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Senior U.S. officials met with Sikh advocates on Thursday to discuss threats facing Sikhs in the United States, including a foiled murder plot against a prominent activist last year, several attendees told Reuters.
The meeting with senior White House and U.S. intelligence officials came two days before President Joe Biden is to meet India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The United States has been pushing India to investigate the murder plot against dual U.S.-Canada citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, as it continues its own criminal investigation into India’s possible involvement.

Indian Army soldiers participate in a mock drill exercise during the Army Day parade in New Delhi, India, January 15, 2016. REUTERS/Anindito Mukherjee/File Photo Purchase Licensing RightsThe Kremlin has raised the issue on at least two occasions, including during a July meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Indian counterpart, three Indian officials said.
Details of the ammunition transfers are reported by Reuters for the first time.
Following the publication of this report, India’s foreign ministry described it as “speculative and misleading”.
“It implies violations by India where none exist and, hence, is inaccurate and mischievous,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Thursday.

An international team of astronomers reported in a study Wednesday that the second generation model of Starlink satellites is hampering radio astronomy, which is essential for the study of the non-visible universe, like black holes, for example. The satellites, which are part of SpaceX’s internet constellation, were found to have interference 32 times stronger than the first generation.

The number of satellites in orbit around Earth is rapidly increasing, with some 100,000 expected to be in place by 2030. And as their numbers grow, so does the difficulty of observing the universe from Earth. In some cases, satellites, such as those of Texas company AST Spacemobile, are so big and bright that they appear more luminous all but the brightest objects in the night sky.

Satellites could hamper observations of the ‘invisible’ universe…

Radio telescopes have helped to answer some of the trickiest questions about our universe, illuminating “the most mysterious objects in all of physics.” They “see” distant objects in the electromagnetic spectrum, including galaxies from the universe’s infancy, and electromagnetic radiation from satellites makes detecting these signals harder, like dialing up the static on a car radio trying to pick up a station in a desert. While such discoveries may seem like science for science’s sake, scientists cautioned that is not the case: “It’s wrong to say that there is some science that you can simply dismiss. The applications may be decades or even longer in the future but they can be very fundamental and very important,” one of the UK’s top astronomers told the BBC.

…They also affect the study of the visible, too
Starlink’s satellites are bright enough that astronomers have decried them as an existential threat for as long as SpaceX has been launching them into orbit. While the company has taken some measures to mitigate how shiny they appear from Earth, their increased number and the many other satellites being launched means that their light pollution is “threatening the entirety of ground-based astronomy in every wavelength and in different ways,” astronomers told the BBC. There is a fear that soon, space observation might begin to look like a “windshield of bugs,” and become unfeasible, a researcher at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile told The New York Times.

Source: https://www.semafor.com/article/09/18/2024/elon-musk-starlink-space-science-astronomy-study

Just as crowds had gathered to mourn some of those killed in Tuesday’s wave of pager-bomb attacks, an explosion sparked chaos in Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut.
A video captured the blast, showing a man lying on the ground and panicked people, some screaming, running away.
All this, moments before funerals were due to start for an 11-year-old boy and three Hezbollah members killed the previous day.
In the surrounding area there was bedlam as the sound of the explosion echoed through the streets. The chants stopped. Those gathered looked at each other, some incredulous.

As reports spread that this was part of a second wave of explosions now targeting walkie-talkies, no electronic equipment was considered safe.
Hezbollah supporters stopped our team several times, demanding we did not use our phones or our camera.
Lebanese officials said at least 20 people were killed and 450 others wounded across the the country, with fires said to have broken out in dozens of homes, shops, and vehicles.
Already, the latest attacks are being seen as another humiliation for the Iranian-backed group, and a possible indication that its entire communication network may have been infiltrated by Israel.

HEZBOLLAH terrorists and the Iranian ambassador are among thousands injured after “brand new” pagers exploded across Lebanon, killing at least nine people.

The booby-trapped devices blew up simultaneously across the Middle Eastern country yesterday afternoon wreaking havoc.

At about 3:30pm local time, the pagers started heating up and then exploding in people’s hands or pockets – leaving blood-splattered scenes.

Lebanon’s Information Minister pinned the shock James Bond-style sabotage on “Israeli aggression”.

Israel’s Mossad spy agency allegedly planted a small amount of explosives inside thousands of pagers ordered by Hezbollah months earlier, a Lebanese security source and a second source told Reuters.

The pagers were said to be a “new brand” that the terrorists had not used before.

Hezbollah reportedly acquired the pagers after the group’s leadership ordered members to stop using phones.

The leadership warned phones could be tracked by Israeli spies – and believed pagers were safer.

Nearly 3,000 people have so far been injured including hundreds of fighters, senior commanders in the terror group, and the Iranian ambassador in Beirut.

Hezbollah received a new shipment of pagers in the last few days with hundreds of their terror troops having the devices, the Wall Street Journal reported.

It is not yet clear what caused the pagers to blow, with some experts saying explosives were inside them and others saying malware could have caused the batteries to overheat and then erupt.

Lebanon’s health minister reported nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 were wounded with 200 of those in a serious condition.

Shocking videos circulating on social media show the wave of blasts striking across the country.

Some pagers rang before exploding – causing the fighter to put their hands on them or bring them up to their faces to check the screen.

In-store CCTV footage caught people struck down in the middle of their shopping as people fled around them.

One shows a man’s bag exploding in a grocer with other shoppers sprinting for their lives away from the man as he is knocked to the ground by the detonation.

Another shows a man paying for items at a till before he checks the pager on his hip and it explodes in his hands.

Other footage showed maimed targets lying on the ground missing hands or fingers and having large wounds on their hips and legs.

Beirut’s street turned to chaos as people fled buildings for safety and the city’s hospitals treated the bloodied survivors.

The sons of Hezbollah lawmakers Ali Ammar and Hassan Fadlallah were among the dead, a source close to the group said.

The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl”, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said in a casualty update.

The 8-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, their family said.

Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/30487383/hezbollah-fighters-injured-walkie-talkies-explode/

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party has lost a Parliament seat it had held for decades in a special election in Montreal, a devastating defeat that is likely to increase pressure on Canada’s deeply unpopular leader to resign.

The Bloc Québécois, a national party that supports independence for Quebec, narrowly won the race that was held on Monday, according to final results released early on Tuesday morning. It was the Liberals’ second stunning election loss in three months.

The result underscored how support for the Liberals has evaporated, even in their last few strongholds, ahead of the next general election, which must be held by the fall of 2025 but is likely to take place in the spring. Mr. Trudeau has pledged to lead his party in that election, saying over the weekend that he would not quit even if the Liberals lost on Monday.

The defeat could set up an endgame for Mr. Trudeau’s third term in office. The main opposition Conservative Party is likely to redouble its efforts to quickly bring down his government, as polls predict the Conservatives cruising to a landslide in the next election. For the past year, Mr. Trudeau’s approval ratings have stagnated just above 20 percent and trailed those of Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, by double digits.

To survive, Mr. Trudeau could increasingly call on the Bloc Québécois and another small opposition party, the New Democrats. Both might prefer dealing with the Liberals to eke out victories for themselves, rather than face a potential Conservative majority that could easily pass legislation on its own.

The election in Montreal, held to fill a single vacant seat in Parliament’s House of Commons, assumed outsize significance because it was seen as a referendum on Mr. Trudeau.

After his party unexpectedly lost a special election in June — in Toronto, another Liberal redoubt — the prime minister faced calls from within his own party to step aside. Mr. Trudeau rejected the criticism, instead using his powers as party leader to quash internal dissent.

The Conservatives now enjoy an overwhelming lead in the polls across Canada — except in the French-speaking province of Quebec, which amplified the importance of Monday’s special election.

Mr. Trudeau’s popularity has plummeted as his government has seemed increasingly out of touch with the concerns of ordinary Canadians. On issue after issue — the high cost of living, a housing shortage, problems stemming from the record number of temporary workers or foreign students — his government has reacted with policy changes only after being pummeled by the opposition.

The government has also been accused of minimizing the threat of foreign interference in Canadian politics. It long opposed a public inquiry into the issue, which is now underway and has uncovered attempts by China and India to meddle in Canadian elections.

In the weeks leading up to Monday’s vote, the Liberal candidate had been locked in a tight three-way race against Louis-Philippe Sauvé of the Bloc Québécois and Craig Sauvé of the left-leaning New Democratic Party, who came in third on Monday. (The two are not related.)

The district, called LaSalle–Émard–Verdun, had been considered a reliable Liberal seat: in the party’s grip almost continuously for more than half a century, and the base for a former Liberal prime minister and a former Liberal justice minister.

In the last election, in 2021, Mr. Trudeau’s party won the district — made up working-class and gentrifying neighborhoods, with linguistically and culturally diverse residents — by more than 20 percentage points.

This time, things went very differently.

After the seat suddenly became vacant early this year, three competitors launched campaigns to become the Liberal candidate. They said senior party officials had assured them that it would be an open nomination, and they were angered when Mr. Trudeau abruptly handpicked a city councilor named Laura Palestini to run.

With many voters expressing fatigue over Mr. Trudeau’s leadership, the prime minister was conspicuously absent from the local campaign, even though his own electoral district lies a short drive away.

Mr. Trudeau’s face was nowhere to be seen on Liberal Party campaign posters, though other parties featured their leaders. The prime minister made only two low-key campaign stops, including one over the weekend to a senior home. That appearance was closed to the news media.

Ms. Palestini refused nearly all interview requests, and her staff declined to let journalists accompany her on the campaign trail.

In one rare interview, she tried to distance herself from Mr. Trudeau. “It’s about me. It’s not about the P.M.,” she told the Canadian Press, referring to the election and to the prime minister.

By contrast, the candidates for the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Québécois ran energetic campaigns. Leaders for both parties showed up frequently in the district, at the southern point of the island of Montreal, to back their candidates.

For Catherine Auclair, meeting the New Democratic leader, Jagmeet Singh, in person was the clincher. Ms. Auclair, 27, had been hesitating between the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois, but said she was won over after hearing Mr. Singh speak on the housing crisis and other issues.

“I found Jagmeet Singh close to the people, and seeing him more than once here made me feel that he cared about our issues,’’ Ms. Auclair said after voting on Monday.

Source: https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/17/another-blow-to-trudeau-liberals-lose-a-long-held-seat/

Medics at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust have launched a pilot scheme where drones will be used to courier blood samples between its hospitals.

The NHS is going to use drones to fly blood samples across London to avoid the traffic.

Drone flights will mean the samples can be transported in a fraction of the time it currently takes couriers via road, officials said.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has launched a pilot scheme that intends to drastically speed up the time taken to move blood from major hospitals in the capital to labs for analysis.

Usually, moving samples between Guy’s Hospital and the lab at St Thomas’ Hospital takes more than half an hour on the road.

However, the same journey can be done in less than two minutes by drone, officials said.

The research team also said there were environmental benefits to the switch in transport methods.

The new project will last six months and is expected to start this autumn.

It will involve the blood samples of patients undergoing surgery who are at high risk of complications from bleeding disorders.

The move could also pave the way for other types of drone deliveries between the trust’s hospitals and others in the capital.

“The drone pilot combines two of our key priorities – providing the best possible patient care and improving sustainability,” said Professor Ian Abbs, chief executive at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust.

“We are proud to be the first trust in London to trial this innovative approach to help speed up blood sample analysis for our most urgent cases.”

The scheme is being done in conjunction with healthcare logistics company Apian and drone delivery company Wing and is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority.

This isn’t the first time that drones have been used to transport medical products in NHS trials.

A recent research project by NHS Blood and Transplant found that drones can be used to safely deliver blood stocks between hospitals in Northumberland.

Packs of “red blood cell components” were ferried through the skies and along the roads between Wansbeck Hospital and Alnwick Infirmary, and back again.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/nhs-to-use-drones-to-fly-blood-samples-around-london-to-avoid-traffic-in-new-trial-13216420

Residents of several areas of Poland and the Czech Republic rushed to evacuate on Monday as others in central Europe began cleaning up after the worst flooding in over two decades left a trail of destruction and a rising number of deaths.
Border areas between the Czech Republic and Poland were hit hard over the weekend as heavy rain that has fallen since last week and surging water levels collapsed some bridges, forced evacuations and damaged cars and houses.

