US, Allies Clash with Russia, China over North Korea's Failed Military Spy Satellite Launchhttps://english.aawsat.com/world/4361836-us-allies-clash-russia-china-over-north-koreas-failed-military-spy-satellite-launch
US, Allies Clash with Russia, China over North Korea's Failed Military Spy Satellite Launch
FILE - In this undated photo provided by the North Korean government on March 11, 2022, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
US, Allies Clash with Russia, China over North Korea's Failed Military Spy Satellite Launch
FILE - In this undated photo provided by the North Korean government on March 11, 2022, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)
The United States and its allies clashed with Russia and China on Friday over North Korea’s failed launch of a military spy satellite this week in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions, which Moscow and Beijing refused to condemn.
The confrontation was the latest over the North’s escalating nuclear, ballistic missile and military programs, which US deputy ambassador Robert Wood warned are threatening international peace and security. The failed launch “not only disrupted maritime and air traffic in the region, but it also caused alarm for its neighbors in Japan and the Republic of Korea,” he said.
Pyongyang is threatening another launch soon, The Associated Press said.
The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding. In the last sanctions resolution adopted by the council in December 2017, members committed to further restricting petroleum exports to North Korea if it conducted a ballistic missile launch capable of reaching intercontinental ranges.
China and Russia vetoed a US-sponsored resolution in May 2022 that would have imposed new sanctions, including on petroleum exports, over a spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches. Since then, they have blocked any council action including press statements.
UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the council the last time North Korea conducted a similar satellite launch to Wednesday’s failed attempt was on Feb. 7, 2016 and it was condemned by the Security Council.
“The lack of unity and action in the Security Council does little to slow the negative trajectory on the Korean Peninsula,” she said, and North Korea “is unconstrained, and other parties are compelled to focus on military deterrence.”
But North Korea’s neighbor and ally China and Russia, which has drawn closer to Pyongyang since the war in Ukraine, blamed the West and especially the United States for the current tensions.
China’s deputy UN ambassador Geng Shuang said the situation on the Korean Peninsula is a remnant of the Cold War. He accused the United States of failing to respond to North Korea’s attempts at dialogue over the years and instead resorting to sanctions and pressure on Pyongyang, missing an opportunity to resolve the nuclear issue.
“By incorporating the (Korean) Peninsula into its Indo-Pacific strategy, the US has continued its military activities and significantly increased its military presence both on the peninsula and in its surrounding areas, seriously undermining the strategic security interests of the peninsula and its neighboring countries,” Geng said
He also pointed to the recent US-South Korea Washington Declaration, including plans to send strategic nuclear submarines to the peninsula.
Geng claimed US policies are “driven by geopolitical self-interest” and told the council that blaming one party “will only exacerbate conflicts, provocations and inject new uncertainties into the already tense situation on the peninsula.”
He urged the council to adopt a resolution circulated by China and Russia in November 2021 that would end a host of sanctions on the North, saying this would be a starting point “to promote de-escalation, mutual trust and unity” among the 15 members.
Russia’s deputy ambassador Anna Evstigneeva blamed increased pressure on North Korea by the US and its allies for “the spiral of tension we’re witnessing now.” And she criticized growing military activity by the US, Japan and South Korea, especially recent large-scale US-South Korean military exercises, saying they are destabilizing not only for northeast Asia but for the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.
Russia is against “the dead end and inhumane policy of increasing sanctions pressure,” Evstigneeva said, stressing that UN resolutions that imposed sanctions also back efforts to resolve the situation on the Korean Peninsula by political and diplomatic means.
Russia calls on the United States to take steps to lower tensions and resume dialogue, instead of trying to shift responsibility “to other countries,” she said, also backing council action on the China-Russia resolution.
Wood, the US envoy, countered that the Washington Declaration was a response to North Korea’s destabilizing nuclear and ballistic missile activities.
“It’s hard to imagine we would ease sanctions” as called for in the China-Russia draft resolution and reward Pyongyang while it continues to violate Security Council resolutions, he said.
As for diplomacy, Wood said the United States on many occasions has stated it is prepared to have an unconditional dialogue, but North Korea “has rejected our interventions on many occasions.”
He stressed that US-South Korean military exercises are lawful efforts to defend against Pyongyang’s escalating activities that are allowing the country to advance its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs – and to “continue to choose ammunition over nutrition” for its people.
