The Philippines on Sunday condemned the Chinese coast guard for installing what it called a “floating barrier” in a disputed area of the South China Sea, saying that it prevented Filipino boats from entering and fishing in the area.

In a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, Philippine coast guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said the floating barrier was discovered by Philippine vessels during a routine maritime patrol on Friday and measured around 300 meters (984 feet).

“The Philippine coast guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources strongly condemn the China coast guard’s installation of a floating barrier in the Southeast portion of Bajo de Masinloc, which prevents Filipino fishing boats from entering the shoal and depriving them of their fishing and livelihood activities,” the statement read.

Tarriela shared photos of the alleged floating barrier and claimed three Chinese coast guard boats and a Chinese maritime militia service boat had installed the floating barrier following the arrival of a Philippine government vessel in the area.

The Philippine coast guard shared footage earlier this week of vast patches of broken and bleached coral, prompting officials to accuse China of massive destruction in the area.

“The continued swarming for the indiscriminate illegal and destructive fishing activities of the Chinese maritime militia in Rozul Reef and Escoda Shoal may have directly caused the degradation and destruction of the marine environment in the [West Philippine Sea] features,” Tarriela said in a statement, referring to Manila’s name for parts of the South China Sea within its jurisdiction.

“The presence of crushed corals strongly suggests a potential act of dumping, possibly involving the same dead corals that were previously processed and cleaned before being returned to the seabed,” Tarriela added.

When asked about the coral destruction at a routine briefing on Thursday, China’s foreign ministry dismissed the allegations as “false and groundless.”

“We advise the Philippine authorities not to utilize fabricated information to stage a political farce,” spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters.

According to Filipino fishermen, Chinese vessels “usually install floating barriers whenever they monitor a large number of Filipino fishermen in the area,” the statement said.

China has not yet publicly commented.

Bajo de Masinloc, also known as the Scarborough Shoal, is a small but strategic reef and fertile fishing ground 130 miles (200 kilometers) west of the Philippine island of Luzon.

The shoal, which China calls Huangyandao, is one of a number of disputed islands and reefs in the South China Sea, which is home to various territorial disputes.

The ethnic Armenian population in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region will leave for Armenia after Azerbaijan reclaimed the territory in a brief offensive, a local official says.

“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. Ninety-nine point nine percent prefer to leave our historic lands,” David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, told Reuters. The region is known as Artsakh to Armenians.

“The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilized world,” Babayan said, adding that those responsible will have to answer before God.

Azerbaijan’s short offensive this week ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire in which separatist Armenian fighters agreed to surrender and lay down their arms. The truce apparently marked the end of a conflict that has raged on and off for three decades.

Although internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, the landlocked mountainous region is home to 120,000 ethnic Armenians, who make up the majority of the population, and have created their own de facto government, rejecting Azerbaijani rule.

Azerbaijan says it will guarantee the rights of those living in the region. But Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and international experts have repeatedly warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the enclave.

Babayan’s comments come as the first aid reached Nagorno-Karabkh Saturday since the ceasefire began.

The convoy consisted of nearly 70 metric tons of humanitarian supplies including wheat flour, salt, dried yeast and sunflower oil, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The aid had been transported along the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the ICRC said.

The road has been blockaded since December 2022 by Azerbaijan, making it inaccessible to civilian and commercial traffic.

The ICRC added that it carried out the medical evacuation of 17 people who were wounded during fighting and had delivered medical supplies and body bags as aid.

“Given the scale of humanitarian needs, we are increasing our presence there with specialized personnel in health, forensics, protection, and weapons contamination,” the ICRC said.

Russia – the traditional regional power broker – has delivered 50 tons of aid, including rations and basic necessities, to Stepanakert, the region’s capital, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Saturday.

At least 200 people were killed and over 400 others wounded in Azerbaijan’s military operation, officials said.

US Senator Gary Peters, who is currently in Armenia leading a US Congressional Delegation, said he viewed the blockade at the Lachin corridor with the US ambassador to Armenia Kristina Kvien and governor of Armenia’s Syunik province, Robert Ghukasyan.

“I’ve talked to many people who are very concerned about their loved ones, families and what has happened to them,” Peters told reporters on Saturday.

“They know they have been suffering as a result of the blockade over many months, shortages of food, medical supplies, basic gasoline and petrol,” he added. “It’s a dire situation from what I have heard and I’m very concerned.”

More than a decade after he became the first former migrant worker to soar into space as a NASA astronaut, José Hernández reached another milestone this month.

The film about his remarkable journey from the fields of California to the International Space Station debuted as the most popular movie streaming on Amazon Prime and has been earning praise from critics and audiences since its September 15 launch.

