World

(NEW YORK) — Iranians protesting their country’s regime have been putting their lives on the line to call out injustices and, even in the face of violence, say they will continue to raise their voices.

Saman, who fled the country after losing an eye due to a paintball gun when he was shot during protests, shared his story with ABC News and said that many are fed up with the oppressive show of force by the Iranian government in the last few months.

“Every protester who goes to the rallies in the street knows that he could be killed by a bullet…and even his body could go missing…but still everybody attends the protests just with this hope in their heart that they could send the Islamic Republic out of our country,” Saman, who asked ABC News to use only his first name for his protection, said.

And as the demonstrations continue across the world, human rights groups and others who have survived the Iranian government’s violence fear that things could get more bloody and called on more nations to act.

The recent protests began in the fall following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who was in the custody of the morality police after she was arrested for not properly wearing a hijab.

The protesters have filled the streets of Iran shouting her name and calling out the Iranian regime’s authoritarian rules.

“The state did not expect that protests over the death of a woman from the Kurdish minority would spread into the whole country,” Roya Boroumand, the director of Abdul-Rahman Berman, Center for Human Rights in Iran, told ABC News.

However, the government has responded with extreme violence and, in some cases, executing protesters in public.

Boroumand’s group has been tracking the number of executions and arrests in Iran and estimates that more than 519 people were killed last year. By comparison, 317 killings took place in 2021, she said.

Boroumand added that protesters who are arrested are subject to beatings, torture and even rape by the authorities.

“We don’t know how much of this is an attempt of the state to deter women from coming out or to encourage families to prevent their children to come out,” she said.

Boroumand said that families of the detained protesters who were killed in custody are being blackmailed into admitting their loved ones killed security force members in exchange for their bodies. She noted that the authorities are using gymnasiums to house detainees because of the lack of space in jails.

Boroumand said another tactic used by Iranian police is to target people’s faces with pellets, which could result in them losing their eyesight.

Saman told ABC News that he was a victim of this tactic.

He said that an Iranian officer shot him in the eye with the paintball gun while he was attending a protest in Valiasr Square in September 2022. Saman was hospitalized and lost his left eye.

While recuperating in the hospital, Saman said he found out that the police were looking for his hospital room number.

“Fortunately I was in the examination room and, with my friend’s help, I managed to get myself to the hospital’s yard and escaped,” he said. “By leaving the country, I decided to make my face living evidence for the world to see the Islamic Republic of Iran’s crimes closely.”

Boroumand and other human rights groups have called on world leaders to do more to stop the Iranian government from executing and intimidating its citizens.

The Biden administration has placed sanctions on Iranian officials.

“The United States continues to support the people of Iran in the face of this brutal repression, and we are rallying growing international consensus to hold the regime accountable,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in December.

In the meantime, experts say the Iranian protesters will continue to raise their voices against the oppression.

“We are all human, regardless of our religion and our nationality,” Saman said. “We could not be silent against the oppression.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(PERTH, Australia) — The health effects of coming into contact with a radioactive capsule no bigger than a coin that was lost in Western Australia — and has since been found — could potentially be severe, according to experts.

Caesium-137 is a human-made fission project often used in radiological laboratories as well as in industrial settings, such as within gauges in mining operations, Angela Di Fulvio, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told ABC News.

The tiny capsule filled with Caesium-137, at 8 millimeters tall and 6 millimeters in diameter, was found on the roadside of a remote highway Wednesday afternoon, six days after it went missing in Western Australia.

Emergency responders and radiation specialists were frantically searching for the capsule along a 22-mile busy freight route in the regions of Pilbara, Midwest Gascoyne, Goldfields-Midlands and Perth Metropolitan, according to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services Western Australia.

Search parties drove north and south along the Great Northern Highway at slow speeds in hopes of finding the capsule, the DFES said in a statement. DFES specialist search teams also used radiation survey meters to detect the gamma rays and radiation levels to try and locate the capsule, according to the agency.

