Global

Trial for Protesters in Iran

Authorities in Iran have announced that they will hold public trials for at least a thousand of the protesters detained in the country for their participation in anti-government demonstrations following the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini had been arrested by the “morality police” for improperly covering her head; she died in police custody. After her death, protests swept the country.

The mass indictments, which will put at least 1,000 people on trial, marks the government’s first major legal action aimed at quashing dissent since unrest erupted over six weeks ago following the death of 22-year-old Amini on September 16.

During the protests that swept the country, at least 250 people are believed to have been killed; 14,000 were arrested.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted judicial officials as saying that a thousand people who had a central role in the protests would be brought to trial in Tehran over their “subversive actions,” including assaulting security guards, setting fire to public property, and other accusations.

“Those who intend to confront and subvert the regime are dependent on foreigners and will be punished according to legal standards,” said Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, indicating that some protesters would be charged with collaborating with foreign governments. Tehran officials have repeated unsupported claims that Iran’s foreign enemies have fomented the unrest.

“Without a doubt, our judges will deal with the cases of the recent riots with accuracy and speed,” he underscored.

Voters in Brazil on Sunday ousted President Jair Bolsonaro after just one term and elected the leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to replace him, election officials said, a rebuke to Bolsonaro’s far-right movement and his divisive four years in office.

The victory completes a stunning political revival for da Silva — from the presidency to prison and back — that had once seemed unthinkable.

It also ends Bolsonaro’s turbulent time as the region’s most powerful leader. For years, he attracted global attention for policies that accelerated the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and exacerbated the pandemic, which left nearly 700,000 dead in Brazil, while also becoming a major international figure of the far right for his brash attacks on the left, the media and Brazil’s democratic institutions.

More recently, his efforts to undermine Brazil’s election system drew particular concern at home and abroad, as well as worldwide attention to Sunday’s vote as an important test for one of the world’s largest democracies.

Without evidence, Bolsonaro criticized the nation’s electronic voting machines as rife with fraud and suggested he might not accept a loss. Many of his supporters vowed to take to the streets at his command.

Yet in the hours after the race was called, far-right lawmakers, conservative pundits and many of Bolsonaro’s supporters had recognized da Silva’s victory.

Da Silva, 77, a former metalworker and union leader with a fifth-grade education, led Brazil during its boom in the first decade of the century, leaving office with an 80% approval rating.

This was the first time an incumbent president failed to win reelection in the 34 years of Brazil’s modern democracy.

Still, da Silva won with the narrowest margin of victory for that same period, signaling the deep divide that he will confront as president. He won 50.90% of the valid votes, versus Bolsonaro’s 49.10% with 99.97% of the vote counted Sunday night.

14 “I will govern for 215 million Brazilians, and not just for those who voted for me,” da Silva said in his victory speech The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 3, 2022 Sunday night, reading from pages held by his new wife, whom he married this year. “There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation.” Bolsonaro spent much of Monday holed up at the presidential offices, meeting with top advisers and Brazil’s minister of defense. At least some of the advisers urged the president to concede, but it was not clear if he had yet reached a decision on what to do, according to three government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings. Bolsonaro’s silence was unsettling for Brazil. He has consistently claimed, without evidence, that the country’s electronic voting system is rife with fraud and that the left was planning to rig the vote. As a result, millions of his supporters have lost faith in the integrity of their nation’s elections, according to polls, and many have said publicly that they are prepared to take to the streets at his command. On Monday, some were not waiting for any cues from Bolsonaro. Supporters, often led by truckers, set up at least 236 road blockades across 20 states in Brazil, according to the federal highway police, snarling traffic on several important highways.

Still, the widespread demonstrations that many had feared could quickly follow the election results did not occur.

The response from Bolsonaro’s allies was clearer. Former and current government ministers, right-wing lawmakers and prominent conservative pundits all accepted da Silva’s victory, albeit begrudgingly. (© The New York Times)

Power Outages in Ukraine

So far, Russia has destroyed about 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, affecting 16 regions, according to the Ukrainian government.

The latest assault came on Monday, when a massive barrage of Russian cruise missile and drone strikes hit Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities, knocking out water and power supplies in apparent retaliation for what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack on its Black Sea fleet.

In Kyiv, some 80% of consumers in the city of 3 million were left without water because of damage to a power facility on Monday. By Tuesday, water was fully restored as well as some power. Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba said that 20,000 apartments in the region remained without power.

The unpredictable rolling blackouts are increasing as the government scrambles to stabilize the energy grid and repair the system ahead of winter. The cuts add another layer of angst and uncertainty to a population already struggling with the stress of nearly nine months of war.

To try to ease people’s burdens, energy companies are publishing daily schedules of when neighborhoods won’t have power. But it’s not consistent, especially as strikes intensify. Last week, a power station in the central region was damaged, causing an emergency shutdown and prompting the government to warn citizens of tougher and longer outages.

“Unfortunately, the destruction and damage are serious,” Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said in a Telegram post. “It is necessary to prepare for emergency power outages for an indefinite period,” he said.

Ukrainians are trying to deal with this new reality. Residents are stocking up on heaters, blankets, warm clothing, and power banks to charge electronics. While most say they’re willing to bear the brunt of the blackouts for the sake of the war, the frequency and inconsistency of the outages are draining.

Starting Tuesday, the government plans to change the schedule of the Kyiv subway to include longer wait times to save energy.

Looking at the winter up ahead, Ukrainians are bracing themselves for the inevitable bitter cold that is sure to descend upon the country. Temperatures could drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit).

