Source: BBC
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Monday 23 October 2023 15:55:46
Planet Earth III Magnificent but Horrifying, Say Reviewers
Critics have called Sir David Attenborough's latest series of Planet Earth "awe-inspiring" and "magnificent" but also "horrifying" and "sad".
The third instalment of the landmark, award-winning programme began on Sunday on BBC One.
The eight-part series shows animals around the world fighting for survival amid constant environmental change.
The Guardian described episode one as "yet more majestic TV" from the veteran broadcaster.
"This awe-inspiring series has a scale that is simply spectacular," wrote Rebecca Nicholson in a five-star review. "It is possible to watch and enjoy it purely for the astonishing footage - but it will horrify you too."
She added: "It should be alarming that, in the six years since Planet Earth last appeared on our screens, this third series finds itself in a darker mood."
The documentary, narrated by Sir David, 93, contains footage of the natural world - including shots from overhead drones and remotely operated deep-sea submersibles - gathered over five years across 43 countries.
The first episode is dedicated to coasts from Kent to South Africa, Mexico to Australia and beyond. It focuses on two cautionary tales; around the plights of the Caribbean flamingos on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, and the similarly endangered green turtles of Raine Island on the Great Barrier Reef.
We see old footage of a young Sir David visiting the same island more than 60 years earlier, and hear of the devastating impact human activity has had.
The Times' Carol Midgley, in a four-star review, said the new series "is magnificent, but it's a fast track to becoming really quite sad."
"I thought the footage of the desert lions paddling in the sea to catch cormorants mid-air in the pitch darkness was amazing," she wrote. "Miserably, so was the poor Caribbean flamingos having their entire nests wrecked by worsening storms (attributed to climate change), their chicks pathetically trying to scramble onto rocks as Attenborough's voice doomily explained: 'Soaked and cold [they] will soon perish unless they can get out of water. Some years no chicks survive.'"
The Telegraph's Ed Power wrote that Sir David "remains peerless when it comes describing the beauty - and fragility - of our planet".
Planet Earth III "packs the sort of dazzling visual punch of which Hollywood could only dream, with languid overhead shots of flapping flamingos and their young who struggle to survive in the freezing rain".
"At a time when there is so much uncertainty in the world, how enormously reassuring to know Attenborough is still on hand to share his passion with us," he concluded.
