Bike apprenticeship helps break UK reoffending cycle


By AFP
September 28, 2024


Ex-prisoner Cameron Moseley now works as a bike mechanic 

- Copyright AFP Justin TALLIS

Peter HUTCHISON

Cameron Moseley hopes never to return to jail thanks to a pioneering scheme in London that aims to cut reoffending by training former prisoners to become bicycle mechanics.

The XO Bikes project chimes with the intention of Britain’s new Labour government to ease overcrowding in prisons, partly by rehabilitating inmates so they can find employment.

“There’s not much work out there for people like me,” said 30-year-old Moseley, who has been in and out of jail three times.

He was most recently released in July after serving a two-year-term for actual bodily harm.

His probation officer referred him to XO Bikes, a charity-owned business formed two years ago that takes participants through a six-week course in how to build and fix bicycles.

Afterwards, they can either work as mechanics for XO Bikes, where they can earn around £26,000, ($34,000), or use the industry-standard qualification to apply for a job elsewhere.

“If I didn’t have this I’d probably turn to crime again,” Moseley told AFP at the XO Bikes repair shop in Lewisham, southeast London.

The initiative was started in March 2022 by Stef Jones, a 58-year-old former advertising executive.

He came up with the idea while volunteering at Brixton prison in south London, where he saw inmates return to jail because often they had been unable to find work after their release.

“If no one else is going to give you a job, I’ll give you a job,” Jones said he remembered thinking at the time.

The scheme sees vetted participants fix up bikes that have been donated by various groups, including London’s Metropolitan Police, railway companies, corporations and members of the public.

Every donated bike is stripped and cleaned and then every part, from the brakes and the gears to the tyres and the frame, is tested, rebuilt, then tested again.

The refurbished bikes are returned to their original finish or branded an XO Bike and stamped with a number unique to the ex-prisoner who repaired it.

The bikes are sold on XO’s website and in its two stores, with the profits then reinvested into the scheme.

“You’ve got a bike with a past and a bloke with a past, and you’re giving them both a crack at a decent future. That’s the idea,” said Jones.

Trainees also gain “a routine, fellowship, support, encouragement, affirmation that you do belong on this side of the street, that you’ve got options”, he added.

– Timpson –

Gary Oakley, 38, says the scheme has given him purpose and a sense of “pride” since he left prison in April after serving 18 months for assault.

“To have something that I was looking forward to kept me from being depressed, sitting indoors and going the other way and ending up back inside.”

UK government statistics estimate that about one in four prisoners reoffend, costing England and Wales about £18 billion a year.

It is contributing to jails being at near capacity. Earlier this month the government was forced to release 1,700 prisoners early to reduce overcrowding.

After sweeping into power this July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer — a former human rights lawyer and chief state prosecutor — appointed businessman and justice reform advocate James Timpson as prisons minister.

Timpson’s family-owned key-cutting business runs training academies in dozens of prisons, with former convicts making up 10 percent of its workforce.

He believes that prisons need to become “rehabilitative” and wants more companies to hire adults with criminal records.

The Ministry of Justice estimated in a 2013 study that 18 percent of ex-prisoners reoffended within a year, but the figure rose to 43 percent for those without employment.

Some 65 ex-convicts have completed the XO Bikes programme, Jones said, with a couple of graduates going on to work for major sports firms.

Only two participants have subsequently reoffended.

“It’s working,” said Jones, who now wants to replicate the scheme with a barbering course.

Progress on high seas treaty, but change still far off


By AFP
September 28, 2024

Campaign groups still hope the treaty will come into force in 2025, but the required number of ratifying countries remains a long way off - Copyright AFP ANWAR AMRO

A year after a historic treaty to protect the high seas was opened to signatures, it has now received 13 ratifications — leaving it still far from coming into force.

The treaty, which took 15 years of tough negotiating to be approved, aims to protect vital marine ecosystems that are threatened by pollution. It requires 60 ratifications before coming into force.

UN members finalized it in March 2023, then formally adopted it. The treaty received 70 signatures in last year’s United Nations flagship week — not ratifications, but indications of willingness to ratify it eventually.

That number has now reached 104.

Five new countries — East Timor, Singapore, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Barbados — ratified the treaty during this high-level week of the UN General Assembly, bringing total ratifications to 13.

Campaign groups still hope the treaty will come into force in 2025, but say ratifications are badly lagging.

“Whilst this week’s progress is welcome, there is a sense of complacency from some countries, and we would have expected more to have taken the opportunity of ratifying this week,” environmental campaigners Greenpeace said.

“It is important that political momentum is kept high and countries finalize their ratification processes as soon as possible.”

– ‘Incredible week for the ocean’ –

“What an incredible week for the ocean,” the conservation-minded High Seas Alliance said in a post on X.

But it was “time to step up the pace and sprint to the finish line,” Rebecca Hubbard, director of the NGO coalition, said this week.

