CHINA URGES CITIZENS TO LEAVE AFGHANISTAN AFTER KABUL ATTACK

China on Tuesday advised its citizens in Afghanistan to leave the country “as soon as possible”, following a coordinated attack by Islamic State militants the previous day on a Chinese-owned hotel in the heart of Kabul. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said five Chinese nationals were wounded in the Monday attack.

The Chinese advisory appeared to be a setback for Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers who seek foreign investments in hopes of halting the downward spiral of the Afghan economy since their takeover of the country more than a year ago.

The Islamic State group — a key rival of the Taliban — claimed responsibility for the attack on Kabul Longan Hotel, which left three assailants dead and at least two hotel guests injured as they tried to escape by jumping out of a window.

China has economic and mining interests in the country though those familiar with past talks between the Taliban and Chinese officials say Beijing wants Taliban commitments to prevent China’s Uyghur opponents from setting up operations in Afghanistan.

The IS statement, carried by one of the militant Telegram channels used by the group, said two of its members targeted the hotel because it is frequented by diplomats and owned by “communist China”. It further claimed IS attackers detonated two bags with explosives that were left in the hotel earlier, including one in the main hall, and set fire to a part of the hotel.

LAWSUIT ACCUSES META OF ENABLING HATEFUL POSTS IN ETHIOPIA CONFLICT

Meta Platforms Inc. is facing a lawsuit in Kenya’s high court accusing the company of failing Africans by amplifying hate speech and incitement to violence on Facebook and calling for about $2 billion in restitution.

The case has been filed by Ethiopian researchers Abrham Meareg and Fisseha Tekle, along with Kenyan human rights group Katiba Institute, supported by legal nonprofit Foxglove. Meareg’s father, chemistry professor Meareg Amare, was shot and killed outside his home last November after a series of hateful posts targeted him for attack, the court filings state.

The petitioners argue that the public needs protection from Facebook’s “woeful failure to address violence on its platform” and its design that “promotes and prioritizes hateful, incitement and dangerous content,” according to court filings seen by Bloomberg News.

Meta, which generated revenue of $117.9 billion in 2021, uses a recommendation algorithm on Facebook that promotes content that users are more likely to interact with in order to hold people’s attention. This allows people to be served more ads so the company can maximize revenue, according to the court documents.

18 NUCLEAR-CAPABLE CHINA BOMBERS THREATEN TAIWAN

Taipei : China sent a record 18 nuclear-capable bombers into Taiwan’s air defence zone, Taipei said on Tuesday, just days after Beijing banned more Taiwanese imports in the latest si gn of deteriorating ties. Democratic Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which sees the selfruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day.

Beijing ha s ramped up military, diplomatic and economic pressure since the2016 election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who rejects its stance that the island is part of China. In a daily update on Tuesday Taiwan’s defence ministry said 21 aircraft entered the island’s southwest air defence identification zone over the last 24 hours, including 18 nuclearcapable H-6 bombers. That represents by far the largest daily sortie by H-6 bombers since Taipei first began releasing daily incursion data in September 2020.

€1BN AID FOR UKRAINE TO SURVIVE WINTER

Paris : Ukraine’s Western allies pledged an additional one billion euros ($1. 1 billion) in emergency winter aid on Tuesday, responding to pleas from President Volodymyr Zelensky to help the country withstand Russia’s onslaught against its energy grid.

Around70 countries and international organisations gathered in Paris for a meeting aimed at enabling Ukrainians “to get through this winte r”, said French President Macron. In a video message, Zelensky said Ukraine needed aid worth around €800 million in the short term for its battered energy sector. “ Of course it is avery high amount, but the cost is less than the cost of a potential blackout,” Zelensky told the conference v ia video link.

Pledges for the energy sector comprised €400 million of the funds raised on Tuesday, Fran ce’s foreign minister Catherine Colonna said. Ukraine needs spare parts for repairs,high-capacity generators, extra gas and increased electricity imports, Zelensky said. “Generators have become as necessary as armoured vehicles and bullet-proof jackets. ” Ukraine’s PM Denys Shmygal said 40 to 50% of the country’s grid was out of action because of Russia’s strikes. Many areas of the country have power for only a few hours a day.

Another 1. 5 million people were left without power in Odessa over the weekend after Russian drone attacks. “They want to put us into darkness and it will fail, thanks to our partners all over the world,” Shmygal told delegates.

BANGLADESH ARRESTS CHIEF OF LARGEST ISLAMIST PARTY

Bangladeshi police said on Tuesday that they had arrested the chief of the country’s largest Islamist party, days after it announced it would join the main Opposition in protests to oust Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Counter-terrorism officers arrested Jamaat-e-Islami party emir Shafiqur Rahman in Dhaka, metropolitan police spokesman Faruq Ahmed said, without elaborating on the charges.

A spokesman for Jamaat — the country’s third-largest political party, which has been banned from contesting elections since 2012 — condemned the 64-year-old’s arrest, saying it was intended to “scuttle the Opposition’s anti-government movement”.

“This is just another episode of the unjust oppression continuing against the party for the last 15 years,” Matiur Rahman Akand, Jamaat’s publicity secretary, said.

For years, Jamaat was a major ally of the right-of-centre main Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). But after Ms. Hasina came to power in 2009, Jamaat’s entire leadership was arrested and tried for war crimes dating back to the country’s 1971 independence war against Pakistan.

