United News of Bangladesh

As money continues to pour into crypto following Donald Trump's victory last week, bitcoin has climbed to yet another record high. The world's largest cryptocurrency topped $87,000 for the first time on Monday. As of around 3:45 p.m. ET, bitcoin's price stood at $87,083, per CoinDesk, up over 28% in the last week alone. That's part of a rally across cryptocurrencies and crypto-related investments since Trump won the U.S. presidential election last week. Analysts credit much of the recent gains to an anticipated “crypto-friendly” nature of the incoming administration, which could translate into more regulatory clarity but also leeway. Still, as with everything in the volatile cryptoverse, the future is hard to predict. And while some are bullish, others continue to warn of investment risks. Here's what you need to know. Back up. What is cryptocurrency again? Cryptocurrency has been around for a while now, but has come under the spotlight in recent years. In basic terms, cryptocurrency is digital money. This kind of currency is designed to work through an online network without a central authority — meaning it's typically not backed by any government or banking institution — and transactions get recorded with technology called a blockchain. Bitcoin is the largest and oldest cryptocurrency, although other assets like Ethereum, Tether and Dogecoin have gained popularity over the years. Some investors see cryptocurrency as a “digital alternative” to traditional money — but it can be very volatile, and reliant on larger market conditions. Why are bitcoin and other crypto assets soaring now? A lot of it has to do with the outcome of last week's election. Trump was previously a crypto skeptic, but changed his mind and embraced cryptocurrencies during this year's presidential race. He has pledged to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. His campaign accepted donations in cryptocurrency and he courted fans at a bitcoin conference in July. He also launched World Liberty Financial, a new venture with family members to trade cryptocurrencies. Crypto industry players welcomed Trump’s victory, in hopes that he would be able to push through legislative and regulatory changes that they’ve long lobbied for. And Trump had previously promised that, if elected, he would remove the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler, who has been leading the U.S. government’s crackdown on the crypto industry and repeatedly called for more oversight. “Crypto rallied as Election Day progressed into the night and as it became increasingly clear that Trump would emerge victorious,” Citi analysts David Glass and Alex Saunders wrote in a Friday research note, pointing to larger industry sentiment around Trump being “crypto-friendly" and a potential shift in regulatory backing. Even before the post-election rally, assets like bitcoin posted notable gains over the past year or so. Much of the credit goes to early success of a new way to invest in the asset: spot bitcoin ETFs, which were approved by U.S. regulators in January. Inflows into spot ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, "have been the dominant driver of Bitcoin returns from some time, and we expect this relationship to continue in the near-term,” Glass and Saunders noted. They added that spot crypto ETFs saw some of their largest inflows on record in the days following the election. What are the risks? Crypto assets like bitcoin have a history of drastic swings in value — which can come suddenly and happen over the weekend or overnight in trading that continues at all hours, every day. In short, history shows you can lose money as quickly as you've made it. Long-term price behavior relies on larger market conditions. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, bitcoin stood at just over $5,000. Its price climbed to nearly $69,000 by November 2021, in a time marked by high demand for technology assets, but later crashed during an aggressive series of Federal Reserve rate hikes aimed at curbing inflation. Then came the 2022 collapse of FTX, which significantly undermined confidence in crypto overall. At the start of last year, a single bitcoin could be had for less than $17,000. Investors, however, began returning in large numbers as inflation started to cool — and gains skyrocketed on the anticipation and then early success of spot ETFs. While some crypto supporters see the potential for more record-breaking days, experts still stress caution, especially for small-pocketed investors. “Investors should only dabble in crypto with money that they can be prepared to lose,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said last week. “Because we’ve seen these wild swings in the past.” What about the climate impact? Assets like bitcoin are produced through a process called “mining," which consumes a lot of energy. And operations relying on pollutive sources have drawn particular concern over the years. Recent research published by the United Nations University and Earth’s Future journal found that the carbon footprint of 2020-2021 bitcoin mining across 76 nations was equivalent to the emissions from burning 84 billion pounds of coal or running 190 natural gas-fired power plants. Coal satisfied the bulk of bitcoin’s electricity demands (45%), followed by natural gas (21%) and hydropower (16%). In the U.S., the Energy Information Administration notes that crypto mining across the country has “grown very rapidly over the last several years," adding that grid planners have begun to express concern over increases in related electricity demand. Preliminary estimates released by the EIA in February suggest that annual electricity use from crypto mining probably represents between 0.6% to 2.3% of U.S. electricity consumption. Environmental impacts of bitcoin mining boil largely down to the energy source used. Industry analysts have maintained that clean energy has increased in use in recent years, coinciding with rising calls for climate protections from regulators around the world.

