Jelita with one of her cubs in November 2025

(The Center Square) – Not all the money spent by U.S. senators’ office expense accounts goes out the door. Millions of dollars circle right back – through checks payable to the senators themselves and some of their top staffers, an in-depth review of Congressional spending by The Center Square found.

Records showing what justified the payments is a closely-guarded Senate secret, with Congress itself blocking public access.

The Center Square found more than a dozen senators and staffers received payments to themselves topping $100,000 between 2021 and 2025. Four of them – three Democrats, one Republican – received $200,000 or more. The combined payments to eight senators and six high-ranking aides topped $2.2 million, spread out over more than 3,100 individual checks issued by the Senate.

The self reimbursements generated by those offices increased 60% across three years of full spending data examined, from $345,700 in 2022 to $554,000 in 2024.

Informed of the reimbursements, David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, said checks going straight to senators "should be outlawed immediately. 

"This is very problematic, and it's not something that I knew about," he added. "And there is less of a paper trail. There is less transparency. And there's so much temptation to inflate the numbers and to give yourself a little extra more when you're writing that check."

The senator who spent the most on self-payments in that period: Patty Murray, Washington Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Senate records show her office issued 184 payments to Murray totaling $235,115.

Second-most was U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who received 191 checks totaling $223,627. In third place, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, who received 242 checks totaling $202,039.

These weren’t paychecks, but expense reimbursements. That’s according to short descriptions listed among thousands of pages of Secretary of the Senate spending reports examined by The Center Square.

Senators don’t have to be paid this way. They could use government-issued travel cards, but these senators chose to pay travel expenses out of pocket, then be reimbursed.

And any Freedom of Information Act request attempting to obtain receipts, invoices, credit card statements or vouchers will be summarily rejected, Financial Clerk of the Senate Ted Ruckner explained. Congressional offices have discretion to release their own expense records, but The Center Square found only one sitting senator, James Risch, R-Idaho, willing to even discuss the payments or specific charges.

Payments in Risch’s name totaled nearly $177,000 over five years, ranking him sixth on the list among payees. But combined with payments to his chief of staff, Ryan White, his Senate office had the highest total amount in self-payments, with $313,627.

"The government does pay my expenses," Risch said. "The vast, vast, vast majority of that is my airfare back and forth to Boise every week."

High-priced commutes

Based on the Senate reports, the majority of the senators' and staffers' expenses were travel-related, with repeating labels such as "Senator Transportation," "Staff Transportation," "Per Diem" and "Incidentals."

Travel reimbursements are common in the corporate world, and workers at all levels of federal, state and local government often hand in receipts to be paid back.

But TPA president Williams said there’s a huge problem with U.S. senators being reimbursed that way: Congress exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act when the law passed in 1966, so the public can’t determine if any senators or their aides may be abusing privileges.

There's no way to know if anyone flew first class, paid to fly family members, rented fancy limousines, spent nights at luxury hotels, or dined at gourmet restaurants. There’s also no way to know if senators use personal credit cards that come with cash-back rewards or other incentives, allowing them to reap financial benefits from tens of thousands of dollars per year in credit card charges run up at taxpayers' expense.

And while the U.S. House provides expense disclosures in electronic form, the U.S. Senate only releases the information in PDF files, which makes the expenses difficult to analyze. Williams said that's by design.

"This is what they have chosen," he said. "They're not changing this because they don't want people to know. They don't want their constituents to know. They don't want taxpayers to know. They don't want the media to know what they're spending money on."

Risch, though, described stringent internal controls by the Senate Disbursing Office.

"My people tell me the Senate drives them crazy with sending stuff back, saying, ‘Hey, where is the receipt for this or where is the receipt for that,’ or that sort of thing," the Idaho senior senator said.

With the exception of Risch, attempts to learn more about senators' expenses were met with denials or silence. The Center Square asked seven offices that spent the most on direct payments to produce backup records for a small sample of expenses.