The high seas begin where the exclusive economic zones of countries end — at a maximum of 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from shore — and therefore fall under the jurisdiction of no state.

Although the high seas account for almost half the planet’s surface area and over 60 percent of its oceans, they have long been ignored by environmental efforts.

The new treaty’s flagship tool is the creation of marine protected areas.

Conservation measures currently cover just 1 percent of the high seas.

But in December 2022 in Montreal, at the UN’s Conference of the Parties (COP15) on biodiversity, all of the world’s nations pledged to protect 30 percent of the planet’s landmass and oceans by a summit set for 2030.

Activists say the new treaty will be vital to meeting that goal, adding to the urgency of the quickest possible ratification.

‘Broken’ news industry faces uncertain future


ByAFP
September 26, 2024


Advertising revenue -- the lifeline of news publications -- has dried up in recent years - Copyright AFP Hassan FNEICH

Paul RICARD

From disinformation campaigns to soaring scepticism, plummeting trust and economic slumps, the global media landscape has been hit with blow after blow.

World News Day, taking place on Saturday with the support of hundreds of organisations including AFP, aims to raise awareness about the challenges endangering the hard-pressed industry.

– ‘Broken business model’ –

In 2022, UNESCO warned that “the business model of the news media is broken”.

Advertising revenue — the lifeline of news publications — has dried up in recent years, with Internet giants such as Google and Facebook owner Meta soaking up half of that spending, the report said.

Meta, Amazon and Google’s parent company Alphabet alone account for 44 percent of global ad spend, while only 25 percent goes to traditional media organisations, according to a study by the World Advertising Research Center.

Platforms like Facebook “are now explicitly deprioritising news and political content”, the Reuters Institute’s 2024 Digital News Report pointed out.

Traffic from social to news sites has sharply declined as a result, causing a drop in revenue.

Few are keen to pay for news. Only 17 percent of people polled across 20 wealthy countries said they had online news subscriptions in 2023.

Such trends, leading to rising costs, have resulted in “layoffs, closures, and other cuts” in media organisations around the world, the study found.

– Eroding trust –

Public trust in the media has increasingly eroded in recent years.

Only four in 10 respondents said they trusted news most of the time, the Reuters Institute reported.

Meanwhile, young people are relying more on influencers and content creators than newspapers to stay informed.

For them, video is king, with the study citing the influence of TikTok and YouTube stars such as American Vitus Spehar and Frenchman Hugo Travers, known for his channel HugoDecrypte.

– Growing disinformation –

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has renewed concerns about disinformation — rife on social platforms — as the tool can generate convincing text and images.

In the United States, partisan websites masquerading as media outlets now outnumber American newspaper sites, the research group NewsGuard, which tracks misinformation, said in June.

“Pink slime” outlets — politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets — are largely powered by AI. This appears to be an effort to sway political beliefs ahead of the US election.

As part of a national crackdown on disinformation, Brazil’s Supreme Court suspended access to Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter.

The court accused the social media platform of refusing to remove accounts charged with spreading fake news, and flouting other judicial rulings.

“Eradicating disinformation seems impossible, but things can be implemented,” Reporters Without Borders (RSF) editorial director Anne Bocande told AFP.

Platforms can bolster regulation and create news reliability indicators, like RSF’s Journalism Trust Initiative, Bocande said.

– Alarming new player –

AI has pushed news media into unchartered territory.

US streaming platform Peacock introduced AI-generated custom match reports during the Paris Olympics this year, read with the voice of sports commentator Al Michaels — fuelling fears AI could replace journalists.

Despite these concerns, German media giant Axel Springer has decided to bet on AI while refocusing on its core news activities.

At its roster, which includes Politico, the Bild tabloid, Business Insider and Die Welt daily, AI will focus on menial production tasks so journalists can dedicate their time to reporting and securing scoops.

In a bid to profit from the technology’s rise, the German publisher as well as The Associated Press and The Financial Times signed content partnerships with start-up OpenAI.

But the Microsoft-backed firm is also caught in a major lawsuit with The New York Times over copyright violations.

– ‘Quiet repression’ –

With journalists frequently jailed, killed and attacked worldwide, “repression is a major issue,” said RSF’s Bocande.

A total of 584 journalists are languishing behind bars because of their work — with China, Belarus and Myanmar the world’s most prolific jailers of reporters.

The war in Gaza sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has already left a “terrible” mark on press freedom, Bocande added.

More than 130 journalists have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October 7, 2023, including 32 while “in the exercise of their duties”.

She said a “quiet repression” campaign is underway in countries around the world, including in democracies — with investigative journalism hampered by fresh laws on national security.

Milei moves to privatize flag carrier in standoff with unions


By AFP
September 27, 2024

Argentina's President Javier Milei says Aerolineas Argentinas is costing the country too much - Copyright AFP Juan Mabromata

Argentina’s President Javier Milei announced steps Friday to privatize flag carrier Aerolineas Argentinas amid a standoff with unions over salaries and labor rights.

