Israeli and Hamas fighters in close combat in Gaza City as civilians flee - The Straits Times

GAZA/JERUSALEM - Israeli forces and Hamas militants appeared to be battling at close range in Gaza City as thousands of civilians fled south on Wednesday to avoid being trapped in the heart of the conflict.

The Israeli military said its troops had advanced into the heart of Gaza City, Hamas’ main bastion and the biggest city in the seaside enclave, while the Islamist group said its fighters had inflicted heavy losses.

Hamas’ armed wing on Wednesday released a video that appeared to show intense street battles alongside bombed out buildings in Gaza City.

Israeli tanks have met heavy resistance from Hamas fighters using underground tunnels to stage ambushes, according to sources with Iran-backed Hamas and the separate Islamic Jihad militant group.

Israel struck Gaza in response to a cross-border Hamas raid on southern Israel on Oct 7 in which gunmen killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Palestinian officials said 10,569 people have been killed as at Wednesday, 40 per cent of them children. Israel says 33 of its soldiers have been killed.

One clip from the Hamas video released on Wednesday showed fighters running past piles of debris and stopping to fire shoulder-propelled missiles at Israeli tanks. Another showed them shooting rifles from perches behind buildings and dumpsters. Reuters was not able to authenticate the footage.

Exiled Hamas commander Saleh al-Arouri told Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV that Israeli forces may gain control of some areas in Gaza.

“But that will not stop the resistance’s fight against soldiers and tanks. The more (Israel) spreads and expands on the ground, the deeper its losses will become”, he said.

Israel bombs tunnels

Chief Israeli military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Wednesday that combat engineers were using explosive devices to destroy Hamas’ tunnel network that stretches for hundreds of kilometres beneath Gaza. The military said it had destroyed 130 tunnel shafts so far.

Israel has blamed Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza, saying it is using Gazans as human shields and hiding arms and operations centres in residential areas.

As the war entered its second month, Israeli troops took foreign reporters to the edges of Gaza City on Wednesday. Journalists saw a devastated landscape where every building within sight was scarred by battle.

Walls were blown away while bullet holes and shrapnel dotted the facades and palm trees were shredded and broken.

Lieutenant Colonel Ido, deputy commander of the 401st Brigade, who did not give his last name, said that by the time soldiers reached these buildings, all the families had left.

“So we know that everyone here is our enemy. We have not seen any civilians here. Only Hamas,” he said, standing in a badly damaged children’s bedroom that was painted pink.

Soldiers on the press tour said that beneath the family apartment were two floors of workshops used to make weapons, including drones discovered in five wooden boxes. It was not possible to verify the claim.

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2023-11-08 23:15:00Z
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Biden, Xi set to steal APEC spotlight with talks to steady ties - CNA

HARD TO GET

China has played hard to get in response to an eagerness by Washington to secure a summit, with Beijing suggesting that Xi's attendance hinged on the U.S. showing "sufficient sincerity."

The Biden administration has faced criticism from Republicans for playing to Beijing's hand, but argues the stakes are so high that direct engagement, particularly at the leader level, is vital to managing tensions and preventing disputes between the superpowers over issues like Taiwan and the South China Sea from veering into open conflict.

Despite the difficulties nailing down the summit, China has been struggling with economic issues after years of strong growth and has signaled that it wants friendlier ties by agreeing to preparatory meetings, such as nuclear arms control discussions that Washington has sought for years.

Protesters are expected in San Francisco next week - some to support Beijing and others to demonstrate against China's human rights record.

Biden will welcome other APEC leaders - including from Vietnam, the Philippines, Canada and Mexico - and both he and Xi will be playing to the gallery.

Matthew Goodman, a trade expert who was White House coordinator for the last US-hosted an APEC summit in 2011, said the US will seek to sell itself as the most dynamic economic partner for Asia, in contrast with a slowing China.

"There are a lot of concerns about China's economic conditions and its policies in the region," Goodman said. "I don't think they're going to explicitly try and twist the knife as it were, but I think they will try to show by comparison that the US is growing well."

TRADE

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen - who will meet with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in San Francisco this week - has said the U.S. would not ask APEC members to choose between Beijing and Washington. She also acknowledged that while the US was decreasing its dependence on China, full de-coupling of the US and Chinese economies was "simply not practical."

