Russian court jails prominent election monitoring activist for 5 years

A Moscow court sentenced Grigory Melkonyants, a leader of election monitoring group Golos, to five years in prison for organizing an "undesirable" organization. Melkonyants, who rejects the charges as politically motivated, is a victim of the Kremlin's crackdown on critics since the Ukraine invasion. Golos, known for exposing election violations, has faced increasing pressure and designation as a "foreign agent."

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What would lifting US sanctions on Syria mean to the war-torn country?

President Trump's decision to ease sanctions on Syria, following a historic meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, signals a potential turning point for the war-torn nation. This move aims to stimulate reconstruction and economic recovery after decades of crippling restrictions. While challenges remain, the decision has sparked optimism and could pave the way for improved humanitarian conditions and regional stability.

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'Don’t take medical advice...’: US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr responds to question on vaccinating his children

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced intense scrutiny from lawmakers regarding his controversial vaccine views and proposed budget cuts. Despite a measles outbreak, Kennedy stated Americans shouldn't seek medical advice from him. He defended slashing billions from health agencies, claiming it would save taxpayer money.

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs threatened to 'blow up' Kid Cudi’s car, testifies ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura

Cassie Ventura testified that Sean "Diddy" Combs threatened to blow up Kid Cudi's car after discovering their relationship. Shortly after the threat in late 2011, Cudi's car exploded, Ventura told the court. Ventura also detailed instances of abuse, including physical assault and threats to release sexually explicit videos, during her 11-year relationship with Combs.

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Strong 6.1 earthquake strikes off Greek island of Kasos, eastern Mediterranean

A significant 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Kasos, Greece, early Wednesday, sending tremors across the eastern Mediterranean. The quake, centered near Kasos and Crete, was felt on several Greek islands, as well as in Israel and Egypt.

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Trio wins economics Nobel for work on wealth inequality

US-based academics Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson won the 2024 Nobel economics prize “for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said yesterday.The prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final prize to be given out this year and is worth 11mn Swedish crowns ($1.1mn).“Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time’s greatest challenges. The laureates have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for achieving this,” said Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.“Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better,” the award organisers added on their website.Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while James Robinson is at the University of Chicago.Acemoglu and Johnson recently collaborated on a book surveying technology through the ages which demonstrated how some technological advances were better at creating jobs and spreading wealth than others.The economics award is not one of the original prizes for science, literature and peace created in the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901, but a later addition established and funded by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.However, like for the other Nobel science prizes, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decides the winner and follows the same selection process.Past winners include a host of influential thinkers such as Milton Friedman, John Nash – played by actor Russell Crowe in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind – and, more recently, former US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.Last year, Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin won the prize for her work highlighting the causes of wage and labour market inequality between men and women.The economics prize has been dominated by US academics since its inception, while US-based researchers also tend to account for a large portion of winners in the scientific fields for which 2024 laureates were announced last week.That crop of prizes began with US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the prize for medicine on October 7 and concluded with Japan’s Nihon Hidankyo, an organisation of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who campaigned for the abolition of nuclear weapons landing the award for peace on Friday.South Korea’s Han Kan won the literature prize – the only woman laureate so far this year.The Nobel Prizes consist of a diploma, a gold medal and the cash sum.They will be presented at ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist and prize creator Alfred Nobel.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/692589/international/trio-wins-economics-nobel-for-work-on-wealth-inequality

