French researcher Laurent Vinatier was found guilty by a Moscow court on Monday of breaking Russia’s “foreign agent” laws and sentenced to three years in prison.

Vinatier, 48, is one of several Westerners to have been charged under Russian security laws at a time of tense confrontation between Moscow and the West over the war in Ukraine. The judge ignored a plea by the defense to fine him instead of jailing him.

In a speech to the court before he was sentenced, Vinatier said he loved Russia, apologised for breaking the law, and even recited a verse by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Wearing a blue open-necked shirt and jeans, he stood behind metal bars and listened intently as the judge rattled off the verdict. He was blinking rapidly but did not show any visible emotion.

A longtime researcher on the former Soviet Union, he was arrested in June by the FSB security service and accused of failing to register as a foreign agent in Russia while collecting military information of value to foreign intelligence services.

The offence carries a sentence of up to five years, but prosecutors requested a term of three years and three months in recognition of the fact that Vinatier had pleaded guilty.

State news agency RIA said the defence planned to appeal.

France says Vinatier has been arbitrarily detained and has called on Monday for his immediate release. President Emmanuel Macron has denied that Vinatier worked for the French state and has described his arrest as part of a misinformation campaign by Moscow.

“The legislation on ‘foreign agents’ contributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, such as freedom of association, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression,” France’s foreign ministry said. “French authorities remain fully mobilized to provide assistance (to Vinatier),” the ministry added.

Vinatier is an employee of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), a Swiss-based conflict mediation organisation. Fellow academics who know him have told Reuters he is a respected scholar involved in legitimate research.

‘A Russian life’

Independent news outlet Mediazona quoted Vinatier as asking the court for forgiveness.

“I am not afraid to say that I fell in love with Russia. This is confirmed by my personal life – my wife is Russian, my friends are Russian. I lived a Russian life and still, even the last four months, I have been living in a Russian atmosphere,” he said, referring to the period since his arrest.

He asked for a “fair and lenient” decision, saying he had children and elderly parents who depended on him, and recited by heart a verse from Pushkin’s poem “If Life Deceives You”.

Under Russian law, people are obliged to contact the justice ministry and register as foreign agents if they are involved in political activity or are collecting military information while receiving financial or other help from abroad.

The FSB said in July that Vinatier had tried to use his numerous contacts with political scientists, sociologists, economists, military experts and government officials to collect military details “that could be used by foreign intelligence services to the detriment” of Russia’s security.

In a statement following his arrest, his employer HD said its staff work globally and “routinely meet with a wide range of officials, experts and other parties with the aim of advancing efforts to prevent, mitigate and resolve armed conflict”.

Russia says relations with France have hit a low since French authorities placed the Russian founder of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, under formal investigation in August in connection with the use of the platform for crimes such as fraud, money laundering and child pornography. Durov’s lawyer has called the proceedings against him absurd.

Both parents were wearing stickers with “374” written on them to mark the number of days that have passed since the hostages were taken captive to Gaza by Hamas.

“I was certain that we were going to see a global demand for action and I’m still waiting for it. The world failed us … the world failed so many of these hostages, including Hersh,” Polin said.

Goldberg-Polin was one of six hostages whose bodies were discovered by the Israeli military in tunnels under Gaza shortly after they had been killed by Hamas.

Polin said when he and his wife had voiced concerns that Hamas might execute the hostages as military pressure mounted, Israeli officials had reassured them such an outcome was highly unlikely.

Along with two of the other murdered hostages, Goldberg-Polin had been expected to be released during the first phase of an eventual ceasefire agreement. The hostage deaths led to widespread anger and nationwide protests in Israel over the failure by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to strike a hostages-for-ceasefire deal.

“We worried a little bit about that all along. Within all our optimism that we were going to get Hersh home, there was some doubt in the back of our minds that it could end this way,” he said. “I worry that if we don’t save others soon, there are going to be other families getting the horrific news that we’ve received.”

Goldberg urged “people in power” to “go save the 101” hostages remaining in Gaza. “There are thousands and thousands of people suffering in Gaza. Some of them have lived there for many years and some of them have lived there for 374 days and it’s time to bring them home,” she told Cooper.