In the northeastern Czech city of Ostrava, a broken barrier on the Odra river at its confluence with the Opava river caused flooding of the city’s industrial area including the BorsodChem chemical plant, coking plant OKK Koksovny and others. Hundreds of people were being evacuated from more residential areas as well.

In the Czech town of Litovel, 70% of which was submerged by water up to a metre deep (3.2 feet) on Monday, residents described their fear as waters rose quickly over the weekend.

“I was just very, very afraid… I ran away because the water was rising very quickly near the house,” said Renata Gaborova, 39.

‘APOCALYPSE’

Poland’s government announced a state of natural disaster in affected areas and said that it had set aside 1 billion zlotys ($260 million) to help victims.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he was in touch with the leaders of other affected countries and that they would ask the European Union for financial aid.
Szymon Krzysztan, 16, standing in the town square of Ladek Zdroj, described losses from the floods as “unimaginable”.
“It’s a city like in an apocalypse… It’s a ghost town,” he said.
Reuters footage showed the town strewn with debris and mud.

“Armageddon… It literally ripped out everything because we don’t have a single bridge. In Ladek, all bridges have disappeared. We are practically cut off from the world,” Jerzy Adamczyk, 70, told Reuters.

In Jesenik, a Czech town across the border that was inundated on Sunday, a clean-up was starting after waters receded to show damaged cars and debris on the streets.

“There were two metres of water that ran through the street… There are many, many destroyed cars,” said resident Zdenek Kuzilek. “Telephones are not working, there is no water, no electricity.”

In eastern Romania, where villages and towns were submerged over the weekend, Emil Dragomir, mayor of Slobozia Conachi, told Romanian television some people had been left with just the clothes they had on.

PREPARATION

While water was receding in some areas, others, including Wroclaw, a Polish city of some 600,000 people, were shoring up defences for floodwaters heading their way.

In Romania, the flooding killed seven people over the last few days. An Austrian firefighter died on Sunday. In the state of Lower Austria that surrounds Vienna, two men aged 70 and 80 were found drowned in their homes, a police spokesperson said on Monday.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/more-rivers-spill-banks-central-european-floods-death-toll-rises-2024-09-16/

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Yemen’s Houthis will pay a “heavy price” after a missile fired by the group landed in central Israel.
The Israeli military said the missile landed in an uninhabited area early on Sunday, but that shrapnel indicated air defence systems had failed to destroy it before it entered Israeli airspace.
It added that it was investigating how the missile was able to reach so far into Israeli territory.
The strike marks the first time a missile fired by the group has reached central Israel, which is around 2,000km (1,240 miles) from Yemen.

Around 700 people, mostly women, gathered at the Place de la Republique in Paris, some carrying placards in support of Gisele Pelicot, and all rape victims.

Hundreds of people in France have joined protests in support of a woman whose ex-husband allegedly drugged her and invited strangers to rape her.

Warning: This story contains details of rape and sexual abuse

A crowd of around 700, mostly women, gathered at the Place de la Republique in Paris, some carrying placards in support of Gisele Pelicot, and all rape victims.

One sign read: “Victims, we believe you. Rapists, we see you.”

Campaigners, who had called for protests in other French cities, believe much of the violence remains unreported and often goes unpunished in the country.

Activist Anna Toumazoff, one of the organisers of the Paris protest, said: “We need to talk about the rape culture. After seven years of MeToo, we know that there is not a special type of victim… no special type of a rapist.”

In Marseille, where about 200 protesters gathered in front of the Palais de Justice, Lou Salome Patouillard, a 41-year-old artist, said: “I am here to support Gisele and all women as there are many Giseles, too many Giseles.”

Ms Pelicot, 71, was allegedly drugged by her now ex-husband over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious.

In 2020, she was told by police of the accusations against her husband – that her then-spouse had been sedating her and invited at least 72 strangers into their house in Provence in southeastern France to have sex with her.

Instead of remaining anonymous, Ms Pelicot chose a public trial, allowing the media to publish her full name, and the court to show explicit videos of the suspected rapes recorded by her husband.

She opted for openness, she said, in solidarity with other women who are victims of sexual crimes but go unrecognised. She has since become a symbol of France’s fight against sexual violence.

Giving evidence for the first time earlier this month, Ms Pelicot said the men “regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag”.

When police informed her about the alleged rapes by dozens of men, she said: “For me, everything collapses. These are scenes of barbarity, of rape.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/protests-in-france-to-support-woman-allegedly-drugged-by-husband-and-raped-by-strangers-13214824

As news of the prisoner swap was announced, Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev threatened that Ukraine’s ongoing incursion of Kursk had given Russia formal grounds to use nuclear weapons.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged more than 200 prisoners of war, officials have announced.

In a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates, each side released 103 prisoners – including Russians captured since Ukraine’s incursion in the Kursk region began in August.

Both sides released images of soldiers being released, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying: “Our people are home.”

However, as news of the swap was announced, Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev threatened that Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk had given Russia formal grounds to use nuclear weapons.

Kyiv claims to now control almost 500 square miles (around 1,300 square km) of the border region following the launch of its surprise attack.

Moscow could either resort to nuclear weapons in the end, or use some of its non-nuclear but still deadly novel weapons for a large-scale attack, Mr Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday.

“And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he said, referring to Kyiv.

Responding, Mr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Loud threats of Putin’s regime testify only to his fear that terror may come to an end.”

The prisoner swap is the eighth of its kind since the beginning of the year, putting the total number of POWs exchanged at 1,994. Previous exchanges were also brokered by the UAE.

All 103 Ukrainians returned were from the military – 82 soldiers and privates and 21 officers – Mr Zelenskyy said.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-and-russia-exchange-more-than-200-prisoners-of-war-13214846

Meanwhile Putin’s chief lapdog Dmitry Medvedev yesterday threatened to ‘sink’ the UK with hypersonic missiles

VLADIMIR Putin’s chief lapdog Dmitry Medvedev has threatened to turn Kyiv into a “giant melted spot” in a disturbing threat.

Russia is ramping up its threats after Keir Starmer and Joe Biden met to talk about giving Ukraine the green light to fire Western long-range missiles inside Russia.

Speaking today the former Russian prime minister and close Putin ally said permission for Ukraine to fire the rockets over enemy lines would spark a fierce response on its capital.

Referring to Kyiv he wrote in a Telegram post: “And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’.”

He also ranted about how “Russia is showing patience” but that the West should not assume Putin would balk at “crossing the line” or triggering an “apocalypse” with nuclear weapons.

Medvedev just this week threatened to use hypersonic missiles to sink Britain if Zelensky’s armies were granted the go-ahead with UK Storm Shadow missiles.

Starmer left DC on Friday after the crunch talks – with no conclusive decision reached on the rockets.

A Western official has said no announcement will be made until the “first missile lands”, according to The Telegraph.

Starmer said the meeting was “long and productive” but failed to directly address questions on long-range missiles.

The most recent threat comes as Putin is being pushed to green light a nuclear bomb test as a wider warning to the West.

A leading Kremlin MP with links to the Russian army urged the delusional tyrant to carry out an atomic explosion at a test site.

“We need to carry out a nuclear explosion somewhere, at some testing ground,” demanded Andrei Kolesnik, who leads the ruling United Russia party.

He said: “Nuclear tests are currently prohibited in our country.

“But maybe people should see what all this actually leads to, they should hear.

“If we lift the moratorium, maybe humanity will think twice.”

Such a test could be seen as a renewed warning against Nato over the possibility that the US and UK could allow Ukraine to fire their long-range missiles at targets deep inside Russia.

Putin warned this week that the shift in policy would mean war.

He said: “This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict… It would mean that Nato countries are at war with Russia.”

Britain and America have previously held back on loosening permissions because of a fear of Russian retaliation.

There are concerns that Putin’s so far empty threats over nuclear revenge could be realised if Western weapons struck targets on his soil.

Kremlin hardliners could also push for attacks against missile strongholds in Nato countries – such as an airbase in Poland.

This would invoke Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence clause – triggering a wider war with Russia.

Putin last year sent then defence minister Sergei Shoigu, now his top security aide, to Novaya Zemlya, a remote Arctic archipelago where Soviet nuclear tests were conducted in the Cold War.

This was meant to indicate that the Kremlin is ready “if necessary” to conduct new nuclear tests for the first time since 1990.

Putin’s former space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin has also demanded tests are carried out at Novaya Zemlya.

The Tsar Bomba – the most powerful nuclear bomb ever detonated – was tested there in October 1961.

The explosion was so large that it caused shock waves which circled the Earth multiple times, and its mushroom cloud rocketed more than 37 miles into the sky.

“We must make sure that [the West’s] buttocks begin to shake with fear,” he said.

The White House summit came as Russia kicked out six British diplomats over claims of “spying”.

The Foreign Office slammed the accusations as “completely baseless”.

Russia sees Britain as leading the Western charge demanding the use of long-range weapons, with other countries far more reluctant.

Speaking after the DC meeting, Starmer said: “We’ve had a long and productive discussion on a number of problems, including Ukraine, as you’d expect, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific, talking strategically about tactical decisions.

“This isn’t about a particular decision but we’ll obviously pick up again in UNGA (UN General Assembly) in just a few days’ time with a wider group of individuals, but this was a really important invitation from the president to have this level of discussion about those critical issues.”

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/12457289/russia-ukraine-nuclear-weapon-test-war-putin/

The pair also said they do not feel let down by Boeing – the maker of their problem-plagued capsule – and also revealed they will vote in November’s US elections.

Two astronauts who are set to be stuck in space for eight months have said the International Space Station is now their “happy place” but admitted to “tough times”.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said in a press conference on Friday that it was hard to watch their Boeing Starliner capsule return to Earth without them last week – but said they do not feel let down by the company.

The pair expected to be in space for eight days but will remain there until 2025 after NASA determined the problem-plagued capsule posed too much risk for them to return to Earth.

The two Starliner test pilots – both retired Navy captains and longtime NASA astronauts – will now be staying at the space station until late February.

“That’s how it goes in this business,” said Ms Williams, adding that “you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity”.

Mr Wilmore said: “It’s been quite an evolution over the last three months, we’ve been involved from the beginning through all the processes of assessing our spacecraft.

“And it was trying at times. There were some tough times all the way through.”

Ms Williams said that the transition to station life was “not that hard” since both had completed previous stints there.

“This is my happy place. I love being up here in space,” she said.

Mr Wilmore said he was “on board” with “changes that need to be made” at Boeing.

“Obviously, when you have issues like we’ve had, there’s some changes that need to be made.

“Boeing’s on board with that. We’re all on board with that.”

He added: “When you push the edge of the envelope again and you do things with spacecraft that have never been done before, just like Starliner, you’re going to find some things.”

The pair also said they will vote in November’s US elections.

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams are now fully-fledged station crew members, chipping in on routine maintenance and experiments.

They, along with seven others on board, welcomed a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American earlier this week, raising the station population to 12 – a near record.

Ms Williams will soon take over as station commander.

The pair will have to wait until next year for a SpaceX capsule to bring them back to Earth. That spacecraft is due to launch later this month with a reduced crew of two, with two empty seats for the stranded astronauts for the return leg.

Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams also said they appreciated all the prayers and well wishes from Earth.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/stranded-astronauts-say-space-is-happy-place-but-admit-tough-times-13214249

The Canadian government will not intervene to end a dispute between Air Canada and its pilots and intends instead to pressure both sides to avert a strike, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday.
A stoppage could start as soon as Sept. 18. Air Canada and its low-cost subsidiary Air Canada Rouge together operate nearly 670 flights per day, and a shutdown could affect 110,000 passengers daily as well as freight carriage.

Airline and business groups want the Liberal government to force the two sides into binding arbitration before a strike starts, an idea that Trudeau dismissed.
“I’m not going to put my thumb on the scale on either side. It is up to Air Canada and the pilots’ union to do the work to figure out how to make sure that they are not hurting millions of Canadians,” he told reporters in Quebec.
“Every time there’s a strike, people say ‘Oh, you’ll get the government to come in and fix it’ – we’re not going to do that. We believe in collective bargaining, and we’re going to keep pushing people to do it.”