Patty Murray’s office was asked for records on eight of her 184 checks, including two separate payments for $4,022 each, issued July and August. Descriptions for both say "Senator Transportation" and describe round trips from her home on Whidbey Island to Washington, D.C., by way of Seattle–Tacoma International Airport.

A round-trip Delta flight from Seattle to Washington, with Uber rides both ways from Whidbey Island to the airport, costs about half that. But without backup records, it's impossible to know exactly why she was reimbursed $4,022.

Murray declined an interview request through her communications director, Amir Avin, who said in an email, "Respectfully, we are not going to dedicate staff time redacting and preparing receipts for the Center Square’s review."

He described the charges as standard reimbursements, and said Murray makes an effort to fly home each weekend to hear from constituents.

Disputing that the senator’s overall travel costs are higher than her colleagues' travel, Avin said Murray uses her own card to be more efficient. 

"The travel cards cannot be used for any other expenses that may arise while the Senators are on official travel," he said in an email. "Murray just does the reimbursement process because it’s a little more streamlined."

Not sharing anything

The second-highest spender in self-payments has even longer flights home. In one commute, Schatz, the senior senator from Hawaii, spent $10,000 over the Christmas holidays in 2024, described in records as "Senator Transportation / Washington DC to Honolulu and Return." 

That's at least five times what round-trip flights cost, but it's not clear if other expenses were included. His office didn't respond to inquiries. Approached by a reporter from The Center Square as he walked through the underground tunnel to the capitol, Schatz said, "If it’s ten thousand dollars, it’s ten thousand dollars."

Asked if he travels alone, he said yes.

"I’m not really comfortable, for security reasons, disclosing how I travel," he added.

Barrasso’s office likewise did not respond to a request for an interview and backup records for eight of his 242 checks.

The office of Ted Cruz, Republican from Texas, wouldn’t produce anything on the nearly $214,000 paid in 385 checks to Chief of Staff Carl Mica and former Chief of Staff Aaron Reitz, most of it labeled as transportation and per diem costs.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, and his office wouldn’t address spending by his regional director, Alfred Jenkins, who received 201 checks topping $186,000. Payment descriptions say it was "Staff Transportation" between North Charleston and other cities throughout the state.

The Center Square asked a spokeswoman for Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, for records on eight payments to the senator and eight to his chief of staff, Brent Robertson. Between the two, they received a combined 488 checks for a total $289,170. And both have taken heat from the news media for allegedly superfluous travel. 

In the senator’s case, in 2024 The Wichita Eagle reported Marshall spent taxpayer funds on flights and other travel expenses visiting a vacation home in Sarasota, Florida, near his grandchildren. The reimbursements reviewed by The Center Square show at least $9,100 in expenses for trips that included Sarasota. All were prior to the Eagle's stories

Last year, Politico questioned why a chief of staff for a Kansas senator charges taxpayers for commuting to Lynchburg, Va., where he lives. Records reviewed by The Center Square show more than $25,000 went to Robertson for travel involving Lynchburg. Again, those payments stopped before Politico posted the story.

"Sorry, our office is unable to give out those records," Marshall’s communications director, Payton Fuller, wrote in an email to The Center Square.

One senator answered questions

Risch said before The Center Square asked about it, he wasn’t aware he received direct checks. He said his staff puts the payments directly back into his credit card that pays for flights. He said the only perks he’s aware of are airline miles on his card and the government’s contracted rates with airlines.

"I can understand where I’d be at the top, because I do go home every weekend," he said. "I think Boise’s probably one of the most expensive places to get to."

His office wouldn’t provide any backup records either, though, saying that would take too much time to compile. He instead provided details about his largest single reimbursement – a $4,337 payment from September 2022, described as "Staff Transportation" in a Senate report.

In an email, Press Secretary Janessa Tolman said that paid for multiple flights and a car rental with fuel and tolls. There was a flight with a connector from Washington to Boise; a flight to McCall, Idaho; flights with connectors to and from Orlando to meet with NASA officials in Titusville, Florida,; and a flight with a connector from Boise to Washington.

