Tag: World News

Cairo (TIP): Israeli forces sent tanks deeper into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and launched strikes across the enclave as they battled Hamas-led militants, killing at least 34 Palestinians on August 28, medics said.
Residents of Khan Younis said Israeli tanks made a surprise advance into the centre of the city, and the military ordered evacuations in the east, forcing many families to run for safety, while others were trapped at home.
Palestinian health officials said the Israeli strikes in Khan Younis killed at least 11 people. In the central city of Deir Al-Balah, where at least a million people were sheltering, an Israeli airstrike killed eight Palestinians near a school housing displaced families, medics said.
In Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, journalist Mohammed Abed-Rabbo was killed along with his sister in an Israeli attack on their house, medics said. Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said Abed-Rabbo’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire to 172. (Reuters)

Seoul (TIP): North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watched as new “suicide drones” took off and destroyed test targets, including a mock tank, and urged researchers to develop artificial intelligence for the unmanned vehicles, state media reported on August 21. Kim visited the Drone Institute of North Korea’s Academy of Defence Sciences on Saturday and viewed a successful test of drones correctly identifying and destroying designated targets after flying along different preset routes, state news agency KCNA said.
Kim called for the production of more suicide drones to be used in tactical infantry and special operation units, such as underwater suicide attack drones, as well as strategic reconnaissance and multi-purpose attack drones, KCNA said.
Also known as loitering munitions, such weapons been widely used in the war in Ukraine as well as in the Middle East.
Loitering munitions can typically be aloft and ready to strike before a specific target is located, then attack by crashing into the target with a built-in warhead.
Photos released by state media showed at least four different types of drones, some of which were launched with the aid of small rocket engines before their propellers took over.
When asked about visual similarities between some of the North Korean drones and Russia’s ZALA Lancet and the Iranian-designed Shahed, which is also used by Russia, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said more analysis is necessary.
“We understand that some gifts (drones) were given in an exchange between North Korea and Russia in the past… We need to analyse various measures to see if those have improved performance,” a spokesperson for the JCS said in a briefing.
Nuclear-armed North Korea has close ties to Russia and Iran and a history of military cooperation with both.
Seoul’s Unification Ministry said it was the first time Pyongyang had unveiled suicide drones.
South Korea has said it will deploy laser weapons to shoot down North Korean drones this year, becoming the world’s first country to deploy and operate such weapons in the military, and some skyscrapers in Seoul host anti-aircraft guns on their roofs.
South Korea and the US kicked off annual summertime military exercises last week, including practising responses to North Korean drones. (Reuters)

Paris (TIP): French authorities handed preliminary charges to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov on August 28 for allowing alleged criminal activity on his messaging app, and barred him from leaving France pending further investigation.
Both free-speech advocates and authoritarian governments have spoken out in Durov’s defence since his weekend arrest. The case has also called attention to the challenges of policing illegal activity online, and to the Russia-born Durov’s own unusual biography and multiple passports.
Durov was detained on Saturday at Le Bourget airport outside Paris as part of a sweeping investigation opened earlier this year, and released earlier on Wednesday after four days of questioning. Investigative judges filed preliminary charges on Wednesday night and ordered him to pay 5 million euros bail and to report to a police station twice a week, according to a statement from the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Allegations against Durov, who is also a French citizen, include that his platform is being used for child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, and that Telegram refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.
The first preliminary charge against him was for “complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organised group”, a crime that can lead to sentences of up to 10 years in prison and 5,00,000 euro fine, the prosecutor’s office said.
Preliminary charges under French law mean magistrates have strong reason to believe a crime was committed but allow more time for further investigation.
David-Olivier Kaminski, a lawyer for Durov, was quoted by French media as saying “it’s totally absurd to think that the person in charge of a social network could be implicated in criminal acts that don’t concern him, directly or indirectly”.
Prosecutors said Durov is, “at this stage, the only person implicated in this case.” They did not exclude the possibility that other people are being investigated, but declined to comment on other possible arrest warrants. Any other arrest warrant would be revealed only if the target of such a warrant is detained and informed of their rights, prosecutors said in a statement to the AP. French authorities opened a preliminary investigation in February in response to “the near total absence of a response by Telegram to judicial requests” for data for pursuing suspects, notably those accused of crimes against children, the prosecutor’s office said.
Durov’s arrest in France has caused outrage in Russia, with some government officials calling it politically motivated and proof of the West’s double standard on freedom of speech. The outcry has raised eyebrows among Kremlin critics because in 2018, Russian authorities themselves tried to block the Telegram app but failed, withdrawing the ban in 2020.
In Iran, where Telegram is widely used despite being officially banned after years of protests challenging the country’s Shiite theocracy, Durov’s arrest in France prompted comments from the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader. (AP)

