Author: AFP

President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria as Islamist opposition swept into Damascus, triggering celebrations across the country and beyond at the end of his oppressive rule.

Crowds cheered in the streets of Damascus, where celebratory gunfire erupted as five decades of brutal Baath party rule came crashing to a dramatic end with Assad’s flight from the capital on Sunday.

Russian news agencies said that Assad and his family were in Moscow, while rescuers on Monday searched the Syrian capital’s notorious Sednaya prison for hidden underground cells holding detainees in secret.

Assad’s government fell 11 days after the opposition began a surprise advance, more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war — which had become largely dormant until the rebel push.

“This victory, my brothers, is historic for the region,” Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS) that spearheaded the advance, said in an address at the landmark Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

‘Syria is ours’

Residents cheered in the streets as the rebel factions heralded the departure of “tyrant” Assad, saying: “We declare the city of Damascus free.”

Celebratory gunfire sounded along with shouts of, “Syria is ours and not the Assad family’s”.

AFP correspondents saw dozens of men, women and children wandering through Assad’s modern, spacious home whose rooms had been stripped bare.

“I can’t believe I’m living this moment,” tearful Damascus resident Amer Batha told AFP by phone.

“We’ve been waiting a long time for this day,” he said.

The rebel factions on Telegram proclaimed the end to “50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement”.

It is, they said, “the start of a new era for Syria.”

Search for Damascus prisoners 

Around the country, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father and the founder of the repressive government he inherited.

For the past 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could mean prison or death.

During their advance, the opposition said they had freed prisoners, including on Sunday at the Sednaya facility, notorious for the darkest abuses of Assad’s era.

An intense search was underway at the jail Monday for “hidden underground cells, reportedly holding detainees”, said the White Helmets rescue group which had dispatched emergency teams to the facility.

“The teams consist of search and rescue units, wall-breaching specialists, iron door-opening crews, trained dog units, and medical responders,” the group said.

UN war crimes investigators urged those taking charge in the country to ensure the “atrocities” committed under Assad’s rule are not repeated.

The end of Assad’s rule came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs.

Homs was the third major city seized by the opposition, who began their advance on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took place in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

Hezbollah had supported Assad during the long civil war but has been severely weakened by Israeli strikes.

Hezbollah forces “vacated their positions around Damascus”, a source close to the group said Sunday.

HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda but has sought to soften its image in recent years. It remains listed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments.

The commander of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of northeast Syria, hailed the fall of Assad’s “authoritarian regime” as “historic”.

A military council affiliated with the SDF clashed Sunday with Turkish-backed Syrian fighters in Syria’s north, leaving 26 fighters from both sides dead, the Observatory said, as the Turkish-backed group launched an offensive on the Manbij area.

World reacts to Syria

The Observatory said Israel had struck government security buildings and weapons depots Sunday on the outskirts of Damascus, as well as in the eastern Deir Ezzor province.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of Assad was a “historic day in the… Middle East” and the fall of a “central link in Iran’s axis of evil”.

The UN envoy for Syria said the country was at “a watershed moment”.

Russia requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting in New York, which is set for 3:00 pm (2000 GMT) Monday, multiple diplomatic sources told AFP.

Turkey, which has historically backed the opposition, called for a “smooth transition”.

Iran said it expected “friendly” ties with Syria to continue, even as its embassy in Damascus was vandalised.

Since the start of the rebel offensive, at least 910 people have been killed, mostly combatants but also including 138 civilians, the Observatory said.

Syria’s war has killed more than 500,000 people and forced half of the population to flee their homes.

Millions fled abroad.

“I can barely remember Syria,” said Reda al-Khedr, who was only five years old when he and his mother escaped Syria’s Homs in 2014.

“But now we’re going to go home to a liberated Syria,” he told AFP in Cairo.

US President Joe Biden said Assad should be “held accountable” but called the nation’s political upheaval a “historic opportunity” for Syrians to rebuild their country.

The foreign ministry of Assad’s key backer, Russia, had announced earlier Sunday that Assad had resigned from the presidency and left Syria.

