14 killed and 180,000 displaced in Israeli offensive in Khan Younis
Nearly 182,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Khan Younis due to Israeli bombardment since Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
Hundreds of people are trapped as the Israeli military has “intensified hostilities” in the southern Gaza region, sparking a “new wave of internal displacement”, the UN agency said, according to AFP.
Palestinian authorities said Israeli attacks killed at least 14 people in Khan Younis since dawn on Saturday.
At least 12 Palestinians were also killed in an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in the Deir Al-Balah area of central Gaza, the local civil defence said.
The Israeli military on Saturday again ordered Palestinians to leave southern Khan Younis, which it had earlier designated as a humanitarian zone, so it could “forcefully operate” against Hamas fighters who were allegedly firing rockets from there.
It was the second evacuation order issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza. Many of these displaced civilians have been uprooted more than once as Israel has expanded its war across the territory.
Khan Younis is part of a 60sqkm “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been ordering Palestinians to escape throughout the ongoing war. The area is blanketed with tent camps that lack basic facilities like sanitation and medical aid, UN and humanitarian groups say.
The Israeli military on Friday claimed to have battled Palestinian fighters and destroyed tunnels in the area.
The fighting, nine months into Israel’s invasion of Gaza, underlines the difficulty the military faces in putting down continued resistance from Hamas.
Israel’s latest war on Gaza has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly 90 per cent of the territory’s 2.2 million population, according to the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa.
The offensive came after Hamas attacked southern Israel last October, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage.
The Israeli military claimed on Saturday that its calls to evacuate were relayed to the displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis via several mediums in order to mitigate danger to civilians.
UN and humanitarian agencies accuse Israel of using disproportionate force, which it denies.
Israel accused Hamas of putting civilians in harm’s way by operating from densely populated neighbourhoods, an allegation the group denies.
Additional reporting by agencies.
Bangladesh PM accused of ‘crocodile tears’ over damaged metro station
Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina is under fire for “shedding crocodile tears” over damage caused to a railway station during a protest against her government that left more than 150 people dead.
Ms Hasina was seen wiping away tears in pictures taken during her visit to a metro station in Mirpur, as social media users lambasted her for what they saw as her apparent lack of empathy for the victims of violence.
Police fired rubber bullets, released teargas, and threw sound-grenades in an effort to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who came out onto the streets to rail against job quotas. The government denied that any live rounds had been fired, but hospital sources said dead and injured people had wounds from bullets and shotgun pellets.
Rights groups and critics accuse Ms Hasina of becoming increasingly autocratic during her 15 years in power. They say her time in office has been marked by mass arrests of political opponents and activists, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. She denies all of these charges.
“What kind of mentality leads them to destroy facilities that make people’s lives easier?” the leader was quoted as saying by the Business Standard during her visit to Mirpur.
“Dhaka city was clogged with traffic. The metro rail offered respite. I cannot accept the destruction of this transport facility made with modern technology,” she said of the station, where ticket vending machines and signalling control stations had been shattered.
The prime minister also toured a damaged section of Bangladesh Television (BTV), as she accused the protesters of trying to spoil “Bangladesh’s image abroad”.
Calling on the public to help the government find those responsible for the vandalism, she said: “Please help us find those who are involved, no matter what nook or cranny of the country they are in, and bring them to justice.”
Bangladeshi news portal BDNews24 quoted her as saying: “I say to citizens and Dhaka residents – those who are responsible for this suffering and destruction, who are today spoiling Bangladesh’s image abroad – I leave to you the responsibility of bringing them to justice.
“The people must be the ones to bring those who create obstacles to the livelihoods of the public to justice, because the only power in the country is the power of the people.”
Alleging that the protesters were spreading disinformation, she said: “Do not allow them to stir unrest by spreading fake propaganda. Everyone must know the truth. They are still making calls from London, trying to ruin the country’s honour and stir up expatriates around the world.”
