Politics
Salman Rushdie Gives First Interview Since 2022 Stabbing
NEW YORK – Salman Rushdie is blind in his right eye, struggles to write, and has “frightening” nightmares months after being stabbed repeatedly as he prepared to give a lecture.
However, he expressed gratitude during his first interview since the attack.
“Well, you know, I’ve been better,” he told David Remnick of The New Yorker in an interview published Monday. “However, given what happened, I’m not so bad.”
“The major injuries are essentially healed,” Rushdie continued. “I have sensation in my thumb, index finger, and the bottom half of my palm. I’m getting a lot of hand therapy and am told I’m doing great.”
Remnick, who spoke with Rushdie in person at his agent’s office in Manhattan and via Zoom, wrote that the Booker Prize-winning author had lost more than 40 pounds (18 kilograms) and now reads mostly on an iPad, where he can adjust the lighting and font size.
Rushdie Went Into Hiding In Iran
“On the right side of his face, there is scar tissue,” Remnick wrote. “He speaks as fluently as ever, but one side of his lower lip droops. His left hand’s ulnar nerve was severely damaged.”
Rushdie, 75, went into hiding for years after Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for his death because of the novel “The Satanic Verses'” alleged blasphemy. But he’d been moving around freely for a long time, with little security, and had no qualms about appearing at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit education and retreat center in western New York, last August.
Rushdie was on stage when he was approached by a young man in black carrying a knife. Hadi Matar, who is accused of assaulting and trying to kill the victim, has said he is not guilty. Rushdie called Matar an “idiot” in his New Yorker interview but expressed no resentment.
“Over the years, I’ve worked very hard to avoid recrimination and bitterness,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good look. One of the ways I’ve dealt with this situation is to look forward rather than back. What happens today is less important than what happens tomorrow.”
The Man Complained The Stabbing Made Book Sales Go Up
The interview was published on the eve of the release of Rushdie’s new novel, “Victory City,” which he finished a month before his assassination. “Victory,” which features a protagonist who lives to be 247, is a typically surreal and exuberant narrative about an imagined ancient poem that has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with The Washington Post’s Ron Charles writing that “Rushdie’s magical style unfurls wonders.”
Rushdie had been silent on social media for months but now occasionally tweets and even responds to insults. When a Twitter user told him last week that he was living a “disgraceful life,” Rushdie responded, “Oh, another fan! “I’m overjoyed.”
During the interview, he complained that the stabbing had increased his book sales, as if people liked him more when he was in danger.
Rushdie Suffered From 15 Stab Wounds
“Everyone loves me now that I’m almost dead,” he said. “That was my error back then. I not only lived, but I tried to live well. That was a terrible oversight. Better to get 15 stab wounds.”
On Monday, he tweeted a photo of himself staring directly into the camera lens, his face thinner than in photos taken before the stabbing, his right eye hidden behind a dark lens in his glasses frame.
Otherwise, he is still attempting to recover. Rushdie has written that he initially struggled to write fiction after the fatwa and is still struggling, saying that when he sits down to work, “nothing happens,” just a “combination of blankness and junk.”
One project he might consider is a sequel to his 2012 memoir “Joseph Anton,” which he wrote in the third person.
“This does not feel third-person to me,” Rushdie said of a potential sequel. “I believe a first-person story is when someone sticks a knife into you. “That is an “I” story.”
SOURCE – (AP)
World
Azerbaijan And Armenia Agree To Prisoner Swap And To Work Towards Peace Deal
Azerbaijan and Armenia have agreed to exchange prisoners and work toward restoring relations and a peace agreement to end a decades-long conflict, which the US and EU have applauded.
According to a joint statement issued by Azerbaijan’s state news agency, AZERTAC, Azerbaijan will swap 32 prisoners of war for two military personnel.
“The Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan both believe that there is a historical chance for the region to achieve long-awaited peace.” The two countries “reaffirm their intention to normalize relations and reach a peace treaty based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the statement. The breakthrough resulted from conversations between the offices of Azerbaijan’s president and Armenia’s prime minister.
“An agreement has been reached on taking tangible steps towards building confidence between two countries,” the statement says.
Azerbaijan And Armenia Agree To Prisoner Swap And To Work Towards Peace Deal
According to Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the US State Department, the prisoner swap was “an important confidence-building measure” as the two countries worked toward a peace agreement.
“We commend Azerbaijani President (Ilham) Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister (Nikol) Pashinyan for their joint efforts to lay the groundwork for a more peaceful and prosperous future for the people of the South Caucasus,” the statement read. “The United States will continue to strongly support efforts to reach a durable and dignified peace.”
“Establishing and deepening the bilateral dialogue between sides has been a key objective of the EU-led Brussels process: today’s progress is a significant step,” said EU Council President Charles Michel on X. “I now encourage the leaders to finalize the … peace deal ASAP.”
The neighboring countries have been at odds for decades over Nagorno-Karabakh, an area in the Caucasus Mountains.
After mounting a quick 24-hour attack, Azerbaijan reclaimed control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian enclave within its boundaries, in September.
Azerbaijan And Armenia Agree To Prisoner Swap And To Work Towards Peace Deal
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has been controlled by Armenian rebels for decades. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, and cease-fire agreements have proven unstable.
Armenia admitted earlier this year that the province was part of Azerbaijan, but there are still disagreements about the future of its administration.
The latest progress on prisoner swaps and repairing relations came as delegates from both countries gathered in Dubai for the COP28 climate conference.
The statement also stated that Armenia would withdraw from consideration to host the annual UN-backed climate meeting next year and that Azerbaijan hoped other nations would support its bid.
