Incendiary devices that ignited in Germany and the United Kingdom in July were part of a covert Russian operation that aimed to start fires aboard cargo and passenger flights heading to the US and Canada, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Monday, citing Western security officials.

In July, device explosions at DHL logistics hubs in Leipzig, Germany, and Birmingham, UK, kickstarted a race to find the suspects, WSJ reported.

The devices, which were reportedly electric massagers implanted with a magnesium-based flammable substance, were sent to the UK from Lithuania and “appear to have been a test run to figure out how to get such incendiary devices aboard planes bound for North America,” the WSJ reported.

When the WSJ asked Russia for comment about the suspected Russian plot, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov denied the allegations. “We have never heard any official accusations” of Russian involvement, adding: “These are traditional unsubstantiated insinuations from the media.”” He said according to WSJ.

Polish authorities in October said four people had been arrested under suspicion of being involved in international sabotage and a sabotage group, according to a statement from the national prosecutor’s office. An international search has been initiated for two more suspects.

The Polish statement, which does not name the sabotage group, says “parcels containing camouflaged explosives and dangerous materials” were sent via courier to the UK and European Union countries and “spontaneously ignited or detonated during land and air transport.”

It adds that the group’s goal “was [also] to test the transfer channel for this type of shipments which were ultimately to be sent to the United States of America and Canada.”

The spokesperson added that the investigation is ongoing, and they are “liaising with other European law enforcement partners to identify whether this may or may not be connected to any other similar-type incidents across Europe.”

Multiple security officials across Europe describe a threat that is metastasizing as Russian agents, increasingly under scrutiny by security services and frustrated in their own operations, hire local amateurs to undertake high-risk, and often deniable, crimes on their behalf.

An American-Iranian journalist who once worked for a US-funded broadcaster is believed to have been detained in Iran, according to his former employer and multiple press freedom groups.

Reza Valizadeh was arrested in Tehran in September, a source close to his family told his former employer Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

Iran has not acknowledged detaining Valizadeh and the Iranian mission to the United Nations has declined to comment on his situation.

RFE/RL says it has had no official confirmation of the charges facing Valizadeh, who left Radio Farda in November 2022, but it is “profoundly concerned about the continued arrest, harassment and threats against media professionals by the Iranian regime.”

Reports of the journalist’s apparent detention come amid heightened tensions between the United States and Iran, whose Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday promised a “teeth-breaking” response to Israel and the United States after Israeli strikes targeted Iranian military sites late last month.

Pressured to return

In a post on his X account on February 20, 2024, Valizadeh suggested Iranian authorities had pressured his family to convince him to return to the country.

In a later post, on August 13, the journalist said he had arrived back in the Iranian capital on March 6, 2024.

“Before that, I had half-finished negotiations with the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) Intelligence Organization. Finally, I returned to my country after 14 years, on my own responsibility and without a letter of amnesty, even verbally,” the post read.

RFE/RL said it was not clear under what circumstances Valizadeh had written the post.

Citing one of Valizadeh’s former colleagues, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in October that Valizadeh was being held without access to a lawyer in Iran’s Evin prison, which is notorious for housing critics of the Iranian regime.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which focuses on Iran, also believes Valizadeh is being held in Evin.

“Iranian authorities must immediately release journalist Reza Valizadeh and drop any charges levied against him,” said Yeganeh Rezaian, CPJ’s interim Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.

“I cannot say clearly enough to my fellow Americans what already appears on the Department of State’s website: ‘Do not travel to Iran, due to the risk of kidnapping and the arbitrary arrest and detention of US citizens.’ Simply put: Do not go to Iran,” the State Department spokesperson said.

Iran has a long history of using dual nationals as bargaining chips in its troubled relationship with the West. In 2023, it released five Americans designated by the US as wrongfully detained as part of a wider deal that included the US unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

It is currently marking the 25th anniversary of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 US citizens were held captive for 444 days.

Furniture giant IKEA has agreed to pay 6 million euros ($6.5 million) towards a government fund compensating victims of forced labor under Germany’s communist dictatorship, in a move campaigners hope will pressure other companies to follow.

