Oil and politics: What Trump’s ‘historic’ deal means for Venezuela

Since the last century, Venezuelan politics has been closely linked to the management of the country’s oil industry.

The debate for policymakers has centred on whether to liberalise or nationalise the sector, with the latter being the preferred option for the past 27 years.

Over time, a kind of “resource nationalism” has been instilled in the national psyche by the current governing party to consolidate its power and advance the interests of a regime that has used oil revenues to expand its political influence across the region, particularly in the Caribbean.

This all came to an abrupt end on January 3, 2026, when United States special forces abducted President Nicolas Maduro in a lightning military operation in Caracas and whisked him back to the US to stand trial on guns-and-drugs charges.

Since then, Maduro’s deputy and now interim President Delcy Rodriguez has aimed for privatisation of the oil industry in favour of US government interests.

Milestones reached during the past eight months include reforming the General Hydrocarbons Law, liberalising energy power plants and granting permissions, with prior US authorisation, to US and foreign oil companies – excluding any from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea – to participate in tapping Venezuela’s vast oil wealth in oil fields across the country.

The most significant development happened last week, when the two countries announced they had reached a deal granting US companies access to 65 billion barrels of crude oil reserves over the next 100 years.

Described by President Trump as the “biggest oil deal in world history”, this agreement not only marks a turning point in the governing party’s resource nationalism policy but also represents the culmination of the US government’s efforts to reinforce its dominance strategy and seize control of Venezuela’s oil and gas resources.

Furthermore, this deal is set to play a pivotal role in the Venezuelan political transition.

The US has developed a three-phase plan to promote stabilisation, recovery, and political reform since it removed Maduro from power. Now, all the parties involved must establish a roadmap to implement the deal and, at the same time, ensure that presidential elections are held in the country.

The signing of this oil deal is the starting gun for this complex process.

Venezuela oil deal
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks with Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez at Miraflores Palace on the day of the signing of an agreement between US oil major Chevron and government officials to expand the company’s operations in Caracas, Venezuela, on September 2, 2026 [Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters]

A win for the US – not so much for Venezuela

The precise terms of this oil deal have been the subject of discussion in specialised media outlets across the Western Hemisphere and beyond this week. Due to conflicting and sometimes contradictory accounts by US and Venezuelan authorities, the final conditions of the oil deal remain uncertain.

The Trump Administration has provided the most detailed information, confirming the transfer of 65 billion barrels of oil – 20 percent of Venezuela’s proven 303 billion barrels of oil – to US control for 100 years.

These reserves are distributed across 17 major oil fields, some of which had previously been granted to Chinese and Russian companies in concession. The fields will be operated by a private company called North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), in association with the US Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC). This entity will acquire a 35 percent stake in NABEP free of charge. Trump has referred to the latter to argue that this association will not charge American taxpayers or use their money.

Additionally, information from the US government suggests that the US has also secured the right to buy 20 percent of the current and future crude oil production from NABEP-controlled fields at production cost. That means production will not be subject to Venezuelan taxation, reducing the amount of revenue Venezuela will receive.

The OSC has the right of first refusal to buy the remaining 80 percent of production, or veto power if this is deemed necessary for reasons of national security. These clauses prioritise ensuring the US has access to Venezuelan oil reserves and meeting the requirements of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). These measures are undoubtedly intended to help the US achieve its national energy security goals.

The White House has also confirmed that NABEP is controlled by American citizens, which is a prerogative reserved by the US government to prevent foreign companies from managing it. In practice, this means that the US will control the operations, with NABEP merely acting as a vehicle for this control.

Another point relates to the royalties and taxes that NABEP must pay to the Venezuelan authorities. Top officials from both countries say the exploitation of the 17 oil fields will generate approximately $200bn dollars in tax payments following an expected $100bn investment. It is expected that this money will be managed by the current interim authorities to address the challenges of reconstruction after a long period of economic crisis.

However, there is uncertainty about the methodology used to determine this amount because the discretionary clauses granted to the US government make it impossible to calculate the exact amount of tax that will be paid.

Furthermore, the Venezuelan government has announced that the concession granted to NABEP will only be valid for 25 years – a figure far lower than the 100 years claimed by the US government. Notably, this type of contract has not featured in Venezuelan hydrocarbon legislation for half a century.


Too many obstacles?

Although the bilateral agreement could be a good way to attract investment to the Venezuelan oil sector, there remain multiple internal and external political, legal and economic obstacles to its successful implementation.

First, President Trump has so far failed to encourage major US oil companies, except Chevron, to enter the Venezuelan oil industry. This is because Venezuela lacks trustworthy and legitimate institutions, implying the absence of a stable legal framework for long-term production planning.

Setting aside the major oil companies such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, the only companies that appear as viable potential partners in the 17 oil fields seem to be small independent operators. This could lead to operational setbacks because the majors are the only ones with enough financial and technological clout to carry out long-term, large-scale investments in such ambitious projects.

The oil majors’ lack of confidence is also down to the absence of a legitimate government and the governing party’s continued dominance over the country’s main powers.

