Vula Vai CovId Update Charpara Afghan on the run after Taliban executed boyfriend Pabna

 Vula Vai CovId Update Charpara Afghan on the run after Taliban executed boyfriend Pabna Brothers Brent and Clyde Hanson shared a home in Milbank, South Dakota. Brent lived in the basement area while his older brother lived upstairs with wife Jessica and their three-year-old son.

The brothers had joint ownership of the two-storey property but while they were all part of the Jehovah’s Witnesses community and active churchgoers, it was not a harmonious household.

Sierra Leone's first professional women's football league launched on Saturday with a match in the northern city of Makeni, kicking off a six-month season in which 12 clubs from across the country will compete.

"We are so proud to make this history as the first ever national women's premier league," Asmaa James, chairperson of the Sierra Leone Women's Premier League Board, told AFP.

The Mena Queens of Makeni battled the Kahunla Queens from Kenema during the opening match on Saturday with Sierra Leone's first lady, Fatima Bio, in attendance at the crowded Wusum Sports Stadium in Makeni.

"This is the first time women are participating in our local Premier League, it's an honour that our best footballers are from Bombali District", Sierra Leone president Julius Maada Bio said on Saturday during the kick-off.

 

"Football is about peace and cohesion. We want to see beautiful football, all the teams are winners."

The 12 privately-owned clubs will compete for a cash prize and trophy in April, James said.

She said women's football has long been neglected in the West African nation of about eight million people, adding that it was now time for women to showcase their potential.

 

"We have engaged the girls and their parents and also the team managers and other football stakeholders to allow the girls to play football," she said.

Supporters hope the league will boost the success of the national women's team, which failed to qualify for the 2022 Women's Africa Cup of Nations.

But they face several key challenges, including inadequate venues.

The national 45,000-seater stadium in Freetown, opened in the 1980s, is currently being renovated with support from the Chinese government.

 

Then there are the logistical hurdles of criss-crossing the country -- where only about 10 percent of the road network is paved, according to the African Development Bank -- for matches.

In a meeting with the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) and the Women's Premier League Board Wednesday, president Bio said his government takes women's empowerment very seriously and would work to elevate women's football in the country to international standards.

SLFA President Thomas Daddy Brima said the new league would boost employment.

The league will help shine a light on the women's game both locally and internationally, and will put Sierra Leone on the map in the sport, Brima added.

Key challenges to gender equality and women's empowerment in Sierra Leone include a lack of economic independence, "high illiteracy and entrenched customs and traditions" and an "absence of progressive laws that protect and promote participation for women", according to a September report by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

 

Clyde, 59, and Jessica, 29, were quiet and modest. They’d met through a matchmaking service and, despite their age gap, were happily building a family. Clyde worked for a retail outlet while Jessica was a devoted mum and was pregnant with their second child.

The couple showed kindness to their neighbours, as their religion encouraged, but in July 2021, Jessica called the police and said her brother-in-law Hanson, 57, had pushed and hit her during an argument.

She was four months pregnant and, at the time, was being treated for some mental health struggles at a local facility.

 

 

Before going away for her treatment, Jessica had asked Hanson to look after her dog. When she returned, after less than two weeks, her pet was gone.

Voters in British Columbia ushered in a wave of political change throughout the province in municipal elections Saturday that saw new mayors elected in Vancouver and Surrey and other major communities.

Vancouver businessman Ken Sim defeated Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart, posting an overwhelming victory after losing the mayor’s race to Stewart in 2018 by less than 1,000 votes.

“This is not the result we wanted,” said Stewart, a former federal New Democrat MP. “But we have to respect it.”

The fate of necessary health care for transgender teenagers in Arkansas is being decided in a court case starting next week.

On Monday, District Court judge James Moody in the Eastern District of Arkansas will begin hearing arguments for the case Brandt et. al. v. Rutledge. The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, along with four families with transgender teenagers and two doctors, after Arkansas passed HB 1570.

HB 1570 was the first law passed in the country that would ban doctors from prescribing treatment for the purposes of gender transition for minors. This means a whole suite of holistic gender-affirming care would be illegal for children currently receiving it.

• These Trans Teens and Parents Will Fight Arkansas in Court

   

   

The law upended families across the state, and lawyers quickly secured an injunction stopping it from going into effect before next week’s trial.

 

“If the law was struck down? We would celebrate in the streets,” Brandi Evans, the mother of a transgender teenager, told The Daily Beast. “I mean, we’re always on kind of high alert to what could happen [otherwise].”

Evans’ son Andrew is currently 17, meaning if he were to suddenly lose access to all his care, the family has begun to make plans to prepare for the next year of his ongoing medical transition before he is legally allowed to make medical decisions on his own.

For families in Arkansas, the passage of HB 1570 has galvanized a small, tight-knit community pushing families to fight for each other in an effort to keep their kid’s medical care from getting shut down.

This meant added responsibilities such as advocating for themselves, showing up at the state Capitol and making themselves visible, because you never know who is watching.

Danielle May and her family’s life was “blown up our world in the best way possible” when her son Phoenix came out as transgender in 2021. Had an injunction not been granted that year stopping the implementation of HB 1570, Phoenix would not have had access to gender affirming care.

Contrary to many narratives around gender affirming care, he did not start Hormone Replacement Therapy right away. In fact, Phoenix’s first healthcare provider was targeted by lawsuits forcing the family to relocate to another clinic in order to continue his medical transition.

Now, May told The Daily Beast that “I’m getting to see my child move through the world with confidence and peace and joy,” alongside his brothers and supportive family. She says that without this affirming environment and care she would have been deeply scared for Phoenix’s mental state and his risk for self-harm.

Studies have shown that transgender adolescence who have access to gender affirming care reduce suicidality and improved mental health outcomes.

Evidence like these studies and other experts on pediatric endocrinology were not able to sway legislators during the 2021 legislative session in Arkansas when HB 1570 was debated. The state’s governor at one point even vetoed the bill after it passed, before it was overridden by the legislature.

Recently, Arkansas’ Attorney General Leslie Rutledge—who will be defending HB 1570 in District Court—was interviewed by John Stewart about the law, and justified the law under the guise of allowing “those young people, who are facing gender confusion and dysphoria allow them to become adults and to make that decision” even if such practices were opposed by major medical organizations such as the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics.

Rutledge could not name the expert testimony that was used in support of the bill, telling Stewart to refer to the briefs filed in the upcoming court case. She also spelled out some false claims about transgender youth to justify the bill.

“We have 98 percent of young people who had gender dysphoria,” said Rutledge. “That they are able to move past that and once they had the help that they need, no longer suffer from gender dysphoria.”

These claims, along with recent harmful threats to gender affirming care providers are part of a broader reactionary backlash to transgender rights, which this case hopes to provide legal precedent to halt said Chase Strangio, Deputy Director for Transgender Justice, ACLU, said in a conference call before the case goes to trial.

“Ultimately, it will be this trial in Arkansas beginning on Monday that will be the first to fully hear the evidence on the merits, challenging these types of restrictions that unfortunately, we've seen over and over again across the country,” Strangio said. “We look forward to being able to advocate in court for our clients and for all transgender Arkansans who deserve the right to receive the care that they need, just like everyone else in Arkansas.”

 

He said the past four years, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the opioid overdose crisis and housing issues were difficult for Vancouver, but “I do think we got the city through pretty hard times.”

In Surrey, Mayor Doug McCallum was defeated by challenger Brenda Locke, a member of Surrey council and a former B.C. Liberal member of the legislature.

Locke’s victory speech included a pledge to keep the RCMP in Surrey despite McCallum’s initiative to replace the Mounties with a civic police force.

“We need to keep the Surrey RCMP right here in Surrey,” she said.

 

The municipal elections also saw major shifts across B.C., with new mayors elected in Kelowna, Kamloops, Penticton and Victoria.

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Voters casting ballots Saturday in Vancouver said housing was the top campaign issue, with public safety and support for vulnerable people also on their minds.

Across B.C. voters said they wanted to see politicians tackle the big issues confronting almost every community.

“I think that definitely housing is a priority for everyone in Vancouver,” said artist Taz Soleil. “For me, housing, especially for marginalized people, is a priority.”

Soleil said she backed candidates who promised more housing options and supports for low income people.

Margaret Haugen, who accompanied a friend to vote at downtown Vancouver’s Roundhouse Community Center, said affordable housing was the issue she was most concerned about this election.

“The Downtown Eastside has just gotten progressively worse,” said Haugen, adding too many people there are living on the streets.

From Vancouver and Surrey to the smaller Interior communities of Princeton and Clearwater, campaigns focused on issues that typically fall beyond the municipal realm, such as affordable housing, health care, violent crime and mental health and addiction.

Stewart promised to triple Vancouver’s housing goal over the next decade to 220,000 homes, while Sim pledged to hire 100 new police officers and 100 mental health nurses.

