France said Thursday that it would allow a rescue ship carrying more than 200 migrants to dock on its southern coast and disembark its passengers, harshly criticising Italy for failing to take them in.. Earlier Thursday, France said it was disembarking four of the 234 migrants aboard the Ocean Viking via helicopter for health reasons.
Moscow announced Thursday it had begun retreating from Ukraine's southern city of Kherson as Kyiv said it had recaptured a dozen villages in the strategic Black Sea region.. Ukrainian troops have for weeks been capturing villages en route to the main city in the eponymous region, while Kremlin-installed leaders in Kherson have been pulling out civilians in what Kyiv has called illegal deportations.
Russia ordered its troops to abandon the Dnipro river's west bank only hours after Yevgen Gamiy had another lucky escape from incoming fire on its east.. Gamiy took out a bank loan to pay for his tractor just before the war broke out.
Apple limited file-sharing for Chinese iPhone users Thursday, a month after reports that anti-government protestors used the function to share digital leaflets with strangers.. On Thursday some Chinese social media users hailed the iPhone update as a positive step in preventing unsolicited messages from strangers, with one Weibo user saying the change would "greatly reduce the probability of iPhone users being harassed".
The Taliban have banned Afghan women from entering the capital's public parks and funfairs, just months after ordering access to be segregated by gender.. The new rule, introduced this week, further squeezes women out of an ever-shrinking public space that already sees them banned from traveling without a male escort and forced to wear a hijab or burqa whenever out of the home.
Paintings and sculptures from the collection of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen were auctioned off for a historic $1 billion Wednesday, Christie's auction house said, with records set for works by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat and Klimt.. - Diverse collection - The sale on Wednesday totaled about $1.5 billion, according to an AFP calculation, and included French painter Paul Cezanne’s "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire" -- which fetched $137.8 million, almost double the artist's auction record.
Hackers on Thursday demanded US$10 million to stop leaking highly sensitive records stolen from a major Australian healthcare company, as they uploaded yet more intimate details about customers.. The hackers on Thursday uploaded a second batch of files to a dark web forum, with more sensitive details about hundreds of Medibank customers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G20 leaders' summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali next week, Moscow's embassy in Indonesia told AFP on Thursday.. The person said it was unclear if the Russian leader would attend virtually.
From prime ministers and millionaires to labourers and ascetics, Hindu faithful dream of trekking at least once in their lives to Gaumukh, where the waters of India's holiest river, the Ganges, emerge from a Himalayan glacier.. - 'Our identity' - "The Ganges is our culture, heritage, identity, and if it disappears, so will our life and existence," said Sanjeev Semwal, 53, a Hindu priest in Gangotri, the town below the glacier.
High-level talks on scaling up finance for developing countries to green their economies and prepare for global warming impacts began Wednesday at the COP27 climate conference with negotiators differing on the funding's size and providers.. "We have to think completely differently about how we can mobilise finance," he added, lamenting the failure of developed countries to deliver the "paltry sum" of $100 billion dollars.