One of the biggest red flags surrounding the oil deal is the possibility that a government formed through free elections could in the future denounce or refuse to recognise its legitimacy, on the basis that these legal agreements are unconstitutional. Furthermore, the current governing party in Venezuela could potentially reject the terms of this deal if they feel they have sufficient strength to challenge US dominance again.

In addition to these concerns about the rule of law, it seems there is another relevant issue: The involvement of Alejandro Betancourt as president of NABEP’s operations.

Despite the Department of State’s attempts to clean up his past, Betancourt has an uncertain record due to multiple corruption cases brought against him in the past, including bribery, cost overruns and influence peddling in electricity projects overseen by the state-owned company PDVSA.

It is also important to note that a real, feasible increase in Venezuelan oil production will probably take several years, even in the best-case scenario. This contradicts the optimistic rhetoric used by senior Trump administration officials, who argue that this deal would increase local production almost immediately. Advancing at such a pace would require substantial investment, much of which is not currently guaranteed.

oil
(Al Jazeera)

A ‘hemispheric’ strategy

Approval of the oil deal is part of a broader “hemispheric” strategy adopted by the US government, which wants to regain lost influence in the region. This was outlined in the Trump administration’s 2025 National Security Strategy and subsequent foreign policy documents, which designate the Western Hemisphere as a strategic zone of influence for the US. In this context, the US government views Venezuela as a strategic geopolitical pivot due to its energy resources – particularly its substantial proven oil reserves – and its proximity to its territory.

Based on this, the US government considers controlling the Venezuelan oil reserves to be a matter of national security that is closely linked to maintaining its SPR. This stance is particularly pertinent given that Washington is preventing countries it considers to be its enemies, such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, from participating in the Venezuelan oil industry.

It is also worth noting that the US government is not hesitating to use its existing national tools to secure its hegemony across the Americas. Indeed, the US is taking economic measures, as well as military action and exerting political influence, to discourage other countries from doing business with its declared enemies, including China, and even more so from allowing them to participate in critical infrastructure projects across the region.


Venezuela’s political transition

Since its removal of Maduro from power in January, the US government has begun a three-phase plan to promote stabilisation, economic recovery and political reform in Venezuela. The ultimate objective is to hold free and democratic elections, which would be the first step towards legitimising the country’s authorities and reintegrating it into the international arena.

Before this week’s oil deal was announced, various opposition leaders had been devising strategies to participate in the eventual presidential elections. These actors believed that the electoral process was the first step in recovering sovereignty and establishing a long-term partnership with the US based on oil business.

However, the plan of Trump’s administration has run in a different direction and at its own pace. For Washington, securing access to and control of the Venezuelan oil reservoirs was the top priority before promoting any democratic transition in the country.

Although top US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have recently stated that the oil deal is limited to its own three-phase plan, the reality is that the US has made it clear that it will not allow any future government to change its terms and conditions.

Given the current situation, almost everyone involved in Venezuelan politics supports an oil deal that prioritises the participation of the US. However, opposition leaders such as Maria Corina Machado, currently the country’s most popular politician, are concerned about Delcy Rodriguez, an interim leader who lacks legitimacy, signing this deal.

Although Machado has not guaranteed that a future democratic government would refuse to recognise the deal’s terms, her position could spur the idea that Trump is motivated to keep Delcy Rodriguez in power rather than promote free elections to ensure the deal’s correct implementation.

These concerns have arisen in recent days after the US president publicly stated that Venezuela is not prepared for elections in the short term.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of the oil deal and its impact on the political transition in Venezuela will depend on the alignment of various internal and external political, legal, and economic factors.

For now, the US government holds the final say in determining the country’s future, to the detriment of its population, which has ultimately lost its right to self-determination.


Pentagon polygraphs dozens of US military staff over media leaks: Report

United States investigators have subjected about 50 members of the US military’s Joint Staff to lie detector tests following a series of unauthorised media leaks, according to a report by The New York Times (NYT).

The inquiry focused on whether civilian and military personnel leaked classified details to reporters, particularly concerning dwindling US ammunition reserves, the newspaper reported on Friday.

The polygraph examinations took place last month after news outlets published several reports highlighting severe drops in key weapons supplies, including long-range missiles and Patriot air defence interceptors. US officials had pushed back on these reports, insisting their weapons stockpiles were more than sufficient.

In a statement to the NYT, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell declined to address internal administrative or investigative actions directly, but emphasised that the department takes leaks of national security information “extremely seriously and investigates accordingly”.

“Securing classified information is critical to ensuring the security of the United States and of our troops deployed around the world,” Parnell added.

The Joint Staff, which consists of between 1,500 and 2,000 military and civilian staff, plays a key role in coordinating operational strategy, policy and war planning with combat commands globally.

Unprecedented move

Sources familiar with the inquiry told the NYT that the aggressive push was designed not only to identify the individuals behind the disclosures, but also to deter potential future leakers.

Legal and military experts say the scale of the investigation is unprecedented, as the top ranks of the US armed forces have never undergone widespread polygraph testing in modern history.

The move follows widespread reporting on how active military operations involving Iran have severely strained US weapon reserves, causing internal debates over the broader direction of the conflict.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed officials to crack down on unauthorised disclosures. In addition to calling for strict enforcement, Trump has publicly branded critical media coverage regarding munition shortages and the administration’s handling of the conflict in Iran as “treasonous”.

