Category: World

Trump announced a 10 per cent tariff hike on Canadian imports over Ontario’s edited Reagan ad, which he called “fraudulent.” The Reagan Foundation criticised the ad, and Canada remains open to trade talks.

US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he was raising tariffs on Canadian imports by an additional 10 per cent, saying the increase would be charged “above what they’re paying now.” The move comes just two days after Trump ended trade talks with Ottawa, accusing Canada of running a misleading advertisement.

Trump made the announcement on Truth Social, referring to an advertisement aired by the government of the Canadian province of Ontario. The ad, which was aired Friday during Game 1 of Major League Baseball’s World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers, featured late US president Ronald Reagan, a Republican icon, warning that tariffs could spark trade wars and economic hardship.

“Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” Trump wrote about the Reagan ad.

In his post, Trump called the advertisement “fraudulent” and accused Ottawa of manipulating Reagan’s speech: “The Reagan Foundation said that they created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan. The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address and ‘did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter.’ The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their ‘rescue’ on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States”.

Earlier this year, Trump had imposed a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian exports and a 10 per cent tariff on energy products. In retaliation, Canada levied counter-tariffs on USD 30 billion worth of US imports, including orange juice, wine, spirits, beer, coffee, appliances, apparel, and more. Following tariffs on steel and aluminium, Canada also imposed a 25 per cent tariff on US steel, aluminium, tools, computers, servers, display monitors, sports equipment, and cast-iron products.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday said that Canada remains ready to resume trade talks with the United States.

WHAT IS THE CONTROVERSIAL RONALD REAGAN AD?

The controversy erupted after a Canadian political advertisement used an edited recording of former US president Ronald Reagan to criticise Trump’s tariffs. The ad, reportedly released by Ontario’s provincial government, spliced portions of Reagan’s 1987 radio address to suggest that tariffs are harmful, a message Trump called misrepresented. In the ad, Reagan said, “When someone says, ‘Let’s impose tariffs on foreign imports,’ it looks like they’re doing the patriotic thing… but only for a short time,” adding, “over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer.”

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/trump-hits-canada-with-10-extra-import-tax-over-anti-tariff-reagan-ad-glbs-2808437-2025-10-26

Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, who brought glamour and elegance to a postwar revival in the country’s monarchy and who, in later years, would occasionally wade into politics, has died aged 93, the Thai Royal Household Bureau said on Saturday.
Sirikit had been out of the public eye since a stroke in 2012.

The palace said she had been hospitalised since 2019 due to several illnesses and developed a bloodstream infection on October 17 before passing away late on Friday.

A mourning period of one year has been declared for members of the royal family and household.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul cancelled his trip to the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia due to the Queen Mother’s death, a government spokesperson said. The cabinet will meet on Saturday to discuss a royal funeral.

STYLE ICON WHO CHARMED THE WORLD

Sirikit’s husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, with 70 years on the throne since 1946. She was at his side for much of that, winning over hearts at home with their charity work.
When they travelled abroad, she also charmed the world’s media with her beauty and fashion sense.

During a 1960 visit to the United States that included a state dinner at the White House, Time magazine called her “svelte” and “archfeminist.” The French daily L’Aurore described her as “ravishing”.
Born in 1932, the year Thailand transitioned to a constitutional monarchy from an absolute monarchy, Sirikit Kitiyakara was the daughter of Thailand’s ambassador to France and led a life of wealth and privilege.
While studying music and language in Paris she met Bhumibol, who had spent parts of his childhood in Switzerland.
“It was hate at first sight,” she said in a BBC documentary, noting that he had arrived late to their first meeting. “Then it was love.”
The couple spent time together in Paris and were engaged in 1949. They married in Thailand a year later when she was 17.
Always stylish, Sirikit collaborated with French couturier Pierre Balmain on eye-catching outfits made from Thai silk. By supporting the preservation of traditional weaving practices, she is credited with helping revitalise Thailand’s silk industry.

CHAMPIONED RURAL DEVELOPMENT

For more than four decades, she frequently travelled with the king to remote Thai villages, promoting development projects for the rural poor – their activities televised nightly on the country’s Royal Bulletin.
She was briefly regent in 1956, when her husband spent two weeks in a temple, studying to become a Buddhist monk in a rite of passage common in Thailand.
In 1976, her birthday, August 12, became Mother’s Day and a national holiday in Thailand.
Her only son, now King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X, succeeded Bhumibol after his death in 2016 and upon his coronation in 2019, Sirikit’s formal title became the Queen Mother.
Officially, the monarchy is above politics in Thailand, whose modern history has been dominated by coups and unstable governments. On occasion though, the royals including Sirikit have either intervened or taken actions seen as political.

In 1998, she used her birthday address to urge Thais to unite behind the then prime minister, Chuan Leekpai, dealing a crippling blow to an opposition plan to hold a non-confidence debate in the hope of forcing a new election.
Later, she became associated with a political movement, the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), whose protests brought down governments led by or allied to Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former telecoms tycoon.
In 2008, Sirikit attended a funeral of a PAD protester killed in clashes with police, implying royal backing for a campaign that had helped oust a pro-Thaksin government a year earlier.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/thailands-queen-mother-sirikit-dies-aged-93-bbc-reports-2025-10-24/

President Donald Trump’s administration escalated a U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean on Friday by announcing the deployment of the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier group to Latin America — a show of force far beyond any past counter-narcotics effort and Washington’s most assertive move in the region yet.
The deployment, which adds to the eight warships, a nuclear submarine and F-35 aircraft already in the region, marks a significant escalation amid heightened tensions with Venezuela, whose government Washington has long accused of harboring drug traffickers and undermining democratic institutions.

“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted on X.
He did not specify when the carrier would be moving to the region, but as of a few days ago, the carrier was traveling via the Strait of Gibraltar and in Europe.
The Ford, which was commissioned in 2017, is the United States’ newest aircraft carrier and the world’s largest, with more than 5,000 sailors aboard.

The U.S. military has carried out 10 strikes against alleged drug vessels, mostly in the Caribbean, since early September, killing about 40 people. While the Pentagon has not given much information, it has said some of those killed were Venezuelan.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly alleged that the U.S. is hoping to drive him from power.
On Thursday, Maduro warned that if the U.S. ever intervened in the country, “the working class would rise and a general insurrectional strike would be declared in the streets until power is regained,” adding that “millions of men and women with rifles would march across the country.”
Washington in August doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, accusing him of links to drug trafficking and criminal groups that Maduro denies.

Tensions between the United States and Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia, have also spiked in recent days, with Trump accusing Colombian President Gustavo Petro of being an “illegal drug leader” and a “bad guy” – language Petro’s government says is offensive.
“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle (transnational criminal organizations),” Parnell said.
Trump has authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.
Just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the carrier deployment, the Trump administration announced that it was imposing sanctions on Petro, citing alleged illicit drugs.

INCREASING MILITARY BUILDUP

Trump has said that his Republican administration plans to brief the U.S. Congress on operations against drug cartels and that even though he did not need a declaration of war, operations against cartels on land would be next.

On Friday, Hegseth announced that the latest strike against an alleged drug vessel killed six suspected “narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean.
The strikes have raised alarms among some legal experts and Democratic lawmakers, who question whether they adhere to the laws of war.
Some Republican lawmakers cheered the carrier deployment.
“President Trump is not messing around when it comes to protecting the U.S. and our Western Hemisphere neighborhood,” U.S. Representative Rick Crawford of Arkansas posted on X.
Last week, Reuters was first to report that two alleged drug traffickers survived a U.S. military strike in the Caribbean. They were rescued and taken to a U.S. Navy warship before being repatriated to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador.
With only 11 aircraft carriers in the U.S. military’s arsenal, they are a scarce resource and their schedules are usually set well in advance.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-military-deploy-aircraft-carrier-south-america-amid-soaring-tensions-with-2025-10-24/

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday urged the United States to expand sanctions on Russian oil from two companies to the whole sector, and appealed for long-range missiles to hit back at Russia.

Zelenskyy was in London for talks with two dozen European leaders who have pledged military help to shield his country from future Russian aggression if a ceasefire stops the more than three-year war.

The meeting hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer aimed to step up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding momentum to recent measures that have included a new round of sanctions from the United States and European countries on Russia’s vital oil and gas export earnings.

The talks also addressed ways of helping protect Ukraine’s power grid from Russia’s almost daily drone and missiles attacks as winter approaches, enhancing Ukrainian air defenses, and supplying Kyiv with longer-range missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. Zelenskyy has urged the U.S. to send Tomahawk missiles, an idea U.S. President Donald Trump has flirted with.

The Ukrainian leader said Trump’s decision this week to impose oil sanctions was “a big step,” and said “we have to apply pressure not only to Rosneft and Lukoil, but to all Russian oil companies.”

“Besides, we are carrying out our own campaign of pressure with drones and missiles specifically targeting the Russian oil sector,” he said during a news conference at the Foreign Office in London.

Trump also has put on hold a plan for a swift meeting with Putin in Budapest, because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.”

Putin has so far resisted efforts to push him into negotiating a peace settlement with Zelenskyy and has argued that the motives for Russia’s all-out invasion of its smaller neighbor are legitimate. Russia has also been adept at finding loopholes in Western sanctions.

A top Russian official said Friday he has arrived in the United States for talks with U.S. officials. Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation, announced his visit in a post on X. He said it was “planned a while ago” on an invitation “from the U.S. side.”

Dmitriev will meet with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, a White House official not authorized to publicly discuss the private meeting confirmed on condition of anonymity. The meeting was first reported by Axios.

Dmitriev has been a key interlocutor in discussions between the Trump administration and the Kremlin on numerous issues, including the Ukraine war and the release of American detainees in Russia.

Putin’s unbudging stance has exasperated Western leaders.

“He’s rejected the opportunity for talks once again, instead making ludicrous demands for Ukrainian land, which he could not and has not taken by force,” Starmer said at a news conference alongside Zelenskyy and several other European leaders. “Of course, that is a complete non-starter.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Putin’s goals remain unchanged but he “is running out of money, troops and ideas.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof also attended Friday’s meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing” in person. About 20 other leaders joined by video link.

Building a ‘reassurance force’

Ukraine’s Western allies need to resolve some big questions about the future part they will play as Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II heads toward its fourth anniversary.

The uncertainties include how they can help fund war-devastated Ukraine, what postwar security guarantees they might be able to provide, and what Washington’s commitments to future security arrangements might be.

Details of the potential future “reassurance force” are scant, and the London meeting seeks to further develop the idea — even though any peace agreement appears at the moment to be only a distant possibility.

The force is likely to consist of air and naval support rather than Western troops deployed in Ukraine, according to officials. U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey says it would be “a force to help secure the skies, secure the seas, a force to help train Ukrainian forces to defend their nation.”

The war has shown no sign of subsiding, as a front-line war of attrition kills thousands of soldiers on both sides while drone and missile barrages cause damage in rear areas.

Russia says it has captured Ukrainian villages

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Friday that over the past week its forces have captured 10 Ukrainian villages. The small conquests are part of Russia’s slow but steady slog to envelop the remaining Ukrainian strongholds in the Donetsk region from both the north and the south and create footholds for pressing further west into the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Defense Ministry also said its forces downed 111 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, with debris causing damage to homes and infrastructure..

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that air defenses downed three drones heading to the city, which forced flights to be suspended at two Moscow airports.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-london-coalition-willing-2a9e4d936356533821175e420e8a0a2f

Unusual Machines secures deal as US military accelerates domestic production of unmanned aircraft

A little-known drone company backed by Donald Trump Jr has won its largest contract from the Pentagon, as the US government expands its procurement of the drones.
Florida-based Unusual Machines, in which Trump Jr has held a $4mn stake, said the US army had contracted it to manufacture 3,500 drone motors, alongside various other drone parts.
The company added the army indicated it planned to order an additional 20,000 components from Unusual Machines next year.
Allan Evans, the company’s chief executive, said he believed it was the largest order for Unusual Machines parts from the US government to date, but declined to disclose the value of the contract.
Chief Warrant Officer 4 John Brown of the 101st Airborne Division said of the acquisition: “The ability to train like we fight, using drones that are reliable . . . gives our soldiers the confidence they need for real-world scenarios.”
Shares in Unusual Machines jumped as much as 13 per cent on Friday.
Unusual Machines brought Trump Jr on as an adviser in November 2024. The Financial Times earlier this year found shares in the company almost tripled in price in the weeks leading up to its disclosure of the move.
Soon after Trump Jr came on board, Unusual Machines disclosed he owned 331,580 shares, which would currently be worth roughly $4mn.
Trump Jr is not required to disclose whether he has since sold any of his stake, but Evans earlier this year said the president’s son had continued to invest in recent fundraising rounds.
In response to questions about the Pentagon contract, Evans told the FT than Don Jr “did not advise or do anything else on this deal”.
“Don has never communicated with anyone in the administration on behalf of Unusual Machines or about the contract in question,” said a spokesperson for Trump Jr. “His advisory role with them has nothing to do with interfacing with the government.”
The procurement, announced last week, comes after President Donald Trump in June signed an executive order aimed at boosting the US’s nascent drone industry, for commercial and military use.
Defence secretary Pete Hegseth has since moved to expedite the production and deployment of military drones and empowered commanders to independently procure and test the technology.
Hegseth’s Pentagon has emphasised the importance of drones in modern warfare, with the army focused on acquiring them en masse at low cost. The service is also pursuing the acquisition of technology from commercial companies and defence tech start-ups.

US army secretary Daniel Driscoll earlier this month said his service is leading the Pentagon’s counter-drone efforts and “will equip soldiers with these kinds of expendable drones that deliver devastating effects at a massive discount. I cannot overstate the impact drones will have on warfare and homeland defence.”
Driscoll told the FT earlier this month that his drone vision for the army includes its special forces “Ranger Regiment and our Delta Force and all of our elite infantry-like units having drones with them”, along with embedded software engineers.
Unusual Machines has struck deals with other US defence suppliers in recent months, inking a $12.8mn agreement with Strategic Logix in September and a $1.6mn deal with an unnamed domestic defence drone maker in August.

Source : https://archive.is/FUwKa#selection-2009.0-2012.0

Hailey Bieber candidly revealed that she plans to have more kids with husband Justin Bieber after welcoming their son, Jack Blues, last year.

“I know I want more than one, but I’m not in a rush,” the Rhode founder shared on Friday’s episode of the “In Your Dreams With Owen Thiele” podcast.

When host Owen Thiele joked that she and the “Peaches” crooner would have “five Biebers running around,” the businesswoman appeared fond of the idea.

Hailey, 28, gushed over motherhood, adding, “It’s so fun. I love being a mom.”

“I always knew I wanted to be a mom, though, since I was a little kid,” she continued. “I just always envisioned myself having kids.”

The model and Justin, meanwhile, announced that she gave birth to her son in August 2024.

“WELCOME HOME JACK BLUES BIEBER 🐻,” the “Yukon” crooner, 31, wrote via Instagram at the time.

The couple kept the majority of Hailey’s pregnancy under wraps and officially shared the news in May while posting snaps from their vow renewal ceremony in Hawaii.

Hailey and Justin, who wed in 2018, have notably shied away from showing their son’s face despite sharing glimpses of the toddler on social media.

Jack also made an appearance in a family photoshoot to promote his famous father’s “Swag” album, which was released in July.

The adorable snap showed Hailey and the Grammy winner wearing matching white tanks, while the 1-year-old sported a diaper.

Another photo showed Jack climbing on top of Justin, who was sitting on a couch.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/10/24/parents/hailey-bieber-reveals-whether-she-wants-more-kids-with-justin/

The nurse entered the hospital washroom while the victim was still inside and molested him on pretext of ‘disinfecting’ him.

An Indian national working as a staff nurse at a Singapore premium hospital was sentenced to a year and two months’ jail, and two strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to a molestation charge.

Elipe Siva Nagu, 34, molested a male visitor to the Raffles Hospital in June, after claiming that he wanted to “disinfect” the victim, The Straits Times reported.

He was suspended from his nursing duties soon after the offence.

The offence caused the victim to have flashbacks of the incident, the court heard.

Details about the victim, including his age, were redacted from court documents.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Eugene Phua said that the victim was at the hospital in North Bridge Road on June 18 to visit his grandfather, who had been admitted there.

At around 7.30 pm, the victim entered a patient’s toilet, and Elipe looked inside while he was using it.

On the pretext of wanting to “disinfect” the victim, Elipe put soap on his hand and molested him, said DPP Phua.

The court heard that the startled victim did not move as he was shocked.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/indian-nurse-at-singapore-sentenced-to-jail-for-molesting-hospital-visitor-101761356949085.html#google_vignette

Asian palm civets eat coffee cherries, digest the fruit, and excrete the beans. Collectors wash the feces off the beans, process them, and sell them for up to $400 per kilogram. Coffee shops then charge as much as $75 per cup. The question haunting this $11-billion-per-year industry: does the 12-hour journey through a civet’s digestive tract actually alter the chemistry of the coffee bean?

Indian researchers analyzed 68 scat samples to find out. Their answer raises questions about what those premium prices actually buy.

Researchers compared civet-processed Robusta beans to manually harvested beans from the same estates in Kodagu, a district producing 36% of India’s coffee. After running the beans through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and testing everything from fat content to volatile compounds, the team found only a handful of significant differences. The study, published in Scientific Reports, found that when combining all measurements, the two bean types barely separated statistically.

The biggest distinction? Fat content. Civet coffee clocked in at 8.4% compared to 5.9% in regular beans. Two specific fatty acid methyl esters showed up in higher concentrations: caprylic acid methyl ester (0.29% versus 0.03%) and capric acid methyl ester (0.20% versus 0.02%). Both are associated with dairy-like aromas and are used as flavor agents in foods. That’s essentially it for statistically significant differences in this study of unroasted beans.

Protein levels, caffeine content, pH, acidity, and total sugars showed no statistically significant differences. When researchers ran analyses combining all the measurements, civet beans and manual beans from conventional farms clustered together. The organic farm beans stood apart, but so did its manually harvested beans, pointing to farm management as at least as important as digestive processing.

What the Chemical Tests Actually Found

In January 2025, the research team from Central University of Kerala walked through coffee plantations during peak harvest season, when temperatures hovered between 31°C and 33°C. They collected scat samples wherever they found them, noting that about 84% of scats were on elevated structures like fallen logs rather than open ground. Palm civets prefer to defecate in sheltered spots at height, a behavior that helped researchers predict where to search.

Each scat sample contained between 13 and 230 beans, though most held 44 to 75. After washing away fecal matter and separating Robusta beans from any other seeds, the team sun-dried samples for seven days following standard industry practice. They manually removed outer parchment layers and oven-dried the beans at 50°C for two hours to prevent fungal contamination.

For comparison, they hand-picked ripe coffee cherries from the same five estates and processed them identically after removing pulp through natural fermentation. Four estates used conventional farming methods, while one practiced organic farming. The study deliberately avoided roasting to preserve native chemical profiles.

Bean size measurements told an interesting story about civet feeding behavior. Scat-derived beans measured larger than manually picked beans from the same trees. This pattern makes sense: civets eat coffee cherries for the fruit flesh, not the beans. Larger, riper fruits contain more flesh, making them more attractive to the animals. Civets pre-select for bigger beans.

Fat content showed the clearest chemical difference between the two coffees. Civet coffee’s elevated fat content of 8.4% compared to 5.9% in manual coffee reached statistical significance. Fat contributes to coffee’s aroma and taste profile, so this finding supports claims that civet coffee tastes different.

Fatty acid methyl ester profiling revealed the dairy-like compounds. Caprylic and capric acid methyl esters both increased in civet samples. The word “capric” comes from the Greek word for goat, reflecting these compounds’ presence in goat milk. Food manufacturers use both acids as flavoring agents and antimicrobial compounds. Their elevation in civet coffee shows that the digestive process adds specific compounds that might survive roasting.

Protein content averaged 15.4% in both civet and manual samples. Caffeine levels showed no significant difference: 2.2% in civet coffee versus 2.7% in manual coffee. Some earlier studies claimed civet coffee contains less caffeine, but this research contradicts that assertion. The pH and acidity measurements also came back essentially identical.

Authentication Challenges in an $11 Billion Coffee Market

The civet coffee market has exploded. In countries like Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, beans sell for $200 to $400 per kilogram, according to market reports. Individual cups command $30 to $75 in upscale cafes. Market analysts project 4.43% annual growth, pushing the industry past $11 billion within seven years. The authors note recent reports of civet coffee production in Kodagu for export at lower price points than international rates, potentially flooding the market with new supply.

The study notes authentication challenges and the risk of counterfeiting in this niche market. Once beans get processed and roasted, identifying their origin becomes difficult without sophisticated chemical analysis. Some volatile compounds appeared only in manual samples in this study, hinting at potential markers for authentication.

The industry lacks standardized testing protocols. Chemical fingerprinting using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry could work, but analyzing every batch would add costs to an already expensive product. Unscrupulous producers might mix small amounts of civet coffee with regular beans and sell the blend at premium prices. Consumers have limited means to verify authenticity.

Recent reports of low-cost civet coffee emerging from India raise questions about production methods. If beans truly come from wild civets naturally consuming coffee cherries, collection remains labor-intensive and yields stay limited. Dramatically lower prices might indicate captive civets fed coffee cherries in dedicated farms, raising animal welfare concerns. Or they might indicate fraudulent labeling of regular beans as civet coffee.

Commercial viability complicates species identification. Asian palm civets are most common in the Western Ghats study region, but brown palm civets and Malabar civets also inhabit the area. Once beans pass through digestion and get processed, determining which civet species produced them becomes nearly impossible without tracking systems from collection through sale.

The Fermentation Factor and Roasting Reality

Palm civets consume coffee cherries, which undergo digestion and natural fermentation during their passage through the gut. The beans emerge in scat, get collected, and enter the processing chain. Proponents claim this fermentation creates unique flavors justifying premium prices.

Previous research identified Gluconobacter bacteria in civet gut microbiomes. These bacteria carry genes for enzymes that metabolize hydrogen sulfide and sulfur-containing amino acids. The fermentation process might allow these enzymes to alter bean chemistry, potentially breaking down proteins into shorter peptides and free amino acids that influence flavor. Breaking down proteins could reduce bitterness, a commonly cited characteristic of civet coffee.

However, this study’s avoidance of roasting complicates any firm conclusions. During roasting, the Maillard reaction creates melanoidins that provide brown color and rich flavors. Monosaccharides form furans and caramels at higher temperatures. Lipid oxidation generates aromatic compounds. All these transformations make it nearly impossible to predict how raw bean chemistry translates to brewed coffee flavor.

The elevated caprylic and capric acid methyl esters in raw civet beans show that digestive processing adds specific compounds. Whether these survive roasting and contribute meaningfully to finished coffee flavor requires additional research that this study didn’t attempt.

For an $11 billion market, these results reveal a modest chemical distinction rather than a dramatic transformation. Consumers paying extreme premiums for civet coffee expect substantial differences. Two fatty acid methyl esters in slightly higher concentrations and elevated total fat represent the measurable chemical changes. Whether those translate to noticeably different flavor in a finished cup remains an open question this study didn’t address.

What Premium Prices Really Buy

Reports of caged civets in dedicated coffee farms continue to surface. Animal welfare advocates warn against supporting industries that confine wild animals for commercial production. India’s civet coffee industry remains relatively small and mostly relies on wild civets as part of natural ecosystems. The Asian palm civet carries “least concern” conservation status, though two other regional civet species have restricted populations.

Rapid market growth creates incentives for intensive production. If demand continues rising at 4.43% annually, pressure to increase supply through captive breeding operations will intensify. Verifying whether beans come from wild or captive civets becomes part of the authentication challenge.

For drinkers paying $75 per cup, the question becomes whether subtle chemical differences justify extreme prices. Scarcity and novelty clearly factor into pricing. Labor-intensive collection of wild civet scat limits supply. The unusual production method creates a compelling story that commands premium prices regardless of chemistry.

The market will likely continue growing even as research reveals modest chemical distinctions. Coffee connoisseurs might detect flavor differences that chemical analysis struggles to quantify. Or they might be paying for bragging rights and exotic provenance rather than dramatically superior beans. The story appears to matter more than the science.

Source : https://studyfinds.org/worlds-most-expensive-cup-of-coffee-civet-poop/

ELLEN Greenberg’s ex-fiancé appeared scruffy and unrecognizable in new photos as the schoolteacher’s death more than a decade ago continues to spark intense controversy.

Questions surrounding Greenberg‘s final hours remain unanswered after the city of Philadelphia upheld its initial autopsy findings that stated the 27-year-old educator died by suicide in her apartment on January 26, 2011.

Despite being found with over 20 stab wounds, including punctures on her back and neck, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office again determined that Greenberg’s cause of death was suicide.

In her 32-page report, Dr. Lindsay Simon, the chief medical examiner, highlighted that Greenberg had no defense wounds and there were no signs of a struggle or forced entry into her apartment.

Dr. Simon wrote that Greenberg was “a young woman suffering from anxiety at the time of her death.

“The anxiety appeared to mostly be due to her work as a teacher. She was specifically worried that the grades she needed to submit on the day of her death would indicate she had previously given inflated grades to her students.”

Greenberg’s death was thrust back into the spotlight following the release of the Hulu documentary Death in Apartment 603, which documents the teacher’s final days and the puzzling evidence surrounding her death.

For over 14 years, Greenberg’s parents have fought and campaigned for officials in Pennsylvania to re-examine the case and reclassify the controversial autopsy findings.

ELLEN’S EX-FIANCÉ PICTURED

At the time of her death, Greenberg was engaged to sports television producer Sam Goldberg, then 28.

The U.S. Sun snapped a series of photos of Goldberg, now 43, in the days following the release of the Hulu documentary.

A shabby Goldberg was pictured leaving his apartment in the Gramercy section of Manhattan on October 9, sporting a bright purple baseball hat, a dark blue long-sleeve shirt, stone-white colored pants, and khaki New Balance sneakers.

An untidy Goldberg was also seen carrying a tote bag.

CONTROVERSIAL FINDING

Dr. Simon’s latest report supported Goldberg’s assertion that he was at the gym at the time of his fiancée’s death and returned to their apartment to find the door locked from the inside.

Goldberg sent Greenberg a series of angry text messages, “‘Hello,’ ‘open the door,’ what r u doin’,’ ‘i’m getting pissed,’ ‘hello,’” according to police records.

He eventually broke down the door after an hour and found Greenberg in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, “She stabbed herself,” Goldberg told a 911 dispatcher.

