label
stringlengths 87
532
| text
stringlengths 0
103k
|
|---|---|
Deutsche Welle;Google wins legal battle against EU over €1.5 billion fine;https://www.dw.com/en/google-wins-legal-battle-against-eu-over-€1-5-billion-fine/a-70246709?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | After years of back and forth, an EU court annulled a hefty fine it was ordered to pay over how it sold advertisements. The fine was one of three major penalties the EU has leveled against the tech giant in recent years. |
Deutsche Welle;Can Namibia's strategy to cull animals save them?;https://www.dw.com/en/can-namibia-s-strategy-to-cull-animals-save-them/a-70213343?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Does Namibia's plan to kill animals to save them, and help the human population from ongoing drought, stack up? |
Deutsche Welle;Tupperware files for bankruptcy as demand shrinks;https://www.dw.com/en/tupperware-files-for-bankruptcy-as-demand-shrinks/a-70245540?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Once popular for its colorful food storage containers, US firm Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy. The company succumbed to a plummeting demand for its products. |
Deutsche Welle;US Intel's factory delay adds to Germany's economic woes;https://www.dw.com/en/us-intel-s-factory-delay-adds-to-germany-s-economic-woes/a-70241739?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | US chipmaker Intel has announced it is postponing a $30 billion investment in Germany due to financial problems at the firm. But is the German government still committed to the investments? |
Deutsche Welle;How the arts are a thorn in the side of Germany's AfD;https://www.dw.com/en/how-the-arts-are-a-thorn-in-the-side-of-germany-s-afd/a-70239911?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | As the far-right populist party AfD gains popularity in eastern Germany, a cultural war looms. Are theaters, museums and youth clubs under threat? |
Deutsche Welle;How new technologies can mitigate the risks of flooding;https://www.dw.com/en/how-new-technologies-can-mitigate-the-risks-of-flooding/a-70239314?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | With extreme weather, floods are getting as common in Europe as they are in Asia and Africa. From mobile barriers to specialized dams, people are finding solutions to life-threatening floods across the globe. |
Deutsche Welle;China's technology drive leaves young people jobless;https://www.dw.com/en/china-s-technology-drive-leaves-young-people-jobless/a-70187883?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | China is investing billions to become a global tech power. But AI, robotics and quantum computing are not labor-intensive sectors, so what to do about the millions of young Chinese who can't find a job? |
Deutsche Welle;Rapa Nui's early inhabitants survived despite the odds;https://www.dw.com/en/rapa-nui-s-early-inhabitants-survived-despite-the-odds/a-70232317?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Rapa Nui has long stood as a symbol of ecocide — an act of deliberate, environmental destruction by humans. But new studies suggests the theory is wrong. |
Deutsche Welle;The new-look Champions League for 2024-25;https://www.dw.com/en/the-new-look-champions-league-for-2024-25/a-67831201?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | More teams, more games and, in all likelihood, more confusion. The men's UEFA Champions League has been overhauled for the 2024-25 season. But what is the "Swiss Model" and will it hold off the Super League? |
Deutsche Welle;Manchester City hearing into 115 financial charges begins;https://www.dw.com/en/manchester-city-hearing-into-115-financial-charges-begins/a-70220640?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Premier League champions Manchester City face a different kind of challenge as they answer 115 financial charges. DW looks at what has happened and what could be the outcome of a high-profile case. |
Deutsche Welle;Nipah virus: A recurring, deadly threat in India;https://www.dw.com/en/nipah-virus-a-recurring-deadly-threat-in-india/a-66814386?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Health authorities in India face outbreaks of Nipah virus almost every other year. Transmitted by fruit bats, it's often fatal among humans. |
Deutsche Welle;Emmys: Japanese-language show 'Shogun' breaks record;https://www.dw.com/en/emmys-japanese-language-show-shogun-breaks-record/a-70224747?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Japanese-language historical drama "Shogun" has smashed Emmy records by winning 18 trophies at the latest edition of TV's most coveted awards. The 76th Emmys also saw "Hacks," "The Bear," and "Baby Reindeer" shine. |
Deutsche Welle;How is climate change impacting flooding around the world?;https://www.dw.com/en/how-is-climate-change-impacting-flooding-around-the-world/a-69289787?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | As Europe battles severe flooding, we ask what role is climate change playing in extreme rainfall? Will floods get worse as global temperatures rise? These five visualizations will help you understand the connections. |
Deutsche Welle;How important is the ozone layer?;https://www.dw.com/en/how-important-is-the-ozone-layer/a-69665982?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | It may just be a thin layer of gas, but it protects life on Earth. The global attempt to repair it is one of the greatest environmental success stories. |
Deutsche Welle;Dyslexia: German researchers find cause in the brain;https://www.dw.com/en/dyslexia-german-researchers-find-cause-in-the-brain/a-70199780?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Einstein had dyslexia. Hemmingway had it, too. It can affect people their whole lives. New findings may lead to a fresh approach to the learning difficulty. |
Deutsche Welle;A brief history of diamond desirability;https://www.dw.com/en/a-brief-history-of-diamond-desirability/a-70130225?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | They're the epitome of romance, glamour and status — but also have a dark side. A look at the many meanings of diamonds. |
Deutsche Welle;Floods in Europe caused by Vb conditions. What are they?;https://www.dw.com/en/floods-in-europe-caused-by-vb-conditions-what-are-they/a-69264729?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | With the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany preparing for heavy rainfall and flooding, here's what you need to know about the extreme weather phenomenon "five B" and why it's getting worse. |
Deutsche Welle;The pacesetter of a century: Arnold Schönberg;https://www.dw.com/en/the-pacesetter-of-a-century-arnold-schönberg/a-70198415?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Composer, painter, inventor of the 12-tone technique: musical pioneer Arnold Schönberg, was born 150 years ago. The music world celebrates one of its greats. |
Deutsche Welle;AI can debunk conspiracy theories. Can it help your uncle?;https://www.dw.com/en/ai-can-debunk-conspiracy-theories-can-it-help-your-uncle/a-70200703?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Could you convince a person their fringe beliefs are wrong? Maybe not, but a new experimental chatbot has shown it’s up to the task in welcome news for dinner hosts ahead of Thanksgiving. |
Deutsche Welle;NFL: Do 'guardian caps' make the sport safer?;https://www.dw.com/en/nfl-do-guardian-caps-make-the-sport-safer/a-70198031?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Concussion remains a major health concern in American Football. A handful of players now choose to wear special protectors over their helmets, but most continue to play without. Might this change the sport? |
Deutsche Welle;Dedollarization: How the West is boosting China's yuan;https://www.dw.com/en/dedollarization-how-the-west-is-boosting-china-s-yuan/a-70118356?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Western sanctions on Russia have spurred trade in China's renminbi to new highs. The curbs are helping China to test the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, sparking new tariff threats from Donald Trump. |
Deutsche Welle;When Germany targets Jewish artists as antisemitic;https://www.dw.com/en/when-germany-targets-jewish-artists-as-antisemitic/a-70180570?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | An open letter signed by more than 150 Jewish personalities has expressed concern that Germany's draft resolution to protect Jewish life is focusing on the wrong people. |
Deutsche Welle;Young Asian stars are conquering the chess world;https://www.dw.com/en/young-asian-stars-are-conquering-the-chess-world/a-70187437?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | A glance at the team lists at the Chess Olympiad reveals that Europe has lost its leading position in the sport to Asia. |
Deutsche Welle;'Coolcation': Is climate change transforming travel?;https://www.dw.com/en/coolcation-is-climate-change-transforming-travel/a-70187090?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | As heatwaves scorch southern Europe, some tourists are heading to colder destinations. Could vacation spots with cooler temperatures be the trend of the future? |
Deutsche Welle;World-first face, eye transplant a 'cautious' success story;https://www.dw.com/en/world-first-face-eye-transplant-a-cautious-success-story/a-70180158?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Aaron James made history when New York surgeons performed the world's first face and whole eye transplant in 2023. A year on, he says the procedure has given him a new lease on life. |
Deutsche Welle;Hydrogen vs battery: The race for the truck of the future;https://www.dw.com/en/hydrogen-vs-battery-the-race-for-the-truck-of-the-future/a-69456987?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Truck manufacturers are under immense pressure to cut emissions. But should they bet on batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or both? Multinationals are reaching different conclusions. And the wrong choice could be expensive. |
Deutsche Welle;What Volkswagen's woes say about Germany's economic future;https://www.dw.com/en/what-volkswagen-s-woes-say-about-germany-s-economic-future/a-70150224?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Job cuts and possible factory closures at Germany's largest carmaker are a symptom of a wider malaise in Europe's largest economy. Are the doomsayers right or will the "Made In Germany" monicker reign supreme again? |
Deutsche Welle;Kamala Harris and Donald Trump trade barbs on economy;https://www.dw.com/en/kamala-harris-and-donald-trump-trade-barbs-on-economy/a-70185008?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Inflation and the economy were central themes in the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Both candidates have strikingly differing plans on an issue Trump thinks he can win on. |
Deutsche Welle;Nagelsmann's Germany keep shining after Euro 2024;https://www.dw.com/en/nagelsmann-s-germany-keep-shining-after-euro-2024/a-70171474?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | A spirited draw against the Netherlands concluded a positive September for Germany, who kept their momentum rolling. |
Deutsche Welle;Palestinian national football team eye World Cup and homecoming;https://www.dw.com/en/palestinian-national-football-team-eye-world-cup-and-homecoming/a-70165044?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | The Palestinian men's football team is closer to World Cup qualification than it has ever been. But with all that is happening in their homeland, the chance to play back where they belong also means plenty. |
Deutsche Welle;Can European cities lead the way for climate action?;https://www.dw.com/en/can-european-cities-lead-the-way-for-climate-action/a-69642554?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Over 100 cities have committed to ambitious climate targets by 2030. From free public transport for youth in Porto to green construction in Warsaw and closing Helsinki's coal plants, here's how they plan to do it. |
Deutsche Welle;Milky Way is bigger than we thought, even touching Andromeda;https://www.dw.com/en/milky-way-is-bigger-than-we-thought-even-touching-andromeda/a-70154211?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Galaxies are much bigger than we originally thought, extending far out into deep space — so far that the Milky Way likely interacts with our closest neighbor, Andromeda. |
Deutsche Welle;Beethovenfest: Making classical music accessible to all;https://www.dw.com/en/beethovenfest-making-classical-music-accessible-to-all/a-70171262?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Under the motto "Together," the Beethovenfest in Bonn is aiming to create a democratic and inclusive experience that calls for the public's participation — going far beyond the music. |
Deutsche Welle;EU report calls for €800 billion investment boost;https://www.dw.com/en/eu-report-calls-for-€800-billion-investment-boost/a-70173239?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | In a report on EU competitiveness, former ECB chief Mario Draghi proposes "radical change" to counter aggressive competition from China and the US. He touts the use of joint EU borrowing and other controversial measures. |
Deutsche Welle;Bye-bye body positivity, hello 'heroin chic'?;https://www.dw.com/en/bye-bye-body-positivity-hello-heroin-chic/a-70026120?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Low-rise jeans and belly button piercings are back on runways and streets, coinciding with a viral hype around weight-loss drugs like Ozempic. Are "magic" injections and Y2K nostalgia the end of body positivity? |
Deutsche Welle;Germany: Football games under match-fixing investigation;https://www.dw.com/en/germany-football-games-under-match-fixing-investigation/a-70164395?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Authorities in several German states are investigating reports of match-fixing in 17 lower-league football matches. The manipulation is reported to have taken place in connection with online betting firms. |
Deutsche Welle;After Brazil's X ban, what social media alternatives exist?;https://www.dw.com/en/after-brazil-s-x-ban-what-social-media-alternatives-exist/a-70146551?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Elon Musk's platform X, formerly Twitter, has received plenty of criticism over the years. After Brazilians found themselves blocked from the social media platform last week, many were left searching for alternatives. |
Deutsche Welle;AI: Money-making machine or a billion-dollar sinkhole?;https://www.dw.com/en/ai-money-making-machine-or-a-billion-dollar-sinkhole/a-70136557?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Scores of climate conferences have been held to slow global warming — but greenhouse gas emissions continue rising. Could AI help tackle the climate crisis? |
Deutsche Welle;Time to criminalize environmental damage, says survey;https://www.dw.com/en/time-to-criminalize-environmental-damage-says-survey/a-70143258?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | A majority of people across 22 countries are deeply concerned about the future of our planet. A new survey shows over 70% want to punish those who harm nature and the climate. |
Deutsche Welle;Germany hammer Hungary 5-0 in Nations League match;https://www.dw.com/en/germany-hammer-hungary-5-0-in-nations-league-match/a-70162964?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Germany dominated in their Nations League match against Hungary, beating the visitors 5-0. Jamal Musiala and Florian Wirtz dazzled for what's seen as a new era for Germany. |
Deutsche Welle;Alex Morgan: The greatest female footballer of all time?;https://www.dw.com/en/alex-morgan-the-greatest-female-footballer-of-all-time/a-70153127?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Marta may have won six FIFA player awards, but two-time World Cup winner Alex Morgan is more of a household name. Teammate Megan Rapinoe achieved on and off the field, yet Morgan had a grace on the pitch few could match. |
Deutsche Welle;Goethe Medal 2024: Celebrating three women in the arts;https://www.dw.com/en/goethe-medal-2024-celebrating-three-women-in-the-arts/a-70151283?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Germany's highest prize for foreign cultural policy goes to Claudia Cabrera, Carmen Romero Quero and Iskra Geshoska. They pursue their vision despite all obstacles. |
Deutsche Welle;Germany's ter Stegen is happy the wait is finally over;https://www.dw.com/en/germany-s-ter-stegen-is-happy-the-wait-is-finally-over/a-70144838?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | National team goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen has spoken of his frustration during years of being stuck behind Manuel Neuer, while at the same time paying tribute to his predecessor. |
Deutsche Welle;No cancer danger from mobile phones, research concludes;https://www.dw.com/en/no-cancer-danger-from-mobile-phones-research-concludes/a-70133650?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | A review of 28 years of research has shown that mobile phones and wireless tech devices are not linked to increased risk of cancer. The radio waves they emit do not contain enough energy to damage the human body or DNA. |
Deutsche Welle;Australia's Raygun claims 'I knew people wouldn't understand my style';https://www.dw.com/en/australia-s-raygun-claims-i-knew-people-wouldn-t-understand-my-style/a-70135037?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Rachael "Raygun" Gunn, the 37-year-old Olympic breaker, says the criticism of her performance came from people's ignorance. |
Deutsche Welle;VW's warning on plant closures in Germany causes outcry;https://www.dw.com/en/vw-s-warning-on-plant-closures-in-germany-causes-outcry/a-70123969?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Europe's biggest carmaker is intensifying cost-cutting measures that no longer rule out plant closures or layoffs in Germany. This has sparked criticism and resistance from politicians and labor unions. |
Deutsche Welle;German minister wants DB to make cuts and trains run on time;https://www.dw.com/en/german-minister-wants-db-to-make-cuts-and-trains-run-on-time/a-70119726?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Transport Minister Volker Wissing has called on state-owned rail carrier Deutsche Bahn to improve punctuality "in the short term," but also to make cuts and improve its bottom line. He wants quarterly progress reports. |
Deutsche Welle;India's archaic labor laws allow firms to exploit workers;https://www.dw.com/en/india-s-archaic-labor-laws-allow-firms-to-exploit-workers/a-70121341?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Major international companies, including big tech firms, are exploiting India's labor laws and skirting overtime payment, say workers. |
Deutsche Welle;Can Germany live up to its chipmaking ambitions?;https://www.dw.com/en/can-germany-live-up-to-its-chipmaking-ambitions/a-70079606?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | The German government wants to build up its long-term chipmaking capabilities. But are they following through and attracting the companies needed to make the country a center of this all-important technology? |
Deutsche Welle;Infected blood scandal: A 'horrifying' global disaster;https://www.dw.com/en/infected-blood-scandal-a-horrifying-global-disaster/a-70093762?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Hundreds of thousands of people got HIV and/or hepatitis via infected blood transfusions over the past decades, and people are still dying. What have we learned? |
Deutsche Welle;The Galapagos mystery that just won't die;https://www.dw.com/en/the-galapagos-mystery-that-just-won-t-die/a-69958565?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Sex, greed and death marred a German group's search for utopia in the 1930s. A new book and a Ron Howard film revisit their media-fodder exploits, including those of a free-loving baroness dubbed "crazy panties." |
Deutsche Welle;East meets West in Tan Dun's music at the 2024 Campus Project;https://www.dw.com/en/east-meets-west-in-tan-dun-s-music-at-the-2024-campus-project/a-70107601?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | What happens when you bring together nearly 200 young musicians from 40 countries and a world-famous composer in the service of Beethoven? |
Deutsche Welle;What is hydrogen and how green is it?;https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-hydrogen-and-how-green-is-it/a-70094332?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Politicians and industry leaders meet in Namibia this week to hype hydrogen. DW takes a closer look at the pros and cons of the powerful gas, widely regarded as a key part of a green energy future. |
Deutsche Welle;Oasis tickets: UK government to probe 'dynamic pricing';https://www.dw.com/en/oasis-tickets-uk-government-to-probe-dynamic-pricing/a-70109787?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | Ministers have promised an investigation after fans complained of inflated ticket prices for Oasis' 2025 reunion tour. But industry experts insist that "dynamic pricing" is not illegal and based on supply and demand. |
Deutsche Welle;Half the world lacks access to safe drinking water;https://www.dw.com/en/half-the-world-lacks-access-to-safe-drinking-water/a-70089835?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | A new report shows 4.4 billion people across the world have no access to safe drinking water, more than double many previous estimates. |
Deutsche Welle;What is methane?;https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-methane/a-69919651?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | It's short-lived but its planet-heating effects are much stronger than CO2. Where does methane come from, and what can we do to stop it from getting into the atmosphere? |
Deutsche Welle;'Concerning' rise in unprotected sex among teenagers;https://www.dw.com/en/concerning-rise-in-unprotected-sex-among-teenagers/a-70079734?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf;2024-09-27 02:00:06 | A majority of teenagers in Europe, Central Asia, and Canada do not use condoms. Experts warn of rising risks of STIs and unwanted pregnancies. |
The Guardian;Israel says it has killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/israel-says-it-has-killed-hezbollah-leader-hassan-nasrallah;2024-09-28T08:56:40Z | The Israeli military has said it has killed Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a series of strikes on a southern suburb of Beirut. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted Hezbollah’s underground headquarters. The announcement by the IDF on Saturday morning came after overnight speculation about Nasrallah’s fate, the leader of Hezbollah for three decades. According to sources in Israel, the Israeli security cabinet had previously pulled back from plans to kill Nasrallah, but having established that the Hezbollah leader was due to attend a meeting at the command complex, approved a plan to kill him. The news was initially broken by the military spokesperson Lt Col Nadav Shoshani in a brief post on X saying: “Hassan Nasrallah is dead.” In a statement issued shortly afterwards, the IDF said Nasrallah had been killed along with Hezbollah’s southern front commander, Ali Karki, as well as other Hezbollah commanders who were attending the meeting. Following precise intelligence from the IDF and the Israeli security establishment, IAF fighter jets conducted a targeted strike on the central headquarters of the Hezbollah terrorist organisation which was located underground, embedded under a residential building in the Dahieh area of Beirut. “The strike was conducted while Hezbollah’s senior chain of command was operating form the headquarters and advancing terrorist activities against citizens of the state of Israel,” the statement added. Number two in the organisation, Hashem Safieddine, who could succeed Nasrallah, was reportedly also targeted in Israel’s Friday airstrike on Beirut. It is unknown how the next leader of Hezbollah might govern the group and how they will choose to retaliate for Nasrallah’s killing. The killing also threatens to involve Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, who thus far has been reluctant to involve itself in the fighting between its Lebanese ally and Israel. Iran’s embassy in Beirut said on X that Israel’s strike on Dahieh was a “dangerous gamechanging escalation that changes the rules of the game” and warned that its perpetrator would be “punished appropriately”. Shortly before Israel carried out the strike on what it said was Hezbollah’s main military headquarters in Beirut, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to keep fighting in Lebanon during a speech at the UN general assembly in New York, crushing hope that Israel would agree to a 21-day truce proposed by the US and France. “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that is true of the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu thundered at the UN podium. Among Hezbollah’s constituents, Nasrallah was viewed with a prophet-like fervour, seen as the liberator of south Lebanon from Israel’s 18-year occupation. At Hezbollah rallies, supporters chant “Labaik ya Hussein and Labaik ya Nasrallah” – “O Hussein, O Nasrallah, I am here for you” – shouting their devotion to Hussein, a key figure in Shia Islam, and Nasrallah. When Nasrallah spoke, his televised addresses beamed to cafes and homes across Lebanon, supporters would tune in for guidance on political, spiritual and cultural issues. Many Lebanese attribute the failure of the 2019 revolution to a speech by Nasrallah, when he told his supporters it was time to get off the streets, depriving the protest movement of its non-sectarian character. Hezbollah’s death leaves Hezbollah’s public face essentially leaderless. Whoever replaces the enigmatic former secretary general will have to deal with an organisation that over the last year, has lost almost every senior military leader and is on the backpedal from an Israeli bombing campaign across Lebanon. The death of the leader also throws the fate of the Lebanese state into question. Hezbollah is deeply embedded in the state, controlling a key share of parliament and exercising influence over several ministries such as the directorate of general security. Lebanon’s foreign policy is largely dictated by the group, particularly when it comes to neighbouring states like Israel. |
The Guardian;Middle East crisis live: Israel says it has killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in major escalation of conflict;https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/28/middle-east-crisis-live-israel-steps-up-attacks-on-hezbollah-targets-in-lebanon-amid-rising-fears-of-wider-war;2024-09-28T08:53:18Z | A source close to Hezbollah has told to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that contact with Hassan Nasrallah had been lost since Friday evening. The Israeli military claims that Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed alongside Hezbollah commanders in Friday’s airstrikes on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, which, before last week was a place rarely targeted directly by Israel. The military said the strikes killed Ali Karake, who the statement identified as commander of Hezbollah’s southern front, and an unspecified number of other Hezbollah commanders. The IDF said fighter jets conducted a “targeted strike” on the central headquarters of Hezbollah located “underground embedded under a residential building in the area of Dahiyeh in Beirut”. It said the strike was launched while the Lebanese militant group’s “senior chain of command” was operating from the Dahiyeh suburb of southern Beirut. These claims have not yet been independently verified. In a statement, the Israeli military said of Nasrallah: During Hassan Nasrallah’s 32-year reign as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, he was responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians and soldiers, and the planning and execution of thousands of terrorist activities. He was responsible for directing and executing terrorist attacks around the world in which civilians of various nationalities were murdered. Nasrallah was the central decision-maker and the strategic leader of the organisation. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) chief, Herzl Halevi, has given comments following the confirmation of Hassan Nasrallah’s death. “Whoever threatens the state of Israel, we’ll know how to get to him: in the north, in the south and in more distant places,” he said in quotes carried by Hareetz, the Israeli daily. “This is not the last of the toolbox, there are more tools to go,” he said, adding that the IDF is prepared on all fronts. Halevi said that the attack on Beirut that killed Nasrallah was planned for a long time and “came at the right time in a very sharp way”. The Israeli army has officially announced the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah, who had been the leader of the Iran-backed militant group for 32 years, was reported to have been the target of Friday’s strikes on Beirut. In a post on X, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said he “will no longer be able to terrorize the world”. Hezbollah are yet to issue a response to the military’s announcement. Killing Nasrallah has marked a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. For much of the early conflict with Hezbollah (which began on 8 October – a day after Hamas’ attacks on southern Israel) it was understood Israel would not assassinate the group’s most senior leaders. However, this understanding has not been honoured over recent months, with Israel killing several senior members of Hezbollah. Under Nasrallah’s leadership, Hezbollah has helped train fighters from Hamas and militias in Iraq and Yemen, and reportedly obtained missiles and rockets from Iran for use against Israel. You can find out more about his policy and ideological origins in this profile here. Thousands of residents in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs slept in parks, on streets or in cars overnight as they flee southern Lebanon to try to avoid Israeli attacks. Many people fleeing Israeli bombardment ended up camping out in Martyrs’ square, Beirut’s main public space. Hawra al-Husseini, 21, was among those who did. She described a “very difficult night” after fleeing Dahiyeh to sleep in the square with her family. “Missiles rained down over our home. I will never forget the children’s screams,” she told AFP. “We’re going back home (in the southern suburbs), but we’re scared. It’s impossible to live in this country any more.” Hala Ezzedine, 55 also slept in the square. She had fled the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood in Dahiyeh where strikes took place. “What did the (Lebanese) people do to deserve this?” she asked, adding that her home had been destroyed by Israeli strikes during the 2006 war. “They want to wage war but what wrong did we do? We don’t have to go through what happened in Gaza.” South Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, who spent the night in a church yard, spoke to Agence France-Presse (AFP) about his fears of the conflict escalating. Naseef said: I expected the war to expand, but I thought it would be limited to (military) targets, not civilians, homes, and children. I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets. I’m anxious and afraid of what may happen. I left my home without knowing where I’m going, what will happen to me, and whether I will return. As we have been reporting, Israel launched a series of attacks in the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight. Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated Dahiyeh suburbs before dawn on Saturday, forcing many families to spend the night on the streets. Israel’s military have now said jet fighters have attacked “dozens” of Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, with airstrikes continuing in the south. The strikes targeted buildings where weapons were stored and sites where rockets were launched into Israel, the military claimed. In a statement issued this morning, the Israeli military said: Over the past two hours, the IAF (air force) conducted extensive strikes on dozens of terror targets belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Beqaa (east) and in different areas of southern Lebanon. Numerous reports have said that Hezbollah’s long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of Israel’s strikes on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, on Friday evening. There has been no official confirmation of whether Nasrallah was killed in the strikes or not. The Israeli Defense Forces said the military carried out a “very accurate” strike on Hezbollah headquarters, but did not mention Nasrallah’s name. Media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources as saying he was “alive and well” but the Iran-backed militant group haven’t yet made an official statement. The unprecedented five hours of continuous strikes early on Saturday followed Friday’s attack in which several whole apartment blocks were levelled, by far the most powerful by Israel on Beirut since October. The apparent targeting of Nasrallah – who has been the leader of Hezbollah for 32 years – marks the most alarming escalation in almost a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel, as my colleague Peter Beaumont explains in this analysis piece. Nasrallah represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The Syrian foreign ministry has issued a statement following the Israeli attacks on Beirut that many officials fear could lead to a wider regional conflict. The ministry was quoted as saying in a statement: The Syrian Arab republic strongly condemns all these continuous crimes, and renews its affirmation that the Israeli terrorist entity’s insistence on shedding blood and committing all kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity that are blasphemy, will lead the region to a dangerous acceleration that is impossible to predict its consequences. Zeina Khodr of Al Jazeera has also put up a video on X with footage of downtown Beirut and cited a “massive displacement crisis” as Lebanese left southern neighbourhoods amid Israeli strikes. She quotes a woman telling her: “The 2006 war was nothing compared to what we witnessed last night.” Television journalist Ali Hashem has posted a short video on X of southern Beirut filmed from above, saying it is “shrouded in a thick grey cloud”. The Israeli military says it killed the leader of Hamas in southern Syria on Friday night, naming him as Ahmed Muhammad Fahd. Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X in Arabic saying (in a translation to English) that “the so-called Ahmed Fahd was responsible for carrying out numerous terrorist operations against IDF forces and the state of Israel from the southern Syrian area, including launching rockets towards the Golan Heights area”. Adraee said Israeli air force warplanes carried out the attack under the guidance of the intelligence service and the northern command. Fahd was liquidated when he planned to carry out another terrorist plot in the immediate future. Israeli fighter jets’ bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday sent panicked families fleeing the area. After heavy shelling sounded across the city on Friday, Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated Dahiyeh suburb before dawn on Saturday. Agence France-Presse reports hundreds of families spent the night on the streets, seeking shelter in central Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square or along the seaside boardwalk area. Syrian refugee and father of six Radwan Msallam said they had “nowhere to go”, telling AFP: We were at home when there was the call to evacuate. We took our identity papers, some belongings and we left. Israel said it was attacking Hezbollah’s headquarters and weapons facilities, while US and Israeli media reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was the target, although a source close to the group said he was “fine”. The explosions that shook southern Beirut were the fiercest to hit Hezbollah’s stronghold since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006. The Israel Defence Forces says it has intercepted more projectiles fired from Lebanon. The IDF posted on X that it occurred after warnings were activated a short time ago in several areas in the north of the country, “in the Samaria area and in the Menasha area”. Five launches were detected that crossed the territory of Lebanon, most of the launches were intercepted. Our full report with the latest on Israel’s fresh series of attacks in Beirut and Lebanon has gone live – see it here: Lebanon’s health ministry has said hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs will be evacuated after the heavy Israeli strikes in the area, urging hospitals in unaffected areas to stop admitting non-urgent cases. A ministry statement on Saturday called on hospitals unaffected by Israeli strikes to “stop receiving non-emergency cases until the end of next week in order to make space to receive patients from hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs which will be evacuated due to the developments in the aggression”, Agence France-Presse reported. The health ministry has yet to provide an updated toll for strikes. Welcome to our continuing live coverage of Israel’s strikes in Lebanon and the wider Middle East crisis – it’s just gone 8.20am in Beirut and Tel Aviv. A wave of air raids hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early on Saturday as Israel stepped up attacks on Hezbollah, after a massive strike on the Iran-backed movement’s command centre that apparently targeted leader Hassan Nasrallah. Reuters witnesses heard more than 20 airstrikes before dawn on Saturday. Thousands of Lebanese fled their homes in the southern suburbs and congregated in squares, parks and sidewalks in central Beirut and seaside areas. Israel’s military said early on Saturday that about 10 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory and that “some” had been intercepted. They were detected after sirens sounded in the Upper Galilee area, a military statement said. An unprecedented five hours of continuous strikes early on Saturday followed Friday’s attack, by far the most powerful by Israel on Beirut during nearly a year of war with Hezbollah and making a sharp escalation of the conflict, Reuters reported. The latest escalation has sharply increased fears the conflict could spiral out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, as well as the United States. There was no immediate confirmation of Nasrallah’s fate after Friday’s heavy strikes, but a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters he was not reachable. The militant group has not made a statement. In other developments: The Lebanese health ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured in Friday’s attack. The toll appeared likely to rise much higher as rescue workers cleared the rubble. Several apartment blocks in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood were reduced to rubble, and footage from the scene showed huge slabs of concrete topped by piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, into one of which a car had fallen. Israel’s military earlier ordered southern Beirut residents to evacuate and warned it was planning to strike three specific buildings in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”. Hezbollah responded to Israel’s Friday attack on Beirut by bombing Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Iran-backed group announced more attacks at Karmiel and Sa’ar. Israel braced for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, urging residents of Golan Heights, Safed and Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas. The Israeli military claimed to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail, in fighter-jet attacks. The IDF also said on X that “with them other commanders and terrorists of Hezbollah were eliminated”. Hundreds of families crammed into vehicles and fled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday after Israel’s strikes and warnings to evacuate. Bottlenecks formed in the middle of the night on normally deserted streets of the capital, many of them in darkness due to power cuts. Joe Biden has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after Friday’s attacks. The US president said earlier on Friday the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the strike. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel. The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, voiced regret that no power, including the US, could “stop” Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli prime minister appeared determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people protested in Iranian cities and in the Yemeni capital to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Agence France-Presse journalists and state media reported. The strikes came shortly after Netanyahu gave a bellicose speech in the UN general assembly and shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza. Instead the Israeli prime minister denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted Israel was “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his call for a Middle East ceasefire, saying: “Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it.” |
The Guardian;Russia-Ukraine war live: seven reported killed in Sumy after Russian strikes on hospital;https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/28/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-putin-latest-news;2024-09-28T08:44:37Z | Here are some images from this morning’s Russian attack on a medical centre in Sumy. Authorities said Russian kamikaze drones struck the hospital twice: once destroying several floors of the building and killing one, and again while patients were evacuating. At least even people were killed and 12 people were injured in the consecutive attack. Australia’s ABC News is rejecting Moscow’s claims that two of its journalists acted illegally by entering the Ukrainian-occupied Kursk region in Russia. The Russian news agency Tass reported on Friday that the Russian Federal Security Service had “initiated and is investigating criminal cases” against the broadcaster’s Europe correspondent Kathryn Diss and camera operator Fletcher Yeung, as well as Romanian journalist Barbu Mircea, for the crime of “Illegal crossing of Russia’s State Border” – a crime punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. Diss and Yeung were escorted by a Ukrainian military unit to Sudzha in the Kursk region on 31 August, marking the first time the broadcaster had entered Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “We reject Russia’s claim that the ABC’s reporters have done anything illegal,” an ABC spokesperson said. “They were reporting from occupied territory in a war zone and in full compliance with international law. “Their reporting was done in the interests of keeping the public fully informed on a story of international importance.” More here: The regional military administration for the Sumy oblast has updated the death toll in Saturday’s attack on a medical centre. Seven people have now been killed, with 12 reported seriously injured. The regional military administration said on Telegram that Russian forces used Shakhed unmanned aerial drones to carry out the attack. A policeman was among those killed – this comes as rescuers continue searching the rubble that once was a police administration building in the central city of Kryvyi Rih. A Russian missile attack that struck this five-storey building on Friday killed at least three people and injured six others. At least six people were killed Saturday morning following two consecutive Russian strikes on a medical centre in Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine. Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Telegram that one person died in the initial shelling that destroyed several floors of the hospital – but during the evacuation of the hospital’s patients, Russian forces struck again, killing more. A policeman was one of the six confirmed dead. The deadly attack came after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Donald Trump in New York amid concerns over the future of US aid to Ukraine if Trump – who has frequently made complimentary remarks about Vladimir Putin – wins in November. The sit-down lasted less than an hour, during which Trump told Zelesnkyy that if he won November’s presidential election he would get the Ukraine war “resolved very quickly”. “We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin,” Trump said as he stood next to Zelenskyy before the meeting. “And I think if we win, I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly … I really think we’re going to get it … but, you know, it takes two to tango.” Zelenskyy described the meeting as “very productive”. Elsewhere: China and Brazil on Friday pressed ahead with an effort to gather developing countries behind a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine – an effort that Zelenskyy has dismissed as one that serves Moscow’s interests. Seventeen countries attended a meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly chaired by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Brazilian foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim. Wang told reporters they discussed the need to prevent escalation in the war, avoid the use of weapons of mass destruction and prevent attacks on nuclear power plants. Zelenskyy, in a speech to the assembly earlier this week, questioned why China and Brazil were proposing an alternative to his own peace formula. Proposing “alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, so-called sets of principles” would only give Moscow the political space to continue the war, he said. US secretary of state Antony Blinken, speaking after a meeting with Wang, underscored strong US concerns about China’s support for Russia’s defence industrial base. He told reporters that China, while saying it seeks an end to the Ukraine conflict, “is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping Putin continue the aggression. That doesn’t add up.” South Korea’s foreign minister said Russia was engaging in illegal arms trade with North Korea, reiterating statements by the US, Ukraine and independent analysts that Pyongyang is supplying rockets and missiles in return for economic and other military assistance from Moscow. Misuse of Russia’s right to veto as a permanent member of the UN security council is hindering the UN’s efforts to end war, foreign minister Cho Tae-yul said during the UN general assembly on Saturday. Finland will place a key Nato base less than 200 kilometers (125 miles) from its border with Russia, “sending a message” to its eastern neighbour, the defence ministry said Friday. Finland became a Nato member last year, dropping decades of military non-alignment after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A Russian drone may have breached the national airspace of Nato member Romania for “a very brief period of under three minutes” overnight during an attack on neighbouring Ukraine, the Romanian defence ministry said on Friday. Three people were killed in the attack, according to Ukrainan officials. Russia’s FSB security service is investigating three foreign journalists for reporting in parts of Russia’s Kursk region occupied by Ukrainian forces, bringing the total of such investigations to 12. The three, Kathryn Diss and Fletcher Yeung from Australia’s ABC News and Romanian journalist Mircea Barbu, are being investigated for illegally crossing the Russian border, state news agency Ria Novosti reported. |
The Guardian;British nationals urged to leave Lebanon immediately;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/british-nationals-urged-to-leave-lebanon-immediately;2024-09-28T08:05:29Z | British nationals in Lebanon have been urged to leave the country immediately as the violence escalates between Israel and Hezbollah. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said on Friday night that British nationals in Lebanon should leave on the next available flight. It added: “We are working to increase capacity and secure seats for British nationals to leave.” British nationals in Lebanon should register their presence on the FCDO’s website to stay up to date with the latest information, it said in a statement. On Saturday, the Israeli government said it had killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, with the Israeli Defence Forces posting on X that he would “no longer be able to terrorise the world”. It comes after a series of massive explosions levelled multiple apartment buildings in Beirut on Friday night. Ettie Higgins, Unicef’s deputy representative in Lebanon, said “thousands and thousands” of people had fled southern Beirut, while hospitals were “overwhelmed” and water pumping stations had been destroyed. “Even the most basic essential services of healthcare and water are now being rapidly, rapidly depleted,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Saturday. “There was already a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon given that it’s been hosting over 1 million refugees from Syria for over a decade, so it’s rapidly escalating into a catastrophe.” She added that 50 children had been killed, and that she expected the figure to rise as the airstrikes continued. Israel has insisted the strikes have targeted Hezbollah military installations or senior figures. The UK defence secretary, John Healey, said that the fighting presented a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”. The Israeli army chief, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, told troops on Wednesday that ongoing airstrikes were “to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah”. Asked about the potential ground invasion on Friday, Healey replied: “We’re watching this really carefully. That will be a matter for the Israelis. At the moment, it’s airstrikes. At the moment, there are missiles from the Lebanese Hezbollah directed at Israel. This conflict serves no one.” Healey said his first concern was the safety of British nationals in Lebanon. “The travel advice remains the same – don’t go to Lebanon. If you are in Lebanon, then get out, and there are still commercial flights leaving so people can do that. “But I left Labour conference earlier this week to chair a Cobra committee in government because we are making the preparations you’d expect of government ahead of any potential developments in the future.” According to the PA Media news agency, the government has successfully asked airlines to increase capacity on routes out of Lebanon, with FCDO teams in Beirut ordered to support the British consulate. It is thought they are ready to facilitate evacuations by sea or air, which could be triggered if the security environment degrades further and British nationals are no longer able to leave via other routes. About 5,000 British citizens are in Lebanon, and the United Nations said more than 90,000 Lebanese people had been displaced in recent days. |
The Guardian;Middle East crisis: Israel launches more strikes in Lebanon – as it happened;https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/27/israel-lebanon-hezbollah-gaza-war-hamas-middle-east-news-latest-updates;2024-09-28T05:26:58Z | We’re shutting this blog now and moving to a fresh live blog here as it approaches 8.25am in Beirut and Tel Aviv. A rundown on key recent developments is below, and our latest full report on Israel’s strikes in Beirut can be seen here. Israel launched its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with Hezbollah, levelling a number of buildings in a southern suburb in an apparent attempt to kill the Lebanese militant group’s leader and a key ally of Iran, Hassan Nasrallah. The Lebanese health ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured, while some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties were expected as rescue workers cleared rubble. Several apartment blocks in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood were reduced to rubble, and footage from the scene showed huge slabs of concrete topped by piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, into one of which a car had fallen. Israel’s military earlier ordered southern Beirut residents to evacuate and warned it was planning to strike three specific buildings in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”. Israeli media reported the strike on Beirut as an attempt to kill Hassan Nasrallah. There has been no immediate confirmation of the Hezbollah leader’s fate, with a source close to Hezbollah telling Reuters he was not reachable. The Lebanese group has not made a statement. Hezbollah responded by Israel’s strike on Beirut by bombing Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Iran-backed militant group announced more attacks at Karmiel and Sa’ar. Israel braced for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, urging residents of Golan Heights, Safed and Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas. Video of the Israeli strikes on Beirut suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground. The Israeli military claimed to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail, in fighter-jet attacks. The IDF also said on X that “with them other commanders and terrorists of Hezbollah were eliminated”. Hundreds of families crammed into vehicles and fled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday after Israel’s strikes and warnings to evacuate. Bottlenecks formed in the middle of the night on normally deserted streets of the capital, many of them in darkness due to power cuts. Joe Biden, the US president, has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after Friday’s attacks on Beirut. Biden earlier on Friday said the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the strike. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel. The US secretary of state said Israel’s objective in Lebanon was an “important and legitimate one”. Antony Blinken said the US and other countries who had joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire believed that diplomacy and a ceasefire was the best way forward. The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, voiced regret that no power, including the US, could “stop” Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli prime minister appeared determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people have protested in Iranian cities and in the Yemeni capital to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Agence France-Presse journalists and state media reported. The strikes came shortly after Netanyahu gave a bellicose speech in the UN general assembly and shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza. Instead the Israeli prime minister denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted Israel was “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his call for a Middle East ceasefire, saying: “Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it.” Lebanon’s health ministry has said hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs will be evacuated after the heavy Israeli strikes in the area, urging hospitals in unaffected areas to stop admitting non-urgent cases. A ministry statement on Saturday called on hospitals unaffected by Israeli strikes to “stop receiving non-emergency cases until the end of next week in order to make space to receive patients from hospitals in Beirut’s southern suburbs which will be evacuated due to the developments in the aggression”, Agence France-Presse reported. The health ministry has yet to provide an updated toll for strikes. The BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard has been posting again from Beirut: The Israeli military says it has intercepted a number of rockets after detecting that 10 were being launched at the Upper Galilee area of northern Israel, Reuters has snapped. More here around Israel’s attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut in huge blasts that levelled multiple high-rise apartment buildings on Friday. Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said the headquarters was located underground beneath residential buildings. The series of blasts at around nightfall reduced six apartment towers to rubble in Haret Hreik, a densely populated, predominantly Shiite district of Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburbs, according to Lebanon’s national news agency. A wall of billowing black and orange smoke rose into the sky as windows were rattled and houses shaken some 30km (20 miles) north of Beirut. Footage showed rescue workers clambering over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of residents carrying their belongings were seen fleeing along a main road out of the district. Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used, but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has in its arsenal 2,000-pound (about 900kg), US-made “Bunker Buster” guided bombs designed specifically for hitting subterranean targets. Richard Weir, crisis and weapons researcher with Human Rights Watch, said the blasts were consistent with that class of bomb. Circling back to Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN general assembly in New York on Friday, the Israeli leader signalled to the world that the multiple conflicts in the Middle East were far from resolved and vowed to continue battling Hezbollah and defeat Hamas in Gaza until “total victory”. Shortly after he spoke, blasts rocked Beirut and the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah’s headquarters, prompting Netanyahu to cut short his trip to New York by a day and make unusual travel on the Jewish Sabbath to get home, as the Associated Press reports. The Israeli prime minister told the UN general assembly that “Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely – and that’s exactly what we’re doing” , eliciting applause from supporters in the gallery of the general assembly. We’ll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met. When Netanyahu entered the hall and was introduced, boos and raised voices echoed, and many delegates walked out through various exits. Meanwhile, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said Washington was not informed beforehand of Friday’s Israeli strike on Beirut. President Joe Biden was being kept abreast of developments, he said. There has been no immediate confirmation of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s fate after Israel’s heavy strikes, with a source close to Hezbollah telling Reuters he was not reachable, the news agency reports. The Iran-backed Lebanese group has not made a statement. Israel has not said whether it tried to hit Nasrallah, but a senior Israeli official said top Hezbollah commanders were targeted. “I think it’s too early to say ... Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed,” the Israeli official told reporters when asked if the strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah. Earlier, a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive. Iran’s Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status. Reuters witnesses say they heard more than 20 airstrikes before dawn on Saturday amid Israel’s wave of air raids striking Beirut’s southern suburbs. Abandoning their homes in the area, thousands of Lebanese congregated in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas. “They want to destroy Dahiye, they want to destroy all of us,” said Sari, a man in his 30s who gave only his first name, referring to the suburb he had fled after an Israeli evacuation order. Nearby, the newly displaced in Beirut’s Martyrs Square rolled mats on to the ground to tried to sleep. An unprecedented five hours of continuous strikes early on Saturday followed a huge Israeli attack on Friday that apparently targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah – by far Israel’s most powerful attack on Beirut during nearly a year of war with Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of people have protested in Iranian cities and in the Yemeni capital to condemn Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Agence France-Presse journalists and state media reported. The demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities on Friday were responding to a call by authorities on Wednesday to demonstrate in support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon “and to condemn the barbaric crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine”, the official IRNA news agency said. Hezbollah is part of the “axis of resistance”, Iran-aligned armed groups across the Middle East that have targeted Israel, as well as US forces, in support of Palestinian militants Hamas. The alliance also includes Yemen’s Houthis, who organised a demonstration by tens of thousands in the capital, Sana’a, on Friday a day after firing a missile at Israel. In Tehran after Friday prayers, a protest took place around Enghelab Square in the city centre, an AFP journalist said. Demonstrators carried portraits of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah as well as Palestinian and Hezbollah flags. “Israel is destroyed. Lebanon is victorious,” they chanted, deploring “a bloodbath in Lebanon”. Protesters also burned Israeli and US flags. State television aired footage of other demonstrations in Semnan, Qom, Kashan, Kermanshah, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas. In Sanaa, which has been held by the Iran-backed Houthis for a decade, tens of thousands of chanting protesters gathered, many waving rifles and placards. “We say to our brothers in Lebanon that you will be victorious, God willing,” said Houthi supporter Mortada al-Mutawkil. This war is not the first nor the last with the Israeli enemy, but God willing it will be more painful for Israel than the 2006 war. In Bahrain, which is an Israeli ally and keeps a tight rein on demonstrations, two protests denounced the war in Gaza and bombing campaign on Lebanon. Several hundred people marched in a village north of Manama, voicing solidarity with Gaza and Lebanon, and in the capital scores of people raised Palestinian and Lebanese flags and called for an end to ties with Israel. “The people demand an end to normalisation,” the protesters chanted. In case you missed this earlier, here’s a visual guide to Israel’s airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon this week, amid estimates that 180,000 civilians have been displaced in both countries. The Israel Defence Forces has posted on X that it “recently attacked” additional Hezbollah targets in Bekaa, “deep in Lebanon”. The valley is about 30km east of Beirut. The European Union’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has voiced regret that no power, including the US, can “stop” Benjamin Netanyahu, saying the Israeli prime minister appears determined to crush militants in Gaza and Lebanon. “What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank,” Agence France-Presse reports Borrell telling journalists as he attended the UN general assembly on Friday. Borrell backed an initiative by France and the US for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel has brushed aside as it steps up strikes on Hezbollah targets. He said Netanyahu had made clear that the Israelis “don’t stop until Hezbollah is destroyed”, much as in its nearly year-old campaign in Gaza against fellow Iranian-backed militant group Hamas. Borrell said in English: If the interpretation of being destroyed is the same as with Hamas, then we are going to go for a long war. The outgoing EU foreign affairs chief again called for diversifying diplomacy from the US, which has tried for months unsuccessfully to seal a ceasefire in Gaza that would include the release of hostages. “We cannot rely just on the US,” Borrell said. “The US tried several times – they didn’t succeed.” Here are some of the latest images coming in from Beirut amid Israel’s continuing strikes on the Lebanese capital. Hundreds of families crammed into vehicles and fled Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight into Saturday after Israel’s strikes and warnings to evacuate, Agence France-Presse reports. Bottlenecks formed in the middle of the night on normally deserted streets of the capital, many of them in darkness due to power cuts. In central Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, or along the seaside corniche boardwalk area, desolate men, women and young children were walking around or sitting on the ground. “We were at home when there was the call to evacuate. We took our identity papers, some belongings and we left,” said Syrian refugee Radwan Msallam, who lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The father of six children aged between three and 17 said they had “nowhere to go”, adding that they could not return to Syria. Rescuers worked through the night searching for survivors in Friday’s strikes, the biggest to hit Beirut’s southern suburbs since Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war in 2006. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television said seven buildings were destroyed in the strikes. Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, has just issued a warning to residents in southern Beirut, including in a building in front of a school, saying they are located “near Hezbollah interests” and should evacuate immediately for their own safety. Adraee’s post in Arabic on X (translated to English) says: #عاجل Urgent warning to the residents of the southern suburb in #بيروت : Burj Al-Barajneh neighbourhood, in the building in front of Al-Amir School and the buildings adjacent to it. Burj Al-Barajneh neighborhood, in the building that houses Ronnie Café and the buildings adjacent to it. Hadath Beirut neighborhood, in front of Al Bayan School and the buildings adjacent to it You are located near Hezbollah interests and for your safety and the safety of your loved ones, you are obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 metres. The Israeli military says it is striking strategic Hezbollah targets in the Beirut area including weapons production, storage and command centres, Reuters has just snapped. Satellite images of Chouaghir, in northern Lebanon, before and after the Israeli strikes this week: The Israeli military claims to have killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail, in fighter-jet attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) also said in the post in Hebrew (translated to English) on X that “with them other commanders and terrorists of Hezbollah were eliminated”. The IDF also posted that Muhammad Ali Ismail “is responsible for many acts of terrorism from his sector towards the territory of the state of Israel”, including launching rockets towards Israel and launching a surface-to-surface missile towards the centre of the country last Wednesday. The IDF said: Their assassination joins the assassination of the head of Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array, the terrorist Ibrahim Muhammad Kabisi, and the assassination of other senior officials in Hezbollah’s missile and rocket array. It was not possible to verify the IDF’s claims. The BBC correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard has posted a photo from Beirut on X saying it was a picture of a strike that just occurred. Our windows keep shaking. More strikes are being heard in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Reuters has just snapped, citing a news agency witness. Hezbollah denied that any weapons or arms depots are located in buildings that were hit in the Israeli strike on Beirut suburbs, Reuters quoted the Lebanese group’s media office as saying in a statement on Saturday. This is Adam Fulton picking up our live coverage Here’s a recap of the latest developments: Israel’s military conducted strikes early on Saturday in the south of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after ordering residents to evacuate and warning it was planning to strike three specific buildings in the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”. “In the coming hours we are going to strike strategic capability that Hezbollah placed underground, under three buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh,” IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters late on Friday. Earlier on Friday, Israel’s military said it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut in its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group. Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon. A number of buildings in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh were levelled. Residents of Dahiyeh and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Burj al-Barajneh, fled the area following the strikes. Israeli media reported the strike on Beirut as an attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and key Iran ally, Hassan Nasrallah. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources saying he was “alive and well”. Hezbollah issued a statement saying there was “no truth to any statement” about the Israeli attack, without specifying what statements it was referring to. IDF spokesperson Hagari said it was still looking into the results of its strike, but that it was “very accurate”. At least six people were killed and 91 others were injured by the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday, according to the Lebanese health ministry, who cautioned that the death toll would likely rise. Some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble. Hezbollah responded by bombing Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Iran-backed militant group announced more attacks at Karmiel and Sa’ar, but did not put out a statement regarding the fate of Nasrallah. Israel braced itself for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran, urging residents of Golan Heights, Safed, Merom HaGalil, to stay near protected areas. Video of the Israeli strikes on Beirut suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground. Joe Biden, the US president, has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after a wave of Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday. Biden earlier on Friday said the US had “no knowledge of or participation” in the massive Israeli airstrike in Beirut. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Israel’s objective in Lebanon is an “important and legitimate one”. Blinken, at a news conference on Friday, said the US and other countries who have joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire believe that diplomacy and a ceasefire is the best way forward. The strikes came shortly after a bellicose speech by Netanyahu in the UN general assembly. Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, and instead denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted that Israel is “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor. The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, reiterated his call for a ceasefire in the Middle East. Guterres said; “Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it”. He added: “The death spiral must end for Gaza, for the people of Palestine and Israel, for the region and for the world.” Even if he was not harmed in the strike, targeting Nasrallah would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. The Hezbollah leader represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollah’s large rocket arsenal on Israel’s northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear programme. Iran’s embassy in Beirut said the airstrike represented “a dangerous game-changing escalation that changes the rules of the game” and warned that its perpetrator would be “punished appropriately”. Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon, said the Israeli attack on Beirut shows that Israel “does not care” about global calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon. Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity. The car in which Islam Hijazi, Gaza programme manager at Heal Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Iran’s foreign minister has accused Israel of using US-made “bunker buster” bombs to strike Beirut on Friday, according to Reuters. Abbas Araghchi reportedly told a UN security council meeting: “Just this morning, the Israeli regime used several 5,000-pound bunker busters that had been gifted to them by the United States to hit residential areas in Beirut.” Senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel’s attack on the group’s central headquarters in Beirut’s suburbs. The fate of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, remains unclear. The Canadian government is booking seats on commercial flights to help its citizens leave Lebanon, the country’s foreign minister said. Mélanie Joly urged Canadian citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as they can. She said in a statement on social media: “Canada has secured seats for Canadians on the limited commercial flights available. If a seat is available, please take it.” This week, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 700 people in Lebanon, an escalation that has raised fears of an even more destructive conflict. Joly urged Canadians to register with the embassy in Beirut if they needed help leaving and said loans were available to those requiring financial assistance. Upon being asked what his message would be to his 20-year old son, Nimrod Cohen, who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, 55-year-old Yehuda Cohen said: “One of the reasons why I’m interviewing everywhere is the chance that he’ll hear from me because I want to give him strength ... He’s having a difficult time there so mentally I want to keep him strong and the only way is for him to hear me, hear his mother, hear his relatives so I’m telling Nimrod, ‘Stay strong, we are fighting for you, all over the world.’” Cohen, was has been protesting Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN speech outside Netanyahu’s luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, added: “I’ve been ... doing interviews just to keep the issue on the table, to keep Nimrod valuable for Hamas to keep him alive and to fight for a hostage deal so my son will be again a free man like he should be.” Yehuda Cohen, 55, the father of 20-year-old Nimrod Cohen who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, condemned Benjamin Netanyahu outside his luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue. “We are here today, this week because Netanyahu is here. Netanyahu wants to … show off. He came here for a speech in the UN while there is an intense war in Israel and he’s dealing with himself,” said Cohen. “He’s actually ruling on the blood of Israeli civilians, Israeli soldiers and of course the Israeli hostages and we want to make a stop to that. He must either go for a hostage deal or resign and just vanish from our lives,” Cohen continued, adding, “He’s trying to stay forever, he’s trying to break down the [judicial] system in Israel … and stay prime minister forever. He would even take [Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya] Sinwar as his personal assistant if this will help him stay in power. He doesn’t care for Israel.” As Netanyahu took the UN stage earlier on Friday, several diplomats walked out in protest. And away from the general assembly, there were further protests against the Israeli leader’s handling of the war in Gaza. Idit Hertzberg, 74, was one of the approximately two dozen anti-Netanyahu protestors outside his luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue. Speaking about Netanyahu, Hertzberg said: “We want to change his policy and to bring our hostages home. Bring them home, whatever the price would be. If he needs to cease the fire, temporarily or for a long time, we need them home. No way this goes on for more than a year … There are little babies, old people, no way can they go on being in these caves.” Hertzberg added, “[Netanyahu] is here. We cannot change the fact. He is going to speak … The same degree of speaking, [we want to see him] doing.” Before Israel launched a new air attack against Lebanon on Friday, the last day of the UN general assembly brought together different groups protesting for different causes. Supporters of the religious movement Falun Gong gathered in a designated protest area near the UN. Supporters of embattled Pakistani politician Imran Khan posted a banner calling for his release. Supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist party wore headbands and held a banner. Anti-war protesters held Palestinian flags aloft. Joe Biden, the US president, has directed the Pentagon to “assess and adjust as necessary” American forces in the Middle East, the White House said after a wave of Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday. A statement by the White House reads: He has directed the Pentagon to assess and adjust as necessary US force posture in the region to enhance deterrence, ensure force protection, and support the full range of US objectives. Israel plans to ramp up its strikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut, according to the Times of Israel. The report comes after Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it would strike three buildings in the Dahiyeh suburb of southern Beirut. Citing Israeli military sources, the paper says the IDF plans to strike more Hezbollah sites in Dahiyeh. The coming days are expected to be complex, the paper writes. Images and videos are emerging following the latest Israeli air attack on southern suburbs of Beirut early on Saturday. From Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem: From the BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard: The Israeli military confirmed it was conducting strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. A statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reads: The IDF (military) is currently conducting targeted strikes on weapons belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation that were stored beneath civilian buildings. Blasts have been reported in Beirut, after the Israeli military said it was conducting airstrikes in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, where it had warned residents to evacuate. From the BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard: At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded in Israel’s strike on Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday, according to the latest figure by Lebanon’s health ministry. The Lebanese ministry added that the toll was not final. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari also said that the Israeli military would not allow any weapons transfers to Hezbollah, including via Beirut’s international airport. Here’s more from Hagari’s remarks, reported by the Times of Israel: Air Force planes are now patrolling the Beirut airport area … We are announcing, we will not allow enemy flights with weapons to land at the civilian airport in Beirut. This is a civilian airport, for civilian use, and it must stay that way. Daniel Hagari, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, in a televised address, said the IDF is still looking into the results of its strike on Beirut earlier today. Hagari said the “very accurate” strikes hit the main Hezbollah headquarters, which he said was located underground beneath residential buildings. Israeli media have reported that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the principle target of Friday’s air attack on Beirut’s southern suburb. A preliminary death toll by the Lebanese health ministry said two people were killed and 76 others injured as a result of the Israeli strike. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble. “We will update as soon as we know. Our strike was very accurate,” Hagari said. As we reported earlier, the IDF spokesperson also warned that Israel would strike three buildings in south Beirut “in the coming hours” and called on residents to evacuate them. Hagari said: The force of the explosions as a result of the missiles which are under the buildings may cause damage to the buildings and even their collapse. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has warned that it will strike areas of southern Beirut in the “coming hours” and called on civilians to leave those areas. The statement by IDF spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari comes after the IDF ordered residents of Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, to evacuate certain areas as they were “located near Hezbollah interests”. A map posted by an Israeli military spokesperson showed different neighbourhoods of Dahiyeh, pointing to specific buildings in al-Laylakeh and al-Hadath, both densely populated areas of Beirut. Hagari reiterated the warning to residents of three buildings in Dahiyeh to evacuate. He said: In the coming hours we are going to strike strategic capability that Hezbollah placed underground, under three buildings in the heart of the Dahiyeh. Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, said Israeli military airstrikes on Friday targeted a meeting of “bad people” in Beirut. He declined to confirm whether Israel was targeting the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, but said Nasrallah is a “bad actor” and “a terrorist”. The Hezbollah chief has “blood on his hands”, Danon added. Israel’s apparent attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a massive strike on an underground headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs marks the most alarming escalation in almost a year of war between the Shia militant organisation as Israel. Immediately after a highly bellicose speech by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN general assembly – where he appeared to directly threaten Iran as well as promise to continue “degrading” Hezbollah – the first reports of a massive strike began to emerge. Within less than an hour, Israeli journalists with connections to the country’s defence and security establishment were suggesting that Nasrallah was the target and that he had been in the area of the headquarters at the time of the strike. That the strike was regarded as highly significant was quickly confirmed by a series of statements from Israel – including an image showing Netanyahu ordering the attack on the phone from his New York hotel room. What is clearer than ever, after a series of Israeli escalations against Hezbollah this month – including targeted killings and the explosion of thousands of modified pagers and walkie-talkies supplied to the group – is that the long-understood ground rules governing the balance of deterrence between the two sides has been blown away. Read the full analysis here: Israel’s strike on Hezbollah leader is an alarming escalation in conflict Here’s more from US secretary of state Antony Blinken’s news conference in New York. Blinken said Israel’s objective in Lebanon is an “important and legitimate one”, and that it is about “creating an environment that’s secure enough to enable people to return home”. He tells reporters: The question is: what’s the best way to do that? What is the most effective, sustainable way to do that? He says the US and other countries who have joined calls for a 21-day ceasefire believe that the best way is through diplomacy and through a ceasefire. The Israeli military has warned residents of Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, to evacuate certain areas, as they were “located near Hezbollah interests”. Avichay Adraee, Israel’s Arabic language military spokesperson, posted a map of certain areas of Dahiyeh on a post on X and said residents “were obliged to evacuate the buildings immediately and move away from them at a distance of no less than 500 meters”. He added that the evacuation orders were for the “safety of your loved ones”. The map posted by the Israeli spokesperson showed different neighbourhoods of Dahiyeh, pointing to specific buildings in al-Laylakeh and al-Hadath that he said were Hezbollah bases. Both al-Laylakeh and al-Hadath are densely populated areas of Beirut. Earlier in the day, crowds of people fled from Dahiyeh and the immediate surrounding area for fear of further Israeli strikes. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the events of the past week and the past few hours underscored how “precarious” the situation is for the Middle East and the world. Blinken, at a press conference in New York, says Israel “has the right to defend itself against terrorism” but “the way it does so matters”. He said: The choices that all parties make in the coming days will determine which path this region is on with profound consequences for its people now and possibly for years to come. One of the choices is the “path of diplomacy”, he says, which involves reaching a ceasefire along the border between Israel and Lebanon, as well as a ceasefire in Gaza. The US has made clear that it believes that “the way forward is through diplomacy, not conflict”, Blinken says. The path to diplomacy may seem difficult to see at this moment, but it is there, and in our judgment, it is necessary. We will continue to work intensely with all parties to urge them to choose that course. Joe Biden has said the US had no advance knowledge of or participation in the massive Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday. The US president told reporters that he is waiting for more information before commenting on the attack. He said: The United States had no knowledge of or participation in the IDF action. We’re gathering more information. I’ll have more to say when we have more information. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was continuing to strike Hezbollah sites throughout Lebanon. An IDF statement said it continuing to “attack, damage and degrade the military capabilities and infrastructure” of Hezbollah. It said Israeli fighter jets attacked “deep in Lebanon and southern Lebanon”, and that it hit Hezbollah targets including launchers that were “directed towards Israeli civilians”. Hezbollah announced two more attacks on Israel late Friday night, saying in statements that they launched a salvo of rockets at Karmiel and Sa’ar, “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. Hezbollah had yet to put out a statement regarding the fate of its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, after reports that he was targeted by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, earlier in the day. Here’s a recap of the latest developments: Israel’s military said it struck the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut on Friday, launching its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group. Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon. A number of buildings in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh were levelled. Residents of Dahiyeh and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Burj al-Barajneh, fled the area following the strikes. Israeli media reported the strike on Beirut as an attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and key Iran ally, Hassan Nasrallah. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources saying he was “alive and well”. Hezbollah issued a statement saying there was “no truth to any statement” about the Israeli attack, without specifying what statements it was referring to. At least two people were killed and 76 others were injured by the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday, according to the Lebanese health ministry, who cautioned it was a preliminary figure. Some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble. “They are residential buildings. They were filled with people. Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble,” Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said. Israel braced itself for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran. After the Beirut strike, Hezbollah said it bombed Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. Israel’s home front command has urged residents of Golan Heights, Safed, Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas. Video of the Israeli strikes on Beirut suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground. Stéphane Dujarric, the UN’s spokesperson, said the organisation is watching the Israeli strikes on a “densely populated” area in the southern suburbs of Beirut “with great alarm”. The US insisted it did not have advance warning of the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday. A Pentagon spokesperson said Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, was talking on the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, as the operation was under way. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike, and announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel. The strikes came shortly after a bellicose speech by Netanyahu in the UN general assembly. Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza, and instead denounced the UN as an “antisemitic swamp” and insisted that Israel is “winning” its wars on multiple fronts. Many national delegations walked out in protest as he took the floor. Even if he was not harmed in the strike, targeting Nasrallah would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. The Hezbollah leader represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollah’s large rocket arsenal on Israel’s northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear programme. Iran’s embassy in Beirut said the airstrike represented “a dangerous game-changing escalation that changes the rules of the game” and warned that its perpetrator would be “punished appropriately”. Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon, said the Israeli attack on Beirut shows that Israel “does not care” about global calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon. The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day. Britons in Lebanon have been urged to leave now and take “the next available flight”. John Healey, the UK’s defence secretary, was reportedly looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully”. The Lebanese army was protectively setting up a security cordon around the US embassy in Lebanon, which is north of Beirut, a security source told Reuters. Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity. The car in which Islam Hijazi, Gaza programme manager at Heal Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah has put out a statement saying it has bombed Safed, a city in north Israel, with a rocket salvo “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. The Hezbollah statement did not mention the Israeli strike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Friday night, reportedly targeting the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli media said a building had been hit in the rocket barrage, but that no injuries were reported yet. Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, responded to the Israeli prime minister’s speech at the UN general assembly this afternoon, during which Benjamin Netanyahu frequently referred to the potential dividends of peace for both countries and the wider region. He claimed it would make the Middle East a “global juggernaut”. Netanyahu expressed his desire for an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, a policy introduced during the Donald Trump administration that brokered peace between Arab states before addressing the Israel-Palestine conflict. Faisal bin Farhan stated that Netanyahu “not once mentioned Palestine and not once mentioned the Palestinians”, adding that it would not be possible for the region to stabilise and achieve the potential Netanyahu referred to without peace in Palestine. The crux of the matter is how do you address the issue of Palestine? We address it through what has been established in international law: the formation of a Palestinian state. António Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, said he fully supports a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, warning that “we cannot afford endless negotiations as we have on Gaza”. “We must avoid the regional war at all costs,” Guterres told world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, saying: Gaza remains the epicentre of violence, and Gaza is the key to ending it. The UN will continue to support all efforts towards sustainable peace, starting with an end to the violence, he said, adding: The death spiral must end for Gaza, for the people of Palestine and Israel, for the region and for the world. Sirens have been reported in Safed and nearby towns in northern Israel. From the Times of Israel: Hezbollah’s media office has said there was “no truth to any statement” about the Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs. It did not specify what statements it was referring to. Hezbollah has not otherwise made any statement about the Israeli strikes, Reuters reported. The Lebanese army was protectively setting up a security cordon around the US embassy in Lebanon, which is north of Beirut, a security source told Reuters. The UK Foreign Office is again urging British nationals in Lebanon to leave immediately. British nationals in Lebanon should “take the next available flight”, it said in a post on X. The Foreign Office said it is working to increase capacity and secure seats for British nationals to leave. It also asked British nationals to let the UK government know they were in Lebanon through its Register Your Presence service. Joe Biden, the US president, has been briefed by his national security team on the Israeli strikes in Beirut, the White House said. Iran’s embassy in Beirut condemned Israel’s airstrikes on Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, on Friday, saying the strikes “represent a serious escalation that changes the rules of the game”. It added that Israel would be “punished appropriately”. Since Israel’s escalations in Lebanon, Iran has signalled that it is reluctant to get directly involved in Hezbollah’s fight with Israel. In New York during a visit to the United Nations on Monday, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, said that a larger war in the Middle East “will not benefit anyone”. Israel has carried out a series of deadly airstrikes in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh district on Friday, the largest Israel has carried out in Lebanon since it began exchanging fire with Hezbollah on 8 October. Here’s our video report: Israel is bracing for potential retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as from Yemen and Iran. The home front command has urged residents of Golan Heights, Safed, Merom HaGalil to stay near protected areas. Residents of Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, Burj al-Barajneh, began to flee the area in the hours following the Israeli airstrikes on the area on Friday night. Some people clutched bags, others held nothing as beeping scooters weaved through crowds of people leaving their homes. Calls went out for empty apartments in Achrafieh, a Christian area of east Beirut and areas in the mountains surrounding Beirut, which were spared from most of the fighting during the 2006 Lebanon Israel war. This is the second time in a week that residents of Lebanon fled Israeli airstrikes, after Israel launched a wide-ranging aerial campaign on Monday that displaced over 90,000 residents from south Lebanon. Hospitals asked people to donate blood, in anticipation of large numbers of casualties, with already 76 reported as injured, though emergency responders were only beginning rescue operations. The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said she is “deeply alarmed” and “profoundly worried” about the potential civilian impact of Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday. The “massive” strikes were on the Lebanese capital’s “densely populated” southern suburbs, Hennis posted to X. She added: The city is still shaking with fear and panic widespread. All must urgently cease fire. Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from Beirut, where Lebanon’s health ministry says at least two people were killed and 76 others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Friday. As we reported earlier, the Pentagon has said that the US did not have advance warning of the Israeli strike on Beirut. Israel notified the US only moments before the strike, CNN reported, citing several sources. According to one US official, Israel informed Washington they were taking military action once the operation was already under way and Israel had planes in the air. CNN cited the official as saying: We had no foreknowledge of this and that does not qualify as a heads up. A Pentagon spokesperson said the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, was talking on the phone with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, as the operation was under way. Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said there had been a “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings as a result of the Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday. Abiad told the New York Times that the number of casualties in hospitals was low so far because people were still trapped under the rubble. He said: They are residential buildings. They were filled with people. Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble. An Israeli official has told NBC News that Israel expects Hezbollah will attempt to mount a “major retaliatory attack” after the Israeli military said it struck the Lebanese militant group’s headquarters in Beirut on Friday. Two people were killed and 76 injured in the Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut today, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health on Friday night. The death toll is expected to rise as rescue crews continue to clear rubble from the buildings collapsed in the strike. The Pentagon’s spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, said the US did not have advanced warning of the Israeli strike in Beirut. She told reporters: The United States was not involved in this operation and we had no advanced warning. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, spoke with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, as the Israeli operation was ongoing, Singh added. She declined to say what Gallant told Austin about the operation and whether it had targeted Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as reported by Israeli media. At least one person was killed and 50 others wounded in Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV is reporting. The UN’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said the organisation is watching the Israeli strikes on a “densely populated” area in the southern suburbs of Beirut “with great alarm”. Dujarric added: Anyone who looks at the pictures of smoke billowing from a densely populated area should be alarmed. He added that the UN is “trying to gather more information as we speak”. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will return tonight from New York to Israel, his office said. Netanyahu will take off from New York today at 8pm ET, it said. He was originally scheduled to leave on Saturday. The Israeli leader earlier today addressed the UN general assembly, where he told world leaders that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah would continue. The office of Benjamin Netanyahu has released a photo that it said showed the Israeli prime minister approving the airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut. The photo appears to show Netanyahu at his hotel in New York. Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, posted a photo that he said showed him observing the strike from the Israeli air force’s underground command room. The photo shows Gallant alongside the chief of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Herzi Halevi, and head of the Israeli air force, Tomer Bar. Here are some of the latest images from Dahiyeh in southern Beirut, where Israeli strikes on Friday shook the Lebanese capital and sent thick clouds of smoke over the city. The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is alive, Reuters is reporting, citing a source close to the group, after Israeli media reports that Nasrallah was the target of an Israeli strike in Beirut on Friday. A senior Iranian security official earlier told Reuters that Tehran is checking the status of Nasrallah. A source close to Hezbollah said Nasrallah is “fine”, AFP is reporting. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it carried a “precise strike” on the Hezbollah headquarters in the Lebanese capital. The Lebanese Red Cross says it has dispatched 10 teams to the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh after Israeli airstrikes. There was no immediate word on casualties from the strikes. Friday’s strikes were the most powerful yet seen in the Lebanese capital the past year. According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Dahiyeh were destroyed by the airstrikes. A source close to Hezbollah said the Israeli strikes “levelled six buildings”, AFP reported. Najib Mikati, the caretaker prime minister of Lebanon, said the Israeli attack on Beirut shows that Israel “does not care” about global calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon. The statement, reported by Reuters, was released while Mikati is in New York for the UN general assembly. Israel carried out what it said were multiple airstrikes on the main military headquarters of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with Israeli media claiming that the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was present at the time of the strike – though the Guardian could not verify this claim. It was not immediately clear if Nasrallah was killed in the strike or not. If true, the targeting of Nasrallah would be a large escalation in fighting between Hezbollah-Israel, already teetering on the precipice of a full-scale war. According to Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military targeted the Hezbollah headquarters, which was built “under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields”. Israeli media further claimed the army used bunker busters – large bombs capable of penetrating deep into the earth before exploding – in the attack. The strikes were the largest against Beirut since the beginning of fighting nearly a year ago. The explosions rocked the capital city, heard across the city. There were multiple large plumes of smoke billowing from the strike sites, seen as far as the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive north of the capital city. According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings were destroyed by the airstrikes. Videos showing the site of the airstrike showed several buildings that had completely collapsed, with fires burning under the rubble. Pictures showed a car swallowed by a hole in the ground, while rubble and dust made the asphalt street unrecognizable. The sound of ambulances rushing to the scene were heard across Beirut, but reports of casualties had yet to emerge. Friday’s airstrike was the fifth time that Israel hit the capital city in a week, and came off the back of a week of an intensified aerial campaign against Lebanon. Israel said that it bombed more than 2,000 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, killing at least 700 and wounding more than 1,835. According to Israeli media, Israel is checking if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was at the group’s headquarters in Beirut when it was hit by an Israeli strike. From the Times of Israel’s Emanuel Fabian: A number of well-connected Israeli correspondents were briefed by Israeli security sources in the minutes after the strike that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target. We reported earlier that Fox News claimed that the target of the Israeli strike on Beirut was the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Axios is also reporting that the target of the attack was Nasrallah, citing an Israeli source. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is checking to see if Nasrallah was injured, it reports. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has posted a full statement by its spokesperson, Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the Israeli military had carried out a “precise strike” on Hezbollah’s central headquarters in Beirut. Hagari said the Hezbollah central command centre was embedded deep within civilian areas in the heart of Dahiyeh, in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs. The headquarters “served as the epicentre of Hezbollah’s terror”, he said. Fox News is reporting that the target of the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday was the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. The Guardian has not yet been able to verify this report. As we reported earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed it targeted Hezbollah’s central command in the southern suburbs of Beirut. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that the IDF strike on Beirut flattened six buildings. Israel carried out what it said was a strike against Hezbollah’s main military headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday afternoon, in what were the largest airstrikes carried out on Beirut since the beginning of fighting nearly a year ago. According to Israeli spokesperson Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military targeted the Hezbollah headquarters, which was built “under residential buildings in Beirut in order to use them as human shields”. The airstrikes rocked Beirut, with the series of explosions heard across the city and multiple large plumes of smoke billowing from the strike sites. The smoke could be seen from the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive north of the capital city. According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV, four buildings were destroyed by the airstrikes. Videos showing the site of the airstrike showed several buildings that had completely collapsed, with fires burning under the rubble. Emergency responders arrived on the scene, but reports of a death toll had yet to emerge. Israel bombed Dahiyeh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, late Friday afternoon local time, with at least six loud explosions heard across the city. Multiple large plumes of smoke billowed above the southern suburb of Beirut, visible from the city of Batroun, an hour’s drive away. Israel said it conducted an airstrike against Hezbollah’s military headquarters in the area. It was the largest bombing of Beirut since hostilities broke out nearly a year ago. It was the fifth time that Israel struck Beirut in a week. Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, has said the death toll in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday was 25. One attack killed nine members of a family, including four children, in the border town of Shebaa, mayor Mohammad Saab told Reuters. More than 700 people in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks since Monday, according to a tally of official tolls. The shops behind us were hit. The young boy who was with me was martyred [killed], and I’m still alive,” said 13-year-old Syrian Abdallah Tawfik Al-Hamid, lying in a hospital bed in southern Lebanon following an airstrike. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets into Israel on Friday at Kiryat Ata near the city of Haifa some 20 miles from the border, and at the city of Tiberias, declaring the attacks a response to Israeli strikes on villages, cities and civilians. Though Israeli air defences have shot down many of Hezbollah’s rockets, limiting damage, the attacks have displaced tens of thousands and shut down normal life across much of northern Israel as more areas fall into its crosshairs. A series of powerful explosions shook Beirut a little earlier today and thick clouds of smoke reportedly rose over the city. Witnesses told the news agency Reuters of what appeared to be a fresh round of bombing on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital. Lebanese media said there were a series of Israeli airstrikes on the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of the city. Israel’s foreign minister yesterday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and continued airstrikes that have killed hundreds of people in Lebanon this week and heightened fears of a regional war. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said four buildings had been destroyed in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. Back on the ground in Lebanon, there are fresh reports of air strikes on the capital. Massive, thick clouds of smoke were seen rising from Beirut today after multiple explosions were heard, according to Reuters witnesses. We await further details. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN’s general assembly, where he said his country is winning. He declared that there is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach and called for a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Speaking of Hezbollah, Netanyahu said “enough is enough” and that “we won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes.” The Israeli leader also criticised the United Nations and the ICC prosecutor, and said that no army has done what Israel is doing to minimise civilian casualties. Earlier, the prime minister said in a statement that Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead. “Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes,” the statement said. UK defence secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully” and that airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”. The Lebanese health minister, Firass Abiad, said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of today. Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone. The UN said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that more than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours. Australia suggested the world set “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood” in a sign of increasing frustration about the stalled peace process. Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US-based charity, firing on her car in what officials said was a case of mistaken identity. The American embassy in Beirut has said that it “is not evacuating U.S. citizens at this time”. “There is a commercially available flight that U.S. citizens who expressed interest in departing Lebanon will have to book and pay directly with the airline,” it said. Here’s footage of diplomats leaving the chamber ahead of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the UN general assembly in New York. Netanyahu also criticised the United Nations, referring to it as a “swamp of antisemitic bile”. “Until Israel, until the Jewish state, is treated like other nations, until this antisemitic swamp is drained, the UN will be viewed by fair-minded people everywhere as nothing more than a contemptuous farce.” He also took aim at the international criminal court’s prosecutor. In his speech at the UN general assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Israel doesn’t want to see a single innocent person die. “No army has done what Israel is doing to minimise civilian casualties: we drop fliers, we send text messages, we make phone calls by the millions to ensure that Palestinian civilians get out of harm’s way,” he said. Outside the luxury Loews Regency hotel on Park Avenue, a small group of anti-Benjamin Netanyahu protestors gathered across the street. Some waved Israeli flags while others held signs with Netanyahu’s face imprinted with a red handprint. One protestor, Yehuda Cohen, 55, condemned Netanyahu’s speech at the UN. “While there is intense war in Israel, he’s dealing with himself … he thinks he’s the great speaker, he will save Israel by speaking, he’s actually destroying Israel. He’s responsible for the events of 7th of October,” Cohen said. “He must put everything aside, stop the war and go for a hostage deal. I want my son back home. I sent my son to the army so he can protect Israel. On the 7th of October, they were outnumbered, he was neglected and kidnapped … The Israeli government, it’s not that they’re doing nothing for a hostage deal, they’re doing everything to prevent a hostage deal,” Cohen added. Netanyahu also stressed the need to achieve a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, citing the experience of the Abraham accords. “I say to you, what blessing such a peace with Saudi Arabia would bring – it would be a boon to the security and economy of our two countries, it would boost trade and tourism across the region, it would help transform the Middle East into a global juggernaut,” he said. “Such a peace, I’m sure, would be a true pivot of history: it would usher in a historic reconciliation between the Arab world and Israel, between Islam and Judaism, between Mecca and Jerusalem,” the Israeli leader said. “One of the best ways to foil Iran’s nefarious designs is to achieve the peace,” he added. Speaking of Hezbollah, Benjamin Netanyahu said the group has murdered the citizens of many countries and attacked Israel unprovoked. “Enough is enough,” he said. “We won’t rest until our citizens can return safely to their homes,” he added. “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border, able to perpetrate another 7 October-style massacre,” he said. “Hamas has got to go,” Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly. Israel seeks a demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza, he stressed. The hostages must be returned to their families, he said. “There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at the UN general assembly. “We are winning,” he declared, showing a map he termed “the curse” of Iran’s influence and another which he described as a blessing. Netanyahu also called for an end to the “appeasement” of Iran. Everything must be done to ensure Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons, the Israeli leader added. In a speech at the UN general assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country will not rest until the remaining hostages are brought home. Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is speaking of the “curse” of 7 October and the atrocities committed that day. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, says at the UN general assembly that he didn’t intend to come this year, but after he heard the “lies and slander” levelled at Israel he decided to come and “set the record straight”. “Israel seeks peace, Israel yearns for peace,” he said, adding that Israel must defend itself against “savage murderers”. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is about to speak at the UN general assembly. The chair is calling for order in the chamber. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, has said that Israel will continue to use all means at its disposal to return the north’s residents to their homes safely. UK defence secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully”, reports the Press Association (PA). Healey said on Friday airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”. The PA reports that Healey faced questions about a possible ground invasion after Israeli army chief Lt Gen Herzi Halevi told troops on Wednesday that ongoing airstrikes were “to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah”. Speaking to broadcasters, Healey said his “first concern remains the safety of British nationals in Lebanon”. He added: The travel advice remains the same – don’t go to Lebanon. If you are in Lebanon, then get out and there are still commercial flights leaving so people can do that. But I left Labour conference earlier this week to chair a Cobra committee in government because we are making the preparations you’d expect of government ahead of any potential developments in the future.” The PA news agency understands the UK government has successfully asked airlines to increase capacity on routes out of Lebanon, with Foreign Office teams in Beirut to support British consulate services. It is thought they are ready to facilitate evacuations by sea or air, which could be triggered if the security environment degrades further and British nationals are no longer able to leave the Middle East through other routes. Asked about the rumoured ground invasion, the PA reports Healey as replying: We’re watching this really carefully. That will be a matter for the Israelis. At the moment, it’s airstrikes. At the moment, there are missiles from the Lebanese Hezbollah directed at Israel. This conflict serves no one.” The defence secretary said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu would “hear about the calls from many countries led by the United States and Britain for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon – 21 days in which the fighting should stop on both sides” when he attends the UN general assembly in New York on Friday. “That gives everyone a chance to concentrate on the peace plan that is on the table, that the Israelis themselves say would allow them to get their citizens back into northern Israel and the Lebanese to return to their homes in southern Lebanon,” he added. The UN said on Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon. “We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” Riza told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut, reports AFP. He pointed out that on Monday alone, the death toll was equal to around half of the 1,200 killed during 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. “The level of displacement, the level of trauma, the level of panic, has been huge,” he said. At the same time, Riza warned that Lebanon’s “health sector is completely overrun”. “The events of last week, including the explosions of communication devices, have nearly depleted health supplies,” he said. Riza added: “With the recent escalations and hospitals reaching capacity, the system is struggling with limited resources to meet the growing demands.” The hospitals in Lebanon “are overwhelmed”, agreed Margaret Harris, spokesperson for the World Health Organization (WHO). She pointed out that the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had caused large numbers of serious injuries, especially to eyes and hands, which require specialised treatment. A full 777 injured remain in hospitals after those blasts, “and 152 of those are critical cases”, Harris said, according to AFP. “That means they’re not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that can’t be unfilled.” At the same time, she said, 37 health facilities had been closed across Lebanon due to events. Harris stressed that aid agencies had done a lot to prepare for possible mass-casualty events in Lebanon in case the past year of cross-border fire were to escalate. The WHO had helped “train most of the health workers in most of the hospitals for mass casualty”, she said. But “in our planning scenarios, we didn’t have anything like the numbers that have actually been affected”. “It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected.” Australia has suggested the world should set “a clear timeline for the international declaration of Palestinian statehood” in a sign of increasing frustration about the stalled peace process. The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will float the idea in a speech to the UN general assembly in New York on Saturday Australian time (Friday US time). Benjamin Netanyahu was also due to address the gathering amid mounting concern about an escalating regional war. Wong will tell the general assembly that “every country in this room” must abide by the rules of war, and Israel “must comply with the binding orders of the international court of justice”, according to speech remarks distributed to media in advance. Wong will say the Hamas-led attacks on Israel nearly one year ago “cannot and should not be justified” and the group must release all Israeli hostages. But she will say 11,000 Palestinian children have been killed and two million people in Gaza face acute food insecurity in the resulting war. “This must end,” Wong will say. “All lives have equal value.” One of the most significant parts of Wong’s speech is her offer for Australia to “contribute to new ways to break the cycle of conflict”. She will say Australia “shares the frustration of the great majority of countries” about a lack of progress, more than 77 years after UN general assembly resolution 181 outlined “a plan for two states side by side”. You can rerad the full piece here: Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip shot and killed an aid worker from a US based charity, firing on her car in what government officials told her family was a case of mistaken identity, reports Reuters. The car in which Islam Hijazi, Gaza programme manager at Heal Palestine, was travelling was intercepted on Thursday in the area of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip. Gunmen riding in three cars sprayed the vehicle with dozens of bullets, according to residents and the woman’s family. “She was the mother of two small children and a humanitarian with the highest ethics and professionalism,” Heal Palestine, posted on its Facebook page. “HEAL Palestine is more dedicated than ever to serving Gaza, in her honor. Ceasefire now,” it added. Reuters reports that her family issued a statement on Friday, saying they were told by government parties at the hospital where her body was taken that she was killed by mistake. Her killers, whose identity was not immediately clear, had failed to identify the vehicle she was driving, they said. There has been no immediate comment from Hamas, according to Reuters. “That was a bigger shock … How would an innocent soul be wasted and 90 bullets fired at her car just for mistaken identification?” the family said in a statement published by Palestinian media. Reuters was not able to verify the number of bullets fired. The incident highlights growing chaos and anarchy in Gaza almost a year into Israel’s military offensive, which has weakened the ability of Hamas-run security services to police the streets, according to the group. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon, reports Reuters. The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day. The Houthi’s military spokesperson said their operations will not halt in the coming days until Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop. “We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech. Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years. Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza. Reuters reports that Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday. No further details were provided. Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they will soon issue a statement related to a military operation deep inside Israel, reports Reuters. The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early on Friday. Saudi Arabia has formed a global alliance to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the country’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Thursday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly meeting in New York. The alliance includes a number of Arab and Muslim countries and European partners, the Saudi state news agency reported, without specifying which countries had committed to join. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X that the first meetings would be in Riyadh and Brussels. After the eruption of the Gaza war last October between Israel and Hamas that rules Gaza, Saudi Arabia put on ice US-backed plans for the kingdom to normalise ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said earlier this year, according to Reuters. “Implementing the two-state solution is the best solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering, and enforce a new reality in which the entire region, including Israel, enjoys security and coexistence”, bin Farhan was quoted as saying, reported Reuters. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman said last week the kingdom would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people. Before a meeting with Donald Trump, the UK prime minister gave a speech at the UN general assembly where he told world leaders that Britain will approach international relations with less “paternalism” than before while listening more and speaking less. He also pleaded with Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink of a wider war “that no one can control”. “I call on Israel and Hezbollah: stop the violence, step back from the brink. We need to see an immediate ceasefire to provide space for a diplomatic settlement and we are working with all partners to that end,” he said. More than 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday. In a post on X the UNHCR also shared a video of the UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, calling for a ceasefire. Extra commercial flights have been scheduled this weekend to allow Britons and other foreign nationals to evacuate from Lebanon while Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah continues, mostly by Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines. Official estimates are that there are 5,000 British citizens, single and dual nationals, and immediate family members who would be a priority for any emergency evacuation. Of those, several hundred are thought to be single nationals resident in the country. Britain, along with other western nations, has been urging its citizens to leave Lebanon since early August, while commercial flights are available, though back-up evacuation plans were stepped up this week when 700 UK troops were moved back into the region. Ministers are closely monitoring the status of Beirut’s international airport, and if it closes because of Israeli bombing near the capital, that is likely to be a trigger to launch an international rescue to allow foreign nationals to escape the hostilities. However, with the summer holiday season over, the number of Britons leaving in recent days has been relatively modest, suggesting those remaining have close ties with Lebanon. Officials are monitoring closely how much demand there is for people to fly out this weekend, to assess the level of remaining need. Japan is urging its citizens to leave Lebanon and has decided to prepare military flights for their possible evacuation, the government said on Friday. Israeli bombing has killed hundreds of people this week in Lebanon, particularly in Hezbollah strongholds while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages. “We’re currently checking the safety of Japanese citizens living in Lebanon, as well as urging them to leave the country while regular commercial flights remain in operation”, chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Friday morning, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Hours later, the defence ministry said air force planes had been ordered to go to Jordan and Greece to be on stand-by in case Japanese nationals need to be transported out of the region. The C-2 transport aircraft would be used to evacuate about 50 Japanese citizens currently in Lebanon, media outlets including Kyodo News said, citing unnamed government sources. Yoko Kamikawa, Japan’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday that Tokyo is “strongly concerned about the escalation of tensions between Israel and Hezbollah”. Japan, she added, “strongly urges” all parties to “exercise the utmost restraint to avoid further escalation”. As the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrived in New York on Thursday ahead of his address to the United Nations general assembly, scheduled for Friday morning, protesters opposed to the war in Gaza gathered near UN headquarters. One group of people who waved Israeli flags and campaign banners described themselves as an informal coalition of Jewish and Israeli-led organisations taking an anti-occupation and anti-war stance in relation to the Palestinian territories. They assembled close to the UN building in Manhattan to protest against Netanyahu’s arrival after he flew in from Israel overnight. As it began to drizzle, a speaker addressed the crowd of about 50 people, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and telling those gathered that “Netanyahu will lie to the world” on Friday, just “like he lies to us Israelis”. “Stop killing children, end the war, sign the deal, bring the hostages home,” the speaker continued. “There is no military solution.” More protests are planned for Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday. People carried signs reading “bring the hostages home” and “end the war”, and when Netanyahu’s name was mentioned in a speech, the crowd chanted “shame, shame, shame”. Phylisa Wisdom, the executive director of the New York Jewish Agenda, one of the groups organising the protest, said the coalition was coming together to call on Netanyahu to reach a deal to end the war in Gaza, and bring out the remaining Israeli hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October last year. “There is no solution but a diplomatic solution, and we’re making sure that this message cuts through and gets to Netanyahu, to our government, and to all allies of peace who care about Israeli and Palestinian lives,” Wisdom said. She added that the groups were also planning on protesting outside Netanyahu’s hotel. Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, reports the Associated Press (AP). Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in October, in support of Hamas. The US, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire to try to avoid an all-out war. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah “with full force” and will not stop until its goals are achieved. The Philippines said on Friday it will evacuate 11,000 citizens from Lebanon the moment Israeli forces cross the border to launch a ground offensive against Hezbollah, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). Israeli bombing of Iran-backed Hezbollah strongholds around neighbouring Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has retaliated with rocket barrages. Israel has rejected a US-backed 21-day ceasefire call, and its military chief has told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive. “A ground invasion will lead to mandatory repatriation,” foreign undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said at a press conference in Manila, adding the plan was to move thousands out of the country via the sea. He did not provide other details, according to AFP. Manila had earlier urged Filipinos to leave Lebanon before airlines stopped flying to Beirut but most of its citizens did not heed the call, Filipino diplomats said. Millions of Filipinos work overseas – with large numbers concentrated in the Middle East – due to limited job opportunities at home. About 90% of those working in Lebanon are women migrant domestic workers, reports AFP. “To some of them, getting killed in war is preferable to starving to death,” de Vega said, adding there have so far been no Filipino casualties from the Israeli air campaign against Hezbollah. After Israel’s war with Hamas erupted last year following the group’s 7 October attack, Manila began voluntary repatriations of its citizens from the areas affected by the fighting. So far, only 500 Filipinos have taken up the government’s offer to leave Lebanon, De Vega said. Filipino ambassador to Beirut Raymond Balatbat said 196 Filipinos have fled southern Lebanon, where the Israeli campaign has been concentrated. Most Filipinos working in the country are based in central Lebanon around Beirut, he added. Anthony Mandap, consul general at the Philippine embassy in Tel Aviv, said there are no plans as of now to repatriate 30,000 Filipinos working in Israel, reports AFP. The Israeli military said drones and rockets crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon on Friday, as Lebanon’s Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on the Israeli city of Tiberias (see 9am BST). The drones infiltrated the coastal area of Rosh HaNikra and were intercepted by the military’s defences, the Israeli military said, adding several rockets were also intercepted. An Israeli airstrike on Friday killed five Syrian soldiers near the border with Lebanon, the Syrian state news agency, Sana, reported, citing a military source. “The Israeli enemy carried out an aerial attack … on one of our military positions near Kfar Yabus on the Syrian-Lebanese border,” Sana quoted the source as saying, adding that five Syrian soldiers were killed and one was wounded. The raid came a day after the Israeli army said its warplanes struck “infrastructure along the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon”. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli warplanes targeted a crossing that links Syria’s Qusayr area to Lebanon, causing “a number of wounded”. The UK-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said it was the first such strike on Syria since Israel intensified its attacks on Lebanon’s Hezbollah this week. Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group said its forces fired a salvo of rockets at the Israeli city of Tiberias on Friday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). In a statement, Hezbollah said it was responding to Israel’s “savage” strikes on Lebanese towns and civilians. The Israeli military said drones and projectiles had crossed its territory from Lebanon. Here are some of the latest images coming in on the newswires: Ten global unions have filed a complaint urging Israel to pay back wages for more than 200,000 Palestinian workers deprived of salaries since the start of the war in Gaza. The complaint, lodged at the International Labour Organization (ILO) on Friday, seeks unpaid wages and withheld benefits for workers employed in Israel before the 7 October attacks there by fighters from Palestinian militant group Hamas. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the unions cited “millions of dollars of lost income, causing severe financial insecurity … and widespread hardship for the affected workers and their families, who have no access to judicial remedies”. Israel has ratified the ILO convention on the protection of unpaid wages, which is legally binding on signatories. According to the complaint, 13,000 workers from the Gaza Strip have not been paid for work done before 7 October. In addition, nearly 200,000 Palestinian workers from the West Bank have not been allowed to enter Israel since the war erupted nearly one year ago and have not been paid for work done before it began, reports AFP. The ILO estimates average daily wages for Palestinians employed in Israel under regular work permits at $79 a day, while for informal workers, weekly pay ranged from $565 to $700. “These workers have experienced widespread wage theft due to the suspension of work permits and the unilateral termination of their contracts,” the unions said. They include the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) and the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI). AFP reports that the ILO can decide to name a committee to review the complaint and the Israeli government’s response, or in serious cases form an investigative committee. An Israeli strike at about 3am local time on Friday killed nine people from the same family in the southern Lebanese border-town of Shebaa, including four children, mayor Mohammad Saab has told Reuters. No further information was provided. The House of Commons foreign affairs committee chairwoman has warned a ground invasion by Israel into Lebanon could favour Hezbollah and its legitimacy, reports the Press Association (PA). Asked about escalating conflict in the Middle East, Emily Thornberry told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: I think that we need to be aware that we have perhaps more clout than we have done recently, and I think we’re in a fairly unique position, so … we are in a position to be able to pull people together. I think that the UN general assembly meeting at this time means that many other nations can be pulled behind the declaration that has been made, and that will make it stronger. We don’t know whether or not Israel is bluffing about a ground war. We do know that in 2006 that they got very bogged down, that at the moment they may be ahead because they’re using air power and surprise, but a ground war may well be different. And actually, the poor Lebanese, who you know many of whom do not want Hezbollah in the bottom of their country, certainly don’t want to have the Israelis. And Hezbollah may well end up with more legitimacy as a result of that ground invasion.” Israeli teams had meetings to discuss the US ceasefire proposals with Lebanon on Thursday and will continue discussions in the days ahead, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday, adding that he appreciated the US efforts. “Our teams met (Thursday, 26 September) to discuss the US initiative and how we can advance the shared goal of returning people safely to their homes. We will continue those discussions in the coming days,” he said in a statement, reports Reuters. The comments came after Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades. On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the UN general assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon. Reuters reports that Netanyahu’s statement made no reference to the comments of Katz and other Israeli politicians, who have also rejected a ceasefire, saying only that there had been “a lot of misreporting around the US-led ceasefire initiative”. “Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes,” the statement said. “Israel appreciates the US efforts in this regard because the US role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region,” it said. Israeli strikes over the past week have hit hundreds of targets in southern Lebanon and much deeper into the country, killing more than 600 people, reports Reuters. At the same time, Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles at targets in Israel, including one fired at Tel Aviv. Israel’s air defence systems have intercepted many of the missiles, ensuring the damage has been relatively limited. The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has urged his Israeli counterpart to “listen to the international community” amid fears of an escalating conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, also declared that the world “cannot allow any party to obstruct” peace in the Middle East as she pressed for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon. Speaking hours after the Israeli government rejected growing international calls to agree to a three-week ceasefire with Hezbollah, Albanese had a sharp message for Benjamin Netanyahu. “I say to prime minister Netanyahu that he needs to listen to the international community, just like the other players in that region need to listen to the international community,” he told reporters in Melbourne. “The calls are very clear when you have the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, other nations all calling for a de-escalation of this conflict.” In New York, Wong addressed the UN security council and emphasised the urgent need for “de-escalation” and “dialogue”. “Hezbollah are terrorists that have not complied with security council resolution 1701, but Lebanese civilians should not pay the price,” Wong said. “Lebanon cannot become the next Gaza. Just as in Gaza, Australia calls for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon.” In a pointed message to Israel, Wong said: “War has rules – even when confronting terrorists; even when defending borders.” Israeli and US officials have met to discuss a US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hezbollah, the office of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late on Thursday. The meetings – which happened in New York on the sidelines of the UN general assembly – would continue in the days ahead, Netanyahu’s office said, adding that they appreciated the US efforts. The statement came after Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on Thursday there would be no ceasefire in the north, where Israeli jets have been carrying out the heaviest bombardment against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in decades. On Thursday, after Netanyahu left for New York where he is attending the UN general assembly, his office issued a statement saying the prime minister had ordered Israeli troops to continue fighting with full force in Lebanon. More on that in a moment, but first here is a summary of the day’s other main events: Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel “will not stop” its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon despite calls from the US, France and other allies for an immediate three-week ceasefire. The Israeli prime minister told reporters that his government’s policy was clear as he landed in New York on Thursday. “We are continuing to strike Hezbollah with full force, and we will not stop until we reach all our goals,” Netanyahu said. The US and France called for a 21-day temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah to make way for broader negotiations. A joint statement calling for “a diplomatic settlement” of the crisis was also endorsed by the UK, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. It called for an urgent cessation of hostilities, which presented “an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation”. Lebanon’s minister for foreign affairs, Abdallah Bouhabib, has said his country is enduring a crisis that “threatens its very existence”. Speaking at the UN general assembly, he has said that his government welcomed yesterday’s ceasefire plan raised by the US and France – and demanded it be implemented. US officials hope to persuade Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire proposal by the time he addresses the UN general assembly on Friday. They argue that a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could also provide a breathing space in which to revive long-stalled negotiations with Israel and Hamas over the release of Israeli hostages in return for a truce in Gaza. Hezbollah has yet to respond to the call for a truce, although it and its backer, Iran, have previously insisted it would halt its strikes only if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Israeli airstrikes continued in Lebanon on Thursday, in which health authorities said 92 people had been killed. Two people were killed and 15 others injured, including a woman in critical condition, after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Thursday, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel said it carried out a strike that it said killed one of the heads of the Hezbollah air force unit, Mohammad Surur. Hezbollah later confirmed his death. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement said it had targeted the northern Israeli town of Safed with dozens of rockets on Thursday in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Later on Thursday, air raid sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. The IDF said the sirens were triggered by a missile fired from Yemen, which it said was intercepted by Israel’s Arrow missile defence system. |
The Guardian;‘I was so naive’: 10 years after Umbrella protests, Hongkongers remember China’s crackdown;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/i-was-so-naive-10-years-after-umbrella-protests-hongkongers-remember-chinas-crackdown;2024-09-28T04:27:31Z | A decade ago today Hong Kong’s Central district filled with protesters, angry at Chinese government plans to renege on a promise of a fully democratic vote. What became known as Occupy Central, or the Umbrella protests, paralysed the city’s financial centre and galvanised a generation of young people. Today Hong Kong’s streets are quiet. Protest has been largely criminalised, and many of the leaders of the Umbrella movement have been exiled, jailed or otherwise silenced. Looking back, Wendy* remembers the feeling of that first day of Occupy. She was 25 and believed in Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and its promise to deliver universal suffrage to the people now that the territory had been returned from British to Chinese control. But instead, China’s government announced that in elections people would only be able to choose from a few candidates handpicked by a mostly pro-Beijing committee. “It seemed that the government wanted to break their promise,” Wendy tells the Guardian from Hong Kong. “So I went out.” Protest action against Beijing’s plan had long been in the works. Three activists known as the Occupy Trio – academics Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man, and reverend Chu Yiu-ming – had for months been training a few thousand people in non-violent resistance to occupy Hong Kong’s finance district as a last resort if demands weren’t met. But student protests earlier that week had escalated to the storming of a public square, and the Occupy start date was brought forward. Thousands more joined. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email It was 28 September. Wendy thought it would be peaceful, but stayed clear of the frontlines just in case. Then at 5:58pm, police fired teargas into the peaceful crowd. “I smelled some strange scents and my eyes got uncomfortable,” Wendy says. “I looked up to the bridge over me, seeing a group of police holding shields and stepping forward to the protesters. The scene was frightening. I just kept asking in my mind ‘Why do they treat us in that way?’.” Emily Lau, a veteran pro-democracy advocate and then a sitting legislator, had gone to speak to police earlier that day about bringing in some equipment for the Occupy Trio. Instead, they arrested her. By the time she was released later that night “the whole world had changed”. Lau and a colleague took a taxi from the police station to the top of a hill overlooking Central. “When we looked down, we were shocked because the roads were blocked and there were people just everywhere occupying Connaught Road,” she says. ‘The first step in a bigger war’ The police force’s decision to use teargas on day one against a peaceful crowd had just brought more people to the streets. Soon a vast self-sufficient tent city took over the Admiralty district. Other camps formed in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay. Volunteer groups took care of provisions, sanitation, and tutoring of students, while calling for Beijing to reverse its plans and for Hong Kong’s chief executive, CY Leung, to step down. Tony*, then a “regular office worker”, joined the camp in his lunch breaks and evenings. He describes what he saw as “astonishing”. “It was a completely new Hong Kong, a beautiful Hong Kong that I had never seen before. We saw Hong Kong people were really passionate about democracy, about their future and having a say in how the city is run.” Thomas*, a Hong Kong writer now based in London, says a lot of people got engaged in the movement for the first time because of how government and authorities had responded to their concerns. “There wasn’t any attempt [by Beijing] to just sort of say: I understand this isn’t quite what you want, but this is the best we can get … It was literally: thank us and love us for it, aren’t we wonderful,” he says. But as Occupy stretched on, the public’s tolerance waned and divisions deepened among protesters. The government remained unmoved, and police became more aggressive. Court injunctions ordered sections of the camps to clear, and Joshua Wong, a leader of the student protesters, ended his hunger strike. Numbers dwindled as the Trio urged people to leave, but the more radical student groups were determined to stay. “T[he trio] didn’t think the whole thing should drag on for so long,” says Lau. “I supported ending it because it doesn’t mean ending the whole thing. You just go home and prepare to fight another day.” It ended on 15 December after 79 days, without having achieved its stated aims and with deep fissures between pro-democracy factions, but still with a sense of hope. “There was a big banner that said ‘We will be back’,” recalls Tony. “People were hugging each other and saying farewells. There was a sense that the battle hadn’t succeeded but it might be the first step in a bigger war.” In an editorial one year later, the South China Morning Post said the outcome of the Occupy protests “proved that Beijing will not yield to confrontational tactics”. Protest leaders from both the older and student cohorts, including Tai, Chan and Wong, were eventually convicted and jailed. But, Lau says, “the protests had woken up the young people”. New political parties and activist groups emerged. In June 2019, millions took to the streets again in massive pro-democracy protests. Participants used tactics and strategies fine-tuned during Occupy. But there was less of the hope and fight of 2014. Instead, the 2019 protests felt like a defiant “last cry of an animal that was dying”, says Thomas. Again Beijing did not yield, launching a crackdown that shocked even the most pessimistic observers. “The atmosphere and political reality today are totally different [to 2014],” says Willy Lam, a senior non-resident fellow and China specialist at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington. Wendy looks back at how she felt in 2014 and laughs a little. “I thought 2014 was shit at that time, but compared to 2019 it was just a piece of cake,” she says. “I was so naive, believing the government would be sensible, respect people’s voice, and abide by the promise in the Basic Law. But now I can say I was totally wrong.” Tony, now a lawyer based in the UK, says the Occupy protests left an important legacy, strengthening Hongkongers self-identity and their aspirations for democracy, human rights, and rule of law. “Now I see that as part of the diaspora … and I hope people in the free world don’t forget Hong Kong. There is still something to be fought for.” *Names have been changed upon request of interviewees |
The Guardian;‘People have a right to clean water’: Austria’s far right rides wave of public anger as election nears;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/28/people-have-a-right-to-clean-water-austrias-far-right-rides-wave-of-public-anger-as-election-nears;2024-09-28T04:00:04Z | Fear, uncertainty and suspicion are running high in Klagenfurt, southern Austria, before Sunday’s high-stakes parliamentary election, in which the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) could become the strongest force in the country for the first time in the postwar period. For at least a week, and some local people say much longer, the tap water in this city of baroque facades and a stunning Alpine lake has been contaminated with faecal bacteria and unsafe to drink. No one – not the government or environmental officials – has managed to ascertain the cause although baseless theories involving poisoned wells, migrants and other scapegoats run wild in pubs and the darker corners of the internet. Nor is a solution in sight. “Plan C”, as the public works chief, Erwin Smole, has described flushing pipes with diluted chlorine, is still being considered after other measures failed. As local citizens picked up their free drinking water in plastic bottles from a distribution point at a convention centre, the pessimism and outrage over the political class that have fuelled the rise of the far right across Europe was plain to see. “I haven’t decided who to vote for – it’s hard to trust anyone these days,” said hospital nurse Elisabeth Liftenegger, 55, summing up the anti-incumbent sentiment as she loaded up a shopping trolley with potable water. “People are just tired and haven’t received nearly enough information” about the contamination, said Valbone Krasniqi, a 45-year-old office worker who emigrated from Kosovo as a child in the 1990s. She heaved a case of water into the boot of her car as her 10-year-old son played a video game on the front seat. “It’s just one thing after another. I don’t usually vote but I think I will this time – every year just seems to get harder and harder. I don’t understand why people aren’t protesting in the streets – they need to wake up.” The anti-asylum, anti-Islam FPÖ can count on critical momentum from rightwing extremists in many parts of Europe. But even if it wins, the FPÖ’s ability to form a government would depend on whether a mainstream party agrees to cooperate with it, as it has little chance of gaining an absolute majority. But the ramifications of a powerful FPÖ would be felt well beyond Austria, a small country of 9 million that tends to punch above its weight in the EU owing to its geographical prominence and strong alliances. Many Klagenfurters who spoke to the Guardian said the water crisis felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back after years of anxiety about political leadership on immigration and asylum, the soaring cost of living and the war in Ukraine. “It’s a catastrophe – they informed us of the problem far too late,” said Michaela, 57, adding that she and her husband, Peter, had felt unwell after drinking from the tap up to three weeks before the government alert went out. She said that while they as a couple had to “turn over every cent” to make ends meet, “the others – the foreigners – get everything handed to them”. Michaela, who declined to give her last name, said the FPÖ was the only party talking about taking benefits away from non-Austrians. The FPÖ has seized on the water problems as a symbol of broader government failings, with its local leader, Andreas Skorianz, asserting that city drinking fountains were still flowing days into the crisis. “The public has the right to transparent information and clean water,” he said. The FPÖ, which is also pro-Kremlin and deeply Eurosceptic, came first in Austria during the June elections for the European parliament. Support for the party in Carinthia state, of which Klagenfurt is the capital, was 33.2%, the highest in the country. With days to go before Sunday’s election, the FPÖ has a narrow national lead in the polls with about 27% support, ahead of the ruling conservative Austrian People’s party (ÖVP) with 25% and the opposition Social Democrats on 21%. Splinter outfits such as the communists, which have done well in some Austrian cities, and the apolitical Beer party are polling just below the 4% hurdle for representation. While the far right has clinched power in EU countries including Italy and the Netherlands and this month won for the first time since the Nazi era in a German federal state, the FPÖ has long formed part of the mainstream in Austria, a country many critics say never fully owned up to its Nazi past. Founded by ex-Nazi functionaries and meant to provide former fascists with a political home after the second world war, it proved relatively moderate until the former FPÖ leader and Carinthia premier Jörg Haider, who died in a car crash outside Klagenfurt in 2008, harnessed immigration fears to make it a potent political force. While Germany has maintained a “firewall” against the hard-right AfD joining governments, Austria stunned Europe when the ÖVP made the far right its junior partner in government after elections in 1999 and again in 2017 in short-lived coalitions. The FPÖ has government berths in three of Austria’s nine states. Haider’s legacy still looms large in Carinthia, particularly in rural regions where the FPÖ is at its strongest. But in Klagenfurt too, with its picture-book old town and warm, glimmering lake that attracts tourists from across Europe, his brash anti-establishment rhetoric still resonates. Julia Partheymüller, a political scientist at the Vienna Center for Electoral Research, said the devastating flooding caused by Storm Boris this month and the water contamination in Klagenfurt were the kind of catastrophes that could prove decisive in a tight race, as undecided voters weigh their options. “Governing parties benefit in crisis situations because they’re in the foreground and can demonstrate their capacity to act,” she said. “However, it depends a lot on how effective their crisis management is perceived by citizens to be.” Despite doubts about the ÖVP’s leadership amid high inflation and weak economic performance, Austria’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, is likely to be crucial to any future government. He has campaigned hard as a moderate alternative to the FPÖ, which uses anti-migrant slogans such as “Fortress Austria” and “Austria First” and is led by the polarising former hardline interior minister Herbert Kickl, who dabbles in Nazi rhetoric but denies any intentional historical references. Nehammer has vowed that his party will not play kingmaker to the FPÖ if it would make Kickl the head of the government. But he has expressed openness to a coalition if the hard right picks another leader. The alternative would be an awkward three-way alliance with the Social Democrats and either the Greens, now junior partners in government, or the liberal NEOS party. Germany’s deeply unpopular tripartite government under its chancellor, Olaf Scholz, hobbled by infighting, serves as a cautionary tale for many Austrians. However, freezing out the FPÖ if it wins is seen as risky in Austria in the long run, leaving its voters feeling disfranchised and potentially boosting its support. With the election outcome on a knife-edge, many voters said they felt particularly motivated to take part and make a difference. “The turnout will be high – I’ll definitely be voting on Sunday,” said Johann Uhl, 57, a farm bookkeeper who uses a wheelchair. “We’ll be fighting for the famous centre to hold, and to make sure that no force backing a racist or anti-EU course wins out.” Partheymüller said the outcome of Sunday’s election would be incredibly tight and depend on mobilisation. “The country could truly go either way,” she said. |
The Guardian;Boris Johnson: we considered ‘aquatic raid’ on Netherlands to seize Covid vaccine;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/boris-johnson-considered-raid-dutch-warehouse-seize-covid-vaccine;2024-09-27T23:18:37Z | Boris Johnson considered an “aquatic raid” on a Dutch warehouse to seize Covid vaccines during the height of the pandemic, he has revealed in his memoirs. The former prime minister discussed plans with senior military officials in March 2021, according to an extract from his forthcoming book, Unleashed, published in the Daily Mail. The AstraZeneca vaccine was, at the time, at the heart of a cross-Channel row over exports, and Johnson believed the EU was treating the UK “with malice”. Johnson said that he “had commissioned some work on whether it might be technically feasible to launch an aquatic raid on a warehouse in Leiden, in the Netherlands, and to take that which was legally ours and which the UK desperately needed”. The deputy chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Doug Chalmers, told the prime minister the plan was “certainly feasible” and would involve using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals. “They would then rendezvous at the target; enter; secure the hostage goods, exfiltrate using an articulated lorry, and make their way to the Channel ports,” Johnson wrote. However, Chalmers told Johnson it would be difficult to carry out the mission undetected, meaning the UK would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a longstanding Nato ally”. Johnson concluded: “Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought, but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts.” Elsewhere in the published extracts, Johnson denied eating cake at what he described as the “feeblest event in the history of human festivity” held to celebrate his 56th birthday during the Covid lockdown. He did not see or eat any cake at the event on 19 June 2020, he said, adding that it “never occurred” to him or the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, that the Partygate birthday gathering was “in some way against the rules”. He wrote: “Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday. “I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity. I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance.” Downing Street previously admitted that staff “gathered briefly” in the Cabinet Room for what was reportedly a surprise get-together for Johnson organised by his now-wife, Carrie. Johnson became the first prime minister to receive a criminal penalty while in office over Partygate, although an investigation by the former senior civil servant Sue Gray found that neither Johnson nor Sunak was aware of the event in advance. In the extracts from his autobiography, Johnson also said he believed he “might have carked it” when he was in intensive care with Covid without the “skills and experience” of his nurses. Johnson spent several days in intensive care with Covid in April 2020. He described not wanting to fall asleep on his first night in intensive care “partly in case I never woke up”. Following his release from hospital, the then prime minister spent some time at Chequers with his now-wife Carrie, and he recalled joining in with the clap for the NHS on a Thursday evening. “I clapped with deep emotion because my lungs were telling me that I had been through something really pretty nasty, and that if it hadn’t been for [his nurses] Jenny and Luis, fiddling with those oxygen tubes all night with all their skill and experience, I think I might have carked it,” he wrote. On his admission to ICU, Johnson said he “started to doze, but didn’t want to sleep - partly in case I never woke up, or in case they decided to perform some stealthy tracheotomy without letting me know”. |
