A bizarre, high-stakes dispute has erupted in Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby after a 32-kilogram cylindrical object was unearthed at an active local construction site, triggering a series of conflicting official statements and widespread public skepticism across social platforms. The incident first came to public attention last Friday, when local law enforcement officers took four Chinese nationals into custody immediately after the heavy, shell-like object was discovered at the development site. At the initial stage of the investigation, Port Moresby police commissioner David Manning labeled the find “a very concerning discovery,” as local authorities launched urgent assessments to confirm whether the object carried active explosive components that posed a public safety risk. Local PNG outlet Post Courier also pushed back against early online speculation that the item was no more than an inert military training dummy, noting that preliminary scans suggested the device contained internal components consistent with live ordnance. The controversy deepened on Wednesday, when Australian Broadcasting Corporation reporters cited unnamed internal security sources claiming the object was a fully intact, undetonated 130mm Chinese Type 59 Artillery Projectile, fitted with a functional fuse and loaded with chemical explosive material. The BBC, which first broke coverage of the cross-border dispute, has stated it has not independently verified the ABC’s unconfirmed source claims. Just one day prior, on Tuesday, the Chinese Embassy in Port Moresby released an official statement via its public Facebook page affiliated with PNG’s East New Britain Province, categorically refuting all reports that the item was a smuggled Chinese military artillery shell. The embassy’s official position framed the 32kg object as nothing more than an unusually large, shell-shaped novelty wine bottle, emphasizing that “it poses no danger at all” to local communities. The statement went on to argue that smuggling a functional military-grade artillery shell out of China was “virtually impossible,” citing the country’s strict national firearms and ordnance control regimes, which it described as among the most rigorous in the world, and noting that China is widely ranked as one of the safest nations globally for public security. The embassy’s explanation has drawn a wave of skeptical pushback from social media users across PNG and international audiences, with dozens of critical comments posted beneath the official Facebook announcement. One commenter questioned the basic physical logic of the claim, writing “What sort of wine bottle weighs 32 kilograms?” while another pointed out that no product labels, branding or markings consistent with a wine container were visible on public photos of the seized object, which showed a dull, metal cylindrical form matching the design of mid-20th century artillery ordnance. As of press time, joint PNG-Chinese law enforcement teams have not released a final, conclusive forensic report confirming the exact nature of the seized 32kg item, leaving the international community and local residents waiting for official clarity on the unexpected discovery.
分类： world
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ANC under pressure to reverse South Africa decline
Millions of South Africans headed to polling stations across the nation to cast ballots in fiercely contested municipal elections, where the long-dominant African National Congress (ANC) braces for a potentially historic erosion of voter backing after three decades of leading post-apartheid governance. The vote determines leadership for nearly 300 local municipalities, the government bodies directly responsible for delivering core public services including piped water, reliable electricity, waste collection and road maintenance to communities nationwide.
The 2025 electoral campaign season unfolded with unorthodox, highly publicized outreach efforts from party leaders: candidates were filmed riding through massive, cratersized potholes to highlight infrastructure neglect, joining elderly residents in knitting circles, and even staging stunts with modified vehicles to grab public attention. For the ANC, which governed South Africa as the undisputed leading party in the immediate post-1994 apartheid era, this election represents a make-or-break opportunity to restore public trust after a devastating performance in the 2024 national general election, where it lost its long-held parliamentary majority for the first time in democratic history.
The party’s support has plummeted steadily in recent years, fueled by widespread public fury over rampant official corruption, chronically high unemployment that impacts millions of working-age South Africans, and soaring violent crime rates. At its 2004 peak, the ANC secured 70% of the national vote; by 2024, that share had collapsed to just 40%. While independent polling firms and political analysts have uniformly projected further steep losses for the party in this local ballot, President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed back against narratives of a political downward spiral during the ANC’s final weekend rally, telling cheering supporters: “What I am witnessing on the ground is the ANC surging higher and higher, and on November 4, we will prove all the naysayers wrong.”