Goldberg-Polin’s parents have been among the most vocal of the hostage families pushing Netanyahu to seek a deal securing their relatives’ return. They’ve also regularly met top US officials in Washington to press the case of the hostages.

Goldberg-Polin was among the hundreds of young people who attended the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, the day Hamas launched its surprise attacks in which more than 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

He and some of his friends hid in a bomb shelter but became trapped by militants who began to lob grenades into the bunker. Goldberg-Polin helped to throw some of those grenades back out of the shelter before his left arm was blown off from the elbow down, according to a firsthand account from one of his friends.

Footage taken on the day of that attack showed Goldberg-Polin being marched out of the shelter – with his hand blown off and bone protruding from his wrist – and thrown along with four others into the back of a truck.

His parents told Cooper that Goldberg-Polin and the others had later been held in a tunnel 65 feet (20 meters) underground that was just 2 feet wide and 5-and-a-half feet high – too small for the 6ft tall Goldberg-Polin to stand in. They were also severely malnourished. By the time of his death, Goldberg-Polin weighed just 115 pounds (52 kilograms), his father said.

They also shared details of his final moments, saying it appeared he had used his remaining hand in an attempt to shield himself.

“It seems that when he was being shot he had put up as a defense both of his arms, so a bullet went through his right hand through his shoulder actually then into his neck then out the side of his head,” Goldberg said.

“Supposedly he was standing crouched up … they think that then he dropped to his knees and then he was shot with the gun on his head, the back of his head … and he was found on his knees two days later.”

Still possible to ‘choose life’

Receiving the news on August 31 that their son was among the six dead hostages found by the Israeli military was “a crushing blow and we are still grappling with it,” Polin said.

He said the couple had spent “so much time beyond our public campaign in our apartment with our two daughters literally planning what it was going to be when we brought him home. What would the family look like? What would the celebration look like?”

“It’s crushing to spend those days so optimistic, so hopeful, so focused to have it end like this,” Polin said, adding they had wondered if their hope had worked against them.

“Maybe our optimism was something that drove influencers to lack urgency, to feel like, he’s going to come home at some point somehow and … maybe it was too infectious,” Polin said.

Goldberg added: “I’m just trying to get through each day. We are in the first centimeter in a million-mile journey of how do we get through the rest of our lives yearning and missing our son.”

Born in Oakland, California, Goldberg-Polin immigrated to Israel with his family at age 7. An elder brother to two sisters, he was a “happy-go-lucky, laid back, good humored, respectful and curious person” who loved soccer and music, according to his mother.

She later said the family was determined to “live” and “not just exist” following his death.

“I want to live the life that Hersh should’ve lived and that’s a life filled with love and happiness and light. We will always have this deep void but I think that it’s still possible to have that void and to be happy and choose life.”

China flew a record number of fighter jets and other warplanes around Taiwan during its large-scale military drills on Monday, the island’s Defense Ministry said.

The one-day military exercises, which involved Chinese fighter jets, drones, warships and Coast Guard vessels simulating a blockade of the self-governing island, was condemned by Taiwan as an “unreasonable provocation” and is the latest in a series of recent war games conducted by Beijing against its neighbor.

According to the ministry, 153 Chinese aircraft were detected around Taiwan in a 25-hour period between Monday and Tuesday.

Of those, 111 warplanes crossed the Median Line – an informal demarcation point in the Taiwan Strait that Beijing does not recognize, but until recent years had largely respected – and entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ).

An ADIZ is unilaterally imposed and distinct from sovereign airspace, which is defined under international law as extending 12 nautical miles from a territory’s shoreline. No Chinese warplanes were spotted entering Taiwan’s sovereign airspace, a step that would be considered a major escalation.

While not directly comparable, the spike in Chinese warplanes on Monday superseded the previous daily record in September 2023, when 103 Chinese military aircraft were detected operating around Taiwan in a 24-hour span.

In response to the latest incursions, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it employed its own aircraft, navy vessels and coastal missile systems to monitor the activity.

China said its military drills were intended as a “stern waning” to independence forces in Taiwan and came days after the island’s new president, Lai Ching-te, gave a speech vowing to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty in the face of challenges from Beijing.

