Padang : The bodies of 11 climbers were recovered Monday after a furious eruption of the Mount Marapi volcano as Indonesian rescuers searched for at least 22 others reportedly missing.

Mount Marapi in Agam district in West Sumatra province spewed thick columns of ash as high as 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) into the sky in a sudden eruption Sunday and hot ash clouds spread several miles (kilometers). Villages and nearby towns were blanketed by tons of volcanic debris.

About 75 climbers started their way up the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain on Saturday and became stranded.

Eight of those rescued Sunday were rushed to hospitals with burn wounds and one also had a broken limb, said Hari Agustian, an official at the local Search and Rescue Agency in Padang, the provincial capital.

West Sumatra’s Search and Rescue Agency head Abdul Malik said rescuers on Monday morning found 11 bodies of climbers as they searched for those who still missing and rescued three others.

“The evacuation process of the bodies and survivors are still ongoing,” he said, adding that rescuers are still searching for 22 climbers reportedly still missing.

Israeli forces were searching building to building at Gaza’s main hospital Thursday as Hamas said the military had “destroyed” parts of the compound where deep concern has mounted for the up to thousands of Palestinians trapped inside.

Soldiers raided the Al-Shifa a day ago in the hunt for a command centre they say the militants built below the complex, a charge denied by Hamas and leaders of the hospital that has become a focal point of the war.

“The soldiers are proceeding one building at a time, searching each floor, all while hundreds of patients and medical staff remain in the complex,” an Israeli army official said.

Ashraf Al-Qudra, spokesman for the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, told AFP Israeli troops “destroyed the radiology service, and bombed the burns and dialysis departments”.

“Thousands of women, children, sick and wounded are in danger of death,” he said.

Before Israel first sent troops into the hospital complex on Wednesday, UN agencies estimated that 2,300 patients, staff and displaced civilians were sheltering at Al-Shifa without enough food, water and fuel for generators.

Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas in retaliation for the attacks of October 7, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw about 240 people hostage, according to Israeli officials.

The Israeli military says 51 of its troops have been killed in Gaza since fighting began.

But with the Hamas government media office saying the death toll from the offensive has now topped 11,500, including thousands of children, calls for a truce are mounting.

Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been caught in the war, with more than half rendered non-functioning by shortages, combat and damage, the UN has said.

The Red Crescent said a “violent attack” was underway on Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital, which was hit by a deadly strike on October 17.

Hamas blamed the blast on Israel, while Israel said a misfired Islamic Jihad group rocket was responsible, a position supported by US and some other western security officials.

“Israeli military tanks besiege Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza, and violent attack is underway. (Red Crescent) teams are unable to move and reach those who are injured,” the group said on social media.

The UN Security Council on Wednesday set aside deep divisions over the conflict to agree a resolution calling for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses” in fighting.

The resolution — which passed with abstentions from the United States, Britain and Russia — called on Hamas and Israel to protect civilians, “especially children”.

Israel has agreed to temporary localised pauses in fighting, but has rejected calls for a broader ceasefire.

“The @UN Security Council’s resolution is disconnected from reality and is meaningless,” Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, wrote on X.

He also reiterated the Israeli government’s war aims, saying: “Israel will continue to act until Hamas is destroyed and the hostages are returned.”

The Israeli foreign ministry called Thursday on the Security Council and the international community to “stand firm on the prompt release” of all those kidnapped.

“Extended humanitarian pauses are untenable as long as 239 abductees remain in the hands of Hamas terrorists,” it said.

Israel has concentrated its heavy bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza City, announcing this week the seizure of the parliament building, government offices, Hamas police headquarters and key port.

Israel’s army claimed an initial raid in Al-Shifa had uncovered military equipment, weapons and what spokesman Daniel Hagari described as “an operational headquarters with comms equipment”.

A video narrated by another Israeli army spokesman showed rifles and ammunition magazines inside an area he identified as Al-Shifa’s MRI scanner building.