The medical examiner’s report stated that Goldberg’s statements to investigators were corroborated by “surveillance video, keycard swipes, and other evidence.”

Dr. Simon also stressed that Goldberg’s DNA was not found on the knife Greenberg is believed to have used in her death.

“With all of this information considered, it is the opinion of the undersigned that the manner of Ellen Greenberg’s death is best classified as suicide,” the medical examiner concluded.

“All opinions stated in this report are expressed with the reasonable degree of medical certainty.”

Since his then-fiancée’s death, Goldberg has only spoken publicly about the matter twice and reached out to Greenberg’s parents once when he informed them about his engagement to his now-wife, Caroline Shnay, in 2013, according to the Daily Mail.

In a statement to CNN in 2024, Goldberg said Greenberg’s death left him “bewildered.”

“She was a wonderful and a kind person who had everything to live for. When she died a part of me died with her,” Goldberg said.

He stressed the importance of mental health and blasted the “lies, distortions, and falsehoods” that attempted to smear his reputation.

Goldberg described the latest widespread media coverage about Greenberg’s death “awful.”

“It’s awful and it sucks,” he told the Daily Mail.

William Trask, the attorney for the Greenberg family, slammed the findings, calling Dr. Simon’s review “a deeply flawed attempt to justify a predetermined conclusion.”

“It includes false claims – like the assertion that a stab wound in Ellen’s spinal column was made during autopsy, a theory rejected by every credible expert, including the City’s own neuropathologist,” Trask wrote.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15394301/ellen-greenberg-ex-fiance-sam-goldberg-unrecognizable-new-pics/

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says there’s an issue with truck drivers failing language requirements

SHOCKING details have come to light regarding the driving background of an illegal immigrant who has been accused of killing three people in a crash.

Harjinder Singh reportedly failed his commercial driver’s license test 10 times before finally passing in 2023.

Singh is suspected of making an illegal U-turn with his 18-wheeler truck in Florida, which led a van to crash into the side of it.

The horrific accident left the three people in the van dead.

Singh and his two passengers, Californian men aged 25 and 28, were not injured.

The Official White House Rapid Response said: “This individual is an illegal immigrant who was granted a commercial driver’s license by the State of California — and now, three innocent people are dead.

“He has been arrested for vehicular homicide and an ICE detainer has been issued.”

Since the accident, investigators have claimed to have made startling discoveries about Singh’s background.

In Washington state, the truck driver failed his Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) knowledge exam ten times between March 10, 2023, and May 5, 2023, according to The New York Post.

The license is required to drive larger vehicles like tractor trailers or buses.

Singh also reportedly failed an air brakes knowledge test twice.

Washington and California eventually issued Singh a CDL.

One of the most significant areas of scrutiny is Singh’s English-speaking ability.

Singh allegedly illegally crossed the southern border in 2018, and is not a native English speaker.

However, a company in Washington that trained him attests that he could speak English, although he may not speak it proficiently.

On July 3, New Mexico State Police stopped Singh for allegedly driving 60 mph in a 45 mph zone.

During the interaction, bodycam footage shows that the driver had limited English knowledge.

Despite his lack of English, the driver appeared to be remorseful for speeding.

Investigators have said that Singh’s lack of English proficiency came into play during the fatal crash in Florida back in August.

Florida’s Attorney General’s Office sued California and Washington for granting the CDL to illegal immigrants.

Florida’s lawsuit claims that both states violated the federal safety and immigration status requirements for CDL drivers.

Many truck drivers fail to meet English language requirements, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15393284/illegal-immigrant-harjinder-singh-florida-truck-crash/

Israel’s increased targeting of Lebanese facilities and alleged Hezbollah members could turn into a new war. The other scenario observers are worried about is a low-level, ongoing conflict.

Eleven months after a tenuous ceasefire deal was struck between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, violent encounters are once again intensifying. On Thursday, Israel attacked an alleged Hezbollah training camp in Lebanon’s north-western Bakaa region. A day earlier, an Israeli drone had killed Hezbollah commander Issa Ahmad Karbala in Lebanon’s south, according to a statement by the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF.

Karbala is the latest in a series of fatalities since a US- and France-brokered ceasefire on November 27, 2024 was signed between Israel and Hezbollah. It was meant to end almost a year of limited fighting and two months of full-scale war, during which Israel said it reduced Hezbollah’s weapon arsenal significantly and killed many of the militia’s leaders.

Most recently, Lebanon’s health authorities stated that 274 people have died in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect. In October, the UN further confirmed that 108 of those were civilians or noncombatants.

A recent report by the multinational United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL), also highlighted that some 950 projectiles were fired from Israel into Lebanon, in addition to 100 Israeli airstrikes between November of last year and mid-October 2025.

During the same period, UNIFIL reported 21 projectiles fired from Lebanon toward Israel.

Violating the deal

Both Israel and Hezbollah have accused the other side of not fulfilling key aspects of the ceasefire. The deal stipulated that Israel would withdraw its troops from Lebanese territory, while Hezbollah disarmed across Lebanon and deployed its forces some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Lebanon’s Litani River. Lebanon’s military, meanwhile, would deploy troops alongside United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.

Israel accuses Hezbollah, whose military wing is designated as a terrorist group by several countries, including the US and the European Union, of trying to rebuild its capabilities instead of giving up their arms.

UN human rights experts have accused Israel of violating terms of the ceasefire by failing to withdraw from southern Lebanon, and has called for all parties to return to the agreement, which had been designed to ensure a “permanent cessation of hostilities,” as then-President of the United States Joe Biden stated at the time.

Last week, Tom Barrack, Middle East diplomat and US special envoy for Syria, posted on X that “disarming Hezbollah is … not only Israel’s security imperative; it is opportunity for renewal.”

Stalemate dilemma

Lebanon meanwhile continues to struggle after years of a political vacuum as well as an ongoing economic crisis that was exacerbated by the war from September to November 2024. According to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, Israel’s strikes killed around 4,000 people, destroyed parts of Beirut and scores of villages in Lebanon’s south. The World Bank assesses that reconstruction will cost around $11 billion (€9.5bn).

However, much of the promised foreign aid by the US and Saudi Arabia is tied to economic reforms, and Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Only, the plan to disarm Hezbollah by the end of 2025 has reached a standstill, Kelly Petillo, Middle East researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told DW.

Hezbollah argues that they won’t surrender their arms as long as Israel continues attacking villages and construction factories that are key for reconstruction. Earlier in August, Hezbollah even warned of a civil war in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, Israel has been keeping its troops at five locations in Lebanon’s south, citing the need for self defense.

“This situation poses a significant threat for Lebanon’s stability, as the Lebanese government under President Joseph Aoun is unable to exert any significant leverage to shift the course of these actors,” ECFR’s Petillo told DW.

In her view, this very stalemate has led Israel to ramp up its military strikes. “It could be a signal that Israel feels like it can go back to a full-scale conflict at any time if it judges that Hezbollah won’t disarm,” she said, warning that such a scenario — in which Israel could strike targets in other countries in a bid to deter threats — could easily become a blueprint for other conflicts in the region.

Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told the news agency AP in an interview earlier this week that she views the Lebanon scenario as a “lessfire” rather than a ceasefire.

She warned that Lebanon “could well serve as the model for Gaza, essentially giving leeway to Israeli forces to strike whenever they deem a threat without a full resumption of conflict.”

Return to Resolution 1701

Ronnie Chatah, a Beirut-based political analyst highlights several differences between Lebanon and Gaza. While Israel had vowed to eliminate Hamas following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, this threat has not been extended to Hezbollah.

Chatah also considers the US-brokered peace plan from October 10, 2025, between Israel and Hamas to be different from the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah: “What happened in late 2024 is enhancing the enforcement mechanism of Security Council Resolution 1701,” Chatah said.

In 2006, a month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel — called the Second Lebanon War after the First Lebanon War between 1982 and 1985 — ended with the acceptance of the United Nations Resolution 1701.

The resolution mandated the deployment of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, the withdrawal of Israeli forces as well as Hezbollah from that same area, and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

However, Hezbollah neither retreated north beyond Lebanon’s Litani River, nor did the militia give up its weapons. In the years since, with Iran’s support, Hezbollah’s military equipment and number of trained fighters have multiplied instead.

Following the Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, tensions escalated further when Hezbollah started targeting Israel in a bid to support Gaza. Around 60,000 Israelis had to evacuate the area, as well as some 110,000 Lebanese on the northern side of the border.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/lebanon-attacks-stoke-fear-of-renewed-escalation/a-74474581

UNICEF warned Gaza faces a “lost generation” as most schools remain destroyed after two years of war. Only a fraction of children are in makeshift classrooms, with education still largely halted.

Gaza’s devastated education system has left nearly all children without formal schooling for a third consecutive year, prompting fears of a “lost generation,” a senior UN official warned on Friday (Oct 24).

“This is the third year that there has been no school,” Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, told AFP after returning from the Palestinian territory. “If we don’t start a real transition for all children in February, we will enter a fourth year. And then we can talk about a lost generation.”

Beigbeder described “overwhelming destruction” across Gaza, with 85 per cent of schools destroyed or unusable after two years of war between Israel and Hamas. “It is impossible to imagine 80 per cent of a territory that is completely flattened out or destroyed,” he said.

TEMPORARY CLASSROOMS, LITTLE LEARNING

A US-brokered ceasefire earlier this month allowed UNICEF and partner groups to reach about one-sixth of Gaza’s school-aged children in makeshift “learning centres.”

“They have three days of learning in reading, mathematics and writing, but this is far from a formal education,” Beigbeder said. Many of the centres are tents or metal structures covered with plastic sheeting, with children sitting on mats and writing on salvaged boards.

He said some 142 schools have been completely destroyed, 80 others require renovation, and 38 remain “inaccessible” because they are located in areas controlled by Israeli troops under the ceasefire.

CHILDREN TRAUMATISED, SUPPLIES BLOCKED

Before the conflict, Gaza’s schools were already overcrowded, with half the population under 18. Many surviving school buildings are now shelters for displaced families.

UNICEF said border restrictions are preventing the entry of school materials such as cement, books and blackboards, which Israel deems non-essential. “How can you rehabilitate classrooms if you don’t have cement?” Beigbeder asked. “Food is survival. Education is hope.”

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) launched a “new e-learning school year” on Oct 18 for about 290,000 pupils, though the reach remains limited.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/un-official-warns-gaza-risks-lost-generation-schools-lie-in-ruins-5424011

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said he will pause his province’s anti-tariff advertisement campaign in the US, after it prompted President Donald Trump to terminate trade talks.

Ford said he made the decision after speaking to Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday, adding that the TV spot will be paused on Monday “so that trade talks can resume”.

It will still run over the weekend on US networks, he said, including during the Major League Baseball World Series games.

Carney told reporters earlier on Friday that Canada is prepared to resume trade talks with the US “when the Americans are ready”.

Trump criticised the advert late on Thursday night in a Truth Social post, calling it “FAKE” and “egregious”. He said trade talks were “HEREBY TERMINATED”.

The advert, which was sponsored by the Ontario government, quotes former US President Ronald Reagan, a Republican and icon of US conservatism, saying tariffs “hurt every American”.

The video takes excerpts from a 1987 national radio address by Reagan that focused on foreign trade.

Trump’s termination of trade talks came after the Ronald Reagan Foundation, which is charged with preserving Reagan’s legacy, released a statement saying the advert had used “selective” audio and video of the former president’s remarks.

It accused the advert of misrepresenting Reagan’s address, and said the Ontario government had not sought permission to use it.

On Friday, Ford said the intention of the advert was “to initiate a conversation about the kind of economy that Americans want to build” and the impact of tariffs.

“We’ve achieved our goal, having reached US audiences at the highest levels,” Ford said.

Trump’s reaction to the advert has ignited debate in Canada over whether Ford’s combative approach to US trade talks is the right one, or whether the country would be better served by striking a friendlier chord with its neighbour and closest trade ally.

Canada is still the only G7 country that has not reached a trade deal with Trump since he began introducing sweeping tariffs.

The US has imposed a 35% levy on all Canadian goods – though most are exempt under an existing free trade agreement. It has also slapped sector-specific levies on Canadian goods, including a 50% levy on metals and 25% on automobiles.

Those sector tariffs have especially hurt Ontario, where the bulk of Canada’s automanufacturing industry is based.

Prime Minister Carney has attempted for months to negotiate a deal that would ease the tariffs. Three-quarters of Canadian exports are sold to the US, making its economy particularly vulnerable.

In doing so, he has opted for friendly face-to-face meetings and text messages with the US president.

Ford, on the other hand, has taken a more defiant stance. He pulled US liquor off Ontario shelves and briefly threatened withholding energy exports.

Last week, he told reporters he was “sick and tired of sitting and rolling over”, after car manufacturer Stellantis announced it would move some production out of its Brampton, Ontario, plant into the United States.

“We need to fight back,” Ford said at the time.

The next day, he launched the advertisement campaign that eventually drew the ire of the US president.

Diwali fireworks caused a massive fire in South Ozone Park, Queens, damaging two homes and injuring two people, US authorities have said. Surveillance video showed fireworks striking a house before flames engulfed the homes. One family lost everything in the blaze.

A fire severely damaged two homes in Queens, New York State, and also left two people injured. According to the New York City Fire Department, the blaze was started due to Diwali fireworks.

Additionally, damages to property due to fireworks was also reported in New Jersey.

The fire began around 2.20 am in a home on Lincoln Street on Wednesday and quickly spread to a neighbouring residence, according to a report in ABC7.

Fortunately, all occupants escaped without major injury. However, two individuals were treated for minor injuries at hospital.

Surveillance footage captured the fireworks soaring through the air. At one point, a burst flew straight into a house. Moments later, flames engulfed three houses at the corner of Foch Boulevard and Lincoln Street, according to CBS News.

Neighbours also said the fireworks were part of a Diwali celebration.

The official handle of the New York City Fire Department also shared the video of the fire.

A family said they lost everything in the blaze.

“I never thought in a million years I would go through this,” Juanita Colon said.

“We have got nothing now because everything is ruined. My son has no clothes. We have to be in a hotel room living out of a hotel,” Colon was quoted as saying by CBS News.

Other residents of the area criticised those who were bursting crackers at midnight.

“It was all night, since 9 pm. It was really loud, disturbing us from sleeping,” Rehana Insanali told CBS News.

“You can celebrate at a certain time, but why celebrate until 1, 2, 3 in the morning when people have got to get up early to go to work?” another resident, Charlie Cuebas, said, CBS News reported.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/us-news/story/video-diwali-celebration-fireworks-destroy-homes-in-new-york-queens-lincoln-street-us-edison-new-jersey-2807983-2025-10-24

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has warned Pakistan that its 2022 greylist exit doesn’t make it immune to terror financing, urging continued vigilance as reports surface of digital funding networks.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global terror funding watchdog, has cautioned Pakistan that its removal from the grey list in October 2022 does not grant immunity from global scrutiny on terror financing and money laundering.

Speaking at a press conference in France after the FATF’s plenary session, President Elisa de Anda Madrazo said countries like Pakistan must remain vigilant and committed to combating illicit financial activity even after being delisted.

“Any country that has been on the grey list is not bulletproof against the actions of criminals — be they money launderers or terrorists. We invite all jurisdictions, including those that have been delisted, to continue their good work to prevent and deter such crimes,” Madrazo said.

‘STAY THE COURSE’ AFTER GREYLIST EXIT

Madrazo’s remarks were seen as a pointed reminder to Islamabad, which was removed from the FATF’s increased monitoring list after four years of compliance reviews. Pakistan is currently under follow-up evaluation by the Asia Pacific Group (APG) to ensure it continues enforcing anti-terror financing standards.

“Delisting is not the end of the process. We expect countries to strengthen their systems and close the loopholes that criminals exploit,” Madrazo added.

Her comments came amid reports that Pakistan-based terror groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) are using digital wallets and masked financial flows to fund training camps, an emerging risk flagged in the FATF’s recent “Comprehensive Update on Terrorist Financing Risks” report.

PAK A ‘HIGH-RISK’ TERROR SOURCE: INDIA

India’s National Risk Assessment 2022 has identified Pakistan as a high-risk source of terror financing, particularly through entities linked to the state-run National Development Complex (NDC). The FATF report, which included India’s inputs, underscored ongoing regional threats from state-sponsored terrorism and proliferation financing.

“The FATF remains committed to strengthening global standards and ensuring implementation through assessments and monitoring. Our aim is simple — to deprive terrorists and criminals of the funds they rely on,” Madrazo said.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/greylist-exit-not-bulletproof-global-watchdog-fatfs-warning-to-pakistan-on-terror-financing-2808115-2025-10-25

A shooting occurred near Howard University during homecoming, with police responding around 8:23 p.m. on Howard Place.

Authorities reported a shooting near Howard University’s campus in Washington, DC, on Friday evening during homecoming festivities.
The Metropolitan Police Department said officers responded around 8:23 PM to gunfire on the 600 block of Howard Place, near the University Yard and the School of Architecture. According to D.C. Fire and EMS, at least four people were shot, with one in serious condition and another in critical condition; the status of the remaining two victims is not yet known.
Police have not released details about any suspects or motives. Multiple road closures have been set up and will remain in place until further notice.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/washington-dc-shooting-at-least-4-people-shot-near-howard-university-article-153048443

TWO Russian military aircraft violated Nato’s airspace yet again in a brazen incursion – forcing the Western alliance to scramble fighter jets.

Lithuania’s military said a Russian Su-30 fighter jet and Il-78 refuelling tanker breached the country’s sovereign airspace and remained there for at least 18 seconds.

It said both the Russian military aircraft entered Lithuania from the Kaliningrad region – a strategic Russian exclave in the heart of Europe.

Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon jets from Nato Baltic Air Police were scrambled in response and are patrolling the area, the military added.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said: “This evening, Russian military planes violated Lithuanian airspace. This is a blatant breach of international law and the territorial integrity of Lithuania.

“Once again, it confirms the importance of strengthening European air defence readiness.”

Russia’s defence ministry has since denied any violations of Lithuania’s airspace – insisting the jets were carrying out a “training fight” over the country’s Kaliningrad region.

The brazen incursion is the latest in a string of Nato’s air violations by Russia.

It comes just a day after the US imposed direct sanctions on Russia to pressure Vladimir Putin to agree to an “immediate ceasefire” in the Ukraine war.

It is the first time in his second term that Trump slapped direct sanctions on Russia – and it comes amid his growing frustration with Moscow over the raging war.

Putin said imposing the sanctions – which targeted Russia’s two biggest oil giants – was an “unfriendly act” but Russia won’t cave to pressure.

In the last few weeks, Europe has witnessed fighter jet face-offs, mysterious large drone sightings and coordinated sabotage activities that crippled operations at major airports.

Three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonia’s airspace “without clearance” in September – triggering an emergency Nato meeting.

The fighter jets reportedly flew over Vaindloo Island and stayed there for nearly 12 minutes.

The unprecedented manoeuvre prompted two Italian F-35s to immediately set off from Amari airbase, about 50km from the capital Tallinn.

Shortly afterwards, Polish authorities reported a “low flyover” of Russian military planes near an oil and gas platform.

And just weeks before that Polish authorities said they detected 19 violations of their airspace.

It prompted a dramatic million-dollar response as fighter jets were scrambled and Patriot air defence systems placed on alert.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the incident brought Poland closer to military conflict “than at any time since the Second World War”.

Up to four drones were shot down with the help of Nato allies.

Mysterious drone sightings also briefly shuttered a Danish airport twice within a few hours after the country’s prime minister said the flights were part of “hybrid attacks” that may be linked to Russia.

Security and military experts all pointed their fingers at Vladimir Putin, who has a chilling past of orchestrating sabotage activities and other hybrid warfare techniques against the West.

Nato has now said it will shoot down any Russian aircraft that violates the alliance’s airspace.

But the bold declaration has attracted an ominous threat from Moscow, which said that acting on it would mean war.

Fortress Europe

Europe is now gearing up to defend against Putin’s tyrannical WW3 ambitions with an incredible four-pronged plan – air shield, space shield, drone wall and flank watch.

After Moscow‘s repeated – and unprovoked – aerial invasions threatening Europe’s security, the continent is now on a war footing to fight Putin’s aggression.

The European Commission has now proposed four European flagship defence projects – including a counter-drone system and a plan to fortify the eastern border – to defend itself against Russia by 2030.

Plans are to create a European Air Shield, which will defend against missiles and other airborne threats.

Meanwhile, a European Space Shield will be created to protect European space assets and services.

And nations on Nato‘s eastern flank will build a multi-layered air defence system that will help detect the drones early and take them down.

Alongside the drone initiative is a broader “Eastern Flank Watch” programme designed to bolster air and ground defences along the EU’s border closest to Russia by the end of 2028.

Several frontline European nations attended a virtual meeting to assess how to protect their borders with the drone wall – which officials say is the need of the hour.

They include the Baltic republics, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, along with Ukraine.

Although Ukraine is not part of the project, it has the most expertise in bringing down drones.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15389001/russian-fighter-nato-airspace-lithuania/

MARK Sanchez’s criminal trial is set to begin on December 11.

The former NFL quarterback, 38, is facing a felony battery charge for an incident which saw him stabbed in Indianapolis on October 4.

While he also faces three misdemeanors; public intoxication, battery with injury and unlawful entry of a motor vehicle.

Sanchez was stabbed during the incident and was subsequently taken to hospital in critical condition after being found at a bar.

He was eventually discharged on October 12.

A preliminary hearing regarding the case took place on Tuesday, although Sanchez was not present.

Per the AP, attorney Tim DeLaney said, “Thank you for allowing our client to be excused from today’s hearing.

“He’s still recovering from the injuries he sustained.”

A further hearing is set for November 20.

While a pretrial conference is also scheduled for December 2.

These dates are still subject to change.

Sanchez’s recovery process and the serious nature of his injuries could yet delay proceedings.

The Fox Sports broadcaster had been in Indianapolis to call the Colts-Las Vegas Raiders game on October 5.

He was subsequently pulled from the coverage, replaced by Brady Quinn.

Trucker Perry Tole also suffered serious injuries in the incident.

Sanchez is alleged to have accosted the 69-year-old over his truck blocking an alleyway.

Per police docs, Tole claimed that he sprayed Sanchez with pepper spray after starting to believe that he was in danger.

An affidavit alleges that Tole thought “this guy is trying to kill me” when Sanchez kept approaching.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/sport/15388975/mark-sanchez-trial-date-stabbing/

BILLIONAIRE Changpeng Zhao has been pardoned by President Donald Trump after he was sentenced to prison for enabling money laundering.

Trump announced the pardon of the one of the most powerful people in the crypto world on October 23.

Zhao previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering while leading his company, Binance.

The cryptocurrency mogul pleaded guilty in November 2023 and was charged with failing to “implement an effective anti-money-laundering program and for willfully violating U.S. economic sanctions in a deliberate and calculated effort to profit from the U.S. market without implementing controls required by U.S. law,” according to the Department of Justice.

He was sentenced to four months in jail on April 2024.

Zhao stepped down from his role at Binance following a $4.3 billion settlement with the Department of Justice, CNBC reported.

Binance was charged with violating the International Emergency Powers Act and conspiracy.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the pardon in a statement.

“President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

“In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.”

Leavitt noted that federal prosecutors sought to extend Zhao’s prison sentence under Biden.

“The Biden Administration sought to imprison Mr. Zhao for three years, a sentence so outside Sentencing Guidelines that even the Judge said he had never heard of this in his 30-year career,” she continued.

“These actions by the Biden Administration severely damaged the United States’ reputation as a global leader in technology and innovation.

“The Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”

Zhao founded the cryptocurrency company Binance in 2017 and it has since become one of the largest crypto companies in the space.

In 2023, the company wrote a blog post taking responsibility for its “misguided decisions.”

“Binance grew at an extremely fast pace globally, in a new and evolving industry that was in the early stages of regulation, and Binance made misguided decisions along the way,” the company wrote in a lengthy post.

“Today, Binance takes responsibility for this past chapter.”

Zhao is now one of the richest people in the world with a net worth of $55 billion.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15388571/changpeng-zhao-cryptocurrency-pardon-donald-trump/

The move could boost investor confidence but problems such as inefficiency and political interference must be tackled, say experts.

Indonesia’s move to allow foreigners to fill top positions in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) could boost investor confidence and the adoption of international best practices, but it still needs to tackle longstanding issues such as bureaucratic inefficiency and political interference, experts said.

President Prabowo Subianto announced last week that expatriates could now lead Indonesian SOEs for the first time in the country’s modern history.

“I have changed the regulations. Expatriates and non-Indonesians can now lead our SOEs,” he said on Oct 15 at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Jakarta.

The president was referring to amendments to Indonesia’s SOE Law, officially passed by parliament on Oct 2.

On the same day, Rosan Roeslani, chief executive officer of Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund Danantara, announced that airline Garuda Indonesia had appointed two foreigners to its top management.

Balagopal Kunduvara, who spent more than 25 years at Singapore Airlines, was named Garuda’s chief financial officer, while seasoned aviation executive Neil Raymond Mills was appointed director of transformation.

Rosan said the airline – which has been operating at a loss for the past three years – needed professionals of Kunduvara and Mills’ calibre to restore profitability.

“We have long been trying to recover Garuda, but we haven’t had the best results. What’s most important is to have someone who not only has great plans but can execute them quickly,” Rosan said at a press conference, as quoted by The Jakarta Globe.

The Danantara chief did not disclose the nationalities of the two new executives.

Garuda’s website lists Kunduvara as being born in India and Mills in South Africa, but did not state their nationalities.

CNA has reached out to the airline for comment.

FOREIGNERS BARRED FROM LEADING STATE FIRMS SINCE 1960

Indonesia has not allowed foreigners to hold C-suite and director positions at SOEs since 1960, when it first passed a law to regulate the country’s state-owned companies.

Efforts to lift the restriction date back to at least 2017, but previous attempts were repeatedly blocked by opposition lawmakers who viewed the hiring of foreigners as a potential threat to national interests.

Prabowo has made reforming Indonesia’s sprawling SOEs one of his top priorities. With the majority of lawmakers under his big-tent governing coalition, he has amended the SOE law twice in his first year as president.

The first amendment, passed in February, paved the way for the creation of Danantara, Indonesia’s second sovereign wealth fund, which would later assume control of more than 1,000 state-owned firms and their subsidiaries.

The second amendment, passed this month, downgraded the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises to a regulatory body known as the SOE Management Agency (BP BUMN).

Although Article 15 of the new law still requires nominees for director positions to be “Indonesian citizens,” BP BUMN now has the authority to override this requirement when deemed necessary.

