Hurricane Oscar hits Cuba as it struggles with power outage

Reuters reported that small protests were held on Saturday night by residents after the electricity grid failure

The category 1 hurricane made landfall near the city of Baracoa at 17:50 local time (21:50 GMT), and could cause flash-flooding and mudslides in eastern areas, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy said power would be restored for most by Monday night, while "the last customer may receive service by Tuesday".

On Friday, the island's main energy plant failed and knocked out electricity for 10 million people. Supply was partially restored on Saturday, before collapsing again.

Hurricane Oscar has made landfall in eastern Cuba, packing winds of nearly 80mph (130km/h) on the third day of a nearly nationwide power outage.

For many people since the outages began, it has been a few days with no air conditioning or fan. Food is now beginning to rot in fridges, and some families are having to cook with firewood. Many homes are without water as the supply depends on electric pumps.

Patience is wearing thin, certainly as expressed by many on social media.

It is an increasingly critical situation, with schools and businesses closed and fears for the continued functioning of hospitals.

There are fears that a significant storm would damage Cuba's creaking energy distribution infrastructure.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Saturday that authorities in the east of the island were "working hard to protect the people and economic resources, given the imminent arrival of Hurricane Oscar".

Friday's total blackout came after the Antonio Guiteras power plant in Matanzas - the largest on the island - went offline around 11:00 local time.

The communist president has blamed the decades-long US embargo for preventing much needed supplies and replacement parts from reaching Cuba.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez later echoed the president's words, posting on X that "if the embargo is lifted, there will be no blackouts. This way the US government could support the Cuban people... if it wanted to".

Cuba has also been hit this year by a drop in crucial fuel shipments from Venezuela.

On Friday, Cuban officials announced that all schools and non-essential activities, including nightclubs, were to close until Monday.

Non-essential workers were urged to stay home to safeguard electricity supply, and non-vital government services were suspended.

"This is crazy," Eloy Fon, an 80-year-old pensioner living in central Havana, told the AFP news agency.

"It shows the fragility of our electricity system... We have no reserves, there is nothing to sustain the country, we are living day to day."

Bárbara López, 47, a digital content creator, said she had already "barely been able to work for two days".

"It's the worst I've seen in 47 years," she said. "They've really messed up now... We have no power or mobile data."

Moscow had high hopes for Trump in 2016 - it's more cautious this time

BBC

Piece of advice for you - never buy a huge amount of champagne unless you’re absolutely certain it’s worth celebrating. In November 2016, Russian ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky was so excited by Donald Trump’s victory, and so sure that it would transform US-Russian relations, he splashed out on 132 bottles of bubbly down at the Duma, Russia’s parliament, and partied away (in his party offices) in front of the TV cameras. He wasn’t the only one celebrating. The day after Trump's surprise White House win, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state channel RT, tweeted her intention to drive around Moscow with an American flag in her car window. And I’ll never forget the moment a Russian official told me she had smoked a cigar and drunk a bottle of champagne (yes, MORE champagne) to toast Trump winning.

In Moscow, expectations were high that Trump would scrap sanctions against Russia; perhaps, even, recognise the Crimean Peninsula, annexed from Ukraine, as part of Russia. “The value of Trump was that he never preached on human rights in Russia,” explains Konstantin Remchukov, the owner and editor-in-chief of newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta. It didn’t take long for all that fizz to go flat. “Trump introduced the heaviest sanctions against Russia at that time,” recalls Remchukov. “By the end of his term, a lot of people were disappointed in his presidency." Which is why, eight years on - publicly at least - Russian officials are more cautious about the prospect of a second Trump term.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky in the State Duma

President Vladimir Putin has even come out and backed the Democratic Party candidate, although that "endorsement" was widely interpreted as a Kremlin joke (or Kremlin trolling). Putin claimed he liked Kamala Harris’s “infectious” laugh. But you don’t need to be a seasoned political pundit to understand that out on the campaign trail it’s what Trump has been saying, not Harris, that’s guaranteed to put a smile on Putin’s face. For instance, Trump’s criticism of the scale of US military assistance for Ukraine, his apparent reluctance to blame Putin for Russia’s full-scale invasion and, during the presidential debate, his refusal to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war. By contrast, Kamala Harris has argued that support for Ukraine is in America’s “strategic interest” and she has referred to Putin as “a murderous dictator”. Not that Russian state TV has been particularly complimentary about her either. A few weeks ago one of Russia’s most acerbic news anchors was completely dismissive of Harris’s political abilities. He suggested she would be better off hosting a TV cookery show.

