Nine wounded in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv: local officials
Updated 21 October 2024
AFP
KYIV: Russian strikes late Sunday on the northeast city of Kharkiv wounded nine people and cut power to part of the city, local officials and police said.
The latest barrage came as Ukrainian officials prepare for a new wave of bombardments they think will target the country’s energy network ahead of winter, as Moscow has done the last two years.
Russia has targeted the country’s power supplies to make the harsh winter harder to endure for the country’s civilian population in an effort to put more pressure on the authorities.
Police said in a statement on Telegram that Russia had launched strikes at around 10:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) injuring four women and five men.
Among the buildings hit were residential buildings, garages, service stations, houses and cars, the statement added.
Medical services were mobilized to help the injured, but the strikes cut power to parts of the city, said police.
Governor of the region and city mayor Oleg Synegubov confirmed in a Telegram post that part of the city was without power.
Neither he, nor the police, said how much of the city had been affected by the power cuts, nor which part of the power network had been hit.
Kharkiv, the main city of the northeast region of the same name, is a regular target of Russian strikes. It lies less than 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Russian border.
In May, Russia’s army tried to push forward in this border region, officially to create a buffer zone to limit Ukrainian attacks against military and industrial targets on Russian soil.
But the offensive has not succeeded in stopping Kyiv from targeting Russian territory on a daily basis.
UNITED NATIONS: More than 140 world leaders will descend on New York next week for the annual United Nations General Assembly summit, which will be dominated this year by the future of the Palestinians and Gaza.
One world leader who will miss the gathering is Mahmud Abbas, the Palestinian president who Washington denied US visas to attend, along with his officials.
Two years after the beginning of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, the humanitarian catastrophe ravaging the small Palestinian territory will dominate debates at the high-level event.
Kicking off Monday, Saudi Arabia and France will co-chair meetings on the future of the Israeli and Palestinian two-state solution, which aims to see both sides existing alongside one another in peace.
After the overwhelming adoption last week by the General Assembly of a text supporting a future Palestinian state — albeit without Hamas — this meeting is expected to see the formal recognition of a Palestinian state by several countries, notably France.
International Crisis Group analyst Richard Gowan called it a “symbolic” gesture that could have real significance “if the countries that recognize Palestine follow up with further steps to try and put pressure on Israel to end its campaign in Gaza.”
Gowan warned of Israeli reprisals and a risk of “escalation” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will address the General Assembly and has firmly said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch.
The United States, Israel’s main ally, has opposed recognition and vowed to deny visas to the Palestinian delegation, including Abbas.
The Assembly will then vote Friday to authorize the Palestinian president to speak via video link.
All eyes will be on US President Donald Trump when Abbas speaks at the gathering, which brings much of Manhattan to a standstill every year as motorcades and heavily-armed security escorts sweep up First Avenue.
Since his return to the White House, Trump has initiated massive cuts to US foreign aid, hammering UN agencies as humanitarian needs grow.
Engulfed by deep financial crisis and raging wars, the UN quietly celebrated its 80th anniversary while fending off criticism of its efficacy.
‘Existential threat’
“The multilateral system... is under an existential threat,” said Federico Borello, Interim Executive Director at Human Rights Watch.
“Norms are being weakened when powerful states, that include permanent members of the Security Council, either commit or are complicit in serious violations of international humanitarian law, as is happening in Gaza, in Ukraine and elsewhere.”
“People are demanding answers and action, actions that match the gravity of the challenges our world faces, actions that meet the expectations of all those on the outside looking in,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said while calling for action on Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and climate change.
Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa will be a prominent new addition to the group of nearly 140 world leaders, which also includes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
All eyes will be on Sharaa nearly a year after his forces overthrew Bashar Assad, as he now confronts the challenges of rebuilding after years of civil war.
Iran’s nuclear program will also be high on the agenda as sanctions against Tehran lifted ten years ago could be reinstated at the end of September, following a process triggered in late August by Paris, London, and Berlin.
Guterres and President Lula will also organize a climate summit on Wednesday where some states may announce new goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, just weeks ahead of COP30 in Brazil.
Taiwan running out of time for satellite communications, space chief tells AFP
Taiwanese authorities have already seen what happens when subsea cables are disconnected
Updated 3 min 26 sec ago
AFP
HSINCHU, Taiwan: Taiwan’s space chief Wu Jong-shinn says the “clock is ticking” for the democratic island to launch its own satellites to secure Internet and phone services during a potential conflict with China.
