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Both Wiens and MG said a supply-chain attack in which a remote-triggered explosive was surreptitiously placed into the pagers before they were distributed is more likely. There is precedent for this: in 1996, Israel put a bomb inside of a cell phone and used it to kill Yahya Ayyash, who was then a bomb maker for Hamas.

At least nine people have been killed and 2, 750 wounded in Lebanon on Tuesday after pagers used by Hezbollah - and medics- exploded in unison, in an attack that the movement and Lebanese government blamed on Israel.

Among the dead was a 10-year-old girl, who was killed in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley when the pager of her father, who is allegedly a Hezbollah member, exploded. Many have posted a photo of the girl on their X accounts and Instagram stories to pay their condolences.

Several social media users drew attention to the reckless and casual nature of the attack which targeted many people including civilians. A human rights lawyer on X cited the International Humanitarian Law Databases of the ICRC, saying that “there was no way to know if they would be in shopping markets, homes, or streets with busy traffic”, pointing to the indiscriminate nature of the attack.

Anthropologist and researcher Philip Proudfoot cited a section on indiscriminate attacks of the ICRC Geneva Conventions of 1949 and said that Israel is committing a war crime due to the indiscriminate nature of this attack with possible collateral damage. Many other users cited the same section of the convention, drawing attention to the fact that people had no means of knowing who was holding the explosive devices when they went off.

Several people have lost their lives in forest fires that have been raging in Portugal since the weekend. Thousands of firefighters have been deployed to combat the flames

South Korea's military has been forced to remove over 1,300 surveillance cameras from its bases after learning that they could be used to transmit signals to China, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

The cameras, which were supplied by a South Korean company, "were found to be designed to be able to transmit recorded footage externally by connecting to a specific Chinese server," the outlet reported an unnamed military official as saying.

Korean intelligence agencies discovered the cameras' Chinese origins in July during an examination of military equipment, the outlet said.

In July the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a historic advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s decades long occupation and annexation of Palestinian territory is unlawful because it violates some of the most fundamental tenets of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and denies Palestinians their human rights.

The ICJ opinion also concludes that all states have an “obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Meanwhile, the virtually unconditional transfer and sale of weapons, parts, and ammunition by governments where there is clear risk of use in harming civilians and violating international law has continued.

As the UN General Assembly prepares to vote on a resolution this week that would seek to bring the occupation to an end, the undersigned organizations call on all governments, including the UN Security Council and its members, to adhere to the ICJ’s advisory opinion, including through the halting the transfer and sale of weapons, parts and ammunition.

Humanitarian, development and human rights organizations, many of us with decades of experience working throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, delivering lifesaving assistance and other services, have witnessed first-hand the humanitarian consequences of Israel’s occupation, and its devastating impact on the Palestinian population, including the well-being of children.

This includes but is not limited to:

• Middle East Moniter: Iran envoy, Hezbollah members injured as pagers explode in Lebanon.
• Iran Front Page: Hundreds wounded after pagers explode in Lebanon.
• SMEX: Mass attack targeting pagers in Lebanon: What happened?

Based on SMEX’s analysis, three scenarios could explain what happened today.

• Tampered devices

It is possible that the exploded pagers were part of a shipment that had been tampered with during transit. For example, small explosive devices could have been planted in them and remotely activated or set to detonate via a timer.

• Overheated batteries

The pagers were not intercepted, but Israeli intelligence may have developed a way to exploit a vulnerability in the devices, potentially causing them to overheat and leading to battery explosions.

• Explosions activated through radio waves

The pagers that exploded might have been tampered with during shipping (a supply chain attack), and later activated through radio waves emitted from a ground station or an intelligence device (such as an Airborne Warning and Control System, AWACS) to detonate the devices.

I highly recommend reading the SMEX article as it contains their full explanation for various questions.

Latest updates:

• Iran Front Page: Lebanon says at least 9 killed, 2,800 wounded by exploding pagers.

Nine people, including a child, have been killed after handheld pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah to communicate exploded across Lebanon, the country’s health minister says.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was among 2,800 other people who were wounded by the simultaneous blasts in Beirut and several other regions.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and that at least two members were among the dead.

"I'M THE MAYOR NOW, BROTHER!"

Warning: Graphic images

Article title updated

The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that it tracked a group of Russian naval vessels, including two submarines, as they crossed into U.S. waters off Alaska in an apparent effort to avoid sea ice, a move that is permitted under international rules and customs.

Crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Stratton witnessed the Russian military vessels cross the maritime boundary and venture 30 miles inside an area extending beyond U.S. territorial waters known as the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, the Coast Guard said in a news release.

...

There have been several similar encounters in recent months. Last month, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on routine patrol around Alaska's Aleutian Islands came across a Russian ship in international waters but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone.

