SYRIA – Rebel forces in Syria say they have entered Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, in the biggest offensive against the government in years. Video posted on a channel affiliated with the rebels appears to show their fighters in vehicles inside the city. The footage has been geolocated by the BBC to a suburb in Western Aleppo. A UK-based group says fighters set off two car bombs before advancing into neighbourhoods on Friday. Government forces meanwhile say they have regained positions in a number of towns in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, following an offensive launched by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions on Wednesday.

A statement posted on the rebel-affiliated channel on Friday said: “Our forces have begun entering the city of Aleppo”. Earlier, the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which uses a network of sources on the ground in Syria, reported that Syrian and Russian planes carried out 23 air strikes on the Aleppo region on Friday. The SOHR said 255 people, mostly combatants, had been killed in the fighting, the deadliest between rebels and pro-government forces in Syria for years. It said opposition forces had taken control of more than 50 towns and villages since Wednesday. (BBC)

Photo: Rebels have been advancing on the city of Aleppo.

JAMAICA – Jamaica is to seek to build deeper ties with The Philippines with talks to be had on a Memorandum of Understanding on collaborating on tourism. Tourism Minister Edmond Bartlett says the collaboration will focus on key tourism outcomes such as human capital development, training and certification in customer service excellence, craft development, resilience and sustainability and community tourism. “The importance of human capital development is a key pillar of the potential agreement, especially given the Philippines’ remarkable success in training over 170,000 tourism workers annually,” Bartlett told The Gleaner. He was speaking against the background of being recognised on Wednesday by the Gusi Peace Prize Foundation as one of its 2024 awardees. The accolade celebrates Bartlett’s visionary leadership and ground-breaking contributions to the global tourism industry. (Jamaica Gleaner)

Photo: Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett (left), and Secretary of Tourism for the Philippines, Christina Garcia-Frasco, shared lens time after he received his global Gusi Peace Prize.

SWEDEN – An unidentified drone flew over the Russian embassy in Stockholm early on Friday, dropping paint on the grounds of the diplomatic compound, Swedish police said. No arrests have been made and no suspects identified, a police spokesperson added. “We insist that all incidents against the Russian embassy be thoroughly and impartially investigated and that the perpetrators be found and brought to justice,” Russia’s embassy in Sweden said in a statement. Investigators will look at whether the incident was in any way linked to a reported case of vandalism at Sweden’s embassy in Moscow on Thursday, according to the police spokesperson.

Following the Moscow incident, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard urged Russia to ensure the protection of Sweden’s diplomatic mission and its staff. A Swedish foreign ministry spokesperson said Sweden’s embassy in Moscow was in contact with Russian authorities over Friday’s incident in the Swedish capital.

“It is serious when a country’s embassy is subject to vandalism,” Stenergard said in an emailed statement on the incident in Stockholm.  “Swedish authorities are responsible for the embassy’s security and the police have initiated a preliminary investigation.” (The Jerusalem Post)

Photo: Sweden expels five Russian diplomats, ministry says. (Photo: Reuters)

BEIJING – The militaries of China and Russia conducted a joint strategic air patrol over the Sea of Japan on Friday, according to China’s Ministry of National Defense.

The patrol, the ninth of its kind, was carried out as part of the two militaries’ annual cooperation plan, the ministry said in a statement. (Xinhua)

Photo: The militaries of China and Russia conducted a joint strategic air patrol over the Sea of Japan on Friday, according to China’s Ministry of National Defense. (Sun Liren/Xinhua)

STILFONTEIN  –  South Africa’s police minister has pledged to rescue all the people still trapped in an abandoned goldmine in the northwestern town of Stilfontein “as soon as possible”. In an interview with Al Jazeera on Friday, Senzo Mchunu said the exact number of people underground is still not known. The authorities have been stationed for weeks outside the abandoned pit in Stilfontein, about 150km (100 miles) southwest of Johannesburg, intermittently blocking locals from sending down food and water to try to force the miners out.