The persistent leaks have deepened an atmosphere of deep distrust inside the Pentagon, which current and former officials attribute to the management style of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.


Operating alongside a tight circle of close aides, Hegseth has ousted or blocked the promotions of at least 80 generals, admirals and senior officials during his tenure, the report said.

The Pentagon has launched multiple leak probes in response to media coverage of Hegseth’s leadership, even as he faced criticism for sharing sensitive operational details in a Signal group chat.

The internal tensions escalated further last month when the Defence Department fired the top editor and publisher of Stars and Stripes, an independent, government-funded military news publication.

Staff members said the move was direct retaliation for stories detailing deteriorating conditions on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Despite the mounting friction, Trump has backed Hegseth, publicly praising his performance as “fantastic”.

UAE pardons Egyptian dissident-poet al-Qaradawi facing 10 years in prison

Egyptian opposition activist and poet Abdul Rahman al-Qaradawi has been pardoned ⁠by United Arab Emirates (UAE) President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), according to state media.

Al-Qaradawi was arrested in Lebanon in December 2024 and extradited to the UAE in January 2025, facing charges of “engaging in activities ‌that ⁠aim to stir and undermine public security”.

The UAE’s state news agency WAM said on Friday that the country’s president issued a pardon for al-Qaradawi, days after he was sentenced by the Abu Dhabi Federal Court of Appeal’s Cybercrime Division on August 27 to 10 years in prison and fined him 200,000 dirhams ($55,000).

It is not known if Qaradawi has been released but WAM reported on Friday that “the necessary procedures have been taken to implement the presidential pardon”.


Al-Qaradawi is the son of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the Sunni Muslim world’s most influential religious scholars, who championed the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, and drew the ire of leaders in Egypt and some Gulf states.

His family warned in a statement in January 2025 that Lebanon would be endangering his life if it extradited him to any country that demands him.

Rights groups and ⁠UN experts had called for al-Qaradawi’s release, saying he ⁠had been arrested merely for ⁠exercising his right to free speech.

UK art show explores Muslim life, Europe’s Islamic history and Islamophobia

London, United Kingdom – Underneath a 536-year-old Islamic-inspired Spanish roof in east London hang three tapestries linking the city’s Muslim communities to Europe’s longstanding Muslim histories.

Among the works by artist Shahed Saleem, signs from the British Home Office’s 2013 “Hostile Environment” policy, urging undocumented immigrants to self-deport, are depicted along with images of Muslim shoppers in London’s diverse Queen’s Market and a portrait of Altab Ali, a young Bangladeshi man who was murdered in a city park in a racially motivated attack.

The collection, entitled I Was Born Here, is “a story of migration and of belonging”, said Saleem, who is also an architect, author and academic.

Sitting on pillows beneath the ceiling, he invited onlookers to view and discuss his exhibition.

Saleem contextualised the works against rising xenophobia, seen recently during the election wins of Reform UK, an anti-immigrant party, and racist riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

“While I was making the work, I was seeing the increasing racial politics, the hateful climate against … basically all people that represented migration and processes of immigration,” Saleem told Al Jazeera.

Tapestries of Muslim Belonging in East London [Courtesy of David Parry]
Shahed Saleem, an artist, architect and academic, sits under the Islamic-inspired Spanish roof which originated from the central Spanish town of Torrijos [Courtesy of David Parry]

‘The themes remain alive’

He was approached by the Victoria and Albert Museum team in 2024 to create an exhibit for their new Stratford location, the V&A East Storehouse, which responded to the local community and culture, and to the Torrijos ceiling. The elaborate carved and gilded wooden ceiling, which measures 6 by 6 metres (20 x 20 feet), originated from a palace in the central Spanish town of Torrijos.

What followed was hundreds of hours of building three enormous tapestries.

The first, named Home Office, depicts verbatim quotes from government signage displayed through diverse neighbourhoods in London. Back in 2013, intimidation tactics were evident in the language used: “106 ARRESTS LAST WEEK IN YOUR AREA”, “In the UK Illegally?” and “GO HOME OR FACE ARREST”. They are now woven on the fabric, against a backdrop of Alhambra patterns – Islamic geometric art rooted in medieval Spain.

A panelled tapestry, Altab Ali’s portrait, honours the textile worker who was stabbed to death in a racially motivated attack in 1978, when he was just 24.

There is also an image of the voyage of the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus’s vehicle, funded by the Spanish monarchy, marking the beginning of Spain’s colonisation of the so-called “New World” in 1492.

In the 1400s, despite centuries of religious plurality throughout Spain, the Spanish Inquisition began violently targeting Jewish and Muslim communities.

Tapestries of Muslim Belonging in East London [Courtesy of David Parry]
The exhibit depicts the diversity of Britain’s Muslim minority [Courtesy of David Parry]

“While this period is often celebrated as the dawn of Spain’s Golden Age, it also ushered in one of Europe’s most devastating programmes of religious and ethnic homogenisation,” said Tharik Hussain, historian, travel writer and author of Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History.

“Over the century that followed, and in those leading up to it, hundreds of thousands of European Muslims and Jews were forced into exile, compelled to convert or driven from their homes, while countless others endured persecution, imprisonment and death in an attempt to erase entire communities that had been indigenous to the peninsula for centuries.”

