No declaration of all-out war on Israel from Hezbollah’s leader

Orla Guerin

BBC international correspondent in Lebanon

When the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, finally spoke about the latest Israel-Gaza war, after a month of silence, what he did not say mattered as much as what he did say.

There was no declaration of all-out war on Israel. Few here had expected one.

Nasrallah knows there’s little appetite in Lebanon for another war with Israel. This country has troubles a plenty. The economy is in ruins and the political system, such as it is, is in a state of collapse.

And the two American aircraft carriers recently deployed to the Mediterranean sea may also be a powerful deterrent.

US surveillance drones are flying over Gaza to help search for hostages taken at the outset of fighting between Hamas and Israel on 7 October, according to US officials.

Citing two anonymous US officials, Reuters has reported that the drone flights have been taking place for over a week.

Two US officials confirmed the flights to CBS, the BBC’s US partner.

Governments will meet this weekend for a last-ditch attempt to bridge deep divisions between rich and poor countries over how to get money to vulnerable people afflicted by climate disaster.
Talks over funds for “loss and damage”, which refers to the rescue and rehabilitation of countries and communities experiencing the effects of extreme weather, started in March but broke down in rancour two weeks ago.

Countries have reconvened in Abu Dhabi for a final two-day meeting, ending on Saturday night, to try to resolve the outstanding problems ahead of the UN Cop28 climate summit, which begins in the United Arab Emirates at the end of this month.

Toxic smog engulfs India’s capital

A dangerous grey smog has covered the city of Delhi and is making life miserable for its 30 million inhabitants. Several schools have been shut for two days because of the pollutant haze.

A thick layer of toxic smog covered India’s capital on Friday morning as the air quality index (AQI) entered the “severe” category in several parts of the city.

The smog forms over Delhi every winter as the cold, heavy air traps construction dust, pollution from vehicles and smoke from the burning of crop stubble in neighboring states. As a result, millions of residents face respiratory illnesses every year.

“Unfavorable meteorological conditions, sudden increase in the farm fire incidents and north-westerly winds moving the pollutants to Delhi are the major causes for sudden spike in AQI,” the region’s Commission for Air Quality Management said on Thursday.

Myanmar military junta vows to hit back at armed groups’ offensive

Myanmar’s junta chief vowed Friday to strike back after an alliance of ethnic minority groups seized towns and blocked trade routes to China in the biggest coordinated offensive against the military since it seized power in a coup.

Fighting has raged for a week across a wide swathe of northern Shan state, forcing more than 23,000 people from their homes according to the UN, in what analysts say is the most severe military challenge to the junta since it seized power in 2021.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA) said on Thursday they had captured dozens of outposts and four towns and blocked vital trade routes to China.

“The government will launch counter-attacks” against the armed groups, Min Aung Hlaing said in a speech to members of the State Administration Council, as the junta calls itself, reported in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

New maps reveal who could see more snow this winter during a strong El Niño

As the US gears up for a winter heavily influenced by the first strong El Niño in years, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have released maps that offer insight into where snow could pile up.

El Niño – a natural ocean and weather pattern in the tropical Pacific – is forecast to reach the most significant level since a very strong El Niño in 2015-2016 fostered the warmest winter on record across the contiguous US, according to NOAA.

While no two El Niño winters are the same, the pattern typically brings wetter and cooler weather to the southern US while the north becomes drier and warmer. And that’s exactly what’s expected this winter.

Israel pushes thousands of detained cross-border workers into war-torn Gaza

Thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, previously working in Israel and the occupied West Bank and then detained by Israel, are being pushed into the war-torn enclave, according to media reports.

Footage showed some of the workers returning on Friday through the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in Israel, east of the Rafah border crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt.

It came after the office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday night that the “workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza”.

Hamas-run health ministry says 9,000 killed in Gaza since 7 October

Israel says not informed of any recall of ambassadors with Bahrain

Raffi Berg

BBC Online Middle East editor

The Israeli foreign ministry says it has not been informed about any decision by Bahrain to withdraw its ambassador from Israel, despite an announcement by Bahrain’s lower house of parliament.

