We are neither procrastinating nor hasting in fulfilling our duty: Supreme Leader

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei is delivering a speech at the commemoration ceremony of the late Hezbollah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in Imam Khomeini’s Grand Mosalla in Tehran.

In his Friday Prayer sermons, Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized the importance of Muslim unity, stating that if Muslims come together, they can overcome their enemies.

He stressed that the enemy of the Iranian nation is also the enemy of the Iraqi, Lebanese, and Egyptian nations, emphasizing that their enemy is the same.

Referring to the Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, Ayatollah Khamenei called it a legal and international move and affirming the Palestinians' rightness in their actions.

He condemned the crimes committed by the Israeli regime and asserted that every nation has the right to defend its country and territory against aggressors.

Furthermore, Ayatollah Khamenei praised the recent anti-Israeli operation by the country’s armed forces, describing it as a legal and legitimate move. He emphasized that they neither delay nor rush in fulfilling their duty.

Martyr Nasrallah urges Lebanon to stand united against enemies

The most important message of Martyr Nasrallah to the loyal people of Lebanon in his life was, "Do not be disappointed and dismayed by the loss of prominent figures such as Imam Musa al-Sadr, Seyed Abbas Mousavi, and others. Do not hesitate in the path of the fight. Increase your efforts and strength. Redouble your solidarity, resist the aggressor enemy by strengthening faith and trust, and thwart them," Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized.

The Supreme Leader highlighted that the enemy's actions, such as assassination and killing of civilians, are signs of its weakness rather than victory, underling that such finally would lead this “vampire wolf” to elimination.

He emphasized that any blows to the Zionist regime benefit humanity as a whole.

Additionally, he described Hezbollah's defense of Gaza as a vital service to the Islamic world and called on all Muslims to support Lebanon.

US eyes on dominating region's resources via Zionist regime

The reliance of the United States and its accomplices on maintaining the security of the usurping regime is a cover for the deadly policy of turning the Israeli regime into a tool for controlling all the resources of this region and using it in major global conflicts, Ayatollah Khamenei said.

The aim is to make the Israeli regime a key player in exporting energy from the region to the Western world, while also importing goods and technology from the West to the region, he said, adding that this would ensure the survival of the usurping regime and make the entire region dependent on it.

The Supreme Leader underscored, “Any blow to the Israeli regime by anyone and any group would benefit the entire region and humanity as a whole. Certainly, this Zionist and American dream is a false and unrealistic fantasy.”

Resistance will be victorious finally

Referring to the inauthentic and unstable nature of the Zionist regime, Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized that this regime will never prevail over Hamas and Hezbollah.

He emphasized that the evil and fake Zionist regime has only managed to survive with the support of the United States, and this will not continue for long, God willing.

Today, the criminal Zionist gang itself has gradually concluded that it will never win over Hamas and Hezbollah, he added.

Zionist regime is main cause of region's backwardness

The main cause of war, insecurity, and backwardness in this region is the existence of the Zionist regime and the presence of governments that claim to seek peace and tranquility, Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated.

The Supreme Leader considered foreign interference as the main problem in the region.

He stated that the governments of the region have the ability to establish peace and security, and achieving such goals requires the efforts and cooperation of all nations and countries.

The commemoration ceremony of the late Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and his companions, including Iranian General Abbas Nilforushan, who were martyred in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut last week was started at 10:30 Tehran time at Tehran's Grand Mosalla Mosque.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf and Iran’s Judiciary chief Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei attended the commemoration ceremony of Martyr Nasrallah.

WhatsApp rolling out new chat typing indicator

Meta-owned messaging application WhatsApp is rolling out a redesigned typing indicator for individual and group chats, and its accessible for some beta testers.

Earlier, when a user was typing in a chat, the typing indicator used to appear at the top of the screen in the application bar under the group name highlighting who was typing, reported WABetaInfo.

However, with the launch of this new update, the typing indicator will now appear right in the conversation screen in the form of a chat bubble. As a result, this makes it faster and convenient for users to identify who is typing without taking their focus from the ongoing conversation.

Notably, this update also applies to the voice recording indicator. This now appears within the chat interface in a similar manner giving a consistent experience for both typing and recording activities.

The new typing indicator also appears in individual chats. By integrating with the chat screen, it maintains a consistent experience.

Moreover, when many users are typing at the same time in group chats, their profile icons will now show within the chat. This will give users a clear indication of everyone who is active.

The new update is part of WhatsApp’s dedication to making a more dynamic conversation experience with the introduction of features that provide real-time feedback during chats.

Biden says ‘discussing’ possible Israeli strikes on Iran oil facilities

US President Joe Biden said he was discussing possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, in comments that sent oil prices spiking on Thursday just a month before the US presidential election.