In the historic Johannesburg township of Alexandra, a longstanding ANC stronghold located just kilometers from Sandton, Africa’s wealthiest commercial district, years of mismanagement have eroded the party’s traditional loyal base, driving widespread voter apathy. A BBC reporting team visiting the community a week before election day spoke to a cross-section of residents, capturing the sharp divide among young voters. Eighteen-year-old first-time voter Sanele Ntombela expressed cautious optimism that his ballot could push local leaders to address the neighborhood’s visible crises: uncollected garbage piled beneath streetlamps plastered with campaign posters, raw sewage trickling through gaping potholes, and frequent interruptions to water and electricity access. By contrast, most of Ntombela’s peers stated they had not registered to vote, arguing no party had delivered tangible improvements to their lives. Elsewhere in Alexandra, 33-year-old registered voter Zandile Mncube said she would skip the polls entirely, noting that years of successive local governments had only made living conditions worse, and that casting a ballot would make no measurable difference.
The stark contrast between adjacent Sandton, with its gleaming skyscrapers, well-paved roads and upscale retail outlets, and Alexandra’s overcrowded homes, uncollected waste and pervasive stench of sewage is replicated across most townships in Gauteng province, including Soweto, where 45-year-old lifelong resident Mduduzi Makhubo explained that his community now routinely loses access to running water every Monday after 2 p.m. Makhubo said he planned to cast his ballot to push back against the arrogant, unresponsive attitude of local officials and disrupt the long-standing broken status quo.
These on-the-ground accounts align with years of damning findings from South Africa’s Auditor-General, whose latest 2024-2025 audit awarded a top-tier clean financial audit to just 39 of the country’s 257 municipalities. None of Gauteng’s three major metro cities — Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni — made that list, with Johannesburg explicitly flagged as requiring urgent, sustained intervention to reverse its slide into effective bankruptcy, marked by crumbling infrastructure and collapsing service delivery.
With more than 500 registered political parties contesting the nationwide local polls, analysts are closely watching outcomes across South Africa’s eight major metropolitan municipalities, only three of which currently operate under single-party rule. All three Gauteng metros are currently run by fragile coalition governments where the ANC holds the largest share of seats, a dynamic that most experts agree is likely to shift after votes are counted. Veteran political analyst Melanie Verwoerd, a former ANC member of parliament and ex-South African ambassador to Ireland, described the election as a public verdict on the ANC’s decades of governance, noting that pre-election surveys point to the party recording its worst ever electoral performance. An Ipsos poll released ahead of voting put projected ANC national support at just 30%, down sharply from the 46% share it secured in the 2021 local elections. The same polling shows the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) making modest gains, with projected support rising from 22% in 2021 to 25% in this cycle, particularly in Johannesburg, where party leader Helen Zille ran a viral, unorthodox campaign that included swimming in massive potholes, ziplining over sinkholes, and arriving at her final rally in a beloved vintage local BMW model nicknamed the “Gusheshe”. Zille has repeatedly argued that municipalities run by the DA consistently deliver far better public services to residents.
Verwoerd predicted that coalition governance will remain the standard across Gauteng’s metros, noting that past local coalition arrangements have often been unstable, with frequent leadership collapses caused by infighting between allied parties that have further undermined public service delivery. She added that the most functional local governing models would likely mirror the current national unity power-sharing agreement between the historic rival ANC and DA, while noting that the DA is almost certain to retain control of Cape Town, widely recognized as South Africa’s best-performing metro. In the coastal eThekwini municipality, which includes the major port city of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal province, the newly formed uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party, founded by former president Jacob Zuma, is projected to make strong inroads, but no polls show it securing an outright majority. Verwoerd noted that the MK Party’s refusal to enter governing partnerships with either the ANC or DA would make forming a functional local administration extremely messy, even as Zuma vowed to his supporters on Sunday that his party would seize control of multiple municipalities after results are released.
