on Sunday.
After the row between Trump and Meloni escalated on June 20, analysts also said the Italian leader may see little downside in confronting Trump, particularly as she faces declining approval ratings ahead of Italy’s 2027 general election.
The diplomatic dispute had reached a boiling point after Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced June 19 that he was scrapping a trip to Washington, where he had been scheduled to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Giorgia Meloni must have calculated that a public row with Trump yields no tangible consequences, other than an increase in her domestic and international standing,” Mattia Diletti, a political science lecturer at Sapienza University of Rome, said.
TRUMP SAYS MELONI ‘WANTS TO BE FRIENDS AGAIN’ AFTER ITALY REFUSED TO HELP US AMID IRAN WAR
Giorgia Meloni said President Trump’s statements were “completely made up” and that “neither I nor Italy ever beg.” (Mandel NGAN / POOL / AFP via Getty Images; Bastien Ohier / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images))
Giovanni Orsina, a political scientist at Rome’s Luiss University, also told the Financial Times that the row would offer a “positive image” for Meloni and a “silver lining” to a confrontation she had “desperately tried to avoid.”
The friction between Trump and Meloni intensified after an interview broadcast by Italy’s La7 television network, where the president claimed she had asked for a photograph with him at the G7 summit and that he agreed only out of pity.
“She begged me to take a picture with her,” Trump said. “She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her.”
RUBIO MEETS MELONI AS TRUMP–POPE CLASH CLASH ESCALATES US STRAINS WITH KEY EUROPEAN ALLY
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attends her annual press conference in Rome on Jan. 9, 2026, addressing government priorities and policy challenges for the year ahead. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)
Meloni fired back, releasing a video statement on X rejecting the president’s narrative.
“I am frankly stunned,” Meloni said in the video message. “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies. But there’s one thing he must remember: Neither I nor Italy ever beg.”
Trump doubled down on Truth Social and tied the row directly to Meloni’s political fortunes.
“Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G7 meeting in France,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America… when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapon … She wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience … Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up.’ No thanks!!!”
Within hours, Meloni responded on social media: “As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it … My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interest… In any case, my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”
TRUMP ‘RIGHT TO BE OUTRAGED’ BY EUROPE’S BETRAYAL ON IRAN, SAYS FORMER THATCHER ADVISOR
Rubio will travel to Italy on Wednesday for meetings with Pope Leo and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. (Maria Grazia Picciarella/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The back-and-forth marks a reversal for two leaders who once enjoyed a close political alignment.
When Meloni first came to power, she positioned herself as a bridge between Washington and Brussels while pushing ties with Trump based on shared nationalism and stances on immigration.
“Politically, Trump has favored Meloni,” Diletti noted, pointing out that she had previously visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 2025. She was the only European Union leader to attend his second inauguration.
The cracks also appeared in April when Trump criticized Meloni for siding with Pope Leo XIV’s condemnation of the U.S. conflict with Iran.
On Sunday, Trump also criticized Italy and Giorgia Meloni over their approach to Iran, accusing the NATO ally of failing to help confront Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
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“As the 2027 Italian general election approaches, Meloni is facing a decline in approval ratings for the first time,” Diletti explained.
“The opportunity to counter a President so unpopular in Europe and Italy helps bolster her approval ratings and allows her to build European solidarity,” he claimed.
World
Mourners gather to remember Lebanese conservationist killed by Israel
Renowned turtle conservationist Mona Khalil had been wounded in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon.
Published On 21 Jun 2026
Mourners have gathered in Beirut to pay their respects to a much-loved Lebanese conservationist who died from wounds caused by an Israeli strike on her home on the country’s southern coast.
Mona Khalil, 77, who spent more than two decades protecting sea turtles along Lebanon’s coastline, was critically injured in the attack in the village of al-Mansouri in Tyre province on June 4 and succumbed to her wounds more than two weeks later, on Friday.
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News of her death triggered an outpouring of grief among environmentalists and those who volunteered and worked with her over the years, many of whom gathered in Beirut on Sunday.
The Orange House Project, which Khalil helped build into a small conservation hub and ecotourism site in al-Mansouri, became a refuge for endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles and a training ground for volunteers documenting nesting activity along the coast.
Khalil was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1949. She held Dutch as well as Lebanese citizenship, having lived in the Netherlands before returning to Lebanon and settling in what had once been her grandmother’s home – the building that would later become known as the Orange House.
At the heart of Khalil’s work was a narrow stretch of coastline, al-Mansouri beach, where a fleeting encounter with a turtle that had emerged from the ocean to lay its eggs in 1999 propelled her on a lifelong journey devoted to animals.
Each nesting season, Khalil and volunteers would patrol the beach at night, marking fresh tracks in the sand and carefully relocating vulnerable nests away from human activity and coastal light pollution.
Journalist and environmental activist Fadia Jomaa first met Khalil in 2016 while researching sea turtles in Lebanon and then decided to volunteer with her project.
During the previous war between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in 2024, Khalil initially refused to leave al-Mansouri beach, Jomaa said. The Lebanese army ultimately persuaded her to evacuate for her safety.
“She was the last one to leave the area,” Jomaa noted.
“She had an awful time in Beirut,” the journalist said, adding that Khalil longed to return to the south, to the Orange House and the beach she had spent years protecting.
“She used to say, ‘My soul will stay here,’” Jomaa said, recalling conversations in which Khalil would point to an olive tree or a small hill overlooking al-Mansouri beach. “She used to say, ‘This is where you will bury me.’”
Where Khalil will ultimately be buried remains uncertain and is tied to the security situation in the area, Jomaa said.
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