Curled up in his father’s lap, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried his heart out. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that was not in a cast. “Make him leave me alone!” he cried. His father reassured him and pulled him closer, his eyes tearing in grief – and gratitude that his son was healing. Hussein and his father, Hassan, were the only survivors from their family when an Israeli strike last month collapsed their home in Beirut, killing 18 people – including Hussein’s mother, his two sisters and his brother. Doctors at the American University of Beirut Medical Center repaired Hussein's fractured thigh and the torn tendons in his arm. Hussein should be able to walk again in two months, albeit with a lingering limp, they say. A prognosis for Hussein’s invisible wounds is much harder. He is back in diapers and has begun wetting his bed. He hardly speaks. He hasn't asked about his mother and siblings, his father said. The Israeli military said the Oct. 21 strike hit a Hezbollah target, without elaborating. Children have often been the victims as Israel has escalated its bombardment in Lebanon since late September. More than 100 have been killed and hundreds wounded in the past six weeks, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Of the 14,000 wounded by Israeli fire the past year, around 10% are children. Israel has vowed to cripple Hezbollah to stop the Lebanese militant group's fire on northern Israel, which began just after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. It says Hezbollah hides its fighters and infrastructure in residential areas. Increasingly, strikes have been hitting homes and killing families. “It leaves us with a generation of physically wounded children, children who are psychologically and emotionally wounded,” said Ghassan Abu Sittah, a renowned British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon who is also treating Hussein. ‘What do they want from us?’ Beirut’s Lebanon Hospital Geitaoui has nearly tripled the capacity of its burns center – already one of Lebanon’s largest – since September to accommodate war wounded, said its medical director Naji Abirached. About a fifth of newly admitted patients are children. Ivana Skakye turned 2 last week in one of burns center ICU units. The tiny girl remains wrapped in gauze around her head, arms and lower body — six weeks after an Israeli strike left her with third-degree burns over 40% of her body. Fatima Zayoun, her mother, was in the kitchen when the Sept. 23 strike hit outside their home in a southern village. The house was damaged and a fire broke out. Zayoun rushed to grab her two daughters, who were playing on the terrace. They were covered with black ash, she said. Ivana was unrecognizable, her hair burned away. “I told myself, `That is not her,’” Zayoun said. Ivana’s 7-year-old sister Rahaf had burns to her face and hands and has recovered more quickly. Ivana could be discharged in a few days, said her doctor, Ziad Sleiman. But the family has no home to return to, and Zayoun worries Ivana could suffer infections in the crowded displaced shelters. Zayoun was 17 last time Israel and Hezbollah were at war, in 2006. Displaced with her family then, she said she almost enjoyed the experience, riding out of their village in a truck, mixing with new people, learning new things. They returned home after the war. “But this war is hard. They are hitting everywhere,” she said. “What do they want from us? Do they want to hurt our children? We are not what they are looking for.” Attacks on homes rob kids of security Abu Sittah, the surgeon, said that for children, an attack on their home can have lasting effects. They "for the first time lose that sense of security — that their parents are keeping them safe, that their homes are invincible,” he said. Parents in displaced shelters report increased anxiety, hostility and aggression among kids, said Maria Elizabeth Haddad, a psychosocial worker. The children talk back and ignore rules. Some become clingy. Others develop speech impediments. She cited one with early signs of psychosis. One recent morning, children played in a school-turned-shelter north of Beirut, where nearly 3,000 people displaced from the south live. The kids — ranging from 6 to 12 and hailing from different villages — split into two teams, competing to grab a handkerchief. As they played, a tiny girl clung to a visiting AP reporter, holding her hand. Finally deciding she could trust her, she whispered a secret in her ear: “I am from Lebanon. Don’t tell anyone.” The game fell apart when two girls got into a fist fight. Pushing and shoving were followed by tears and tantrums. Symptoms of anxiety will last as they grow – a craving for greater stability, difficulties with attachment -- said Haddad, manager of psychosocial support programs in the Beirut area for the U.S.-based International Medical Corps. “It is a generational trauma. We have experienced it before with our parents,” she said. “This is not going to be easy to overcome.” New phases of life begin The night the strike hit, Hassan Mikdad had stepped out for coffee. He watched his building crumble. His friend, Hussein Hammoud, rushed to help search. In the darkness, Hammoud spotted some fingers in the rubble. He thought they were severed – until the boy screamed. It was Hussein. When he dug him out, Hussein had a metal bar embedded in his shoulder, glass lodged in his leg. Hammoud held the child’s almost-severed wrist in place. Hussein’ two sisters — Celine, 10, and Cila, 14 — were pulled out of the rubble the next day. His mother, Mona, was found locked in an embrace with her 6-year-old son, Ali. Hassan Mikdad lost nearly all evidence of his 16 years of family life – his family, his shop, his motorcycles and car, all destroyed. Only Hussein remains. They must start together from scratch, he said. In the hospital, he buys the boy a new toy every day. “What I am living through seems like a big lie. ... The mind can’t comprehend,” he said. “I thank God for the blessing that is Hussein.”

