Israel launches air strikes on Gaza, says troops attacked

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israel carried out air strikes Tuesday despite an ongoing ceasefire, after accusing Hamas of attacking its troops and violating the US-brokered truce.At least 11 people were killed in strikes targeting several parts of Gaza, the agency, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas, said.However, US Vice President JD Vance said that the ceasefire was holding despite Tuesday’s “skirmishes”.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “powerful strikes” on Gaza, his office said, as Defence Minister Israel Katz accused Hamas of attacking Israeli troops in Gaza.”Hamas’s attack today on IDF soldiers in Gaza is a crossing of a bright red line, to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Katz said in a statement.While Katz did not reveal where the troops were attacked, Hamas said its fighters had “no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah”.In comments broadcast on Fox News and posted on social media by the White House, Vance said the ceasefire was holding.”That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes,” said the vice president, one of several top US officials to rush to Israel last week to shore up the fragile ceasefire.”We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an IDF soldier. We expect the Israelis are going to respond — but I think the president’s peace is going to hold,” he added. Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least three strikes were carried out, while the territory’s main Al-Shifa hospital said one hit the backyard of the facility.Five people were killed when their vehicle was hit by an air strike, the agency reported.Hamas had announced it would hand over the body of another hostage on Tuesday as demanded by Israel under the ceasefire deal.The group had come under mounting pressure after it returned on Monday partial remains of a previously recovered captive, which Israel said was a breach of the truce.It later said it would delay Tuesday’s handover, adding that Israeli “escalation will hinder the search, excavation, and recovery of the bodies”.In AFP footage, several masked Hamas fighters are seen emerging from a tunnel carrying a body wrapped in a white plastic bag, believed to be that of a hostage Hamas had planned to hand over on Tuesday.Behind them trails a crowd of men and children, some raising their mobile phones to capture the moment.- ‘We want to rest’ – Hamas handed over late on Monday what it said was the 16th of 28 hostage bodies it had agreed to return under the ceasefire deal, which came into effect on October 10.But Israeli forensic examination determined Hamas had in fact handed over partial remains of a hostage whose body had already been brought back to Israel around two years ago, according to Netanyahu’s office.His office decried a “clear violation of the agreement” after identification procedures revealed the latest remains belonged “to the fallen hostage Ofir Tzarfati, who had been returned from the Gaza Strip in a military operation about two years ago”.Israeli government spokeswoman, Shosh Bedrosian, accused Hamas of staging the discovery of Tzarfati’s remains.”I can confirm to you today that Hamas dug a hole in the ground yesterday, placed the partial remains of Ofir inside of it, covered it back up with dirt, and handed it over to the Red Cross,” she told journalists.The Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the government to “act decisively against these violations” and accused Hamas of knowing the location of the missing hostages.Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem rejected claims the group knows where the remaining bodies are, arguing that Israel’s bombardment during the two-year war had left locations unrecognisable.- ‘Third set of remains’ -“The movement is determined to hand over the bodies of the Israeli captives as soon as possible once they are located,” he told AFP. Hamas has already returned all 20 living hostages as agreed in the ceasefire deal.On the ground in Gaza, 60-year-old Abdul-Hayy al-Hajj Ahmed told AFP he was afraid the war would start again because of the mounting pressure on Hamas.”Now they accuse Hamas of stalling, and that is a pretext for renewed escalation and war,” he said.”We want to rest. I believe the war will come back.”During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas militants took 251 people hostage, most of whom had been released, rescued or recovered before this month’s ceasefire.The attack itself resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza killed at least 68,531 people, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.Despite the ceasefire, the toll has continued to climb as more bodies are found under the rubble.The hostage forum said that this was the third time remains belonging to Ofir Tzarfati had been returned, after his body was recovered at the end of 2023, and additional remains were returned in March 2024.”The circle supposedly ‘closed’ back in December 2023, but it never truly closes,” Tzarfati’s family said in the statement from the forum.