The senator said he flies coach. The government won’t reimburse for a first-class ticket, though he said he does get complimentary upgrades sometimes from airline miles. 

Risch, a former Idaho governor, said he’s never seen any government agency as strict about reimbursements as the United States Senate.

"If you’re going to slip something past the rules of the senate, it would be a heavy, heavy lift," he said. "You have to give them receipts, and they will call back and say, 'Well, we don’t like this, we don’t like that.' And you’ve got to explain it to them. This is not something that’s cavalier."

Thousands of Germans have taken to the streets in recent days in support of a TV personality who has had fake sexualised images of her spread online, spurring a new "#MeToo" moment around online abuse.

Headlines in Germany have been dominated by the case of Collien Fernandes, 44, after she went public about faked pornographic images of her circulating on the internet. 

The case has sparked demonstrations across the country in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and elsewhere, with one of the key organisers being an activist collective called Vulver which says there are "glaring gaps" in legal protections for women online.

The government had already been planning to develop measures to deal with AI-generated deepfakes targeting women, but in the wake of the Fernandes case the justice ministry has promised legislation will be brought forward "very soon".

In an article in Der Spiegel magazine earlier this month, Fernandes said she suspected her ex-husband, 50-year-old actor and TV presenter Christian Ulmen, of using fake social media accounts in her name in order to spread fake sexualised images of her.

Ulmen denies any wrongdoing.

Some German media have said the case is the digital equivalent of that of Gisele Pelicot.

Pelicot became a global symbol in the fight against sexual violence after she waived her right to anonymity during the 2024 trial of her ex-husband and dozens of strangers who raped her while she was unconscious.

- 'Offenders' paradise' -

Fernandes said she has been suffering online harassment for years because of the material spread about her online but initially had no suspicions as to who might be behind it.

She filed a complaint against persons unknown in 2024, but the resulting investigation was shelved last June.

On Friday prosecutors announced they were opening a probe into Ulmen after evaluating Spiegel's reporting.

Fernandes has also filed a complaint in Spain, where she and Ulmen lived and which has stricter laws concerning violence against women.

She has been vocal about what she says are the weaker protections for victims in Germany, calling it an "offenders' paradise".

The justice ministry has admitted that German law is "lagging behind technological developments in this area" and that this would be addressed in its upcoming proposals.

The head of the German judges' union, Sven Rebehn, told the Rheinische Post newspaper that a "glaring lack of personnel" was also hindering more prosecutions.

- Digital violence -

On Thursday Fernandes addressed a rally in Hamburg which drew around 17,000 people demanding tougher action from the government.

She spoke to the crowd wearing a bullet-proof vest due to death threats.

"Some men -- and it's only men -- want to kill me," she said, close to tears.

On Sunday in Munich thousands braved the rain at another demonstration against deepfakes and sexual violence.

As well as supporting Fernandes, the protesters wanted to "stand with all other victims who don't have a voice", said Luna Sahling from the Young Greens, which organised the gathering.

"We want to show very clearly that we need real laws to protect women in particular from digital violence," she told AFP.

When asked by MPs about the issue of violence against women last week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that "a considerable part of this violence comes from migrant communities".

"A shameless populist lie," said Lydia Dietrich, director of a women's aid organisation in Munich who was also at Sunday's demonstration.

She accused Merz of "pandering to resentments" and of letting down those who are trying to effect real change on the issue.

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Italy's fertility rate fell to a new low of 1.14 children per woman in 2025 -- one of the lowest levels in the world, official data released on Tuesday showed.

The figures are the latest sign of Italy's rapidly ageing population.

The report from the Istat agency also showed that Italy has some of the highest life expectancy rates in Europe -- 81.7 years for men and 85.7 years for women.