Anti-government protesters in Serbia on Monday demanded arrests and the resignations of top officials over the deadly collapse of a concrete roof at a railway station that killed 14 people in a northern city this month. The rally in Belgrade blamed the collapse on rampant corruption and sloppy renovation work on the station building in Novi Sad — part of a wider deal with Chinese state companies involved in a number of infrastructure projects in the Balkan country. Borislav Novakovic, a former mayor of Novi Sad, accused the ruling populists of “filling their bloody pockets while filling cemeteries in Serbia." The state was "responsible for the crime that took 14 lives,” he added. The crowd chanted “jail” in response. The several thousand protesters demanded that Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and his government step down and that those responsible for the collapse be arrested. Authorities have opened an investigation and Serbia’s construction minister submitted his resignation last week, but no one has been charged or detained in connection with Nov. 1 accident. Monday's rally was peaceful, unlike one last week in Novi Sad when masked people threw rocks, bottles and red paint at City Hall after thousands marched peacefully. Police used tear gas against the rioters. Government officials have promised full accountability, but there is widespread skepticism because the populists control both the police and the judiciary. The train station, originally built in 1964, has been renovated twice in recent years and was inaugurated by Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic and his populist ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, over two years ago as a major stopover for a planned fast train line between Belgrade and Budapest.

 For the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Afghanistan on Monday sent a delegation to the United Nations climate talks in a bid to garner help in dealing with global warming. Matuil Haq Khalis, who's head of the country’s environment protection agency, told The Associated Press that Afghanistan needs international support to deal with extreme weather like erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and flash floods. “All the countries must join hands and tackle the problem of climate change,” said Khalis, speaking through a translator at the talks, taking place this year in Baku, Azerbaijan. Afghanistan has been hard hit by climate change, with a recent assessment by climate experts ranking it the sixth most climate vulnerable country in the world. In March, northern Afghanistan experienced heavy rains resulting in flash floods, killing over 300 people. Climate scientists have found that extreme rainfall has gotten 25% heavier over the last 40 years in the country. Khalis said Afghanistan has prepared national action plans to deal with climate change and will be updating its climate goals within the next few months. He said the country has great potential for wind and solar power but needs international to develop it. He added that the Afghan delegation was grateful to the Azerbaijani government for inviting them. The delegation will have an observer status at the talks, as the Taliban do not have official recognition as the government of Afghanistan. Joanna Depledge, a climate historian at the University of Cambridge in England, said Afghanistan should be able to attend. “By virtue of being a global forum, there are a whole host of politically unsavoury states with all kinds of appalling records of one sort or another that attend. Where would we draw the line?” she said. Responding to a question about the U.N. assessment that women are more vulnerable than men to climate impacts, Khalis said that “climate change impact doesn't have any boundaries, it can have its impact on women, children, men, plants or animals, so it requires collective work to tackle this issue.” Khalis said he has requested bilateral talks with a range of countries, including the United States and would be happy to sit down with them if the request is accepted. “We were not part of the last three conferences ... but we are happy that this time we are here and we will be able to deliver the message of Afghan people with the international community,” said Khalis.