He said throughout history, “Christian Europe” has admired and at times preserved and celebrated the “artistic achievements of Europe’s Islamic civilisation”, but too often has marginalised, excluded and persecuted Muslim communities.

Reflecting on the exhibit, 26-year-old visitor Hana said, “Although the stories were rooted in the past, you can see that the themes remain alive in today’s public.

“There was something particularly ironic about [the roof] being presented alongside the tapestry’s representation of hostility and the uncomfortable realities of migration.”

She said the irony is in Europe’s longstanding fascination and orientalisation of Islamic art and people, alongside increasing Islamophobia. In the past year alone, Islamic art has sold for record-setting amounts in London’s auction houses, while anti-Muslim crimes terrorise communities.


For Saleem, histories are intentionally interwoven.

“Colonisation abroad and the creation of ethno-nationalism at home, these two components became constituent parts of the Modern European nation, which continues today,” he said.

Elsewhere in the exhibit, The Bell Hotel and the Britannia Hotel, both of which have been used to host asylum seekers, are depicted on a coat of arms. Last July, hundreds of far-right protesters attempted to storm The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, at least three of whom were found guilty of violent disorder this month.

Another tapestry is lively. A crowd of market-goers bustles throughout Newham’s Queen’s Market, an iconic publicly owned market that locals have recently fought to protect against corporate development.

“I felt that these are the people who are being very largely impacted by legislation and timing that we’re seeing,” Saleem told Al Jazeera. “But they also represent a multicultural [Britain] and a process of arriving, settling, creativity, labour and life, really. This piece shows the richness of the city which is threatened.”

I was born here: A defensive statement in the face of hostility

For Imran Haque, 25, the exhibit is more than just an artistic and political commentary – it speaks to him and his family’s personal histories.

“I Was Born Here manifests the very real, tangible and honest truth that I, and thousands more British Muslims, were, in fact, born here,” he told Al Jazeera. In the 1970s, Haque’s mother and her friends, as young Bangladeshi newcomers to London, shopped for fabrics at the very same marketplace that Saleem sourced his textiles from.

Underpinning Saleem’s work is an undermining of ethnonationalist thinking that positions Muslim immigrants as foreign and non-British.

The histories of the Alhambra and the roof itself nod to Islam’s place in Europe for centuries, while the title of the exhibit, I Was Born Here, satirises a common phrase that Muslim and non-white Londoners are often forced to repeat.

“It’s something that we would have to use to justify our existence here, in England, to counter racist attacks,” Saleem explained to Al Jazeera. “It’s part [of] a parody of having to continuously claim one’s space in the palace where you actually belong.”

The works are the first thing the eye catches when entering the first floor of the Storehouse, taking up an enormous amount of space with its bright colours and sheer size.

This significance is not lost on onlookers like Haque, who said its prominence in the gallery “has allowed me to feel free to occupy space with my history and story”.

“Muslims are not a strange or foreign concept,” he said. “The religion has been known on these shores from the 16th century, and the pieces serve as a reminder that faith has no borders.”

I Was Born Here, to Saleem, is not just a political commentary or a series of artworks – it is an artefact. “We’re in a historical moment at this point in time so the work acts as a marker of that moment, as well,” says Saleem, viewing the works as documenting an unprecedented wave of Islamophobia and anti-migrant sentiment, and a historical revisionism that positions Europe as solely Christian. “When you come back and read the work in 100 years’ time, it will speak of all these things.”

Alcaraz, Sabalenka into US Open last 16 as Williams sisters lose on return

Defending singles champions Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka have sailed into the last 16 of the US Open as tennis icons Serena and Venus Williams suffered an agonising defeat on their long-awaited return to Grand Slam doubles.

Alcaraz, coming off a four-month injury absence, beat China’s Wu Yibing 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 on Friday to book his place in the fourth round, while Sabalenka was similarly dominant in a 6-3, 6-4 defeat of Kamilla Rakhimova.

Alcaraz will face 20th-seeded American Tommy Paul for a place in the quarterfinals after Paul beat 15th-seeded Alexander Bublik 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-3.

“The way he plays is unbelievable, the rhythm he has on every shot – forehand, backhand,” Alcaraz said of Wu. “His balls skid a lot on the court and, for me, it’s really difficult to control sometimes.

“But I think I stayed there. I played aggressive. I played smart in the toughest moments.”

Wu recovered an early break in each of the first two sets, but Alcaraz pocketed both with breaks in the final games, and after saving a pair of break points in the first game of the third, the Spaniard rolled home.

“I think my level is really good,” he said. “I’ve got into the rhythm of the competition. I’m getting there.”


World number one Sabalenka did not face a break point in her dismissal of Rakhimova, firing 29 winners with 10 aces.

The numbers did not tell the whole tale of a match that saw 92nd-ranked Rakhimova challenge Sabalenka in a second-set slugfest.

Sabalenka was also unimpressed by the pervasive smell of marijuana – an increasingly common issue at the US Open – wafting down from the stands during her match.

“It’s a bit tricky to handle that smell while you’re trying to compete at your best,” said Sabalenka, who at one point complained to the umpire about the issue.