The capsule was lost during transportation from the Rio Tinto mine in north Newman to the northeastern suburbs of Perth, an 870-mile journey.

The capsule contained materials that are “a million times more active” than those used in a lab, Di Fulvio said, describing it as a “very active” source. At 1.665 millisieverts per hour, the unit of measurement used for radiation, coming into 1 meter of the source is comparable to about 17 chest X-rays, Di Fulvio said.

Prolonged close exposure to the capsule — for instance, if someone were to have picked it up and put it in their pocket — could cause severe, and even potentially deadly, health effects, within hours, Di Fulvio said.

Erythema, or reddening of the skin, would be among the first symptoms, and the severity of the effects increases dramatically with exposure time, she added.

Exposure to the radioactive substance could also cause radiation burns or radiation sickness, according to the DFES.

Officials warned the public to stay at least 5 meters, or about 16 feet, away from it, and not to touch it, if they saw something that could be the material.

The capsule had been packaged on Jan. 10 to be sent to Perth for repair, and the package containing the capsule arrived in Perth on Jan. 16, where it was unloaded and stored in the licensed service provider’s secure radiation store, according to the DFES.

When the gauge was unpacked for inspection on Jan. 25, the inspectors found that the gauge was broken apart, the DFES said. One of the four mounting bolts was missing, as were the source of the radiation itself and all screws on the gauge.

An investigation will look into how the capsule was packaged and transported.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(DONETSK REGION, Eastern Ukraine) — Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukrainian positions in eastern Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin presses for gains on the battlefield ahead of the one-year anniversary of the war towards the end of this month.

Ukrainian and Russian forces remain locked in a brutal battle in and around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian army said its positions in that area had been shelled 151 times during the previous 24 hours. Russian claims that its forces had surrounded the city were denied by Ukrainian officials.

However, Russia has also started a more sustained assault to the south on another frontline town called Vuhledar, according to both Ukrainian and Western officials.

Images circulating on social media show that the town has been pummeled by Russian artillery and Western officials said Russia had made “creeping gains” in that area.

Russia’s offensive in Vuhledar, they thought, could be an attempt to force the Ukrainians to move resources away from the battle in Bakhmut.

“It’s a devastating First World War-like environment” Western officials told journalists at a briefing on Tuesday, adding that both sides were sustaining “really heavy casualties.”

Medics at a Ukrainian army field hospital situated a few miles from the frontlines in eastern Ukraine told ABC News last Thursday that they are currently receiving “dozens of casualties” every day.

As Russia attempts to push forward, it has recently enjoyed some “tactical successes” in eastern Ukraine, according to Western officials.

However, the officials claimed there is still broad “parity” between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the battle zone and argued that Russia still does not have the means to commit significant additional resources into the fight to tip the balance.

That said, Ukraine and its Western allies are in a race against time.

The U.S. and its NATO partners are working to get new weaponry, including advanced Western tanks into Ukraine.

More than a hundred German-made Leopard 2 tanks and British Challenger 2 tanks could take “months” to reach the battlefield, say officials.

Ukrainian forces are also potentially more vulnerable to Russian attacks now because some of its best soldiers are resting and training on new Western weaponry ahead of a likely Ukrainian offensive in the coming weeks or months.

The Russians are also preparing for an “imminent offensive,” said the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in one of its recent reports, stating that its assessment came from “western, Ukrainian and Russian sources.”

However, the uptick in Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine did not mean a major Russian offensive was already underway, Western officials told journalists.

If Russia wants to launch a successful offensive, it will need to mobilize more soldiers, via a fresh draft, the officials claimed.

“The Russians’ ability to supply their troops and provide appropriate logistics to their forces in the battle zone limits their ability to change the course of the conflict,” they told reporters on Tuesday.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The State Department has informed Congress that Russia is no longer meeting obligations set by the only nuclear arms control pact shared by two powers, putting a rare area of cooperation between Washington and Moscow at risk.

“Russia is not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” a spokesperson for the department said in a statement. “Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.”

