Foreign News

Iran warns Hezbollah leader’s death ‘will not go unavenged’

Published

1 year ago

2024/09/29

Priyan

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei described Hassan Nasrallah as "a path and a school of thought" (BBC)

Iran’s supreme leader has said the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “will not go unavenged”, a day after he was killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced five days of mourning in Iran in response to what he called the “martyrdom of the great Nasrallah”, describing him as “a path and a school of thought” that would continue.

Iranian media reported that a Iranian Revolutionary Guards general was also killed in the Israeli strikes in Beirut on Friday.

Israel’s military said Nasrallah had “the blood of thousands… on his hands”, and that it targeted him while he was “commanding more imminent attacks”.

There are fears that the strike could plunge the wider region into war, after nearly a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah sparked by the 7 October attacks and war in the Gaza Strip.

Key to what happens next in the Middle East is what Ayatollah Khamenei decides.

So far, he and other senior Iranian figures have refrained from vowing to retaliate for the series of severe and humiliating blows that Israel has dealt Hezbollah in recent weeks, seemingly because Iran does not want a war with its arch-enemy.

Iran also has not carried out its threat to avenge the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Hanniyeh in Teheran in July, which Iran and Hamas blamed on Israel.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas are designated as terrorist organisations by Israel, the US, UK and other countries.

Earlier on Saturday, Ayatollah Khamenei urged Muslims to stand by Hezbollah “with their resources and help” but did not promise to retaliate for the strike that killed Nasrallah.

“The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront,” he said.

Reuters news agency meanwhile cited two regional officials as saying that the supreme leader had been transferred to a secure location inside Iran with heightened security measures. They also said Iran was in constant contact with Hezbollah and other allies to determine their next steps, according to the report.

Friday’s Israeli strike levelled several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahieh, underneath which the Israeli military said Hezbollah’s central headquarters was located.

Hezbollah confirmed Nasrallah’s death on Saturday. But it did not comment on the Israeli military’s claim that Ali Karaki, the head of the group’s Southern Front, and other commanders were killed alongside Nasrallah.

Gen Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of operations for Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), was also “martyred” in Dahiyeh on Friday, according to the IRGC-linked Saberin News outlet.

It provided nor further details, although the moderate Didban news website said he was “assassinated along with” Nasrallah.

However, there has been no official confirmation from Iranian authorities.

Iran uses the IRGC to provide Hezbollah with most of its funding, training and weapons, which have allowed the Shia Islamist group to build a military wing stronger than the Lebanese army.

The US says the IRGC also oversees the co-ordination of Iran’s network of allied armed groups across the Middle East, which are all opposed to the US and Israel and sometimes refer to themselves as the “Axis of Resistance”. Besides Hezbollah, they include Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.

On Saturday, there were air raid sirens in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv after the Houthis launched a missile in support of Hezbollah. The Israeli military said the missile was intercepted.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iraqi militias, also claimed new drone attacks on northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East programme at the UK-based think tank Chatham House, said Iran’s reputation among its allies was “certainly damaged” and that it would be “looking for some way to turn the tables and save some face”.

“This could result in a co-ordinated axis response, including from Iraq and the Houthis, or another direct Iranian strike on Israel itself,” she said.

“By maintaining pressure or even escalating, Tehran is aware that this will invite further attacks, but it will choose to do so keep pressure on Israel.”

(BBC)

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Foreign News

How photography helped the British empire classify India

Published

51 mins ago

2026/02/21

Priyan

Female dancers or nautch girls, early 20th Century. The photograph was taken by Edward Taurines, one of the first European photographers with a studio in Bombay (now Mumbai) which specialised in photographs showcasing the city for a Western audience. [BBC]

In the second half of the 19th Century, photography became one of the British Empire’s most persuasive instruments for knowing – and classifying – India.

