U.S. tech enabled #China’s surveillance empire. Now Tibetan refugees in Nepal are paying the price.


Those eyes have served as a symbol of sanctuary for generations of Tibetans fleeing the Chinese crackdown in their homeland. But today, Tibetan refugees are also watched by far more malevolent eyes: Thousands of CCTV cameras from China, perched on street corners and rooftops to monitor every movement below. This intense surveillance has stifled the once-vibrant Free Tibet movement that had resonated around the world.

Nepal is just one of at least 150 countries to which Chinese companies are supplying surveillance technology, from cameras in Vietnam to censorship firewalls in Pakistan to citywide monitoring systems in Kenya. This technology is now a key part of China’s push for global influence, as it provides cash-strapped governments cost-effective, if invasive, forms of policing — turning algorithms and data into a force multiplier for control.

The irony at the heart of this digital authoritarianism is that the surveillance tools China exports are based on technology developed in its greatest rival, the United States, despite warnings that Chinese firms would buy, copy or outright steal American designs, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

For decades, Silicon Valley firms often yielded to Beijing’s demands: Give us your technology and we will give you access to our market. Although tensions fester between Washington and Beijing, the links between American tech and Chinese surveillance continue today.

For example, Amazon Web Services offers cloud services to Chinese tech giants like Hikvision and Dahua, assisting them in their overseas push. Both are on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List for national security and human-rights concerns, which means transactions with them are not illegal but subject to strict restrictions.

AWS told AP it adheres to ethical codes of conduct, complies with U.S. law, and does not itself offer surveillance infrastructure. Dahua said they conduct due diligence to prevent abuse of their products. Hikvision said the same, and that they “categorically reject any suggestion that the company is involved in or complicit in repression.”

Chinese technology firms now offer a complete suite of telecommunications, surveillance, and digital infrastructure, with few restrictions on who they sell to or how they’re used.

China pitches itself as a global security model with low crime rates, contrasting its record with the United States, said Sheena Greitens, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

“It’s got a set of solutions that it’s happy to share with the world that nobody else can offer,” she said. “(But) they’re certainly exporting the tools and techniques that are very important to authoritarian rule.”

The AP investigation was based on thousands of Nepali government procurement documents, corporate marketing material, leaked government and corporate documents, and interviews with more than 40 people, including Tibetan refugees and Nepali, American and Chinese engineers, executives, experts and officials.

While thousands of Tibetans once fled to Nepal every year, the number is now down to the single digits, according to Tibetan officials in Nepal. In a statement to AP, the Tibetan government in exile cited tight border controls, Nepal’s warming ties with China and “unprecedented surveillance” as reasons for the drastic plunge.

A 2021 internal Nepali government report, obtained by AP, revealed that China has even built surveillance systems within Nepal and in some areas of the border buffer zone where construction is banned by bilateral agreements. In a statement to AP, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied coercing Western companies to hand over technology or working with Nepal to surveil Tibetans, calling it a “sheer fabrication driven by ulterior motives.”

“Attempts to use Tibet-related issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs, smear China’s image, and poison the atmosphere of China-Nepal cooperation will never succeed,” the statement said.

The Nepali government and the Chinese-controlled Tibetan authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

Under pressure, many Tibetans are responding the only way they can: Leaving. The Tibetan population in Nepal has plunged from over 20,000 to half that or less today.

Former activist Sonam Tashi gave up protesting years ago. Now 49, today he’s just a father trying to get his 10-year-old son out — before the net pulls tighter. The boy was born in Nepal but has no document proving he is either a refugee or a citizen, a result of Chinese pressure.

Tashi described how those considered likely to protest are picked up in advance around key dates — like March 10, which marks the 1959 Tibetan uprising, or July 6, the Dalai Lama’s birthday. In 2018, Nepal’s police magazine confirmed that it was building predictive policing, which allows officers to watch people’s movements, identify in advance who they think will protest and arrest them preemptively.

“There are cameras everywhere,” Tashi said, sitting on a bus winding toward the Indian border. “There is no future.”
‘They gave us all the hardware’

After China crushed a Tibetan uprising in 1959, thousands fled across the Himalayas to Nepal, carrying only what they could: Religious paintings, prayer wheels and the weight of families left behind.

Their exodus, led by the charismatic Dalai Lama, captured the American imagination, with Hollywood films and actor Richard Gere’s congressional appeals putting Tibet in the spotlight. Washington trod a careful line, defending the rights and religious freedom of Tibetans without recognizing independence.