On Thursday, as she toured the sites that had been damaged during the protest, lamenting the vandalism and the impact on public infrastructure, social media users expressed outrage over her comments.
“We lost 200+ students. Students who are called the future of a nation. Students who were only fighting for their own rights,” wrote a user on X/Twitter. “But PM Sheikh Hasina had the time to go watch and ‘cry’ for a metro rail, not for the people who won’t return ever again.”
“It was the funniest thing I saw yesterday! Lmao she deserves an award for acting this hard and shedding crocodile tears!!!!” wrote another user.
The protests began after students took to the streets demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.
The demonstrations began late last month, but tensions escalated last week when students at Dhaka University, the country’s largest university, clashed with police, and a counterprotest inflamed the situation. The students alleged that the protest was peaceful until the student wing of the ruling Awami League party attacked the protesters.
Badiul Alam Majumdar, the secretary of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik, a Dhaka-based civil society platform for good governance, said the protests were “just the tip of the iceberg” and that the use of force against students will breed further resentment against Ms Hasina’s government.
“People are being deprived of their basic rights, with a significant lack of human rights and justice. They can’t cast their votes freely,” he said. “This widespread frustration and anger among the people is evident in the protests.”
Race to avert ‘worst oil spill in Philippines history’
The Philippines coast guard is “racing against time” to prevent an environmental catastrophe as it attempts to contain the oil spill from a sunken tanker and stop it from reaching Manila’s shoreline.
The 65-metre-long (213ft) MT Terra Nova, which capsized on Thursday amid rough seas and heavy monsoon rains brought on by Typhoon Gaemi, was carrying around 1.4 million litres (370,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil in watertight tanks.
It had departed from Bataan province and was heading to Iloilo in the central Philippines when it was hit by large waves and began taking on water. Despite efforts by the crew to steer back to port, the tanker sank shortly after midnight on Thursday.
An oil slick about 3.7km (2.3 miles) long was spotted near the area where the tanker sank, about 6km (3.7 miles) off the coast of Limay in Bataan province. According to the coast guard, there is no sign of a leak from the large amount of industrial fuel oil stored in the tanker. But a long oil spill, which stretches out over several kilometres and is growing rapidly, was spotted in an aerial survey.
The coast guard clarified that this slick had come from the fuel tank that powered the tanker, not from its cargo, which remains secured in watertight tanks.
The spill could reach the country’s capital, Manila, which is just 10km away from where the ship went down. The coast guard said it is making plans to siphon off the toxic oil using floating barriers and suction hoses in order to prevent a major spill that could affect the busy capital.
The oil spill could be the worst in the country’s history if it is not contained. The oil tanker is lying at a relatively shallow depth of 34 metres, based on an initial assessment.
The coast guard is “preparing for the worst”, said Rear Admiral Armand Balilo, its spokesperson. “We are talking about industrial fuel here … It will definitely affect the marine environment and could even reach us here in Manila,” he said.
The coast guard rescued 16 crew members, but one person drowned, according to Rear Admiral Balilo. “We’re racing against time to siphon off the oil to avoid an environmental catastrophe,” he told reporters, noting that bad weather could complicate their efforts.
Rear Admiral Balilo compared the potential oil spill to the one caused by the sinking of the MT Princess Empress, a Philippine oil tanker, in February last year off Oriental Mindoro province, south of Manila.
Although the Princess Empress was carrying much less fuel oil, it took about three months to contain the spill. The incident caused massive damage to coral reefs and mangroves in a region known for its rich biodiversity, and affected tens of thousands of fishermen and beach resorts.
Manila’s shoreline is a major ecology, tourism and business hub, adorned by upscale resorts, key buildings, and crucial flora and fauna.
Advocacy group Oceana has called on the Philippines government to assess the environmental impact of the oil spill, adding that “all those responsible for failing to prevent this tragedy – from concerned government agencies to private owners of the tanker – should be held accountable”.