Political as well as criminal prisoners in Germany during the Cold War era were forced to build flatpack furniture for IKEA. The revelations came to light in Swedish and German media reports more than a decade ago, prompting the company to commission an independent investigation.

Prisoners were producing furniture for IKEA, a global giant in the home furnishings industry, as recently as the 1970s and 1980s, the investigation conducted by auditors Ernst & Young found. IKEA representatives at the time were likely aware that political prisoners were being used to supplement labor, the report found.

The former East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1949 until 1990, which installed a rigid communist state known as the German Democratic Republic, or GDR. Tens of thousands of its prisoners were forced into factory work, making it a key location for cheap labor that many Western companies are understood to have benefitted from.

Many of the GDR’s political prisoners would have been incarcerated for the simple “crime” of opposing the one-party communist state. Opposition to the state was stamped out by East Germany’s feared Stasi secret police, which spied on almost every aspect of people’s daily lives.

In a statement this week, IKEA Germany announced it would voluntarily put 6 million euros towards the new government fund established to provide compensation to victims of the East German dictatorship.

After decades of campaigning by victim groups, Germany’s ruling coalition government proposed in 2021 to set up the hardship fund. The German parliament will vote on its establishment in the coming weeks, although this step is seen as a mere formality.

The IKEA statement adds that the payment is the result of years-long conversations between the company’s German branch and the Union of Victims’ Associations of Communist Dictatorship (UOGK) — an organization that describes itself as working to ensure those wrongly convicted in communist Germany receive justice in today’s constitutional state.

“We have given our word to those affected that we will participate in providing support. We therefore welcome the implementation of the hardship fund and are pleased to be able to keep our promise.”

IKEA’s landmark payment is the first of its kind. The move has been welcomed by organizations that advocate for victims.

Dieter Dombrowski, the chairman of UOGK, described the development as “groundbreaking.”

“After it became known that the company was involved in forced prison labor, IKEA accepted our invitation to talk. Together we have taken the path of enlightenment and IKEA has met those affected on an equal footing.”

“We hope that other companies will follow IKEA’s example,” Dombrowski added.

According to UOGK, IKEA is one of many companies that benefitted from forced prison labor in communist Germany. Former UOKG chairman Rainer Wagner warned in 2012 that IKEA is “just the tip of the iceberg” as he called for companies to compensate former prisoners who still bear the psychological scars of incarceration and forced labor.

Evelyn Zupke, special representative for GDR victims in the German parliament, said: “IKEA’s pledge to support the hardship fund is an expression of a responsible approach to dealing with dark chapters in the company’s own history.

“We can’t undo what prisoners had to suffer in the GDR’s prisons, but we can treat them with respect today and support them.”

A female student stripped to her underwear outside her university in Iran in what some student and rights groups say was a protest against the country’s strict Islamic dress code.

A video circulating on social media and shared by rights group Amnesty International shows the woman sat outside the university in her underwear and with her hair uncovered.

She gestures toward her fellow students, many of whom are female and wearing headscarves, before strolling around the premises.

Another video shows her walking down a road, still in a state of undress, before a group of men surround her, bundle her into a car, and drive away.

Amnesty said Saturday the woman had been “violently arrested” after she protested the “abusive enforcement” of the dress code at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University.

The woman had previously been harassed by members of the Basij, an Iranian volunteer paramilitary group, inside the university’s grounds, according to an Iranian student social media channel, the Amir Kabir newsletter,. It claimed members of the force had ripped her headscarf and torn her clothes.

Citing eyewitnesses, state-run Fars news agency reported that the student took off her clothes after two security personnel “calmly talked” to her and warned her about flouting the dress code.

The university’s public relations director said the woman was suffering from mental health issues.

Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Islamic Republic of Iran, said on X that she would be “monitoring this incident closely, including the authorities’ response.”

The wearing of a hijab (or headscarf) in public is mandatory for women under Iran’s strict interpretation of Islamic law that is enforced by the country’s so-called morality police.

Iranian women can be subjected to harsh punishment, even for minor infractions.

Protests erupted across Iran in 2022 against the dress code following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in the custody of the morality police after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly.

