World News

An explosive device hidden in a heavily guarded complex where Ismail Haniyeh was known to stay in Iran was what killed him, according to a Times investigation.

Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.

The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.

Mr. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse. The blast also killed a bodyguard.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/14931321

Kenya and the Central African Republic have declared new outbreaks of mpox as Africa’s health officials race to contain the spread of the disease in a region lacking vaccines.

Nairobi announced the outbreak on Wednesday, after a case was detected in a passenger traveling from Uganda to Rwanda at a border crossing in southern Kenya. The Central African Republic was the first to declare a new outbreak on Monday, saying it extends to its capital of Bangui.

Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus that originates in wild animals and occasionally jumps to people, who can spread it to others.

It may be the first time a drone has destroyed a helicopter in mid-air.

Ukrainian forces deploy more than 100,000 explosive first-person-view drones a month all along the 700-mile front line of Russia’s 28-month wider war on Ukraine. The drones smash into armored vehicles, chase down exposed infantry and follow artillery fire back to its origin in order to target Russian howitzers.

And today one of the small quadcopter drones—remotely steered by an operator wearing a virtual-reality headset—shot down a Russian helicopter, apparently for the first time.

Photos and videos that circulated on social media depict the Mil Mi-8 transport helicopter burning near Donetsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. “A speedy recovery to the survivors,” one Russian blogger wrote.

This new use of explosive drones has been a long time coming. As long ago as September, Ukrainian operators first tried ramming their flying robots into Russian helicopters mid-flight. The drone threat got so serious that the Russian air force began assigning some helicopters to escort other helicopters.

LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The Bank of England cut interest rates from a 16-year high on Thursday after a narrow vote in favour from policymakers divided over whether inflation pressures had eased sufficiently.

Governor Andrew Bailey - who led the 5-4 decision to lower rates by a quarter-point to 5% - said the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee would move cautiously going forward.

"We need to make sure make sure inflation stays low, and be careful not to cut interest rates too quickly or by too much," he said in a statement alongside the decision.

• Funeral of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh held in Tehran
  • Israel has not claimed responsibility for the assassination
  • Iranian officials to meet regional allies to discuss retaliation

DUBAI, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Top Iranian officials will meet the representatives of Iran's regional allies from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Thursday to discuss potential retaliation against Israel after the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran, five sources told Reuters.

The region faces a risk of widened conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies after Ismail Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran on Wednesday and the killing of Hezbollah's senior commander on Tuesday in an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut.

Representatives of Iran's Palestinian allies Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, as well as Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthi movement, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraqi resistance groups will attend the meeting in Tehran, said the sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"Iran and the resistance members will conduct a thorough assessment after the meeting in Tehran to find the best and most effective way to retaliate against the Zionist regime (Israel)," said a senior Iranian official, with direct knowledge of the meeting. Another Iranian official said Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards will attend.

"How Iran and the resistance front will respond is currently being reviewed ... This will certainly happen and the Zionist regime (Israel) will undoubtedly regret it," General Mohammad Baqeri, Iran's armed forces chief of staff, told state TV on Thursday.

Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of carrying out the strike that killed Haniyeh hours after he attended the inauguration of Iran's new president in Tehran on Wednesday.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolás Maduro on Wednesday asked Venezuela’s high court to conduct an audit of the presidential election after opposition leaders disputed his claim of victory, drawing criticism from foreign observers who said the court is too close to the government to produce an independent review.

Maduro told reporters that the ruling party is also ready to show all the vote tally sheets from Sunday’s election.

“I throw myself before justice,” he said outside the Supreme Tribunal of Justice headquarters in the capital, Caracas, adding that he is “willing to be summoned, questioned, investigated.”

This is Maduro’s first concession to demands for more transparency about the election. However, the court is closely aligned with his government; the court’s justices are proposed by federal officials and ratified by the National Assembly, which is dominated by Maduro sympathizers.

The Carter Center, which sent a delegation to Venezuela to monitor the election, criticized Maduro’s audit request, saying the court would not provide an independent review.

“You have another government institution, which is appointed by the government, to verify the government numbers for the election results, which are in question,” said Jennie K. Lincoln, who led the delegation. “This is not an independent assessment.”

The Atlanta-based group said Tuesday night that it was unable to verify the announced results and criticized what it called a “complete lack of transparency” in declaring Maduro the winner. Venezuela’s electoral authorities allowed the Carter Center to send 17 observers.

Maduro’s main challenger, Edmundo González, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado say they obtained more than two-thirds of the tally sheets that each electronic voting machine printed after polls closed. They said the release of the data on those tallies would prove Maduro lost.

Maduro insisted to reporters that there had been a plot against his government and that the electoral system was hacked. Asked later on during a news conference why electoral authorities have not released detailed vote counts, Maduro said the National Electoral Council has come under attack, including cyber-attacks.

“Engineers are fighting right now” to solve those attacks, he said without elaborating.

The government presented some videos that the president said showed people attacking and torching some electoral offices. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the images.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/18175209

The exchange was happening Thursday.

Israel's military says it has confirmed that Hamas's military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an air strike in the Gaza Strip last month.

Deif was targeted in the strike on a compound in the Khan Younis area on 13 July. Hamas is yet to confirm his death.

Israel says Deif was one of the figures responsible for planning the 7 October attacks in southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

On Wednesday, Hamas political leader Ismael Haniyeh was killed during a visit to Iran. Israel has not commented on his death directly.

Nigerians are protesting against a high cost of living, brought on by surging inflation and stagnating wages. Authorities fear the types of mass rallies that have been seen in other parts of Africa.

Nigeria is bracing for a day of protests across cities and towns as people make known their anger over economic hardship that has persisted for years.

Africa's most populous country, with a population of more than 210 million, is grappling with the country's worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.

The hardship is blamed on surging inflation, which is at a 28-year high, and the government's economic policies that have pushed the local currency to record low against the dollar.

The price of petrol and the price of staple foods, such as rice, have shot up, while wages and salaries have remained stagnant.

Dutch beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who served time in prison after he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl, won his second match at the Paris Olympics and received an even harsher reaction from the crowd on Wednesday than for his first match.

Argentina’s security forces have announced plans to use artificial intelligence to “predict future crimes” in a move experts have warned could threaten citizens’ rights.

The country’s far-right president Javier Milei this week created the Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security Unit, which the legislation says will use “machine-learning algorithms to analyse historical crime data to predict future crimes”. It is also expected to deploy facial recognition software to identify “wanted persons”, patrol social media, and analyse real-time security camera footage to detect suspicious activities.

While the ministry of security has said the new unit will help to “detect potential threats, identify movements of criminal groups or anticipate disturbances”, the Minority Report-esque resolution has sent alarm bells ringing among human rights organisations.

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