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, commonly known as New START, is an agreement between the U.S. and Russia that sets limits on strategic arms. The terms of the deal dictate that those restrictions be verified through on-site inspections, data exchanges and other monitoring measures.

Both countries agreed that on-site inspections should be suspended during the pandemic, but while Washington expressed a willingness to resume the practice in the summer of 2022, Russia continued to shut off access to its nuclear arsenal, claiming that travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. in response to the invasion of Ukraine unfairly hindered its ability to conduct reciprocal inspections.

The State Department spokesperson disputed that claim.

“Russia has a clear path for returning to full compliance,” the person said. “The United States remains ready to work constructively with Russia to fully implement the New START Treaty.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Kremlin had not responded to the U.S. accusation.

The New START treaty, which has been in force since 2011 and is set to run through February 2026, also stipulates a schedule for the parties to hold diplomatic meetings on renewing the pact and related topics. Russia abruptly called off scheduled talks in November 2022 and as so far refused to set a new date — another example of Moscow’s failure to comply, according to the Biden administration.

The State Department’s declaration to Congress comes at the behest of Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who issued a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines last week expressing concern that Russia has failed to uphold key tenets of the treaty.

But until recently, the department maintained that Russia continued to meet at least some of its obligations, including by providing data and sharing notifications.

The New START treaty caps both U.S. and Russia deployed strategic nuclear warheads and bombs at 1,550 and caps each power’s deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and heavy bombers assigned to nuclear missions at 700.

The terms of the agreement also provide for 18 on-site inspections each year for both U.S. and Russian authorities.

“The United States continues to view nuclear arms control as an indispensable means of strengthening U.S., ally, and global security,” the State Department said. “It is all the more important during times of tension when guardrails and clarity matter most.”

However, when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, speculation and fear from Western officials regarding the potential use of weapons of mass discussion by Moscow has centered around tactical nuclear weapons, which are not covered by the treaty.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(PERTH, Australia) — The health effects of coming into contact with a radioactive capsule no bigger than a coin that is currently lost in Western Australia could potentially be severe, according to experts.

Caesium-137 is a manmade fission project often used in radiological laboratories as well as in industrial settings, such as within gauges in mining operations, Angela Di Fulvio, an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told ABC News.

Emergency responders and radiation specialists are frantically searching for a tiny capsule filled with Caesium-137, at 8 millimeters tall and 6 millimeters in diameter, along a 22-mile busy freight route in the regions of Pilbara, Midwest Gascoyne, Goldfields-Midlands and Perth Metropolitan, according to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services Western Australia.

The search parties are driving north and south along the Great Northern Highway at slow speeds in hopes of finding the capsule, the DFES said in a statement. DFES specialist search teams are also using radiation survey meters to detect the gamma rays and radiation levels to try and locate the capsule, according to the agency.

The capsule was lost during transportation from the Rio Tinto mine in north Newman to the northeastern suburbs of Perth, an 870-mile journey.

Officials believe a screw became loose inside the large lead-line gauge, and that the unit fell through a hole, The Associated Press reported. The capsule was packaged in accordance with radiation safety regulations, officials said.

The capsule contained materials that are “a million times more active” than those used in a lab, Di Fulvio said, describing it as a “very active” source. At 1.665 millisieverts hours per hour, the unit of measurement used for radiation, coming into 1 meter of the source is comparable to about 17 chest X-rays, Di Fulvio said.

Prolonged close exposure to the capsule — for instance, if someone were to pick it up and put it in their pocket — could cause severe, and even potentially deadly, health effects, within hours, Di Fulvio said.

Erythema, or reddening of the skin, would be among the first symptoms, and the severity of the effects increases dramatically with exposure time, she added.

Exposure to the radioactive substance could also cause radiation burns or radiation sickness, according to the DFES.

Officials warned the public to stay at least 5 meters, or about 16 feet, away from it, and not to touch it, if they see something that could be the material.

Andrew Robertson, Chief Health Officer of Western Australia, said officials are concerned that an unsuspecting party will pick up the object, not knowing what it is, and keep it, the AP reported.