The operation has triggered outrage with some fearing that the men could be starving or even dying underground. Police had earlier indicated that up to 4,000 miners may be trapped. On Thursday, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said they believe that number was exaggerated and gave an estimate of 350 to 400 miners. Describing the conditions in the shaft, which the police have sought to check through camera surveillance, Mchunu said six to seven people who are at the top of the shaft are “commanding the whole thing”. “The food and water that trickle down would be under the control of those people. … They command everything there, and people below are kept against their will,” he said.

Three teenagers who recently emerged, one 19 and two aged 16, told Al Jazeera about the mistreatment they faced. “The men who hire us sometimes don’t give us food. But we see them eating every day. If you complain, they beat you up,” said one of the three who comes from Mozambique. The three said they were not rescued by the government but came out because they were allowed to. It is unclear how long the miners have been underground because they are reported to often stay there for months, depending on supplies of basic necessities like food and water from the outside. The police’s “Vala Umgodi”, or “Close the Hole”, operation has cut off miners’ supplies to force them to return to the surface and be arrested.

This week, 14 people, including a teenage boy, who emerged unassisted were arrested. President Cyril Ramaphosa defended the police for blocking supplies in a bid to force the miners out. “So far, more than 1,000 miners have surfaced and been arrested,” Ramaphosa said last week, calling the site in Stilfontein “a crime scene”. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: Mineworkers are being rescued from the goldmine. (AFP)

LONDON – MPs have backed proposals to legalise assisted dying in England and Wales in a historic vote which paves the way for a change in the law. Under draft legislation being considered by Parliament, terminally ill adults expected to die within six months could seek help to end their own life. In the first Commons vote on the issue in nearly a decade, MPs supported the bill by 330 to 275, a majority of 55. The bill will now face many more months of debate and scrutiny by MPs and peers, who could choose to amend it, with the approval of both Houses of Parliament required before it becomes law.

MPs were given a free vote, meaning they could make a decision based on their own conscience rather than having to follow a party line. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak voted in favour, while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch voted against. The PM, who previously supported a change in the law in 2015, did not speak in the debate or reveal how he planned to vote in advance, saying he did not want to influence the decisions of MPs.

The government has taken a neutral stance on the bill and at the end of the debate Justice Minister Alex Davies-Jones confirmed if Parliament backed a change to the law the government would “ensure that any bill is effective and that its provisions can be enforced”. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who put forward the bill, said she was “a bit overwhelmed” following the vote and it meant “a huge amount” to be able to tell campaigners the bill had passed its first parliamentary hurdle. (BBC)

Photo: The bill was put forward by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater.

BEIRUT  –  The Israeli military has warned Lebanese citizens not to return to 60 villages in the south of the country, three days into a ceasefire after more than a year of fighting with the Shia armed group Hezbollah. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published a map showing a swathe of territory several miles deep, which it said residents must not return to. Anyone who did, it said, would be putting themselves in danger. More than a million Lebanese have been displaced by the fighting, mostly from the south. Tens of thousands of Israelis have also been displaced.

The truce came into effect last Wednesday morning, though officials in Israel and Lebanon have accused each other of already breaching it. Last Thursday, the IDF said its forces fired artillery and carried out air strikes against targets in southern Lebanon. It added that it had fired at suspects after spotting activity at a Hezbollah weapons facility, and vehicles arriving in several areas, which it said breached the ceasefire. Lebanon accused Israel of violating the agreement “multiple times” and said it was monitoring the situation. A multinational monitoring group which includes representatives from the US, France, and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) was set up as part of the ceasefire to oversee compliance with its terms. In his first interview since the ceasefire was declared, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the IDF to wage “an intensive war” should Hezbollah commit a “massive violation” of the ceasefire. The ceasefire “can be short”, he said in the interview with Israel’s Channel 14.