Biden told reporters at the White House however that he was not expecting Israel to launch any retaliation for Tehran’s missile barrage on Israel before Thursday at least.

When asked by a reporter if he supported Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, Biden said, “We’re discussing that. I think that would be a little … anyway.”

Oil prices jumped five per cent over concerns about the Middle East after Biden spoke.

A rise in oil prices could be hugely damaging for Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrat confronts Republican former president Donald Trump in a November 5 election where the cost of living is a major issue.

Biden said he did not expect any immediate action from Israel — even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently paid little heed to calls for restraint as he targets Iran-allied Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“First of all, we don’t ‘allow’ Israel, we advise Israel. And there is nothing going to happen today,” Biden told reporters when asked if he would allow Israel to retaliate against Iran.

Biden said on Wednesday that he would not back Israel attacking Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran launched around 200 rockets in a direct missile attack on Israel on Tuesday, prompting Netanyahu to warn that Tehran would pay. Iran said it was in retaliation for the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been launching rockets at Israel since shortly after the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas, and Israel’s crushing retaliatory offensive in Gaza that has killed over 41,000 people.

Amazon plans to hire 250,000 workers for the holidays, same as last year

Amazon plans to hire 250,000 transportation and warehouse workers this holiday shopping season, the same number as last year as e-commerce spending is expected to outpace overall holiday sales in the final quarter of 2024, the company said on Thursday.

"Although there is an anticipated increase in the demand and the volume, we feel like the 250,000 is the right number to continue to grow and advance with our operations," said Sandy Gordon, vice president of Global Operations Employee Experience at Amazon.

It was unclear what percentage of the 250,000 seasonal workers, which include staff in sort centers, fulfillment centers and delivery stations, would be in fulfillment centers or transport employees. The transport employees will not include delivery service partners or their teams, according to a company spokesperson.

Online holiday shoppers are expected to spend a record $240.8 billion, up 4.9% from last year. Broader holiday spending is expected to rise modestly at 3.2%, according to a Mastercard forecast.

While Amazon's hiring plans remain flat compared to last year, the company is still outpacing big box competitor Target, which will tack on 100,000 workers for the season.

U.S. retailers are grappling with a softer labor market and are expected to add 520,000 new jobs during the holiday shopping season, slowing down from last year's 564,200 job openings.

Amazon's announcement comes a day after the National Labor Relations Board claimed that the retail giant was a "joint employer" of drivers for contractor Battle Tested Strategies (BTS). The contractor's drivers voted to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union last year.

An Amazon spokesperson said the Teamsters have "misrepresented the facts" as the union accuses Amazon of retaliating against BTS for drivers unionizing.

Palestinian activist wins prize for peaceful resistance

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank, on Thursday received the Right Livelihood Award for his organization's work.

The Youth Against Settlements (YAS) group was awarded the prize for its "steadfast non-violent resistance to Israel's illegal occupation, promoting Palestinian civic action through peaceful means."

Founded by Amro, YAS campaigns against the proliferation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which the international community widely considers illegal.

Amro was born in Hebron, where some 1,000 Jewish settlers live under Israeli military protection amid 200,000 Palestinians.

The Sweden-based Right Livelihood Foundation said the 44-year-old activist was detained several times by both Israel.

"It's a miracle that I still exist," said Amro.

Around 475,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, which the UN deems illegal under international law.

Settlements built without the approval of the Israeli government also sometimes end up being legalized after construction by the Israeli government.

What is the 'Alternative Nobel Prize?'

The annual Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 by Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull to honor efforts that he felt were being ignored by the Nobel prizes.

Since then, the award, often dubbed the "Alternative Nobel Prize," has been awarded to 198 laureates from 77 countries.

Besides Amro, Indigenous activist Joan Carling from the Philippines, Mozambique's environmental activist Anabela Lemos and UK research agency Forensic Architecture also received the 2024 honor.

This year's winners "have each made a profound impact on their communities and the global stage," the Right Livelihood Foundation said.

Anger in Nepal over relief delays as flood toll hits 218

Survivors of the monsoon floods that ravaged Nepal over the weekend criticised the government on Tuesday for inadequate relief efforts during a disaster that killed at least 218 people.

Deadly floods and landslides are common across South Asia during the monsoon season from June to September but experts say climate change is making them worse.

Entire neighbourhoods in the capital Kathmandu were inundated at the weekend, along with villages in remote pockets of the Himalayan country that were still awaiting relief efforts.

“There is no road, so no one has come,” Mira KC, who lives in a village in Kavre district to Kathmandu’s east, told AFP.

“Even if they do, those who died are dead already and the damage is done. All they will do is offer condolences, what will they do?”