Taiwan “is not subordinate” to China, Lai said on Taiwan’s National Day Thursday, and Beijing “does not have the right to represent Taiwan.”

China’s military exercises around Taiwan, a democracy of 24 million people, have become increasingly frequent in recent years and have tended to coincide with events that have angered Beijing.

Those drills allow China to monitor Taiwan’s responses and also tax the island’s own military resources including its aging and outgunned fleet of fighter jets.

Analysts said Monday’s drills were part of a general strategy of both keeping Taiwan under pressure and normalizing regular war games.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it. It has long vowed that the island must be “unified” with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary, while the Taiwanese authorities strongly reject China’s territorial claims over it. Many people on the island view themselves as distinctly Taiwanese.

The People’s Liberation Army said the drills were a joint operation of the army, navy, air force and rocket force, and were conducted in the Taiwan Strait – a narrow body of water separating the island from mainland China – as well as encircling Taiwan.

A map released by the Eastern Theater Command showed drills taking place in nine areas surrounding Taiwan as well as its outlying islands that are closer to mainland China.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry added that 14 warships were detected around Taiwan over the same 25-hour period. Among them was the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning, which moved into a location to the east of the island.

During the military exercise, none of China’s naval vessels successfully entered Taiwan’s contiguous zone, which is defined under international law as extending 24 nautical miles from a territory’s shoreline, the ministry said in a press conference on Monday evening.

Analysts, however, said the drills were “highly dangerous,” and because they are “approaching, closer and closer,” will “leave us [with] a very short response time.”

The Chinese military said it kicked off the Joint Sword 2024-B drills at 5 a.m. local time Monday. By 6 p.m. an updated statement announced that it had “successfully” completed the exercises.

According to a flight map provided by Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, Chinese jets were detected around the island after China’s announcement that it had wrapped up its war games.

North Korea blew up parts of two major roads connected to the southern part of the peninsula on Tuesday, South Korean authorities said, after Pyongyang warned it would take steps to completely cut off its territory from the South.

Parts of the Gyeongui line on the West coast and Donghae line on the East coast, two major road and railway links connecting the North and South, were destroyed by explosives at around 12 p.m. Korean local time, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

In practical terms, the destruction of the travel routes makes little difference – the two Koreas remain divided by one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders and the roads were not in use for years. But its symbolism comes at a time of particularly fiery rhetoric between the two Korean leaders.

Video shared by the South Korean Defense Ministry showed several explosions on roads on the north side of the military demarcation line that separates two Koreas. Heavy machinery including trucks and excavators were then deployed to at least one of the roads, which was partially blocked by a black barrier, according to the video. The JCS said the North was conducting “additional works with heavy machinery” at the scene, but didn’t specify further.

In response to the explosions, the South Korean military fired artillery within the area south of the military demarcation line and is closely monitoring the North Korean military’s movements, maintaining “fully readiness posture under cooperation with the US,” the JCS said.

On Monday, South Korea said it had detected signs that North Korea was preparing to demolish roads that connect the two countries, warning that the explosions could occur imminently. Its military had implemented countermeasures, the Defense Ministry said, but did not provide specifics.

A spokesman for the JCS, Lee Sung-joon, said the South Korean military detected people working behind barriers installed on the roads on the North’s side of the border.

The blasts come a few days after North Korea accused South Korea of flying propaganda-filled drones over its capital Pyongyang and threatened “retaliation,” in the latest tit-for-tat exchange following months of Pyongyang sending trash-laden balloons to the South.

Last week, North Korea’s army warned that it would take the “substantial military step” of completely cutting off its territory from South Korea, after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un scrapped a longstanding policy of seeking peaceful reunification with the South earlier this year.

North and South Korea have been separated since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice agreement. The two sides are still technically at war, but both governments had long sought the goal of one day reunifying.

In January, Kim said North Korea would no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with South Korea, calling inter-Korean relations “a relationship between two hostile countries and two belligerents at war,” KCNA reported at the time.

An ‘acute military situation’

In a statement carried by state-run news agency KCNA on October 9, the general staff of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) declared that remaining roads and railways connected to the South would be completely cut, blocking access along the border.