Iran’s Last Supreme Leader: When the Republic Becomes a Networked Organizationhttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5327444-iran%E2%80%99s-last-supreme-leader-when-republic-becomes-networked-organization
Iran’s Last Supreme Leader: When the Republic Becomes a Networked Organization
Two Basij members outside Tehran’s Grand Mosalla during a farewell ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, July 3, 2026. REUTERS
The bomb was hidden in a tape recorder at Tehran’s Abu Dhar mosque. Ali Khamenei was addressing worshippers in June 1981 when it exploded. Several people were injured. He suffered the worst wounds.
“I went to the brink of death, but God brought me back ... I felt he was waiting for me to fulfill a great duty,” Khamenei later recalled. He survived with a paralyzed right hand, convinced that this “duty” awaited him.
Khamenei ruled as Iran’s supreme leader for nearly 37 years, succeeding its first leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. At the height of his power, he sat at the center of complex networks and far-reaching mechanisms for controlling the “Islamic Revolution.”
Then, according to some estimates, roughly 15 minutes of an Israeli air raid in late February ended a long chapter in the Iran we knew. The country appears to have changed, though the nature of that change remains unclear.
Former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei receives treatment at Baharloo Hospital in Tehran after surviving an assassination attempt in June 1981 (Supreme Leader’s website).
Iran’s third supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, did not inherit his father’s legacy as a conventional leader. That legacy, which was divided among many “sons,” consists of absolute powers, potent religious symbolism, intertwined interests and centralized political, military and financial authority.
This is how fundamentalist organizations adapt when shock and necessity force them to operate through networks of interconnected strands.
Did Khamenei prepare the “Islamic Revolution” to function without a head, through multiple leaders working almost independently? Or did he never imagine his eventual fate, convinced that the “hand of God” protected him, as he repeatedly said in public?
His son Mojtaba may offer an answer to the puzzle of Iran’s deep state, which prepared for the birth of a republic operating as a web of networks.
Either way, Iran today is a republic of dispersed cells, working much like its own “resistance” affiliates.
“We are not talking about a battle now”
The “Islamic Revolution” built its stature on deterrence at a distance. Khamenei probably never imagined the fire of confrontation would reach him. No one articulated that approach more clearly.
In March 2011, he openly welcomed the outbreak of what was then called the “Arab Spring.”
“In these events, one can sense the hand of God’s power,” he said.
In May 2019, supporters enthusiastically chanted a slogan calling for a “battle against America.” Khamenei stopped them.
“We are not talking about a battle now. The issue is resistance.”
After Oct. 7, 2023, Iran faced repeated pressure to respond to Israel and the United States. Instead, Tehran devised “strategic patience,” requiring regional proxies and affiliates to observe lengthy truces.
Khamenei’s strategy clearly combined his religious view of history with Iran’s tactic of keeping the battlefield far from Tehran. That approach held even after Oct. 7, which an Iraqi cleric from Najaf described as “a cup of poison Yahya Sinwar made the supreme leader drink.”
Throughout four decades at the apex of power, Khamenei avoided direct confrontation while weaving the system’s networks. He appointed loyalists to oversee vital security, political, economic and media affairs.
In informed circles in Tehran, Baghdad and Beirut, the supreme leader’s office is said to be far more than “an institution in a conventional building with a guard and a gate.”
It is a vast, invisible network of officials, representatives, delegates and affiliates, larger than might be expected. It even reaches into institutions overseen by Iran’s president. Everyone’s task is to ensure that “the supreme leader sees, hears and decides everything.”
A former official in Baghdad, who asked not to be named, described one example of that reach.
“An Iranian cleric scrutinized Iraqi oil policy every day, on personal orders from the supreme leader,” he said.
“Khamenei, or his office, was keen to receive daily updates on strategic matters.”
Red lines remain red
Khamenei’s position exceeded the constitutional limits of the supreme leader’s office.
“Over many decades, stretching back to before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Khamenei accumulated factors and resources beyond the conventional limits of the office’s constitutional powers,” Iraqi researcher Ali al-Madan said.
“Alongside his political experience, he brought together his presidency, his religious standing and a broad network of relationships and loyalties within institutions.”
Madan, an Islamic philosophy researcher with more than three decades of study and residence in Qom, believes the elder Khamenei’s position rested on more than his constitutional powers.
