At least 100,000 people have now fled the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karbakh – more than four-fifths of the population – since Azerbaijan reclaimed the territory in a lightening offensive, authorities in neighboring Armenia said.

The rapid exodus has prompted the United Nations to send its first mission to the territory in about 30 years.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said the UN team on the ground would “identify the humanitarian needs for both people remaining and the people that are on the move.”

Though internationally seen as part of Azerbaijan, the Armenian-majority Nagorno-Karbakh had spent decades under the control of a separatist, de facto government until Azerbaijan’s victory last week. The former breakaway republic will cease to exist as of next year.

Azerbaijan has long been clear about the choice confronting Karabakh Armenians: Stay and accept Azerbaijani citizenship, or leave.

As of Saturday morning, 100,417 people had been “forcibly displaced,” the Armenian prime minister’s spokeswoman, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, told reporters.

Fears of ‘punitive actions’

Armenian authorities have responded to the outflux of people by asking the International Court of Justice, a judicial arm of the UN, to tell Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops – citing fears of “punitive actions.”

They requested the court order Azerbaijan to “withdraw all military and law-enforcement personnel from all civilian establishments in Nagorno-Karabakh,” while refraining from “taking any actions directly or indirectly” that would have the effect of displacing the remaining ethnic Armenians or preventing those who fled from returning.

Azerbaijan should also allow people to leave the region “without any hindrance” if they wanted to, the Armenian authorities demanded.

Armenia also asked the court to direct Azerbaijan to grant the UN and the Red Cross access to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan should “refrain from taking punitive actions against the current or former political representatives or military personnel of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Armenian authorities said.

Commanders detained

The appeal comes as Azerbaijani state media reported Friday that the security services in the country had detained two former commanders of the self-proclaimed “Republic of Artsakh’s” military.

Loven Mnatsakanyan and Davit Manukyan were intercepted while attempting to cross from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia via the Lachin Corridor, the one road connecting the landlocked enclave to Armenia.

Mnatsakanyan, who reportedly served as defense minister from 2015 to 2018, was arrested Friday and taken to the Azebaijani capital of Baku, according to state media. He was accused of illegally entering its territory.

Manukyan, who reportedly served as the former deputy commander of Nagorno-Karbakh’s armed forces, was detained Wednesday, Azerbaijani state media reported.

He was accused of engaging in terrorism, setting up illegal armed groups, illegal possession of a firearm, and illegally entering Azerbaijan, though no evidence was presented to support the claims.

The announcement of the arrests came after the indictment of prominent Nagorno-Karabakh politician and businessman Ruben Vardanyan on multiple charges in Azerbaijan Thursday after being detained while trying to cross into Armenia the day before, according to state media citing the Azerbaijani State Security Service.

A former Minister of State of the self-proclaimed republic, Vardanyan is accused of financing terrorism, participating in the creation and activities of illegal armed groups, and illegally crossing Azerbaijani borders, according to state media. Azerbaijan has not presented evidence to support its claims.

On Thursday, local politician David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-styled “Republic of Artsakh,” wrote on Telegram that he would hand himself over to Azerbaijan.

“My failure to appear, or worse, my escape, will cause serious harm to our long-suffering nation, to many people, and I, as an honest person, hard worker, patriot and Christian, cannot allow this,” Babayan wrote.

After a nearly 4 billion-mile round trip, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully delivered NASA’s first asteroid sample to Earth.

The capsule containing rocks and soil, collected from the asteroid Bennu, stuck a perfect landing in the Utah desert on September 24 after blazing through Earth’s atmosphere at blistering temperatures — enough to completely char the outside of the receptacle.

Now, the rare contents are safely stowed at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where scientists will study them to help unlock the secrets of our solar system.

Countless people who have worked on the mission for years celebrated the historic achievement, including Queen guitarist Brian May, who also happens to be an astrophysicist and proud OSIRIS-REx teammate.

But the spacecraft’s epic journey isn’t over yet.

Across the universe

The newly renamed OSIRIS-APEX mission is setting a course for Apophis, an asteroid with a fear-inducing reputation.

The space rock — named for the Egyptian god of chaos and darkness — was once considered to be one of the most potentially hazardous asteroid threats to Earth.

Apophis isn’t on a collision course with our planet anytime soon, the latest research has suggested. But the asteroid will come so close to Earth in 2029 that people will be able to see it with the naked eye.

And that’s when OSIRIS-APEX will make its move, going into orbit around Apophis and studying it for 18 months. The spacecraft is no longer capable of collecting a sample, but it will use thrusters to kick up dust and rocks to study Apophis’ stony surface.

Unearthed

Archaeologists were excavating a 2,300-year-old tomb in Israel when they came across what may be the remains of a hetaira, or a courtesan of ancient Greece.

The woman’s cremated remains were found inside a cave, along with a well-preserved bronze folding mirror.

She may have been one of the first Greeks to arrive in the region, accompanying a government official or high general during the Hellenistic Age, or between 323 BC and 30 BC.

Several details about her burial, including the rare pristine mirror, hint at the woman’s origins, and researchers hope to uncover more of her story in the future.

