Next week, an already very public debate over whether Ukraine should be allowed to use long-range Western-supplied missiles on Russian soil will come under an even brighter international spotlight.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet not only US President Joe Biden, who has signaled he is open to discussing the issue, but also likely both US presidential candidates on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Those meetings come as experts say the public wrangling on this topic has raised the stakes of the decision, and potentially shifted the role these missiles – the Franco-British Storm Shadow/Scalps and US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) – might play in this expanding war.

It was almost exactly a year ago, also during an in-person meeting with Zelensky in the United States, that Biden made the decision to supply the ATACMS to Ukraine.

The news did leak out, but official confirmation only came a month later, Zelensky burying it at the end of a nightly address on October 18. “Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented,” he said.  “And they are being implemented very accurately – ATACMS have proven themselves.” By that point the missiles had, according to US officials, already been used in several strikes on Russian-occupied Luhansk and the southern coastal town of Berdiansk.

A few months earlier, a similar story played out with the British Storm Shadows when then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace only confirmed they had been supplied once they were already in use. In both cases, Ukraine promised not to use them on Russian territory.

This September, Zelensky is employing a strategy of more openly challenging his allies, and that, combined with Russia’s open threats that any lifting of restrictions on their use would mean war with NATO, has turned the issue of firing these missiles into Russia into a political touchstone, an ultimate determinant of the extent of Western support.

Zelensky has refused to allow the topic to fall out of the headlines – publicly criticizing his allies’ hesitation after a Russian strike on a military educational facility in Poltava killed  more than 50 people earlier this month.

“Every day of delay is, unfortunately, the death of people,” he said.

Last weekend, after a Russian bomb attack on an apartment block in Kharkiv, he even made veiled accusations of cowardice, saying: “This terror can be stopped. But to stop it, the fear of making strong, objectively necessary decisions must be overcome.”

“Zelensky has taken a bit of a risk on this,” said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London. “He’s almost playing political chicken. He’s kind of daring people to support him.” If it happens though, the political dividend would be significant, says Savill, blunting Russian rhetoric and “demonstrating firm international support” for Ukraine.

As for the battlefield dividend, that, experts say, is less clear cut.

Opinion is divided on the extent to which the public debate around the missile permissions has blunted their potential utility – especially when it comes to targeting Russian fighter jets and missiles before they can be used against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. US intelligence believes 90% of Russian aircraft that launch deadly glide bombs (at least 100 per day, according to Zelensky), are more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, so outside of ATACMS range. And that number may be increasing. Russia recently relocated planes from two bases near the border further east, according to one US official.

Savill agrees “lots of the juiciest targets” have likely been moved deeper into Russian territory, meaning the impact on the war may be “limited.” But that doesn’t mean the missiles have no utility. Storm Shadows, designed to penetrate deep into concrete, could be effective against military headquarters, or ammunition stores, many of which are still in range.  ATACMS, some of which have cluster warheads, could be used to do significant damage to airfields. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a think-tank in Washington DC, has calculated that 15 Russian airfields are in range of ATACMs (though it’s not clear how many aircraft are still housed on them).

George Barros, the author of that ISW research, agrees a less public debate may have been preferable, but if the very prospect of these permissions being granted has forced Russia to move aircraft further from the border, it’s a good thing. It could reduce the number of bombing missions Russian planes can make (known in the military as the “sortie rate”) and buy Ukraine valuable detection and reaction time for incoming attacks.

More importantly, he believes that if Ukraine could strike Russian troops, weaponry and logistics within the 300-kilometer range of the top-end ATACMS, it would for the first time force Russia to calculate the risks of moving large amounts of troops and equipment into Ukraine.

Barros’ research has pinpointed at least 200 potential targets that would be in range of ATACMs, ranging from military regiments to fuel depots, weapons storage depots, and even the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military district in Rostov (all of which would be much harder to move than aircraft).

The list is also conservative, Barros acknowledges, and has not accounted for new targets installed after the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022.  And some of the newest targets of all could, according to Savill, include Iranian FATH-360 ballistic missiles, which the US believes have already been supplied and have a range of just 75 kilometers (47 miles), far less than the Western missiles.