The Guardian;Israel launches massive airstrike on Beirut in apparent bid to kill Hezbollah leader;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/israel-air-attack-beirut-lebanon-hezbollah-hassan-nasrallah;2024-09-27T21:58:56Z | Israel has launched its heaviest air attack on Beirut in almost a year of conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, levelling a number of buildings in a southern suburb in an apparent attempt to kill Hezbollah’s leader and a key ally of Iran, Hassan Nasrallah. Six loud explosions were heard across the Lebanese capital late on Friday afternoon, and vast plumes of smoke were visible from as far as Batroun, a city an hour’s drive away. Several apartment blocks in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Haret Hreik were reduced to rubble, and footage from the scene showed huge slabs of concrete topped by piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, into one of which a car had fallen. The Lebanese health ministry said six people had died and 91 were injured, while some early estimates put the number of dead at 300. More casualties are expected as rescue workers clear rubble. Video of the strikes suggested they were carried out with ground-penetrating munitions known as bunker busters. In some footage, a vertical jet of flame was visible as a bomb appeared to explode beneath the ground. Israeli media reported that Nasrallah was the principle target and that the military was checking whether he had been hit. Other media outlets quoted Hezbollah sources saying he was “alive and well”. The strikes came shortly after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told the UN general assembly in a bellicose speech marked by the walkout of dozens of diplomats that Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah would continue despite international efforts to secure a three-week ceasefire. The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, condemned the attack as a “flagrant war crime.” “The attacks perpetrated … by the Zionist regime in the Dahiya neighbourhood of Beirut constitute a flagrant war crime that has revealed once again the nature of this regime’s state terrorism,” he said in a statement carried by the official Irna news agency. Targeting Nasrallah – even if he was not harmed – would mark a staggering escalation on the Israeli side. He represents Iran’s most important regional asset and has long been seen as linchpin in the so-called axis of resistance. The presence of Hezbollah’s large rocket arsenal on Israel’s northern border has long acted as a deterrent to an Israeli attack on Iran and its nuclear programme. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said the strikes had hit the main Hezbollah headquarters, which he said was underground beneath residential buildings. Hagari said the IDF was still assessing the result of the attack, which he described as “very precise”, and warned that Israel would attack other Hezbollah targets in the coming hours. Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted a map showing three buildings in Dahiya in south Beirut and warned nearby residents to evacuate. Shortly after midnight, fresh explosions were heard and smoke rose over the city as Israel said it was attacking the three sites. Hezbollah issued a statement denying there had been weapons in the civilian buildings targeted. Further Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut were reported before 4am, after a similar warning from Adraee. Early on Saturday the IDF also claimed to have killed Muhammad Ali Ismail, the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit in southern Lebanon, and his deputy, Hossein Ahmed Ismail. The claims could not be independently verified. The British embassy reiterated its warning to UK citizens, posting: “British nationals in Lebanon should leave now. You should take the next available flight.” As night fell in Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s office said he had personally approved the strike allegedly targeting Nasrallah, issuing a photograph of Netanyahu with his military secretary and chief of staff on the phone in his New York hotel. His office also announced that he had cut short his US visit and would return immediately to Israel. Late on Friday night, Hezbollah launched fresh rocket salvoes against the north Israeli cities of Safed, Karmiel and Sa’ar, which it said were carried out “in response to Israeli attacks on cities, villages and civilians”. Underlining the significance of the strike, Israeli media reported that the operation was watched as it unfolded by the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in the command centre of the Israeli air forcein Tel Aviv, along with the Israeli chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, and other top commanders. Although some Israeli media suggested that the US had been informed minutes before the attack, that was emphatically denied by US president Joe Biden who told reporters the US “no knowledge of or participation” in the strike. The explosions were so powerful that they rattled windows and shook houses in settlements 18 miles north of Beirut. Nearby witnesses quoted by the Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour described seeing substantial fissures open in the ground. Ambulances were seen heading to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing. Not long before the attack, thousands of people had gathered in Dahiya for the funeral of three Hezbollah members, including a senior commander, killed in earlier strikes. Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, who is also in New York, was following developments as information arrived, according to a statement from his office. The statement said Mikati was in touch with the commander of the Lebanese armed forces, Joseph Aoun, and had ordered “the full mobilisation” of emergency resources after reports of a large number of victims. “This new aggression demonstrates that the Israeli enemy is mocking all the international appeals in favour of a ceasefire from the international community,” Mikati said. Earlier in the day, Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon killed about 25 people, taking the death toll this week to more than 720, health authorities said. The Israeli military said it had carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours across the south of Lebanon on Friday, including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatieh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias. A year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated sharply this week, raising fears of an even more destructive conflict. More than 90,000 people have been reported as newly displaced in Lebanon this week, according to the UN, adding to more than 111,000 already uprooted by the conflict. Hezbollah began firing at Israel on 8 October last year as the Gaza war began, declaring solidarity with the Palestinians. Hezbollah has said it will cease fire only when Israel’s Gaza offensive ends. On Friday, the Moody’s credit rating agency downgraded Israel’s credit rating to “Baa1” and maintained its rating outlook at “negative” amid the escalation of the conflict. Additional reporting by Quique Kierszenbaum |
The Guardian;Netanyahu defies calls for ceasefire at UN as Israeli missiles target Beirut;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/we-are-winning-benjamin-netanyahu-defies-calls-for-a-ceasefire-in-un-speech;2024-09-27T21:12:23Z | Benjamin Netanyahu shrugged off global appeals for a ceasefire in a defiant speech to the United Nations that was delivered barely an hour before massive airstrikes targeting Hezbollah’s leader levelled several apartment blocks in Beirut. Addressing the general assembly in New York, Israel’s prime minister presented his country as a champion of peace and prosperity for the Middle East, even as its security forces prepared an attack that spread terror in the streets of the Lebanese capital and heightened fears of an all-out regional war. “Israel seeks peace. Israel yearns for peace. Israel has made peace and will make peace again,” he said, but made no mention of the ceasefire deals for Gaza and Lebanon that have been championed by the US. Instead he threatened more attacks in a campaign against Hezbollah that began last week with exploding pagers, and this week expanded to airstrikes that have killed more than 700 people and displaced at least 90,000. “We will continue degrading Hezbollah,” he told a half-empty hall. Many national delegations had walked out in protest when Netanyahu took the podium. It was a clear retreat from plans for a 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanese border that had been backed by the US and France and drawn up in close collaboration with the Israeli government. Soon after he finished speaking, huge explosions ripped through southern Beirut, reducing six buildings to rubble, reportedly in an attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, by taking out an underground bunker. Netanyahu’s office said he would fly home immediately, breaking a usual rule against travel on the Jewish Sabbath. It released a photo of the prime minister ordering the strike, apparently from a landline in a makeshift command centre in New York. World leaders gathered in New York for the UN general assembly this week repeatedly used their moment in the global spotlight to plead for a halt to the war in Gaza and across the Lebanese border. Before Israel was given the podium on Friday morning, the Slovenian prime minister, Robert Golob, demanded: “Mr Netanyahu, stop this war now,” and Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, described attacks in Gaza as “the systematic slaughter of innocent people”. Netanyahu responded by denouncing the UN as an “antisemitic swamp”, and insisted that Israel was committed to military victory. “We are winning,” he said, adding that since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October, Israel had shown that “if you strike us, we will strike you”. Netanyahu said the campaign against Hezbollah would continue until Israelis could return to their homes in the north of the country, and the war in Gaza would stop only when Israel claimed “total victory” or Hamas laid down its arms. The Biden administration clearly thought it had brokered the outline of an agreement to halt the conflict in Lebanon earlier this week, and was angry about Netanyahu’s last-minute decision to back away from that plan. Washington is Israel’s most important ally, offering diplomatic protection in the UN as a permanent member of the security council and critical weapons for the military, but has struggled to leverage that support into influence over Netanyahu’s political decisions. The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said pointedly that a statement about a 21-day pause “wasn’t just drawn up in a vacuum. It was done after careful consultation, not only with the countries that signed on to it, but Israel itself.” Netanyahu said Israel was fighting an existential “seven-front” war against Hamas and its allies, from the Houthis in Yemen, to militias in Iraq and Syria, militants in the occupied West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “My country is at war, fighting for its life,” he said, adding that he had left Jerusalem reluctantly, to “set the record straight” in New York. Nearly a year into a war that has reshaped politics in the region, his speech defiantly ignored those profound shifts. He called for a “historic peace agreement” with Saudi Arabia, something that was on the table a year ago with strong backing from Washington. Now, though, Riyadh has ruled out normalisation without the recognition of a Palestinian state, and its delegation did not hear Netanyahu’s proposal because they had left the room. He also urged global action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. This has been a long-term US preoccupation, but frantic efforts to stave off a full-blown conventional conflict with Iran have forced nuclear concerns down the diplomatic agenda. He ended with an awkward adaptation of two lines from the Welsh writer Dylan Thomas’ poem about confronting mortality, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, using them to insist that Israel would outlast its enemies. “To paraphrase a great poet: Israel will not go gentle into that good night, we will never need to rage against the dying of the light, because the torch of Israel will forever shine bright,” Netanyahu said. |
The Guardian;Trump vows to resolve Ukraine-Russia war ‘very quickly’ as he meets Zelenskyy;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/trump-zelenskyy-meet-high-stakes-ukraine-talks-new-york;2024-09-27T20:48:55Z | Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in a high-stakes meeting at which the Ukrainian leader hoped to repair ties with the former US president. The two men met at Trump Tower on Friday amid a growing feud between Zelenskyy and Republicans that Ukraine fears could sabotage further US military aid if Trump wins in November. “We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin,” Trump said as he stood next to Zelenskyy before the meeting. “And I think if we win, I think we’re going to get it resolved very quickly … I really think we’re going to get it … but, you know, it takes two to tango.” Going into the meeting, Zelenskyy noted he and Trump last met in person five years ago. “I think we have common view that the war in Ukraine has to be stopped, and Putin can’t win, and Ukraine has to prevail,” the Ukrainian leader said. “And I want to discuss with you the details of our plan.” That last meeting came before Trump was impeached for asking Zelenskyy in a 2019 phone call to investigate Joe Biden and his son in an attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election. He was acquitted in the Senate. In his opening remarks, Trump thanked Zelenskyy for what he said was his support during that scandal. “One of the reasons we won it so easily is that when he [Zelenskyy] was asked … he could have grandstanded and played cute, and he didn’t do that,” Trump said. “He said President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong. He said it loud and clear, and the impeachment hoax died right there.” Zelenskyy told reporters in October 2019 as Congress was launching its impeachment inquiry that there was “no blackmail” from Trump. The sit-down – which lasted less than an hour – could be Zelenskyy’s last chance to head off a growing conflict with Trump, who has frequently made complimentary remarks about Vladimir Putin and has also at times said he would cut off aid to Ukraine in order to force Kyiv to negotiate a truce – under any terms – with Moscow. “It has to end,” Trump said of the war in Ukraine. “At some point, it has to end. [Zelenskyy’s] gone through hell. This country has gone through hell like few countries have ever… Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.” Zelenskyy later described the meeting as “very productive”. He wrote on X: “I presented our Victory Plan, and we thoroughly reviewed the situation in Ukraine and the consequences of the war for our people. Many details were discussed. We share the common view that the war in Ukraine must be stopped. Putin cannot win. Ukrainians must prevail.” The meeting took place after Zelenskyy’s visit to the UN general assembly and the White House to meet Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. During their meeting, the vice-president indirectly attacked Trump’s policy on Ukraine by saying “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to cede territory to negotiate a peace with Putin. “These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” Harris said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.” The feud between the two men reignited this week after Zelenskyy said in an interview he did not believe Trump knew how to end the war in Ukraine and that his running mate, JD Vance, was “too radical” for endorsing a peace deal that would result in Kyiv giving up large swaths of occupied land to Russia. The Republican candidate has grown extremely critical of Zelenskyy on the campaign trail, attacking him in public speeches this week for “making little nasty aspersions toward your favourite president, me”. “I watched this poor guy yesterday at the United Nations,” Trump had said of Zelenskyy in a campaign speech in North Carolina. “He just didn’t know what he was saying.” He added: “Any deal – the worst deal – would’ve been better than what we have now. If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years … What deal can we make? It’s demolished. The people are dead. The country is in rubble.” Before the meeting on Friday, Trump posted on the Truth Social social media platform what appeared to be a private message from Zelenskyy requesting a meeting with the former president. The message, which was sent by text, was transmitted through Denys Sienik, Ukraine’s deputy ambassador to Washington. The decision to post the message online with little explanation will heighten concerns that any frank negotiations about the war and what aid the US government would be willing to provide could be made public at any time by Trump. “Days ago, we requested a meeting with you, and I really want to hear your thoughts directly and firsthand,” the message read. “I believe it’s important for us to have a personal contact and to understand each other 100%. Let me know if you are in the city at that time – I would really like for our meeting to take place.” It was signed “Volodymyr”. |
The Guardian;Israel’s strike on Hezbollah leader is an alarming escalation in conflict;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/israels-strike-on-hezbollah-leader-is-an-alarming-escalation-in-conflict;2024-09-27T19:44:34Z | Israel’s apparent attempt to assassinate Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a massive strike on an underground headquarters in Beirut’s southern suburbs marks the most alarming escalation in almost a year of war between the Shia militant organisation and Israel. Immediately after a highly bellicose speech by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN general assembly – where he appeared to directly threaten Iran as well as promise to continue “degrading” Hezbollah – the first reports of a massive strike began to emerge. Within less than an hour, Israeli journalists with connections to the country’s defence and security establishment were suggesting that Nasrallah was the target and that he had been in the area of the headquarters at the time of the strike. That the strike was regarded as highly significant was quickly confirmed by a series of statements from Israel – including an image showing Netanyahu ordering the attack on the phone from his New York hotel room. What is clearer than ever, after a series of Israeli escalations against Hezbollah this month – including targeted killings and the explosion of thousands of modified pagers and walkie-talkies supplied to the group – is that the long-understood ground rules governing the balance of deterrence between the two sides has been blown away. For much of the early months of the conflict with Hezbollah, which began on 8 October– a day after Hamas’s attack from Gaza – it was understood that Israel would not assassinate the militant group’s most senior members. But in recent months those “red lines” have increasingly been rubbed away. As the geographic scope of attacks on both sides has moved deeper into Lebanon and Israel, so Israeli operations have aimed at ever more senior Hezbollah commanders, beyond those directly involved in launching strikes on the ground in Lebanon’s south. Indeed, since the beginning of the year, diplomats and knowledgeable analysts in the region have suggested that one aim of the discreet to-and-fro between Israel and Hezbollah through US special envoy Amos Hochstein and intermediaries for the group has focused on preserving the understanding that the most senior figures in the militant group would not be targeted. On the Israeli side in the past fortnight, however, evidence has been building that a case was being made for a significant escalation. Claims of unsuccessful Hezbollah plots aimed at senior Israeli figures were made by the country’s security agencies, while it was also suggested that the Israeli escalation was aimed at countering the militant group’s own plans to launch a large offensive. All of which, it now seems clear, was a preamble for a long-prepared and multi-pronged effort to decapitate Hezbollah. While it may take several days to understand the full import of the fallout from Friday’s strike, Netanyahu and his military chiefs have taken an enormous gamble, not simply regarding the situation in Israel’s north, where tens of thousands have been displaced by the fighting, but with the wider region and with the country’s relationships with its international partners. Coming in the midst of US- and French-led international efforts to broker a three-week ceasefire with Hezbollah, the move marks an emphatic slap in the face for the Biden administration, which believed it had an assurance from Netanyahu that he backed the temporary truce. Instead, it appears that Netanyahu and his military leadership were all the time secretly laying the ground for an attack timed to violently underline the rhetorical flourishes of the Israeli prime minister’s warnings to Hezbollah and Iran during his thinly attended speech on Friday at the UN. Most significantly, the strikes represent a direct challenge to Tehran, for whom Nasrallah represents its most important strategic regional ally, whose tens of thousands of Iranian-supplied missiles aimed at Israel have long been seen as a key strategic foil preventing an Israeli attack on Iran itself. Now all bets are off. Despite anonymous Israeli claims – later disavowed by the IDF – that it had destroyed up to 50% of Hezbollah’s missile arsenal of well over 100,000, that remains highly unlikely. And while Hezbollah’s command and control has been severely damaged, it is probable that it retains a significant capacity. Other Iranian allies, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, have their own missiles and drones, which, while not as significant as Hezbollah’s, could be brought into play – and not necessarily only against Israel but against US targets. Then there is the most important question: whether Iran can accept a strike against Nasrallah, or whether it too could be drawn into a widening conflict, and whether the strike against the Hezbollah leader is intended by Israel as setting the conditions for a strike against Iran. Underlying that concern, Iran’s embassy in Beirut condemned Israel’s airstrike, saying the attacks “represent a serious escalation that changes the rules of the game” and that Israel would be “punished appropriately”. |
The Guardian;Poverty in Argentina soars to over 50% as Milei’s austerity measures hit hard;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/poverty-rate-argentina-milei;2024-09-27T18:36:20Z | Argentina’s poverty rate has soared to almost 53% in the first six months of Javier Milei’s presidency, offering the first hard evidence of how the far-right libertarian’s tough austerity measures are hitting the population. The new poverty rate, reported by the government’s statistics agency on Thursday, is the highest level for two decades, when the country reeled from a catastrophic economic crisis, and means 3.4 million Argentinians have been pushed into poverty this year. Since taking office in December, the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” – who campaigned with a chainsaw in hand to symbolise the cuts he would make – has slashed public spending in an effort to tame chronic inflation and eliminate the budget deficit. His administration has frozen pensions, reduced aid to soup kitchens, cut welfare programmes and stopped all public works projects. Tens of thousands of public employees have been fired, reduced energy and transportation subsidies have pushed costs up, and purchasing power has eroded. Kirsten Sehnbruch, an expert on Latin America at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said she had never seen such a large jump in poverty rates. “This new economic programme is not protecting the poor,” she said. “The jump is absolutely horrendous.” Milei’s cuts, however, have been cheered by markets, investors and the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes $43bn. Monthly inflation has also decreased from about 26% in December to about 4% in June, where it has remained, although annual inflation still remains one of the highest in the world, exceeding 230%. María Claudia Albornoz, a community worker from Santa Fe, said the government had “provoked a situation of desperation”. “We are feeling it in the fridge, empty and unplugged. Money is really worth absolutely nothing. We have three jobs and it is not enough,” she said. Also among those affected is 33-year-old Catalina, who works for the ministry of justice and was told last week that she will soon be losing her job. “Last week 2,500 of us were told that we will be out of a job by the end of this year, except for a handful of ‘lucky ones’ who will be offered to continue working the same hours for half the money,” she said. “I have been looking for another job for months, but there is no work. I don’t know how I’m going to make it. It’s frightening.” Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said that economic decline was inevitable when controlling inflation, and pointed to similar historic crises in Brazil and Bolivia, but questioned whether Milei’s changes will work. “It is dangerous territory. The question is, will this belt-tightening have any benefit? What comes next? Can he actually control public sector spending? Can he shore up the currency? Without doing that, you’ve just created poverty,” he said. While Milei’s popularity ratings have remained high, public support now appears to be waning. A survey published on Monday found a drop of almost 15% in September, the steepest fall during his nine-month administration. Recent polls have found that worries about inflation have been overtaken by fears of job loss and poverty. “For a county that has historically prided itself on being a middle-class nation, this poverty rate is terribly painful,” Sabatini said. Milei’s presidential spokesperson said the government had “inherited a disastrous situation” from previous left-leaning governments. “They left us on the brink of being a country with essentially all of its inhabitants poor,” said Manuel Adorni. “Any level of poverty is horrendous. We are doing everything, everything so that this situation changes.” |
The Guardian;How Mohamed Al Fayed kept claims of sex crimes under cover for decades;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/how-mohamed-al-fayed-kept-claims-of-sex-crimes-under-cover-for-decades;2024-09-27T18:00:40Z | When Mike Radford, an executive producer at the BBC, was approached last year about the idea of a documentary on Mohamed Al Fayed’s sexual crimes, he was concerned that it might not be worth putting the women through the trauma of recounting their ordeals on screen. “If we did not prove that his sexual offences were of the most serious nature, there was a danger that the audience might shrug and say, ‘Well, we know that already,’” he said. The threshold was high; Fayed had to be proven to be a rapist for the world to finally listen. Since the broadcast last week of Al-Fayed: Predator at Harrods, in which five women claimed to have been raped by the billionaire, more than 200 women have come forward and the police have said they are investigating whether there were accomplices to his crimes. On Friday, Omar Fayed, the late businessman’s 37 year-old son, issued a statement in which he said he had been horrified by the “extent and explicit nature of the allegations” against his father which he said had “thrown into question, the loving memory I had of him”. “How this matter could have been concealed for so long and in so many ways, raises further disturbing questions”, he added. But such impact was not a given. Stories of Fayed’s predatory behaviour around young women had been in the ether since the mid-1990s but nothing ever seemed to stick. There was never any public outcry or major interest on Fleet Street. Vanity Fair was sued after writing in 1995 about the invasive medical examinations given to women and how Fayed would chase secretaries around the office and “try to stuff money down women’s blouses”. The two parties later settled the case. No damages were paid on the basis that Vanity Fair agreed to place all evidence in locked storage. Fayed cheerfully went on to buy Fulham football club two years later. Tom Bower’s unauthorised biography in 1998 sought to build on the Vanity Fair allegations, with the covert help of its UK editor, Henry Porter. Bower reported that young women were sexually assaulted and paid off with bundles of £50 notes. It made little or no impact in the national newspapers. Fayed’s toxic world kept on spinning. When in 2008, Martin Smith, then the Mail on Sunday’s crime correspondent, brought in the story that Fayed was under investigation for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old, the journalist was left frustrated that the paper was unable to name him after receiving legal letters from Fayed’s lawyers. The paper described Fayed as a “senior Harrods executive”. This was despite the Met police, unusually, confirming that Fayed was the suspect, Smith said. The CPS ultimately did not prosecute the case on the grounds that the victim had been confused about the date on which she said she had been attacked. As a result, the allegations of sexual abuse were scarcely mentioned in the obituaries of the “ebullient” billionaire after his death in 2023 at the age of 94. Why had Fleet Street been so loath to publish? Vanity Fair had, in part, decided to settle out of sympathy after the death of Diana, Princes of Wales and Fayed’s son, Dodi, said David Hooper, a libel lawyer who worked with Porter. That traumatic event for the billionaire provided him with some cover from scrutiny in other quarters too, according to senior journalists. But those who have been the chief drivers of exposing Fayed’s crimes also point to more sinister explanations. Fayed was “very litigious”, said Radford, and such was the level of surveillance and harassment of the female victims by Fayed’s security chief, John Macnamara, that any media outlet would be taking a gamble that their witnesses would stay the course and be willing to repeat their claims in court. Along with Fayed’s willingness to spend exorbitant amounts of money on libel actions, he was very happy to play dirty. Such was the fear of Macnamara that one of the victims moved into Porter’s basement. Bower said he received an ominous call from the head of security of the ruler of Dubai, a source for his book on Fayed. “He said, ‘I’ve got good news, bad news and good news,’” Bower said. “The bad news was that Macnamara had looked in London for someone to break my fingers so I couldn’t write the book. The good news was he failed, and the bad news was, he was now looking in Liverpool.” Fayed’s “gangsters”, as Bower put it, were also quite skilled at what they did. Max Clifford, who died while serving a sentence for sex offences, was on his books and admitted in front of an undercover camera in 2008 of being able to trade with the tabloids when stories came up about “the randy old sod”. But there was soft power too. Harrods had a huge advertising budget, and newspapers and magazines were not keen to lose access to it, said Porter. The smooth-talking Michael Cole, the former BBC man who was Fayed’s PR man between 1988 and 1998, had excellent relationships with senior media figures. They would enjoy good lunches and the odd Harrods hamper, although there were some things in Fayed’s world that were outside Cole’s control. Two Fleet Street executives were invited by Fayed to take some fur coats home during a visit to Harrods, according to one senior journalist. They later had their homes broken in to and the furs went missing. Cole was handsomely paid for his efforts. One BBC journalist interviewed by Fayed to replace him after his retirement said the remuneration package on offer was £300,000, a flat in Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge and a chauffeur-driven car. Cole is believed to have been on a £1m salary, although those applying for the position soon recognised the risks. “[Fayed’s] opening remark to me when he walked in was charming: ‘Who’s this cunt?’” recalled one applicant. According to the applicant, Fayed went on: “‘So you’re a big dick from the BBC? How big is your dick? Let’s get them out to see … You have big hair, bigger than Michael Cole hair … Prince Philip killed my son, didn’t he?” Since last week, websites and newspapers have been filled with stories of Fayed’s alleged crimes. Lawyers are circling around Harrods over its admissions of failings as a company. Radford expressed his admiration for the women who came forward and broke the dam. He said: “What they did was, [make] other women, all of them, gain strength from each other.” |