Curiosities

Mysterious “fairy circles,” or dot patterns of barren dirt that appear in dryland grasses, have sparked intrigue for decades since being spotted in Southern Africa’s Namib Desert or the Western Australian outback.

A new atlas, pieced together by scientists in Spain using artificial intelligence, reveals that fairy circles may be present at hundreds of places around the world.

The phenomenon that shapes the circles remains a puzzle, but the global atlas will enable research that could illuminate why the polka-dot pattern appears.

Separately, scientists have predicted that the formation of a massive “supercontinent” could make Earth virtually uninhabitable in 250 million years, wiping out humans and mammals unable to cope with excessive heat.

Defying gravity

NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is finally back on Earth after spending a record-breaking 371 days in space — and his extended stay wasn’t planned.

The Soyuz spacecraft that delivered Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin for a six-month stint began leaking coolant after space debris likely struck it. A replacement spacecraft docked at the International Space Station in late February, and a fresh crew finally arrived on September 15.

Rubio’s calendar year aboard the orbiting outpost is the longest a US astronaut has spent in zero gravity, and now, he’s readjusting to life on Earth.

“We’re not walking, we’re not bearing our own weight (while in space),” he said, “and so it’ll be anywhere from two to six months before I essentially say that I feel normal.”

Meanwhile, a new film explores the story of astronaut José Hernández, the first former migrant worker to venture to space in 2009 after NASA rejected him 11 times.

Wild kingdom

A newly described tarantula species looks like it would be right at home slinging webs alongside Spider-Man.

The electric blue tarantula, named Taksinus bambus, was found living in tree hollows in southern Thailand last year.

“Blue is one of the rarest colors to appear in nature, which makes blue coloration in animals particularly fascinating,” said Narin Chomphuphuang, a researcher at Thailand’s Khon Kaen University who helped discover the spider.

Researchers believe that the unique structure of the tarantula’s hair, rather than the presence of blue pigments, contributes to the creature’s “mesmerizing” appearance.

Explorations

Get lost in these riveting reads:

— The Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine will be announced next week, awarding brilliant minds for their research — but the illustrious prizes draw criticism, too.

— Elusive pangolins are the world’s most trafficked mammals, but the recent discovery of an unknown species could help in the fight against the scale-covered animal’s extinction.

— Does gum really sit in your stomach for seven years? Here’s what experts have to say about the old wives’ tale and what really happens when you swallow gum.

— The James Webb Space Telescope detected a building block of life on the surface of Europa, an ice-covered ocean world orbiting Jupiter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “vertical of power” – the way in which the entire structure of Russian political power rests on one man – has undergone profound stress testing in the wake of the Wagner mercenary group’s aborted march on Moscow in June.

But everything is now business as usual, and the remnants of Wagner are back in the government’s control, if Kremlin messaging is to be believed.

In a televised meeting Friday, Putin met with Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and former Wagner commander Andrey Troshev, according to a partial transcript published by the Kremlin.

The meeting was held in a long-familiar format. Putin was seated at the head of a conference table with briefing papers and notes, making some general remarks before settling down to official business. The language was sober, competent and relatively substance-free: It could have been a routine meeting with a regional governor to discuss economic plans, at least judging by the official readout.

But unpack the language, and Putin’s Friday meeting appeared to put a reassuring gloss on the Russian government’s attempt to bring the mercenary group to heel. Troshev – who goes by the call sign, ‘Sedoy,’ meaning ‘grey hair’ – is the man Putin tapped to run the mercenary outfit after its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s dramatic fall from grace.

After leading the group’s insurrection this summer and then accepting an apparent deal to end it, Prigozhin died in late August when his private jet plummeted from the skies over Russia’s Tver region. But the damage that Prigozhin did to Putin’s image of infallibility has lingered.

So Putin on Friday did one of the things he does best: Delving into the minutiae of governing.

“I would like to talk to you about issues of a social nature,” Putin told Troshev, without naming Wagner. “You maintain relationships with your comrades with whom you fought together, and now you continue to carry out these combat missions.”

Continued Putin: “We have created the ‘Defenders of the Fatherland’ fund, and I have said many times and want to emphasize again: regardless of the status of the person who performs or has performed combat missions, social guarantees must be absolutely the same for everyone.”

A glimpse of the future

By dangling the carrot of “social guarantees,” one might conclude that the Russian government will be taking on the system of cash handouts and compensation that Wagner fighters in Ukraine enjoyed under Prigozhin’s leadership, something that won the mercenary leader some measure of loyalty. That such guarantees accrue “regardless of status” would appear to acknowledge that mercenary activities are technically proscribed by Russian law.

The Russian leader also alluded to an earlier offer made to Wagner fighters after the short-lived rebellion: Sign contracts with the Russian ministry of defense, or head for neighboring Belarus. Wagner’s future in Belarus has since been thrown into doubt and the Russian government appears to be moving more energetically to bring the remnants of Wagner into conventional military structures, along with all the benefits that might entail.

“At the last meeting, we talked about the fact that you will be involved in the formation of volunteer units that can perform various combat missions, primarily, of course, in the zone of a special military operation,” Putin said, using the official doublespeak for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“You yourself fought in such a unit for more than a year. You know what it is, how it’s done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that combat work goes on in the best and most successful way.”