On Thursday, a labor court in Buenos Aires had suspended a decree by Milei to limit the right to strike in the aviation sector.

The court ruled the decree, which ordered that airlines maintain at least 50 percent of flights in the event of a work stoppage, was unconstitutional, according to the Airline Pilots’ Association.

The decision was the latest judicial setback for budget-slashing Milei, who came to power in December promising a dose of shock therapy for the ailing Argentine economy.

The self-declared “anarcho-capitalist leader” says state-owned Aerolineas Argentinas is costing the country too much but his efforts to cut costs have been met with fierce resistance from unions.

Pilots and crew have launched two one-day strikes for pay increases over the past month, affecting hundreds of flights.

They are demanding pay hikes of 30-35 percent to help them weather Argentina’s stubbornly high inflation rate, which reached 236.7 percent year-on-year in August.

After the court ruling, the presidency issued a statement Friday saying the government has decided to open the way for the carrier’s privatization.

The statement said Aerolineas Argentinas had not posted a profit since 2008.

It said the airline was being “harassed by a union caste whose only priority is to maintain privileges.”

In a country with a poverty levels exceeding 52 percent, “it is irresponsible and unacceptable that the state continues to finance the deficit and the privileges of a few with the taxes of those who do not make it to the end of the month,” said the presidency.

Israel continues to strike Gaza as thousands of protesters call for release of hostages


Issued on: 29/09/2024 - 

01:45
Video by: Andrew HILLIAR

Two people were killed in separate strikes early Sunday in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to the nearby Awda Hospital. In Israel, families of hostages continue to protest and call for the release of hostages still in Gaza. Details with Andrew Hilliar.

Escalation in Lebanon: What is Israel trying to achieve?

Jennifer Holleis

DW

September 24, 2024

While Israel says its attacks on Lebanon's Hezbollah are necessary to regain safety in the border region, analysts point to three different key factors.

Analysts say three key factors are behind Israel's attacks on Lebanon

Image: FADEL ITANI /AFP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the current escalation in Lebanon is necessary "to defend our people against Hezbollah."

"We must take out those weapons to pave the way for the safe return of Israel's northern communities to their homes," he said.



Almost a year ago, some 60,000 Israelis had to evacuate their houses when the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon began shelling the border area in northern Israel.

Hezbollah — which is designated as a terrorist organization by several countries, including the US and Germany, while the European Union classifies its armed wing as a terrorist group — has argued that their rockets are in support of Gaza's militant organization Hamas whose fighters along with members of other militant Islamist groups killed around 1,150 people and took some 250 more as hostages on October 7, 2023. Hamas is also designated a terrorist organization by Germany, the US, EU and others.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 41,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel's war against Hamas.

Experts agree that the weapon arsenal supplied by Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon will last for months to come.Image: Baz Ratner/AP/picture alliance

'Almost full-fledged war'

Meanwhile, the death tally in Lebanon is on the rise. Israel's current attacks, as well as the recent explosions of communications devices and killings of Hezbollah leaders, have claimed the lives of around 500 people and injured thousands more across Lebanon.

The EU's foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has described the situation as "almost full-fledged war."

However, according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, the current military operation and the dangerous escalation mainly serves as "justification or cover for Israel's seeking to return its displaced citizens to the north."

In her view, however, there are other key factors driving Israel's current attacks on Lebanon.

"Firstly, Israel is trying to delink the Gaza and Hezbollah fronts on its borders," she told DW.

"Israel has not been able to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza, and it has not been able to achieve a peace agreement from Hezbollah because of Gaza," Vakil said.

Meanwhile, the so-called Axis of Resistance, which consists of countries like Iran and multiple militias like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemen-based Houthis who consider Israel and the US as their enemies, has been focusing on unifying their forces and pressuring Israel simultaneously since October 7, she added.

Not only Israelis, but some 110,000 Lebanese have left the border region

Image: FADEL ITANI/AFP

Aftermath of the Second Lebanon War

"Secondly, of course, Israel faces a perpetual security threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon," she 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 conditions were an immediate cease-fire, the deployment of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces and of Hezbollah from that same area, as well as the disarmament of Hezbollah.

However, Hezbollah did neither retreat to Lebanon's Litani River, which is some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the border, nor did the Shiite militia give up its weapons. In the years since, with Iran's support, Hezbollah's military equipment and number of trained fighters has multiplied instead.

This also fosters fears that Hezbollah fighters could in the future abduct Israeli citizens to their territory.

"Israel is [once more] seeking to force Hezbollah to accept UN Security Council Resolution 1701," Vakil said.

Lebanon war distracts from Gaza war

"Thirdly, with this operation in Lebanon, there is no focus on Gaza," Vakil said.

Almost a year after the war in Gaza began, the international focus has shifted despite ongoing fighting in Gaza and over 90 hostages who remain in Hamas captivity, she pointed out.

