Israel 'increasingly confident' Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar killed in Gaza
Israel's foreign minister says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in Gaza
Israel's foreign minister says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed in Gaza
Biden briefed as Israel checks if Hamas leader Sinwar killed: US official
US president Joe Biden was briefed aboard Air Force One while heading to Germany after Israel said it was checking whether it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a US official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday.
Biden, on his way to Berlin for talks with European leaders on Ukraine and the Middle East, was being kept abreast of developments on board the presidential plane, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Summary
Israel says it's "checking the possibility" that it killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, but adds it is not confirmed
Sinwar is believed to be a key figure in the planning and execution of the 7 October attacks on Israel last year
Sources tell the BBC there is a "growing assessment" that Sinwar has been killed
Reports say DNA testing is being done on a body - Israel has Sinwar's records from when he was a prisoner in Israel from 1988 to 2011
Separately, local authorities say an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter killed 22 people in Jabalia in northern Gaza
Israel says the site was being used as an operational meeting point for Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives - something Hamas denies
Netherlands mulls sending rejected African asylum seekers to Uganda
Critics say plan mooted by coalition government led by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party is ‘totally unfeasible’
Thu 17 Oct 2024 15.00 BST
The Dutch coalition government, headed by Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV), is considering sending Africans whose asylum requests are rejected to Uganda, in plans that opposition politicians have said are “totally unfeasible”.
During a visit this week to the East African country, the Dutch minister for trade and development, Reinette Klever, said the cabinet was exploring the ideaand that Uganda was “not averse” to it, the Dutch public broadcaster Nos reported on Wednesday.
Russian lawmakers push through ban on childless 'propaganda'
Russia is seeking a crackdown on material that supposedly discourages having children. Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged couples to have children as the country's birth rate drops.
A group of Russian lawmakers on Thursday approved legislation that would prohibit child-free "propaganda."
"It is important to protect people, primarily the younger generation, from having the ideology of childlessness imposed on them on the internet, in the media, in movies, and in advertising," Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, or Duma, said.
"We continue to form a unified legal framework for the protection of children, families and traditional values," the Putin ally added.
Mexico's former security chief sentenced to 38 years in US prison for aiding cartels
Genaro Garcia Luna, the former security chief behind former Mexican President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on drug trafficking between 2006 and 2012, was sentenced to 38 years in a US prison on Wednesday for taking millions in bribes from drug cartels as their "partner in crime".
Mexico's former top security official Genaro Garcia Luna was sentenced to more than 38 years in a US prison on Wednesday for aiding the very drug cartels he was tasked with dismantling.
Garcia Luna, 56, was convicted at a high-profile trial in New York last year of taking millions of dollars in bribes to allow the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle tons of cocaine.
District Judge Brian Cogan sentenced Garcia Luna, who served as secretary of public security under president Felipe Calderon from 2006 to 2012, to 460 months in prison and a $2 million fine at a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn.
Multinationals must stop flow of ocean waste in Global South
Economic success can no longer come at the environment's expense
By Robert Bociaga
Contributing Writer
The world’s oceans, revered throughout history for their vastness and beauty, are plagued by an overwhelming tide of waste. This crisis is particularly acute in the Global South, where inadequate management and lax regulations exacerbate the damage.
At the heart of this crisis are multinational corporations, whose activities have significantly contributed to ocean pollution. Despite extracting a great deal of benefit from the developing regions of the world — in part, thanks to lower production costs and lenient environmental laws — many companies have been slow to address their environmental impact.
Muslims ‘in constant fear’ amid hate campaign in India’s Himachal Pradesh
The Congress-ruled state has been witnessing anti-Muslim rallies for weeks, forcing many migrant workers to flee.
Farhan Khan says he still feels a chill down his spine when he recalls the day an anti-Muslim rally was held in his sleepy town in northern India’s Himachal Pradesh state.
On September 17, the 26-year-old tailor opened his shop in Solan as usual at about 11:30am when two men wearing saffron clothes approached him. One of them recorded the encounter on his mobile phone.
“They pointed the camera at my face, hurling abuses and demanding to know why I had opened my shop. Then, another group of men joined them and they all turned violent,” Farhan told Al Jazeera.