Actor Michael Peña stars as Hernández in “A Million Miles Away,” which tells the story of a boy who grew up picking cucumbers and cherries but kept his eyes trained on the stars.

Hernández, an engineer, made history aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2009, the first shuttle mission sending two Latino astronauts into space.

“Who better to leave this planet and dive into the unknown than a migrant farmworker?” Hernández says in the film, quoting his cousin at a press conference as he gets ready to fly on that mission.

What growing up in a family of migrant workers taught him

For years, Hernández grew up in a family of migrant workers who followed the harvest back and forth from California and Mexico. His parents were originally from the Mexican state of Michoacán. Hernández was born in California.

“I’d sit them down in the back seat of the car. They were all very dusty. I’d tell them, they’d better start taking school seriously because if they don’t do that, they will be all the time working in the fields. … That will be their future.”

It’s a scene viewers of the film will recognize, portrayed almost word for word by actor Julio César Cedillo.

Hernández says his dream of becoming an astronaut began after he watched the Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972, holding up the rabbit-ear antenna to get reception on his family’s black and white television. When he shared his dream, Hernández says his father offered him crucial advice.

In the film, director Alejandra Márquez Abella uses those five ingredients as chapters in her retelling of Hernández’s story:

•       Find your goal
•       Know how far you are
•       Draw a roadmap
•       If you don’t know how, learn
•       When you think you’ve made it, you probably have to work harder

How he persevered without losing sight of his goal

With these steps in mind, Hernández did everything he could to further his education. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering and went on to work for 15 years at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

But his goal of becoming a NASA astronaut remained elusive.

The film portrays Hernández’s perseverance as the space agency rejected Hernández’s astronaut applications 11 times before selecting him for the program in 2004. And it shows what a critical role Hernández’s family played supporting him along the way.

In the film, actress Rosa Salazar portrays Hernández’s wife, Adela, with emotional grit as someone who both holds her husband accountable and pushes him not to give up.

“The sixth year that NASA rejected me, I crumpled up the rejection letter and threw it on the bedroom floor. I was going to quit trying, but she talked me out of it,” Hernández said.

His wife’s words: “’Let NASA be the one to disqualify you. Don’t disqualify yourself.”

The husband and wife’s determination paid off when Hernández became an astronaut against the odds.

“I was 41 when I became an astronaut,” Hernández said. “The average age of new astronauts is 34.”

Soon after returning from space, he made a controversial comment

In an interview with Televisa after returning from space, Hernández made a comment that was controversial at the time, telling the Mexican TV network that he hoped the Obama administration would pass comprehensive immigration reform. He noted that viewing Earth from outer space, there were no borders.

His comments caused NASA to take its own stand. In a statement released to the media, NASA said Hernández’s opinions were his own and did not represent the space agency. The statement added that Hernández had every right to express his personal views.

Hernández has reiterated his initial point over the years.

“That is to say, from my perspective, down below, we were all one. How sad that humans invented the concept of borders to divide us.”

“I would ask more that they be more tolerant, and that they make the environment better for our migrants,” he said. “Because right now everything is anti-immigrant in our country.”

What turning his life into a film was like

The former astronaut has an on-screen cameo, helping Peña suit up as he heads into space. But he said his role in the movie went far beyond that appearance.

“I was involved in the process because Alejandra took the time to get to know our family. When she was writing the script, she would send it to me and I would give her comments,” Hernández said. “Some were incorporated and others they couldn’t because of time. It’s difficult to put a whole life into two hours, right? So sometimes it wasn’t included. But she did a great job putting together the story and getting it on screen.”

The film is based on Hernández’s 2012 memoir, “Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut.” Hernández says he hopes that bringing the story to the screen will help an even larger audience.

One thing the movie doesn’t show: His ‘next big dream’

“I am still the same person. Family keeps your feet firmly on the ground,” he said. “I keep being a father and a husband and taking the trash out every Thursday. I have my chores at home that I have to complete.”

These days, when he’s not doing those chores, promoting the new movie, working as an aerospace engineering consultant or telling his story as a motivational speaker, the 61-year-old sometimes finds himself back in the fields working alongside his father.

This time, they’re working in California at a winery they own together.

On its website, Tierra Luna Cellars is described as the “next big dream” for Hernández, with a line of wines inspired by the constellations he saw from space.

A large chunk of a motorway in southwest Sweden collapsed overnight, causing three people to be taken to hospital with light injuries, police said on Saturday.

The landslide damaged the motorway between Sweden’s second-biggest city Gothenburg and Norway’s capital Oslo, near the small town of Stenungsund, around 50 km north of Gothenburg on Sweden’s west coast.