The assembly said Bahrain’s ambassador had been recalled and that Israel’s ambassador had left Bahrain, in the wake of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it knew nothing about a recall of its ambassador to Bahrain either, adding that relations between the two countries were “stable”.

Bahrain was one of the first of four Arab League countries to sign a normalisation agreement with Israel in 2020, seen as a major breakthrough in de-escalating the decades old Israeli-Arab conflict.

 

• Israel has bombarded the area with air strikes since Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, and kidnapped more than 200 others
• Israel’s military says it’s targeting Hamas infrastructure, including tunnels and rocket launchers, and minimising civilian deaths
• On the ground, five main battles are taking place between Israel and Hamas in the north of the Gaza Strip
• More civilians have reportedly left Gaza via the Rafah crossing today; the UN says more than 400 people did so yesterday
• Responding to a heckler during a speech, US President Joe Biden said there should be a “pause” in fighting to facilitate the release of hostages

The climate crisis threatens to roll back decades of progress towards better health and governments are ill-prepared to stop it, the World Meteorological Organization has said.

Three-quarters of national weather agencies send climate data to their country’s health officials but less than one in four health ministries use the information to protect people from risks such as extreme heat, the report found.

“Climate change is an unprecedented threat to human health,” said Madeleine Thomson, the head of climate impacts and adaptation at the Wellcome, a charity that funds health research, who helped write the report. “Many countries are already having to deal with the dangerous repercussions of record-breaking temperatures. Yet most are ill-prepared.”

 

How war enters picture books

First Ukraine, now the Middle East — war stirs fear. What do children’s picture books tell us about war?

War is a current topic everywhere — even at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which ended October 23. Various stands presented countless picture books on war, flight and expulsion, many of which were new publications. But even the classics — some of which have long since won prizes — made a name for themselves once again. “Because war is our topic of the hour,” Anne Bender, program manager at the leading Hamburg-based Carlsen publishing house, told DW.

“Why?,” for example, is what Russian illustrator and author Nikolai Popov (1938-2021) called his wonderful picture book, which appeared back in 1995, just a few years after the fall of the Iron Curtain. In vivid pictures, it tells of the escalating quarrel between Frog and Mouse over a beautiful flower. All that remains of the flowery meadow — in the wake of many battles and losses — is a smoking battlefield. The destruction is total, pain and suffering boundless. Frog and Mouse sit there, with one word written above them: “Why?”

Boko Haram attack on northeast Nigerian village leaves dozens dead

Extremists in northeastern Nigeria killed at least 37 villagers in two different attacks, residents said Wednesday, highlighting once again how deadly Islamic extremist rebels have remained in their 14-year insurgency in the hard-hit region.

The extremists targeted villagers in Yobe state’s Geidam district on Monday and Tuesday in the first attack in the state in more than a year, shooting dead 17 people at first while using a land mine to kill 20 others who had gone to attend their burial, witnesses said.

The Boko Haram Islamic extremist group launched an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria in 2009 in an effort to establish their radical interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region. At least 35,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced due to the extremist violence concentrated in Borno state, which neighbours Yobe.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, who took office in May, has not succeeded in ending the nation’s security crises both in the northeast and in northwest and central regions where dozens of armed groups have been killing villagers and kidnapping travelers for ransom.

Fukushima nuclear plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into sea

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea Thursday after Japanese officials said the two earlier releases ended smoothly.

The plant operator discharged 7,800 tons of treated water in each of the first two batches and plans to release the same amount in the current batch through Nov. 20.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said its workers activated the first of the two pumps to dilute the treated water with large amounts of seawater, gradually sending the mixture into the Pacific Ocean through an undersea tunnel for an offshore release.

‘Secret room’ decorated by Michelangelo to open to the public in Italy

He’s known for his colossal works, such as the statue of David, the floor-to-ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and the dome of St. Peter’s which dominates the Rome skyline.

But it’s Michelangelo Buonarroti’s less bombastic work that’s on display to the public for the first time in the artist’s “secret room” in Florence.

