Exclusive: Sasan Ghandehari’s partnership with religious foundation raises questions about past dealings with republic criticised by Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage’s newest billionaire donor was in business with a powerful Iranian religious foundation under the authority of the country’s supreme leader, raising questions about his past dealings with the hardline republic.
Hossein Ghandehari, also called Sasan, was little known in the UK until he pledged to give millions to Reform UK this summer and donated £50,000 to Farage to cover the cost of two passes for the Davos World Economic Forum.
A UAE-led international operation targeting AI-enabled fraud and cross-border networks identified more than $39 billion in funds and cryptocurrencies linked to scam activity.
Operation Confrontation Ghost, which ran from 1 July to 30 September, brought together law enforcement agencies from 30 countries including the UAE, UK, China and France. It also convened INTERPOL, the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and 13 technology and financial sector companies including Huawei, Meta Platforms, TikTok and Mastercard.
Authorities exchanged more than 9,000 pieces of intelligence during the three month operation, which focused on AI-enabled fraud, digital financial crime and technology-facilitated sextortion which often targeted children and teenagers.
The initiative identified more than 15,500 victims and 3,500 suspects, resulting in more than 960 arrests and raids on 29 fraud centres. Investigators also shut down more than 570 social media accounts linked to fraudulent activity and identified 4,126 bank accounts associated with scams. Efforts to recover the identified assets remain ongoing.
Dana Marzouqi, DG of the International Affairs Bureau at the UAE Ministry of Interior, noted the Operation Confrontation Ghost “transformed international shared intelligence into coordinated operational impact”, adding it boosted “collective resilience for all participating nations”.
Concerns over the safety of increasingly autonomous AI systems have been mounting worldwide. AI chiefs including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google Deepmind co-founder Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk have called to slowdown the pace of frontier AI development and establish regulatory guardrails, warning AI driven-cyberattacks could pose an existential risk to humanity.
A OMS (Organização Mundial da Saúde) não foi informada de que a paciente com Ebola na Nigéria havia viajado para o Congo, afirmou o representante da organização na Nigéria nesta quinta-feira (22), após a Uganda declarar que ela havia visitado aquele país.
As autoridades de saúde nigerianas informaram que o primeiro caso de Ebola no país em mais de uma década envolveu uma mulher ugandense que havia chegado recentemente de uma viagem à Uganda.
O Ministério da Saúde da Uganda declarou que a mulher havia viajado para o Congo, onde o surto foi registrado pela primeira vez em meados de maio e, desde então, tornou-se o de propagação mais rápida já documentado.
Pavel Ursu, representante da OMS, disse em uma coletiva de imprensa online: “As informações fornecidas à OMS não incluíam viagens para outro país (além da Uganda)”.
“Segundo os dados que recebemos, a paciente retornou a Abuja no dia 3 de outubro, após ter permanecido na Uganda desde 16 de setembro”, acrescentou.
Ursu afirmou que, na Nigéria, o foco está agora na contenção da infecção viral e que a paciente permanece hospitalizada, apresentando melhora em seus marcadores bioquímicos.
Jean Kaseya, diretor da principal agência de saúde pública da África, disse à agência de notícias Reuters na quarta-feira (21) que a paciente — uma mulher nascida na Uganda e casada com um diplomata suíço — chegou a Abuja após passar duas semanas de férias na Uganda.
Patrick Otim, gerente de resposta a emergências da OMS, informou nesta quinta-feira que a origem da infecção ainda é desconhecida, enquanto as autoridades de saúde trabalham para reconstruir o histórico de viagens da paciente.
Um dos pontos sob investigação, segundo Otim, é quais unidades de saúde a mulher visitou em Abuja após o início dos sintomas e antes de sua hospitalização, ocorrida em 9 de outubro.
Nigéria registra primeiro caso de Ebola em mais de uma década
A Nigéria registrou na terça-feira (21) seu primeiro caso de Ebola em mais de uma década, tornando-se o quarto país africano, e o mais populoso até o momento, a ser atingido por um surto que possui a propagação mais rápida já documentada, segundo autoridades de saúde.
A cepa do vírus Ebola responsável por este surto mata cerca de metade dos infectados e não possui tratamento ou vacina aprovados.