The island faces the constant threat of an invasion by Beijing, which claims the island is part of its territory and in recent years has intensified military pressure.
Taiwan needs 150 of its own low Earth orbit satellites for “basic communication resilience” in case the subsea telecoms cables connecting the island with the rest of the world are damaged or cut, Wu told AFP in an interview.
It currently has none.
“We need to build up our own technology. But as you know... the clock is ticking,” said Wu, director general of Taiwan Space Agency.
“We need to speed up.”
Taiwanese authorities have already seen what happens when subsea cables are disconnected.
In February 2023, two telecoms lines serving Taiwan’s outlying Matsu archipelago were severed, disrupting communications for weeks.
Taiwan plans to launch the first of six LEO satellites 600 kilometers above the planet in 2027 as part of its Beyond 5G LEO Satellite program.
US officials have previously cited 2027 as a possible timeline for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
In the meantime, Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom is striking deals with satellite companies around the world to provide back-up telecommunications for the island in case of a war or natural disaster.
Starlink dominates the satellite communications sector, with 8,000 satellites lofted into orbit by Elon Musk’s comparatively cheap, reusable SpaceX rockets.
But Musk’s business ties with China and his previous comments that Taiwan should become part of China have angered the island.
Taiwan instead has signed a multi-million dollar deal with European company Eutelsat, the world’s second-largest operator of LEO satellites.
Eutelsat has more than 600 satellites, following its 2023 merger with British firm OneWeb.
“We’re developing our own technology, but it takes a while, but we can leverage the commercial resources to get us to have this communication resilience,” Wu said.
But Wu said Eutelsat’s satellites were not enough and other providers were needed.
Taiwan has also partnered with US company Astranis and SES of Luxembourg, and is in talks with Amazon’s Kuiper and Canada’s Telesat.
Eutelsat’s satellite system was reportedly used in a Taiwan disaster for the first time in 2024 when a deadly 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck the east coast and knocked out communications.
- ‘We can’t rely on one side’ -
Taiwan is light years behind the the US and Chinese space programs.
The rival superpowers have plowed billions of dollars sending people into orbit and launching thousands of satellites.
Taiwan currently has seven meteorological satellites and one optical remote sensing satellite in orbit, and hopes to have “more than 20” by around 2031, Wu said.
It plans to launch a second optical remote sensing satellite in November from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a SpaceX rocket.
Wu said Taiwan would have its own rockets and launch site in the next decade.
When it comes to communication satellites, however, some question the economic sense of countries developing their own networks when commercial options are available.
“If you want this to work, you need a large number of them in low Earth orbit for that continuous coverage,” Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist and cosmologist at the Australian National University, told AFP.
“You have to be committed to this long-term operation but also then you need to maintain it. Starlink works because they are de-orbiting their satellites every three years, putting up a new one.”
But Taiwanese expert Cathy Fang said it would be “dangerous” for Taiwan to rely only on foreign satellite operators for phone and Internet signal during a war.
Taiwan has learned lessons from Ukraine where Starlink has been a vital communications tool for Ukrainian forces fighting Moscow’s troops.
Musk has admitted blocking a Ukraine attack on Russian warships by turning off Internet access to the system.
“We can’t just rely on one side,” Fang, a policy analyst at the government-backed Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology, told AFP.
Strikes and protests roil France, pitting the streets against Macron and his new prime minister
PM Lecornu has been meeting opposition leaders and labor unions to try to build consensus for a budget
But Lecornu's close relationship with President Macron puts him in the firing line, too
Updated 19 September 2025
AP
PARIS: Marching with thousands of other protesters in Paris, hospital nurse Aya Touré put her finger on the pulse of many who took to streets across France on Thursday against the government of President Emmanuel Macron.
“Fed up. Really, really fed up,” she said. “Those people governing us, they have no clue about real-life issues. We are paying the price.”
Strikes that hobbled the Paris Metro and disrupted other services, coupled with nationwide demonstrations that saw sporadic clashes with police who fired volleys of tear gas, gave loud voice to widespread complaints that eight years of leadership by France’s business-friendly president have benefited too few people and hurt too many.