Sociologist Chiara Saraceno told AFP women were putting off having children out of financial considerations because of "precarious conditions for young people".

"It is even harder for women because, in Italy, the division of domestic labour remains highly unequal.

"Nobody here says anymore that 'mums shouldn’t work', but they are expected to look after the children," she said.

Italy was one of the 10 countries with the lowest fertility rates along with China, Japan and Poland, according to a World Bank ranking using data from 2023.

Fertility rates in the EU as a whole fell from 1.57 children per woman in 2010 to 1.34 in 2024.

In Italy, the region with the lowest fertility rate was Sardinia with an average of 0.85 children per woman.

The size of the population in 2025 compared with 2024 remained broadly stable thanks to immigration.

The population of foreign residents grew by 188,000 while the Italian resident population was down by 189,000.

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In the stands of Beirut's largest stadium, it is the shouts of children displaced by war that echo, not the songs of fans. 

Beneath the concrete steps, more than a thousand people fleeing Israeli bombs on Lebanon sleep in tents, including around 50 wheelchair users and people with other mobility challenges. 

The vast sports complex, which opened its doors to displaced people during the previous war in 2024, is one of the few shelters able to take in people with disabilities, despite being poorly adapted to their needs. 

"If there's a strike, the people around me could run away and leave me behind; I can't get up and move if no one helps me," says 62-year-old Fatima Nazli, who uses a wheelchair. 

The state has not put in place any strategy to evacuate people with disabilities, said Sylvana Lakkis, head of the Lebanese Union for People with Physical Disabilities. 

"We submitted a policy and proposal" to the government, but "they never listened", she told AFP. 

"Every time there is a crisis, we, people with disabilities pay the price." 

Nazli and her husband had to leave their apartment in Beirut's southern suburbs, shelled by Israel since Lebanon was pulled into the Middle East war on March 2. 

They are living in a tent in a section of the stadium where she is forced to ask Red Cross volunteers for help to get down the flight of steps leading to the only bathrooms she can access. 

– 'Living in constant fear' –

The couple expects to move to another section of the stadium, where two access ramps and four accessible toilets were recently installed. 

In the meantime, Nazli and her husband, Abu Ali, who did not wish to give his full name, go back to their apartment from time to time to take a shower and pick up clean clothes, gripped by fear because the neighbourhood "could be bombed at any moment" by the Israeli air force.

The Camille Chamoun Sports City, on the edge of Beirut's southern suburbs, has witnessed the twists and turns of Lebanon's troubled history. 

Destroyed by bombing during the Israeli invasion in 1982 and rebuilt after the end of the civil war in 1990, it has fallen into disrepair due to a lack of funds for its upkeep.

Football legend Pele once trod its turf, and international sporting competitions have been held there. 

But the stadium has also served as a warehouse for food supplies, and Hezbollah held the lavish funeral for its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel, there in September 2024. 

– 'An ordeal' –

"This place was not built to be lived in," says stadium director Naji Hammoud, who opened its doors "the next day" after the first evacuation warnings issued by the Israeli army in the southern suburbs in early March.

More than a million people have been displaced and Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,200 people, including 124 children, Lebanese authorities say.

Many displaced people are sleeping on the streets of the capital or in their cars, and Hammoud wants the facility to take in "as many as possible".

Around the tents, workers are busy renovating the unsanitary restrooms, installing showers and connecting them to the water supply, and hooking up electricity.

"I can't wash myself on my own, I need help," explains Khodr Salem, a shopkeeper from the south of the country, who has difficulty walking and uses a crutch because of an infection in his leg. 

"We lived like kings in our homes. Our life has become an ordeal," the old man says through tears, sitting on a mattress in his tent. 

For Lakkis, Lebanon doesn't have enough accessible shelters: the few schools able to receive people with disabilities fill up quickly.

Many displaced people therefore have to  find relatives who can host them or pay exorbitant rents to landlords, explains Fadi Al-Halabi, executive director in Lebanon of the Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network. 