The floods disproportionately hit Kathmandu’s poorest residents living in haphazard slums along the banks of the Bagmati river and its tributaries, which run through the city.

Slum resident Man Kumar Rana Magar, 49, told AFP that authorities had provided shelter for him and his neighbours at a school after their homes were inundated.

However, he said they had been forced to leave before they were ready to return to their homes when the school reopened for classes.

“We are so close to the seat of the government. If they cannot take care of the poor this close, what will they do about others?” he said.

At least 218 people were killed in the floods, with another 27 still missing, according to Nepal’s home ministry. More than 4,000 others were rescued.

Nepal’s weather bureau said preliminary data showed 240 millimetres (9.4 inches) of rain fell in the 24 hours to Saturday morning, the biggest single-day downpour in more than two decades.

Experts said authorities did not prepare adequately for the disaster despite forecasts of intense storms.

“Precautions that should have been taken were ignored,” climate expert Arun Bhakta Shrestha, of Kathmandu-based think tank International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, told AFP.

Nepali disaster management expert Man Bahadur Thapa said gaps in coordination and resources had also hindered the rescue process.

“We could have saved a lot more lives if we prepared and built the capacity of our responders,” he told AFP.

Home ministry spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari said authorities had been “working relentlessly since the disaster began and all our resources are at work”.

Monsoon rains bring widespread death and destruction in the form of floods and landslides across South Asia every year.

Experts say climate change has worsened their frequency and intensity.

More than 300 people have been killed in rain-related disasters in Nepal this year.

WikiLeaks founder says he was freed because he ‘pled guilty to journalism’

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday said that he was freed after years of incarceration because he “pled guilty to journalism.”

Addressing the European Parliament committee on his detention and conviction, Assange said: "The fundamental issue is simple: Journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs.”

“Journalism is not a crime; it is a pillar of a free and informed society," he added.

According to him, the CIA “drew up plans to kidnap and to assassinate me within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and authorized going after my European colleagues, subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks and the planting of false information.”

“My wife and my infant son were also targeted,” he said, adding that instructions were given to “obtain DNA” from his “6-month-old son’s nappy.”

Assange emphasized how “aggressive” the CIA acted at that time against him.

“This assembly is no stranger to the extraterritorial abuses by the CIA,” he stressed, pointing to “secret detention centers” and “unlawful renditions on European soil.”

“In February this year, the alleged source of some of our CIA revelations, former CIA officer Joshua Schulte, was sentenced to 40 years in prison under conditions of extreme isolation,” Assange said, adding: “His windows are blacked out, and a white noise machine plays 24 hours a day over his door so that he cannot even shout through it.”

According to the WikiLeaks founder, such conditions are “more severe than those found in Guantanamo Bay.”

Assange also highlighted the absence of adequate protections against “transnational repression,” which he added leaves Europe “vulnerable” to foreign powers exploiting its “mutual legal assistance” and extradition agreements.

He said CIA Director Mike Pompeo succeeded in securing a US government warrant for his extradition, which the UK kept secret for two years while the US and Ecuador shaped the conditions for his arrest.

Washington, according to him, asserted a “dangerous new global legal position. Only US citizens have free speech rights. Europeans and other nationalities do not have free speech rights, but the US claims its Espionage Act still applies to them, regardless of where they are. So, Europeans in Europe must obey US secrecy law with no defenses at all.”

If Europe values free speech and publishing, it must act to prevent future transnational repression, he suggested.

Thanking all the people and organizations that have supported him throughout these years, Assange said: “It is heartening to know that in a world often divided by ideology and interests, there remains a shared commitment to the protection of essential human liberties.”

“Freedom of expression and all that flows from it is at a dark crossroad,” he warned and said: “I fear that unless institutions like PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) wake up to the gravity of the situation, it will be too late.”

“Let us all commit to doing our part to ensure that the light of freedom never dims, that the pursuit of truth will live on, and that the voices of the many are not silenced by the interests of the few,” Assange said.

Assange rose to fame in the 2010s for leaking classified US documents on the internet, gaining international accolades and detractors when he exposed sensitive American diplomatic correspondence and military records, including a video of a 2007 US airstrike in Baghdad that killed several people, including two Reuters journalists.

He also gained notoriety for exposing confidential data seen as helping then-candidate Donald Trump win the US presidency and for allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Assange doggedly opposed extradition to the US and spent seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in a bid to stay free.

He was ejected from the diplomatic compound in 2019 and has spent the last five years in a British prison as he fought an extradition order to the US.

He was freed after formally accepting a plea deal in a federal court on the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote US territory in the western Pacific, that saw him plead guilty to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act related to his publication of military and diplomatic documents.

He then flew on to his native Australia where he was greeted by his wife, Stella.