Today, the future of the Free Tibet movement is in question. Without refugee cards that grant basic rights, Tibetans in Nepal can no longer open bank accounts, work legally or leave the country.

Cameras are now everywhere in Kathmandu, perched on traffic lights and swiveling from temple eaves. Most link back to a four-story brick building just a few blocks down from the Chinese embassy, where officers watch the country in real time.

The building hums with the low breath of cooling fans. Inside, a wall of monitors blinks with feeds from border towns, busy markets and clogged traffic crossings.

Officers in crisp blue uniforms and red caps sit in the glow, scanning scenes. Beneath the screens, a photo published in a Nepali daily shows, a sign in English and Chinese reads: “With the compliments of the Ministry of Public Security of China.”

Their reach is vast.

Operators can track a motorbike weaving through the capital, follow a protest as it forms, or patch an alert directly to patrol radios. Many cameras are equipped with night vision facial recognition and AI tracking — able to pick a single face out of a festival crowd or lock onto a figure until it disappears indoors. The system not only sees but is learning to remember, storing patterns of movement, building a record of lives lived under its gaze.

A 34-year-old Tibetan cafe owner in the city watched the city change in quiet horror. “Now you can only be Tibetan in private,” he said. He and other Tibetans in Nepal spoke to AP anonymously, fearing retaliation.

The first cameras in Boudhanath were installed in 2012, officially to deter crime. But after a Tibetan monk doused himself in petrol and set himself ablaze in front of the stupa in 2013, police added 35 night vision cameras around it.

The Chinese embassy in Kathmandu worked closely with the police, said Rupak Shrestha, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada who studied surveillance in Nepal. He said the police received special training to use the new cameras, identify potential symbols associated with the Free Tibet movement and anticipate dissent.

In 2013, a team of Nepal Police officers crossed the northern border into Tibet for a seemingly straightforward mission: Collect police radios from Chinese authorities in Zhangmu, a remote border town, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Kathmandu. A truck was loaded with equipment and a few handshakes later, they were driving back to Kathmandu.

The radios — made by the partly state-owned Chinese firm Hytera — looked like walkie-talkies but ran on a digital trunking system, a scaled-down mobile network for police use. Officers could talk privately, coordinate across districts, even patch into public phone lines. The entire system — radios, relay towers, software — was a $5.5 million gift from China.

“They didn’t give us the money,” recalled a retired Nepali officer who made the trip. “They gave all the hardware. All Chinese.”

He remembered not the border guards but the tech — sleek, reliable, and far ahead of anything they’d used before. He spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal discussions.

He said Nepal had initially considered buying the technology from the U.S. and only wanted to deploy the system in its two biggest cities. Hytera was a fraction of the cost and performed comparably, but China also wanted coverage near the border with Tibet. Nepal acquiesced.

They installed the technology in Sindhupalchowk, a border district with a key road to China used by Tibetan refugees. “We understood their mindset,” the retired officer said. “A secure border.”

A police envoy from the Chinese embassy began making regular visits to the Nepal Police headquarters. He’d chat over coffee, flip through brochures from Chinese companies. “He’d say, ‘You want anything?’” the retired officer recalled.

China began donating tens of millions in police aid and surveillance equipment, including a new school for Nepal’s Armed Police Force. Hundreds of Nepali police traveled to China for training on policing and border control, according to Chinese government posts.

Ahead of a summit of South Asian leaders in 2014, among the goods on offer were ones from Uniview, China’s pitch for an all-seeing eye.

The company was the Chinese surveillance business of what was then Hewlett Packard, or HP, before it was spun off in a 2011 deal. Since 2012, Uniview has been selling mass surveillance solutions to the Tibetan police, such as a command center, and developed cameras that track ethnicities such as Uyghurs and Tibetans.

Uniview installed cameras in Kathmandu for Nepal’s first “safe city” project in 2016. It started with the city’s roads, then went up across the capital — in tourist areas, religious sites, high-security zones like Parliament and the prime minister’s home.

The cameras didn’t just record. Some could follow people automatically as they moved. Others were designed to use less data, making it easier to store and review footage.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE, a successor company to HP that sells security solutions, has no ownership in Uniview and declined to comment. Hytera and Uniview did not respond to requests for comment.

Nearly all the cameras installed in Nepal are now made by Chinese companies like Hikvision, Dahua and Uniview, and many come bundled with facial recognition and AI tracking software.

