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Children scarred by the war in Gaza are undergoing a therapy programme using virtual reality headsets that transport the youngsters to a world far away from the destruction around them.The VR therapy is aimed at improving the children’s psychological wellbeing, with operators saying it can achieve results more quickly than traditional therapy sessions.Inside a white tent pitched on a sandy patch of ground in Al-Zawayda, in central Gaza, excited chatter swelled as five boys roamed around a virtual world.The youngsters, one in a wheelchair and the others on plastic seats, turned their heads, exploring the new surroundings inside their goggles: a land of green gardens, tranquil beaches and safe cities.One boy reached out and clapped his hands together, as if swatting a fly. Another, smiling, with his hand held up in front of his face, reached out to touch the scenery.One said a dog was running towards him, and beckoned to it, calling out: “Come! Come!””I see birds,” the boy in the wheelchair told an operator, looking around.One of the operators delicately put the blue TechMed Gaza headset on 15-year-old Salah Abu Rukab, who sustained a head injury during the war, asking if he could see the VR properly as he adjusted the buckles.”We feel comfortable in it, we enjoy it, and through it we enter a garden, we enter spaces with animals and similar experiences,” the teenager told AFP.Asked by the operator what he saw, he replied: “It’s all trees. Nothing but trees, grass and flowers.”- ‘Positive results’ -Mental health supervisor Abdalla Abu Shamale explained there was more to the VR headsets than simply escape.”Through programmers, we are able to design games with therapeutic, preventive and developmental goals that help prepare the child or enable them to cope and manage their life more effectively,” he told AFP.”This method has proven its effectiveness over a full year of working with many children, including war-amputee children, injured children and those exposed to extremely traumatic events.”A fragile ceasefire in the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas has held since October 10.The World Health Organization says conflict-related injuries carry a mental health toll, and survivors struggle with trauma, loss and daily survival, while psychosocial services remain scarce in Gaza.Jonathan Crickx, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told AFP that around one million children, or in other words, “all children in the Gaza Strip, are in need of mental health and psychosocial support after two years of horrendous war”.The VR sessions rely on programmes specifically designed for traumatised children, taking into account their physical and psychological condition, and help them rebuild positive perceptions of the world.Abu Shamale said the children were “treated and accompanied through VR sessions, and when we integrated them into these techniques, they showed a very, very strong response and extremely positive results. “The speed of treatment, recovery and reaching stability using VR techniques was faster than in regular sessions. In regular sessions without VR, we usually need about 10 to 12 sessions, while with VR we can achieve results in just five to seven sessions,” he said.

A Kurdish militant picks his way along a switchback road in Iraq’s mountains before pulling over to alert his comrades in a nearby hidden bunker that they are about to have company.After calling from a phone dangling from a tree, he leads a team of AFP journalists into a bunker under the Qandil mountains, where they have been granted rare access to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rear base in northern Iraq.”A peace process doesn’t mean leaving the mountains,” says Serda Mazlum Gabar, a 47-year-old commander with her long, rust-coloured hair and unfailing smile.”Even if we leave, we will live the same way,” she added. “Nature doesn’t scare me, but I wouldn’t feel safe walking around a city, with its cars, smoke and traffic.”Answering a call from the group’s imprisoned founder Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK has taken historic steps in recent months towards ending its decades-old fight against Turkey that has claimed around 50,000 lives.The group formally renounced its armed struggle. Thirty of its fighters even burned their weapons in a symbolic move, although many fighters based in Qandil carried rifles during AFP’s visit.For decades, the PKK has found sanctuary in mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.Even if fighting has stopped, the guerrilla lifestyle won’t end. It will rather adapt to new “peaceful” ways, the commander said.”We were not forced into this life. We chose it,” she added.