The head of war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP: “Assad left Syria via Damascus International Airport before the army security forces left” the facility.

Later Sunday, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies that Assad and his family had arrived in Moscow, where they had been granted asylum “on humanitarian grounds”.

As the Syrian opposition troops leave their positions, Israel has temporarily seized control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, claiming that the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria has “collapsed” with the opposition takeover of the country.

Residents of the occupied region also celebrated the HTS take over of the country.

Meanwhile, analysts are saying that Israel is behind toppling Assad’s regime as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Assad’s demise was “a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad’s main supporters”.

A masked gunman shot dead a top US health insurance executive outside a New York hotel Wednesday in an apparently targeted hit, before fleeing on a bicycle and triggering a citywide manhunt.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down as he prepared to address investors with the gunman firing several times before using a rented bike to flee in the direction of Central Park, police said.

Police released security camera images showing the killer brandishing a handgun and wearing a hooded top. Detectives offered a $10,000 reward for the man’s capture.

Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said the shooter arrived on foot about five minutes before Thompson as pedestrians streamed past an access door to the Hilton.

Kenny said he approached Thompson from behind and opened fire, cleared a jam in the firearm, and fired again.

“The motive for this murder currently is unknown, but based on the evidence we have so far, it does appear that the victim was specifically targeted. But at this point, we do not know why,” Kenny told a press conference.

 

 

 

 

 

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UnitedHealthcare is a major player in the multi-trillion-dollar US health care market, providing workplace insurance, as well as administering huge health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid for older and low-income people funded by state budgets.

Thompson, 50, was shot just before 7:00 am at the hotel in the Midtown district of Manhattan, with the CNBC broadcaster suggesting a silencer had been used.

Kenny would not confirm the report of a silencer being used, saying that the question would be part of the investigation but did confirm that a cell phone had been recovered from the scene.

He said that Thompson apparently had no security detail.

Video footage showed officers performing CPR on Thompson before he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

The detective had no comment when asked at the press conference whether the killing could have been carried out by someone who had been denied insurance coverage for a medical condition — a common problem in the United States.

Minnesota-based Thompson’s wife Paulette Thompson told the NBC News outlet that he had received unspecified threats.

“There had been some threats basically I don’t know — (over) a lack of coverage? I don’t know details,” said Paulette Thompson who had two children with her late husband.

In a statement, UnitedHealth Group — the parent company of UHC — said it was “deeply saddened and shocked.”

Officers said the lighting of the Christmas tree at the nearby Rockefeller Center, a major annual event that draws vast crowds of tourists and locals, would proceed normally amid tightened security.

Central New York 

UnitedHealth Group had revenues of $100.8 billion in the third quarter of the year.

UnitedHealthcare’s Employer and Individual products are used by almost 30 million people in the United States according to an investor presentation.

Thompson’s own compensation package in 2023 was $10.2 million according to a regulatory filing.

He had been chief executive of UnitedHealthcare since April 2021, according to a separate Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Before that, he oversaw UnitedHealthcare’s government programs including Medicare from July 2019 to April 2021.

The company was due to hold an investor day in New York on Wednesday at which Thompson was scheduled to deliver a keynote speech.

The event was canceled, CNBC reported, and the company did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

The New York Hilton Midtown is one of the city’s biggest hotels, popular with tourists and business travelers, and describes itself as Manhattan’s largest self-contained function space.

It was not answering calls in the wake of the incident.

Outside the hotel, senior police commanders briefed officers as plainclothes detectives passed by upturned paper cups placed on the ground to mark evidence.

The suspect was described as a white man wearing a hooded jacket, black face mask, black and white sneakers, and carrying a grey backpack.

Natural disasters have caused an estimated $310 billion in economic losses around the world this year, swelling six percent from 2023 as the climate crisis takes its toll, reinsurance giant Swiss Re said Thursday.