Autoridades de saúde temem que a desinformação e a falta de recursos financeiros possam impulsionar uma propagação ainda maior, tanto dentro da região quanto além de suas fronteiras.
“O Ebola agora afeta três regiões da África. A situação exige uma ação urgente e liderança política no mais alto nível”, afirmou Jean Kaseya, diretor-geral dos Centros Africanos de Controle e Prevenção de Doenças, na rede social X, nesta quarta-feira (21).
Ebola is now affecting three regions of Africa. The situation demands urgent action and political leadership at the highest level. I have invited African Ministers of Health to an extraordinary virtual meeting on 28 October to strengthen our collective response. Five months of intense efforts have shown the determination of our countries and health workers. We must now accelerate our actions, reinforce coordination and mobilise the full strength of our continent. Africa has the expertise, the institutions and the capacity to defeat this outbreak. We must act together, and we must act now. Our priority is to stop transmission and save lives. Read more: https://t.co/aO9dtJ9uBI —————- Ebola touche désormais trois régions d’Afrique. La situation exige une action urgente et un engagement politique au plus haut niveau. J’ai convié les ministres africains de la Santé à une réunion virtuelle extraordinaire le 28 octobre pour renforcer notre riposte collective. Cinq mois d’efforts intenses témoignent de la détermination de nos pays et de nos professionnels de santé. Nous devons aujourd’hui accélérer notre action, renforcer la coordination et mobiliser toutes les forces de notre continent. L’Afrique dispose de l’expertise, des institutions et des capacités nécessaires pour vaincre cette épidémie. Nous devons agir ensemble, et agir maintenant. Notre priorité est de stopper la transmission et de sauver des vies. Lire le communiqué : https://t.co/Yf1EhyOpMA
O caso na Nigéria envolve uma mulher ugandense que chegou a Abuja, a capital do país, vinda de Adis Abeba, no dia 5 de outubro, informou Odianosen Ehiakhamen, do Centro de Controle de Doenças da Nigéria, à emissora Arise TV, na terça-feira (20).
Dois dias após sua chegada, ela começou a se sentir mal e, em 11 de outubro, buscou atendimento em um hospital particular em Abuja apresentando sintomas semelhantes aos da malária.
Contudo, seu quadro clínico não apresentou melhora, relatou Ehiakhamen.
Ao tomarem conhecimento de que ela havia viajado recentemente para Uganda — um dos países afetados pelo surto atual —, as autoridades de saúde realizaram um teste para Ebola no dia 19 de outubro.
O resultado positivo foi confirmado na terça-feira. As autoridades identificaram 44 pessoas que tiveram contato com ela, a maioria profissionais de saúde.
Entre elas está o marido da paciente, um cidadão suíço que reside com ela em Abuja.
As autoridades também estão rastreando os passageiros que viajaram com ela, embora não acreditem que ela apresentasse sintomas durante o voo.
O ministro da Saúde, Muhammad Ali Pate, declarou à emissora pública NTA que a mulher encontra-se isolada e recebendo tratamento.
Drone strikes in war-torn Sudan have killed hundreds in just three days. Most of the deaths were in West Kordofan state, including in an area contested with South Sudan, sparking fears of a spillover of the war.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) reportedly killed 41 people by striking a gathering of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) near Sudan’s southeastern border with Ethiopia in the Blue Nile state last Friday, October 16.
Later on Sunday, October 18, air defenses of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which heads the government, intercepted multiple suicide drones launched by the RSF. The drones targeted Upper Atbara and Setit dam complex in Gedaref state, and the Khashm El-Girba dam in neighboring Kassala.
The following day, on October 19, the RSF launched a wave of drones toward the airport in the national capital, Khartoum. While the air defenses intercepted most of them, one drone struck near the airport, killing four people, including three children.
The RSF took over the capital soon after starting this war in April 2023 against the SAF, the national army with which it had ruled as part of a military junta. The SAF regained control of the capital in March 2025.
In the meantime, later in October 2025, the RSF consolidated control over most of Sudan’s vast western region of Darfur, overrunning the SAF’s last holdout, El Fasher, and depopulating the city in a campaign deemed genocidal by a UN investigation.
After thus taking over Darfur – except for some SAF small holdouts on the border with Chad – the RSF has since been pushing eastward toward Khartoum. The Kordofan region in between, comprising three states, has since become a main front of this war.