It also reflected “his accumulated experience and ability to balance different institutions and centers of power.”
The unconventional authority Khamenei built was probably protected by deterrence. Whenever he appeared in public, whatever the occasion, he infused it with a “divine dimension.”
In 2018, worsening US sanctions squeezed Iranians’ livelihoods. Thousands gathered around his podium that August to hear him say:
“I feel the powerful hand of God manifesting itself and taking shape in the strength of the people.”
The message filtered through to his supporters in Iran and the countries of the so-called “axis of resistance”: red lines were red. They could not be breached.
An Iraqi politician who spent years dealing with politicians close to the elder supreme leader’s office said they shared Khamenei’s certainty that the “hand of God” protected him, the “Islamic Revolution” and themselves.
Even their most extreme scenario for direct confrontation was that it “might hit the man sitting next to the supreme leader, but not the supreme leader,” as one of them put it.
Was Khamenei certain US President Donald Trump or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would never order his assassination?
A definitive answer is hard to obtain. But even when Khamenei anticipated events turning upside down, he pointed to others.
On June 10, 2005, marking the anniversary of the first supreme leader’s death, he said: “This powerful hand, the hand of God, may sometimes turn into a fist and strike a person on the head.”
The Iraqi politician believes Khamenei wanted to avoid confrontation and prolong the conflict “at least until his life ended naturally, rather than as the Israelis and Americans imposed.”
In his view, “for the conflict to reach the point of killing the supreme leader means that a long era in Iran’s history has reached its twilight.”
Khamenei’s son: the Guards’ supreme leader?
Many favor the view that Khamenei opposed passing the leadership to Mojtaba. Yet the father allowed his son, early on, to stay out of sight while extending his reach into society and institutions through the Revolutionary Guards.
Iraqis and Lebanese who witnessed Iran’s changes in the 1990s, and who asked not to be named, said Mojtaba exploited “the flexibility of Hashemi Rafsanjani,” who was Iran’s president when he played a pivotal role in the father’s election as supreme leader in 1989.
Mojtaba then “immersed himself in building relationships with everyone: the Guards, the seminaries, the bazaar, the army, the Basij and the judiciary.”
One of them said the younger Khamenei “put Mirhossein Mousavi in prison, crushed political movements in their infancy or as they were taking shape, engineered Ebrahim Raisi’s rise to the presidency and established a new philosophy under which state institutions became something resembling Hezbollah at the heart of the state.”
He learned the principles of the “deep state” early.
Did the elder Khamenei oppose hereditary succession because it contradicted the “Islamic Revolution,” which arose from the ruins of the shah’s system?
And did he nevertheless allow his son to inherit the deep state that appointed him supreme leader; or its “public face,” as the Najaf cleric described him?
“Mojtaba Khamenei is a son of the system; he was born and grew up within it ... He is a product of its institutions, rather than one of its founders,” Madan said.
“He has never held a public political office comparable to those his father held before assuming the leadership. Nor does his standing within the religious establishment yet have the same reach his father acquired over decades of scholarly formation and the exercise of power.”
“Passing the office to him therefore does not necessarily mean transferring all the personal and political resources concentrated in his father.”
Specialists see a vast gulf between father and son. For the Najaf cleric, that leads to a firm conclusion:
“The elder Khamenei was the last supreme leader to meet the minimum requirements of Islamic jurisprudential qualification. He was also the last to exercise real dominance over the Revolutionary Guards, unlike the younger Khamenei, whom the Guards dominate and whose affairs they manage.”
That does not mean the supreme leader’s office has become symbolic or that its powers have passed to another institution.
Madan distinguishes between “the supreme leader’s constitutional authority and his practical ability to concentrate decision-making in his own hands.”
A woman walks past a mural depicting a portrait of the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the US and Israel strike on Feb. 28, at Azadi (Freedom) street in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A republic of dividing cells
If power did not pass from the elder Khamenei to his son, who remains out of sight, where did it settle?
The ready answer is that the Revolutionary Guards control everything.
At the very least, the Guards oversaw and managed his election by the Assembly of Experts on March 8, 2026. Their influence and security and economic networks extend into Middle Eastern capitals, parts of West Asia and farther afield.
Assembly members arrived at the election venue accompanied by Guards personnel. The dramatic scene recalled World War Two, when the British government met in Westminster shelters as German aircraft rained bombs on London.
