Iran to disband 'morality police,' says attorney general
It is still unclear whether the squad could be set up again under a new mandate. The death of a young woman arrested by the "morality police" for improperly wearing a hijab sparked months of protests in Iran.
Iran's attorney general has said that the country's "morality police" will be disbanded, according to media reports on Sunday.
"Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and have been abolished," Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted as saying late Saturday by the ISNA news agency.
However, it is unclear whether the force will be set up again in a different context or under a different name. State news agencies have reported that death sentences and legal proceedings for "morality" offenses will continue.
Fears of deadly infection surge as China abandons zero-Covid policy
Dramatic U-turn following widespread unrest leaves country ill-prepared for Omicron
The portable PCR testing booth dangled in the air over a dark Beijing street, captured on camera as it was winched away by a crane in the middle of the night. The image spread rapidly across Chinese social media, the perfect symbol of the bewilderingly rapid end of a draconian era.
In the face of the most widespread national protests since the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989, the Chinese government has abruptly abandoned its flagship zero-Covid policy.
In Beijing, people prepared to go into shopping malls or on public transport without a recent negative test. Elsewhere, they were allowed to enter parks and supermarkets without checks, or told they could quarantine at home – rather than a government facility – if they had come into contact with a case.
OPEC+ oil producers face uncertainty over Russian sanctions
Oil prices are down, and demand is lagging
The Saudi-led OPEC oil cartel and allied producing countries, including Russia, are expected to decide how much oil to supply to the global economy amid weakening demand in China and uncertainty about the impact of new Western sanctions against Russia that could take significant amounts of oil off the market.
The 23-country OPEC+ alliance are scheduled to meet Sunday, a day ahead of the planned start of two measures aimed at hitting Moscow's oil earnings in response to its war in Ukraine. Those are a European Union boycott of most Russian oil and a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian exports imposed by the EU and Group of Seven democracies.
"Thou Shalt Not Kill"One Russian Soldier's Effort to Avoid the War
Tens of thousands of Russian draftees are fighting in Ukraine. Hardly any of them have tried to resist conscription. But Kirill Beresin tried to do just that, fleeing from his unit and filing a complaint back home.
By Christina Hebel in St. Petersburg
Kirill Beresin pulls a note out of the pocket of his suit. He goes through the tightly written text line by line, his lips silently forming the words that he has composed with a blue ballpoint pen. "Honored court," the note begins, "I am not running away, and I am prepared to serve my country. But I am unable to fire a weapon at other people." Beresin’s hands are shaking as they clutch the paper. He lets out a short breath. He then folds up the piece of paper and puts it back in his jacket pocket.
The scene took place in St. Petersburg earlier this week. The 27-year-old Beresin should actually be fighting with his unit more than a thousand kilometers to the southwest in Ukraine. Instead, the slender man dressed in a black suit is pacing up and down the corridor of the municipal court, repeatedly pulling the note out of his pocket and reading through his statement. He is hoping to convince the judges not to force him into this war. It is a conflict that Beresin doesn’t understand and one for which he is unwilling to violate the lesson his devout grandmother taught him: "Thou shalt not kill."
Exclusive: China operating over 100 police stations across the world with the help of some host nations, report claims
Beijing has set up more than 100 so-called overseas police stations across the globe to monitor, harass and in some cases repatriate Chinese citizens living in exile, using bilateral security arrangements struck with countries in Europe and Africa to gain a widespread presence internationally, a new report shared exclusively with CNN alleges.
Madrid-based human rights campaigner Safeguard Defenders says it found evidence China was operating 48 additional police stations abroad since the group first revealed the existence of 54 such stations in September.
Its new release – dubbed “Patrol and Persuade” – focuses on the scale of the network and examines the role that joint policing initiatives between China and several European nations, including Italy, Croatia, Serbia and Romania have played in piloting a wider expansion of Chinese overseas stations than was known until the organization’s revelations came out.
Cyril Ramaphosa: South African leader leaves future in ANC hands
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said his fate is in his party's hands, in his first comments since an official report on a scandal over money stolen from his farm.
Opponents have called for his resignation after a panel of legal experts concluded he may have broken the law.
On Saturday, Mr Ramaphosa's spokesman suggested he would fight on.
The president has now said the party top brass should decide his next move.
The leaders of the governing Africa National Congress (ANC) are currently meeting in Johannesburg to discuss the findings of the report.
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