Fellow political analyst Dr Levy Ndou echoed Verwoerd’s projections, noting that a cross-party ANC-DA coalition appears unavoidable in most major metros, and that it remains unclear whether the existing national unity government framework will trickle down to shape local governance arrangements. Both experts also highlighted the steady, years-long decline in voter turnout, particularly among young South Africans, despite more than 29 million citizens being registered to vote. Ndou attributed this trend to the low quality of many local election candidates, and the fact that most ward councillors, the officials directly responsible for neighborhood-level services, remain largely invisible to constituents throughout campaign season. South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission has seven days to release final official results, while newly elected parties have a 14-day window to negotiate and form functioning local governing structures. -
Iran says US ceasefire proposal ‘insufficient’ as strikes are reported on Qeshm Island
Tensions between the United States and Iran escalated sharply on Tuesday, as senior Iranian officials publicly cast deep doubt on the viability of a mutually acceptable diplomatic deal, hours after U.S. forces conducted targeted air strikes on Iran’s strategic Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. The wave of strikes, carried out late Monday, unfolded against a fragile diplomatic backdrop: just days prior, U.S. President Donald Trump had stated he had no intention of launching offensive operations against Iran following recent U.S. midterm elections, and had expressed cautious optimism that a negotiated de-escalation framework could be reached. Even in the immediate aftermath of the first strike reports, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had initially signaled openness to a path forward, noting that his government held formal authorization to extend an existing temporary truce between the two nations.
That tentative glimmer of diplomatic progress was effectively shattered on Tuesday, when Major General Mohsen Rezaei, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, formally rejected a compromise proposal that had been relayed to Tehran by Qatari mediators, who have long acted as a neutral intermediary in U.S.-Iran backchannel talks. In a public post on social media platform X, Rezaei stated that Washington’s latest counteroffer failed to meet the core demands of the Iranian people, emphasizing that the United States must fully and explicitly satisfy all seven of Iran’s preconditions before Tehran would agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint through which roughly 20% of global oil supplies transit.
The first public details of the Qeshm Island strikes were broken by the Wall Street Journal, which reported that U.S. military and diplomatic leadership had intentionally kept the operations under wraps to minimize the risk of a catastrophic spiral into full-scale regional war, a scenario that regional officials and independent analysts have repeatedly warned is now a tangible possibility. A U.S. defense official speaking to the publication characterized the strikes as strictly defensive, noting that the first round of fire was triggered when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a surface-to-air missile at a patrolling U.S. military aircraft, which returned fire in self-defense. A second separate strike was authorized after U.S. forces intercepted an anti-ship missile fired from Qeshm Island targeting a civilian commercial vessel transiting international waters.
Ratcheting up tensions further, Iranian military authorities announced on Tuesday that they had shot down one U.S. MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone and two additional Lucas drones operating in airspace near the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf emphasized that the onus for de-escalation now rested entirely with Washington, noting that Tehran had already delivered a firm, rational formal response to the Qatari-mediated proposal. “The United States is delusional if it believes it can coerce the Iranian nation into submission through threats and military aggression,” Ghalibaf stated publicly. “Iran will never surrender to external pressure.”