The tiny space sits beneath the Medici Chapels in Florence, where Michelangelo sculpted intricate tombs for members of the Medici family behind the church of San Lorenzo in the Sagrestia Nuova, or New Sacristry.

More than 100 foreign nationals and injured leave Gaza as border finally opens

A close look at the humanitarian situation in Gaza

Hospitals: Just 13 hospitals left in the Palestinian enclave remain operational, out of 35 that existed before the conflict erupted on 7 October. The rest have either been damaged by strikes or forced to close due to a lack of supplies.

Healthcare staff: Hospitals are operating with less than one-third of their normal staffing levels, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza. Meanwhile, 16 healthcare workers are estimated to have been killed while on duty and another 30 injured.

Water: Yesterday, one out of Gaza’s three water supply lines from Israel was restored for the first time since being cut off last month – though the amount being received has yet to be assessed.

Electricity: Gaza remains under a full electricity blackout, using backup generators to get by, after Israel halted both electricity and fuel on 11 October in a bid to cut off Hamas’s supplies. Humanitarian aid entering Gaza since 21 October, via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, has not been allowed to include fuel for this reason.

Aid trucks: Some 59 trucks carrying water, food and medicines entered Gaza yesterday – making it the largest convoy of aid to be delivered so far. In total, 217 trucks have entered the enclave so far but officials have consistently pointed out that Gaza used to receive around 500 of these trucks every day.

Bakeries: Just one bakery run by the World Food Programme (WFP) and eight local Gazan ones remain operational, supplying bread to Palestinians. Hours-long queues are reported in front of them as a result, where the UN says people are exposed to airstrikes.

Concert organisers in Malaysia must now have a “kill switch” to cut short performances that break official guidelines, a minister has said.

The measure follows the controversy surrounding a performance in Kuala Lumpur by the 1975, whose frontman Matty Healy criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws in a profanity-laden speech and kissed a male bandmate on stage. The incident in July led to the cancellation of the weekend festival at which the band was performing.

The deputy communications and digital minister, Teo Nie Ching, told the parliament’s lower house that concert organisers must have “a kill switch that will cut off electricity during any performance if there is any unwanted incident”.

Ethiopia’s Tigray region stumbles towards peace

One year after the end of Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict, complete peace remains elusive and a humanitarian crisis remains. Critics accuse the government of not keeping its promises.

Before the outbreak of the war between the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (FDRE) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) three years ago, 25-year-old Haftom Kidai had no military experience, had never carried a gun, and was instead engaged in private business.

“When the war started, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces entered Tigray and started to commit atrocities. I then took military training and joined the fight like the other young people of Tigray,” Haftom told DW.

Haftom was severely injured at the battlefront. Now, half of his body is paralyzed and he lives in an army care center in Tigray’s capital city, Mekelle.

Thousands of Afghans leave Pakistan ahead of deportation deadline

Hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghans living in Pakistan now face arrest and deportation after the government’s deadline for them to leave voluntarily expired this Wednesday, November 1. Pakistan’s interior minister justified his decision, taken in early October, by the number of Afghans involved in recent terror attacks in Pakistan. Some 200,000 Afghans have already left Pakistan voluntarily – albeit often reluctantly – ahead of the November 1 deadline. Our correspondents Shahzaib Wahlah and Sonia Ghezali report.

‘Grudge-holding’ gunman, 86, held after hostage crisis in Saitama

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

November 1, 2023 at 16:44 JST

 

An 86-year-old man upset over a traffic accident and a hospital examination set fire to his home, shot two people and held two women hostage at a post office, investigative sources said.

The gunman, Tsuneo Suzuki, was arrested after police officers wearing face guards and protective clothing stormed the Warabi Post Office around 10:20 p.m. on Oct. 31 and ended the eight-hour standoff.

Suzuki has admitted to his involvement in the shooting incident earlier in the day at the Toda Chuo General Hospital in the neighboring city of Toda, in which two people were wounded, the sources said.