Nobel economics prize goes to inequality researchers

Research shows link between institutions and prosperityAcemoglu urges democracies to reclaim better governanceJohnson says Nov. 5 a 'stress test' for US democracyPast winners include Milton Friedman and John NashEconomics was final prize awarded in 2024 NobelsThree US-based academics won the 2024 Nobel economics prize on Monday for research that explored the aftermath of colonisation to understand why global inequality persists today, especially in countries dogged by corruption and dictatorship.Simon Johnson and James Robinson, both British-American, and Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu were commended for their work on 'how institutions are formed and affect prosperity', the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.'Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is one of our time's greatest challenges,' said Jakob Svensson, Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences.'They have identified the historical roots of the weak institutional environments that characterize many low-income countries today,' he told a press conference. The award came a day after a World Bank report showed that the world's 26 poorest countries - home to 40% of its most poverty-stricken people - are more in debt than at any time since 2006, highlighting a major reversal in the fight against poverty.The prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final prize to be given out this year and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).Acemoglu told reporters in Athens that data gathered by pro-democracy groups showed that public institutions and rule of law in many parts of the world were currently being weakened.'Authoritarian growth is often more unstable and doesn't generally lead to very rapid and original innovation,' he said, referring to China as 'a bit of a challenge'.Johnson told Reuters by telephone that established institutions in the United States were under stress, notably due to Donald Trump's refusal to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election.'I think that's the biggest concern that I see in the industrialised world,' he said, adding the Nov. 5 presidential election was 'a serious stress test' for U.S. democracy.Acemoglu and Johnson work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Robinson is at the University of Chicago.The laureates' research showed how European colonisation had dramatic but divergent impacts across the world, depending on whether the coloniser focused on extraction of resources or the setting up of long-term institutions for the benefit of European migrants.This, they found, resulted in a 'reversal of fortune' where former colonies that were once rich become poor, while some poorer countries - where institutions were often set up - were in the end able to garner some generalised prosperity through them.Another finding covered how 'dangerous' it was to colonise an area: the higher mortality among the colonisers, the lower today's current output per capita, a measure of prosperity. The economics award is not one of the original prizes for science, literature and peace created in the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901, but a later addition established and funded by Sweden's central bank in 1968.Past winners include a host of influential thinkers such as Milton Friedman, John Nash - played by actor Russell Crowe in the 2001 film 'A Beautiful Mind' - and, more recently, former US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Research into inequality has featured strongly in recent awards. Last year, Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin won the prize for her work highlighting the causes of wage and labour market inequality between men and women.In 2019, economists Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer won the award for work on fighting poverty.The economics prize has been dominated by US academics since its inception, while US-based researchers also tend to account for a large portion of winners in the scientific fields for which 2024 laureates were announced last week. That crop of prizes began with U.S. scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the prize for medicine on Monday and concluded with Japan's Nihon Hidankyo, an organisation of survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who campaigned for the abolition of nuclear weapons landing the award for peace on Friday.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/692526/international/uslatin-america/nobel-economics-prize-goes-to-inequality-researchers

N. Korea put border troops on high alert

North Korea's military has ordered artillery units along the border with South Korea to be fully ready to open fire, state media has reported.'The Korean People's Army issued a preliminary operation order Oct. 12 to the combined artillery units along the border and the units taking on an important firepower task to get fully ready to open fire,' read the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.The North Korean military ordered eight artillery brigades fully armed in a wartime mode to be on standby to open fire, and reinforced anti-air observation posts in Pyongyang, it added.North Korea's defense ministry said that South Korea had sent unmanned drones carrying anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang three times this month, according to South Korea's (Yonhap) news agency.'We warn repeatedly that we will take action according to our judgment, regarding any drones to be spotted again as the ones from the ROK and deeming it a declaration of war,' a spokesperson at the defense ministry said in a statement.The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Kim Yo-jong warned Saturday that South Korea will face a 'horrible disaster' in case such drones are flown again into the North

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/692523/international/n-korea-put-border-troops-on-high-alert

SpaceX catches giant Starship booster in its fifth flight test

SpaceX, in its fifth Starship test flight yesterday, returned the rocket’s towering first stage booster back to its Texas launch pad for the first time using giant mechanical arms, achieving another novel engineering feat in the company’s push to build a reusable moon and Mars vehicle.The rocket’s first stage “Super Heavy” booster lifted off at 7.25am CT (1225 GMT) from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas launch facilities, sending the Starship second stage rocket toward space before separating at an altitude of roughly 70km (40 miles) to begin its return to land – the most daring part of the test flight.The Super Heavy booster re-lit three of its 33 Raptor engines to slow its speedy descent back to SpaceX’s launch site, as it targeted the launch pad and tower it had blasted off from.The tower, taller than the Statue of Liberty at over 400 feet, is fitted with two large metal arms at the top.With its engines roaring, the 233-foot (71m) Super Heavy booster fell into the launch tower’s enclosing arms, hooking itself in place by tiny, protruding bars under the four forward grid fins it had used to steer itself through the air.“The tower has caught the rocket!!” chief executive Elon Musk wrote on X after the catch attempt.SpaceX engineers watching the company’s live stream roared in applause.“Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books,” a SpaceX spokesperson said on the livestream.The novel catch-landing method marked the latest advance in SpaceX’s test-to-failure development campaign for a fully reusable rocket designed to loft more cargo into orbit, ferry humans to the moon for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and eventually reach Mars – the ultimate destination envisioned by Musk.Nasa, which congratulated SpaceX on its successful test, is also keenly awaiting a modified version of Starship to act as a lander vehicle for crewed flights to the Moon under the Artemis programme later this decade.Meanwhile Starship, the rocket system’s second stage or top half, cruised at roughly 17,000mph 89 miles up in space, heading for the Indian Ocean near western Australia to demonstrate about 90 minutes into flight a controlled splashdown.As Starship re-entered Earth’s atmosphere horizontally, onboard cameras showed a smooth, pinkish-purple hue of superhot plasma blanketing the ship’s Earth-facing side and its two steering flaps, intense hypersonic friction displayed in a glowing aura.The ship’s hot side is coated with 18,000 heat-shielding tiles that were improved since SpaceX’s last test in June, when Starship completed its first full test flight to the Indian Ocean but suffered tile damage that made its reentry difficult.Starship this time appeared more intact upon re-igniting one of its six Raptor engines to position itself upright for the simulated ocean landing.The SpaceX live stream showed the rocket touching down in the nighttime waters far off Australia’s coast, then toppling on its side, concluding its test mission.A separate camera view from a vessel near the touchdown site then showed the ship exploding into a vast fireball, as SpaceX engineers could be heard on the live stream screaming in celebration.It was unclear whether the explosion was a controlled detonation or the result of a fuel leak.Musk said the ship landed “precisely on target!”Starship, first unveiled by Musk in 2017, has exploded several times in various stages of testing on past flights, but successfully completed a full flight in June for the first time.On Saturday the US Federal Aviation Administration approved SpaceX’s launch licence for the fifth test, following weeks of tension between the company and its regulator over the pace of launch approvals and fines related to SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9.Musk has accused the agency of overreach and calling for its chief, Michael Whitaker, to resign.“He’s trying to position himself for minimal regulatory interference with SpaceX once Donald Trump becomes president,” said Mark Hass, a marketing expert and professor at Arizona State University. “But it’s a calculated gamble if things go the other way.”