As laid out publicly on Monday by Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, Tehran’s seven-point diplomatic roadmap is designed to be fully executable within a 48-hour window, with clear sequential steps: first, the U.S. must lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports, followed by Iran reopening full navigation access to the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. issuing formal waivers to restore unimpeded Iranian oil sales, Washington cancelling all newly imposed unilateral sanctions on Iranian entities and individuals, and subsequent follow-on negotiations focused exclusively on Iran’s civilian nuclear program. The current diplomatic impasse follows a tentative spring 2024 ceasefire agreement between the two nations, paired with a 14-point memorandum of understanding that was ultimately never ratified or implemented, after talks collapsed largely due to U.S. refusal to concede to Iranian demands for full authority over maritime traffic flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
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Israeli prison guards ‘shot prominent Palestinian detainees nine times’
Disturbing new testimonies from a Palestinian prisoners’ advocacy group and the fiancée of high-profile long-term detainee Hassan Salameh have confirmed that the 55-year-old was shot nine times by Israeli prison guards in a violent assault last month, weeks after far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir filmed himself inside Salameh’s cell openly threatening to execute him. The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS), a leading independent monitor of detention conditions for Palestinian individuals held in Israeli facilities, verified details of the attack during a legal visit to Salameh conducted by one of its lawyers on Monday. Cross-referenced accounts from the legal team and Salameh’s fiancée Ghufran Zamel confirm the detainee was subjected to brutal, sustained physical beatings both before and after Ben Gvir’s unauthorised cell incursion, with Israeli security forces first storming the unit to assault Salameh repeatedly, including targeted blows to his face, before firing nine rounds at him at close range. Three full days after the violent incident, Salameh was briefly removed from his cell only for officials to document his injuries via photography, before being returned to his cell with no formal medical care administered, provided only basic over-the-counter painkillers despite the severity of his gunshot and blunt-force wounds. The recent legal visit confirmed Salameh remains in visibly poor health, severely exhausted and still suffering lingering, untreated effects of the assault, with critical details about the type of ammunition used in the shooting and the full sequence of events that triggered the attack still unaccounted for. PPS representatives noted that sweeping Israeli restrictions on legal and family prison visits have blocked access to additional corroborating evidence, deepening widespread alarm over Salameh’s safety. The organisation stressed the incident is not an isolated case, but part of an escalating, deliberate campaign targeting high-profile Palestinian detainees that far exceeds standard punitive measures, putting the lives of long-imprisoned prisoner leaders in immediate, mortal danger. These targeted figures face coordinated physical and psychological torture, systematic crackdowns, and repeated public death threats directly from Ben Gvir, who in September posted a viral video filmed inside Salameh’s cell surrounded by armed guards, stating he intended to execute the detainee and vowing to push for the death penalty for prisoners like Salameh if he is appointed defence minister. A native of the Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, Salameh became active in Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation following the 1987 outbreak of the First Intifada, later rising to a senior leadership position in the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing. He was handed 48 consecutive life sentences in 1996 after an Israeli court convicted him of orchestrating a series of bombings that killed and wounded dozens of Israeli civilians; Salameh has repeatedly stated the attacks were carried out in direct retaliation for Israel’s targeted assassination of prominent Hamas engineer Yahya Ayyash earlier that same year. Over the 30 years he has spent in Israeli custody, Salameh has already endured 14 cumulative years in prolonged solitary confinement. Reports of systemic abuse of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli facilities have surged dramatically since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict in October 2023, with dozens of human rights organisations documenting widespread patterns of torture, unprovoked physical assault, sexual violence, deliberate starvation, medical neglect, and public humiliation of prisoners across all Israeli detention centres. Two leading Israeli human rights groups, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, released a joint report last month compiling 21 separate first-hand testimonies confirming a rapidly spreading dangerous practice where Israeli prison guards fire rubber-coated steel bullets at prisoners from point-blank range inside their cells, causing catastrophic, often permanent injuries. One documented case details a Palestinian detainee whose right testicle was completely crushed by a close-range rubber bullet shot, requiring full surgical amputation. PPS warned that the ongoing implementation of these brutal policies, paired with sweeping bans on independent oversight and restricted access for legal representatives and medical personnel, creates a permissive environment that will inevitably lead to further fatal violations, stripping Palestinian detainees of even the most basic internationally recognised protections for incarcerated people.