Sabalenka, who must repeat as champion to have a chance of remaining number one, next faces Taylor Townsend, the 96th-ranked American who beat 15th-seeded Russian Diana Shnaider 6-2, 6-7 (3/7), 6-3.


Williams sisters lose thriller

With Alcaraz and Sabalenka among the early starters, all eyes on the evening session were on the Williams sisters, partnering in a Grand Slam doubles event for the first time since 2022.

The duo returned to the US Open stage comes after 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena came out of a four-year retirement to play at Wimbledon.

But the most famous sister act in tennis – who won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together along with three Olympic gold medals – were beaten 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (10/7) by 14th seeds Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan and Australia’s Maya Joint in a marathon three-hour battle.

The Williams duo had shown flashes of their brilliant best after recovering from losing the first set to level the match after taking the second set on a tie-break.

Momentum and a raucous New York crowd appeared to be carrying them towards victory after they sprinted into a 5-0 lead in the third-set tie-break. But Chan and Joint fought back superbly to erase the deficit before clinching victory.

USA's Serena Williams (R) and her sister Venus Williams (2R) shake hands with Australia's Maya Joint (2L) and Taiwan's Chan Hao-ching (L) after losing their women's doubles first-round tennis match on day six of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City on September 4, 2026. (Photo by KENA BETANCUR / AFP)
Serena Williams, right, and her sister Venus shake hands with Chan Hao-ching, left, and Maya Joint after losing their women’s doubles first-round tennis match [Kena Betancu/AFP]

Pegula through, Muchova upset

In other singles action on Friday, third-seeded American Jessica Pegula, one of the players with a chance to knock Sabalenka off her No 1 perch, mounted a desperate fightback to beat Canadian Leylah Fernandez 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 in a battle of former finalists.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk beat Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-2 and American Emma Navarro upset seventh-seeded Czech Karolina Muchova 6-3, 7-5.

Back in the men’s draw, American 11th seed Frances Tiafoe was a comfortable 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 victor over Monaco’s Valentin Vacherot, seeded 22.

Tiafoe’s win earned him a last 16 showdown with Russian seventh seed Daniil Medvedev.

Medvedev was a similarly unfussy winner over French 26th seed Arthur Rinderknech, easing to a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win in just under two hours.

Unseeded former world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas – whose ranking has plummeted to 53 – meanwhile toppled 18th seed Jiri Lehecka, 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (7/3), 6-1 to reach the US Open fourth round for the first time.

Tsitsipas will face American eighth seed Ben Shelton in the last 16. Shelton defeated Canada’s Denis Shapovalov 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (5/7), 6-3, 6-4 in the late match.

Have scientists discovered a dark matter particle?

Deep beneath the Black Hills of South Dakota, US, in an old gold mine, a tank of liquid xenon has been used to produce an unusual particle reaction that may be a link to “dark matter”.

Scientists conducting an experiment there say they have found a single “unexplained particle interaction” that resembles a dark matter particle, though researchers have not called this a confirmed detection.

“Dark matter” and “dark energy” are substances whose presence humans have detected, but have yet to actually observe. This is the closest scientists have come to possibly uncovering the universe’s most elusive form of matter.

Here’s what we know.

What is dark matter?

Dark matter is an invisible substance that is believed to make up roughly 27 percent of all matter in the universe. Similarly, dark energy, thought to make up 68 percent of everything in the universe, is an invisible force that pushes galaxies apart and speeds up the expansion of the universe.

Ordinary matter, which is everything we can see and touch, accounts for only 5 percent of everything that exists.

Scientists found proof that this unseen matter exists in the universe by observing its gravitational pull, which affects how galaxies spin and how light bends around large clusters of it.

What it is made of, and what it looks like, has remained a mystery to scientists since its discovery nearly a century ago, as it cannot be detected directly because it does not reflect light or electromagnetic radiation.

The first clue to the existence of dark matter was discovered in the 1930s, when Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky noticed that the galaxies in the Coma Cluster were moving too fast for the cluster’s visible mass to hold them in place, suggesting something else had to be applying gravity. Similar observations were made over the following decades – all signs pointing to the presence of invisible matter, scientists say.

On Sunday, NASA, the US space agency, announced that it was launching a $4bn project, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will investigate both dark matter and dark energy.

An illustration shows NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in orbit, released on August 20, 2026. NASA/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY
An illustration shows NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in orbit [NASA via Reuters]

What have scientists found in the latest experiment?

Scientists say they have found a single unexplained particle interaction that resembles a dark matter particle, though they said this is not the same as directly detecting dark matter itself.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment was run by an international team of 250 scientists and engineers from 38 institutions. At its centre is an underground tank at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in the state of South Dakota, in the United States, which holds ultra-pure liquid xenon, surrounded by hundreds of light sensors.

The theory that the experiment was testing is this: if a hypothetical dark matter particle called a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle) reacts with the nucleus of a xenon atom, it would produce two flashes of light at a specific energy level.

After reviewing 220 days of data collected between March 2023 and April 2024, the LZ team discovered one such event on June 16, 2023.

Sam Eriksen, the lead of the study and a senior research associate at the University of Bristol, presented the findings on Tuesday at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan.