Here, on October 18, in West Kordofan’s RSF-controlled town of al-Dabba, SAF struck a transport hub that was crowded on a market day, killing 80 people on the spot. 30 others later died in hospital. Another SAF drone also struck a market in the Al-Mujlad town.
Then, on the morning of October 19, SAF drones struck yet another market it suspected to be a source of fuel supply for the RSF, killing 153 people in Abyei, an area disputed by Sudan and South Sudan, ever since the latter seceded from the former in 2011.
This area in the Nile oil basin has over 4,000 UN peacekeepers and is jointly administered by Sudan and South Sudan. South Sudan’s government summoned Sudan’s ambassador to protest this strike.
A spillover of Sudan’s war into South Sudan could have dire consequences, especially since South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, is itself at a heightened risk of slipping back into its own disastrous civil war, which had claimed up to 400,000 lives between late 2013 and mid-2015.
The death count of the war in Sudan has been lost after exceeding 150,000 as early as June 2024. By the time the war entered its fourth year in April 2026, drone strikes had become the main driver of civilian casualties in this war, causing 80% of all the civilian deaths in the first four months of this year, killing at least 880 people.
“We are alarmed by the continued deadly drone strikes across the country that are killing civilians, including children, and that are disrupting essential services,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on October 19.
South African police said on Thursday they were investigating the killing of a foreign national by a crowd of about 50 people in the city of Durban.
The South African Police Service said in a post on X that the victim, thought to be in his late 30s or early 40s, was beaten by the crowd and declared dead at the scene A group of people had been marching in central Durban when two men appeared to break away and approach the victim, after which he was assaulted by about 50 people, police said
Police did not give the victim’s nationality and said the motive for the killing was unknown The incident follows months of anti-migrant protests in South Africa, some of which have turned violent and drawn international criticism, prompting thousands of migrants from elsewhere in Africa to flee affected communities.
Earlier this month, anti-migrant protests in Durban and Johannesburg’s Soweto township turned violent, with foreign-owned businesses looted and vehicles set alight after demonstrations against the processing of asylum applications at a refugee reception centre
Oil prices jumped to a five-month high on Thursday after attacks in Saudi Arabia and hits to tankers in the strait of Hormuz threatened further disruptions to the world’s crude supply.
Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose by 3% to hit $112 a barrel for first time since 18 May.
Polícia da República de Moçambique indica que 20.243 dos 21.369, cerca de 95% do total das detenções registadas entre 19 de setembro e 18 de outubro foram relacionados com infrações migratórias
Middle Eastern operators Zain Group and Ooredoo Group officially launched a joint venture tower platform after closing the first phase of the transaction by combining portfolios in their home markets.
The operators stated they have brought together the assets of Zain Kuwait and Ooredoo Qatar, comprising 4,000 towers in total.
They each own a 50% stake in the platform.
Announced in 2023, the tower company was pitched as the largest of its kind in the MENA region, with a combined value of $2.2 billion.
At the time, the companies and UAE-based TASC Towers stated the entity would comprise nearly 30,000 towers in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Tunisia, Iraq and Algeria.
In the latest statement, the companies highlighted how the transaction is expected to create significant value through greater scale, capital efficiencies and a dedicated operating model focused on passive telecoms infrastructure.
Additional towers are expected “to be integrated progressively into the platform”, subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
They further pointed to opportunities for operators to access infrastructure in a more capital-efficient manner while supporting the region’s digital infrastructure.
Zain CEO Bader Al-Kharafi said the first closing of the tower platform “reflects our shared strategy of creating focused, scalable and sustainable platforms”.
Ooredoo counterpart Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo added it is “now executing across every digital infrastructure segment identified in our strategy as we continue building a leading regional portfolio”.
On a gravel plain in northern Western Sahara, with no shade for miles, there is a heap of stones 54.5 meters (179 feet) long. Two rows of stone slabs run out from it like the arms of a V that never quite closes. Archaeologists call these rows “antennae”, and the monuments antennae tumuli (a tumulus […]
En una llanura de grava del norte del Sáhara Occidental, sin una sombra donde resguardarse, hay un montón de piedras de casi 55 metros de largo del que salen dos hileras de losas. Los arqueólogos las llaman «antenas», y de ahí el nombre de estos monumentos, túmulos con antenas. Son frecuentes en el país y […]
Nearly 200,000 Zimbabweans have fled South Africa amid a wave of anti-migrant protests and violence, Zimbabwe's government told its cabinet. Officials said the exodus reflects growing hostility toward foreign workers in South Africa's townships and cities.