The president also said at the Forbes Conference that he wants the number of SOEs and their subsidiaries, which Danantara reported to be more than 1,000, to be slashed to a “more rational figure” of between 230 and 240 companies.

Danantara officials have said that more than half of Indonesia’s SOEs are currently operating at a loss. The fund is therefore seeking to merge overlapping entities and liquidate those deemed beyond rescue.

However, based on media reports, there are several strategic SOEs like Garuda, state pharmaceutical company Indofarma and steel producer Krakatau Steel that Danantara is determined to save, even if doing so requires a major overhaul.

CORE ISSUE “ISN’T THE PASSPORT”

Observers say allowing foreigners to lead Indonesia’s SOEs could inject international best practices in management, transparency, and innovation into the firms – many of which have been mired in debt, inefficiency and corruption scandals.

It could also boost investor confidence in publicly-traded SOEs, they said.

“The presence of expatriates is expected to bring improvements in governance,” said Toto Pranoto, an economist from the University of Indonesia.

Tauhid Ahmad, a senior researcher at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), said the removal of the decades-old ban was long overdue.

“If Indonesia wants to become a global player, it needs people with international experience. Those with such backgrounds can help accelerate progress more quickly,” he said.

Indonesia could benefit from recruiting expatriates with experience in transforming the state-owned enterprises of other countries, he added.

“By learning from the experiences of those countries, the pace of transformation can be much faster,” Tauhid said.

BP BUMN chief Dony Oskaria said the government will be selective in hiring foreigners for state firms.

“It depends on the needs. For certain sectors, we need to carry out transformations in how our SOEs are managed. So don’t focus on whether someone is an Indonesian or a foreign national,” Dony told reporters on Oct 20, as quoted by news portal Detik.

State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi also suggested the Garuda appointments may not be the last.

“We also need many talents in the mineral and oil industries. If we feel that we require the skills and competencies of someone who happens to be a foreign national, why not?” Prasetyo said on Oct 17, as quoted by Tempo.

Garuda Indonesia is an appropriate starting point for the new policy, experts said.

Despite having the potential to become a leading regional carrier, Indonesia’s flag carrier has long struggled with financial difficulties that have necessitated repeated government bailouts.

Danantara, which has a 64.5 per cent stake in Garuda, recently pledged to inject a total of US$1.8 billion into Garuda after the airline reported a US$142.8 million loss in the first half of 2025. Garuda also disclosed a US$737 million debt load – exceeding its total assets of US$581 million.

“I think Garuda is a good example of a state-owned enterprise that could benefit from having expatriates,” said Toto Pranoto of the University of Indonesia.

“The airline serves both domestic and international routes and must compete with other global and regional carriers. Garuda also operates in an environment heavily influenced by exchange rates and other financial pressures — so their expertise could prove crucial.”

The talent pool for Indonesia’s aviation sector is also limited, with only two major airline groups, Garuda and Lion Air, dominating the market.

Toto expressed confidence that the two new foreign executives would push for reforms at Garuda. “They certainly would not want to risk their professional reputations,” he said.

Others, however, are less certain.

At the same extraordinary stakeholders’ meeting on Oct 15, Danantara and other shareholders also appointed Garuda’s new chief executive officer: Glenny Kairupan, a 76-year-old former army general and member of Prabowo’s Gerindra party. He replaced Wamildan Tsani Panjaitan, a former Air Force captain who served as Garuda CEO for just under a year. No reason was given for the change.

“Political and vested interests remain strong at the very top level,” said Bhima Yudhistira, executive director of the Center of Economics and Law Studies (CELIOS).

As a result, directors could end up performing administrative rather than strategic roles, and their attempts at institutional reforms could be blocked by political interests, he said. “That’s why I see the appointment of expatriates as largely window dressing.”

Agreeing, economist Achmad Nur Hidayat of the Jakarta National Development University said hiring experienced foreigners may not resolve structural problems like political interference, overlapping mandates and bureaucratic inefficiency.

“I believe the core issue isn’t the passport (of an SOE director), but governance, organisational culture, and incentives,” said Achmad.

“The government should focus on fundamental reforms: Improving incentives, fostering competition, and strengthening governance,” he said.

“Social mandates must be properly compensated, executive pay tied to results, regulations designed to encourage innovation and audits strengthened.”

Meanwhile, Wana Alamsyah of the non-for-profit Indonesia Corruption Watch said legal challenges could arise in corruption cases involving foreign SOE executives.

Cooperation with other countries is needed to prosecute foreign nationals, trace the assets stashed overseas and provide evidence for trials in Indonesia, he said.

Spokesman for the Indonesian Attorney General’s Office, Anang Supriatna, however said no one would be above the law.

“As long as the crime is conducted within Indonesia’s jurisdiction, our law applies. Meaning, anyone can be prosecuted,” Anang said on Oct 17, as quoted by Tempo.

SHOULD THERE BE EXCEPTIONS?

SOEs should also be careful how they take in top foreign executives, experts cautioned.

The policy should not be applied across the board and should be limited to SOEs that are viable, and in sectors where Indonesia lacks specialised expertise, they said.

“Garuda needs people with experience in the international aviation market, and there aren’t that many qualified talents at home. But for SOEs in sectors such as finance, telecommunications and mining, it is important to prioritise local talents,” said Tauhid of INDEF.

Agreeing that Danantara should streamline Indonesia’s SOEs, Tauhid said: “We are paying expatriates a lot of money, so they should only be hired for companies that still have the potential to perform well. Those that cannot be saved should be merged, closed, or sold to the private sector.”

The hiring of foreigners for top management positions should also be avoided in certain cases, said Toto of the University of Indonesia.

Some strategic SOEs such as munitions manufacturer Pindad handle sensitive state and trade secrets, and Toto said they should remain under local leadership.

The same applies, he added, to public service enterprises like train operator Kereta Api Indonesia, where social obligations often take precedence over profit.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-state-owned-enterprises-foreigners-top-management-garuda-5419931

Afua Kyei, the Bank of England’s chief financial officer, has been named the UK’s most influential black person.

The 43-year-old is one of the UK’s most senior finance leaders, in charge of the financial governance of the Bank’s £1 trillion balance sheet and funding reforms.

The BoE executive director topped the 2026 Powerlist, which recognises the most powerful people of African, African Caribbean, and African American heritage in the UK.

Other influential names include former footballer Ian Wright, who’s new to the list, make-up artist Dame Pat McGrath and actor Idris Elba.

Kyei, who was recruited by the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in his former role as the governor of the Bank of England, said topping the list was “incredibly humbling”.

The mum-of-four said growing up she saw obvious differences in the workplace.

She said: “I didn’t see so many women in big leadership roles who had families and I know that there are lots of women who think that they need to choose between work and having a family.

“What I love about the Bank of England is that we really support working families and working parents.”

Kyei studied chemistry at Oxford University and was also awarded a junior research fellowship by Princeton University in organic chemistry.

A former member of the Parachute Regiment has been found not guilty of murder and attempted murder in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday more than 50 years ago.

That day 13 people were shot dead and at least 15 others injured on 30 January 1972 at a civil rights demonstration in the Bogside area of Derry.

Soldier F, whose anonymity is protected by a court order, faced charges of murdering James Wray, 22, and William McKinney, 26, as well as five charges of attempted murder.

The judge said members of the Parachute Regiment had shot unarmed civilians as they ran away, but the evidence against Soldier F had fallen well short of what is required for conviction.

Judge Patrick Lynch told Belfast Crown Court that the members of the Parachute Regiment who had entered Glenfada Park North had “totally lost all sense of military discipline”.

They had, the judge said, shot “unarmed civilians fleeing from them on the streets of a British city”.

“Those responsible should hang their heads in shame,” he said.

The public gallery was filled with the friends and families of those who were killed and injured on Bloody Sunday, with many travelling from Derry early in the morning, as well as supporters of Soldier F.

Speaking outside court Mickey McKinney, whose brother William was shot dead, said the families are filled “with incredible sense of pride”, despite the verdict.

Liam Wray, whose brother Jim was also killed, said it was a “tough, sad and emotional” day, adding that, while “justice had not been achieved”, he “appreciated the difficulties the judge faced in the case”.

“It takes you back to the horror of [Bloody Sunday]” he said. “[To] The wounds Jim had, the situation, the fear, the terror.”

A solicitor representing some of the Bloody Sunday families, Ciarán Shiels, said Soldier F was “the most protected serial killer in British legal history”.

“He has enjoyed every comfort that a victim should enjoy,” he added.

The Bloody Sunday relatives who travelled to Belfast for the verdict arrived back to Derry’s Bogside on Thursday afternoon.

They held a short silence at the memorial near the spot where many of the victims were killed 53 years ago.

Northern Ireland’s veterans’ commissioner David Johnstone said the trial had brought into focus the “deep pain” events of 50 years ago still cause.

He said the Bloody Sunday families and all families who lost relatives in the Troubles, “continue to experience pain”, adding “we should not forget that today”.

Speaking outside court, Paul Young, of the Northern Ireland Veterans’ Movement, said soldiers who served in Northern Ireland with “honour and courage” had been “hounded”, but added they would be “heartened” by the verdicts.

The case had presented “complex legal and evidential issues”, according to the director of public prosecutions in Northern Ireland.

Stephen Herron said those “difficulties have been recognised by the courts” previously in regards to decisions over who to prosecute in regards Bloody Sunday.

He added: “Our thoughts today are foremost with the Wray and McKinney families, those who were wounded, and the loved ones of all killed and injured on Bloody Sunday.”

The crash was caught on the dashcam of Singh’s Freightliner tractor-trailer combination that slammed into the SUV, killing at least three people and injuring several others.

A 21-year-old Indian man– an illegal immigrant in the US– has been accused of causing a fiery semi-truck crash that killed three people in Southern California. The man, identified as Jashanpreet Singh, was arrested on charges of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated after smashing his big rig into slow-moving traffic on a San Bernardino County freeway, according to US news reports.

Singh reportedly crossed the southern US border in 2022. He had his first encounter with Border Patrol agents in California’s El Centro Sector in March 2022, but was released into the interior of the country by the Biden administration under the “alternatives to detention” policy– where illegal immigrants were released pending hearings.

The crash was caught on the dashcam of Singh’s Freightliner tractor-trailer combination that slammed into the SUV, killing at least three people and injuring several others.

The three people killed in the crash have not been publicly identified yet. Those injured included Singh and a mechanic who was assisting with the tyre change of a vehicle.

Police said Singh never hit the brakes before slamming into the traffic jam, as he was under the influence of drugs. Police said his toxicology tests confirmed the impairment.

“He was eventually transported to the hospital, and he was checked out by the medical staff, and our officers determined he was driving under the influence of drugs,” said CHP Officer Rodrigo Jimenez, as quoted by ABC7 News.

The US Department of Homeland Security also confirmed that Singh does not have a lawful immigration status in the US, and according to a Fox News report, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (USICE) has lodged an immigration detainer against him following his arrest.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-california-truck-crash-caught-on-cam-customs-says-indian-driver-jashanpreet-singh-illegal-immigrant-high-on-drugs-9502627?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

Trump’s decision comes after he accused Ottawa of misquoting former president Ronald Reagan in an advertising campaign against tariffs.

US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was immediately ending all trade talks with Canada. Trump’s decision comes after he accused Ottawa of misquoting former president Ronald Reagan in an advertising campaign against tariffs.

“The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs,” said Trump.

“They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts. TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED.” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Reagan ad escalates tensions

In Ontario, an anti-tariff ad was issued using an address made by former US president and Republican Ronald Reagan.

The one-minute ad excerpts a 1987 radio address by Reagan to justify imposing 100 percent tariffs on Japanese electronics over a trade dispute over semiconductors.

In the advert, Reagan’s address also warned on the long term perils of tariffs on foreign imports to the US.

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs,” Reagan narrates in the advertisement.

The advertisement was aired on Newsmax and Bloomberg.

Announcing the ad, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said – “I’m a big Ronald Reagan fan . . . We’re going to launch a $75 million ad, and we’re going to repeat that message to every Republican district there is, right across the entire country.”

US Canada tariff row

Following Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff hikes, Canada found itself subject to new levies on steel, autos, digital services and more.

In a bid to mend ties and diffuse the trade tensions. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney visited Washington DC earlier this month.

During this visit, the two leaders agreed to “work out their differences.”

Earlier this year, the US imposed a 25 percent tariff on Canadian exports, and 10 percent on energy product exports from Canada.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/trumps-ends-all-trade-talks-with-canada-amid-tariff-row-ronald-reagan-tv-advertisement-101761275238437.html

India at UN lauds Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal, urges sustained talks, supports Palestinian rights, highlights aid to Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and peacekeeping roles in UNDOF and UNIFIL

India at the United Nations on Thursday called US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal a “landmark initiative” and emphasised that the “talks must continue” for the agreement to hold.

Indian envoy to the UN Parvathaneni Harish said: “Today’s Open Debate comes in the backdrop of the Gaza Peace Summit at Sharm el-Sheikh on October 13, 2025. India participated in the Summit and we welcomed the signing of the landmark Peace Agreement.”

“Peace and calm on the Palestinian front have implications for the wider region. India stands for lasting peace in the entire Middle East. It is important for the Agreement to hold and the ceasefire to sustain and for the parties to honour their respective commitments. Talks must continue, and there must be abiding faith in the efficacy of dialogue and diplomacy…,” he said.

He lauded Trump for playing an “instrumental role in forging the Agreement”. “India also commends the role of Egypt and Qatar towards achieving this end. India remains firm in its view that dialogue and diplomacy and the two-state solution are the means to achieve peace. The landmark initiative of the United States has generated diplomatic momentum towards peace and all parties must adhere to their obligations. We also remain firmly opposed to any unilateral moves by parties concerned.”

Pointing out India is committed to its stance on developments since October 7, 2023, the Indian envoy said: “India has condemned terrorism; stressed there must be an end to destruction, despair and suffering of civilians and sought the immediate release of all hostages; held that humanitarian assistance must flow into Gaza in an unimpeded manner; and emphasised the need for a ceasefire. India envisions the Peace Agreement as an enabler and a catalyst in this regard.”

He emphasised that India underscores its “unwavering support to the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence, and sovereignty”.

“Since India’s recognition of the State of Palestine in 1988, India has consistently advocated certain critical parameters – a sovereign, independent, viable State of Palestine, living side by side in peace and security with Israel, within secure and recognised borders… Aid is essential for rehabilitation and reconstruction. Palestinian people cannot rebuild their lives without the support of the international community… The total support by India to the Palestinian people is over USD 170 million, which includes projects worth USD 40 million in various stages of implementation,” Harish said.

He further said: “… We have implemented human-centric projects bilaterally and also partnered with the UN and the Palestinian Authority in this regard. Over the last two years, India has provided relief assistance of nearly 135 metric tons of medicines and supplies. These initiatives must be coupled with the creation of economic frameworks and mechanisms that are conducive for social development, investment and employment.”

Speaking on the Middle East situation, the envoy said that the humanitarian challenges are an important dimension and it is important to address these on priority.

“India’s commitment in this regard is also manifested in its supply of 5 metric tons of essential medicines to the friendly people of Syria as recently as July 2025. India continues to stress a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process. While taking positive note of progressive normalisation of Syria’s relations with its Arab neighbours, India also pledges its support to the regional efforts towards finding a long-term solution in Syria,” he said.

He added: “Indian troops in UNDOF remained steadfast in executing their mandate even during extreme challenges experienced during the recent conflict, including supreme sacrifice by Acting Force Commander Brigadier General Amitabh Jha in December 2024. India is the third largest contributor to this Mission.”

The Permanent Representative of India to the UN pointed out the importance of safety and security of peacekeepers at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

“At a broader level, the peacekeepers serve a very critical function of the UN, and they cannot become casualties of conflicts and escalations. India remains hopeful that the Lebanese Armed Forces will be equipped to discharge the entire spectrum of its responsibilities once the UNIFIL sunset clause becomes operational towards the end of 2026″ he said.

Source : https://www.news18.com/world/talks-must-continue-india-envoy-to-un-lauds-trumps-role-in-gaza-ceasefire-deal-ws-l-9655070.html

The Trump administration defends its controversial $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, citing the need to prioritize American workers and reduce fraud within the system.

The Trump administration, facing multiple lawsuits challenging the $100,000 fee imposed on new visa applicants, once again justified the fee hike, stating that the policy aims to prioritise American workers and curb fraud in the H-1B system. “The president’s main priority has always been to put American workers first and to strengthen our visa system,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday defending the move.
“The administration will fight these lawsuits in court. The president’s main priority has always been to put American workers first and to strengthen our visa system. For far too long, the H-1B visa system has been spammed with fraud, and that’s driven down American wages. So the president wants to refine this system, which is part of the reason he implemented these new policies. These actions are lawful, they are necessary, and we’ll continue to fight this battle in court,” Leavitt told presspersons at the White House press briefing.
The US Chamber of Commerce has challenged the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee on H-1B visa petitions. Besides, unions, employers, and religious groups have filed lawsuits in California and Washington, DC, federal courts, arguing the fee is unlawful and harms US industries.

The Chamber has argued that the new fee is unlawful because it overrides provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that govern the H-1B program, including the requirement that fees be based on the costs incurred by the government in processing visas, according to an official statement by the CoC.

“The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for US employers, especially start-ups and small and midsize businesses, to utilize the H-1B program, which Congress created expressly to ensure that American businesses of all sizes can access the global talent they need to grow their operations here in the US,” said Neil Bradley, Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer at the US Chamber.
“President Trump has embarked on an ambitious agenda of securing permanent pro-growth tax reforms, unleashing American energy, and unravelling the overregulation that has stifled growth. The Chamber and our members have actively backed these proposals to attract more investment in America. To support this growth, our economy will require more workers, not fewer,” his statement added.
The H1B visa allows IT companies to hire skilled foreign workers. The increased fees are set to affect Indian IT professionals, who comprise the largest group receiving H-1 B visas.
The new USD 100,000 annual fee represents a significant increase from current H-1B processing costs, which typically amount to a few thousand dollars. Companies will pay this fee in addition to existing vetting charges, with the administration still determining whether to collect the full amount upfront or on an annual basis.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-news/h-1b-system-spammed-with-fraud-white-house-defends-100000-visa-fee-article-153043884

The Times reported that attractive Chinese and Russian spies are infiltrating US tech companies by seducing employees to steal trade secrets. Tech magnate Elon Musk reacted to the report in his usual memelord style.

SpaceX CEO and tech billionaire Elon Musk has weighed in on a new report claiming that Chinese and Russian operatives are using seduction and deception to infiltrate America’s technology sector.

Reacting to the revelations on X, Elon Musk quipped, “If she’s a 10, you’re an asset.”

The tongue-in-cheek remark, part humorous and part cautionary, quickly went viral.

According to an investigation by The Times (UK), “sex warfare” has emerged as a covert strategy among foreign intelligence agencies, with operatives posing as entrepreneurs, investors, or romantic partners to extract sensitive data from US tech insiders.

The report alleges that Chinese and Russian agents are targeting innovation hubs from Silicon Valley to Seattle, seeking access to confidential research, defence technology, and artificial intelligence projects.

LUST AND LIES AS TOOLS OF ESPIONAGE

According to the report, US counterintelligence agencies are alarmed by what they describe as a wave of “seductive spies” deployed to extract trade secrets and intellectual property from American technology firms.

Experts say these operations blur the line between human intelligence (HUMINT) and cyber espionage, relying on emotional manipulation rather than hacking tools to breach sensitive systems.

“China is targeting our startups, our academic institutions, our innovators,” Jeff Stoff, a former US national security analyst, told The Times. “It’s all part of China’s economic warfare strategy — and we’ve not even entered the battlefield.”

James Mulvenon, Chief Intelligence Officer at Pamir Consulting, told the publication, “It’s the Wild West out there.” He described receiving a flurry of LinkedIn requests from “the same type of attractive young Chinese woman,” suggesting a coordinated intelligence effort.

THE RISE OF ‘SEX WARFARE’

US counterintelligence officials warned that this so-called “sex warfare” extends beyond flirtation. In several cases, operatives have reportedly married targets, including aerospace and defence employees, as part of long-term intelligence-gathering missions.

One former official cited by The Times described a “beautiful Russian woman” who married an American engineer and later moved into crypto and defence-tech circles, calling it a “lifelong collection operation”.

“They have an asymmetric advantage when it comes to sex warfare,” Mulvenon admitted, noting that US agencies, constrained by law and ethics, are less willing to use such tactics.

CHINA’S ‘WHOLE-OF-SOCIETY’ ESPIONAGE STRATEGY

US intelligence officials claimed Beijing’s approach to spying has gone mainstream, using civilians — from students to businesspeople — as potential intelligence assets.

“We’re not chasing KGB agents in smoky rooms anymore,” one senior official told The Times. “Our adversaries, especially the Chinese, are using a whole-of-society approach.”

The financial stakes are staggering. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimates that economic espionage and trade secret theft cost the US economy up to $600 billion annually, with China responsible for the majority of cases.

In one instance, German national Klaus Pflugbeil allegedly tried to sell Tesla’s stolen blueprints for $15 million to undercover agents in Las Vegas. Prosecutors said the data could have bolstered China’s electric vehicle ambitions.

PITCH TRAPS AND HONEYTRAPS

Beyond romance, US authorities warn of economic “honeytraps” or so-called innovation competitions or “pitch events” run by Chinese entities that lure startups into revealing intellectual property.

Some competitions allegedly record participants, collect personal data, and then use it for industrial espionage.

“It’s a counterintelligence risk,” one US official said. “They may simply take your idea, exploit it, and patent it — stealing your financial future.”

A biotech CEO told The Times that after winning $50,000 in one such contest, he later found his federal funding frozen. “They recorded everything,” he said. “Every word, every detail.”

While seductive espionage is as old as the Cold War, when Soviet “swallows” and “ravens” entrapped Western officials, analysts say the battleground has shifted.

Today’s spies aren’t seeking state secrets in embassies. They’re targeting data scientists, AI engineers, and startup founders — people who hold keys to future technologies with national security value.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/us-news/story/elon-musk-reacts-chinese-russian-espionage-seduction-us-tech-2807511-2025-10-24

The actress has battled countless traumas and rejections during her life

DEMI Moore poses in a cage-style dress — but says she feels freer than ever.

The screen star, 62, was in celebratory mood after being named one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year.

It comes after she won a Best Actress Golden Globe for her role in horror flick The Substance.

Demi was interviewed by Substance co-star Margaret Qualley for the mag.

She said: “With everything I’ve been through, which has been a lot, I wouldn’t trade where I am today.”

She added a difference with her younger self is the “freedom to know I don’t have to have the answer, and life is not going to be completely stolen from me if I somehow don’t know”.

During Demi Moore’s emotional Golden Globes acceptance speech, she spoke of having been at a “low point” and not thinking she was “enough”.

The actress has battled countless traumas and rejections during her life – including her biological dad leaving before she was born, saving her drug addicted mum from suicide, two spells in rehab and being raped aged 15.

The star of Ghost, Indecent Proposal and A Few Good Men’s return to form in the satirical horror movie The Substance is one of the greatest Hollywood comebacks of all time.

Having struggled to land a hit movie over the past couple of decades, Demi thought “this was it.”

And when you learn of what the mother-of-three has been through, you’ll know why her best actress win at the Globes on Sunday meant so much.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15384741/demi-moore-substance-glam-celeb/

Intelligence sources suggest that similar attacks are a calculated strategy to control the flow of money generated by the music industry

The targeted shooting of Punjabi singer Teji Kahlon in Canada has been linked to a brutal, transnational turf war between Indian organised crime networks, specifically factions loyal to the Lawrence Bishnoi–Rohit Godara syndicate, top intelligence sources told CNN-News18 on Wednesday.

Kahlon was reportedly shot in the stomach—an attack method interpreted by sources as a clear “sign of warning” rather than an outright execution, mirroring previous intimidation tactics, such as the attack on comedian Kapil Sharma’s cafe. The incident highlights the alarming operational reach of these Indian gangster networks abroad, demonstrating their capability to carry out targeted strikes.

The Punjabi Music Industry: A Battleground for Gang Finance

Initial reports indicate that Kahlon’s social affiliations, through event and industry circles, connected him to members of rival gangs. This relationship, whether formal or informal, is at the heart of the conflict.

The attack on Kahlon carries immense symbolic intimidation value and serves as a public warning to the entire Punjabi music industry and diaspora event circuit. Gangsters believe these music figures often maintain informal ties or financial dealings with rival syndicates.

Source : https://www.news18.com/world/targeted-shooting-of-punjabi-singer-teji-kahlon-in-canada-linked-to-transnational-gang-rivalry-exclusive-9652369.html

The HI-B visa allows highly-skilled workers to reside and work in the US for up to three years at a time, also providing for a three-year extension.

United States on Tuesday issued a clarification regarding the $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications. The President Donald Trump-led administration stated that recent international graduates sponsored for H-1B status while already in the country would not be required to pay the fee. The H-1B visa allows highly-skilled workers to reside and work in the US for up to three years at a time, also providing for a possible extension for up to three years.

The clarification from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) came as a major relief to Indian tech professionals and students in the US, who form the backbone of the H-1B program. Around 300,000 Indian workers currently in the US on H-1B visas, mostly employed in technology and services industries.

How does the fee impact Indian workers?

Indians form a major chunk of about 70% of all news H-1B visa allocations, followed by Chinese nationals, who account for about 11-12%, according to data by the US administration. 85,000 new visas are awarded through a lottery system under the program each year.

The visa has also played a key role in making Indian-Americans one of the most educated and highest-earning communities in America, according to researchers behind The Other One Percent, a seminal study on Indian-Americans.

H-1B visa holders, including dependents, make up around one-fourth of the 3 million Indian-Americans, with Indian IT companies using the program to deploy engineers to US client sites. American companies also recruit heavily on the basis of the H-1B visas, taking many Indian students from US universities.

Foreign nationals seeking change in visa status not liable to pay H-1B fee

The existing foreign nationals who are seeking a change in visa status will not have to pay the new $100,000 fee, the USCIS confirmed.

This means that those foreign nationals who travel or have travelled to US on a different visa – for example F-1 for international students and L-1 for international companies – will not have to pay the $100,000 fee if they switch to H-1B while in the US. They can also re-enter the US on the H-1B and would not be fined. The exception also extends to current H-1B visa holders seeking renewals or extensions.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/why-new-h-1b-visa-fees-announcement-by-trump-admin-comes-as-a-relief-for-indian-techies-students-101761130268374.html

An AI-generated video recreating the $100 million Louvre heist has gone viral, with users comparing the robbery to Bollywood film ‘Dhoom 2’.