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Friday that Troshev “is already working with the defense ministry” – citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov – signaling that he will not be a freelance entrepreneur as Prigozhin was.

But that doesn’t answer the somewhat broader question of what the Russian state plans to do with all the work it has outsourced to Wagner in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Wagner fighters have been active in several African countries, including Mali, the Central African Republic, and Libya.

The presence of Yevkurov in the meeting may offer one clue. In late August, Yevkurov led a Russian military delegation to the Libyan city of Benghazi to meet with the Libyan National Army, led by the renegade general Khalifa Haftar.

Wagner has supported the Libyan National Army for several years, reportedly backing Haftar’s 2019-2020 military campaign against the Tripoli-based government. The US military says Wagner has also used Libya as a logistical foothold, flying cargo flights into bases in eastern Libya to resupply its operations there.

Evidence has also emerged that Wagner has used bases in Libya to supply Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces.

Wagner has long acted as an often-deniable extension of Russian foreign policy. If Friday’s meeting is any guide, Yevkurov appears to be a point man for future Wagner activity while Troshev takes on a different brief: overseeing Wagner 2.0 for the war in Ukraine.

Built on the land of the Wakka Wakka people, Cherbourg’s modern motto of “many tribes, one community” reflects the varied origins of its 1,700 residents, descendants of people once forced to live there under laws of segregation.

Between 1905 and 1971, more than 2,600 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were forcibly moved from their land to Cherbourg, then known as Barambah, according to the Queensland government.

Some were marched barefoot through the Australian bush by colonial settlers under a law that called for the removal of Indigenous people from their traditional lands to be housed and educated in colonial ways.

Today residents live in neat rows of single story houses, their rent paid to a council that’s determined to turn the former government reserve into a thriving community where people want to live – and it seems to be working.

“We’ve got around 260 people waiting on our waiting list,” said Cherbourg Council CEO Chatur Zala. “There’s a huge demand for social housing because our rent is pretty reasonable.

“The rent in the big cities is so expensive, people can’t afford it.”

Life has changed for people in Cherbourg, but a divide still exists in Australia between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people on a whole range of measures – from infant mortality to employment, suicide and incarceration.

Indigenous people have proposed an idea they say may help close the gap, and on October 14 the entire country will vote on it.

A Yes vote would recognize First Nations people in the constitution and create a body – a Voice to Parliament – to advise the government on issues that affect them. A No vote would mean no change.

So how does Cherbourg, a community created from policies of segregation and assimilation, feel about what’s being billed as an historic step forward for Indigenous reconciliation?

“My community is very, very confused,” said Mayor Elvie Sandow, from her air-conditioned office in the center of Cherbourg. “They’re confused with the Voice, and then the pathway to [a] treaty.”

The mayor said residents will vote because if they don’t, they’ll be fined under Australia’s compulsory voting laws, then she immediately corrects herself.

“Well, they probably won’t vote,” she said. “They’ll just go out and get their name ticked off the [electoral] roll, so that avoids them getting a fine.”

The Voice referendum

A record number of Australians – some 17.67 million of a population of 25.69 million – have registered to vote in the country’s first referendum in almost 25 years, according to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

Early voting has already started in remote communities, with AEC staff traveling vast distances by 4WDs, helicopters, planes and ferries to reach them.

Campaigners for both sides – Yes and No – have also been traversing the same routes, speaking to locals, organizing rallies and spending millions of dollars on radio, television and online advertising to win their votes.

“I think this is one of the most important events of my life,” said Erin Johnston, who was among thousands of people marching at a recent Yes rally in Brisbane, organized by the charity Australians for Indigenous Constitutional Recognition.

“We have an opportunity to right a big wrong,” Johnston said.

But with two weeks to go before the vote, polls are showing that the referendum is on track to fail, a potential blow for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who made it an election pledge.

The prime minister has stressed that the Voice is not his idea but a “modest request” made by representatives of hundreds of Aboriginal nations who held meetings around the country in 2017.

Together they agreed a one-page statement called the Uluru Statement from the Heart which calls for “a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.”

When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish.

Uluru Statement from the Heart

“We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country,” it said.

A childhood in Cherbourg

Aunty Ruth Hegarty remembers her early days as a child in Cherbourg. There, children did not flourish, they did not walk in two worlds, and their culture was not seen as a gift but something to be erased.

Now 94, Aunty Ruth has written an award-winning book about growing up in the settlement. She was just a baby when her parents moved there from the Mitchell district in southwest Queensland looking for work during the Great Depression.

On arrival, the family was separated into different areas of the settlement. Then they realized they couldn’t leave.

The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897 (Qld) allowed authorities to remove Indigenous people to government reserves and govern almost every aspect of their lives.

Aunty Ruth was allowed to stay with her mother in the women’s section of a crowded dormitory until she was 4-and-a-half years old.

But after her first day at school, she was told she wouldn’t be living with her mother anymore. “You’re a schoolgirl now,” she was told, before being directed to the girls’ section where she shared beds, baths, towels and meals with other students.

“We were not allowed to cry,” Aunty Ruth wrote. “Crying always resulted in punishment.”

Punishment meant being caned, having their heads shaved, or being locked alone in a wooden cell at the back of the property, she wrote.

