Israel calls for evacuations from south Lebanon, explosions in Beirut

A man stands amid the damage caused by Israeli airstrikes, as smokes rises over Beirut southern suburbs at Choueifat district, in Beirut on Oct. 3, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 03 October 2024
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Israel calls for evacuations from south Lebanon, explosions in Beirut

  • The call for evacuations from southern towns included the provincial capital Nabatieh
  • “Only that uncertainty lies ahead. Anxiety and fear are omnipresent,” UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel’s military urged residents of over 20 towns in south Lebanon to evacuate their homes immediately on Thursday as it pressed on with an incursion after suffering its worst losses in a year of fighting the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.
The call for evacuations from southern towns included the provincial capital Nabatieh, suggesting another Israeli operation designed to further weaken Hezbollah is imminent.
Israel, which has been fighting with Hamas in Gaza for almost a year, sent its troops into southern Lebanon after two weeks of intense airstrikes, escalating tensions in a conflict that risks drawing in the United States and Iran.
In Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold, three explosions were heard on Thursday and several large plumes of smoke were rising after heavy Israeli strikes.
While Hezbollah said it detonated an improvised explosive device against Israeli forces infiltrating a southern Lebanese village.
Overnight, Israel bombed central Beirut in an attack the Lebanese health ministry said killed nine people.
Reuters witnesses reported hearing a massive blast, which a security source said had targeted a building in the district of Bachoura a few hundred meters from parliament, the closest an Israeli strike has come to the central downtown district.
“Another sleepless night in Beirut. Counting the blasts shaking the city. No warning sirens. Not knowing what’s next. Only that uncertainty lies ahead. Anxiety and fear are omnipresent,” UN special coordinator in Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said on X on Thursday.

 


A Hezbollah-linked civil defense group said seven of its staff, including two medics, had been killed in the Beirut attack, which Israel said was a “precise” airstrike.
Israel also said it targeted a municipality building in the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbeil killing 15 Hezbollah members, while more than a dozen Israeli missiles also hit the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed last week.
Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in ground combat on Wednesday in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbor.
As it pushes into south Lebanon, Israel is also weighing its options for retaliation against its arch-foe Iran.

ISRAEL, US VOW TO STRIKE BACK
The Islamic Republic launched its largest ever assault on Israel on Tuesday in what it said was retaliation for Israel’s assassination of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders and its operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it had “eliminated” Rawhi Mushtaha, the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, along with senior security officials Sameh Al-Siraj and Sami Oudeh in strikes three months ago.
Tehran said its attack was over, barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States have promised to hit back hard.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking at an event in Doha, said Iran would be ready to respond and warned against “silence” in the face of Israel’s “warmongering.”
“Any type of military attack, terrorist act or crossing our red lines will be met with a decisive response by our armed forces.” Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani called for serious ceasefire efforts to stop Israel’s “aggression” in Lebanon and said no peace was possible in the Middle East without the creation of a Palestinian state.
What is happening in the Middle East is a “collective genocide” he said at the same Doha event, adding that his country has always warned of Israel’s “impunity.”
The Lebanese border front opened after Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas in its war with Israel in Gaza.
Iran’s other regional allies — Yemen’s Houthis and armed groups in Iraq — have also launched attacks in the region in support of Hamas.
The Houthis, who have been firing missiles, sending armed drones and launching boats laden with explosives at commercial ships with ties to Israeli, US and UK entities since last year, said they launched a successful attack on Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv with drones. Israel said it intercepted a suspicious aerial target in the area of central Israel early on Thursday.
SHELTERING IN A NIGHTCLUB More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks.
More than 300 of those displaced have taken shelter in a Beirut nightclub, once known for hosting glitzy parties and where staff are now using their guest-list clipboards to register residents.
“We’re trying to keep strong,” said Gaelle Irani, who was formerly in charge of guest relations, taking a brief break from finding people a corner to live in.
“It’s just overwhelming. So overwhelming and sad. But just as this was a place for people to come enjoy themselves, it’s now a place to shelter people and we are doing everything we can to help and be there for them.”
Hassan Shaaban, a fisherman from Sidon, said he has been struggling to make a living as the fighting rages.
“What can we do, we need to be able to live, we are working while they are striking, yesterday night was very intense,” he said.