Under the terms of the agreement, which was brokered by the US and France, Israeli forces will withdraw from south Lebanon as the Lebanese army deploys there simultaneously with no other armed groups allowed to operate in the area. This is meant to happen within 60 days from the start of the ceasefire. The zone which the IDF said residents should not yet return to stretches from Mansouri on the coast to Shebaa in the east. Last Wednesday, the Lebanese army warned residents not to return to areas where Israeli forces were before they had withdrawn. Israel invaded southern Lebanon at the start of last month after the IDF intensified military action against Hezbollah. Hezbollah began the current conflict with Israel by firing rockets in and around northern Israel on 8 October 2023, a day after Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza which killed about 1,200 people. (BBC)

Photo: Thousands of people are reported to have begun returning to their homes in Lebanon. (Reuters)

JAMAICA – Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, is leading Jamaica’s delegation to the 59th Meeting of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) in Georgetown, Guyana. The two-day meeting which commenced Wednesday will bring together trade ministers and other officials from across the Caribbean to discuss key regional trade and economic issues such as the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), the free movement of community nationals and matters affecting the regional trade in goods including requests for suspension of the Common External Tariff (CET) on specific products.

Matters relating to renewable energy, the work of the Caricom Competition Commission and the status of the Community Intellectual Property Framework are also top of the agenda for Jamaica.

“I look forward to participating in this meeting of the council as we seek to promote an increase in exports by Jamaican companies including through regional trade.  Prior to going to Guyana, the ministry convened a meeting with stakeholders from the private sector in Jamaica and we anticipate addressing their concerns over the coming days, together with some core issues affecting the wider regional private sector,” Johnson Smith said.

At the 58th meeting of COTED held in May 2024, Johnson Smith paid particular attention to matters affecting regional trade in sugar and cement, developments concerning tariff adjustments to condensed milk, the supply of frozen concentrated orange juice and refined petroleum products, among others.   Several of these matters will again be on the agenda.

Matters on the external trade agenda that the ministers will focus on at the 59th session include multilateral developments within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as well as the Caricom-Colombia concluding negotiations for additional preferential market access within the scope of the 1994 Caricom-Colombia Trade, Economic and Technical Co-operation Agreement. (Jamaicaobserver)

Photo: Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith (Photo: JIS)

CARIBBEAN – Nearly three-quarters of firearms recovered in several Caribbean nations with high crime rates were manufactured in the US, according to the US’s Government Accountability Office (GAO). Almost 5,400 firearms recovered from crime scenes from 2018 to 2022 in several Caribbean nations – including Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago – can be sourced back to the US, the GAO said. The GAO said they analyzed data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to determine that 88 percent of the recovered and traced firearms in the 25 Caribbean countries they reviewed were handguns.

Despite the lack of firearm manufacturing in the Caribbean, Haiti in particular has seen a dramatic escalation in gang-related violence in recent months, with most of the firepower used by the criminals originating in the US, the report said.

The weapons are typically smuggled through criminal networks, as CNN has previously reported. “Haiti doesn’t produce guns and ammunition, yet the gang members don’t seem to have any trouble accessing those things,” Pierre Esperance, executive director of Haiti’s National Human Rights Defense Network told CNN last May. To counter illicit gun trafficking, the US funds trainings and programs through a security cooperation partnership with thirteen Caribbean countries to “uncover criminal networks responsible for trafficking firearms.” However, the GAO report notes that the US could improve results from the partnership by establishing “specific indicators for its goal of reducing illicit firearms trafficking.” (CNN)

Photo: Haiti-bound semiautomatic weapons that were seized in Miami by Homeland Security Investigations. (Getty Images)

For most of the people of Lebanon, a ceasefire could not come quickly enough. A leading Lebanese analyst at a conference on the Middle East that I’m attending in Rome said she couldn’t sleep as the appointed hour for the ceasefire came closer. “It was like the night before Christmas when you’re a kid. I couldn’t wait for it to happen.” You can see why there’s relief. More than 3,500 citizens of Lebanon have been killed in Israeli strikes. Displaced people packed their cars before dawn to try to get back to whatever remains of their homes.

Well over one million of them have been forced to flee by Israeli military action. Thousands have been wounded and the homes of tens of thousands of others have been destroyed. But in Israel, some feel they have lost the chance to do more damage to Hezbollah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the heads of Israel’s northern municipalities, which have been turned into ghost towns with around 60,000 civilians evacuated further south. Israel’s Ynet news website reported that it was an angry meeting that turned into a shouting match, with some of the local officials frustrated that Israel was taking the pressure off their enemies in Lebanon and not offering an immediate plan to get civilians home. In a newspaper column, the mayor of Kiryat Shmona, close to the border, said he doubted the ceasefire would be enforced, demanding that Israel creates a buffer zone in south Lebanon. In a poll commissioned by the Israeli station Channel 12 News those questioned were roughly split between supporters and opponents of the ceasefire. Half of the participants in the survey believe Hezbollah has not been defeated and 30% think the ceasefire will collapse.