Moscow (TIP): Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced 92 additions on August 28 to its list of Americans banned from entering the country, including some journalists who formerly worked in Russia, and law enforcement and business people. A ministry statement said the bans were imposed “in response to the Russophobic course pursued by the Biden administration with the declared goal of ‘inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow.’”
It said the banned journalists represent “leading liberal-globalist publications involved in the production and dissemination of fakes’ about Russia and the Russian armed forces.”
The new list of banned Americans includes 11 current or former staff members of the Wall Street Journal — including its editor-in-chief Emma Tucker. She had repeatedly criticised Russia for the arrest and conviction on espionage charges of WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich, who spent 16 months behind bars before being released in August in a prisoner exchange. The ban has also been imposed on five New York Times journalists, including Kyiv Bureau Chief Andrew Kramer, and four from The Washington Post. Other Americans on the list include people working for law enforcement agencies, academics, and figures from businesses and think tanks.
Russia has banned more than 2,000 Americans from entry, according to a ministry list. (AP)

Madrid (TIP): Maria Branyas, an American-born Spaniard considered the world’s oldest person at 117 years old, has died, her family said on August 21.
In a post on Branyas’ X account, her family wrote in Catalan: “Maria Branyas has left us. She has gone the way she wanted: in her sleep, at peace, and without pain.” Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, listed Branyas as the oldest known person in the world after the death of French nun Lucile Randon last year. The next oldest person listed by Gerontology Research Group is now Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, who is 116 years old.
Branyas was born in San Francisco on March 4, 1907. After living for some years in New Orleans, where her father founded a magazine, her family returned to Spain when she was young. Branyas said that she had memories of crossing the Atlantic Ocean during World War I.
Her X account is called “Super Catalan Grandma” and bears the description: “I am old, very old, but not an idiot.” At age 113, Branyas tested positive for COVID-19 during the global pandemic, but avoided developing severe symptoms that claimed tens of thousands of older Spaniards.
At the time of her death she was living in a nursing home in Catalan town of Olot.
Her family wrote that Branyas told them days before her death: “I don’t know when, but very soon this long journey will come to an end. Death will find me worn down from having lived so much, but I want to meet it with a smile, feeling free and satisfied.” (AP)

Dubai (TIP): A French destroyer rescued 29 mariners from an oil tanker that came under repeated attack in the Red Sea, officials said on August 22, while also destroying a bomb-carrying drone boat in the area. Yemen’s Houthi rebels are suspected to have carried out the assault on the Sounion. The attack, the most serious in the Red Sea in weeks, comes during a monthslong campaign by Houthis targeting ships over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip that has disrupted a trade route through which $1 trillion in cargo typically passes each year.
The Sounion is now at anchor in the Red Sea and no longer drifting, the European Union’s Operation Aspides said. However, it wasn’t clear if the vessel was still ablaze. The vessel had been staffed by a crew of Filipinos and Russians.
Military officials did not name the French destroyer involved in the rescue.In the attack Wednesday, men on small boats first opened fire with small arms about 140 km (90 miles) west of the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hodeida, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said. Four projectiles also hit the ship, it added. It wasn’t immediately clear if that meant drones or missiles.
The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attacks, though it can take them hours or even days before they acknowledge their assaults. However, they did acknowledge US airstrikes in Hodeida that the American military’s Central Command said destroyed a Houthi surface-to-air missile and radar system. The Houthis have targeted more than 80 vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that also killed four sailors.
Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets.
The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the United States or the UK to force an end to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
As Iran threatens to retaliate against Israel over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the US military told the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to sail more quickly to the area. Early Thursday, the US military’s Central Command said the Lincoln had reached the Mideast’s waters, without elaborating.
America also has ordered the USS Georgia-guided missile submarine into the Mideast, while the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier strike group was in the Gulf of Oman.
Additional F-22 fighter jets have flown into the region and the USS Wasp, a large amphibious assault ship carrying F-35 fighter jets, is in the Mediterranean Sea. (AP)