“This was hidden very conveniently, secretly behind the MRI machine, said the spokesman, Jonathan Conricus.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza argued Wednesday the Israeli military did not find any weapons when it raided the hospital.

The death and suffering in the densely populated coastal territory has prompted growing concern for Gaza’s civilians, who have fled south to try to escape the heaviest combat.

Gaza City’s Al-Quds Hospital was evacuated during fighting in the area, forcing patients to make their way south to other facilities.

“We were in pain along the road… I feel pain in the knee,” said Ahmad Abou-Sabra, wounded evacuee.

“The situation was bad, and the distance. We stayed in the army (checkpoint) for more than two hours,” he told AFP at a Palestinian Red Crescent hospital in Khan Yunis.

Over a month after the Hamas attack, mourners gathered for the funeral of 74-year-old Israeli-Canadian peace activist Vivian Silver whose killing was confirmed days ago.

“Vivian was a woman who believed in peace. She was a woman who, in moments of despair, would bring us back the hope,” peace activist Ghadir Hani said. “She believed that, both in Gaza and around Gaza, we all deserve to live in peace.”

Call for war probe
UN human rights chief Volker Turk pointed to what he called serious allegations of international law violations in the Israel-Hamas war and suggested an international investigation was needed.

“Where national authorities prove unwilling or unable to carry out such investigations, and where there are contested narratives on particularly significant incidents, international investigation is called for,” he said in a briefing to UN member states in Geneva.

Polls in Israel show widespread public support for military action against Hamas following the October 7 attacks, the worst in the country’s history.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu, who has led Israel on-and-off for 16 years, is under intense domestic pressure to account for political and security failings surrounding the attack.

Protesters have taken to the streets demanding greater efforts to free the hostages.

Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel’s high-tech “Iron Wall” and launched an attack that would leave more than 1,200 Israelis dead, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal.

A slickly produced two-minute propaganda video posted to social media by Hamas on Sept. 12 shows fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.

The Islamic militant group’s live-fire exercise dubbed operation “Strong Pillar” also had militants in body armor and combat fatigues carrying out operations that included the destruction of mock-ups of the wall’s concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real in the deadly attack last Saturday.

While Israel’s highly regarded security and intelligence services were clearly caught flatfooted by Hamas’ ability to breach its Gaza defenses, the group appears to have hidden its extensive preparations for the deadly assault in plain sight.

“There clearly were warnings and indications that should have been picked up,” said Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer who is now senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute. “Or maybe they were picked up, but they didn’t spark necessary preparations to prevent these horrific terrorist acts from happening.”

The Associated Press reviewed and verified key details from dozens of videos Hamas released over the last year, primarily through the social media app Telegram.

Using satellite imagery, the AP matched the location of the mocked-up town to a patch of desert outside Al-Mawasi, a Palestinian town on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip. A large sign in Hebrew and Arabic at the gate says “Horesh Yaron,” the name of a controversial Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

Bowman said there are indications that Hamas intentionally led Israeli officials to believe it was preparing to carry out raids in the West Bank, rather than Gaza. It was also potentially significant that the exercise has been held annually since 2020 in December, but was moved up by nearly four months this year to coincide with the anniversary of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.

In a separate video posted to Telegram from last year’s Strong Pillar exercise on Dec. 28, Hamas fighters are shown storming what appears to be a mockup Israeli military base, complete with a full-size model of a tank with an Israeli flag flying from its turret. The gunmen move through the cinderblock buildings, seizing other men playing the roles of Israeli soldiers as hostages.

Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli colonel who previously led the military intelligence department overseeing the Palestinian territories, said he was aware of the Hamas videos, but he was still caught off guard by the ambition and scale of Saturday’s attack.

“We knew about the drones, we knew about booby traps, we knew about cyberattacks and the marine forces … The surprise was the coordination between all those systems,” Milshtein said.