140 Killed in Bridge Collapse

At least 140 people were killed after a century-old pedestrian bridge collapsed in the western Indian state of Gujarat

About 350 people were on and around the bridge, a major tourist attraction, at the time of the collapse, said Brijesh Merja, a minister in the Gujarat government. A large number of those who died were children, women, and older people, according to officials.

The bridge collapsed four days after it was reopened to the public and about seven months after the start of renovation work. Built in 1880, during the Victorian era, it is about 755 feet long.

Video broadcast by local television channels showed people swimming to a portion of the bridge suspended in the water, with more than a dozen struggling to cling to the edge as they waited to be rescued. Children and women could be heard crying for help.

Rescue workers scrambled to pull victims from the river. Video footage released by the Gujarat government showed small boats working through the night to help with the search and rescue and pulling bodies out of the water. The office of the district collector in Morbi, the district where the bridge collapsed, said 170 people had been rescued so far.

The collector’s office said that in addition to the national disaster response force, teams from the Indian army, navy and air force were on the way to help with the rescue, which was complicated as night had fallen and the river was dark.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is from Gujarat and was in the state for a three-day visit, announced cash compensation for the families of those killed or injured.

The bridge was particularly busy over the weekend, as the Hindu festival season drew a larger number of tourists and families to the recently reopened attraction. Local media reports suggested that the bridge was over capacity when it snapped. The Morbi district is home to thousands of factories that make ceramic tiles, bathroom products, and wall clocks, and dozens of migrant factory workers were on the bridge when it fell.

Attention has shifted to whether the

The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 3, 2022 Iran to Send More Missiles to Russia

Iran is preparing to send approximately 1,000 additional weapons, including surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones, to Russia to use in its war against Ukraine.

The shipment is being closely monitored because it would be the first instance of Iran sending advanced precision guided missiles to Russia, which could give the Kremlin a substantial boost on the battlefield.

The last shipment of weapons from Iran to Russia included about 450 drones, officials said, which the Russians have already used to deadly effect in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said last week that they have shot down more than 300 Iranian drones.

This new expected shipment would mark a significant increase in Iranian support to Russia’s war effort. Officials say the missiles will be delivered before year’s end.

Drones have played a significant role in the conflict since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, but their use has increased since the summer, when the United States and Kyiv say Moscow acquired drones from Iran. In recent weeks these Iranian drones have been used to target critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

The Iranian drones are known as a “loitering munition” because they are capable of circling for some time in an area identified as a potential target and only striking once an enemy asset is identified. They are small, portable and can be easily launched, but their main advantage is that they are hard to detect and can be fired from a distance.

U.S. envoy to Iran Rob Malley spoke out strongly against Iran supplying the drones on Monday.

20 “We know that those drones have been used to target civilians and civilian infrastructure. And we know that Iran, The Jewish Home | NOVEMBER 3, 2022 in the face of all of this evidence, keeps lying and denying that it’s happening,” Malley said. The U.S. is “looking at everything that we can do, not just with sanctions” in order to disrupt the Iranian weaponry from going to Russia, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said last week. Iraq Gets New

Government

Iraq’s parliament approved a new government on Thursday that was more than a year in the making but that perpetuates an almost 2-decade-old political system that has been blamed for endemic corruption and dysfunction since being ushered in after the U.S.-led invasion.

The new prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, presented his list of Cabinet ministers to parliament more than a year after elections that were meant to produce a new, reformist government in response to sweeping protests.

The new government embodies a system put in place after the 2003 invasion, which allots key roles for specific sects and ethnic groups and allocates government ministries to the most powerful political parties, which have routinely used those ministries to enrich themselves.

Lawmakers approved al-Sudani and his Cabinet choices in a closed session.

Influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an Iraqi nationalist who has resisted Iranian influence, emerged from elections last year with the biggest single bloc in parliament. But after months of negotiations failed to form a coalition government, he ordered the resignation of his 73 members and in August announced he was withdrawing from politics.

Al-Sadr’s withdrawal opened the way for a rival political bloc made up mostly of Iran-backed Shiite parties to take control in a coalition with Kurdish and Sunni political parties.

On Thursday, al-Sudani pledged to fight corruption that has devastated the country, work to repair ties with the government of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, and build an economy that would create jobs and improve public services.

“Corruption that has affected all aspects of life is more deadly than the corona pandemic and has been the cause of many economic problems, weakening the state’s authority, increasing poverty, unemployment and poor public services,” he told parliament. He did not set out specific measures his government planned to take.

Iraq has become one of the most corrupt and nontransparent countries in the world, according to independent watchdog groups. In the most recent scandal, $2.5 billion has gone missing from government funds in a scheme involving tax checks issued to companies submitting fake documents. The Interior Ministry this week said it had arrested a key suspect as he tried to flee the country.

The endemic corruption and lack of basic public services and jobs sparked protests three years ago that led to the resignation of the government and the holding of early elections last year. (© The New York Times)

It was supposed to be a festive evening, throngs of raucous youngsters dressed as zombies, princesses and super heroes converging on one of Seoul’s most popular nightlife districts for their first restriction-free Halloween celebration since the pandemic began.

Late Saturday evening, they crowded into bars and nightclubs pumping out the latest K-pop hits and spilled out into the tight alleys that wind through the city’s Itaewon neighborhood.

As the night grew more frenetic and the mass of revelers swelled, many of them crammed into an alleyway barely 11 feet wide, in a bottleneck of human traffic that made it difficult to breathe and move. There were few police officers around, and from within the crowd came