Month: July 2023
Iran to enforce dress code in cities
Iranian police announced they were resuming patrols to enforce a strict dress code that requires women to cover their hair in public. In Tehran, male and female morality police officers could be seen patrolling the streets in marked vans on Sunday. Many women in Iran stopped covering their heads after the protests sparked by the
Putin’s tit for tat cluster bombs
Putin issued a warning to Ukraine not to deploy the largely internationally outlawed cluster munitions that were shipped recently by the United States. “I want to say that Russia has sufficient reserves of various types of cluster munitions,” Putin said in a video clip released by Russian state TV. Russia did not want to use
Deep sea mining for world’s battery-metal
The International Energy Agency (iea) reckons the world will add as much renewable power in the coming five years as it did in the past 20. Britain, France and Norway, among others, plan to ban the sale of new internal-combustion cars. Even where bans are not on the statute books, electric-car sales are growing rapidly.
The covid’s origins debate
The idea that sars-cov-2, the virus that causes covid-19, instead leaked from a Chinese research laboratory has persisted since the earliest days of the pandemic. Though this theory has rested largely on rumours and circumstantial evidence, it has nevertheless set the stage for a bitter three-and-a-half year row. New diseases in people almost always come
The working from home fades
Wall Street firms have been among the most forceful in summoning workers to their offices, but in recent months even many tech titans Apple, Google, Meta and more have demanded staff show up to the office at least three days a week. For work-from home believers, it looks like the revenge of corporate curmudgeons. and
Chinese economic reality
Chinese social media is full of positive takes on grim market news. Commentary such as this is becoming the main message netizens receive about the market, regardless of how it performs. As China’s economic recovery falters, authorities are cracking down on divergent or negative views. Hu xijin is best known for his calls to prepare
manufacturing delusion
More than 250 years on, governments share his view of factories as a cure for the ills of the age including climate change, the loss of middle class jobs, geopolitical strife and weak economic growth with an enthusiasm and munificence surpassing anything seen in decades. China’s “Made in China” strategy aims to turn the country
Russian bans gender reassignment
Putin’s administration has repeatedly used attacks on transgender rights, as well as LGBTQ people in general, as a way of pushing the notion that the West has lost its moral compass. Last year, the Russian parliament passed a so-called “gay propaganda” law that effectively made it illegal to refer to LGBTQ relationships in any kind
Putin renews Black Sea grain deal
The grain deal, brokered by Turkey and the UN, has since last summer has allowed ships to carry Ukrainian food exports from Black Sea ports despite the ongoing war with Russia. Erdoğan earlier put the amount of exports at around 33 million tonnes. Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports prompted fears of soaring prices
Wagner to work as a single unit
Putin has previously said Wagner troops had to choose whether to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry, move to neighboring Belarus or retire from service. Speaking to Kommersant, Putin emphasized that “rank-and-file soldiers of Wagner have fought honorably” in Ukraine, adding that “it’s a cause for regret that they were drawn” into the mutiny. Russian