cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/42827578

Russia is “fully ready” for a conflict with NATO in the Arctic, the country's foreign minister warned.

"We see NATO stepping up drills related to possible crises in the Arctic," Sergey Lavrov said, according to Russian state media, in comments for a documentary series that were first reported Friday.

“Our country is fully ready to defend its interests militarily, politically and from the standpoint of defense technologies," he added.

His comments mark the latest round of saber-rattling by the Kremlin, which has repeatedly... threatened ... to ... unleash ... nuclear ... war on NATO and its allies in recent years.

The Arctic is the northernmost point on Earth and includes territory belonging to eight nations: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Canada, the United States, Iceland and Russia. All except Russia are NATO members.

Scientists in South Africa say they have identified an outbreak of rabies in seals that is believed to be the first time the virus has spread in sea mammals.

At least 24 Cape fur seals that were found dead or euthanized in various locations on South Africa’s west and south coast had rabies, state veterinarian Dr. Lesley van Helden said.

Rabies, which affects mammals and can be passed to people, is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. Rabies spreads via saliva, usually through bites but also sometimes when animals lick and groom each other.

Pakistani authorities on Friday suspended policemen who had opened fire and killed a blasphemy suspect in the country’s south earlier this week, only to be applauded and showered with rose petals by local residents after the killing.

The death of Shah Nawaz — a doctor in Sindh province who went into hiding after being accused of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and sharing blasphemous content on social media — was the second such apparent extra-judicial killing by police in a week, drawing condemnation from human rights groups.

The local police chief, Niaz Khoso, said Nawaz was killed unintentionally when officers in the city of Mirpur Khas signaled for two men on a motorcycle to stop on Wednesday night Instead of stopping, the men opened fire and tried to flee, prompting police to shoot.

The batteries of the walkie-talkies used by Lebanese armed group Hezbollah that blew up this week were laced with a highly explosive compound known as PETN, a Lebanese source familiar with the device's components told Reuters.

The way the explosive material was integrated into the battery pack made it extremely difficult to detect, the source said.

Hundreds of walkie-talkies used by the group exploded on Wednesday, a day after thousands of Hezbollah's pagers detonated across the group's strongholds in Lebanon.

The Lebanese source said explosions had occurred even in cases where the battery pack was separated from the rest of the device.

Gisèle Pelicot, who was drugged by her husband with dozens of men accused of raping her, has emerged as a defiant public voice for victims of sexual abuse in France.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, struck a defiant note during her testimony Wednesday as defense lawyers raised doubts about whether she was fully unconscious during the alleged rapes by dozens of men over a decade, suggesting she may have consented to the repeated assaults orchestrated by her former husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71.

“I have felt humiliated," an outraged Gisèle Pelicot said of the arguments alleging she was an alcoholic or being her ex-husband's co-conspirator. “In the state I was in, I absolutely could not respond. I was in a comatose state; the videos show that.” 

At least 83 men were recorded on video and photos assaulting an unconscious Pelicot; 50 of them have been identified and are currently on trial accused of raping her, which many of them deny. Two defense lawyers for some of the men had asked the court to display photos which they said raised doubts whether the victim was aware of what was happening to her.

…

Many of the defendants deny raping Pelicot. Some claim they were tricked by her husband, others say they believed she was consenting and others argue that her husband’s consent was sufficient.

The Taliban have allegedly purchased satellite jammers from Iran to disrupt the last remaining independent television channel reporting on the regime’s brutal crackdown on human rights.

Iran’s assistance helped the Taliban leaders acquire orbital jammers for the satellite stations of the Afghanistan International Television and shut down broadcast for more than a week, AITV’s executive editor Harun Najafizada told The Independent.

The channel is popular among Afghans for their critical coverage of the country’s hardline Islamist regime.

Taliban officials reportedly sent disruptive signals from a ground station within Afghanistan to the satellite, interfering with its broadcast. Hundreds of people in Afghanistan saw a blank screen from 5 September to 13 September before the channel shifted to a different satellite frequency.

Exclusive: Documents contain months of warnings about possible Ukrainian advance and also reveal concerns about morale

Russia’s military command had anticipated Ukraine’s incursion into its Kursk region and had been making plans to prevent it for several months, according to a cache of documents that the Ukrainian army said it had seized from abandoned Russian positions in the region.

The disclosure makes the disarray among Russian forces after Ukraine’s attack in early August all the more embarrassing. The documents, shared with the Guardian, also reveal Russian concerns about morale in the ranks in Kursk, which intensified after the suicide of a soldier at the front who had reportedly been in a “prolonged state of depression due to his service in the Russian army”.

Unit commanders are given instructions to ensure soldiers consume Russian state media daily to maintain their “psychological condition”.

Regional health minister says those who are busy with careers can 'create offspring' on work breaks

While addressing a crowd at the Eurasian Women's Forum in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed government policy geared toward helping women achieve the ultimate balance — professional success while being the linchpin "of a large, large family."

He went on to joke that Russian women can manage it easily, and still remain "beautiful, gentle and charming."

His comments are the latest in a public push by government officials to try and reverse Russia's sinking birth rate by appealing to a sense of patriotic duty and promising financial incentives to sway prospective parents.

Russia's fertility rate — which measures the average number of children born to a woman over a lifetime — stands at approximately 1.4, less than what is considered the rate for population replacement, which is 2.1. Kremlin officials have labelled Russia's statistic "catastrophic," and it comes at a time of higher mortality among younger Russian men due to the war in Ukraine.

CERN, the European particle-physics collaboration that operates the Large Hadron Collider, will expel hundreds of Russian-affiliated scientists from its laboratories.

The Geneva-based organization decided to cut ties with Moscow after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, ending nearly 60 years of collaboration, and the agreements are now lapsing. Russia has never been a full member but worked closely on nuclear physics.

Scientists tied to Belarusian institutions already saw their contracts end in July, and any Russian-linked scientists will lose access, as well as residency permits, in December.

CERN will, however, maintain links with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an intergovernmental center near Moscow, a decision that is controversial for some researchers.

The killing of a Japanese schoolboy in the Chinese city of Shenzhen has sparked worry among Japanese expats living in China, with top firms warning their workers to be vigilant.

Toshiba and Toyota have told their staff to take precautions against any possible violence, while Panasonic is offering its employees free flights home.

Japanese authorities have repeated their condemnation of the killing while urging the Chinese government to ensure the safety of their citizens.

The stabbing of the 10-year-old boy on Wednesday was the third high-profile attack on foreigners in China in recent months.

A close ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Western governments on Thursday (19 September) that a nuclear war would ensue if they gave the green light for Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of Putin’s Security Council, was responding to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to give such approval to Kyiv.

The resolution, adopted on Thursday with 425 votes in favour, 131 against and 63 abstentions, states that without lifting current restrictions, Ukraine cannot fully exercise its right to self-defence and remains exposed to attacks on its population and infrastructure.