No matter what kind of U-turn President-Elect Donald Trump will make on climate change, America's clean energy economy won't reverse into the dirty past, a combative but “bitterly disappointed” top American climate negotiator said Monday. During the first day of the U.N. climate talks, COP29, Climate Adviser John Podesta struck a defiant but realistic tone in a press conference. He said Trump will likely pull the United States out of the landmark Paris Agreement and try to roll back many of the Biden Administration's signature climate moves, including the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that included $375 billion in climate spending. “Are we facing new headwinds? Absolutely. But we won’t revert back to the energy system of the 1950s. No way,” Podesta said. “Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” Podesta said paraphrasing a Biden speech last week. “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country. This fight is bigger, still, because we are all living through a year defined by the climate crisis in every country of the world.” Podesta ran through a shopping list of climate disasters, starting with the hottest day recorded, July 22, continuing with floods, hurricanes and droughts. “None of this is a hoax. It is real. It’s a matter of life and death,” Podesta said. “Fortunately, many in our country and around the world are working to prepare the world for this new reality and to mitigate the most catastrophic effects of climate change.” Podesta said the Biden administration is still negotiating even as it prepares to leave. “We are here to work, and we are committed to a successful outcome at COP29," Podesta said. “We can and will make real progress on the backs of our climate committed states and cities, our innovators, our companies and our citizens, especially young people who understand more than most that climate change poses an existential threat that we cannot afford to ignore.” Another senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said other countries are still working with American diplomats because they care what the U.S. thinks and any agreement struck here must be by consensus. Outside analysts had speculated the U.S. would be ignored. “In January, we’re going to inaugurate a president whose relationship to climate change is captured by the words ‘hoax’ and ‘fossil fuels’,” Podesta said. “He’s vowed to dismantle our environmental safeguards and once again withdraw United States from the Paris Agreement. That is what he said. And we should believe him.”

Boko Haram insurgents killed 17 Chadian soldiers in a weekend attack on a military post that also left 96 of the assailants dead in the country's west, Chad's army said. The attack in the Lake Chad region happened on Saturday, army spokesperson Gen. Issakh Acheikh said on national television Sunday night. He did not provide details. The Lake Chad region has been plagued this year by frequent attacks from insurgents, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa. It has revived fears of violence after a period of peace following a successful operation launched in 2020 by the Chadian army to destroy the extremist groups' bases. Last month, 40 soldiers were killed during an attack on a military base, prompting President Mahamat Deby Itno to launch an operation to dislodge Boko Haram militants from Lake Chad. In March, an attack the government blamed on Boko Haram killed seven soldiers. Boko Haram, which launched an insurgency more than a decade ago against Western education, seeks to establish Islamic law in Nigeria’s northeast. The insurgency has spread to West African neighbors including Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Chad, a country of nearly 18 million people, has been reeling from political turmoil before and after a controversial presidential election that resulted in Deby Itno’s victory. He had led the country as interim president during the period of military rule that followed the death of his father in 2021.