Insured losses, meanwhile, swelled by 17 percent year-on-year to $135 billion, with the devastating hurricanes Helene and Milton pushing up the costs, Swiss Re said in a statement.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol faced demands to resign on Wednesday after his short-lived attempt to impose martial law was voted down by lawmakers and brought thousands of protesters to the streets.

Yoon’s shock bid to impose martial law on South Korea for the first time in over four decades plunged the country into the deepest turmoil in its modern democratic history and caught its close allies around the world off guard.

The United States, which stations nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea to protect it from the nuclear-armed North, initially voiced deep concern at the declaration, then relief that martial law was over.

The dramatic developments have left the future of Yoon — a conservative politician and former star public prosecutor who was elected president in 2022 — in jeopardy.

South Korea’s main opposition party — whose lawmakers jumped fences and tussled with security forces so they could vote to overturn the law — demanded Yoon’s immediate resignation.

“We will file charges of insurrection,” against Yoon, his defence and interior ministers and “key military and police figures involved, such as the martial law commander and the police chief”, the Democratic Party said in a statement.

It added that it would also push for impeachment.

The nation’s largest umbrella labour union called an “indefinite general strike” until Yoon resigned.

And the leader of Yoon’s own ruling party described the attempt as “tragic” while calling for those involved to be held accountable.

– Defiance –

Yoon stunned the world with a late-night television announcement that he was declaring martial law because of the threat of North Korea and “anti-state forces”.

More than 280 troops backed by 24 helicopters arrived at parliament to lock down the site after the extraordinary declaration.

But 190 lawmakers defied the rifle-carrying soldiers to force their way into parliament to vote against the move, leaving Yoon with no choice but to retract.

Under the constitution, martial law must be lifted when a majority in parliament demands it.

“Just a moment ago, there was a demand from the National Assembly to lift the state of emergency, and we have withdrawn the military that was deployed for martial law operations,” Yoon said in a televised address around 4:30 am (1930 GMT Tuesday).

“We will accept the National Assembly’s request and lift the martial law through the Cabinet meeting.”

Senior aides working for Yoon offered Wednesday to resign en masse over the martial law declaration.

By midday, Yoon had yet to reappear publicly.

– ‘Impeachment’ –

The U-turn prompted jubilation among protesters outside parliament who had braved freezing temperatures to keep vigil through the night in defiance of Yoon’s martial law order.

Demonstrators who had been waving South Korean flags and chanting “Arrest Yoon Suk Yeol” outside the National Assembly erupted in cheers.

Lim Myeong-pan, 55, told AFP that Yoon’s decision to rescind martial law did not absolve him of wrongdoing.

“Yoon’s act of imposing it in the first place without legitimate cause is a serious crime in itself,” Lim told AFP.

“He has paved his own path to impeachment with this.”

With more protests expected, large numbers of police were patrolling key avenues Wednesday morning.

– ‘Anti-state’ elements –

Yoon had given a range of reasons to justify his action.

“To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements plundering people’s freedom and happiness, I hereby declare emergency martial law,” Yoon said in a televised address.

Yoon did not give details about the North’s threats, but the South remains technically at war with nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

“Our National Assembly has become a haven for criminals, a den of legislative dictatorship that seeks to paralyse the judicial and administrative systems and overturn our liberal democratic order,” Yoon said.

The president labelled the main opposition Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the 300-member parliament, “anti-state forces intent on overthrowing the regime”.

Yoon and his People Power Party are also bitterly at odds with the opposition over next year’s budget.

Opposition MPs last week approved a significantly downsized budget plan through a parliamentary committee.

Yoon’s move came after his approval rating dropped to 19 percent in the latest Gallup poll last week, with many expressing dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and controversies involving his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

– Concern, relief –

Democratic South Korea is a major ally of the United States in Asia, but Washington said it was not given advance notice of Yoon’s plan to impose martial law.

“We welcome President Yoon’s statement that he would rescind the order declaring emergency martial law,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“We continue to expect political disagreements to be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law.”

China, a key ally of North Korea, urged its nationals in the South to stay calm and exercise caution, while Tokyo said it was monitoring the situation with “exceptional and serious concerns”.

Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korea studies at the University of Oslo, said Yoon’s move to impose martial law was “an attempt to wind history back”.

“I don’t think South Korea’s civil society can recognise Yoon as a legitimate president any longer,” he told AFP.

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law, accusing the opposition of being “anti-state forces” and saying he was acting to protect the country from “threats” posed by the North.

The National Assembly was sealed late on Tuesday night and helicopters were seen landing on the roof, as army chief General Park An-su took charge as martial law commander and immediately issued a decree banning “all political activities”.

Troops entered the building for a short time, while hundreds of protesters gathered outside parliament chanting: “arrest Yoon Suk Yeol” and facing off with security forces guarding parliament.

Yoon’s stunning announcement — South Korea’s first declaration of martial law in more than 40 years — came as his party and the opposition bicker over the budget.

“To safeguard a liberal South Korea from the threats posed by North Korea’s communist forces and to eliminate anti-state elements plundering people’s freedom and happiness, I hereby declare emergency martial law,” Yoon said in a live televised address to the nation.

Yoon did not give details of the North’s threats, but the South remains technically at war with nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

“With no regard for the livelihoods of the people, the opposition party has paralysed governance solely for the sake of impeachments, special investigations, and shielding their leader from justice,” Yoon added.

“Our National Assembly has become a haven for criminals, a den of legislative dictatorship that seeks to paralyse the judicial and administrative systems and overturn our liberal democratic order,” Yoon said.

With martial law imposed, all military units in the South have been ordered to strengthen their emergency alert and readiness postures, Yonhap news agency reported.

Some 190 lawmakers managed to get in to the assembly in the early hours of Wednesday, where they unanimously voted in favour of a motion to block the martial law declaration and call for its lifting.

Under the constitution, martial law must be lifted when a majority in parliament demands it, but it was not immediately clear whether this would be respected.

Democratic South Korea is a major ally for the United States in Asia, and the US State Department said it had “grave concern” about the situation.

“We are watching the recent developments in the ROK with grave concern,” Campbell said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea.

“We have every hope and expectation that any political disputes will be resolved peacefully and in accordance with the rule of law,” he said.

China, a key ally of North Korea, urged its nationals in the South to stay calm and exercise caution, while Britain said it was “closely monitoring developments”.

– ‘Anti-state’ forces –

The decree by martial law commander Park also banned “actions that deny or seek to overthrow the liberal democratic system, including the spread of fake news, public opinion manipulation, and false propaganda”.

The president labelled the opposition, which holds a majority in the 300-member parliament, as “anti-state forces intent on overthrowing the regime”.

Yoon described the imposition of martial law as “inevitable to guarantee the continuity of a liberal South Korea,” adding that it would not impact the country’s foreign policy.

“I will restore the country to normalcy by getting rid of anti-state forces as soon as possible,” he said, without elaborating further other than the martial law in place.

He described the current situation as South Korea “on the verge of collapse, with the National Assembly acting as a monster intent on bringing down liberal democracy”.

– Budget row –

Yoon’s People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party are bitterly at odds over next year’s budget.

Opposition MPs last week approved a significantly downsized budget plan through a parliamentary committee.

The opposition has slashed approximately 4.1 trillion won ($2.8 billion) from Yoon’s proposed 677 trillion won budget plan, cutting the government’s reserve fund and activity budgets for Yoon’s office, the prosecution, police and the state audit agency.

Yoon, a former prosecutor, accused opposition lawmakers of cutting “all key budgets essential to the nation’s core functions, such as combatting drug crimes and maintaining public security… turning the country into a drug haven and a state of public safety chaos.”

The imposition of emergency martial law came after Yoon’s approval rating dropped to 19 percent in the latest Gallup poll last week, with many expressing dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy and controversies involving his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

The tough-fought finance deal at UN climate negotiations was “imperfect”, the Azerbaijan COP29 leadership has admitted, seeking to blame richer countries for an outcome slammed by poorer nations as insulting.

