Mikhail Suetin expected to be detained when he protested Russian mobilisation, but he never imagined he would be ordered to enlist in the very army he was denouncing.. Andrei, who turned 18 last week, was called up -- in papers seen by AFP -- after being detained during the anti-mobilisation protests in Moscow.
Iranian authorities have imposed tough and targeted restrictions on the use of the internet in a bid to impede protesters gathering and prevent images of crackdowns on their demonstrations reaching the outside world, observers say.. Observers have also noted a regional targeting of the internet cuts, especially in the Kurdistan region where some of the fiercest clashes have taken place.
One person died and more than 20 are missing at sea after a boat carrying Chinese nationals sank off the coast of Cambodia, an official said Friday.. He said a fishing boat picked up the two Cambodians and left, abandoning them and their boat in the sea.
Internet access remained severely restricted in Iran ahead of counter rallies on Friday, after a week of protests over the death in police custody of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini that have left at least 17 dead.. Internet access has been restricted in what web monitor NetBlocks on Thursday called a "curfew-style pattern of disruptions" amid the angry protests sparked by Amini's death.
Hong Kong announced Friday it will end mandatory hotel quarantine, scrapping some of the world's toughest travel restrictions which have battered the economy and kept the finance hub internationally isolated.. The announcement leaves mainland China as the only major economy still hewing to lengthy quarantine for international arrivals.
Sprawling coastal cities in South and Southeast Asia are sinking faster than elsewhere in the world, leaving tens of millions of people more vulnerable to rising sea levels, a new study says.. More than one billion people will live in coastal cities at risk of rising sea levels by 2050, according to UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A Chinese former top security official faces life in prison after a court on Friday hit him with a suspended death sentence for bribery and other crimes, adding to a flurry of corruption verdicts in recent days.. Sun Lijun's death sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment after two years, according to a statement by the Intermediate People's Court in the city of Changchun.
From abortion to gay marriage, civil rights activists in Catholic-majority Italy fear a significant set-back with the expected election triumph of a far-right party dedicated to defending "traditional family values".. The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) says gay marriage and same-sex adoption are priorities, with leader Enrico Letta telling Meloni recently that the most important thing for children was "to be loved".
Australian rescuers battled Friday to refloat the last surviving pilot whales from a mass stranding that killed nearly 200 of the animals on a surf-battered beach in Tasmania.. The latest stranding came days after a dozen young male sperm whales were reported dead in a separate mass stranding on King Island -- between Tasmania and the Australian mainland.
Cubans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on whether to allow same-sex marriage and surrogate pregnancies, which experts say could turn into an opportunity to voice opposition against the government.. Many could vote "No" or even abstain altogether as a way "to make the government pay for the crisis," Arturo Lopez-Levy, a Cuban academic at Holy Names University in California, told AFP. The referendum, he added, amounted to a unique "opportunity to show approval or disapproval" with the communist government.