Stewart and Sim were among 15 mayoral candidates in Vancouver.

Vancouver released data showing increased numbers of advance voters this year compared to 2018.

In the 2022 election 65,026 people voted in advance polls in Vancouver, up from 48,986 in 2018.

The advance polling results were different in Victoria, the city said in a statement.

 

In 2022 4,613 people voted in advance polls in Victoria, slightly less than the 4,791 people who cast advance ballots in 2018.

In Clearwater, incumbent Mayor Merlin Blackwell said health care was the top issue in his North Thompson community, where the local hospital’s emergency department experiences regular closures.

He said small-town issues of dog parks and potholes were on the back burner in this campaign with residents wanting local government to improve health care and fight crime.

McCallum faced consecutive challenges, first at the ballot box against seven other candidates, then in court on Oct. 31 as he faces trial on a charge of public mischief.

Vula Vai CovId Update Charpara Afghan on the run after Taliban executed boyfriend Pabna

Hanson said he’d taken it to a farm because he didn’t want to look after it – but he wouldn’t say where. A row ensued and, according to Jessica, Hanson turned violent, repeatedly hitting her over the head and threatening to throw her out of the house.

Jessica admitted to officers that it was out of character for Hanson to be violent, but she went on to say she was fearful for her safety and worried about how he was going to react once he discovered she’d reported him

 

Of course, Hanson did find out she had gone to the police when he was charged with assault. The incident would undoubtedly have caused further friction in the home.

By December, Jessica was nine months pregnant and ready to give birth to a little girl they’d already named Annika. Would the new arrival heal the household?

Leah Croucher murder suspect named as wanted sex offender found dead after disappearance

On 15 December, Hanson was due to meet Milbank Police Chief Boyd VanVooren. The chief had arranged it the night before, via
social media, saying he wanted to “exchange a Christmas card from a church”.

Hanson arrived at the station at around 9.10am to make the festive gesture. During the visit, the chief, who knew about the outstanding assault charges, asked Hanson whether there were any further issues at the house with Clyde and Jessica.

President Xi Jinping on Sunday kicked-off the 20th congress of China's ruling Communist Party with warnings that he may use force to retake Taiwan as he slammed foreign interference in its reunification efforts.

The comments came at the start of a week-long event where Xi is widely expected to win a third leadership term and cement his place as the country's most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.

The gathering of roughly 2,300 delegates from around the country began in the vast Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square amid tight security and under blue skies after several smoggy days in the Chinese capital.

Xi began a speech that touted the party's safeguarding of national security, maintaining social stability, protecting people's lives and taking control of the situation in Hong Kong, which was rocked by anti-government protests in 2019.

On Taiwan, Xi said, 'We have resolutely waged a major struggle against separatism and interference, demonstrating our strong determination and ability to safeguard state sovereignty and territorial integrity and oppose Taiwan independence.'

The gathered delegates responded with loud applause as their president emphasized that China will 'never commit to abandoning the use of force' in its unification with Taiwan, which he called inevitable.

Xi added that China will accelerate the building of a world-class military and strengthen its ability to build a strategic deterrent capability.

He replied, “They no longer live here.”

Within minutes, at 9.45am, the chief overheard a call to the station requesting a welfare check at the Hansons’ home. A food delivery worker had reported going to the residence and seeing what he feared was blood on the door.

 

 

Milbank Police Chief Boyd VanVooren, who was told the chilling confession ( 

Image:

YOUTUBE)

Officers were dispatched and the chief asked Hanson where his brother had moved to. His reply was shocking.

“I snapped,” Hanson said, before making a motion with his thumb across his neck, in a slashing gesture. “I killed them on Sunday.”

It was a startling confession. Surely the family troubles hadn’t escalated to murder? Did Hanson really have it in him to kill his brother and his heavily pregnant sister-in-law? He was taken into custody as officers went to the house.

When they arrived at around 10.05am, they found Jessica’s body under a blue tarpaulin in an area of the house that was yet to be
made habitable. She had lacerations to her body that were consistent with a machete assault. Her unborn baby had also died
as a result of the attack.

Ahmadi desperately tried to call him back, but Sabouri’s mobile had been switched off.

‘The Taliban sent me a video of his death,’ Ahmadi says of the four-second clip seen by seen by Metro.co.uk, adding: ‘Telling me that you will become Hamed.’

‘His memory will never be forgotten,’ Ahmadi says.

Sabouri, from Kabul, was a regular star-gazer. He hoped to be a doctor one day, loved romance novels and listened to Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber.

Gay man ‘gang raped by six men with a machine gun’ in prison by Taliban

A single year of Taliban rule has turned Ahmadi’s life upside down.

‘Before the Taliban came, my life was great, I was free,’ Ahmadi says. ‘I was not insulted anywhere, I had a love life everywhere. I had sex with boys.

‘Now I live like a prisoner. I am insulted and tortured everywhere.’

‘My elder brother was a [Afghan Uniform Police] officer, he was shot in front of my eyes by Taliban terrorists,’ he adds.

Thousands of people fled the country after the Taliban’s bloody recapturing of Kabul. But LGBTQ+ remain (Picture: Getty Images/AFP)

Within days of the Taliban seizing power, Ahmadi was jailed for being gay. He escaped only after bribing a guard before changing his name altogether.

But the Taliban continue to hunt him down.

He has been sent several threatening letters from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the state’s religious morality police.

One letter seen by Metro.co.uk says ‘residents’ have complained about Ahmadi being a ‘supporter of homosexuals’ who carries out ‘indecent acts’.

 

 

Ministry officials called on him to be arrested ‘as soon as possible’.

‘In order to prevent moral corruption in society, there should be legal punishment,’ the letter concludes.

‘Life is very difficult for me, I am under serious threats, and I can’t go anywhere because of fear the Taliban are looking for me,’ Ahmadi says.

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023 Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally annexed territory, attacked civilian targets, called up military reservists and threatened nuclear escalation. But the Kremlin still doesn’t seem confident that its military can hold back a Ukrainian counteroffensive ahead of winter.

Xi Jinping will upend Chinese political traditions cementing his status as one of the world's most powerful leaders — and take on the U.S. to become the dominant superpower — when members of the country's ruling Communist Party extend a third term as general secretary at the Party's 20th National Congress.

The conclave kicks off Oct. 16 and runs for about a week. 

EU countries on Wednesday agreed to level new sanctions on the Islamic republic over the "crackdown" during a month of demonstrations over Amini's death. The move is due to be endorsed at the bloc's foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

"We recommend that Europeans look at the issue with a realistic approach," Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in a phone call Friday.

In a separate statement on Friday, Amir-Abdollahian said: "Who would believe that the death of one girl is so important to Westerners?"

"If it is so, what did they do regarding the hundreds of thousands of martyrs and deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Lebanon?" he added.

Iran has been rocked by protests since Amini's death on September 16, three days after she was arrested by morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the country's strict dress code for women.

Xi, 69, ascended to China's top job in 2012. During his decade in power he's had far-reaching influence at home and abroad. He has centralized power and relentlessly cracked down on dissent. He has poured billions into international infrastructure projects and aggressively pursued island construction and militarization in the South China Sea.

What is China's Communist Party Congress, and what happens now?

• Xi is already poised to remain in power for the rest of his life after China's lawmakers abolished the two term limit on the presidency, a largely ceremonial title. Xi will be reconfirmed as president next March.
• About 200 top members of the Party will be backed to join the policy-making Central Committee. The Central Committee, in turn, will select 25 people to join the Party's Politburo, a kind of inner circle of this executive branch. These 25 people will then determine who makes up the Politburo's standing committee, a group of seven elite Party members headed by Xi, in the general secretary role.
• Geremie Barmé, an Australian academic, once called Xi the "chairman of everything."

• Two men were sentenced to 40 years in prison each on Friday for the 2017 car-bomb murder of Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, a brutal killing that rattled Europe and drew international attention to the tiny Mediterranean country’s criminal underworld.

  Brothers George Degiorgio, 59, and Alfred Degiorgio, 57, who previously claimed innocence, pleaded guilty to the assassination of Caruana Galizia, a muckraker who had investigated drugs, arms traffickers, politicians and judges in a country largely known as a picturesque tourist destination. They had faced life imprisonment.

   

  Prosecutors alleged that the brothers had been hired to kill Caruana Galizia by one of Malta’s wealthiest people, Yorgen Fenech, according to the Associated Press. Fenech is awaiting trial. There were also questions as to what role, if any, politicians played in her death. Caruana Galizia had linked associates of then-Prime Minister Joseph Muscat with suspicious financial transactions described in the Panama Papers, which detailed the hidden infrastructure of offshore tax havens. (A probe later cleared Muscat and his associates of wrongdoing related to that scandal.)