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NTSB says crucial plane parts found three miles from Florida crash site
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials revealed key new findings Tuesday in their probe of a catastrophic Sunday private jet crash in Palm Beach, Florida, that claimed the lives of all nine people on board. Investigators confirmed that major segments of the Learjet 60’s left elevator — the tail-mounted control surface that regulates the aircraft’s nose pitch and vertical movement — were recovered scattered 1.3 to 3.8 miles away from the main impact site, broken into three distinct fragments. NTSB board member Tom Chapman emphasized that the significant distance between the recovered parts and the crash debris field provides compelling evidence that the components separated from the aircraft before it slammed into a multi-lane highway, not as a result of the collision itself. The twin-engine Learjet was en route from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas when it suddenly entered a steep, uncontrolled nosedive, exploding on contact with the pavement and carving out a massive crater that has complicated recovery efforts for the badly mangled main wreckage. Released air traffic control audio captures the crew’s final, frantic communications: the pilots first reported moderate turbulence, active ice accumulation on the airframe, and unexpected precipitation buildup before requesting an immediate altitude climb. Within moments, their tone shifted to urgent distress, alerting controllers that the jet was losing altitude at a rate of 10,000 feet per minute, then declaring a full emergency as the descent accelerated to 20,000 feet per minute amid a dangerous overspeed condition, with the final transmission acknowledging the aircraft was seconds from ground impact. The nine victims have been identified as 55-year-old veteran pilot Jeffrey Gregory, 20-year-old co-pilot Nathalia Filgueiras — who had earned her pilot’s licence at age 17, three years prior to the disaster — tech entrepreneur Adam Robinson, his wife Helen Sharp, their two young children (four-year-old Emma and two-year-old Charlie), family friends Rachael Reed and Charmi Fehr, and family nanny Anita Maria Cetina. Chapman noted that the investigation has not yet determined a causal sequence, with two leading hypotheses under review: that the unexpected loss of the left elevator triggered the catastrophic loss of control, or that extreme aerodynamic forces generated by a prior in-flight emergency tore the control surface loose. He added that the elevator would likely have been functionally ineffective at the extreme speeds the aircraft reached during its steep descent. The NTSB has confirmed that weather factors, including icing conditions and turbulence, will be a central line of inquiry as the full, multi-phase investigation proceeds to pinpoint the root cause of the tragedy.
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King calls slave trade a ‘shameful chapter’ during Commonwealth address
Delivering the opening address at the 2022 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) hosted by Antigua and Barbuda, King Charles III publicly denounced the transatlantic slave trade as a harrowing, shameful historical episode that evokes profound personal horror and sorrow, while acknowledging the enduring, lingering shadow the brutal system of human bondage continues to cast across the entire Commonwealth network. The royal address, delivered to assembled leaders representing 56 sovereign nations, the vast majority of which are former British colonial territories, notably stopped short of issuing the formal state apology that many Caribbean civil society groups and regional political figures had explicitly demanded in the lead-up to the biennial summit. The King emphasized that no generation can rewrite the actions of its ancestors, noting that the collective historical inheritance of the Commonwealth includes both the notable achievements and the grievous moral failures of past eras. He added that his own ongoing process of listening, research and learning about the intergenerational harms of the slave trade has strengthened his commitment to building modern, collaborative partnerships across the bloc to address historical injustices through concrete, future-focused action rather than retroactive posturing. The wide-ranging address also touched on overlapping global crises confronting the Commonwealth in 2024, including ongoing brutal armed conflicts across multiple continents, the catastrophic, accelerating impacts of climate change that disproportionately affect small island developing states, and the transformative, fast-evolving landscape of emerging digital and artificial intelligence technology. Concurrent to the King’s remarks, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who is also in attendance at the summit, confirmed that the current British government is open to considering a formal official apology for the United Kingdom’s central historical role in the transatlantic slave trade, but has categorically ruled out any form of direct financial reparations to descendant communities across the Caribbean and wider Commonwealth. Burnham outlined that the UK intends to pursue a renewed agenda to revitalize the Commonwealth, prioritizing existing streams of development assistance, targeted support for highly indebted member states, and expanded green finance mechanisms to support regional climate adaptation and mitigation projects, rather than direct reparative payments. The King’s address comes midway through a high-profile royal tour of the Caribbean that has reignited widespread public debate across the region about unaddressed colonial harms and unfulfilled historical accountability. Earlier stops on the tour included the Bahamas, where the King made reference to the unacknowledged suffering of enslaved communities under British rule, and Guyana, where he made a formal visit to the historic site of a major 18th century slave rebellion in which hundreds of enslaved people were massacred by colonial authorities. The official 2024 CHOGM theme is Accelerating Partnerships and Investment for a Prosperous Commonwealth, framing the summit’s core agenda around inclusive economic cooperation, cross-border investment and shared solutions to transnational challenges for the 2.5 billion people who reside across the Commonwealth’s member states.