Mothers were sent to work as domestic staff for settlers while the men did manual labor, and when she was 14, Ruth was also sent away to earn money. At 22 she applied for permission from the state to marry, and when restrictions eased in the late 1960s, she moved with her husband and six children to Brisbane to start a new life outside the settlement.

Sitting beneath a pergola surrounded by flowers in her garden, Ruth still has the energy of an activist who has spent much of her life working to improve the lives of her people.

She wears an orange Yes badge and says she hopes the referendum will produce change.

“All I want is my constitutional recognition for me and my kids,” she said, leaning forward. “We need a change. We need change.”

Sitting to her right, her daughter Moira Bligh, president of the volunteer Noonga Reconciliation Group, said, “We’ve overcome disadvantage, but unless we’re all at our stage, we won’t stop.”

“I won’t stop,” Aunty Ruth added, “because I think it’s the right thing for us to do.”

The argument against the Voice

Across town on a Wednesday night, an audience of No voters at an event organized by conservative political lobby group Advance gives an indication of why this referendum is so contentious.

Wearing No caps and T-shirts handed out at the door, they cheer loudly as the leaders of the No camp urge them to reject division.

“The Yes campaign focuses on the past. We focus on the now and the future, the making of Australia the envy of the world,” said Nyunggai Warren Mundine, a member of the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr and Yuin people.

We focus on the now and the future, the making of Australia the envy of the world.

Nyunggai Warren Mundine

Sitting in the back row, carpenter Blair Gilchrist says Indigenous people wouldn’t need a Voice if politicians were doing their jobs properly and spending money where it was needed. He’s not a fan of Albanese’s Labor government.

“Money has got to be scrutinized better. I think that’s probably the main thing. That the money is spent well,” he said.

Successive governments have spent billions of dollars to close the persistent gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in national health and welfare statistics, yet many targets aren’t being met. And on some measures, the gap is widening – including rates of incarceration, suicide and children in care.

The Voice seeks to give non-binding advice to government about what might work to end the disparity – but critics say it’s not needed.

“Infant mortality has dropped, life expectancy has increased, it might not be at the levels we need it, but it’s heading in that direction,” Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a descendant of the Warlpiri people, told the audience.

The death rate for Indigenous children ages 0-4 was 2.1 times as high as the rate for non-Indigenous between 2015 and 2019, according to government figures. On average, non-Indigenous men live 8.6 years longer than Indigenous men – for women it’s 7.8 years. The gap’s even wider in remote communities, statistics show.

“The Voice, it suggests that Indigenous Australians … are inherently disadvantaged, for no other reason but because of our racial heritage,” Price said. “It’s suggested that every one of us needs special measures and [to be] placed in the constitution. That again is another lie. I mean, look at me and Warren, we’re doing all right, aren’t we?” she said.

Both the Yes and No camps want more accountability – some proof that the billions of dollars spent each year on Indigenous programs are being used to help the most vulnerable. And both want a brighter future for the most disadvantaged Indigenous people, though they disagree about how to get there.

It’s suggested that every one of us needs special measures and [to be] placed in the constitution. That again is another lie.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Many in the Yes camp say that future needs to start with recognition that, as the world’s oldest continuous civilization, First Nations people occupied the land for 60,000 years before the arrival of British settlers just over 200 years ago.

The official No camp believes nothing separates Australians – from First Nations people to new migrants – and changing the constitution embeds division. For the Yes camp, Indigenous people do hold a special place in the country’s history and their existence must be acknowledged, along with a permanent body that can’t be dissolved on the political whim of future governments.

Other Indigenous people are voting No because it’s not enough – they want treaties negotiated between the land’s traditional owners and those occupying it.

Push for progress

Back in Cherbourg, visitors walk through the old ration shed, where people from hundreds of Aboriginal nations once queued for their weekly allowance of tea, sugar, rice, salt, sago, tapioca, slit peas, porridge, flour and meat.

It’s now a museum, where elders share stories of life in those days.

Zala said Cherbourg Council has made gains in recent years, since Mayor Elvie was elected in 2020. The number of council jobs has doubled to 130, mostly filled by local staff, Zala said.

“The highest employment rate of any Indigenous community,” he boasted.

They’ve opened the first recycling center in an Indigenous community, which handles waste from surrounding areas; and the first Digital Service Center staffed by Indigenous workers, who gain experience and qualifications.

Plans are afoot to expand the water treatment plant beyond upgrades unveiled last year. But most of all, the council is working on ways to provide new homes for the hundreds of people wanting to move there.

It’s a tough task – Cherbourg still operates as a Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) community, meaning it relies on government funding. There’s very little private ownership – almost all homes there are owned and maintained by the council.

For years, the council has encouraged residents to buy the homes their families have lived in for decades, but few financial incentives exist – there’s no market for houses, meaning no capital gains, and some prospective homeowners balk at the cost of private upkeep after so many years of council support, Zala said.

As a lifelong resident, Mayor Elvie knows the issues well. Her mother lived in the Cherbourg dormitory until she was old enough to marry. By the time the future mayor was born in the 1970s, restrictions were being phased out.

She is not afraid of change, but she doesn’t see how a Voice to Parliament in Canberra is going to help address the daily challenges she faces to keep her community employed, housed and educated.