 


Premature blast kills suicide bomber in northwest Pakistan, harms no one else — police 

Updated 4 min 59 sec ago
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Premature blast kills suicide bomber in northwest Pakistan, harms no one else — police 

  • Suicide bomber riding a motorcycle set off an explosive device prematurely on a deserted road in Charsadda district 
  • Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, often target security forces in KP province with suicide bombings

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle set off an explosive device prematurely on a deserted road in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing himself but harming no one else, police said.

Local police official Masood Khan said the blast happened in Charsadda district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, where Pakistani Taliban and other insurgents often target security forces.

Khan said the intended target was unclear and bomb disposal experts and police were still investigating whether the man was wearing the explosives or they were attached to his motorcycle.

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, often target security forces in the province with suicide bombings and other violence. 

TTP are separate from the Afghan Taliban but have been emboldened by the group’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021.


20 million Pakistanis daily attempt to access porn sites, telecoms authority says

Updated 17 min 35 sec ago
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20 million Pakistanis daily attempt to access porn sites, telecoms authority says

  • Latest figures from PTA come as it introduced a new portal for the registration of VPNs earlier this week 
  • Digital experts say government trying to block vital tools that allow users to bypass restrictions amid digital crackdowns

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said on Thursday around 20 million Pakistanis were daily attempting to access pornographic websites, which authorities have banned since 2011.

In November 2011, the PTA announced it was in the process of banning the 1,000 most-frequented porn websites in Pakistan. In 2016, the government ordered Internet Service Providers to block more than 400,000 websites which contained pornographic content, while in 2019, around 800,000 additional porn sites were banned by the PTA. 

“There are approximately 20 million daily attempts from within the country to access pornographic websites which are blocked at the international gateway,” the PTA statement said. 

“However, users bypass restrictions via VPNs and access porn contents. PTA remains fully committed to curbing this issue, taking all necessary measures to block this content effectively.

“So far PTA has blocked a total of 100,183 blasphemous URLs and 844,008 pornographic websites.”

The latest figures from the PTA come as it introduced a new portal for the registration of VPNs on Tuesday, a move that is being widely seen as an attempt by the government to block vital tools that allow users to bypass government restrictions amid a wave of digital crackdowns. 

Pakistan has already blocked access to social media platform X since the February general elections, with the government saying the blocking was to stop anti-state activities and due to a failure by X to adhere to local Pakistani laws. Rights activists say the blocking is designed to stifle critical voices and democratic accountability in the country, which the government denies. 

VPN users in Pakistan reported significant disruptions to services last weekend (Nov. 9-10), with issues relating to connectivity and restricted access. Downdetector reported disruption to TunnelBear VPN and VPN Unlimited but none of the best VPNs appeared to be affected.

The Proton VPN Observatory, run by the developers of one of the most secure VPNs, Proton, reported a spike in VPN usage in Pakistan on Nov. 9 and recorded a 350 percent increase in VPN sign-ups in Pakistan over Nov. 9-10. 

There are also reports Pakistan is imposing a national firewall, which the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) has said could cost the economy up to $300 million. In August, the Pakistan Business Council (PBC) warned that frequent Internet disruptions and low speeds caused by poor implementation of the firewall had led many multinational companies to consider relocating their offices out of Pakistan, with some having “already done so.”

Digital rights activists say Islamabad is implementing the Internet firewall to monitor and regulate content and social media platforms, but the government denies the firewall is meant for censorship purposes. 