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Israeli forces kill 19 Palestinians in three days of Gaza attacks
Official data from Palestinian and Gaza Strip governing health and administrative bodies paints a devastating picture of ongoing violence against Palestinian civilians, even after the US-mediated October 2025 ceasefire was meant to end hostilities and ease humanitarian access. The Palestinian Health Ministry released updated casualty figures on Tuesday afternoon, confirming 19 Palestinians have been killed across the Gaza Strip by Israeli military operations since the preceding Saturday. Of these fatalities, 13 occurred over the weekend, with an additional six lives lost in the 24-hour window leading up to the Tuesday announcement. Among the recent victims was a Palestinian civilian who succumbed to his injuries early Tuesday after Israeli forces bombed the displacement camp he was residing in Khan Younis, alongside another person killed in an airstrike that targeted a group of civilians near the University College of Applied Sciences (UCAS) in the same southern Gaza city. The targeting of educational spaces has escalated sharply in recent weeks, coinciding with the launch of the new academic term. Data from the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education shows 14 school students and four teachers were killed across Gaza in October alone, while three staff members from the Islamic University lost their lives in a direct Israeli bombing of the campus last month. Education officials further warn that over 97% of Gaza’s formal schools and university campuses have been completely destroyed by Israeli military assaults, with the handful of remaining functional educational sites and makeshift alternative learning spaces facing constant, imminent risk of further attack. Separately, Gaza’s Ministry of Interior confirmed an Israeli airstrike targeted a gathering of local police and security personnel in Khan Younis’ Al-Mawasi area, resulting in an unconfirmed number of fatalities and injuries, with final casualty counts still being tallied by first responders. The wave of ongoing attacks directly violates the terms of the US-brokered October 11, 2025 ceasefire, which was designed to end Israel’s long-running campaign of bombardment and fully lift barriers blocking critical humanitarian aid from entering the enclave. Instead of adhering to the agreement, Israeli military forces have carried out near-daily airstrikes, home demolitions, and ground incursions across Gaza. Cumulative data from the Palestinian Health Ministry records nearly 1,600 Palestinians killed since the ceasefire went into effect, more than 340 of whom are children, with an additional 5,700 people suffering non-fatal injuries. The total Palestinian death toll dating back to the start of the military campaign in October 2023 now stands at no fewer than 74,600, with thousands more people still unaccounted for, trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Israeli authorities have also maintained strict, punitive restrictions on the entry of essential goods and humanitarian supplies into Gaza, allowing an average of just 200 aid trucks to enter the territory per day. This figure is a third of the 600 daily truckloads explicitly agreed upon in the ceasefire terms, and far below the minimum threshold humanitarian agencies estimate is required to meet the basic survival needs of Gaza’s remaining civilian population. Gaza’s Government Media Office has documented a total of 5,989 distinct ceasefire violations committed by Israeli forces since the agreement took effect, ranging from airstrikes and live fire incidents to home demolitions, military raids, and mass arbitrary arrests of Palestinian residents.