  In a blog post published on the day of her murder, Caruana Galizia accused a top Muscat aide of corruption. The aide — who was subsequently sanctioned by the United States — denies wrongdoing. The premier was pushed out of office in 2020 by protesters who were furious at how the investigation of her murder was handled; an independent probe concluded last year that the Maltese state bears responsibility for her death due to its “culture of impunity” and failure to recognize the risk to her life.

  “It’s been half-a-decade of agony for Daphne’s family and for the country,” wrote European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who is Maltese, in a Facebook post. “Daphne still cannot write her blog, enjoy her children and grandchildren, potter in her garden or be with her loved ones. Today is not justice, it is a small step.”

  “Daphne’s killers should never have been allowed to do what they did in the first place and the systemic failures that enabled her assassination need to be effectively addressed,” said Corinne Vella, a sister of Caruana Galizia, in a Saturday email to The Washington Post.

  Caruana Galizia worked as a journalist in Malta for more than 30 years, according to a foundation established in her memory. She ran a lifestyle magazine and a corruption-focused blog titled “Running Commentary.” Her aggressive reporting on both government and opposition figures led to some 43 libel suits at the time of her death — many of which her family is still fighting.

  Caruana Galizia also received numerous threats of violence before her assassination. In 1995, her front door was doused in fuel and set on fire, and her dog — one of three that were killed during her lifetime — was left in front of her home with a slit throat. In 2006, she published an article on neo-Nazi groups in Malta, leading someone to arrange a stack of tires behind her home and set them ablaze.

  “She was insulted and pressured on a daily basis. She was hated,” said Pauline Adès-Mével, a spokesperson for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), who testified at the inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder and who had sought to support the reporter. “Unfortunately, she was already targeted, and we didn’t have time to set up any protection or legal framework for her."

   

  

  Mandy Mallia, a sister of late journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, lights candles in front of a picture of her sister in Valletta, Malta, on Friday.© AP/AP

  Caruana Galizia was 53 when she was killed near her home in a remote town in northern Malta where she lived with her family for safety purposes. The brutal nature of her murder shocked the European Union, where hits on journalists are rare. It also spurred calls for reform in Malta, where reporters must deal with an increasingly hostile climate.

  Malta ranks 78th out of 180 countries on RSF’s 2022 World Press Freedom Index, 31 places lower than at the time of Caruana Galizia’s death.

• Jeremy Hunt told the BBC that some taxes will go up, while government spending may need to fall.

  He said two mistakes were made in the mini-budget by Kwasi Kwarteng - cutting the top rate of tax and announcing it without an independent forecast.

  But he also praised his predecessor for help offered to people struggling with their energy bills.

  Mr Hunt said he agreed with the prime minister's goal of "solving the growth paradox", but added: "The way we went about it clearly wasn't right and that's why I'm sitting here now."

  Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Mr Hunt said: "Taxes are not going to come down by as much as people hoped, and some taxes will have to go up.

  Britain's new finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday that some taxes will have to go up, signalling another abrupt policy U-turn by Prime Minister Liz Truss who is battling to save her leadership just over a month into her term.

  Key points:

  • Britain's new finance minister Jeremy Hunt says the country needs stability and that Liz Truss needs time
  • Ms Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her chancellor of the exchequer on Friday and appointed Mr Hunt
  • Mr Hunt says he will will make further changes to her government's fiscal plans

   

  In an attempt to appease financial markets that have been in turmoil for three weeks, Ms Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her chancellor of the exchequer on Friday and scrapped parts of their controversial economic package.

  In a hurried news conference shortly after dismissing Mr Kwarteng, Ms Truss said the corporation tax rate would increase, abandoning her plan to keep it at current levels, and government spending would rise by less than previously planned.

  Big, unfunded tax cuts were a central plank of Ms Truss's original plans, but Mr Hunt said tax increases were on the cards.

  "We will have some very difficult decisions ahead," he told Sky News.

   

  "The thing that people want, the markets want, the country needs now, is stability," Mr Hunt said.

  "No chancellor can control the markets. But what I can do is show that we can pay for our tax and spending plans and that is going to need some very difficult decisions on both spending and tax."

  Mr Hunt said he had been sanctioned by Ms Truss to make further changes to her government's fiscal plans following two major U-turns on her tax-cutting agenda already.

  Asked on BBC radio if he had a clean slate and could change further elements of the tax cuts set out by his predecessor ahead of a medium term fiscal plan on October 31, Mr Hunt said: "Yes."

  Mr Hunt is due to announce the government's medium-term budget plans on October 31, a key test of its ability to show investors that it can restore its economic policy credibility.

  Britain's chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng resigns

  Britain's Treasury minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, resigns after Prime Minister Liz Truss asked him to stand aside ahead of an expected scrapping of parts of his economic package.

  

  Read more

  He said spending would not rise by as much as people would like, and all government departments were going to have to find more efficiencies than they were planning.

  "Some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want, and some taxes will go up. So it's going to be difficult," he said.

  Mr Kwarteng's September 23 fiscal statement prompted a backlash in financial markets that was so ferocious that the Bank of England (BoE) had to intervene to prevent pension funds being caught up in the chaos as borrowing costs surged.

  Mr Hunt said he agreed with Truss's fundamental approach of seeking to spark economic growth but the way she and Mr Kwarteng went about it had not worked.

  "There were mistakes. It was a mistake when we're going to be asking for difficult decisions across the board on tax and spending to cut the rate of tax paid by the very wealthiest," he said.

  "It was a mistake to fly blind and to do these forecasts without giving people the confidence of the Office of Budget Responsibility saying that the sums add up.

  "The Prime Minister has recognised that, that's why I'm here."

  Ms Truss was due to spend the weekend trying to shore up her flagging support within the Conservative Party, with newspapers quoting politicians who questioned her ability to stay in the job.

  On Monday, the British government bond market faces a test when it will function for the first time without the emergency buying support provided by the BoE since September 28.

  "I'm going to be asking all government departments to find additional efficiency savings."

  But Mr Hunt, who was appointed as chancellor on Friday after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked by the prime minister, refused to outline any details for his tax and spending plans.

  He told BBC Breakfast he was "not going to make any commitments" and reiterated he was just hours into the job.

  His comments come after the government's mini-budget last month, which included £45bn worth of tax cuts, and sparked turbulence in the financial markets.

  Addressing mistakes he said were made by the ex-chancellor, Mr Hunt said: "There were two mistakes - it was wrong to cut the top rate of tax for the very highest earners at a time where we're going to have to be asking for sacrifices from everyone to get through a very difficult period.

  "And it was wrong to fly blind and to announce those plans without reassuring people with the discipline of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that we actually can afford to pay for them."

   

  He said both of these were now in the process of "being put right".

  Mr Hunt said he would be meeting Treasury officials later and Liz Truss on Sunday.

  After just 39 days as prime minister, Ms Truss is facing huge pressure from within her party as key elements of the major economic plan she and the former chancellor set out in September have been scrapped.

  The prime minister is facing a backlash from Conservative MPs after announcing the government's second U-turn in a month.

  Friday's U-turn on plans to cut corporation tax followed an earlier reversal of plans to cut the 45p rate of income tax for the highest earners.

  One Tory MP described the party as being in a "state of despair", but Truss supporter Christopher Chope said "time will tell" if she had done enough to secure her position.

   

  Asked whether there should be a general election, Mr Hunt told the BBC: "What the country wants now is stability.

  "[Truss] has been prime minister for less than five weeks. When we are judged at a general election, we will be judged by what we deliver over the next 18 months by far more than what's happened over the last 18 weeks."

  The PM has described sacking Mr Kwarteng and scrapping another key economic policy as "difficult" and admitted in a short press conference on Friday that "parts of our mini-budget went further and faster" than the markets were expecting.

  In September, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights wrote a letter to Malta’s prime minister, Robert Abela, outlining her concerns about press freedom.

  “Freedom of expression, including media freedom and the safety of journalists, is a prerequisite of any democratic society,” the commissioner wrote, adding that it is “necessary to comply with international standards.”

  “We attach the utmost importance to holding the persons who commissioned and murdered Ms. Caruana Galizia accountable, and to counting our work to ensure that the environment journalists operate within is free," Abela replied.

Here are several ways China has evolved since Xi's been in charge.

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023

Civilians in the country’s occupied south should evacuate to Russia, Moscow-installed officials there urged this week, in a sign that the Kremlin is worried about its hold on the strategic region  as Kyiv pushes to reclaim more land there after recent breakthroughs.

The head of the Moscow-appointed regional administration, Vladimir Saldo, without using the word “evacuation,” asked Moscow Thursday to welcome families from the Kherson region that want “to protect themselves” from what he described as constant Ukrainian shelling.

The Kremlin promptly agreed to support such efforts, with officials in the southern Russian region of Rostov saying the first arrivals were expected Friday, the state news agency Tass reported.