The seeds of Israel’s failure to anticipate and stop Saturday’s attack go back at least a decade. Faced with recurring attacks from Hamas militants tunneling under Israel’s border fence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a very concrete solution — build a bigger wall.

With financial help from U.S. taxpayers, Israel completed construction of a $1.1 billion project to fortify its existing defenses along its 40-mile land border with Gaza in 2021. The new, upgraded barrier includes a “smart fence” up to 6-meters (19.7 feet) high, festooned with cameras that can see in the dark, razor wire and seismic sensors capable of detecting the digging of tunnels more than 200 feet below. Manned guard posts were replaced with concrete towers topped with remote-controlled machine guns.

“In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts,” Netanyahu said in 2016, referring to Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. “At the end of the day as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding Israel in its entirety.”

Shortly after dawn on Saturday, Hamas fighters pushed through Netanyahu’s wall in a matter of minutes. And they did it on the relative cheap, using explosive charges to blow holes in the barrier and then sending in bulldozers to widen the breaches as fighters streamed through on motorcycles and in pick-up trucks. Cameras and communications gear were bombarded by off-the-shelf commercial drones adapted to drop hand grenades and mortar shells — a tactic borrowed directly from the battlefields of Ukraine.

Snipers took out Israel’s sophisticated roboguns by targeting their exposed ammunition boxes, causing them to explode. Militants armed with assault rifles sailed over the Israeli defenses slung under paragliders, providing Hamas airborne troops despite lacking airplanes. Increasingly sophisticated homemade rockets, capable of striking Israel’s capital of Tel Aviv, substituted for a lack of heavy artillery.

Satellite images analyzed by the AP show the massive extent of the damage done at the heavily fortified Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The images taken Sunday and analyzed Tuesday showed gaping holes in three sections of the border wall, the largest more than 70 meters (230 feet) wide.

Once the wall was breached, Hamas fighters streamed through by the hundreds. A video showed a lone Israeli battle tank rushing to the sight of the attack, only to be attacked and quickly destroyed in a ball of flame. Hamas then disabled radio towers and radar sites, likely impeding the ability of the Israeli commanders to see and understand the extent of the attack.

Hamas forces also struck a nearby army base near Zikim, engaging in an intense firefight with Israeli troops before overrunning the post. Videos posted by Hamas show graphic scenes with dozens of dead Israeli soldiers.

They then fanned out across the countryside of Southern Israel, attacking kibbutzim and a music festival. On the bodies of some of the Hamas militants killed during the invasion were detailed maps showing planned zones and routes of attack, according to images posted by Israeli first responders who recovered some of the corpses. Israeli authorities announced Wednesday they had recovered the bodies of about 1,500 Islamic fighters, though no details were provided about where they were found or how they died.

Military experts told the AP the attack showed a level of sophistication not previously exhibited by Hamas, likely suggesting they had external help.

“I just was impressed with Hamas’s ability to use basics and fundamentals to be able to penetrate the wall,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Stephen Danner, a combat engineer trained to build and breach defenses. “They seemed to be able to find those weak spots and penetrate quickly and then exploit that breach.”

Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based senior Hamas official, acknowledged that over the years the group had received supplies, financial support, military expertise and training from its allies abroad, including Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But he insisted the recent operation to breach Israel’s border defenses was homegrown, with the exact date and time for the attack known only to a handful of commanders within Hamas.

Details of the operation were kept so tight that some Hamas fighters who took part in the assault Saturday believed they were heading to just another drill, showing up in street clothes rather than their uniforms, Barakeh said.

Last weekend’s devastating surprise attack has shaken political support for Netanyahu within Israel, who pushed ahead with spending big to build walls despite some within his own cabinet and military warning that it probably wouldn’t work.

In the days since Hamas struck, senior Israeli officials have largely deflected questions about the wall and the apparent intelligence failure. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, acknowledged the military owes the public an explanation, but said now is not the time.