Burkina Faso's ruling junta has restored the death penalty, years after the West African country abolished it. Human Rights Watch says the move sends a troubling signal to critics amid a widening crackdown on dissent under military rule.
Una fotografía de pasaporte está hecha para identificar a una persona, no para contar quién es. Diminuta y sobre un fondo blanco, verifica y aspira a eliminar cualquier ambigüedad. Sin embargo, es precisamente de esa paradoja, la distancia entre lo que muestra una imagen y lo que puede llegar a narrar, de donde parte Passports, el último libro de Keisha Scarville, (Nueva York, 1975) en el que el retrato de su padre, tomado a los dieciséis años, da pie a una exploración que desborda los límites de la fotografía original.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention issued an urgent call for international solidarity Wednesday, warning that the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola is spreading faster and across a wider geographic area than any previous outbreak of its kind.
The alert followed confirmation by Nigeria’s government on Tuesday of the country’s first case, a woman who arrived in the capital Abuja on an international flight from Uganda, who remains isolated under medical care while authorities work to contain any possible transmission.
Nigeria has become the fourth nation on the continent to report confirmed infections, joining the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Kenya.
Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, described the gravity of the moment in direct terms. “We cannot allow this outbreak to spread to more countries or continue for another year,” he said, stressing that the virus has now achieved the widest geographic reach in the history of the disease.
"This Ebola outbreak is no longer one country's fight."
Africa CDC Director General H.E. @Dr_JeanKaseya calls on every @_AfricanUnion Member State to detect early, trace every contact and protect health workers. On the 28th of October, he will be convening Africa's ministers of… https://t.co/7esmXLjk1N
The current episode stands as the second deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded worldwide, with more than 4,600 deaths across the region. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone, the toll has surpassed 4,205, a figure that underscores how deeply the epidemic has taken root there even as it extends into new territory.
Kaseya framed the response as inseparable from global security. “Every day of delay costs lives. Africa’s health security is global health security. Stopping Ebola in Africa today means protecting the world,” he said, adding that Nigeria has the agency’s total solidarity and that the outbreak must be defeated together.
Africa CDC had already anticipated the crisis. In May 2026 the specialized agency of the African Union declared a public health emergency of continental security, a warning that positioned the region’s institutions ahead of the current escalation. The agency has since begun mobilizing assistance toward Nigerian territory while reinforcing response operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya and Uganda.
Urgent Call for Funding
Kaseya directed his appeal beyond the continent, telling the international community what the response requires. “We need immediate and flexible funding, medical supplies, diagnostic tests, trained response personnel and stronger community surveillance,” he said.
The public health agency of the African Union has moved quickly to convert the appeal into action. On Wednesday it invited the region’s health ministers to a virtual meeting scheduled for October 28, where they will debate the spread of the virus and coordinate next steps. The gathering arrives less than a week after Nigeria’s first confirmed case, a timeline that reflects the urgency Kaseya has attached to the response.
Nigeria’s entry into the outbreak carries particular weight. The country is the most populous on the continent, and its capital’s connection to an international flight from Uganda raises questions about how far the virus may have traveled before detection. For now, the patient remains the single confirmed case in the country. But the presence of the disease in Abuja, rather than in a border community, changes the calculus for responders who must now trace contacts across a dense urban network. The woman’s isolation is one line of defense; the contact tracing around her is another, and both depend on the resources Africa CDC is struggling to assemble.
The outbreak’s trajectory since May has followed the pattern Kaseya warned about. Declared an emergency when still confined to a smaller footprint, it has now breached four national borders and shows no sign of slowing. The October 28 meeting of health ministers will test whether that warning has finally translated into the funding and supplies that African institutions have been requesting for months.
Nigeria se convirtió esta semana en el cuarto país afectado por el actual brote de ébola, el segundo más mortífero de la historia a nivel global, con más de 4.600 muertos.
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