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon met both the company and the union on Thursday. Both sides are still far apart on the question of wages.
MacKinnon has broad powers to tackle disputes and last month intervened within 24 hours to end a stoppage at the country’s two largest railway companies, Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CP.TO), opens new tab and Canadian National Railway (CNR.TO), opens new tab.
Air Canada says this set a precedent. But while Ottawa has intervened several times in labor disputes over the last few decades, it has only done so after stoppages have begun, not before.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trudeau-says-govt-pressuring-air-canada-pilots-avert-strike-2024-09-13/

While the network could be improved if the providers formed one company, the competition watchdog said their claims of rolling out speedy 5G connectivity are “overstated”. The businesses may not have the incentive to follow through post-merger, it added.

Tens of millions of mobile phone users could end up paying more if the merger between Vodafone and Three goes ahead, the competition watchdog has warned.

The deal would create the UK’s biggest mobile network and could also improve network quality, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the West would be directly fighting with Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles, a move he said would alter the nature and scope of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading with Kyiv’s allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles including long-range U.S. ATACMS and British Storm Shadows deep into Russian territory to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.

What would happen if two black holes moved extremely close to each other? It’s a question NASA scientists are pondering after discovering two supermassive black holes at the center of two merging galaxies. In 100 million years, scientists predict these black holes will continue to move closer together until they eventually collide. The gravitational waves coming from this union may disturb the fabric of space and time.

The black hole duo is 300 light-years apart, deep inside a pair of galaxies colliding with each other. Astronomers were able to capture evidence of the two spiraling black holes because the gas and dust fueling their movements made them shine as brightly as active galactic nuclei. This was seen through the Hubble Space Telescope and X-ray data. The complete findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Black hole duos, while rare, have been seen before. Astronomers have spotted dozens of these pairs before, but never as close as they are in the gas-rich galaxy MCG-03-34-64. Radio telescopes have seen one other pair of binary black holes as they’ve found in MCG-03-34-64, but this discovery was not confirmed with visible and X-ray observations.

Scientists believe black hole pairs were more common in the early universe because galaxies often merged. The current discovery provides a glimpse of how space might have looked in the distant past, giving astronomers a real-life example 800 million light-years away from the Milky Way galaxy.

The discovery was even more remarkable to scientists because it happened by accident. Hubble showed three optical diffraction spikes inside the host galaxy. Diffraction spikes are the product when light from a small area in space bends around the mirror inside telescopes. The sight of these spikes told astronomers there was a massive concentration of glowing oxygen gas.

“We were not expecting to see something like this,” says lead study author Anna Trindade Falcão, a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Massachusetts, in a media release. “This view is not a common occurrence in the nearby universe, and told us there’s something else going on inside the galaxy.”

Astronomers then used X-ray lights to look at the galaxy to understand better what was happening in this galaxy.

“When we looked at MCG-03-34-64 in the X-ray band, we saw two separated, powerful sources of high-energy emission coincident with the bright optical points of light seen with Hubble. We put these pieces together and concluded that we were likely looking at two closely spaced supermassive black holes,” explains Falcão.

To support their hypothesis of dual black holes, the researchers used archival radio data to compare it to the powerful radio waves emitted from the holes. Seeing specific wavelengths can rule out other possibilities. In this case, seeing bright light in optical, X-rays, and radio wavelengths told astronomers the only explanation is a black hole duo.

While much has been discovered about this black hole pair, like both being at the heart of their host galaxies, astronomers are still puzzled over the appearance of the third bright light in this region of space. More data will need to be collected from Hubble to identify its origin. Still, some astronomers believe it may come from a gas shocked by energy from one of the black holes — similar to a stream of water from a hose spraying into a pile of sand.

“We wouldn’t be able to see all of these intricacies without Hubble’s amazing resolution,” Falcão concludes.

Source: https://studyfinds.org/2-black-holes-collision-course/?nab=0

The words “Titanic moment” are possibly the last thing you want to hear on a boat – but that was the phrase used by one passenger on board the Carnival Spirit cruise ship last week, after the vessel unexpectedly struck a large piece of ice.

No one was hurt on board and the ship was undamaged by the incident, which a Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson described as the vessel hitting “an errant piece of drifting ice.”

Carnival Spirit was sailing in Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaska, a waterway south of the city of Juneau known for its spectacular beauty – and pieces of floating ice.

Videos of the incident circulated on social media in the aftermath, as multiple passengers filmed the moment the ship collided with the large piece of ice.

Cassandra Goskie posted a video on TikTok in which a voice is heard saying: “If we die it was damn well worth it, it’s a Titanic moment,” just before the vessel struck the piece of ice.

Meanwhile passenger Saurabh Singhal described the vessel coming to a halt “for hours to assess damages” in a Facebook post.

“An assessment determined no damage to the ship’s hull and the vessel continued on its cruise and there has been no impact to operations,” the Carnival spokesperson told CNN Travel.

The Carnival Spirit finished its seven-day Alaska cruise on Tuesday without interruption, returning to Seattle, Washington. The vessel has since embarked on another round trip to Alaska, this time for 14 days.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/11/travel/carnival-cruise-ship-collides-with-iceberg/index.html

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris put Republican Donald Trump on the defensive at a combative presidential debate on Tuesday with a stream of attacks on abortion limits, his fitness for office and his myriad legal woes, as both candidates sought a campaign-altering moment in their closely fought election.
In a boost to the Harris campaign, pop megastar Taylor Swift told her 283 million followers on Instagram in a post immediately following the debate that she would back Harris and her running mate Tim Walz in the Nov. 5 election. The post had been liked nearly 2 million times within 25 minutes.

Kensington Palace has chosen not to disclose the type of cancer that Kate Middleton was diagnosed with earlier this year.

The 42-year-old Princess of Wales revealed her diagnosis in a video message back in March. She shared that after undergoing major abdominal surgery in January, subsequent test results indicated the presence of cancer, but the Royal Family is mandating Kate keep tight-lipped about what type.

Since then, the Royal has stepped back from public duties as she undergoes preventative chemotherapy treatment. In a heartfelt new video released by the palace, Princess Kate announced the end of her chemotherapy.

In the video, the Princess is seen enjoying quality time with her husband, Prince William, and their three children George, Charlotte, and Louis. She provides a touching update on her treatment, recovery, and experience.

Kate did not disclose the type of cancer she was diagnosed with, and Kensington Palace confirmed that this information would remain private for privacy reasons, the Manchester Evening News reported.

The Princess began her treatment in late February of this year. However, details such as the stage of the cancer and where she received her treatment will also be kept confidential to protect her privacy, it is understood.

In the latest video message, released on Monday, Sept. 9, The Princess of Wales confirmed that her preventative chemotherapy has now concluded. She described the past nine months as “incredibly tough” for her and her family.

In an emotionally charged video featuring a heartfelt voiceover by the Princess herself, viewers are given glimpses of her on tranquil walks and quality beach time with her nearest and dearest: Prince William and the kids George, Charlotte, and Louis.

“As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment,” she confides in the audience. “The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family. Life as you know it can change in an instant and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown.”

“The cancer journey is complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone, especially those closest to you. With humility, it also brings you face to face with your own vulnerabilities in a way you have never considered before, and with that, a new perspective on everything.”

“This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted. Of simply loving and being loved.”

Source: https://www.themirror.com/news/royals/what-type-cancer-princess-kate-684494

Severe floods are expected to inundate parts of Vietnam’s north, including the capital Hanoi, government officials said, as the aftermath of typhoon Yagi, the most powerful storm to hit Asia so far this year, continues to extract a deadly toll.
Landslides and floods triggered by the typhoon have killed at least 65 people and 39 others are missing in the north, the disaster management agency said on Tuesday in its latest update on the situation.

Most of the victims were killed in landslides and flash floods, the agency said in a report, adding that 752 people have been injured.
Other northern areas, including the industrial hubs of Bac Giang and Thai Nguyen which host factories of several export-oriented multinationals including Samsung Electronics and Apple supplier Foxconn are also facing severe flooding, state media reported. It was not immediately clear if the companies were affected.

The typhoon made landfall on Saturday on Vietnam’s northeastern coast, devastating a large swath of industrial and residential areas and bringing heavy rains that caused floods and landslides. It had previously hit the Philippines and the southern Chinese island of Hainan.
Several rivers in northern Vietnam have risen to alarming levels, leaving villages and residential areas inundated, according to the disaster agency and state media.A 30-year-old bridge over the Red River in the northern province of Phu Tho collapsed on Monday, leaving eight missing, according to a statement from the provincial People’s Committee.
Authorities have subsequently banned or limited traffic on other bridges across the river, including Chuong Duong Bridge, one of the largest in Hanoi, according to state media reports.
“Water levels on the Red River are rising rapidly,” the government said on Tuesday in a post on its Facebook account.

It is the last gathering of all the current leaders of the Quad alliance together, as both Joe Biden and Japan’s Fumio Kishida are stepping down

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the United States this month, his first after assuming office for a third straight term. The trip to the US comes days after Modi visited Ukraine and Russia in the last two months.

The prime minister will attend the Quad Summit on September 21 in Wilmington, the home town of outgoing US president Joe Biden in Delaware. It is the last gathering of all the current leaders of the Quad alliance together, as both Biden and Japan’s Fumio Kishida are stepping down from the office.

Biden recently announced that he will not run again for a second stint at White House. Kishida also made his plans clear of not seeking re-election as the head of Liberal Democratic Party.

Modi, now in his 11th year as prime minister, has been a senior leader among the four. The development assumes significance as India will be hosting the Summit in 2025.

The Delaware summit will mark 20 years of the formation of Quad alliance. Biden owns a home in Wilmington and used to travel to Washington on an Amtrak during his days as senator.

According to several media reports, the US had initially explored the Sunnylands estate in California for the summit. In 2013, then US president Barack Obama had hosted then China’s newly appointed president Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader had proposed a “new model of major-country relations” under which both Washington DC and Beijing would agree to no conflict or confrontation.

A gunman from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the occupied West Bank before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said.
It was the first attack of its kind along the border with Jordan since Oct. 7, when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas carried out an assault on southern Israel, sparking the war in Gaza that has escalated throughout the region.

“A terrorist approached the area of the Allenby Bridge from Jordan in a truck, exited the truck, and opened fire at the Israeli security forces operating at the bridge,” the Israeli military said.

“The terrorist was eliminated by the security forces, three Israeli civilians were pronounced dead as a result of the attack.”

Jordan was investigating the shooting. The Allenby Bridge, a crucial crossing for trade between Jordan and Israel and one of five land border crossings between the two countries, has been closed, Jordan’s interior ministry added. The crossing mostly serves the more than 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.

The Israeli manager of the crossing said three workers were shot dead at close range by the driver crossing from Jordan.

Anti-Israeli sentiment runs high in Jordan, and hundreds of people took to the streets of the capital Amman to celebrate the attack, saying the gunman had avenged the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in the war in Gaza.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/two-wounded-shooting-attack-near-jordan-border-israeli-authorities-say-2024-09-08/

Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka hoisted the trophy in New York at last after years of close calls, as she outplayed American sixth seed Jessica Pegula 7-5 7-5 in the U.S. Open women’s final on Saturday.
Sabalenka won her first title at Flushing Meadows a year after coming up short in the final. Twice before, she reached the semi-finals. On Saturday, she blocked out the wild cheers for the hometown favorite at Arthur Ashe Stadium to break Pegula in the final game.

Boeing’s first astronaut mission ended Friday night with an empty capsule landing and two test pilots still in space, left behind until next year because NASA judged their return too risky.

Six hours after departing the International Space Station, Starliner parachuted into New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, descending on autopilot through the desert darkness.

It was an uneventful close to a drama that began with the June launch of Boeing’s long-delayed crew debut and quickly escalated into a dragged-out cliffhanger of a mission stricken by thruster failures and helium leaks. For months, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’ return was in question as engineers struggled to understand the capsule’s problems.

Boeing insisted after extensive testing that Starliner was safe to bring the two home, but NASA disagreed and booked a flight with SpaceX instead. Their SpaceX ride won’t launch until the end of this month, which means they’ll be up there until February — more than eight months after blasting off on what should have been a quick trip.

Wilmore and Williams should have flown Starliner back to Earth by mid-June, a week after launching in it. But their ride to the space station was marred by the cascade of thruster trouble and helium loss, and NASA ultimately decided it was too risky to return them on Starliner.

So with fresh software updates, the fully automated capsule left with their empty seats and blue spacesuits along with some old station equipment.

“She’s on her way home,” Williams radioed as the white and blue-trimmed capsule undocked from the space station 260 miles (420 kilometers) over China and disappeared into the black void.

