https://archive.is/TyCjD

The claimed acquisition by Yemen’s Houthi rebels of hypersonic missiles capable of penetrating Israeli air defences threatens to further heighten Middle East tensions, as Saudi Arabia calls for more than “pinprick bombings” to constrain the supply of weapons to the group.

Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemen government opposing the Houthis, believes Iran has been arming the group, including with the weapons used in the attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Those attacks have led to a halving of the traffic on the Red Sea route, pushing up the costs of maritime transport and damaging the Egyptian economy through disruption to the Suez canal.

Kan’ani said any claim regarding sales of Iranian missiles to Russia is unfounded.

“I am again clearly reminding the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Any claim that Iran sells ballistic missiles to Russia is false,” he said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5680856

I'm just surprised that we're at the point where even Legal Eagle is spinning this story.

Makes me worried for how this New Cold War will affect the country.

Israeli occupation forces have conducted a large-scale arrest campaign since Wednesday, with at least 40 Palestinians detained across the occupied West Bank by yesterday morning. Among those arrested were a patient receiving treatment in a hospital and several former prisoners.

The arrests were primarily concentrated in the Hebron and Tubas governorates, with others reported across the majority of the West Bank, according to a joint statement from the Palestinian Prisoners Club and the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Organisations dedicated to prisoners’ rights have been unable to verify the full extent of the arrests due to the ongoing military operations by occupation forces in the Tulkarm and Tubas governorates, including their respective refugee camps.

Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October 2023, and amid the ongoing genocide and comprehensive aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli occupation forces have arrested more than 10,700 Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.

https://archive.is/u9UQ8

China is to raise the retirement age for the first time since 1978, as the world’s second-largest economy faces up to a sharply ageing population that will leave it short of workers.

The country will gradually extend the retirement age for all men from 60 to 63, for women in white-collar jobs from 55 to 58, and for women in blue-collar work from 50 to 55, state-owned news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.

The measures were approved by the standing committee of China’s rubber-stamp parliament on Friday. They will take effect in January and be phased in over 15 years in line with the principle of “small-step adjustments”, Xinhua said.

Dozens of kilograms of cocaine have been found in banana deliveries to four of a French supermarket chain’s stores, with police unsure who the intended recipient was.

Staff at Grand Frais branches in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France were astonished to find between 40kg (88lb) and 50kg of drugs hidden under pallets of bananas and were anxious to reassure customers that the cocaine had not come into contact with the fruit.

Now detectives are attempting to solve the mystery of how the drugs, believed to have originated in Colombia, came to be in the pallets and – more importantly – for whom they were destined.

Three forensic experts that reviewed dossier on slain Turkish-American activist say bullet did not appear to have ricocheted off the ground as Israel said

Three separate forensic experts who viewed the autopsy report told Middle East Eye that the damage on Ezgi’s skull and the destruction within suggest that it was a direct hit.

Biden initially issued a muted statement backing the Israeli assessment that the bullet that killed Eygi appeared to have “ricocheted off the ground", but as criticism has grown about the incident and the US response, his administration has become more vocal.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20236035

Andrew Roth in Washington

Thu 12 Sep 2024 14.30 EDT

The U.S. military has announced the sale of billions of dollars of missiles, bombs, and other weapons to Israel in the past year, as the campaign on Gaza grinds on. Now, the Department of Defense is also building aircraft facilities in Israel to accommodate American-made refueling tanker planes, according to newly issued public contracting documents reviewed by The Intercept.

The project includes new construction and upgrades of existing buildings, including one or more hangars, warehouses, and storage facilities, at an Israeli military base in the south of Israel, according to Army Corps of Engineers documents.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20236367

Sunjeev Bery

September 11 2024, 2:02 p.m.

Of the 31 Abrams tanks the U.S. sent to Ukraine, six have been destroyed, according to Oryx, an independent analyst group that tracks casualties. The rest are now used only occasionally. At $10 million apiece, tanks like the Abrams are not easily replaced. Among other Western tanks sent to Ukraine, 12 of the 18 latest-model German Leopards have been destroyed or damaged, according to Oryx.

As soon as you get on the road, a drone spots you, and then you're being hit with artillery, mines, anti-tank missiles, drones, guided bombs," said a Ukrainian driver of one of the Abrams tanks whose call sign is Smilik.