“We understand our detectors and the backgrounds so well,” Eriksen explained in a press release, “that even a single outstanding event, like the one we found, is important”.

Rick Gaitskell, the LZ spokesperson and a physicist at Brown University, said scientists “don’t want to get ahead” of themselves.

“We are not claiming to have seen dark matter,” he added.

How significant is this?

Physicists are calling this the most compelling signal LZ has produced so far, and it could be a signpost to the first real evidence of a particle that physics as we currently understand it has not been able to explain.

Theresa Fruth, a physicist at the University of Sydney who also worked on the study, told ABC News that the event is exciting because it has been re-tested several times and has held up. “This event just won’t go away even after many, many checks.”

At least five killed in Sudan’s South Kordofan in attack by rebel group

At least five people, including a child, have been killed and several others injured after a Sudanese rebel group attacked residential areas in the South Kordofan province, according to a medical organisation.

The Sudan Doctors Network, in a statement on Friday, accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) of carrying out the artillery attack in the town of Dilling.

The organisation said the heavy bombardment of civilian areas was a clear violation of international humanitarian law, resulting in civilian casualties and further worsening an already dire humanitarian situation.

“The Sudan Doctors Network calls on the international community to take immediate action to end these violations and exert meaningful pressure on the leadership of the SPLM-N (al-Hilu Faction) to cease attacks against civilians and residential areas,” it said.

The SPLM-N is a breakaway faction of the SPLM, the governing party of neighbouring South Sudan. Its leader, Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, has aligned his fighters with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and joined ranks with the RSF-led parallel government in Sudan.

Previous violence

In a separate statement issued just hours earlier, the medical group said SPLM-N forces attacked the areas of Debi and Luweri near the town of Kauda on Thursday, killing more than 21 people, including women and children.

The network said those attacks specifically targeted the Otoro tribe, a minority group in the Nuba Mountains.

The killings follow clashes earlier this year driven by land disputes, adding another layer of ethnic friction to the country’s wider civil war between the Sudanese army and the RSF.

The recent fighting came despite a ceasefire initiative backed by the RSF last month. Al-Hilu did not commit to the agreement, and his forces launched attacks on at least 10 Otoro villages, displacing thousands of civilians between August 20 and 26.

UN warning

The escalation coincides with broader warnings from a United Nations-backed independent fact-finding mission, which reported on Thursday that foreign involvement, including external supply networks, foreign personnel, and military drones, is driving the conflict and worsening violence against civilians nationwide.

Since fighting between the Sudanese military and the RSF broke out in April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced approximately 13 million, and pushed parts of the country into famine.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 34 million people, about two-thirds of Sudan’s population, now require urgent humanitarian assistance.


US imposes sanctions on Turkish bank, prompting legal threat

The United States Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on a Turkish bank and its subsidiaries over alleged ties to Iran, as Washington seeks to economically isolate Tehran.

The Treasury Department accused Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirketi (Golden Global Bank) on Friday of facilitating “tens of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force” and providing the Iranian government with banking access to move its funds internationally.

Washington alleged the bank “was established for the purpose of enabling Iran’s rahbar network [shadow banking system] to transfer oil revenues from China to Turkey” using gold and cash.

Golden Global Bank responded on Friday, saying it fulfilled all local and international banking compliance rules and would take legal action against the US-imposed sanctions.

There are no transactions conducted by Golden Global Bank that could substantiate the claims made by the US, the bank said in a news release.

“We will exercise all our rights of objection and legal recourse in the most effective manner and will take the necessary actions at the earliest against these allegations and the decision,” the Turkish bank added.

“Financial institutions continue to find out the hard way that we are serious about Operation Economic Outcast,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent in a statement published by the department on Friday.

The sanctions place the bank and its two subsidiaries on the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)’s Specially Designated Nationals list, cutting off access to the US financial system.

The bank said individuals and entities named in the OFAC decision “have never been and are not currently customers” of Golden Global.

US Ambassador to Turkiye Tom Barrack said on Saturday that it would be a mistake for Turkish officials “to read [the US’s] narrow measure as a judgement upon Turkiye”.

“The health of the Turkish financial system is not in question; the conduct of one institution was,” Barrack said on X.

Last week, the US took steps towards severing the UAE operations of Egypt’s second-largest bank from financial access after accusing it of processing transactions for companies linked to Iran’s shadow-banking system.

Bessent said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a G20 summit that Washington would likely announce a bank sanction this week and another next week, as it ramps up its economic campaign against Tehran.

‘I could not save the rest’: Hero nurse remembers Pakistan’s nursery fire

Islamabad, Pakistan – Staff nurse Razia Noreen was at a medicine cupboard on the nursery ward of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad’s largest public-sector hospital. She was two doors from the babies in her care, preparing the morning’s injections.

As she shut the cupboard door, she saw through the nursery’s glass panel a light too sharp and too red to be anything ordinary. She did not wait to understand what it was.

It was 6:38am on Wednesday, August 26. Elsewhere in the ward, her colleague, Sister Nasreen, was already running out, shouting for help.

At 56 seconds past 6:38am, according to security camera timestamps later logged by a government inquiry committee, Noreen rushed into the nursery.

