Rwandan-backed M23 rebels and the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed a framework for peace in the east of the country.
The ceremony was held in Qatar, which along with the US and the African Union, has been trying to mediate an end to decades of conflict in the resource-rich region.
Earlier this year, the M23 captured the eastern region’s main cities of Goma and Bukavu. Previous attempts to secure peace have failed.
The US’s Africa envoy Massad Boulos said the document covered eight protocols and that most still required work. He also acknowledged that prisoner exchanges and ceasefire monitoring had been slower than originally hoped.
Kinshasa is demanding the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from its territory.
Kigali says this can happen once the Congo-based FDLR rebel militia is disbanded. It is largely made up of ethnic Hutus linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
The new framework also addresses humanitarian access, the return of displaced people and protection of the judiciary, Boulous is quoted as saying by the AFP agency.
It builds on a declaration of principles signed by the two sides in Doha in July, as well as a deal made in the same city last month on the monitoring of an eventual ceasefire.
Before that, in June, talks between Rwanda and DR Congo brokered by Washington resulted in the signing of a peace deal that was hailed by US President Donald Trump as a “a glorious triumph” but was swiftly violated by the warring parties.
The M23 is one of the biggest parties in this conflict, but was not directly involved in the US-brokered ceasefire deal. It has always favoured the talks mediated by Qatar, saying they will address “the root causes” of the conflict.
Decades of conflict escalated in January when M23 rebels seized control of large parts of eastern DR Congo including the regional capital, Goma, the city of Bukavu and two airports.
Since January, thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes.
After the loss of territory, the government in Kinshasa had turned to the US for help, reportedly offering access to critical minerals in exchange for security guarantees. Eastern DR Congo is rich in coltan and other resources vital to the global electronics industries.
Rwanda denies supporting the M23, despite overwhelming evidence, and insists its military presence in the region is a defensive measure against threats posed by armed groups like the FDLR.
Ely Samuel Parker, a Seneca leader and Civil War officer who served in President Ulysses S. Grant’s cabinet, was posthumously admitted Friday to the New York State Bar, an achievement denied him in life because he was Native American.
His admission inside a ceremonial courtroom in Buffalo 130 years after his death followed a yearslong effort by his descendants, who saw bitter irony in the fact that an important figure in U.S. history was never seen as a U.S. citizen, then a requirement to practice law.
“Today … we correct that injustice,” Melissa Parker Leonard, a great-great-great-grandniece of Parker’s, said to an audience that included robed judges from several New York courts. “We acknowledge that the failure was never his. It was the law itself.”
Parker was at Grant’s side for Gen. Robert E. Lee’s 1865 surrender at the Appomattox, Virginia, courthouse, where he was tasked with writing out the final terms that the generals signed. Grant later chose Parker, by then a brigadier general, to be commissioner of Indian Affairs, making him the first Native American to serve in the position.
He is also the first Native American to be posthumously admitted to the bar, said retired Judge John Browning, who worked on the application.
“Even a cursory review of his biography will show that Mr. Parker was not only clearly qualified for admission to the bar, but he in fact exemplified the best and highest ideals of the legal profession that the bar represents,” Judge Gerald Whalen, the presiding justice of the 4th Appellate Division, said before finalizing the admission.
Parker was born on the Seneca Nation of Indians’ Tonawanda reservation outside Buffalo in 1828. He was educated at a Baptist mission school, where he went by Ely Samuel Parker instead of his Seneca name, Hasanoanda, and studied law at a firm in Ellicottville, New York. His admission to the bar was denied at a time when only natural-born or naturalized citizens could be admitted.
Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924.
“Today is Ely’s triumph, but it is also all of ours, too,” said Lee Redeye, deputy counsel for the Seneca Nation of Indians, “for we stand victorious over the prejudice of the past.”
Unable to practice law, Parker became a civil engineer but continued to use his legal training to help the Seneca defend their land, partnering with attorney John Martindale to win victories in the New York Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court.