"The international community must take into account the needs of people with disabilities" and allocate a share of the international aid budget to them, he said. 

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The presidential term of Niger's overthrown leader Mohamed Bazoum officially ends Thursday, but he faces little prospect of freedom from detention or even a trial, making what comes next uncertain. 

Bazoum, 66, was sworn in as president on April 2, 2021 after democratic elections in which he won 55 percent of the vote. 

He has been held in a wing of the presidential palace in Niamey with his wife since the junta led by general Abdourahamane Tiani seized power in the west African country on July 26, 2023.

Since being toppled he has refused to step down.

His lawyers argue that April 2 should no longer mark the formal end of his term in office, given he has not been allowed to carry out the role for nearly three years.

"His term was interrupted and did not resume. If Mr Bazoum returns to power tomorrow, the duration of his detention will not be taken into account in the exercise of his duties," Moussa Coulibaly, a member of a lawyers' collective representing Bazoum, told AFP.

Political researcher Valery Ntwali, who specialises in sub-Saharan coups d'etat, said that, based on Niger law, the deposed head of state had however "lost his legality since the constitution on which he was elected was suspended".

The junta halted the constitution and replaced it with a charter adopted in March last year that allows it to stay in power for another -- and renewable -- five years. No elections have been held since the coup.

It remains unclear which law prevails -- that of the military junta that took power by force, or the one in place before the putsch.

"There's no international authority imposing its view. Rather, there are national authorities who will negotiate with the junta and others that do not recognise it," Ntwali said.

- 'Failure' -

While Niger's junta -- like those in its neighbours and allies Burkina Faso and Mali -- has made sovereignty its watchword and has adopted a hostile stance towards some Western nations, it is not entirely isolated on the international stage.

It recently resumed contact with the United States on security cooperation, two years after forcing US soldiers involved in the anti-jihadist battle to leave Niger, while forging closer ties with Russia.

Ties remain cool with former colonial power France, which was swift to call for Bazoum's release, while relations with the European Union are similarly testy.

The European Parliament earlier this month adopted a resolution demanding the immediate release of Bazoum, prompting anger from the Sahelian juntas and demonstrations in both Niamey and to a smaller extent in Ouagadougou.

"It's a failure on the part of the international community, I don't know how we were unable to secure the release of this democratically elected president," French MEP Christophe Gomart, who initiated the resolution at the European Parliament, said.

"Europe carries weight in Africa, it gives money to a number of African countries; the European Union should have exerted pressure," said Gomart, a general and former commander of French special operations including in the Sahel.

The European Union helps fund development programmes and the battle against jihadists, who for years have waged violence in Sahelian countries, including regularly striking in Niger.

Bazoum's presidential immunity was lifted in 2024 but his lawyers believe it unlikely that the official end of his term in office will accelerate him being put on trial.

"For the junta, it's less a question of law than security: what matters to them is that president Bazoum serves as a human shield" in the event of a possible armed intervention, as was once weighed by west African countries, another of his lawyers Mohamed Seydou Diagne said.

After nearly three years, Bazoum is "still held in the same place and in the same conditions" with no windows, doors or visits apart from his doctor, Coulibaly, the lawyer, said.

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Chinese authorities have banned entombing cremated remains in empty apartments, a practice that had gained popularity as mourners took advantage of the subdued housing market to dodge rising funeral costs.

"Bone-ash apartments" are units in often barely occupied residential complexes used by some families as resting places for their loved ones' remains.

They can be cheaper than a public cemetery plot, according to local media, as well as giving families more control over the site.

Acquiring one "kills two birds with one stone", Carsten Herrmann-Pillath from Germany's Erfurt University told AFP.

"It's an investment and eases the (process of carrying out) ritual practices."

But regulations that came into force on Monday explicitly ban "the use of residential dwellings specifically for the interment of ashes".

Bone-ash apartments are often identifiable by sealed-off windows or closed curtains, according to Chinese media reports.

