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Elon Musk gets into German debate over migration

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BERLIN:

Billionaire Elon Musk waded into German politics on Friday, sharing the post of another account on his social media platform X that attacked the government’s handling of illegal migration and backed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Migration has become a hot topic of debate in Germany ahead of elections on Oct. 8 in the states of Bavaria and Hesse, and in Europe at large ahead of European parliamentary elections next year.

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The post shared by Musk came from an account identified as Radio Genoa. It criticized the German state for funding charities rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean and included videos of rescue missions. “Let’s hope the AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide”, it read.

Read More: Leader of German anti-Muslim political party converts to Islam

Critics of the charities accuse them of encouraging people to make the dangerous crossing — something they deny.

Musk, whom Forbes magazine ranks as the world’s richest person with a fortune of about $250 billion and is the CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla (TSLA.O) and rocket launch company SpaceX, has increasingly injected himself into politics of late.

On Thursday, he paid a visit to the Texas border with Mexico to meet with local politicians and law enforcement and obtain what he called an “unfiltered” view of the U.S. immigration situation.

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Germany’s centre-left government confirmed this week that it was financially supporting three German non-governmental organizations that operate in the Mediterranean and regularly bring migrants to Italy.

The news angered Italy’s rightist government, which is struggling to deal with a sharp increase in migrant flows since it took office a year ago.

Read More: Migrants are being raped at Mexico border as they await entry to US

“Is the German public aware of this?” Musk asked. “Yes. And it’s called saving lives,” the German foreign ministry replied in a post.

Mounting worries over migration look set to boost the populist, anti-migrant AfD, which is already riding high on concerns about the economic slowdown and the green transition as well as anger at government infighting. The party is currently second in nationwide polls.

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Musk’s interest in the immigration issue intersects with his own business interests. Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg in Germany produces the Model Y vehicle and battery cells.

In Texas, Tesla operates a plant in Austin and Space X operates a major testing and launch facility on the Texas Gulf Coast in Boca Chica near Brownsville.

At his visit to the Mexico-U.S. border on Thursday, Musk, dressed in a black T-shirt, black cowboy hat and aviator-style sunglasses, urged a two-pronged approach to overhauling U.S. immigration laws in a video-selfie posted to X, formerly Twitter, which he purchased last April.



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Hundreds still stranded, plants closed in India’s Chennai

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CHENNAI:

Volunteers waded through stagnant water to hand out food and supplies, and some manufacturing plants remained shut in India’s southern tech-and-auto hub district of Chennai on Friday, four days after cyclone Michaung lashed the coast.

At least 14 people, most of them in Chennai and its state of Tamil Nadu, have died in the flooding, triggered by torrential rains that started on Monday.

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The cyclone itself made landfall further north in Andhra Pradesh state on Tuesday afternoon.

Authorities said some low-lying areas of the state were still inundated and government officials and volunteers were taking supplies to people stuck in their homes in slums and other areas.

The larger Chennai area is home to the Indian units of several global firms including Hyundai Motor (005380.KS), Daimler and Taiwan’s Foxconn (2317.TW) and Pegatron (4938.TW) which do contract manufacturing for Apple (AAPL.O).

Read more: Chennai flooded as heavy rains from cyclone Michaung batter south India

While many of them including Pegatron and Foxconn resumed operations within a day or two of the cyclone making landfall, some plants of the TVS group located in the worst-affected areas are yet to open, industry sources said.

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Adani Krishnapatnam Port (APSE.NS) in Andhra Pradesh, said on Friday the cyclone had “very badly affected” its operations and it was declaring a force majeure period starting Dec. 3.

Force majeure is a notice used to describe events outside a company’s control, such as a natural disaster, which usually releases it from contractual obligation without penalty.

State-run Madras Fertilizers (MDFT.NS) notified stock exchanges that its Chennai plant has been shut and is tentatively expected to resume operations within two to four weeks.

Infrastructure questioned

Information technology (IT) services providers told staff to work from home for the week, while schools and colleges closed. A few schools and colleges were converted into temporary shelters.

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This week’s floods in Chennai brought back memories of the extensive damage caused by floods eight years ago which killed around 290 people.

In Andhra Pradesh, the damage from the cyclone was relatively contained, with roads damaged and trees uprooted as big waves crashed into the coast.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited Chennai on Thursday and announced New Delhi will release a second instalment of 4.5 billion rupees ($54 million) to Tamil Nadu to help manage the damage. The federal government has also approved a 5.6 billion-rupee project for flood management in Chennai, he said.

Chennai residents questioned the ability of the city’s infrastructure to handle extreme weather.

“Not only has urbanisation itself caused a problem, but the nature of the urbanisation has preyed upon open spaces, holding areas like marshlands and flood plains,” social activist Nityanand Jayaraman said.