An AI-generated video recreating the $100 million Louvre heist is going viral on social media, with many users drawing parallels to the Bollywood film ‘Dhoom 2’.

The video shared on X surfaced online after the dramatic daylight robbery at the Louvre in Paris, where a group of thieves pulled off a smash-and-grab inside the Apollo Room – home to the museum’s historic royal jewels – before fleeing within minutes. The museum reopened for visitors on Wednesday, but the heist room remains sealed as authorities continue their search for what officials have called a gang of “experienced criminals”.

Amid this, an AI-generated video reimagining the heist in cinematic style has caught the internet’s attention.

Social media users were quick to draw parallels between the robbery and Bollywood’s 2006 hit movie ‘Dhoom 2’, which features a Louvre-set heist pulled off by Hritik Roshan’s character Aryan.

“There’s a theft at the Louvre Museum, but the contents are all from the movie Dhoom 2,” one user wrote.

“It is interesting that despite being 48 hours since the Louvre Museum robbery, neither the culprits are arrested nor the robbed jewellery recovered More to prove that movies are not fiction. Good plotline for Dhoom 4,” commented another.

“Crazy Shit !! They did Dhoom 2 style heist on Louvre,” remarked a third user.

“if Aryan from Dhoom 2 was actually a real person, like he would 100% rob the Louvre in broad daylight just for the love of the game,” quipped one user.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/trending/ai-video-recreates-100-million-louvre-robbery-internet-calls-it-dhoom-2-style-heist-101761133609695.html

A police officer mistakenly shot at troops taking part in a large-scale Bundeswehr training exercise in the southern German city of Erding, injuring a soldier.

A solider was shot by police during a large-scale exercise of the Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, in the southern Bavarian city of Erding, officials said on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Bundeswehr’s Operational Command told German media that a misunderstanding had led to a shot being fired between troops taking part in the exercise and police who had been called by local residents.

The soldier has since been discharged from hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries, according to the spokesperson and local police.

Why did German police shoot at military troops?
As part of an exercise called Marshal Power, the Bundeswehr is currently carrying out an exercise involving some 500 military police as well as hundreds of first responders from police, fire and rescue services.

The drills are being conducted in public spaces in a dozen Bavarian towns and cities to the north of Munich, including in Erding, to rehearse for an attack on a NATO member state.

Bavarian police said they had been responding to reports of a man carrying a weapon and deployed multiple units to the southeast of Erding, including a helicopter, early on Wednesday evening.

According to German daily Bild, the military police fired practice ammunition at the arriving police officers, believing this was part of the military exercise.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-mistakenly-shoot-soldier-on-training-exercise/a-74465052

The timeline of the sanctions brings the EU’s full LNG embargo forward by a year.

The European Union has approved a 19th package of sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine, including a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, the Danish presidency of the EU said on Wednesday (Oct 22).

“We are very pleased to announce that we have just been notified by the remaining member state that it’s now able to lift its reservation on the 19th sanctions package,” the presidency said in a statement.

Slovakia was the final hold-out, agreeing to the package after receiving assurances from the European Commission on high energy prices and the impact on carmakers and heavy industry.

“Consequently, a written procedure for Council approval has been launched. If no objections are received, the package will be adopted tomorrow by 8am,” it added.

LNG BAN AND NEW RESTRICTIONS
The LNG ban will take effect in two stages: short-term contracts will end after six months, and long-term contracts from Jan 1, 2027. The timeline brings the EU’s full LNG embargo forward by a year from the European Commission’s previous roadmap to end dependence on Russian fossil fuels.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/eu-approves-19th-package-sanctions-russia-including-lng-ban-5418806

The Trump administration is considering a plan to curb a dizzying array of software-powered exports to China, from laptops to jet engines, to retaliate against Beijing’s latest round of rare earth export restrictions, according to a U.S. official and three people briefed by U.S. authorities.

While the plan is not the only one being deliberated, it would make good on President Donald Trump’s threat earlier this month to bar “critical software” exports to China by restricting global shipments of items that contain U.S. software or were produced using U.S. software.

On October 10, Trump said in a social media post that he would impose additional tariffs of 100% on China’s U.S.-bound shipments, along with new export controls on “any and all critical software” by November 1 without further details.

To be sure, the measure, details of which are being reported for the first time, may not move forward, the sources said.

But the fact that such controls are being considered shows the Trump administration is weighing a dramatic escalation of its showdown with China, even as some within the U.S. government favor a gentler approach, according to two of the sources.

“I will confirm that everything is on the table,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters at the White House Wednesday when asked about software curbs on China. “If these export controls – whether it’s software, engines or other things – happen, it will likely be in coordination with our G7 allies.”

U.S. stock indexes dipped following the Reuters report, before paring losses. The S&P 500 closed down 0.5% while the Nasdaq was about 1% lower at the market’s close.

Emily Kilcrease, a former trade official now at the Center for a New American Security, said software was a natural point of leverage for the U.S. Still, such controls would be extraordinarily difficult to implement and would lead to blowback for U.S. industry, she said.

“You would hope they are only putting threats on the table that they would carry out and stick with,” Kilcrease said.
The White House declined to comment. The Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy did not comment on the specific U.S. measures under consideration but said China opposed the U.S. “imposing unilateral long-arm jurisdiction measures” and vowed to “take resolute measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests” if the U.S. proceeds down what it views as a wrong path.

MEASURE COULD BE USED TO PRESSURE CHINA

Administration officials could announce the measure to put pressure on China but stop short of implementing it, one of the sources said. Narrower policy proposals are also being discussed, two of the people said.

“Everything imaginable is made with U.S. software,” one of the sources said, highlighting the broad scope of the proposed action. The sources declined to be named because the matter was not public.

The move could disrupt global trade with China, especially for technology products, and could come at a cost to the U.S. economy if fully implemented.

It echoes restrictions the Biden administration imposed on Moscow after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Those rules restricted exports to Russia of items made globally using U.S. technology or software.

Trump’s Truth Social post came just three weeks before a previously announced meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, and a day after China dramatically expanded its export controls on rare earth elements. China dominates the market for such elements, which are essential to tech manufacturing.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-considering-curbs-exports-china-made-with-us-software-sources-say-2025-10-22

The US has announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies – Rosneft and Lukoil – in an effort to pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.

“Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere. They just don’t go anywhere,” President Donald Trump said, after a meeting with Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte to discuss peace negotiations.

The sanctions announcement came one day after Trump said a meeting planned with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest would be shelved indefinitely.

Earlier Wednesday, Russia unleashed an intense bombardment on Ukraine that killed at least seven people, including children.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the new sanctions were needed due to “Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war”. He said these oil companies fund the Kremlin’s “war machine”.

“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” Bessent said in a statement.

Speaking alongside Rutte in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump criticised Putin for not being serious about making peace and said he hoped that the sanctions would help force a breakthrough.

“I just felt it was time. We waited a long time,” Trump said.

He called the sanctions package “tremendous”, and added that he hoped they could be swiftly withdrawn if Russia agrees to stop the war.

Rutte also praised the move, saying it was “putting more pressure” on Putin.

“You have to put pressure, and that is just what he did today,” Rutte said.

The move comes as key differences between US and Russian proposals for peace became increasingly clear this week. Trump has indicated that a key sticking point has been Moscow’s refusal to cease fighting along the current front line.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US still wanted to meet Russia.

Last week, the UK slapped a similar sanctions package on Rosneft and Lukoil.

“There is no place for Russian oil on global markets,” UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said while announcing the move.

Responding to the UK, Russia’s embassy in London said targeting its country’s major energy companies would disrupt global fuel supplies and drive up costs worldwide.

It also said the sanctions would have “a detrimental impact on the energy security” of developing and underdeveloped countries, adding “pressure only complicates peaceful dialogue and leads to further escalation”.

The two Russian oil firms export 3.1 million barrels of oil per day. Rosneft is responsible for nearly half of all Russian oil production, which makes up 6% of the global output, according to estimates from the UK government.

Oil and gas are Russia’s biggest exports, and Moscow’s biggest customers include China, India and Turkey. Trump has also urged these countries to halt purchases of Russian oil in a bid to put economic pressure on the Kremlin.

Trump’s move was praised by UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who said the US sanctions are “strongly welcome”.

Children among victims in Russian strikes, hours after Trump-Putin talks shelved
Why Trump made breakthrough in Gaza but can’t with Putin over Ukraine
EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen posted on X that she spoke by phone to Bessent on Wednesday about “Russia’s lack of commitment to the peace process”.

She also praised a new sanctions package approved by the European Union on Wednesday, which includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports.

“With the imminent adoption of the EU’s 19th package, this is a clear signal from both sides of the Atlantic that we will keep up collective pressure on the aggressor,” she wrote.

Earlier this year, the UK and US also sanctioned major Russian energy companies Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas.

At the White House, Rutte was expected to discuss a 12-point plan formulated by European NATO allies and Kyiv, which would see the current front lines frozen, a return of deported children as well as a prisoner exchange between the two warring countries.

The plan also includes a war recovery fund for Ukraine, as well as security pathways and a clear pathway for Ukraine to join the EU, as well as increased military aid to Kyiv and economic pressure on Moscow.

Earlier this week, Trump said he did not want a “wasted meeting” with Putin in Budapest, and suggested a main point of contention is Moscow’s refusal to cease fighting along the current front lines of the war.

He last met with Putin in Alaska for a summit the White House hoped would lead to the end of the conflict. Instead, the fighting has continued.

A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was also shelved. The meeting this week was no longer “necessary” after a “productive” call, the White House said.

Trump has repeatedly endorsed proposals to freeze the fighting along current frontlines.

“Let it be cut the way it is,” he said on Monday. “I said: cut and stop at the battle line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people.”

Europe’s leaders back Trump call for frontline freeze but Russia says no
Russia has pushed back against that idea, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying that “the consistency of Russia’s position doesn’t change” – a reference to its desire for Ukrainian troops to leave the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd6758pn6ylo

Palestinian militants have so far released the remains of 15 hostages that were held in Gaza for the past two years as part of the ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Hamas war. But the process of returning the bodies of the last 13 remaining hostages, as called for under the truce deal, has progressed slowly as militants release just one or two bodies every few days.

Hamas says it has not been able to reach all of the remains because they are buried under rubble left behind by Israel’s two-year offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israel has accused the militants of dragging their feet and threatened to resume military operations or withhold humanitarian aid if all of the remains are not returned.

Hamas last week freed the last 20 living hostages taken during its Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

In return, Israel has so far released the bodies of 165 Palestinians back to Gaza. Israel didn’t provide any details on their identities, and it is unclear if they were killed in Israel during the attack on Oct. 7, Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli custody, or bodies that were taken from Gaza by Israeli troops during the war. Gaza’s Health Ministry has struggled to identify the bodies without access to DNA kits.

Here’s a look at the hostages whose remains have not been returned.

Sahar Baruch, 25

Sahar Baruch, from Kibbutz Be’eri, loved science, Dungeons & Dragons, the card game Magic: The Gathering and fantasy books. He competed in chess competitions and was set to begin an electrical engineering degree when he was abducted. He previously served in the military as a mechanic. He and his brother, Idan, were at their mother’s house on Oct. 7. Idan was killed in the attack.

Three months into Sahar’s captivity, the Israeli military said he was killed during an attempted rescue mission. He is survived by his parents and two other siblings.

Itay Chen, 19

Itay Chen was an Israeli American originally from Netanya, in central Israel, who was abducted along with two other members of his tank battalion: Daniel Peretz, who also died, and Matan Angrest, who survived and was released from captivity on Monday. Chen loved basketball and studying human biology, according the Hostages Families Forum.

Chen was killed on Oct. 7 and his body was taken to Gaza. His father, Ruby Chen, has met frequently with American leaders about getting all of the hostages returned to Israel, including the remains of the dead. Itay Chen is survived by his parents and two brothers.

Amiram Cooper, 84

Amiram Cooper was one of the founders of kibbutz Nir Oz, an economist and the author of three poetry books, according to the Hostages Families Forum. Cooper was abducted alive on Oct. 7 from Nir Oz along with his wife, Nurit, who was released after 17 days. Cooper was featured in a Hamas video, filmed under duress, with two other elderly hostages. In June 2024, Israel confirmed that Amiram had been killed. He leaves behind Nurit, three children and nine grandchildren.

Oz Daniel, 19

Oz Daniel was an Israeli soldier who was killed on Oct. 7. His body was taken from his tank along with three others. He was a gifted guitarist who started playing at age 9. He practiced long hours even during his army service and dreamed of being a professional musician. His favorite band was Guns N’ Roses, according to the Hostages Families Forum. He is survived by his parents and twin sister.

Meny Godard, 73

Meny Godard was a professional soccer player before enlisting in the Israeli military and serving in the 1973 Mideast War, according to Kibbutz Be’eri. He served in a variety of different positions in the kibbutz, including at its printing press.

On the morning of Oct. 7, Godard and his wife, Ayelet, were forced out of their home after it was set on fire. She hid in the bushes for a number of hours before militants discovered her and killed her. She was able to tell her children that Meny had been killed before she died. The family held a double funeral for the couple. They are survived by four children and six grandchildren.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-hostages-remains-45a076b9f999ce79cc0041485acff2f8

The United Nations chief delivered a strong defense of science and meteorology on Wednesday, praising the U.N. weather agency for helping save lives by keeping watch for climate disasters around the world.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke to the World Meteorological Organization as science faces an assault in the United States: President Donald Trump’s administration has led an anti-science push, and Trump has called climate change “ a con job.”

A longtime advocate for the fight against global warming, Guterres spoke at a special WMO meeting aimed to promote early-warning systems that help countries rich and poor brace for floods, storms, forest fires and heat waves.

“Without your long-term monitoring, we wouldn’t benefit from the warnings and guidance that protect communities and save millions of lives and billions of dollars each year,” he said, alluding to “the dangerous and existential threat of climate change.”

Last week, the weather agency reported that heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilization and causing more extreme weather.

Guterres called WMO staffers the “quiet force that illuminates all the rational climate decisions that we take.”

“Scientists and researchers should never be afraid to tell the truth,” he added.

The Trump administration has carried out deep cuts to the National Weather Service and fired hundreds of weather forecasters and other employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/guterres-climate-trump-wmo-meteorology-science-f729579dcae6a1b577eb5831310baf09

President Donald Trump couldn’t help but favorably compare himself to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in a rambling speech in the Rose Garden on Tuesday.

“Hey, they didn’t put out eight wars, nine coming,” he said. “We put out eight wars, and the ninth is coming, believe it or not.”

The moment came when Trump began to brag about his tacky “Walk of Fame” addition to the White House Rose Garden, which features portraits of most of the presidents (Joe Biden’s “portrait” is a photo of an autopen). He noted the line of presidents goes from George Washington to himself, but sadly conceded that even he would have to rank himself behind Washington.

Trump then recalled a person “on television” who said he was the “third best president” behind Washington and Lincoln.

“I got extremely angry at this man,” Trump, 79, admitted.

It’s unclear who the “person on television” Trump was referring to with this story is. In February, he said in an interview with Fox’s Bret Baier that someone told him a Washington/Lincoln ticket couldn’t beat him in an election.

After bringing up his mysterious television offender, Trump tried to get Sen. John Thune’s attention in the crowd.

“It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be tough to beat—Mr. Senator—it’s gonna be—John—it’s gonna be tough to beat Washington and Lincoln, but we’re gonna give it a try.“

Trump then dropped his favorite boast about “ending eight wars” to dangle over the ghosts of Lincoln and Washington.

Trump is consistently ranked near the bottom of presidential rankings. C-SPAN’s 2021 poll of historians found Trump ranking fourth-worst (beating out Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, and James Buchanan) while Lincoln and Washington ranked first and second, respectively. A 2024 poll of executives from the American Political Science Association ranked Trump worst.

Furthermore, Trump’s oft-repeated boast of having “ended eight wars” has been widely fact-checked and found to be an embellishment at best.

Trump says he has ended wars with economic pressure, but several wars he claims to have ended, such as the DRC and Rwanda conflict and the Israel/Hamas conflict, still erupt in violence. Other “wars,” such as Serbia/Kosovo and Egypt/Ethiopa, were never wars in the first place.

Source : https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-says-got-lincoln-washington-223830095.html

While people in Karnataka’s tier-2 and tier-3 cities continue to gravitate towards Gulf countries for employment opportunities, those in Bengaluru are eyeing jobs in European countries like Poland, Hungary, Luxembourg and Austria, according to industry insiders.

Bengaluru: Shady recruiting agencies in Bengaluru are taking advantage of the growing demand for blue-collar jobs in Europe, as the working class looks for employment beyond the Gulf countries.

Under the guise of providing work visas, these fly-by-night operators are scamming jobseekers out of lakhs of rupees and shutting up shop within months.

While people in Karnataka’s tier-2 and tier-3 cities continue to gravitate towards Gulf countries for employment opportunities, those in Bengaluru are eyeing jobs in European countries like Poland, Hungary, Luxembourg and Austria, according to industry insiders.

“The Gulf was popular among Bengalureans about a decade ago, but in the last eight-odd years, there hasn’t been much improvement in the standard of living of blue-collar immigrants in these countries,” a government official told DH. “These illegal agencies are using this opportunity to lure in people with “well-paying jobs in Europe”.

While a driver making Rs 30,000 a month in Bengaluru may earn just Rs 10,000-15,000 more in any Gulf country, the pay in Europe is around Rs 1 lakh.

“The jobs are varied — from kitchen help to warehouse workers, janitors to supermarket salesmen and so on. Due to the high salary, people end up falling for the trap,” the official said.

Investigations by the Protector of Emigrants (PoE) office in Bengaluru led to a crackdown on two such unlicensed consultancies in September. Several similar cases have been filed in 2025.

Currently, Bengaluru has only 37 active registered overseas recruitment agencies. According to the Emigration Act, the agencies are permitted to charge a service fee of Rs 30,000, plus GST. Dozens of others operate under the radar, according to the official. 

Source: https://www.deccanherald.com/business/jobs-and-careers/no-landing-in-europe-bengalurus-blue-collar-job-seekers-stranded-between-dreams-and-deceit-lose-lakhs-3771503

Donald Trump has said he did not want a “wasted meeting” after a plan to have face-to-face talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine were put on hold.

The US president indicated that a key sticking point remained Moscow’s refusal to cease fighting along the current front line, in remarks at the White House on Tuesday.

Earlier, a White House official had said there were “no plans” for a Trump-Putin meeting “in the immediate future”, after Trump said on Thursday that the two would hold talks in Budapest within two weeks.

Key differences between US and Russian proposals for peace became increasingly clear this week, appearing to have dashed chances of a summit.

Trump and Putin last met in Alaska in August, during a hastily organised summit which yielded no concrete results.

The White House decision to shelve plans for a second Trump-Putin meeting may be seen as an attempt to avoid another similar scenario.

“I guess the Russians wanted too much and it became evident for the Americans that there will be no deal for Trump in Budapest,” a senior European diplomat told Reuters.

A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was due to be held this week – but the White House said the two had had a “productive” call and that a meeting was no longer “necessary”.

On Monday, Trump embraced a ceasefire proposal backed by Kyiv and European leaders to freeze the conflict on the current front line.

“Let it be cut the way it is,” he said. “I said: cut and stop at the battle line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people.”

Russia has repeatedly pushed back against freezing the current line of contact.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the idea had been put to the Russians repeatedly but that “the consistency of Russia’s position doesn’t change” – referring to Moscow’s insistence on the complete withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the embattled eastern regions.

Moscow was only interested in “long-term, sustainable peace”, Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday, implying that freezing the front line would only amount to a temporary ceasefire.

The “root causes of the conflict” needed to be addressed, Lavrov said, using Kremlin shorthand for a series of maximalist demands that include the recognition of full Russian sovereignty over the Donbas as well as the demilitarisation of Ukraine – a non-starter for Kyiv and its European partners.

European leaders released a statement with Zelensky earlier on Tuesday saying that any talks on ending the war in Ukraine should start with freezing the current front line and accused Russia of not being “serious” about peace.

Zelensky said discussions about the front line were the “beginning of diplomacy”, which Russia was doing everything to avoid.

The only topic that could make Moscow “pay attention” was the supply of long-range weapons to Ukraine, he added.

Trump had discussed a summit in the Hungarian capital over the phone with Putin, a day before meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.

Some reports suggested those talks had been a “shouting match”, with sources suggesting Trump had pushed Zelensky to give up large areas of territory in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, known collectively as the Donbas, as part of a deal with Russia.

However, Zelensky has always said Ukraine cannot relinquish the parts of the Donbas it still holds, on the grounds that Russia could later use the area as a springboard for further attacks.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gjp73gp41o

U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead a federal watchdog agency, Paul Ingrassia, withdrew on Tuesday following a report that Ingrassia described himself as having a “Nazi streak.”
Ingrassia said in a social media post that he was pulling out of a scheduled Thursday hearing before a Senate panel that was set to consider his nomination because “I do not have enough Republican votes at this time.”

“I appreciate the overwhelming support that I have received throughout this process,” Ingrassia said in a post on X.
The post came after Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday called for the White House to pull the nomination. Thune’s remarks marked a rare sign of opposition in a Republican-controlled Senate that has shown little interest in challenging Trump’s nominees and his agenda.
Ingrassia also denounced the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in private text messages, according to a report in Politico.
“He’s not going to pass,” Thune told reporters on Monday night, according to media reports. Thune’s office confirmed on Tuesday that he called for the White House to withdraw the nomination.

Ingrassia also called for an end to other holidays that celebrate Black culture in the U.S. including Juneteenth and Black History Month, according to the report.
In another message in the same chat, Ingrassia wrote “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time,” Politico reported.
Politico said it obtained the text chain and confirmed the messages with two participants in the chat. Reuters has not independently verified the messages.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, on Tuesday called the messages “foul and disqualifying.”
Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, have rarely resisted Trump’s nominees and offered little pushback as Trump has moved aggressively to expand executive power.
Former Representative Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first nominee for attorney general, and E.J. Antoni, Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are two other rare exceptions whose nominations were pulled before coming to a Senate vote.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-nominee-faces-rare-republican-pushback-following-report-text-messages-2025-10-21/

By blaming India, the military establishment gains a convenient external scapegoat

Pakistan’s security crisis, marked by surging militant violence and deteriorating law and order, has prompted a high-level intervention by the country’s military leadership, CNN-News18 has learnt.

Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, the Army Chief, has adopted a combative stance, unequivocally blaming India for sponsoring terrorism in the highly restive provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Official Line: ‘Indian Proxies’
During a visit to Balochistan amid rising security concerns, Field Marshal Munir alleged that India is actively working to destabilise Pakistan on “two fronts.” He designated the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as “Indian proxies”, labelling them with loaded religious and ideological terms: the BLA as Fitna-ul-Hindustan (Treachery/Strife of Hindustan) and the TTP as Fitna-ul-Kharij (Treachery/Strife of the Kharijites).

The Army Chief vowed that “all necessary steps will be taken to eliminate terrorist proxies”, framing the security challenge as an externally sponsored campaign of “anti-people propaganda” and violence. While in Balochistan, he also engaged in a patriotic overture, calling the province the “pride of Pakistan” and urging the youth to play a role in its development and stability.

The Counter-Narrative: A Text-Book Diversion
Top intelligence sources and security analysts, however, view Field Marshal Munir’s statements as a calculated and familiar “textbook diversion” from profound internal crises. This strategic externalisation of blame comes at a time when Pakistan is reeling from multiple domestic failures:

Internal Failures: The country is facing the blowback from its perceived failures in Afghanistan, a severe economic collapse, internal rifts with religious-political groups like the TLP, and rapidly growing anti-army sentiment in ethnic regions like Balochistan and KP.

The Army’s Role: Analysts suggest the military’s repeated operations and widespread practice of enforced disappearances in these provinces have triggered mass discontent, creating the very vacuum that militant and separatist groups exploit.

Source: https://www.news18.com/world/a-tectonic-shift-in-narrative-pakistans-army-chief-blames-india-for-internal-turmoil-exclusive-details-9650490.html

LeBron’s recovery time could play a role in his retirement decision

LEBRON JAMES is worried about destroying his legacy as he enters a record-breaking 23rd NBA season.

A former coach of the LA Lakers icon, who has worked with him throughout his incredible career, has told The U.S. Sun the 40-year-old is seriously frustrated at missing tonight’s big tip-off against the Golden State Warriors with a sciatica issue.

When James finally takes the court in a few weeks, he will become the first player in NBA history to play in 23 consecutive seasons.

The League’s all-time top scorer played 70 times in the last campaign, but was unable to steer the Lakers past the first round of the playoffs.

Time is catching up with one of basketball‘s greats – and with younger stars snapping at his heels, the insider says James won’t want to stick around when he’s not wanted.

He says the four-time NBA champion feels that his body is “getting really, really tired” and the feeling of being injury-prone is bothering him.

Recovery times have lengthened as “Father Time” begins to weigh heavily on his shoulders.

“LeBron wants to enjoy what’s left,” the former coach, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The U.S. Sun.

“He doesn’t want to play too long and have his body damaged too much for doing the extra season that could damage his legacy.

“He won’t want to be the old guy trying to keep up with the young guys, staying in the league just to be there and have the spotlight but not being competitive.”

The friend says seeing stars in the NFL stay in the game for too long is heavily influencing his retirement schedule.

“He hates to see other sportsmen push their career way too much and play extra years but look ridiculous and out of pace in a game,” the experienced NBA coach added. “His legacy is super important to him, and he wouldn’t accept to be in the league just to be in the league, old, slow, and not being able to impact the game he wants to anymore.”

James snapped up a whopping $52.6 player option for the new season and wants the Lakers to be competitive in what could be an emotional swansong.

It will be his eighth campaign in Los Angeles – his longest stint ever with a team after seven years in Cleveland the first time around, followed by four in Miami and another four back in his hometown.

Having son Bronny in the Lakers roster is also keeping James keen for more.

But wife Savannah, according to the source, has warned her husband about not doing any long-term damage to his body, which could impact his life once that retirement call is made.

“Her position is very important for him,” confirmed the friend, “and she also knows that she is important to have her help to transition when he is done playing.”

The Western Conference will be highly competitive for the 2025-26 season, but with Luka Dončić fully settled and the arrivals of Deandre Ayton, Marcus Smart, and Jake LaRavia in the City of Angels, no one is ruling the Lakers out.