 On July 6, the Coast Guard while on patrol spotted four Chinese military ships north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands in international waters, but also within the U.S. exclusive economic zone, officials said.

And on July 24, the U.S. military intercepted two Russian bombers and two Chinese bombers flying together in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone. The bombers were intercepted by U.S. and Canadian fighter jets and were not seen as a threat, according to North American Aerospace Defense Command.

According to a report, the global index for free and fair elections suffered the biggest decline on record in 2023, while disputed elections are becoming a global phenomenon.

A shrinking voter turnout globally and increasingly contested election results are posing a risk to the credibility of democracy, a new report revealed on Tuesday.

The report published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) said that global voter turnout between 2008 and 2023 plunged by 10 percentage points, going from 65.2 to 55.5.

Warning: This story contains distressing details from the start.

Dominique Pelicot, the 71-year-old man accused of drugging his wife to sleep and recruiting dozens of men to abuse her for over 10 years, has admitted to all the charges against him in his first testimony since the trial opened on 2 September.

Referring to the 50 co-defendants who are accused of raping his now ex-wife Gisèle, Mr Pelicot said: "I am a rapist like the others in this room."

"They all knew, they cannot say the contrary," he said. Only 15 of the 50 defendants admit rape, with most saying they only took part in sexual acts.

Of his ex-wife, Mr Pelicot said: "She did not deserve this."

Facebook owner Meta says it is banning several Russian state media networks, alleging they use deceptive tactics to carry out influence operations and evade detection on its platforms.

(Reuters) - Ukrainian troops are suffering high losses because Western arms are arriving too slowly to equip the armed forces properly, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told CNN in an interview aired on Sunday.

Russia has been gaining ground in parts of eastern Ukraine including around Pokrovsk. Capture of the transport hub could enable Moscow to open new lines of attack.

Zelenskiy said the situation in the east was "very tough", adding that half of Ukraine's brigades there were not equipped.

Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after being doused in petrol and set on fire by her former partner, has been buried with full military honours at her ancestral home in Uganda’s northeast.

The 33-year-old, who debuted this summer in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics, died of severe burns last week after being attacked by Kenyan Dickson Ndiema Marangach – an assault that prompted a global outpouring of tributes.

Hundreds of residents, relatives, officials and fellow Olympians from Uganda and Kenya paid their respects to Cheptegei on Saturday in Bukwo village near Uganda’s border with Kenya. Her body was lowered into her grave with full military honours, including a gun salute by the Ugandan military, in which she served

“She embodied the admirable spirit of resilience, selflessness, generosity and hard work, which worked together to catapult her to international glory,” said Kipchumba Murkomen, Kenya’s sports minister. Her death, he said, marked “a tragic end to a blossoming life”.

Ugandan Sports Minister Peter Ogwang condemned the “barbaric and cowardly” attack that had taken her life and said the government would give roughly $13,000 to each of Cheptegei’s children. ‘Bury me in Uganda’

Cheptegei lived in the highlands of western Kenya, an area popular with international runners for its high-altitude training facilities. She came 44th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics on August 11 – her final race.

Three weeks later, Marangach attacked Cheptegei on September 1 as she returned from church with her two daughters and younger sister in the village of Kinyoro.

Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, told the Reuters news agency his daughter had approached police at least three times to file complaints against Marangach, who died a few days after Cheptegei from burns sustained during the attack.

She suffered burns to 80 percent of her body and succumbed to her injuries four days later.

“I don’t think I am going to make it,” her father said she told him while being treated in hospital. “If I die, just bury me at home in Uganda.”

Agnes Cheptegei mourns next to the coffin of her Olympian daughter [Edwin Waita/Reuters]

Cheptegei’s estranged husband, Simon Ayeko, with whom she had two daughters, said the family was “extremely saddened”.

“As a father, it has been very difficult,” he told the AFP news agency, adding that he had not been able to break the news to their children. “Slowly, we will tell them the truth.”

Cheptegei’s death sparked anger over the high levels of violence against women in Kenya, particularly in the athletics community. The marathoner was the third elite runner to die allegedly at the hands of a romantic partner since 2021.

One in three Kenyan girls and women aged 15 to 49 have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022.

Rights groups said female athletes in Kenya are at a high risk of exploitation and violence by men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.

Cheptegei’s sporting successes include winning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand and a year later earning first place in the Padova Marathon in Italy and setting a national record for the marathon.

The athlete was a “heroine”, local presidential representative Bessie Modest Ajilong told AFP.

“As leaders, we saw Cheptegei as an inspiration.”

Pezeshkian replaced the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.

During election campaigning, he had vowed to "fully" oppose police patrols enforcing the mandatory hijab headscarf, as well as easing long-standing internet restrictions.

Relations with the West

At his news conference, Pezeshkian briefly touched on other topics including Iran's fraught relations with the United States and the 2015 nuclear deal.