There’s another possible outcome that may well suit the Kremlin - a super tight election, followed by a contested result. An America consumed by post-election chaos, confusion and confrontation would have less time to focus on foreign affairs, including the war in Ukraine. US-Russian relations soured under Barack Obama, grew worse under Donald Trump and, in the words of the recently departed Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, they are “falling apart” under Joe Biden. Washington lays the blame fully on Moscow. It was just eight months after Putin and Biden met for a summit in Geneva that the Kremlin leader ordered the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Not only did the Biden administration send a tsunami of sanctions Russia’s way, but US military aid has been crucial in helping Kyiv survive more than two-and-a-half years of Russia’s war. Amongst the advanced weaponry America has supplied Ukraine are Abrams tanks and HIMARS rocket systems. It’s hard to believe now that there was a time, not so long ago, when Russia and the US pledged to work as partners to strengthen global security. In the late 1980s Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev formed a geo-political double-act to slash their countries’ respective nuclear arsenals. If there was one thing Reagan seemed to enjoy as much as nuclear disarmament it was reciting Russian proverbs to Gorbachev in broken Russian (“Never buy 132 bottles of champagne unless you’re certain it’s worth celebrating” would have been a good one).

Getty Images Reagan with Gorbachev in 1987

In 1991 the First Ladies of the USSR and America, Raisa Gorbacheva and Barbara Bush, unveiled an unusual monument in Moscow - a mother duck with eight ducklings. It was a replica of a sculpture in Boston Public Gardens and was presented to Moscow as a symbol of friendship between Soviet and American children. It’s still popular with Muscovites today. Russians flock to Novodevichy Park to pose for photos with the bronze birds, although few visitors know the back story of superpower “duck diplomacy”.

Like US-Russian relations themselves, the ducks have taken a few knocks. On one occasion some of them were stolen and had to be replaced. It’s to the Moscow mallard and her ducklings I head to find out what Russians think of America and of the US election. “I want America to disappear,” says angry angler Igor who’s fishing in a nearby pond. “It has started so many wars in the world. The US was our enemy in Soviet times and it still is. It doesn’t matter who’s president.”

Getty Images

America as Russia’s eternal enemy - that’s a worldview often reflected here in the state media. Is Igor so angry because he gets his news from Russian TV? Or perhaps it’s because he hasn’t caught many fish. Most of the people I chat to here do not see America as an evil adversary. “I’m all for peace and friendship,” says Svetlana. “But my friend in America is scared to call me now. Maybe there’s no free speech there. Or, perhaps, it’s here in Russia that there’s no freedom of speech. I don’t know.” “Our countries and our two peoples should be friends,” says Nikita, “without wars and without competing to see who has more missiles. I prefer Trump. When he was president there weren’t any big wars.” Despite the differences between Russia and America there is one thing the two countries have in common - they have always had male presidents. Can Russians ever see that changing? “I think it would be great if a woman became president,” says Marina. “I would be happy to vote for a woman president here [in Russia]. I’m not saying it would be better or worse. But it would be different.”

In from the cold: New airports set to open up Greenland

BBC Currently only small planes can take off and land at Nuuk Airport

A new international airport will soon open in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, allowing larger aircraft to land for the first time - paving the way for direct flights from the US and Europe. It’s the first of three airport projects that officials hope will boost the local economy, by making the Arctic territory more accessible than ever before. Covered by an ice cap and sparsely populated, Greenland is a vast autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Its capital Nuuk, on the southwestern coast, is a small town of 18,000 residents. Modern apartment blocks and colourful wooden cottages look out over a wide sea fjord.

Sitting on a hillside above the city, small 35-seat propeller planes take off and land from a tarmac airstrip. Currently anyone wishing to fly overseas first has to take one of these aircraft 200 miles (319km) north to a remote former military airport at Kangerlussuaq, and then change to a larger plane. Built by the Americans during World World II, Kangerlussuaq is currently one of only two runways on Greenland long enough for big jets. The other is Narsarsuaq in the far south of the country, and that was also a former US military base. But from the end of November, large planes will be able to land at Nuuk for the first time, thanks to a new longer runway, and a sleek new terminal building.

Greenland has much to interest tourists

“I think it will be a big impact,” says Jens Lauridsen, the chief executive of operator Greenland Airports. “I’m sure we will see a lot of tourism, and we'll see a lot of change.” As I visit, diggers are shifting piles of rubble along the edge of the extended runway, and the finishing touches are being applied to the new terminal. From 28 November, direct flights to Nuuk will operate from Copenhagen, carrying more than 300 passengers. And next summer, United Airlines will begin flying from New York, as Nuuk becomes Greenland’s main travel hub. “We have been shut from the whole world, and now we're going to open to the world,” says one young Nuuk resident. “It's so exciting that we're going to have the opportunity to travel from here to another country.” In 2026, a second international airport will open in Greenland’s most popular tourist destination, the town of Ilulissat, 350 miles north of Nuuk. Ilulissat is renowned for the huge icebergs that float just off its coastline. A new regional airport, in Qaqartoq, the biggest town in the south of Greenland, will then follow. Another young Greenlander from Nuuk, Isak Finn, says he won’t miss having to change plans at Kangerlussuaq. “It takes a long time. You have to wait, and then if there's bad weather or not enough planes, you get stuck there. It’s so annoying.”