A new exhibition – called Typecasting: Photographing the Peoples of India, 1855-1920, and organised by DAG, the Delhi-based art gallery – brings together nearly 200 rare photographs from a period when the camera was deployed to classify communities, fix identities and make India’s complex social differences legible to the colonial government.

Spanning 65 years, the exhibition maps an expansive human geography: from Lepcha and Bhutia communities in the north-east to Afridis in the north-west; from Todas in the Nilgiris to Parsi and Gujarati elites in western India.

It also turns its gaze to those assigned to the lower rungs of the colonial social order – dancing girls, agricultural labourers, barbers and snake charmers.

These images did not merely document India’s diversity; they actively shaped it, translating fluid, lived realities into apparently stable and knowable “types”.

Curated by historian Sudeshna Guha, the exhibition centres on folios from The People of India, the influential eight-volume photographic survey published between 1868 and 1875. From this core, it expands outward to include albumen and silver-gelatin prints by photographers such as Samuel Bourne, Lala Deen Dayal, John Burke and the studio Shepherd & Robertson – practitioners whose images helped define the visual language of that time.

“Taken together, this material tells the history of ethnographic photography and its effect on the British administration and the Indian population, in a project which in size and depth has never before been seen in India,” says Ashish Anand, CEO of DAG.

Here’s a selection of images from the exhibition:

DAG Five Indian women wearing saris stand outside a modest house in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1890, balancing neatly stacked cow dung cakes on their heads while additional rounds lie arranged on the ground beside them. — Women carrying cow dung cakes, Bombay, 1890, by Edward Taurines. Here, the women are presented in service to the household, engaged in domestic tasks typically performed within the home – but repositioned outdoors for the camera.[BBC]

DAG An Indian woman in a sari poses for a photograph taken by Felix Morin, published in 1890. — Indian woman, photographed by Felix Morin, 1890. Women feature prominently in the photographs at the show. This carefully composed colonial-era portrait captures both the ethnographic gaze of the period and the formal elegance of early photography. [BBC]

DAG Four Afghan tribesmen, armed with guns and dressed in traditional attire, photographed in 1862. The group - Afridis from the Khyber Pass near Peshawar - stand posed before the camera. — This 1862 photograph – ‘Group of Afridis from the Khyber Pass’ taken by Charles Shepherd – shows men from a Pathan tribe the British described as “fiercely independent” found along the Afghan border.[BBC]

DAG A street barber trims a man’s hair in a small vacant space in India. Both wear traditional dress - a sarong-type dress. A turban lies near a man. The photograph was taken by an unidentified photographer. — *A street barber, by an unidentified photographer. Such images frequently captured street trades and everyday performances, turning ordinary labour into ethnographic subjects. [BBC]*

DAG Two high caste Hindu women in traditional saris pose on the steps of a house in Bombay in 1855 — William Johnson, a founding member of the Photographic Society of Bombay, published this image titled ‘Brahmani Ladies’ in the 1857 issue of The Indian Amateur’s Photographic Album. The accompanying text named the two women, describing them as young and intelligent, and noted that they were in Bombay – with their father’s encouragement and their husbands’ support – to study English at a mission school.[BBC]

DAG Five men of India's Parsee community, dressed in traditional attire and distinctive headgear, sit on chairs in a garden, with a colonial-style building rising behind them. — A group of Parsis, possibly photographed by William Johnson, sit before a colonial bungalow – asserting their distinct identity through clothing and bearing, while occupying a colonial architectural world. [BBC]

DAG Four men and women belonging to north eastern India's Bhutia community pose in their traditional attire in this picture taken in 1890. — A group of young Bhutias, 1890. The volume includes photographs of people from Sikkim, Bhutan and Tibet – regions beyond the British rule. The Lepchas, Bhutias and Tibetans were photographed by Benjamin Simpson. [BBC]

DAG Eight Indian musicians pose outside a cave in India's Maharashtra, holding their traditional drums and pipes in this undated photograph. — *Musicians at ancient Buddhist rock-cut shrines in Maharashtra, photographed by Charles Scott, undated.[BBC]*

