Month: August 2021

Britain’s top military commander, General Nick Carter, said Wednesday that Western powers need to retaliate for a suspected Iranian drone strike on an oil tanker, which killed a British security guard and the ship’s Romanian captain — otherwise Tehran will feel emboldened.Speaking to the BBC, Carter, chief of the British Defense Staff, said if a regime of deterrence is not restored in the Gulf, there will be more attacks and a higher risk of “miscalculation” by Iran. “What we need to be doing, fundamentally, is calling out Iran for its very reckless behavior,” he said.FILE – Britain’s Chief of Defense …

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Greek firefighters on Wednesday grappled with fires razing swathes of forest land on the outskirts of Athens, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate and killing animals from tortoises to horses.The inferno has scorched the slopes of Parnitha, which includes a protected nature reserve, just north of Athens.It started in a wooden ravine and is the most devastating of the approximately 80 wildfires that have broken out across the country in recent days, including on the island of Rhodes, as temperatures topped 45 degrees Celsius, the hottest day recorded in the region in four decades.Flames burn a mountain in Platanos village, …

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A Belarusian Olympic sprinter who said she faced punishment if she returned to her country departed Japan Wednesday on a flight bound for Austria. Krystsina Tsimanouskaya was scheduled to land in Vienna Wednesday afternoon. She is then expected to travel on to Poland, where the government has offered her a humanitarian visa. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki posted Tuesday on Facebook that he had spoken with Tsimanouskaya and that she should be able to live in Poland without obstacles. Polish authorities granted Tsimanouskaya a humanitarian visa to seek political asylum on Monday after she alleged her team’s officials were trying to force her to fly home to Belarus against her wishes.Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya arrives at the …

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More than 500 firefighters struggled through the night to contain a large forest fire on the outskirts of Athens, which raced into residential areas Tuesday, forcing thousands to flee. It was the worst of 81 wildfires that broke out in Greece over the past 24 hours, amid one of the country’s most intense heatwaves in decades.Civil Protection chief Nikos Hardalias said the fire north of Athens was “very dangerous,” and had been exacerbated by strong winds and tinder-dry conditions thanks to the heat that reached 45 Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in the area.No severe injuries were reported, and authorities said …

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The United Nations accused the government of Iraq of the widespread torture of detainees held in the country’s detention centers. A U.N. report covers conditions in the centers from July 1, 2019 to April 30, 2021.Torture and ill treatment are prohibited under international law. Iraq ratified the international convention against Torture in 2011 and since has enacted national laws criminalizing torture.The problem is the government has not implemented the procedural safeguards to prevent torture, and so the practice continues throughout the country. That assessment in a report released Tuesday by the U.N. human rights office and the U.N. assistance mission …

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A court in Belarus convicted a journalist of insulting the president in messages in a deleted chat group and sentenced him to 1 1/2 years in prison, the Belarusian Association of Journalists said Monday. The verdict in the case against Siarhei Hardziyevich, 50, comes as part of a massive crackdown that Belarusian authorities have unleashed on independent media and human rights activists. Hardziyevich on Monday was found guilty of insulting the president and slandering police officers, according to the association. The court sentenced him to a prison term and a $1,600 fine. The charges against the journalist from Drahichyn, a city 300 kilometers …

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Wildfires scorching some of Turkey’s most popular destinations have upended a nascent recovery in the country’s tourism sector hobbled for more than a year by the COVID-19 pandemic.Scenes of happy beachgoers flocking to coastal areas turned nightmarish as fires forced mass-evacuations of tourists and locals alike in cities such as Bodrum and Marmaris.Tuesday marked the seventh consecutive day Turkish firefighters battled the blazes, fueled by abnormally high summer temperatures and strong winds. The fires have been blamed for at least eight deaths and forced numerous residents, many of them farmers, to flee. 10,000 Flee Turkey Wildfires; Greece Power Grid Threatened At …

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France hopes to secure more than $350 million in humanitarian aid for Lebanon’s crisis-battered population at a donors’ conference it co-hosts with the United Nations Wednesday — marking the year anniversary of Beirut’s deadly port blast. International pressure is growing for Lebanon’s fractious parties to unify and push through reforms.  Roughly 40 representatives of international institutions and heads of state were expected at this video conference, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Jordan’s King Abdullah.    FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron attends a donor teleconference with other world leaders concerning the situation in Lebanon following the Beirut blast, in Fort …

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The British government’s scientific advisers have raised the prospect of fighting a forever war against the coronavirus saying the eradication of the virus “will be unlikely.” And they warn “there will always be variants.”They hold out the hope that the virus may evolve in such a way that it causes “much less severe disease,” but they caution that is unlikely to happen for some time. Preventive measures and restrictions will be needed in the meantime as there’s a “realistic possibility” that vaccine-resistant variants will emerge.And, chillingly, in a report released last week by Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, otherwise …

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