Hikvision’s website and marketing materials advertise camera systems in Nepal linked via Hik-Connect and HikCentral Connect, cloud products that rely on Amazon Web Services. Hikvision sells to the Nepali police and government, and a template for Nepali tenders indicates CCTV cameras procured for the government are required to support Hik-Connect.

In return for Beijing’s support, top Nepali officials have thanked China repeatedly over the years, promising never to allow “anti-China activities” on Nepali territory.

The Nepali police head offices aren’t far from the now-forlorn Tibetan reception center, which used to shelter tired, hungry Tibetans fleeing across the border.

The building is nearly empty. The gates are locked. Those who do escape, like Namkyi, arrested at 15 for protesting Chinese rule, often have to wait for weeks confined indoors until they’re smuggled out again to the Tibetan capital in exile in India.

Silence has become survival.

“They know they are being watched,” she said. “Even though we are free, the surveillance cameras mean we’re actually living in a big prison.”
From clients to competitors

From the start, U.S. companies eager for China’s vast markets exchanged technology for entry.

Many were required to start joint ventures and research operations in China as a precondition for being allowed in. Dozens, if not hundreds, complied, transferring valuable know-how and expertise — even in sensitive areas like encryption or policing.

Little by little, Chinese companies chipped away at the lead of American tech companies by luring talent, obtaining research, and sometimes plain copying their hardware and software. The flow of technology continued, even as U.S. officials openly accused China of economic espionage and pressuring American companies for their technology.

“China is by far the most egregious actor when it comes to forced technology transfer,” Robert D. Atkinson, then-president of a think tank focused on innovation, warned Congress in a 2012 hearing.

American tech resistance came to a final, definitive end later that year with Edward Snowden’s revelations that U.S. intelligence was exploiting American technology to spy on Beijing. Spooked, the Chinese government told Western firms they risked being kicked out unless they handed over their technology and provided security guarantees.

After companies like HP and IBM agreed, their former partners became their fiercest global competitors — and unlike American firms, they faced few questions about the way their technology was being used. Companies like Huawei, Hikvision and Dahua have now become global behemoths that sell surveillance systems and gear all over the world.

American technology was key to this:

- Uniview, the Chinese AI-powered CCTV camera supplier, supplied the first phase of Nepal’s safe city project in 2016, installing cameras in Kathmandu. Uniview was carved out of California-based HP’s China surveillance video business.

- Hytera provided data infrastructure for the Nepali police, such as walkie-talkies and digital trunking technology, which enables real-time communication. Earlier this year, Hytera acknowledged stealing technology from U.S. company Motorola in a plea agreement, and had acquired German, British, Spanish, and American tech businesses in their growth phase.

- Hikvision and Dahua, China’s two largest surveillance camera suppliers, sell many of the cameras now in Nepal. They partnered with Intel and Nvidia to add AI capabilities to surveillance cameras. Those ties ended after U.S. sanctions in 2019, but AWS continues to sell cloud services to both companies, which remains legal under what some lawmakers call a loophole. AWS has advertised to Chinese companies expanding overseas, including at a policing expo in 2023.

- Chinese tech giant Huawei has become one of the world’s leading sellers of surveillance systems, wiring more than 200 cities with sensors. In Nepal, they supplied telecom gear and high-capacity servers at an international airport. Over the years, the company benefited from partnerships with American companies like IBM, and has been dogged by allegations of theft — including copying code from Cisco routers wholesale, a case which Huawei settled out of court in 2004.

Huawei said it provides “general-purpose” products “based on recognized industry standards.” Intel has said it adheres to all laws and regulations where it operates, and cannot control end use of its products. Nvidia has said it does not make surveillance systems or work with police in China at present.

IBM and Cisco declined comment. Policing gear maker Motorola Solutions, a successor company to Motorola after it split, did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. technology transfer to Chinese firms has mostly stopped after growing controversy and a slew of sanctions in the past decade. But industry insiders say it’s too late: China, once a tech backwater, is now among the biggest exporters of surveillance technologies on earth.

Few realized “the U.S. shouldn’t be selling the software to China because they might copy it, they might use it for these types of surveillance and bad stuff,” said Charles Mok, a Hong Kong IT entrepreneur and former lawmaker now living in exile as a research scholar at Stanford. “Nobody was quick enough to realize this could happen.”
‘The great big eye in the sky’

Inside a 15th-century monastery in Lo Manthang in Nepal’s Mustang district, light slants through wooden slats, catching motes of dust and the faded faces of bodhisattvas.