For that reason, she’s going to vote No.

“I don’t make my decision lightly,” she said.”I have had a number of conversations with different mayors and communities and some mayors are for the Yes vote. It’s very divided right up the middle.

“I’m going No because I just feel it’s a duplication. At the end of the day, I am the voice of Cherbourg because I’m the elected mayor for this community.”

I am the voice of Cherbourg because I’m the elected mayor for this community.

Mayor Elvie Sandow

Zala is one of the newer Australians the No camp says would be done a disservice if the country’s Indigenous population was given special recognition in the constitution. Born in Gujarat, India, he moved to Australia in 2006 and has been working to close the gap in Cherbourg since 2011.

“That’s still my motivation every day when I come here. I don’t accept why we have to be different than any other community. I always believed that we don’t want to create a community which is so much behind,” he said.

Of the Voice, he said he’ll be voting Yes.

“At least by voting Yes, you have hope. We don’t know the detail [of] what’s going to happen after the Voice, but it’s best to get it through and see if there might be something good come to the community,” he said. “And I think lots of people are going to do the same.”

Germany has hit back at Elon Musk after the billionaire businessman waded into the country’s debate on migration.

Musk reshared a post on the platform X, formerly Twitter, that criticized German NGO operations in the Mediterranean for “unloading illegal immigrants” in Italy.

The post also called for a victory for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the next elections.

“There are currently 8 German NGO ships in the Mediterranean Sea collecting illegal immigrants to be unloaded in Italy. These NGOs are subsidized by the German government. Let’s hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide,” the post from an X account with the handle “Radio Genoa” read.

Sharing the post to his 158 million followers on Friday, Musk, who owns the social media platform, wrote: “Is the German public aware of this?”

Hitting back at his comment, the German Foreign Office took to X to write: “Yes. And it’s called saving lives.”

Musk doubled down on his criticism on Saturday, writing in another post: “Frankly, I doubt that a majority of the German public supports this.”

Musk’s comments come with Berlin locked in a spat with Italy over NGO sea operations.

Earlier this month, Germany’s Interior Ministry said it would postpone “until further notice” its intake of migrants coming via Italy under a European voluntary solidarity plan.

Speaking at the sidelines of the 10th summit for MED9 countries on Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned that problems regarding migration will “never be solved completely if every country thinks of unloading it on another.”

Leaders of the MED9, which includes France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Croatia and Slovenia, gathered in Valletta, Malta, on Friday.

Meloni said she spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday and said it seemed Germany was “taking half a step back.”

“For us redistribution has never been the priority, for me the problem will never be solved completely if every country thinks of unloading it on another. The only way to solve everyone’s problem is the work we’re doing on the external dimension,” Meloni said.

Following Friday’s meetings, the MED-9 released a joint statement outlining the need to “respond rapidly to the recent challenge of increasing arrivals through Mediterranean routes.”

The statement said short and medium-term solutions were needed and called on the European Union (EU) to effectively reduce primary movements and prevent departures, to improve the rate of returns of failed asylum seekers, and to address the root causes of irregular migration.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty risk the treacherous route in search of safety and better economic prospects.

In many cases, their vessels are overcrowded and unfit for the journey, and the need to rescue migrants on board often leads to disputes between countries about who should take them in.

An Indian minister has accused Canada of giving “operating space” to terrorists and extremists, as he rejected claims by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the Indian government may have played a role in the assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.

“The Canadian (prime minister) made some allegations initially privately, and then publicly. And, our response to him, both in private and public, was that what he was alleging was not consistent with our policy,” India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said during a discussion at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. on Friday.

The minister said India was “open to” further examine the event if the Canadian government “had anything relevant and specific they would like us to look into,” but added that the row between the countries preceded Trudeau’s allegations.

Relations between the two nations took a nosedive last week after Trudeau claimed his authorities had been investigating “credible allegations” of a potential link between “agents of the government of India” and the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, an outspoken supporter of the creation of Khalistan – a separate homeland for the Sikhs that would include parts of India’s Punjab state.

India considers calls for Khalistan a grave national security threat. However, it has vehemently denied Trudeau’s claims, calling them “absurd and motivated,” and the growing spat has seen both countries expel each other’s diplomats.

But Jaishankar said on Friday that the differences went back further than the row over Nijjar’s death. He said the Indian government had long accused Canada of inaction in dealing with Sikh separatist extremism aimed at creating a separate Sikh homeland.

He said India believes Canada has a “very permissive Canadian attitude towards terrorists, extremist people who openly advocate violence.”

Those individuals “have been given operating space in Canada because of the compulsions of Canadian politics,” Jaishankar added.

Nijjar’s death shocked and outraged the Sikh community in Canada, one of the largest outside India and home to more than 770,000 members of the religious minority.

A number of groups associated with the idea of Khalistan are listed as “terrorist organizations” under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), though several Sikh organizations abroad have accused the Indian government of falsely equating them with terrorism.

Nijjar’s name appears on the list of UAPA terrorists and in 2020, the Indian National Investigation Agency accused him of “trying to radicalize the Sikh community across the world in favor of the creation of Khalistan.”

The US position

Jaishankar met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department on Thursday.