But he is most widely recognized for his Civil War service, first serving as Grant’s military secretary. Parker and Grant had met and become friends in Galena, Illinois, where Grant had a home and where Parker, then an engineer for the U.S. Treasury Department, was supervising construction of a federal building.
Parker died in 1895 and is buried in Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery.
“This moment is deeply personal for our family. It allows Ely to rest in the knowledge that he did his best,” Leonard said Friday, “and that his best changed the course of our history.”
RSF is burning and burying bodies near a university, mosque, camp for the displaced people, and hospital in el-Fasher, Yale University researchers say.
The government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have recaptured two territories in the North Kordofan state from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as the paramilitary group continues burning and burying bodies in Darfur’s el-Fasher to hide evidence of mass killings.
Footage circulating online this week showed army soldiers holding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades celebrating their takeovers of Kazqil and Um Dam Haj Ahmed in North Kordofan, the state where intense fighting is expected to rage over the coming weeks.
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Kazqil, which had fallen to the RSF in late October, is located south of el-Obeid, the strategic capital city of the state in central Sudan, which the paramilitary group is trying to capture from the army.
The fighting between the two rival generals leading the army and the paramilitary group, which started in April 2023, has increasingly turned east over the past weeks as the RSF solidifies control over the western parts of the war-torn country, now in its third year of a brutal civil war.
The fighting, fuelled by arms supplies from the region, has created what the United Nations has called the largest displacement crisis in the world. More than 12 million people have been forced from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed and injured. The UN has also confirmed starvation in parts of the country.
The RSF said last week it accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States and other mediators, with the announcement coming after an international outcry over atrocities committed by the paramilitary group in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan.
But the army has refused to agree to a ceasefire under the current battle lines, and both sides have continued to amass troops and equipment in the central parts of the country to engage in more battles.
The RSF launched an offensive against the Kordofan region at the same time as it took el-Fasher late last month, seizing the town of Bara in North Kordofan state as a crucial link between Darfur and central Sudan. The army had recaptured the town just two months earlier.
Satellite images reveal mass graves
More than two and a half weeks after fully capturing el-Fasher from the army, the RSF has continued to dispose of bodies in large numbers.
An analysis of satellite imagery released by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) on Friday exposed four new locations where paramilitary fighters are disposing of bodies in and around el-Fasher.
Activities consistent with body disposal are visible at the University of Alfashir, a structure on the edge of Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people, a neighbourhood near al-Hikma Mosque, and at Saudi Hospital, where RSF forces massacred hundreds.
The HRL could not conclude how many people the RSF had killed or how quickly, but it said the observations are alarming, given the fact that the whereabouts of many civilian residents remain unknown.
🚨ATROCITY ALERT🚨@HRL_YaleSPH has identified four new locations where the RSF is disposing of bodies in and around El Fasher. #KeepEyesonSudan
— Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at YSPH (@HRL_YaleSPH) November 14, 2025
Nathaniel Raymond, the lead researcher of that report, said an estimated 150,000 civilians are unaccounted for, and daily monitoring of city streets shows no activity in markets or water points, but only RSF patrols and many bodies.
“We can see them charred. So the question is, where are the people and where are the bodies coming from?” he told Al Jazeera.
Raymond said the evidence also includes numerous videos released by the RSF fighters themselves, who are “the most prodigious producers of evidence about their own crimes”.
This week, Deezer revealed it’s receiving around 50,000 AI-generated tracks daily, accounting for 34% of all tracks delivered to the platform each day.
Meanwhile, Spotify launched a pilot of its ‘Premium Platinum’ tier across five markets, including India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.
Elsewhere, Thomas Coesfeld will continue to lead BMG as CEO from January 2027 onward, when he assumes the role of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann.
Also this week, Sony reported that it generated $2.89 billion from recorded music and publishing in calendar Q3 2025, up 13.3% YoY.
Here are some of the biggest headlines from the past few days…
Fully AI-generated music now accounts for 34% of all tracks delivered to Deezer each day, according to new data released by the French streaming platform.