“The acute military situation prevailing on the Korean peninsula requires the armed forces of the DPRK to take a more resolute and stronger measure in order to more creditably defend the national security,” he said in the KCNA notice that referred to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The general staff said the measures were a response to recent “war exercises” held in South Korea and visits by what it claims were US strategic nuclear assets in the region. Over the past year, a US aircraft carrier, amphibious assault ships, long-range bombers and submarines have visited South Korea, drawing angry rebukes from Pyongyang.

Since January, Pyongyang has fortified its border defenses, laying land mines, building anti-tank traps and removing railway infrastructure, according to the South Korean military.

The North and South Korean leaders have also ramped up the use of fiery rhetoric.

Earlier this month, Kim threatened to use nuclear weapons to destroy South Korea if attacked, after South Korea’s president warned that if the North used nuclear weapons it would “face the end of its regime.”

The comments came as North Korea appears to have intensified its nuclear production efforts and strengthened ties with Russia, deepening widespread concern in the West over the isolated nation’s direction.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, suggests North Korea’s move to cut its territory off from the South could be a way for Kim to “shift blame for its economic failures and legitimize its costly buildup of missiles and nuclear weapons” by exaggerating external threats.

“Kim Jong Un wants domestic and international audiences to believe he is acting out of military strength, but he may actually be motivated by political weakness,” he said. “North Korea’s threats, both real and rhetorical, reflect the regime survival strategy of a hereditary dictatorship.”

She appeared to be a beautiful woman and in the minds of men across Asia, the video calls they spoke on confirmed their newfound love was real.

But Hong Kong police say the men had fallen prey to a romance scam that used deepfake artificial intelligence to lure its victims into parting with more than $46 million.

In a news conference Monday, police in the Asian financial hub announced the arrests of more than two dozen members of the alleged scam ring, which they say targeted men from Taiwan to Singapore and as far away as India.

Police said the 21 men and six women were held on charges including conspiracy to defraud following a raid on the gang’s alleged operating center at a 4,000-square-foot industrial unit in the city’s Hung Hom district.

Aged 21 to 34, the suspects were mostly well-educated, with many of them digital media and technology graduates allegedly recruited by the gang after attending local universities, police said. The suspects allegedly worked with IT specialists overseas to build a fake cryptocurrency platform, where the victims were coerced to make investments, police added.

Deepfakes are comprised of realistic fake video, audio and other content created with the help of AI. The technology is being increasingly adopted by a variety of bad actors, from people wishing to spread convincing disinformation to online scammers.

“Pig-butchering” scams – named for the “fattening up” of victims before taking everything they have – are a multibillion-dollar illicit industry in which the con artists take on false online identities and spend months grooming their targets to get them to invest on bogus crypto sites. Deepfakes are one more weapon in their arsenal to try and convince unsuspecting marks to part with money.

Typically run by Chinese gangs out of Southeast Asia, it is unclear how widespread the crime is in Hong Kong, a wealthy city where police have long campaigned to raise awareness of telephone scams following several high-profile cases in which the victims –often elderly people – reported staggeringly high losses.

But increasingly realistic deepfake technology has raised the stakes and put authorities on high alert.

Earlier this year, a British multinational design and engineering company in Hong Kong lost $25 million to fraudsters after an employee was duped by scammers using deepfake tech to pose as its chief financial officer and other staff.

According to Hong Kong police, the romance gang’s deepfake scam typically began with a text message, in which the sender – posing as an attractive woman – said they had mistakenly added the wrong number.

The alleged scammers then struck up online romances with their victims, fostering a sense of intimacy until they began planning a future together.

The group was highly organized, divided into departments responsible for different stages of the scam, police said. They even used a training manual to teach members how to carry out the con by taking advantage of “the victim’s sincerity and emotion,” said police, who posted parts of the manual on Facebook.

Among the steps: learning about the victim’s worldview to create a “tailor-made” persona; inventing difficulties such as failed relationships or businesses to “deepen the other person’s trust”; and finally, painting a “beautiful vision” including travel plans together to push the victim into investing.

The scam ran for about a year before police received intelligence about it around August, police said. More than 100 cell phones, the equivalent of nearly $26,000 in cash and a number of luxury watches were recovered in the raid, police said.