Israeli Military Drone Footage Allegedly Shows Sinwar Moments Before His Death

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October 18, 2024

On Thursday, the Israeli military released drone footage purportedly showing Yahya Sinwar in a building located in Rafah. The video captures a man, identified by the Israeli military as Sinwar, seated in a chair moments before what the military describes as his “elimination.”

Though the footage has been edited, it appears to show the man, covered in dust, watching the drone for about 20 seconds before tossing an object, possibly a stick, at it. The identity of the individual in the video has not been independently verified by The New York Times.

The setting shown in the video aligns with photographs obtained by The Times, depicting the body of a man who bears a strong resemblance to Sinwar. The room in the drone footage shows new damage, likely from an explosion, visible in the later photos. In those images, the deceased man is seen wearing a green kaffiyeh similar to the one worn by the man in the video.

This location is on the second floor of a residential building in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in southern Gaza. Earlier the same day, the Israeli military released additional footage showing Israeli soldiers in the area following Sinwar’s death. The Times confirmed that this footage was recorded near the same house in northern Rafah.

Recently, Israeli military operations in the Rafah neighborhood have increased. Footage from September shows soldiers patrolling the area from a nearby military outpost, passing by the house where Sinwar was later killed, though it’s unclear if he was inside the building during that earlier patrol.

Fed Governor Waller Urges Caution on Future Rate Cuts Amid Strong Economic Data

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October 15, 2024

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Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller has called for a more cautious approach to future interest rate cuts, citing recent data that suggests a still-strong economy.

Speaking at a conference at Stanford University on Monday, Waller highlighted key economic indicators, including employment, income, and growth, as well as persistent inflation, as reasons for the Fed to slow down on cutting rates.

Waller’s remarks follow last month’s 50-basis point rate cut by the Fed. While the central bank shifted its focus from controlling inflation to supporting the labor market, Waller believes the pace of future rate reductions should be tempered.

“Although we don’t want to overreact to this data, I believe it suggests that monetary policy should now proceed with more caution than it did in September,” Waller said.

He referenced the September jobs report, which showed strong employment growth, and noted that inflation remains stubbornly high, with the recent consumer price index slightly exceeding expectations. Waller also pointed to upward revisions in economic growth, with second-quarter GDP at 3% and gross domestic income revised from 1.3% to 3.4%.

“These revisions indicate that the economy is stronger than previously thought, with few signs of a major slowdown,” he added.

Waller emphasized that upcoming data on inflation, labor markets, and overall economic activity would be critical in determining whether the Fed should continue with its current trajectory of rate cuts or adopt a more cautious approach.

His comments come amid growing market expectations for a “no-landing” scenario, where the economy continues to expand without a significant downturn, making it more challenging for the Fed to cut rates while inflation remains elevated.

Traders are closely watching Thursday’s retail sales report for September, which could provide further clues about consumer spending and the broader economic outlook. Currently, markets are pricing in a 25-basis point cut at the Fed’s November meeting, with some chance that rates will remain unchanged. Investors anticipate rate cuts totaling 125 basis points next year.

The Editors: iPhone and iPad app update

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April 2, 2013

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On Tuesday we are releasing an update to the BBC News iPhone and iPad app in the UK designed to make the app faster and more stable, with bigger, better quality images on the home screen.

We are busy doing some research and thinking at the moment about what people are looking for in our News apps in the longer term, but we thought that in the meantime, it was important to fix one or two bugs affecting some users of the existing app and to make it a better, slicker experience overall.

We want to make sure the current app remains a great way to get a quick overview of the top stories across a wide range of subjects, easy-to-scan on a mobile and, once the stories have loaded, handy to read offline too.

So, it will now be quicker to start up the app and to update it, and it should feel smoother and faster as you scroll and swipe through the screens and stories.

The larger homescreen images we’ve introduced serve two purposes:

first, you can see what’s in them more clearly and there’s more room for the headline
second, their positioning makes it clearer that you can scroll horizontally in each news category to reveal more stories (we noticed that in user testing some people assumed there were only three stories a section).