Experts also agree the missiles could provide valuable support to Ukraine’s drone and ground operations. Savill believes ATACMS could do serious damage to Russian air defense radars and systems, adding that “if you punch a hole through, actually Ukrainian long-range drones have got better options to penetrate deeper into Russia.” Hitting Russian air defense systems in the border areas could also improve Ukraine’s chances of retaking its own territory, said Barros.

“You actually do open up some interesting areas where there’s parts of occupying Ukraine that are no longer under Russia’s air defense umbrella,” he said.

There’s also the option in theory, Savill said, to extend the range of the missiles by launching from Ukrainian positions inside Kursk, though that could put Ukrainian bombers and missile launchers in the crosshairs of Russian air defenses.

Ultimately, Ukraine continues to argue that the ability to use Western-supplied long-range missiles inside Russia is part of the complex jigsaw puzzle of ending this war on Kyiv’s terms — and a way to show Russia it cannot outlast Ukraine’s allies.

Zelensky is heading to the US on the one hand buoyed by the Kursk offensive providing fresh evidence of both Ukrainian ingenuity and, he argues, the flimsiness of Russian “red lines,” but on the other hand motivated by the prospect of a third winter with critical electricity shortages, and still inadequate supplies of equipment and manpower.

“We need to have this long-range capability not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine, but also on Russian territory,” he told a large gathering of Ukraine’s allies at the US’ Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany earlier this month, “so Russia is motivated to seek peace.”

One person has died and several people are missing after record rainfall brought flooding and landslides to coastal Japan, in the same region that was hit by a massive earthquake on New Year’s Day, local authorities said.

Japan’s weather agency issued its highest emergency warning for Ishikawa prefecture Saturday, urging residents to take extreme precautions in what it said is the heaviest rainfall the region has ever experienced. The warning was downgraded Sunday morning, but the weather agency asked residents to remain on high alert.

The torrential downpour caused 16 rivers in the area to breach their banks, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

One person in the city of Suzu died after their home was swallowed by a landslide, NHK reported. At least six people are missing, Ishikawa authorities said, and tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate, according to NHK.

The storm has knocked out power in more than 6,200 households, authorities said.

It’s a region that has already endured destruction and misery once this year.

On January 1, a powerful 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa, killing hundreds of people and causing widespread destruction that the region is still recovering from.

Temporary housing built for people who lost their homes in the earthquake was surrounded by several feet of murky floodwater, photos showed.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, four workers who were doing earthquake restoration work in Wajima city have gone missing. The ministry says it’s possible they were caught up in a landslide.

Earthquakes make soil unstable and prone to further landslides, especially after heavy rains.

The Israeli military is investigating soldiers for throwing bodies from a rooftop in the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday, amid an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) incursion in the area that left seven dead, according to the Palestinian government, and has seen clashes and intense gunfire with militants.

The longest video shows three Israeli soldiers standing on a rooftop. They can be seen pushing a body over the edge of the building. The feet of the body get stuck in what appears to be electrical or telephone cables, and it dangles over the edge, headfirst. One of the soldiers then reaches over to dislodge the person’s feet, and the body tumbles to the ground.

Approaching a second body on the roof, a soldier picks up the person’s hands and another picks up the feet. They swing the body back and forth, then toss it over the side.

Finally, a soldier uses his feet to kick a third body over the side of the building.

Militaries are required under international law to treat the bodies of enemy soldiers with respect, prevent them from being mutilated, and return them to the deceased’s family. The Israeli military often confiscates the bodies of militants killed in battle.

Ameed Shehadeh, a correspondent for Al-Arabi, also witnessed the incident.

The IDF later said that along with the Israeli Security Agency, its forces had killed “the head of the terrorist organization in Qabatiya and six other terrorists.”

The IDF did not name the group it was targeting but said that several armed terrorists were identified last night who shot at the forces operating in the area. “The terrorists’ vehicle had weapons and explosives that caused a secondary explosion,” it added.

Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti called the treatment of the bodies “a barbaric act that shows the extent of the degradation and brutality of the behavior of the occupation army.”

Video shot earlier in the day showed a Palestinian militant with a rifle darting across the rooftops, with loud gunfire echoing off the concrete walls. Another video showed an Israeli soldier on the rooftop, shooting at the prone body of a man. A photo shows three bodies on the roof.

Later in the day an Israeli airstrike struck a car in the town, according to multiple videos from the scene. The IDF said in a statement that it was targeting “armed terrorists operating within a vehicle.”

Clashes between militants and Israeli security forces are ongoing in Qabatya with intense gunfire heard in the town well after sunset on Thursday.

The Israeli military has in recent weeks used increasingly militarized tactics in the occupied West Bank. Around 700 people have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since October 7, including more than 150 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Thursday that had treated eight people wounded by live ammunition, two of whom were in critical condition.

Lauren Izso and Tim Lister contributed to this report.

The legal team representing the alleged victims of the former owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, say the late billionaire was a “monster” whose crimes were “enabled” by the high-end department store.

At least 37 women have accused Al-Fayed, who died in 2023 aged 94, of sexually assaulting them, barrister Dean Armstrong told reporters in London Friday. Armstrong said Al-Fayad was a “monster” who committed a “vast web of abuse.”

Setting out the legal claim being brought against Harrods, Armstrong said Al-Fayad was “enabled by a system” that pervaded the store.

“This is and was a systematic failure of corporate responsibility, and that systematic failure is on the shoulders of Harrods,” Armstrong said.

The legal team involved in the BBC investigation claimed Harrods knew of Al Fayed’s alleged crimes. The store showed an “abject failure of corporate responsibility, and a failure to provide a safe system of work,” Armstrong said.

The team called the case “horrific,” comparing it to that of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile who died in jail before he could face trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, and of Jimmy Savile, a British television personality who was revealed to a be a prolific sexual offender after his death.

Barrister Bruce Drummond described the case as “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation that certainly I, and perhaps the world, has ever seen.”

Harrods apologized to victims in a statement Thursday, saying it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by its former owner. The billionaire businessman owned the department store between 1985 and 2010.

In the statement, Harrods said that “new information came to light” last year about historic allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Al-Fayed.

Since then, it said, “it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved.”

It is unclear if the current owners will be liable for the alleged crimes committed under Harrods’ previous ownership, and whether they will be responsible for compensating the alleged victims and survivors of abuse.

Speaking at the news conference, Gloria Allred, a world-leading women’s rights attorney who has represented women who said they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, described Al-Fayed as “the epitome of a serial sexual abuser.”

The allegations against Al-Fayed include “serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery and sexual abuse of minors,” Allred detailed.

London’s Fulham Football Club, which Al-Fayed owned between 1997 and 2013, said in a statement posted on X on Friday: “We are deeply troubled and concerned to learn of the disturbing reports following yesterday’s documentary. We have sincere empathy for the women who have shared their experiences.”

It added that it was working to establish whether anyone at the club had been affected.

The Egyptian-born Al-Fayed was a fixture of the business and celebrity world in Britain during his life. Al Fayed’s son, Dodi Fayed, died in 1997 along with Princess Diana in a high-speed car crash in Paris.

Israel’s military claimed it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on the group’s stronghold in southern Beirut on Friday, sharply escalating the conflict between the two sides and raising fears of all-out war.

Ibrahim Aqil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was assassinated along with “about 10” other commanders, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. He accused Aqil and the commanders of planning to raid and occupy communities in Galilee in northern Israel.

Hezbollah has not confirmed the deaths.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 12 people were killed and 59 others injured in the airstrike, which leveled a multistory building in a densely populated neighborhood.

According to Hagari, the targeted commanders were “underground underneath a residential building in the heart of the Dahya neighborhood, using civilians as a human shield” at the time of the attack.

Aqil had a $7 million bounty on his head from the United States for his suspected involvement in the 1983 strike on the US Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, as well as the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks, which killed 241 US personnel later that year.