“The hardest hit parts of the landslide area measure around 150 x 100 meters. In total, however, the landslide has affected an area of around 700 x 200 meters,” the Gothenburg Rescue Services said in a statement.

The slide affected around ten vehicles, a wooded area, a business area with a gas station and a fast food restaurant, the rescue services said.

“A number of people have been helped out of vehicles in the slide area with the help of fire personnel and a helicopter.”

Several cars and one truck had fallen into holes and cracks caused by the landslide, Swedish news agency TT reported.

A rescue services spokesperson told public broadcaster SVT all people in the vehicles had been helped out.

Police said on their website they had launched a probe into whether work at a nearby construction site may have caused the slide.

“It’s still unclear if there is any connection to blasting/work at the site and the landslide,” they said. “No person is currently suspected of a crime.”

The rescue services said specially trained staff and search dogs would now search the area, and that further slides could not be ruled out.

Two Palestinian men were killed in the early hours of Sunday during an incursion by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said.

Palestinian officials named them as Aseed Farhan Abu Ali, 21, and Abd al-Rahman Suleiman Abu Daghash, 32. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said both died after being shot in the head.

Abu Daghash was in his home when he was shot by an Israeli sniper, according to Taha al-Irani, the head of the popular resistance committee in the camp. He said it was the third Israeli raid on the camp this year, damaging electricity and water services.

The IDF said in a statement forces entered the area to dismantle militants’ “operational command center and dozens of ready-to-use explosive devices.”

Palestinian state media WAFA said Israeli forces “stormed the camp in large numbers, accompanied by military bulldozers, amid heavy gunfire, and began bulldozing the main street and infrastructure in the camp, while (Israeli) occupation snipers mounted the roofs of citizens’ homes.”

Najeeb Adeeb, a medic inside the camp, said the incursion involved more than 60 Israeli military vehicles and heavy gunfire. His team treated seven shrapnel injuries in the field and evacuated two others to a hospital in Tulkarem, he said.

One IDF soldier was “moderately injured” during the operation by gunfire fragments, the IDF said.

“(During the) counterterrorism activity, IDF engineering vehicles operated in the area in order to uncover explosive devices that were planted under the roads in the area,” the statement said, adding that the vehicles found multiple explosive devices including at least one IED, all of which exploded.

Suspects also “opened fire and hurled explosive devices at the forces, who responded with live fire. Hits were identified,” the IDF said.

Israel raided the camp earlier in September, leaving a Palestinian man killed and another two injured.

The camp was built in 1952 to house refugees fleeing their homes in the war that followed Israel’s creation. The UN refugee agency says the camp has 13,519 refugees registered to it, with overcrowding, unemployment and poor sanitation all issues.

A general strike has been announced in the camp and Tulkarem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it is “likely” Israel will reach a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, in what would mark a seismic foreign policy shift for both countries as they edge closer to reaching a deal mediated by the US.

But he refused repeatedly to say what kind of concessions he would offer Palestinians in order to get the deal across the line.

It would “change the Middle East forever,” he said – bringing down “walls of enmity” and creating “a corridor of energy pipelines, rail lines, fiber optic cables, between Asia through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates.”

The White House has been in talks with Riyadh for several months over the purported agreement to normalize relations between the two countries. Saudi Arabia, like many Arab states, does not currently recognize Israel; such a deal would have potential to enhance Israel’s acceptance in the Muslim world, particularly considering Saudi Arabia’s role as the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites.

In 2002, Saudi Arabia proposed an “Arab Peace initiative” which offered Israel security and “normal relations” with 57 Arab and Muslim countries in exchange for its withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories and the creation of an independent Palestinian state. But Israel rejected the initiative at the time.

This week, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that a normalization pact with Israel would be “the biggest historical deal since the Cold War.”

In an interview with Fox News, bin Salman added that he hopes the deal will “reach a place that will ease the life of the Palestinians” – but stopped short of calling for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, which has been Riyadh’s official stance for two decades.

Netanyahu has made tightening relations with Saudi Arabia a linchpin of his premiership, although it is unclear what kind of concessions toward Palestinians would be allowed by his right-wing coalition.

In his interview with Collins, Netanyahu declined to say what kind of concessions he might make to Palestinians for the nromalization deal, but emphasized that he believes making peace with the broader Arab world would be a step toward resolving Palestinian-Israeli conflict – what he called an “outside-in” approach.

He also repeated a point made in his UN address earlier that day, saying that he believed Palestinians should “become part of the process” – but not wield the ability to veto it.

Speaking to the UN General Assembly in New York this week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned against trying to sideline his people’s demands in any possible normalization agreement.

“Those who think that peace can prevail in the Middle East without the Palestinian people enjoying their full legitimate national rights would be mistaken,” Abbas said at the UNGA.

