As a child growing up in northern Nigeria, Dr. Funmi Adewara experienced a severe hand injury that required multiple surgeries and frequent hospital visits.

These visits exposed her to the harsh realities of the country’s healthcare system. “I remember sitting in overcrowded waiting rooms, watching doctors stretched thin, unable to meet the needs of so many patients,” Adewara recalls.

This formative experience ignited her passion for transforming healthcare in Africa.

Growing up with a mother who worked as a nurse, Adewara’s understanding of healthcare challenges deepened through her mother’s stories.

“I knew early on that healthcare wasn’t a privilege — it was a necessity, and I wanted to be part of changing the system,” she explains.

After training as a physician, Adewara worked for 15 years in the UK’s National Health Service before founding the telemedicine platform Mobihealth in 2017.

Since its launch, Mobihealth has impacted thousands of lives, connecting patients with doctors and healthcare professionals across Nigeria and beyond.

The platform has 20 integrated telehealth clinics that offer remote consultations, diagnostics, and access to specialist care via digital health tools. Located primarily in Nigeria, these clinics are accessible to patients through various subscription plans, and are often financed through partnerships with global donor organizations and private donors.

In addition to the clinics, Mobihealth has partnerships with over 200 hospitals, labs, and pharmacies, Adewara says.

The company has earned global recognition, including a $1 million grant from the US Trade and Development Agency in 2022. Adewara was also one of the World Bank’s seven 2020 SDGs & Her award winners, selected from over 2,400 entries worldwide.

Connecting rural patients

Across sub-Saharan Africa, millions struggle to access basic healthcare. According to the World Health Organization, the region bears 25% of the global disease burden but has only 3% of the world’s healthcare workers.

“In rural Africa, a trip to the nearest hospital can mean the difference between life and death,” says Adewara.

Mobihealth’s latest initiative offers healthcare for $1 a month for rural and underserved populations. It allows Africans in the diaspora — and global supporters — to sponsor essential services like doctor consultations, diagnostic tests and access to telemedicine clinics. The scheme is not solely based on donations; individuals can also subscribe to the service for themselves.

“Healthcare systems across Africa are under immense pressure,” Adewara explains. “Our initiative is a direct response, using technology to connect rural patients with doctors thousands of miles away.”

For Adewara, Mobihealth’s telemedicine platform is not a temporary fix; it represents the future of healthcare in Africa.

“This is about creating a resilient, sustainable and inclusive system, where people, no matter where they are, can access the care they need,” she says.

“Telemedicine brings doctors to people, wherever they may be. By integrating AI and remote monitoring, we are improving the speed and accuracy of care, saving lives in the process,” she adds.

A number of African companies provide telemedicine services, but researchers have pointed out that there are obstacles that could hinder the growth of telemedicine in the continent. Rural areas can have an unreliable electricity supply and poor internet connectivity, and there is often a lack of government policies and funding around virtual healthcare.

“A healthcare system for the future”

Adewara envisions scaling her company’s model to reach millions more across Africa, particularly in countries like Ghana, Kenya and Ivory Coast.

“Our work is just beginning,” she says. “We are building a healthcare system for the future — one that is resilient, inclusive and capable of meeting Africa’s growing population’s needs.”

However, partnerships are crucial to achieving this vision. “We can’t do this alone. Our collaborations with the African diaspora, hospitals, governments, and international organizations allow us to reach more people and ensure that healthcare is affordable, efficient and accessible,” Adewara adds.

A Russian man has been rescued after 67 days adrift on a small boat in the bitterly cold Sea of Okhotsk, Russian authorities said Tuesday.

The man’s brother and his teenage son died in the ordeal, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti, who named the survivor as 46-year-old Mikhail Pichugin.

Video of the rescue released by Russian prosecutors shows a bearded man in an orange lifejacket floating on a small catamaran-type vessel with a red flag raised on a pole, as emergency responders work to reach him.

The Sea of Okhotsk is mostly enclosed by Russia’s eastern Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. It usually freezes over between October and March, and it ranks as the coldest sea in East Asia.