Deezer said on Wednesday (November 12) that it now receives over 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks daily.
The new stat marks a significant jump from the 30,000 figure it reported in September, the 20,000 it disclosed in April, and the 10,000 it disclosed in January when it first launched its proprietary AI detection tool… (MBW)
The music industry, particularly the major music companies, has been waiting patiently for Spotify to launch a so-called ‘Supremium’ tier – a subscription offering at a significantly higher price than its standard Premium product, with additional user perks. Well, Spotify isn’t calling its latest launch ‘Supremium’ – it’s calling it ‘Premium Platinum’ instead.
But it bears all of the hallmarks of what we were expecting. Here’s what’s happening: from November 13, Spotify is piloting a revamped subscription structure across five international markets, introducing three distinct Premium tiers designed “to better meet diverse user needs…” (MBW)
Thomas Coesfeld will continue to lead BMG as CEO from January 2027 onward, when he assumes the role of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann.
A BMG spokesperson confirmed on November 13 that the executive will assume the dual role when he succeeds Thomas Rabe as head of Bertelsmann after the latter executive’s contract expires on December 31, 2026, after 15 years.
News about Coesfeld’s appointment as Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann broke earlier that day. “I am very much looking forward to assuming responsibility for leading Bertelsmann,” said Coesfeld in a statement… (MBW)
Sony’s global music rights operation posted a strong quarter in calendar Q3, with streaming revenues in recorded music up 11.7% YoY, and streaming revenues in music publishing up by a whopping 24.8% YoY.
Across both recorded music and music publishing, the company’s operations generated USD $2.89 billion in the three months to end of September 2025.
That’s according to MBW’s calculations based on Sony Group Corp’s calendar Q3 2025 (fiscal Q2 2025) results, as announced by the Japanese firm on November 11. The $2.89 billion figure was up by 13.3% year-on-year (vs. calendar Q3 2024) at US dollar-converted consistent currency…. (MBW)
HYBE’s superfan platform Weverse is making significant inroads into China through strategic partnerships with two of the market’s digital giants: Tencent Music Entertainment and Alibaba.
The moves mark a pivotal moment in HYBE’s international expansion strategy, as it confirms that Weverse reached a record high of 11.6 million monthly active users (MAUs) globally in Q3 2025.
Partner message: MBW’s Weekly Round-up is supported by BMI, the global leader in performing rights management, dedicated to supporting songwriters, composers and publishers and championing the value of music. Find out more about BMIhere. Music Business Worldwide
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has confirmed it seized a tanker on Friday morning in the Strait of Hormuz.
The Talara tanker, sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands, was travelling from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Singapore.
The IRGC said it was found to be “in violation of the law by carrying unauthorised cargo”, but did not provide details of the violation. Reports suggest it was carrying high-sulphur gasoil.
Iran has periodically seized tankers and cargo ships travelling in and around the Persian Gulf, which is a key global shipping route for oil and liquefied natural gas.
It has often cited maritime violations such as smuggling or legal issues.
Maritime security company Ambrey said the Talara tanker had departed from Ajman in the United Arab Emirates and was heading south through the Strait of Hormuz when it was approached by three small boats, after which it made a “sudden course deviation”.
The US Navy’s 5th fleet, which patrols the region, said on Friday it was “actively monitoring the situation”.
“Commercial vessels are entitled to largely unimpeded rights of navigation and commerce on the high seas,” it added.
The company that manages the ship announced it had lost contact with the crew on Friday morning, while the tanker was 20 nautical miles off the coast of Sharjah’s Khorfakkan port.
The UK’s Maritime Trade Operations Centre said it had received reports on the incident and advised vessels “to transit with caution and report any suspicious activity”.
Iran has for years threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of all traded oil passes, in retaliation for Western sanctions and other actions against it.
Its threats ramped up during the 12-day conflict with Israel in June – during which Israel and United States carried out a bombing campaign on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Iran retaliated by striking Israel.