But Washington has made clear that it would help allies and partners confront what it describes as Beijing's economic "coercion" - the use of economic pressure to get states to conform to China's policies. China has accused the US of the same thing in the past.

"Our door is open to any country or economy facing PRC (People's Republic of China) economic coercive threats," Melanie Hart, a senior China policy adviser at the State Department, said on Monday.

Biden will be buoyed by a Pew Research Center poll showing he is winning the battle for public opinion over Xi and with the US still considered the world's leading economic power by most people in 24 countries surveyed.

The US president will be eager to reinforce that image by showing progress in the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, an initiative aimed at stepping up engagement in Asia to compete with China.

However, trade experts say Washington has so far failed to convince Asia it was more than a pale alternative to a fully-fledged regional trade deal President Donald Trump quit in 2017.

Xi will be eager to court US businesses after China recently recorded its first-ever quarterly deficit in foreign direct investment. Two sources familiar with plans said U.S. business groups and foreign policy think tanks aimed to jointly host Xi for dinner in San Francisco.

"We're going to see next week a series of high-level engagements between the Chinese and U.S. companies and investors, trying to send a signal that China is open for business," Jude Blanchette, a China expert at CSIS, told reporters.

That would include "companies flocking to meet with Xi Jinping and have dinner with him," he said.

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2023-11-08 19:55:00Z
CBMiSWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNoYW5uZWxuZXdzYXNpYS5jb20vYXNpYS91cy1jaGluYS10YWxrcy1iaWRlbi14aS1hcGVjLTM5MDU5MzHSAQA

G7 backs 'humanitarian pauses' in Gaza, reaffirms Ukraine support - CNA

TOKYO: G7 foreign ministers said on Wednesday (Nov 7) that they supported "humanitarian pauses and corridors" in the Hamas-Israel war but refrained from calling for a ceasefire.

The group also said after talks in Japan that their support for Ukraine in its war with Russia "will never waver" while calling on China not to support Moscow in the conflict.

"We stress the need for urgent action to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza ... We support humanitarian pauses and corridors to facilitate urgently needed assistance, civilian movement, and the release of hostages," a joint statement said.

The ministers also "emphasise Israel's right to defend itself and its people in accordance with international law as it seeks to prevent a recurrence" of the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct 7.

It added: "We call on Iran to refrain from providing support for Hamas and taking further actions that destabilise the Middle East, including support for Lebanese Hezbollah and other non-state actors, and to use its influence with those groups to de-escalate regional tensions."

"OVERALL SECURITY"

The Israeli military has relentlessly bombarded Gaza since Oct 7, when Hamas militants launched an attack that left 1,400 dead in Israel, most of them civilians, according to Israeli authorities.

The Hamas-run health ministry says the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,300 people.

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2023-11-08 11:11:00Z
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Singtel shares down by 5% amid Australian unit Optus' network outage - The Straits Times

SINGAPORE – Singtel shares fell on Wednesday after a nationwide network outage that lasted several hours hit its Australian unit Optus.

The stock fell by as much as 5.2 per cent to hit a low of $2.35 at 10am, down 13 cents from Tuesday’s close of $2.48.

The counter then climbed back to close at $2.36, down 4.85 per cent, after a day of heavy trading, with more than 62 million shares changing hands, making it the second most heavily traded stock on Wednesday.

Investors took flight after the Optus outage that affected around 10 million Australian customers, around 40 per cent of the country’s population. It is Australia’s second-largest telecoms provider.

The outage was first reported around 4am Australian time and followed a devastating cyber attack in 2022.

The attack exposed the details of millions of customers, including their home addresses and passport numbers.

Singtel will announce its financial results on Thursday for the half-year that ended on Sept 30.

It had reported in August that first-quarter net profit dropped 23.1 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

This was mainly attributed to its associate Bharti Airtel, which recorded foreign exchange losses as the Nigerian naira fell against the US dollar.