Two adult men and the 15-year-old son of one of them set off on the catamaran on August 9, prosecutors said.

“After some time, contact with them was lost, their location remained unknown,” a spokesperson for Russia’s far eastern transport prosecutor’s office, Elena Krasnoyarova, said.

“On October 14, around 22:00 the catamaran was spotted by a fishing boat passing in the Sea of Okhotsk near the Ust-Khayryuzovo settlement in the Kamchatka region,” she added.

Prosecutors said they are still working to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident and investigating charges of water traffic safety violations, resulting in the death of two or more people through negligence.

The rescued man’s wife told Russian state media that his weight could have played a role in his survival, given he weighed about 220lbs (100 kg). She told RIA that Pichugin and his late brother and nephew had enough food to last for about two weeks.

Pichugin will be taken to a hospital for medical treatment in the town of Magadan, in Russia’s far east, RIA reported.

He is “in serious condition, emaciated, but conscious,” the director of the fishing company that stumbled upon the adrift boat told RIA.

North Korea blew up parts of two major roads connected to the southern part of the peninsula on Tuesday, South Korean authorities said, after Pyongyang warned it would take steps to completely cut off its territory from the South.

Parts of the Gyeongui line on the West coast and Donghae line on the East coast, two major road and railway links connecting the North and South, were destroyed by explosives at around 12 p.m. Korean local time, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

In practical terms, the destruction of the travel routes makes little difference – the two Koreas remain divided by one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders and the roads were not in use for years. But its symbolism comes at a time of particularly fiery rhetoric between the two Korean leaders.

Video shared by the South Korean Defense Ministry showed several explosions on roads on the north side of the military demarcation line that separates two Koreas. Heavy machinery including trucks and excavators were then deployed to at least one of the roads, which was partially blocked by a black barrier, according to the video. The JCS said the North was conducting “additional works with heavy machinery” at the scene, but didn’t specify further.

In response to the explosions, the South Korean military fired artillery within the area south of the military demarcation line and is closely monitoring the North Korean military’s movements, maintaining “fully readiness posture under cooperation with the US,” the JCS said.

On Monday, South Korea said it had detected signs that North Korea was preparing to demolish roads that connect the two countries, warning that the explosions could occur imminently. Its military had implemented countermeasures, the Defense Ministry said, but did not provide specifics.

A spokesman for the JCS, Lee Sung-joon, said the South Korean military detected people working behind barriers installed on the roads on the North’s side of the border.

The blasts come a few days after North Korea accused South Korea of flying propaganda-filled drones over its capital Pyongyang and threatened “retaliation,” in the latest tit-for-tat exchange following months of Pyongyang sending trash-laden balloons to the South.

Last week, North Korea’s army warned that it would take the “substantial military step” of completely cutting off its territory from South Korea, after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un scrapped a longstanding policy of seeking peaceful reunification with the South earlier this year.

North and South Korea have been separated since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice agreement. The two sides are still technically at war, but both governments had long sought the goal of one day reunifying.

In January, Kim said North Korea would no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with South Korea, calling inter-Korean relations “a relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war,” KCNA reported at the time.

An ‘acute military situation’

In a statement carried by state-run news agency KCNA on October 9, the general staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) declared that remaining roads and railways connected to the South would be completely cut, blocking access along the border.

“The acute military situation prevailing on the Korean peninsula requires the armed forces of the DPRK to take a more resolute and stronger measure in order to more creditably defend the national security,” he said in the KCNA notice that referred to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The general staff said the measures were a response to recent “war exercises” held in South Korea and visits by what it claims were US strategic nuclear assets in the region. Over the past year, a US aircraft carrier, amphibious assault ships, long-range bombers and submarines have visited South Korea, drawing angry rebukes from Pyongyang.

Since January, Pyongyang has fortified its border defenses, laying land mines, building anti-tank traps and removing railway infrastructure, according to the South Korean military.

The North and South Korean leaders have also ramped up the use of fiery rhetoric.

