Latest news with #NaharnetNewsdesk


Nahar Net
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Hezbollah missile or Israeli strike?
by Naharnet Newsdesk 4 hours Israel said Friday it didn't bomb any residential building in Nabatieh after a woman was killed and 20 other people were wounded as Israel's air force carried out intense airstrikes on mountains overlooking the city of Nabatieh. Shortly afterward, the apartment building was hit in the nearby city of Nabatieh, resulting in the death of a woman. Twenty other people were wounded. Israel denied the strike on the building. It said its fighter jets struck a site used by Hezbollah to manage its fire and defense array in the area and that the projectile that hit the building had flown from a nearby Hezbollah depot targeted by an Israeli strike. The Israeli army said it identified rehabilitation attempts by Hezbollah beforehand and struck infrastructure sites in the area. Videos circulated Friday on social media, showing missiles flying from an area hit by an Israeli strike.


Nahar Net
6 hours ago
- Business
- Nahar Net
German minimum wage set to rise by about 14% over the next 18 months
by Naharnet Newsdesk 4 hours Germany's minimum wage is set to rise by about 14% over the next 18 months under an agreement that appears to defuse a potentially divisive issue for the new government. A commission in which employers and labor unions are represented recommended on Friday that the minimum wage rise from its current 12.82 euros ($15) per hour to 13.90 euros at the beginning of 2026 and 14.60 euros a year later. The head of the panel, Christiane Schönefeld, said it faced "a particular challenge this year in view of the stagnating economy and the uncertain forecasts." She said it conducted "very difficult talks, which were complicated further by the expectations expressed in public." Germany, which has Europe's biggest economy, has had a national minimum wage since 2015. It was introduced at the insistence of the center-left Social Democrats, who were then — as they are now now — the junior partners in a conservative-led government. It started off at 8.50 euros per hour, but the independent commission reviews its level regularly. There has been one political intervention, however: under then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, the government in 2022 ordered an increase to 12 euros an hour, fulfilling a campaign pledge by Scholz. In their campaign for this year's election, the Social Democrats called for an increase to 15 euros. New Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative bloc strongly opposed another government-ordered raise. Labor Minister Bärbel Bas, a leading Social Democrat, said she would implement the commission's proposal. She said she "can live well with it." "Of course we wanted more for people in this country," she told reporters. But she praised the panel for reaching consensus on an increase, "because it looked for a long time as though we wouldn't get an agreement at all, and then of course we would have had to talk in the coalition about how to deal with this."


Nahar Net
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Russian strike kills three, wounds 14 in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk
by Naharnet Newsdesk 27 June 2025, 13:08 A Russian strike on Friday killed three people and wounded more than a dozen in Ukraine's industrial Dnipropetrovsk region, where Russia has launched increasingly frequent fatal attacks. "Three people have been killed in an enemy attack. Fourteen people have been wounded," regional governor Sergiy Lysak said of the attack on the town of Samar, outside the region's main city of Dnipro.


Nahar Net
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Argentina to try Iranians and Lebanese in absentia over 1994 bombing
by Naharnet Newsdesk 27 June 2025, 10:04 An Argentine judge on Thursday ordered that the seven Iranians and three Lebanese citizens accused of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires face trial in absentia for the first time in the long-running case plagued by setbacks and controversy. For years Argentine courts have ordered that the suspects — Iranian former officials and Lebanese nationals — be apprehended and brought before a judge because Argentina never allowed trials in absentia. Past efforts to encourage foreign governments to arrest the suspects, including an influential advisor to Iran's supreme leader, on the basis of Interpol red alerts never gained traction. But right-wing President Javier Milei, a loyal ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and fierce critic of Iran who studies the Torah with a rabbi despite being born Catholic, pushed a bill through Congress earlier this year that authorizes trials in absentia for fugitives that have long sought to evade justice — allowing Argentina to put the defendants on trial for the first time. On Thursday, Judge Daniel Rafecas approved the trial in absentia following a request from the special prosecutor's office responsible for investigating the 1994 attack, the deadliest in the South American country's history, which killed 85 people two years after a separate bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires killed 22 people. Rafecas described the trial as the only way to avoid impunity now more than 30 years after the bombing. "Trial in absentia, however limited, remains a tool that allows us, at the very least, to attempt to uncover the truth, reconstruct what happened, and, above all, give those representing the victims a place to express themselves publicly in this process," he wrote in his ruling. Last year, a high court in Argentina ruled that the Iranian government had masterminded the 1994 attack on the center, known by its acronym AMIA, and that members of Lebanon's Hezbollah had carried it out. Iran has long denied any involvement in the attacks. Among the seven Iranians who are subject to Argentine arrest warrants are former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, former commander of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezaei and former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who now advises Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The three Lebanese citizens include Salman Raouf Salman, who allegedly coordinated the attack, and fellow Hezbollah members Abdallah Salman and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar. All have been declared in contempt of court, in some cases decades ago. Advancing the AMIA case has been a key goal of Milei, who concluded a trip to Jerusalem on June 12, the night before Israel launched its unprecedented air campaign targeting Iran's nuclear sites and military leadership. Milei escalated his rhetoric against Iran and in support of Israel during the 12-day war between the regional foes, calling the Islamic republic "an enemy of Argentina" and praising Israel as "saving Western civilization."


Nahar Net
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Iran to hold 'historic' funeral for slain top military, nuclear figures
by Naharnet Newsdesk 27 June 2025, 16:15 Iran will hold what it described as "historic" funeral proceedings in Tehran on Saturday for 60 killed in its 12-day war with Israel, including top military commanders and nuclear scientists. The commemorations will begin at 0800 local time (0430 GMT) at Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, followed by a funeral procession to Azadi (Freedom) Square, about 11 kilometers (7 miles) away. "A brief ceremony will be held there, then the processions of the martyrs will go toward Azadi Square," said Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of Tehran's Islamic Development Coordination Council, in a televised interview Friday. "Tomorrow will be a historic day for Islamic Iran and the revolution," he added. Among the dead is General Mohammad Bagheri, a major general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the second-in-command of the armed forces after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He will be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack. Nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, will be buried with his wife. Four women and four children are among those to be honored at the funeral ceremony. The war erupted on June 13 when Israel launched strikes that it said were aimed at halting Iran from developing a nuclear weapon -- a charge Tehran denies. Israeli strikes killed at least 30 top commanders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, according to local media, including its commander-in-chief Hossein Salami and the head of its aerospace forces, Amirali Hajizadeh, who oversaw the country's ballistic missile program. So far, there is no indication that Khamenei will attend the funeral on Saturday. He has previously attended ceremonies for high-ranking Iranian authorities, including late president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last year. The Iranian health ministry says at least 627 civilians were killed and nearly 4,900 wounded in the Israeli attacks. Iran's strikes on Israel also killed 28 people, according to Israeli authorities.