Eight seconds later, she emerged carrying a baby. She tried to go back in. She could not. By 6:40am, the room was gone, swallowed by smoke so thick that the security cameras could no longer see through it.

Noreen was recalling this eight days later, in a plain office beside the hostel warden’s room at PIMS, dressed in a pale pink shalwar kameez, her dupatta loose over one shoulder.

“There was a proper blast,” she told Al Jazeera. “Everything turned to smoke.”

Fifteen newborns had been in that nursery. Fourteen died. The baby Noreen carried out was the only one who lived.

On Thursday, Noreen was given an award by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for her courage. But for the nurse, the trauma of that Wednesday morning was still raw.

Barely two hours after meeting the prime minister, she sat down and talked, at length, about what happened inside.

Rescue workers had to break the concrete grill and then a window to gain access to the ward [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Rescue workers had to break the concrete grill and then a window to gain access to the ward [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]

‘Save the babies’

Noreen had been on duty since 8pm the previous night, working a routine dawn medication round with Sister Nasreen, with less than two hours left before the end of her shift.

When she saw the light through the nursery glass, she says she did not stop to work out what it was.

“I just told my sister nurse, save the babies,” she told Al Jazeera. “I went in. I didn’t think about what would happen next.”

Noreen said the fire was coming out of the side of the air-conditioning unit facing her.

“The AC was right in front of me, and the fire was coming out of its side,” she said. “We don’t know what was happening behind it. That’s just what I saw.”

The government’s interim inquiry, submitted on August 28, states that the precise cause of the fire “is not yet conclusively established”, with evidence pointing variously to the air conditioner, an incubator or an electrical short circuit.

Inside the nursery, Noreen reached the nearest baby. There was no time to choose between 15. She carried the infant out and handed her to Dr Abdul Rehman, a doctor who had been inserting a feeding tube in the next room and emerged into the corridor moments after her. Then she turned back.

“I thought I’d get five, six, seven, eight more of them out,” she said. “But the fire was moving faster than I was.”

A second doctor, Dr Rimsha, who had been doing rounds nearby and saw the same light Noreen had, followed her in.

The two of them, and later Sister Nasreen, tried to crawl back through the smoke below the worst of the heat. A sudden loss of power plunged the room into darkness. They could not get through.

Noreen’s phone, left behind on the medication table when she ran in, sat inside the burned ward overnight. Hospital guards found it and returned it to her the next afternoon. Its case is still scorched and cracked.

Noreen, Dr Rimsha and Sister Nasreen instead moved to where a separate rescue team was lowering babies from an adjoining gynaecology ward. They stood there catching newborns and running them to the neonatal intensive care unit until the smoke became too thick to remain.

The government’s inquiry later found that the available evidence “does not support generalised allegations that front-line medical and nursing staff simply abandoned the newborns”.

Ask Noreen what a nurse is to a newborn separated from its mother, and she has one answer: its first mother.

“A mother who gives birth endures a pain no one else can stand in for,” she said. “But once a baby is in our hands, no one else is watching over it the way we are, checking their oxygen, their feeding, whether they’re breathing right, every two hours, whatever else is happening around us. That is why we are their first mother.”

Noreen's phone, left behind in the nursery during the fire. Hospital guards recovered it and returned it to her the next day. [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Noreen’s phone, left behind in the nursery during the fire. Hospital guards recovered it and returned it to her the next day [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]

‘I am very happy with the children’

Noreen, 38, has spent 21 years in government nursing, the last 17 of them at PIMS. She trained in Karachi right after school, at the age of 17, before a transfer brought her to PIMS in 2009. She has never married.

“Thank God, I am very happy with the children,” she said, when asked about it directly.

Born in Punjab’s city of Sahiwal, she was one of seven children. Her father, Victor John, was a pastor; he died when she was in the eighth grade. Two of her sisters have died; a third, also a nurse, lives in Lahore.

Her mother, 83, a retired government school teacher who is hard of hearing, lives in Lahore with one of Noreen’s brothers.

Noreen herself has lived in the PIMS staff hostel, across from the ward where she works, for most of the past two decades.

With her own phone trapped inside the burning ward, Noreen could not call her family herself.

Noreen’s niece happened to be staying with her that week. It was the niece the warden found, and who got word to the family in Lahore: Noreen was safe.

‘It’s always the two of us’

On the morning of the fire, Noreen and Sister Nasreen were the only two nurses on duty in a nursery holding 15 babies, backed by two doctors, one of them two rooms away. She says it was not an unusual night.

“Sometimes there are 20 babies, sometimes 25,” she said. “It’s always the two of us.”

Doctors on her ward work 36-hour shifts, she said, arriving at 8am and going off duty at 2pm the following day.

Handover between nursing shifts, checking each baby’s medication, feeding and vital signs, takes roughly 45 minutes given the numbers involved. The cost of drugs can also run to tens of thousands of Pakistani rupees per injection, all provided by PIMS to its patients.

“Sometimes we get a break, sometimes we don’t,” she said. “When the workload is heavy, even the water we carry with us goes back home untouched.”

No fire drill had been run in the nursery before August 26, not even after an earlier fire at a nearby PIMS hostel in July.