Earlier this month, Kim threatened to use nuclear weapons to destroy South Korea if attacked, after South Korea’s president warned that if the North used nuclear weapons it would “face the end of its regime.”

The comments came as North Korea appears to have intensified its nuclear production efforts and strengthened ties with Russia, deepening widespread concern in the West over the isolated nation’s direction.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, suggests North Korea’s move to cut its territory off from the South could be a way for Kim to “shift blame for its economic failures and legitimize its costly buildup of missiles and nuclear weapons” by exaggerating external threats.

“Kim Jong Un wants domestic and international audiences to believe he is acting out of military strength, but he may actually be motivated by political weakness,” he said. “North Korea’s threats, both real and rhetorical, reflect the regime survival strategy of a hereditary dictatorship.”

She appeared to be a beautiful woman and in the minds of men across Asia, the video calls they spoke on confirmed their newfound love was real.

But Hong Kong police say the men had fallen prey to a romance scam that used deepfake artificial intelligence to lure its victims into parting with more than $46 million.

In a news conference Monday, police in the Asian financial hub announced the arrests of more than two dozen members of the alleged scam ring, which they say targeted men from Taiwan to Singapore and as far away as India.

Police said the 21 men and six women were held on charges including conspiracy to defraud following a raid on the gang’s alleged operating center at a 4,000-square-foot industrial unit in the city’s Hung Hom district.

Aged 21 to 34, the suspects were mostly well-educated, with many of them digital media and technology graduates allegedly recruited by the gang after attending local universities, police said. The suspects allegedly worked with IT specialists overseas to build a fake cryptocurrency platform, where the victims were coerced to make investments, police added.

Deepfakes are comprised of realistic fake video, audio and other content created with the help of AI. The technology is being increasingly adopted by a variety of bad actors, from people wishing to spread convincing disinformation to online scammers.

“Pig-butchering” scams – named for the “fattening up” of victims before taking everything they have – are a multibillion-dollar illicit industry in which the con artists take on false online identities and spend months grooming their targets to get them to invest on bogus crypto sites. Deepfakes are one more weapon in their arsenal to try and convince unsuspecting marks to part with money.

Typically run by Chinese gangs out of Southeast Asia, it is unclear how widespread the crime is in Hong Kong, a wealthy city where police have long campaigned to raise awareness of telephone scams following several high-profile cases in which the victims –often elderly people – reported staggeringly high losses.

But increasingly realistic deepfake technology has raised the stakes and put authorities on high alert.

Earlier this year, a British multinational design and engineering company in Hong Kong lost $25 million to fraudsters after an employee was duped by scammers using deepfake tech to pose as its chief financial officer and other staff.

According to Hong Kong police, the romance gang’s deepfake scam typically began with a text message, in which the sender – posing as an attractive woman – said they had mistakenly added the wrong number.

The alleged scammers then struck up online romances with their victims, fostering a sense of intimacy until they began planning a future together.

The group was highly organized, divided into departments responsible for different stages of the scam, police said. They even used a training manual to teach members how to carry out the con by taking advantage of “the victim’s sincerity and emotion,” said police, who posted parts of the manual on Facebook.

Among the steps: learning about the victim’s worldview to create a “tailor-made” persona; inventing difficulties such as failed relationships or businesses to “deepen the other person’s trust”; and finally, painting a “beautiful vision” including travel plans together to push the victim into investing.

The scam ran for about a year before police received intelligence about it around August, police said. More than 100 cell phones, the equivalent of nearly $26,000 in cash and a number of luxury watches were recovered in the raid, police said.

China flew a record number of fighter jets and other warplanes around Taiwan during its large-scale military drills on Monday, the island’s Defense Ministry said.

The one-day military exercises, which involved Chinese fighter jets, drones, warships and Coast Guard vessels simulating a blockade of the self-governing island, was condemned by Taiwan as an “unreasonable provocation” and is the latest in a series of recent war games conducted by Beijing against its neighbor.

According to the ministry, 153 Chinese aircraft were detected around Taiwan in a 25-hour period between Monday and Tuesday.

