Yemen remains gripped by one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with 22 million – out of a population of 35 million – requiring assistance. Women and girls account for half of those in need, and two-thirds of them are of childbearing age, placing reproductive health at the heart of the emergency.
Author: tio
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‘Perilous moment’ threatens to reverse years of gains in HIV/AIDS response
External funding cuts, a backlash against human rights, and chronic under-investment in HIV prevention and community services are threatening to reverse years of hard-won progress in the AIDS response, a UN report warned on Friday. -
WHO report shows progress in blood safety, but there are worrying gaps
Every day, safe blood helps save the lives of women experiencing childbirth complications, accident victims, cancer patients and people living with chronic diseases. Yet despite decades of progress, access to lifesaving blood remains deeply unequal, with shortages continuing to put lives at risk in many lower-income countries, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report. -
Ukraine civilian casualty toll in May highest in four years, UN monitors say
More civilians were killed and injured in Ukraine in May than in any other month in the past four years, UN investigators said on Friday in their latest update. -
DR Congo: Ebola spreads as agencies brace for child victims
The deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is continuing to spread with a spike in child infections an increasingly likely scenario in the days ahead, UN agencies said on Friday. -
Lebanon Releases ‘Captagon King’ After Seven-Year Sentence
A notorious Syrian-Lebanese trafficker widely known as the “Captagon King,” has been released from a Lebanese prison after completing a seven-year sentence for drug manufacturing and trafficking. Judicial sources confirmed the release of Hassan Daqqou to Daraj, OCCRP’s Lebanese partner.
A video circulated online showing family and friends celebrating his return home.
Daqqou was arrested in Beirut in 2021 in connection with a massive shipment of nearly 94 million Captagon pills, which was intercepted in Malaysia while en route to Saudi Arabia. In August 2022, the Beirut Criminal Court sentenced him to seven years of hard labor, a sentence that had been reduced from life imprisonment due to his alleged cooperation with a security agency, to which he provided information regarding the shipment.
At the time of the investigation, Daqqou’s attorney said his client was a victim of a “fabricated media and political campaign” and said not a single Captagon pill was found on Daqqou or at any of his properties.
According to 651 pages of handwritten interrogation transcripts obtained by OCCRP, Daqqou rose from poverty, selling watches on the streets of Beirut, to become a central figure in Lebanon’s Captagon trade. The documents shed light on his personal trajectory and reveal his role in a complex regional drug network involving the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, and their allies.
In his own testimony, Daqqou described himself as having “four faces”: a businessman; an operative working with the Security Bureau of the Syrian Army’s 4th Division, led by Maher al-Assad, brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; a collaborator with Hezbollah during the Syrian conflict; and a participant in anti-narcotics operations linked to Syria.
Daqqou has faced multiple international sanctions, having been blacklisted by the U.S., the U.K., and the EU since 2023. Despite his incarceration, the kingpin allegedly continued to run his illicit trade from behind bars, with reports indicating that political pressure from Hezbollah allowed Daqqou to stay in a “comfortable” prison cell equipped with internet access throughout his sentence.
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Hollywood Secures $9 Million Default Judgment Against IPTV Operator
The Internet is littered with cheap IPTV services that offer access to a lot of content, for very little money.
These deals often seem too good to be true, and in most cases they are, at least for those who prefer to stay on the right side of the law.
The operators of these services often remain in the shadows, but anti-piracy groups are actively trying to pin them down. For example, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) identified Mechanicsburg resident Brandon Weibley as the alleged operator of several commercial IPTV services offering pirated streams.
IPTV Operator Ghosts Hollywood Lawsuit
In a complaint filed in March 2025, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and other major studios accused Weibley of large-scale copyright infringement across a string of IPTV brands.
His alleged activity dates back to 2017, when he registered beastmodebuilds.com and began selling subscriptions to services including Beast Mode Live, BTV, Viking Media, and GreenWing Media. After the studios confronted him in 2023, he moved to a new domain, vonwik.com, and rebranded the operation as ‘Shrugs’ and ‘Zing’.
Weibley was personally served but never answered the complaint or appeared in court. With the defendant absent, the studios requested a default judgment, $9 million in damages, and a permanent injunction.
The services’ public front stayed online through the Vonwik.com domain, even after Weibley was served. That left the rightsholders relying on the court to shut the operation down.
Court Awards $9 Million + Domain Takeover
This week, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Wilson granted the studios’ motion in full. With a sample of 60 copyrighted works at stake, multiplied by the maximum award of $150,000 per infringement, that adds up to a total of $9 million in statutory damages.
The order 
The judge found the infringement willful on several grounds. Weibley continued to operate the services after the studios demanded he stop, and simply moved them to a new domain once the rightsholders applied pressure.
In addition to the damages, Judge Wilson also granted a permanent injunction, which prohibits Weibley from operating the six named services or anything substantially similar.
Importantly, the injunction also orders the registrars and registries for the associated domains, beastmodebuilds.com and vonwik.com, to transfer these to a registrar appointed by the studios. In addition, hosting providers are required to suspend the associated sites and lock their content.