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Palestinians, especially those in the Gaza Strip, must be wary of networks that seek to remove them from their homes in line with Israeli interests, the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned.
The warning came a day after 153 Palestinians, who left Gaza without knowing their final destination and without proper paperwork, arrived in South Africa on board a flight from Kenya on Friday and were held up for 12 hours as authorities investigated the issue.
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South Africa, which is advancing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), gave the war-ravaged Palestinians 90-day visas.
The Palestinian ministry on Saturday expressed “deep appreciation” for the support from the South African authorities and people, as well as the decision to grant temporary visas for the people who it said departed from Ramon airport in southern Israel.
The Palestinian embassy in Pretoria said it is working to assist the travellers who have “endured over two years of Israeli genocidal war, killing, displacement, and destruction”.
But it warned that companies, unofficial entities and unregistered intermediaries inside Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory are trying to mislead Palestinians and incite them towards leaving.
“The ministry calls upon our people, especially our people in the Gaza Strip, to exercise caution and not fall prey to human trafficking, to merchants and companies of blood, and to agents of displacement,” it said.
According to South Africa’s Border Management Authority, 130 Palestinians ended up entering the country, while 23 were transferred from South Africa to other destinations from the airport itself. Most are expected to apply for asylum.
A South African humanitarian aid organisation, Gift of the Givers, said it was committed to accommodating the visitors during their stay.
Charity founder Imtiaz Sooliman told public broadcaster SABC that he did not know who had chartered the aircraft, and that the first plane carrying 176 Palestinians had landed in Johannesburg on October 28, with some of the passengers departing for other countries.
He said accounts from the Palestinian arrivals indicate that Israel appears to be removing people from Gaza and putting them on a plane without stamping their passports, in order to leave them stranded in third countries.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office have not reacted to the incident, but Israel and the United States have repeatedly pushed to move as many Palestinians out of Gaza as possible, holding negotiations with many countries over this.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military organisation in charge of the Gaza border crossings, was quoted as saying by Israeli media that it received approval from a third country to receive the Palestinians as part of an Israeli government policy allowing Gaza residents to leave. The third country was not named.
Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory, a book about Israel’s arms and surveillance industry, said the transit scheme could have been operating weeks or months before being noticed.
He told Al Jazeera from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta that there have been rumours about companies making such flights, which apparently “requires Israeli permission as well as other countries’ permissions”.
“This is the concept of people making money out of other people’s misery,” he said, also pointing to the murky operations and website of the company that ran the scheme.
“I see it as a form of ethnic cleansing,” Loewenstein said. “The issue is people providing [the transit] and the Israeli state facilitating it, a state where many ministers in the Israeli government, and frankly the Israeli public, want no Palestinians left in Gaza, and I fear this is part of that mission.”
Quinn’s Proposal Centers on Value Over Draft Position
A recent mock trade from Sam Quinn sparked discussion around the Charlotte Hornets’ future assets. In his scenario, Charlotte sends Collin Sexton and the 2027 first-round pick originally owned by the Dallas Mavericks back to Dallas. In exchange, the Hornets receive Max Christie and Daniel Gafford. Quinn views the return as a strong blend of youth, affordability, and immediate rotation help.
He explained the logic by noting that “Max Christie and Daniel Gafford are both solid, affordable role players.” He also argued that each could fetch a late first-round pick on the trade market. With that in mind, he questioned the value of holding multiple underwhelming selections instead of securing players who already fit Charlotte’s needs.
Why Charlotte Might Consider the Deal
Quinn believes Charlotte may prefer the players over a mid-to-late first-rounder. “Would the Hornets rather have, say, the 17th pick in 2027, or two good, affordable, and relatively young role players who fit them quite well?” he asked. He sees Gafford’s rim threat as an ideal complement to LaMelo Ball and views Christie as a needed point-of-attack defender.
Christie’s on-ball defense and growing offensive comfort make him an interesting target for a team trying to build a stronger guard and wing rotation. Gafford brings vertical spacing and rim protection, though Charlotte already has depth at center.