There is a new layout on iPad when you view the home screen in portrait mode – designed to show more headlines and make it easier to find the stories you’re interested in.

Among the bugs that we’ve fixed is an issue that sometimes caused the app to get stuck when updating, and another where you sometimes saw duplicate stories within a single news category.

For our product team, these improvements required a fairly major reworking of the app’s code. The good news is that they are now working from a more stable base which can be built on with new features and functionality. This revising of our code is something we’ve already done with our Android app, so we’ll now be able to release upgrades simultaneously on both iOS and Android, which are by far the largest mobile platforms for us in terms of users. This latest update is already available internationally.

If you’re a user of the app, or decide to try it out, we hope you’ll like the improvements we’ve made. And as we think about our apps generally and plan our next steps, we’d like to hear about what you’d most like to see in future.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

The Editors: BBC Arabic and the complexities of the Arab world

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February 1, 2013

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By Faris Couri, editor of the BBC Arabic Service

It is no secret that recent Arab uprisings have placed enormous burdens on the shoulders of BBC Arabic journalists responsible for reporting news from the region.

Covering the Arab world is not always an easy task – we need to mix sensible caution with a dose of courage in covering political issues that attract so many disputed views among Arabic-speaking audiences.

Our guiding principles are the BBC’s values, its editorial guidelines, its ethical code, which are our reference points to maintain impartial, balanced and accurate reporting.

Across the Arab world – whether it’s Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt or Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Iraq or the many other countries in the region – we know that audiences want access to objective and independent news, far removed from an agenda that favours one party, religion or sect against another. That is why audiences are turning to BBC Arabic.

Last year, our latest figures show that overall audiences to BBC Arabic have risen by more than 17% to a record high of 25.3 million adults weekly. That includes a big surge of 2.9 million in Saudi Arabia and 2.7 million in Egypt, where TV viewers in particular turned to the BBC to better understand the events happening in their own country. Our radio audiences are also holding up despite the reductions in transmission. Online is proving to be more of a challenge, but we are working hard to understand the needs of digital audiences and those for whom social media plays an increasingly important part in their lives.

In 2011, following the fall of the Mubarak leadership, we watched as ordinary Egyptians carried banners saying “Thank you, BBC!” But meeting the high expectation of audiences has a price and sometimes it’s been a heavy one.

March 2011 brought a strong reminder of the risks that our staff face in covering the news – one of our reporters was arrested and tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces during the Libya uprising. In early 2012, our reporter in Yemen was beaten and received death threats from supporters of the outgoing president.

We are also challenged by those who disagree with our coverage. In countries such as Syria and Bahrain, BBC Arabic has been accused of bias.

The criticism comes from opposition and government alike. It may be a valid argument to say that getting criticism from both sides, in the case of Arab world certainly, is an indication of balanced coverage.

On Syria, for example, we had a series of documentaries looking at the civil war from a number of perspectives.

The first one, exploring what it’s like to work for a Syrian television channel that’s the mouthpiece of the government, was the butt of criticism and threats from Syrian opposition quarters. We followed it up with a programme charting a day in the lives of six Syrian women, five of whom were anti-government activists.

In our day-to-day news coverage, presenting a variety of voices from Syria is essential to us. And that is what distinguishes BBC Arabic from many media outlets in the Arab world which promote political views and agendas, and that is what we are determined to keep.

BBC Arabic marked its 75th anniversary in January. Arab politicians and ordinary people have expressed their appreciation of our track record of impartiality and trusted news. I am confident that the coming years will see further achievement on all our platforms – TV, radio and online.

The Editors: BBC World News moves to Broadcasting House

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January 14, 2013

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Moving BBC World News, the BBC’s largest television channel, from west London to New Broadcasting House in the centre of the city is a huge project that has taken years of planning.

Relaunching and rebranding every hour of its 24 hours of output to give audiences around the world a new exciting polished HD product has made that huge project even more challenging.