China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. China’s navy is already the world’s largest numerically, and it has been rapidly modernizing. Adding nuclear-powered carriers to its fleet would be a major step in realizing its ambitions for a true "blue-water” force capable of operating in seas far from China in a growing global challenge to the United States. “Nuclear-powered carriers would place China in the exclusive ranks of first-class naval powers, a group currently limited to the United States and France,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. “For China’s leadership, such a development would symbolize national prestige, fueling domestic nationalism and elevating the country’s global image as a leading power.” Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California said they made the finding while investigating a mountain site outside the city of Leshan in the southwest Chinese province of Sichuan, where they suspected China was building a reactor to produce plutonium or tritium for weapons. Instead they concluded that China was building a prototype reactor for a large warship. The project at Leshan is dubbed the Longwei, or Dragon Might, Project and is also referred to as the Nuclear Power Development Project in documents. Neither China’s Defense Ministry nor Foreign Affairs Ministry responded to requests for comment. Satellite images and public documents helped identify likely carrier project There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury team is the first to confirm that China is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. “The reactor prototype at Leshan is the first solid evidence that China is, in fact, developing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier," said Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at Middlebury and one of the researchers on the project. "Operating a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is an exclusive club, one that China looks set to join.” Drawing on satellite images and public documents including project tenders, personnel files, environmental impact studies — and even a citizen’s complaint about noisy construction and excessive dust — they concluded a prototype reactor for naval propulsion was being built in the mountains of Mucheng township, some 70 miles (112 kilometers) southwest of Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu. The reactor, which procurement documents indicate will soon be operational, is housed in a new facility built at the site known as Base 909, which houses six other reactors that are operational, decommissioned or under construction, according to the analysis. The site is under the control of the Nuclear Power Institute of China, a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation, which is tasked with reactor engineering research and testing. Documents indicating that China’s 701 Institute, formally known as China Ship Research and Design Center, which is responsible for aircraft carrier development, procured reactor equipment “intended for installation on a large surface warship” under the Nuclear Power Development Project as well as the project’s “national defense designation” helped lead to the conclusion the sizable reactor is a prototype for a next-generation aircraft carrier. Satellite mages from 2020 to 2023 have shown the demolition of homes and the construction of water intake infrastructure connected to the reactor site. Contracts for steam generators and turbine pumps indicate the project involves a pressurized water reactor with a secondary circuit — a profile that is consistent with naval propulsion reactors, the researchers say. An environmental impact report calls the Longwei Project a “national defense-related construction project” that is classified “secret.” “Unless China is developing nuclear-powered cruisers, which were pursued only by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, then the Nuclear Power Development Project most certainly refers to a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier development effort,” researchers wrote in a detailed 19-page report on their findings shared exclusively with the AP. Jamie Withorne, an analyst at the Oslo Nuclear Project who was not involved in the research and reviewed the findings, said Middlebury's team made a “convincing argument.” “From the identifying reports, co-location with other naval reactor facilities, and correlating construction activity, I think it can be said that it is likely the Longwei Project is housed at Base 909, and it could potentially be located at the identified building,” she said. The research does not, however, provide clues as to when a Chinese nuclear-powered carrier could be built and become operational, she said. Sarah Laderman, a senior analyst with Open Nuclear Network, a program of the U.S.-based NGO PAX sapiens foundation, said the findings were “carefully conducted and thoroughly researched.” “Given the evidence presented here, I see a compelling case made that China seems to be working towards building a nuclear propulsion system for its naval surface ships (likely aircraft carriers) at this location,” said Laderman, who is based in Vienna and was not involved in Middlebury’s research. Pursuit of a nuclear-powered carrier China’s first carrier, commissioned in 2012, was a repurposed Soviet ship, and its second was built in China but based upon the Soviet design. Both ships — named the Liaoning and the Shandong — employ a so-called “ski-jump” type launch method, with a ramp at the end of a short runway to help planes take off. The Type 003 Fujian, launched in 2022, was the country's third carrier and its first to be indigenously designed and built. It employs an electromagnetic-type launch system like those developed and used by the U.S. Navy. All three carriers are conventionally powered. Sea trials hadn’t even started for the Fujian in March when Yuan Huazhi, political commissar