A resident quoted by the Communist Party-run Legal Daily newspaper described peeking inside an apartment in his estate to see two candlesticks around a black box and a black-and-white portrait, a typical arrangement in China for commemorating the dead.

The ban comes days before the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, when families traditionally visit relatives' graves to tidy them and make ritual offerings.

It appears to be aimed at stopping developers and intermediaries who sell empty units "implicitly allowing their use for storing ashes", said Xinyi Wu, an anthropologist doctoral student at University of California, Irvine whose research has centred on the phenomenon.

- Blurred lines -

Human remains are only permitted to be buried in designated areas such as public cemeteries, according to the State Council, China's cabinet.

Demand for cemetery plots is increasing though, as China's population ages and deaths outpace births.

In 2020, funerals cost nearly half of the country's average annual salary, according to a survey by British insurance firm SunLife.

On Tuesday, China's market watchdog announced new rules to tackle fraud and a lack of transparency in funeral pricing to "reduce the burden of funerals on the masses".

The price of apartments meanwhile has continued to fall as consumer confidence remains low and a long-running property sector crisis lingers.

Debt and stalled construction have plagued leading firms since 2020, when curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation dramatically narrowed access to credit.

The practice of using flats as entombment sites is "problematic" to Chinese officials, UC Irvine's Wu said, as "it blurs the boundary between spaces for the living and spaces for the dead, which is administratively and culturally sensitive".

Many people on social media had expressed concerns about living near the dead, as well as their homes' resale value, she added.

Some online comments had a more humorous take.

"I want to rent a place with these bone-ash sorts above, below and to the left and right," read one. "There won't be any issues with neighbours."

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The average price of gasoline at US pumps has soared past $4 a gallon, the American Automobile Association (AAA) reported Tuesday, the highest for nearly four years on the back of the Iran war.

Spiking gas prices, up from less than $3 at the end of February, represent the latest bad news for President Donald Trump after he ordered strikes on Iran in a war that has threatened to drag down the global economy.

The average price was $4.018 per gallon as of Tuesday morning, the AAA data said on its website.

The last time prices were above $4 was in August 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

In mid-2022, prices soared to $5 a gallon in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Gas rices climbed to $5.88 per gallon in California -- the nation's most expensive gasoline market, the AAA said, followed by Hawaii ($5.45) and Washington ($5.34).

The price jump heightens the political risks for Trump several months before crucial midterm elections.

Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz to adversaries the United States and Israel or anyone doing business with them. 

The waterway is responsible for carrying around a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime.

Trump expressed confidence that a negotiated settlement would soon be reached but warned that if it was not -- or if Iran continued to block the strait to most sea traffic -- US forces would "blow up" Kharg Island and all of Iran's oil wells and electricity generation.

Oil prices slipped on Tuesday and stocks were mixed as investors weighed the report indicating he could make a deal even if the key strait remained closed.

Both main oil contracts fell almost one percent Tuesday but were both still well above $100 a barrel.

Surging prices at the pump will also shock car-loving Americans as the summer vacation season nears, with prices set to rise even higher because of the Iran conflict.

The US' primarily imports oil from Canada and Mexico, so it is not heavily impacted by any shortages in the Middle East caused by the turmoil, but prices have risen in any case because of globally connected energy markets.

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Fifty wildlife officers are now the devoted guardians of a newly-hatched great Indian bustard chick, born after a marathon road trip to provide a fertilised egg for the critically endangered bird, officials said Tuesday.

The birds, metre-tall desert dwellers, have plummeted in number over the past 25 years, with only around 150 believed to remain in the wild.

They are threatened by feral dogs, habitat encroachment, and collisions with power lines in areas now increasingly used for vast solar projects.

It was the first chick hatched succesfully in the state of Gujarat for a decade.

"The hatching... is rare and momentous occasion for our conservation efforts," Gujarat state conservation officer Dheeraj Mittal told AFP.