Jacob Nitter Sorensen, chief executive of national carrier Air Greenland, says that the new international airport in Nuuk is “going to be a big game changer for us”. “It’s going to shorten the travel time, and it's going to decrease the cost of producing the flight. Ticket prices are already lower, he says, and as demand grows, the airline hopes to add new European and North American routes, and potentially invest in new aircraft. But stiff competition is expected as bigger international airlines enter the market. “A flight from Europe to Nuuk is a little more than four hours,” says Jens Lauridsen. “From the US East Coast is also four hours. So we're placed right in the middle. There is a very, very big interest from all major carriers in Europe.” To make way for Nuuk International Airport’s longer runway, six million cubic meters of rock were blasted and leveled. The airport is also now equipped with advanced technology that allows planes to land in the town’s notoriously bad weather. Cold conditions and the short summer season have been a challenge for construction work. While the cost of obtaining explosives ballooned, after war broke out in Ukraine. The three airports are together costing more than $800m (£615m). This has been partly financed by the Danish, who stepped in with a sweetened loan package after interest from Chinese investors. “There were concerns about whether this type of investments should be in Chinese hands,” explains Javier Arnaut, who’s the head of Arctic social science at Greenland University. “Denmark offered more affordable and attractive rates for these loans.”

Air Greenland boss Jacob Nitter Sorensen describes Nuuk's new airport as a "game changer"

Initially there was public scepticism over costs and the environmental impact, says Mr Arnaut, but now there’s mostly support. Not everyone welcomes the noisy aeroplanes, however. “With big infrastructure it always divides people,” Nuuk resident Karen Motzfeldt tells the BBC. “There is always a group who is against, and always a group with who loves it. So it's the same in Nuuk.” “This is an airport for a modern Greenland,” she adds. “l look forward to having a shorter route for Copenhagen, Iceland, or maybe London Heathrow, who knows?” Greenland’s economy is largely dependent on the public sector and fishing, and most goods have to be imported, but there are efforts to diversify. Politicians hope this new infrastructure will be a shot in the arm for sectors like mining and tourism. “In all these cases, infrastructure is key. It makes everything easier,” says Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s Minister of Business, Trade and Mineral Resources, adding that, the ease of travel will also help the government grow bilateral relations. With larger cargo planes soon to be able to land in Nuuk, more goods can come in, and exports can more easily go out.

Inside a harbourside factory in the capital, a huge catch of prawns is being steamed, shelled and frozen. For its owner, Greenlandic company Polar Seafoods, which sells shrimps, crab and halibut, shorter and direct flights mean new business possibilities. “We’re looking into doing more fresh seafood,” says chairperson, Michael Binzer. Currently their products are exported in frozen form by container ship, destined for markets like China, Scandinavia and the UK. But the company has been trialling airfreight ahead of the new airport opening. However, it’s tourism that will be the big winner. Foreign visitors came to Greenland in record numbers last year, rising 36.5% from 2022, to more than 140,000. That’s still modest, but with more flight options it is projected to grow. “We are already in a tourist boom, and feeling how tourism can affect smaller places in a good way, but also negatively,” says Ms Nathanielsen, who’s overseeing a new tourism law that will be introduced this autumn. “We really want to try to welcome the tourists in the bigger cities, but we also want to spread them out more.”

Much excavation work has been carried out to extend Nuuk Airport's runway

NHS 'transformation' - and country reacts to Hoy's diagnosis

Wes Streeting's plan for an NHS "transformation" appears on several of Monday's front pages, with the Guardian reporting the health secretary wants to give every NHS patient access to a digital "passport" containing their health records - despite fears this may create a "target for hackers". Beneath that story the paper runs an image from Gaza, depicting mourners gathered around a row of bodies wrapped in white cloth - the latest victims of Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza.

The Times also picks up the story of Streeting's plan to "move care closer to home, digitise services and prevent illness" in its second lead - but the paper splashes on a "council housing revolution" Angela Rayner will mount with the help of almost £1bn from Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the upcoming Budget. Pictured on the front page is an emotional young mourner at a Hyde Park memorial for One Direction star Liam Payne.

The Daily Telegraph uses its second lead to report a different facet of Streeting's NHS plan, with a warning patients may soon be fined for missing appointments. In the lead slot is a story on the chancellor's proposed changes to inheritance tax in the upcoming Budget, with the paper citing "economists from across the political spectrum" who warn the change is unlikely to raise more money for government coffers.