The Guardian;Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon – a visual guide;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/26/israeli-airstrikes-on-lebanon-a-visual-guide;2024-09-27T17:13:40Z | A nearly year-long exchange of fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah dramatically escalated this week as Israel launched a huge number of strikes into Lebanon. Israel’s political and military leadership said the attacks are intended to destroy Hezbollah’s capabilities and prepare for a potential ground invasion. The Israeli strikes have targeted southern Lebanon, from where Hezbollah has fired rockets and missiles into Israel, and increasingly its strongholds in southern Beirut and the Bekaa valley, where Israel claims the group stores thousands of rockets. Hezbollah has directed a smaller number of strikes south, which Israel largely claims to have intercepted. A missile attack on Tel Aviv that was stopped by air defences represented its deepest attack yet into Israel. Hezbollah emerged as a force in the 1980s during the Lebanese civil war and fought Israel in southern Lebanon up to its withdrawal from the country in 2000. The two sides also went to war for 34 days in 2006. The current exchange of fire began on 8 October 2023, the day after the Hamas attack on Israel, when Hezbollah said it was firing at Israeli positions in solidarity with the Palestinians and pledging its support to Hamas. The Israeli airstrikes on Monday were by far the most deadly of the period since then and killed 558 people. Since the exchanges began, Hezbollah has fired an estimated 80,00 rockets at northern Israel and also hit military bases with drones. Israel had before Monday conducted air and artillery strikes against southern Lebanon and Hezbollah targets on a much smaller scale. This weeks’ action by Israel followed attacks using sabotaged pagers and walkie-talkies last week that were widely blamed on Israel and an airstrike that killed a top commander in south Beirut. The UN says more than 110,000 Lebanese have left their homes in the south with approximately 70,000 people displaced in northern Israel. Israel has said the return of these people to their communities is a war aim. The extent of devastation in southern Lebanon this week is not fully known. Satellite images from the Bekaa valley have shown what appears to be smoke coming from areas in the villages that Israel has been targeting. Israel has also carried out strikes it says are targeting Hezbollah commanders. Many of these have been in Beirut, but also in southern Lebanon and Syria. On Thursday, Israel said a strike had killed a Hezbollah drone commander, Mohammed Hussein Surour. |
The Guardian;New relationship with EU possible but will not be easy, Keir Starmer says;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/new-relationship-with-eu-possible-but-will-not-be-easy-keir-starmer-says;2024-09-27T17:00:39Z | Keir Starmer has said a new relationship with the European Union will not be easy “but is possible” before a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen next week, as he set out defence, borders and trade as areas where he hopes for improvement. The prime minister spoke of his hopes for a reset and did not rule out accepting an EU proposal for greater youth mobility – including easier travel, study and work for under 30s. Starmer said he had “no plans” to accept an EU mobility scheme but it is thought it could be a bargaining chip in negotiations in return for other concessions to benefit the UK. He has repeatedly put off going to Brussels since becoming prime minister, and reopening the issue of Brexit to improve Boris Johnson’s deal is likely to be contentious. Some pro-Brexit campaigners will leap on any signs of “watering down” the deal, while pro-EU advocates would like Starmer to do more to recover a closer relationship. Starmer confirmed his trip, which will take place on Wednesday, after a brief first meeting with von der Leyen, the European Commission president, in New York. Asked whether he could give a concrete example of how the EU reset could improve life, such as bringing down the cost of roaming charges or pressing the EU to allow British citizens to use e-gates when they travel to the EU, Starmer said it was “too early to get into any specifics”. But he added: “Look, can we do more on defensive security together? Yes, I think we can. Can we do more on border security? Yes, I think we can. That needs to be done and can be done in closer relationship with the EU in addition to the bilateral work that I’ve already started with France, Germany and Italy, and of course a closer trading relationship. “I want to make it easier for businesses to trade because I think that is in the interest of the UK.” Starmer has put promoting growth and attracting business to the UK at the heart of his priorities, with many business leaders lobbying for an easing of post-Brexit trade barriers and border checks. Asked if he thought a closer business relationship was possible with the UK outside the EU, common market and customs union, he said: “I think it’s possible. I’m not going to pretend it’s easy, but I think it’s possible.” On the idea of accepting a youth mobility scheme, Starmer said: “We’ve no plans for a youth mobility scheme but we are heading out [to Brussels] for an important meeting this week – I don’t want to get ahead of any important discussion we’ll have.” Starmer’s comments come after Pedro Serrano, the EU’s ambassador to the UK, this week suggested the commission may have softened its demands on what a youth mobility scheme could look like. He told Times Radio: “If we have a mechanism that allows young British citizens to go out for a gap year, for example, to any – they have a choice of 27 states within the European Union – to do a bit of learning and pay there for their learning while they’re there, why not? “If people want then to stay later for work, it’s a totally different process. This would be limited in time.” Starmer will probably tread carefully on the issue of youth mobility as some Brexit supporters would see it as a partial return to free movement without signing up to the single market in full. Likewise, any efforts to reduce friction in trade at the border would probably have to be done without a formal return to accepting blanket rules and regulations from Brussels under the customs union and single market. Starmer, who supported remaining in the EU, has promised Labour would not reverse Brexit and has talked only in general terms about resetting the UK’s relationship with Brussels. However, Brussels has been clear that a new negotiation with the EU rather than individual nations would be necessary if any parts of Johnson’s Brexit deal are to be reworked. |
The Guardian;Cinema in mafia boss’s Sicily hometown refuses to show film of his life;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/cinema-mafia-boss-sicily-hometown-refuses-film-life-matteo-messina-denaro;2024-09-27T14:30:23Z | The owner of the only cinema in Castelvetrano, the Sicilian hometown of the notorious Cosa Nostra mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, has refused to screen a film based on his life. Denaro died of cancer in September last year, nine months after he was arrested following 30 years on the run. The heavily fictionalised film, Sicilian Letters, premiered at the Venice film festival and will be released in Italian cinemas on 10 October. Salvatore Vaccarino, the owner of Marconi cinema in Castelvetrano, refused to host a preview and to screen the film, the Giornale di Sicilia reported. “It doesn’t interest me, it doesn’t concern me,” Vaccarino told the newspaper. He is the son of the late former mayor Antonio Vaccarino, who was convicted of drugs trafficking in the 1990s and is known for having corresponded with Denaro on behalf of Italy’s secret services as they sought to capture him. Sicilian Letters is based on the correspondence. The Ansa news agency cited sources as saying one reason for Vaccarino not showing the film could be because of the reference to his father. Others said sympathies for Denaro ran deep in Castelvetrano and the film depicted him in a negative light. Giovanni Lentini, Castelvetrano’s mayor, said he would try to persuade Vaccarino to show the film “so that citizens can be given the chance to see it”. Denaro was one of Italy’s most-wanted men until his capture in a Palermo clinic, where he was receiving cancer treatment, in January 2023. He was given a life sentence in 2002 for crimes including involvement in the 1992 murders of the anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. He once bragged that he could “fill a cemetery” with his victims. While on the run, Denaro maintained his luxurious lifestyle thanks to several bankrollers who, according to prosecutors, included politicians and businessmen. He lived in a modest apartment in Campobello di Mazara in the Sicilian province of Trapani in the months before his arrest. Elio Germano plays the mobster in the film, which also features Toni Servillo, who played the protagonist in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning movie The Great Beauty. |
The Guardian;Libya central bank deal could resolve ‘all political issues’, says head of state;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/libya-central-bank-deal-resolve-political-issues;2024-09-27T14:29:45Z | A deal backed by leaders on both sides of Libya’s political divide to appoint a new central bank governor has the potential “to resolve all the political issues” in the country, Libya’s head of state has said. Mohamed al-Menfi, the president of Libya’s Presidential Council who is largely aligned with the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, was accused of acting unilaterally and propelling the country into fresh turmoil when in August he dismissed the previous long-serving bank governor, Sadiq al-Kabir, who then fled into exile. Kabir’s dismissal led to a shutdown of oil production and exports by forces in eastern Libya – rivals to the Tripoli government – who were furious at Menfi’s decision. Libya’s deep political divisions have given the central bank the key role of distributing state revenues between the east and west. In a rare interview with western reporters given at the UN in New York, Menfi justified his decree by claiming Kabir had been managing the bank’s funds, largely made up of oil income, “without any form of accountability” and “had exploited the state of division” in the country. “It was an abnormal and unsustainable situation,” he said. He said he had also issued his decree “to spare the capital, Tripoli, from a certain war that would directly target the Central Bank after the failure of months of negotiations between the dismissed governor and the parliament”. He claimed Kabir had lost the support of the armed forces in Tripoli. “I tried to convince Kabir to share financial decisions in the country with others through the supreme financial committee. People were complaining they were not getting paid,” he said. Kabir has said he and other senior bank staff were forced to leave the country to “protect our lives” from potential attacks by armed militia and described the attempts to remove him as illegal. The deal to appoint a new governor and a deputy brokered by the UN mission in Libya has to be ratified by the country’s two key representative bodies, the High Council of State in the west and House of Representatives in the east. Under the deal, Naji Issa is to be appointed interim governor, while Marai al-Barassi continues as deputy. A new board of governors, intended to be experts but reflecting the geographical interests in the country, will be nominated within two weeks to a month. Menfi said the three main purposes of the deal were to ensure good governance; for there to be accountability and transparency; and to enable a financial committee to distribute money equally inside the country. “The agreement that has now been reached regarding a governor and a deputy has happened because of the pressure we exerted to create a transparent administration and an integrated board of directors,” he said. “We have to put the money away from politicians and for it to be run by a financial committee.” It is not clear how long the interim deal will stick, but first indications are that it will be enough for eastern forces who played a role in agreeing the new board and may now be minded to end the shutdown on oil production and exports. Oil production, concentrated in the east, had fallen from 1.2m barrels a day to about 350,000. Menfi’s critics say the dismissal was not purely about accountability, but the west’s loss of trust in how Kabir was distributing revenues. He denied the interim bank leadership he had installed had been unable to operate due to loss of access to the international banking system. But prices did rise as the value of the dinar fell. He said as a result of the deal “international accountability should return by reinstatement of the international auditor that was unilaterally suspended by the previous and without the approval of any other institutions”. Kabir has accused the government of not implementing reforms and spending money irresponsibly. He said the state had spent more than 420bn dinars since 2021, most of which was on consumer spending and not on development investments. Menfi said the agreement might open the path to tackling corruption in the country, including the smuggling of heavily subsidised fuel. That, he said, was turning into “a real obstacle “to any economic development”, adding: “There are ideas to replace it gradually with direct cash support that will stimulate investments and create a private sector in the field of oil housing and transportation.” He also backed simultaneous national parliamentary and presidential elections – long promised by all Libyan politicians – to end the existence of two competing legislative councils. He said the difficulty with presidential elections was that people were fearful of being excluded if someone else was elected. “We tried to go for parliamentary elections on its own and it did not work,” he said. He said the long-term economic prospects for Libya were bright, and the country could diversify away from its dependency on oil. |
The Guardian;UN hostility will not trouble Netanyahu, but now he has angered the US | Patrick Wintour;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/un-hostility-will-not-trouble-netanyahu-but-now-he-has-angered-the-us-lebanon-ceasefire;2024-09-27T12:37:48Z | The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has for decades used set-piece speeches to the UN to denounce it. In 2017, he said it had been “the epicentre of global antisemitism” and there was “no limit to the UN’s absurdities when it comes to Israel”, but never have the tensions between him and the body he reviles reached such a pitch. Since the 7 October massacre by Hamas, Israel has ignored four UN resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and has not just described the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa as a terrorist state, but launched a campaign to bankrupt it. Arab envoys have walked out when the Israeli ambassador has started to speak. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, now itself a near full member of the UN, told the general assembly in his speech on Thursday that Israel no longer deserved to be a member, since it flouted its resolutions. It is the UN’s historic role in the birth of the state of Israel, alongside a state for Palestinians, with the partition resolution of November 1947 that makes Israel such a central and difficult issue for the organisation. Having blessed Israel’s creation, by 1975 the UN general assembly was passing a resolution saying Zionism was a form of racism and racial discrimination. History is catching up with both sides. When the UN’s premier court, the international court of justice, in July found Israel’s extended occupation of the Palestinian territories discriminatory, the UN’s role in the birth of the state of Israel was the cornerstone of its wider judgment. The UN general assembly has demanded Israel leave the occupied territories within a year, and that the general secretary, António Guterres, prepare a report on progress towards this goal within a month. This last high-level week at the UN has seen speech after speech by world leaders condemning Israel for defying international law, and so damaging the UN’s authority. Many have been crude, such as the Turkish president comparing Netanyahu to Hitler. Israel has long called the UN human rights council the terrorist rights council, but the conflict between the UN and Israel has now become visceral. In his farewell speech in August, the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said: “In this warped place, I hope one day you will also see the bias and perversion of morality here, and I pray that you will see the truth.” Erdan’s often theatrical and passionate defence of his country won him few friends at the UN, but is passionately supported back home. Pew research published earlier this month found the proportion of those in Israel who had a favourable view of the UN in Israel fell from 31% – which was already relatively low – to 21% over the past year. The median among 35 countries was 58%. Erdan’s successor, Danny Danon, has this week attacked the UN over its agency for Palestinian refugees. “Peace is hard to come by while the UN remains loth to come to terms with the sinister reality that one of its agencies, Unrwa in Gaza, has been overrun by Hamas terrorists,” he wrote in an article for Fox News. “For that reason, and for the sake of peace for Israelis and for Gazans, Unrwa must be disbanded.” Following a meeting on the sidelines of the UN in support of Unrwa, the Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said it was intolerable that a UN agency was being described as terrorist, and subject to a political assassination campaign. “The attack was undermining the whole UN system,” he said. The Unrwa chief, Philippe Lazzarini, said behind the Israeli attack was an attempt to strip Palestinians of refugee status, and even their right to self-determination. But in the short term what will be disturbing Netanyahu, himself a former Israeli envoy to the UN, is not the hostility of UN mainstream opinion. He has entered the lion’s den many times before and ultimately emerged unscathed. What will be exercising Netanyahu is the evident tension between him and the US administration over his behaviour before his eventual rejection of the US plan for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon. The deal was supposed to be the day diplomacy fought back, but by Thursday it looked like it was the day it fell over. The US clearly feels he reneged on a deal, and not for the first time since 7 October. One senior European diplomat, long opposed to US strategy, was incredulous that the US had not sought clearer guarantees from Netanyahu before going public with the 21-day ceasefire plan. Reflecting US anger, the US national security spokesperson John Kirby said pointedly: “That statement we worked on last night wasn’t just drawn up in a vacuum. It was done after careful consultation, not only with the countries that signed on to it, but Israel itself.” The French president, Emmanuel Macron, who had been at the heart of the talks in New York, said the proposal had been “prepared, negotiated with the [Israeli] prime minister and his teams, both by the Americans and by ourselves” . But it will not be the first time the west has thought Netanyahu is making a strategic mistake, but then proved unable or unwilling to force him to rethink. |
The Guardian;Lebanon ceasefire hopes fade as Netanyahu issues contradictory statements;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/lebanon-israel-hezbollah-ceasefire-hopes-fade-netanyahu;2024-09-27T12:02:12Z | Optimism that a three-week ceasefire could be reached between Hezbollah and Israel appeared to recede as Benjamin Netanyahu issued a pair of contradictory statements on the proposal within hours of each other, as fresh Israeli strikes on Lebanon in the early hours of Friday killed 25 people. In the latest statement from Netanyahu’s office, issued overnight on Friday, the Israeli prime minister chided reporting on the issue as he confirmed Israel had been consulted regarding a US-led ceasefire proposal. “Israel shares the aims of the US-led initiative of enabling people along our northern border to return safely and securely to their homes. Israel appreciates the US efforts in this regard because the US role is indispensable in advancing stability and security in the region,” the statement read. A previous release earlier on Thursday, however, had said that reporting “about a ceasefire is incorrect. This is an American-French proposal that the prime minister has not even responded to.” Netanyahu’s twin statements appeared to replicate his response to previous US-led diplomatic initiatives over a Gaza ceasefire, where Israel has suggested it is more open to talks in private before reversing in the face of opposition from his coalition members. Not for the first time US officials appear to have been wrongfooted by Netanyahu, saying initially they had believed his government was “onboard” with the plan for a 21-day ceasefire when it was announced by the US, France and other allies, saying the proposal had been “coordinated” with Israel. “We had every reason to believe that in the drafting of it and in the delivery of it, that the Israelis were fully informed and fully aware of every word in it,” John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, told reporters on Thursday, adding that the US “wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t believe that it would be received with the seriousness with which it was composed”. The late-night statement came after Abdallah Bou Habib, Lebanon’s foreign minister, urged all parties to implement the proposal, saying the escalating violence threatened his country’s “very existence”. Speaking at the UN general assembly in New York, Bou Habib said the US-French ceasefire proposal was an “opportunity to generate momentum, to take steps towards ending this crisis”. Earlier, the office of Netanyahu – who is addressing the UN general assembly on Friday – said the IDF would “continue fighting with full force” to achieve its war goals. Those war goals include the safe return home of more than 60,000 Israelis forced to abandon their homes in northern Israel by Hezbollah bombing, which began on 8 October last year, the day after the start of the Gaza war. The International Organization for Migration estimated that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in October in support of Hamas. According to officials in Lebanon, 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday, including a family of nine in the Lebanese border town of Chebaa after a missile destroyed their three-storey building. On Thursday, Lebanon’s health ministry said nearly 700 people had been killed this week, as Israel dramatically escalated strikes it says are targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities. According to health authorities, a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders since 7 October. The IDF said a strike on a southern suburb of Beirut killed the head of Hezbollah’s drone force, Mohammad Surur. Israel has carried out several strikes in Beirut this week, targeting senior Hezbollah commanders. The UN refugee agency says “well over 30,000” people have crossed from Lebanon into neighbouring Syria over the past 72 hours in the wake of fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon. Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative for the refugee agency UNHCR in Syria, said roughly half of the people who have fled were children and adolescents. He said about 80% were Syrians returning to their home country and the rest were Lebanese. “Now these, of course, are people who are fleeing bombs and who are crossing into a country that has been suffering from its own crisis and violence for 13 years now,” he told reporters in Geneva by video from the Lebanon-Syria border. Syria is facing “economic collapse”, he said. “I think that this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices both Syrians and Lebanese are having to make,” he said. After the Beirut explosion, dozens of rockets were fired toward the northern Israeli city of Safed, with one hitting a street in a nearby town. In total, 175 projectiles were fired from Lebanon on Thursday, the military said. Most were intercepted or fell in open areas, some sparking wildfires. The IDF said on Friday it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen that set off air raid sirens across Israel’s populous central area, including Tel Aviv. Another missile from Yemen landed in central Israel about two weeks ago. The strikes came after Israel’s military chief said on Wednesday the country was preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon. On Thursday, the Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee reiterated that the military was preparing for a ground operation while awaiting a decision on whether to go ahead, and that the air force had reduced Hezbollah’s weapons stockpile and was working to prevent the transfer of further arms from Iran. Hezbollah has yet to respond to the call for a truce, although it and its backer Iran have previously said it would halt its strikes only if there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Emmanuel Macron – who was a co-backer with Joe Biden of the 21-day ceasefire proposal – said Netanyahu would have to take responsibility for a regional escalation if he did not agree to the truce. “The proposal that was made is a solid proposal,” the French president said, adding that the plan supported by the US and the EU had been prepared with Netanyahu himself. The domestic political repercussions of a ceasefire for Netanyahu were made clear when his national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, told the prime minister that his party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), would not vote with the coalition if the government agreed a ceasefire with Hezbollah. “We will not abandon the residents of the north. Every day that this ceasefire is in effect and Israel does not fight in the north, Otzma Yehudit is not committed to the coalition,” Ben-Gvir said at a party meeting. The leader of the opposition Democrats party, Yair Golan, also argued against committing to a three-week ceasefire, saying Israel should initially agree to a truce of a few days to see how well it was enforced. |
The Guardian;‘Absolute chaos’: counting the cost of a deadly wildfire in northern Portugal;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/absolute-chaos-counting-the-cost-of-a-deadly-wildfire-in-northern-portugal;2024-09-27T11:38:00Z | The fires are out in Albergaria-a-Velha now, their embers washed away by the heavy rain. But their reek still carries on the damp air, rising from the sooty earth, the scorched tree trunks, the burnt-out cars and houses, and the puddles of black and acrid water. If the numbers offer a glimpse of the toll that last week’s wildfires took on this northern Portuguese municipality – four people dead, at least seven injured, 25,269 hectares burned and 81 homes damaged – they cannot convey the sense of fear and loss that the 26-metre-high flames brought with them. Maria João Aleluia, 66, isn’t sure how to articulate how she feels as she stands in front of the house her grandfather built on the outskirts of town in the 1950s, and which she has loved since she was a child. A structural engineer will determine the extent of the damage, but even an untrained eye can take in the collapsed roof, the fire-cracked windows and the blackened walls. “I’ll be sick about all this in two months, but right now I have too much to do to be able to cry,” says the consumer psychology consultant. Unable to get to the house after the fires reached the area on 16 September, Aleluia asked neighbours to send her the photos that confirmed her fears. When she managed to reach the house two days later, she brought big bottles of water with her in the hope that dousing the trees’ roots would save them, especially her cherished linden tree, already a veteran of far too many wildfires. A little farther into town, close to a pair of burnt-out Minis and a Nissan whose bonnet and bumper have half-melted to reveal the skeletal engine beneath, Victor Manuel dos Santos was also counting the damage, and giving thanks for the smoke alarm he’d bought in Lidl. The detector’s beeping woke him early on Monday morning and he opened his eyes to see flames at his windowsill. “It must have been six or seven AM but it was so dark with smoke that I thought that it was night,” he says. “There was no light. A sea of fire had come across the field next door that was so covered with brambles that it looked like the Amazon jungle.” Dos Santos, 59, was well-prepared. He grabbed the helmet, gas mask and goggles he keeps near his bed and set about fighting the fire, which had already found its way into the neighbouring storeroom where he kept his papers, books and paint. “I put on some gloves and grabbed a shovel and threw everything that was burning out into the garden,” he says as he stands amid his charred loquat and citrus trees, his twisted bike and the melted remains of bottles. If the smoke alarm – “a blessed investment” – hadn’t gone off, he says, everything, himself included, would have burned. Last week’s fires, which were fuelled by strong winds, dry conditions and unseasonably hot temperatures of more than 30C (85F), killed nine people, injured dozens more and burned 100,000 hectares of land across northern and central Portugal. They have also brought back memories of the calamitous blazes of 2017, which claimed 66 lives, and serve as yet another reminder of the impact of the climate emergency in Europe. João Oliveira, who leads the civil protection agency in Albergaria, sums up the past few days in two words: “Absolute chaos.” When asked how the fire compared with previous ones, he shakes his head. “There’s no comparison at all. We’re used to having these cyclical fires here every 10 years or so … but the amount of energy the fire created, the amount of damage it did and the intensity and violence of the fire were something we’d never seen before.” The only blessing, he says, is that the lessons of 2017 appear to have been learned. People in the area followed the safe villages plan, introduced in the wake of the tragedy seven years ago, which teaches residents to practise emergency drills and seek shelter in a designated local building, usually a church or chapel. That way the roads are kept clear and people are not burned as they try to flee in their cars, as happened in 2017. The state Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests also believes people are better informed than they were seven years ago. “Every municipality has its own fire protection plan, most of them updated, and new ones were also approved for the regional and sub-regional levels,” says a spokesperson. “There are several projects intended to diversify land use and forest occupation, namely around villages and towns in forested areas.” Experts agree that land use and forest management are absolutely essential to Portugal’s efforts to contain future fires. Miguel Bugalho, who teaches forest and wildlife conservation at the University of Lisbon, points out how much the landscape has changed over the past few decades. Mixed land use – crop cultivation and animal grazing – have given way to enormous forests of eucalyptus, a tree prized for its rapid growth and use in the paper and cellulose industries. When the “mosaic” landscape is lost, says Bugalho, the land can become choked with vegetation from small eucalyptus growers unable to afford the costly task of keeping their land clear of the biomass that fuels the fires. “Sometimes people aren’t aware that forest fires are symptoms of some very structural causes that are down to socioeconomic reasons,” he says. “We need financial support so people can keep their vegetation at low levels, but we also need to find completely novel land-use systems, such as the mosaic approach that you see in some areas.” Domingos Viegas, a fire researcher and professor at the University of Coimbra, argues that it’s too easy to blame everything on the proliferation of eucalyptus trees. “I’m not very sympathetic when it comes to eucalyptus but I’m also not against it,” he says. “It’s one of the most widespread species in the country, so it’s logical that many fires will burn eucalyptus … But there’s a great difference in eucalyptus plantations across the country between those that are well managed and those that are not.” So how can Portugal best prepare itself for the fires of the years to come? “We can organise the system better so that we’re better prepared, but that’s not an issue of having more planes and more fire trucks and all that,” he says. “It’s about … landscape management, creating a mixture of agriculture and forestry land so you have mosaics rather than continuous extensions of monoculture that support fires without stopping.” Victor Manuel dos Santos concedes he panicked a bit when the flames were licking at his window. But he is also ready for the fires that the future will inevitably bring. “When the next one comes, I’ll fight it,” he says. “And if things are different, I’ll tell death he’s late because I’ve lived a lot.” João Oliveira, too, is also already planning for the next huge fire, whose flames, he fears, will spring from the charred trees and vegetation that now dot the municipality. “These extreme fires are becoming more common,” he says. “I think the next one will come in 2032 because no one will want all the burnt firewood that’s on the hills and that will lead to further abandonment of the land. The forest will grow, the temperatures will continue to increase, and there will be more and more fuel for the fires to burn.” |
