While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Aug 7
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Hamas named Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar as the successor to assassinated former political chief Ismail Haniyeh.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Hamas names Oct 7 mastermind Sinwar as leader
Hamas named its Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar as successor to former political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week, the group said on Aug 6, in a move that reinforces the radical path pursued since the Oct 7 attack on Israel.
Sinwar, the architect of the most devastating attack on Israel in decades, has been in hiding in Gaza, defying Israeli attempts to kill him since the start of the war.
News of the appointment was greeted with a salvo of rockets from Gaza from the bands of militants still fighting Israeli troops in the besieged enclave.
Sinwar, who spent half his adult life in Israeli prisons, was the most powerful Hamas leader left alive following the assassination of Haniyeh, which has left the region on the brink of a wider regional conflict after Iran vowed harsh retaliation.
US charges man with alleged ties to Iran in foiled death plot
A Pakistani man with alleged ties to Iran has been charged in the US in connection with a foiled plot to assassinate a US politician or government officials, the Justice Department said on Aug 6.
Asif Merchant, 46, sought to recruit people in the US to carry out the plot in retaliation for the US killing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ top commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, according to a criminal complaint.
FBI investigators believe that former president Donald Trump, who approved the drone strike on Soleimani, and other current and former US government officials were the intended targets of the plot, CNN reported, citing a US official.
Boeing to make design changes after door panel blowout
Getty Images via AFP
Boeing said on Aug 6 it plans to make design changes to prevent a future mid-air cabin panel blowout like the one in an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 flight in January that spun the planemaker into its second major crisis in recent years.
Boeing’s senior vice-president for quality, Elizabeth Lund said the planemaker is working on design changes that it hopes to implement within the year and then to retrofit across the fleet. Investigators have said the plug in the new Alaska Max 9 was missing four key bolts.
“They are working on some design changes that will allow the door plug to not be closed if there’s any issue until it’s firmly secured,” Ms Lund said, during the first of a two-day National Transportation Safety Board investigative hearing in Washington.
Chinese academic convicted of acting as foreign agent in US
NYT
A Chinese academic was convicted on Aug 6 of illegally acting as a foreign agent in the United States by collecting information about New York-based activists supporting democracy in China and sharing his findings with Beijing.
A jury found Wang Shujun guilty on four counts including acting as a foreign agent without notifying the US attorney-general and lying to US authorities, following a week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court.
Federal prosecutors said Wang, a naturalised US citizen, portrayed himself as a fierce opponent of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to gain the trust of Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, advocates for Taiwanese independence and campaigners for Uighur and Tibetan rights.
Dominant Thomas beats Alfred to Olympic 200m gold
AFP
American Gabby Thomas finally claimed the global title she has promised for so long when she delivered a dominant performance to take Olympic 200 metres gold on Aug 6, denying silver medallist Julien Alfred a sprint double.
Thomas, 27, took bronze in Tokyo and silver in 2023’s world championships, and she has been vocal about her quest for gold ever since.
She was in control throughout the final, coming home in 21.83 seconds and breaking into a wide smile of disbelief, hands on her head, when she crossed the finish line.