Williams stayed up late to see how everything turned out. “A good landing, pretty awesome,” said Boeing’s Mission Control.

Cameras on the space station and a pair of NASA planes caught the capsule as a white streak coming in for the touchdown, which drew cheers and applause.

Super Typhoon Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm this year, churned towards the northern coast of Vietnam on Saturday after tearing through China’s southern island province of Hainan and leaving two people reported dead.
The lightning, rain and violent winds that hit Hainan also caused 92 to be injured, Chinese state media said on Saturday, citing local authorities.
Yagi made landfall in Hainan on Friday, packing maximum sustained winds of 234 kph (145 mph) near its centre, downing trees and flooding roads. Power supply to more than 800,000 homes was cut.

Yagi formed over the sea to the east of the Philippine archipelago on Sept. 1. Gaining strength, it became a tropical storm and swept across Luzon, the most populous island in the Philippines, killing at least 16 people and injuring 13.

The storm grew dramatically stronger late in the week, becoming the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone in 2024 after the Category 5 Atlantic hurricane Beryl, and the most severe in the Pacific basin this year.

As of 0500 GMT on Saturday, Yagi was spinning towards northern Vietnam over the Gulf of Tonkin.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/super-typhoon-yagi-sets-sight-vietnam-after-tearing-through-chinas-hainan-2024-09-07/

Telegram has quietly removed language from its FAQ page that said private chats were protected from moderation requests. The change comes nearly two weeks after its CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France for allegedly allowing “criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.”

Earlier today, Durov issued his first public statement since his arrest, promising to moderate content more on the platform — a noticeable change in tone after the company initially said he had “nothing to hide”. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” the company wrote in an unattributed statement posted in August.

Now, Durov appears to have changed his tone.

“Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform,” he wrote in the statement shared today. “That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.”

Some of those changes appear to be already taking effect: the company’s FAQ page has changed in the last 24 hours. Take one section titled, “There’s illegal content on Telegram. How do I take it down?”

As of September 5th, Telegram’s response to the question read in part, “All Telegram chats and group chats are private amongst their participants. We do not process any requests related to them,” according to a Wayback Machine archive of the page.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/5/24237254/telegram-pavel-durov-arrest-private-chats-moderation-policy-change

The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school was arrested Thursday and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon, authorities said.

It’s the latest example of prosecutors holding parents responsible for their children’s actions in school shootings. In April, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley were the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting. They were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.

Colin Gray, 54, the father of Colt Gray, was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.

“His charges are directly connected with the actions of his son and allowing him to possess a weapon,” Hosey said.

In Georgia, second-degree murder means that a person has caused the death of another person while committing second-degree cruelty to children, regardless of intent. It is punishable by 10 to 30 years in prison, while malice murder and felony murder carry a minimum sentence of life. Involuntary manslaughter means that someone unintentionally caused the death of another person.

Father and son have been charged in the deaths of students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, according to Hosey. Colt Gray has a first court appearance scheduled Friday, but no proceedings were yet scheduled for his father. Neither Gray appeared in online court records for Barrow County.

Authorities have charged 14-year-old Colt Gray as an adult with four counts of murder in the shootings Wednesday at Apalachee High School outside Atlanta, Hosey said. Arrest warrants obtained by the AP accuse him of using a semiautomatic assault-style rifle in the attack, which killed two students and two teachers. Nine other people were hurt, seven of them shot.

The teen denied threatening to carry out a school shooting when authorities interviewed him last year about a menacing post on social media, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday.

Conflicting evidence on the post’s origin left investigators unable to arrest anyone, the report said. Jackson County Sheriff Janis Mangum said she reviewed the report from May 2023 and found nothing that would have justified bringing charges at the time.

“We did not drop the ball at all on this,” Mangum told The Associated Press in an interview. “We did all we could do with what we had at the time.”

When a sheriff’s investigator from neighboring Jackson County interviewed Gray last year, his father said the boy had struggled with his parents’ separation and often got picked on at school. The teen frequently fired guns and hunted with his father, who photographed him with a deer’s blood on his cheeks.

“He knows the seriousness of weapons and what they can do, and how to use them and not use them,” Colin Gray said, according to a transcript obtained from the sheriff’s office.

The teen was interviewed after the sheriff received a tip from the FBI that Colt Gray, then 13, “had possibly threatened to shoot up a middle school tomorrow.” The threat was made on Discord, a social media platform popular with video gamers, according to the sheriff’s office incident report.

The FBI’s tip pointed to a Discord account associated with an email address linked to Colt Gray, the report said. But the boy said “he would never say such a thing, even in a joking manner,” according to the investigator’s report.

The investigator wrote that no arrests were made because of “inconsistent information” on the Discord account, which had profile information in Russian and a digital evidence trail indicating it had been accessed in different Georgia cities as well as Buffalo, New York. The teen said he stopped using the account a few months earlier after it was hacked.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/georgia-high-school-shooting-c3c97267a4dfff64a59e1605e515c2f9#

The world creates 57 million tons of plastic pollution every year and spreads it from the deepest oceans to the highest mountaintop to the inside of people’s bodies, according to a new study that also said more than two-thirds of it comes from the Global South.

It’s enough pollution each year — about 52 million metric tons — to fill New York City’s Central Park with plastic waste as high as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. They examined waste produced on the local level at more than 50,000 cities and towns across the world for a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

The study examined plastic that goes into the open environment, not plastic that goes into landfills or is properly burned. For 15% of the world’s population, government fails to collect and dispose of waste, the study’s authors said — a big reason Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste. That includes 255 million people in India, the study said.

Lagos, Nigeria, emitted the most plastic pollution of any city, according to study author Costas Velis, a Leeds environmental engineering professor. The other biggest plastic polluting cities are New Delhi; Luanda, Angola; Karachi, Pakistan and Al Qahirah, Egypt.

India leads the world in generating plastic pollution, producing 10.2 million tons a year (9.3 million metric tons), far more than double the next big-polluting nations, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often villainized for pollution, ranks fourth but is making tremendous strides in reducing waste, Velis said. Other top plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight nations are responsible for more than half of the globe’s plastic pollution, according to the study’s data.

The United States ranks 90th in plastic pollution with more than 52,500 tons (47,600 metric tons) and the United Kingdom ranks 135th with nearly 5,100 tons (4,600 metric tons), according to the study.

In 2022, most of the world’s nations agreed to make the first legally binding treaty on plastics pollution, including in the oceans. Final treaty negotiations take place in South Korea in November.

The study used artificial intelligence to concentrate on plastics that were improperly burned — about 57% of the pollution — or just dumped. In both cases incredibly tiny microplastics, or nanoplastics, are what turn the problem from a visual annoyance at beaches and a marine life problem to a human health threat, Velis said.

Several studies this year have looked at how prevalent microplastics are in our drinking water and in people’s tissue, such as hearts, brains and testicles, with doctors and scientists still not quite sure what it means in terms of human health threats.

“The big time bomb of microplastics are these microplastics released in the Global South mainly,” Velis said. “We already have a huge dispersal problem. They are in the most remote places … the peaks of Everest, in the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in what we breathe and what we eat and what we drink.”

He called it “everybody’s problem” and one that will haunt future generations.

“We shouldn’t put the blame, any blame, on the Global South,” Velis said. “And we shouldn’t praise ourselves about what we do in the Global North in any way.”

It’s just a lack of resources and ability of government to provide the necessary services to citizens, Velis said.

Outside experts worried that the study’s focus on pollution, rather than overall production, lets the plastics industry off the hook. Making plastics emits large amounts of greenhouse gas that contribute to climate change.

“These guys have defined plastic pollution in a much narrower way, as really just macroplastics that are emitted into the environment after the consumer, and it risks us losing our focus on the upstream and saying, hey now all we need to do is manage the waste better,” said Neil Tangri, senior director of science and policy at GAIA, a global network of advocacy organizations working on zero waste and environmental justice initiatives. “It’s necessary but it’s not the whole story.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/plastics-waste-pollution-oceans-global-south-dd9ce2a092c5d5826a3436d9f47764c7

The Israeli PM told foreign media that his country’s three “war goals”: destroying Hamas, releasing all hostages and ensuring Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel, could not be achieved without control of the Philadelphi corridor, which he said Hamas is using to rearm.

Israel will not remove its troops from a narrow strip of land on the Gaza side of the border with Egypt until there is a guarantee it can never be used as a supply line for Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu has said.

The area of scrubland and sand dunes, known as the Philadelphi corridor, was seized by his forces in May and has become a key obstacle in talks to try to secure a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli prime minister has insisted on retaining control of the corridor, where his troops have uncovered dozens of tunnels which officials say have been used to supply Hamas with weapons and ammunition.

He told foreign media that his country’s three “war goals”: destroying Hamas, releasing all hostages and ensuring Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel, could not be achieved without control of the corridor.

Mr Netanyahu repeated his outright rejection of a withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor in the first phase of a truce deal, expected to last 42 days, saying international pressure would make it effectively impossible to return.

For a permanent ceasefire to be agreed upon after that, Israel would need guarantees that whoever ran Gaza after the war would be able to prevent the corridor from being used as a route for smuggling weapons and supplies for Hamas.

The message was similar to one Mr Netanyahu presented to Israeli media on Tuesday and also one which Ron Dermer, a close aide to the prime minister and Israeli minister of strategic affairs, gave in an interview with Sky News’ Yalda Hakim on Wednesday.

Mr Dermer said Hamas’s massacre in southern Israel on 7 October last year “couldn’t have happened” if the corridor had been closed and if Israel gave up control it would put the country at risk of repeated attacks.

“If you want to release the hostages, you have got to control the corridor,” Mr Netanyahu said, explaining his position in detail.

“Gaza must be demilitarised and this can only happen if the Philadelphi corridor remains under firm control and is not a supply line.”

He also hit out at international pressure to “end the war” and accept a hostage deal with Hamas – which US, Qatari, and Egyptian negotiators have been working to secure for months.

“People said ‘If you stay, this will kill the deal’, but such a deal will kill us,” Mr Netanyahu stated.

“If we leave there will not be any pressure points and we won’t get the hostages, the real obstacle to getting a deal is Hamas.”

If agreed, a deal would see the release of the remaining 101 hostages who have been held since the 7 October attack, in which more than 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage.

Following Mr Netanyahu’s press conference, Hamas said in a statement there is no need for new ceasefire proposals, and it is “time to put pressure on Israel”.

Both sides previously agreed, in principle, to a plan announced by US President Joe Biden on 31 May, but Hamas has since proposed amendments and Israel has suggested clarifications – leading to each side accusing the other of trying to scupper the deal.

Following the latest negotiations last month, mediators said they had presented a proposal to both parties, which they hope will build on areas of agreement and bridge any remaining gaps.

‘I am sorry’

Mr Netanyahu also faces a great deal of internal pressure to agree a deal.

Mass protests in Israeli cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have taken place over the past four days, sparked by the recovery of the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Saturday. Israel says the hostages were shot dead by Hamas.

Addressing the loved ones of the six, Mr Netanyahu said he had visited one of the families and had spoken to others.

He explained: “I said to them that I am sorry.”

“I apologised that we didn’t get them out. We worked so hard to get them, we were close, but we didn’t,” he said.

Gil Dickmann, the cousin of Carmel Gat, one of the hostages found on the weekend, told The World with Yalda Hakim he thought the Israeli government were “all losers”.

“They lost Carmel’s life. They knew that her life was in danger. They knew, and we warned them… that they could be murdered at any moment and they decided… that they are going to say no to a deal that would save her life,” he said.

“They decided to sacrifice the lives of Israeli citizens – Israeli people who were taken from their beds on 7 October under the open eye of Ron Dermer [minister of strategic affairs] and Benjamin Netanyahu.

“They decided to sacrifice Carmel and all the other hostages and now they have been executed.”

Despite the backlash and mass gatherings of demonstrators, Mr Netanyahu said the people of Israel were “overwhelmingly united” and committed to achieving its goals in Gaza.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/netanyahu-says-israeli-forces-will-not-leave-philadelphi-corridor-until-guarantee-its-not-used-as-hamas-supply-line-13209645

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Mongolia, his first visit to an International Criminal Court (ICC) member since it issued a warrant for his arrest last year.

