👋 Goedendag!*
Welcome to Friday, where Israel agrees to a series of humanitarian pauses in Gaza for polio vaccinations, Kamala Harris gives her first interview as Democratic nominee, and a postcard gets delivered some 121 years later. We also look into Hezbollah's Imad 4 underground missile facility, which was revealed on Aug. 16, and is just another layer of the Lebanese saga that dates back to its bloody civil war a generation ago.
[*Dutch]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel kills top West Bank militant, agrees to Gaza fighting pause for polio vaccinations. The Israeli military said Friday that it has killed five more West Bank militants, including a local commander, as its deadliest operation in the occupied territory since the start of the war in Gaza continued for a third day. Israel says the raids across the northern West Bank, which have killed a total of 16 people, nearly all militants, since late Tuesday, are aimed at preventing attacks. Meanwhile, Israel has agreed to a series of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow for the vaccination of children against polio. The campaign will aim to vaccinate around 640,000 children across Gaza. Follow our international coverage of the Israel-Palestine war here.
• Germany tightens weapons and asylum laws after stabbing attack. Germany’s coalition government has announced a hard-fought compromise on changes to weapons laws and asylum rules designed to prevent Islamist attacks such as last Friday’s stabbing that left three people dead. Meanwhile Germany deported Afghan nationals to their homeland on Friday for the first time since August 2021, when the Taliban returned to power.
• Pakistan military launches strikes in response to Balochistan attacks. Pakistan's military has launched intelligence-based operations in the southwestern Balochistan province in response to attacks by insurgents that killed more than 50 people this week. The army said in a statement Friday that five insurgents were killed and three others wounded in the three operations in the province. Learn more about the Pakistan-Balochistan conflict here.
• Workers trapped for days in Thai tunnel found dead. Three foreign workers trapped inside a collapsed train tunnel have died despite rescue efforts that lasted over five days. The men, two from China and one from Myanmar, were still thought to be alive as recently as Thursday. They were trapped when part of the tunnel they were building collapsed on Saturday in Pak Chong district, about 200 km (124 miles) north-east of the capital Bangkok.
• France signs $3 bln deal with Serbia for fighter jets. France and Serbia have signed a $3 billion agreement for the sale of 12 French-made Rafale fighter jets, as European countries try to put a pause in Serbia’s close ties with Russia. The landmark sale, signed by Serb Defense Minister Bratislav Gasic and Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier on Thursday, comes as French President Emmanuel Macron visits Belgrade with the goal of bolstering ties between the two nations.
• New Zealand indigenous king dies. New Zealand’s Maori King Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII has died at the age of 69. Aides for the king of the country’s indigenous Maori people said he died in the hospital on Friday, while recovering from heart surgery just days after celebrating the 18th anniversary of his coronation.
• Postcard arrives 121 years later, reunites family. A postcard that was delivered 121 years after it was posted has reunited long-lost family members who recognized their relatives. The card, written by a boy called Ewart to his sister Lydia, was delivered this month to Swansea Building Society’s Cradock Street branch in the UK, despite having been sent in 1903. After seeing the story, two families came forward and discovered they were related.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
40 tons
Greek authorities have removed more than 40 tons of dead rotting fish from the tourist port of Volos. In total, more than 100 tons of dead freshwater fish have washed into the central Greek waterways, filling both the bay and nearby rivers and forcing the Thessaly region to declare a state of emergency. The mass die-off is thought to be linked to extreme climate fluctuations, when historic storms and flooding last year hit the country and displaced the animals out to sea, where the salt water killed them.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
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📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🕳️ How Hezbollah's underground missile facility brings back memories of the Lebanese Civil War.
— DARAJ
🎰 From Albania to Milan, a man’s journey to overcome his gambling addiction — against the odds.
— LA STAMPA
🏟️“Hey, it’s me, hi, I’m the mega-concert-venue problem, it’s me!”
— THE INITIUM
📣 VERBATIM
“Next question, please.”
— Democrat candidate Kamala Harris dismissed any comment about her rival Donald Trump questioning her racial identity during her first formal interview since nomination, together with her running mate, Tim Walz. The former president had suggested that Harris, of Jamaican and Indian parents, had previously identified as South Asian before switching to Black for political purposes. To CNN’s Dana Bash, she made it clear that weighing on this kind of remarks would not be part of her campaign. “Same old tired playbook. Next question please,” she said with a wry smile. Harris also vowed a tougher approach to migration along the U.S. southern border. The Democrat rejected calls from within her party to rethink sending weapons to Israel, saying she would stick to Biden’s policy of military support to the Jewish state but stressed that a deal had to be reached for a ceasefire in Gaza.
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright & Laure Gautherin
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