for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, confirmed the construction of a fourth carrier. Asked if it would be nuclear-powered, he said at the time that would “soon be announced,” but so far it has not been. There has been speculation that China may begin producing two new carriers at once — one Type 003 like the Fujian and one nuclear-powered Type 004 — something that it has not attempted before but that its shipyards have the capacity to do. Matthew Funaiole, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, said he doubts China's next carrier will be nuclear-powered. Instead, he said, he would expect the People's Liberation Army Navy's fourth carrier to focus on optimizing the existing design of the Fujian carrier with “incremental improvements.” Nick Childs, senior fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the Chinese “have taken an incremental approach to their carrier development with a number of ambitions that will evolve over time.” “For now, their deployments have been relatively cautious, remaining largely within range of shore support, but projecting influence and to some extent coercion within their near waters.” Eventually, however, “larger carriers more akin to their U.S. counterparts will give them more options to project power,” Childs said. It takes several years to build a carrier and bring it into operation, but developing nuclear propulsion for its next generation of warships would eventually give China more power to run advanced systems, such as electromagnetic launchers, radars and new technology weapons, Childs said. “As well as obviating the need for the ship to refuel regularly and therefore giving it much greater range, nuclear power means that without the need to carry fuel oil for the ship there will be room aboard for fuel and weapons for its aircraft, extending their capabilities,” Childs said. “Much will depend on what overall size the next carrier is, but the addition of nuclear power will represent a significant step further in China’s carrier development with a vessel more comparable to the U.S. Navy’s carriers.” Zhao, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said nuclear-powered carriers would provide the Chinese military “with greater flexibility and endurance to operate around strategic hotspots, especially along the First Island Chain, where most territories disputed by China are located,” said Zhao. The First Island Chain includes the self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own and vows to annex it by force if necessary. The U.S. is obligated by a domestic law to supply Taiwan with sufficient weapons to deter invasion, and it could provide assistance to the island from its bases in the Pacific in the event of an invasion or blockade. Tensions also have risen in the South China Sea between China and neighboring nations over territorial disputes and maritime claims. “These carriers could also extend Chinese operations deeper into the Western Pacific, further challenging the U.S. military’s ability to ‘intervene’ in regional matters that China views as best resolved by countries from the region only,” Zhao said. U.S.-China rivalry Chinese President Xi Jinping has tasked defense officials with building a “first-class” navy and becoming a maritime power as part of his blueprint for the country’s rejuvenation. The country’s most recent white paper on national defense, dated 2019, said the Chinese navy was adjusting to strategic requirements by “speeding up the transition of its tasks from defense on the near seas to protection missions on the far seas.” The People's Liberation Army Navy is already the world’s largest navy with more than 370 ships and submarines. The country also boasts powerful shipbuilding capabilities: China’s shipyards are building many hundreds of vessels each year, whereas the U.S. is building five or fewer, according to a U.S. congressional report late last year. However, the Chinese navy lags behind the U.S. Navy in many respects. Among other advantages, the U.S. currently has 11 carriers, all nuclear powered, allowing it to keep multiple strike groups deployed around the world at all times, including in the Indo-Pacific. But the Pentagon is growingly increasingly concerned about China’s rapid modernization of its fleet, including the design and construction of new carriers. That aligns with China's “growing emphasis on the maritime domain and increasing demands" for its navy "to operate at greater distances from mainland China,” the Defense Department said in its most recent report to Congress on China's military. And China's “growing force of aircraft carriers extend air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land-based defenses, enabling operations farther from China’s shore,” the report said.

Curled up in his father ’s lap, clinging to his chest, Hussein Mikdad cried his heart out. The 4-year-old kicked his doctor with his intact foot and pushed him away with the arm that was not in a cast. “My Dad! My Dad!" Hussein said. "Make him leave me alone!” With eyes tearing up in relief and pain, the father reassured his son and pulled him closer. Hussein and his father, Hassan, are the only survivors of their family after an Israeli airstrike last month on their Beirut neighborhood. The strike killed 18 people, including his mother, three siblings and six relatives. “Can he now shower?” the father asked the doctor. Ten days after surgery, doctors examining Hussein's wounds said the boy is healing properly. He has rods in his fractured right thigh and stitches that assembled his torn tendons back in place on the right arm. The pain has subsided, and Hussein should be able to walk again in two months — albeit with a lingering limp. A prognosis for Hussein's invisible wounds is much harder to give. He is back in diapers and has begun wetting his bed. He hardly speaks and has not said a word about his mother, two sisters and brother. “The trauma is not just on the muscular