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/692489/international/spacex-catches-giant-starship-booster-in-its-fifth-flight-test

Nobel prize a timely reminder, Hiroshima locals say

Just like the dwindling group of survivors now recognised with a Nobel prize, the residents of Hiroshima hope that the world never forgets the atomic bombing of 1945 - now more than ever. Susumu Ogawa, 84, was five when the bomb dropped by the United States all but obliterated the Japanese city 79 years ago, and many of his family were among the 140,000 people killed.“My mother, my aunt, my grandfather, and my grandfather all died in the atomic bombing,” Ogawa told AFP a day after the survivors’ group Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Ogawa himself recalls very little but the snippets he garnered later from his surviving relatives and others painted a hellish picture. “All they could do was to evacuate and save their own lives, while they saw other people (perish) inside the inferno,” he said.“All nuclear weapons in the world have to be abandoned,” he said. “We know the horror of nuclear weapons, because we know what happened in Hiroshima.” What is happening now in the Middle East saddens him greatly. “Why do people fight each other?...hurting each other won’t bring anything good,” he said.On a sunny Saturday, many tourists and some residents were strolling around the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to the bomb’s 140,000 victims. A preserved skeleton of a building close to ground zero of the “Little Boy” bomb and a statue of a girl with outstretched arms are poignant reminders of the devastation.Jung Jaesuk, 43, a South Korean primary school teacher visiting the site, said the Nobel was a “a victory for (grassroots) people”. “Tension in East Asia is intensifying so we have to boost anti-nuclear movement,” he told AFP. Kiyoharu Bajo, 69, a retired business consultant, decided to take in the atmosphere of the site after the “great thing” that was the Nobel award.With Ukraine and the Middle East, the world “faces crises that we’ve not experienced since the Second World War in terms of nuclear weapons,” he told AFP. The stories told by the Nihon Hidankyo group of “hibakusha”, as the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are known, “have to be known to the world”, he said.He said he hopes that the Nobel prize will help “the experiences of atomic bomb survivors spread further spread around the world” including by persuading people to visit Hiroshima. Kiwako Miyamoto, 65, said the Nobel prize was a “great thing, because even some locals here are indifferent” to what happened.“In Hiroshima, you pray on August 6, and children go to school”, even though the date is during summer vacation, she told AFP.“But I was surprised to see that outside Hiroshima, some people don’t know (so much about it),” she said.She said that like many people in Hiroshima, she personally knows people whose relatives died in the bombing or who witnessed it. With the average age among members of the Nihon Hidankyo over 85, it is vital that young people continue to be taught about what happened, added Bajo. “I was born 10 years after the atom bomb was dropped, so there were many atom bomb survivors around me. I felt the incident as something familiar to me,” he said. “But for the future, it will be an issue.”

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/692419/international/nobel-prize-a-timely-reminder-hiroshima-locals-say

European Commission condemns attack on UNIFIL forces in Lebanon

Spokesperson for external affairs at the Peter Stano said that the Israeli occupation's attacks on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were unacceptable. He added during a press conference in Brussels that any deliberate attack on peacekeeping forces constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law and relevant Security Council resolutions. Stano said that the issue was very high on the European Commission's agenda, and that it will definitely be discussed by the EU Foreign Ministers at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting next Monday. UNIFIL had reported that its soldiers were injured due to repeated Israeli bombardments on its headquarters and nearby sites in southern Lebanon amid escalating tensions along the Blue Line recently.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/692369/international/european-commission-condemns-attack-on-unifil-forces-in-lebanon