Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, which Romania has not recognised.

Romanian and Kosovar football players have been told to leave the pitch in Bucharest for 45 minutes after home fans directed pro-Serbia chants at the opposing team.

The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) said the European Championship 2024 qualifying game on Tuesday was stopped “due to discriminatory language from supporters”.

Romanian fans chanted and displayed banners reading, “Kosovo is Serbia,” stopping the game after 18 minutes with the score at 0-0.

Videos of the chants were posted on social media.

UEFA will open a disciplinary case against the team for making a prohibited political statement at a game.

https://x.com/onegreenx/status/1701714244935237965?s=20

In 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia and won recognition from more than 100 countries but not from Romania.

Serbia and Kosovo remain at odds with tension flaring this year after local elections in Kosovo led to violent clashes.

During the pause in game time, Romania captain Nicolae Stanciu tried to reason with fans. If the game had been abandoned, Romania would have forfeited it as a 3-0 loss, damaging its chance to qualify for the Euro 2024 competition in Germany.

But play continued and Stanciu scored in the 83rd minute of the game. Valentin Mihaila aded another goal, scoring in stoppage time, as Romania won 2-0.

The unbeaten team is in second spot behind Switzerland in their six-team group. Kosovo is fifth in their group.

By November, the top two teams from each group will advance to the finals tournament.

A New Jersey business owner was arrested for using a drone to dye people’s swimming pools green.

Morocco declared a three-day period of mourning after an earthquake killed at least 2,800 people and more than 2,500 were injured.1 2 In Marrakesh, hundreds of people slept outside, parts of the Old City were destroyed, and historic 12th-century walls were damaged.3 4 5 The epicenter of the disaster was in the High Atlas Mountains, where residents of many hard-to-reach villages, some of which are accessible only by helicopter, described digging people out of rubble with their bare hands.6 Two days after the earthquake, buildings were still collapsing, and the Moroccan palace had only accepted aid from a handful of countries, despite offers from a number of nations to send search-and-rescue teams, sniffer dogs, and medical professionals to help in the aftermath.7 8 Critics said there may have been an hours-long delay in rescue efforts because King Mohammed VI, who has been accused of ruling the country from his French residence, was not around to authorize the provision of assistance.9 At least 2,000 people were killed in Libya, according to one count, when storms hit the eastern part of the country, causing a dam to collapse and buildings to flood.10 In Brazil, a cyclone killed at least 42 people and displaced thousands more, and residents of the town of Muçum, 85% of which was flooded, were rescued from rooftops by helicopters.11 12 13 “This is something else—an extreme, extreme weather event,” said a researcher in Greece, where rain has battered the country, killing at least 15 and almost completely submerging multiple villages.14 15 16 “The amount of rain that has fallen here is unseen before,” said the mayor of Tsarevo, Bulgaria, where extensive damage was caused by Storm Daniel, the same storm that killed at least seven people in Turkey.17 18 Two people died in flash flooding that hit Hong Kong and parts of southern China, researchers announced that Antarctica had experienced extreme precipitation in the last year, the semifinal of the U.S. Open was interrupted by climate protesters, one of whom glued their bare feet to the ground, and another climate protester hit the CEO of Ryanair in the face with a cream cake.19 20 21 22

A man escaped from a prison in Philadelphia by crab-walking up a wall, another man escaped from a London prison by hiding under a food delivery truck, and the “jailbreak king” went on trial in France.23 24 25 A criminal defense lawyer in Toronto said some of her clients would rather remain incarcerated than deal with the city’s housing crisis.26 Police arrested a man wanted for armed robbery who had previously eluded them using cars, sailboats, bikes, paddleboards, and tractors.27 A man was arrested after trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a giant hamster wheel, and Irish police detected more than 860 speeding drivers on “Slow Down Day.”28 29 A New Jersey business owner was arrested for using a drone to dye people’s swimming pools green, and Russia hired a priest to teach children how to fly combat drones.30 31 “I returned to the Russia of my dreams—or even better than my dreams,” said Viktor A. Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death,” who ran for regional office in Ulyanovsk, the birthplace of Lenin.32 “We are not part of any mad cult or crazy clubs,” said a café in Lincolnshire, England, after they hosted a yoga session that a pair of passing dog walkers mistook for “ritual mass murder.”33 A man in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to buying and selling human remains stolen from Harvard Medical School and an Arkansas mortuary, and an ancient human skull was donated to a Goodwill in Arizona.34 35 In China, two construction workers looking for a shortcut dug a hole through a Ming dynasty-era part of the Great Wall, and a draft law was introduced that would ban people from wearing clothes that “hurt the nation’s feelings.”36 37

