Taliban gain ground in fight for Afghanistan's Helmand
District falls to Taliban a day after Helmand deputy governor warned government was in danger of losing key province.
| War & Conflict, Asia, Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, Abdullah Abdullah
The Sangin district of Afghanistan's Helmand province has fallen to the Taliban just a day after Helmand's deputy governor used Facebook to plead with the Afghan president for help holding the group off.
Sangin fell to the Taliban after hours of fierce clashes that killed more than 90 soliders in two days, an Afghan police spokesperson told Al Jazeera, with the Taliban taking over police and military installations.
The Taliban also confirmed the siege to Al Jazeera.
Afghanistan's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, told a press conference on Monday that "an urgent meeting will happen soon to take immediate security action in Helmand".
"The action will repel enemy attack," he said.
Most polluted US nuclear weapons building site plans for influx of tourists
Hanford Nuclear Reservation, country’s newest national park and home to the world’s first full-sized nuclear reactor, prepares for expanded crowdsAssociated Press in Spokane, Washington
Thousands of people are expected next year to tour the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, home of the world’s first full-sized nuclear reactor and the most polluted US nuclear weapons production site.
Hanford, near Richland, about 200 miles east of Seattle in south-central Washington state, is the newest national park.
Visitors will not, however, be allowed anywhere near the country’s largest collection of toxic radioactive waste.
“Everything is clean and perfectly safe,” said Colleen French, the US Department of Energy’s program manager for Hanford. “Any radioactive materials are miles away.”
Sepp Blatter banned: Fifa president suspended from all football for eight years alongside Michel Platini
Fifa's ethics committee announced the decision on Monday morning
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has been banned from all football for eight years along with Uefa president Michel Platini, its ethics committee has announced.
Neither Blatter nor Platini attended the hearing in Zurich where they would learn their fate after an investigation into a payment of 2m Swiss Francs [£1.3m] from Blatter to Platini in 2011, which was said to have been for work carried out between 1998 and 2002, although their lawyers did attend the hearing.
However, the adjudicatory chamber of the Ethics Committee announced on Monday morning that Blatter and Platini had been banned from all football-related activities for eight years with immediate effect.
Slovenia rejects same-sex marriages in referendum
Vote came after civil society group named For Children opposed law passed in parliament
Slovenia has rejected a law that would give same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children.
In the country’s second referendum on gay rights in four years, about 63.4 percent of voters rejected the law while 36.6 percent supported it, a preliminary result of the State Electoral Commission showed on Sunday night after 99 per cent of votes were counted.
Parliament passed a law in March giving same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children but the measures have not been enforced because a civil society group called For Children appealed to the country’s highest court, calling for a referendum.
In another referendum in 2012, almost 55 per cent of voters in the ex-Yugoslav republic opposed giving more rights to same-sex couples.
Huge Fukushima Cover-Up Exposed, Government Scientists In Meltdown
Fukushima radiation just off the North American coast is higher now than it has ever been, and government scientists and mainstream press are scrambling to cover-up and downplay the ever-increasing deadly threat that looms for millions of Americans.
Naturalnews.com reports:
The highest levels yet of radiation from the disaster were found in a sample taken 2,500 kilometers (approx. 1,550 miles) west of San Francisco.“Safe” according to whom?Lead researcher Ken Buesseler of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was one of the first people to begin monitoring Fukushima radiation in the Pacific Ocean, with his first samples taken three months after the disaster started. In 2014, he launched a citizen monitoring effort – Our Radioactive Ocean – to help collect more data on ocean-borne radioactivity.The researchers track Fukushima radiation by focusing on the isotope Cesium-134, which has a half-life of only two years. All Cesium-134 in the ocean likely comes from the Fukushima disaster. In contrast, Cesium-137 – also released in huge quantities from Fukushima – has a half-life of 30 years, and persists in the ocean, not just from Fukushima, but also from nuclear tests conducted as far back as the 1950s.
Australia's Tasmania may raise smoking age to 25
The Australian state of Tasmania is considering raising the legal age for buying cigarettes to at least 21 and potentially as high as 25.
If the plan goes ahead it will give Tasmania some of the toughest tobacco laws in the world.
The current legal age to purchase, possess or smoke cigarettes in all Australian states is 18.
Critics have complained the proposed restrictions would be a violation of civil liberties.
Australia already has some of the world's toughest anti-smoking policies.
It introduced so-called plain packaging in 2012, where packs are coloured an identical olive brown and are covered in graphic health warnings.
No comments:
Post a Comment