AFGHANISTAN
Taliban behead 12 civilians
An official says the Taliban have beheaded 12 civilians and torched about 60 homes in an assault on security forces in the eastern Ghazni Province. Provincial deputy police chief Asadullah Ensafi said the Taliban had attacked several villages over the past week in the Arjistan District. He said that on Thursday night they captured and beheaded 12 family members of local and national police and burned down 60 homes. He added that the battle was still raging. Ensafi said the Taliban also detonated a car bomb in front of an encampment where about 40 police were posted. He said it was not possible to reach the area to ascertain casualties because the insurgents had mined the roads.
INDIA
Border dispute resolved
A military stand-off with Chinese troops that lasted nearly two weeks and overshadowed a key summit in New Delhi has ended, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said, after meeting her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi (王毅). Troops were to start pulling back from the disputed border area yesterday, Swaraj said. “Timelines have been drawn... by Sept. 30, it [withdrawal] will be completed. Whichever positions were occupied by the armies on Sept. 1, they will go back to those positions,” she said in comments broadcast on TV.
INDIA
Modi faces US lawsuit
A US court has ordered Prime Minister Narendra Modi to answer allegations that he failed to stop anti-Muslim rioting when he was chief minister of Gujarat state, overshadowing his first trip to the US as his nation’s leader. The civil case before a New York court seeks compensatory and punitive damages from Modi for crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act. Modi has 21 days to respond. The petitioner in the case is the American Justice Center, a non-profit human rights organization, acting on behalf of two survivors of the 2002 riots in the western Indian state. Modi was to arrive in the US for a five-day visit yesterday.
CAMBODIA
Activists pan Australia deal
About 100 people, including Buddhist monks, protested outside the Australian embassy against a deal to be signed later yesterday that will see asylum seekers rejected by Australia resettle in Cambodia. A senior Australian minister said the bilateral agreement would cost the Australian government more than A$10 million (US$9 million) a year. Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison was to sign a memorandum of understanding with Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng in Phnom Penh to resettle an unspecified number of refugees currently held at an Australia-run detention camp in Nauru.
VATICAN CITY
Pope removes bishop
Pope Francis on Thursday removed a conservative bishop from a Paraguayan diocese who had clashed with his fellow bishops and promoted a priest accused of inappropriate sexual behavior. The removal of Bishop Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement, underscored the deep ideological shift under way in the church under Francis. The Vatican said Francis took the “onerous” decision in Paraguay for the good of the church in Ciudad del Este and for the sake of unity among Paraguayan bishops.
SPACE
Crew docks with station
A US and Russian crew docked early yesterday with the International Space Station, about six hours after launching from Russia’s manned space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The Russian Soyuz-TMA14M spacecraft joined up with the space laboratory as it orbited 364km above the planet. It was carrying space veterans Alexander Samokutayev of Russia and US astronaut Barry Wilmore, along with Elena Servova of Russia, making her first journey. The capsule launched at 2:25am on Friday from Baikonur. Serova is the first Russian woman to fly to space since 1997, and the fourth woman in the history of the Soviet and Russian space programs. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963.
VENEZUELA
Fingerprinting hits stores
Caracas has started to fingerprint shoppers at some state-run supermarkets in a plan to combat food scarcity that has been derided by some consumers weary of shortages. The plan designed to prevent shoppers from stocking up on cheap price-fixed goods has been implemented in some state-run supermarkets. “This guarantees price-fixed products will remain on shelves,” Minister of People’s Power for Food Yvan Bello said during a visit to a huge Bicentenario supermarket in Caracas on Thursday afternoon to drum up support for the initiative. About 785,000 people have been registered in six state-run food store chains across the nation, the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications and Information said in a statement.
RUSSIA
Stunt pans Western T-shirts
Russians are being urged by a pro-Kremlin group to trash Western T-shirts and put on new ones flaunting anti-sanction slogans such as “We can get our kicks without your Coca-Cola.” The stunt seemed to score a hit with young Muscovites, who handed in more than 3,000 old T-shirts bearing slogans such as “I love NY” on the first day, Monday, said Ksenia Melnikova, one of the organizers from fundraising group Sodeistviye (Cooperation).
UNITED STATES
Stone Age globalization?
Innovative Stone Age tools may have been developed by people in Eurasia and not just invented in Africa, a study published on Thursday found. Research published in the journal Science shows evidence that refined stone weapons were developed in Armenia about 325,000 years ago. Experts studied thousands of stone artifacts from a site in Armenia. “The discovery of thousands of stone artifacts preserved at this unique site provides a major new insight into how Stone Age tools developed during a period of profound human behavioral and biological change,” researcher Simon Blockley, from the Royal Holloway geography department of the University of London, said in a statement.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number