DAG A husband, wife and daughter from India pose at an unidentified location in Singapore in the late 19th century, dressed in their traditional attire. — *An Indian family in Singapore, late 19th Century. Some images depict people from the Malay Peninsula, Singapore and Chittagong in Bangladesh.[BBC]*

**[BBC]**

Foreign News

Asos co-founder dies after Thailand apartment block fall

Published

15 hours ago

2026/02/20

Priyan

Quentin Griffiths died in the Thai city of Pattaya [BBC]

A co-founder of online fashion giant Asos died after falling from a high-rise apartment block in Thailand, police have said.

Quentin Griffiths has been named by Thai police as the man found dead on the ground in the eastern seaside city of Pattaya on 9 February.

A police investigator told the BBC Griffiths, a British passport holder, was by himself, his room was locked from the inside, and there was no trace of any break-ins at the time of the death. An autopsy did not reveal any evidence of foul play.

Griffiths co-founded Asos in 2000 and remained a significant shareholder after leaving the firm five years later.

City AM/Shutterstock A man in a blue pinstriped shirt smiles in a reflection in the mirror. — *Quentin Griffiths, pictured in 2008 [BBC]*

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting the family of a British national who has died in Thailand and are in contact with the local authorities.”

Police in Pattaya told the BBC Griffiths was found dead outside a luxury hotel where he had been staying in as a long-term resident in a suite on the 17th floor.

He was involved in two ongoing court cases that might have caused him stress, police also told the BBC.

Griffiths was separated from his second wife, a Thai national, and had reportedly been engaged in a legal dispute with her over a business they ran together, the BBC understands.

He co-founded Asos in London with Nick Robertson, Andrew Regan and Deborah Thorpe.

Its name originally stood for As Seen On Screen as it sold fashion inspired by clothing worn by TV and film stars.

It grew to become an online fashion marketplace stocking hundreds of brands as well as its own lines and at one time was valued at more than £6bn.

Its largest shareholders include Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen – who owns Danish clothing giant Bestseller and Mike Ashley, owner of Frasers Group.

[BBC]

Foreign News

Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6m in gold bars to fix water system

Published

22 hours ago

2026/02/20

Priyan

Osaka authorities received 21kg of gold bullion from a mystery donor

A Japanese city has received a hefty donation to help fix its ageing water system: 21kg (46lb) in gold bars.

The gold bars, worth an estimated 560 million yen ($3.6m; £2.7m), were given last November by a donor who wished to remain anonymous, Osaka Mayor Hideyuki Yokoyama told a press conference on Thursday.

Home to nearly three million people, Osaka is a commercial hub located in the Japan’s Kansai region and the country’s third-largest city.

But like many Japanese cities, Osaka’s water and sewage pipes are ageing – a growing cause for safety concern.

Osaka recorded more than 90 cases of water pipe leaks under its roads in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the city’s waterworks bureau.

“Tackling ageing water pipes requires a huge investment. So I have nothing but appreciation,” Yokoyama told reporters on Thursday, in response to a question about the huge gold donation.

Yokoyama said the amount was “staggering” and he was “lost for words”.

The same mystery donor had previously given 500,000 yen in cash for municipal waterworks, he added.

The city’s waterworks bureau said in a statement on Thursday that it was grateful for the gold donation and would put it to good use – including tackling the deterioration of water pipes.

More than 20% of Japan’s water pipes have passed their legal service life of 40 years, according to local media.

Sinkholes have also become increasingly common in Japanese cities, many of which have ageing sewage pipeline infrastructure.

Last year, a massive sinkhole in Saitama Prefecture swallowed the cab of a truck, killing its driver. The sinkhole was believed to have been caused by a ruptured sewage pipe.

That incident prompted Japanese authorities to step up efforts to replace corroded pipes across the country. But budget issues have stalled the progress of such pipe renewal works.

[BBC]