The spill is believed to have been caused by the rough seas and adverse weather conditions. There have been days of monsoon rains, exacerbated by a passing offshore typhoon, that set off landslides and flooding across the Philippine archipelago, leaving at least 32 people dead and displacing more than 800,000.
Scores of sailors trapped off Taiwan amid Typhoon Gaemi
Taiwan was struggling to rescue dozens of sailors off the southern coast after Typhoon Gaemi sank a freighter and grounded eight others in the Taiwan Strait.
At least 79 crew members were still awaiting rescue on eight freighters that were stranded, the Taiwanese coast guard said. But rough weather and rainfall were creating challenging conditions.
One crew member was found dead while four Myanmar nationals were rescued from a Tanzania-flagged freighter. The group detailed their ordeal of jumping into the sea holding each other in teams for survival amid rough conditions.
The ship had nine members on board. They said they separated into two groups, one of five and one of four, in order to jump into the sea and survive. Some of their colleagues watched helplessly as their life jackets were washed away.
One of the survivors said he had swum backwards to retrieve a waist bag containing his passport, before swimming “with all his life” to reach the shore, according to the BBC.
Another burst out crying after calling his family as he informed his mother and his wife, who had assumed he had died, that he is alive.
The powerful typhoon swept through Taiwan on Thursday with gusts of up to 227kph (141mph) before moving towards China.
As Typhoon Gaemi barrelled across the Taiwan strait, it stranded an “unprecedented” number of ships in the sea for any other typhoon, according to Taiwan’s ocean affairs council minister Kuan Bi-ling, whose department runs the coast guard.
“Braving waves five-meters high … our ships made it to as close as one nautical mile but still failed to get closer,” she said in a post on Facebook, adding authorities will continue the rescue efforts.
In Taiwan, the storm dumped over 1,800mm (70.8inches) rain in southern mountains since Tuesday and bringing flash flooding to several cities and towns that has largely receded.
Businesses and schools in most parts of southern Taiwan were shut for a third day.
The typhoon also injured more than 700 people and killed seven, and rescuers took nearly 1,000 people out of floodwater in inflatable boats.
Bali cracks down after tourists being tricked into eating dog meat
Officials in Bali cracked down on vendors after a recent investigation showed that Australian tourists were being duped into eating dog meat skewers during holiday on the picturesque Indonesian island.
They also seized hundreds of kilograms of raw dog meat and hundreds of skewers on Thursday despite a blanket ban on such meat trade on the popular resort island.
At least 500 dog meat skewers were seized by public order officers in Bali’s Jembrana district along with 56kg of raw dog meat from another seller in the area after a round of inspections, reported AFP.
Public order authorities were carrying out inspections this week and found three dog meat sellers who were still selling the banned meat despite local regulations, said Bali Public Order Agency head Dewa Nyoman Rai Dharmadi.
The crackdown is harsher on the repeat offenders who knew about the ban and still continued trading but a seller who was unaware of the restrictions will get a chance to switch to another meat trade, Mr Dewa said.
He added that a dog satay seller has been let go with a warning because he was not previously caught trading. But the other two sellers were repeat offenders with minor criminal offences filed against them at a local court. They will appear for a trial next month, he said.
“We won’t suddenly take legal action, but we are giving them the chance to know the ban and why it was banned. But we will process recurrent (sellers) for deterrent effect. We’re not playing around,” he said.
Bali has a strict ban on the dog meat trade, carrying a punishment of up to three months in prison or a fine of up to 50m rupiah (£2300) for those found guilty.
A recent investigation showed that Australian tourists were being tricked into eating dog meat during their holidays in Bali, said Animals International, an NGO voicing concerns against animal cruelty.
Dogs are commonly eaten in Southeast and East Asia, in countries such as China, Vietnam, and North Korea. They are also consumed in some African nations but all these regions are witnessing an overhaul in consumption due to the cruel and unregulated dog meat industry.
In recent times, South Korea’s dog meat industry has drawn more attention because of the country’s reputation as a cultural and economic powerhouse.