Why Dallas Might Say Yes
From the Mavericks’ standpoint, the logic is different but clear. Dallas has leaned on Cooper Flagg at point guard early in his rookie season, and that experiment has been rocky. Quinn wrote that they “can’t keep trying Cooper Flagg at point guard,” making Collin Sexton a natural fit. Sexton’s ability to create advantages and handle primary ball-handling duties could stabilize Dallas’ offense and help Flagg develop.
Taking back their 2027 pick also gives the Mavericks flexibility. If they control their own draft position, they can ease the pressure to chase wins and focus on long-term growth.
Why the Hornets May Decline
The idea is intriguing, but Charlotte may hesitate. Gafford does not have a clear role with Ryan Kalkbrenner viewed as the future at center. Moussa Diabate has also been dependable off the bench. Christie would help, but not enough to justify giving up Sexton and a first-round pick.
To make the deal worthwhile, Charlotte would likely need extra compensation, possibly in the form of second-round picks. As constructed, the trade seems unlikely to materialize.
For a long time, archaeologists believed that large buildings required large bosses. The idea was simple: only societies with strong hierarchies (kings, priests, and planners) could organize massive construction projects.
But recent discoveries in the Maya region are rewriting that script. Archaeologists previously pictured early Maya life as simple and small-scale: people making pottery, living in scattered villages from 1000 to 700 BCE. They thought big cities developed much later.
But that old story began to crack when archaeologists uncovered massive early structures at sites such as Ceibal, Cival, Yaxnohcah, and Xocnaceh. However, it was a site called Aguada Fénix, with a giant man-made monument from over 3,000 years ago, that truly shook things up. Suddenly, experts were rethinking the origins of early Mesoamerican civilizations.
Unlike the Olmec centers of San Lorenzo and La Venta, early Maya sites show no signs of top-down power. Yet people still came together to build big. Why?
Their story sparks fresh thinking on how modern societies might organize large-scale efforts, without deep divides or towering hierarchies.
A new study published in the journal Science Advances, by an international team led by a University of Arizona archaeologist, is suggesting Aguada Fénix wasn’t just a giant platform; it was a cosmic map. By studying how Aguada Fénix was built and used, researchers uncovered strong evidence that it was designed as a cosmogram, a symbolic map of the universe.
That means it wasn’t just ancient; it may have been one of the most spiritually important places in the entire Maya world.
Inomata and his colleagues first found clues of Aguada Fénix in 2017 using lidar, or light detection and ranging, which uses lasers from an airplane flown overhead to scan through jungle and forest to create 3D maps of humanmade structures.
Takeshi Inomata/University of Arizona
In 2020, archaeologists made an amazing discovery in Tabasco, Mexico. They found Aguada Fénix, a giant Maya platform nearly a mile long that dates back to 1000 BCE. It is now seen as the largest known monument in the Maya world. The story didn’t end there though. In the following years, researchers uncovered nearly 500 smaller, similar sites across southeastern Mexico.
In a recent dig at Aguada Fénix, archaeologists uncovered a cruciform pit. This cross-shaped cavity was filled with ceremonial treasures. These artifacts provide rare and powerful insights into the sacred rituals of the early Maya.
To determine the age of the cruciform pit, researchers used radiocarbon dating and ceramic fragments. Their first big find? Ceremonial jade axes.
The team excavated jade axes and ornaments that were likely left later, in return trips to the site, after builders made offerings to the cruciform cache and filled it in.
Takeshi Inomata/University of Arizona
“That told us that this was really an important ritual place,” explained Takeshi Inomata, Regents Professor of anthropology .
Digging deeper into the cruciform pit, archaeologists uncovered jade carvings, a crocodile, a bird, and possibly a woman in childbirth, echoes of myth and life. At the very bottom lay a smaller cross-shaped chamber, where colored soils – blue, green, and yellow – were carefully placed to match the four cardinal directions.
A jade artifact found in the cruciform likely represents a woman giving birth, researchers said.
