👋 Aссалом!*
Welcome to Monday, where the world marks one year since Hamas’ attack on Israel, Tunisia's Kais Saied is set for a landslide election victory, and LeBron James and his son make NBA history. Meanwhile for French daily Les Echos, Anaïs Moutot touches base with Big Tech’s plans to build a brand new city near San Francisco — and the locals resisting.
[*Assalom - Tajik, Tajikistan]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
In its special issue, Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth takes stock of the tragedy that hit the country one year ago, citing the death toll of 1,687 and the 101 hostages believed to still be in captivity. The daily features a photo of the Nova music festival site in Reim, where the families of some of the 364 victims and 40 captives planted trees to honor their loved ones. See how the international press marked the one-year anniversary with our collection of 23 front pages.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel marks Oct. 7 anniversary under shadow of escalating war. Israelis on Monday marked the first anniversary of the devastating Hamas attack in southern Israel that triggered a war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands, and more recently ignited a wider conflict in the Middle East. Israeli President Isaac Herzog kicked off the commemorations on Monday, with memorials held to honor 1,139 Israelis and nearly 100 people still in captivity in Gaza. Meanwhile, Hezbollah rockets hit Israel's third largest city Haifa early on Monday. Keep up-to-date with the situation in the Middle East with our international coverage here.
• Tunisia's Saied moves toward landslide win in election. Tunisian President Kais Saied is on course to win the presidential election with 89.2% of the vote, according to an exit poll aired on state TV, official results will be announced on Monday evening. Sunday night, in the capital Tunis, supporters raised pictures of Saied and the Tunisian flag, chanting “The people want to build and develop.” Read more about Kais Saied’s crackdown on migrants in this piece from Tunis-based daily Inkyfada.
• Blast kills two Chinese nationals and injures 10 near Pakistan's Karachi airport. The Chinese embassy in Pakistan said the explosion on Sunday night was a “terrorist attack” targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a power project in Sindh province. The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility for the attack.
• Antisemitic incidents in U.S. surge to record high. Reports of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have reached a record high since last year's Hamas attack in Israel, according to a preliminary report from the Anti-Defamation League Center for Extremism (ADL). The group found more than 10,000 incidents from October 7, 2023 to September 24 of this year, marking a more than a 200% increase compared to the same period a year earlier.
• Kazakhstan votes to build first nuclear power plant. Kazakh nationals voted in favor of building the country’s first nuclear power plant during a referendum on Sunday, backing the idea promoted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's cabinet as a way to phase out polluting coal plants. The plan has faced public criticism due to concerns about related incidents, the Soviet nuclear testing legacy, and fears that Russia will be involved in the project.
• Nobel Prize awarded in medicine. Scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation, the award-giving body said on Monday. “Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans,” the assembly said.
• LeBron and Bronny James become first father-son duo to play together on an NBA team. LeBron James and his eldest son Bronny James made their long-awaited first appearance alongside each other for the Los Angeles Lakers. The duo appeared together on Sunday at the start of the second quarter in the Lakers’ 118-114 preseason defeat to the Phoenix Suns in Palm Desert, east of Los Angeles.
💬 LEXICON
Hera
SpaceX is set to launch the European Space Agency’s Hera mission from Cape Canaveral, in Florida. The spacecraft, named after the Greek goddess of marriage, will journey to the binary asteroid system Dimorphos/Didymos and examine the former’s surface and internal structure. More specifically, Hera aims to gauge the effectiveness of NASA's DART mission, which collided with the asteroid two years ago, in a effort to test out planetary defense techniques designed to change the trajectory of asteroids heading toward Earth.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
✍️ Egyptian journalist Khaled Dawoud recalls his meeting with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in 2000 and gauges how his death marks the end of an era of confrontation with Israel.
— AL-MANASSA
🇷🇺🇺🇦 It's time to imagine how the Ukraine-Russia war, which has now lasted more than two-and-a-half years, could come to an acceptable end.
— DIE ZEIT
🏙️ Tech’s biggest fortunes are funding a project to build a new European-style city of 400,000 people just an hour outside of San Francisco. But the residents of rural Solano County are resisting.
— LES ECHOS
📣 VERBATIM
“God save the Tsar!”
— Ultra-nationalist Russian activist Alexander Dugin took to Telegram just minutes after the clock struck midnight, to wish Russian President Vladimir Putin a happy 72nd birthday. “This is a significant day for our entire Fatherland,” leader of Russia's Chechen Republic and close Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov chimed in. Putin’s birthday comes as Russia faces the strain of the prolonged war with Ukraine, which today saw Ukraine hackers seize control of the prominent VGTRK state broadcaster, while Crimea's largest oil terminal in Feodosia was reportedly hit by Ukrainian drones.
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright, David Arterburn & Laure Gautherin
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