1 million migrants in the US rely on temporary protections that Trump could target

Updated 50 min 3 sec ago
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1 million migrants in the US rely on temporary protections that Trump could target

  • People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief
  • But President-elect Donald Trump promised mass deportations and suggested he would scale back the use of Temporary Protected Status

NEW YORK: Maribel Hidalgo fled her native Venezuela a year ago with a 1-year-old son, trudging for days through Panama’s Darien Gap, then riding the rails across Mexico to the United States.
They were living in the US when the Biden administration announced Venezuelans would be offered Temporary Protected Status, which allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief.
But President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have promised mass deportations and suggested they would scale back the use of TPS that covers more than 1 million immigrants. They have highlighted unfounded claims that Haitians who live and work legally in Springfield, Ohio, as TPS holders were eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump also amplified disputed claims made by the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex.
“What Donald Trump has proposed doing is we’re going to stop doing mass parole,” Vance said at an Arizona rally in October, mentioning a separate immigration status called humanitarian parole that is also at risk. “We’re going to stop doing mass grants of Temporary Protected Status.”
Hidalgo wept as she discussed her plight with a reporter as her son, now 2, slept in a stroller outside the New York migrant hotel where they live. At least 7.7 million people have fled political violence and economic turmoil in Venezuela in one of the biggest displacements worldwide.
“My only hope was TPS,” Hidalgo said. “My worry, for example, is that after everything I suffered with my son so that I could make it to this country, that they send me back again.”
Venezuelans along with Haitians and Salvadorans are the largest group of TPS beneficiaries and have the most at stake.
Haiti’s international airport shut down this week after gangs opened fire at a commercial flight landing in Port-Au-Prince while a new interim prime minister was sworn in. The Federal Aviation Administration barred US airlines from landing there for 30 days.
“It’s creating a lot of anxiety,” said Vania André, editor-in-chief for The Haitian Times, an online newspaper covering the Haitian diaspora. “Sending thousands of people back to Haiti is not an option. The country is not equipped to handle the widespread gang violence already and cannot absorb all those people.”
Designations by the Homeland Security secretary offer relief for up to 18 months but are extended in many cases. The designation for El Salvador ends in March. Designations for Sudan, Ukraine, and Venezuela end in April. Others expire later.
Federal regulations say a designation can be terminated before it expires, but that has never happened, and it requires 60 days’ notice.
TPS is similar to the lesser-known Deferred Enforcement Departure Program that Trump used to reward Venezuelan exile supporters as his first presidency was ending, shielding 145,000 from deportation for 18 months.
Attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham, who successfully challenged Trump’s earlier efforts to allow TPS designations for several countries to expire, doesn’t doubt the president-elect will try again.
“It’s possible that some people in his administration will recognize that stripping employment authorization for more than a million people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, is not good policy” and economically disastrous, said Arulanantham, who teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, and helps direct its Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “But nothing in Trump’s history suggests that they would care about such considerations.”
Courts blocked designations from expiring for Haiti, Sudan, Nicaragua and El Salvador until well into President Joe Biden’s term. Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas then renewed them.
Arulanantham said he “absolutely” could see another legal challenge, depending on what the Trump administration does.
Congress established TPS in 1990, when civil war was raging in El Salvador. Members were alarmed to learn some Salvadorans were tortured and executed after being deported from the US Other designations protected people during wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kuwait, from genocidal violence in Rwanda, and after volcanic eruptions in Montserrat, a British territory in the Caribbean, in 1995 and 1997.
A designation is not a pathway to US permanent residence or citizenship, but applicants can try to change their status through other immigration processes.
Advocates are pressing the White House for a new TPS designation for Nicaraguans before Biden leaves office. Less than 3,000 are still covered by the temporary protections issued in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch battered the country. People who fled much later under oppression from President Daniel Ortega’s government don’t enjoy the same protection from deportation.
“It’s a moral obligation” for the Biden administration, said Maria Bilbao, of the American Friends Service Committee.
Elena, a 46-year-old Nicaraguan who has lived in the United States illegally for 25 years, hopes Biden moves quickly.
“He should do it now,” said Elena, who lives Florida and insisted only her first name be used because she fears deportation. “Not in January. Not in December. Now.”