"Israel has no strategy for extracting itself from Gaza and it hasn't made it clear what it plans for the day after and it is certainly not talking about an Israeli-Palestinian process," Vakil said.

In her view, the war in Lebanon "is a distraction from the lack of strategy in Gaza."

Israel's population is getting increasingly impatient with their government almost a year after the Hamas attack on October 7

Image: Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo/picture alliance

Ground invasion in Lebanon as potential game changer

Meanwhile, the Israeli population is getting increasingly impatient. Pressure on Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal and secure the return hostages is growing.

"From an Israeli point of view, political domestic pressure is very high and is intensifying week per week," Lorenzo Trombetta, a Beirut-based Middle East analyst and consultant for UN agencies, told DW.

He assumes that reaching a consensus has become a key step for the Israeli government. One way to achieve this could be by providing for the security of northern Israel, Trombetta said.

"Only, it is hard to say if Israel will be able to achieve this," he added.

"Who knows if or when an Israeli ground operation will begin? And in what way would Iran react if Hezbollah was on the brink of a total defeat against Israel?" Trombetta asked.

Edited by: Rob Mudge

Hezbollah is the state in south Lebanon: Karim El-Gawhary

Lebanon: The history of a weak state

Kersten Knipp

DW

9 hours ago9 hours ago

The Lebanese state lacks power to contain the escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Isreal unfolding on its territory. Its army is notoriously weak too.

Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon

Image: Rabih Daher/REUTERS

Earlier this week during an emergency session of the UN Security Council in New York, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared Israel was waging a "dirty war" against his country. He said Israel was responsible for an unprecedented escalation in Lebanonand for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in just a few days, "including young people, women and children." That is why he said he was counting on a joint communiqué by France and the US, which would garner international support and end the "war." Israel rejects calls for a cease-fire.

Mikati's speech showed that the Lebanese government is largely powerless to stop the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. It has no real influence on Israel's or Hezbollah's actions. Once again, the weakness of the Lebanese government and Lebanese state is becoming apparent.

French President Emmanuel Macron (left) speaks with Prime Minister of Lebanon Najib Mikati (right) on the sidelines of the UN meeting in mid-September 2024I

mage: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

The history of a weak state

This weakness has historical roots. "Lebanon was founded in the early 20th century as a state of Christian Maronites in alliance with the French as a protecting power," says Markus Schneider, who heads the Friedrich-Ebert foundation's regional project for peace and security in the Middle East in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

"The birth defect was that it included large areas of non-Maronite populations from the outset," Schneider told DW. "Confessionalism was a compromise in order to integrate other sections of the population. This however prevented the emergence of a strong nation state."

This confessional structure became further entrenched in the Lebanese civil war that erupted in 1975, pitting the country's three largest denominations — Shiites, Sunnis and Maronite Christians — against each other. After the end of the civil war in 1990, a system was established to better balance the interests of the individual confessional groups.

"However, this system led to these groups repeatedly trying to assert their own interests at the expense of the other groups," Schneider says. "This continues to weaken the state. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that the country has been unable to agree on a president since 2022." The rampant corruption which plagues Lebanon is also linked to these divisions. "If there isn't a strong state that can take action against the centrifugal forces in its own country and institutions, then an oligarchic system can easily emerge in which everyone serves themselves," Schneider said.

Israel-Hezbollah conflict: Civilians caught in the crossfire  02:21

Hezbollah

Many observers also feel that Lebanon is harmed by the presence of Hezbollah, a Shiite group classified by the US, Germanyand several Sunni Arab states as a terrorist organization. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 during the Lebanese civil war, receiving substantial support — including and above all military aid — from Iran from the very outset. In 2022, the Washington-based Wilson Center described Hezbollah's armed wing as likely "the most formidable non-state military actor in the Middle East — and arguably in the world." It was Hezbollah that opened fired on Israel after the start of the Gaza war last fall — without ever taking into consideration the rest of the Lebanese population. "Hezbollah has basically taken Lebanese politics hostage," says Middle East expert Kelly Petillo of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

A weak Lebanese army

The weakness of the Lebanese state is also evident in the passivity of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which finds itself in a dilemma in the country's south, where it cooperates with United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL) peacekeepers on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Both forces are made up of 15,000 soldiers. Their presence is linked to the 2006 Lebanon war, when Israel occupied areas of southern Lebanon. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 holds that following an Israeli withdrawal, the LAF and UNFIL would work together to ensure that no armed Lebanese militias return to southern Lebanon. Only troops authorized by the Lebanese government may be present in the south. Hezbollah has so far, however, disregarded this agreement and remains active in the area.

Lebanese armed forces out on patrol in Beirut in March 2024

Image: Elisa Gestri/Sipa USA/picture alliance

The LAF is relatively powerless in military terms. It is ranked in 118th place out of a total of 145 in the Global Firepower Index, which compares the strength of national armies worldwide. It would not be able to put up any serious resistance to the Israeli army, which is ranked 17th in the Global Firepower Index, nor would it be able to contain Hezbollah. "This would drag Lebanon into a civil war," says Schneider.