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French judges open war crimes probe into Israeli strike that killed seven in Beirut
Two French investigating magistrates have formally initiated a judicial inquiry into a suspected war crime tied to an Israeli aerial bombardment of a Beirut residential high-rise in November 2024 that claimed the lives of seven unarmed civilians, including the mother and father of dual Franco-Lebanese contemporary artist Ali Cherri. The formal probe was triggered by a legal complaint filed back in April by Cherri alongside the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a leading global human rights advocacy network. Legal representatives for Cherri and FIDH confirmed to Agence France-Presse that this marks the very first time French judicial authorities have opened a formal investigation into alleged offenses committed by the Israeli military in Lebanon since the Israel-Hezbollah conflict erupted with Israeli military operations in October 2023. In an interview with AFP, Cherri shared that he had spent nearly two years advocating for accountability for the strike that killed his parents and five other local residents, emphasizing that the newly launched inquiry represented a landmark milestone for his grieving family even as he acknowledged the long, arduous path to full justice that still lies ahead. Cherri further stressed that the attack on his family was not a one-off isolated incident, framing his legal fight as a broader campaign to uphold the dignity of all civilian casualties caught in cross-border hostilities, and expressing hope that the investigation would dismantle the long-standing culture of impunity that has shielded Israeli officials accused of targeting civilian populations across Lebanon and Palestine. The deadly air strike took place on November 27, 2024, just 10 and a half hours before a mutually agreed ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was set to go into full effect. The targeted 12-story apartment complex in Beirut’s densely populated Noueiri district suffered catastrophic damage, with three entire floors of the building completely destroyed in the blast. The French judicial inquiry draws on rigorous independent on-the-ground research conducted by Amnesty International and the specialized forensic investigation collective Forensic Architecture. In a public report released in April 2025, Amnesty International investigators documented no evidence of any active military target operating in the immediate vicinity of the residential building at the time of the 5:30 p.m. strike. The human rights group also recovered physical debris from the attack site confirming the munition used was a U.S.-manufactured GBU-39 precision-guided bomb, concluding there was a well-documented reasonable basis to suspect the incident constituted a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and formally calling for the strike to be probed as a potential war crime. A source close to the case speaking to AFP confirmed that France’s specialized National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT), which holds national jurisdiction over all alleged war crime cases, formally requested the opening of full judicial investigations into the incident back in September 2025, after prosecutors reviewed evidence and confirmed the existence of serious, consistent corroborating indicators that the alleged offenses had been committed. The formal investigation is grounded in French domestic legal provisions that classify the deliberate targeting of civilian non-military property as a prosecutable war crime. Cherri’s lead legal counsel Clemence Bectarte explained that the core mandate of the ongoing inquiry is to fully reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the bombing, identify all parties responsible for ordering and carrying out the strike, and establish formal accountability. Due to limits on French court jurisdiction, the scope of the case is restricted specifically to the destruction of Cherri’s own apartment in the targeted building, as French legal authorities do not hold jurisdiction over the deaths of the five non-French civilians killed in the blast, meaning Cherri cannot file formal homicide charges in French courts over his parents’ deaths. This new Beirut probe is part of a broader slate of ongoing war crime proceedings overseen by PNAT: the prosecutor’s office has already launched separate preliminary investigations into alleged acts of torture and war crimes tied to Israeli military interceptions of humanitarian aid flotillas bound for Gaza in 2025 and 2026, and at the end of 2025, PNAT requested Paris-based investigating judges open a separate formal war crimes inquiry into the 2023 Israeli bombing in Gaza that killed two French minor children. Multiple sources close to the Gaza case confirmed that prosecutors have formally ruled out pursuing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in that separate ongoing investigation.
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Ryanair passenger says bomb threat was ‘traumatic’
A UK-based medic has recounted the distressing experience of being evacuated from a Ryanair flight following a malicious bomb hoax, one of seven similar security scares that unfolded across European airports in a single coordinated wave of false threats. Sarah Jones, a Manchester resident who was traveling with two colleagues Charlotte and Kelly to work as medical staff at a golf tournament in La Manga, southeastern Spain, was aboard the flight that departed Manchester and landed at Murcia Airport at approximately 10:30 local time (09:30 GMT).
Jones told the BBC that the flight proceeded without incident until the aircraft made an abrupt stop shortly after touching down, leaving passengers initially assuming they were waiting for standard taxi clearance to the terminal. Within minutes, however, the plane was encircled by a full complement of emergency response teams: local Spanish law enforcement, fire crews, ambulance units, and specialized bomb disposal officers. Passengers were then given an urgent order to evacuate immediately, leaving all personal belongings, including carry-on bags stored in overhead lockers, behind on the aircraft.