The day of upheaval for the European Union’s second-largest economy aimed to turn up the heat on new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his boss, Macron. They’re engaged in an intensifying battle both in parliament and on the streets about how to plug holes in France’s finances, with opponents fighting proposals to cut spending on public services that underpin the French way of life.
“I don’t know how it’s even possible to consider making cost savings,” said Clara Simon, a history student who marched in the crowd of demonstrators in Paris, brandishing a poster that read: “University in danger.”
“There’s already no money for soaps in the toilets, no money to fix a seat when it’s broken,” she said. “I’m angry because the economic and social situation in France is deteriorating every year.”
protester takes a tear gas canister fired by French police in Paris on September 18, 2025, during a day of nationwide strikes and protests called by unions over France's national budget. (AFP)
Protesters’ anger at budget cuts
Macron’s opponents complain that taxpayer-funded public services — free schools and public hospitals, subsidized health care, unemployment benefits and other safety nets that are cherished in France — are being eroded by his governments that have lurched from crisis to crisis since he dissolved parliament in 2024, triggering a legislative election that stacked Parliament’s lower house with critics of the president.
Left-wing parties and their supporters want the wealthy and businesses to pay more to help rein in France’s debts, rather than see public spending cuts that they contend will hit low-paid and middle-class workers. Placards at the Paris demonstration read: “Tax the rich.”
“We need to find money where there’s money,” said Pierre Courois, a 65-year-old retired civil servant. “France’s deficit is an issue, but it’s not by cutting on public services that you fix it.”
Many complained about mounting poverty, sharpening inequality and struggles to make ends meet.
“Our pay is stuck, colleagues are leaving, and wards are closing beds,” said 34-year-old public hospital nurse Stephane Lambert. “For us it’s the same story: less money in our pockets, fewer hands to help, more pressure every day.”
At a before-dawn protest at a Paris bus depot, striking transportation worker Nadia Belhoum said people are “being squeezed like a lemon even if there’s no more juice.”
Lecornu’s baptism of fire
As he seeks support for belt-tightening, Lecornu has trimmed lifetime benefits for former government ministers — a largely symbolic first step that won’t generate huge savings — and scrapped wildly unpopular proposals to eliminate two public holidays, a measure intended to spur revenue. He has been meeting opposition leaders and labor unions to try to build consensus for a budget, but his close relationship with Macron puts him in the firing line, too.
“Bringing in Lecornu doesn’t change anything — he’s just another man in a suit who will follow Macron’s line,” said 22-year-old student Juliette Martin.
On his first day in office last week, anti-government protests saw streets choked with smoke, barricades in flames and volleys of tear gas as demonstrators denounced budget cuts and political turmoil. That “Block Everything” campaign became a prelude for Thursday’s even larger demonstrations.
“For decades we’ve been the ones paying for the rich, paying for the billionaires, paying for the capitalists and they’ve emptied our pockets,” automobile factory union representative Jean Pierre Mercier said. “And today, supposedly, we must repay the debt, and once again it’s only the workers who are asked to pay, whether we’re employed, disabled, or retired.”
French riot police detain a protester during clashes at a demonstration in Paris on September 18, 2025. (REUTERS)
Scattered violence
The first whiffs of police tear gas came before daybreak, with scuffles between riot officers and protesters in Paris. The collapse of successive governments — brought down by votes in parliament — that sought to push through savings has given Macron’s critics a sense of momentum. The “Block Everything” campaign that developed online before taking to the streets also added to the climate of crisis.
As it did last week, the government said it was again deploying police in exceptionally large numbers — about 80,000 in all — to keep order on Thursday. Police were ordered to break up blockades and other efforts to prevent people who weren’t protesting from going about their business.
Paris police used tear gas to disperse a before-dawn blockade of a bus depot and deployed in force, backed by armored vehicles and firing more gas, at the afternoon march in the capital. French broadcasters also reported sporadic clashes in the western cities of Nantes and Rennes, and Lyon in the southeast, with volleys of police tear gas and projectiles targeting officers.
Striking rail workers waving flares made a brief foray into the Paris headquarters of the Economics Ministry, leaving trails of smoke in the air before leaving.