There also is a concern of the potential that the capsule may have become lodged in the tire of another vehicle and could be hundreds of miles away from the search area, according to the AP.

The silver lining to the fact that the source fell unshielded is that search teams will likely be able to detect the radiation more easily and quickly, Di Fulvio said.

“I’m confident that they are going to be able to find it,” she said.

The capsule had been packaged on Jan. 10 to be sent to Perth for repair, and the package containing the capsule arrived in Perth on Jan. 16, where it was unloaded and stored in the licensed service provider’s secure radiation store, according to the DFES.

When the gauge was unpacked for inspection on Jan. 25, the inspectors found that the gauge was broken apart, the DFES said. One of the four mounting bolts was missing, as were the source of the radiation itself and all screws on the gauge.

Police have ruled the case of the missing capsule as an accident and likely will not file criminal charges, the AP reported. An investigation will look into how the capsule was packaged and transported.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(RAMALLAH, West Bank) — Wrapping up a visit to the Middle East amid cascading violence between Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced that senior U.S. officials would remain in the region to continue discussions on “constructive ideas for practical steps that each side can take to lower the temperature” despite indications from leaders that a peaceful solution remains well beyond reach.

“We have no illusions that heightened tensions can be diffused overnight. But we’re prepared to support efforts here and with partners in the region if the parties have the will to do so,” Blinken said during a news conference in Jerusalem.

The secretary’s engagements in Israel have revealed little reason for optimism. During joint remarks with President Mahmoud Abbas, the long-running leader of the Palestinian Authority said he was ready to work the U.S. to advance the rights of Palestinians but placed blame for recent violent attacks solely on Israel and accused other powers of turning a blind eye.

“We affirm that the Israeli government is responsible for what’s happening these days, because of its practices that undermine the two-state solution and violate the signed agreements, and because of the lack of international efforts to dismantle the occupation and the settlement regimes, and the failure to recognize the Palestinian state and its full membership in the United Nation,” he declared.

Abbas also claimed that the Palestinian Authority had “exhausted all means with Israel to stop its violations” and had been forced to undertake decisions to protect its people, perhaps in reference to its suspension of security cooperation with Israel following a deadly raid in the Jenin refugee camp carried out by Israeli Defense Forces last week.

The Israeli government has described the raid as an urgent counterterrorism operation and said that six of the nine killed were militants, but Palestinians have denounced the event as a massacre.

Authorities fear the raid may have motivated a number of recent attacks on Israelis, including a shooting at an East Jerusalem synagogue of Friday that claimed seven lives.

Blinken expressed said he expressed “condolences and sorrow for the innocent Palestinian civilians who have lost their lives in escalating violence over the last year” and announced that the U.S. would contribute $50 million to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which supports the needs of Palestinian refugees.

The secretary also expressed some of the Biden administration’s misgivings about the Palestinian Authority, saying the two discussed the importance of regime “continuing to improve its governance and accountability” and emphasized that the U.S. was looking “to both sides to actively condemn any acts of violence, regardless of the victim or the perpetrator.”

But despite Blinken’s repeated urging against escalation during his visit, neither Abbas nor the numerous Israeli officials he met with echoed his direct pleas for peace.

Blinken also reaffirmed the U.S.’ long held commitment to implementing a two-state solution multiple times, but was realistic about currently dim prospects, saying the immediate goal was “restoring calm.”

“Over the longer term, we have to do more than just lower tensions,” he said.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On this day, January 31, 1981…

Blondie’s single “The Tide Is High” became their third number one song. The track was a remake of a 1967 rocksteady song originally recorded by Jamaican group The Paragons.

In addition to the U.S., “The Tide Is High” also went on to top the charts in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and landed in the Top Five in Australia, South Africa, and several European countries.

Blondie’s previous number ones included “Call Me” and “Heart of Glass.”

“The Tide Is High” was the lead single from Blondie’s fifth studio album, Autoamerican, which later produced another number one hit, “Rapture.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ISLAMABAD) — A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing and wounding hundreds of worshippers, officials said.