Of those, 111 warplanes crossed the Median Line – an informal demarcation point in the Taiwan Strait that Beijing does not recognize, but until recent years had largely respected – and entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

An ADIZ is unilaterally imposed and distinct from sovereign airspace, which is defined under international law as extending 12 nautical miles from a territory’s shoreline. No Chinese warplanes were spotted entering Taiwan’s sovereign airspace, a step that would be considered a major escalation.

While not directly comparable, the spike in Chinese warplanes on Monday superseded the previous daily record in September 2023, when 103 Chinese military aircraft were detected operating around Taiwan in a 24-hour span.

In response to the latest incursions, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it employed its own aircraft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems to monitor the activity.

China said its military drills were intended as a “stern waning” to independence forces in Taiwan and came days after the island’s new president, Lai Ching-te, gave a speech vowing to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty in the face of challenges from Beijing.

Taiwan “is not subordinate” to China, Lai said on Taiwan’s National Day Thursday, and Beijing “does not have the right to represent Taiwan.”

China’s military exercises around Taiwan, a democracy of 24 million people, have become increasingly frequent in recent years and have tended to coincide with events that have angered Beijing.

Those drills allow China to monitor Taiwan’s responses and also tax the island’s own military resources including its aging and outgunned fleet of fighter jets.

Analysts said Monday’s drills were part of a general strategy of both keeping Taiwan under pressure and normalizing regular war games.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it. It has long vowed that the island must be “unified” with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary, while the Taiwanese authorities strongly reject China’s territorial claims over it. Many people on the island view themselves as distinctly Taiwanese.

The People’s Liberation Army said the drills were a joint operation of the army, navy, air force and rocket force, and were conducted in the Taiwan Strait – a narrow body of water separating the island from mainland China – as well as encircling Taiwan.

A map released by the Eastern Theater Command showed drills taking place in nine areas surrounding Taiwan as well as its outlying islands that are closer to mainland China.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry added that 14 warships were detected around Taiwan over the same 25-hour period. Among them was the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, which moved into a location to the east of the island.

During the military exercise, none of China’s naval vessels successfully entered Taiwan’s contiguous zone, which is defined under international law as extending 24 nautical miles from a territory’s shoreline, the ministry said in a press conference on Monday evening.

Analysts, however, said the drills were “highly dangerous,” and because they are “approaching, closer and closer,” will “leave us [with] a very short response time.”

The Chinese military said it kicked off the Joint Sword 2024-B drills at 5 a.m. local time Monday. By 6 p.m. an updated statement announced that it had “successfully” completed the exercises.

According to a flight map provided by Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, Chinese jets were detected around the island after China’s announcement that it had wrapped up its war games.

Both parents were wearing stickers with “374” written on them to mark the number of days that have passed since the hostages were taken captive to Gaza by Hamas.

“I was certain that we were going to see a global demand for action and I’m still waiting for it. The world failed us … the world failed so many of these hostages, including Hersh,” Polin said.

Goldberg-Polin was one of six hostages whose bodies were discovered by the Israeli military in tunnels under Gaza shortly after they had been killed by Hamas.

Polin said when he and his wife had voiced concerns that Hamas might execute the hostages as military pressure mounted, Israeli officials had reassured them such an outcome was highly unlikely.

Along with two of the other murdered hostages, Goldberg-Polin had been expected to be released during the first phase of an eventual ceasefire agreement. The hostage deaths led to widespread anger and nationwide protests in Israel over the failure by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to strike a hostages-for-ceasefire deal.

“We worried a little bit about that all along. Within all our optimism that we were going to get Hersh home, there was some doubt in the back of our minds that it could end this way,” he said. “I worry that if we don’t save others soon, there are going to be other families getting the horrific news that we’ve received.”

Goldberg urged “people in power” to “go save the 101” hostages remaining in Gaza. “There are thousands and thousands of people suffering in Gaza. Some of them have lived there for many years and some of them have lived there for 374 days and it’s time to bring them home,” she told Cooper.

