December 14, 2023

One person was killed and four injured during 24 hours of Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration. Local resident Elena Rodik, 62, reacts while showing her damaged apartment inside a house hit by recent shelling in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, December 12, 2023. (Reuters) Ukraine came under heavy attacks from the air and from cyberspace Tuesday, local officials said, as nearly 600 Russian shells, rockets and other projectiles rained down on a southern region and unidentified hackers knocked out the phone and internet services of the country’s biggest telecom provider. One person was killed and four injured during 24 hours of Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration. The number of projectiles fired at Kherson was the highest number for at least the past two weeks, though local authorities have said between 200-500 are commonly launched against the region every day. Also Read | How Russia is winning the war in Ukraine Long-range barrages have been a feature of the 21-month war. As winter sets in and hampers troop movements on both sides, artillery, missiles and drones are playing an increasing role. Meanwhile, Ukrainian telecom provider Kyivstar said it came under a “powerful” attack by hackers. The company serves more than 24 million mobile customers across the country. “The war with Russia has many dimensions, and one of them is in cyberspace,” Kyivstar Director-General Oleksandr Komarov said in a video statement. “Unfortunately, this morning Kyivstar became the target of a powerful hacker attack, as a result of which communication services and internet access are temporarily unavailable,” he said. Also Read | Over 1,000 ‘opaque fleet’ tankers involved in Russian oil trade since G7 price caps took effect: Vortexa The company gave no estimate for when services might be restored. It said its specialists were working with law enforcement agencies and special state services on solving the problem. Also, a Ukrainian online bank said it fought off a massive distributed denial-of-service attack on Tuesday. A DDoS attack employs a network of distributed computers to direct junk traffic at the target site in an effort to render it unusable. In other developments, Ukraine claimed to have captured a tactically important hill in the Donetsk region, where the front line has barely budged since 2014. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on social media that his troops had taken the foothold, which provides a vantage point over the front line near Pivdenne, a mining town to the northwest of the Donetsk city of Horlivka. Source:https://indianexpress.com/article/world/russia-blasts-ukraine-hackers-strike-phone-internet-9065503/

ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions court in Islamabad on Thursday sentenced Shahnawaz Amir to death and imposed a penalty of Rs1 million in Sarah Inam’s murder case. The verdict was reserved on December 9 last week by Sessions Judge Nasir Javaid Rana. However, the court acquitted the Shahnawaz’s mother, Samina Shah, due to lack of evidence. She was indicted in December last year by the sessions court and was named co-accused in the case. The proceedings of the case lasted for more than a year and three different judges conducted the hearings. Additional Sessions Judge Islamabad Muhammad Atta Rabbani and Azam Khan also heard the murder case. Sarah, a 37-year-old economist, was allegedly murdered with dumbbells by her husband Shahnawaz Amir, who is the son of journalist Ayaz Amir, in Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad area on September 23, 2022. Shahnawaz was detained by the police from a farmhouse in Islamabad’s Chak Shahzad area for being a suspect in his wife’s murder and later confessed to killing her, saying he “thought” his spouse was having an affair. The couple was married for just three months. The next day, a trial court approved the arrest warrants of Ayaz Amir and his former wife Sameena Shah, as the two were nominated as suspects by Sarah’s family. Amir was arrested while his former wife later acquired pre-arrest bail. In the police report registered following the murder, an additional clause of Section 109 (punishment for abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code was added at the request of Sarah’s uncles — Colonel (retd) Ikram and Zia-ur-Rahim — who have blamed Ayaz and his former wife for their daughter-in-law’s murder. The petitioners maintained that Sameena was living at the farmhouse where Sarah was murdered. However, during a hearing on September 27, an Islamabad court discharged Ayaz Amir from the case citing “no evidence” against him in Sarah’s murder. On February 6, Shahnawaz was indicted in the case involving the possession of a Kalashnikov firearm that was obtained illegally and he pleaded not guilty to the charge. However, on November 27, the court granted the benefit of the doubt to Shahnawaz and acquitted him in the case. The court highlighted the prosecution’s failure to prove its charges against the accused, terming its evidence “doubtful”. It should be noted that the police had registered a separate case related to the recovery of a Kalashnikov from the suspect. Last month in October, the prime suspect rejected all evidence submitted by the prosecution against him, terming it “baseless”. Who was Sarah Inam? Sarah Inam, 37, was a Canadian national and a successful economist who worked with Deloitte and USAID at different points in her career. She was married to Shahnawaz for just three months before being murdered. She had a master’s degree from the University of Waterloo and was currently employed in the government sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as per friends and family. Sarah is survived by her father, mother and two elder brothers. Source:https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1138147-sarah-inam-murder-caseshahnawaz-amir-sentenced-to-death-in-sarah-inam-murder-case