The LAF's biggest problem, meanwhile, remains political. As it is not controlled by any confessional group in the country, the army is regarded as one of the few non-confessional institutions in Lebanon, says Schneider. "But of course the army is also weakened by the national and economic crisis in Lebanon," he explains. "That is why it receives financial support, for example with regard to paying salaries. The concern is that if the army collapses, the Lebanese state itself could collapse. But of course, the army cannot solve the state's political problems."

How Israel defends itself against missile attacks  02:24

This article was translated from German

Nearly one million people displaced in Lebanon, Israeli strikes kill dozens

DW

Issued on: 29/09/2024 -

Israel struck multiple targets in Lebanon on Sunday, pressing Iran-backed Hezbollah with more attacks after it struck a huge blow by killing the group's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Story by Andrew Hillier.

Nasrallah killing reveals the extent of Israel's infiltration of Hezbollah

The killing of Hezbollah’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah caps a series of stunning Israeli operations that exposed the extent to which Israeli spy agencies have penetrated the powerful Iran-backed militant organisation and tracked its shadowy command structure.


Issued on: 29/09/2024 

-

A Hezbollah flag at the site of the strike that killed leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs, pictured on September 29, 2024.

 © Hassan Ammar, AP

In the wake of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's killing, Hezbollah faces the enormous challenge of plugging the infiltration in its ranks that allowed its arch enemy Israel to destroy weapons sites, booby-trap its communications and assassinate the veteran leader, whose whereabouts had been a closely guarded secret for years.

Nasrallah's killing in a command HQ on Friday came barely a week after Israel's deadly detonation of hundreds of booby-trapped pagers and radios. It was the culmination of a rapid succession of strikes that have eliminated half of Hezbollah's leadership council and decimated its top military command.

In the days before and hours after Nasrallah's killing, Reuters spoke to more than a dozen sources in Lebanon, Israel, Iran and Syria who provided details of the damage Israel has wrought on the powerful Shiite paramilitary group, including to its supply lines and command structure. All asked for anonymity to speak about sensitive matters.

One source familiar with Israeli thinking told Reuters, less than 24 hours before the strike, that Israel has spent 20 years focusing intelligence efforts on Hezbollah and could hit Nasrallah when it wanted, including in the headquarters.

The person called the intelligence "brilliant," without providing details.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his close circle of ministers authorized the attack on Wednesday, two Israeli officials told Reuters. The attack took place while Netanyahu was in New York to speak at the UN General Assembly.

Nasrallah had avoided public appearances since a previous 2006 war. He had long been vigilant, his movements were restricted and the circle of people he saw was very small, according to a source familiar with Nasrallah's security arrangements. The assassination suggested his group had been infiltrated by informants for Israel, the source said.

Read moreDeath of Hezbollah chief raises questions of what comes next

The Hezbollah leader had been even more cautious than usual since the Sept. 17 pager blasts, out of concern Israel would try to kill him, a security source familiar with the group's thinking told Reuters a week ago, citing his absence from a commanders' funeral and his pre-recording of a speech broadcast a few days before.

Hezbollah's media office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. US President Joe Biden on Saturday called Nasrallah's killing "a measure of justice" for his many victims, and said the United States fully supported Israel's right to defend itself against Iranian-backed groups.

Israel says it carried out the hit on Nasrallah by dropping bombs on the underground headquarters below a residential building in southern Beirut.

"This is a massive blow and intelligence failure for Hezbollah," Magnus Ranstorp, a veteran Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defence University. "They knew that he was meeting. He was meeting with other commanders. And they just went for him."

Including Nasrallah, Israel's military says it has killed eight of Hezbollah's nine most senior military commanders this year, mostly in the past week. These commanders led units ranging from the rocket division to the elite Radwan force.

Around 1,500 Hezbollah fighters were maimed by the exploding pagers and walkie talkies on Sept. 17 and Sept. 18.

On Saturday, Israel's military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters in a briefing that the military had "real-time" knowledge that Nasrallah and other leaders were gathering. Shoshani did not say how they knew, but said the leaders were meeting to plan attacks on Israel.

Brigadier General Amichai Levin, commander of Israel's Hatzerim Airbase, told reporters that dozens of munitions hit the target within seconds.

"The operation was complex and was planned for a long time," according to Levin.
Depleted

Hezbollah has shown the ability to replace commanders quickly, and Nasrallah's cousin Hashem Safieddine, also a cleric who wears the black turban denoting descent from Islam's Prophet Mohammed, has long been tipped as his successor.

"You kill one, they get a new one," said a European diplomat of the group's approach.

The group, whose name means Party of God, will fight on: by US and Israeli estimates it had some 40,000 fighters ahead of the current escalation, along with large weapons stockpiles and an extensive tunnel network near Israel's border.