- ‘Not one place’ -At the entrance, a large fan is attached to a duct that runs into a concealed passage, ventilating fresh air to the hidden bunker.The tunnel then opens into a broader corridor where PKK members and commanders dressed in their traditional military dress –- olive green fatigues or a dusty-coloured sirwal and vest –- line up to greet visitors.The corridor branches out to several rooms, each serving a purpose. One, its entrance decorated with fresh plants and strings of lights, is quarters designated for women fighters.Iraq’s mountains have recently welcomed new arrivals — fighters who withdrew from Turkey to show the group’s commitment to the peace process.Among them is Vejin Dersim who joined the PKK at only 23 and had spent most of her time in southeastern Turkey.Now 34, she has withdrawn to Iraq’s mountains. “Leaving was very emotional. It is a very special place there, especially because we were closer to leader Apo,” she said, referring to Ocalan, who has been held in solitary confinement on Turkey’s Imrali island since 1999.Her comrade Devrim Palu, 47, joined the movement in 1999 and has recently returned to Iraq. “In our movement, it doesn’t matter where you are fighting, and one doesn’t stay in one place,” he said in a soft, low voice.Today is the time for change, he said.He added that the PKK is capable of changing the nature of the conflict and transition from war to peaceful engagement.- ‘Eyes closed’ -Over decades, the PKK — still formally designated a “terrorist group” by the United States and the European Union — has gone through several periods  of peace talks with Turkey.They have gone through several seismic shifts from starting as a separatist movement to gradually becoming advocates for Kurdish equality in Turkey.It now says it is entering a new phase by pursuing a democratic path to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority.According to Devrim Palu, it is generally easier to be based in Iraq because the top commanders are closer, and news arrives firsthand.In the bunker that AFP visited, the walls are adorned with pictures of Ocalan and fallen fighters. In a kitchen, PKK members knead dough to make lahmajun, which is bread topped with meat. Others watched TV, drank tea or chatted in the corridors.One is a designated room to maintain communications with others in the surrounding mountains.Qandil has been home to the PKK for years -– a place that offered greater refuge than the mountains of southeast Turkey.At first, fighters hid in caves, then began carving and digging dozens of their own well-maintained bunkers. Qandil became their headquarters.”I could drive these mountains with my eyes closed,” one member said, skillfully navigating the rugged tracks at high speed in the pitch-dark night.

More than 120,000 people are expected to attend Pope Leo XIV’s mass in Beirut on Tuesday, the final day of his Lebanon visit and a chance to pay his respects at the site of the huge 2020 port explosion.The pontiff arrived from Turkey on Sunday on his inaugural visit abroad as pope and brought a message of hope, particularly to young people in Lebanon, whose faith in their beleaguered country has dwindled.His visit brought a welcome distraction to a land still reeling from a war with Israel last year, with many fearing a renewal of hostilities.Yasmine Chidiac, who was hoping to catch sight of Pope Leo on Monday, said the trip “has brought a smile back to our faces”.More than 120,000 people have registered to attend the mass near Beirut’s waterfront.From Monday evening, authorities will prohibit access to large parts of central Beirut where the mass is taking place, and will set up checkpoints.Before heading to the port, site of the massive explosion that devastated the capital and killed more than 220 people, the pope will visit a psychiatric hospital run by nuns in the capital.Pope Leo will then hold a silent prayer at the site of the blast.He will pay his respects to relatives of victims and survivors who are still fighting for justice.The August 4, 2020 disaster was one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions, and devastated swathes of the Lebanese capital.Authorities have said the blast was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser had been stored haphazardly for years after arriving by ship, despite repeated warnings to senior officials.The investigation has yet to wield results, as political figures have obstructed the work of the independent judge in charge of it.On Monday, the pontiff called on Christian and Muslim religious leaders gathered for an interreligious meeting to combat intolerance and violence.He also got a rock star welcome from thousands of Lebanese youth in Bkerke, the seat of the Maronite church, calling on them to build “a new future”.”You have the enthusiasm to change the course of history,” he told around 15,000 young Lebanese.