Western military analysts said the move underlined Russia’s growing concern over its ability to hold Kherson, just weeks after it claimed to annex the region and in light of sudden gains made by Ukraine’s military this month — its biggest advance in the south since Russian forces seized it early in the war.

“You don’t evacuate from a region that you have recently annexed (illegally) if you are confident of holding it,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “I think we can read this as a sign that they are very worried about their ability to hold the west bank of the Dnieper River.”

Ukrainian soldiers check trenches left behind as Russian forces fled on Wednesday.Leo Correa / AP

As Ukraine pressed on, Russian forces retreated from the front lines they had established in the area and sought to set up new positions they could hold along the strategic waterway.

Saiful Vai Kothay Tumi evacuation of civilians in southern Ukraine Bogura 7 heath 2023

Just hours after Saldo’s comments, the deputy head of Kherson’s Russian-installed administration, Kirill Stremousov, rushed to clarify that this was not an evacuation but an offer that has been long in the making.

“No one is making plans to retreat,” he said in a video message, as he urged people not to panic.

The preparation to evacuate some civilians could mean that the Russians are anticipating that combat could extend to the city of Kherson itself, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in its assessment of the situation Thursday.

The city is a strategic gateway to the Black Sea and the neighboring Crimean Peninsula, and has been critical in cementing Moscow’s grasp on the area. It’s the only regional center that the Russians have controlled since the start of the war.

Losing Kherson would deal a major blow to the Kremlin, with Putin himself boasting that it had been “reunited” with Russia forever after the region became one of four occupied provinces that Russia claimed to have annexed last month.

Monirul Islam Chinese protesters came up against Dhaka Online Head Office Banani 1210 Shamim

 Monirul Islam Chinese protesters came up against Dhaka Online Head Office Banani 1210 Shamim

Police officers stand near demonstrators taking part in a protest over the freezing of deposits by some rural-based banks, in Zhengzhou, Henan province, China May 23, 2022, in this screengrab taken from a video obtained by Reuters. Handout via REUTERS

Yet the 43-year-old's life has been upended since he and thousands of other people abruptly lost access to their savings in a banking fraud scandal that erupted in April, which centred on a string of rural lenders in Henan and Anhui provinces.

Monirul Islam Chinese protesters came up against Dhaka Online Head Office Banani 1210 Shamim

After venting his anger on social media and discussing protests with fellow depositors to lobby authorities to reimburse their funds, he says he found himself in the sights of the government's high-tech social surveillance machine.

Thailand will toughen its gun possession and drug laws, the interior ministry said Wednesday, following the nursery massacre of 36 people -- including 24 children -- in the kingdom's worst mass killing.

The country was left reeling after an ex-police officer forced his way into a small nursery in northeastern Na Klang last week, murdering 24 children and their teacher before killing his wife, their child and himself

The attack was carried out with a knife and a legally acquired gun, and while Thailand has a huge number of firearms in circulation -- one estimate suggesting there are as many as one in seven firearms per person -- mass shootings are rare.

Interior minister Anupong Paojinda said Wednesday the government would require tougher qualifications for new gun owners, as well as ramping up checks on existing firearm holders.

"Our new qualification will include mental health reports, we will be examining whether we need proof from doctors," he told a press conference, without giving further details.

Gun applicants are already required to undergo a background check and must present a valid reason for ownership -- such as hunting or self-defence.

"For example, if officials want to possess a gun, their supervisors have to ratify that that individual has no record of alcohol abuse or bad temper," Anupong said.

Village leaders or local officials will play a role in granting the tougher gun licenses, he said. 

Currently, gun owners do not have to reapply for licenses during the lifetime of a firearm.

But now approved gun holders will have to undergo a review every three to five years, Anupong said.

"Because as time changes, people change," he explained.

Parliament will also discuss an exemption penalty for illegal gun holders, Anupong said, adding that individuals will be able to hand unauthorised firearms to authorities without facing prosecution-- though he did not indicate when they must do so by.

Those who still possess illegal weapons will face harsh penalties, he said.

Anupong added that his ministry would work with police and the health department to increase drug screening and awareness, as well as encouraging addicts into rehabilitation.

"If everyone in town knows that drugs exist but local authorities don't, they will be transferred," he said.

The nursery attacker, 34-year-old sacked police sergeant Panya Khamrab, was dismissed from his post earlier this year on a drugs charge, with locals saying they suspected he was a methamphetamine addict.

However, preliminary tests found he did not have any drugs in his system at the time of the assault.

He deliberately turned off his stability control and enabled his car’s sports mode despite cold conditions, but the “remorseful” and “guilt-ridden” driver of a $330,000 luxury vehicle has been spared jail time over the crash that killed a 15-year-old girl and seriously injured her best friend.

Instead, Alexander Campbell, 37, will serve community service hours and adhere to an 18-month good behaviour bond after being handed a suspended jail sentence for driving without due care on the night Adelaide teen Sophia Naismith lost her life.

Campbell, who was previously found not guilty of causing Ms Naismith’s death by dangerous driving, pleaded guilty to the charge of aggravated driving without due care in February 2021.

On Thursday during sentencing in Adelaide District Court, judge Paul Muscat said the “tragic outcome” of Campbell’s driving continued to haunt him.

Alexander Campbell has been spared jail over the crash that killed Sophia Naismith. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

“Even though the court found you not guilty, people have decided for themselves that you are guilty of those charges,” Judge Muscat said.

“You have been vilified for your driving that night by members of the public, many of whom expressed their views ignorant of the narrow way the prosecution case was presented against you, the evidence or the law related to primary offences.

“All of that public attention has affected you.”

“Despite what some chose to believe, I am satisfied on the material provided to the court, your presentation during your police interview and your apology given in this court that you have a deep sense of guilt over what happened that night.”

In June 2019, Sophia Naismith from Seaview Downs and her best friend Jordyn Callea from Richmond were walking along Morphett Rd in Glengowrie when the luxury car mounted a kerb and hit the two girls before crashing into a restaurant.

The pushback by Yao and thousands of his fellow bank depositors from across the country comes during a sensitive time for China, with Xi Jinping set to secure a third leadership term at a party congress starting Sunday (Oct 16) that will ensure his place as its most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

The unusually prolonged and public dissent, part of a broader swell of popular anger, from mortgage strikes to COVID-19 lockdown protests, has persisted despite a security clampdown. It offers a glimpse of the lengths some frustrated citizens will go to in taking on the world's most powerful security state.

"I could often receive more than a dozen phone calls a day from police, day and night," said Yao, who works at a state-owned company and fears he'll never recover his life savings of over 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million).

Vladimir Putin has suffered a humiliating blow after Ukrainian forces shot down four attack helicopters in just 18 minutes, Ukraine's Ministry of Defence has claimed.

"From 08.40 to 08.58 on October 12, anti-aircraft missile units of the air force destroyed at least four enemy attack helicopters (probably Ka-52s), which were providing fire support to the ground occupation forces in the southern direction," the air force said in its Telegram channel.

According to preliminary reports, one of the downed choppers crashed in an unspecified part of southern Ukraine that had been recently reclaimed by Kyiv's forces from the Russians, while the other three landed somewhere behind the front line.

The air force also revealed that Ukrainian forces fired on two more Russian helicopters, so it's possible the number of downed aircraft will increase, the New York Post reports.

The Kyiv Independent reported about 30 per cent of Ukraine's energy infrastructure had been damaged by Russia since October 10.

It is the "first time from the beginning of the war" that Russia has "dramatically targeted" energy infrastructure, Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko told CNN.

Ukraine has had some success in defending the blitz. Ukraine's air defence reportedly destroyed 21 cruise missiles and 11 unmanned aerial vehicles in recent days.

But Russian forces continue to attack Ukrainian infrastructure with Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.

Ukraine to receive new air defences

International backers of Ukraine vowed this week to deliver new air defences "as fast as we can", as Kyiv pressed them to bolster protection against Russia's missile blitz.

A US-led group of some 50 countries held talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels with a focus on air defences after Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed a barrage across Ukraine following a blast at a bridge to the annexed Crimea peninsula.

 

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said just three words when asked what he hoped for from the meeting: "Air defence systems."

Western allies have scrambled to work out how to supply more advanced systems to Ukraine as diplomats admit they have precious few to spare.

 

"The systems will be provided, as fast as we can physically get them there," United States Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said after the meeting, without giving details on any new pledges.

"We're going to provide systems that we have available... We're also going to try to provide additional munitions to the existing systems that the Ukrainian forces are using." A first Iris-T medium-range system arrived in Ukraine after Germany decided to ship it before even giving it to its own troops.

Gov. Charlie Baker pardoned four men of convictions ranging from larceny to assault with a dangerous weapon Wednesday. All of the convictions were 30 or more years old.

India slammed Pakistan for raising the issue of Kashmir during an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly on the Ukraine conflict, saying such statements by Islamabad deserve the "collective contempt" of the international community and "sympathy for a mindset which repeatedly utters falsehoods".