A couple demanded Singapore Airlines reimburse them after they spent a 13-hour flight next to a snorting, drooling, and farting dog, Air Canada kicked two passengers off a flight for refusing to sit in seats with “visible vomit residue,” and a Delta plane flying from Atlanta to Barcelona was asked to turn around after a passenger had diarrhea “all the way through the airplane.”38 39 40 “I was shocked but I was also … a little bit impressed,” said the Australian owner of a plant nursery, after discovering a koala named Claude had eaten several thousand seedlings of plants intended to boost koala habitats in New South Wales.41 “He took three White Claws, drank, and left very happy,” said a Florida resident whose mini-fridge was broken into by a three-legged bear.42 More than 300 illegally trapped migratory songbirds, often used in singing competitions in which owners gamble thousands of dollars, were either released or given veterinary treatment after their captors were indicted.43 “These birds are stressed right now,” said a researcher about flamingos that have been spotted as far west as Ohio as they flee Hurricane Idalia.44 Australia declared “war” on feral cats, police shot the tires of a backhoe driven by a suspect who intended to knock down an animal shelter, and PawPatrol snacks were recalled after it was discovered that a URL on their packaging directed consumers to a porn website.45 46 47 A German shepherd snuck out of her owner’s house to attend a Metallica concert.48 —Megan Evershed

UK losing belief that hard work brings better life, and fewer millennials now think work always comes first, survey indicates

In the great “live to work or work to live” debate, Britons have traditionally been seen to fall into the first group. But research appears to turn that reputation on its head.

According to a study of 24 countries, Britons are less likely than people from elsewhere to place importance on work. Increasingly, they also no longer believe that hard work brings a better life.

Nearly one-fifth of British people in the study said that work was not important in their life, the highest proportion among the 24 countries, which included France, Sweden, the US, Nigeria, Japan and China.

Britons were also among the least likely to say that work should always come first over leisure time, according to the research by the Policy Institute at King’s College London.

People in the UK ranked low for believing that hard work would bring a better life in the long run. Just 39% of people held this opinion, leading to a ranking of 12th out of 18 countries and a decline since a peak in the early 2000s. This is notably below the US, where 55% of people hold this view.

The study also reveals generational differences. While most generations’ opinions on whether work should always come first have remained stable, millennials, born in the early 1980s to mid-1990s, have become much less likely to agree with this view: in 2009, 41% felt this way; by 2022, this had fallen to 14%.

read more: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/07/britons-view-work-less-important-other-nationalities-study

Scientists think a massive volcanic eruption left behind enough lithium at the McDermitt Caldera to power the EV transition for decades.

The site of a former supervolcano at the Oregon and Nevada border could turn out to be the largest lithium deposit in the U.S. and, possibly, the world. New research suggests that the McDermitt Caldera could contain over 132 million tons of lithium, which is enough to meet global demand for decades. This could give the U.S. a massive boost to its EV supply chain, and from a domestic source, no less.

The amount of lithium at the caldera has the potential to dwarf that of the former largest known lithium deposit in the world, the Atacama Salt Flat in Bolivia, according to the Independent. Based on volume alone, McDermitt could yield 12 times more lithium than the Atacama Salt Flat. And, more importantly, the lithium that miners plan to extract from the caldera can be collected in a way that’s allegedly less harmful to the environment.

read more: https://jalopnik.com/a-volcano-in-the-u-s-could-contain-the-biggest-lithium-1850825799

Restaurants should have closed and analysts say they suspect their only purpose is to ‘launder money’.