“The latest war against Iran is the largest military confrontation the region has seen, almost surpassing the eight-year war with Iraq,” the Iraqi politician said.
Madan resists describing events in Iran as a smooth process of replacing one leader with another. He also resists describing the change as a shift from “rule by the supreme leader” to “rule by the Revolutionary Guards.”
That assumes a direct transfer that neither the system’s internal structure nor the challenges of war yet permit.
Wartime conditions may themselves be the key to understanding what has changed.
Most likely, the “Islamic Revolution” system that existed under Khomeini and Khamenei has dispersed without disintegrating, becoming a republic of interconnected organizations.
“Iran today does not need a supreme leader, but operational commanders who act like leaders of clandestine cells, whose sole task is survival,” the Iraqi politician said.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi described Iran’s strategy during the latest war as “decentralized defense.” He was seeking to explain a shift from protecting senior leaders to ensuring survival during wartime.
That appears to involve multiple combat structures that are difficult to control or track.
There is no evidence that the elder Khamenei planned this organizational division. But the result is the same: Iran today is both “the state and the revolution.”
An Iranian reflection always emerges in Baghdad. This time, it reflects fragmentation.
In March 2016, the Iraqi government was negotiating a short, two-day truce with a faction. The Americans had secured a promise that attacks on their embassy in Baghdad would stop. Explosive-laden drones kept striking their facility.
Sources said communications between US and Iraqi officials were strained “because of the government’s failure to reach an agreement with a faction.”
Reliable sources said “a Revolutionary Guards officer working in Iraq did not respond to a senior Iraqi official’s inquiries about why the attacks continued despite the agreement.”
“One center and many strands”
From this sharp angle, the real changes become visible.
Under Khamenei, Iran had multiple institutions and centers of power. The Revolutionary Guards were among the most prominent. But the elder Khamenei’s experience and attributes allowed him to centralize their management and settle disputes among them.
After his departure, “decision-making appears to depend more heavily on interaction among the supreme leader’s office, the Supreme National Security Council, military and security leaders, the Revolutionary Guards and other state institutions,” Madan said.
He sees “a relative shift in Iran from highly pronounced personal centralization to a more complex institutional centralization.”
Within that structure, “security and military institutions have gained importance because of the war and the circumstances surrounding the succession.”
The Revolutionary Guards, for example, have shifted toward operating as separate “units.” Local and regional commanders enjoy a degree of operational autonomy, as though the “supreme commander” were perpetually dead.
For Madan, the question today is no longer who rules Iran. It is how decision-making is distributed after the disappearance of the figure who held all the strands together at one center.
It is “a stage of redefining the relationship between the leadership institution and the centers of power, a process still taking shape whose chapters remain unfinished.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian makes no secret of his concern about an “Iran of cells.”
“No group will be allowed to take Iran in any particular direction,” he said recently.
Many analysts see such statements as an Iranian tactic to construct a “good cop, bad cop” narrative. But developments on the ground reflect a country operating as separate parts.
Will Iran continue in this networked form, able to operate ambiguously, without a clear central head whose loss in half an hour could paralyze the whole system?
Different answers circulate among those following the issue. The more pressing question is whether Tehran can coordinate its separate “units.”
Has their autonomy within the system become excessive? More troubling still, has their autonomy become more frightening than external attacks; beyond anything the elder Khamenei would have accepted or endured?
Death Toll from Russian Bus Strike in Eastern Ukraine Jumps to 30https://english.aawsat.com/world/5327333-death-toll-russian-bus-strike-eastern-ukraine-jumps-30
Police officers look at the damages following a Russian drone strike on the Northern Bridge in Kyiv on October 4, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO / AFP)
Death Toll from Russian Bus Strike in Eastern Ukraine Jumps to 30
Police officers look at the damages following a Russian drone strike on the Northern Bridge in Kyiv on October 4, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Mykola TYMCHENKO / AFP)
Thirty people were killed on Thursday when Russia struck two passenger buses in Kramatorsk, near the frontline in eastern Ukraine, local authorities said.
"As of now, the death toll from this morning's attack on buses has risen to 30. Eighteen people were wounded," the Donetsk regional prosecutor's office said. The governor's office gave the same toll and said public transport had been suspended.
Ukraine's national police said Russia had hit the buses with a glide bomb.