Goldberg-Polin’s parents have been among the most vocal of the hostage families pushing Netanyahu to seek a deal securing their relatives’ return. They’ve also regularly met top US officials in Washington to press the case of the hostages.

Goldberg-Polin was among the hundreds of young people who attended the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, the day Hamas launched its surprise attacks in which more than 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

He and some of his friends hid in a bomb shelter but became trapped by militants who began to lob grenades into the bunker. Goldberg-Polin helped to throw some of those grenades back out of the shelter before his left arm was blown off from the elbow down, according to a firsthand account from one of his friends.

Footage taken on the day of that attack showed Goldberg-Polin being marched out of the shelter – with his hand blown off and bone protruding from his wrist – and thrown along with four others into the back of a truck.

His parents told Cooper that Goldberg-Polin and the others had later been held in a tunnel 65 feet (20 meters) underground that was just 2 feet wide and 5-and-a-half feet high – too small for the 6ft tall Goldberg-Polin to stand in. They were also severely malnourished. By the time of his death, Goldberg-Polin weighed just 115 pounds (52 kilograms), his father said.

They also shared details of his final moments, saying it appeared he had used his remaining hand in an attempt to shield himself.

“It seems that when he was being shot he had put up as a defense both of his arms, so a bullet went through his right hand through his shoulder actually then into his neck then out the side of his head,” Goldberg said.

“Supposedly he was standing crouched up … they think that then he dropped to his knees and then he was shot with the gun on his head, the back of his head … and he was found on his knees two days later.”

Still possible to ‘choose life’

Receiving the news on August 31 that their son was among the six dead hostages found by the Israeli military was “a crushing blow and we are still grappling with it,” Polin said.

He said the couple had spent “so much time beyond our public campaign in our apartment with our two daughters literally planning what it was going to be when we brought him home. What would the family look like? What would the celebration look like?”

“It’s crushing to spend those days so optimistic, so hopeful, so focused to have it end like this,” Polin said, adding they had wondered if their hope had worked against them.

“Maybe our optimism was something that drove influencers to lack urgency, to feel like, he’s going to come home at some point somehow and … maybe it was too infectious,” Polin said.

Goldberg added: “I’m just trying to get through each day. We are in the first centimeter in a million-mile journey of how do we get through the rest of our lives yearning and missing our son.”

Born in Oakland, California, Goldberg-Polin immigrated to Israel with his family at age 7. An elder brother to two sisters, he was a “happy-go-lucky, laid back, good humored, respectful and curious person” who loved soccer and music, according to his mother.

She later said the family was determined to “live” and “not just exist” following his death.

“I want to live the life that Hersh should’ve lived and that’s a life filled with love and happiness and light. We will always have this deep void but I think that it’s still possible to have that void and to be happy and choose life.”

French researcher Laurent Vinatier was found guilty by a Moscow court on Monday of breaking Russia’s “foreign agent” laws and sentenced to three years in prison.

Vinatier, 48, is one of several Westerners to have been charged under Russian security laws at a time of tense confrontation between Moscow and the West over the war in Ukraine. The judge ignored a plea by the defense to fine him instead of jailing him.

In a speech to the court before he was sentenced, Vinatier said he loved Russia, apologised for breaking the law, and even recited a verse by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Wearing a blue open-necked shirt and jeans, he stood behind metal bars and listened intently as the judge rattled off the verdict. He was blinking rapidly but did not show any visible emotion.

A longtime researcher on the former Soviet Union, he was arrested in June by the FSB security service and accused of failing to register as a foreign agent in Russia while collecting military information of value to foreign intelligence services.

The offence carries a sentence of up to five years, but prosecutors requested a term of three years and three months in recognition of the fact that Vinatier had pleaded guilty.

State news agency RIA said the defence planned to appeal.

France says Vinatier has been arbitrarily detained and has called on Monday for his immediate release. President Emmanuel Macron has denied that Vinatier worked for the French state and has described his arrest as part of a misinformation campaign by Moscow.