Hopefully on Monday at 1200 GMT, the hard work of our 100 dedicated staff will give our audiences a bolder, brighter, more engaging look for the channel they trust to give them independent, objective news and analysis from more correspondents, in more locations, than any other international broadcaster.

Meticulous planning began about three years ago – everything from the new look of our studios to bicycle parking. We tested our studio systems – literally to breaking point – then fixed them and began the dual-running piloting that has split our newsroom teams between those keeping us on air back at Television Centre and those training and developing our programmes in our new home.

We’re calling our new location The World’s Newsroom because it truly reflects the world we report. We now work with colleagues from 27 language services who report for us from far flung bureaus and in London, allowing us to celebrate their unique expertise – something no other broadcaster can offer.

Komla Dumor in the new World News studio

We’ll be introducing you to those new colleagues and our new location in special live reports from inside New Broadcasting House and offering enhanced social media access so you can enjoy behind-the-scenes access.

Audiences have also told us they want to engage more with the stories we tell – to feel closer to the issues we report. We’re going to help you “live the story” with us. It’s our new channel ethos.

Our correspondents – expert, brave, tough, determined – live and work where they report, and we want audiences to understand their passion for the stories they cover. So expect a new style of reporting from the field. And we’ll be everywhere for our relaunch with live and exclusive reports planned from Syria, China, the US and Burma to name just a few.

In the studio, trusted and familiar presenters will be sharing the day’s top stories – with a sprinkling of new faces on air. We’ll have a more dynamic look, with robot cameras whizzing around our studios, improved graphics and high definition screens to enhance our ability to explain and analyse. We even have some virtual reality surprises planned.

We’re also developing new long-form programmes, so expect to see new hard-hitting and timely documentary series. There’ll be fresh new editions of favourites such as HARDTalk with Stephen Sackur (our interrogator-in-chief), Click for the latest on tech and Health Check for medical breakthroughs.

BBC World News has come a long way since it launched as a shoestring commercial operation in a backroom at Television Centre more than 20 years ago. Our audiences have grown massively. We’re required viewing from the President’s White House in Washington to the President’s Blue House in Seoul. And in an era when bad mortgages in the US can trigger a global economic meltdown, we know there is a huge appetite for world news delivered fast, accurately and objectively.

We hope you’ll enjoy our new look. And we hope you’ll join us in the world’s newsroom.

Andrew Roy is head of news for BBC World News

BBC – The Editors: Goodbye Ceefax

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October 23, 2012

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Ceefax – the BBC’s teletext service – finally ends its long career tonight when it is due to be switched off at 23:30 BST. There is more on this, and the history of the service, in our news story today and linked coverage.

As each part of the UK has in turn gone through the switchover to digital and lost the Ceefax service in the process, it has been a long farewell, which I have written about here before.

Now, with the analogue TV signal in Northern Ireland being switched off, the last stage in the process has arrived, and the service will come to an end.

The BBC Red Button services will carry on the Ceefax tradition of providing clear and concise news from around the UK and the world, on demand, on your TV.

Indeed the Red Button service is in the process of being reinvented for internet-enabled TV sets, and this “Connected Red Button” service will combine the simplicity of traditional Red Button with the flexibility and depth of online. My colleague Daniel Danker has written about this work here and there is already a BBC News app for connected TVs which I wrote about here and here when it launched.

At its peak, Ceefax had an audience of some 20 million viewers a week, and as the end of the service has approached, it has received several thousand letters and emails of thanks from viewers.

In a tribute to the clarity of Ceefax’s simple, concise format and news stories, and to mark Ceefax’s last day, the Plain English Campaign – which campaigns for clear, concise language in public information – has given Ceefax a lifetime achievement award.

It’s an honour to have received so many tributes from Ceefax viewers, and to get this award, and both are a recognition of the skill and dedication of all the journalists who have worked on the service over the years, and the care they have taken in writing every story.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

The Editors: BBC News on your mobile

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October 23, 2012

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Earlier this year we launched a new version of the BBC News mobile site, making it easier and quicker to use. This week we’ve begun the process of directing all mobile users automatically to that site. This means that anyone who visits BBC News on their mobile will be taken to the version of the site best suited to the type of phone they are using.