“There is a big, big possibility that it will be his last season, to wrap up the best way and enjoy it the most,” concluded the insider. “His goals are to pass the torch to Luka Doncic, and to keep mentoring Bronny so he can be an important player and stay many years in the NBA.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/sport/15378858/lebron-james-retirement-plan-injury-family-bronny/

India had withdrawn its officials from its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

India and Afghanistan marked a new chapter in diplomatic ties as New Delhi upgraded its technical mission in Kabul to the status of an embassy. This comes over a week-and-a-half after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said during his meeting with Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi that India will upgrade its diplomatic presence in Kabul. The upgradation is being seen as part of broader efforts to deepen its bilateral engagement with Kabul.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the Indian embassy in Kabul will further augment India’s contribution to Afghanistan’s comprehensive development, humanitarian assistance, and capacity-building initiatives.
“In keeping with the decision announced during the recent visit of the Afghan foreign minister to India, the government is restoring the status of the technical mission of India in Kabul to that of the Embassy of India in Afghanistan with immediate effect,” it said in a statement. The MEA said the decision underscores India’s resolve to deepen its bilateral engagement with the Afghan side in “all spheres of mutual interest”.

“The Embassy of India in Kabul will further augment India’s contribution to Afghanistan’s comprehensive development, humanitarian assistance, and capacity-building initiatives, in keeping with the priorities and aspirations of Afghan society,” it said in a statement.

The Ukrainian city of Chernihiv is in total blackout following what the authorities describe as a “massive” assault by Russian missiles and drones, with hundreds of thousands of people affected.

Across the wider Chernihiv region, four people are reported to have been killed as residential neighbourhoods were struck in the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi.

Ten others were injured, including a 10-year-old girl.

The country’s most northerly region is the latest to be hit in an intensifying series of attacks on civilian infrastructure as Russia targets energy supplies, the rail network, homes and businesses in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“I personally heard the drones flying overhead,” 55-year-old Oleksandr Babich said.

The Chernihiv city resident spoke in matter-of-fact terms about a night filled with the low whine of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, a sound now being increasingly heard far from the war’s front lines.

“Unfortunately, our region is very close to our scheming neighbour,” he said, adding an expletive for good measure.

The Chernihiv region shares a border with both Russia and Belarus, giving the air defences here less time to react to any incoming attacks.

In a raid involving more than 100 Shahed drones – each of which carry a 50kg warhead – and six ballistic missiles, the direct strikes on Chernihiv’s electricity generating facilities left the whole city without power, as well as large parts of the surrounding area.

Andriy Podorvan, the deputy head of the Chernihiv Regional Military Administration, told the BBC that it was part of a pattern across much of the country, with things getting much worse in recent months.

“For around half a year we have been experiencing targeted strikes on the energy infrastructure in our region,” he said.

“The number of attacks has significantly increased over the last two months.”

When I asked him if he believed that any of the targets were of military value – Moscow’s usual justification for these sorts of attacks – he pointed out that Russia has even been targeting petrol stations.

“I can only see strikes on civilian infrastructure,” he said.

The attack on the electricity grid has also meant the loss of power to water pumping stations, seriously impacting supplies. Residents have been told to stock up on bottled water or are having to rely on emergency deliveries.

With the attacks ongoing in the morning, electrical engineers had to delay their initial response – but were later able to begin working to restore power.

The wider concern is that, if the intensity of Russia’s bombardment continues, it risks rapidly depleting the country’s energy resilience, taking a heavy toll on the economy and – with a harsh winter ahead – dealing a psychological blow to the public too.

Up until now, the country’s generating companies – working together in a war-time spirit of co-operation – have been able to restore power relatively quickly, but stocks of replacement equipment are not unlimited.

A single transformer can take more than a year to produce, with added time for transportation and installation.

The country is having to look for all the help it can get.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s recent meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington may have been seen as a strategic disappointment, coming away without having secured a supply of long-hoped for long-range Tomahawk missiles.

But his meetings with the heads of leading US energy companies, in which they discussed ways of helping Ukraine to shore up and modernise its energy sector, were reportedly a success.

Some estimates put the total cost of the damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure so far at more than $16bn (€13.7bn; £11.9bn).

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8vrxjdd5go

North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles on Wednesday (Oct 22), its first such launch in months and just a week before world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, descend on South Korea for a summit.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had “detected several projectiles, believed to be short-range ballistic missiles”.

The missiles were fired around 8.10am Wednesday (7.10am Singapore time) from an area south of the capital Pyongyang, Seoul’s military said.

They flew for around 350km, Seoul added.

Earlier, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the launch was towards the sea off North Korea’s east coast. North Korea last launched ballistic missiles on May 8 when it fired multiple short-range missiles from its east coast.

It is also Pyongyang’s first launch since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office in June.

Trump has said he hopes to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, possibly this year, following several meetings during the Republican president’s first term.

The North’s state media has indicated that Kim is open to future talks, with caveats that the United States give up its “delusional” demand that Pyongyang relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea showcased its latest and “most powerful” intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) earlier this month at a parade attended by top officials from Russia and China.

Pyongyang has said that the strike range of the new Hwasong-20 “knows no bounds”.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also oversaw in September a test of a solid-fuel engine used for long range nuclear missiles.

State media said it was the ninth and final test of the engine, indicating that a full test-fire of the new ICBM could be conducted in coming months.

“GROWING AND ACTIVE” MISSILE PROGRAMME
The launch was “a response to Trump and his recent moves”, Park Won-gon, a professor at Seoul’s Ewha Womans University, said.

Kim is also “asserting his regime’s presence during an event hosted by Seoul, as he’s done before”, he added.

Trump is expected to arrive in South Korea on Oct 29 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum.

North Korea has for years staged test flights of long-range missiles apparently able to reach the continental United States.

The US demand that Kim give up his banned weapons has long been a sticking point between the two countries.

But Pyongyang has also recently indicated a fresh openness to talks with the US.

Kim met Trump three times for high-profile summits during the US leader’s first term, before talks collapsed in Hanoi in 2019 over what concessions Pyongyang was prepared to make on its atomic weapons.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/north-korea-ballistic-missile-south-military-5416616

KING Tutankhamun’s tomb is on the brink of collapse and could crumble down in a devastating disaster, archaeologists have warned.

The priceless 3,300-year-old burial site may not stand the test of time because of cracks, water damage and fungi.

Archaeologists at the University of Cairo have now found that the tomb is plagued with several cracks and damage caused by water seepage, that have put the burial site at risk of collapse.

Sayed Hemeda, a Professor of Preservation of Architectural Heritage at Cairo University, told the Daily Mail: ““There are current and future risks facing the cemetery, which will affect its structural integrity in the long term.”

Tutankhamun is buried in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, situated by the River Nile opposite Luxor.

It is currently known to house 63 tombs and chambers of varying sizes, and was used as the final resting place for pharaohs and other ancient bigwigs for almost 500 years.

One of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, the valley has been the subject of many excavations and houses a modern tourist centre.

King Tut’s tomb (categorised KV 62) is unusually small considering his status, which hints at an unexpected death before a grander final resting place could be completed.

Hemada explained that the tombs’ location at the foothills of the valley’s mountains exposed them to flash floods resulting from heavy rains that carried “debris, stones and soil along the way.”

Particularly problematic is a major fracture traversing the ceiling of the burial chamber and entrance.

It all started when a major flood in 1994 caused water to seep in, raising humidity levels and prompting the fungi.

While the tomb won’t crumble in the near future, Hemeda said he feared that the “cemetery may not last for thousands of years as it was built”.

Mohamed Atia Hawash, Professor of Architectural Conservation at Cairo University’s Faculty of Archaeology, told Independent Arabia: “‘A disaster could strike at any moment, and if the Valley of the Kings is to be preserved, action must be taken before it is too late.”

Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled from 1332-1323 BC.

He was just nine years old when he took the throne and ruled for approximately ten years, presumably aided by powerful advisers or priests.

During his reign, he restored the supremacy of the Egyptian god Amun, after the worship of the deity was banned during his father’s reign.

To honour his preferred god, the pharaoh changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun, which means Living Image of Amun.

And he moved Egypt’s capital to Thebes, modern Luxor, the location of Amun’s major cult.

When he became king, he married his half-sister Ankhesenpaaten, and they had two stillborn daughters.

Study of Tutankhamun’s mummy revealed he was slight, and around 5ft 11 inches tall.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/tech/15379675/king-tutankhamuns-tomb-collapse/

Ukraine’s European allies are rallying around Zelenskyy after mixed messages from Trump. The prospect of talks in Budapest leaves the EU uneasy.

News that a highly anticipated meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has been put on hold will offer some relief to Ukraine’s EU allies, who were left rattled by the prospect of the bloc’s most Russia-friendly member playing host to talks on the future of Europe’s security.

Key summits in Brussels and London later this week could now test Europe’s capacity to deliver as it tries to unlock fresh financial support for Kyiv, and convince Trump to pile more pressure on Moscow.

“Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace. We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction,” the leaders of Ukraine, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Sweden — plus top EU officials — wrote in a statement on Tuesday.

“We must ramp up the pressure on Russia’s economy and its defence industry, until Putin is ready to make peace. We are developing measures to use the full value of Russia’s immobilised sovereign assets so that Ukraine has the resources it needs,” the leaders said.

‘No place for war criminals in Europe?’
EU states often insist Europe must have a seat at the table for talks on Ukraine’s future, but you can bet they weren’t banking on that table being in Budapest.

After all, if the meeting ever goes ahead, they would mark the first time Putin steps foot on EU soil since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and since the International Criminal Court indicted him over suspected war crimes.

“The only place for Putin in Europe, that’s in The Hague — in the tribunal. Not in any of our capitals,” Lithuania’s top diplomat Kestutis Budrys told reporters in Luxembourg on Monday, adding: “There is no place for war criminals in Europe.”

Ireland’s Simon Harris said the planned meeting place was “provocative” but stressed that efforts toward peace are welcome — while France’s foreign minister said Putin’s presence on EU soil “only makes sense if it leads to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”

Hungary, however, has been celebrating its role as hosting hopeful. Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X that his country was the “only suitable” place in Europe for talks on Ukraine’s future — citing its “pro-peace” stance.

But Budapest’s habit of delaying and diluting EU sanctions on Russia and railing against the bloc’s backing for Ukraine have led political scientist Reinhard Heinisch to a different conclusion on Hungary’s stance.

“Many in the European Union have regarded Orban as a sort of Trojan horse for Russian interests,” Heinisch, a Salzburg-based professor, told DW earlier this year when other locations for future peace talks — from Switzerland to Saudi Arabia — were being discussed.

Could Putin be arrested on EU soil?
Under international law, Hungary is still technically obliged to arrest Vladimir Putin if he ever does arrive in the country. Though Budapest announced it was quitting the International Criminal Court in June, the rules still apply on paper.

“States still have obligations for one year after leaving, which includes arresting individuals who are under arrest warrants,” Mathias Holvoet, a lecturer in International Criminal Law at the University of Amsterdam, told DW.

But Holvoet says there’s no real prospect of that happening. In fact, Hungary already defied ICC rules this year by hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in defiance of the warrant for his arrest.

Hungary would follow a long line of other states which have ignored the rules they signed up to — from Italy failing to arrest a suspected Libyan war criminal in January, to South Africa failing to arrest Sudan’s indicted ex-president Omar Al-Bashir more than a decade ago.

“There are not really any consequences when states fail to uphold those obligations,” Holvoet explained. The Trump administration’s hostility to the ICC, including its sanctions on judges, have also curbed the court’s capacity to carry out its work.

Can Putin even fly through EU airspace?
Putin may feel safe on Hungarian soil, but getting there could be more problematic. Though the EU’s sanctions against Putin himself do not include a ban on travelling to the bloc, the EU banned Russian aircraft from its airspace in 2022.

That means Putin’s plane would need special permissions to fly over EU countries if talks in Budapest do go ahead. “Such derogations must be issued by the member states individually,” EU Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper told reporters on Friday.

Hungary is landlocked and shares borders with EU members Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Romania says it hasn’t received any airspace entry requests from Moscow — nor has nearby Bulgaria, though its foreign minister reportedly said the country was open to allowing Putin to fly over.

Hungary’s southern neighbour Serbia may also be a key gateway, since it is not a member of the EU and has refused to align with EU sanctions against Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed Serbia’s president Alexander Vucic to Budapest on Tuesday, welcoming the opportunity to “reconnect” with a “strategic partner.”

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/no-budapest-talks-in-immediate-future-but-eu-still-on-edge/a-74448278

The US Vice President is in Israel to shore up the fragile ceasefire after deadly strikes over the weekend. Meanwhile, the UN says the amount of aid entering Gaza is falling far short of what is needed. DW has more.

German defense minister Boris Pistorius hopes to persuade NATO ally Canada to collaborate on a joint defense project to strengthen the North Atlantic alliance against Russia. Iceland also has an important role.

In the Canadian capital, Ottawa, on Monday, the defense ministers of Norway and Germany, Tore Sandvik and Boris Pistorius , received military honors from their Canadian counterpart, David McGuinty, at the start of what might informally be described as a sales presentation.

Sandvik and Pistorius want to convince the Canadians to join a German–Norwegian project that has been running since 2023, to procure standardized, modern submarines. They hope to secure an order from Canada of up to 12 units over the next 10 years.

This would provide a significant boost to the German and Norwegian companies that are building these submarines. As McGuinty pointed out, if Canada came on board, production numbers could be substantially increased, and this would reduce the cost of each submarine.

The German delegation believes that going into partnership on submarine construction would clearly signal a strengthening of North Atlantic naval cooperation. Last year, Germany, Norway, and Canada formally established a maritime security partnership, which Denmark also joined this year.

A new Cold War
After the end of the Cold War, submarines in the Atlantic were no longer considered a priority, and Germany drastically reduced its fleet.

However, with Russia once again regarded as a significant threat in the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic, the submarine fleet is growing. And the emphasis is not just on submarines. German defense minister Pistorius said that northern NATO countries were strengthening their commitment to protect critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables and offshore wind farms, and detect Russian submarines in the North Atlantic.

“Russia’s ambition will not stop in eastern Ukraine or at the eastern flank,” he said. “The civilian and military lines of communication across the North Atlantic are vitally important […] for our economy and our defense alliance with Canada and the United States.”

Tracking Russian submarines from Iceland
The German navy is to increase its presence, with more ships in the waters around the Arctic Circle. Special P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, which can detect submarines over great distances, will be deployed more frequently from Iceland.

Pistorius co-signed a declaration of intent to this effect while on a brief visit to Reykjavik on Sunday, with Iceland’s foreign minister, Katrin Gunnarsdottir.

The US navy operates the large Keflavik base in Iceland, from which the North Atlantic is monitored. Various NATO countries send reconnaissance aircraft to Keflavik, in rotation. The US shut down the base in 2006, but reopened it in 2016 in view of the growing threat from Russia.

Although Iceland is a member of NATO, it does not have a military of its own, so any external support is very welcome. In return, it provides logistical assistance at its ports, accommodation, and training grounds for German soldiers.

Rare earths as well as defense
During the talks in Canada, Pistorius also pushed for an expansion of the strategic and economic partnership. This partnership was only formalized in August, when the Canadian prime minister Mark Carney was in Berlin to meet with the German chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Canada could, for example, export more liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to Europe. Germany is keen to reciprocate by assisting with the exploration and extraction of coveted rare earth elements.

These metals are needed primarily for high-end electronics and microchips. At the meeting in Ottawa, the Canadian side commented that its European allies were keen to reduce their dependence on China — and the United States.

US President Donald Trump has imposed high tariffs on Canadian imports. Until recently, the US was by far the largest customer for Canada’s goods and raw materials, accounting for 75% of its volume of trade. That is now starting to change. Canadian diplomats say Canada will be focusing more on Europe in future.

Is the Bundeswehr overextended?
When asked by a journalist whether the German Bundeswehr (armed forces) risks becoming overextended, with so many foreign commitments — in Lithuania, the Baltic Sea, Canada, and Iceland — Pistorius responded with a smile. This, he said, was “a typically German question.” He pointed out that Germany was the largest NATO country in Europe, and, as such: “We have to bear more of the burden. We have to demonstrate that.”

Pistorius explained that the Bundeswehr can’t be everywhere. It has to prioritize. “Just as other NATO countries focus more on the south — the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, or North Africa — we are focused on the Baltic Sea, the Baltic region, the eastern flank, and the Nordic countries.”

He then affirmed that: “We will be in a position to manage all this with our current personnel, and the personnel we will add in future.”

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/will-canada-buy-german-made-submarines/a-74447513

North West showed off another bold look on social media after her mother, Kim Kardashian, defended her eldest child’s freedom to express her personal style.

In multiple TikTok videos, West, 12, rocked fake face tattoos, including a star under her right eye and her name in cursive on her left cheek. She also wore her long, blue hair in braids while sporting a black grill over her teeth, a faux septum ring and colored eye contacts.

West’s outfit consisted of a baggy black T-shirt, long shorts, chunky sneakers and multiple silver chains.

“Fake piercings and fake tatts 4 life,” she captioned one TikTok.

The pre-teen and her gal pals posed together on a private jet and also shared a snap of themselves backstage at a concert.

The comments were turned off for all of West’s TikToks.

In August, Kardashian, 45, was criticized for letting her oldest daughter wear a corset, a miniskirt, and platform boots while on a family vacation in Rome.

“Not a fan of a bustier on a 12 year old. Love Kim and North but it would have been a no ma’am for me,” wrote one user.

“OK, Kim, she’s 12 …,” another critic added.

The Skims co-founder admitted to making a “mistake” with West while simultaneously defending the budding fashionista during her “Call Me Daddy” interview last week.

“It’s really hard and it’s really interesting because all the kids are wearing the same things,” Kardashian said. “But then my daughter tries to wear it, and then I’m like, ‘OK, we’re never wearing that again.’ Unfortunately, we made that mistake in front of the whole world.”

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/10/21/parents/kim-kardashians-daughter-north-west-12-shows-off-fake-face-tattoos-and-piercings/

Acclaimed new film The Mastermind, starring Josh O’Connor, tells the story of an art robbery gone wrong. It’s inspired by a wave of similar thefts during a decade known for upheaval.

In May 1972, two men walked into the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts and hurried out carrying four paintings by Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso and a supposed Rembrandt (now believed to be the work of one of his students), holding a group of visiting high school students at gunpoint and shooting a security guard in the process. With the stolen artworks’ worth tallying up to $2m (£1.5m), the New York Times ranked it among “the largest art robberies in modern times”. Some say it even inspired a far more famous crime nearby: the 1990 heist at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, in which $500m (£370m) of art was looted, making it the costliest theft in US history full stop, with the crime remaining unsolved.

The Worcester heist was orchestrated by career criminal Florian “Al” Monday, but the game was up after the two thieves he hired for the raid boasted about their exploits in their local bar. Within a month, the paintings were safely retrieved from a pig farm in Rhode Island and returned to the gallery. “Ironically, Monday – before he was an art thief – had a band, and I have the 45 of his record,” writer-director Kelly Reichardt tells the BBC. Her new film The Mastermind, which is released in the US this weekend, is loosely inspired by the chain of events that followed the Worcester robbery, as well as the wave of art heists that followed over the course of that decade.

Praised by The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw for locating “the unglamour in the heist”, Reichardt’s thoughtful art crime caper dismantles the usual rules of the glitzy, sensationalised heist movie. Blockbusters have long popularised the idea that there is something classy about this category of crime, particularly when it involves art: think, for example, of the 1999 version of The Thomas Crown Affair, in which Pierce Brosnan plays a very suave billionaire orchestrating a raid on New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Reichardt’s take on the genre adopts a slower pace and more exacting eye for the way in which its art robbery cataclysmically unfolds. Josh O’Connor takes the title role as the brains behind the operation: JB Mooney, a middle-class, well-educated art school drop-out now ailing as an underemployed carpenter in Massachusetts. Under pressure from his well-to-do parents – a retired judge (Bill Camp) and a socialite (Hope Davis) – to repay their loans to him, he cases the fictional Framingham Art Museum for a heist. But from the moment that one of his henchmen asks how he plans to sell on the stolen paintings – which would be difficult due to their recognisability – the scheme begins to go awry.

Reichardt came across an article about the 50-year anniversary of the Worcester Art Museum robbery while working on her previous film, Showing Up (2002), a comedy drama about two rival sculptors, and decided to use the story as the foundation of her next feature. All that was left to do was to create the character of JB. “The political ideas, the genre ideas – these are things you think about and study, but then you have to let go of all that and concentrate on the details of the film you’re making with what your character situation is like,” says Reichardt. “If you start to get down into the minutiae of those things and don’t concentrate on the bigger strokes, then by nature it [becomes] de-glamorised.”

Reading about the 1972 robbery brought back memories for Reichardt of the “many smash-and-grabs at the time” that frequently appeared in newspaper headlines. Mere months after the Worcester Art Museum heist, a robbery since dubbed the “skylight caper” took place in Canada – the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was raided by three armed robbers, who clinched $2m (£1.5m) of paintings, jewels and valuable objects, marking the largest theft in the nation’s history. Across the Atlantic, in 1976, 119 of Picasso’s final works were pilfered from France’s Palais des Papes by three thieves while they were on show during a visiting exhibition.

Argentina’s central bank said on Monday it signed a $20 billion exchange-rate stabilization agreement with the U.S. Treasury Department, six days ahead of a key midterm election.
The central bank’s statement, opens new tab said the agreement sets forth terms for bilateral currency swap operations between the U.S. and Argentina, but it provided no technical details.

The central bank, the BCRA, said: “Such operations will allow the BCRA to expand its set of monetary and exchange rate policy instruments, including the liquidity of its international reserves.”

The Argentine peso closed at a record low, down 1.7% on the day to end at 1,475 per dollar.
The BCRA said the pact was part of a comprehensive strategy to enhance its ability to respond to foreign exchange and capital markets volatility.
The U.S. Treasury did not respond to a request for details on the new swap line and has not issued its own statement about the arrangement.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week the arrangement with banks and investment funds would be backed by International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights held in the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund that will be converted to dollars.

Bessent has said the U.S. would not put additional conditions on Argentina beyond President Javier Milei’s government continuing to pursue its fiscal austerity and economic reform programs to foster more private-sector growth.
Bessent has announced several U.S. purchases of pesos in recent weeks, but has declined to disclose details.
Currency traders said that since the Treasury first purchased pesos on October 9, sales of dollars into the peso market have reached hundreds of billions of dollars, though the source of the selling has not been disclosed.
Brad Setser, a former U.S. Treasury official who is now a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, said there was a “preponderance of evidence is that the peso is significantly over-valued,” an assessment shared with other analysts but which Bessent rejects.

Setser said these indicators include strong import and outbound tourism growth, Argentines purchasing cheaper goods in neighboring countries and the central bank’s failure to meet the IMF’s reserve accumulation targets.
“It does seem to me that the Treasury is taking an unusually large risk of losing money” in supporting the peso, he added.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a group of U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), opens new tab, Bank of America (BAC.N), opens new tab and Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab, was hesitant to lend $20 billion to Argentina without guarantees or collateral. The banks did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
ELECTION THIS WEEKEND
Argentine Economy Minister Luis Caputo said last week he hoped the swap deal framework would be finalized before the October 26 midterm parliamentary vote, in which Milei’s party will seek to grow its minority presence in the legislature.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentinas-central-bank-says-it-signed-20-billion-currency-swap-deal-with-us-2025-10-20/

A group of dozens of officials from across the federal government, including U.S. intelligence officers, has been helping to steer President Donald Trump’s drive for retribution against his perceived enemies, according to government records and a source familiar with the effort.
The Interagency Weaponization Working Group, which has been meeting since at least May, has drawn officials from the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Justice and Defense Departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission, among other agencies, two of the documents show.

Trump issued an executive order, opens new tab on his inauguration day in January instructing the attorney general to work with other federal agencies “to identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the federal government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the Intelligence Community.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard earlier this year announced groups within their agencies to “root out” those who they say misused government power against Trump.
Shortly after Reuters asked the agencies for comment on Monday, Fox News reported the existence of the group, citing Gabbard as saying she “stood up this working group.” Key details in the Reuters story are previously unreported.

Several U.S. officials confirmed the existence of the Interagency Weaponization Working Group to Reuters in response to the questions and said the group’s purpose was to carry out Trump’s executive order.
“None of this reporting is new,” said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
ODNI spokeswoman Olivia Coleman said, “Americans deserve a government committed to deweaponizing, depoliticizing and ensuring that power is never again turned against the people it’s meant to serve.”
The existence of the interagency group indicates the administration’s push to deploy government power against Trump’s perceived foes is broader and more systematic than previously reported. Interagency working groups in government typically forge administration policies, share information and agree on joint actions.

Trump and his allies use the term “weaponization” to refer to their unproven claims that officials from previous administrations abused federal power to target him during his two impeachments, his criminal prosecutions, and the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The interagency group’s mission is “basically to go after ‘the Deep State,’” the source said. The term is used by Trump and his supporters to refer to the president’s perceived foes from the Obama and Biden administrations and his own first term.
Reuters could not determine the extent to which the interagency group has put its plans into action. The news agency also could not establish Trump’s involvement in the group.
BIDEN, COMEY, OTHERS REPORTEDLY DISCUSSED
Among those discussed by the interagency group, the source said, were former FBI Director James Comey; Anthony Fauci, Trump’s chief medical advisor on the COVID-19 pandemic; and former top U.S. military commanders who implemented orders to make COVID-19 vaccinations compulsory for servicemembers. Discussions of potential targets have ranged beyond current and former government employees to include former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, the source said.