Tensions in the region have skyrocketed in recent weeks, amid increased Israeli military raids on Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank. Israel says the raids are intended to prevent or punish Palestinian militant attacks on Israeli civilians because the Palestinian Authority is failing in its security obligations.

The number of Palestinians and Israelis killed this year is on track to be the highest since the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, two decades ago.

Despite apparent momentum toward a normalization deal, Netanyahu’s relationship with US President Joe Biden has soured in recent months, as officials in Washington raise concerns over his efforts to scale back the powers of Israel’s Supreme Court.

The judicial overhaul has triggered the longest and largest protest movement in Israeli history, dividing the Knesset over a crucial proposal that critics say would threaten the country’s democracy.

Part of the overhaul is a law that would restrict the court’s ability to strike down government actions it deems “unreasonable.” Israel’s Supreme Court held hearings on the law to curb its powers earlier this month.

The US president had previously warned against the proposals, suggesting it is an erosion of democracy and could undercut US-Israel relations.

Asked by Collins about the damage the judicial overhaul poses to US-Israel relations, Netanyahu responded, “I think the damage is not the reform, it’s the way the reform is misrepresented, as some kind of collapse of democracy.”

Two Chinese activists held without trial for the past two years are expected to appear before a judge in a closed doors hearing on Friday as the ruling Communist Party ramps up its effort to dismantle what remains of the country’s civil society.

Independent journalist and #MeToo activist Huang Xueqin and labor rights activist Wang Jianbing were detained by authorities in the southern city of Guangzhou in September 2021.

Rights advocates say Huang and Wang are unlikely to receive a fair trial in a judicial system controlled by the party with a conviction rate above 99.9%.

“We don’t know for sure what the substance of the Chinese government’s case against Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing is, but we can be certain that the process will be a complete sham,” said William Nee, a research and advocacy coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

“Huang has not seen a lawyer of her choice in two years of detention. They were both reportedly subjected to prolonged interrogations and police frequently would wake Huang up in the middle of the night and start interrogations,” Nee said.

‘Isolated atoms’

The pair were detained the day before Huang, 35, was scheduled to fly to the United Kingdom to start her master’s degree on gender violence and conflict at the University of Sussex.

Authorities have offered no details about their charges, but supporters believe it could be related to weekly friends’ gatherings held at Wang’s apartment.

In the months following their detention, more than 70 friends and supporters of Huang and Wang were summoned by the police for questioning, according to supporters. Some were forced to sign fabricated testimonies against the pair, claiming they had organized political gatherings to criticize the government, the supporters claimed.

Huang’s close friend said participants of the gatherings were a loose group of friends who care about public affairs – from the issues of feminism, LGBTQ and labor rights to environmental protection. In addition to sharing their experiences and views, they also played board games and sometimes went hiking together.

“The crackdown by authorities turned us into isolated atoms – it is difficult for everyone to band together again. The entire community is suppressed and silenced.”

‘Courageous wave of younger Chinese’

Nee, at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said the real purpose of the case against them may be about dismantling of informal friendships and networks among civil society activists in Guangzhou.

“The Chinese government has already effectively shut down independent NGOs roughly a decade ago, but it now appears that they want to go after even the informal solidarity that exists among free thinking people who could pose a potential political threat to the regime,” he said.

Huang, who worked as an investigative reporter for liberal-leaning media outlets in Guangzhou before becoming an independent journalist, had been an instrumental figure in sparking China’s #MeToo movement.

In 2018, she helped bring about the country’s first #MeToo case, using her influential social media presence to amplify the voice of a graduate student who accused her PhD supervisor of unwanted sexual advances.

She also spoke up about her own experiences of sexual harassment as a young intern at a national news agency, where she claimed she was groped and kissed by a senior male reporter and mentor.

To show the prevalence of the issue, she surveyed 416 female journalists in 2018 and found 84% of them had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

Amnesty International described Huang and Wang as part of a “courageous wave of younger Chinese activists who have connected with the public concerned about social issues.”

“These baseless charges are motivated purely by the Chinese authorities’ relentless determination to crush critical voices,” said Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for China.

India’s parliament passed a landmark bill Thursday that will reserve a third of its seats in the lower house and state assemblies for women, in a major win for rights groups that have for decades campaigned for better gender representation in politics.

The bill received cross-party support and was celebrated by politicians across India’s often fractious political spectrum but some expressed reservations that it could still take years for the quota to be implemented.

A total of 214 lawmakers from the upper house voted in favor of the Women’s Reservation Bill, which was introduced by prime minister Narendra Modi’s government in a special parliamentary session on Tuesday. It was approved by the lower house on Wednesday.