skeletal aspect. But he is also mentally hurt,” Imad Nahle, one of Hussein’s orthopedic surgeons, said. Israel said, without elaborating, that the strike on the Mikdad neighborhood struck a Hezbollah target. In the war that has escalated since September, Israeli airstrikes have increasingly hit residential areas around Lebanon. Israel accuses the Lebanese militant group of hiding its capabilities and fighters among civilians. It vows to cripple Hezbollah, which began firing into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza. But children have been caught in the midst. With more strikes on homes and in residential areas, doctors are seeing more children affected by the violence. More than 100 children have been killed in Lebanon in the past six weeks and hundreds injured. And of the 14,000 wounded since last year, around 10% are children. Many have been left with severed limbs, burned bodies, and broken families — scars that could last for a lifetime. Ghassan Abu Sittah, a renowned British-Palestinian surgeon who is also treating Hussein, sees that long road ahead. This is his worry: “It leaves us with a generation of physically wounded children, children who are psychologically and emotionally wounded." ‘What do they want from us?’ At the American University of Beirut Medical Center, which is receiving limited cases of war casualties, Nahle said he operated on five children in the past five weeks — up from no cases before. Most were referred from south and eastern Lebanon. A few miles away, at the Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui, one of the country’s largest burns centers increased its capacity by nearly 180% since September so it could accommodate more war wounded, its medical director Naji Abirached said. About a fifth of the newly admitted patients are children. In one of the burn center’s ICU units lies Ivana Skakye. She turned 2 in the hospital ward last week. Ivana has been healing from burns she sustained following an Israeli airstrike outside their home in southern Lebanon on Sept. 23. Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes that day in different parts of Lebanon, making it the deadliest day of the war so far. More than 500 people were killed. Six weeks later, the tiny Ivana remains wrapped in white gauze from head to toe except her torso. She sustained third-degree burns over 40 percent of her body. Her hair and head, her left side all the way to her legs, both her arms and her chest were burned. Her family home was damaged, its ceiling set afire. The family’s valuables, packed in their car as they prepared to leave, were also torched. Ivana’s older sister, Rahaf, 7, has recovered faster from burns to her face and hands. Fatima Zayoun, their mother, was in the kitchen when the explosion hit. Zayoun jumped up to grab the girls, who were playing on the terrace. It was, Zayoun said, "as if something lifted me up so that I can grab my kids. I have no idea how I managed to pull them in and throw them out of the window. She spoke from the ICU burns unit. “They were not on fire, but they were burned. Black ash covered them. ... (Ivana) was without any hair. I told myself, `That is not her.'” Now, Ivana's wound dressings are changed every two days. Her doctor, Ziad Sleiman, said she could be discharged in a few days. She’s back again to saying “Mama” and “Bye — shorthand for wanting to go out. Like Hussein, though, Ivana has no home to return to. Her parents fear collective shelters could cause an infection to return. After seeing her kids “sizzling on the floor,” Zayoun, 35, said that even if their home is repaired, she wouldn’t want to return. “I saw death with my own eyes,” she said. Zayoun was 17 last time Israel and Hezbollah were at war, in 2006. Displaced with her family then, she said she almost enjoyed the experience, riding out of their village in a truck full of their belongings, mixing with new people, learning new things. They returned home when the war was over. “But this war is hard. They are hitting everywhere,” she said. “What do they want from us? Do they want to hurt our children? We are not what they are looking for." Attacks at home can be hard for kids to deal with Abu Sittah, the reconstructive surgeon, said most of the children's injuries are from blasts or collapsing rubble. That attack on a space they expect to be inviolable can have lingering effects. “Children feel safe at home," he said. "The injury makes them for the first time lose that sense of security — that their parents are keeping them safe, that their homes are invincible, and suddenly their homes become not so.” One recent morning, children were playing in the courtyard of a vocational school-turned-shelter in Dekwaneh, north of Beirut, where nearly 3,000 people displaced from the south are now living. The parents were busy with an overflowing bathroom that serves one floor in a building that houses nearly 700 people. Only playtime brings the children, from different villages in the south, together. They were divided in two teams, ages ranging between 6 and 12, competing to get the handkerchief first. A tiny girl hugged and held hands with strangers visiting the shelter. “I am from Lebanon. Don't tell anyone,” she whispered in their ears. The game turned rowdy when two girls in their early teens got into a fist fight. Pushing and shoving began. Tears and tantrums followed. The tiny girl walked away in a daze. Maria Elizabeth Haddad, manager of the psychosocial support programs in Beirut and neighboring areas for the U.S.