A senior ODNI official disputed that account and said there was “no targeting of any individual person for retribution.”
“IWWG is simply looking at available facts and evidence that may point to actions, reports, agencies, individuals, etc. who illegally weaponized the government in order to carry out political attacks,” the official said.
Lawyers for Comey and Hunter Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and there was no immediate response from Fauci.
Reuters reviewed more than 20 government records and identified the names of 39 people involved in the interagency group. Five of the records concerned the interagency group, five pertained to the Weaponization Working Group that Bondi announced in February, and nine referred to a smaller subgroup of employees from DOJ and several other agencies that remain focused on the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
The source said an important player in the interagency group is Justice Department attorney Ed Martin, who failed in May to win Senate support to become U.S. attorney for Washington after lawmakers expressed concern about his support for January 6 rioters. Martin, who also oversees Bondi’s DOJ weaponization group, is the department’s pardon attorney.
Martin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other people working in or with the group include COVID-19 vaccine mandate opponents and proponents of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, according to a Reuters review of their social media accounts and public statements.
A Justice Department spokesperson acknowledged that Bondi and Gabbard were ordered by Trump to undertake a review of alleged acts of “weaponization” by previous administrations but did not comment specifically on the Interagency Weaponization Working Group’s activities.
Reuters could not determine whether the group has powers to take any action or instruct agencies to act or if its role is more advisory.
RUSSIA PROBE AND JAN.6 PROSECUTIONS WERE ISSUES
The source said ODNI official Paul McNamara was a leading figure in the interagency group. McNamara is a retired U.S. Marine officer and an aide to Gabbard. Two other sources said McNamara oversees Gabbard’s Directors Initiatives Group (DIG), as first reported by the Washington Post. He is among at least 10 ODNI officials associated with the interagency group, two documents show.
McNamara did not respond to an email making a request for comment.
Senators from both parties have already raised questions about the DIG’s operations, with Republicans and Democrats approving a defense budget bill this month containing a measure requiring Gabbard to disclose the group’s members, their roles and funding and how they received security clearances.
The source recalled the group being told that the ODNI, which oversees the 18-agency U.S. intelligence community, had begun using what they called “technical tools” to search an unclassified communications network for evidence of the “deep state” and hoped to expand its search to classified networks known as the Secure Internet Protocol Router, or SIPRnet, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, or JWICS.
The ODNI official disputed this as inaccurate and “not how the systems operate.” Reuters could not obtain independent information about the tools.
A “big pillar they pushed” at the interagency group, said the source, was purging officials involved in investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and in compiling a 2017 multi-agency U.S. intelligence assessment that determined Moscow attempted to sway the race to Trump.
Gabbard said in July that the DIG had found documents showing former President Barack Obama ordered intelligence agencies to manufacture the 2017 assessment – charges an Obama spokesperson rejected as “bizarre.”
The 2017 assessment’s conclusion was corroborated by a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released in August 2020 and by a review ordered earlier this year by CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
Another focus for the interagency group was retribution for the prosecution of the Jan. 6 rioters, said the source.
Bondi tasked the DOJ Weaponization Working Group with reviewing the J6 prosecutions. Some of the documents seen by Reuters show that a smaller sub-set of employees from across the government have been convening on the topic. The Justice Department denied in its statement to Reuters that a separate January 6 group exists.
Among other issues the source recalled being discussed were the Jeffrey Epstein files, the prosecutions of Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, and the possibility of stripping security clearances from transgender U.S. officials. Reuters could not independently confirm these were the subject of discussions.
The White House official said the Epstein files “have not been part of the conversation.” The official also disputed Reuters’ characterization of what the working group has focused on.
The senior ODNI official also denied the group discussed the Epstein files, revoking security clearance for transgender officials or Bannon and Navarro’s cases.
Bannon did not respond to a request for comment. Navarro said his case was an example of Biden’s weaponization of government.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wide-ranging-group-us-officials-pursues-trumps-fight-against-deep-state-2025-10-20/

Trump’s remarks followed Israel’s announcement that it had begun “renewed enforcement” of the Gaza ceasefire after conducting air strikes in retaliation for alleged Hamas attacks.

US President Donald Trump on Monday warned Hamas of “eradication” if it violated the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza, a day after Israel accused the militant group of breaching the truce.

Speaking at the Oval Office, Trump said Hamas must “be good” and “behave” to avoid facing severe consequences. “We have peace in the Middle East for the first time ever. We made a deal with Hamas that, they gonna be very good. They’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice, and if they’re not… we’re going to eradicate them if we have to. They’ll be eradicated — and they know that,” Trump said.

He accused Hamas of past violence and claimed the group no longer enjoys the same level of support from Iran or other nations. “They went in and killed a lot of people. They’re violent people. Hamas has been very violent. But they don’t have the backing of Iran anymore. They don’t have the backing of really anybody anymore. They have to be good, and if they’re not good, they’ll be eradicated,” Trump said.

The President clarified that the United States would not deploy troops for any such action, saying there would be “no involvement of US forces.” His comments came during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Oval Office, where both leaders signed a multi-billion-dollar deal on critical minerals and defence cooperation.

Trump’s remarks followed Israel’s announcement that it had begun “renewed enforcement” of the Gaza ceasefire after conducting air strikes in retaliation for alleged Hamas attacks. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the strikes targeted weapons storage sites, firing positions, and tunnels used for planning assaults.

Source: https://www.news18.com/world/they-have-to-be-good-trump-warns-hamas-of-eradication-if-gaza-truce-fails-2-9648806.html

The incident happened as Trump sat alongside Australian PM Anthony Albanese, announcing $8.5 billion critical minerals deal between the two nations.

A high-profile White House press conference briefly descended into farce on Monday when US President Donald Trump halted mid-sentence to scold a cameraman who accidentally struck a 400-year-old mirror in the Cabinet Room.

The interruption occurred as Trump sat alongside Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, announcing a landmark $8.5 billion critical minerals deal between the two nations. The pact aims to bolster supply chains and reduce dependence on Chinese exports of rare earth materials vital to defence and clean energy production.

Trump had been outlining the scope of the partnership when a sudden clatter drew his attention.

“We’re here to talk about trade, submarines, lots of other military equipment,” he began, before abruptly stopping. Turning to the source of the noise, he exclaimed, “Oh, you got to watch that. Watch that. You’re not allowed to break that. That mirror is 400 years old. A camera just hit the mirror. Ay yay yay!”

The president then defused the tension with a quip in his trademark style, “I just moved it up here, special from the vaults, and the first thing that happens is the camera hits it. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Hard to believe, but these are the problems in life.” Laughter rippled across the room as Trump resumed his remarks.

Source: https://www.news18.com/world/ay-yay-yaywatch-that-trump-scolds-cameraman-for-knocking-400-year-old-mirror-9648823.html

The circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear

THE chess world has been left heartbroken after the sudden death of beloved grandmaster and commentator Daniel Naroditsky at just 29.

The shocking news was confirmed earlier this morning, sending waves of grief through players and fans across the globe.

Naroditsky, who lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, had been serving as Grandmaster-in-Residence at the Charlotte Chess Center since 2020.

“It is with great sadness that we share the unexpected passing of Daniel Naroditsky,” the center announced in an emotional post.

“Daniel was a talented chess player, educator, and cherished member of the chess community. He was also a loving son, brother, and loyal friend.”

Chess.com later confirmed his passing, calling it a devastating loss to the sport.

Tributes have been pouring in for the young star, known not only for his skills on the board but also for his warmth, humor, and teaching.

Chess.com’s Chief Chess Officer Danny Rensch described Naroditsky as “more than an amazing, inspirational face of our game.”

“Danya was a friend and brother,” Rensch said.

“The news is devastating for the chess world and all who knew him. It’s impossible to put words to this kind of loss. My love, thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

Ukrainian grandmaster Oleksandr Bortnyk, who had played thousands of games against Naroditsky online, was among those grieving.

“RIP my great friend Daniel Naroditsky, I still can’t believe,” Bortnyk wrote on X.

However, the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear, as neither the authorities nor his family have released any details.

Born in San Mateo, California, on November 9, 1995, Naroditsky discovered chess at the age of six, taught by his father, Vladimir, a Ukrainian immigrant.

By 11, he had already made headlines after becoming the youngest player to win the Northern California K-12 Chess Championship.

That same year, he claimed the World Youth Chess Championship title for boys under 12 in Turkey, a breakout victory that stunned his classmates back home.

In a 2010 interview with The Mercury News, a teenage Naroditsky revealed his disciplined approach to the game: “I think of myself as playing against the board, and not against my opponent. I really don’t think of my opponent as a personality, just as someone who moves the pieces around.”

At just 14, he published his first chess book, quickly earning recognition as one of America’s brightest young minds in the game.

He became a grandmaster in 2013 at age 18, the highest title in chess, and reached a peak rating of 2647 in 2017.

After graduating from Stanford University in 2019 with a degree in history, Naroditsky relocated to Charlotte, where he became a key figure in developing local chess talent.

Beyond tournaments, he became one of the most popular chess educators online, with more than 482,000 YouTube subscribers and 340,000 followers on Twitch.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/15374129/chess-grandmaster-daniel-naroditsky-dies-at-29/

Russia is rejecting anything that does not see them take the entire Donbas

KREMLIN has rejected the peace proposal Donald Trump tabled after his White House meeting with President Zelensky descended into a shouting match.

Trump on Sunday suggested freezing the frontline and drawing new borders along it – which would mean Ukraine handing vast swathes to Russia.

The US President said on Sunday: “We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines.”

This would give Putin almost full control of the Donbas – which he has demanded as a condition for ending the war – but for a small stronghold still under Ukrainian control in the Donetsk oblast.

Russia has so far failed to capture Ukraine’s sturdy “fortress belt” – but is adamant that any peace settlement will see it handed over.

Despite Trump’s proposition giving Putin almost everything he wants, the stubborn Kremlin has rejected it.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “This topic was repeatedly raised in various forms during contacts between Russia and the US.

“The Russian side answered every time, this answer is well known: the consistency of Russia’s position doesn’t change.”

So it seems that neither side was willing to get behind Trump’s latest peace-brokering effort.

Meanwhile, Trump publicly said does not believe Ukraine will win the war – after reportedly warning behind closed doors that Moscow could crush Kyiv.

During Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to the White House, Trump said: “I don’t think they will [win it].”

But he then added: “They could still win it, I never said they would win it… War is a very strange thing, a lot of bad things happen.”

The closed-door White House meeting on Sunday ended with Trump shouting and swearing at Zelensky as he told him to accept Putin’s terms for ending the war, sources told the Financial Times.

They claimed that Trump’s position had been influenced with a last-minute call he held with Putin the previous day – and which resulted in another planned meeting between the US and Russian leaders.

The paper was told that Trump regurgitated to Zelensky the points pushed by Putin – including that Ukraine surrender the entire Donbas region to end the war.

But Trump insisted on Sunday that he “never discussed” Ukraine giving up more land, and that he instead wants to see new borders drawn at the current battle lines.

He said: “We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines.

“The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say: ‘You take this, we take that.’ There are just so many different permutations.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/15374097/russia-snubs-trumps-plan-freeze-ukraine-frontline/

US President Donald Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese Monday signed an agreement on Australia’s rare earth minerals.

The agreement comes as China puts new restrictions on rare earth exports, prompting Trump to impose an additional 100% tariff on imports from China from next month.

“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump was hosting Albanese this morning at the White House and the leaders signed the document before the media.

Albanese described the deal as an $8.5 billion pipeline “that we have ready to go.”

US and Australia sign critical minerals pact
Under the critical minerals pact, both the US and Australia are to each invest $1
billion over the next six months into mining and processing projects that will be available immediately, the prime minister’s office said.

The projects are divided into three groups — joint investments between the US and Australia; sole projects in Australia; and joint projects between the US, Australia and Japan.

Trump signals support for AUKUS nuclear submarine deal
Trump also signaled support for an arrangement under a trilateral security partnership called “AUKUS” to sell Australia nuclear-powered submarines by 2032.

Australia would then build a new submarine class with the UK, according to the pact that was reached in 2023 under then-President Joe Biden.

Security experts and analysts closely followed the meeting to learn more on the AUKUS deal since there were fears that it could be scrapped.

“We have them moving very, very quickly,” Trump said, referring to the AUKUS deal, which would see Australia spend $239 billion on the submarines over three decades.

Trump tells Kevin Rudd he doesn’t like him and ‘probably never will’
In an awkward moment, Trump told Kevin Rudd, Australia’s ambassador to the US and a former prime minister, that he doesn’t like him and “probably never will.”

Trump was asked by an Australian reporter whether Rudd’s past comments about him impacted his views of the administration of Anthony Albanese.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/trump-signs-85-billion-rare-earths-deal-with-australia/a-74432572

She’s the astronaut who smashed through the glass ceiling. And kept on going.

Eileen Collins made history as the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft – but despite her remarkable achievements, not everyone will know her name.

Now a feature-length documentary called Spacewoman, which chronicles her trailblazing career, looks set to change that.

We meet Collins at London’s Science Museum. She’s softly spoken, warm and very down to earth – but you quickly get a sense of her focus and determination. She clearly has inner steel.

“I was reading a magazine article on the Gemini astronauts. I was probably nine years old, and I thought that’s the coolest thing. That’s what I want to do,” she says.

“Of course, there were no women astronauts back then. But I just thought, I’ll be a lady astronaut.”

But that little girl set her sights even higher – she wanted to be at the controls of a spacecraft.

And the only way to achieve this was to join the military and become a test pilot.

In the Air Force, she stood out from the crowd and was selected to join the astronaut programme. She was to fly Space Shuttles – Nasa’s reusable “space planes”.

She knew the eyes of the world were on her when her first mission launched in 1995.

“As the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle, I worked very hard at that because I didn’t want people to say, ‘Oh look, the woman has made a mistake’. Because it wasn’t just about me, it was about the women to follow me,” she says.

“And I wanted there to be a reputation for women pilots that was: ‘Hey, they’re really good’.”

She was so good in fact that she was soon promoted to commander, in another space first.

Collins was also a parent to two young children. The fact that she was a working wife and mother was frequently brought up in press conferences at the time, with some journalists seemingly astonished that she could be both.

But Collins says being a mum and a commander were “the two best jobs in the world”.

“But I’m going to tell you it is harder to be a parent than to be a space shuttle commander,” she laughs.

“The best training I ever had for being a commander was being a parent – because you have to learn how to say no to people.”

Nasa’s Space Shuttles, which flew for three decades, reached breathtaking highs, but also some terrible lows.

In 1986, the Challenger spacecraft suffered a catastrophic failure seconds after launching, killing all seven crew members on board.

And in 2003, the Columbia shuttle broke up in the skies over Texas at the end of its mission, killing its crew of seven as well.

A piece of insulating foam on Columbia’s fuel tank broke loose during launch, damaging the heat shield with devastating results.

Columbia was unable to withstand the fiery re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, disintegrating as the world watched on in horror.

Collins shakes her head at the memory of the disaster, and of the friends whose lives were lost.

But with her job as commander, she had to pick up the mantle – she was to be in charge of the shuttle’s following flight.

Did she think about quitting at that point?

“People throughout the shuttle programme were counting on the commander to stick with it,” she says quietly.

“I think quitting the mission would have been the opposite of brave… and I wanted to be a brave leader. I wanted to be a confident leader. I wanted to instill that confidence in other people.”

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mxzdg203jo

Australia has accused a Chinese military aircraft of releasing flares “in close proximity” to its patrol jet over the South China Sea.

The Australian government has raised its concern with Beijing over the “unsafe and unprofessional” manoeuvre, the defence department said in a statement on Monday.

There was no damage to Australia’s P-8A aircraft and its personnel were unharmed after Sunday’s encounter.

A Chinese military spokesperson said the Australian jet “illegally intruded” into China’s airspace and had to be expelled.

The Australian aircraft’s actions “seriously infringed upon China’s sovereignty”, Senior Colonel Li Jianjian, spokesperson for China’s Southern Theater Command Air Force said, urging Canberra to “immediately cease its infringing and provocative actions”.

Australia Defence Force said it expects all countries, including China, to operate their militaries in a safe and professional manner.

This is the latest in a string of encounters between the two countries’ militaries in the region, where China’s vast claims over islands and outcrops overlap with those of its neighbours.

Sunday’s incident also occurred as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was heading to the US for a meeting with President Donald Trump, where the two leaders are expected to discuss the Aukus – a multi-billion dollar submarine deal between Australia, the US and the UK.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gk98j083jo

A Chicago-based elementary school teacher mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination by using a sickening gun gesture at a No Kings protest over the weekend.

Lucy Martinez, a teacher at Nathan Hale Elementary School, put a finger to her neck and pretended to pull a trigger when a man driving by in a pickup truck waved a flag calling the late podcaster a “hero,” video shows.

Multiple demonstrators flipped the bird at the counter-protester.

Kirk, 31, was killed when Tyler Robinson allegedly shot him in the neck while the Turning Point USA founder was speaking at Utah State University last month.

It’s unclear if Martinez was fired or faced any disciplinary action. The school’s website was taken down after the incident surfaced online.

Chicago Public Schools said it “remains committed to creating and maintaining a welcoming, safe and inclusive teaching and learning environment, free from harassment, bias, or harm of any kind.”

“While CPS does not comment on specific personnel matters the District follows a consistent process when allegations of misconduct are reported. Employees found to have violated Board policy are subject to disciplinary action.”

A spokesperson for the district referred The Post to the statement when asked if Martinez was fired.

Video of the horrifying gesture quickly went viral, leading to outrage.

“This is who we trust with our children & then wonder why they become radicalized as adults,” Libs of Chicago posted.

“This woman teaches children. Lucy is now the perfect face of the “No Kings” movement — a movement that preaches “love” but celebrates death. Evil always exposed itself,” Ryan Fournier, co-founder of Students for Trump, wrote on X.

Source: https://nypost.com/2025/10/20/us-news/chicago-elementary-teacher-mocks-charlie-kirks-assassination-at-no-kings-protest/

The 31-year-old former mistress of Eric Schmidt has accused the ex-Google CEO of stalking, abuse and “toxic masculinity” — claiming that he subjected her to an “absolute digital surveillance system” as the pair have secretly tussled over cash, a failed AI startup and access to a sprawling Bel Air mansion, The Post has learned.

Michelle Ritter — the latest publicly known extramarital paramour for Schmidt, who for years has reportedly maintained an open marriage with Wendy Schmidt, his wife of 45 years — filed for a temporary restraining order against the 70-year-old tech titan late last year, according to bombshell court documents obtained by The Post.

In early December, Ritter and Schmidt — whose net worth is estimated by Bloomberg at $44.8 billion — struck a “written settlement agreement” that required Schmidt to make “substantial payments” to Ritter but whose details remain under seal, according to a Sept. 8 filing in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

But just a week later on Dec. 11, Ritter filed an explosive “domestic violence restraining order” against Schmidt — only to withdraw it three weeks later on Jan. 6 after the two sides apparently came to a fresh agreement, court documents show.

In the since-withdrawn TRO request, Ritter claimed that the tech tycoon days earlier had locked her out of the website of her startup Steel Perlot — an AI-focused venture firm into which Schmidt had plowed $100 million, a source close to the situation told The Post.

“Please note Eric’s technical background,” Ritter alleged in the filing. “I literally cannot have a private phone call or send a private email without surveillance.”

The budding tech entrepreneur, 39 years his junior, also claims in the filing that Schmidt demanded that she agree to “a gag order on any sexual assault or harassment allegations and sign a knowingly false declaration that any such allegations never happened.”

Ritter didn’t elaborate on those allegations in the unredacted portions of her filing.

Skip Miller, an LA-based lawyer for the 31-year-old, declined to comment. A spokesman for Eric Schmidt also declined to comment.

In an 82-page response on Oct. 8, lawyers for Schmidt claimed that “Michelle Ritter’s demonstrably false Complaint is a blatant abuse of the judicial system.” But the vast majority of the legal riposte has been redacted ahead of a court hearing in downtown Los Angeles that’s slated for Dec. 4.

The billionaire’s legal team — headed by hard-charging LA litigator Patricia Glaser — filed a motion on Oct. 8 to seal the court documents, but a final ruling has not yet been issued on the matter.

In her December TRO filing, Ritter alleged, “Unfortunately, my former partner is extraordinarily powerful and capable and has used every mean[s] to block me from getting access to secure data, devices, finances, or businesses, or to simply live my life in peace.”

Two days before the December filing, Ritter’s parents allegedly were followed to and from dinner at an LA restaurant by a pair of private eyes. The cops were called and when officers questioned the PIs, one said he worked for a “billionaire’s private security detail” and was “not going to wake him up,” according to the filing.

The filing also indicated Ritter had been staying at 1060 Brooklawn Dr. — a 15,000-square-foot Bel Air mansion that Schmidt had scooped up for $61 million from heirs of the Hilton hotel dynasty. In the filing, Ritter asked that she be given exclusive access to the lavish compound — also requesting court protection for her dog, a German Shepherd named Henry.

In an August 2024 article by tech news site The Information, Ritter was reportedly still holed up at the 13-bedroom mansion, “with its old Hollywood touches including a sweeping staircase, marble coffee table and well-tended gardens, complete with a koi pond.”

Ritter herself had added “a red couch in the shape of a pair of lips” and “a glass case holding her guitars,” according to the story. Outside, “a large rainbow-colored ‘Love’ sign that a friend of Schmidt’s created for one of their trips to Burning Man,” stood near a wrought-iron gate at the end of the driveway, the tech site reported.

The article added that Ritter said she was “taking the next logical step to separate her life from Schmidt’s by preparing to move out.”

Last month, Ritter — a 2021 Columbia Law School grad who recently has represented herself in the case — listed an address for what appeared to be a relatively modest apartment in Beverly Hills located upstairs from a Jersey Mike’s sandwich shop.

Ritter claimed in the filing that on Dec. 17, less than a week after she filed for the restraining order, she and Schmidt struck an amended settlement agreement. She pulled the TRO request a few weeks later, but Schmidt has since failed to live up to his end of the bargain, she claimed.

Instead, Schmidt allegedly has been pressing an arbitration proceeding that’s currently pending against her whose $75,000 fee she says she cannot afford to pay, calling it “a cynical effort to protect the dispute and win by economic and resource attrition,” according to court papers.

Ritter most recently made the pages of The Post in May 2024 when Schmidt showed up to a swanky LA party with his wife instead of her. But the fresh court filings claim an explosive back story: Just a month earlier, a long-simmering conflict between them had exploded when an April 4, 2024 legal mediation session took a wrong turn, according to court documents.

Source: https://nypost.com/2025/10/20/business/eric-schmidts-ex-mistress-31-sues-former-google-ceo-70-over-alleged-stalking-abuse-and-digital-surveillance/

President Donald Trump is expected to leave for Asia at the end of the week, betting that an around-the-world journey will help him untangle big issues that he can’t afford to get wrong.

At stake is nothing less than the future of the global economy, which could hinge on whether he’s able to calm trade tensions during an expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. A misstep could send shock waves through American industries that have already been rattled by Trump’s aggressive tariffs, government layoffs and political brinkmanship.

Trump’s strategy of improvisation has had both hits and misses since he returned to office in January. Hamas returned hostages to Israel but the ceasefire in the Middle East remains fragile; a trade war with China has ebbed and flowed this year; and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t slowed down despite Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict.

There’s been some mystery around Trump’s trip, with no official announcements from the White House about much of his itinerary. The president said Monday that he plans to go to Malaysia, which is hosting a regional summit, then Japan, where he’s trying to nail down foreign investment.

He’ll also visit South Korea, where he’s working on more trade issues and expects to sit down with Xi. Beijing has yet to confirm that they’ll meet, and the two leaders have recently exchanged threats of tariffs and export restrictions.

“I have a very good relationship with President Xi of China,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. He offered to lower tariffs but “they have to give us some things too,” including buying U.S. soybeans, reducing the flow of fentanyl ingredients and ending limits on rare earth minerals that are critical for high-tech manufacturing.

Trump expressed even more confidence on Monday, saying, “I think we’re going to end up having a fantastic deal with China” and “it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world.”

This will be Trump’s first trip to Asia in his second term
With just days to go before Trump leaves, there’s an unusual level of ambiguity even for a president who loves to keep people guessing about his next move.

“The whole trip has seemed so uncertain from the beginning,” said Bonnie Glaser, a managing director at the German Marshall Fund, a Washington-based think tank.

It’s Trump’s first trip to Asia since returning to office. Although he’s hosted leaders from the region at the White House, he hasn’t forged the kind of foundational relationships that he has on other continents.

Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the president, responded to a list of questions about Trump’s plans by saying he “will participate in meetings and events in Asia that will result in many great deals for our country.” She added, “Stay tuned!”

Trump’s approach to Asia has focused on using tariffs to realign what he describes as unfair trade practices, unnerving countries that depend on the United States as the world’s largest market for exports. There’s also anxiety about Trump’s meeting with Xi, and the potential that a feud between the two leaders could send the international economy into a tailspin.

“There will be some appreciation for the fact that he’s there, but I don’t think it will go far enough to quell the doubts that are pervasive in the region,” Glaser predicted.

The Republican president has downsized his foreign policy team since his first term, eschewing the typical array of advisers at the National Security Council in favor of a core group of loyalists.

“There’s not very many White House staff to do this kind of work,” said Rush Doshi, who worked on China policy under President Joe Biden. “All of this puts us in uncharted waters.”

Michael Green, who worked on President George W. Bush’s National Security Council and now leads the United States Studies Centre in Sydney, Australia, said there’s been no clear Asia strategy from Trump.

“Everyone is waiting to see where he’s going to come down on all of this,” he said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/trump-xi-jinping-china-asia-8f21df3df6fa3f51ca4ab4dfcf7669ba#

Demolition crews on Monday began tearing down part of the White House to build President Donald Trump’s long-desired ballroom despite his pledge that construction of the $250 million addition wouldn’t “interfere” with the existing building.

Construction teams were demolishing a portion of the East Wing, with a backhoe ripping through the structure, according to a photo shared with The Washington Post and two people who witnessed the activity and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it.

A cluster of people, including members of the Secret Service, stood on the steps of the Treasury Department to watch the construction unfold, said one of the people. Sounds of construction were also audible on the White House campus, although the project was not easily visible to the public given fencing on the grounds.

Trump acknowledged the project in remarks Monday afternoon in the White House’s East Room, gesturing to the wall behind him.

“Right on the other side, you have a lot of construction going on, which you might hear periodically,” the president said at an event honoring the Louisiana State University and Louisiana State University at Shreveport baseball teams. He subsequently posted on his Truth Social platform that the “much-needed project” had begun.

“For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc.,” the president wrote.

Democrats panned the project, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other lawmakers arguing that Trump’s priorities and preferences were not aligned with average Americans.

“Trump’s billionaire ballroom. This is a disgrace. Welcome to the Second Gilded Age,” Rep. Darren Soto (D-Florida) wrote on social media.

Trump has long touted his plans for a 90,000-square-foot structure that would nearly double the footprint of the main building and its East and West wings. He had also suggested that the construction would not affect the existing White House.

“It won’t interfere with the current building. It won’t be. It’ll be near it but not touching it — and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” Trump said during an executive order signing in July. “It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite place. I love it.”

A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe construction on the ballroom, confirmed that the demolition process on the East Wing began Monday. Other parts of the project, such as efforts to preserve objects of historical value, have been underway for several weeks, the official said.