MIAMI – The United States (US) Coast Guard says the crew of its “Cutter Vigilant” has returned home to Cape Canaveral in Florida after offloading more than 1,510 pounds of cocaine and 1,470 pounds of marijuana seized in the Caribbean Sea with a combined value of about US$18.5 million. The US Coast Guard said that during the Vigilant’s 54-day patrol, coast guard crews, working alongside interagency and international partners, seized the illegal drugs in the Caribbean Sea during two separate interdictions. Along with the illicit narcotics, the US Coast Guard said 15 suspected smugglers were apprehended and will face prosecution in federal courts by the US Department of Justice. The crew also rescued or assisted more than 40 people in the Caribbean before and after Hurricane Milton. “We are proud to work seamlessly with partner nations, partner agencies, and other coast guard assets to keep drugs off the streets and rescue people in distress during a very busy hurricane season. We look forward to returning to our community and families and celebrating Cutter Vigilant’s 60 years of service.” (Jamaicaobserver)

Russia’s widespread overnight attack targeting critical energy infrastructure facilities in Ukraine was a response to strikes on Russian territory using US-made ATACMS missiles, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

Putin claimed Russia hit 17 targets that were “military facilities, defense industry facilities and their support systems,” without acknowledging the hits to power infrastructure. “As I have said many times, there will always be a response from our side (to the use of American ATACMS),” Putin said during comments made at a security summit in Kazakhstan.

More than a million households in Ukraine were left without power following the aerial bombardment, authorities in the country said. This is Russia’s 11th large-scale assault on Ukraine’s energy supplies this year alone, according to the energy ministry in Kyiv, a strategy that has caused nationwide rolling blackouts.

Ukraine’s energy system came “under massive enemy attack,” overnight, Energy Minister German Halushchenko said Thursday, adding the attacks took place “all over Ukraine.” Bombardments have intensified in recent months, leaving Ukraine in a precarious position as the war grinds into its third winter.

In the immediate aftermath, Ukraine’s energy operator introduced emergency power cuts in many regions, with large outages in the western regions of Lviv, Volyn and Rivne. It has since shifted back to implementing scheduled hourly power cuts. At least five people were injured, including one person in the central Vinnytsia region, two in the southern Odesa region, and two in the capital Kyiv, officials said. In the city of Kharkiv, a missile struck a civilian business, according to local military authorities. (CNN)

Photo: People take shelter inside a metro station in Kyiv during Russia’s overnight attack. Alina. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is calling on Latin America and Caribbean countries (LAC) to coordinate fiscal and human resource management more closely to optimise government employment which accounts for a third of regional public expenditure. The IDB has released a comprehensive study titled “Better Government for Better Lives” that compiles data from the past 10 years on the professionalisation and modernisation of the civil service in Latin America and the Caribbean. It said this report provides a detailed overview of the region’s challenges and proposes a roadmap for building a more efficient, inclusive and resilient civil service. This third edition of the regional study reveals mixed progress on building capacities to boost the performance of the civil service. Some countries showed major progress while in others the gains have slowed over the last decade.

The study highlights improvements in planning and merit-based hiring, as well as training for public employees, an area driven by new technologies and the COVID-19 pandemic. “But challenges persist including: pay gaps that make it difficult to attract, motivate and retain talent; difficulty implementing performance evaluations, which is a common challenge in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries as well; and limited use of merit-based criteria for top leadership,” the IDB said.

The study also finds significant disparities in the maturity of civil service oversight among countries in the region. “As the fiscal environment becomes increasingly complex, trust in public institutions erodes and technology changes at a rapid pace, civil service plays a crucial role in making governments’ administrative work more efficient and effective. “Professionalising the civil service is essential to meet demands for more and better services and foster a merit-based, inclusive, efficient and transparent public administration,” said Paula Acosta, chief of the IDB Innovation for Citizens Services Division. (Jamaicaobserver)