Dozens of oil tankers suspected of smuggling contraband crude for Russia and Iran have been using a beachside office in the tropical South Pacific to cover their tracks, an AFP analysis of sanctions data has revealed.Nestled next to a pizza shop in the far-flung Cook Islands is the modest headquarters of one of the fastest-growing shipping registries in the world.Without ever setting foot in the palm-fringed microstate, foreign ship owners can pay Maritime Cook Islands to sail under its star-studded flag.United States sanctions data identifies 20 tankers registered in the Cook Islands suspected of smuggling Russian and Iranian fuel between 2024 and 2025.A further 14 Cook Islands-flagged tankers are blacklisted on a separate database of British sanctions covering the same period.New Zealand, by far the Cook Islands’ closest diplomatic partner, said it was “alarming and infuriating” to see sanctions efforts undermined.”New Zealand continues to hold serious concerns about how the Cook Islands has been managing its shipping registry, which it has repeatedly expressed to the Cook Islands government over many years,” said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Winston Peters. “This is a completely unacceptable and untenable foreign policy divergence.” The self-governing Cook Islands remain in “free association” with former colonial ruler New Zealand, which is still involved in areas such as defence and foreign affairs.Maritime Cook Islands, which runs the shipping registry, denies failing to conduct proper checks or harbouring sanctioned vessels, saying any such ships are deleted from the registry.- Shadow fleet -Western sanctions aim to curb Iran and Russia cashing in on oil sales, limiting funding for Tehran’s nuclear programme or Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.”There are countries around the world that sign up to sanctions against Russia that wouldn’t allow these ships to fly their flag,” said Anton Moiseienko, an expert in sanctions and financial crime at Australian National University.”But there are countries that are a bit more lax about that,” he told AFP.”This is where the Cook Islands comes in.”A UAE-based shipping company was in April accused of smuggling “millions of dollars” of fuel on behalf of the Iranian military in the Gulf.The company owned tankers flagged in Barbados, Gambia, Panama and the Cook Islands, according to US sanctions.Ships like these are allegedly cogs in a maritime smuggling network known as the “shadow fleet”, skirting sanctions by passing themselves off as cargo vessels on legitimate business.They cover their tracks by registering in places such as the Cook Islands, where they can enjoy much less stringent oversight. Often the registries are unaware of the vessel’s true purpose.- ‘Fastest growing’ -Shipping journal Lloyd’s List last year crowned Maritime Cook Islands the “fastest growing registry” in the world.”There are a number of ships flying the Cook Islands flag that have been identified as part of the shadow fleet,” said Moiseienko.”When it comes to flag states — Cook Islands, Liberia and others — there isn’t really any international mechanism to enforce their obligations.”A few months later the registry was in the headlines again, when a tanker called the Eagle S damaged five underwater cables in the Baltic Sea.Finnish investigators would later suggest the Cook Islands-flagged vessel — allegedly part of Russia’s shadow fleet — had sabotaged the cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed. – Flags of convenience –  Shipping registries are also an easy way for revenue-starved Pacific island nations to bolster government coffers.But these registries, typically operated as private companies, have run into trouble.North Korean smuggling networks have long exploited shipping registries in South Pacific nations such as Palau, Niue and Tuvalu.Many, including the Cook Islands, do not publicly list their fees.But AFP obtained an estimate from Palau that suggested a 30,000 tonne oil tanker could expect to pay around US$10,000 in registration fees.Shipping registries allowing foreign-owned ships to fly under their banner are known as “flags of convenience”.”Many shadow fleet vessels use flags of convenience from countries that are either less inclined or unable to enforce Western sanctions,” notes a European Parliament briefing from 2024. The Cook Islands was one of the “top countries whose flags are used by shadow tankers transporting Russian crude oil”, according to the briefing.The Royal United Services Institute, a leading UK think tank, said Iran and North Korea had been exploiting small shipping registries for years. But shadow fleet activity had “expanded dramatically” after Russia was hit with crippling sanctions following its invasion of Ukraine, the institute said in September.- Diplomatic headaches -Maritime Cook Islands operates the shipping registry as a private company “under a delegation of authority” from the government, and is overseen by the nation’s transport regulator.Government revenue from shipping fees climbed more than 400 percent in the past five years, Cook Islands budget papers show, and were on track to total US$175,000 over the past financial year.Maritime Cook Islands said any vessels accused of dodging sanctions were swiftly deleted from its shipping registry.Sometimes suspicious vessels were deleted before they were named in sanctions, it said. “The Cook Islands register has never harboured sanctioned vessels.”Any sanctioned vessels are deleted.”And the registry denied that it failed to conduct appropriate checks before signing up dubious vessels.”The Cook Islands Registry has platforms that enable effective monitoring and detection of illicit activity.It said it was “not aware” of concerns about sanctions-busting or of any instances of abuse.