Founded in Tehran in 1982, the Shiite paramilitary outfit is the most formidable member of Iran's so-called Axis of Resistance of anti-Israel allied irregular forces, and a significant regional player in its own right.

But it has been materially and psychologically weakened over the past 10 days.

Thanks to decades of backing from Iran, prior to the current conflict Hezbollah was among the world's most well-armed non-conventional armies, with an arsenal of 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones, according to US estimates.

That is ten times the size of the armoury the group had in 2006, during its last war with Israel, according to Israeli estimates.

06:21

Over the past year, even more weapons have flowed into Lebanon from Iran, along with significant amounts of financial aid, a source familiar with Hezbollah's thinking said.

There have been few detailed public assessments of how much this arsenal has been damaged by Israel's offensive over the past week, which has hit Hezbollah strongholds in Bekaa Valley, far from Lebanon's border with Israel.

One Western diplomat in the Middle East told Reuters prior to Friday's attack that Hezbollah had lost 20%-25% of its missile capacity in the ongoing conflict, including in hundreds of Israeli strikes this week. The diplomat did not provide evidence or details of their assessment.

An Israeli security official said "a very respectable portion" of Hezbollah's missile stocks had been destroyed, without giving further specifics.

In recent days, Israel has struck more than 1,000 Hezbollah targets. The security official, when asked about the military's extensive target lists, said Israel had matched Hezbollah's two-decade build up with preparations to prevent it launching its rockets in the first place – a complement to the Iron Dome air defence system that often downs missiles fired at the Jewish state.

Israeli officials say the fact that Hezbollah has only been able to launch a couple of hundred missiles a day in the past week was evidence its capabilities had been diminished.

Iran connection

Before the strike on Nasrallah, three Iranian sources told Reuters Iran was planning to send additional missiles to Hezbollah to prepare for a prolonged war.

The weapons that were to be provided included short-to-medium-range ballistic missiles including Iranian Zelzals and an upgraded precision version known as the Fateh 110, the first Iranian source said.

Reuters was unable to reach the sources after the Nasrallah assassination.

While Iran is willing to provide military support, the two Iranian sources said it does not want to be directly involved in a confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel. The rapid escalation in hostilities over the past week follows a year of skirmishes tied to the Gaza war.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards' deputy commander Abbas Nilforoushan was killed in the Israeli strikes on Beirut on Friday, Iranian media reported on Saturday, citing a state TV report.

Hezbollah may need certain warheads and missiles along with drones and missile parts to replenish those destroyed by Israeli strikes across Lebanon last week, a senior Syrian military intelligence source added.

Read more World figures react to the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah

Iranian supplies have in the past reached Hezbollah by air and sea. On Saturday, Lebanon's transport ministry told an Iranian aircraft not to enter its airspace after Israel warned air traffic control at Beirut airport that it would use "force" if the plane landed, a source at the ministry told Reuters.

The source said it was not clear what was on the plane.

Land corridors are currently the best route for missiles, parts and drones, through Iraq and Syria, with the help of allied armed groups in those countries, an Iranian security official told Reuters this week.

The Syrian military source, however, said Israeli drone surveillance and strikes targeting convoys of trucks had compromised that route. This year, Israel stepped up attacks on weapons depots and supply routes in Syria to weaken Hezbollah ahead of any war, Reuters reported in June.

As recently as August, an Israeli drone hit weapons concealed in commercial trailers in Syria, the source said. This week, Israel's military said its warplanes bombed unspecified infrastructure used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah at the Syria-Lebanon border.

Joseph Votel, a former army general who led US forces in the Middle East, said Israel and its allies could well intercept any missiles Iran sent by land to Hezbollah now.

"That might be a risk they're willing to take, frankly," he said.

(Reuters)

IMPERIALISM CHALLENGES CHINA

NATO's Indo-Pacific policy riddled with challenges

Anchal Vohra in Brussels 

DW

Western allies are waking up to the threat on NATO's borders and the increased ties between Russia and China. 

But the security alliance's goal to work more closely with the Indo-Pacific region still has a long way to go.

Russia and China have been conducting joint naval drills and war games in recent weeks, in a show of strength and camaraderie for the regional and Western audience.

Several experts told DW that Moscow's intentions were to distract the United States from Europe and weaken the NATO alliance, while China intended to spook regional adversaries and learn lessons from Russia's war experience.

"Russia wants the US to focus more on the Indo-Pacific in the hope that it will reduce military deployment and its support to Europe," said Ying-Yu Lin, a military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

At least 15 countries were invited to observe the drills, but China was the key partner.

"We pay special attention to strengthening military cooperation with friendly states," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the launch of the exercises in early September, as if brandishing Moscow's defense cooperation with Beijing as a counterweight to the Western security alliance.