He was welcomed by Mongolia’s leader at a lavish ceremony in the Asian nation’s capital Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday.
The Russian leader is wanted by the court for the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children.
A spokesperson from the Kremlin said it was not concerned Mr Putin would be arrested during the visit.Soldiers on horseback lined the capital’s Genghis Khan Square as martial anthems were played by a live band to welcome the Russian leader, who met with the Mongolian president Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh.
A small group of protesters gathered at the square on Monday afternoon, holding a sign demanding “Get War Criminal Putin out of here”.
Another protest is planned for midday Tuesday at Ulaanbaatar’s Monument for the Politically Repressed, which commemorates those who suffered under Mongolia’s decades-long Soviet-backed communist regime.
Other protestors were prevented from getting close to the Russian president on his arrival by security forces.
Ahead of his visit, Ukraine had urged Mongolia to arrest Mr Putin.
“We call on the Mongolian authorities to comply with the mandatory international arrest warrant and transfer Putin to the International Criminal Court in the Hague,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said on Telegram.
The court alleged last year that the Russian president was responsible for war crimes, focusing on the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.
It has also issued a warrant for the arrest of Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the same crimes.
It alleges the crimes were committed in Ukraine from 24 February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion.

ICC members are expected to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued, but there is no enforcement mechanism.
The Hague-based court last week said members had “an obligation” to take action. Mongolia has not publicly responded to Ukraine or the ICC’s call.
The former Soviet satellite state has maintained friendly relations with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
It has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and declined to vote on the conflict at the United Nations.
The landlocked country, which also borders China, also relies on Russia for gas and electricity.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy527yex0no

At least 50 people were killed and 271 wounded when Russia hit a military institute in Ukraine’s central town of Poltava with two ballistic missiles on Tuesday, the war’s deadliest single attack this year.
Photographs posted on social media showed several bodies of young men on the ground covered in dust and debris, with the badly damaged side of a large building behind them. Reuters could not immediately verify the images.

The emergency service gave a death toll of 50. Poltava Regional Governor Filip Pronin said 15 people may still be under the rubble.

Ukraine’s land forces said military personnel had been killed. They did not specify how many of the victims were from the armed forces, but the attack was a major blow to Kyiv as it tries to bolster its ranks to hold off a more powerful enemy.

“The Land Forces Command is conducting an investigation to determine whether enough was done to protect the lives and health of the soldiers at the facility,” a statement said.

The use of ballistic missiles – which hit targets hundreds of kilometres away within a few minutes of their launch – meant the victims had little time to find cover after the air raid siren sounded, the foreign ministry said.

“This is a stunning tragedy for all of Ukraine. The enemy hit an educational institution and a hospital,” Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, wrote on X.

Some Ukrainians left worried messages on the institute’s Facebook page seeking information about their loved ones.

“One of the institute’s buildings was partially destroyed, and many people were trapped under the rubble,” the defence ministry said on Telegram.

“Thanks to the coordinated work of rescuers and medics, 25 people were rescued, 11 of whom were taken from the rubble. The rescuers are currently continuing their work.”

Russia did not immediately comment on the attack.

INCREASE IN MISSILE STRIKES

Russia has intensified its missile and drone attacks on Ukraine 2-1/2 years into the full-scale war.

Last week Ukraine was pummelled with the heaviest bombardment to date, and on Monday ballistic and cruise missiles targeted Kyiv causing loud explosions.

Ukraine targeted Russia with more than 158 drones during the weekend, damaging an oil refinery near Moscow and a power station.

Fighting has intensified over the past month, with Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine, while Kyiv’s troops have mounted their first large-scale cross-border assault into Russia. Moscow has vowed to retaliate for the incursion into the Kursk region.

Zelenskiy repeated calls for more Western air defences and urged allies to allow their long-range weapons to be used for strikes deeper into Russian territory.

“We keep telling everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: Air defence systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine, not in a warehouse somewhere.

“Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not some time later. Unfortunately, every day of delay means loss of life.”

In Poltava, some 300 km (186 miles) southeast of Kyiv and 120 km (75 miles) to the nearest Russian border, Governor Pronin said about 150 residents had donated blood for the wounded.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-missile-strike-kills-41-people-ukraines-poltava-zelenskiy-says-2024-09-03/

HAMAS has threatened to release a video showing the “final message” of the six Israeli hostages who were brutally murdered inside Gaza.

The video reportedly shows the hostages confirming their identities before they go on to say their tragic final words.

In a telegram channel, al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of Hamas – posted the clip that ended with a sick threat to release their final messages on the internet.

Israel has vowed to make Hamas “pay the price” after it executed six hostages kidnapped on October 7 and kept in Gaza for almost a year.

Their deaths sparked mass protests across Israel as people raged against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his handling of the war in Gaza and the lack of a ceasefire-hostage release deal.

The six Israelis were shot multiple times from close range, an autopsy revealed, only hours before the IDF discovered them in a Hamas tunnel in Gaza on Saturday.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on X today: “Israel will respond with full force to this heinous crime. Hamas is responsible and will pay the full price.”

On Sunday some half a million people took to the streets across the country, setting fires, carrying placards of a blood-soaked Netanyahu, waving ‘Bring Them Home’ posters and blocking roads.

The marches, organised by Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum, are demanding a ceasefire deal that would see the remaining hostages returned safely home.

Out of some 250 kidnapped during the October 7 massacre last year, around 101 remain in the Strip with officials estimating a third are already dead.

During the brief and only ceasefire agreement so far in the war – in November last year – 105 civilian hostages were released.

Since then, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have only successfully rescued eight.

Protesters are pushing for Netanyahu to secure another deal that could free the remaining hostages.

He has been repeatedly accused of putting victory for the IDF in Gaza – complete destruction of Hamas – above their safe return.

One of the major sticking points for failed negotiations in recent months has been the Philadelphia Corridor – a border between Gaza and Egypt.

Netanyahu refuses to remove IDF troops from the stretch of land – something Hamas has also refused to compromise on.

Einav Zangauker, mum of a hostage still in Gaza, spoke at a rally during the protests on Sunday and said: “Nadav is alive. My son is still alive. But every day is a Russian roulette.”

She said the PM would play “until they’re all dead, [but] we won’t let him” and said he had “put the hostages to the guillotine”.

The heartbroken mum also said the six murdered hostages died “on the altar of Philadelphi [Corridor] spin”.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino were brought home to Israel by the IDF after the tragic discovery this weekend.

The bodies of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexnder Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino were brought home to Israel by the IDF after the tragic discovery.

Israel’s Health Ministry announced that an autopsy carried out by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute found all of them were shot several times from close range.

Security officials fear Hamas executed the six over fears another hostage rescued from a nearby tunnel last week would reveal information about their whereabouts, Channel 12 reports.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum blamed Netanyahu for the deaths of the hostages, claiming they were a “direct result of failing to sign a deal”.

“Over the past few months, eight hostages were rescued alive through military operations, compared to 105 hostages released in a deal last November,” they said in a statement.

In a statement, the PM said that Israel was committed to achieving a deal to release the hostages and that “Hamas refuses to conduct real negotiations.”

“Whoever murders hostages – does not want a deal,” he added.

Hordes of angry and grieving citizens marched with puppets of Netanyahu dressed as the Grim Reaper as police were dispatched to the scenes in Israel yesterday.

Protesters in the capital Jerusalem filled the streets and focused marches outside Netanyahu’s residence.

Major city Tel Aviv was another focal point as people blocked its main motorway and set fires across the city.

In the smaller city of Rehovot, central Israel, people blocked traffic and shouted, “We want them back living, not in coffins!”

Riot police were pictured spraying marchers with a water cannon as they sat cross-legged in the middle of a road in Tel Aviv.

In Jerusalem, cops unleashed skunk water, a harmful control weapon, at the crowds.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/12349563/israel-hamas-war-hostages-russian-roulette-netanyahu/

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro has recorded thousands of cases of monkeypox in recent years, as global health leaders call for a co-ordinated response to a surge of cases

Thousands of cases of monkeypox have been recorded in one city in South America.

Local reports say 1,266 people have had the disease in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro since 2022, according to the Municipal Health Department. A total of 3,800 reports of transmission have been made with seven new confirmed cases in August this year.

Monkeypox can cause sore rashes which can begin on the face or genitals and then spread to other parts of the body. Before healing the rashes can scab over and be painful, while a person suffering from the virus can feel ill with a fever, chills, body aches and tiredness.

They may also experience horrible bleeding from the rectum, as well as swollen lymph nodes.

Despite over 1,200 cases, Rio is still second to Sao Paolo in terms of confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation declared the ongoing surge of cases in Africa a global emergency. It followed scientists detecting a new version of the disease in Congo that they think could be spreading more easily in May.

On August 30, WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the surge in cases can end in the next six months if the governments of different countries work together on the issue.

He spoke about the rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicentre of the virus outbreak where 629 deaths among 18,000 cases have been reported this year alone.

“With the governments’ leadership and close cooperation between partners, we believe we can stop these outbreaks in the next six months,” he said at a press briefing.

He said that while mpox infections have been rising quickly in the last few weeks, there have been relatively few deaths. Tedros also noted there were 258 cases of the newest version of mpox, with patients identified in Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Sweden and Thailand.

Source: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/monkeypox-pandemic-fears-thousands-infected-33577429

Protests were sparked after the Israel Defence Forces said the bodies of six Israeli hostages were found and recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Saturday. More demonstrations are set for Monday.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to demand a ceasefire after six hostages were found ‘murdered’ in Gaza.

An estimated 500,000 people attended planned demonstrations in multiple cities across Israel, according to Hostage Families Forum, which organised protests.

It is believed to be the largest demonstration since the start of the war 11 months ago.

More than 300,000 people were in Tel Aviv, where protesters marched with coffins to symbolise the hostages who had been killed and others set fires in the middle of one of the city’s main motorways, bringing it to a standstill.

Protests were sparked after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the bodies of Carmel Gat, 40, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Alexander Lobanov, 33, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25, were found and recovered from a tunnel in southern Gaza on Saturday.

The Israeli Health Ministry said post mortem examinations had determined the hostages had been shot at close range and died on Thursday or Friday.

IDF Lt Col Nadav Shoshani said the bodies were discovered several dozen meters underground while “ongoing combat” was taking place, but that there was no firefight in the tunnel itself.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of killing all six hostages in “cold blood” and said Israel would hold the group accountable.

He also accused the group of scuttling ongoing ceasefire efforts, adding: “Whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal.”

Meanwhile, Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, blamed the hostages’ deaths on Israel and the US, saying they would still be alive if Israel had accepted a ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it had agreed to back in July.

He did not mention the hostages by name.

All six were abducted by Hamas on 7 October, Ms Gat from the farming community of Be’eri and the others from a nearby music festival.

Critics in Israel, including some protesters, have accused Mr Netanyahu of prioritising politics above the hostages and putting conditions into potential ceasefire deals that Hamas will never agree to.

The leader of the country’s biggest trade union also announced a one-day general strike from today as a way to put pressure on Mr Netanyahu’s government.

Arnon Bar-David, head of the Histadrut union, said the country’s main Ben Gurion Airport would close at 8am local time, with universities, manufacturers and entrepreneurs in the high-tech sector expected to join hundreds of thousands of workers in the walkout.

Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said the general strike had no legal basis as he called on the attorney general to submit an urgent request to the court to block the industrial action.

In a letter to Gali Baharav-Miara, he said the strike would have significant and unnecessary consequences on the economy during a time of war.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, who has clashed frequently with Mr Netanyahu, was one of those who called for a ceasefire agreement, and opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid urged people to join a demonstration in Tel Aviv.

Speaking from Tel Aviv, Sky News’ Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said protesters had turned from pleading for the government to agree to a hostage deal to expressing anger.

Israeli police said about 24 people have been arrested nationwide after demonstrations, according to the Reuters news agency.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/israelis-set-to-strike-as-around-500000-protest-after-hostages-found-dead-13208236

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has issued an emergency tender to secure mpox vaccines for crisis-hit countries in collaboration with the Gavi vaccine alliance, Africa CDC and the World Health Organization, the organizations said in a joint statement on Saturday.
Depending on the production capacity of manufacturers, agreements for up to 12 million doses through 2025 can be made, according to the statement.

China and the Philippines accused each other of causing a collision between their two vessels Saturday in the latest flareup of tensions over disputed waters and maritime features in the South China Sea.