-based International Medical Corps, said parents in shelters reported signs of increased anxiety, hostility and aggression among kids. They talk back to parents and ignore rules. Some have developed speech impediments and clinginess. One is showing early signs of psychosis. “There are going to be residual symptoms when they grow up, especially related to attachment ties, to feeling of security,” Haddad said. “It is a generational trauma. We have experienced it before with our parents. ... They don’t have stability or search for (extra) stability. This is not going to be easy to overcome.” New phases of life begin Children represent more than a third of over 1 million people displaced by the war in Lebanon and following Israeli evacuation notices, according to U.N. and government estimates (more than 60,000 people have been displaced from northern Israel). That leaves hundreds of thousands in Lebanon without schooling, either because their schools were inaccessible or have been turned into shelters. Hussein's father says he and his son must start together from scratch. With help from relatives, the two have found a temporary shelter in a home — and, for the father, a brief sense of relief. “I thank God he is not asking for or about his mother and his siblings,” said Hassan Mikdad, the 40-year-old father. He has no explanation for his son, who watched their family die in their home. His two sisters — Celine, 10, and Cila, 14 — were pulled out of the rubble the following day. His mother, Mona, was pulled out three days later. She was locked in an embrace with her 6-year-old son, Ali. The strike on Oct. 21 also caused damage across the street, to one of Beirut’s main public hospitals, breaking solar panels and windows in the pharmacy and the dialysis unit. The father survived because he had stepped out for coffee. He watched his building crumble in the late-night airstrike. He also lost his shop, his motorcycles and car — all the evidence of his 16 years of family life. His friend, Hussein Hammoudeh, arrived on the scene to help sift through rubble. Hammoudeh spotted young Hussein Mikdad’s fingers in the darkness in an alley behind their home. At first he thought they were severed limbs — until he heard the boy’s screams. He dug out Hussein with glass lodged in his leg and a metal bar in his shoulder. Hammoudeh said he didn’t recognize the boy. He held the child's almost-severed wrist in place. In the hospital now, Hussein Mikdad sipped a juice as he listened to his father and his friend. His father turned to him, asking if he wanted a Spider-Man toy — an effort to forestall a new outburst of tears. He said he buys Hussein a toy each day. “What I am living through seems like a big lie. ...The mind can’t comprehend,” he said. “I thank God for the blessing that is Hussein.”

Japan's parliament reelected Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Monday after his governing coalition suffered the worst election loss in more than a decade. Ishiba’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito together lost their majority in the 465-seat Lower House, the more powerful of Japan’s two-house parliament, in the Oct. 27 election due to continued voter outrage over financial misconduct by his party and its lukewarm response. A special parliamentary session convened Monday to pick a new leader in a vote required within 30 days of a general election. In the past, these votes did not attract as much attention because an LDP leader was virtually assured to be prime minister. Ishiba beat top opposition leader Yoshihiko Noda 221-160 in the first runoff in 30 years. Most of his previous Cabinet members will be reappointed, but Ishiba will have to replace three who lost their seats or were affected by the election results. Since the election loss, Ishiba has refused to step down, saying is willing to cooperate with additional coalition partners to boost stability and help him pursue his party’s policies. Noda, head of the centrist opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has sought to form an opposition coalition — but so far unsuccessfully. Ishiba will struggle in the coming months as he must gain consent from the opposition on policies including the budget and other legislation. He is eyeing a rising smaller, conservative opposition, the Democratic Party for the People, whose seats quadrupled to 28 under its popular leader Yuichiro Tamaki. A Harvard-educated former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, Tamaki has proposed raising the basic tax-free income allowance and increasing take-home wages, ideas that attracted low-income earners and younger voters in the election. He only wants to cooperate with Ishiba’s party on policy — not as part of a coalition — since he wants to use his leverage to increase his party’s standing ahead of the next election. Tamaki was recently stung by a magazine article exposing an extramarital affair, which he admitted to on Monday, adding to political uncertainty. Ishiba’s government is preparing for his trip later this month to Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and Group of 20 summits, as well as a possible meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on his way home.

Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli strike hit a tent sheltering a displaced family in the central Gaza Strip, killing at least three people, including the parents of twins. The strike late Sunday in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp wounded the two children, aged 10, who were being treated for serious injuries at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah. The details of the casualties were listed in hospital records and an Associated Press reporter saw two of the bodies. The Israeli military says it only targets militants and accuses them of hiding among civilians. Palestinians reported heavy bombing late Sunday in the western areas of Nuseirat camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. At least 24 people were wounded and taken to the Awda hospital in Nuseirat, said Mohamed Muhareb, head of the hospital’s ambulance service. The Israel-Hamas war began after militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children. Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Since the conflict erupted, more than 3,100 people have been killed and nearly 13,900 wounded in Lebanon, the health ministry reported.