Aside from the mysterious disappearances, a number of other, seemingly separate events over the past days have fuelled suspicion that something important is brewing. On Tuesday, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, in a surprise move, pardoned Rico Krieger, a German citizen and the first Westerner to receive a death sentence. A day later, on Wednesday, Slovenia convicted a Russian couple of espionage, and ordered them to be expelled. In a third notable event, a number of high-profile Russian citizens held in U.S. prisons, many of them linked to the Russian government, appeared to have been removed from the American federal prisoner…
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The Australian government this week announced it would spend A$18 million over four years on a new centre aimed at keeping safe the undersea cables that power the nation’s internet. The Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre is tasked with protecting the critical undersea telecommunications cables throughout the Indo-Pacific region from deliberate interference from malicious actors, or accidental damage. This is a crucial undertaking. The internet directly contributes $167 billion or more a year to the Australian economy. These cables enable everything from mundane social media updates to the colossal transactions that drive the global economy. But what is driving Australia’s…
Energy Secretary chairs first energy Mission Board, as government continues immediate action to deliver clean power by 2030 and accelerate to net zero new forum key to securing British energy independence, with ministers tasked with accelerating plan to invest in clean, homegrown energy across Britain meeting takes place as the biggest ever budget is confirmed for this year’s renewables auction – as part of government efforts to rapidly increase clean, cheap energy follows on from early action to end onshore wind ban, unblock solar projects, launch major partnership with Great British Energy, and set up 2030 clean power Mission Control…
“As we await further clarity on the circumstances, we again urge the parties to exercise maximum restraint and call on all concerned to avoid any further escalation,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a note to correspondents that evening. He called on all parties to comply with their obligations under international law; to urgently commit to the full implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, adopted in response to the 2006 war between Hizbollah and Israel, and to immediately return to a cessation of hostilities. The UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, also appealed for “calm to prevail” in a…
Melbourne is experiencing an “explosive” and unusual outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. Since Friday afternoon, Victoria’s Department of Health has confirmed 33 cases (with ten more suspected) of this severe and sometimes life-threatening lung disease. Most of those infected have ended up in hospital. Investigations are under way to identify the source of the outbreak. Here’s what we know so far. What is Legionnaires’ disease and how does it spread? Legionnaires’ disease is a bacterial infection caused by inhaling contaminated water droplets. The water droplets need to be small enough to be inhaled deeply into the lungs to cause disease. The…
The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA) has reported that preliminary data for June 2024 shows robust growth in international air passenger markets, fuelled by healthy demand for air travel approaching the peak summer holiday season. Overall, Asia Pacific airlines carried a combined total of 28.9 million international passengers during the month, a 21% year-on-year increase and 90.2% of the corresponding month in 2019. Demand in revenue passenger kilometres (RPK) grew by 23.8% year-on-year, almost matching the 24% expansion in available seat capacity. As a result, the international passenger load factor edged 0.2 percentage points lower to average 82.2% in…
Special Representative Penny Pritzker traveled to Ukraine on July 29 to meet senior Ukrainian officials to discuss ways to further increase private sector investment and jumpstart Ukraine’s economy. While in Ukraine, she met with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, First Deputy Prime Minister Svyrydenko, Minister of Digital Transformation Fedorov, Minister of Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin, and other government officials. In Kyiv, Special Representative Pritzker was joined by several CEOs of U.S. private companies supportive of Ukraine’s economic recovery. Source_link
Returnees have headed for several locations in the city, including central and eastern neighbourhoods as well as the adjacent area of Bani Suhaila. Medical evacuations Separately, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 85 sick and severely injured patients from Gaza were evacuated to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. The patients, 35 of them children, were accompanied by more than 60 caregivers and family members. They were transferred from Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing. This marked the largest medical evacuation outside Gaza since October, WHO said, and it was done in partnership with the Emirati…
When you think about housework, you likely think of actions: scrubbing the dishes, running errands, chopping vegetables for dinner. And it’s not news to say that mothers often shoulder the burden for most of those activities. But there’s an invisible dimension of household labor that unfolds behind the scenes: the cognitive effort that goes into anticipating needs, planning, organizing and delegating household tasks. In other words, someone has to remember to replace the dish soap and select which vegetables to chop. Our new research found that this cognitive dimension of housework, often called the “mental load,” is divided even more…
Palestinian militant group Hamas says its top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has been killed in his home in Tehran. It blames Israel for the attack, saying it was “a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president”. Iran has not yet given any details on how Haniyeh was killed, but says it is under investigation. With the war in Gaza showing no sign of abating and the whole Middle East on a knife’s edge, the killing raises questions about whether it may spark a wider regional war. Who is Ismail Haniyeh?…