“A historic moment in our country’s democratic journey!” Modi wrote on Twitter after its approval. “With the passing of this bill, the representation of women power will be strengthened and a new era of their empowerment will begin.”

Six attempts to pass the bill, first introduced in 1996, have failed, at times due to strong disapproval from the country’s overwhelmingly male lawmakers.

In India, the world’s largest democracy of 1.4 billion people, women make up nearly half of the country’s 950 million registered voters but only 15% of lawmakers in parliament and 10% in state assemblies.

Despite being voted through, the move will not apply to next year’s general election.

The implementation of the quota could take years as it depends on the redrawing of electoral constituencies, which will only happen after the completion of India’s once-in-a-decade census.

That huge census project was meant to take place in 2021, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and has been stalled ever since.

Some members of India’s opposition expressed disappointment that the bill won’t come into effect sooner.

Sonia Gandhi, a leader of the Indian National Congress, said women have been waiting for 13 years for the bill to go through.

“Now they have been asked to wait longer,” she told lawmakers in parliament. “How many years more?”

Rajani Patil, another Congress lawmaker, said that while the party was “very happy” at its passage, their demand is that the bill should be “implemented immediately” for the general elections.

She added: “It should include OBC reservations as well,” referring to India’s caste system, a 2,000 year old social hierarchy imposed on people by birth. Though abolished in 1950, it still exists in many aspects of life.

Nonetheless, the bill’s passage in parliament will be seen as a further boost to Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of national elections next year.

While India has made progress on women’s issues in recent years, it remains a deeply patriarchal country.

It has, since its independence in 1947, had one female prime minister. India Gandhi served as the country’s leader twice before her assassination in 1984.

India’s current President, Droupadi Murmu, who was appointed to the position last year became only the second woman to take the seat.

Across the world, the overall share of lower house parliamentary seats occupied by women is about 26 percent according to UN Women’s data, up from 11 per cent in 1995.

Only six nations have currently achieved 50 per cent or more women in parliament in single or lower houses. Rwanda leads with 61 per cent, followed by Cuba (53 per cent), Nicaragua (52 per cent), Mexico (50 per cent), New Zealand (50 per cent), and the United Arab Emirates (50 per cent).

A further 23 countries have reached or surpassed 40 per cent, including 13 countries in Europe, six in Africa, three in Latin America and the Caribbean, and one in Asia – Timor Leste.

However Taiwan, which is not counted in the UN data, has the second highest representation of women in its legislature in Asia after the UAE at 43 percent.

While there is no evidence to suggest that Russia, the US or China is preparing for an imminent nuclear test, the images, obtained and provided by a prominent analyst in military nonproliferation studies, illustrate recent expansions at three nuclear test sites compared with just a few years ago.

One is operated by China in the far western region of Xinjiang, one by Russia in an Arctic Ocean archipelago, and another in the US in the Nevada desert.

The satellite images from the past three to five years show new tunnels under mountains, new roads and storage facilities, as well as increased vehicle traffic coming in and out of the sites, said Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

“There are really a lot of hints that we’re seeing that suggest Russia, China and the United States might resume nuclear testing,” he said, something none of those countries have done since underground nuclear testing was banned by the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. China and the US signed the treaty, but they haven’t ratified it.

Retired US Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, a former intelligence analyst, reviewed the images of the three powers’ nuclear sites and came to a similar conclusion.

“It’s very clear that all three countries, Russia, China and the United States have invested a great deal of time, effort and money in not only modernizing their nuclear arsenals, but also in preparing the types of activities that would be required for a test,” he said.

Moscow has ratified the treaty, but Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February he would order a test, if the US moves first, adding that “no one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed.”

The expansions risk sparking a race to modernize nuclear weapons testing infrastructure at a time of deep mistrust between Washington and the two authoritarian governments, analysts said, though the idea of actual armed conflict is not considered imminent.

“The threat from nuclear testing is from the degree to which it accelerates the growing arms race between the United States on one hand, and Russia and China on the other,” Lewis said. “The consequences of that are that we spend vast sums of money, even though we don’t get any safer.”

Nuclear threats

Lewis’ comments came after a prominent nuclear watchdog group, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, earlier this year set its iconic Doomsday Clock, a measure of how close the world is to self-destruction, to 90 seconds to midnight, the clock’s most precarious setting since its inception in 1947.

The group cited the war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia’s illegal invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, as main reason for its sobering assessment.

“Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict – by accident, intention, or miscalculation – is a terrible risk. The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high,” the group said.

In other words, the Doomsday Clock today signals a higher risk of the end of humankind than in 1953, when both the United States and the Soviet Union conducted dramatic above-ground tests of nuclear weapons.