“The legislation on ‘foreign agents’ contributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, such as freedom of association, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression,” France’s foreign ministry said. “French authorities remain fully mobilized to provide assistance (to Vinatier),” the ministry added.

Vinatier is an employee of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Swiss-based conflict mediation organisation. Fellow academics who know him have told Reuters he is a respected scholar involved in legitimate research.

‘A Russian life’

Independent news outlet Mediazona quoted Vinatier as asking the court for forgiveness.

“I am not afraid to say that I fell in love with Russia. This is confirmed by my personal life – my wife is Russian, my friends are Russian. I lived a Russian life and still, even the last four months, I have been living in a Russian atmosphere,” he said, referring to the period since his arrest.

He asked for a “fair and lenient” decision, saying he had children and elderly parents who depended on him, and recited by heart a verse from Pushkin’s poem “If Life Deceives You”.

Under Russian law, people are obliged to contact the justice ministry and register as foreign agents if they are involved in political activity or are collecting military information while receiving financial or other help from abroad.

The FSB said in July that Vinatier had tried to use his numerous contacts with political scientists, sociologists, economists, military experts and government officials to collect military details “that could be used by foreign intelligence services to the detriment” of Russia’s security.

In a statement following his arrest, his employer HD said its staff work globally and “routinely meet with a wide range of officials, experts and other parties with the aim of advancing efforts to prevent, mitigate and resolve armed conflict”.

Russia says relations with France have hit a low since French authorities placed the Russian founder of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, under formal investigation in August in connection with the use of the platform for crimes such as fraud, money laundering and child pornography. Durov’s lawyer has called the proceedings against him absurd.

Canada announced the expulsion of six Indian diplomats Monday, including the high commissioner, after the police accused agents of the Indian government of being linked to homicides, harassment and other “acts of violence” against Sikh separatists in the country.

“Global Affairs Canada today announced that six Indian diplomats and consular officials had received a notice of expulsion from Canada in relation to a targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the government of India,” read a statement shared by the department, which is headed by Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly.

The extraordinary step has sharply escalated diplomatic tensions between the countries, with India swiftly expelling six Canadian diplomats in response, including the acting High Commissioner Stewart Ross Wheeler, according to a statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

The Indian government has called the accusations “preposterous” and said it was withdrawing the officials expelled by the Canadian government. “There is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains,” the statement added Monday. “The aspersions cast on (High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma) are ludicrous and deserve to be treated with contempt.”

Joly said in a statement that the decision to expel the diplomats “was made with great consideration and only after (Canadian police) gathered ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case,” referring to the assassination on Canadian soil last June of prominent Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Earlier on Monday, the Royal Canada Mounted Police (RCMP) took the unusual step of publicly disclosing details of multiple investigations into the involvement of Indian government agents alleged to have taken part in “serious criminal activity” in Canada.

The decision to publicly disclose the investigations was taken “due to the significant threat to public safety” and after attempts to address the issue together with the Indian government had not yielded satisfactory results, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme told reporters.

Duheme said that since September last year, there had been “well over a dozen credible and imminent threats” to the lives of members of the South Asian community, and specifically the “pro-Khalistan movement,” referring to a separatist movement among supporters of Sikh independence.

“Despite law enforcement action, the harm has continued, posing a serious threat to our public safety,” Duheme said.

He added that the RCMP had found evidence of violent extremism impacting both Canada and India; links tying agents of the government of India to homicides and “violent acts” in Canada; organized crime targeting Canada’s South Asian community; and interference in democratic processes.

“Investigations have revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada leveraged their official positions to engage in clandestine activities, such as collecting information for the government of India, either directly or through their proxies; and other individuals who acted voluntarily or through coercion,” he said.

“The information collected for the government of India is then used to target members of the South Asian community,” Duheme added.

Earlier this year, Canada charged several Indian nationals with the alleged murder of Nijjar, a Canadian citizen. At the time, authorities were investigating whether they had ties to the Indian government.