The two diplomats made no comments during a brief photo-op ahead of the meeting. However, a State Department spokesman said Friday that Blinken urged his Indian counterpart to cooperate fully with the ongoing Canadian investigation into the killing.

The US ambassador to Canada confirmed that intelligence gained by the “Five Eyes” network, which includes the US, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Australia, led to Canada’s public accusation that the Indian government may have played a role in the death of Nijjar.

At a different press conference Friday, Blinken said that those responsible for the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada “need to be held accountable.”

“We have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation, and I had the opportunity to do so again in my meeting yesterday with Foreign Minister Jaishankar,” said Blinken at a press conference with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Barcena and Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro.

Blinken said he hopes “our friends in both Canada and India will work together to resolve this matter.”

Jaishankar also noted he had spoken with both US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the matter.

“They obviously shared US views and assessments on this whole situation,” Jaishankar said. “So I think hopefully we both came out of those meetings better and forward.”

“Today, I’m actually in a situation where my diplomats are unsafe going to the embassy, or to the consulate in Canada. They are publicly intimidated. And that has actually compelled me to temporarily suspend even visa operations in Canada,” the minister added.

Canadian police have not arrested anyone in connection with Nijjar’s murder.

But in an August update, police released a statement saying they were investigating three suspects and issued a description of a possible getaway vehicle, asking for the public’s help.

Opening a cannabis dispensary wasn’t always top of the list of Wassaya Iemvijan’s ambitions. The former lawyer, from the Thai capital Bangkok, first turned to the plant as a form of “alternative care” to cope with stress and settle her mind.

“I struggled with depression for many years,” Iemvijan said. “It was weed that helped me… So when it was decriminalized, we decided to set up a shop.”

On June 9, 2022, – two days after Thailand became the first country in Southeast Asia to decriminalize cannabis. Iemvijan and her husband Nitikrist Attakrist, also a lawyer, registered for a licence to grow and sell the plant.

“We were under a lot of stress as lawyers,” Attakrist said. “We didn’t plan on setting up a cannabis shop but we did and we wanted to teach people how to get the best benefits as well as the responsibilities that come along with it.”

Over the past 12 months Thailand has seen a green rush, with cannabis dispensaries cropping up in cities and towns across the kingdom.

Access to cannabis has long been easy in the country but it was risky.

Northernmost Thailand sits on the notorious Golden Triangle, one of the world’s most successful drug producing regions. But pot was still illegal, with lengthy jail sentences for those who were caught.

But that changed after cannabis was fully decriminalized. Visitors to Bangkok’s famed Khao San Road, or the bougie districts of Thonglor, were just as likely to encounter the waft of weed as they were spicy smells of street food. Cities like Chiang Mai even organized weed festivals.

But all that could soon be about to change.

Little more than a year after cannabis decriminalization, following an election that saw a more conservative coalition government come into power, there are signs Thailand’s laws on cannabis could be rewritten once again.

Newly appointed Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told Bloomberg TV in a recent interview that his government would seek to “rectify” the law on cannabis within the next six months, suggesting that the plant would remain legal only for medical use.

“The problem of drugs has been widespread lately, especially in the northeastern and northern parts of Thailand. And we don’t need another issue added on top of that,” Thavisin said.

“The law will need to be rewritten. It needs to be rectified. We can have that regulated for medical use only,” he added.

It remains unclear exactly where that will leave Iemvijan and Attakrist, as well as countless other cannabis-themed businesses, weed cafes and dispensaries that have opened over the past year.

But things don’t look good.

“Cannabis has helped many Thais – from farmers to small business owners and workers behind the counter, and any U-turn policy will be the worst decision ever,” noted Attakrist.

“We are strongly against any legislation that could hurt the industry.”

What is the law?

Medical marijuana has been legal in Thailand since 2018, but decriminalization in 2022 took things a step further, making it no longer a crime to grow and trade marijuana and hemp products, or to use any parts of the plant to treat illnesses.

Under the 2022 change, cafes and restaurants were allowed to serve cannabis-infused food and drinks – but only if the products contained less than 0.2% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant’s main psychoactive compound.

Smoking weed in public spaces however, remains illegal and harsh penalties remain in place under Thailand’s Public Health Act, including up to three months in jail and an $800 fine for those caught doing so.

In reality, much of weed that is on sale is much stronger than 0.2% THC in a country where adherence to regulations and the letter of the law can be patchy.

Observers say there has been a noticeable increase in public consumption of the plant, encouraged by the ambiguities in the law.

“There hasn’t been a clear divide between smoking medical marijuana and getting high which has contributed to the rise in recreational smoking,” said Ley Singdam, the owner of a weed shop on the popular tourist island of Phuket.

However, Ley, like many business owners, believes the genie is already out of the bottle.

“The government is wrong if it thinks changing the drug act will stop people from ‘using,’” Ley said.

Businesses to take a hit

But while a crackdown on recreational use, which the government says it is planning, might not stop people from using cannabis, it is still very likely to hit small businesses hard, said Attakrist.

He believes it is ultimately the Thai government that is to blame for the current predicament. Most cannabis dispensaries like his he says, have been responsible and diligent from the start in checking buyers’ IDs and educating customers about cannabis rules.