The Guardian;São Paulo election ‘a horror show’ as candidates trade blows and insults;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/sao-paulo-mayor-election;2024-09-27T11:30:32Z | Brazilians call overcast São Paulo their country’s “land of drizzle”. But in recent months it has been raining punches not precipitation as Latin America’s largest city endures what observers call the most violent and unruly election in its history. Physical violence has meant two recent debates ahead of the 6 October mayoral election ended with participants being treated in hospital and questioned by police. In the first case, José Luiz Datena, the celebrity host of a sensationalist crime TV show, lost his cool and walloped a rival for the mayoralty called Pablo Marçal with a carbon steel stool. During a second debate, an aide to Marçal – a far-right self-help guru and convicted fraudster – thumped an adversary’s spin doctor, landing him in hospital where he required a Cat scan and six stitches to a face wound. Those attacks led the campaign’s leading female candidate, Tabata Amaral, to deplore what she called “a horror show of out of control and violent men”. “It’s a real shame for the city,” complained Amaral, 30, a centrist congresswoman who said she had hoped for a campaign focused on education, healthcare and public safety, not bloodshed and brawls. The president of Brazil’s top electoral court, Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, echoed those comments, urging police and prosecutors to investigate and punish violence which she called an insult to voters and democracy. The 2024 election, Rocha complained on Tuesday, had witnessed “the most contemptible and criminal scenes, which had reduced politics to episodes of pugilism, irrationality and police reports”. The fisticuffs have caused anger and bemusement, but also a hint of titillation among São Paulo’s 11 million-plus citizens – and made global headlines. “Brazilian Politician Upends Debate by Hitting Opponent With Chair,” the New York Times declared in its report about Datena’s “stunning” on-air assault on Marçal which came after the latter called the former a coward. The British tabloid the Sun invited readers to watch footage of “the WWE-style brawl”. One political journalist, José Roberto de Toledo, said that in nearly 40 years covering São Paulo elections he had never witnessed such ignominious scenes as the weaponisation of furniture. But Toledo, whose podcast, A Hora, is chronicling the slugfest’s political implications, challenged the generalization that São Paulo’s election was in itself violent. Rather, Toledo believed the turmoil was the handiwork of one man – Marçal – a controversial social media whiz and populist provocateur who many accuse of deliberately stirring up trouble in order to attract attention and win votes. “This phenomenon has a name [and] a surname … It’s called Pablo Marçal,” said Toledo, describing how the multimillionaire rightwing influencer goaded rivals into verbal or physical confrontations he hoped would go viral. “He’s the violent element in this election,” Toledo added. “If you take him out of the picture, everything’s normal.” The attention-grabbing tactics employed by Marçal, a 37-year-old often portrayed as a more provocative version of Brazil’s far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, have been shocking, even for a nation accustomed to Bolsonaro’s brash behaviour. In recent weeks Marçal has relentlessly harassed and smeared opponents and journalists during media appearances, calling them pussies, wimps, lame arses, crypto-communists, scumbags, mental retards and orangutans. He has also made a series of baseless insinuations about his rivals, suggesting, without evidence, that one was a cocaine user and another a rapist. In July, Marçal went so far as to suggest that Amaral was responsible for her father’s suicide – a slur she called a “dirty, filthy lie” and for which he later apologized. Toledo said Marçal’s aggressive rhetoric and mastery of the dark arts of social media had helped him commandeer a significant chunk of Bolsonaro’s electorate. Bolsonaro has endorsed São Paulo’s incumbent rightwing mayor, Ricardo Nunes, but polls suggest many Bolsonaristas will vote Marçal. “Pablo Marçal has broken Bolsonaro’s hegemony over the radical right,” Toledo said. Marçal looks unlikely to win the election, despite dominating headlines and boasting about 20% of intended votes. Polls indicate that about half of voters oppose a politician whose past run-ins with the police have been widely documented in the media. In 2010, Marçal received a four-year prison sentence for allegedly being part of a cyber gang that used malware to steal money from banks. (Marçal, who denied knowledge of the criminal racket, reportedly avoided jail thanks to the statute of limitations). A run-off between Nunes and Guilherme Boulos, a leftist congressman supported by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, looks likely. But Marçal’s incendiary style of politics looks set to linger, with the influencer tipped to run for Brazil’s 81-seat senate in 2026. Amaral, who is polling in fourth place, behind Nunes, Boulos and Marçal, decried how such a “despicable character” was hogging the election limelight. “I find it utterly absurd that such a person is being considered [for mayor],” she said, pointing to Marçal’s criminal past and reports – which he denies – linking close allies to organized crime. One of the culprits for his success, Amaral thought, was social media, whose algorithms allowed such rabble-rousers to thrive. “We need to regulate the social networks in Brazil,” she said. |
The Guardian;Anti-immigration mood sweeping EU threatens its new asylum strategy;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/anti-immigration-mood-sweeping-eu-capitals-puts-strain-on-blocs-unity;2024-09-27T11:24:52Z | In 2015, when more than 1.3 million people headed to Europe, mostly fleeing a brutal war in Syria, the response of Germany’s then chancellor, Angela Merkel, was to say “Wir schaffen das” (“We can manage this”), and open the country’s borders. Less than a decade later, and faced with a flow of irregular arrivals less than 10% of what it was at the peak of the bloc’s migration crisis, EU capitals are increasingly saying, “No, we can’t”. Or, perhaps more accurately, “We won’t”. Under intense political pressure from far-right parties in power in half a dozen member states and advancing with almost every election in others, governments are outdoing each other in introducing tough anti-immigration measures. This month alone, Germany reintroduced checks at all its land borders, France vowed to restore “order on our frontiers”, the Netherlands announced its “toughest ever” regime, and Sweden and Finland proposed harsh anti-migrant laws. The mood risks straining EU ties and could endanger not just the bloc’s new asylum and immigration pact, recently finalised after nearly a decade of fraught negotiations, but its prized free-movement Schengen zone. Marcus Engler, of the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research, said: “It’s hyperactive. It’s one restriction after another, with no impact assessments and no evidence they will actually work. They’re clearly driven by electoral logic.” The number of people recorded arriving as irregular immigrants in the EU between January and the end of July was 113,400, a fall of about 36% year on year. Long seen as one of the bloc’s most open members, Germany also recently tightened asylum and residency laws, reduced welfare benefits for some refugees and resumed deporting Afghan nationals for the first time since the Taliban took power in 2021. The fragile three-party Socialist-led coalition, trailing far behind its centre-right and far-right opposition in the polls, has insisted its reintroduction of checks this month on land borders would curb migration and “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime”. The move has been widely denounced as politically motivated after a series of knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers, and historic successes in crunch state elections by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). At the European level, it was seen in many – though not all – capitals as a potentially far-reaching blow to the 27-nation, passport-free Schengen zone, considered one of the EU’s biggest and most economically important achievements. “It’s a kind of a trap,” a diplomat from one EU member state said. “Once you introduce this kind of measure with no real practical justification, how do you sell to voters the notion, just a few months later, that it’s now somehow safe to reverse it?” Support came from Hungary’s nativist government, which this month threatened to send a bus convoy of migrants to Brussels in protest against EU migration policies. “Welcome to the club,” said the prime minister, Viktor Orbán. The Netherlands’ new coalition, led by the far-right, anti-immigration Freedom party (PVV), did likewise. It has this month promised “the strictest admission rules in the EU”, saying the country “can no longer bear the influx of immigrants”. The four-party government plans to freeze new asylum applications, provide only basic accommodation, limit family reunification visas and accelerate forced returns. It also aims to declare an “asylum crisis” so it can take measures without MPs’ approval. Once-welcoming Sweden, whose minority rightwing coalition is propped up by the far-right Sweden Democrats, has this month proposed raising the amount it pays to people willing to return home from €880 (£665) to €30,000 each. Stockholm also has plans for a law obliging public sector workers to notify undocumented people to authorities, while Finland’s coalition, which includes the far-right Finns, wants to ban undocumented people from accessing non-emergency healthcare. France’s new rightwing government – whose survival will depend on whether and when the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen decides to back any future no-confidence vote from the left – is also bent on a far tougher approach. The prime minister, Michel Barnier, this week described immigration levels as “often insufferable”. Abolishing full healthcare for undocumented people who had been in France at least three months, as the RN has long wanted, was “not a taboo”, he said. Barnier also praised “what a Socialist chancellor in Germany is doing” on border controls, calling it “a wake-up call for us”. His hardline interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, said France should see “how far we can go” to institute permanent checks. “The French people want more order: order in the streets, order at the borders,” Retailleau said in his first television interview, adding that Paris aimed to “review EU legislation that is no longer suitable”. The contagious new mood, visible across the bloc, does not bode well for the future of the Schengen zone but could also threaten the EU’s new asylum and migration pact, finalised this spring after almost a decade of negotiations. Criticised by rights groups who say it will increase suffering and reduce protection, the pact aims to strengthen external borders while spreading the financial and practical burden of resettlement. The Netherlands and Hungary have already said they want opt-outs. Retailleau’s comments suggest France, too, may now be having second thoughts. “Already, national governments are saying it’s not enough,” Engler said. “They want new rules to give them even more control ... Even Germany’s policymakers seem to have concluded it won’t really work.” Perhaps most striking is a concerted move to promote offshore processing, along the lines of agreements signed by Denmark with Kosovo and Italy with Albania (together, in Rome’s case, with deals with leaders in Libya and Tunisia to reduce departures). Fifteen member states, led by Austria, Denmark, Italy and the Czech Republic, have reportedly written to the European Commission calling on it “to identify, elaborate and propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe”. Outsourcing asylum reception and processing to countries outside the EU is one of the 15’s main objectives, along with a “common approach to returns”, notably to safe third countries or countries of origin including Syria and Afghanistan. The commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has promised such an approach. Gradually, said the EU diplomat, “the mood is changing. The language, the policies, are tougher. We’re discussing things no one would have dared say a decade ago.” A pattern is clearly emerging, said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law at the College of Europe. “A French rightwing government calling to make temporary border controls permanent. “A German centre-left government de facto suspending Schengen. Migration deals à la Italy-Albania becoming the new modus operandi. And the migration pact ready to be renegotiated, as if it wasn’t strict enough … Who will counter this?” Europe clearly faces very real migration challenges, Engler concluded. “But these are not solutions. Perhaps the influence of far-right parties has reached a critical point – the mainstream parties have no plan, but they’re freaking out.” He added: “It took several generations of politicians to build the EU as a space of free movement and human rights. It seems the current generation of political leaders is intent on tearing it all down in the space of a few years.” |
The Guardian;Japan’s humble onigiri takes over lunchtimes around the world;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/japan-onigiri-rice-boom;2024-09-27T11:00:11Z | It is barely 10am and the queue outside Onigiri Bongo already stretches around the block. Some of the 30 or so early-bird diners sit on stools, sipping green tea and poring over laminated menus. Further back it is standing-room only. “It’s always like this,” says Yumiko Ukon, who has run this modest rice ball shop and restaurant in the Otsuka neighbourhood of Tokyo for almost half a century. “But we never run out of rice,” she adds, seated in her office near a wall clock in the shape of a rice ball with a bite taken out. Bongo, opened in 1960 by Ukon’s drum-playing husband, sells as many as 1,500 rice balls a day. Its customers are a mixture of loyal locals, inquisitive diners from out of town and, increasingly, a foreign clientele eager to taste the inspiration for the global boom in onigiri – triangles of warm, lightly salted rice embellished with a topping or filling and, more often than not, wrapped in crisp nori seaweed. The queues outside Bongo are as legendary as its choice of 57 toppings, from the popular sujiko – salmon roe – and umeboshi plum to the more unconventional bacon and cheese, all accompanied by pickled cucumber and radish and a bowl of miso soup. “The longest anyone has waited is eight hours,” says Ukon, 72. “Onigiri are so simple – rice, salt, seaweed and a topping – and anyone can make them. When you bring a smile to someone’s face with something as simple as that, it’s really special.” At lunchtime, the diners waiting for a seat at Bongo’s counter include Keita Kimura, who is just minutes away from sampling its koshihikari rice from Ukon’s Niigata prefecture, enveloped in nori from the Ariake Sea. “I eat a lot of convenience store onigiri but I’ve never tried a speciality shop,” says the 27-year-old, adding that he has decided to order toppings of tuna and mayonnaise and deep-fried chicken. “The variety is a big attraction, and you can eat them quickly.” While rice sales in Japan are in decline, shortages notwithstanding, demand for onigiri is rising – a trend industry observers attribute to changing eating habits when the Covid-19 pandemic began, as people started ordering “artisanal” onigiri to take home for dinner. Wrapped triangular or circular rice balls have long been a staple of Japan’s ubiquitous convenience stores, where they are snapped up by office workers looking for something cheap and filling to tide them over until the evening. Those stores, too, are riding the onigiri wave with new varieties and, at the FamilyMart chain, high-end versions made in collaboration with well-known restaurants feature fillings such as meunière-style salmon and line-caught bluefin tuna with smoked pickled radish. The major konbini chain 7-Eleven, which started selling onigiri soon after it opened its first store in 1974, sold more than 2bn rice balls in the year ending April 2023, according to the Toyo Keizai online business magazine. Now the humble dish is making its mark overseas, in Britain, Germany, Australia, the US and parts of Asia – a trend reflected in Japanese rice exports, which rose from 4,516 tonnes in 2014 to 28,928 tonnes in 2022, according to the agriculture ministry. Mika Kazato, who runs the Japanese cafe Parami in Sydney’s Surry Hills, has been blown away by Australians’ enthusiasm for the dish. “I didn’t expect it,” she says. In 2022 her team started making just 50 onigiri each day but they now make up to 500, as customers flock to try the rice balls to accompany cups of coffee or matcha. “It’s really yum, it’s like the perfect little amount for a snack,” says one customer, George. But it is the French who have arguably done most to propel onigiri into the same culinary space as sushi and Japan’s other soul food, ramen. Paris is home to than 50 onigiri shops, rice balls are sold in many supermarkets and, this summer, the French judoka Luka Mkheidze credited them with giving him and his teammates that little extra required to win medals at the Paris Olympics. “Onigiri are like fuel for the body,” he told the Asahi Shimbun, three years after he tried his first onigiri at the postponed Tokyo Games. “They give me energy so I can perform properly throughout the day.” ‘A really flexible dish’ In the Tokyo neighbourhood of Asakusa, Anastasia and Rame Bouslimi are among a glut of lunchtime customers outside Onigiri Yadoroku, the city’s oldest rice ball shop and, in 2018, the recipient of a Michelin Bib Gourmand rating, awarded to restaurants that serve inexpensive meals. The couple have eaten onigiri in their native Germany but are eager to sample an early lunch at Yadoroku, which opened in 1954. “The onigiri in Japan are far, far better,” Anastasia says. “They’re cheap and good for you … like a healthy sandwich.” Her husband says onigiri were the obvious choice for a late breakfast on their first full day in Japan. “When you think of Germany you think of bread, when you think of Japan you think of onigiri. When we were considering what to eat, onigiri was the first thing that came to mind.” The Japanese are thought to have been snacking on something resembling an onigiri – often referred to as omusubi in some parts of the country – since at least the early 11th century. They appear in Murasaki Shikibu’s Heian period (794-1185) novel The Tale of Genji, and in the Hayao Miyazaki anime masterpiece Spirited Away, as well as in Utagawa Hiroshige’s 1830s ukiyo-e prints The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaido and Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1954 film Seven Samurai. When Ukon’s late husband opened Bongo there were very few specialist shops and Japan’s first convenience store would not open for about another 10 years. For decades onigiri were considered a snack to be made and eaten at home, or as part of a bento for school sports days, picnics and long train journeys. Yusuke Nakamura’s love of rice balls started as a young child. “I didn’t have much of an appetite so my mother would make onigiri, put them down and tell me it didn’t matter if I ate them or not,” says Nakamura, the chair of the Onigiri Society, which organised the first onigiri summit this year and hopes the dish will feature prominently at next year’s World Expo in Osaka. “But, somehow, I always ate them and grew to love them.” Nakamura, whose organisation works with businesses to promote onigiri domestically and internationally, expects the dish to adapt as it continues to attract fans beyond Japan’s shores. “It’s really flexible,” he says. “As long as it contains rice and a filling and can be eaten with one hand, you can call it an onigiri.” There is, though, one non-negotiable rule, he says. “Whatever you do, do not sprinkle them with soy sauce.” Additional reporting by Luca Ittimani |
The Guardian;Who is Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba?;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/27/who-is-new-japan-prime-minister-shigeru-ishiba;2024-09-27T10:11:09Z | Shigeru Ishiba’s determination to lead Japan has never been in question, and now the veteran MP is poised to achieve that goal at the fifth time of asking after winning the race to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) on Friday. The 67-year-old will be installed as Japan’s new prime minister on Tuesday by the LDP-controlled parliament. Having seen off a challenge from his rightwing rival, Sanae Takaichi, Ishiba will be expected to use his popularity among voters to boost the party’s waning fortunes after months of scandal and infighting. In a victory speech at the party’s headquarters, he said the outgoing prime minister, Fumio Kishida, had “decided to let the LDP be reborn and win back the public’s trust. We must all pull together to do that.” A member of Japan’s tiny Christian population, Ishiba had described his candidacy for LDP president as the “final battle” of his career, having failed in four previous attempts to lead the party. He now faces other challenges on several fronts: voter anger over the cost-of-living crisis, low levels of public trust in “money politics”, and growing threats to regional stability from China and North Korea. Despite his victory on Friday, the softly spoken Ishiba, who listens to 1970s pop music and builds model warplanes, trains and ships in his free time, has become a voice of dissent inside a party that has drifted to the right over the past two decades. Instead, he draws his support from the party’s rank and file, whose votes helped propel him to victory on Friday. Ishiba was alone among the nine candidates for the LDP presidency in calling for a post-Fukushima shift away from nuclear power to renewable energy and supports legislation that would allow women to become reigning empresses, a move opposed by many LDP lawmakers. He has also criticised the party for resisting public pressure to allow married couples to use separate surnames. On the economic front, Ishiba wants to boost wages and has voiced support for exempting some items from the 10% consumption (sales) tax to help people on lower incomes. He is unlikely to have time for his pursuits outside politics. He reportedly reads three books a day, preferring that to mingling with colleagues – some of whom he has alienated in his role as chief critic of the party’s policy direction in recent years. “I have undoubtedly hurt many people’s feelings, caused unpleasant experiences, and made many suffer. I sincerely apologise for all of my shortcomings,” he said in an address to LDP lawmakers on Friday. A former defence minister who entered parliament in 1986 after a short career in banking, Ishida was sidelined by Kishida. But Ishiba has never been far from the political fray, with media appearances, social media posts and on YouTube, where the married father of two daughters shares his thoughts on everything from Japan’s falling birthrate to ramen with his 16,000-plus followers. He is not above self-deprecation, poking fun at his sometimes awkward manner and admitting to being a “military geek”. “I will do my utmost to believe in the people, to speak the truth with courage and sincerity, and to make this country a safe and secure place where everyone can live with a smile again,” Ishiba said in a short speech after his victory. First, though, he must put a smile back on the faces of his embattled LDP colleagues. Reuters contributed to this report. |
NPR;Israel strikes Hezbollah in blast targeting the militant group's leader;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/28/g-s1-25272/israel-strikes-hezbollah-in-blast-targeting-leader;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 03:46:55 -0400 | Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was said to be the target of the strikes, but it was not immediately clear if he was at the site when they happened. |
NPR;A weakened Helene brings 'catastrophic' flooding as it crosses southern Appalachians;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/g-s1-25074/helene-north-carolina-florida-floods-asheville-death-toll;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 20:08:55 -0400 | Helene, now a post-tropical cyclone, continues to flood parts of North Carolina and the Tennessee Valley. Dozens of storm-related deaths were reported in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. |
NPR;Justice Department sues Alabama, claiming it purged voters too close to the election;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5131578/alabama-noncitizen-voter-purge-lawsuit;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 17:51:48 -0400 | In a new lawsuit, the Justice Department claims Alabama violated federal law by systematically removing voters fewer than 90 days before a federal election. |
NPR;At the border in Arizona, Harris lays out a plan to get tough on fentanyl;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5127374/harris-arizona-border-migration-asylum;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 17:04:31 -0400 | Vice President Harris is trying to shore up one of her biggest political liabilities. She focused her border security remarks on disrupting fentanyl smuggling. |
NPR;Something is Missing from London: Children;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/1202000758/something-is-missing-from-london-children;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 16:36:09 -0400 | The Hackney area of East London is burgeoning with art galleries and cafes. But the neighborhood, like many places that are appealing to young professionals, is rapidly losing families with children. And some experts say it's a bad sign for the future. We go to Hackney to understand the problem. |
NPR;Sean Combs accused of impregnating, threatening woman in new assault lawsuit;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/g-s1-25157/sean-diddy-combs-jane-doe-pregnant-assault-lawsuit;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 16:32:56 -0400 | In the 12th lawsuit filed against the hip-hop mogul since last November, an unnamed victim alleges that Sean Combs coerced her into sex, impregnated her, then threatened her into silence. |
NPR;A new kind of drug for schizophrenia promises fewer side effects;https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/09/27/g-s1-25089/karxt-cobenfy-schizophrenia-psychosis-fda;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 16:31:05 -0400 | A medicine that sidesteps the brain's dopamine receptors to reach different targets represents a new approach to schizophrenia treatment. The Food and Drug Administration approved it Thursday. |
NPR;Netanyahu defies calls for a cease-fire at the U.N., as Israel strikes Lebanon;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5131429/israel-netanyahu-un-speech-lebanon-gaza-iran;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 16:19:45 -0400 | In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly, the Israeli prime minister said his country would is "winning" and would attack Iran and its proxies anywhere in the Middle East. |
NPR;Supreme Court rejects RFK Jr's appeal to be put on the New York ballot;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/g-s1-24569/supreme-court-rfk;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:30:33 -0400 | In New York major party candidates automatically appear on the ballot, but minor party candidates must collect 45,000 voter signatures by petition in order to qualify. Kennedy, who has withdrawn from the race and backed Donald Trump, gathered more than 100,000 valid signatures.<br /> |
NPR;Auction for Shohei Ohtani's 50/50 ball goes live as fans fight over who owns it;https://www.npr.org/2024/09/27/nx-s1-5130841/shohei-ohtani-50-50-ball-auction-lawsuit-ownership;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 15:20:15 -0400 | An 18-year-old filed a lawsuit against another baseball fan after the two tussled over Ohtani's historic 50th homerun ball. Now, an online auction for the ball may add another fan into the mix. |
Al Jazeera;Israel says Hezbollah leader killed in Beirut strike;https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/9/28/israel-says-hezbollah-leader-killed-in-beirut-strike?traffic_source=rss;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 08:45:47 +0000 | The Israeli army says it has killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air attack on a neighbourhood in Beirut. |
Al Jazeera;Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 946;https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/28/russia-ukraine-war-list-of-key-events-day-946?traffic_source=rss;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 08:36:14 +0000 | As the war enters its 946th day, these are the main developments. |
Al Jazeera;Families flee to Beirut’s seafront to escape devastating Israeli attacks;https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/28/lebanon-beirut-families-flee-devastating-israeli-attacks-seafront?traffic_source=rss;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 08:26:04 +0000 | Waves of Israeli attacks on southern areas in Lebanon's capital kill several people and force many residents to flee. |
Al Jazeera;Is Austria’s far right poised for historic win in Sunday elections?;https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/28/is-austrias-far-right-poised-for-historic-win-in-sunday-elections?traffic_source=rss;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 08:19:11 +0000 | The Freedom Party of Austria looks set to beat rivals for the first time. What are its policies? |
Al Jazeera;‘It’s needless death’: Ugandan activists decry restrictive abortion laws;https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/9/28/its-needless-death-ugandan-activists-decry-restrictive-abortion-laws?traffic_source=rss;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 06:08:15 +0000 | Abortion is generally illegal in Uganda, and fear of imprisonment leads many to resort to extreme and unsafe practices. |
Al Jazeera;Sombre mood after a Kolkata rape and murder dampens Durga Puja celebrations;https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/9/28/sombre-mood-after-a-kolkata-rape-murder-dampens-durga-puja-celebrations?traffic_source=rss;Sat, 28 Sep 2024 04:19:45 +0000 | Losses mount for businesses as residents are in no mood to celebrate after the brutal rape and murder of a doctor. |
Al Jazeera;Israel ‘escalates to de-escalate’ with Hezbollah;https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-listening-post/2024/9/27/israel-escalates-to-de-escalate-with-hezbollah?traffic_source=rss;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:59:35 +0000 | Israel reverts to its wartime playbook as it manufactures consent for all-out war on Lebanon. |
Al Jazeera;US to end anti-ISIL operation in Iraq but unclear if troops will remain;https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/27/us-to-end-anti-isil-operation-in-iraq-but-unclear-if-troops-will-remain?traffic_source=rss;Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:57:16 +0000 | US officials offer little clarity on future of two-decade US military presence in Iraq amid 'transition'. |