Many of you already visit the mobile site regularly but, up until now, people looking for BBC News on their phone will often have found themselves on the desktop version of the site, which is designed for desktop PCs, macs and laptops – all with much bigger screens. If you are using this desktop version on your phone it can be awkward to pinch, zoom and scan the stories on a small mobile screen.

This image shows how the mobile site displays on a smartphone – compared with the desktop version:

Screenshot of BBC News mobile on a smartphone

To tackle this, we’ve been working over the past six months to improve and add to the mobile site, taking on board your feedback about how you’d like to see it develop.

We’ve recently added video clips for iPhone and Android users, and made it easier to navigate the site. (We hope to extend this video service to other types of mobile in the future.) We’ve also added easier ways of getting to local news and weather services, something many of you asked for. You can read more about those changes here.

So, we’re confident that the mobile site now has the wide range of content you are looking for and that it offers a better experience on a small screen than the desktop site, which is why we are taking the step of automatically redirecting mobile users there.

Of course, you may be happy to keep visiting the desktop site on your mobile and if you want to continue doing so just scroll to the bottom of the page and tap on the link for the desktop site. Your choice will be remembered for the next time you visit.

Similarly, if you use a mobile and find that you’re not redirected to the new site, you can scroll to the bottom of the page and select the mobile site.

This is the latest stage in the ongoing work by our News product team on responsive design – a way of presenting our content to you in the most suitable way by detecting the type of device you are using and displaying the format best adapted for it. We are doing similar work to optimise the site for tablet users too.

The number of people coming to BBC News on mobile continues to grow. In an average week, 13.3m users worldwide use their mobile or tablet to visit the BBC News site and apps – around one-third of total users to BBC News Online.

If you are one of them, our aim is to offer you the full range and depth of BBC News content, whatever device you are using, whilst also making best use of the screen size.

We hope you’ll like using the new mobile site, and if you’d like to leave comments and feedback about it, or have questions, please post them below. Or you can tweet your views using the hashtags #bbcnews #responsive

Update: Thanks for your comments. Here are some answers to the questions posted below:

John Walsh – Kindle: As a tablet device, albeit with a smaller screen than some makes, Kindles currently default to the desktop site. Users of any device including Kindles are certainly free to use the mobile version if they prefer by clicking the link at the bottom of the screen. Our aim is to further improve the experience for progressively larger screen sizes over time.

Jesse Moore – HTC: We know there are some devices that are incorrectly classified by our systems, often due to the fact that some devices have different identifiers dependent on the mobile network they are on. In any case we will certainly be doing everything we can to correct errors and ensure the redirection behaves as it should. In the meantime, please use the “Mobile Site” link at the foot of the page should you wish to use the mobile site – the selection will be remembered as long as cookies are not cleared. At this time the redirect only applies to the BBC Homepage and the News site.

Cogito Ergo Sum – Windows phone: This change applies to the browser experience, which is already designed to work for Windows Phone although at present we are unable to provide video for those devices.

Costmeabob – We take accessibility for our services seriously so, for example, our browser and applications are designed to work with Voiceover on iOS.

Tim Stey – If you do still prefer the desktop version you can select the link at the bottom of the page and you’ll be taken to it. Your choice will be remembered next time you visit the site. We are working on enhancing the mobile site still further to include more content where the technology allows it – but with navigation more suited to a smaller screen size.

Josh Tumath – This blog post might be of interest, about our overall approach to responsive design published in March by Chris Russell, head of product for BBC News Online.

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

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Israeli Military Drone Footage Allegedly Shows Sinwar Moments Before His Death

Fed Governor Waller Urges Caution on Future Rate Cuts Amid Strong Economic Data

The Editors: iPhone and iPad app update

The Editors: BBC Arabic and the complexities of the Arab world

The Editors: BBC World News moves to Broadcasting House

BBC – The Editors: Goodbye Ceefax

The Editors: BBC News on your mobile