The subsequent violent crackdown by the Iranian regime killed hundreds of people. Since then, many Iranian women have protested by removing their headscarves in public.

Amnesty called for the immediate and unconditional release of the Azad University student and demanded she be given access to her family and lawyer.

“Allegations of beatings and sexual violence against her during the arrest need independent and impartial investigations,” the human rights campaigners said in a statement on X. “Those responsible must (be) held to account.”

Azad University’s public relations director Amir Mahjob said in a post on X that the university’s security team had intervened “after the indecent act by one of the students” and had taken her to a police station.

In a later post citing a police report, he said the student “was under severe mental pressure and had a mental disorder.”

He also said the student was a mother-of-two, separated from her husband, and that he hoped her family’s reputation would not suffer from online “rumors.”

Angry residents booed and threw eggs at Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia as they visited the Valencia region, where more than 200 people have died in devastating floods.

The king faced chants of “murderers” as he hard-hit visited Paiporta, just outside of Valencia city, along with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and regional governor Carlos Mazon, where locals accuse authorities of a lax response to the disaster.

After they posed for a photo, the crowd began hurling insults at the king, Mazon and Sanchez. The crowd surged forwards as security opened umbrellas to try and protect them from projectiles.

Confronted by one resident, Felipe remained calm and lowered his umbrella to listen to him as police struggled to control those gathered. Queen Letizia also also spoke with furious residents and seemed visibly shaken, holding her head in her hands.

The Royal Family’s social media channel released video in the aftermath of the protest, showing the king and queen embracing distraught residents. One man fell weeping into the king’s arms and in another shot, the King is seen hugging two crying women.

It is unusual for a Spanish king to face such fierce anger up close. Felipe is a relatively popular figure, who ascended the throne after the abdication of his father.

The anger appeared largely directed at Sanchez and Mazon, who left early even as the king insisted on staying on despite the chaos.

Sanchez’s office in a statement said that the prime minister had been taken away, following security protocol. In a statement on X, Mazon said he understood the anger and praised the “exemplary” conduct of the king.

At least 214 people are now confirmed dead from the floods and the toll may climb higher. Among the latest victims was a 70-year-old woman whose body was found more than 12 kilometers (seven miles) from her house

The slow and uncoordinated response to the crisis has infuriated many in Valencia. Text alerts came hours after warnings of flooding from the weather service.

On Saturday, Sanchez ordered 5,000 more troops to help with salvage efforts in flooded areas, calling the storm the “worst natural disaster” in the county’s history.

He addressed the anger and frustration at the slow response by authorities, admitting it was “not enough”.

Part of the problem has been political. Mazon and Sanchez are from different parties, and under Spain’s political system, Spain’s federal government cannot release emergency funds and resources without the authorization from a regional government. That didn’t happen until Saturday, four days after the floods hit.

Thousands of volunteers meanwhile have answered the provincial government’s call for help to clear flood debris. Authorities seemed unprepared and overwhelmed, quickly running out of supplies and scrambling to find more buses to transport people.

Volunteers waited hours only to be turned away, frustrating many. Pedro de Juan, 18, had only seen scenes like this in the movies but he showed up before 7 a.m. to board the volunteer buses. He voiced the frustration many are feeling.

“The military and police are helping but not as much as we hoped and they are days late.”

The number of new marriages recorded in China is on course to fall to the lowest level in decades this year, official data shows, as the country’s demographic crisis deepens despite a sweeping government campaign to boost matrimony and encourage births.

Plummeting marriages – and births – pose a major challenge to Beijing, which is increasingly worried about the impact of a shrinking workforce and aging population on the country’s slowing economy.

Some 4.74 million Chinese couples registered their marriages in the first three quarters of 2024, a decrease of 16.6% from the 5.69 million recorded in the same period last year, according to data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on Friday.

The decline is consistent with a falling trend from a 2013 peak of more than 13 million new marriages, and in line with predictions by Chinese demographic experts that the number of marriages in 2024 will drop to the lowest level since the 7.2 million recorded in 1980.

A rebound in marriages last year after stringent Covid restrictions were lifted appears to be an anomaly largely driven by pent-up demand.