Wall Street record rally rolls on

Wall Street stocks rose to fresh records again Tuesday as a jump in Nvidia shares added to bullishness over easing trade tensions and market-friendly central bank policy.”Record highs yesterday for the major indices weren’t enough,” said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.”The market is coming back for more this morning, heartened by recent earnings reports, visions of a rate cut dancing in its head, merger and acquisition activity, positive sentiment surrounding President Trump’s trip to Asia, and plain old momentum,” he added.All three major US indices climbed to records for the third straight session, with artificial intelligence player Nvidia piling on about five percent as the chipmaker announced new ventures and CEO Jensen Huang headlined a company event in Washington.In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 index also set a fresh record high, while Frankfurt and Paris stocks retreated. Asian stock markets mostly fell.Investors have overwhelmingly priced in a quarter-percentage-point interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve following its Wednesday meeting, and instead will be looking for clues from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on subsequent decisions.”With Powell, it’s not so much what he does, but really what he says going forward is what’s going to matter, and that’s going to move the needle,” said Adam Sarhan of 50 Park Investments.Donald Trump is due to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping Thursday in South Korea — and rosy comments by the US president have fueled optimism that the world’s two largest economies, China and the United States, can strike a deal to ease their trade war.Trump on Tuesday met Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo, where she lavished Trump with praise and vows of a “golden age” of ties, before inking a deal with Washington aimed at securing critical minerals.Japan’s Nikkei 225 index of leading stocks finished the day down 0.6 percent, after surging above 50,000 points Monday for the first time thanks to Takaichi’s pro-stimulus stance.Shares in Nokia soared more than 21 percent after the Finnish telecommunications equipment firm said Nvidia would take a 2.9-percent stake in it for $1 billion.Separately, Nvidia also announced an alliance with Uber to deploy 100,000 robotaxis starting in 2027.Shares in online retailing giant Amazon rose 1.0 percent after it said it would reduce staff by 14,000 posts as part of efforts to streamline operations, while boosting its AI endeavors.Markets also continued to follow earnings. Shares in package delivery giant UPS, which is in the midst of a strategic restructuring drive, jumped 8.0 percent after it beat analyst expectations with its third-quarter earnings. The company disclosed it has cut about 48,000 jobs over the last year. Shares in HSBC rose in London and Hong Kong as the global bank’s underlying profits beat expectations.Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis shed more than four percent after its latest earnings showed the group under pressure from US generic drugs.- Key figures at around 2020 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 47,706.37 (close) New York – S&P 500: UP 0.2 percent at 6,890.89 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.8 percent at 23,827.49 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.4 percent at 9,696.74 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.3 percent at 8,216.58 (close) Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.1 percent at 24,278.63 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.6 percent at 50,219.18 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.3 percent 26,346.14 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 3,988.22 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1656 from $1.1645 on MondayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3276 from $1.3336Dollar/yen: DOWN at 152.06 yen from 152.88 yenEuro/pound: UP at 87.80 from 87.32 penceBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.9 percent at $64.40 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.9 percent at $60.15 per barrelburs-jmb/bgs

Uber partners with Nvidia to deploy 100,000 robotaxis

Uber and Nvidia on Tuesday announced an alliance to deploy 100,000 robotaxis starting in 2027.”Together with Uber, we’re creating a framework for the entire industry to deploy autonomous fleets at scale, powered by Nvidia AI infrastructure,” Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said in a release.Nvidia also said it was working with car makers Stellantis, Lucid, and Mercedes-Benz to “bridge today’s human-driven mobility with the autonomous fleets of tomorrow.”The partnerships come as AI chip star Nvidia works to put itself at the core of self-driving vehicle systems.”Robotaxis mark the beginning of a global transformation in mobility — making transportation safer, cleaner and more efficient,” Huang said.”What was once science fiction is fast becoming an everyday reality.”Artificial intelligence, along with super-fast, reliable internet connectivity, promises to be essential to cars reacting safely and smartly on the road.”Nvidia is the backbone of the AI era and is now fully harnessing that innovation to unleash L4 (Level-4) autonomy at enormous scale,” said Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi.Level-4 autonomous vehicles can handle driving demands independently.It was unclear whether Uber planned to have human drivers in robotaxis as a safety measure in areas where such precaution is not mandated by regulations.The companies did not provide details of how quickly robotaxis would roll out or who would make them.”Ride-hailing platforms such as Uber are the ideal channels to deploy robotaxis at scale,” Marc Amblard, managing director of Orsay Consulting, told AFP.”Nvidia is the natural compute tech partner, working side by side with carmakers.”Uber currently lets users in a few US cities hail robotaxis operating by Google-owned Waymo.Uber may turn to Waymo or Chinese autonomous car companies for some of the technology needed, according to Amblard.Waymo recently announced plans to launch its robotaxis in London next year.London would mark the first foray into Europe for Waymo, already present in a growing number of US cities.Chinese internet giant Baidu earlier this year announced plans to launch robotaxis on the rideshare app Lyft in Germany and Britain in 2026, pending regulatory approval.Baidu had announced a similar agreement with Uber in Asia and the Middle East as it seeks to take pole position in the competitive autonomous driving field both at home and abroad.China’s tech companies and automakers have poured billions of dollars into self-driving technology in recent years, with intelligent driving the new battleground in the country’s cutthroat domestic car market.Baidu is not alone among Chinese companies in searching to expand its foothold abroad.