“First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.

In his push to build border walls, Netanyahu found an enthusiastic partner in then-President Donald Trump, who praised Netanyahu’s Iron Wall as a potential model for the expanded barrier he planned for the U.S. Southern border with Mexico.

Under Trump, the U.S. expanded a joint initiative with Israel started under the Obama Administration to develop technologies for detecting underground tunnels along the Gaza border defenses. Since 2016, Congress has appropriated $320 million toward the project.

But even with all its high-tech gadgets, the Iron Wall was still largely just a physical barrier that could be breached, said Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst with the London-based consulting firm Control Risks.

“The fence, no matter how many sensors … no matter how deep the underground obstacles go, at the end of the day, it’s effectively a metal fence,” he said. “Explosives, bulldozers can eventually get through it. What was remarkable was Hamas’s capability to keep all the preparations under wraps.”

The researchers discovered that just half of the people matched the nutritional value of their meals and snacks. This disparity has a detrimental impact on health indicators like blood sugar and fat levels, and addressing it may be as simple as changing one’s diet.

With unhealthy snacks, 25 per cent of people nullify the positive effects of healthy meals, increasing their risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

Dr Sarah Berry from King’s College London and chief scientist at ZOE said, “Considering 95 per cent of us snack, and that nearly a quarter of our calories come from snacks, swapping unhealthy snacks such as cookies, crisps and cakes to healthy snacks like fruit and nuts is a really simple way to improve your health.”

Contrary to what is often believed, the analysis demonstrated that snacking is not harmful as long as the snacks are nutritious. Compared to those who don’t snack at all or who nibble on harmful foods, people who frequently eat high-quality snacks like nuts and fresh fruits are more likely to have a healthy weight. Analysis revealed that high-quality snacks can help improve metabolic health and reduce appetite.

However, a quarter of the individuals claimed to consume unhealthy snacks in addition to healthy main meals. Poor-quality snacks, such as heavily processed foods and sweets, made people feel hungry and were linked to worse health markers.

Unhealthy snacks have been connected to higher BMI, visceral fat mass, and postprandial triglyceride concentrations, all of which are linked to metabolic diseases like obesity, stroke, and cardiovascular disease. Your health may also depend on when you eat your snacks. Research has shown that snacking after 9 p.m. was linked to blood indicators that were worse than at any other time. Snacks at this time typically consisted of calorie-dense, high-fat and sugar items.

Dr Kate Bermingham from King’s College London and senior scientist at ZOE said, “This study contributes to the existing literature that food quality is the driving factor in positive health outcomes from food. Making sure we eat a balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, protein and legumes is the best way to improve your health.” 

Islamabad: Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwaar-ul Haq Kakar on Friday refused to give a date for the country’s general elections, asserting that it was the job of the election authorities.

Kakar was speaking at a press conference after a meeting at the PM House when he was asked if he would like to set a date for the upcoming national elections.

“If I were to announce elections, I would be engaging in an unlawful act, and as a journalist, you should be aware that if you steer us towards illegal actions and pose questions that might tempt us to break the law, then what should my response be?” he said.

He was asked the same question earlier this week and responded that it was for the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to decide a date.

The date for the general elections has become a controversial matter in Pakistan as polls should be held within a constitutionally mandated 90-day period after the dissolution of the National Assembly, which was done on August 9.

However, just days before the end of its term, the previous government endorsed the results of the countrywide census.

The decision made it mandatory for the election commission to devise new electoral districts before elections, for which it has been provided 120 days by the country’s constitution.

The ECP has announced to complete the delimitation process by November 30 and then announce election schedules, which are expected to be held in January. However, President Ari Alvi and some political parties insist the elections should be held within 90 days.

In a letter to the ECP chief this week, Alvi, who was a founding member of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, proposed November 6 as the day for the polls, but the top election body has so far not commented on the suggestion.

