Who is Hashem Safieddine, Hezbollah’s potential next leader?

After Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, several media outlets and experts named Hashem Safieddine as Nasrallah’s most likely successor.

What is known about Hashem Safieddine?

▪️ Hashem Safieddine heads the Executive Council, which coordinates Hezbollah's political affairs and civilian activities, including communications, education, health, economics, and trade unions.

▪️ Safieddine also sits on the Jihad Council, which manages the group's military operations.

▪️ Overall, he has been part of Hezbollah's structure since the group's founding in 1982.

Early years and studies

▪️ Safieddine, a maternal cousin of Nasrallah, was born in 1964 in the town of Deir Qanoun En Nahr in southern Lebanon’s Tyre district.

▪️ Just like Nasrallah, Safieddine is recognized as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, which grants him the noscript of sayyed and the right to wear a black turban.

▪️ He studied theology in Iraq and Iran alongside Nasrallah, and was summoned back to Beirut in 1994 to head the Executive Council.

▪️ Safieddine’s son is married to Zeinab Soleimani, the daughter of the late Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

Prominent statements

Safieddine has appeared openly at political and religious events, as well as funerals of slain Hezbollah fighters. His public statements have reflected the Lebanese group’s commitment to the Palestinian cause.

“Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you. Everything we have is with you,” Safieddine said in October 2023 in Dahiyeh.

Safieddine weighed in on how Hezbollah views its leadership succession in a July speech, saying: “In our resistance … when any leader is martyred, another takes up the flag and goes on with new, certain, strong determination.”

Safieddine was designated as Hezbollah’s next leader in the event that "the Zionists succeed in assassinating Hassan Nasrallah" at a general meeting in 2008, Iranian newspaper Khoursid reported.

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📹 Israeli operation to assassinate Hezbollah leader reconstructed by Arab media

A video made by the TV channel Al Arabiya has recreated the chronology of events from the arrival of Hezbollah’s leadership to the moment of their liquidation. Six buildings and the bunker beneath them were razed to the ground.

Israel reportedly dropped more than 80 bombs weighing one ton each to eliminate Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanese media earlier showed what the site where Nasrallah was killed now looks like.

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Al-Mayadeen TV reports Israeli aggression in Yemen, stating that more than 10 airstrikes have hit the port of Hodeidah. Israel Defense Forces have confirmed the attacks.

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🇷🇺🇮🇷 Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will visit Iran on Monday, where he will hold talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The two leaders plan to discuss Russo-Iranian cooperation in economic, cultural and humanitarian spheres. They will pay particular attention to the major joint projects in the transport, energy, industrial and agricultural sectors.

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What would an election win for Austria’s right-wing FPO mean?

The right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) is poised to secure its first win in Austria’s parliamentary elections. That would follow a string of successes for right-wing parties across Europe on a wave of anti-European Union (EU) and anti-Ukraine conflict opinion.

◻️ Austria is electing its 28th National Council, the lower house of the bicameral parliament.

◻️ The FPO, led by former interior minister Herbert Kickl, was at around 27% in pre-election polls, with the governing center-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP) on 25% and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) on 21%, according to European aggregator PolitPro.

◻️ In June, the FPO came top for the first time in European Parliament elections, which also saw gains by other European right-wing parties.

Kickl has campaigned on pledges to push back against the EU’s “forced multiculturalism, globalization and mass immigration,” and has called for “re-migration of “unwanted strangers” to their country of origin.

◻️ On the Ukraine conflict, the FPO has criticized Western military aid to Ukraine, slammed the "madness” of anti-Russia sanctions that are “destroying the well-being of Austria” and opposed Ukraine's accession to the EU.

FPO MPs walked out of parliament during an address by Ukrainian lead Volodymyr Zelensky in March 2023, arguing his speech violated Austria's neutrality.

◻️ The FPO calls for a two-gender constitutional determination to promote family as “a partnership between a man and a woman with common children”.

Since it is not projected to win outright, the FPO would need to seek coalition partners to form a government. But Chancellor Karl Nehammer of the governing OVP has ruled out teaming up with Kickl.

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📹 'Hands off Lebanon': mass protests against the Israeli bombing of Beirut took place in the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Utrecht

“If they attack the Hezbollah army, that's fine, they are military, but they are attacking citizens and destroying buildings,” one protester said. “It takes several years to build a building and they destroy it in one second.”

"Here in the Netherlands, in Utrecht we noticed and we said: ‘What the hell is happening? We should say something,’ because our government is failing to contain this violence," another demonstrator stated.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyed Hassan Nasrallah would lead to a strengthening and growth of the resistance group, as well as greater motivation and increased support for its struggles.

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The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that “during the intelligence-based strikes, the IAF [Israeli Air Force] struck approximately 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and deep inside Lebanese territory.”

“Among the assets struck were significant headquarters used by Hezbollah’s different units and infrastructure used by Hezbollah operatives to plan and carry out terrorist activities against the State of Israel,” the IDF statement added.

“Our message is clear – for us, no place is too far,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

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☠️ Act of mercy or a legal murder: who promotes euthanasia and why? Part 1 👉 Part 2

The origins of the modern right-to-die movement can be traced back to the Club of Rome’s liberal humanist agenda and concerns about overpopulation and climate change began presenting assisted dying as a humane way to end suffering. More recently, the World Economic Forum has taken up the euthanasia agenda, actively discussing it since at least 2009.

Which countries allow euthanasia?

◻️ In 2002, the Netherlands and Belgium became the first countries in the world to legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, followed by Luxembourg, Colombia, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, most of Australia’s states, Austria, and most recently, Portugal and Ecuador. Switzerland has allowed passive assisted suicide since the 1940s, although active, doctor-assisted euthanasia is illegal.

