Dubai is introducing a new underground transport system that will move passengers across busy districts in just minutes instead of kilometres of congestion on roads.

On the sidelines of the World Governments Summit 2026, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed a strategic agreement with the US-based The Boring Company to launch the Dubai Loop, a high-speed passenger tunnel network beneath the city.

The first phase will build a 6.4-kilometre route with four stations, linking the Dubai International Financial Centre with the Dubai Mall. Officials say the journey, which can take 20 minutes by road, could be reduced to around three minutes underground, easing pressure on surface traffic.

The pilot project will cost about AED565 million and is expected to be delivered in about one year after design work, while the full Loop will stretch over 22 kilometres with 19 stations at a total cost of nearly AED2 billion, to be completed in phases over three years.

Japan warned of possible avalanches in the country’s northern regions on Wednesday as the mercury suddenly rose after two weeks of extreme snowfall that paralysed traffic and collapsed houses.

Sustained snow since late January has buried northern communities like Aomori under drifts of around two metres (six feet) that left residents struggling to leave home and forced schools and businesses to close.

But the temperature rose Wednesday, reaching 8°C in Aomori, increasing the risk of chunks of heavy, wet snow dropping from rooftops, potentially causing injuries and even death, officials said.

“We ask affected residents to be careful and stay mindful of falling snow and avalanches,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki said at a press briefing.

By Wednesday, extreme snowfall had killed 35 people and caused 393 injuries across the country since January 20, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Many of the cases involve mounds of snow falling on residents from houses or people tumbling from their roofs while trying to clear it.

Aomori’s accumulated snow on the ground fell below 1.6 metres on Wednesday for the first time in four days, but traffic chaos continued, according to local broadcaster ATV.

Television images showed residents walking along narrow paths carved between massive walls of snow, standing twice as high as people.

In the Niigata region, facing the Sea of Japan, a man was found dead on Tuesday at his collapsed house under heavy snow, while another man died after his garage caved in, Fuji Television said.

The government has deployed troops to help clear huge drifts in northern regions.

Weather forecasters warn that cold weather will return from the weekend and bring further snow to northern cities.

• Trump’s return to White House intensified downward spiral on rights.
• HRW decries rules-based international order is being crushed.
• Highlights racial and ethnic scapegoating in US along with ICE raids.

WASHINGTON: Human Rights Watch warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump was turning the United States into an authoritarian state as democracy declines globally to its lowest ebb in four decades.

Trump’s return to the White House has intensified a “downward spiral” on human rights that was already under pressure from Russia, the New York-based advocacy and research group said in its annual report.

“The rules-based international order is being crushed,” HRW said.

In the US, the group said, Trump has shown “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations.”

In descriptions that would have been unthinkable in the US section of its previous annual reports, the group pointed to the deployment of masked, armed agents — the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency — which has carried out “hundreds of unnecessarily violent and abusive raids.”

“The administration’s racial and ethnic scapegoating, domestic deployment of National Guard forces in pretextual power grabs, repeated acts of retaliation against perceived political enemies and former officials now critical of him, as well as attempts to expand the coercive powers of the executive and neuter democratic checks and balances, underpin a decided shift toward authoritarianism in the US,” the report said.

Human Rights Watch repeated its finding that the US engaged in enforced disappearances — a crime under international law — by sending 252 Venezuelan migrants to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

In a recent report, HRW documented allegations by the men, who eventually were allowed into Venezuela, of being tortured, including beatings and sexual violence.

Less free

Human Rights Watch pointed to metrics by which democracy has declined to the level of 1985, when the Soviet Union still existed.

Russia is less free today than 20 years ago, and so is the US, the rights watchdog said.

Philippe Bolopion, the group’s executive director, called on countries to form alliances based on respect for human rights and to stand together — including against the tariff-wielding Trump.

“From our perspective, for such an alliance to be strong and lasting, it must be built on principles and values — democracy, international law, human rights,” he said.

“It can carry weight and provide a degree of security to its members,” he said.

The 529-page report stands in contrast to the latest human rights report issued by the US State Department, which toned down sections on countries friendly to Trump.

The State Department report said El Salvador in 2024 saw “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” and that President Nayib Bukele’s crackdown on gangs has brought crime to a “historic low.”

The Human Rights Watch report also said that gang violence had “markedly declined” but that in 2025, authorities carried out “widespread abuses, including mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture and ill-treatment of detainees and due process violations.”

HRW again renewed its charge that Israel has carried out “crimes against humanity and acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in Gaza.

It said that Israeli authorities in 2025 “escalated their atrocities” which included “killing, maiming, starving and forcibly displacing Palestinians and destroying their homes, schools and infrastructure at a scale unprecedented in the recent history of Israel and Palestine.”

Israel has angrily rejected the Human Rights Watch genocide allegation first issued in December 2024, with the US backing Israel´s stance.