Crumpled notes of Chinese currency lie at the feet of deities in the walled city along the Tibetan border. Here, shops stock Chinese instant noodles and cars with Chinese plates rumble down mountain roads.

A gleaming white observation dome just inside Chinese territory looms over the city. Visible from 15 kilometres (9 miles) away, it’s trained on the district that has long been a refuge for Tibetans, including a guerrilla base in the 1960s.

The dome is just one node in China’s vast 1,389-kilometre (863-mile) border network with Nepal — a “Great Wall of Steel” of fences, sensors and AI-powered drones.

Chinese forces have barred ethnic Tibetans from accessing traditional pastures and performing sacred rites. They have pressured residents of Lo Manthang to remove photos of the Dalai Lama from shops. And a “China-Nepal joint command mechanism” meets several times a month on border patrols and repatriations, according to a post by the Chinese-run Tibetan government.

The result is that the once-porous frontier is now effectively sealed, and China’s digital dragnet reaches deep into the lives of those who live near it.

In April 2024, Rapke Lama was chatting with a friend across the border on WeChat when he received an invitation to meet. He set out from his village and crossed into Tibet — only to be arrested almost immediately.

Lama believes his WeChat exchange was monitored; Chinese police appeared with unsettling precision, as if they knew where to look. After accusing him — wrongly, he maintains — of helping Tibetans flee into Nepal, the police seized his phone, which had photos of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan music. Then came months in a Lhasa prison, where isolation and inadequate medical care hollowed him out.

Lama did not return to Nepal until May 2025, gaunt and shaken. He later said he entered Tibet to harvest caterpillar fungus, valued in traditional Chinese medicine. Another friend who crossed the border remains in custody.

“Even now, I’m scared,” Lama says. He wears masks when wandering the streets, he says, “because of that lingering fear.”

The Chinese observation dome is a giant symbol of the same fear, towering over the border.

“It’s the great big eye in the sky,” said a 73-year-old Tibetan hotel owner in Nepal, who spotted the installation during a trip near the border last year. “For Tibetan refugees, Nepal has become a second China.”

Aniruddha Ghosal And Dake Kang, The Associated Press

Associated Press journalists Niranjan Shrestha and Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Manish Swarup and Rishi Lekhi in New Delhi, Ashwini Bhatia in Dharamshala, India, and David Goldman in Washington contributed to this report.

U.S. interdicting, seizing vessel off Venezuelan coast, officials say:
The United States is interdicting and seizing a vessel off the coast of Venezuela in international waters, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Saturday, a move which comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.

This would mark the second time in recent weeks that the United States has seized a tanker near Venezuela and comes amid a large U.S. military build-up in the region.

The officials, who were speaking on the condition of anonymity, did not say where the operation was taking place but added the Coast Guard was in the lead.

The Coast Guard and Pentagon referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Venezuela’s oil ministry and state oil company PDVSA did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

“I am ordering A TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela,” Trump said on Tuesday.

In the days since U.S. forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week, there has been an effective embargo in place, with loaded vessels carrying millions of barrels of oil staying in Venezuelan waters rather than risk seizure.

Since the first seizure, Venezuelan crude exports have fallen sharply.

3 killed in Taiwan knife attack, with the suspect later falling to his death from a department store.


TAIPEI, Taiwan — A man with at least one knife and smoke grenades attacked crowds indiscriminately in Taiwan’s capital on Friday evening, killing at least three people and injuring nine others, according to the national news agency and the city government. The suspect later fell to his death from a department store building.

Police said that the suspect was declared dead at a hospital after jumping from the building’s sixth floor, the Central News Agency reported.

The suspect, identified as a 27-year-old man named Chang Wen, threw smoke grenades near an underground exit of the Taipei Main metro station, close to the city’s main train station, and randomly attacked people with a “sharp object,” sending pedestrians running, according to media reports.

He then headed north to a popular shopping district, where he threw smoke grenades and stabbed multiple people on the first and fourth floors of the Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store, primarily in the neck, the news agency said, citing police.

Police later revealed that the suspect, between the two scenes, took an underground path to a hotel, where he fetched some “lethal weapon” -- or some kind of edged weapon -- before showing up at a road outside the Zhongshan metro station, near the department store, according to the news agency.

Police said they were yet to find any accomplice and were investigating possible motives. Police said they recovered some “lethal weapons” in both the suspect’s rental home in Taipei and the hotel room where he had stayed for three nights near Zhongshan.

