Six In The Morning Sunday 7 August 2022

 

UN's nuclear watchdog warns of 'disaster' at Ukraine power plant as shelling continues

By Yulia Kesaieva, Olga Voitovych and Sana Noor Haq, CNN

Updated 1157 GMT (1957 HKT) August 7, 2022

The world's nuclear watchdog has called for an immediate cessation of hostilities near Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine after it was struck by shelling, triggering the shutdown of one of the reactors and signaling the "real risk of a nuclear disaster."

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he was alarmed by the reports of damage and has demanded that an IAEA team of experts urgently be allowed to visit the plant, to assess and safeguard the site.

"I'm extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond," Grossi said in a statement Saturday.

‘They beat girls just for smiling’: life in Afghanistan one year after the Taliban’s return

Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul

Despite their promises of peace and stability, the country is on its knees, and its people are desperate

Maryam* is near the top of her sixth grade class in Kabul, which under Taliban rule means that her education should be ending in a few months.

But the 10-year-old, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, has a strategy to stay in school for another year, and her eyes dance with satisfaction as she explains her plan. “I will make sure I don’t answer too many questions right. I have decided to fail, so I can study sixth grade again.”

This is Afghanistan nearly a year after the Taliban seized control of the country in a lightning advance, moving so fast to take Kabul they surprised even their own leadership.

My Square Is BlackWhen War Knocks on Your Door

Ukrainian photographer Julia Kochetova documents the suffering in her country for DER SPIEGEL. She long believed that her parents were safe, but then Russian missiles began striking her hometown.

By Julia Kochetova

We're standing in front of the closed doors of a mall in Dnipro, where we wanted to stock up on sweets, canned food and cigarettes for a longer reporting trip into Donbas. Trips to the war zone have been a routine thing for me since 2014. My east has almost become home.

Since Feb. 24, when Russian troops invaded my country on a broad front and besieged my home in Kyiv, I have gotten used to the air raid alarms. Shrill beeps and a monotone voice: "Attention, air alert! Get to the shelters as quickly as possible! Stay there until the alarm is over!" Like most people, and after months of this war, I hardly look up when I hear it, because the launch of a Russian missile often triggers alarms across the country. We Ukrainians still want to live a little bit, without always having to worry.

How do we fight wildfires as the planet heats up?

As wildfires again burn out of control in the US and southern Europe this summer, strategies to repel and recover from these climate-fueled mega blazes are changing.

Fire has burnt through forests for hundreds of millions of years, but now unprecedented wildfires are burning hotter and longer partly due to climate change.

Declining rainfall and longer droughts are making forests so dry that localized lightening, or even arson, can spark a small fire that transforms into a mega-blaze before firefighters can limit the damage.

Such was the scale of the Australian Black Summer megafires of 2019-20 that burnt nearly 60 million acres (24 million hectares) that once fire-resistant wet forests are also going up in flames.

Call to serve Muslim detainee halal food at detention center

By MAIKO ITO/ Staff Writer

Supporters of foreign nationals incarcerated at immigration detention centers are calling on the authorities to review the food menu for Muslims following the case of a man who lost significant weight due to his lack of access to halal dishes.

The issue involves a detainee at the Nagoya Regional Immigration Services Bureau.

Contacted by The Asahi Shimbun, senior officials at the bureau replied that they are considering whether to revamp the menu.

Israel-Palestine live news: Ceasefire expected on Sunday

By Arwa Ibrahim and Usaid Siddiqui

Published On 7 Aug 20227 Aug 2022

• A ceasefire in Gaza is set to take place later on Sunday at 1700 GMT or 8pm local time, according to Islamic Jihad sources and Egypt’s mediation team, Al Jazeera’s correspondent has reported.
• Palestinians in Gaza hold funeral processions for Khaled Mansour, a senior commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and others killed in Israeli attacks on the Strip.

Israel committing ‘war crime’ in Gaza: Palestine ambassador to UK

Husam Zomlot, Palestine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom has said Israel’s pre-emptive attack on Gaza is a “war crime” and that pro-Israel statements from countries like the US and UK were giving Israel the “green light” to continue its attack in the besieged coastal strip.