Officials declined to provide an explanation for Trump’s earlier comments that the new construction would not interfere with the existing building. Officials have separately said that the ballroom would replace the East Wing, noting the many changes made to that structure long before Trump’s presidency.

“The East Wing was constructed in 1902 and has been renovated and changed many times, with a second story added in 1942,” the White House said in July.

The administration also said that it expected construction to begin by September, detailing plans to make some of the most significant changes to “the People’s House” in a century. Trump originally estimated the project would cost $200 million to build but has since upped that to $250 million.

The National Park Service, which manages the White House grounds, did not respond to inquiries about how much of the East Wing would be destroyed. In a 56-page document about maintaining the fundamental character of the White House and the surrounding grounds, the Park Service said in 2014 it would work with presidential administrations, the U.S. Secret Service and other agencies “to ensure both the preservation and use of one of the most recognized houses in the world.”

The East Wing has traditionally been used by the first lady and her team. Offices for the president and his top deputies have long been located in the West Wing.

Trump last week also touted his planned ballroom during a dinner with executives from the tech, finance and defense industries, telling them that the project was fully financed after receiving donations as large as $25 million from dozens of companies, including Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Coinbase. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-AA1OQ7gi

Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal has ended as a UN-backed resolution – that endorsed the deal – expired Saturday. With this, Tehran now regains the nuclear freedoms, as Western powers warn of increased regional and global risks.

Iran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal has officially come to an end, coinciding with the end of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 on Saturday. The UN resolution had officially endorsed the nuclear deal.
Speaking about the collapse of the nuclear deal, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said, “With the end of Resolution 2231 on October 18, its provisions have officially terminated,” with Tehran describing it as the final collapse of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Baghaei told reporters at a weekly briefing that Iran had informed the UN about the expiry of the resolution, adding that the country’s nuclear rights, including uranium enrichment and research, “remain valid”.

He described the JCPOA as “a temporary and conditional understanding”, and accused the United States of violating international law by withdrawing from the agreement in 2018.

Health officials have confirmed three cases of a new, more dangerous strain of mpox in California, raising concerns about its higher transmissibility and potential for severe illness. The new variant appears to spread faster and may cause more intense symptoms, including fever, swollen lymph nodes, painful rash, and lesions.

An extremely dangerous strain of mpox virus that leads to painful lesions and flu-like symptoms has been detected in three people in California who did not travel abroad. According to health officials, this is the first known local spread of the severe form in the United States.

The strain – clade 1 has caused tens of thousands of infections and hundreds of deaths in central and eastern Africa. Officials said till now, it had never spread from one person to another inside the US. However, a relatively milder strain – Clade 2, was responsible for the 2022 mpox outbreak that infected more than 30,000 Americans and continues to circulate at low levels. A few cities in California – including Los Angeles, have reported an uptick in cases, with 118 infections confirmed in 2025.

Officials said the new Clade 1 cases were found in one person in Long Beach and two in Los Angeles. All three were hospitalized and have since been discharged and are currently recovering at home. Authorities said all the three cases were unrelated. “It’s still too early to tell, but we’re concerned there will be more severe disease,” Dr Sonali Kulkarni of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health told The Times.

Three patients are bisexual

According to the doctors treating the patients, all three are gay and bisexual men – a group that remains at higher risk of mpox infection. Even though it is not classified as a sexually transmitted infection – doctors say mpox spreads through close or intimate contact, shared items or ongoing household exposure.

Doctors say even though the overall risk to the public remains low, everyone should be alert as the person-to-person community spread can be happening.

The only previous US case of Clade 1 mpox occurred last year, when a California resident who had recently traveled to East Africa was infected but did not spread the virus.

What is mpox?

Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is a flu-like disease caused by a virus that causes rashes all over the body. The infection spreads with the Orthopoxvirus monkeypox virus with small pieces of genetic information in a protective coating. Doctors say the rash is similar to the one caused by a related virus, smallpox. Cases of mpox happen regularly in parts of Africa, where it is endemic. However, outbreaks do sometimes happen in other places around the world. There are two known subtypes of mpox:

• Clade 1 which is endemic to Central Africa and causes more serious illness than clade 2.
• Clade 2 is endemic to East Africa. There’s been a global outbreak of clade II mpox since 2022.

Signs and symptoms of mpox

A few signs and symptoms of mpox include:

• Rashes, skin ulcers, and blisters
• High fever
• Swollen lymph nodes
• Chills
• Headaches
• Muscle aches
• Fatigue and tiredness

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/health/new-more-dangerous-mpox-strain-found-in-3-californians-what-are-the-early-signs-article-153029100

Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport’s cargo complex – which stores fabrics, garment accessories, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and other imports – was left in ruins.

Bangladeshi traders on Sunday (Oct 19) assessed heavy losses after a devastating fire tore through the cargo complex of the country’s main international airport, as the government opened an investigation into possible arson.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) gave an initial assessment of “devastating” direct and indirect costs of as much as US$1 billion.

Firefighters had brought the blaze under control and flight operations resumed late Saturday, airport executive director S M Ragib Samad told AFP, after thick black smoke swept across the runway, forcing authorities to briefly suspend flights.

But Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport’s cargo complex – which stores fabrics, garment accessories, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and other imports – was left in ruins.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) also said it was assessing the damage.

Bangladesh is the world’s second-biggest garment manufacturer, and textile and garment production accounts for about 80 per cent of exports.

“We have witnessed a devastating scene inside. The entire import section has been reduced to ashes,” said Faisal Samad, director of the BGMEA.

“The entire import section has been reduced to ashes. We fear the losses might well exceed US$1 billion.”

He said around 200 to 250 factories export products by air every day.

“RESOLUTE RESPONSE”

Smoke was still rising from the charred remains on Sunday.

“The fire spread to every corner – I don’t know if any consignment could escape,” said one exhausted firefighter, whose uniform was greyed and hands blackened.

“We were supposed to deliver the consignments to our clients today. All burnt to ashes, I guess,” said importer Anand Kumar Ghosh, who said he had lost 52 consignments.

Moinul Ahsan, a senior official at the Directorate of Health, said four people had been taken to the hospital with minor injuries.

The cause of the blaze was not immediately known.

But the government said it was aware of growing public concern following a string of major fires in recent days – including in Chittagong’s export processing zone and a chemical and garment factory in Dhaka, where 16 people were killed.

The government said the security services were investigating all incidents “thoroughly”, and warned that “any credible evidence of sabotage or arson will be met with a swift and resolute response”.

“No act of criminality or provocation will be allowed to disrupt public life or the political process,” it said, urging calm.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people has been in political turmoil since Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister by a student-led revolt in August 2024, and is gearing up for hotly contested elections slated for February 2026.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/bangladesh-probes-cause-massive-fire-5411611

China on Sunday (Oct 19) accused the United States of conducting cyberattacks on Beijing’s national time centre that could have caused severe damage to critical financial and telecommunications infrastructure.

Beijing has stepped up espionage warnings in recent years as relations with the United States and other Western nations have worsened.

Chinese authorities found “irrefutable evidence” of efforts by the US National Security Agency (NSA) to hack the National Time Service Center, between 2022 and 2024, according to a statement published on the official Ministry of State Security WeChat account.

The facility is responsible for coordinating clocks around the country used by everything from computer servers to train stations and power grids.

The ministry accused the NSA of exploiting weaknesses in the messaging service of an unspecified foreign mobile phone brand in order to steal login credentials from employees at the time centre.

The attacks could have jeopardised power grids, transport, and even space launches, the ministry said.

Chinese authorities have since “severed attack chains, upgraded protective measures, and eliminated potential threats”.

“In recent years, the United States has aggressively pursued cyber hegemony, repeatedly trampling on international cyberspace rules,” the ministry said in its statement.

It urged Chinese citizens to be vigilant of foreign attacks and to report suspicious activity to the authorities.

Western countries have accused hacker groups allegedly supported by China of conducting a global cyber espionage campaign against figures critical of Beijing, democratic institutions, and companies in various sensitive sectors.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-us-wage-cyberattacks-national-time-centre-5411771

This weekend’s “No Kings” demonstrations drew an estimated crowd of millions across the US to protest President Donald Trump’s policies and his willingness to push the boundaries of presidential authority.

It was a moment for likeminded Democrats, liberals and some anti-Trump Republicans to rally together at a time when the American left has little formal power in national politics.

But where do they go from here?

By most accounts, the turnout at Saturday’s events – in major US cities like Chicago, New York, Washington and Los Angeles, as well as hundreds of smaller towns – was higher than expected and surpassed the first “No Kings” rally in June.

Congressional Republicans had warned that the demonstrations would be “anti-American”, and some conservative governors had put their law enforcement and National Guard on alert in case of violence.

The massive rallies turned out to be peaceful – a carnival, not carnage. In New York City, there were no protest-related arrests, and the gathering in Washington DC featured families and young children.

“Today all across America in numbers that may eclipse any day of protest in our nation’s history, Americans are saying loudly and proudly that we are a free people, we are not a people that can be ruled, our government is not for sale,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said in his speech to the Washington DC rally.

Just down the street from the No Kings gathering in the nation’s capital, the White House responded to the protests with derision.

“Who cares,” deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote in response to multiple media inquiries about the marches.

Trump shared several AI-generated videos on his Truth Social website of him wearing a crown, including one where he was flying a jet that dumped what appeared to be human waste on the protesters.

While Republicans may be downplaying the significance of the marches, the scale of the turnout – along with Trump’s net negative approval rating in major opinion polls – hints at a Democratic opportunity to rebound from last year’s electoral defeats.

The party still has a long way to go, however.

Polls suggest only a third of Americans view it favourably – the lowest for decades – and Democrats are divided over how to mount an effective opposition to Trump when they no longer control either chamber of Congress.

Liberals took to the streets on Saturday for a variety of reasons. Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, his tariff policies, his government cuts, his foreign policy, his deployment of National Guard in US cities and his norm-breaking use of presidential authority were all frequent topics of concern and outrage.

Some of the frustration was also directed at Democratic leaders.

“We’re just taking it on the chin, and we’re not speaking out,” one march attendee in Washington DC told NBC News on Saturday. “You know, I think we need to throw some more elbows. Unfortunately, the high road doesn’t work.”

The Democrats have been more combative over the ongoing government shutdown, which is about to enter its fourth week. They have been unwilling to approve a short-term extension of current federal spending without a bipartisan agreement to address health-insurance subsidies for low-income Americans set to expire at the end of the year.

Because of Senate parliamentary rules, Democrats have some power despite being in the minority – and, at least so far, the public seems to be assigning at least as much, if not more, blame for the impasse to Trump and the Republican majority.

But the strategy comes with risks too. The pain from the shutdown – particularly for those in the Democratic coalition – is only going to increase as the weeks go by.

Many federal workers have missed paycheques and are facing financial hardship. Funding is expected to run out for low-income food support. The US judicial system is scaling back its operations. And the Trump administration is using the shutdown to order new cuts to the federal workforce and suspend domestic spending, targeting Democratic states and cities.

The reality is that Democratic leaders in the Senate will ultimately have to find a way out of the crisis. But they may be hard-pressed to reach terms that the protesters who took to the streets on Saturday will find acceptable.

“If we shake hands with President Trump on a deal, we don’t want him then next week just firing thousands more people, cancelling economic development projects, cancelling public health funds,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said on Sunday in an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press. “So we are trying to get an agreement that a deal is a deal.”

There is a chance the government shutdown will still be happening in early November when voters in some states will head to the ballot box for the first time since last year’s presidential contest.

Elections for governor and state legislatures could provide a barometer for whether the anti-Trump sentiment on display at the “No Kings” protests translates into electoral success for Democrats.

Four years ago, a Republican won the governor’s race in Virginia, an electoral battleground that has trended left in recent presidential elections, providing an early sign of voter dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden. This time around, the Democrat – former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger – is leading her Republican opponent in the polls.

While Trump lost New Jersey in last year’s presidential election, the margin of defeat – less than 6% – was dramatically down from Biden’s 16% victory in 2020 and Hillary Clinton’s 14% margin in 2017. November’s governor’s election shows a similarly close race.

At the No Kings rally in Montclair, New Jersey, Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin urged attendees to vote in the upcoming election.

“It is one thing to show up at these protests,” he said. “And it’s another to move the needle and get back some power.”

This November’s elections will be a test of whether antipathy toward Trump is enough to get left-wing voters to support Democratic candidates.

They are, however, just a prelude to next year’s midterm elections, which will decide which party controls both chambers of the US Congress and could provide Democrats with a real check on Trump’s power for the last two years of his presidential term.

The priority at Saturday’s protests was to unite around a Stop Trump message. Of less concern, at least for the moment, was what Democrats could do once they get back to power.

There have, however, been some indications that cracks remain within the party coalition.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3zemk2j4ro

Taiwan ’s main opposition Nationalist Party chose a former lawmaker as its new chairperson on Saturday in a competitive election clouded by allegations of China’s meddling.

By a wide margin, Cheng Li-wun — the only female candidate in the race who positioned herself as a reformist — defeated former Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin and four others contesting the leadership of the China-friendly party. The Nationalists, also known as the KMT, maintain strong political influence in Taiwan despite losing three consecutive presidential elections to the independence-leaning ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

The KMT holds enough seats to form a majority bloc with its allies in the legislature and survived two recall elections just months ago that were sparked by concerns over their lawmakers passing changes seen as diminishing the power of the executive and favoring China, which considers the island as its own territory.

Scheduled to take office in November, Cheng could influence how Taiwan handles its relationship with Beijing and other key policies and domestic and international political matters. She will also anchor the party in the 2026 local elections. The KMT is also likely to field a candidate challenging President Lai Ching-te’s DPP in the 2028 race.

During her campaign, Cheng pledged to turn KMT from a flock of “sheep” into “lions,” opposing Lai’s proposal to boost defense budget to 5% of GDP, or gross domestic product, local media reported. She was once a DPP member.

In a news conference after the win, the party’s second elected female chair said the Nationalists would uphold the principles of equality, respect and mutual benefits in handling external relations.

“We must not let Taiwan become a troublemaker. Second, we must not let Taiwan become the sacrifice of geopolitics,” she said, adding her party would also be a peacemaker.

Beijing has a particularly strained relationship with Lai, whom it accuses of being a separatist. It has threatened to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, if necessary, and has increasingly mobilized military, diplomatic and economic pressure in an attempt to undermine Lai’s administration.

Traditionally, KMT has had warmer ties with Beijing, with Chinese politicians visiting for exchanges. Supporters of the KMT see the ties as beneficial to the island democracy’s stability and economy, but its critics are wary of the influence Beijing exerts.

Over the past week, Jaw Shaw-kong, Hau’s supporter in the party, alleged that China was involved in an organized interference, citing videos attacking Hau and supporting Cheng.

The head of Taiwan’s National Security Bureau, Tsai Ming-yen, said it found over 1,000 videos discussing the election on TikTok, in addition to 23 YouTube accounts posting related content, with over half of the YouTube accounts based outside of Taiwan. He did not say which candidates these videos supported or directly answer whether they were based in China.

Cheng rejected the allegations of China’s influencing her party as “very cheap labels,” urging politicians to return the island’s politics to rationality.

Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Wednesday that Cheng’s election was the party’s internal affair and the views of some mainland Chinese internet users did not represent the government’s position.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/taiwan-nationalist-kmt-cheng-china-ec700a517f43c35b372a7e049646d74b

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under President Donald Trump, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds, in what is a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.

High prices for groceries, housing and health care persist as a fear for many households, while rising electricity bills and the cost of gas at the pump are also sources of anxiety, according to the survey.

Some 47% of U.S. adults are “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a good job if they wanted to, an increase from 37% when the question was last asked in October 2023.

Electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults at a time when the expected build-out of data centers for artificial intelligence could further tax the power grid. Just more than one-half said the cost of groceries are a “major” source of financial stress, about 4 in 10 said the cost of housing and health care were a serious strain and about one-third said they were feeling high stress about gasoline prices.

The survey suggests an ongoing vulnerability for Trump, who returned to the White House in January with claims he could quickly tame the inflation that surged after the pandemic during Democratic President Joe Biden’s term. Instead, Trump’s popularity on the economy has remained low amid a mix of tariffs, federal worker layoffs and partisan sniping that has culminated in a government shutdown.

Linda Weavil, 76, voted for Trump last year because he “seems like a smart businessman.” But she said in an interview that the Republican’s tariffs have worsened inflation, citing the chocolate-covered pecans sold for her church group fundraiser that now cost more.

“I think he’s doing a great job on a lot of things, but I’m afraid our coffee and chocolate prices have gone up because of tariffs,” the retiree from Greensboro, North Carolina, said. “That’s a kick in the back of the American people.”

Voters changed presidents, but they’re not feeling better about Trump’s economy

The poll found that 36% of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling the economy, a figure that has held steady this year after he imposed tariffs that caused broad economic uncertainty. Among Republicans, 71% feel positive about his economic leadership. Yet that approval within Trump’s own party is relatively low in ways that could be problematic for Republicans in next month’s races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, and perhaps even in the 2026 midterm elections.

At roughly the same point in Biden’s term, in October 2021, an AP-NORC poll found that 41% of U.S. adults approved of how he was handling the economy, including about 73% of Democrats. That overall number was a little higher than Trump’s, primarily because of independents — 29% approved of how Biden was handling the economy, compared with the 18% who currently support Trump’s approach.

The job market was meaningfully stronger in terms of hiring during Biden’s presidency as the United States was recovering from pandemic-related lockdowns. But hiring has slowed sharply under Trump with monthly job gains averaging less than 27,000 after the April tariff announcements.

People see that difference.

Four years ago, 36% of those in the survey were “extremely” or “very” confident in their ability to get a good job, but that has fallen to 21% now.

Biden’s approval on the economy steadily deteriorated through the middle of 2022 when inflation hit a four-decade high, creating an opening for Trump’s political comeback.

Electricity costs are an emerging worry

In some ways, Trump has made the inflation problems harder by choosing to cancel funding for renewable energy projects and imposing tariffs on the equipment needed for factories and power plants. Those added costs are coming before the anticipated construction of data centers for AI that could further push up prices without more construction.

Even though 36% see electricity as a major concern, there are some who have yet to feel a serious financial squeeze. In the survey, 40% identified electricity costs as a “minor” stress, while 23% said their utility bills are “not a source” of stress.

Kevin Halsey, 58, of Normal, Illinois, said his monthly electricity bills used to be $90 during the summer because he had solar panels, but have since jumped to $300. Halsey, who works in telecommunications, voted Democratic in last year’s presidential election and described the economy right now as “crap.”

“I’ve got to be pessimistic,” he said. “I don’t see this as getting better.”

At a fundamental level, Trump finds himself in the same economic dilemma that bedeviled Biden. There are signs the economy remains relatively solid with a low unemployment rate, stock market gains and decent economic growth, yet the public continues to be skeptical about the economy’s health.

Some 68% of U.S. adults describe the U.S. economy these days as “poor,” while 32% say it’s “good.” That’s largely consistent with assessments of the economy over the past year.

In addition, 59%, say their family finances are “holding steady.” But only 12% say they’re “getting ahead,” and 28% say they are “falling behind.”

People see plenty of expenses but few opportunities

The sense of economic precarity is coming from many different directions, with indications that many think middle-class stability is falling out of reach.

The vast majority of U.S. adults feel at least “minor” stress about the cost of groceries, health care, housing, the amount they pay in taxes, what they are paid at work and the cost of gas for their cars.

In the survey, 47%, say they are “not very” or “not at all” confident they could pay an unexpected medical expense while 52% have low confidence they will have enough saved for their retirement. Also, 63%, are “not very” or “not at all” confident they could buy a new home if they wanted to.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/poll-economy-trump-inflation-electricity-costs-hiring-jobs-ffa4a9de69db090f47f968ba656d694b

THIS is the shocking moment Donald Trump blasts a drug-filled vessel and kills three “narco-terrorists”.

The strike comes just days after the US bombed a narco-smuggling submarine – as the country continues to wage war on drugs.

Footage posted by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shows the boat careering through the ocean.

A massive blast erupts from the water as a precision weapon strikes the vessel.

Moments later, it is engulfed in flames and a thick cloud of smoke before being totally incinerated.

Hegseth said Friday’s strike targeted a vessel linked to Colombia‘s ELN guerrilla group – a prominent drug cartel he likened to the “Al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere”.

He said the vessel was travelling along a “known narco-trafficking route” and was carrying “substantial” amounts of drugs.

Three “narco-terrorists” aboard the ship were killed in the blast, he added.

Hegseth didn’t specify where the strike took place, but said the boat was operating in an area overseen by the Southern Command, which oversees US military operations in Latin America.

The operation comes just days after the US blasted a drug-smuggling submarine off the coast of Venezuela.

Trump celebrated the operation online and said it was a “great honour” to destroy the sub, which was apparently “loaded up with mostly fentanyl”.

Trump this week announced he would deploy 10,000 US troops, nuclear-capable bombers, and America’s most elite special operations unit — the “Night Stalkers” — to the waters off Venezuela.

He is taking the fight to the all-powerful drug cartels, who he claims are backed by Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro.

The Caribbean is now bracing for its most explosive showdown in decades as Maduro whips his country into a war footing and vows to repel any US attack.

In a dramatic escalation, three B-52 bombers — the same heavy bombers used in Iraq and Syria — flew for hours off Venezuela’s coast this week.

Meanwhile, MH-6 Little Birds and MH-60 Black Hawks from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known as the Night Stalkers, carried out low-level flights just 90 miles from Venezuelan territory.

The storied unit, famed for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, specialises in lighting-fast, low-altitude night missions and often carries Green Berets, Navy SEALs and Delta Force operators into battle.

Most of the American force is based in Puerto Rico, with about 2,200 Marines stationed on amphibious assault ships.

The Pentagon has also deployed F-35B stealth fighters, P-8 Poseidon spy planes, and MQ-9 Reaper drones to the region.

Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro has sent a stern response to Washington as he fumed the US wants to oust him and install a “puppet government”.

Maduro stared down Donald Trump’s declaration of war against the cartels, which the President insists are “poisoning” Americans with fentanyl and other drugs.

Trump has accused tyrannical Maduro of being in bed with the “terrorist” narco-cartels – and he has given himself the right to eliminate their members without trial.

Reports say the US is gearing up to seize ports and airfields in Venezuela.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15369486/trump-bombs-narco-killed/

ISRAEL says ceasefire has been restored in Gaza after 46 were killed in a day of violence which threatened to plunge the Strip back into war.

The IDF blitzed “terror targets” in southern Gaza with a wave of airstrikes this morning after it accused Hamas of a “blatant violation of the ceasefire”.

Hamas fired an anti-tank missile and guns towards IDF troops this morning in Rafah, Israel claimed.

Two soldiers – Yaniv Kola and Itay Yavetz – were announced to have been killed.

Hamas denied breaching the ceasefire, saying it was “unaware of any events or clashes” in Rafah and insisting it was still committed to the ceasefire.

In response, the IDF announced a “wave of strikes” in southern Gaza, reporting that “dozens of terror targets” were eliminated.

Reports suggest that six Hamas fighters were killed, and a hospital told the BBC that 44 Gazans died in total today.

Israel also blocked aid from flowing into the Strip – and all this just days after a US-brokered peace deal was declared.

This evening, the IDF said it had “renewed enforcement” of the ceasefire deal – which includes an end to all fighting and aid flooding into Gaza.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will retaliate forcefully” to Hamas attacks on its forces.

Netanyahu met with his defence minister and top security chiefs and ordered them “to act forcefully against terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip,” his office said.

An Israeli military official said Hamas fighters launched “multiple attacks” beyond the yellow line marking Israeli military zones, calling it “a blatant violation of the ceasefire.”

These reportedly included an RPG strike and sniper fire against Israeli forces.

The IDF said earlier that on Friday “several terrorists” opened fire on Israeli soldiers in Rafah — causing no injuries — and that troops had struck another group approaching them in Khan Younis.

The military warned it would “continue to operate to remove immediate threats.”

Palestinians in Rafah told Reuters they heard explosions and heavy gunfire, while witnesses in Khan Younis reported a wave of airstrikes and Israeli tank fire near the town of Abassan.

Hamas, for its part, is trying to claim it is sticking to the peace deal.

Its armed wing said it remained committed to the ceasefire “in all areas of Gaza” and claimed it was unaware of any clashes in Rafah.

It said the area was under Israeli control and that “communication with all groups there had been cut off since March.”

“Therefore, we have no connection to any events taking place in those areas, and we cannot communicate with any of our fighters there, if any of them are still alive,” the terror group added.

The Hamas-run media office accused Israel of 47 ceasefire violations since the deal was signed.

It claimed violations included “direct shooting at civilians” and “deliberate shelling.”

Both sides are trading blame, but Israel insists it was Hamas that shattered the truce first.

It comes as the United States warned that Hamas is plotting an “imminent” attack on civilians in Gaza, in what it said would be a serious breach of the ceasefire deal.

The State Department said on Saturday it had “credible reports” that the terror group was preparing a fresh assault against Palestinians, describing it as a “direct and grave violation” of the US-brokered truce.

“Should Hamas proceed with this attack, measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire,” the department said.

The stark warning comes as evidence mounts that Hamas is refusing to abide by the peace agreement it signed last week — a deal that required it to disarm, release hostages and halt all attacks.

Instead, Hamas has continued executing Palestinians in public and is now accused of planning new violence against the very people it claims to represent.

President Donald Trump, whose 20-point plan brought nearly two years of bloodshed to an end, issued a blunt threat: “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not part of the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”

As tensions mount, preparations have been under way for the second phase of President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

Azerbaijan has reportedly joined Indonesia in pledging troops to an Egypt-led international stabilisation force that could be deployed to Gaza, with UN Security Council authorisation expected in the coming days.

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance will travel to Israel on Monday for talks on Gaza’s future governance.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15368254/israel-hamas-ceasefire-jets-strikes/

JENNIFER Lopez’s first husband has accused her of cheating on him after she claimed she had never been loved by any of her exes.

Personal trainer Ojani Noa, 51, hit out after US broadcaster Howard Stern asked four-times wed J-Lo if she had ever “truly been loved” and she said “no”.

She added: “What I learned, it’s not that I’m not lovable. It’s that they’re not capable. They don’t have it in them.”

But Ojani, who was married to J-Lo from 1997 to 1998, hit back on social media, saying: “Stop putting us down.

“Stop putting me down with your victim card. The problem is not us. Not me.

“The problem is you. You’re the one who couldn’t keep it in your pants.

“You have been ‘loved’ a few times. You have been married four times. And have had countless relationships in between.

“You’ve had good relationships. Me for example. I was in love with you. I moved out of state to support, protect and care for you.

