Friday, September 20, 2024

Six In The Morning Friday 20 September 2024

 

Eight killed in Israeli strike on Beirut reportedly targeting senior Hezbollah commander

Here's what we know so far

The situation in both Lebanon and Israel is moving quickly, so let's bring you up to speed on what's been happening:

Revealed: Russia anticipated Kursk incursion months in advance, seized papers show


Exclusive: Documents contain months of warnings about possible Ukrainian advance and also reveal concerns about morale

Fri 20 Sep 2024 05.00 BST

Russia’s military command had anticipated Ukraine’s incursion into its Kursk region and had been making plans to prevent it for several months, according to a cache of documents that the Ukrainian army said it had seized from abandoned Russian positions in the region.

The disclosure makes the disarray among Russian forces after Ukraine’s attack in early August all the more embarrassing. The documents, shared with the Guardian, also reveal Russian concerns about morale in the ranks in Kursk, which intensified after the suicide of a soldier at the front who had reportedly been in a “prolonged state of depression due to his service in the Russian army”.

Unit commanders are given instructions to ensure soldiers consume Russian state media daily to maintain their “psychological condition”.

China's Shanghai hit by second major typhoon in a week

More than a hundred thousand people were evacuated from Shanghai as Typhoon Pulasan brought heavy rains that broke local records in parts of the Chinese megacity.

Streets and neighborhoods in Shanghai were again flooded on Friday as the Chinese megacity was battered by Typhoon Pulasan, just days after Bebinca, the strongest storm to hit the megacity since 1949.

Pulasan is the 14th typhoon this year. It made its second landfall in Shanghai on Thursday evening, after making its first landfall in Zhejiang Province earlier in the day.

The torrent of rain broke local records in parts of Shanghai. Two weather stations recorded more than 300 millimeters (almost 1 foot) of rainfall in six hours, the highest in their districts since records began, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. Overall, 151 of 614 weather stations recorded heavy or extreme rainfall, Xinhua added.

Taiwan questions two in probe into Lebanon pager attack

Taiwan said on Friday that hundreds of pagers that exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday were not made in Taiwan after prosecutors questioned two people associated with Gold Apollo, the Taiwanese company that produced the communication devices.

Two people from Taiwanese companies were questioned as part of a probe into pagers that exploded while being used by Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon, investigators said Friday, as top officials insisted the devices were not from the island.

Questions and speculation have swirled over where the devices came from and how they were supplied to the militant group after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people and wounding nearly 3,000.

Decoupling at 315 kph latest in series of bullet train troubles

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

September 20, 2024 at 16:46 JST


While traveling at approximately 315 kph, two carriages of a Shinkansen running between Furukawa and Sendai stations in Miyagi Prefecture suddenly decoupled, bringing the train to an emergency stop.

Now experts are trying to figure out what went wrong with the Tohoku Shinkansen Hayabusa-Komachi No. 6. The mishap occurred shortly after 8 a.m. on Sept. 19.

“I felt it stopping silently. I wondered why,” said Hideo Matsumura, a 56-year-old national public officer who lives in Morioka city.

Scientists looked deep beneath the Doomsday Glacier. What they found spells potential disaster for the planet


Scientists using ice-breaking ships and underwater robots have found the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting at an accelerating rate and could be on an irreversible path to collapse, spelling catastrophe for global sea level rise.

Since 2018, a team of scientists forming the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, has been studying Thwaites — often dubbed the “Doomsday Glacier” — up close to better understand how and when it might collapse.

Their findings, set out across a collection of studies, provide the clearest picture yet of this complex, ever-changing glacier. The outlook is “grim,” the scientists said in a report published Thursday, revealing the key conclusions of their six years of research.





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