 

"Before I conclude, Mr. President, one final point," India's Permanent Representative to the U.N., Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj, said as she delivered the explanation of the vote after the 193-member General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on October 12 to condemn Russia's illegal referendums and annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine.

"We have witnessed unsurprisingly yet again an attempt by one delegation to misuse this forum and make frivolous and pointless remarks against my country. Such statements deserve our collective contempt and sympathy for a mindset which repeatedly utters falsehoods," Ms. Kamboj said.

"It is important, however, to set the record straight. The entire territory of Jammu and Kashmir is and will always be an integral and inalienable part of India irrespective of what the representative of Pakistan believes or covets. We call on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism so that our citizens can enjoy their right to life and liberty," Ms. Kamboj said.

In his remarks to the UNGA emergency special session that was convened on the Ukrainian conflict, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.N. Munir Akram raised the issue of Kashmir, saying that under international law, the right of self-determination applies to peoples who are under foreign or colonial domination and those who have not yet exercised the right to self-determination "as in the case of Jammu and Kashmir".

He said the exercise of the right to self-determination should be conducted in an environment free of military occupation and under impartial auspices species, preferably under the supervision of the United Nations.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained over the Kashmir issue and cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.

Bilateral ties nosedived after India abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution, revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories on August 5, 2019.

Following India’s decision, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi and expelled the Indian envoy. Trade ties between Pakistan and India have largely been frozen since then.

India has repeatedly told Pakistan that Jammu and Kashmir “was, is and shall forever” remain an integral part of the country. India has said it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan in an environment free of terror, hostility and violence.

In 2020, Baker put out criteria people would need to meet to be considered for a pardon. This includes stipulations such as the convict having taken full responsibility for their actions, made full restitution to victims, worked towards self improvement, and contributed to society.

“All of these individuals have shown a commitment to their communities and rehabilitation since their convictions. However, the charges are related to decades-old convictions that continue to have an impact on their lives.”

The pardons still have to be reviewed by the Governor’s Council before they are official, but it is rare for the council not to approve a governor’s pardons.

Steven Joanis

Steven Joanis’s crimes were the most serious of the four men who were pardoned. At 17 years old, Joanis was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and armed assault in a dwelling. He was convicted in September 1990 in Milford District Court.

According to Joanis, who now lives in Franklin, his girlfriend at the time had previously been held captive and sexually assaulted. When the alleged perpetrator tried to contact her again, Joanis decided to confront him.

Joanis said in court documents that he borrowed a .22 caliber rifle from a friend and went to the man’s apartment. He was confronted by the man and the man’s friend, and one of them pointed a handgun at him. Joanis then revealed his weapon, which had been covered by a paper bag but was not loaded.

One of the men pushed Joanis against the wall, he said, and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

Joanis pled guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison, a sentence which was later suspended in favor of a year of probation. He completed the probation without issue.

Since his conviction, Joanis has not been convicted of a crime. The two charges he is seeking a pardon for are his only convictions.

Joanis has now been married for nearly 30 years and has four children. He earned a high school diploma, bachelor’s degree from Wentworth Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Babson College.

LOCAL NEWS

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Joanis has been employed by ENE Systems in Canton for 26 years and is currently their director of engineering. He also worked as a teacher at the Peterson Trade School in Woburn from 2008 to 2021, and has taught intermittently at Roxbury Community College.

Joanis has served in the Civil Air Patrol since 2003, and until 2010, he was an active pilot who did search and rescue missions and aided disaster relief efforts. He also volunteers at My Brother’s Keeper, which gives food and furniture to families in need, and is an active member of the Knights of Columbus.

Joanis said in court documents he wants to be pardoned so that his conviction doesn’t deny him work opportunities when put through background checks. He said he’s also interested in running for political office and being involved in school activities — things he has declined to do for fear of being denied due to his conviction.

The four men pardoned Wednesday were all unanimously recommended by the state’s Advisory Board of Pardons under these guidelines.

“The ability to grant pardons is a very serious responsibility, but through careful consideration and review, I believe these individuals are worthy candidates for a pardon,” Baker said in a news release.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Indian rupee is tipped to open slightly higher to the dollar on Thursday, ahead of key data that could help investors assess the size of rate hikes that the Federal Reserve is likely to deliver over the remainder of this year.

The rupee is expected to open at 82.25-82.28 per U.S. dollar, compared with 82.3150 in the previous session. The intraday volatility on the rupee has come off over the last two days, helped by the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) intervention in spot and forwards markets.

The size of intervention on Wednesday was "very little," compared with the prior two days, but that does not change "the fact that RBI is uncomfortable with more rupee depreciation," a trader at a Mumbai-based bank said.

One-month non-deliverable rupee forward at 82.56; onshore one-month forward premium at 24 paise ** USD/INR NSE Oct futures settled on Wednesday at 82.4325 ** USD/INR forward premium for current month at 12.5 paise ** Dollar index at 113.30 ** Brent crude futures down 0% at $92.4 per barrel ** Ten-year U.S. note yield at 3.92% ** SGX Nifty nearest-month futures down 0.3% at 17,050 ** As per NSDL data, foreign investors sold a net $456.5mln worth of Indian shares on Oct. 11

** NSDL data shows foreign investors bought a net $61.2mln worth of Indian bonds on Oct.

"The big challenge for the RBI will come tomorrow if U.S. inflation data surprises on the upside."

U.S. consumer prices are expected to have climbed 8.1% year-on-year last month, while the core inflation rate is projected at 6.5% according to economists polled by Reuters.

The consumer inflation print comes on the back of a higher-than-expected increase in U.S. wholesale prices. The U.S. producer price index for final demand rose 0.4% last month compared with expectations of 0.2%, suggesting persistent inflationary pressures in the world's largest economy.

In recent weeks, Fed officials have been consistent in signalling that curtailing inflation is a top priority and more rate hikes were needed. The September meeting minutes released Wednesday showed many officials stressed the cost of not doing enough to bring down inflation.

Meanwhile, India's retail inflation accelerated in September to 7.41% year-on-year on surging food prices, above the central bank's upper tolerance level for ninth month in a row and raising chances of further rate hikes.

Asian currencies were trading mixed, while equities were mostly lower ahead of the U.S. inflation data.

Amirul Islam Israel pays family of dead Palestinian and America Uk India Covid Info Update Johir 2023

 Israel says it has reached a settlement to compensate the family of a Palestinian-American man who died earlier this year after he was detained by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank

Amirul Islam Israel pays family of dead Palestinian and America Uk India Covid Info Update Johir 2023

Six years after fleeing Yemen and arriving in Hong Kong, Suleiman* remains separated from his wife and son, uncertain if they can be reunited to start life anew somewhere else.

His claim for non-refoulement, the city’s de facto asylum status, failed in 2018. He appealed to the Torture Claims Appeal Board the same year, but has yet to learn his fate.

“Every day in Hong Kong, I die a little,” the 41-year-old told the Post.

Hong Kong passed a raft of legislative changes more than a year ago to speed up the screening of asylum seekers and prevent abuse of the process, but Suleiman and others continue to wait for the outcome of their cases.

German police said it had not excluded political motives in the suspected sabotage of communication cables on Germany's rail network on Saturday but that there was no sign of any involvement by a foreign state or terrorism.

A spokesperson for the Berlin criminal police bureau said on Sunday that it was still investigating the sabotage of radio communication cables in Berlin and Herne in North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), which halted all rail traffic in northern Germany for around three hours on Saturday.

FILE - Mourners take a last look at the body of Omar Asaad, 78, during his funeral at a mosque in the West Bank village of Jiljiliya, north of Ramallah, Jan. 13, 2022. Israel said Sunday, Oct. 9, 2022, that it

JERUSALEM -- Israel's Defense Ministry said Sunday that it had reached a settlement to compensate the family of a Palestinian-American man who died earlier this year after he was detained by Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.

Amirul Islam Israel pays family of dead Palestinian and America Uk India Covid Info Update Johir 2023

European carmakers expect sales in the European Union (EU) to slip 1% this year after previously expecting a return to growth. They want unspecified government help to help spur economic growth and grease the move towards electric cars with more subsidies for the charging infrastructure

Israeli authorities have arrested at least three Palestinians in connection to a deadly attack on an Israeli military checkpoint Saturday evening.

Israeli police are still conducting a manhunt for the suspected gunman in Saturday's attack, which killed an 18-year-old female soldier and left three others wounded. Israeli Defense Forces have identified the deceased soldier as Noa Lazar.

"Our hearts tonight are with the wounded and their families," said Prime Minister Yair Lapid. "Terrorism will not defeat us. We are also strong on this difficult evening."

"We will not be silent, and we will not rest until we bring the abominable killers to justice," he added.

Germany’s foreign minister is calling for European Union entry bans and asset freezes against those responsible for what she described as brutal repression against anti-government protesters in Iran.