Several animal rights activists have flagged the practice of sale and consumption of dog and cat meat due to the “cruelty of trade”. Animals International said the dog trade meat inflicts terrible suffering on dogs and also creates significant health and safety risks for tourists and locals alike.
It said many dogs are poisoned on the street or beaches to cater to the trade demands and “others were brutally caught, muzzled with tape, tied up and shoved into bags to await their fate”.
“Some were kept like this for over 24 hours before being strangled, or clubbed to death,” the NGO said.
Murder suspects arrested in Mumbai after ‘real-life Memento’ case
Indian police were able to arrest several suspects accused of murder after they found tattoos on the dead man’s body naming individuals he believed wanted to harm him, in an eerie parallel to the Christopher Nolan film Memento.
Guru Waghmare was killed inside a spa in the Worli area of India’s financial capital of Mumbai around 3am on Wednesday. According to Worli police, Waghmare was extremely well-known to the police as an informer, reported Indian news daily Hindustan Times.
However, he also had a series of criminal cases registered against him on allegations of extortion, rape, and molestation.
According to local media reports, Waghmare was a frequent patron of the Soft Touch Spa, and had taken a few staff members to a restaurant on his birthday. After dinner ended, everyone returned to the spa and allegedly planned to spend the night there.
Police said three male staff members stepped outside around 2.30am, and two unidentified men entered the spa and fatally stabbed Waghmare several times.
“The incident took place in the middle of the night but police were informed only at 2pm after which a team was sent to the spot and a case of murder was registered,” said a senior police officer, reported Indian news daily The Indian Express.
While conducting an autopsy, the police found the names of 22 individuals on his thigh, as people who were likely responsible if anything unfortunate were to happen to him – in a manner similar to Nolan’s 2000 psychological thriller. Memento follows Leonard Shelby (Pearce), a man with short-term memory loss who uses photographs, notes, and tattoos in an attempt to uncover his wife’s murderer.
Santosh Sherekar, the owner of the spa in which the murder took place, as well as another spa owner named Mohamed Firoz Ansari were arrested.
“The deceased, RTI activist Guru Waghmare, would threaten and extort money from spa owners in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. Likewise, he harassed spa owners in neighbouring states as well due to which there are about eight FIRs and 22 non-cognisable offences registered against him,” a senior police officer told The Indian Express.
Mr Sherekar was allegedly being extorted by Waghmare, and Mr Ansari’s spa had been shut down after a raid in 2023. Mr Ansari had refused to pay Waghmare, who then made a complaint to the police leading to the raid, the police said.
The two men decided to work together and allegedly hired a contract killer named Sakib, from the Indian capital Delhi, and offered him Rs400,000 (£3,712) for the job, police said.
CCTV footage from the spa as well as the restaurant helped police put together the sequence of events. The police found two men, who tried to hide their identity by wearing a raincoat, following Waghmare from the restaurant to the bar, but then noticed that they also stopped to buy something from a small shop nearby.
An investigation revealed that the payment was made by UPI, and the account linked to the payment belonged to Mr Ansari. The police were able to track Mr Ansari down to his home, where he allegedly confessed to the crime and named his accomplices.
Mr Sakib, who had left the city by train the night of the murder, was found and arrested from a station in Kota, a city in the North Indian state of Rajasthan. Two more people with him, also suspects, have been arrested.
Jimmy Lai to testify in own trial as judge refuses to dismiss case
Former media mogul Jimmy Lai will have to wait for several more months before he can take the stand to defend himself in a high-profile national security case in Hong Kong that critics have slammed as a show trial by the Chinese government.
Mr Lai, 76, founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign powers under the draconian national security law.
The West Kowloon court on Thursday refused to dismiss the trial against Mr Lai. “Having considered all the submissions we ruled that the first defendant has a case to answer on all the charges,” judge Esther Toh said.
The court adjourned the hearing until 20 November.
Mr Lai’s defence, led by Robert Pang, had argued that the prosecution didn’t present evidence of the businessman’s involvement in a criminal plot to instigate international sanctions against Hong Kong.