◻️ Assisted dying is not to be confused with passive euthanasia (i.e. refusal of treatment or withdrawal from life support), which is legal in most of Europe, North and South America, and a sprinkling of countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

◻️ In Russia, Belarus, Belize and Kenya, all forms of euthanasia are prohibited by law.

How did euthanasia laws become more liberal?

◾️ Belgium's 2002 Euthanasia Act originally allowed assisted suicide for adults facing "unbearable suffering." In 2013, it was extended to terminally ill children with parental consent.

◾️ In Colombia, the decriminalization of euthanasia for adults in 2014 led to the practice being approved for children as young as six – and without parental consent after age 14, in 2018. In 2022, Colombia decriminalized assisted suicide for non-terminally ill people suffering from “severe health conditions.”

◾️ In Canada, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals passed doctor-assisted suicide legislation in 2016 for terminally ill mentally competent adults. It was expanded in 2021 to include incurable illnesses, and in 2023, plans to include mental illness were delayed until 2027, with Health Minister Mark Holland citing a need for staff training.

When did euthanasia cases open Pandora’s Box?

🔹 Amir Farsoud, a disabled St. Catherines, Ontario man in his 50s struggling from chronic back pain who applied for assisted suicide under Canada’s MAiD laws after losing his rented housing and being put at risk of homelessness. Farsoud was saved after his story went viral, with a GoFundMe page raising over $60,000 for his rent.

🔹 Alan Nichols, another Canadian, was not so lucky. The 61-year-old, who lost his hearing at age 12 and suffered a stroke in his later years, applied for physician-assisted suicide in 2019. His relatives were not informed of the decision, and he was euthanized by lethal injection. “Alan was basically put to death,” his brother told the Associated Press in 2022.

🔹 In 2021, a story in New Zealand revealed that COVID-19 patients deemed terminally ill qualified for euthanasia under the 2019 End of Life Choice Act. Local anti-euthanasia campaigners said the story highlighted “the lax nature of the already existing qualifying criteria” for assisted suicide procedures.

👉 Part 2

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☠️ Act of mercy or a legal murder: who promotes euthanasia and why? Part 2 👉 Part 1

Lucrative business

◻️ In Switzerland and Belgium, assisted dying has apparently become a lucrative business, with foreigners traveling to the countries in droves. In 2020 alone, Dignitas, a non-profit Swiss clinics, counted 3,248 assisted suicide cases, most of them foreigners. Belgium, where assisted dying can only be performed by doctors, was dubbed the world’s “euthanasia capital” by Forbes in 2019, and allows qualified applicants to be euthanized for about $3,500.

◻️ In Canada, lobbying promoting assisted dying has taken an ugly turn, with a 2017 Canadian Medical Association Journal report touting how up to $136.8 million CAD could be saved annually on health care costs through euthanasia. The passage of the ‘Medical Assistance in Dying’ (MAiD) program has also resulted in a dramatic surge in assisted suicide deaths, from 1,018 in 2016 to 13,241 in 2022 – accounting for over 4% of all deaths in Canada that year.

◻️ In 2009 British psychotherapist and author Colin Feltham penned an eye-opening op-ed in The Guardian where he argued that “there are good reasons for arguing that a stabilization or gradual reduction in population would be the best way to address the carbon emissions problem,” and that assisted dying programs were one possible way to do so.

Who’s funding pro-euthanasia propaganda?

🔹 In 1998, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations published a ‘Project on Death in America’ report, detailing hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to Dartmouth College, Stanford, Staten Island University Hospital and other academic, medical and cultural institutions for research, education and public policy discussions about death, including physician-assisted suicide, which Soros hoped might “influence the culture of dying” in America. After shelling out $45 million in grants, the project closed in 2003 after being deemed to have “completed all grantmaking.”

🔹 In March 2024, US lawmakers grilled Pfizer after discovering links between the pharmaceuticals giant and Dying with Dignity Canada, the lobbying group “owning the conversation around assisted deaths” in Canada, with media discovering that Pfizer makes three of the lethal drugs recommended by the MAiD program for assisted deaths. Other donors included Google, United Way, and the San Diego chapter of the Hemlock Society – a right-to-die advocacy group that George Soros’ mother Elizabeth was a member of.

🔹 In the UK, the pro-euthanasia lobby has reportedly received a sympathetic ear from the publicly-funded BBC, and consists of a series of partisan nonprofits funded by little-known groups like the AB Charitable Trust – created in 1990 by former hedge fund manager Yves Bonavero and his wife, which seems to be involved in backing an array of assisted dying lobbying groups, including the Citizens Jury, Humanists UK and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

👉 Part 1

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Sputnik's correspondent in Lebanon, Ahmed Muhammad, lost close relatives today in an Israeli air raid in the eastern suburb of Saida.

The attack on the densely populated area caused a multi-story residential building to collapse, with official reports confirming at least 32 dead and more than 50 injured.

According to Sputnik’s information from the scene, around 40 people are still missing.

It has been confirmed that among the victims were at least two close relatives of our colleague. The fate of two others remains unknown, while three were taken to the hospital in critical condition, where doctors are still fighting to save their lives.

Rescue efforts are ongoing.

This Israeli attack can be considered one of the most brutal in terms of civilian casualties in a single location throughout the nearly year-long conflict.

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◻️ Who is Hashem Safieddine, Hezbollah’s potential next leader?

◻️ Europe struggles to boost arms production

◻️ Who promotes euthanasia and why?

◻️ What would an election win for Austria’s right-wing FPO mean?

◻️ China sets two world records with help of over 10,000 drones

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