BenArmani

Reuters /Sydney Australian authorities said yesterday they are focused on protecting water plants, pumping stations, pipes and other infrastructure from intense bushfires surrounding Sydney, the country’s largest city. Firefighters battling the blazes for weeks received a reprieve of slightly cooler, damper conditions over Christmas, but the respite is not expected to last long. Temperatures in New South Wales (NSW) state are...

AFP /Montreal To tourists they are a time-honoured, charming way of seeing the sights but animal rights activists say Montreal’s horse-drawn carriages are a cruel and unnecessary relic of yesteryear. A longstanding feud between the coachmen and their critics looks set to end however with the unique mode of transport set to disappear from the streets of Canada’s second city by...

By Damian Carrington/Guardian News & Media Microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers, with research revealing that London has the highest levels yet recorded. The health impacts of breathing or consuming the tiny plastic particles are unknown, and experts say urgent research is needed to assess the risks. Only four cities have been assessed to date but all had microplastic pollution...

By Daniel Boffey/Guardian News & Media Boris Johnson should reconsider his refusal to extend the 11-month timeframe available for agreeing a deal on the UK’s future relationship with the EU after Brexit, Ursula von der Leyen has suggested. The European commission president said she had “serious concern” about the limited time available for the negotiations and emphasised the need to keep...

IANS /Dhaka At least 50 people have died in Bangladesh due to the ongoing cold spell accompanied by chilly wind and drizzles since November. The death toll was reported by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Ministry of Health on Thursday, Xinhua news agency reported. Ayesha Akhter, Assistant Director at DGHS, told Xinhua that 17 people died due to acute respiratory infection...

Reuters/ Jakarta Indonesia plans to revive a ‘truth and reconciliation’ commission to bring closure over past human rights violations, including the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in 1965, a senior minister told Reuters. A similar commission began work in 2004 to look into abuses such as those during the three decade rule of authoritarian ruler Suharto, whose fall in...

AFP/ Jakarta Hundreds of Muslims in Indonesia held a protest yesterday against China’s treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang in front of China’s embassy in Jakarta. The rally was organised by hardline group the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) but was attended by members of other Muslim communities under heavy security. The protest started at noon, after Friday’s mass prayer, and continued until...

Internews /Rawalpindi Late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was yesterday remembered by her millions of followers on her 12th death anniversary. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) held a public gathering last night in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh, where the former leader was killed in a gun and bomb attack on December 27, 2007. Bhutto became the first female prime minister of Pakistan on...

Reuters /Mexico City Mexico yesterday urged Bolivia’s new conservative government to respect its right to grant asylum to nine people at its embassy in La Paz, days after complaining that Bolivian government surveillance there has grown excessive. “The right of asylum must be guaranteed,” Mexico’s leftist president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said when asked about the disagreement in a regular news...

By David Salazar/AFP La Calera, Colombia For the last three decades, botanist Julio Betancur has braved minefields and penetrated deep into jungle territory infested with drug traffickers and armed gangs in a bid to document Colombia’s rich biodiversity. Colombia is second only to Brazil for its incredible range of fauna and flora. Armed only with a notebook and gardening shears, Betancur has...

The 11th International Falcon Festival ‘Marmi Championship’, organised by Qatar Al Gannas Society under the patronage of HE Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad al-Thani, will run from January 1 to February 1. The festival, being held at Sabkat Marmi in Sealine will be attended by falconers from Qatar and Kuwait, according to a statement from the organisers. The registration for the championship...

Let me start with a confession: I’m a British man in my late 20s, have a literature degree and consider myself a feminist—but until summer 2018, I had never read a Jane Austen novel. Or a Charlotte Bronte novel. Or, indeed, an Emily Bronte novel. A lazy holiday forced me, finally, to confront the gender gap in my reading history. I found...

Sukhi Jutla had no illusions about raising venture capital for her startup, MarketOrders, a blockchain-based global marketplace for the gold and diamond jewelry industry. She knew that in the UK, only 1% of venture capital (pdf) goes to women. And as a minority woman, she faced even steeper odds. She decided to try to raise the money anyway. She reached out to...

More than 235,000 people have fled the Idlib region over the past two weeks, the UN has said, amid air raids by Russian and Syrian government forces targeting Syria's last major opposition bastion. The mass displacement between December 12- 25 has left the Maaret al-Numan region in southern Idlib "almost empty," the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA said on Friday. More: 'Shameful': Pompeo slams UN veto by...