Vientiane, Laos - – In the lobby of a high-rise condominium block, residents meander past a banquet hall on their way to the lifts as a cover of Harry Nilsson’s 1971 hit Without You reverberates from the restaurant.

The sign gives little away and when asked, residents say they only know the venue sells “Korean food”.

The Paektu Hanna Restaurant in Laos’s capital Vientiane keeps a low profile these days. Named after the mountain in which former Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong Il was born – according to Pyongyang’s party mythology – it is one of four North Korean restaurants that continue to operate in the Southeast Asian country even though they should have shut their doors long ago.

There were once an estimated 130 North Korean state-run restaurants in big cities across East and Southeast Asia – and even as far afield as Dubai and Amsterdam – offering a choreographed glimpse of life in the repressive state for curious tourists.

Today, only an estimated 17 remain in China, Russia and Laos, plus a single restaurant in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, operating in violation of United Nations sanctions that came into full force in December 2019.

The outlets once provided a steady stream of revenue for the North Korean regime but their heyday has long passed. When Al Jazeera visited the Paektu Hanna on two occasions in August, only a handful of diners sat in the cavernous hall. On visits to Laos’s three other establishments on various nights, they were faring little better, with few to no customers.

While previously serving as nationalistic soft-power vehicles promoting North Korean culture abroad, today, the restaurants in Laos downplay their links to Pyongyang. Their role as cultural envoys diminished and with them generating scant revenue for the regime, their place in North Korea’s overseas business empire has only grown more opaque.

Accompanying this demise are reports of North Korean “IT workers” stationed in China, Russia and Laos. Experts told Al Jazeera that illicit funds generated through cybercrime have become a lifeline for North Korea and that the restaurants may be playing a crucial supporting role.

“It would be my number one guess that the restaurants are only there to launder money now,” Joshua Stanton, a lawyer in Washington, DC who helped draft the United States’s North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, told Al Jazeera.

“And one of the best sources of money that they could be getting is from those IT workers [in Laos]. It would make perfect sense.”

On December 22, 2017, the UN Security Council (UNSC) unanimously adopted the most far-reaching sanctions yet against Pyongyang in response to its launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile a month earlier. Security Council Resolution 2397 further restricted trade between North Korea and UN member states. It also called for the closure of North Korean businesses and the repatriation of all workers by December 2019.

But weak compliance, most notably from UNSC permanent members China and Russia, has undermined their effectiveness. China, North Korea’s main patron, has been accused of widespread sanctions violations, including employing up to 100,000 North Koreans across various industries. Russia, a growing ally of Pyongyang, has faced accusations of engaging in weapons deals and hosting 3,000-4,000 North Korean labourers, among them IT and construction workers.

‘More than restaurants’

On paper at least, the Lao government has expressed its commitment to adhering to the sanctions, saying in April 2018 in its mandatory UN implementation report that it had no business ties to Pyongyang and that authorisations for North Korean workers “will expire by the end of 2018 and will not be renewed.”

But in March 2020, Lao foreign ministry officials and a North Korean delegation were photographed being serenaded at the Paektu Hanna Restaurant, as they celebrated signing an “Agreement on Cooperation”.

Laos’s known contingent of North Korean workers is small –100 to 200 according to an RFA report in late 2022 – but the failure to repatriate them and close businesses has been noted in successive Panel of Experts reports for the UN’s 1718 Sanctions Committee, which monitors North Korean sanctions compliance.

Explaining this, Stanton points to the country’s close relationship with Beijing. “Laos borders China, they have very close economic and political relations with China,” he said. “And China does not fundamentally have a problem with North Korea proliferating, it has an interest in preserving North Korea as a bargaining chip.”

The Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment.

This lack of adherence is on full display a 10-minute drive from the Paektu Hanna, in the basement of the upscale Landmark Riverside Mekong Hotel.

When Al Jazeera visited the Yue Yuan Chinese Restaurant, two waitresses confirmed they were from North Korea, while there was North Korean food and Korea Mannyon Health Corporation products on sale, including internationally prohibited tiger bone liquor.