India’s toxic smog cuts off visibility in several areas

Updated 51 min 58 sec ago
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India’s toxic smog cuts off visibility in several areas

  • Delhi pollution ranked in the ‘severe’ category for the second day in a row
  • Pollution in New Delhi is likely to stay in the ‘severe’ category on Friday as well

NEW DELHI: Toxic smog blanketed northern India on Thursday, becoming too thick to see through in several places, as high levels of pollution combined with humidity, low wind speed, and a drop in temperature, officials said.
The city of Lahore in neighboring Pakistan ranked as the world’s most polluted in winter’s annual scourge across the region, worsened by dust, emissions, and smoke from fires burnt illegally in India’s farming states of Punjab and Haryana.
However, operations at New Delhi’s international airport were not affected by the smog, which weather officials expect to scatter during the day as breezes pick up.
Visibility remained at 300 m (980 ft), the airport operator, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) said, while some airlines warned flights could be affected.
“Winter fog may impact flights” with Delhi, the city of Amritsar in Punjab, where authorities said visibility was zero, and the temple city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, IndiGo said in a message on X.
New Delhi’s international airport diverted some flights on Wednesday.
The minimum temperature in Delhi fell to 16.1°Celsius (61°F) on Thursday from 17°C the previous day, weather officials said.
Its pollution ranked in the ‘severe’ category for the second day in a row, with a score of 430 on an index of air quality maintained by the top pollution panel that rates a score of zero to 50 as ‘good’.
Pollution in New Delhi is likely to stay in the ‘severe’ category on Friday as well, the earth sciences ministry said, worsening to ‘very poor’ later, or an index score in the range of 300 to 400.
The number of farm fires to clear fields of paddy stubble in preparation for the planting of wheat in north India has risen steadily this week to almost 2,300 on Wednesday from 1,200 on Monday, the ministry’s website showed.
In Pakistan, Lahore, the capital of the eastern province of Punjab, was rated the world’s most polluted city on Thursday, in live rankings kept by Swiss group IQAir. Authorities there have also battled hazardous air this month.
The province has already shut schools, halted some building work, banned most outdoor activity, and ordered early closures of some businesses in efforts to combat the problem.


Pakistan rover to join China’s Chang’E 8 mission to explore lunar surface in 2028

Updated 14 November 2024
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Pakistan rover to join China’s Chang’E 8 mission to explore lunar surface in 2028

  • Chang’E 8 mission is a robotic exploration of the lunar south pole, known for its challenging terrain, by China in 2028
  • Pakistan’s rover will conduct scientific experiments such as lunar soil study and conduct tests for human presence

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s national space agency announced this week its rover will join China’s Chang’E 8 mission to explore the moon’s surface in 2028, describing the development as a “significant milestone” for the South Asian country. 

The Chang’E 8 mission is a robotic exploration of the lunar south pole by China, expected to launch in 2028. The Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO), the country’s space program, said its rover will land on the lunar south pole in 2028 as part of the Chang’ E 8 mission. The south pole of the moon is known for its challenging terrain and potential scientific discoveries. 

In May, Pakistan launched its first lunar satellite aboard China’s Chang’e-6 probe, which was tasked with landing on the far side of the moon that perpetually faces away from the Earth. China was the first country to make such an ambitious attempt.

“SUPARCO’s rover, with an approximate weight of 35 kilograms, will join China’s Chang’E 8 mission, which is part of the larger International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) project,” SUPARCO said in a statement on Wednesday. 

“This collaboration marks a significant milestone for Pakistan’s space program, as SUPARCO’s indigenous rover will be part of the mission to explore the lunar surface.”

SUPARCO said the mission would involve scientific experiments such as lunar soil study, lunar surface mapping and testing new technologies for human presence on the moon. It highlighted that the rover, equipped with state-of-the-art scientific instruments, would play a pivotal role in collecting data.

“This collaboration with China highlights the strong bilateral relations between the two countries and their shared vision for space exploration,” it concluded.