"But the real challenge begins now," he added. "We have teams of about 50 people monitoring the movement of the mother bird, around the clock."

The bird is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

India's Supreme Court had ordered power lines be buried in key breeding zones after bustards were killed in collisions.

The government, however, successfully petitioned to overturn the ruling, arguing it would hinder renewable energy targets.

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said a "jumpstart approach" was used to provide an egg for the three birds -- all female -- that made up the last population in the desert grasslands of Kutch.

Wildlife officers brought in an egg from its breeding programme on a 19-hour-long road trip using a handheld incubator, a nearly 800-kilometre (500-mile) journey, Yadav said.

Mittal said villagers had been asked to keep their cattle away.

"Our priority is to secure and protect the chick and its mother from other predators," he added.

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Iraq is home to ruins from some of the world's earliest civilisations, but teams led by international archaeologists have been forced by drone and rocket attacks in the Middle East war to cut short their expeditions.

Archaeologists told AFP that some of the projects interrupted by the war had been planned for years, but their teams have had to evacuate ancient sites since the United States and Israel attacked Iraq's neighbour, Iran.

Like other countries around the region, Iraq has become engulfed in the war, bringing to an abrupt end a period of nascent stability.

Iraq's precious archaeological sites, some dating back thousands of years, had for years faced threats ranging from climate change to successive conflicts.

Under normal circumstances, around 60 international teams would have been working on digs, a government official told AFP, but "all of these missions have left Iraq".

- 'Like a musician' -

Adelheid Otto of Germany's Ludwig-Maximilians-University started a long-planned dig at ancient Shuruppak, modern-day Tell Fara, on February 28.

That same day, Israel and the US launched strikes against Iran, sparking a war that has dragged Iraqi armed groups into the fray -- and cutting short Otto's work.

"We are Near Eastern archaeologists. So that is our work. That is like a musician who can no longer play an instrument," she told AFP.

Her team -- 18 German archaeologists, geologists, geophysical experts and students and seven Iraqi archaeologists -- initially stayed, reasoning travelling the 750 kilometres (460 miles) overland to Turkey was more dangerous.

"After some days we got kind of used to the rockets and drones above our heads," she said.

But Iraqi officials repeatedly urged them to depart, despite their discovery of ancient cuneiform tablets.

"It is impossible" to leave, she told authorities, insisting on staying extra days. "We have to document it. We have to take photos of everything."

"I told the students you have to work on all the small finds that we have," said Otto, 59, who boasts four decades of experience.

"You never know in any of these countries if you will ever return," she said.

- 'Guarantors' -

Many German institutions had just started relaxing travel restrictions to Iraq after a succession of conflicts, including the 2003 US-led invasion and the extremist Islamic State group.

Now, said Otto, archaeologists once again face being shut out.

Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage head Ali Obeid Shalgham told AFP Iraqi security forces were the sites' "true guarantors", especially as many are in remote rural areas.

He said the country is installing so-called protective "blue shields" -- nicknamed "the Red Cross of heritage" -- at archaeological sites.

The presence of foreign teams is "crucial", said Aqeel al-Mansrawi, an Iraqi landscape archaeologist.

"They work to protect heritage through conservation," he said.

He also emphasised the training Iraqi experts receive from foreigners, vital after years of isolation and war.

"We are always training a lot of Iraqi archaeologists and colleagues," said Otto, of the German institute.

"If it would be cut again, it would be terrible," she said. 

Foreign digs must work with Iraqi archaeologists, bringing their international expertise.

Shalgham said the arrangement allows Iraqis "to keep up with global advancements in new technologies and state-of-the-art equipment".

- 'Can't catch a break' -

Chicago University professor Augusta McMahon was in southern Iraq, working at the 6,000-year-old Nippur site, when the war began.

Having worked in the Middle East for almost four decades, this was her third evacuation. 

In 2024, she had to leave Iraq, while in 2011, she left Syria.