Last month United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued a fresh appeal for key countries to ratify the international treaty that bans experiments for both peaceful and military purposes

“This year, we face an alarming rise in global mistrust and division,” Guterres said. “At a time in which nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons are stockpiled around the world — and countries are working to improve their accuracy, reach and destructive power — this is a recipe for annihilation.”

Lewis pointed out that the unexpectedly poor performance of the Russian military in Ukraine could be part of the impetus for Moscow to consider resuming nuclear tests.

Dmitry Medvedev, a hawkish backer of Putin and the current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, has vowed Moscow “would have to use nuclear weapons” if the Ukraine counteroffensive became successful. Medvedev’s bellicose rhetoric has raised eyebrows, but Putin is Russia’s key decision-maker, and widely seen as the real power behind the throne during Medvedev’s four-year presidency.

Belarus, which has played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has also received tactical nuclear weapons from Moscow, President Alexander Lukashenko said in August. He added that Minsk would be willing to use them in the face of foreign “aggression.”

Russia and China

Even as the Russian military was invading Ukraine last year, analysts have also seen an expansion of the country’s nuclear test site in Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean archipelago.

In mid-August, the facility received renewed focus when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu paid a visit, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The Novaya Zemlya site was first used by the Soviet Union to conduct nuclear tests in 1955 until the USSR’s final underground explosion in 1990. During that time, the site saw a total of 130 tests involving more than 200 devices, according to a review published in the Science and Global Security journal.

“The Russian test site is now open year round, we see them clearing snow off roads, we see them building new facilities.” Lewis said.

Near those facilities are tunnels where Russia has tested in past, Lewis said. “In the past five or six years, we’ve seen Russia dig new tunnels, which suggests that they are prepared to resume nuclear testing,” he added.

“The Russians may be trying to go right up to the line by making all the preparations for a nuclear test, but not actually carrying one out. In essence, they’d be doing this to ‘scare’ the West,” Leighton said.

Increased activity was also detected at the Chinese nuclear test site in Lop Nur, a dried up salt lake between two deserts in the sparsely populated western China.

Satellite images show a new, fifth underground tunnel has been under excavation in recent years, and fresh roads have been built. A comparison of the images taken in 2022 and 2023 shows the spoil pile has been steadily increasing in size, leading analysts to believe tunnels are being expanded, Lewis said.

In addition, the main administration and support area has seen new construction projects. A new storage area was built in 2021 and 2022, which could be used for storing explosives, he added.

“The Chinese test site is different than the Russian test site,” Lewis said. “The Chinese test site is vast, and there are many different parts of it.”

“(It) looks really busy, and these things are easily seen in satellite imagery. If we can see them, I think the US government certainly can,” he added.

Increased activity at Lop Nur was also noted in an April report by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s China Observer project, a group of China experts in Japan.

After an analysis of satellite photos of the Lop Nur site, the group concluded that China’s “possible goal is to conduct subcritical nuclear tests.”

It found a possible sixth testing tunnel under construction at Lop Nur, saying “the fact that a very long tunnel has been dug along the mountain’s terrain with bends on the way indicates that the construction of the test site is in its final phase.”

“Since the announcement of suspending nuclear tests in 1996, the Chinese side has consistently respected this promise and worked hard in defending the international consensus on prohibiting nuclear testing,” it said.

It added that the international world should have “high vigilance” about the United States’ activities in nuclear testing.

Activity in Nevada’s desert

The US releases an unclassified version of the Nuclear Posture Review every few years, which provides an overview of the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategy.

The most recent report, released in October last year, said that Washington would only consider using nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances.” However, it also stated that the US does not adopt a “no first use policy” because it would result in an “unacceptable level of risk” to its security.

The US conducted its last underground test in 1992, but Lewis said the US has long been keeping itself in a state of readiness for a nuclear test, ready to react if one of its rivals moves first.

“The United States has a policy of being prepared to conduct a nuclear test on relatively short notice, about six months,” he said.

The commercial satellite imagery, taken above the nuclear test site in Nevada, officially known as the Nevada National Security Site, shows that an underground facility – the U1a complex – was expanded greatly between 2018 and 2023.

The National Security Administration (NNSA), an arm of the US Department of Energy that oversees the site, says the laboratory is for conducting “subcritical” nuclear experiments, a longstanding practice meant to ensure the reliability of weapons in the current stockpile without full-scale testing.

“In subcritical experiments, chemical high explosives generate high pressures, which are applied to nuclear weapon materials, such as plutonium. The configuration and quantities of explosives and nuclear materials are such that no nuclear explosion will occur,” the NNSA’s website says.

“(This) will provide modern diagnostic capabilities and data to help maintain the safety and performance of the US nuclear stockpile without further underground nuclear explosive testing,” the spokesman added.