It is believed that polls will be held somewhere in January, but without a firm date, rumours are making rounds about the intention of the caretaker set-up to prolong its tenure. Earlier this week, Kakar clarified that the interim government had no intention of extending its term.

He had sided with the ECP and said on a Geo News programme that, per the law, deciding the date for general elections was the ECP’s prerogative.

Taipei: China will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test result for incoming travellers starting Wednesday, a milestone in its reopening to the rest of the world after a three-year isolation that began with the country’s borders closing in March 2020.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced the change at a briefing in Beijing on Monday.

China in January ended quarantine requirements for its own citizens traveling from abroad, and over the past few months has gradually expanded the list of countries that Chinese people can travel to and increased the number of international flights.

Beijing ended its tough domestic “zero COVID” policy only in December, after years of draconian curbs that at times included full-city lockdowns and lengthy quarantines for people who were infected.

The restrictions slowed the world’s second-largest economy, leading to rising unemployment and occasional instances of unrest.

As part of those measures, incoming travelers were required to isolate for weeks at government-designated hotels. Residents were in some cases forcibly locked into their homes in attempts to stop the virus from spreading.

Protests in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing erupted in November over the COVID curbs, in the most direct challenge to the Communist Party’s rule since the Tiananmen protests of 1989.

In early December, authorities abruptly scrapped most COVID controls, ushering in a wave of infections that overwhelmed hospitals and morgues.

A U.S. federally funded study this month found the rapid dismantling of the “zero COVID” policy may have led to nearly 2 million excess deaths in the following two months. That number greatly exceeds official estimates of 60,000 deaths within a month of the lifting of the curbs.

During the years of “zero COVID,” local authorities occasionally imposed snap lockdowns in attempts to isolate infections, trapping people inside offices and apartment buildings.

From April until June last year, the city of Shanghai locked down its 25 million residents in one of the world’s largest pandemic-related mass lockdowns. Residents were required to take frequent PCR tests and had to rely on government food supplies, often described as insufficient.

Throughout the pandemic, Beijing touted its “zero COVID” policy and the initial relatively low number of infections as an example of the superiority of China’s political system over that of Western democracies.

Since lifting the COVID curbs, the government has been contending with a sluggish economic recovery. The restrictions, coupled with diplomatic frictions with the United States and other Western democracies, have driven some foreign companies to reduce their investments in China.

BEIJING: The death toll from record-breaking rains across northern China rose to at least 78 on Friday, as authorities warned of more flooding and another storm approached the country.

Deaths from flooding in Hebei province rose to 29, state media reported Friday, after Storm Doksuri, which hit mainland China as a typhoon two weeks ago, brought on the most severe rainfall since records began 140 years ago.

The deluge followed weeks of historic heat, with scientists saying such extreme weather events are being exacerbated by climate change.

Streets in parts of Hebei, which borders the capital, were still caked in mud when AFP visited on Wednesday.

Residents were scrambling to recover waterlogged belongings and clean up damaged homes.

During a visit to affected communities last week, Hebei province party chief Ni Yuefeng said that the area could “reduce the pressure on Beijing’s flood control” and serve as a “moat” for the capital.

As of Thursday, 29 people had been killed by the rains across the province, six of whom had been previously listed as missing, state broadcaster CCTV said Friday. Sixteen are still missing.

In Beijing, at least 33 people have died, including two rescue workers, authorities said this week.

And more than a dozen people were killed in northeastern Jilin province after torrential rain last week.

In neighbouring Liaoning province, two deaths were reported after the first few days of intense rain in late July.

On Friday, state news agency Xinhua said that another flood control team had been sent to the province, where “the local flooding situation remains severe”.

Heavy rains are expected again over the weekend as tropical depression Khanun — formerly a typhoon — approaches China.

Emergency alert levels are being held in place across northern China, Xinhua said, with key riverways being closely monitored.