 

Mali rebels say they have taken base vacated by UN peacekeepers

Story by Reuters

 2 minute read

Published 7:44 AM EDT, Wed November 1, 2023

Mali’s northern Tuareg rebels said they have seized a base in Kidal vacated by the United Nations on Tuesday, potentially leading to a showdown in the strategic city where Mali’s army is hoping to wrest back control.

 

The UN mission, known as MINUSMA, has until Dec. 31 to pack up after Mali’s military junta ordered it to leave in June. Its withdrawal from other bases has already prompted fighting between Mali’s army and the rebels, who are vying for control of areas vacated by the peacekeepers.

 

Kidal is the eighth MINUSMA base to close in central and northern Mali and is one of the most important. It lies in a zone historically controlled by the rebels that Mali’s junta wants to take back.

 

 

Dozens of deaths reported in Gaza refugee camp blast

More on the Jabalia refugee camp

Located north of Gaza City, the Jabalia camp is the largest of Gaza’s eight refugee camps.

Just over 116,000 Palestinian refugees were registered there by the UN as of July 2023.

Refugees began settling in the camp after the 1948 war. It’s a small but densely populated area, only covering 1.4 sq km, and is largely made up of residential buildings.

Jabalia has 26 schools in 16 school buildings, a food distribution centre, two health centres, a library and seven water wells.

Along with the Shati camp, Jabalia lies in area that Israel has declared an evacuation zone.

Hong Kong’s leader has defended the rules for upcoming local elections as open and fair, even though an electoral overhaul means the city’s remaining pro-democracy activists won’t be part of the race.

The city’s largest pro-democracy party, the Democratic party, will be absent in December’s district council election for the first time since its establishment in 1994.

 

Israel UN envoy draws criticism for donning yellow star

Israel’s UN envoy attended a Security Council meeting wearing a yellow star, a symbol of the Nazi persecution of Jews. The head of Israel’s Vad Yashem Holocaust Memorial says the act “belittles” victims of the Holocaust.

Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, has criticized Israel’s UN ambassador for wearing a yellow Star of David patch during his address to the Security Council.

“This act belittles the victims of the Holocaust as well as the state of Israel,” Yad Vashem chairperson Dani Dayan said in a Hebrew-language post on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

“The yellow star symbolizes the helplessness of the Jewish people and their being at the mercy of others,” he said. “We now have an independent state and a strong army. We are the masters of our own fate.”

During the Holocaust, the Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow Star of David patches as part of a system of persecution.

Paris police fire on woman making ‘threats’ at train station

 French police on Tuesday shot and seriously wounded an unarmed woman who was making threats at a train station in Paris during morning rush hour.

The incident came with the country on its maximum alert for potential attacks but with the police also under scrutiny over recent fatal shootings of suspects.

Witnesses said the 38-year-old woman, who was completely veiled, shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is Greatest”) and made threats including “you will all die”, a police source said, adding that “police fired because they feared for their safety”.

After passengers on a suburban train travelling from the eastern suburbs to Paris alerted police, agents managed to “isolate” the woman at the Bibliotheque Francois Mitterrand station on the capital’s south bank which was evacuated, the source said.

They ordered her to sit on the ground and stop moving, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told reporters.

But instead, he said, she moved towards them and ignored an order to show her hands.

MSDF member forced to meet, hear apology of sexual harasser

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

October 31, 2023 at 16:03 JST

A sexually harassed Maritime Self-Defense Force member quit the service after a superior forced her to meet her assailant and listen to his apology, The Asahi Shimbun has learned.

The meeting was held at an MSDF department in western Japan late last year when the government was conducting a sweeping investigation into the extent of sexual harassment and abuse at the Self-Defense Forces.

“I felt devastated realizing that awareness of the problem at the top level has not reached the front lines,” the former MSDF member in her 20s told The Asahi Shimbun.

Defense Minister Minoru Kihara condemned the handling of her harassment complaint as “outrageous.”

