While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Nov 29, 2024
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Mr Mohammad Al Amin, 30, a psychology masters professor, collecting his books and a bag filled with childhood diaries, at his destroyed home in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, on Nov 28.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Netanyahu threatens ‘intensive war’ if fragile truce breached
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Hezbollah on Nov 28 with an “intensive war” if it breaches a fragile Lebanon ceasefire, which on its second day is straining under pressure from both sides.
Hours before, the Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons facility in south Lebanon, where it said “terrorist activity was identified”.
Earlier, it opened fire on people it said were in breach of the truce.
The ceasefire, which came into effect before dawn on Nov 27, seeks to end a war that has killed thousands in Lebanon and sparked mass displacements in both Lebanon and Israel.
TikTok tactics shake up politics in Romania
Barely known a year ago, far-right candidate Calin Georgescu successfully dominated social network TikTok to emerge the shock winner of Romania’s first-round presidential election - an online campaign that has raised suspicions.
Mr Georgescu - an admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin - has surged to more than 450,000 followers on TikTok, racking up millions of views and five million likes in the country of 19 million people.
Romanian news site G4 Media, which conducted an analysis of Mr Georgescu’s social media use, found the far-right politician mounted a “propaganda machine” using thousands of supposed “volunteers” to spread his anti-EU, anti-Nato messages.
France smashes South Asian migrant trafficking ring
French authorities arrested 26 people and seized €11 million (S$15 million) as they smashed a migrant trafficking ring suspected of bringing several thousand people from South Asia into France, border police told AFP on Nov 28.
Charging between €15,000 and €26,000 per person, the traffickers are suspected of having smuggled several thousand people from India, Sri Lanka and Nepal into France since September 2021, the force said.
Authorities estimate the network generated several million euros in illegal profits, which were laundered through construction companies, gold trafficking and informal transfers of money back to South Asia.
Ukraine sees influx of Western war tourists
Spanish traveller Alberto Blasco Ventas looked out at Ukraine’s destroyed Irpin bridge, blown up to stop Russian troops in 2022 and now a hotspot for thrill-seeking tourists visiting the country.
Russian forces had planned to cross the bridge in their attempts to seize the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at the beginning of the war.
The Russian army has since retreated hundreds of kilometres away, but launches near-daily missile and drone strikes on the Ukrainian capital that Blasco Ventas chose as his vacation spot.
Swiatek fails doping test, accepts one-month suspension
World No. 2 and five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for banned substance trimetazidine, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) said on Nov 28.
She tested positive in an out-of-competition sample in August but the ITIA accepted that it was caused by contamination of her melatonin medication, which was manufactured and sold in Poland.
Swiatek, 23, had been taking it for jet lag and sleep issues and, as there was no significant fault or negligence, the ITIA offered the French Open champion a one-month suspension, which she accepted.