Heavy damage
China’s state media has hailed the government’s efforts to mitigate damage from the inundations, with coverage focused on tales of mutual aid and selfless officials working tirelessly on rescue efforts.

But a week after the waters first swelled, some villagers in Hebei told AFP they did not receive adequate warning from the authorities about when the floods would come.

The Chinese government on Wednesday said it would allocate one billion yuan ($139 million) to compensate residents in areas that had been inundated to control flood levels in downstream areas.

The fund would pay for “damage to crops, animal and poultry farms, commercial forests, houses and agricultural machinery”, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

In Hebei alone, officials said almost four million people had been affected by the flooding, with 40,900 houses having collapsed, according to local media.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops have been damaged in the province.

Insurance providers in Beijing are paying out at least 380 million yuan in claims for losses caused by the recent rains, according to Xinhua.

The bad weather is not limited to northern China.

On Friday, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said heavy rain was also likely over the weekend in the southwestern provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, and the northwestern provinces of Gansu and Qinghai, according to Xinhua.

At least seven people died in a flash flood southwest of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu this week, after an unexpected tide of water washed away a number of tourists on the Longxi River.

And in Gansu, five people were killed when they were swept away by mountain torrents after a rainstorm alert on Thursday, Xinhua said.

COLOMBO: French President Emmanuel Macron pledged strong support for the island nation’s debt restructuring and discussed ways to enhance bilateral relations with his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe during a historic visit to Colombo.

The first-ever visit by a French president to Sri Lanka took place as the two countries celebrate 75 years of diplomatic ties this year.

Macron, who was on his return home from a 5-day visit to the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, was met by Wickremesinghe at the airport and spent over two hours in Colombo on Friday.

His visit marked the first time a French President visited Sri Lanka.

Wickremesinghe and Macron held “friendly and productive” bilateral discussions to enhance and elevate the existing relations between Sri Lanka and France, the President’s Media Division said in a statement on Saturday.

The discussions figured on Sri Lanka’s ongoing debt restructuring process.

Macron reaffirmed France’s willingness and commitment to support Sri Lanka in its economic recovery.

As Colombo’s fourth-largest creditor, France pledged its assistance in the debt restructuring process, aiming for a positive outcome for the country, the statement said.

Sri Lanka was hit by an unprecedented financial crisis in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, due to a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves.

“Sri Lanka and France are two nations in the Indian Ocean sharing the same goal: an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific. In Colombo, we confirmed it: strong as in our 75 years of diplomatic relations, we would open a new era to our partnership,” Macron tweeted after the meeting.h

The discussions during the over-one-hour meeting between the two presidents focused on strengthening cooperation in various sectors, including politics, economics, tourism, climate change, sustainable development, and maritime activities.

As part of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations, several specific areas for further collaboration were identified, according to the statement.

“These areas of cooperation included the establishment of a school for maritime safety and security, the opening of a permanent office for the French Agency for Development (AFD) in Sri Lanka, the initiation of high-level diplomatic dialogues, cooperation in the education sector, and the enhancement of efforts to combat human trafficking in the maritime safety and security sector,” the statement reads.

Additionally, both leaders exchanged views on regional and multilateral interests in the current global context.

Macron expressed keen interest in collaborating with Sri Lanka during its upcoming chairmanship of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), of which France is a member.

Wickremesinghe showed interest in the Indian Ocean Commission, where France actively participates, and conveyed Sri Lanka’s agreement to join the Paris Agenda for the People and the Planet, emphasising the island nation’s commitment to global efforts for a sustainable future.

He also expressed admiration for France’s significant role in global affairs, particularly in areas such as climate mitigation, global debt restructuring, and matters related to the Indo-Pacific region.

In June, Wickremesinghe met Macron in Paris during the heads of state sessions of the conference for a New Global Financing Pact.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa also arrived Friday night on a two-day visit and paid a courtesy call on Wickremesinghe on Saturday.