Chinese and Belarusian soldiers staged joint exercises on NATO's eastern flank in early JulyImage: Vayar military information agency/Belarusian Defence Ministry/Handout/REUTERS


But these exercises, Russia's largest in 30 years, aren't the first with China this year. In July, Russian and Chinese bombers flew together for the first time in international airspace off the US coast of Alaska, while in Europe, Chinese soldiers staged joint anti-terrorism exercises in Belarus, on NATO's eastern flank — just kilometers away from the border with Poland.

Does NATO want to expand to Asia?

China's increased presence on NATO's outer edges may be, in part, in response to NATO plans to increase its cooperation with key regional partners Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, also known as the IP4.

NATO has said developments in the Indo-Pacific region "can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security," and the idea of collaborating with the partners is to "enhance their mutual situational awareness of security developments" in the two regions, in part due to the growing influence of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has publicly reprimanded China's alleged military support to Russia. NATO has described China as "a decisive enabler of Russia's war against Ukraine" for its "so-called 'no limits' partnership and its large-scale support for Russia's defense industrial base," which includes machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that allow it to make weapons.

DW asks Blinken about China's support for Russia 01:53

Reacting to the IP4 cooperation plans in July, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, accused NATO of "breaching its boundary, expanding its mandate, reaching beyond its defense zone and stoking confrontation."

But experts in Europe have said there is no appetite in NATO to expand its remit and offer actual security guarantees to eastern partners like Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which calls on every member state to provide mutual defense through military and political means if a member state is threatened by an external country.

"Diplomatically, there is an objective to maintain the status quo and not irritate China, as China has indicated multiple times that NATO cannot expand to the Indo-Pacific," said Sari Arho Havren, a specialist in China's foreign relations at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, based in Brussels.

Ian Lesser, who heads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States think tank, said there is currently no consensus on expanding the geographical area of the alliance.

"NATO is very focused on what is in its areas of interests and responsibility," and is aiming for "obvious and easier" areas of cooperation that don't engage the question of geography and the key four Indo-Pacific partners.

"The easiest thing for NATO is to cooperate with the IP4 on more global concerns that do not have geographic boundaries, such as cybersecurity, information security, intelligence sharing and counterterrorism," he said.

However, the Western alliance faces a whole host of challenges, including how far it can go in provoking China, which happens to be the biggest trading partner of both its Asian partners and also of the European Union.

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What is NATO's strategy in the Indo-Pacific region?

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, and amid growing cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, NATO has sought to highlight the importance of its Asian partners, particularly the IP4. The four countries attended the yearly NATO summit for the first time in 2022, months after Ukraine’s invasion, and have since become regulars.

NATO's strategy, while still in the nascent stage, has so far included sharing notes on Russia's aggression in Ukraine, the growing ties between Moscow and Beijing and China's stated sovereignty claims in the region and the security situation in the Korean Peninsula.

NATO has been keen to increase cooperation with Asian partners Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand

Image: Yonhap/picture alliance

NATO member states are additionally concerned about Taiwan — a key supplier of semiconductor chips that power everything from electric vehicles to phones. The island state, which China claims as a breakaway province, is under constant threat as Beijing aims to reunite it with the mainland.

In July, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a defense gathering that NATO allies will be launching four new projects with its Indo-Pacific partners focused on artificial intelligence, disinformation and cybersecurity, but also crucially on Ukraine. So far, NATO hasn't provided any further details.

"I would say that the deepening ties are a process, and NATO and IP4 coordination has already created a strong basis,'' said Arho Havren.

For instance, Japan and NATO are in the final stages of setting up a dedicated line for sharing highly confidential security information, while the European allies have come to appreciate the South Korean defense industry, particularly its ammunition production, which has been useful in indirectly supplying Ukraine.

Ying-Yu Lin said NATO's individual agreements with its Asian partners is due to the differences among them, and general cautious approach toward China in the region. "They don't agree on everything," he said.

Is the Indo-Pacific entering new era of security alliances?  03:44

Western allies remain cautious

That's also true for the Western allies, who are still deciding on the extent of their cooperation with their Asian partners. NATO member states have been careful in how far they'll go on their own. France, for instance, even vetoed the opening of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo last year, calling it a "big mistake."

NATO also wants to avoid stretching itself too thin, at a time there is a war on its eastern flank and it needs to bolster its own defenses.

"It is also a resource matter — European NATO allies cannot realistically expand their commitments to cover the Indo-Pacific," said Arho Havren, pointing out that many European nations still allocate less than recommended 2% of the national GDP on defense spending "and lack military capabilities even at home."

Edited by: Martin Kuebler

ABOLISH LYNCHING

South Carolina executes Freddie Owens; first state inmate to die in 13 years


Officials in South Carolina executed Freddie Owens by lethal injection Friday, marking the state’s first execution in over a decade. Photo courtesy of the South Carolina Department of Corrections

Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Officials in South Carolina have executed Freddie Owens, convicted in the 1997 murder of a convenience store clerk, marking the state's first execution in more than a decade.

Owens was executed by lethal injection Friday evening at the Broad Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia.