A report from the US Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) released in August says the US will build two measurement devices at the Nevada site to “make new measurements of plutonium during subcritical experiments.”

The devices and related infrastructure improvements, needed “to inform plans for modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile” will cost about $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion and be ready by 2030, according to the GAO report.

However, the expansion of facilities at the Nevada test site could fuel fears in Moscow and Beijing that Washington may be preparing for a nuclear test – because while both countries could see the development from satellite images, they lack the ability to independently verify what’s going on inside, Lewis said.

And such perceptions can become dangerous, especially in the current era with fear and lack of trust on all sides, he said.

“The danger is even if all three start by only planning to go second, one of them might talk themselves into the importance of going first, one of them might decide that since everybody else is doing it, it’s better to get the jump and really get going.”

If they do, the world would know – any major underground blast is likely to be detected by the International Monitoring System (IMS), a network of 337 facilities that monitors the planet for signs of nuclear explosions.

Continued modernization

Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, agreed there is a real danger of testing escalation should one of the major powers do so.

“The minute one of the major nuclear powers pops a nuclear weapon somewhere, you know, all bets are off, because there’s no doubt that everyone will join that business again,” he said.

In a recent yearbook on world nuclear forces, co-authored by Kristensen and published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in June, analysts concluded that all of the world’s nuclear powers – which also included the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel – have continued to “modernize their nuclear arsenals” last year.

Russia, for instance, announced on September 1 that its new Sarmat or “Satan II” intercontinental ballistic missile is operational. The Sarmat could carry 10 and possibly more independently targeted nuclear warheads with a range of up to 18,000 kilometers (or about 11,185 miles), according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The US is also building new delivery systems for nuclear warheads like the B-21 stealth bomber and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. As part of the upgrade, nuclear storage sites will also be added to US Air Force bases in Ellsworth and Dyess, Kristensen wrote in a report in the Federation of American Scientists in 2020.

The SIPRI report said that Russia and the US currently possess about 90% of all nuclear weapons in the world, with the US estimated to have more than 3,700 warheads stockpiled, and Russia having about 4,500. Both countries keep their strategic nuclear arsenals on “hair-trigger” alert, meaning that nuclear weapons can be launched on short notice.

China’s nuclear arsenal has increased from 350 warheads in January 2022 to 410 in January 2023.

In the past, China did not marry up warheads with delivery systems, keeping their nuclear forces on a “low-alert” status. But the Arms Control Association (ACA) NGO said this year the PLA now rotates missile battalions from stand-by to ready-to-launch status monthly.

Fiona Cunningham, a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in the ACA’s monthly journal in August that Beijing’s nuclear stance is hard to discern.

“The increasing size, accuracy, readiness, and diversity of China’s arsenal bolsters the credibility of the country’s ability to threaten retaliation for a nuclear strike and enables China to make more credible threats to use nuclear weapons first,” she wrote.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, agreed, writing in the organization’s September newsletter that “China, Russia, and the United States continue to engage in weapons-related activities at their former nuclear testing sites.”

But Kimball noted that without a real test, “it is more difficult, although not impossible, for states to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs.”

What’s the point of more tests?

But if all three countries have suspended nuclear testing since the 1990s, what could they gain from the resumption of these tests?

Lewis said a reason to test, especially for China, is to get more up-to-date data for computer models that show what a nuclear explosion will do. Because while the United States and Russia have conducted hundreds of tests, China has only done around 40 and has significantly fewer data points.

“Those 40 tests were done in the 1960s, in the 1970s, in the 1980s, when their technology wasn’t that high. The data that you have is not that good,” Lewis said.

Others point out that the big powers have not tested low-yield nuclear weapons, which produce a smaller nuclear explosion that might be targeted on a specific battlefield unit or formation, rather than destroying a major city.

In a 2022 report for the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, researchers Michael Frankel, James Scouras and George Ullrich suggest that the US might hesitate to retaliate for a Russian low-yield attack because it has not tested the types of weapons it would need to use.

“While the United States now has several lower-yield weapons in its arsenal, they are insufficient in quantity and diversity of delivery systems,” their report, titled “Tickling the Sleeping Dragon’s Tail,” says.

In particular, the report says, smaller nukes, with yields lower than a kiloton (for comparison, the atomic bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 had a yield of about 15 kilotons) that can be delivered by aircraft or ships have been proposed a deterrent to Russian nuclear threats.

“Such weapons are unlikely to be available absent testing,” the report says.

The United States, the world’s first nuclear power, has conducted 1,032 tests, the first coming in 1945 and the last coming in 1992, according to the United Nations’ data. The Soviet Union – now Russia – conducted 715 between 1949 and 1990, and China has tested 45 times between 1964 and 1996.