China’s population has shrunk for two years in a row and its birth rate last year was the lowest since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. In 2022, the country was surpassed by India as the world’s most populous nation.

Chinese officials see a direct link between fewer marriages and falling births in the country, where social norms and government regulations make it challenging for unmarried couples to have children.

To reverse the decline, Chinese officials have rolled out a raft of measures, from financial incentives to propaganda campaigns, to nudge young people to tie the knot and have children.

Officials have organized blind dating events, mass weddings, and attempted to curtail the tradition of large “bride price” payments from the groom to his future wife’s family that put marriage out of reach for many poor men in rural areas.

Since 2022, China’s Family Planning Association has launched pilot programs to create a “new-era marriage and childbearing culture,” enrolling dozens of cities to promote the “social value of childbearing” and encouraging young people to get married and give birth at an “appropriate age.”

But so far, these policies have failed to convince Chinese young adults who are grappling with high unemployment, the rising cost of living and a lack of more robust social welfare support amid the economic slowdown.

Many are postponing marriage and childbirth – and a growing number of young people even choose to eschew them entirely.

The decline in both marriages and births is partly due to decades of policies designed to limit China’s population growth, which resulted in fewer young people of marriageable age, according to Chinese officials and sociologists.

In 2015, China announced an end to its decades-long one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children, then increased that to three children in 2021 – but both marriage and birth rates continued to drop.

The stubborn downward trend is also a result of changing attitudes to marriage, especially among young women who are becoming more educated and financially independent.

Faced with widespread workplace discrimination and patriarchal traditions – such as the expectation for women to be responsible for childcare and housework – some women are growing disillusioned with marriage.

Since 2021, China has mandated a 30-day “cooling-off” period for people filing for divorce, despite criticism that it could make it harder for women to leave broken or even abusive marriages. In the first nine months of this year, some 1.96 million couples registered for divorces, a slight decline of 6,000 year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

China isn’t the only country struggling with falling rates of marriage and birth. In recent years, Japan and South Korea have also introduced measures to encourage births – such as financial incentives, cash vouchers, housing subsidies and more childcare support – with limited success.

Maumere, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency said Monday that at least six people have died as a series of volcanic eruptions widens on the remote island of Flores.

The eruption at Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki just after midnight on Monday spewed thick brownish ash as high as 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) into the air and hot ashes hit a nearby village, burning down several houses including a convent of Catholic nuns, said Firman Yosef, an official at the Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki monitoring post.

The Disaster Management Agency lowered the known death toll from an earlier report of nine, saying it had received updated information from local authorities. It said that information was still being collected about the extent of casualties and damage, as local media reports said more people were buried in collapsed houses.

Authorities also raised the danger level and widened the danger zone for Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki on Monday, following a series of eruptions that began last week.

The country’s volcano monitoring agency increased the volcano’s alert status to the highest level and more than doubled the exclusion zone to a 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) radius after midnight on Monday as eruptions became more frequent.

The agency said at least 10,000 people have been affected by the eruption in Wulanggitang District, in the six nearby villages of Pululera, Nawokote, Hokeng Jaya, Klatanlo, Boru and Boru Kedang.

In Ile Bura District, 4 villages were affected, namely Dulipali Village, Nobo, Nurabelen and Riang Rita, while in Titehena District it affected four villages, namely Konga Village, Kobasoma, Bokang Wolomatang and Watowara.

He said volcanic material was thrown up to 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from its crater, blanketeing nearby villages and towns with tons of volcanic debris and forcing residents to flee.

A nun in Hokeng village died and another was missing, said Agusta Palma, the head of the Saint Gabriel Foundation that oversees convents on the majority-Catholic island.

“Our nuns ran out in panic under a rain of volcanic ash in the darkness,” Palma said.

Photos and videos circulated on social media showed tons of volcanic debris covering houses up to their rooftops in villages like Hokeng, where hot volcanic material set fire to houses.

It’s Indonesia’s second volcanic eruption in as many weeks. West Sumatra province’s Mount Marapi, one of the country’s most active volcanos, erupted on Oct. 27, spewing thick columns of ash at least three times and blanketing nearby villages with debris, but no casualties were reported.