Beijing (TIP): China on August 22 lodged a “serious protest” with the US after a top Biden administration official met the Dalai Lama and reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans and supporting efforts to preserve their distinct historical, linguistic, cultural, and religious heritage.
The Dalai Lama, 89, is recuperating in New York since he underwent a successful knee replacement surgery on June 28.
Uzra Zeya, the US Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights and Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, travelled to New York for an audience with the Dalai Lama and conveyed Biden’s message to the Tibetan spiritual leader, a State Department statement said.
The Tibetan spiritual leader’s meeting with the top US State Department official comes months after Biden signed into law a bill which enhanced US support for Tibet to promote dialogue between China and the Dalai Lama towards a peaceful resolution of the dispute over the status and governance of the remote Himalayan region.
Reacting to UZra Zeya’s meeting with the Dalai Lama, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, told a media briefing here that the 14th Dalai Lama is not a pure religious figure, still less a figure promoting “non-violence” and “peace”, but a political exile engaged in anti-China separatist activities under the cloak of religion.
“China firmly opposes any country allowing the Dalai Lama to make visits under any pretext and opposes government officials of any country meeting with the Dalai Lama in any form,” she said.
“We’ve made a serious protest with the US. The appointment of the so-called “US Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues” constitutes an interference in China’s internal affairs. China has never recognised it,” Mao said of the region, which China refers to as “Xizang”.
“We urge the US to fully understand the gravity and sensitivity of Xizang-related issues, be fully aware of the Dalai group’s anti-China and separatist nature, honour the commitments the US has made to China on issues related to Xizang, truly respect China’s core interests and major concerns, not allow the Dalai Lama to engage in political separatist activities in the US, have no contact with the Dalai Lama in any form, and stop sending the wrong message to the world,” she said.
China had opposed the “Resolve Tibet Act” passed by the House of Representatives last February and cleared by the Senate in May and described it as “destabilising”.“Honoured to meet with His Holiness the @DalaiLama, a global figure for compassion and nonviolence. I conveyed greetings from @POTUS, wishing a smooth recovery and reaffirming the United States’ unwavering support for the Tibetan community,” Zeya, an Indian-origin-American diplomat, said in a post on X through her official handle.
Earlier in May 2022, Zeya had called on the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamsala, the seat of power of the Tibetan government in exile, during her official visit to India and Nepal. (PTI)

Kyiv (TIP): President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the capture of another Russian village as he visited a border area from which Ukrainian forces entered Russia over two weeks ago, but Moscow said its troops had taken a village in east Ukraine. Kyiv also said it had mounted a drone strike on an air base in southern Russia, its latest counterattack as Russian forces slowly advance in eastern Ukraine 2-1/2 years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

Russia said its troops had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s initial incursion into Russia on August 6. The raid took place about 240 km from the site of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk region in western Russia, suggesting that the Kyiv government may be aiming to take the war to more border areas.

Authorities in Kursk said they had begun installing concrete shelters to help protect civilians amid the Ukrainian incursion.

The Russian defence ministry said on August 22 its forces had captured the village of Mezhove in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

Zelenskyy said he had met his top commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, during his visit to the border region of Sumy. Official video footage showed them shaking hands and embracing but did not make clear when the visit took place. (Reuters)

BANGKOK (TIP): Thailand’s main opposition party relaunched on August 9 with a new name and leader, after its old version won the popular vote in last year’s elections but was forced by a court to disband this week. The new party will be led by tech entrepreneur Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and known as “Prachachon”, which means “People”, party representative Parit Wacharasindhu told journalists in Bangkok. The party will be referred to as “People’s Party” in English.
“The reason for this name is because we would like to be a party by the people, from the people, for the people, to move Thailand forward so that people can be the supreme power.”
The Constitutional Court voted unanimously on Wednesday to dissolve the Move Forward Party (MFP), the vanguard of the country’s youthful pro-democracy movement, and to ban its executive board members from politics for 10 years.
Among those banned was 43-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat, who led the reformist MFP to a surprising first place in a general election last year, after resonating with young and urban voters through his pledge to reform Thailand’s strict royal defamation law.
Pita’s political career was already shaken in March when Thailand’s election commission asked the top court to dissolve the MFP.
That followed a ruling that the party’s pledge to reform the lese-majeste law amounted to an attempt to overthrow the constitutional monarchy.
Lese-majeste charges are extremely serious in Thailand, where King Maha Vajiralongkorn enjoys a quasi-divine status that places him above politics.
The European Union, United States, United Nations and human rights groups blasted the court’s decision, which the EU said harmed democratic openness in Thailand.
‘Change government’
Parit said there was “still space” to talk about the lese-majeste law, even though the Constitutional Court had dissolved the MFP due it campaigning to reform the laws.
“What we saw as a problem in lese-majeste is still a problem now,” Parit said, when asked about the party’s stance on the laws.
Natthaphong, who has more than 10 years of experience in computer science and IT business, according to his Linkedin profile, said he was ready to become Thailand’s next prime minister after the next national election in 2027. (AFP)