Lewis believed an urge for the US, Russia and China to be the first to develop “exotic” weapons of the future also instills a need for nuclear testing of those possible systemsl.

Some of these may soon be in the Russian arsenal, as Putin has boasted about weapons like an nuclear-armed doomsday torpedo and a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

“We’re on the verge of this kind of science fiction future where we are resurrecting all of these terrible ideas from the Cold War,” Lewis said.

India has called Canada a “safe haven for terrorists” following its suspension of visas for Canadian citizens, as the fallout grows over Ottawa’s accusation that New Delhi is potentially behind the assassination of a Sikh separatist activist on its soil.

In a strongly worded statement to reporters Thursday, India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Canada needed to “worry about its international reputation” in the wake of its explosive allegations.

He added: “If you’re talking about reputational issues and reputational damage, if there’s any country that needs to look at this, I think it’s Canada and its growing reputation as a place, as a safe haven for terrorists, for extremists, and for organized crime.”

His comments followed India’s move to suspend visa applications for Canadian citizens over what it says are “security threats” against diplomats in the country.

“The issue is of incitement of violence, the inaction by the Canadian authorities, the creation of an environment that disrupts the functioning of our high commission and consulates, that’s what’s making us stop temporarily the issuance of visas or providing visa services,” Bagchi added.

Relations between the two countries plummeted this week after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said India was potentially behind the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist activist, who was gunned down by two masked men in Surrey, British Columbia.

India has vehemently denied the claims, calling them “absurd and motivated.” Bagchi said Canada has provided “no specific information” to support the allegations.

India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Thursday issued an advisory to television channels, asking them to refrain from “giving any platform to persons who are facing serious charges, such as terrorism or belonging to organizations proscribed by law.”

The Indian government has long accused Canada of inaction in dealing with what it says is Sikh separatist extremism aimed at creating a separate Sikh homeland that would be known as Khalistan and include parts of India’s Punjab state.

Nijjar was an outspoken supporter of the creation of Khalistan. India considers calls for Khalistan a grave national security threat.

A number of groups associated with the idea of Khalistan are listed as “terrorist organizations” under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). 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.’”

Several Sikh organizations overseas say the movement is being falsely equated with terrorism by the Indian government, and say they will continue to peacefully advocate for the creation of Khalistan, while bringing to light what they say is years of human rights abuses faced by the community in India.

The history of Khalistan

Sikhs once had their own kingdom in the Punjab and the push for the creation of Khalistan dates back decades, to around the time India gained independence from its British colonial rulers in 1947.

When Partition hastily divided the former colony along religious lines – sending Muslims to the newly formed nation of Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs to newly independent India – Punjab, which was sliced in half, saw some of the worst violence.

Sikhs suffered heavily in the ensuing bloodshed, and the community felt mistreated in the new Hindu-majority nation, prompting some prominent leaders to advocate for the creation of Khalistan. Over the years, violent clashes have erupted between followers of the movement and the Indian government, claiming many lives.

In the 1980s, Punjab witnessed a decade-long insurgency by some Khalistani militants, who committed a series of human rights abuses, including the massacre of civilians, indiscriminate bombings and attacks on Hindus, according to Human Rights Watch.

In counterinsurgency operations, Indian security forces arbitrarily detained, tortured, executed, and “disappeared” tens of thousands of Sikhs, the rights group said. The Indian government also enacted counterinsurgency legislation that facilitated human rights violations and shielded security forces from accountability for these violations, it added.

In 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered Indian troops to storm Amritsar’s Golden Temple – Sikhism’s holiest shrine – to kill Sikh separatists, in an operation that caused huge anger within the Sikh community.

Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in the aftermath, prompting a renewed bout of violence that killed more than 3,000 people, mostly Sikhs.

A year later the violence spilled over to Canada, when Sikh separatists bombed an Air India plane that had taken off from Toronto airport, killing all 329 people aboard, including numerous Canadians of Indian descent.

The Khalistan movement now

There is no insurgency in Punjab today and analysts say supporters of the Khalistan movement remain very much on the margins in India.

However, the movement continues to evoke a level of sympathy from some Sikhs within the global diaspora, particularly in Canada, Britain and Australia.

A small but influential number of those Sikhs support the idea of Khalistan, with referendums periodically held to reach a consensus to establish a separate homeland.

Nijjar’s death shocked and outraged many within the Sikh community in Canada, which has more than 770,000 members and is one of the largest outside India.

Canadian police have not arrested anyone in connection with Nijjar’s murder. But in August, police said they were investigating three suspects and issued a description of a possible getaway vehicle, asking for the public’s help.