Ukrainian family of nine shot dead in their sleep in Russian-occupied Donetsk

A family of nine, including two young children, were found shot dead in their home in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Volnovakha in a slaying that has sparked outrage in Ukraine and triggered investigations by both nations.

Images from the Ukrainian Donetsk Region Prosecutor’s Office showed a horrific murder scene of multiple family members shot while in their beds, still tucked in each others arms, with blood spatters visible on the walls.

Ukraine alleges the family were slain by Russian occupying forces following an argument, while Russian authorities say two Russian soldiers have been arrested over the killings.

Iran arrests lawyer at funeral of girl who died after metro incident

Nasrin Sotoudeh arrested at funeral of Armita Garavand, who died after alleged encounter with morality police, amid reports of police beatings and arrests at cemetery

Iranian authorities have arrested a prominent lawyer and human rights defender as she attended the funeral of a teenage girl who died after a disputed metro incident, her husband has said.

Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested on Sunday in Tehran during the funeral of 16-year-old Armita Garavand, who died a day earlier after nearly a month in intensive care.

Sotoudeh, 60, who was awarded the European parliament’s 2012 Sakharov prize for her human rights work, has been arrested several times in recent years.

 

The storming of Dagestan airport: How the mob in search of Jewish passengers unfolded

At least 60 pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested after storming an airport in Russia in search of a flight from Israel

Tom Watling

More than a thousand pro-Palestine protesters stormed a Russian airport on Sunday evening after rumours swirled that “Israeli refugees” were arriving from Tel Aviv.

The group stormed into the Makhachkala airport, located in the Republic of Dagestan, and rushed onto the landing field, chanting antisemitic slogans and seeking passengers arriving on the Tel Aviv flight, Russian news agencies and social media reported.

Authorities quickly closed the airport in the capital of the predominantly Muslim region and police converged on the facility.

Bavarian AfD lawmaker arrested for incitement

Daniel Halemba — recently elected to Bavaria’s state parliament — is a member of a student fraternity that is being investigated for displaying Nazi symbols.

German police on Monday arrested Daniel Halemba, a lawmaker from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, prosecutors said.

The 22-year-old, who was recently elected to the Bavarian state parliament, is being investigated for incitement and the use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations.

Prosecutors said he was taken into custody in the Stuttgart area on Monday morning after a warrant for his arrest was issued last week.

Halemba has admitted to being a member of a fraternity, “Burschenschaft Teutonia Prag zu Würzburg,” which was raided by authorities last month. Prosecutors said they suspected there could be symbols and objects associated with the Nazi Party on the group’s premises.

When conflict meets climate change, in Gaza and beyond

People living on the front lines of conflict often find themselves on the front lines of the climate crisis as well. Many of the countries most vulnerable to climate change – including Sudan, Afghanistan and Yemen – are also experiencing instability that leaves them ill-equipped to adapt to its challenges. And some are warning that the Gaza Strip will soon also be tied up in a Gordian knot where the climate crisis meets armed conflict.

In what might seem a cruel twist of fate, countries in conflict are also among those most vulnerable to climate change. Of the 25 countries ranked most vulnerable to climate change on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-Gain) Index in 2021, 14 are currently experiencing armed violence, including Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

While there is not a direct correlation between climate change and conflict, countries at war are less able to cope with the effects of climate change because their ability to adapt is undermined by internal divisions or ongoing violence.

Climate change can also inflame existing tensions over access to diminishing necessities.

“One exacerbates the other,” says Yvonne Su, an expert in international development and an assistant professor at York University. “If a place is climate vulnerable, people could be fighting over resources.”

Japan to deploy ASDF fighters to Australia on rotational basis

By KAIGO NARISAWA/ Staff Writer

The Defense Ministry plans to begin deploying fighter jets to Australia on a rotational basis as early as next fiscal year for joint exercises designed to counter a possible attack Down Under, sources said.

The joint exercises would be conducted under a scenario of Japan exercising the right to collective self-defense and the Self-Defense Forces counterattacking a military assault against Australian forces, the sources said.

Japan and Australia have rapidly deepened their security cooperation in recent years to deal with China’s continued military buildup.