"We do not want to fight with America if it respects our rights," he said. "It is not us who are hostile (to the Americans). We have not built military bases around their country," Pezeshkian added, referring to U.S. bases in the Gulf and in Iraq.

Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since 1980, the year after the Islamic Revolution that toppled its Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

'Disarm Israel'

He also insisted on Iran's right to maintain its missile program, which has drawn Western criticism, as a deterrent against its arch-foe Israel.

"They (the West) want us not to have missiles, that is fine, but you need to disarm Israel first," he said, adding that otherwise "they can drop bombs on us whenever they want, like in Gaza."

Joint press release: 15 aid organisations demand international pressure for an immediate ceasefire, arms embargo, and end to Israel’s systematic aid obstruction

• 83% of required food aid does not make it into Gaza, up from 34% in 2023.This reduction means people in Gaza have gone from having an average of two meals a day to just one meal every other day. An estimated 50,000 children aged between 6-59 months urgently require treatment for malnutrition by the end of the year. (...)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/29157181

The death toll from massive flooding in Myanmar in the wake of Typhoon Yagi has doubled to 226, as the UN warned as many as 630,000 people could be in need of help.

Yagi swept across northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar more than a week ago with powerful winds and an enormous amount of rain, triggering floods and landslides that have killed more than 500 people, according to official figures.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday asked the warring factions of the Sinaloa cartel to act “responsibly” so no one else gets killed, after a week of escalating violence nearly paralyzed the Sinaloa state capital, Culiacan.

...

The exchange Friday during the president’s morning press briefing is the latest in a series of instances where López Obrador has downplayed the clashes between factions of the Sinaloa cartel.

The president, who leaves office on Sept. 30, has repeatedly refused to confront cartels, laying out various justifications for his “hugs, not bullets” strategy offering opportunities to youths so they won’t join cartels.

The latest clashes in Culiacan are the latest example of the violence that continues to plague Mexico, where cartels employ increasingly sophisticated forms of warfare including roadside bombs or IEDs, trenches, home-made armored vehicles and bomb-dropping drones.

Two German warships are visiting the Philippines for the first time in over 20 years after making a notable transit through the Taiwan Strait.

The port call, which Germany said is a reaffirmation of its commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region and rules-based international order, rhetoric commonly used by the US, as well as a testament to its defense cooperation with the Philippines, is set against the backdrop of flaring tensions between China and the Philippines due to disputes in the South China Sea.

The article:

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye has dissolved the opposition-led parliament, paving the way for snap elections six months after he was voted in on an anti-establishment platform.

Faye said working with the assembly had grown difficult after members refused to start discussions on the budget law and rejected efforts to dissolve wasteful state institutions.

“I dissolve the national assembly to ask the sovereign people for the institutional means to bring about the systemic transformation that I have promised to deliver,” Faye said in a brief speech late on Thursday.

The elections will be held on November 17.

Observers say Faye’s party, PASTEF (African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity), has a high chance of securing a majority, given his popularity and his victory margin in the March presidential election, which he won with 54 percent of votes.

The Benno Bokk Yaakar opposition platform led by former President Macky Sall condemned the move. It said Faye had convened a legislative session under pretences to announce the dissolution and accused him of “perjury”.

Faye, 44, won the vote in March to become Africa’s youngest elected leader less than two weeks after he was released from prison.

His rise has reflected widespread frustration among Senegal’s youth with the country’s direction – a common sentiment across Africa – which has the world’s youngest population and a number of leaders accused of clinging to power for decades.

During the presidential campaign, Faye promised widespread reforms to improve the living standards of common Senegalese, including fighting corruption, reviewing fishing permits for foreign companies, and securing a bigger share of the country’s natural resources for the population.

But six months later, these pledges have yet to materialise.

The president and Ousmane Sonko, the prime minister and a popular opposition figure who helped catapult Faye to victory, have blamed the parliament.

PASTEF does not hold a majority in the assembly, which Faye says has blocked him from executing the promised reforms.

In June, the opposition coalition cancelled a budgetary debate in a dispute over whether Sonko was required to issue his government’s policy roadmap, with him arguing that he was not required to.

The assembly has until the end of December to vote on the budget for next year, but new legislative elections might make it hard to meet this deadline.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2926436

A Hong Kong man is facing as long as 10 years in jail after he pleaded guilty to sedition for wearing a T-shirt featuring a protest slogan.

In court on Monday, Chu Kai-pong, 27, was the first person to be convicted under Hong Kong’s tough homegrown national security law enacted in March.

[...]

He was arrested on June 12 at a train station wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”, and a yellow mask printed with “FDNOL” – the shorthand for another pro-democracy slogan, “five demands, not one less”. June 12 is a date associated with protests in the city in 2019.

[...]

Chu’s lawyer argued that the maximum he could be given would be two years.