The Daily Express also leads on the Budget, quoting a survey that suggests 84% of disabled pensioners will lose their winter fuel payments under Labour's cost-saving measures - and citing "calls" for the government to perform a U-turn ahead of the Budget. Below the masthead, the paper has an image of cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, saying the former Olympian has been "overwhelmed by love" since the announcement of his terminal cancer diagnosis.

Sir Chris is pictured again on the front page of the Daily Mail alongside his wife Sarra. The paper splashes on a "shock report" warning of the health risks faced by the hundreds of thousands of pupils and teachers who have been exposed daily to asbestos, a toxic material once used for insulation. The paper announces the launch of a new campaign "to strip the toxic material from all public buildings".

The Financial Times also carries an education story, with its second lead reporting that the costs of special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision are pushing rural councils to "breaking point". The paper reports that the end of a temporary change to accounting rules means two-thirds of English county and rural councils may have to declare "bankruptcy" by 2027. The paper leads with a story on "faltering confidence" that is hindering a global economic recovery.

Metro picks up again where the Mail left off, with a medal-heavy photo montage of Sir Chris whom it dubs "A hero of a human being". Below, the paper leads on research that suggests some 9 million people have fallen victim to an "epidemic" of online scams in the last year.

Sir Chris appears again on the Daily Mirror's front page, with the paper focusing on the scale of public support the cyclist has received since revealing his terminal diagnosis. For its lead story, the paper splashes on King' Charles's message to winners ahead of the Pride of Britain award - the paper's annual ceremony in conjunction with ITV that celebrates Britain's unsung heroes.

The i newspaper leads on reports of the poor state of the UK's air defence capability - a "gap" meaning the country "would struggle to protect itself from a missile attack", according to former defence ministers.

Meanwhile the Daily Star is looking ahead to Christmas already, with a story on "fun-sponge beetles" attacking Christmas trees and therefore "aiming to annihilate festive joy".. At the top of the front page, the paper pictures Jeremy Clarkson, who, according to the paper, was "days from death" with a recent heart scare.

UK's sick pay timebomb that risks a lost generation of workers

BBC

The UK is sick. It’s much sicker than other similar countries, and the situation is getting worse, snowballing into a health, social, medical, economic, and potential budgetary crisis. We are heading to an all-time record for health-related benefits, according to recent forecasts, and the Treasury is worried. The rise in the bill for working-age health-related benefits has surged from £36bn before the pandemic to £48bn in the last financial year, and the official Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast is that it will reach £63bn per year in the next four years, with all these numbers accounting for inflation. The big fear is that this could lead to a post-pandemic cohort of younger workers who will permanently drop out of the labour market. New data shows that benefit claimants are trending younger, and suffering more with mental health problems. This has created a new set of problems for the state. And then with this, comes a more existential conundrum for Gen Z. What if a large swathe of this generation is permanently semi-detached from the jobs market? Economists call this “hysteresis”, where joblessness begets more of it. And could this same generation also be at the sharp end of the explosion of AI replacing a wide set of entry-level jobs - in call centres, retail, law, the financial and creative industries and much more. Britain’s biggest corporations are racing to implement effective AI solutions to handle everything from customer service to their marketing output. These transformations are happening more quickly than had been expected, affecting everyone from entry level front-line workers through to highly skilled professionals such as art workers, media planners and legal clerks. It will inevitably become a significant reality - perhaps the defining social and economic change over the course of this Parliament. On a new block of flats being built on the site of an old glass works next to the Birmingham HS2 terminus in Curzon Street, I meet some construction apprentices during a visit by the Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall. The apprentices acknowledge the challenge with their age cohort. Mohammed Khan, 23, and Elizabeth Allingham, 18, are both trainee bricklayers on much sought-after apprenticeships. Mr Khan says of his generation, who came of age in the pandemic: “All they've known is online or social media. Some people just choose not to work, or some people just don't know how to get out there and start looking for jobs, and talk to people”. Ms Allingham says these issues are an expected consequence of mental health worsening during successive lockdowns. “It did stop quite a few people working, but I think it's slowly getting better. Schemes like this can help motivate people, definitely, especially the part where you can earn while you learn,” she tells me.

