Turkey’s application to join the BRICS bloc, led by Russia and China, is sparking concerns over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s commitment to NATO. The move, by a member of the world’s most powerful military alliance, highlights the geostrategic shifts straining the post-war order at a time of heightened international tensions. Source link
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban on Monday rejected concerns and criticism raised by the United Nations over new vice and virtue laws that ban women in Afghanistan from baring their faces and speaking in public places. Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the U.N. mission in the country, UNAMA, said Sunday that the laws provided a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future. She said the laws extend the “ already intolerable restrictions ” on the rights of women and girls, with “even the sound of a female voice” outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation. Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman for the Taliban’s government, issued a statement warning against “arrogance” from those who he said may not be familiar with Islamic law, particularly non-Muslims who might express reservations or objections. “We urge a thorough understanding of these laws and a respectful acknowledgment of Islamic values. To reject these laws without such understanding is, in our view, an expression of arrogance,” he said. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Wednesday issued the country’s first set of laws to discourage vice …
The United States has suspended inspections of avocados and mangoes in the western Mexican state of Michoacán over security fears, a U.S. official said Monday. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a statement that the decision followed “security concerns” for personnel and said that inspection programs “will remain paused until the security situation is reviewed and protocols and safeguards are in place.” The shipments already in transit would not be affected, and checks in other states are not affected, said the spokesperson, who could not be named due to agency policy. Mexico is the world’s largest producer of avocados — a staple in the diets of many Americans who love it on their toast, or made into guacamole, particularly during the Super Bowl. The United States imported a record 2.78 billion pounds of fresh avocados in 2023, with 89 percent of those imports coming from Mexico, according to the USDA. Michoacán Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla told reporters Monday that he has been in constant contact with U.S. officials to provide …
NEW DELHI : Run machine Virat Kohli produced a match-winning knock in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Thursday that will ease concerns about his strike rate ahead of the T20 World Cup next month. Kohli has been remarkably consistent in the 10-team league and is comfortably the competition’s leading scorer with 634 runs from 12 matches this season. Many, however, felt he was not scoring those runs quick enough for a top-order batter, pointing to his strike rate of 153.51. As if to silence his critics, Kohli smashed 92 off 47 balls against Punjab Kings on Thursday night to keep Bengaluru alive in the playoff race. “It was important to keep up my strike rate through the innings, so I was just focused on taking the momentum forward for the team,” Kohli said after the Bengaluru innings. The former India captain was dropped twice and he capitalised on that, hitting six sixes and seven fours in his breezy knock. Particularly remarkable was how Kohli used the sweep shot to counter spin in the away …
(The Conversation) — Between Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, drivers pass a billboard on Interstate 71 that has achieved some internet fame. Since 2004, a black sign has risen from this flat stretch of highway declaring “HELL IS REAL.” The H in “Hell” is painted in red, a color Christians have long associated with sin and Satan. The developer who erected the warning, Jimmy Harston, has similar signs scattered across the Midwest, including ones that ask, “If you died today, where would you spend eternity?” For years, this confrontational sign was mostly a local attraction. But it gained wider notoriety when Ohio’s two Major League Soccer teams, Columbus Crew and FC Cincinnati, dubbed their 2017 matchup “Hell is Real.” The sign has now spawned TikTok content, T-shirt designs, mugs and decals. But it also reflects a genuine belief in hell held by a majority of Americans today, though the numbers are slipping. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 59% of respondents believe in hell, while 67% believe in heaven. The numbers for hell belief are far …
The Biden administration recently paused an arms shipment to Israel due to concerns the country could launch a full-scale assault on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza — a move the U.S. has strongly opposed. The shipment would have included roughly 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a senior administration official told The Associated Press Tuesday. More than a million civilians have sheltered in Rafah after being forced to evacuate other areas in Gaza due to the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas. The U.S. has voiced concerns over the Israeli military using the larger explosives in the dense and urban area. Israeli officials scrambled over the reason behind the pause, according to Axios, which first reported the shipment delay last week. The news comes after the Biden administration committed $26 billion in military and humanitarian aid to Israel, continuing a streak of strong support for Israel against the militant group. In a recent statement to The Hill, the National Security Council said that support hasn’t changed. “The United States has …
Joe Biden paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over fears it would invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Washington halted the load of 1,800 2,000-lb (907 kg) bombs and 1,700 500-lb (226 kg) bombs after Israel had not “fully addressed” US concerns about a major ground operation, marking the first time in the conflict that Mr Biden has halted military aid. News of the move comes as the White House criticised the “unacceptable” closure of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after Israel sent tanks in earlier Tuesday – while holding out hope for a ceasefire with Hamas. Officials said Washington was “especially focused” on the use of the heaviest 2,000-lb bombs “and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza.” Ceasefire talks involving Israel, Hamas, the United States, Qatar and Egypt resumed on Tuesday. “A close assessment of the two sides’ positions suggests that they should be able to close the remaining gaps, and we’re going to do everything we …
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike east of Rafah, Gaza Strip, this past Monday. Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP hide caption toggle caption Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike east of Rafah, Gaza Strip, this past Monday. Ismael Abu Dayyah/AP WASHINGTON — The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S., a senior administration official said Tuesday. The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter, with the focus of U.S. concern being the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban setting. More than 1 million civilians are sheltering in Rafah after evacuating other parts of Gaza amid Israel’s war on Hamas, which came after the militant group’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7. The U.S. has …
United States President Joe Biden’s administration paused a shipment of weapons to Israel last week in opposition to apparent moves by its forces to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official has said. Biden has been trying to head off a full-scale assault by the Israelis against Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere in the Gaza Strip. The AFP, Reuters and The Associated Press news agencies on Tuesday quoted unnamed US officials as saying Washington began to “carefully review proposed transfers of particular weapons to Israel that might be used in Rafah” in April when it seemed Israel appeared close to making a decision on the assault. “As a result of that review, we have paused one shipment of weapons last week. It consists of 1,800 2,000-pound [907kg] bombs and 1,700 500-pound [227kg] bombs,” one official reportedly said. “We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000-lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in …
Image by Nikolas Kokovlis / NurPhoto via Getty / Futurism During a recent interview, a cofounder of Elon Musk’s brain implant startup said that he left due to safety concerns. That cofounder, Dr. Benjamin Rapoport, made this stunning admission as an aside when speaking to the Wall Street Journal‘s “The Future of Everything” podcast. A neurosurgeon by training, Rapoport joined up with Musk and a team of fellow scientists in 2016 to found Neuralink, but as Bloomberg reports, he ended up leaving just a few years later and founding his own brain-computer interface (BCI) startup, Precision Neuroscience. “I’ve pretty much devoted my entire professional life to bringing neural interfaces from the world of science to the world of medicine,” Rapoport told the WSJ‘s Danny Lewis. “But I felt that in order to move to the world of medicine and technology, safety is paramount.” As the neurosurgeon went on to suggest, there seemed to be disagreements at Neuralink about how invasive a BCI needed to be. “For a medical device, safety often implies minimal invasiveness,” he explained. “And in the …