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Experts have, however, said better stormwater drainage systems would not have been able to prevent the flooding caused by very heavy and extremely heavy rains.

“This solution would have helped a lot in moderate and heavy rainfall, but not in very heavy and extremely heavy rains,” Raj Bhagat P, a civil engineer and geo-analytics expert, said on Wednesday.



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Gunman described as struggling academic with ‘target list’

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The gunman who killed three professors and wounded one at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was a financially struggling academic whose job applications were rejected by several higher-education institutions in Nevada, police said on Thursday.

Anthony James Polito, 67, also had mailed nearly two dozen suspicious letters to faculty at universities across the country and had prepared a “target list” of people at both UNLV and a North Carolina university where he once worked, police said.

Polito, facing eviction from his home in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, had a criminal record of computer trespass dating to 1992 in Virginia, but police said there were no advance signs of violence.

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The Taurus 9mm handgun he used in the shooting was legally purchased in 2022, according to Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He said Polito, who police shot dead after the attacks, was believed to have acted alone.

The precise motive for the rampage remained to be determined, though officials said it appeared students were not the primary target.

All four people shot on Wednesday inside Beam Hall, the campus building that houses UNLV’s business school, were faculty members.

Two of the dead were identified as professor Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64, and assistant professor Patricia Navarro Velez, 39. The identity of the third slain professor was being withheld pending notification of family.

Read: Las Vegas campus shooting leaves 4 dead, including suspect

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The surviving victim remained hospitalized, and his condition worsened on Thursday, McMahill said.

Letters and list 

Detectives learned Polito had visited a post office shortly before the shooting and mailed 22 letters with no return address to university personnel across the United States, and had a list of people he was seeking on the UNLV campus as well as faculty from his former employer, East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

His LinkedIn profile described Polito as a semi-retired associate professor of business who taught at East Carolina from 2001-2017.

Authorities intercepted the letters before any were delivered and found a suspicious white powdery substance in at least one of them, McMahill said at a news briefing on Thursday.

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The letters’ contents remained under investigation, the sheriff told reporters, warning that anyone in higher education who received such an envelope should exercise caution and contact authorities.

He said officials were working to notify the intended recipients and had contacted nearly everyone on the separate target list to make sure all were safe.

“None of the individuals listed on the target list became a victim,” he told reporters.

He said detectives also had uncovered evidence that Polito was struggling financially, including an eviction notice taped to the entrance of his apartment. He said a document that appeared to be a will was found inside.

“We know he had applied numerous times for jobs with several Nevada higher-education institutions,” McMahill added, but he did not say whether UNLV was one of them.

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Police searching Polito’s home also recovered ammunition similar to the 150 rounds he was carrying.

The UNLV campus will remain closed through Friday. The UNLV website said classes had been canceled through Dec. 10.



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Israel says Reuters journalist Abdallah was killed in combat zone

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JERUSALEM:

The Israeli military, responding on Friday to a Reuters investigation that determined its forces killed a Reuters journalist in southern Lebanon on Oct. 13, said the incident took place in an active combat zone and was under review.

Without directly addressing the death of visuals journalist Issam Abdallah, a military statement said Lebanese Hezbollah fighters had at the time attacked across the border and Israeli forces opened fire to prevent a suspected armed infiltration.

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A Reuters special report published on Thursday found that an Israeli tank crew killed Abdallah and wounded six reporters by firing two shells in quick succession from Israel while the journalists were filming cross-border shelling.

Israel’s statement on Friday said that on Oct. 13, Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants launched an attack on multiple targets within Israeli territory along the Lebanese border.

“One incident involved the firing of an anti-tank missile, which struck the border fence near the village Hanita. Following the launch of the anti-tank missile, concerns arose over the potential infiltration of terrorists into Israeli territory,” the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

Read: Israeli tank fire killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in Lebanon

“In response, the IDF used artillery and tank fire to prevent the infiltration. The IDF is aware of the claim that journalists who were in the area were killed.

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“The area is an active combat zone, where active fire takes place and being in this area is dangerous. The incident is currently under review,” it said.

The strikes killed Abdullah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28, just over a kilometre from the Israeli border near the Lebanese village of Alma al-Chaab.

Amnesty International said on Thursday that the Israeli strikes were likely to have been a direct attack on civilians and must be investigated as a war crime.

In a separate report Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the two Israeli strikes were “an apparently deliberate attack on civilians and thus a war crime” and said those responsible must be held to account. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday it was important that Israel’s inquiry into the killing reach a conclusion and for the results to be seen.

“My understanding is that Israel has initiated such an investigation, and it will be important to see that investigation come to a conclusion, and to see the results of the investigation,” Blinken said at a press conference.

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