Speaking to Liz Kendall in Birmingham I gleaned some insight into how Labour see themselves navigating concerns that are not new, but that pose tricky questions for a left-wing party. “There is clear evidence we are really struggling with health problems,” Kendall tells me. The solution, she says, is to “think differently” about what the benefit system and Job Centres are designed to do. But thinking differently will also require some very tough decisions at next week’s Budget and ahead of a related white paper on jobs. It will also mean extra demands made on employers, and Kendall has a particularly big ask of bosses regarding mental health. Businesses need to “look at flexibility in the workplace” and recognise this new employment reality means there are few potential workers with “no health problems and all the skills we need”. She is concerned not just at getting work for the 2.8 million who are inactive, but for a large group who are at risk of dropping out of the workforce. It is a picture of fragility of many millions of workers, that for some businesses begs questions about a lack of resilience in a younger generation. “I don't think £30bn extra spending on sickness and disability benefits is because people are feeling ‘a little bit bluesy’,” she tells me, a reference to the words of her predecessor Mel Stride.

Covid consequences

So there is a big and consequential question for the country, and for the new government. The pandemic affected the whole world in a broadly similar way, but why has this hit Britain more than any other similar economy? This is one of the big things the government is trying to answer. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank pointed out, claimant numbers of similar benefits in most similar countries with available data (Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the US) “has in fact slightly fallen over the same period”. France, Norway and Denmark saw modest increases with the latter at 13%, but in the UK, the increase in health-related benefit claimants is an astonishing 30%. The IFS’s deep dive on the claimant statistics reveals that claimants were younger and their claims increasingly focused on mental health. New awards made to under-40s more than doubled from 4,500 a month before the pandemic to 11,500 last year. Over the same time period, the percentage of all new awards primarily for mental health conditions went from 28% to 37%, an increase from 3,900 claims a month to 12,100 a month.

A separate report from the OBR this month showed that more than 1 in 13 of the British working-age population will be in receipt of incapacity benefits, another all-time high, reversing a steady decline in the early 2000s. However it is also the case that this has been largely driven over the past decade and a half by the raising of the state pension age for women in their early 60s. A quarter of a million new claimants are women aged 60-64. The Employment White Paper being worked on by Kendall will merge the national careers service with job centres. The point of this is to make work and jobs their primary function, rather than acting primarily as the means to prove qualification for benefits. A more personalised service would, for example, offer very different help for women in their 60s to what is offered for Gen Z. The stresses of Britain’s declining health has already been felt in job centres. At one in Sparkhill, Birmingham, front-of-house team leader Qamar Zaman greets jobseekers and explains how the pattern of claims has changed. “There’s a lot of mental health, depression and anxiety… It's presented by the claimant himself, who comes in and states ‘look I’ve got a health condition’ and provides a fit note. From there, we assess whether this customer needs to be seen weekly, or we can find a way of seeing him over time, and then he has to wait for a medical. Doctors then have to get involved… we have to find channels to help them."

With the problem deepening, Labour has a target to get the employment rate up to 80% from 75% right now, which means creating about two million more jobs. But how will it do this? Equalising the employment rate of older women with older men would bridge half that gap. And yet at the same time, small businesses might have to pay for higher National Insurance contributions and more generous sick pay, among other stronger workers’ rights brought in by Labour. Every answer to the tougher question about whether this sort of change requires more stick than carrot is for now parried by Kendall. Yes she wants that £63bn forecast cost of health related benefits to “come down”. But the government is focused on what it sees as the “win-win”. People returning to work will lower the benefit bill, increase tax revenue, raise employment, and help individuals with self esteem and mental health. Her predecessor, Mel Stride, said the same thing.

Mounting challenges

Take the “Youth Guarantee” to have everyone aged 18-21 earning or learning. Previous versions of this policy, especially those under Labour governments, have been accompanied with considerable subsidies especially to employers. There is no move on that just yet. And the Department for Work and Pensions has also inherited, from the last government, a change to Work Capability Assessments that could see a multi billion pound cut to benefit eligibility, affecting 450,000 people. They appear to be going ahead with this. “WCA needs to be reformed or replaced, it’s not working,” Kendall says. Anti-poverty campaigners and many Labour MPs would like the DWP to lift the two-child cap on benefits as a quick win against child poverty. The long-term cost of that would be £3bn a year. It is in this department that the most controversial cut has been handled. Ms Kendall says the point of means-testing the winter fuel payment is to focus help on the very poorest, including through increased take up of pension credits from around 880,000 people who don’t currently claim it. The big picture here is that money is tight and increasingly being soaked up into health-related claims. The government’s immediate Budget answer will be that part of the problem is a challenge in the NHS with long waits for appointments for mental health issues and back problems. More health funding could be earmarked to help unlock the inactivity puzzle. There has been a lot of joint work with the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who recently said that weight-loss jabs for obese people could be a productivity booster and lift people out of unemployment. Pilots of personalised employment support in hospitals and clinics have seen “dramatic results”. Streeting says the Department for Health and Social Care “is now an economic growth department”. Internal government analysis of new benefit claims by location suggests the rise in health-related claims correlates with the same post industrialised areas that were supposed to be the beneficiaries of levelling-up. Are these claims an expression of existing patterns of economic disconnection in another form? I pose a question to Kendall about the pattern of worker inactivity that I keep coming back to in my mind. What if this is not a post-pandemic unlucky generation? What if this is the start of a more fundamental shift of what were entry-level jobs away from young people, where the first rungs of the jobs ladder are being broken? Does this government have any sympathy with the Nobel Prize-winning AI experts or Silicon Valley billionaires who think more welfare support, even a universal basic income, is going to be necessary? “We will have to do things differently. We will use AI to free up the time of our work coaches so that they can focus on the people who most need support,” she says. The answer on solving a series of profound challenges, especially health-related inactivity, is not right now going to be more money going on benefit welfare payments. The government is in a race to get the inactive back into work, especially the pandemic generation, but without spending much up front. With huge technological transformations in the labour market around the corner, it is a race to avoid a permanent lost generation. Lead image: Getty Images