In a statement posted on social media, Chinese coast guard spokesperson Liu Dejun was quoted as saying that a Philippine ship maneuvered and “deliberately collided” with a Chinese coast guard ship “in an unprofessional and dangerous manner.”

Philippine officials in Manila said it was their coast guard ship, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, that was rammed thrice by the Chinese coast guard without any provocation, causing damage to the Philippine vessel.

It was the second confrontation in days near Sabina Shoal, about 140 kilometers (85 miles) west of the Philippine province of Palawan, in the internationally recognized exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.

The Philippine ship, the Magbanua, has been anchored in Sabina since mid-April after Manila suspected that China may construct a structure to seize the uninhabited atoll. China harbored the same suspicions and recently filed a diplomatic protest against the Philippines due to the ship’s prolonged presence at the shoal.

China is rapidly expanding its military and has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea, which is crucial to international trade. The tensions have led to more frequent confrontations, primarily with the Philippines, and could drag in with the United States, which is bound by a treaty to defend the Philippines. The longtime territorial disputes also involve other claimants including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

China has rejected a ruling by a U.N.-backed arbitration panel that negated almost all of its historically based claims in the South China Sea.

Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine coast guard said in a news briefing in Manila that the Magbanua had dropped its anchor again and would not withdraw from Sabina Shoal “despite the harassment, bullying activities and escalatory action of the Chinese coast guard.”

Video released by the Philippine coast guard appeared to show the Magbanua being rammed by a Chinese coast guard ship.

The United States condemned “the multiple dangerous violations of international law by the PRC (People’s Republic of China), including today’s intentional ramming of the BRP Teresa Magbanua while it was conducting lawful operations within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone.”

“We stand with the Philippines in upholding international law,” U.S. Ambassador to Manila MaryKay Carlson said in a statement she posted on X.

The United States has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines if Filipino forces come under an armed attack in the South China Sea.

On Tuesday, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said the U.S. military is open to consultations about escorting Philippine ships in the disputed waters.

China’s coast guard, navy and accompanying ships regularly clash with Philippine vessels during attempts to resupply Filipino sailors stationed in parts of the South China Sea claimed by both countries. As the confrontations become increasingly hostile, resulting in injuries to Filipino sailors and damage to their ships, the Philippine government has faced questions about invoking the treaty alliance with Washington.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/china-philippines-us-sea-clash-d08f4532c2a66047c6fa2833b76d7773

While Kyiv says it has taken more territory in its Kursk incursion, Russian state media is reporting that Moscow’s ongoing operations in eastern Ukraine are continuing towards key strategic settlements.

Ukraine’s air force commander has been dismissed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after an F-16 crash earlier this week, that an MP claimed was “friendly fire”.

Lieutenant Colonel Oleksiy Mes was killed while defending Ukraine’s skies from a huge Russian aerial attack at the start of the week.

Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla claimed the jet was hit in an act of friendly fire by a US Patriot missile.

In response, air force commander Mykola Oleschuk said her words were a “tool to discredit the top military leadership”.

But the air force did not directly deny that the F-16 was hit by a Patriot missile.

Now, Mr Zelenskyy has dismissed Lt. Gen. Oleshchuk and US experts are aiding the investigation into the crash.

The order was published on the presidential website.

“We need to protect people. Protect personnel. Take care of all our soldiers,” Mr Zelenskyy said in an address minutes after the order was published.

He added that Ukraine needs to strengthen its army on the command level.

Lt. Gen. Anatolii Kryvonozhko was appointed acting air force commander, the army’s general staff said.

Elsewhere in the war in Ukraine:

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed calls to Western allies to allow long-range attacks on Russia
• In the Kursk incursion, Ukraine’s top commander claimed his forces advanced 2km in the past 24 hours
• Russian forces have taken control of more settlements in eastern Ukraine, according to state media
• European Union defence ministers agreed to boost their training programme for Ukrainian troops
• A Russian newspaper publisher was sentenced to eight years after reporting on Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine, according to rights activists
• And the Kremlin insists it has “no worries” as President Vladimir Putin visits Mongolia, a country that is a member of the International Criminal Court, which last year issued a warrant for his arrest

Girl, 14, among the dead in Kharkiv attack

A 14-year-old girl was killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials have said.

At least six people were killed in all, as a 12-storey building was hit alongside a playground, in the industrial district.

The Russian-guided bomb attack in the northeastern city also left 55 people injured.

About 20 of the injured were in severe condition, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

“Rescue operations are currently under way in Kharkiv where Russian bombs hit. Unfortunately, there are dead people. Among them is a child, a girl, Sofia. She would have turned 15 this fall,” Mr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

He also renewed his calls to Western allies to allow him to use their weapons in long-range attacks on Russia.

“We need decisions that can be made by our partners, by those countries on whom it depends whether we have the ability to destroy Russian military aircraft – exactly where they are based, exactly where the elimination of these terrorists and their aircraft can be the most effective,” he added.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/girl-14-among-six-killed-by-russian-attack-on-kharkiv-as-55-more-injured-ukrainian-officials-say-13206148

Israel’s military and Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccination of 640,000 children against polio, a senior WHO official said on Thursday.
The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, with the pauses scheduled to take place between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. (0300-1200 GMT), said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s senior official for the Palestinian territories.

He said the campaign would start in central Gaza with three consecutive daily pauses in fighting, then move to southern Gaza, where there would be another three-day pause, followed by northern Gaza. Peeperkorn added there was an agreement to extend the pause in each zone to a fourth day if needed.
“From our experience, we know an additional day or two is very often needed to achieve sufficient coverage,” Mike Ryan, WHO emergencies director, told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday during a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

A second round of vaccination would be required four weeks after the first round, said Peeperkorn.
“At least 90% of coverage is needed during each round of the campaign in order to stop the outbreak and prevent international spread of polio,” Ryan said.
The WHO confirmed on Aug. 23 that one baby has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in Gaza in 25 years.
“We are ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign, serving and protecting more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas official Basem Naim told Reuters.

The Israeli military’s humanitarian unit (COGAT) said on Wednesday that the vaccination campaign would be conducted in coordination with the Israeli military “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be administered.”

EVACUATION ORDERS
Israel was continuing a “focused and intensive effort” to deliver aid to Gaza and coordinate the polio vaccination campaign with WHO and U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, Oren Marmorstein, spokesperson for Israel’s foreign affairs ministry, posted on X.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood said it was important that Israel facilitate access and “ensure periods of calm and refrain from military operations during vaccination campaign periods.” He added that the United States urged “Israel to avoid further evacuation orders during this period.”
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-has-preliminary-commitment-some-gaza-pauses-polio-vaccinations-2024-08-29/

Telegram described the allegations as “absurd” while Russian officials labelled Mr Durov’s arrest as politically motivated.

Pavel Durov, the chief executive of Telegram, is to face further investigation over allegations he allowed criminal activity on the messaging app.

French judges have barred Mr Durov from leaving France pending further investigation, but he has avoided being held in custody with a €5m bail.

The billionaire founder of the encrypted messaging and social media app was arrested in France on Saturday after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport outside Paris.

The Russian-born entrepreneur – who became a French citizen in 2021 – is accused of operating a platform which is being used for child sexual abuse material and by organised crime gangs, for drug trafficking and fraud.

It is also claimed that Telegram refused to share information or documents with investigators.

Mr Durov faces preliminary charges which, under French law, mean magistrates have strong reason to believe a crime was committed but allow more time for further investigation.

But it might not necessarily lead to a trial.

Telegram has insisted it abides by EU laws and its moderation is “within industry standards and constantly improving”.

Its statement added: “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuse of that platform.”

Mr Durov’s arrest in France, and four days of questioning, has caused outrage in Russia.

Paper planes – representing Telegram’s logo – being placed in Moscow in support of the billionaire.

Some government officials claim his detention was politically motivated and proof of the West’s double standard on freedom of speech.

However, Kremlin critics have pointed out that, in 2018, Russian authorities tried to block the Telegram app but failed, withdrawing the ban in 2020.

Meanwhile in Iran, where Telegram is officially banned, but still widely used, the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised France for being “strict” against those who “violate your governance” of the internet.

It has also prompted controversial influencer Andrew Tate to compare himself to Telegram’s CEO as he fights allegations of human trafficking in Romania, among other offences, which he denies.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/telegram-founder-pavel-durov-due-in-french-court-over-alleged-illegal-content-on-platform-13204827

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday said SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded after failing an attempt to land back on Earth during a routine Starlink mission, forcing the company’s second grounding this year.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 successfully launched a batch of Starlink internet satellites into orbit early on Wednesday morning from Florida. The rocket’s reusable first stage booster returned to Earth and attempted to land on a sea-faring barge as usual, but toppled into the ocean after a fiery touchdown, a SpaceX live stream showed.

Though no satellites or people were endangered during Wednesday’s flight, the landing failure indicated something in the rocket went wrong that the FAA tends to believe could pose a greater risk in future missions if not thoroughly investigated.
The rocket’s grounding could delay the launch of SpaceX’s high-profile Polaris Dawn mission with four private astronauts who are poised to attempt the first private spacewalk. The Polaris mission had been expected to launch this week but was delayed by a launchpad hitch, and then again over bad weather.

After the July grounding, SpaceX returned Falcon 9 to flight 15 days later, after the FAA granted the company’s request for an expedited return to flight.

Falcon 9 is also due to launch two NASA astronauts in late September on a Crew Dragon spacecraft that will bring home next year the two astronauts who have been stuck on the International Space Station after riding Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft.
NASA regulates Falcon 9 for its own missions. It was not immediately clear how the rocket’s latest grounding will affect that NASA mission. The U.S. space agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SpaceX has built a sizable fleet of reusable Falcon boosters since the rocket’s first launch in 2010 that has allowed the company to vastly outpace its rivals in launch frequency. The individual booster that failed on Wednesday was on its 23rd flight, SpaceX wrote on X.
“After a successful ascent, Falcon 9’s first stage booster tipped over following touchdown on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship,” SpaceX said, referring to the large ship the booster was supposed to land on.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacexs-falcon-9-grounded-after-failing-landing-attempt-2024-08-28/

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that the war with Russia would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position and that he would present a plan to U.S. President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.
The Ukrainian leader, addressing a news conference, said Kyiv’s three-week-old incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was part of that plan, but that it also comprised other steps on the economic and diplomatic fronts.

“The main point of this plan is to force Russia to end the war. And I want that very much – (that it would be) fair for Ukraine,” he told reporters in Kyiv of the war launched by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
He did not elaborate further on the next steps, but said he would also discuss the plan with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and probably also with Republican Donald Trump, the two nominees for the U.S. presidential election

Zelenskiy said he hoped to go to the United States in September to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York and that he was preparing to meet Biden.
His remarks indicated that he sees the main potential forum for talks as a follow-up international summit on peace, at which Ukraine has said it wants Russia to have representatives.
The first summit to advance Kyiv’s vision of peace, held in Switzerland in June, pointedly excluded Russia, while attracting scores of delegations, but not from China, the world’s second largest economy, despite Kyiv’s push to win over the global south.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Aug. 19 that talks were out of the question after Ukraine launched a major cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region on Aug. 6.

‘NO COMPROMISES WITH PUTIN’

Canada, following the lead of the United States and European Union, said on Monday it will impose a 100% tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and announced a 25% tariff on imported steel and aluminum from China.
The duties apply to all EVs shipped from China, which would include those made by Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab, a Canadian government official said.
Shares of the most valuable global automaker closed down 3.2%.

Elon Musk came out on Sunday in strong support of Telegram founder Pavel Durov after the Russian-born billionaire was detained in France. The arrest sparked global outrage on social media and was criticised as an attack on free speech.

The founder and owner of the popular encrypted messaging app Telegram was arrested at a French airport on Saturday over numerous charges related to his platform and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Since the news of Pavel’s arrest broke, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has posted several times on his social media platform to protest the arrest. Musk went so far as to attack Mark Zuckerberg, suggesting he should instead be arrested for the “massive child exploitation” problem on his Meta-owned Instagram.

Pavel Durov, the Russian-French billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, TF1 TV and BFM TV said, citing unidentified sources.
Durov was travelling aboard his private jet, TF1 said on its website, adding he had been targeted by an arrest warrant in France as part of a preliminary police investigation.
TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.