The blast occurred at a Sunni mosque inside a major police facility in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, not far from the country’s border with Afghanistan. More than 300 people were said to be praying there when the suicide bomber struck. An eyewitness told ABC News that the roof collapsed from the impact.

Security and government officials confirmed the explosion was from a suicide bomber. The Pakistan Taliban — known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — have claimed responsibility for the attack.

At least 88 people were killed and more than 170 others were injured in the blast, a local hospital spokesperson told ABC News. Most of the wounded have since been discharged from the hospital but 65 remain for treatment. Many of the dead were police officers, according to the hospital spokesperson.

It was unclear how the suicide bomber was able to gain entry into the walled compound and get to the mosque. The facility also houses the police headquarters for Peshawar and is itself located in a high-security zone with other government buildings.

Pakistani Prime Minster Shehbaz Sharif, who visited the scene in Peshawar on Monday, condemned the bombing and urged people to donate blood to help save the wounded.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad also issued a statement condemning the “horrific attack.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(LONDON) — The use of the death penalty under the rule of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his father, King Salman, has almost doubled annually since they rose to power, according to a new report seen by ABC News.

The report, published on Tuesday by the non-profit European Saudi organization for Human Rights (ESOHR) and the anti-death penalty charity Reprieve, titled “Bloodshed and Lies: Mohammed bin Salman’s Kingdom of Executions,” says that the average number of executions has risen 82% under their rule, even as the country has projected a modernizing image to the outside world.

The number of executions annually has risen from an average of 70.8 between 2010-2014, to 129.5 per year since 2015, when the current king and crown prince came to power. Despite official claims that the death penalty does not apply to minors, at least 15 child defendants have been executed in the Kingdom since 2010, according to the data published by the human rights groups. Over 1,000 executions have been carried out in Saudi Arabia since 2015, the report said.

The report also looked into the increasing use of mass executions, such as the record number of 81 people executed on a single day in March of last year on a range of charges, including terrorism. The UN’s High Commissioner Human Rights groups condemned the mass execution, saying that the regime had implemented “an extremely broad definition” of terrorism that includes non-violent acts.

“The explosion in the number of executions in Saudi Arabia under Mohammed bin Salman is a crisis the international community cannot continue to ignore,” Reprieve Director Maya Foya shared in a statement. “Every data point in this report is a human life taken … And all while MBS lies to the world that he has reformed the system to reduce the number of people executed. When the US, UK and EU go along with these lies, it makes the next mass execution more likely.”

Human rights groups have long expressed concerns that the kingdom’s human rights record has been overlooked by the international community in favor of geopolitical and economic interests. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

However, the BBC received a statement from the Saudi Embassy in London in response to an investigation into the death penalty, which said other countries around the world use the death penalty at their own discretion.

“As we respect their right to determine their own laws and customs, we hope that others will respect our sovereign right to follow our own judicial and legislative choices,” the statement said.

The judicial system that convicts defendants for capital crimes is shrouded in secrecy, according to the report, with the government often not notifying the defendants’ families and returning their bodies.

“This report provides a glimpse at what Saudi justice looks like now that MBS has been emboldened by Western governments that have failed to hold him accountable for the killing of Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as numerous other crimes and abuses including Yemen war,” Abdullah al Oudah, whose father currently faces a death sentence, said in a statement shared with ABC News. “My father is possibly facing the death penalty any moment just because he called for peace and tweeted for reforms.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ISLAMABAD) — A suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of worshippers, officials said.

The blast occurred at a mosque near police offices in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, not far from the country’s border with Afghanistan. More than 150 people were reportedly were praying when the suicide bomber struck. An eyewitness told ABC News that the roof collapsed from the impact.

Security and government officials confirmed the explosion was from a suicide bomber, though no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

At least 17 people were killed and more than 60 others were wounded, a local hospital spokesperson told ABC News. Those numbers were expected to rise.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.