“Cannabis has fewer negative effects as compared to alcohol and cigarettes but we still make it a point to remind customers about official rules in Thailand,” Attakrist said. “The government should have been better prepared from the start. They were sloppy.”

“They created this legal vacuum and right now they are trying to push the burden to the business owners and cannabis communities.”

“The industry has supported and created a lot of jobs for Thais especially in rural areas,” said Bangkok-based cannabis entrepreneur Kitty Chopaka, adding that she knew of “many parents who were able to send their children to better schools.”

“At the end of the day, the people have to have a say in this. I don’t think any other law in Thailand’s history is as big as this,” Chopaka added.

“We’re talking about an industry that is both medical and recreational, one rooted in Thai tradition and culture that affects livelihoods and will greatly affect the future.”

Michael Zaytsev, a New York-based cannabis business consultant and academic director at LIM College’s cannabis bachelor’s degree program, said that “prioritizing medical marijuana while outlawing adult use was a common starting point for governments, but it would restrict the potential growth of the industry.

“Thousands of cafes, stores, and other cannabis businesses have sprouted and hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent by tourists in a short amount of time,” Zaytsev said.

“Regulatory risk can pose significant and even existential threats to cannabis industries and navigating this complex, high risk and high reward industry is not easy,” he said.

“The challenge is to find a balance between regulation and support.”

A step back?

Thailand is an outlier in Asia, where most countries have strict drug laws. Some countries like Singapore and Indonesia even carry out death sentences against those convicted of trafficking, possession or consumption.

Until recently, harsh penalties were the case in Thailand too, noted Gloria Lai, regional Asia director of the International Drug Policy Consortium, who believes that restricting cannabis to medical purposes only will do more harm than good.

Zaytsev of LIM college added: “Prohibition simply does not work.”

“I sincerely hope Thailand does not go in the direction of Singapore for example, where people are executed for trafficking cannabis… a relatively safe plant that is consumed all over the world by people of all ages and backgrounds,” he said.

How Srettha Thavisin and his coalition government plan to go about changing the law hasn’t been made clear.

While his Pheu Thai party had vowed to roll back the 2022 legislation as part of its campaigning ahead of the general election, it now finds itself in a coalition with the Bhumjaithai Party, led by health minister Anutin Charnvirakul who actively lobbied for decriminalization.

The party has been against reclassifying cannabis as a drug. It has however, vowed to seek tighter monitoring of the industry.

But experts said pushing cannabis businesses back underground, making it harder to police, would likely result in more people getting into trouble with the law – as well as returning the trade from tax-paying businesses to the kind of organized crime cartels that flood Thailand and neighboring countries with huge amounts of methamphetamine and other illegal drugs.

“If criminal penalties like prison sentences are re-introduced… it could lead to people being arrested and forcefully tested for drugs and given criminal records again,” Lai said.

“The Thai government should instead be gathering and presenting data so that decisions made are based on evidence.”

For now, despite the uncertainty, business has been good, Iemvijan said.

The debate comes just as the quality of domestically produced cannabis in the country was improving, she added.

“The quality of Thai cannabis has gotten better and better. It is much cleaner and safer now than in the past,” Iemvijan said.

“The situation in Thailand is complicated… but most small businesses like ours are not opposed to new rules if they are within reasonable frameworks and easy to comply with,” she added.

One man is dead and another in hospital after a boat reportedly struck by a whale capsized in waters off Sydney, Australia, early Saturday morning local time.

Police responded to reports that two people were in the water just outside the headland past Botany Bay around 6 a.m. local time, said New South Wales Water Police Acting Superintendent Siobhan Munro.

“When police arrived, the two male persons from a vessel were rescued,” Munro said, adding that one of them had “been confirmed as deceased.”

“Early reports are that a whale may have breached near the boat or onto the boat,” she said.

The vessel has been recovered and will undergo forensic testing, Munro added.

The incident occurred on the first day of National Safe Boating Week in Australia, which runs from September 30 to October 6. A key focus of the initiative by Australia & New Zealand Safe Boating Education Group is lifejackets.

“It’s a stark reminder about the boating season and how dangerous it can be on our waterways,” Munro said.

She also ensured that police “will be out there on the waterways, including rivers dams, conducting compliance checks, drug and alcohol testing, and all the things that we do to make sure that the community is safe.”

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has warned about an increased number of whales around Australian waters this year and has advised swimmers and boaters to stay 100 meters away from a whale and 300 meters from a whale with a calf, according to Channel 7.

The French government has vowed action to “reassure and protect” the public as its capital Paris reports a “widespread” rise in bedbugs.

French Transport Minister Clement Beaune said Friday he would “bring together transport operators next week” to “undertake further action” to “reassure and protect” the public from the reported surge in the numbers of the blood-sucking insect.

The announcement comes as calls for government action from Paris officials and trade unions mount after several videos of bedbugs spotted in public transport and other locations such as cinemas have surfaced on social media.

Speaking to French TV station LCI on Friday, deputy mayor of Paris Emmanuel Gregoire called the phenomenon “widespread.”

“You have to understand that in reality no one is safe, obviously there are risk factors but in reality, you can catch bedbugs anywhere and bring them home,” he said.

