Author: Elizabeth Jenrola Oso

The Taliban have ordered the closure of clandestine beauty salons still operating in Afghanistan, warning that women running them have one month to cease work or face arrest. The directive intensifies the group’s already severe restrictions on women’s lives, stripping away one of the last remaining spaces where Afghan women could gather, earn livelihoods and maintain a sense of dignity. Officially, all beauty salons were closed in August 2023, a move that shuttered an estimated 12,000 businesses and wiped out more than 50,000 jobs held almost exclusively by women. The ban not only eliminated a vital source of income but…

A federal judge in Washington has temporarily blocked the deportation of a group of Guatemalan children who crossed the United States border without their families, after lawyers argued that the minors were being placed on planes in violation of laws designed to protect migrant children. Attorneys for ten Guatemalan children, aged between 10 and 17, filed papers late on Saturday reporting that the youngsters were due to be flown to Guatemala within hours. Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan ruled on Sunday that the children could not be deported for at least 14 days, ordering that they be returned from the aircraft…

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin met on Sunday on the sidelines of a high-profile summit in Tianjin that seeks to present an alternative to western-led alliances. The Chinese and Russian leaders, who describe their relationship as a “limitless” partnership, held talks covering Putin’s recent meeting with Donald Trump, though the Kremlin declined to give details. Their bilateral discussion was one of several held by Xi during the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. The SCO, a ten-member bloc of Eurasian nations founded in 2001, is hosting its largest gathering to date, with leaders from 16 observer or “dialogue partner” states…

One person has been killed and five others injured after a car was deliberately driven into a crowd outside a bar in northern France in the early hours of Saturday morning. The incident took place at around 4am in the town of Évreux, Normandy, following a dispute outside La Winery bar on Winston Churchill Avenue. Prosecutors said two men and a woman had been taken into custody. An investigation has been opened into homicide and attempted homicide, though terrorism has been ruled out. Rémi Coutin, the local prosecutor, confirmed the death and described the number of victims as “very heavy”.…

Bernie Sanders has called for Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s health secretary, to resign, amid mounting criticism of his handling of the nation’s health agencies and his long record of opposing vaccines. In an opinion piece published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”. He added: “He must resign.” Sanders attacked the White House over its dismissal of Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the resignation of four other senior CDC officials who…

Israeli airstrikes and gunfire have killed at least 18 people in and around Gaza City, according to local health officials, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet prepared to discuss plans to seize control of the city. Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of Gaza City’s largest neighbourhoods, said the area had come under heavy tank shelling and airstrikes from Saturday through to Sunday morning, forcing many families to flee. Health authorities reported that 13 of those killed were attempting to collect food near a distribution site in central Gaza, while at least two others died in a house in Gaza…

Human rights lawyers, refugee advocates and the Greens have condemned a new agreement between Australia and Nauru that will see hundreds of former immigration detainees deported at a cost of almost half a billion dollars. The memorandum of understanding, signed on Friday by the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, and Nauru’s president, David Adeang, will allow about 280 non-citizens from the NZYQ cohort to be sent to Nauru. The group are individuals who previously had their visas cancelled on character grounds, but who could not be deported to their countries of origin due to fears of persecution or refusals by…

A federal appeals court in the United States has blocked Donald Trump’s attempt to terminate protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans allowed to live and work in the country. The ninth US circuit court of appeals on Friday upheld an earlier ruling that temporary protected status (TPS) for Venezuelans must remain in place while legal challenges proceed. The three-judge panel said plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their claim that the Trump administration acted unlawfully in seeking to end the programme. The judges found that Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, had no authority to revoke a prior extension…

Jessie J has postponed her forthcoming concert tour after announcing that she must undergo a second operation as part of her breast cancer treatment. The 37-year-old singer, born Jessica Cornish, disclosed her diagnosis earlier this year and has been receiving treatment since June. On Thursday she told fans in a video message posted on Instagram that the additional procedure had become unavoidable and would clash with her scheduled tour dates. “Unfortunately, I have to have a second surgery, nothing too serious, but it has to be done before the end of the year, and unfortunately that falls right in the…

Guards at a Florida immigration detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz” allegedly used teargas and batons to quell a disturbance among detainees, according to reports broadcast on Friday. At least three migrants told Miami’s Spanish-language channel Noticias 23 that officers engaged in a mass beating after prisoners began shouting for freedom when one received word of a relative’s death. The men claimed guards rushed in and struck detainees indiscriminately, while also deploying teargas inside the facility. “They’ve beaten everyone here, a lot of people have bled. Brother, teargas. We are immigrants, we are not criminals, we are not murderers,” one…