The group of 121 total people on board, including flight crew, were directed to walk away from the plane, with no immediate clear explanation for the emergency measures provided. They were held in a sweltering airport hangar for nearly three hours as sniffer dogs and security teams conducted a full sweep of the Ryanair jet. Jones noted that while all passengers remained calm throughout the ordeal, widespread frustration mounted due to the lack of transparent, timely updates, and many were left waiting in hot outdoor conditions for extended periods before being provided with drinking water. Authorities later confirmed no explosive materials were found on the aircraft.
Passengers were eventually permitted to re-board the plane via the rear door to retrieve their abandoned luggage before exiting through the front entrance to proceed through standard airport processing, with the group finally allowed to leave the Murcia Airport premises after 14:00 local time.
This Murcia incident was far from an isolated case: six other commercial aircraft were subjected to identical full security searches at airports across Spain, Italy, Poland, and Bulgaria in the same timeframe. As of the latest updates, investigators have not yet confirmed whether the string of suspected bomb threats are linked to a single malicious actor. The UK government formally classified all of the reported incidents as deliberate, malicious hoax threats, and stated that the country’s aviation security frameworks have well-established, repeatedly tested protocols in place to respond to any potential airborne security risks.
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Senegal arrests activist for protesting against Israeli participation at Youth Olympic Games
As the first-ever Olympic event hosted on African soil, the 2026 Dakar Youth Olympic Games, running from October 31 to November 13 with nearly 2,700 global athletes in attendance, has become the backdrop for a growing free expression advocacy campaign following the arrest of a 27-year-old Senegalese pro-Palestine activist. Amadou Sarang Diallo was taken into custody roughly 88 kilometers outside the capital Dakar last Friday, shortly after he shared a TikTok video condemning Israel’s participation in the international youth sporting competition, according to statements from local activist networks to Middle East Eye. Eleven Israeli athletes are competing across eight disciplines including boxing, athletics, judo, artistic gymnastics, fencing and archery at the games, and were met with widespread boos from onlookers during the opening ceremony parade. Local civil society organizers argue that remarks Diallo made in the local Wolof language, which were interpreted by authorities as a call for violence against Israeli nationals, have been severely misrepresented. Amidou Sidibe, coordinator of civil society group Club Intermediaire, clarified that Diallo’s line stating Israeli citizens would “never get peace in Senegal” carried no violent connotation in its original linguistic context, and that law enforcement found no incriminating materials during a subsequent search of his home. On November 2, the National Alliance for the Palestinian Cause released an official statement voicing deep alarm over Diallo’s detention, reaffirming the group’s commitment to Senegalese national laws while emphasizing that freedom of expression is a foundational right of all democratic societies, noting that peaceful articulation of political or activist beliefs can never justify arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Seydi Gassama, executive director of Amnesty International Senegal, amplified the calls for Diallo’s release in a public post on X, confirming the activist’s long track record of nonviolent protest: “Respect freedom of expression! Amadou Sarang Diallo is not violent. He has participated in several peaceful actions denouncing the genocide in Gaza, at Abdoulaye Wade Stadium during the national team’s matches.” Local Senegalese pro-Palestine advocates have framed the arrest as a departure from the nation’s longstanding, publicly documented support for Palestinian sovereignty, a stance that led Dakar to become a founding member of the Hague Group in 2025 – the international coalition formed to coordinate legal and diplomatic action to hold Israel accountable for documented violations of international law. Since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict in October 2023, Senegal has seen sustained grassroots pro-Palestine mobilization: in February 2026, a collective of local artists and cultural workers penned an open letter urging the Senegalese government to sever all formal ties with Israel in response to the death toll of more than 74,500 Palestinians in Gaza, noting that Africa’s own history of enduring slavery, colonialism and apartheid imposes a moral duty to reject global injustice. In May 2025, Israeli ambassador to Senegal Yuval Waks was forced to abandon a planned speaking engagement at Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University after hundreds of protesting students gathered outside the venue chanting slogans including “Free Palestine,” “Free Gaza” and “Israel is a war criminal.”