Three years ago, the French government launched an anti-bedbug campaign, which includes a dedicated website and an information hotline, as numbers of the insect surged.

But Gregoire said that despite that plan, “there are 3.6 million people who come into Paris every day, and bedbugs do not stop on the outskirts of the city.”

An expert from France’s national health and sanitary body, Anses, said the problem was “an emerging phenomenon in France and almost everywhere in the world.”

She added there was an “escalation” in numbers because bedbugs were increasingly resistant to insecticides.

“We are observing more and more bedbug populations which are resistant, so there is no miracle treatment to get rid of them,” Fite said.

However, the Paris deputy mayor warned against “hysteria” over the issue, noting there had been an “increase in Parisians who are referring to the town hall’s information services for information on bedbugs”.

“Professional companies which intervene in residential areas are telling us that currently the proportion of interventions for bedbugs is atypical compared to normal and is increasing rapidly,” he said.

The news comes as Paris gets ready to host the 2024 Olympics Games, but officials say they are not worried.

“There is no threat to the Olympic Games,” Gregoire said.

“Bedbugs existed before and they will exist afterward,” he added, saying the games were an “opportunity” for everybody to work together on the issue.

A group of Ukrainian soldiers moves swiftly through a front-line training ground, overcoming obstacles and firing at distant targets. They are fine-tuning their battle skills here as Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces rages just few miles to the south.

One fighter, Danilo, who is only being identified by his first name for security reasons, stands out. He is fast and accurate, but his movements are different.

Another glance reveals the reason for his slight limp – he has a prosthetic limb where his lower right leg used to be.

Danilo lost his lower right leg early in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. He and his unit were on a mission when they came under fire and he stepped on a landmine.

His maiming, and similar injuries to many others, both soldiers and civilians, are just one of the many consequences of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Moscow’s forces have littered an estimated 170,000 square kilometers (65,637 square miles) of the Ukrainian countryside with landmines – an area the size of Florida – a large portion of them along the southern front, in a bid to halt Kyiv’s counteroffensive. International think tank GLOBSEC found Ukraine to be the most mined country in the world in a report published in April.

As Ukrainian troops grind forward, these hidden explosives are one of the major perils they must navigate, with potentially drastic consequences.

“When we had contact (with the Russian forces), I had to move away from the trail,” Danilo said. “I blew up on the mine… We kept firing, my guys finished the job and evacuated me.”

“There was no leg. And the other leg was broken,” he said, recalling those adrenaline-fueled moments. “I was afraid they would cut off the second leg too. It’s a miracle they didn’t.”

Eight grueling months of rehabilitation followed.

“It was a very, very long recovery. I lost a lot of blood, it was a heavy amputation, heavy bone fracture,” he recalled.

The first part of his recuperation recovery took place was done in Ukraine, but two months later, Danilo and his wife moved to Mexico, where with the help of the Ukrainian diaspora he was able to get a prosthetic limb fitted, as well as psychological support.

“It was hard as my other leg was also injured. I couldn’t step on it for eight months,” he explained. “There were some difficulties at first, but the competent doctors put me back on my feet.”

Injuries ‘worse now’

Vlad, also only identified by his first name, is a Ukrainian combat medic whose unit is always on standby. When a call comes, his group heads straight to the front line to extract the wounded.

Vlad says his job is no less dangerous because of his status as a medic.

“There’s a lot of shelling directed at us,” he said. “Despite us having red crosses on our vehicles the Russians ignore the Geneva Convention. It makes sense – if you kill the medics, many soldiers won’t receive first aid.”

The risks do not discourage Vlad from making his way to the front. Time, he says, is essential in treating injuries such as Danilo’s if the patient is to make a good recovery.

“It depends on how fast medical aid was provided and we provide it fast,” Vlad said.

“Most of the areas are mined. And to advance further we use engineering vehicles and sappers. Most of the those injured by mines in the last few months are sappers,” he added.

“The injuries are worse now than they were six months ago. We have much more work now.”

Kyiv has not publicly acknowledged it is taking more casualties in recent months.

‘Victory or death’

Following his recuperation in Mexico, Danilo is back in the battle, supporting Ukrainian forces as they advance in the south. He joined Ukraine’s counteroffensive shortly after arriving back in the country at the end of July.

“I got back into service two days after returning to Zaporizhzhia. For a month I was an instructor. Then I asked for a transfer to the front,” he said.

“Now I’m the main sergeant in a fire support unit. I’m in charge of mortar, grenade launcher and anti-tank squads,” he explained. “The platoon commander and I choose the right positions, targets, plan the operations.”

His injuries do not slow him down, he swears. “If I wasn’t efficient, I wouldn’t be here, they would send me to an HQ to do paperwork.”

Though quick to return to the front line, Danilo says he hates war and combat. “I don’t like to see my brothers wounded or killed,” he added.

But despite that, and the trauma he’s experienced, he says there’s no way he could have just stayed at home and watched.

“In a country under attack, every man has to stand up from the couch and defend his home,” he said. “I have to do it and I’m good at it. We need people with my experience.

“We don’t have a choice… The counteroffensive can’t fail,” Danilo continued. “We are defending our home. It’s victory or death for us.”