The 46-year-old was convicted of killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves during a robbery in 1997 in Greenville, S.C.

Relatives of the 41-year-old single mother of three witnessed the execution.

Owens was 19 at the time of the murder and convicted two years later, based in part on the testimony of his co-accused.

He becomes the first prisoner to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years while the state dealt with years of supply issues securing the drugs used to carry out the procedure.

Authorities pronounced Owens dead at 6:55 p.m. EDT Friday, around 20 minutes after the procedure started. He did not make a final statement other than briefly saying goodbye to his lawyer.

Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., denied a request for clemency made by Owens' lawyers.

The State Supreme Court earlier denied to issue a stay of execution made hours beforethe execution.

Days ahead of the execution, lawyers for Owens submitted a sworn affidavit from co-defendant Steven Golden. Golden was given a 30-year sentence for the crime but said he was pressured by police decades ago to name Owens as one who pulled the trigger, killing Graves.

Golden swore Owens was not even at the scene of the robbery. However the South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday denied Owens' request for a new trial.

NOAA awards $1M to monitor potentially destructive floods, ice-jam events in Alaska

Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The federal government on Friday awarded $1.1 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct satellite monitoring of potentially destructive floods and ice-jam events in Alaska.

The project is expected to begin early next year and provide NOAA with high-resolution data from privately managed satellites "to fill observation gaps during Alaska's flood and ice-jam events," the agency said in a statement.

Officials expect the satellite data provided by the program also will be used by forecasters in flood and other prediction models.

Last month, an "unprecedented" glacial lake outburst flood caused a torrent of water in Juneau, damaging more than 100 homes and leading Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy to declare a state of emergency.

The same basin flooded almost exactly one year earlier.

More than 35 communities along the western Alaska coastline were damaged to varying degrees after Typhoon Merbok came ashore in 2022.

The money is part of a larger $2.27 million project on Alaska flood monitoring, and comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022 as one of President Joe Biden's major achievements.

The legislation sets aside billions of dollars earmarked for fighting climate change and enhancing healthcare.

"The Biden-Harris administration will be investing in the data infrastructure needed to help communities in Alaska prepare for severe flooding," U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in the department's statement.

"This funding opportunity, made possible thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, will help forecasters better track developing flood conditions, keep residents safe and mitigate the economic impacts caused by these climate disasters."

Monitoring floods in Alaska is more challenging than in most other states, according to NOAA.

Dense forest cover, limited road access, variable river-water levels and flows, along with unique flooding conditions such as glacier-dammed lake floods make it exceptionally difficult to monitor.

Friday's investment aims to make it easier for scientists to monitor and prepare against future flooding.

"Our ability to prepare the public for destructive floods that threaten communities, homes, resources and critical infrastructure will benefit from this investment," NOAA National Weather Service Alaska Region Director Scott Lindsey said in the statement.

"Satellites play an increasingly important role for NOAA in identifying conditions that could lead to flooding in Alaska, detecting where floods are occurring and improving the forecast accuracy of their magnitude, extent, timing and potential impacts."

CRIMINAL CAPITAL$M

FTC sues prescription drug middlemen, alleging they conspired over high insulin costs


 The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs, including Express Scripts, over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs. 

File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 20 (UPI) -- The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs.

The FTC lawsuit contends Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx engaged "in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices," leading to the artificial price inflation as well as impairing access to lower cost drugs, and shifting "high insulin list prices to vulnerable patients," according to a statement issued Friday.
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Alabama-based Caremark, Minnesota's OptumRX and Missouri-based Express Scripts are the country's three largest PBMs.

The lawsuit also names the three companies' affiliated group purchasing organizations or GPOs.

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The three companies "created a perverse drug rebate system that prioritizes high rebates from drug manufacturers, leading to artificially inflated insulin list prices," according to the FTC complaint.

That complex system allowed the companies to keep hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates rather than return the money to patients, according to the FTC. They also allegedly used the allure of rebates to lure new clients.

The agency contends that even when lower drug priced insulin was available, the PBMs "systemically excluded" vulnerable patients in favor of higher-priced options with large rebates.
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The filing points out the average cost of a brand-name insulin drug in 1999 was $21, but increased to more than $274 by 2017, an increase of 1,200%.

It goes on to say one out of every four insulin patients became unable to afford their medication by 2019.

"Millions of Americans with diabetes need insulin to survive, yet for many of these vulnerable patients, their insulin drug costs have skyrocketed over the past decade thanks in part to powerful PBMs and their greed," FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy Director Rahul Rao said in the agency's statement.

"Caremark, ESI, and Optum-as medication gatekeepers-have extracted millions of dollars off the backs of patients who need life-saving medications. The FTC's administrative action seeks to put an end to the Big Three PBMs' exploitative conduct and marks an important step in fixing a broken system-a fix that could ripple beyond the insulin market and restore healthy competition to drive down drug prices for consumers."