To the prosecution’s allegation that Mr Lai used the Apple Daily as a platform to conspire against the city’s government, Mr Pang replied that the paper published a spectrum of views.
He pointed out that freedom of the press was guaranteed under the city’s Basic Law and the Bill of Rights Ordinance.
It marked the 92nd day of proceedings on a trial that was originally estimated to last 80 days. The four-month delay is because the three judges, each handpicked by the government, will handle other unrelated High Court criminal cases.
During his trial the businessman, who was first detained in 2020 and has remained in solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison for nearly four years, has appeared in court dressed in suits and wearing a scarf around his neck, greeting his wife and children in the courtroom while appearing calm.
Several Western governments, human rights groups and his colleagues have criticised Mr Lai’s trial as a sham.
Nearly 175 people, including US and British nationals, have been named as co-conspirators in the case against Mr Lai, who was jailed in 2020.
Human rights campaigner Luke de Pulford, an alleged co-conspirator in the case, said on Thursday the trial is a “ludicrous travesty of justice”.
“No amount of posturing around in wigs can cover up the fact that this is Chinese Communist Party lawfare, plain and simple,” Mr Pulford told The Independent. “Shamefully the UK has barely lifted a finger to help him, despite the fact Jimmy is a British citizen and his case represents a violation of an international agreement with Britain.”
Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 after 156 years of colonial rule. But many legal traditions from the colonial era linger on, with judges wearing silver horsehair wigs and dark robes with lilac facings to court.
Mark Simon, an American who worked at Apple Daily, criticised the court’s decision to delay Mr Lai’s hearing until a November date, saying it will keep the diabetes patient for an extended period.
“My boss, Jimmy Lai is 76, diabetic, kept in solitary confinement, no communication with outside world. The HK government just delayed Mr Lai’s testimony until 20 November,” Mr Simon, another co-conspirator in the case, said. “It is not just Mr Lai’s newspaper they didn’t want you to read, it’s Jimmy Lai they do not want you to hear.”
North Korea snubs Trump for saying Kim misses him: ‘We don’t care’
North Korea delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump for flaunting his supposedly friendly relations with Kim Jong-un, saying “we do not care” about the Republican.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency ran an editorial after the former president said Washington’s relations with the East Asian country would improve if he was re-elected in November.
“No matter what administration takes office in the US, the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this,” the state news agency said.
It rejected the idea that Mr Trump’s first presidency had a substantial impact on US-North Korea relations, and said personal connections and diplomacy should be looked at separately.
And it said it had no interest in talking to a possible second Trump administration if all it offers are “dialogue with sinister attempts and dialogue as an extension of confrontation”.
Speaking at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, Mr Trump flaunted his supposedly strong personal ties with Mr Kim and suggested the North Korean leader probably wanted him back in the White House. “I think he misses me,” the former president said.
While acknowledging Mr Trump’s attempt to improve relations during his presidency, the North Korean news agency said that it brought no substantial positive change.
Mr Kim and Mr Trump had a complicated relationship. They initially exchanged barbs, with Mr Trump threatening to unleash “fire and fury” after Mr Kim tested a series of nuclear weapons in 2017 and KCNA responding by calling him a “dotard” and his envoys “gangsters”.
But they went on to what seemed to be a historic diplomatic breakthrough in 2018, holding summits in Singapore and Hanoi in the next two years.
At the 2018 summit in Singapore, they signed a statement agreeing to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and improving relations.
The engagement declined after the 2019 Hanoi summit ended abruptly without an agreement, mainly due to differences over sanctions relief and denuclearisation steps.
Mr Trump has claimed that he and Mr Kim had been exchanging letters and had fallen in love.
After Joe Biden took over as president from Mr Trump in early 2021, Washington deepended ties with the US’s long-time allies in the region South Korea and Japan, conducting regular defensive drills in the Korean Peninsula rather than engaging directly with the Kim regime.