A third restaurant in the capital, Sindat BBQ – a drab low-rise building with tinted windows and sleeping quarters above – was open but empty on two visits, with only Korean-speaking staff hanging around. It was known as the Pyongyang Restaurant until rebranding in 2022 and now makes no reference to its country of origin beyond a fridge stocked with North Korean alcohol.

Messaging in Lao to a number listed on the shop sign, Al Jazeera was connected to the “owner”—a Whatsapp account with Korean in its bio. The Korean account did not respond to several messages in different languages.

In Vang Vieng, the backpacker town about 130km (81 miles) north of Vientiane, the Pyongyang Restaurant has also been renamed Sindat BBQ. It also had no customers on one Saturday evening, with the Korean-speaking staff saying they would not be putting on the scheduled performance.

To the casual observer, they may appear to be simply failing businesses on their last legs, but Remco Breuker, a professor of Korean studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands who has studied the use of forced North Korean labour in Europe, said that while the customers have dried up, “these restaurants are always more than just restaurants”.

“[Behind an embassy], a restaurant works best as a home base to take care of North Korean foreign workers. They’re places to stash the passports, to keep the money,” he told Al Jazeera. “These restaurants are extremely important in that sense.”

Recent years have seen North Korean IT workers stationed in China, Russia and increasingly Laos, linked with hacks, malware, and cryptocurrency theft – the proceeds from which have been funnelled back to the regime.

In 2022, the UN Panel of Experts documented the case of North Korean national Oh Chung Song, a resident of Dubai who, along with a number of other North Korean IT workers, concealed their identities to use the platform Upwork to undertake freelance work. When their true identities were uncovered in December 2021, they fled to Laos fearing an investigation by United Arab Emirates authorities.

In May, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs separately sanctioned six entities and seven individuals responsible for deploying North Korean IT workers to China, Russia and Laos for the purposes of malicious cyber-activities. In Laos, this included the Chinyong IT Cooperation Company and the Laos-based Tongmyong Technology Trade Company, along with two in-country representatives.

The US Treasury estimated each IT worker was able to earn “more than $300,000 per year”, which they said directly contributed financing to North Korea’s “WMD and ballistic missile programs”.

Stanton said IT workers in Laos would probably be hacking, stealing cryptocurrency and planting malware, the proceeds from which are “good for nothing” until they pass through North Korea’s elaborate money-laundering network, “which, at its outer fringes, involves things like restaurants in Laos”.

The intermingling of North Korean restaurants with illicit cyber-activities is not unheard of. In 2019, two US think tanks said the Koryo Restaurant in Hanoi was a front for IT sales, including facial recognition software. The restaurant remains open despite the allegations.

A diplomatic source with close knowledge of North Korea told Al Jazeera it was “very difficult to say” whether restaurants in Laos might be doing the same but there had been a “clear rise in cybercrimes and cyber-theft” through their work since about 2019, with it now overshadowing traditional sources of income like coal, restaurants and worker remittances.

“The financial income from cybercrime has increased substantially,” said the diplomat, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivities. “There are indications that this is becoming the most important source of income for the DPRK.”

a close up of the emptry tables and chairs at the Pyongyang restaurant Analysts say the rise of North Korean cybercrime gives the restaurants a purpose far beyond food [Alastair McCready/Al Jazeera]

North Korean cybercriminals have grown in sophistication and reach in recent years, with US-based blockchain firm Chainalysis saying in February that North Korean-linked hackers “shattered their own yearly record for most cryptocurrency stolen” in 2022 with their $1.7bn haul.

Breuker of Leiden University said the increase was “directly linked” to UN sanctions hitting what was a “stable, lucrative form of foreign income” in overseas workers and businesses. He said he believed it was possible that revenue from IT workers in places like China, Russia and Laos were “keeping the regime alive”.

“Without cyber-attacks, we would be in a very different situation with North Korea,” he said. “We might even be in a situation where we could actually talk to them.”

Additional reporting by Lamxay Duangchan

9/11 in Realtime is a multimedia experiment for teachers, with the purpose of helping their students truly understand and absorb the events of September 11, 2001. We've collected media--video, audio and other items--available from the days before and after the September 11 attacks, synchronized them together and built a tool to help students be immersed in the events of the day.