RUSSIA
Over 30,000 evacuated
Commissioner for Human Rights of Russia Tatyana Moskalkova yesterday said that 30,415 people, including nearly 8,000 children, have been evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine due to shelling and attacks. Moskalkova told news outlet Argumenty I Fakty in an interview that the evacuees have been placed in nearly 1,000 temporary accommodation centers across the nation. Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into the Kursk region in August, taking control of dozens of settlements and holding most positions since. Moskalkova said she had received appeals regarding more than 1,000 Russian citizens from Kursk, whose whereabouts are unknown and who were said to have been taken by Ukrainian forces. Reuters could not independently verify Moskalkova’s reports. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
AFGHANISTAN
Image ban to be enforced
The Taliban yesterday pledged to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule would be gradually enforced. “The law applies to all Afghanistan... and it will be implemented gradually” by persuading people images of living things are against Islamic law, Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice spokesman Saiful Islam Khyber said. The Taliban government judiciary recently announced legislation formalizing their strict interpretations of Islamic law imposed by the authorities since they swept to power in 2021. The law detailed several rules for news media, including banning the publication of images of all living things and ordering outlets not to mock or humiliate Islam, or contradict Islamic law. Television and pictures of living things were banned under the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, but a similar edict has so far not been broadly imposed since their return to power.
MEXICO
Five beheaded bodies found
Authorities on Sunday said they had found the bodies of five decapitated men on a road in western Jalisco state, the latest grisly find in the violence-plagued nation. The bodies were found in black plastic bags in the municipality of Ojuelos, the state prosecutors’ office said. “A report was received indicating that, on the asphalt strip of the road ... there were several bags that looked like human silhouettes,” it said. Upon arriving at the site, National Guard members found the headless bodies of five men, wearing only pants. Nearby, they found another bag containing what appeared to be the heads of the victims, the office said, adding that forensic scientists were combing the area for evidence. The violence in Jalisco is blamed chiefly on the Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel, one of nation’s most powerful and violent criminal groups. Official figures showed that 1,415 people were murdered in Jalisco in the first nine months of this year.
HONG KONG
Eight monkeys found dead
Eight animals were on Sunday found dead at the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department said in a statement, adding that necropsy and laboratory tests had been arranged to find out the cause of deaths. The animals were a De Brazza’s monkey, one common squirrel monkey, three cotton-top tamarins and three white-faced sakis, it said. While awaiting test results, the mammals section of the zoo was shut yesterday for disinfection and cleaning. “We will also closely monitor the health conditions of other animals,” it said.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
Millions of dollars have poured into bets on who will win the US presidential election after a last-minute court ruling opened up gambling on the vote, upping the stakes on a too-close-to-call race between US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump that has already put voters on edge. Contracts for a Harris victory were trading between 48 and 50 percent in favor of the Democrat on Friday on Interactive Brokers, a firm that has taken advantage of a legal opening created earlier this month in the country’s long running regulatory battle over election markets. With just a month