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IRISH TROOPS ON a UN peace-keeping mission are safe but on high alert after Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels captured a border crossing into the Golan Heights yesterday.
Three Irish soldiers are stationed close to the frontier crossing between Syria and the Israeli-owned Golan Heights, which was captured by the Islamist Al-Nusra Front after heavy fighting with Syrian government forces.
The Irish troops are part of a 130-strong UN Disengagement Observation Force located 20 km from the site of yesterday’s fighting.
A Defence Forces spokesperson told TheJournal.ie that the Irish troops were currently on high alert, but safe.
There have been a number of engagements between armed elements in the Golan Heights in the last 24 hours.
Irish Defence Forces personnel deployed to the UN Disengagement Observation Forces (UNDOF) with the 44th Infantry Group remain on high alert and all Defence Forces personnel and equipment remain safe and accounted for.
The 44th Infantry Group continue to monitor the situation.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an array of rebel fighters, including from the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, took the crossing after heavy fighting.
At least 20 Syrian soldiers and an unknown number of rebels were killed.
It said clashes also raged in the towns of Jaba, Tal Kroum and Rawadi in Quneitra province.
The fighting on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights frontier spilled over into Israel, with errant fire wounding an army officer and Israeli civilian, Israel’s military said.
In response, the Israeli Defence Forces said they attacked Syrian military positions in the Golan Heights.
From the Israeli side of the de facto border, large clouds of smoke could be seen, as gunfire and explosions sounded in the distance. Israeli soldiers observed the fighting.
Israel says it holds the Syrian government responsible for any violence that emanates from its territory.
Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war.
Contains reporting by Associated Press.
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So in the end, Epic wants to use the Apple logistics system to deliver their apps to the users, but not to share their profits then.
Like when you ask Tesco to provide you with a few squaremeters in all of their shops for free to sell your products, use their trucks to deliver your goods to the shops for free and then sell vouchers for your products online and demand Tesco to accept those vouchers on their tills. And of course, if Tesco won’t advertise your product in their leaflets or try to charge you any fees for using their infrastructure, you’d sue them because of their monopolist behaviour.
@Claudia Varell: apple are taking far too big a cut of the profits and it has a knock on affect for the whole gaming industry, apple made more money off there 30% cut of ingame purchases than Nintendo xbox playstation and stadia combined did on there total sales, its madness and epic were right to stand up to them as it can be make or break for so many of the small companies that are losing all the profits to apple, the gaming industry is in danger of becoming only for the big guys and indie games have to fight so hard to even be seen never mind available to purchase
@Claudia Varell: I don’t think Tesco make a 30% profit on anything they sell, they work on a low margin model.
@Claudia Varell: In fairness, consumers own the hardware and apple have monopolized the only means of getting an app into it
Is anyone of you aware what Apples services include? Let’s say you write a book and sell it in Argentina. Do you know that you are liable for paying the correct VAT there and follow all regulations of the Argentinian market? The same applies if a German buys your book, someone in Australia, and so on. Especially for small content providers or the “Indie game developers” this is a huge barrier. You probably need to hire tax consultants in several countries or pay an agent.
If you sell through Apple, you don’t need to care. You can also give away your content for free without needing to care about distribution or anything and make yourself a name in the industry.
On top, you don’t need to sell through Apple, if you like to go on your own.
@Claudia Varell: Yeah you don’t need to care about all that as Apple don’t pay tax.. Apple taking a 30% cut, or whatever it is, just for providing the backend infrastructure for downloading to Apple device’s is absolutely extortionate. Should be done on some of sliding scale.
Apple have become very proprietary. I love their products. Hate their ecosystem.
Apple has always been proprietary. I worked there in the 1980’s and it was exactly the same then. In fact their completely integrated ecosystem is one of the things I love.
I understand that Apple are an extremely rich company that made some significant innovations years ago and have a fantastically loyal customer base but I’m not sure what their play is here.
If people can’t get the latest versions of Fortnite on their iPhone, surely they’ll get an Android or ask their parents for one?
But I guess it’s more about the principal of being able to squeeze app developers for all they’re worth so they can add more Money to their cash pile.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: You are aware that Google kicked Fortnite out of their Android Google Playstore as well?
@Claudia Varell: it’s still possible to download it onto an Android device though.
@Claudia Varell: You are massively missing the point. The entire issue here is not that they were kicked out of the store, but that the store is the only way for Iphone users to download it.
With android, that’s not the case so Google removing it from the play store doesn’t stop you from selling it on the android platform.
It’s the equivalent of not being able to download photoshop on your PC because Mocrosoft banned it from their store.
@Gavin Conran: No it’s not Gavin. When you buy a PC it’s running MS operating system, so of course you know it will run MS, Adobe applications etc. When you buy a Mac you know it will run Apple apps and ‘probably’ third party ones too, but if you expect it will run them all you didn’t sign up for the right hardware. Same with iOS. If you don’t want to part of the Apple offerings just go buy some other krap instead.
AAA gaming should have crashed in the 2010s, one of the greediest industries around.
have your say