Video footage aired on local television networks showed the suspect, who was wearing a gas mask and clad in black, dropping at least two smoke grenades at the Taipei Main metro station. He was later seen near Eslite and entering the department store while attacking passersby.

Local hospitals reported three deaths from the attacks. The city government said nine others were hospitalized, including one with serious injuries.

Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an told local media that a 57-year-old man immediately tried to stop the suspect at the metro station’s exit, but was fatally wounded. National Taiwan University Hospital told the news agency that the fatal wound was “a penetrating injury about five centimeters in length caused by a sharp object that reached from the right lung to the left atrium.”

Taipei Metro said that a staffer was hospitalized after he inhaled excessive smoke while responding to the attack.

Another man died after he was attacked near the department store, according to EBC News.

A female victim told EBC that she was hit by the suspect outside the department store when she was waiting for her daughter for a dinner appointment.

“It did not feel like a slash -- it felt more like being hit,” she said. “Then it really hurt.”

When she turned around, she said she saw “people lying on the ground and needing first aid because they were bleeding.”

Chang failed to report for reserve military training in November 2024, and he was wanted for violating the law on mandatory military service, the news agency reported. He apparently didn’t report a change in household registration, resulting in nondelivery of his reserve military service summons, the news agency reported, citing a district prosecutors’ office.

#Ukrainian and Polish presidents show unity against Russia, address historical tensions

#Norway crown princess likely to undergo lung #transplant. The princess announced in October 2018 that she had been diagnosed with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable disease that causes scarring of the lungs and shortness of breath.

“We are approaching the time when a lung transplant must be carried out, and we are making the necessary preparations so that it will be possible when the time comes,” Are Martin Holm, head of pulmonary medicine at Oslo University Hospital, said in a statement from the palace.

“It has not yet been decided when the crown princess will be placed on the waiting list for a lung transplant,” Holm said.

The princess spoke of a “very trying” time in an interview with public broadcaster NRK published Friday.

“I had always hoped we could keep the disease under control with medication. The progression has been quite slow until now, but it has now taken a turn different from what the doctors and I had hoped,” she said.

“We have always known, with this disease, that this was the direction it would take, but it’s happening a bit faster than I imagined and hoped,” she added.
Scandal

The princess’s health problems add to the turmoil in the Norwegian royal family following rape allegations against Marius Borg Hoiby, her son from a relationship prior to her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon.

Born Tjessem Hoiby on Aug. 19, 1973, to an alcoholic father and a bank employee mother in Kristiansand, in Norway’s “Bible Belt,” Mette-Marit has admitted to a tumultuous youth.

In the early 1990s, she was part of Oslo’s house music scene, where drugs circulated abundantly.

But she won the hearts of Norwegians after her 2001 marriage to Prince Haakon, with whom she has two children.

The princess has at times had to limit her public appearances and go on sick leave due to her condition, most recently in October.

“This autumn, several tests have been conducted that show a clear deterioration in the crown princess’s health,” the palace said.

It said she would continue her public engagements as long as she felt well enough to do so.

However, in recent months it is chiefly her son Marius Borg Hoiby who has been making headlines.

In the worst scandal ever to hit Norway’s royal family, the 28-year-old is facing charges of four rapes and 28 other counts, including abuse of former partners.

Hoiby, who denies the charges, is scheduled to go on trial in February and faces up to 10 years in prison.

By Pierre-Henry Deshayes

Russian journalist proposes to girlfriend during Putin’s TV marathon, Under the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower, during a romantic walk on a tropical beach, or nestled in a quiet corner of your favourite restaurant? Planning the perfect proposal is a struggle familiar to would-be newlyweds the world over.

Halfway through Vladimir Putin’s end-of-year press conference -- televised across Russia and coming after the Russian leader threatened to level Ukrainian cities and not back down in his nearly four-year military offensive in the country -- is not high on many lovers’ list.

For regional journalist Kirill Bazhanov, it was just the moment.

Dressed in a red bow tie and holding a poster reading “I want to get married”, Bazhanov caught the eye of the longtime ruler and got his chance.

“I know that my girlfriend is watching the press conference now. Olechka, marry me!” he said, drawing applause from the audience of mostly pro-government regional journalists.

Putin uses his hours-long TV marathon both as a forum for fiery foreign policy statements and to offer up all sorts of advice on love and family matters, recite poetry or promise to fix potholes.

Bazhanov, who went on to ask about a question about the high cost of living in Russia, was made to wait for his answer.

After an hour or so, the hosts interrupted Putin to deliver the happy news. Olechka had said yes. Cue fresh whoops and applause.