Kramatorsk is one of the key cities that Russia has not yet captured in the eastern Donetsk region, which Moscow claims as its own.
It has been a logistics and supply hub for the Ukrainian military for much of the war and is part of the so-called "fortress belt" which troops are fighting to keep hold of.
Russian forces have edged close to the city's eastern edge, which has prompted calls for civilians who remain to relocate to safer regions of Ukraine.
Thursday's strike, which happened at 10:00 am (0700 GMT), came a day after a Russian missile hit an apartment block in the northern region of Chernigiv, killing 22, including five children.
Kramatorsk City Council said it was "yet another horrific crime committed by the Russian army against the civilian population".
"Once again, the Russians have struck a location where there are absolutely no military targets," it added.
Police Fire Tear Gas at a Barricaded High School in Paris as School Protests Show No Sign of Endinghttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5327317-police-fire-tear-gas-barricaded-high-school-paris-school-protests-show-no-sign-ending
Protesters shout slogans and hold placards in a street during a blockade of Sciences Po university in Paris as part of nationwide student protests demanding better school conditions, France, October 7, 2026. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier
Police Fire Tear Gas at a Barricaded High School in Paris as School Protests Show No Sign of Ending
Protesters shout slogans and hold placards in a street during a blockade of Sciences Po university in Paris as part of nationwide student protests demanding better school conditions, France, October 7, 2026. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier
Dozens of students dragged rubbish bins into position outside a high school in northeastern Paris early on Thursday, erecting fresh barricades before police moved in with tear gas as France’s nationwide protests show few signs of ending.
The Helene Boucher Lycee has been a flashpoint for clashes in the French capital, and is one of hundreds of schools disrupted by protesters Thursday.
At least a dozen demonstrations in support of the high school students' movement are planned around France later in the day.
Riot police gathered in side streets as students converged on the school. Many protesters wore surgical masks or hoodies, apparently afraid to be recognized.
Police have made more than 6,600 arrests since late September, when students, most of them under 18, started protesting to demand more education funding, according to the Interior Ministry. The Education Ministry said that 375 schools were either fully or partially closed on Thursday.
Pressure mounts on an embattled administration
While the number of school closures was down compared to Tuesday, pressure is mounting on the government of outgoing President Emmanuel Macron.
The protests against the under-funding of schools — many of them struggling with dilapidated facilities and insufficient staff — have drawn troublemakers not concerned about the aims of the protest movement as well as unions and political groups.
In a TV address, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu lamented the “violence, students and staff being attacked, police officers and gendarmes injured, schools set on fire or vandalized, thousands of hours of classes lost, not to mention threats and insults.”
He took aim at “political leaders who use this anger to conduct their electoral battles." France goes to the polls for a presidential election in April. “We cannot play with the safety of France’s youth,” Lecornu said.
At the Lycee, 18-year-old university student Emma Khelil came to offer support to those at the barricades at her former high school. She told The Associated Press that she’s really concerned about police violence.
“We’re here to defend our rights, not to lose an eye or a hand,” Khelil said. She also said that she had noticed insulation problems and water leaks in the school building and had even seen rats on occasion. Other students confirmed that they’d seen rats too.
She was not convinced by Lecornu’s efforts to calm the situation.
“I don’t think the movement is going to lose momentum. As long as things don’t change, we’re going to see the movement grow stronger, and potentially a convergence of struggles, especially with the next presidential election coming up,” she said.
Not long after she spoke, police surrounded a nearby square. The crowd surged, and tear gas was fired.
The protest movement crosses borders
The impact of France's protests is also being felt north of the border, in Belgium.
Liege Mayor Willy Demeyer issued a ban on public gatherings until midnight on Oct. 16, given what he described as the “real, serious and imminent risk” of repeated clashes and vandalism that authorities expected in coming days.
City police said they used water cannon and tear gas on Wednesday to keep several hundred protesters at bay. Authorities sent emergency mobile text messages warning shopkeepers to close their premises due to rioting.
Almost 90 people were arrested and several police were injured. Police reinforcements were sent from the capital Brussels and from Antwerp, and more are coming. Smaller protests have been held in Mons and Charleroi.
In a post on social media, Belgium’s Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said the “perpetrators will have to answer for their actions before the courts.”
The Belgian protests, organized through social media chat groups, include demands for more teachers and smaller classes as well as complaints about education reform in Belgium, but are also likely inspired by events in France.
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