Durov faces possible indictment on Sunday, according to French media.
The encrypted Telegram, with close to one billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The French Interior Ministry and police had no comment.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abandoned his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, ending a run that he began as a Democrat trading on one of the most famous names in American politics.
Hours after announcing the endorsement in a press conference, Kennedy joined Trump at a campaign event in Arizona, where the crowd cheered the independent loudly.
“His candidacy has inspired millions and millions of Americans, raised critical issues that have been too long ignored in this country,” Trump said of Kennedy.

Strategists said it was unclear whether Kennedy’s endorsement would help Trump, who is in a tight contest with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Kennedy, 70, told a news conference earlier that he met with Trump and his aides several times and learned they agreed on issues like border security, free speech and ending wars.
“There are still many issues and approaches on which we continue to have very serious differences. But we are aligned on other key issues,” he told reporters.

Robert Kennedy, known by his initials RFK Jr., said he would remove his name from ballots in 10 battleground states likely to determine the outcome of the election and remain as a candidate in other states.
An environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist and son and nephew of two titans of Democratic politics who were assassinated during the turbulent 1960s, Kennedy entered the race in April 2023 as a challenger to President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
With some voters at the time turned off by both the aging Biden and the legally embattled Trump, interest in Kennedy soared. He later decided to run as an independent, and a November 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Kennedy with 20% support in a three-way race with Biden and Trump.
He ran a high-profile advertisement during the February 2024 Super Bowl that invoked his father, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and uncle, President Kennedy, and drew outrage from much of his high-profile family.

His sister Kerry Kennedy said on Friday that his decision to endorse Trump betrayed the family’s values. “It is a sad ending to a sad story,” she said on social media.
For a time, both the Biden and Trump campaigns showed signs they were worried that Kennedy could draw enough support to change the election outcome.
But as the race changed quickly in the last two months — with Trump surviving an assassination attempt and the 81-year-old Biden bowing to pressure from his own party and passing the campaign torch to Harris — voter interest in Kennedy waned.
An Ipsos poll this month showed his national support had fallen to 4%, a tiny number but one that could still be meaningful in a tight race such as the current Trump-Harris matchup.
Democrats shrugged off Friday’s announcement.
“Donald Trump isn’t earning an endorsement that’s going to help build support, he’s inheriting the baggage of a failed fringe candidate. Good riddance,” Democratic National Committee senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement.
Drexel University political science professor William Rosenberg said the move was unlikely to have an impact on the race, given Kennedy’s low poll numbers.
Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that more of Kennedy’s supporters would back Trump than Harris in battleground states. “This is good news for President Trump and his campaign,” he wrote in a memo.
In exchange for endorsing Trump, Kennedy was hoping for a job in a potential Trump administration, a super PAC supporting Kennedy told Reuters on Wednesday.
Kennedy painted himself as a political outsider. He told Reuters in an interview in March that if elected president he would repeal many provisions of Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act and would seek to close down the southern border to immigrants entering the U.S. illegally. He also offered staunch support for Israel.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rfk-jr-suspends-us-presidential-campaign-endorses-trump-2024-08-23/

Houthi fighters in Yemen have claimed responsibility for the attack. Britain’s ambassador to the country warned it risked an “environmental catastrophe”.

A tanker carrying 150,000 tonnes of oil has been damaged in the biggest attack on Red Sea shipping in weeks.

The Greek-flagged MV Sounion was reportedly hit by at least four projectiles as men in several small boats opened fire on the vessel about 90 miles off the coast of the Yemeni port city of Hodeida.

Officials said drones or missiles may have been used in the assault.

The attack on Wednesday caused a fire on board the tanker, which also lost power.

Its crew of 25 men were forced to abandon ship and were rescued by a French military vessel.

The MV Sounion then floated adrift, although officials confirmed on Thursday it had since been anchored.

A spokesperson for the EU’s Aspides military operation in the Red Sea warned on Thursday that the tanker posed an “environmental hazard” due to the amount of oil on board.

They added that its crews had also destroyed an unmanned drone boat in the area.

Houthi officials in Yemen confirmed its forces targeted the Sounion, along with Panama-flagged ship the SW North Wind I, which suffered minor damage in a separate attack.

The group, which controls large areas of the country, has been targeting shipping in the region since last autumn in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to put pressure on Israel to end its assault in Gaza.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Thursday: “From this week’s operations targeting ships violating blockade on vessels heading to Israel, a ship was adrift… after it malfunctioned because of strikes”.

The Greek shipping ministry said the vessel had been sailing from Iraq to Agioi Theodoroi in Greece with a crew of two Russians and 23 Filipinos.

Four private security personnel were also said to be on board.

Greek Shipping Minister Christos Stylianidis described the attack as “a flagrant violation of international law and a serious threat to the safety of international shipping”.

Britain’s ambassador to Yemen Abda Sharif said: “Another Houthi attack threatens Yemen’s coastline, fishing industry and environmental catastrophe.”

Delta Tankers, which owns the Sounion, said it was working on plans to move the ship to a safer destination for further checks and repairs.

Elon Musk ‘cut down 500,000 trees’ to make way for vast German Tesla gigafactory, satellite images reveal – risking fresh row with eco-activists he branded ‘dumb’

* Around half a million trees were cleared for the Berlin Gigafactory
* Analysis revealed that this was the equivalent to 13,000 tonnes of CO2
* The Gigafactory is already a controversial site in Germany

Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla felled an estimated half a million trees while developing a gigafactory near Berlin, new satellite analysis has revealed.

Analysis from environmental intelligence firm Kayrros suggests that 329 hectares (813 acres) of dense woodland from the site southeast of Berlin were felled between March 2020 and May 2023. This is the equivalent to around 500,000 trees.

The amount of CO2 that trees absorb varies from species to species, but a mature tree will, on average, absorb around 48lbs (22kg) of carbon every year, meaning the lost trees were equivalent to 13,000 tonnes of CO2, according to Kayrros chief analyst Antoine Halff.

Halff said: ‘The Tesla factory in Germany has led to quite a bit of cutting down of trees. Of course, it has to be put in perspective, against the benefit of replacing internal combustion engine cars with electric vehicles.’

Tesla boasts of its green credentials on its website, claiming that all the electricity used at the Berlin Gigafactory, which opened in 2022 after starting work in 2020, was ‘matched with renewables in 2023.’

Source:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13769233/Elon-Musk-cut-500-000-trees-make-way-vast-German-Tesla-gigafactory-satellite-images-reveal-risking-fresh-row-eco-activists-branded-dumb.html

Officers allege that the suspect was behind the X page Channel3 Now, which spread misinformation about the identity of the suspect of the Southport stabbings.

A man in Pakistan has been arrested over his alleged role in spreading misinformation that led to riots across the UK.

The suspect, a freelance web developer, was arrested in the eastern city of Lahore on suspicion of cyberterrorism, according to Imran Kishwar, the city’s deputy inspector general of investigations.

The arrest is in connection to the Channel3 Now account on the X social media platform, which was one of the first outlets to publish the false information that the suspect in the Southport knife attack was an asylum seeker who had recently arrived in the UK.

Channel3 Now purports to be a news channel. A Facebook account for the channel said it is managed by people in Pakistan and the US.

After the misinformation led to a violent mob in Southport the next day, police clarified that the suspect in the stabbing attack was from the UK.

Channel3 Now’s editor-in-chief posted an apology on 31 July for “the misleading information published in a recent article on our website, Channel3 Now”. They added: “We deeply regret any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.”

But the misinformation fuelled more than a week of rioting in cities and towns across the UK, which resulted in more than 1,000 arrests.

Authorities in the UK blamed far-right agitators for stoking the unrest by continuing to spread misinformation and promoting the violent demonstrations online.

Officials in Lahore said the suspect reposted the misinformation but was not the source of it.

Mr Kishwar told Sky News the suspect was “in search of a wider audience, a good audience and the best [is] in Europe, USA and specifically in the UK”.

He added: “A majority of the earning was coming through UK, so when this incident took place in Southport, he grabbed this as an opportunity, to grab a wider audience that he was searching for because he earns money through monetisation on things like social media platforms. That was [the] only incentive.”

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/police-arrest-man-in-pakistan-accused-of-spreading-misinformation-before-uk-riots-13200859

The first night of the Democratic National Convention averaged 20 million viewers across 13 networks, surpassing the audience for the initial day of the Republican National Convention, according to Nielsen.

The numbers are for the 10 p.m. ET to 12:30 a.m ET time frame, as the proceedings went way overtime, finishing with the address by President Joe Biden.

The first night of the Republican National Convention drew an estimated 18.13 million in the 10 p.m. ET hour across 12 networks. That was up slightly from the 17 million who watched in 2020.

The DNC audience was greater than the first night of the party’s convention in 2020, when it drew 19.75 million viewers. But it was down significantly from 2016, when the DNC drew 25.95 million.

The first night of the DNC on Monday drew 15.32 million 55 and over, 3.51 million in the 35-54 demo and 851,000 aged 18-34, per Nielsen.

Source: https://deadline.com/2024/08/democratic-national-convention-draws-20-million-on-first-night-surpassing-ratings-for-rnc-1236045366/

Israel retrieved the bodies of six hostages from the Khan Younis area in southern Gaza overnight, according to statements from the military and the prime minister’s office on Tuesday.
The families of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, and Chaim Perry have been informed, the statements added.
The Hostages Families Forum, an organisation that represents most hostage families, welcomed the news but renewed its call on the government to conclude a hostage release deal with the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group Hamas.

“The immediate return of the remaining 109 hostages can only be achieved through a negotiated deal. The Israeli government, with the assistance of mediators, must do everything in its power to finalise the deal currently on the table,” it said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the Middle East this week trying to secure a ceasefire and hostage return agreement between Israel and Hamas.
The current war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military has since levelled swathes of the Palestinian enclave, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing at least 40,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-retrieves-bodies-six-hostages-held-gaza-2024-08-20/

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of the divisive former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, became Thailand’s prime minister after receiving a royal letter of endorsement Sunday, two days after she was chosen by Parliament following a court order that removed her predecessor.

She replaces another leader from the same Pheu Thai Party, at the head of a coalition that includes military parties associated with the coup that deposed the party’s last government.

Paetongtarn is the third Shinawatra to hold the job, after her billionaire father and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra. Both were removed from office and forced into exile in coups, although Thaksin returned to Thailand last year as Pheu Thai formed a government.

She received the letter of appointment in a ceremony at the party’s headquarters in Bangkok, attended by senior members of parties in the governing coalition and her father, who has no formal role but is widely seen de facto leader of Pheu Thai.

The father and daughter held hands as they walked in with beaming smiles. Both wore white civil servants’ uniforms, which are used for royal and state ceremonies.

Paetongtarn thanked the king, the Thai people and lawmakers, saying she will perform her duties “with an open mind,” and will “make every square inch of Thailand a space that allows Thai people to dare to dream, dare to create and dare to dictate their own future.”

Paetongtarn became Prime Minister days after the Constitutional Court removed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, after less than a year in office. The court found him guilty of a serious ethical breach for appointing a Cabinet minister who had been jailed for contempt of court after an alleged attempt to bribe a judge.

Paetongtarn is also Thailand’s second female prime minister after her aunt, and the country’s youngest leader at 37.

Speaking to reporters after the ceremony, Paetongtarn said she is determined to push forward key policies such as economic stimulus, improvement for universal healthcare and promoting cultural “soft power” on the global stage.

She did not initially mention Srettha’s signature proposal for a digital cash handout of 10,000 baht (about $275) to 50 million citizens to spend at local businesses in order to boost the economy.

The project has been criticized as an ineffective way to contribute to sustainable economic growth, and has faced several hurdles that include its sources of funding.

When pressed by reporters, Paetongtarn said she still has an intention to push forward a major economic stimulus for Thailand, but she will need to “continue to listen to opinions.”

She also said she will ask for her father for advice when she needs, but insisted that she would make her own decisions. “I am my own person. I have my own things and my own goals that I have to achieve in the future, but of course all the comments from him (have) value to me,” she said.

Pheu Thai is the latest in a string of populist parties affiliated with Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup, which triggered nearly two decades of deep political divisions that pitted a mostly poor, rural majority in the north that supported Thaksin against royalists, the military and their urban backers.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/thailand-paetongtarn-thaksin-prime-minister-royal-assent-78e8d41b40c1bd6a77c0885158da5794

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border.