"We had pressure from a lot of different directions in terms of having to leave," she said, with her eight-person team departing under an Iraqi escort on March 10.

"It is quite frustrating, along with everything else, I feel terribly bad for [my] Iraqi colleagues," she said.

The war has also rippled beyond the immediate: an initiative to finally return the preeminent Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (RAI) conference to Iraq was cancelled by the University of Baghdad.

The city last attempted to host the event in 1990, according to the university, but it was scrapped with the Gulf War.

"Now 36 years later, they finally pulled themselves together... and its cancelled again," said McMahon, who was due to be presenting.

"It's like they can't catch a break."

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US and Israeli strikes hit military facilities in central Iran, damaged a major religious site in the northwest and provoked power cuts Tuesday, after President Donald Trump threatened to blow up the country's oil and energy plants.

Video footage verified by AFP showed at least two massive explosions and columns of smoke in Isfahan, central Iran. State media reported the Grand Husseiniya, a Shia religious centre, was damaged in Zanjan in the northwest.

Iran's Fars news agency reported explosions and power outages in parts of Tehran, where residents painted a picture of a city that is still clinging to some routine despite tight security.

"When I make it to a cafe table, even for a few minutes, I can almost believe the world hasn't ended," said Fatemeh, a 27-year-old dental assistant. "And then I go back home, back to the reality of living through war, with all its darkness and weight."

Oil prices were again climbing steadily as markets weighed Trump's confidence that Tehran would soon buckle to military pressure and accept a deal against fears that a possible US ground operation in the Gulf would further escalate the conflict.

Explosions were heard in Dubai and near Erbil airport in northern Iraq, and sirens sounded in Jerusalem and two people were wounded when air defence intervened to intercept a drone near the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, civil defence said.

Israeli emergency services said eight people received minor injuries from falling munitions fragments in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv. At least 10 blasts were heard in the Jerusalem area after missile launches from Iran were detected.

- 'Direct and malicious' -

Kuwait's state oil company reported that one of its giant crude old tankers was on fire in Dubair Port after a "direct and malicious Iranian attack while in the anchorage area".

Such attacks on oil tankers and export facilities have world markets jumpy, and all eyes were on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime channel out of the Gulf that Iran has effectively closed to all vessels except those it approves as not hailing from "hostile countries".

Two Chinese container ships were able to pass the strait, and Beijing expressed gratitude to "the relevant parties", a foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters.

World oil prices have surged overall since the US and Israel launched the war more than a month ago with strikes on Tehran that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but fall back every time Trump promises a rapid conclusion to the conflict, leaving markets jittery. 

"The fog of war continues," investment adviser Christopher Dembik of Pictet Asset Management said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump's partner in attacking Iran, said more than half of the operation's military aims had been achieved, but both leaders have refused to put a timeline on the war.

Israel's military also reported Tuesday that four more of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, where the war has spread and where they are battling Iranian-backed Hezbollah. 

Trump warned Monday that if Iran did not strike a war-ending deal -- which included reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane -- US forces would destroy all of Tehran's oil wells, its main Kharg Island export terminal, power systems and possibly desalination plants. 

But the Wall Street Journal reported he also told aides he was willing to end the war even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed -- likely strengthening Tehran's control on the waterway.

Refusing to back down, an Iranian parliamentary committee voted to impose tolls on vessels in the strait, the passageway through which one-fifth of global oil passes, and completely ban ships from the United States and Israel.

- Ready for talks? -

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, whose country is acting as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington, was to travel to Beijing for talks Tuesday on "global issues of mutual interest" with counterpart Wang Yi.

Dar hosted foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey in the Pakistani capital on Sunday, saying Islamabad was ready to host talks between the United States and Iran in the "coming days".

Trump has claimed to be in direct contact with senior Iranian figures, but has not identified the publicly and the Iranian foreign ministry said that Washington had  sent only a request to talk via intermediaries, including Pakistan.

burs/dc/ser