Shrugs and Zing (Vonwik.com) 
At the time of writing, the permanent injunction has yet to be applied, as Vonwik.com remains online and accessible. Whether the associated IPTV services also remain active is unknown.
Court Applies the New Cox Standard
In addition to the multi-million damages award, the judgment memorandum stands out for how it handles the movie companies’ secondary liability claims.
To hold Weibley liable for contributory infringement and inducement, the court applied the Supreme Court’s recent Cox v. Sony framework. Under Cox, a provider’s mere knowledge that subscribers infringe is not enough. The provider must intend its service to be used for infringement, or the service must be tailored to it.
Wilson navigated that standard carefully. In a footnote, she declined to rest liability on Weibley’s knowledge alone, grounding it instead in inducement, noting that he promoted the services, tried to conceal the purpose of subscriber payments, and rebranded under pressure.
To reach those conclusions, the court leans heavily on a similar IPTV case. Judge Wilson cited the California case against ‘Outer Limits IPTV’, which resulted in a $15 million default judgment last August, throughout her analysis.
It’s Not Over Yet
The Motion Picture Association’s enforcement arm, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) coordinated the legal effort and takes credit for the win.
“We commend Judge Wilson’s ruling holding Weibley accountable for copyright infringement,” says Jesse Martin, the MPA’s Senior VP and Associate General Counsel for Global Litigation and Intermediaries.
ACE’s press release does appear to contain a key error, however. Its headline described Weibley as the operator of “Outer Limits IPTV.” That was a different defendant in a separate lawsuit, one that resulted in a $15 million judgment last year.
ACE’s press release 
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that this is not a final conclusion of the case, because the claims against ten unnamed ‘Doe’ defendants tied to the two domain names remain pending. The studios have until June 15 to tell the court whether they intend to pursue or drop them.
The $9 million default judgment against Shrugs and Zing operator Weibley is confirmed. Whether the defendant will pay this massive damages amount is uncertain, however, which is why the movie companies tried their best to obtain that permanent injunction, including the domain takeover power.
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A copy of Judge Wilson’s memorandum is available here (pdf) and the accompanying order can be found here (pdf).
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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Weekly Roundup: June 12
On Monday, Evan Behrle examined one of the oldest arguments for income inequality: that workers are entitled to the fruits of their labor and should be paid the value of their productive contribution. What this argument misses, he argues, is that the size of any worker’s contribution is largely determined by what other workers do. On Tuesday, Frank Pasquale contrasted Magnifica Humanitas…
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London Council Reclaims Social Housing Flat Kept by Sierra Leone’s First Lady
The council of London’s Southwark borough has repossessed a subsidized flat from Fatima Bio, Sierra Leone’s first lady, following a 12-month investigation launched after OCCRP and The Times last year revealed she had kept her tenancy at the property even after moving to the presidential palace in her home country.
“I look forward to bringing this council property back to its original purpose which is to provide a safe and secure home for people with legitimate housing need on the council’s waiting list,” Councillor Reginald Popoola told OCCRP. He explained that the Southwark Council has been investigating all allegations of tenancy fraud and unlawful occupation and has recovered 107 properties in the last two years, including this one.
“This property will be swiftly allocated to a local family in genuine housing need,” he added.
The flat was given to Bio in 2007, when she lived in London while pursuing her Nollywood acting and modelling career. She lived there with her children until 2018, when her husband, Julius Maada Bio, became president of Sierra Leone.
The family moved to the presidential palace in Freetown. The luxury estate is equipped with a pool, a tennis court and a helipad.
Nevertheless, she kept the keys to the London flat. When OCCRP and The Times visited the property last year, they found mail addressed to the presidential couple piled up on the stairs.
“It’s great that this council home will now be available to someone living in Southwark who needs it. Anyone not living in a council home or renting it out is abusing a system,” said Neil Coyle, the MP who had previously called for an investigation into the tenancy.
“The government is trying to build more council homes for people who need them – not wives of presidents living in foreign palaces,” he added.
An investigation conducted by OCCRP showed that in 2020, the first lady, her mother and two half-brothers started acquiring luxury real estate in Gambia. By 2024, they bought at least 10 properties, including luxury villas, beachfront apartments and an entire apartment building.
Neither Bio nor her brothers explained how they financed the acquisitions, and OCCRP’s review of tax records, employment history, asset ownership records and other publicly available information did not reveal any plausible source of the funds.
The first lady has never responded to OCCRP’s requests for comment regarding the real estate acquisitions or the council flat tenancy, but in an interview given to the BBC last month, she refused to directly confirm or deny ownership of the Gambia properties. “I don’t have to deny it. I don’t have to acknowledge it,” she told the broadcaster, while insisting that her continued tenancy at the Southwark flat constituted “no crime.”
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The Ideal Woman: How autocrats built the archetype.
Women in autocracies often seem like the regime’s showcase figures. Whether it is patriotic breast implants or pastel dresses as a sign of evangelical modesty, their appearance conveys political messages that can hardly be stated openly. A text about female power in the service of unfreedom.