Asked what is required after an incident like this, she does not hesitate.

“We should all have proper drills. If a fire starts, everyone needs to already know what to do.”

She lists what should follow: extinguishers within reach, cross-ventilation to clear smoke, and a rehearsed evacuation route for babies who cannot walk or call out for help.

Broken windows at the PIMS building housing the nursery, hours after the August 26 fire. [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]
Broken windows at the PIMS building housing the nursery, hours after the August 26 fire [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]

‘Golden letters in history’

Until the fire, almost nobody outside her own ward knew her name, Noreen says.

“I have almost no presence in the main hospital,” she said. “Nobody there knows who I am. I work in the nursery, in my own department. I never imagined that saving one baby would take me this far.”

She travelled on Thursday to meet the prime minister in a car the government sent.

During the meeting, Sharif called her “the nation’s daughter” and said her act would be remembered “in golden letters” in Pakistan’s history.

He confirmed Noreen will formally receive the country’s Sitara-i-Khidmat (Star of Service) award at a ceremony on March 23, and handed her a cheque for 10 million Pakistani rupees ($36,000).

She used the meeting to say what she had already told her own colleagues privately.

“My fellow nurses work with just as much dedication,” she said. “This was a very heartbreaking incident.”

‘I haven’t slept since that day’

Eight days on, Noreen is unwell. She has had a fever of 102 to 103 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9C to 39.4C) on and off, and a cough she says came from smoke she breathed in from the fire that morning — a morning she will never forget. She takes an antibiotic and sleeping tablets at night. Neither has worked as it should.

“I haven’t slept, not since that day,” she said. “I take the tablets, I drink the cough syrup, but sleep doesn’t come. I close my eyes, and I open them again.”

Asked whether the same dawn shift keeps replaying in her mind, she did not need the question finished.

“The whole incident. The same babies. The mothers’ screams, and the babies’ screams, how they must have screamed. Those are the things that don’t let me sleep.”

She was signed off on medical rest only the day before this interview. Colleagues have been steadying her since.

“I would just start crying, sitting there,” she said. “They supported me like I was a child.”

But the nights are still hers alone.

“It comes back to the same thing,” she said. “When I’m in the hostel, when I’m alone, it all comes back.”

Nurse Razia Noreen meets Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on September 3, where he presented her with a cheque for 10 million Pakistani rupees ($36,000) and announced she will receive the Sitara-i-Khidmat civil award. [Handout/Pakistan Prime Minister's Office]
Nurse Razia Noreen meets Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad on September 3, 2026, where he presented her with a cheque for 10 million Pakistani rupees ($36,000) and announced she will receive the Sitara-i-Khidmat (Star of Service) civil award [Handout/Pakistan Prime Minister’s Office]

‘That, I regret’

The baby Noreen carried out — she hasn’t been named yet, according to the nurse — remains in the neonatal intensive care unit a week on.

Born preterm at just over a kilogramme (2 pounds, 3 ounces), the baby was already unwell before the fire. She remains critical.

Noreen met the baby’s parents for the first time the day before the meeting with the prime minister.

“She [the baby’s mother Asifa] hugged me and thanked me, and cried, and I cried with her,” Noreen said, “because for the rest of the children, my heart is still exactly where it was.”

She has told the mother the same thing she tells herself.

“I said, look, your child survived such a huge storm, she will survive what comes next, too. You pray, and I will pray.”

Asked what she would tell other nurses, Noreen urged them to work with honesty and without conditions.

“When you work somewhere with honesty, the reward comes eventually,” she said. “It came to me after 21 years. Work with the same loyalty. That is our real strength.”

Then, unprompted, she returned to the 14 babies who died.

“I do regret it,” she said. “I could not save the rest of the children. That, I regret.”

Blasts at Bolivian military base kill at least 10, injure dozens

Two explosions at a military facility in the Bolivian city of Viacha have killed at least 10 people and injured dozens of others, authorities said.

The blasts occurred on Friday in an area used to store pyrotechnic material, about 30km (18 miles) from the administrative capital, La Paz, Bolivia’s Ministry of Defence said.

Viacha health director Rita Nebraska told a local television station that between 10 and 15 people were believed to have been killed and 62 others were injured.

She said 14 of the wounded were transferred to hospitals in La Paz, including a girl with third-degree burns.

Fireworks were stored at the military facility, but the cause of the explosions remains under investigation, police spokesman Roger Roca said. He added that seven people were still missing.

Firefighters warned that a heat source remained at the site, Nebraska said, urging residents to stay at least 150 metres away because of the risk of another explosion.

Military personnel evacuating civilians near the site of an explosion at an army barracks in Viacha. [AFP]
Military personnel evacuating civilians near the site of an explosion at an army barracks in Viacha [AFP]

Police said dozens of nearby homes were damaged and that many civilians were injured by shattered glass.

About 50 civilians and six military personnel injured in the explosions “have been treated … by the different medical centres of Viacha”, Deputy Minister of Defence Ernesto Justiniano Urenda said in a statement.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the explosions, how the pyrotechnic material was stored and whether anyone was responsible, he added.

Footage posted on social media showed one of the explosions shattering windows in nearby buildings and sending debris into the air as thick black smoke rose from the facility.