Azerbaijan And Armenia Agree To Prisoner Swap And To Work Towards Peace Deal
There is a vacancy for the summit host for COP29 in 2024, which, according to UN standards, should be hosted in Eastern Europe. Before Thursday, the two countries had been obstructing each other’s candidacy in the voting process.
A vote among the region’s nations determines the year’s host country. Russia voted against numerous countries that are members of or allies of the European Union.
Azerbaijan is a big oil and gas producer that has been strengthening ties with Russia. Oil and gas account for about half of the country’s GDP and over 90% of its exports.
SOURCE – (CNN)
U.K News
Ukraine Makes New Push To Defeat Russia’s Electronic Warfare
A drone video that appeared to show a targeted strike blowing up three antennas on the roof of an apartment building surfaced online in early November. The Ukrainian drone commander who shared it claimed to have destroyed a Russian Pole-21 electronic warfare equipment near Donetsk on the eastern front.
Regarding electronic warfare, Ukraine is already catching up to Russia.
This attack also demonstrates Kyiv’s urgency to destroy Moscow’s technology on the battlefield, indicating how critical it may be for the war’s future.
Electronic warfare, or EW, uses electromagnetic weapons or techniques. Both forces deploy it in this battle, primarily through electronic jammers that disrupt GPS-guided targeting systems, leading rockets to miss their objectives.
After nearly six months of Ukraine’s sluggish and grinding counteroffensive, it is evident that Russia has created not only great physical barriers but also formidable electronic defenses, and Ukrainian forces on the front lines must react rapidly.
Ukraine Makes New Push To Defeat Russia’s Electronic Warfare
The drone commander with Ukraine’s 59th Motorized Brigade, which carried out the early November strike, Pavlo Petrychenko, believes that successfully destroying these systems is crucial if Ukraine is to take more land. Since the summer, there has been an increase in the frequency of Ukrainian military and media claims of successful strikes against Pole-21 systems.
“At the beginning of the conflict, they used electronic warfare to interfere with our communication, our walkie-talkies, radiocommunications, telephones, and drones,” he told CNN via video chat from near Avdiivka on the war’s eastern front, which is currently the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting.
“However, as we began to receive foreign equipment, they began to use these systems to suppress our weapons.”
“Since (the both US-provided) HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) and Excalibur 155 (an extended range artillery projectile) are guided by satellites, electronic warfare is actively used by (Russia) as one element of the defense against us,” Petrychenko said in a statement.
A flaw in Ukraine’s NATO-supplied armor
And this is the issue for Ukraine. Russian jammers have exploited the technological advantage of Ukraine’s Western-supplied arsenal of “smart” – guided – weapons.
Precision-guided missiles and guided multiple-launch rocket systems, such as HIMARS, are more vulnerable to electronic warfare than unguided weapons due to their reliance on GPS to hit their targets. Unguided weapons, which were common in both Russia and Ukraine’s Soviet-era stocks before 2022, do not.
Ukraine Makes New Push To Defeat Russia’s Electronic Warfare
The Pole-21 device, designed to jam GPS signals to defend Russian assets from approaching drones or missiles, is only one component of Moscow’s expanding electronic arsenal.
The Kremlin’s playbook includes jamming, as well as “spoofing” GPS – a method that effectively fools an adversary drone or missile into thinking it is somewhere else – which also impairs radar, radio, and even cell connections.
According to state news agency TASS, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told a government meeting in September that production of major types of military equipment, including EW, had more than doubled in the first eight months of the year.
According to experts and Ukrainian officials, Russia has now fully incorporated electronic warfare into its forces.
In a recent essay, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, stated that Russia is now mass producing what he refers to as “trench electronic warfare.”
“The tactical level of Russian troops is saturated with (this equipment),” Zaluzhny said, adding that despite equipment losses, Moscow maintains “significant electronic warfare superiority.”
Zaluzhny also singled out American-made Excalibur shells, adding that their “capability has been significantly reduced, because the targeting system (using GPS) is very sensitive to the influence of enemy electronic warfare.”
Maj. Charlie Dietz, a Pentagon spokesperson, stated that “while the impact of Russian jamming has been observed” in certain US-supplied systems, including HIMARS rocket launchers, “it has not rendered these systems ineffective.”
Ukraine Makes New Push To Defeat Russia’s Electronic Warfare
According to Dietz, the agency has mitigated those vulnerabilities, including “substantial efforts to re-engineer and update these systems.” Updates are “being implemented as quickly as possible to counteract the effects of EW jamming,” he added.
Right now, the best hope they have is that videos of his early November drone strike go viral, according to Petrychenko. With so many Ukrainian troops on social media, any viral clip like this would serve as a manual, assisting them in identifying Russian antennas on the battlefield.
This is shifting the game outside of Ukraine.
“I think what you’re seeing play out in Ukraine is very much a glimpse into what modern warfare looks like today,” said Kari Bingen, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former Pentagon principal deputy undersecretary for defense. She envisions a future where “electronic warfare capabilities and tactics are integrated into conventional force operations.”
Ukraine Makes New Push To Defeat Russia’s Electronic Warfare
According to Dietz, a Pentagon spokesperson, the United States is “actively evaluating and adapting its strategies” in electronic warfare, which he sees as a “fundamental aspect of contemporary and future military engagements.”
Fedorov stated that Ukraine is actively investing in electronic warfare while also following in the footsteps of his drone program by promoting indigenous production.
And he is open about the fact that Ukraine requires assistance from its Western partners in terms of both equipment and knowledge.
“We have all the technology we need in the West.” The question may be how to use it, which is important. We must consider the next technological level of the conflict.”
SOURCE – (CNN)
Politics
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