An Israeli army raid in Jenin, ongoing since the early hours of Tuesday, has killed at least 10 Palestinians. UNRWA says that 288 Palestinians sheltering in its facilities in Gaza have been killed since October 7. It confirmed that one more staff member had been killed, bringing the total number of deaths among UNRWA staff since October 7 to 135. Exclusive footage obtained by Al Jazeera shows bodies piled up inside a school in northern Gaza, with family members saying the dead had been shot at point blank range. At least 18,608 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel stands at 1,147. Graphic: Almost half of Gaza’s population now in Rafah Click here to share on social media Qassam Brigades says it killed at least 10 Israeli solders in Shujayea The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, has said that its fighters targeted Israeli forces in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City with “highly explosive devices”. The group said in a statement on Telegram that the attack killed at least 10 Israeli soldiers. The Qassam Brigades also said that its forces attacked four Israeli Merkava tanks and four military personnel carriers in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City. It added that its fighters used al-Yassin 105 rockets in the attack. Click Photos: The aftermath of Israeli strikes in Khan Younis [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters] [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters] [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters] Click Israeli army says it killed ‘many’ fighters in Gaza The Israeli army said fighting continued in Gaza in the past day – in particular, in Shujayea and Jabalia in the north of the enclave, and Khan Younis in the south. Soldiers killed “many terrorists in the north of the Gaza Strip in the past day,” said a statement in Hebrew by the army on X. In one incident, the armed forces detected Hamas fighters “observing its soldiers, fired at them and eliminated them,” the statement said. In another case, the army located and destroyed overnight a firing position in a school complex that served as a base of Hamas’s Shujayea battalion. In Khan Younis, soldiers conducted raids in various locations and found a variety of weapons, including grenades and rifles, and destroyed two shafts, a rocket launch pit and a weapons warehouse. Click Nearly half of Israeli munitions used in Gaza are unguided ‘dumb bombs’: Report Nearly half of the air-to-ground munitions that Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided, otherwise known as “dumb bombs,” according to a new US intelligence assessment reported by CNN. The US news outlet said the assessment was compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and described to CNN by three sources who have seen it. About 40 to 45 percent of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used have been unguided and the rest have been precision-guided munitions, the CNN report added. “Dumb bombs” do not contain a guidance system and they usually follow a ballistic trajectory or are dropped from aircraft. On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden warned that Israel risks losing international support over its “indiscriminate bombing” of civilians. Click MBS, Sullivan hold talks on peace efforts for Israel and Palestine: White House White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia to discuss efforts to create a sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, according to the White House. “They discussed a number of bilateral and regional matters, including ongoing efforts to create new conditions for an enduring and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” a White House statement said. They also discussed the humanitarian response in Gaza, including how to increase the flow of critical aid to the Palestinian enclave, it added. Click here to share on social media Iran warns against proposed US-backed Red Sea force Iran’s defence minister has warned that a proposed US-backed multinational task force to protect shipping in the Red Sea would face “extraordinary problems”, Iranian media reported. “Nobody can make a move in a region where we have predominance,” Mohammad Reza Ashtiani told the official Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA). “If they make such an irrational move, they will be faced with extraordinary problems.” The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have staged attacks on ships they claim had links to Israel. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters last week that Washington was in talks with “other countries” over forming a maritime task force to ensure the safe passage of ships in the Red Sea, but did not give further details. Click Israeli captives’ families want government talks with Hamas Alan Fisher Reporting from the occupied East Jerusalem The families of those who are being held captive in Gaza have demanded an urgent meeting and explanation from Netanyahu, wondering why he is not exploring every single angle to get a ceasefire and the release of more hostages. According to various reports, two out of three in Israel’s war cabinet decided that it was not a good idea to send someone from Mossad to Qatar to start talking about the release of captives – only former Deputy Prime Minister Benny Gantz was in favour of doing so. What was said is that the war cabinet thinks they should continue with their show of force in Gaza and force Hamas to the negotiating table. They believe that is a way to negotiate – from a position of strength. But it is clear that the families of the captives want some answers, and they would like to see someone from Israel head to Qatar to at least examine the possibility of getting more of the captives out of Gaza sooner rather than later. Click here to share on social media Jenin death toll rises to 11 amid Israeli military raid: Report A young man has died from his wounds following an Israeli military raid on the West Bank city of Jenin for the third day in a row, Wafa news agency reported, citing the Palestinian Health Ministry. This