BERLIN (TIP): All Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin had with him when he was released from his penal colony in a swap was his toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, his expired passport and the prison garb he was wearing.
But he has hit the ground running.
Within days of arriving in Germany, Yashin not only bought new clothes, set up a smartphone and reunited with his parents, but also held a news conference, fielded questions from his supporters live on YouTube and held a rally in a Berlin park — even if it meant he didn’t have time to catch up on sleep.
The 41-year-old dissident, released last week in the historic East-West prisoner exchange, admits he doesn’t quite know how to be a politician in exile, a role that was forced upon him against his wishes.
But in an interview on August 9 in Berlin with The Associated Press, he said he wanted to continue campaigning against Russia’s war in Ukraine, trying to free more political prisoners and advance projects to unite the country’s fragmented opposition.
“There is a lot of work,” said Yashin, visibly tired from his tight schedule.
A vocal and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, Yashin was convicted of spreading false information about the Russian military after he made remarks on YouTube about hundreds of corpses found in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha after Russian forces withdrew from the area in March 2022, some bound and shot at close range.
He was serving 8 1/2 years in prison when on Aug. 1, Russian authorities put him on a plane to Turkey in the exchange.
It wasn’t something he wanted or sought, Yashin stressed at a news conference after arriving to Germany along with other Russian dissidents. In fact, he had said at one point that he would never accept such a deal — and reiterated it last week, describing his release as a “forced deportation.”
Unlike many Kremlin critics, Yashin had long refused to leave Russia despite mounting pressure from the authorities, arguing that his voice would sound weaker from abroad. He stayed even after the invasion in 2022 and hastily adopted laws criminalizing any public criticism of it.
He told AP that his newfound freedom has left him feeling conflicted. On one hand, there’s “a massive surge of enthusiasm, massive inspiration and a lot of joy,” Yashin said.
“For the first time in over two years … I don’t need to wake up at 5 a.m. after being ordered to wake up, I don’t need to walk with my hands behind my back, there are no bars, fences and barbed wire around, I can breathe in fresh air, eat what I want, call whoever and whenever I want,” Yashin said. “This feeling of freedom, it’s inebriating.” (AP)