Nijjar was gunned down by masked men last June outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia. He was a prominent campaigner for a separate Sikh homeland out of India, which would be known as Khalistan and include parts of India’s Punjab state.

Last September, Trudeau said he had credible information linking the Indian government to the killing of Nijjar. The allegation outraged India, which has forcefully denied the claim, calling it “absurd.” The diplomatic fallout saw tit-for-tat expulsions of senior diplomats from both countries.

In its statement Monday, the Indian government said that since Trudeau made those allegations, the Canadian government had “not shared a shred of evidence” and that recent assertions had also been made “without any facts.”

The RCMP said Monday it had presented “evidence” to Indian government officials directly. “We continue to ask that the Indian government support the ongoing investigation in the Nijjar case, as it remains in both our countries’ interest to get to the bottom of this,” Global Affairs Canada added.

Campaigning for the creation of Khalistan has long been outlawed in India, where painful memories of a deadly insurgency by some Sikh separatists continue to haunt many. But it garners a level of public sympathy among some in the Sikh diaspora overseas, where activists protected by free speech laws can more openly demand secession from India.

Weeks after Trudeau’s announcement in 2023, the United States accused an Indian government official of being involved in a conspiracy to kill another Sikh separatist, American citizen Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, on US soil. A US indictment unsealed in November accused an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, of trying to kill Pannun, who is a wanted man in India and considered a terrorist by the government.

— This is a developing story and will be updated.

North Korea is sending its citizens to help Russia’s military fight Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has said, increasing concerns about the alliance between Moscow and the secretive state.

In his daily video message on Sunday, the Ukrainian president said: “We see an increasing alliance between Russia and regimes like North Korea. It is no longer just about transferring weapons. It is actually about transferring people from North Korea to the occupying military forces.”

Zelensky’s allegation comes amid an increasingly friendly relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea in June – the first visit of its kind for more than two decades – and Western observers have wondered how heavily North Korea has assisted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Obviously, in such circumstances, our relations with our partners need to be developed. The frontline needs more support,” Zelensky added, reiterating his plea for Western nations to allow Kyiv to use long-range missiles in Russian territory.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Thursday dismissed allegations that North Korean personnel had been sent to help Russia as “another hoax.”

But South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said last week it is monitoring developments and believes the claim could be accurate.

Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun said it is “highly likely that the reported casualties of North Korean officers and soldiers in Ukraine are true, given various circumstances,” speaking at the annual parliamentary audit of the defense sector on Tuesday.

“We believe that the possibility of further deployment of regular troops is very high, as Russia and North Korea have entered a mutual agreement that is almost equivalent to a military alliance. We will also be well-prepared for this possibility,” he added.

Multiple governments have accused Pyongyang of supplying arms to Moscow for its grinding war in Ukraine, a charge both countries have denied, despite significant evidence of such transfers.

The two nations, both pariahs in the West, have forged increasingly warm ties since Russia’s invasion.

During Putin’s visit to the North Korean capital in June, the two countries pledged to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance in the event the other is attacked, part of a landmark defense pact agreed by the autocratic nations.

Putin said during that trip that the two countries were ramping up ties to a “new level.”

In remarks ahead of talks between the two, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un voiced his “full support and solidarity with the struggles of the Russian government, military and the people,” pointing specifically to Moscow’s war in Ukraine “to protect its own sovereignty, safety and territorial stability.”

The deadly attack by Hezbollah against an army base deep inside Israeli territory presents a major headache for Israel as it continues to struggle to defuse the threat from the Iran-backed militant group, despite launching a major bombardment campaign and a ground operation against it.

Launched from southern Lebanon, a drone was able to penetrate Israeli air defenses undetected and hit the Golani Brigade’s base some 40 miles into Israel from the border. It struck on Sunday just after 7pm – at dinner time – and while the military has not released any details about the impact site, photos from the scene make it clear the drone hit the base’s dining hall.

Both the timing and the location of the strike suggest that Hezbollah had gathered enough intelligence and possesses the capabilities to maximize the number of casualties. The Golani Brigade is regarded as an elite Israeli infantry unit and has been deployed to southern Lebanon as part of Israel’s ground operation there.

