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By Jerome Rivet and Ahmad Parhizi Agence France-Presse YAZD, Iran (AFP) — Tall, chimney-like towers rise from centuries-old adobe houses in Iran’s desert city of Yazd, drawing in a pleasant breeze for residents of one of the hottest cities on earth. The wind catchers, called badgirs in Persian, are just one of the engineering marvels inhabitants have developed in this ancient city in central Iran — where temperatures reach well over 40 degrees Celsius (104 […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday launched the first part of Arctic LNG 2, a massive liquified natural gas (LNG) project at Murmansk, in the Arctic. Arctic LNG 2 is one of Russia’s key projects in its drive to open a northern maritime route linking Asia and Europe, something made possible by global warming and the consequent melting of the glaciers. “I request authorisation to begin transport operations at sea,” an […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Thursday for a “serious, broad-based reflection” on reforming the global body’s peacekeeping operations, highlighting persistent “limitations” to their success. Presenting his most recent policy brief, entitled the “New Agenda for Peace,” Guterres praised the work of UN peacekeeping missions as “saving millions of lives” and preserving ceasefires. However, the former Portuguese prime minister cited “longstanding unresolved conflicts, driven by complex domestic, geopolitical and transnational […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — A pilot died in a helicopter crash in western Canada fighting wildfires that have ravaged the country, police said Thursday. He is the third person to die battling the huge blazes after two firefighters were killed last week during separate operations. His helicopter was reported missing early Wednesday evening, and the aircraft was later located near Haig Lake in northern Alberta province. The aircraft “collided with terrain during firefighting operations,” the […]
NAIROBI, July 20, 2023 (AFP) – Shops and schools reopened Thursday as Kenyans resumed normal life, despite an opposition call to join anti-government protests after earlier demonstrations prompted widespread closures and resulted in deadly clashes. Veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga has staged several demonstrations since March against the government, alarming the international community which has urged both sides to find a political solution after earlier protests left more than dozen dead. Odinga’s Azimio alliance had […]
KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea, July 20, 2023 (AFP) – An “armed and dangerous” World War II bomb was dug up and defused Thursday on the small Pacific island of Nauru, the country’s police force said. Schools were closed and Nauru’s 12,000 residents were urged to stay at home as Australian military specialists worked on the 500-pound (227-kilogram) explosive, which was first discovered almost two weeks ago. Nauru’s government declared a state of emergency across the […]
By Diego Opatowski, Andy SCOTT AUCKLAND, July 20, 2023 (AFP) – A gunman killed two people and wounded six others at a building site in central Auckland Thursday, hours before New Zealand’s biggest city was to host the opening match of the 2023 FIFA football World Cup. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the gunman died at the scene and there was no national security threat, so the marquee tournament would go ahead as planned. The […]
THE HAGUE (AFP) – A Dutch court sentenced a man to prison on Tuesday for selling “suicide kits” which prosecutors said led to the deaths of at least 10 people. The defendant was accused of providing 1,600 packages of a deadly drug cocktail since 2018, in a case the court noted was the first of its kind in the Netherlands. Although euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, it can only be provided only under strict […]
BOGOTÁ (AFP) – Heavy rains on Wednesday complicated the search for nine people still missing after a landslide that killed at least 20 in central Colombia, authorities said. More than 400 military troops, firefighters and other government rescue workers searched for survivors under intense downpours, two days after Monday’s disaster in the Cundinamarca department. “We have at this time a toll of 20 fatalities” including five minors, fire department chief Alvaro Farfan told reporters Wednesday. […]
ADDIS ABABA, July 19, 2023 (AFP) – Social media networks like Facebook and Instagram were back online in Ethiopia on Wednesday after being blocked for five months, according to an internet advocacy organisation and an AFP journalist. A service run by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), an association that tracks online censorship, showed that access to social networks in Africa’s second-most populous country was freely available after being shut down in early February. […]
By Robbie COREY-BOULET Agence France-Presse ABOARD FSO SAFER, Yemen (AFP) — When an alarm sounded on the decaying oil tanker off Yemen’s coast, signaling a leak in its engine room, Hussein Nasser quickly sprang into action. Working around the clock for days, he and the half dozen other people on board the FSO Safer fashioned makeshift iron strips to patch a burst pipe, before divers arrived to install a permanent steel plate to keep seawater […]
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AFP) — A magnitude 6.8 earthquake off the coast of Central America shook El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua on Tuesday, though without any immediate damage reported, according to Salvadoran authorities. The quake was registered at 6:22 pm (0222 GMT) in the Pacific Ocean, about 66 kilometers (41 miles) south of the Salvadoran coast, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS originally recorded the earthquake at a magnitude of […]