The most sustained protests in years against Iran's theocracy are now in their fourth week. They erupted Sept. 17 after the burial of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in the custody of Iran’s feared morality police. Amini had been detained for an alleged violation of strict Islamic dress codes for women.

Since then, protests spread across the country and have been met by a fierce crackdown, in which dozens are estimated to have been killed and hundreds arrested.

“Those who beat up women and girls on the street, carry off people who want nothing other than to live freely, arrest them arbitrarily and sentence them to death stand on the wrong side of history,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was quoted as telling Sunday’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

 

“We will ensure that the EU imposes entry bans on those responsible for this brutal repression and freezes their assets in the EU," she added. "We say to people in Iran: We stand and remain by your side.”

Baerbock didn't name any specific individuals or organizations.

On Thursday, EU lawmakers approved a resolution calling for sanctions against those responsible for the death of Amini and the subsequent crackdown.

Germany, along with fellow EU member France, is among the nations that are part of a 2015 agreement with Iran to address concerns over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program and have been attempting to revive the deal.

Talks on the deal have languished but if it's reinstated, the agreement would provide sanctions relief that would help strengthen the Iranian government.

Iran’s state TV was hijacked during a speech by the country’s supreme leader late on Saturday, with his address replaced by images of the young women that have been killed in the protests that have rocked the country over the last four weeks.

For about 15 seconds, images that were sympathetic to the nationwide women-led protest movement were aired, including photos of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei surrounded by flames as the phrases “the blood of our youth is on your hands” and “join us and rise up!” flashed across the screen.

A popular chant of protesters across the country “Woman. Life. Freedom” was woven into a song that played over the background of the hacking, which was claimed by the Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) hacktivist group.

The hacking came as the demonstrations presenting the biggest threat to the Islamic regime in years entered their fourth week amid increasingly heavy crackdowns by security forces.

The protests were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini after she was detained by Tehran's notorious morality police, allegedly for not covering her hair properly.

 

A protester holds up an image of Mahsa Amini, whose death sparked protests across Iran CREDIT: AP

Two members of Iran’s security forces were killed in the protests on Saturday, according to Iranian state media, bringing the total to an estimated 14.

Meanwhile, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights said at least 185 people have been collectively killed in the protests.

With large-scale street protests subsiding in Tehran, the youth-led demonstrations have taken over university campuses.

School girls have been seen marching down the streets waving their legally mandated hijabs in the air and shouting “death to the dictator”, while Tehran’s prestigious Sharif university remains closed after a violent crackdown on student protesters last weekend.

Tehran’s bazaars have also seen clashes as many shopkeepers joined a growing nationwide strike.

According to videos online thousands of protesters descended on Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology on Saturday.

 

Iran's universities have emerged as a focal point of the protest movement. CREDIT: AP

At the same time, President Ebrahim Raisi visited the all-female Al Zahra university, using it as an opportunity to double down on the government’s rhetoric that the protests were being organised by foreign enemies.

"The enemy thought that it can pursue its desires in universities while unaware that our students and teachers are aware and they will not allow the enemies' vain plans to be realised," he said.

Female students chanted "get lost" at the premier in return, videos on social media show.

In the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Saqez, where mass demonstrations had been called for, security forces shot at protestors and fired tear gas according to the Hengaw human rights group.

One man lay dead in his car while a woman screamed "shameless", they said, after a man in Sanandaj was shot by security forces after honking his horn to show support to the protests.

Security forces continue to deny using live ammunition on the protesters.

ERUSALEM, Israel — A controversial Israeli politician this week fired back at a report claiming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said that his potential role in a new Israeli coalition government would damage U.S. relations with the Jewish state.

The news website Axios reported that during a Sept. 5 meeting between Menendez and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the New Jersey lawmaker said he has "serious concerns" about a coalition government with "extremist and polarizing individuals like [Itamar] Ben-Gvir." Israelis go to the polls next month.

According to the Axios article, a source said, "People who were in the room saw how p---ed off Bibi [Netanyahu] got" in response to Menendez’s comments.

The controversial far-right Israeli politician in question is Itamar Ben-Gvir. His party has been gaining in the polls and could finish as high as third or fourth place in the upcoming election.

ISRAEL CALLS FOR NEW ELECTIONS ONE MONTH BEFORE BIDEN VISIT

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. (AP)

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) party said, "I am deeply concerned by reports that Senator Menendez has aimed incorrect and mistaken criticisms at the millions of Israelis who will soon vote in favor of a center-right government and me personally."

He continued, "Everyone knows that the senator is a true friend of Israel and a champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and more importantly, he is a man of integrity. Therefore, my sense is that he would not have made the statements reported had he been correctly informed of the positions I hold, as well as those I do not hold."

Ben-Gvir has faced criticism for tearing the Cadillac emblem off of Yitzhak Rabin the then-Israeli prime minister’s car in 1995 and stating, "We reached Rabin’s car, we will get to Rabin, too." Israeli extremist Yigal Amir, then 25, assassinated Rabin in the same year.

Critics have painted Ben-Gvir as a right-wing extremist for his connections and support of far right-wing elements in Israel, including the late Rabbi Meir Kahane whose ultra-nationalist party was outlawed from running in subsequent elections for inciting racism against Arabs. Kahane was assassinated by a terrorist in Manhattan in 1990.

In a recent interview with the Associated Press Shuki Friedman, an expert on Israel’s far right described Ben-Gvir as being "a populist demagogue … he interviews well, he is good on camera, and he has had plenty of screen time that has given him legitimacy," noted Friedman of the Jewish People Policy Institute.

ACEA, the European carmakers association known by its French acronym, joined the echo chamber forecasting sales weakness in Europe in 2022, but didn’t attempt to predict 2023. Prospects for sales of cars and SUVs are looking increasingly weak.

 

Professor Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Duisberg, Germany, puts the outlook this way.

“The risk of Europe falling into recession is high. The Ukraine war and the associated increases in energy prices have hit industry and sent the economy into a downward spiral. Fighting inflation is the big challenge for most central banks and will increase significantly. There are few arguments for investors to encourage buying auto stocks,” Dudenhoeffer said.

Hurricane Ian’s wrath had barely subsided in Florida when advertisements for day laborers started popping up on phones across New York through online platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp.

The Spanish-language messages appeared to target recently arrived immigrants and asylum seekers who were desperate for work and had nowhere else to turn.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it detected two missile launches Sunday between 1:48 a.m. and 1:58 a.m. from the North’s eastern coastal city of Munchon. It added that South Korea’s military has boosted its surveillance posture and maintains a readiness in close coordination with the United States.

 

Japanese Vice Defense Minister Toshiro Ino also confirmed the launches, saying Pyongyang’s testing activities are “absolutely unacceptable” as they threaten regional and international peace and security.

Advocates said they are worried the migrants are becoming targets of fly-by-night businesses eager to exploit people for hard work and low wages.

“This looks and smells like human trafficking,” said Ariadna Phillips, a New York community organizer with South Bronx Mutual Aid.

“They recruit them with these very flashy photographs, saying, 'You're going to make a bunch of money' and 'We're going to give you this great apartment to live in,'" Phillips added.

But when the workers arrive, it's a different story.

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida and devastated dozens of communities, Phillips said she has already heard from several laborers whose wages have been docked to pay for their room and board. They told her that was not part of their agreement with the company.

Some of the people who were recruited had been in the United States for only a week, she said.

"I tell them to stay in New York because that's where they're going to be the safest," Phillips said. "We're a sanctuary city, and Florida was already trying to send people to Martha's Vineyard."

Gov. Ron DeSantis flew two planes of immigrants to the wealthy Massachusetts enclave last month as part of an effort to “transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations,” his communications director, Taryn Fenske, said in a statement at the time.

On Tuesday, DeSantis said at a news conference that three of four people arrested last week for "ransacking" communities following Hurricane Ian were illegal immigrants who should be immediately deported.

"They should not be here at all," he said.

His office did not return a request for comment.

On Friday, DeSantis encouraged Florida debris companies to hire locally.

"Many Floridians in Southwest Florida have had their businesses and livelihoods impacted by the storm and are looking for work — the private sector can help them get back on their feet by hiring locally for the length of recovery, which will support the local economy for at least

The same can be said for consumers. Anyone thinking of buying a new car, might well just wait another year before replacing the old one.

ACEA President and CEO of BMW Oliver Zipse didn’t say what government help he wanted, or how much should be spent on electric charging.

MORE FOR YOU

Philippine police killed three detained militants linked to the Islamic State group after they staged a jail rampage Sunday that saw a police officer stabbed and a former opposition senator briefly held hostage in a failed escape attempt from the maximum-security facility in the police headquarters in the capital, police said.

National police chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. said former Sen. Leila de Lima was unhurt and taken to a hospital for a checkup following the brazen escape attempt and hostage-taking at the detention center for high-profile inmates at the main police camp in Metropolitan Manila.