The contentious deal agreed on Sunday saw wealthy polluters agree to a $300 billion a year pledge to help developing countries reduce emissions and prepare for the increasingly dangerous impacts of a warming world.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon took effect on Wednesday after more than a year of fighting that has killed thousands of people.

The truce, which began at 4:00 am (0200 GMT), should bring to a halt a war that has forced tens of thousands of people in Israel and hundreds of thousands more in Lebanon to flee their homes. The war has seen areas of Lebanon pounded by air strikes and Israeli troops deployed across the border to battle Hezbollah militants.

It began with Hezbollah launching cross-border strikes in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

US President Joe Biden announced the ceasefire agreement on Tuesday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his ministers had agreed to a halt.

The United States is Israel’s key ally and military backer, and Biden hailed the deal as “good news” and a “new start” for Lebanon. 

Netanyahu thanked Biden for his involvement in brokering the deal and said it would allow Israel to focus on Hamas in Gaza and Iran.

Under the terms of the Lebanon truce, Israel will maintain “full” freedom to act against Hezbollah if it pose any new threat, Netanyahu said.

Lebanon says at least 3,823 people have been killed in the country since exchanges of fire began in October 2023, most of them in the past several weeks when Israel escalated its campaign against Hezbollah.

On the Israeli side, the hostilities with Hezbollah have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.

The hours before the truce took effect were some of the most violent in the war.

Israel conducted a spate of strikes on the heart of the Lebanese capital on Tuesday, while Hezbollah claimed attacks on northern Israel after the truce was announced. 

Hezbollah did not participate in any direct talks for the truce, with Lebanese parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri mediating on its behalf. It has yet to formally comment on the truce.

 Focus on Iran and Gaza

The war in Lebanon has left Hezbollah massively weakened but not crushed. It lost its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in a massive air strike in September, as well as a string of top commanders in other raids.

A truce in Lebanon, Netanyahu said, will permit Israel to redirect its focus on Gaza, “When Hezbollah is out of the picture, Hamas is left alone in the fight. Our pressure on it will intensify,” Netanyahu said.

The agreement will also enable “focusing on the Iranian threat” and give Israel’s military time to resupply, he added. 

Iran is the main backer of both Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as other anti-Israeli groups.

Iran itself has fired two barrages of missiles and drones at Israel since the outbreak of Israeli aggression in Gaza, most of which were intercepted by Israel or its allies. 

‘Blown away’

In Lebanon, the war has forced nearly 900,000 people to flee their homes, the UN says.

Biden said the ceasefire deal was designed to be a “permanent cessation of hostilities” between Israel and Hezbollah.

Under the agreement, the Lebanese army would take control of the border area on their side and “what is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organisations will not be allowed… to threaten the security of Israel again”, he said.

Hezbollah was the only armed group that refused to surrender its weapons after the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war ended.

To date, the group has maintained a strong presence in parts of Lebanon and its arsenal is believed to be more powerful than that of the national army.

Divided Lebanon has been in crisis for years and will struggle to return to a semblance of normalcy even after a truce.

The United States and France would ensure the deal was fully implemented, Biden said.

The announcements followed a flurry of strikes on central Beirut as well as on Hezbollah’s bastion in the southern suburbs.

One strike hit the normally busy Hamra district, home to residential buildings, restaurants, offices, shops, the American University of Beirut and its associated hospital.

Earlier, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that three strikes hit the central Nweiri neighbourhood and destroyed a “four-storey building housing displaced people”.

“We were blown away and the walls fell on top of us,” said Rola Jaafar, who lives in the building opposite.

Iran’s response

Iran on Wednesday welcomed the end of Israel’s “aggression” in Lebanon, after a ceasefire deal came into force between Israel and Hezbollah.

“Welcoming the news” of the end of Israel’s “aggression against Lebanon”, foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement, stressing Iran’s “firm support for the Lebanese government, nation and resistance”.

United Nations

A top UN official welcomed the ceasefire agreement but warned that “considerable work lies ahead” to implement the deal.

“Nothing less than the full and unwavering commitment of both parties is required,” UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said in a statement.