Vinhedo, Sao Paulo state, Brazil (TIP): A plane carrying 58 passengers and four crew crashed on August 9 in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state, killing everyone on board, local officials said. The aircraft, a French-made ATR 72-500 operated by the airline Voepass, was travelling from Cascavel in southern Parana State to Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport when it crashed in the city of Vinhedo.
Brazilian television network GloboNews showed footage of a large area on fire and smoke coming out of an apparent plane fuselage in a residential area full of houses. Additional footage on GloboNews showed a plane drifting downward vertically, spiralling as it fell.
“There were no survivors,” the city government in Valinhos, which was involved in the rescue and recovery operation in nearby Vinhedo, said in an email sent to AFP.
A video The Associated Press obtained from a bystander and verified shows at least two bodies strewn about flaming pieces of wreckage.
In a statement, Voepass reported “an accident involving flight 2283.”
“There is still no confirmation of how the accident occurred,” it said.
The city of Vinhedo, with about 76,000 residents, is located approximately 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo. At an event in southern Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked the crowd to stand and observe a minute of silence as he shared the news. He said that it appeared that all passengers and crew aboard had died, without elaborating as to how that information had been obtained. Sao Paulo’s fire department wrote on social network X: “Aircraft crash, 7 teams involved, so far only this information.”
‘Terrifying’
Nathalie Cicari, who lives near the crash site, told CNN Brasil the impact was “terrifying.”
“I was having lunch when I heard a very loud noise very close by,” she said, describing the sound as drone-like but “much louder.”
“I went out on the balcony and saw the plane spinning. Within seconds, I realised that it was not a normal movement for a plane,” she told the broadcaster.
Cicari was not hurt but had to evacuate her house, which was filled with black smoke from the crash. Teams of firefighters, military police, and state civil defence were deployed in the Capela neighbourhood in Vinhedo.
The doomed plane recorded its first flight in April 2010, according to the website planespotters.net. (AFP)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (TIP): : Israeli troops launched a new assault August 9 into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, targeting Hamas fighters who the military claims still operate there despite repeated offensives, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire deal.
Israeli evacuation orders triggered yet another exodus of Palestinians from the heavily destroyed eastern districts of Khan Younis, where many had just returned less than two weeks ago — after the Israeli military’s last incursion into the city in July.
A wave of Israeli airstrikes in the southern city Friday killed at least 21 Palestinians, medics at the city’s Nasser Hospital said. Israeli bombardment also continued to pound central Gaza on Friday, with the bodies of eight Palestinians — all women and children — arriving at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital from a barrage of airstrikes that hit the town of Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat refugee camp.
With tensions running high along the Israel-Lebanon border, an Israeli drone strike on Friday crashed into an SUV in the Lebanese city of Sidon, killing a Hamas official identified as Samer al-Haj on the main road to the southern port city, Lebanon’s state media reported.
The explosion engulfed al-Haj’s car in flames just outside the sprawling Palestinian refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh, where Lebanese media reported that he oversaw security matters. Israel confirmed it targeted al-Haj, describing him as a senior Hamas commander and accusing him of recruiting militants to attack Israel as well as directing rocket launches.
In the Gaza Strip, one of the airstrikes in Khan Younis hit the home of the Abu Moamar family, killing a Palestine TV journalist, his wife and three daughters.
Another strike smashed into tents housing displaced people in Mawasi, a costal community just west of Khan Younis that the Israeli military has designated as a humanitarian zone, killing a journalist for the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV channel and five others. A third airstrike targeted a car in Khan Younis.
Thousands had fled the city Thursday, carrying essentials like small gas cylinders, mattresses, tents, backpacks and blankets.
It’s at least the third time that Israeli forces have launched a major incursion into Khan Younis, where Israeli and American officials have said they believe Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ newly named top leader and one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, could be hiding. Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, pledged allegiance to Sinwar as its new leader and promised to carry out his decisions. (AP)

Rome/Beijing (TIP): Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowed on July 29 to “relaunch” cooperation with China, signing a three-year action plan during her first official visit to Beijing since taking office.
Meloni, who has led a right-wing government since 2022, made the announcement during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, as Rome seeks to improve trade ties with Beijing after it exited President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road infrastructure investment scheme last year.
The Italian leader said her five-day trip was a “demonstration of the will to begin a new phase, to relaunch our bilateral cooperation”. The action plan aims to experiment with new forms of cooperation, she added in a video shown Italy’s RAI state television network.
The industrial cooperation memorandum signed by Italy and China “includes strategic industrial sectors such as electric mobility and renewables,” Meloni said later in the day.
Meloni, who sees Chinese investment as a way to spur Italy’s anaemic economic growth, will meet Xi and China’s top legislator, Zhao Leji, third in the leadership hierarchy. — Reuters

BEIJING (TIP): China on July 31 said it condemned the “assassination” of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran, warning it could lead to further instability in the region.
“We are highly concerned about the incident and firmly oppose and condemn the assassination,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.
“We are deeply concerned that this incident may lead to further instability in the regional situation,” he added. “China has always advocated resolving regional disputes through negotiation and dialogue,” he added.
“Gaza should achieve a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire as soon as possible to avoid further escalation of conflict and confrontation,” Lin said.
Hamas said Wednesday that Haniyeh had been killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he was attending the inauguration of the country’s new president, and vowed the act “will not go unanswered”. China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has positioned itself as a more neutral actor on the Israel-Palestinian conflict than its rival the United States, advocating for a two-state solution while also maintaining good ties with Israel.
This month, China hosted rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Beijing, where they signed an agreement to form a “national unity government” in post-war Gaza. (AFP)