How hoax bomb threats are hurting air travel in India

AFP India is one of the fastest growing airline markets in the world

A dramatic and unprecedented surge in hoax bomb threats targeting Indian airlines is wreaking havoc on flight schedules, diverting planes and causing widespread disruptions. A video posted on social media last week showed passengers draped in woollens, walking down the icy ladder of an Air India plane into the frigid air of Iqaluit, a remote city in Canada. The 211 passengers on the Boeing 777, originally en route from Mumbai to Chicago, had been diverted early on 15 October due to a bomb threat. “We have been stuck at the airport since 5am with 200 passengers… We have no idea what’s happening or what we are supposed to do next… We are completely stranded,” Harit Sachdeva, a passenger, posted on social media. He praised the “kind airport staff” and alleged Air India was not doing enough to inform the passengers. Mr Sachdeva’s post captured the frustration and anxiety of passengers diverted to an unknown, remote destination. Hours later, a Canadian Air Force plane ended their ordeal by ferrying the stranded passengers to Chicago. Air India confirmed that the flight had been diverted to Iqaluit due to a "security threat posted online". The threat was false, mirroring scores of similar hoaxes targeting India’s airlines so far this year. Last week alone, there were at least 30 threats, resulting in diversions, cancellations and delays. In June, 41 airports received hoax bomb threats via email in a single day, prompting heightened security.

Getty Images A Frankfurt-bound Vistara plane was diverted to Turkey after a bomb threat in September

For context, between 2014 and 2017, authorities recorded 120 bomb hoax alerts at airports, with nearly half directed at Delhi and Mumbai, the country’s largest airports. This underscores the recurring nature of such threats in recent years, but this year’s surge has been sensational. "I am deeply concerned over the recent disruptive acts targeting Indian airlines, affecting domestic and international operations. Such mischievous and unlawful actions are a matter of grave concern. I condemn attempts to compromise safety, security and operational integrity of our aviation sector," federal aviation minister, Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu, said. So what is going on? Hoax bomb threats targeting airlines are often linked to malicious intent, attention-seeking, mental health issues, disruption of business operations or a prank, experts say. In 2018, a rash of jokes about bombs by airplane passengers in Indonesia led to flight disruptions. Even fliers have proved to be culprits: last year, a frustrated passenger tried to delay a SpiceJet flight by calling in a bomb hoax alert after missing his check-in at an airport in India's Bihar. These hoaxes end up wreaking havoc in one of the world’s fastest-growing aviation markets. More than 150 million passengers flew domestically in India last year, according to the civil aviation ministry. More than 3,000 flights arrive and depart every day in the country from more than 150 operational airports, including 33 international airports. Last week’s hoaxes peaked even as India's airlines carried a record 484,263 passengers on a single day, 14 October. India has just under 700 commercial passenger planes in service, and an order backlog of more than 1,700 planes, according to Rob Morris of Cirium, a consultancy. “All this would certainly render India the fastest growing commercial aircraft market today,” says Mr Morris.

Getty Images Bomb threats to airlines inconvenience passengers, as seen with these travellers boarding another Vistara flight from Turkey

Consider the consequences of a bomb threat alert on an airline. If the plane is in the air, it must divert to the nearest airport - like the Air India flight that diverted last week to Canada or a Frankfurt-bound Vistara flight from Mumbai that diverted to Turkey in September. Some involve fighter jets to be scrambled to escort planes reporting threats like it happened with a Heathrow-bound Air India flight over Norfolk and a Singapore-bound Air India Express last week. Once on the ground, passengers disembark, and all baggage and cargo and catering undergo thorough searches. This process can take several hours, and often the same crew cannot continue flying due to duty hour limitations. As a result, a replacement crew must be arranged, further prolonging the delay. “All of this has significant cost and network implications. Every diverted or delayed flight incurs substantial expenses, as grounded aircraft become money-losing assets. Delays lead to cancellations, and schedules are thrown off balance.” says Sidharath Kapur, an independent aviation expert. The dramatic rise in bomb threats on social media from anonymous accounts has complicated efforts to identify perpetrators, especially when emails are sent directly to airlines. The motives remain unclear, as does whether the threats come from a single individual, a group, or are simply copycat acts.