“The bourgeoisie of this country have been gorging themselves, they don’t even know what to do with their money anymore. So if there is indeed a crisis, the question is who should pay for it,” said Fabien Villedieu, a leader of the SUD-Rail train workers union. “We are asking that the government’s austerity plan that consists of making the poorest in this country always pay — whether they are employees, retirees, students — ends and that we make the richest in this country pay.”
The Interior Ministry reported 181 arrests nationwide as the afternoon ended and more than 450,000 demonstrators outside Paris, with protests in big cities and small towns. Paris police said that another 55,000 people marched in the capital. Participation estimates from the CGT, among unions that called the strikes and demonstrations, were double those of police, reporting more than 1 million strikers and protesters nationwide.
Travel disruptions
The Paris Metro operator said that rush-hour services suffered fewer disruptions than anticipated, but that traffic largely stopped outside those hours except on three driverless automated lines.
French national rail company SNCF said that “a few disruptions” were expected on high-speed trains to France and Europe, but most will run.
“Every time there’s a protest, it feels like daily life is held hostage,” said office worker Nathalie Laurent, grappling with morning disruptions on the Paris Metro.
“Lecornu — he’s only just started, but if this is his idea of stability, then he has a long way to go,” she said.
UK, Ireland to set out new framework to address legacy of Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’
Updated 19 September 2025
Reuters
BELFAST: Britain and Ireland will jointly announce a new framework on Friday to address the legacy of decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and replace a controversial British law that offered amnesties to ex-soldiers and militants. The agreement will fulfil a pledge by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to repeal the previous Conservative government’s Legacy Act, a section of which offered immunity from prosecution for those who cooperate with a new investigative body — a provision that was ruled incompatible with human rights law.
The law halted inquests into cases from the three decades of conflict between Irish nationalist militants seeking a united Ireland, pro-British “loyalist” paramilitaries and the British military. It was opposed by victims’ families, all political parties in Northern Ireland, including pro-British and Irish nationalist groups, and the Irish government, which brought a legal challenge against Britain at the European Court of Human Rights.
Britain’s Northern Ireland Minister Hilary Benn said this month that the plans would significantly reform the contested new investigative body, make it capable of referring cases for potential prosecution and give it independent oversight.
A separate information recovery body, as envisioned in a 2014 UK-Irish legacy agreement that was never implemented and overridden by the Legacy Act, will also be included, a source familiar with the framework said. Dublin has said it would revisit its legal challenge against Britain if a new framework is put in place and is human rights-compliant. Starmer’s government has sought to reset relations with Ireland that were strained during Brexit.
The previous Conservative government defended its approach by arguing that prosecutions linked to the events of up to 57 years ago — also known as the Troubles — were increasingly unlikely to lead to convictions and that it wanted to draw a line under the conflict. While some trials have collapsed in recent years, the first former British soldier to be convicted of an offense since the peace deal was given a suspended sentence in 2023. The trial of the sole British soldier charged with murder over the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” killings of 13 unarmed Catholic civil rights marchers also began this week.
Strong quake off Russia Far East, tsunami alert issued
The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert for possible hazardous waves along nearby coastlines, but said several hours later that the threat had passed
Updated 19 September 2025
AFP
MOSCOW: A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula early Friday, rocking buildings and prompting authorities to issue a tsunami alert, later lifted.
Videos posted on Russian social media showed furniture and light fixtures shaking in homes, while another showed a parked car rocking back and forth on a street.
The quake struck 128 kilometers (80 miles) east of the region’s capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (six miles), the US Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
The local branch of Russia’s state geophysical service gave a lower estimated magnitude of 7.4. It reported at least five aftershocks.
Illustration map showing where the 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in Russia's fat eastern Kamchatka peninsula early Friday. (US Geological Society)
The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued an alert for possible hazardous waves along nearby coastlines, but said several hours later that the threat had passed.
“This morning is once again testing the resilience of Kamchatka residents,” the governor of the region, Vladimir Solodov, said on Telegram.
“There are currently no reports of damage. I ask everyone to remain calm,” he added.
The Kamchatka peninsula lies on a tectonic belt known as the Ring of Fire, which surrounds most of the Pacific Ocean, and is a hotspot for seismic activity.
In July, an 8.8-magnitude mega-quake off the region’s coast triggered a tsunami that swept part of a coastal village into the sea and sparked warnings around the Pacific.