A week of surprise attacks

Friday’s strike marked the fourth consecutive day of surprise attacks on Beirut and other sites across the country, even as Israeli forces continued deadly strikes and operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The first major attack against Hezbollah this week came Tuesday afternoon when pagers belonging to the militant groups’ members exploded near-simultaneously. The pagers had been used by Hezbollah to communicate after the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, encouraged members to switch to low-tech devices to prevent more of them from being assassinated.

Almost exactly 24 hours later, Lebanon was rocked by a second wave of explosions, after Hezbollah walkie-talkies detonated in Beirut and the south of the country on Wednesday.

At least 37 people were killed, including some children, and more than 3,000 were injured in the twin attacks.

After initially refusing to comment on Tuesday’s pager explosions, Israel on Wednesday tacitly acknowledged its role in the attacks. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised the “excellent achievements” of the IDF, together with the country’s security agency, the Shin Bet, and its intelligence agency Mossad.

Gallant said a “new era” of war was beginning, and on Thursday Israel targeted Beirut for a third time, flying jets and dropping flares over the city while Nasrallah made a speech in which he pledged Israel would face a “reckoning.” Later, Israel launched one of its most intense bombardments against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in nearly a year of cross–border strikes, saying it hit about 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers.

Friday’s airstrike was the third Israeli airstrike on Beirut since hostilities began last year, after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. In January, an Israeli airstrike killed Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’ military wing, who had been living in Beirut. In July, a second Israeli strike on Beirut killed Hezbollah’s most senior military official, Fu’ad Shukr.

Before the surprise attacks on Lebanon, Israel’s security cabinet on Monday voted to add a new objective to its ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah: ensuring the safe return of residents from communities along its northern border with Lebanon to their homes.

After nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel, tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes both in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. While the return of residents of northern Israel has long been understood to be a political necessity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, this is the first time it has been made an official war goal.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the United States is partially responsible for a wave of violence in the state of Sinaloa that has left dozens dead in the past two weeks, with bodies repeatedly found on public streets and highways.

López Obrador suggested during a press conference Thursday that Washington helped stir up enmity between factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel after arresting two cartel leaders in the US.

On July 25, Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested along with Joaquín Guzmán López, son of drug kingpin “El Chapo” Guzmán, after they landed near El Paso, Texas on a small plane.

Zambada would later claim that he was “ambushed” and “kidnapped” by Guzmán López and hand-delivered to US authorities.

“A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head,”  Zambada said in a statement released by his attorney in August, adding he was tied and handcuffed and forced into the back of a pickup, driven to a landing strip, and forced onto the US-bound private plane.

It remains unclear why Guzmán López surrendered to US authorities and brought Zambada with him.

The Mexican president alleged the US Department of Justice had “agreements” with an organized criminal group that led to the arrest of Zambada, also referring to the operation as a kidnapping.

US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar previously denied that Washington was involved in the operation that led to Zambada’s arrest.

“It was not a US plane, it was not a US pilot, it was not our agents or our people in Mexico. This was an operation between the cartels, where one handed over to the other,” he said on Aug. 9.

‘In Sinaloa, there wasn’t the violence that there is now’

In the weeks after the arrests, violent clashes erupted in Sinaloa between what Mexican authorities call rival factions loyal to Zambada and those led by other sons of “El Chapo.”

The surge in violence has left at least 49 people dead since September 9, according to official figures.

The state prosecutor’s office has reported numerous cases of dead bodies being found with gunshots in the streets, on highways and in other locations across Sinaloa.

The situation forced Gov. Ruben Rocha Moya to suspend Independence Day celebrations last week and cancel classes at all levels for two days.

“In Sinaloa, there wasn’t the violence that there is now,” the Mexican president said Thursday.

However, López Obrador also denied that the situation in the state is completely out of control, insisting that Mexican authorities are handling it.

“No, we are there, but we have had to take special measures and move elements of the Armed Forces and we have also lost officers who have been killed due to this special, extraordinary situation,” he said.

Mexican Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said on Tuesday that at least two soldiers died last week during the violence in Sinaloa.