KABUL, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities have ordered beauty parlours across the country to shut within a month, the vice ministry confirmed Tuesday, the latest curb to squeeze women out of public life. The order will force the closure of thousands of businesses run by women — often the only source of income for households — and outlaw one of the few remaining opportunities for them to socialise away from home. “I […]
Other News
UN warns world to prepare for El Nino impact
GENEVA, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – The United Nations on Tuesday warned the world to prepare for the effects of El Nino, saying the weather phenomenon which triggers higher global temperatures is set to persist throughout 2023. El Nino is a naturally occurring climate pattern typically associated with increased heat worldwide, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rains elsewhere. The phenomenon occurs on average every two to seven years, […]
We may be underestimating the climate risk to crops: researchers
PARIS, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – The risks of harvest failures in multiple global breadbaskets have been underestimated, according to a study Tuesday that researchers said should be a “wake up call” about the threat climate change poses to our food systems. Food production is both a key source of planet-warming emissions and highly exposed to the effects of climate change, with climate and crop models used to figure out just what the impacts could […]
Israeli forces begin pullout from Jenin camp: army spokesman
JENIN, Palestinian Territories, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – Israeli forces began withdrawing from a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, an army spokesman said, after nearly two days of a large-scale military operation in the area that killed 12 Palestinians. The raid on Jenin refugee camp, launched early Monday under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, employed hundreds of troops as well as drone strikes and army bulldozers that ripped up streets. […]
Russia says drone attacks near Moscow ‘not possible’ without US, NATO help
MOSCOW, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – Moscow said Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory would “not be possible” without US and NATO help, ratcheting up its rhetoric after reporting it had downed five drones near the capital on Tuesday. Ukraine meanwhile said 43 people, including 12 children, were injured in a Russian strike on the town of Pervomaisky in the eastern Kharkiv region. Moscow accused the West of enabling Ukraine to carry out the drone […]
Macron suggests fines for parents of children caught rioting
PARIS, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – French President Emmanuel Macron raised the idea of handing out quick-fire fines to the parents of children caught committing vandalism or robberies as part of the government’s response to days of rioting. Of the nearly 4,000 people arrested since Friday during riots, more than 1,200 are minors, the justice ministry said. Meeting police officers in Paris on Monday evening, Macron thanked them for their work and floated the idea […]
Xi and Putin to address Shanghai alliance, with Iran to join
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are set to address the Shanghai Cooperation Organization alliance on Tuesday, with Iran expected to expand the Asian grouping. Putin will be addressing his first summit since a short-lived mutiny last month after the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a failed rebellion against the Kremlin. India is hosting the virtual summit of the eight-member SCO — headquartered in Beijing but […]
Four killed in US mass shooting in Philadelphia
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — At least four people were killed and two children wounded in a mass shooting Monday night in the US city of Philadelphia, police said, the latest chapter in the country’s gun violence crisis. Those killed were all males aged between 20 and 59, Philadelphia police commissioner Danielle Outlaw told journalists, while the two children wounded were aged two and 13. Police apprehended the suspected shooter — a 40-year-old who was […]
IAEA chief in Japan ahead of Fukushima water release
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Japan on Tuesday to present a review of Tokyo’s plans to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head will meet Japan’s prime minister and foreign minister in Tokyo on Tuesday before heading to Fukushima on Wednesday to visit the devastated plant. Several of the nuclear facility’s reactors went into meltdown after cooling […]
China says UK offering ‘protection to fugitives’ after bounty put on Hong Kong activists
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China has accused the UK of giving protection to fugitives after its foreign secretary slammed Hong Kong’s decision to offer bounties for information leading to the capture of prominent democracy activists based overseas. “British politicians have openly offered protection for fugitives,” a spokesperson for Beijing’s embassy in London said in a statement late Monday. “This is crude interference in Hong Kong’s rule of law and China’s internal affairs,” they continued. “China […]
Britain’s public health service at 75: on life support?
By Jitendra JOSHI LONDON, July 4, 2023 (AFP) – Deeply loved but wracked by crisis, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) on Wednesday marks 75 years since it was founded as the Western world’s first universal, free healthcare system. In a secular age, the NHS is the closest thing Britain has to a national religion — devoutly cherished, with levels of public support higher than the royal family or any other British institution. It was founded […]
Oil prices advance on output cutbacks; equities rise
LONDON, July 3, 2023 (AFP) – Oil prices rose Monday after key producers Saudi Arabia and Russia further cut crude output in a bid to protect their precious revenues. Brent crude, the international benchmark, and US counterpart WTI jumped after Riyadh extended a voluntary oil production cut of one million barrels per day, while Moscow — whose invasion of Ukraine last year sparked oil market turmoil — said it was slashing exports by 500,000 bpd. […]