One of the three inmates stabbed a police officer who was delivering breakfast after dawn in an open area, where inmates can exercise outdoors. A police officer in a sentry tower fired warning shots, and then shot and killed two of the prisoners, including Abu Sayyaf commander Idang Susukan, when they refused to yield, police said.

The third inmate ran to de Lima’s cell and briefly held her hostage, but he was also gunned down by police commandos, Azurin said.

According to earlier reports, the exercises were set to involve army personnel from CSTO members Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and focus on securing ceasefires. Observers from five further states, including Serbia, Syria and Uzbekistan, had also been invited.

In a time of violence, warfare and bloodshed, what is the use of literature? This was a question addressed at the Lviv BookForum, a three-day literary festival in the Ukrainian city, staged despite – and in defiance of – the Russian invasion.

Damaged residential building in Zaporizhzhia. Photograph: Ukrainian State Emergency Servic/AFP/Getty

 

The time is just past 1pm in Kyiv. Here is what you might have missed:

• Shelling in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has killed at least 17 people, city official Anatoliy Kurtev has said. Anton Gerashchenko, a senior presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said preliminary figures suggested 17 dead and 40 wounded after an attack on residential housing. “The Russians are not able to respond on the battlefield and therefore hit the cities in the rear,” he said. The city lies 125km (80 miles) from the Russian-held nuclear power plant that is Europe’s largest.

• Zelenskiy has vowed that those who ordered and issued the “merciless” strikes in Ukraine’s south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia will be held responsible. In a post on his Facebook page, he said the attack was “evil” and that everyone involved in the incident “will be held accountable”.

• The damage from Saturday’s explosion on the Kerch bridge in Crimea could have a “significant” impact on Russia’s “already strained ability to sustain its forces” in southern Ukraine, the latest UK intelligence update says. The Ministry of Defence said the blast “will likely touch President Putin closely” for reasons including that it came hours after his 70th birthday, he personally sponsored and opened the bridge, and its construction contractor was a childhood friend. The ministry said the bridge’s rail crossing had played a key role in moving heavy military vehicles to the southern front during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

• Russian divers will on Sunday examine the extent of damage from the blast on the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia. Russian news agencies quoted the deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, as saying the divers would start work on Sunday at 6am (0300 GMT), with a more detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by the end of the day.

• Vladimir Putin signed a decree late on Saturday tightening security for the Kerch bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia after the explosion that crippled the heavily guarded bridge. Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, is in charge of the effort. By Saturday evening, Russia said the rail link across the bridge was operational again but road traffic would remain constricted.

• An adviser to Zelenskiy said the explosion on the Kerch bridge was just “the beginning”. Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter: “Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything that is stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.” Three people were killed on Saturday after a truck bomb caused a fire and the collapse of a section of the bridge, Russian officials said.

• Russian troops fighting in the Mykolaiv, Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia regions of southern Ukraine could receive all the supplies they needed via existing land and sea corridors, said Russia’s defence ministry after the Kerch bridge explosion. The road-and-rail bridge has been used to take Russian personnel and military supplies through the peninsula into other parts of Ukraine’s south.

• The parliamentary leader of Zelenskiy’s party has stopped short of claiming Kyiv was responsible for the Kerch bridge blast but appeared to cast it as a consequence of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea and attempts to integrate the peninsula with the Russian mainland. “Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire,” David Arakhamia wrote on Telegram. “The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode.”

• Russia has named a new senior commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Sergei Surovikin is a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s. He led the Russian military expedition in Syria in 2017, where he was accused of using “controversial” tactics including indiscriminate bombing against anti-government fighters.

• Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops were involved in “very tough fighting” near Bakhmut, a strategically important eastern town Russia is trying to take. Reuters reported that while Ukrainian troops had recaptured thousands of square kilometres of land in recent offensives in the east and south, officials say progress is likely to slow once Kyiv’s forces meet more determined resistance. Zelenskiy said in his nightly address: “We are holding our positions in the Donbas, in particular in the Bakhmut direction, where it is very, very difficult now – very tough fighting.”

• Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, said the diesel generators at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant had only a limited supply of fuel. Overnight shelling cut power to the plant, which needs cooling to avoid a meltdown, forcing it to switch to emergency generators. The United Natoins atomic watchdog has renewed calls for a protection zone at the plant, condemning the shelling as “tremendously irresponsible”.

• Ukraine’s GDP has shrunk by 30% in nine months, the ministry of economy said on Saturday. “Among the negative factors that affected the economy, the weather and the actions of the occupiers stand out,” it said.

• France’s prestigious Bayeux War Correspondents’ Awards on Saturday largely honoured reporting on the Ukraine conflict, with Associated Press and Burkina Faso newspaper Sidwaya among the recipients. The photo prize went to Ukrainian photographer Evgeniy Maloletka for his work with video journalist Mstyslav Chernov on the fall of Mariupol for AP.

• The series of explosions that rocked Kharkiv early on Saturday sparked a fire at one of the city’s medical institutions, the mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city said. Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the explosions were the result of missile strikes in the city centre, Associated Press reported. They also sparked a fire in a non-residential building.

• The German defence minister has told Nato it must do more to bolster security, warning: “We cannot know how far Putin’s delusions of grandeur can go.” Christine Lambrecht said Germany had heard of Russian threats to Lithuania for implementing EU sanctions and that they must be taken seriously and be prepared, Reuters reported.

• The UK has rejected Moscow’s call for a secret ballot in the UN general assembly next week on whether to condemn Russia’s move to annex four regions in Ukraine and requested that the 193-member body vote publicly. The general assembly is set to vote on a draft resolution that would condemn Russia’s “illegal so-called referenda” and the “attempted illegal annexation”.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is being accompanied by the destruction and pillaging of historical sites and treasures on an industrial scale, Ukrainian authorities said.

In an interview with the Associated Press (AP), Ukraine’s culture minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, alleged that Russian soldiers helped themselves to artefacts in almost 40 Ukrainian museums.

The looting and destruction of cultural sites has caused losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros, the minister added.

He said:

 

The attitude of Russians toward Ukrainian culture heritage is a war crime.

Mariupol’s exiled city council said Russian forces pilfered more than 2,000 items from the city’s museums.

Among the most precious items were ancient religious icons, a unique handwritten Torah scroll, a 200-year-old bible and more than 200 medals, the council said.

Also looted were artworks by painters Arkhip Kuindzhi, who was born in Mariupol, and Crimea-born Ivan Aivazovsky, both famed for their seascapes, the exiled councillors said.

The UN’s cultural agency is keeping a tally of sites being struck by missiles, bombs and shelling.

With the war now in its eighth month, the agency says it has verified damage to 199 sites in 12 regions.

They include 84 churches and other religious sites, 37 buildings of historic importance, 37 buildings for cultural activities, 18 monuments, 13 museums and 10 libraries, Unesco said.

 

Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s culture minister. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP© Provided by The Guardian

 

11:56 Peter Beaumont

Peter Beaumont reports for us from Kyiv:

At least 17 people have been killed by Russian shelling of a residential area in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a region that the Kremlin illegally claims to have annexed despite not controlling all of it.

The overnight attack happened in the aftermath of a devastating explosion on the key bridge linking Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland, a prestige project of the president, Vladimir Putin. The blast seriously damaged the 12-mile-long (19km) structure, which serves as an important military supply route.

The Zaporizhzhia strike came as Ukrainians – jubilant over the damage to the Kerch bridge, a hated symbol of Putin’s ambitions – were bracing for a major retaliation by Moscow, which had warned Kyiv against targeting the structure

Russia has appointed a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s as its first overall commander for the war in Ukraine, as the Kremlin struggles to halt a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has left its forces in disarray.

The appointment of Gen Sergei Surovikin came on the same day as Vladimir Putin was dealt a humiliating blow after an explosion on the Kerch bridge sank a section of the motorway into the Kerch Strait and caused a major fire on the railway.

Surovikin is a veteran commander who led the Russian military expedition in Syria in 2017, where he was accused o

Ukraine’s ministry of defence has posted pictures of the missile strike on the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

The tweet adds that if Ukrainian military forces “had modern anti-missile systems, we could have prevented such tragedies”.

At least 17 die in shelling of housing in Zaporizhzhia

09:13

Shelling in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has killed at least 17 people, city official Anatoliy Kurtev has said.

Anton Gerashchenko, a senior presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said preliminary figures suggested 17 dead and 40 wounded after an attack on residential housing. “The Russians are not able to respond on the battlefield and therefore hit the cities in the rear,” he said.

The city lies 125km (80 miles) from the Russian-held nuclear power plant that is Europe’s largest.

A rescuer at a damaged residential building in Zaporizhzhia after the Russian airstrike. Photograph: Reuters© Provided by The Guardian

 

09:12

At least 12 people were killed and 49 hospitalised, including six children, as a result of the shelling in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the region’s governor says.