Getty Images More than 150 million passengers flew domestically in India last year

Risking death to smuggle alcohol past Somali Islamists

Mohamed Gabobe

Alcohol smuggler Guled Diriye is exhausted. He has just returned from his trip transporting contraband from the Ethiopian border. The 29-year-old slumps in his chair inside a colonial-style villa battered by years of fighting in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu - a city once known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. His sandals are covered in a potent orange dust – the residue from the desert. Mr Diriye’s dark eyes droop. The bags underneath speak of sleepless nights, the hours of tension traversing the dangerous roads and negotiating checkpoints with armed men. There is also the haunting memory of a fellow smuggler who was shot dead. “In this country, everyone is struggling and looking for a way out. And I found my way by making regular trips by road from the Ethiopian border to Mogadishu,” he says, explaining that smuggling was a means to support his family in a tough economic climate. The use and distribution of alcohol is illegal. Somalia’s laws must comply with Sharia (Islamic law), which forbids alcohol, but it has not stopped a growing demand, particularly among young people in many parts of the country. Mr Diriye’s neighbour Abshir, knowing he had fallen on hard times as a minibus-taxi driver, introduced him to the precarious world of alcohol smuggling. Rickshaws began to take over the city, pushing minibus drivers out of business. Both were childhood friends who had sheltered together in the same camp in 2009 during the height of the insurgency in Mogadishu - he was someone he could trust. “I began picking up boxes of alcohol at designated drop points in Mogadishu on [his] behalf and manoeuvring through the city and offloading them at designated locations. I didn’t realise it at first but this was my introduction into smuggling.” His involvement snowballed and Mr Diriye soon found himself navigating from the porous frontier with Ethiopia through Somalia’s rural hinterlands. He understands that he is breaking the law, but says the poverty that he finds himself in overrides that.

Somalia Police The police sometimes display bottles of the smuggled alcohol they have seized

The smuggling journey begins in Somali border towns such as Abudwak, Balanbale, Feerfeer and Galdogob. “Alcohol mostly originates in [Ethiopia’s capital] Addis Ababa and makes it to the city of Jigjiga, in the Ogaden region,” Mr Diriye says. The Ogaden or, as it is officially known in Ethiopia, the Somali region, shares a 1,600km (990-mile) border with Somalia. People on both sides share ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious ties. Once the alcohol is loaded, it is moved across the plains of the Somali region, and then smuggled across the border into Somalia. The border town of Galdogob is a major hub for trade and travel and has been hit hard by the flow of alcohol being smuggled from Ethiopia. Tribal elders have raised concerns over alcohol-related violence. “Alcohol causes so many evils [such as shootings],” says Sheikh Abdalla Mohamed Ali, the chairman of the local tribal council in the town. “[It] has been seized and destroyed on multiple occasions but it's like living next to a factory. It keeps putting out more and more, no matter what we do.” “Our town will always be in the midst of danger.” But for the smugglers the goal is to get the alcohol to the capital. “I drive a truck that transports vegetables, potatoes and other food products. When the truck is loaded up it’s filled with whatever I'm transporting, but I make the most money from the alcohol on board,” Mr Diriye says. Sometimes smugglers cross into Ethiopia to pick it up and at other times they receive it at the border. But whichever approach is taken, concealment is a crucial part of the profession as the risks from being caught are immense. “The loader’s job is the most important. Even more important than driving. He’s tasked with concealing the alcohol in our truck, with whatever we have on board. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to move around so easily — at least not without getting caught. “The average box of alcohol I move has 12 bottles. I usually transport anywhere from 50 to 70 boxes per trip. Usually half the load on my truck is filled with alcohol.” Large swathes of south-central Somalia are run by armed groups, where the government has little to no control: militias, bandits and the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab roam with impunity. “You can never travel on your own. It's too risky. Death is always on our minds,” Mr Diriye says. But that concern does not get in the way of business and there is a brutal pragmatism to thinking about the make-up of the team. “If I get wounded in an attack on the road, there has to be a back-up who can continue the journey. Everyone knows how to drive and knows the roads well.” Smugglers drive on dirt tracks and roads that have not been renovated in decades. Landmines and unexploded ordnances left behind from previous conflicts are also an issue. “I travel through at least eight to 10 towns to reach Mogadishu. But we don’t count the towns, we count the checkpoints and who mans them,” Mr Diriye says. They encounter various clan militias with different allegiances, either lingering in the distance or at roadblocks. “In case we get jammed up by a clan militia, if one of us is from the same clan as that militia or even a similar sub-clan, it increases our chances of survival. This is why all three of us are from different clans.”