Four soldiers were killed, and more than 60 others were injured, eight of them seriously, bringing the total number of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers killed since the start of the ground operation two weeks ago to at least 18.

Sunday’s assault is also the single bloodiest attack on IDF troops inside Israel since the beginning of the war last October.

Daniel Sobelman, an international security expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that it shows Hezbollah is still able to strike.

Israel’s air defense systems are impressive, intercepting and destroying most projectiles fired towards the country. But they have been designed and developed primarily to counter rockets and missiles, not drones that can be launched from anywhere, fly low and slow, and change directions quickly.

Iran and its allies are seeking to overwhelm Israel’s defense systems, Mizrahi said, adding drones to the equation after identifying them as “a weakness” for Israel.

“Every time we find a solution for something, they find another way to attack,” she said.

Residents in Israel are well trained when it comes to evading dangers from above. Most people head to the shelters – omnipresent in much of the country – or duck down in a ditch whenever they hear the sirens indicating an imminent aerial threat.

But the drone sent by Hezbollah at the weekend managed to slip through without triggering Israel’s alert systems. The soldiers in the dining hall were attacked without any warning.

And it was not the first time this has happened.

In June, Hezbollah released a nine-minute video filmed by a drone showing civilian and military locations in and around one of Israel’s largest cities, Haifa. That UAV also appeared to have gone undetected by the IDF.

In response to the video, IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi said at the time that the Israeli military was “preparing and coming up with solutions to deal with these and other capabilities.”

Then in July, a drone launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen killed one man and injured at least 10 others in Tel Aviv. No sirens were activated during that attack. The IDF said two drones were fired and that while one was intercepted, the other one was not – due to what it said was a human error.

The tactic of sending two drones also appears to have been replicated by Hezbollah last week.

The IDF said two drones were launched from Lebanon on Friday, adding that it had intercepted one of them, but not disclosing what happened to the other one. A nursing home in the coastal city of Herzliya, central Israel, was damaged in the attack, but no casualties were reported.

It is very likely that the same strategy was deployed on Sunday. Shortly before the first reports of the attack against the Golani Brigade base, the IDF said it had intercepted an UAV launched from Lebanon in the northern naval area of Israel. That suggests the drone that hit the base was a second aircraft fired either simultaneously or shortly before or after the first one. The IDF did not comment on the number of drones that were launched on Sunday.

Hezbollah said it had fired dozens of rockets toward the northern Israeli towns of Nahariya and Acre to engage Israel’s air defense systems, while simultaneously launching the drones.

Difficult fight

Hezbollah continues to be able to fire at Israel despite the IDF launching an intense aerial bombardment inside Lebanon as well as a limited ground operation targeting the group.

When the IDF launched its ground operation against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, it insisted that any action across the border would be “limited” in both geographical scope and duration and aimed at dismantling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in the border areas.

Some 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel since Hezbollah began firing barrages of rockets at Israel on October 8 last year in support of Hamas in Gaza, which had launched deadly attacks against Israel a day earlier.

But the reality on the ground indicates Israel might be preparing for the possibility of a much bigger war. It has deployed units from four divisions to southern Lebanon and ordered the residents of a quarter of Lebanon’s territory to evacuate. More than 1.2 million people are now displaced, according to the United Nations.

The IDF doesn’t disclose its troop numbers, but each division is thought to consist of some 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers.

Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that last time Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, it sent around 30,000 troops across the border.

That war ended in stalemate after 34 days, after some 1,100 Lebanese and about 170 Israelis, including 120 soldiers, were killed.

CSIS said that a new operation on the ground could require a bigger force than the one Israel deployed in 2006 against Hezbollah. Yet even that may not be enough.

He said that in guerrilla wars, what often matters the most is the weaker actor’s ability to keep going, fight and inflict losses on the other side.

With the IDF death toll from its war on Hezbollah rising, it is clear the militant group is determined to keep going – despite the momentous blows it has suffered.