Takeshi Inomata/University of Arizona
“We’ve known that there are specific colors associated with specific directions, and that’s important for all Mesoamerican people, even the Native American people in North America,” Inomata stressed. “But we never had actual pigment placed in this way. This is the first case that we’ve found those pigments associated with each specific direction. So that was very exciting.”
Researchers think early Maya builders placed colored pigments and sacred items as offerings. They buried these offerings under layers of sand and soil with care. Radiocarbon dating indicates this ritual took place between 900 and 845 BCE. Later generations probably came back and added jade objects to honor the past and renew the sacred bond.
Mineral pigments in the cruciform cache were arranged to correspond with cardinal directions, according to recorded rituals: Blue azurite to the north, green malachite to the east and yellow ochre with geothite to the south. The western side of the cache included soil and likely other material that began as red and faded over time.
Takeshi Inomata/University of Arizona
Inomata suggests these recent findings challenge current archaeological ideas around how certain cultures expanded over time.
“The study is further evidence opposing the long-held belief that Mesoamerican cultures grew gradually, building increasingly larger settlements, such as Tikal in Guatemala and Teotihuacan in central Mexico, whose pyramid monuments are icons for Mesoamerica today,” he explains. “Aguada Fénix predates the heydays of those cities by nearly a thousand years – and is as large or larger than all of them.”
In 2017, Inomata’s team first spotted clues of Aguada Fénix using lidar. Later, researchers saw that the monument’s center line points to the sunrise on October 17 and February 24. These two dates are 130 days apart, half of the 260-day sacred calendar used in ancient Mesoamerican rituals. It seems as if the builders carved a cosmic calendar into the land itself, aligning their world with the rhythms of the sky.
“This arrangement is similar to other Maya sites that also had ceremonial caches, hinting that they might find something similar at Aguada Fénix, on what is now rural ranchland in eastern Tabasco,” says Inomata.
The new investigation also revealed raised causeways, sunken corridors, and water canals that stretched up to six miles (9.7 km), guiding people and water alike. All of it mirrored the monument’s solar orientation, blending movement, ritual, and cosmic design into the landscape.
University of Arizona archaeologist Takeshi Inomata (left) and archaeologist Melina Garcia excavate a cache of ceremonial artifacts that include mineral pigments associated with cardinal directions.
Atasta Flores
Unlike Tikal in Guatemala, where kings ruled with grandeur, Aguada Fénix shows no signs of royal command. Instead, Inomata suggests its leaders were thinkers: astronomers and planners who shaped the site with cosmic insight, not political power.
And these findings have clear implications for how modern society can evolve.
“People have this idea that certain things happened in the past – that there were kings, and kings built the pyramids, and so in modern times, you need powerful people to achieve big things,” Inomata said. “But once you see the actual data from the past, it was not like that. So, we don’t need really big social inequality to achieve important things.”
Aguada Fénix shows what people can build together. Its sheer scale is stunning, especially for a region with few earlier monuments. Some builders may have been seasonal visitors, returning for rituals and processions. Yet even this grand design had limits: the northern corridors, carved through wetlands, likely flooded during rainy months. Still, the site stands as a powerful reminder of what shared purpose can achieve.
Olmec sculptures often glorified rulers and gods. But at Aguada Fénix, the art tells a different story, carvings of animals and a woman, grounded in everyday life. These humble symbols suggest that massive monuments and waterworks weren’t just elite visions; they were community creations.
Xanti S. Ceballos Pesina, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Anthropology and a co-author on the study, helped excavate a smaller complex within Aguada Fénix.
Takeshi Inomata/University of Arizona
Study co-author Xanti S. Ceballos Pesina said she was blown away at how extensive Aguada Fénix is, and surprised at how it eluded researchers for so long.
“I think it’s very cool that new technologies are helping to discover these new types of architectural arrangements,” she said. “And when you see it on the map, it’s very impressive that in the Middle Preclassic Period, people with no centralized organization or power were coming together to perform rituals and to build this massive construction.”