Soudan: craintes d’exactions massives après la prise d’El-Facher par les paramilitaires

Les craintes s’amplifient mardi pour la population civile dans le Soudan en guerre, après des accusations d’exactions massives dans la ville clé d’El-Facher prise par les paramilitaires, et la mort de cinq bénévoles du Croissant-Rouge.Dernier bastion de l’armée du général Abdel Fattah al-Burhane au Darfour, la ville a été prise dimanche par les Forces de soutien rapide (FSR) après plus de 18 mois de siège. Ces paramilitaires contrôlent désormais l’ensemble du Darfour, une vaste région couvrant le tiers du Soudan. Dans l’Etat voisin du Kordofan-Nord, la Fédération internationale des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge et du Croissant-Rouge a annoncé que cinq bénévoles soudanais du Croissant-Rouge avaient été tués à Bara, ville tenue par les FSR depuis samedi, et que trois autres étaient portés disparus.Les bénévoles étaient clairement identifiés par le port de gilets du Croissant-Rouge, a déclaré la Fédération dans un communiqué, qualifiant d'”inacceptable” toute attaque contre des humanitaires.A El-Facher, les Forces conjointes, alliées de l’armée, ont accusé les FSR d’avoir exécuté “plus de 2.000 civils désarmés” dimanche et lundi, “la plupart des femmes, des enfants et des personnes âgées”.- “Exécutions atroces” -Les FSR ont installé au Darfour une administration parallèle, défiant le pouvoir du général Burhane, dirigeant de facto du Soudan depuis le coup d’Etat de 2021, basé à Port-Soudan (est).La guerre, qui a éclaté en 2023 entre les paramilitaires et l’armée, a tué des dizaines de milliers de personnes, en a déraciné des millions d’autres et plongé le pays dans ce que l’ONU décrit comme “la pire crise humanitaire au monde.”Mardi, le Haut commissariat aux réfugiés de l’ONU a fait état de rapports d'”exécutions atroces” et de “violences sexuelles contre les femmes et les jeunes filles” commises par des groupes armés et s’inquiète de “l’escalade de violences brutales” depuis la chute d’El-Facher.Quelque 177.000 civils se trouvent encore dans la ville et ses environs, selon l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations.Dans un communiqué, des militants pro-démocratie ont accusé les FSR d’avoir tué des blessés qui recevaient des soins à l’hôpital saoudien d’El-Facher.L’Union africaine a condamné “les crimes de guerre présumés et les meurtres de civils ciblés en raison de leur appartenance ethnique”.Lundi, le Haut-Commissariat de l’ONU aux droits de l’homme avait déjà alerté sur le “risque croissant d’atrocités motivées par des considérations ethniques” en rappelant le passé du Darfour, ensanglanté au début des années 2000 par les massacres, les viols et les razzias des milices arabes Janjawid dont sont issues les FSR.Face aux flux d’images violentes qui circulent sur les réseaux sociaux, la branche politique des FSR a annoncé la formation d’un comité pour “vérifier l’authenticité des allégations et des vidéos”, en affirmant que beaucoup étaient des montages de l’armée et de ses alliés.Des “scènes choquantes” sont filmées “sans honte par les auteurs eux-mêmes”, a dénoncé sur X le ministère soudanais des Affaires étrangères, aligné sur l’armée.Le Humanitarian Research Lab de l’Université Yale (HRL), qui analyse des vidéos et des images satellite, conclut à “un processus systématique et intentionnel de nettoyage ethnique des communautés indigènes non arabes Fur, Zaghawa et Bartis, avec des déplacements forcés et des exécutions massives”. – “Le monde doit agir” -Des observations satellite sur des talus jonchés de corps en périphérie de la ville corroborent notamment les vidéos d’exécutions sommaires de civils tentant de fuir, selon le rapport publié lundi par le HRL.”Le niveau de violences et leur nombre au Darfour dépasse tout ce que j’ai vu jusqu’à présent”, a déclaré à l’AFP Nathaniel Raymond, le directeur du HRL. “Le monde doit agir immédiatement pour mettre la pression maximale sur les FSR et leurs soutiens, notamment les Emirats arabes unis, pour que cessent les tueries”, affirme le HRL. La perte d’El-Facher montre que “la voie politique est la seule option pour mettre fin à la guerre”, a déclaré le conseiller présidentiel émirati Anwar Gargash, en appelant à la ratification du plan du groupe dit du “Quad” (Etats-Unis, Arabie saoudite, Egypte et Emirats).Ce plan prévoit la formation d’un gouvernement civil de transition en y excluant le gouvernement pro-armée actuel et les FSR.La situation est d’autant plus complexe que les belligérants bénéficient chacun de soutiens étrangers cherchant à peser sur un pays riche en or.Les FSR ont reçu armes et drones des Emirats arabes unis, d’après des rapports de l’ONU, tandis que l’armée a bénéficié de l’appui de l’Egypte, de l’Arabie saoudite, de l’Iran et de la Turquie, selon des observateurs. Tous nient toute implication.

Florida man to be executed for neighbor’s murder

A 65-year-old man convicted of raping and murdering his neighbor is to be executed by lethal injection in the southern US state of Florida on Tuesday.Norman Grim has dropped appeals against his death sentence and is to be executed at 6:00 pm local time (2200 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.Grim was convicted of the 1998 murder and sexual battery of Cynthia Campbell, a 41-year-old lawyer who lived next door to him.There have been 40 executions in the United States this year, the most since 2012, when 43 inmates were put to death.Florida has carried out the most executions with 14. There have been five each in Alabama and Texas.Thirty-three of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, two by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”