Mohamed Gabobe The smugglers know the work is dangerous but see the job as a way out of poverty

He painfully recalls: “I’ve encountered numerous attacks. “One of the guys that works with me is relatively new. He replaced my last helper who was killed two years ago.” Mr Diriye had been driving in suffocating heat for six hours, so decided to nap, passing the wheel to his helper. “While I was sleeping in the back, I heard a large burst of gunfire that suddenly woke me up. We where surrounded by militiamen. My loader was screaming as he ducked in the passenger seat.” The substitute driver was killed. Once the commotion ceased, the loader and Mr Diriye picked up their dead colleague from the front seat and put him in the back of the truck. “I’ve never seen so much blood in my life. I had to wipe [it] away from the steering wheel and keep on driving. In all my years, nothing prepared me for what I saw that day.” As the pair drove off and got a good distance away from the militiamen, they pulled over to the side of the road and laid his body there. “We didn’t even have a sheet to cover his body, so I took off my long-sleeved buttoned-up shirt and made do with it. “It was a difficult decision but I knew I couldn't keep driving around smuggling alcohol with a dead body in the truck. We had a few government checkpoints up ahead and I couldn’t jeopardise my load or my freedom.” Two years later he says the guilt of leaving the body by the road still haunts him. He left behind a family, and Mr Diriye is unsure they even know the truth surrounding the circumstances of his disappearance and death. The danger that Mr Diriye faces is a recurring reality that many smugglers endure while illicitly ferrying alcohol from Ethiopia to Mogadishu, in order to quench the growing demand. Dahir Barre, 41 has a slim build with noticeable scars on his face that appear to tell a story on their own. He has a dark sense of humour and seems hardened by the near-decade of smuggling that enables him to bypass the possible consequences of what he does. “We face a lot of problems and dangers but still continue to drive despite the risk due to the poor living conditions in Somalia,” he says. Mr Barre has been smuggling alcohol from Ethiopia since 2015 and says lack of opportunity made worse by years of poverty pushed him into the dangerous trade. “I used to do security for a hotel in the city centre. I was armed with an AK-47 and was tasked with patting people down at the entrance.” Long nights in a dangerous job with meagre pay did not feel worth it. “One hundred dollars a month to stand in the way of potential car bombs that might plough through the front entrance sounds crazy now that I think of it.” One of the day-shift guards then put him in touch with friends from the border region and “I’ve been travelling these roads ever since”. “Back in 2015 I was only getting $150 per trip, compared to $350 per trip now and those days it was far riskier because al-Shabab had control over more territory, so you risked more encounters with them. “Even the bandits and militias were more dangerous back then. “If you had red or brown stained teeth, the militias would assume you chewed khat and smoked cigarettes, meaning you had money so they would abduct you and hold you for ransom. “As drivers we’ve been through a lot and the danger still exists,” Mr Barre says. If they are caught by al-Shabab fighters then it can be most dangerous since the armed group has a zero-tolerance policy on contraband, especially alcohol. The Islamist insurgents set the vehicle on fire and then detain the smugglers before fining them.

Mohamed Gabobe The route to Mogadishu is littered with checkpoints

Other armed men can be more easily bribed with money or liquor. It takes an average of seven to nine days to reach Mogadishu from the Ethiopian border. The smugglers then make their way to a pre-arranged drop-off point. “When we arrive, a group of men will show up and unload the regular food products into a separate truck, then leave. Afterwards, once that’s done, another individual will arrive, sometimes accompanied by more than one vehicle and they’ll take the boxes of alcohol,” Mr Diriye says. “But it doesn’t end there. Once it leaves my possession, it’ll pass through more hands, eventually ending up with local dealers in the city, who can be reached with a simple phone call.” Mr Diriye often thinks about his entry into smuggling, and where his future may lie. “My neighbour Abshir who initially got me into smuggling alcohol, stopped doing it himself three years ago.” Abshir offered his nephew, an unemployed graduate at the time, a job in smuggling. But he was killed on his third trip in an ambush by bandits. “Afterwards Abshir quit smuggling. He became religious and turned to God. I rarely see him any more.” Despite the dangers, Mr Diriye says it will not deter him. "Death is something that is predestined. I can't let fear come in the way of making a living. Sure, sometimes I want to throw the keys on the table and start afresh but it's not that easy. Temptation is everywhere and so is poverty." All names have been changed in this story.

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