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2023-11-08 07:32:40Z
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Biden, Xi to Hold Talks in San Francisco on Nov. 15, Kyodo Says - Bloomberg

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1. Biden, Xi to Hold Talks in San Francisco on Nov. 15, Kyodo Says  Bloomberg
2. China's Xi to meet US business executives for dinner in San Francisco - Bloomberg News  CNA
3. Biden-Xi summit could eclipse Apec  Bangkok Post
4. Biden to host Indonesian president November 13  New Straits Times
5. Hong Kong forum on US-China ties seeks ‘optimistic’ tone ahead of Apec summit  South China Morning Post
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2023-11-08 04:43:25Z
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'Shameless': Malaysian bride blasts strangers posing as wedding guests to get free food - AsiaOne

Despite the careful planning of a seating chart before their wedding banquet, a Malaysian couple were thrown into a frenzy when some guests found that they had nowhere to sit.

They later discovered that several strangers, who were posing as guests, had settled into the empty seats and helped themselves to the food, reported Sin Chew Daily News.

Enraged by their bold actions, local singer Jacqueline Ng took to Facebook yesterday (Nov 7) to call out the strangers that had crashed her wedding banquet in Penang several days ago, and also to apologise to other wedding attendees.

In several photos uploaded by Ng, a man dressed in a plaid shirt and wearing an earbud can be seen tucking into his meal.

The bride shared the man in the photo is one of the strangers, and was caught by an invited guest suspicious of the unfamiliar-looking man.

When asked about his identity, the stranger claimed to be Ng's neighbour — only for Ng's actual neighbour who was seated at the same table to declare that he had never seen the man before.

Unphased by the confrontation, the man then moved another empty seat at the next table and continued eating, an act Ng deemed as "shameless".

'Too many gatecrashers'

She added that she had also received messages from friends after the banquet, asking why there were several unfamiliar "uncles and aunties" seated at their tables.

Ng exclaimed: "There were too many gatecrashers, and they took the pre-assigned seats for guests, causing chaos!"

The bride had reportedly spent one week on the seating arrangement.

Fortunately, there was a spare table and other available seats due to no-shows, and the couple eventually managed to seat all invited guests.

"Tell me if you don't have money to eat, I can treat you to a meal and donate money to help you! Coming uninvited is really shameless," proclaimed Ng.

Not their first rodeo

According to Sin Chew, several netizens recognised the man in the plaid shirt, alleging that he often crashes wedding banquets. They also claimed that the man is in cahoots with the rest of the gatecrashers at Ng's wedding.

The group of people would reportedly exchange information about potential wedding banquets they would 'crash', and would wear earpieces to facilitate communication and their escape, said a netizen.

ALSO READ: Fake money, real effort? Woman in Malaysia finds hand-drawn bank notes in wedding ang bao

lim.kewei@asiaone.com

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2023-11-08 03:38:02Z
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Australian telco Optus reports major outage affecting millions - The Straits Times

SYDNEY - Millions of Australians were left without a phone or Internet connection on Wednesday after the country’s second-largest telecommunications provider experienced an unexplained nationwide outage.

The outage crippled payment systems and online operations and led to morning peak-hour chaos as train networks and ride-share services were down briefly in some cities.

Optus chief executive officer Kelly Bayer Rosmarin ruled out a cyber attack but in an interview on ABC Radio did not give a reason for the outage, already in its sixth hour, or say how long it would take for services to be restored.

“It is highly unlikely (that the problem started within software in Optus networks), our systems are actually very stable ... This is a very, very rare occurrence,” she said.

“We are working really hard to get it up and running as soon as we possibly can.”

Optus is the Australian unit of telecoms firm Singapore Telecommunications and has more than 10 million customers, about 40 per cent of Australia’s population.

“Without my phone I pretty much can’t do anything. I’m looking for a bank, and when you can’t go onto your phone and Google pretty much you are lost,” said Angela Ican outside the Optus store in Sydney’s central business district

Construction worker Kyle, who did not give his full name, said he wanted answers from Optus.

“I was running late for work and couldn’t let my boss know. When I got on site, I couldn’t find my boss - it’s been a big day,” he told Reuters.

An Optus spokesman told Reuters in a statement that the company “apologises sincerely to customers”.

Limited information

Commonwealth Bank, the country’s biggest lender, said in a statement that some customers may encounter difficulties with some of its services.

Federal Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said she had “limited” information about the outage.

“What we do know is that this is a deep fault. It has occurred deep within the network. It has wide ramifications across mobile, fixed, and broadband services for Optus customers,” she told reporters.

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2023-11-07 22:15:00Z
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