#Putin did not respond to the invitation to attend the upcoming nuptials, but did offer to organise a whip-round.

“Kirill was just asking about the material conditions for young families. And that’s right -- a man should be the breadwinner. Now we’ll pass the hat around and collect at least enough for the wedding,” he said.

The #US #military said it killed five more alleged drug traffickers aboard two vessels in the Pacific Ocean, bringing the divisive campaign’s death toll to over 100.

#Brazil’s Senate passes bill that could reduce #Bolsonaro’s 27-year prison sentence.


SAO PAULO — #Brazil’s Senate has passed a bill that could significantly reduce the 27-year prison sentence of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was arrested in November for attempting a coup.

The Chamber of Deputies had already approved the text, and it now goes to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for signature.

Gleisi Hoffmann, Minister of Institutional Relations, said Wednesday evening that Lula will veto the bill.

“Those convicted of attacking democracy must pay for their crimes,” Hoffmann said on X, calling it a “sign of disrespect for the Supreme Court’s decision and a serious setback to legislation that protects democracy.”

The text is also expected to be challenged at the Supreme Court.

The bill reduces the final sentences of defendants convicted under multiple charges stemming from the coup attempt, including Bolsonaro.

The former president’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court after his conviction, saying his prison term was excessive. They also argued that the sentences for abolishing the rule of law and attempting a coup should not be added because they arose from a single episode.

The proposed law would speed up sentence progression from harsher to more lenient prison regimes for those convicted.

There is no consensus on how much time Bolsonaro would actually serve if the bill takes effect. Under current rules, the former president could move to a less restrictive prison system after seven years if he met legal requirements while incarcerated.

Paulinho da Força, the bill’s rapporteur in the Chamber of Deputies, has estimated that period could be cut to just over two years if the law passes.

The bill would also allow sentence reductions of up to two-thirds for crimes committed in a crowd, benefiting defendants convicted of storming public buildings during the Jan. 8, 2023, insurrection in Brasilia.

Under the bill, those who did not finance or lead the actions could receive reductions ranging from one-third to two-thirds.

Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of the former president and a prospective presidential candidate in next year’s election, praised fellow lawmakers for approving the bill, calling it a “first step.”

“There shouldn’t even be a debate about amnesty, but about annulling the farce that the entire process was,” he said.

Sen. Bolsonaro is expected to challenge Lula, who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, as the candidate of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party in the 2026 presidential race.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of Brazilians protested against the bill. Demonstrations took place in the capital Brasilia and in other major cities across the country, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife.

Gabriela Sá Pessoa, The Associated Press

Exclusive: Poland to start producing anti-personnel mines to lay along eastern borde

Israel fires mortar into Gaza residential area, wounding at least 10.

JERUSALEM — Israeli troops fired a mortar shell over the ceasefire line into a Palestinian residential area in the Gaza Strip, in the latest incident to rock the tenuous ceasefire with Hamas. Health officials said at least 10 people were wounded, and the army said it was investigating.

The military said the mortar was fired during an operation in the area of the “Yellow Line,” which was drawn in the ceasefire agreement and divides the Israeli-held majority of Gaza from the rest of the territory.

The military did not say what troops were doing or whether they had crossed the line. It said the mortar had veered from its intended target, which it did not specify.

Fadel Naeem, director of Al-Ahli Hospital, said the hospital received 10 people wounded in the strike on central Gaza City, some critically.

It was not the first time since the ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10 that Israeli fire has caused Palestinian casualties outside the Yellow Line. Palestinian health officials have reported over 370 deaths from Israeli fire since the truce.

Israel has said it has opened fire in response to Hamas violations, and says most of those killed have been Hamas militants. But an Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military protocol, said the army is aware of a number of incidents where civilians were killed, including young children and a family traveling in a van.

Palestinians say civilians have been killed in some cases because the line is poorly marked. Israeli troops have been laying down yellow blocks to delineate it, but in some areas the blocks have not yet been placed.

The Israel-Hamas ceasefire is struggling to reach its next phase, with both sides accusing each other of violations. The first phase involved the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. The second is supposed to involve the deployment of an international stabilization force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.

The remains of one hostage, Ran Gvili, are still in Gaza, and the militants appear to be struggling to find it. Israel is demanding the return of Gvili’s remains before moving to the second phase.

Hamas is calling for more international pressure on Israel to open key border crossings, cease deadly strikes and allow more aid into the strip.

Julia Frankel, The Associated Press