A nine-storey building was partially destroyed overnight, five other residential buildings levelled and many more damaged in 12 Russian missile attacks on the city in south-east Ukraine, Reuters quoted Oleksandr Starukh as saying.

The governor said on Telegram:

 

There may be more people under the rubble. A rescue operation is under way at the scene. Eight people have already been rescued.

City official Anatoliy Kurtev had said earlier that at least 17 people were killed when missiles hit a high-rise apartment complex and buildings.

Peter Beaumont in Kyiv and Pjotr Sauer report:

As a chilly autumn dawn broke on Saturday over the Kerch bridge linking Russia-occupied Crimea to the mainland, the road traffic was light.

With the sky turning pink, a few cars and several lorries were making their way across the bridge, which is about 12 miles (19km) long and before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine was used by 15,000 cars a day,

A little way distant and above the cars, a long cargo train carrying tankers of fuel among its wagons was also making its way towards the peninsula across the parallel railway bridge.

The blast, when it came at 6.07am (3.07 GMT), was devastating. CCTV footage posted on Russian Telegram channels showed a car and a lorry moving almost together when a vast fireball engulfed them, orange mixed with a storm of white-hot fragments swirling around the span.

CCTV footage appears to show the moment the bridge linking Crimea and Russia was hit by a huge explosion early on Saturday morning.

The Kerch bridge, a hated symbol of the Kremlin’s occupation of the southern Ukrainian peninsula, was built in 2018.

Footage shared on Russian Telegram channels and news agencies appeared to show the moment of the explosion with two vehicles, a truck and a car, at the centre of the blast, although it was unclear whether either was responsible or simply caught up in the detonatio

07:39

Russian divers will on Sunday examine the extent of damage from the blast on the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to Russia.

Russian news agencies quoted the deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, as saying the divers would start work on Sunday at 6am (0300 GMT), with a more detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by the end of the day.

The work came as the Kremlin-installed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said:

 

Of course, emotions have been triggered and there is a healthy desire to seek revenge.

 

Cimea bridge blast could have 'significant' impact on Russian forces, says MoD

07:31

The damage from Saturday’s explosion on the Kerch bridge in Crimea could have a “significant” impact on Russia’s “already strained ability to sustain its forces” in southern Ukraine, the latest UK intelligence update says.

The Ministry of Defence said the blast “will likely touch President Putin closely” for reasons including that it came hours after his 70th birthday, he personally sponsored and opened the bridge, and its construction contractor was a childhood friend.

The ministry said the bridge’s rail crossing had played a key role in moving heavy military vehicles to the southern front during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The extent of damage to the rail crossing was uncertain, it said, but any serious disruption to its capacity would be “highly likely” to significantly affect Russian forces in Ukraine’s south.

s in Moscow and in Russian-occupied Ukraine have called for retaliation over the explosion that heavily damaged the Kerch bridge linking Crimea and Russia on Saturday.

“There is an undisguised terrorist war against us,” Russian ruling party deputy Oleg Morozov told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Agence France-Presse quoted a Russian-installed official in the occupied Ukrainian Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, as saying:

 

Everyone is waiting for a retaliatory strike and it is likely to come.

Military analysts said the blast could have a major impact if Moscow saw the need to shift already hard-pressed troops to the Crimea from other regions or if it prompted a rush by residents to leave.

Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general now with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that even if Ukrainians were not behind the blast, it constituted “a massive influence operation win for Ukraine”.

He said on Twitter:

• Vladimir Putin signed a decree late on Saturday tightening security for the Kerch bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia after the explosion that crippled the heavily guarded bridge. Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, is in charge of the effort. By Saturday evening, Russia said the rail link across the bridge was operational again but road traffic would remain constricted.

• An adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the explosion on the Kerch bridge was just “the beginning”. Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter: “Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything that is stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.” Three people were killed on Saturday after a truck bomb caused a fire and the collapse of a section of the bridge, Russian officials said.

• Russian troops fighting in the Mykolaiv, Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia regions of southern Ukraine could receive all the supplies they needed via existing land and sea corridors, said Russia’s defence ministry after the Kerch bridge explosion. The road-and-rail bridge has been used to take Russian personnel and military supplies through the peninsula into other parts of Ukraine’s south.

• The parliamentary leader of Zelenskiy’s party has stopped short of claiming Kyiv was responsible for the Kerch bridge blast but appeared to cast it as a consequence of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea and attempts to integrate the peninsula with the Russian mainland. “Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire,” David Arakhamia wrote on Telegram. “The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode.”

• Russia has named a new senior commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. Sergei Surovikin is a notorious general who opened fire on pro-democracy protesters in the 1990s. He led the Russian military expedition in Syria in 2017, where he was accused of using “controversial” tactics including indiscriminate bombing against anti-government fighters.

• Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops were involved in “very tough fighting” near Bakhmut, a strategically important eastern town Russia is trying to take. Reuters reported that while Ukrainian troops had recaptured thousands of square kilometres of land in recent offensives in the east and south, officials say progress is likely to slow once Kyiv’s forces meet more determined resistance. Zelenskiy said in his nightly address: “We are holding our positions in the Donbas, in particular in the Bakhmut direction, where it is very, very difficult now – very tough fighting.”

• Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, said the diesel generators at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant had only a limited supply of fuel. Overnight shelling cut power to the plant, which needs cooling to avoid a meltdown, forcing it to switch to emergency generators. The United Natoins atomic watchdog has renewed calls for a protection zone at the plant, condemning the shelling as “tremendously irresponsible”.

• Ukraine’s GDP has shrunk by 30% in nine months, the ministry of economy said on Saturday. “Among the negative factors that affected the economy, the weather and the actions of the occupiers stand out,” it said.

• France’s prestigious Bayeux War Correspondents’ Awards on Saturday largely honoured reporting on the Ukraine conflict, with Associated Press and Burkina Faso newspaper Sidwaya among the recipients. The photo prize went to Ukrainian photographer Evgeniy Maloletka for his work with video journalist Mstyslav Chernov on the fall of Mariupol for AP.

• The series of explosions that rocked Kharkiv early on Saturday sparked a fire at one of the city’s medical institutions, the mayor of the eastern Ukrainian city said. Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the explosions were the result of missile strikes in the city centre, Associated Press reported. They also sparked a fire in a non-residential building.

• The German defence minister has told Nato it must do more to bolster security, warning: “We cannot know how far Putin’s delusions of grandeur can go.” Christine Lambrecht said Germany had heard of Russian threats to Lithuania for implementing EU sanctions and that they must be taken seriously and be prepared, Reuters reported.

• The UK has rejected Moscow’s call for a secret ballot in the UN general assembly next week on whether to condemn Russia’s move to annex four regions in Ukraine and requested that the 193-member body vote publicly. The general assembly is set to vote on a draft resolution that would condemn Russia’s “illegal so-called referenda” and the “attempted illegal annexation”.

 

The move by Bishkek is the latest indication that tensions may be simmering within the alliance, formed in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Last month, Armenia skipped a two-week drill held by the collective in Kazakhstan, after criticizing the bloc for failing to openly side with it after large-scale fighting erupted on its border with non-member Azerbaijan in September.

Russia and other CSTO countries effectively turned down Yerevan's request for military aid, issued hours after hostilities began, and limited their response to sending fact-finding missions to the border. Armenian authorities had accused the Azerbaijani government in Baku of using heavy artillery and combat drones to strike Armenian army positions.

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“She’s safe. We were able to quickly resolve the incident inside the custodial center,” Azurin told reporters and justified police action to shoot the inmates. “Sen. De Lima was already being held hostage so should we let that very critical situation drag on?”

Susukan, who had been blamed for dozens of killings and beheadings of hostages, including foreign tourists, and other terrorist attacks was arrested two years ago in southern Davao city.

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The settlement marks a rare case of compensation in a Palestinian claim against alleged wrongdoing by Israeli military forces and comes after U.S. criticism against Israel.

In January, Israeli troops detained Omar Asaad, 78, at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, binding his hands and blindfolding him. Israeli troops then unbound his hands and left him face-down in an abandoned building.

Asaad, who had lived in the U.S. for four decades, was pronounced dead at a hospital after other Palestinians who had been detained found him unconscious. It was unclear when exactly he died.

On Sunday, the Defense Ministry said that it had reached a settlement with Asaad’s family, which had filed a claim against the state in an Israeli court.

The ministry said that “in light of the unfortunate event’s unique circumstances," it agreed to pay the family 500,000 shekels, or about $141,000.

After an outcry from the U.S. government, the Israeli military issued a rare statement earlier this year saying the incident “was a grave and unfortunate event, resulting from moral failure and poor decision-making on the part of the soldiers.” It said one officer was reprimanded, and two other officers reassigned to noncommanding roles, over the incident.