“I’m an amazing, loving person, great human being.

“Honest, faithful to you, never lied, never misbehaved, never cheated on you. I was too good for you. I’m too good of a man for you.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15369598/jennifer-lopez-accused-cheating-ex-husband-ojani-noa/

TWO people have died after a plane careered off a runway and plunged into the sea at Hong Kong airport.

The Boeing 747-400 reportedly struck a car before skidding off course and into the water in the early hours on Monday.

The four crew members on board were rescued, the international airport said in a statement.

One ground staff member was rescued as well, while another was missing.

The Emirate SkyCargo flight EK9788, operated by Turkish carrier Air ACT, reportedly veered off the airport’s north runway at around 3:50am.

Local reports said the plane struck a vehicle during landing and tore off one of its wheels.

Emergency services rescued two men at around 5am. One was rushed to North Lantau Hospital where he was treated for life-threatening injuries.

The other passenger was tragically pronounced dead at the scene.

A rescue operation remains in full swing with a helicopter, fire crew, and marine police scouring the area.

The freighter had departed from Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai and was due to land in Hong Kong.

A Cathay Pacific flight was later forced to abort an attempted landing and divert to the south runway after the horror crash.

Shocking pictures show the aircraft partially submerged in the water.

A huge chunk of the plane’s tail appears missing.

The north course remains shut following the incident but the south and centre runways are continuing to operate.

The horror incident comes just days after a budget airliner narrowly escaped hurtling into the ocean at 300mph just moments after take off from an Italian holiday island.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15369868/plane-crash-cargo-hong-kong/

Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department said in a statement on Monday that the aircraft had “deviated from the north runway after landing and ditched into the sea.”

A cargo plane flying from Dubai skidded off the runway into the sea while landing at Hong Kong International Airport early on Monday, the city’s airport operator said, with local media reporting the deaths of two people.

Photos taken after the accident showed a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft with AirACT livery partially submerged in water near the airport’s sea wall with an escape slide deployed and the nose and tail sections separated.

The four crew members on board the plane were rescued, the Hong Kong airport said in a statement. Two people who were inside a ground vehicle near the runway that was suspected to have been struck by the aircraft have died, the South China Morning Post reported, citing police.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The northern runway at the world’s busiest cargo airport is closed after the incident, Hong Kong International Airport said, adding the south and central runways would continue to operate.

The accident occurred around 3:50 am Hong Kong time on Monday (1950 GMT on Sunday).

Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department said in a statement on Monday that the aircraft had “deviated from the north runway after landing and ditched into the sea.”

“Two ground staff were affected and fell into the sea, and their conditions are pending confirmation.”

Emirates said in a statement that flight EK9788 sustained damage on landing in Hong Kong on Monday and was a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft wet-leased from and operated by ACT Airlines.

“Crew are confirmed to be safe and there was no cargo onboard,” Emirates said.

ACT Airlines is a Turkish carrier that provides extra cargo capacity to major airlines. It did not respond immediately to a request for comment outside normal business hours.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/2-dead-as-cargo-plane-skids-off-hong-kong-airport-runway-into-sea-9485454?pfrom=home-ndtv_topstories

“I spoke with Prime Minister Modi of India, and he said he’s not going to be doing the Russian oil thing,” Trump said, reiterating what he said in the past week.

US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his claim that India has agreed to restrict its Russian oil purchases. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the US leader threatened to impose “massive tariffs” on Indian goods unless New Delhi agreed to his terms and halted its purchases.

“I spoke with Prime Minister Modi of India, and he said he’s not going to be doing the Russian oil thing,” he said, reiterating what he said in the past week.

India last week rejected Trump’s claim that he had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over New Delhi’s Russian oil imports. When asked about India’s assertion, he replied, “But if they want to say that, then they’ll just continue to pay massive tariffs, and they don’t want to do that.”

US Tariffs On India

The remarks came amid growing US pressure on Russia’s trade partners, particularly in the energy sector, which Washington argues indirectly funds Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

India has become the biggest buyer of seaborne Russian oil sold at a discount after Western nations shunned purchases and imposed sanctions on Moscow for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Washington has already imposed a sweeping 50 per cent tariff on a large basket of Indian exports. The US tariffs – among the highest in the world – include a 25 per cent penalty for transactions with Russia that are a key source of funds for its war in Ukraine.

Trump has repeatedly said that those duties would remain on India or even increase if New Delhi does not halt its crude trade with Moscow.

Trump’s Claims And India’s Reply

Trump last week said Prime Minister Modi had assured him that day that India would stop its Russian oil purchases.

India’s foreign ministry, however, rejected the claim, saying it was not aware of any telephone conversation between the leaders that day but said that New Delhi’s main concern was to “safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer.”

A White House official said on Thursday that India has halved its purchases of Russian oil, but Indian sources said no immediate reduction had been seen.

The sources said Indian refiners already placed orders for November loading, including some slated for December arrival, so any cut may start showing up in December or January import numbers.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/india-will-continue-to-pay-massive-tariffs-over-russian-oil-thing-says-us-president-donald-trump-9485497?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

Trump reportedly shouted, cursed, and tossed maps while urging Zelenskyy to accept Vladimir Putin’s terms, warning that Russia would “destroy” Ukraine if he refused.

In a stormy White House meeting, US President Donald Trump reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept Russian President Vladimir Putin’s terms for ending the war, warning that Moscow would “destroy” Ukraine if it refused.

According to a Financial Times report, quoting officials, the encounter devolved into a “shouting match”, marked by Trump’s expletive-laden outbursts and erratic behaviour, including throwing away maps of the Ukrainian front line.

‘Accept the deal or be destroyed,’ Trump tells Zelenskyy

During the meeting, Trump is said to have pressed Zelenskyy to surrender the entire Donbas region to Russia, echoing the Russian leader’s position almost verbatim. “Putin told me it’s a special operation, not even a war,” Trump reportedly said, urging Zelenskyy to “cut a deal or face destruction.”

European officials familiar with the conversation said the US leader appeared to parrot Putin’s arguments from a phone call held the day before. Despite publicly declaring earlier that Russia’s economy was on the brink of collapse, Trump allegedly praised its performance during the meeting, saying Moscow was “doing great.”

The US President’s volatile approach, they added, left Zelenskyy stunned and his team frustrated. The Ukrainian leader, who had sought Washington’s approval to receive long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, returned empty-handed after Trump declined the request.

The tense exchange reached a boiling point when Trump reportedly threw aside maps of Ukraine’s battlefield, saying he was “sick” of seeing them. “This red line – I don’t even know where this is. I’ve never been there,” he reportedly exclaimed, dismissing Zelenskyy’s attempts to explain the military situation.

Observers, as quoted by Financial Times, said the episode highlighted Trump’s unpredictable stance on the conflict, alternating between calls for peace and deference to Putin’s “maximalist” demands. It also revived fears among US allies that Trump could undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty in future negotiations.

Putin’s proposal and Ukraine’s refusal

As per reports, Putin has proposed that Ukraine surrender the remaining parts of Donbas still under its control, in exchange for limited territorial concessions in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The offer is seen as a softened version of the proposal Putin presented in their earlier Alaska meeting, which also ended acrimoniously.

However, Ukrainian officials have ruled out any such agreement. Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, said, “To give the Donbas to Russia without a fight is unacceptable for Ukrainian society, and Putin knows that. It’s about dividing and destroying us from within.”

Trump’s combative stance and apparent sympathy for Putin’s reasoning have rattled Ukraine’s European backers. “Zelenskyy was very negative after the meeting,” said one European diplomat, adding that leaders are now “planning next steps pragmatically, not optimistically.”

Source : https://www.news18.com/world/accept-putins-deal-or-trump-shouts-curses-throws-maps-in-fiery-meet-with-zelenskyy-9647256.html

The use of word “border” in Qatar’s ceasefire statement upset the Afghan officials, prompting the latter to revise the statement.

The recent flare-up between Pakistan and Afghanistan has brought in limelight the Durand Line, boundary between the two countries. The mention of Durand Line as “border” in the ceasefire statement released by Qatar reportedly upset the Afghan officials, prompting the Qatar to issue a revised statement.

In an earlier statement, Qatar said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the State of Qatar’s hope that this important step will contribute to ending tensions on the border between the two brotherly countries and form a solid foundation for sustainable peace in the region.”

However, the statement was revised to remove the phrase “on the border between the two brotherly countries” and said, “”The Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed the State of Qatar’s hope that this important step will contribute to ending tensions between the two brotherly countries and form a solid foundation for sustainable peace in the region.”

What is Durand Line?

The boundary line was established in the Hindu Kush in 1893 that connected Afghanistan and British India via tribal lands.

It is a legacy of the 19th-century Great Game between the Russian and British empires in which Afghanistan was used as a buffer by the British against a feared Russian expansionism to its east.

In 1893, the agreement demarcating what became known as the Durand Line was signed between the British civil servant Sir Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman, then the Afghan ruler.

Abdur Rahman became king in 1880, two years after the end of the Second Afghan War, in which the British took control of several areas that were part of the Afghan kingdom. His agreement with Durand demarcated the limits of his and British India’s “spheres of influence” on the Afghan “frontier” with India.

The seven-clause agreement recognised a 2,670-km line, which stretches from the border with China to Afghanistan’s border with Iran.

With independence in 1947, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line, and with it also the Pashtun rejection of the line and Afghanistan’s refusal to recognise it.

Why was Afghanistan upset over “border”?

While Islamabad recognises Durand Line as the international border, Afghanistan refuses to do so. Successive Afghan governments, including the Taliban, have dubbed it an artificial division that splits Pashtun tribal lands that undermines the Afghan sovereignty.

In the recent years, the border line has been a flashpoint between the two countries with Islamabad fencing it and Afghan guards tearing down parts of it. While Afghans reject the line as a “colonial relic”, it is a matter of territorial integrity for Pakistan.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/what-is-durand-line-between-afghanistan-and-pakistan-why-do-afghans-refuse-to-consider-it-as-border-101760926147749.html

Brother of the late Virginia Giuffre calls on King to strip Andrew of the title ‘prince’

PANICKING Prince Andrew cancelled a birthday party for wife Sarah Ferguson at the last minute as the Jeffrey Epstein sex scandal engulfed him.

Fergie had been due to celebrate turning 66 last Wednesday with a lavish bash at their mansion in Windsor.

But Andrew axed it as he faced calls to give up his royal titles, including Duke of York and his role as a member of the prestigious and historic Order of the Garter.

And last night, the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre — who said she had sex with Andrew in London when she was just 17 — called on the King to go even further and strip him of the title “prince”.

He told BBC Newsnight “We would call on the King to potentially go ahead and take out the prince in the Andrew.”

Last night royal author Ingrid Seward said: “People are furious. He might not be a Duke any more, but he still lives like a Prince.

“How can he possibly continue to live on the Windsor Park estate in a 30-room mansion?

“The time has come for the King to tell Andrew to pack up and tell him: ‘I’m sorry, take the money you’ve put into Royal Lodge and start a new life elsewhere.’

“His actions have played a large part in disgracing his family. Does he really want to be the man to play a part in bringing down the monarchy?”

Andrew reportedly paid £12million to settle the legal case brought by Virginia in 2022.

‘Victory for Virginia’
But announcing his titles axe on Friday, he again declared: “I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”

Prince William, meanwhile, is said to want to ban Andrew from his future coronation as King — and even exclude him from other royal and state occasions.

He considers his uncle’s presence in royal life a “threat” to the monarchy that could send the wrong message to abuse victims, according to The Sunday Times. It is understood he will also ban Sarah Ferguson from royal events.

In her book Nobody’s Girl — due out on Tuesday, following her suicide in April — Virginia talked about living with an “emotional time bomb” over her ordeal at the hands of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and the prince.

She said she suffered recurring nightmares and flashbacks of “disturbing images”, including “greedy, heaving men”.

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/royals/15367145/prince-andrew-cancel-fergie-birthday-party-epstein-scandal/

In a post on social media, Trump said that two terrorists were killed while two other surviving terrorists were returned to Ecuador and Colombia.

President Donald Trump said Saturday the United States was sending two suspected drug traffickers back to their native Ecuador and Colombia, after a military strike on their “drug-smuggling submarine” in the Caribbean that killed two others.

“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, adding that the vessel was loaded with fentanyl and other drugs.

“Two of the terrorists were killed. The two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed that the Colombian suspect had been repatriated.

“We are glad he is alive and he will be prosecuted according to the law,” Petro said on social media platform X.

The strike, which Trump had announced on Friday, was the latest in an unprecedented US military campaign that he says is aimed at choking the flow of drugs from Latin America to the United States.

At least six vessels, most of them speedboats, have been targeted by US strikes in the Caribbean since September, with Venezuela alleged to be the origin of some of them.

Washington says its campaign is dealing a decisive blow to drug trafficking, but it has provided no evidence that the people killed — at least 27 so far — were drug smugglers.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/donald-trump-us-war-on-drugs-25-000-americans-would-have-died-trump-as-us-strikes-drug-carrying-submarine-9481287?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

The passengers are being booked on flights on or after Monday.

Hundreds of passengers returning to India from Italy for Diwali were in for a rude shock on Friday when they were told their Air India flight had been cancelled and they would be booked on flights only on the day of the festival or after that.

Air India said flight AI138 from Milan to Delhi was cancelled because of a technical issue.

“Flight AI138 from Milan to Delhi on 17 October 2025 was cancelled due to an extended technical requirement on the aircraft scheduled to operate the flight, prioritising the safety of all passengers and crew,” an Air India spokesperson said.

The airline said all passengers have been provided hotel accommodations but it had to be arranged outside the immediate vicinity of the airport for some.

“Passengers have been rebooked on alternative flights on or after October 20, 2025, based on seat availability with Air India and other airlines,” the spokesperson said. Monday, October 20, is Diwali.

The airline said one passenger, whose Schengen visa is expiring on Monday, has been rebooked on another airline’s flight on Sunday.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/returning-for-diwali-hundreds-stranded-in-italy-as-air-india-cancels-flight-9479865?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

This would set the stage for Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader Sanae Takaichi to be Japan’s first female prime minister.

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Innovation Party have broadly agreed to form a coalition government, setting the stage for the country’s first female prime minister, Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday (Oct 19).

Sanae Takaichi, leader of the conservative LDP, and Hirofumi Yoshimura – who is the head of the smaller right-leaning group known as Ishin – are set to sign an agreement on their alliance on Monday, Kyodo said.

Ishin’s co-head, Fumitake Fujita, raised expectations for a deal on Friday, saying the two parties had made “big progress” in coalition talks.

Ishin lawmakers will vote for Takaichi in an election to choose the prime minister in parliament on Tuesday, but the party does not plan to send ministers to Takaichi’s Cabinet initially, the news agency said.

Takaichi’s path to succeed Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba had seemed all but certain after she won her party’s presidency early this month. But then the long-ruling LDP’s junior partner, Komeito, quit their 26-year coalition, setting off a flurry of negotiations with rival parties to select the next premier.

In an effort to get Ishin on board, the LDP offered to keep working towards banning donations from companies and other organisations and exempting food items from Japan’s sales tax, Kyodo said.

Ishin has proposed eliminating the tax on food items for two years.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/japan-ldp-ishin-coalition-government-sanae-takaichi-5411401

Experts say that consumers are likely to face even tighter controls but as long as safeguards are clear and proportionate, with a proper avenue for recourse, there is no need to be concerned.

When 29-year-old Kenneth Lee noticed an investment opportunity in a Telegram channel earlier this year, it appeared legitimate enough.

At first, he made small transfers of S$500 or S$1,000 – and even saw small “profits” reflected in the app. Encouraged, he sent larger amounts of S$5,000, S$10,000, and finally larger sums of S$20,000.

Over two months, he had transferred close to S$165,000 – his entire life savings. Then the chat group disappeared and the money vanished.

“If the bank had just called me or paused any of the transfers, I’d have been super grateful,” said Mr Lee, a marketing professional.

He added that the slew of measures introduced this year to curb scams are necessary given how rampant scams have been as of late.

“It’s getting out of control.”

While individuals like Mr Lee are glad for added protections, some consumers feel the authorities are being overly cautious and argue that such safeguards are only meant to protect a small pool of naive individuals, at the detriment of everyone else.

Among their gripes: the new safeguards are troublesome and the 24-hour delay or sudden transaction blocks can be disruptive for people making urgent or legitimate transfers.

Then, there’s also the issue of what kind of controls banks and authorities should have over personal accounts.

Mr Rain Tan, 48, said he understands there is merit for scam prevention but finds it “too broad a brush”. The civil servant said he has savings in fixed deposits and the safeguards make it cumbersome to move large deposits between banks.

“It’s almost impossible for me to switch banks easily after my fixed deposit expires,” he said. “My daily transfer limit is capped at S$200,000, so it takes several days to move my money, with cooldowns and waiting periods in between.”

He suggested that the bank should have a pre-approved or whitelist of payees that go through stringent checks, and these customers should be exempt from these measures.

“Most of the time, people – myself included – are just transferring money to their own accounts in another bank. Can you imagine how many days it would take to move, say, half a million, even if the other account is in my name?”

These latest powers given to Singapore banks and the police to intervene when they detect potential scams comes after much public consultation and debate and almost as a last resort to get the upper hand over scammers.

Like many other countries globally, the nation has been grappling with an uptick in scams for several years.

Scams ranked among the top crimes in Singapore for the last four years – in the first half of this year alone Singapore residents lost S$456.4 million to scams.

A shared responsibility framework was first announced back in February 2022 after close to 800 OCBC customers lost S$13.7 million.

The following year the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Infocomm Media Development Authority started gathering feedback for the framework which aims to strengthen the direct accountability of financial institutions and telcos to customers for losses incurred from phishing scams.

The public consultation paper captured the suggestions of several members of the public on making financial institutions responsible for fraud surveillance and detection and block potential fraudulent transactions.

In January, a new law was passed providing the police with powers to order banks to restrict the banking transactions of potential scam victims.

The Protection from Scams Bill came into force in July and allows police to issue Restriction Orders that temporarily limit access to a person’s bank account if they believe the person is part of an ongoing scam.

These restriction orders will suspend money transfers, the use of automated teller machines and all credit facilities, although individuals will still be provided access to their monies for daily living expenses.

Such orders can be issued for a maximum of 30 days at the outset and each order may be extended up to five times if authorities deem it necessary.

Just earlier this week, a new anti-scam measure was also introduced which allows banks to hold or reject transfers from accounts with balances of at least S$50,000 and if withdrawals over 24 hours amount to more than half of the total funds.

During the 24-hour cooling period, customers who realise they have been scammed can then cancel the transaction. If the transactions are legitimate, the funds will be released after the cooling period.

LESS COAXING, MORE CONCRETE WAYS TO HELP: BANKS
Banks said that increasing their powers to keep scams at bay is absolutely necessary given the proliferation of artificial intelligence and deepfake technology.

The modus operandi of scammers is continually evolving and at a rapid pace, even fooling those who are digitally savvy, they said.

And without such measures, their hands are tied even when they are 100 per cent certain their customers are being drained of their funds.

Mr Sukhvinder Singh, head of digital banking at Maybank Singapore, said that before the new laws took effect, frontline staff at the bank often felt legally constrained from stepping in.

Maybank staff would encounter customers who were “absolutely convinced” they couldn’t be scammed and became defensive when questioned about their transactions.

Some customers even threatened to close their accounts or post complaints on social media if their withdrawal requests weren’t processed, he added.

“These experiences were incredibly challenging because, at the time, the bank had limited legal grounds to delay or stop a transaction without the customer’s consent,” said Mr Singh.

Mr Raymond See, a member of DBS’s Anti-Scam team, said even now with new laws in place, defensive customers push back and lash out at his team, insisting that a transfer be approved.

“We have to stay firm and not let the transfer go through, because our goal is to save as much of the customer’s money as possible,” he said, adding that no amount is too small to save once a scam has been identified.

In the end, he said, “quite a number of customers” – even those who argue – call the bank within the 24h window to cancel the transactions themselves.

“The 24-hour period gives customers a cognitive break … a chance to step back, think and sometimes talk to someone they trust before proceeding,” said Mr See.

Banks acknowledged that the new measures may seem restrictive but said they were in place to ultimately protect consumers.

Mr Singh said that safeguards need to “strike the right balance between protecting customer rights and preventing irreversible losses”.

Mrs Ong-Ang Ai Boon, the director of The Association of Banks, said that measures have already yielded positive results with S$78 million of loss monies averted in the first seven months of this year.

“While these measures may introduce more friction, consumers’ protection is a priority,” she said.

In response to queries from CNA TODAY, the Police said that as of September, they have issued six restriction orders to banks to restrict the banking transactions of six individuals.

Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/today/big-read/scams-powers-authorities-bank-police-5405076

There are not many sports that can keep an audience enraptured through 45 minutes of ceremony before the first point is even contested.

And yet, the intricate traditions unfolding in a small clay ring – virtually unchanged in hundreds of years – managed to do just that.

Welcome, then, to the Grand Sumo Tournament – a five-day event at the Royal Albert Hall featuring 40 of the very best sumo wrestlers showcasing a sport which can date its first mention back to 23BC.

London’s Victorian concert venue has been utterly transformed, complete with six-tonne Japanese temple roof suspended above the ring.

It is here the wrestlers, known as rikishi, will perform their leg stomps to drive away evil spirits, and where they will clap to get the attention of the gods.

And above all this ancient ceremony, a giant, revolving LED screen which wouldn’t look out of place at an American basketball game, offering the audience all the stats and replays they could want.

Sumo may be ancient, and may have strict rules governing every aspect of a rikishi’s conduct, but it still exists in a modern world.

And that modern world is helping spread sumo far beyond Japan’s borders.

It was a “random video” which first caught Sian Spencer’s attention a couple of years ago.

This was quickly followed by the discovery of dedicated YouTube channels for a couple of the sumo stables, where rikishi live and train, waking up early to practise, followed by a high protein stew called a chankonabe, and then an afternoon nap – all in the service of bulking up.

Then she discovered the bi-monthly, 15 day championships, known as basho, and from there, she was hooked.

The London tournament was simply a “once-in-a-lifetime”, not-to-be-missed, opportunity to see it all in real life, the 35-year-old says.

Julia and her partner Cezar, who live in Edinburgh, discovered sumo through a more traditional route: a trip to Japan six years ago.

“We saw it as a very touristy activity, but we actually ended up loving the sport,” says Julia, 34.

“From there on, we tried to find communities, information, just to learn more and more about it,” Cezar, 36, adds.

Colleagues, friends and family, they found, could be quite taken aback by their new passion.

“It’s the only sport we watch,” explains Julia – so they found like-minded people on messaging apps like Telegram.

“We found Italian groups, English groups,” says Julia.

“Outside of Japan, online is the only way to interact with the sport,” adds Cezar.

Going to Japan is almost the only way to see a top-flight sumo tournament.

This week’s event in London is only the second time the tournament has visited the city – the first time was in 1991 – while the last overseas trip was to Jakarta in 2013.

But even going to Japan isn’t a guarantee of getting a seat. Last year was the first time in 24 years that all six of the bi-monthly, 15-day events had sold out in 28 years, Kyodo News reported – fueled by interest at home, and by the tourist boom which saw more than 36m foreigners visit in 2024.

So for many, the London tournament is the first time they have watched sumo in person – and it doesn’t disapoint.

“Seeing it up close, you get a sense of the speed and the power which you don’t get on TV. It was incredible,” says Caspar Eliot, a 36-year-old fan from London. “They are so big.”

To win, one man needs to push another out of the ring or to the ground using brute strength. The majority use one of two styles to achieve this, often in split seconds – pushing, or grappling.

Either way, the sound of the two rikishi colliding in the first moment of the match reverberates around the hall.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw7009342o

Another five South Koreans have also been deported for other criminal offences.

The majority of the group were arrested during a crackdown by Cambodian authorities, while five reportedly turned themselves in and escaped the network, BBC Korea has reported.

From the airport, they will now be taken to the relevant police stations for investigation.

The individuals were arrested on board the chartered flight shortly after boarding, the official said, according to Agence France-Presse.

Under South Korean law, a national carrier’s aircraft is considered Korean territory, allowing law enforcement to execute arrest warrants.

South Korean National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac had said that the members of the repatriated group had both “voluntary and involuntary” involvement in the scams.

“Most of them should be regarded as having committed criminal acts, Wi said.

Their return has taken place alongside high-level diplomacy over cyber crime.

In a post on social media, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said he had met with a South Korean official to discuss “combatting transnational crimes, particularly online scams”.

“Cambodia and the Republic of Korea will continue to strengthen our collaboration to prevent, suppress, and combat online scams more effectively,” he wrote.

The return of the group also follows a crackdown by the US government on a Cambodian business empire alleged to be running a crypto scam earlier this week, that saw the seizure of over $14bn (£10.5bn) in bitcoin.

Crypto fraud is just one of the several types of scam schemes run from centres in the region, with some overseeing romance fraud or ‘love scams’, which involve scammers posing as lovers online to steal money.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8drqm4mqpno

A twisted Illinois State University faculty member was arrested after allegedly flipping a Turning Point USA table on campus this week, viral video shows.

The accused vandal, Derek Lopez, was caught on camera speaking to a man standing near the table — which had been set up by students in the group to promote political YouTuber and comedian Alex Stein’s Oct. 20 event at the university, according to video, local police and various X posts about the ugly incident.

“Well, you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it, right?” Lopez, 27, of El Paso, Ill. — a teacher’s assistant and graduate student at the university — tells the man before the footage shows him tossing the table over, sending pins, flyers and other items rocketing into the air.

Lopez who sports red pants, a black and red flannel and a bun in the clip, is then seen taking off with a wave.

“Thanks guys, have a great day,” he sneers.

Lopez – who allegedly disrupted a second informational table hosted by a student organization – was arrested by cops on Friday, and charged with disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property, the Illinois State University Police Department wrote on Facebook.

Details about the second incident were not immediately available.

Video of him tossing the Turning Point USA table, which has amassed nearly 50,000 views on Fox News’ X profile since it was posted Saturday afternoon, has sparked fierce backlash online, where thousands of commenters have called on the university to act.

“Imagine paying $30K a year for tuition just to see your TA reenact a toddler meltdown in 4K. No class, literally,” one user wrote.

“Actions like that show a complete lack of respect for free speech and open debate. College should be about ideas, not tantrums and censorship,” another said.

“He should not be in any class with those temper tantrums,” another echoed.

Source: https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/illinois-state-university-faculty-member-flips-turning-point-usa-tables-on-campus/