It was the first time Zelenskyy clearly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on Aug. 6. Previously, he had said the operation aimed to protect communities in the bordering Sumy region from constant shelling.

Zelenskyy said “it is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory -– our operation in the Kursk region,” he said in his nightly address.

This weekend, Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the region and struck a second one nearby, disrupting supply lines as it pressed a stunning cross-border incursion that began Aug. 6, officials said.

Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged the destruction of the first bridge on the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday released a video of an airstrike that cut the bridge in two.

Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and Russian regional Gov. Alexei Smirnov.

As of Sunday morning, there were no officials giving the exact location of the second bridge attack. But Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim, in the village of Zvannoe, had been struck.

According to Russia’s Mash news site, the attacks left only one intact bridge in the area. The Associated Press could not immediately verify these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian strikes would further complicate Moscow’s attempts to replenish its forces and evacuate civilians.

Glushkovo is about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, and approximately 16 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of the main battle zone in Kursk. Zvannoe is located another 8 kilometers (5 miles) to the northwest.

Kyiv previously has said little about the goals of its push into Russia with tanks and other armored vehicles, the largest attack on the country since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and saw scores of villages and hundreds of prisoners fall into Ukrainian hands.

The Ukrainians drove deep into the region in several directions, facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled. Ukraine’s Commander in Chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify what Ukrainian forces effectively control.

Buffer zones sought by both sides
In his remarks on creating a buffer zone, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces “achieved good and much-needed results.”

Analysts say that although Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains inside Russia, it would be risky, given Kyiv’s limited resources, because its own supply lines extending deep into Kursk would be vulnerable.

The incursion has proven Ukraine’s ability to seize the initiative and has boosted its morale, which was sapped by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of grinding Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said while visiting China in May that Moscow’s offensive that month in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region was aimed at creating a buffer zone there.

That offensive opened a new front and displaced thousands of Ukrainians. The attacks were a response to Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region, Putin said.

“I have said publicly that if it continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a sanitary zone,” he said. “That’s what we are doing.”

Ukraine’s move into Kursk resembled its lightning operation from September 2022, led by Syrskyi, in which its forces reclaimed control of the northeastern Kharkiv region after taking advantage of Russian manpower shortages and a lack of field fortifications.

Zelenskyy seeks permission to strike deeper into Russia
On Saturday, Zelenskyy urged Kyiv’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on using Western weapons to attack targets deeper in Russia, including in Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow “of any ability to advance and cause destruction” if granted sufficient long-range capabilities.

“It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war demands. … The bravery of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of essential decisions from our partners,” Zelenskyy said on the social platform X.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers alleged U.S.-made HIMARS launchers have been used to destroy bridges on the Seim. These claims could not be independently verified.

Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly sought authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure used to pummel Ukraine’s energy facilities and other civilian targets, including with retrofitted Soviet-era “glide bombs” attacking Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.

Moscow also appears to have increased attacks on Kyiv, targeting it Sunday with ballistic missiles for a third time this month, according to the head of the municipal military administration. Serhii Popko said in a Telegram post the “almost identical” August strikes on the capital “most likely used” North Korean-supplied KN-23 missiles.

Another attempt to target Kyiv followed at about 7 a.m. Popko said, this time with Iskander cruise missiles. Ukrainian air defenses struck down all the missiles fired in both attacks on the city, he said.

Fears mount for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Elsewhere, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Saturday the safety situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is deteriorating.

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi urged “maximum restraint from all sides” after an IAEA team at the plant reported an explosive carried by a drone detonated just outside its protected area.

According to Grossi, the impact was “close to the essential water sprinkle ponds” and about 100 meters (100 yards) from the only power line supplying the plant. The IAEA team at the plant has reported intense military activity in the surrounding area in the past week, it said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-kursk-incursion-bridge-invasion-43d6579c82c24ffc5cfabd99d07c66db

Vice President Kamala Harris has replaced President Joe Biden atop the presidential ticket, but his “finish the job” campaign mantra can still largely apply to her top policy goals. She’s promising to continue a lot of what Biden was doing during the past four years if she’s elected to four of her own.

Former President Donald Trump, for his part, is itching to get back to the White House and accomplish what he didn’t during his first term.

Since Biden stepped down last month, the vice president has announced few major policy proposals beyond a new push to prevent price gouging by food producers and grocers and plans to cut taxes for families, attempt to bring down homebuying and rental prices and reduce medical debt. Harris also used a recent rally in Las Vegas, where the economy runs on the hospitality industry, to call for ending taxes on tips paid to restaurant, hotel and other service employees. That came more than a month after Trump used his own Las Vegas rally to promise the same on tips.

Despite her lack of specifics on policy, the vice president has committed generally to some major policy positions on various matters, promising to sign sweeping legislation that’s unlikely to clear Congress.

Those include measures codifying the federal right to an abortion, increasing the federal minimum wage, imposing an assault weapons ban, requiring universal background checks for firearm purchases and advancing several long-stalled voting rights measures.

While details are still rather vague, there’s no doubt that whoever prevails in November will seek to shape the landscape of American life in ways wholly distinct from their opponent.

On nearly every issue, the choices — if the winner gets his or her way — are sharply defined.

The onward march of regulation and incentives to restrain climate change, or a slow walk if not an about-face. Higher taxes on the super rich, or cuts to benefit high-wage earners. Abortion rights reaffirmed, or left to states to restrict or allow as each decides. Another attempt to legislate border security and orderly entry into the country, or massive deportations. A commitment to stand with Ukraine or let go.

Here’s where each candidate stands on 10 top issues:

Abortion
HARRIS: The vice president has called on Congress to pass legislation guaranteeing in federal law abortion access, a right that stood for nearly 50 years before being overturned by the Supreme Court. Like Biden, Harris has criticized bans on abortion in Republican-controlled states and promised as president to block any potential nationwide ban should one clear a future GOP-run Congress. Harris was the Democrats’ most visible champion of abortion rights even while Biden was still in the race. She has promoted the administration’s efforts short of federal law — including steps to protect women who travel to obtain abortions and limit how law enforcement collects medical records.

TRUMP: The former president often brags about appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to an abortion. After dodging questions about when in pregnancy he believes the procedure should be restricted, Trump announced last spring that decisions on access and cutoffs should be left to the states. He said he would not sign a national abortion ban into law. But he’s declined to say whether he would try to limit access to the abortion pill mifepristone. He told Time magazine that it should also be left up to states to determine whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor their pregnancies.

Climate/Energy
HARRIS: As a senator from California, the vice president was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal, a sweeping series of proposals meant to swiftly move the U.S. to fully green energy that is championed by the Democratic Party’s most progressive wing. Harris also said during her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign that she opposed offshore drilling for oil and hydraulic fracturing. But during her three and a half years as vice president, Harris has adopted more moderate positions, focusing instead on implementing the climate provisions of the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. That provided nearly $375 billion for things like financial incentives for electric cars and clean energy projects. The Biden administration has also enlisted more than 20,000 young people in a national “Climate Corps,” a Peace Corps-like program to promote conservation through tasks such as weatherizing homes and repairing wetlands. Despite that, it’s unlikely that the U.S. will be on track to meet Biden’s goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 — a benchmark that Harris hasn’t talked about in the early part of her own White House bid.

TRUMP: His mantra for one of his top policy priorities: “DRILL, BABY, DRILL.” Trump, who in the past cast climate change as a “hoax” and harbors a particular disdain for wind power, says it’s his goal for the U.S. to have the cheapest energy and electricity in the world. He’d increase oil drilling on public lands, offer tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers, speed the approval of natural gas pipelines and roll back the Biden administration’s aggressive efforts to get people to switch to electric cars, which he argues have a place but shouldn’t be forced on consumers. He has also pledged to re-exit the Paris Climate Accords, end wind subsidies and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden administration targeting energy-inefficient kinds of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.

Democracy/Rule of Law
HARRIS: Like Biden, Harris has decried Trump as a threat to the nation’s democracy. But, in attacking her opponent, the vice president has leaned more heavily into her personal background as a prosecutor and contrasted that with Trump being found guilty of 34 felony counts in a New York hush money case and in being found liable for fraudulent business practices and sexual abuse in civil court. The vice president has also talked less frequently than Biden did about Trump’s denial that he lost the 2020 presidential election and his spurring on the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. When she’s interrupted during rallies with supporters’ “lock him up” chants directed at Trump, Harris responds that the courts can “handle that” and “our job is to beat him in November.”

TRUMP: After refusing to accept his loss to Biden in 2020, Trump hasn’t committed to accepting the results this time. He’s repeatedly promised to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants jailed for assaulting police officers and other crimes during the attack on the Capitol. He vows to overhaul the Justice Department and FBI “from the ground up,” aggrieved by the criminal charges the department has brought against him. He also promises to deploy the National Guard to cities such as Chicago that are struggling with violent crime, and in response to protests, and has also vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Biden.

Federal government
HARRIS: Like Biden, Harris has campaigned hard against “Project 2025,” a plan authored by leading conservatives to move as swiftly as possible to dramatically remake the federal government and push it to the right if Trump wins back the White House. She is also part of an administration that is already taking steps to make it harder for any mass firings of civil servants to occur. In April, the Office of Personnel Management issued a new rule that would ban federal workers from being reclassified as political appointees or other at-will employees, thus making them easier to dismiss. That was in response to Schedule F, a 2020 executive order from Trump that reclassified tens of thousands of federal workers to make firing them easier.

TRUMP: The former president has sought to distance himself from “Project 2025,” despite his close ties to many of its key architects. He has nonetheless vowed an overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, which he has long blamed for blocking his first term agenda, saying: “I will totally obliterate the deep state.” The former president plans to reissue the Schedule F order stripping civil service protections. He says he’d then move to fire “rogue bureaucrats,” including those who ”weaponized our justice system,” and the “warmongers and America-Last globalists in the Deep State, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the national security industrial complex.” Trump has also pledged to terminate the Education Department and wants to curtail the independence of regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission.

Immigration
HARRIS: Attempting to defuse a GOP line of political attack, the vice president has talked up her experience as California attorney general, saying she walked drug smuggler tunnels and successfully prosecuted gangs that moved narcotics and people across the border. Early in his term, Biden made Harris his administration’s point person on the root causes of migration. Trump and top Republicans now blame Harris for a situation at the U.S.-Mexico border that they say is out of control due to policies that were too lenient. Harris has attempted to counter that by arguing that a bipartisan Senate compromise that would have included tougher asylum standards and hiring more border agents, immigration judges and asylum officers was poised to clear Congress before Trump came out in opposition to it. Harris now says that Trump “talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk” on immigration. The vice president has endorsed comprehensive immigration reform, seeking pathways to citizenship for immigrants in the U.S. without legal status, with a faster track for young immigrants living in the country illegally who arrived as children.

TRUMP: The former president promises to mount the largest domestic deportation in U.S. history — an operation that could involve detention camps and the National Guard. He’d bring back policies he put in place during his first term, like the Remain in Mexico program and Title 42, which placed curbs on migrants on public health grounds. And he’d revive and expand the travel ban that originally targeted citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, he pledged new “ideological screening” for immigrants to bar “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs.” He’d also try to deport people who are in the U.S. legally but harbor “jihadist sympathies.” He’d seek to end birthright citizenship for people born in the U.S. whose parents are both in the country illegally.

Israel/Gaza
HARRIS: Harris says Israel has a right to defend itself, and she’s repeatedly decried Hamas as a terrorist organization. But the vice president might also have helped defuse some backlash from progressives by being more vocal about the need to better protect civilians during fighting in Gaza, where the civilian death toll has now exceeded 40,000. Like Biden, Harris supports a proposed hostage for extended cease-fire deal that aims to bring all remaining hostages and Israeli dead home. Biden and Harris say the deal could lead to a permanent end to the grinding nine-month war and they have endorsed a two-state solution, which would have Israel existing alongside an independent Palestinian state.

TRUMP: The former president has expressed support for Israel’s efforts to “destroy” Hamas, but he’s also been critical of some of Israel’s tactics. He says the country must finish the job quickly and get back to peace. He has called for more aggressive responses to pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses and applauded police efforts to clear encampments. Trump also proposes to revoke the student visas of those who espouse antisemitic or anti-American views.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-harris-issue-positions-worlds-apart-3f80a342c790da64e3de92a4f5760991