The fresh arrest of Jamaat’s chief came days after two of the BNP’s leaders were arrested on charges of inciting violence on the eve of a giant anti-government rally on Saturday. The BNP has demanded Ms. Hasina step down and let a caretaker government hold a free and fair election.

The Opposition says a credible vote under Ms. Hasina is impossible after she was accused of rigging the past two general elections in 2014 and 2018.

MODERNA, MERCK SEE POSITIVE RESULTS FROM CANCER VACCINE

The Moderna and Merck drug makers on Tuesday announced positive results from a trial in which messenger RNA technology was used for the first time to make personalised vaccines for skin cancer patients.

The mRNA technology proved vital in the development of vaccines against COVID-19, and scientists have long believed it could help fight other viruses and diseases like cancer.

In a preliminary trial, 150 people who had had their melanoma tumour surgically removed were given up to nine doses of the experimental vaccine alongside the skin cancer treatment Keytruda. The study showed a 44% reduction in risk of death or relapse compared to patients who were only treated with Keytruda, an immunotherapy medicine.

“Today’s results are highly encouraging for the field of cancer treatment,” Moderna’s Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel, said in a statement.

“mRNA has been transformative for COVID-19, and now, for the first time ever, we have demonstrated the potential for mRNA to have an impact on outcomes in a randomized clinical trial in melanoma.”

Moderna and Merck, known as MSD outside of North America, will soon publish the full results of the study, the results of which have not yet been peer-reviewed.

Messenger RNA is a molecule within cells that carries instructions to form proteins. Scientists can design them to make a particular protein in the body that can help fight viruses and other illnesses.

Merck and Moderna expect to start a phase 3 study next year, and the companies say they intend to expand their approach to other tumour types.

EUROPEAN UNION AGREES TO GIVE CANDIDATE STATUS TO BOSNIA

EU countries agreed on Tuesday to grant Bosnia “candidate status” to join the union, diplomats said, putting the volatile Balkan nation at the start of a long road to membership. Russia’s war on Ukraine has breathed fresh life into the European Union’s willingness to consider letting in more of its eastern neighbours.

IRAN MAY SENTENCE FOOTBALLER TO DEATH OVER HIJAB PROTESTS

Paris : The world union of professional footballers FIFPRO said it was “shocked and sickened” by the r isk of Iranian footballer Amir Nasr-Azadani being sentenced to death in connection with protests which have shaken the coun try for three months.

Nasr-Azadani was arrested in the city of Isfahan two days a fter allegedly taking part in an “armed riot” in which three security agents were killed on September 16, Isfahan’s judiciary chief Abdullah Jafari said, quoted Sunday by Iran’s ISNA news agency. Jafari said the 26-year-old had been accused of “rebellion, membership in illegal gangs, collusion to undermine security and therefore assisting in moharabeh” — or “emnity against God” — a capital crime in Iran. “FIFPRO is shocked and sickened by reports that professional footballer Am ir Nasr-Azadani faces execution in Iran after campaigning for women’s rights and basic freedom in his country,” the union wrote on its Twitter page on Monday. “We stand in solidarit y with Amir and call for the immediate removal of his punishment. ” The alarm comes after a global outcry following the execution by Iran in the past days of two young men arrested over the protests.

SEVEN DEAD AS PERU’S NEW LEADER FAILS TO QUELL PROTESTS

Five more protesters died in Peru on Monday as violent demonstrations over the ousting of the former President showed no sign of calming, despite his successor’s efforts to quell the unrest.

Seven people, including three teenagers, have now died in escalating protests since the leftist Pedro Castillo was accused of an attempted coup, impeached and arrested last week.

New President Dina Boluarte tried to ease tensions on Sunday, announcing she would seek to hold elections two years early and declaring a state of emergency in flashpoint areas. But that had little effect as protesters continued to demand her resignation, blocking roads in several cities around the country.

MUSK DISBANDS TWITTER ADVISORY GROUP FORMED TO ADDRESS HATE

Elon Musk’s Twitter has dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the advisory group of around 100 independent civil, human rights and other organisations thatcompany formed in 2016 to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform.

The council had been scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives Monday night. But Twitter informed the group via email that it was disbanding it shortly before the meeting was to take place, according to multiple members.

The council members, who provided images of the email from Twitterspoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of r etaliation. The email said Twitter was “reevaluating how best to bring external insights” and the council is “not the best structure to dothis. ”

“Our wo rk to make Twitter a safe, informative place will be moving faster and more aggressively than ever before and we will continue to welcome your ideas going forward about how to achieve this goal,” said the email. A growing number of attacks on the council led to concerns from some remaining members who sent an email to Twitter on Monday demanding the company stop misre presenting the council’srole. Those false accusations by Twitter leaders were “endangering current and former Council members,” theemail said.

NEW ZEALAND PASSES LAW TO BAN SMOKING FOR NEXT GENERATION

Sydney : Future generations of New Zealanders will be banned from purchasing tobacco as part of a package of new anti-smoking laws that passed parliament on Tuesday and are among the most strict in the world. The suite of new laws include bans on selling tobacco to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, punishable by fines up to NZ$150,000 ($95,910). The ban will remain in place for a per son’s whole life. The legislation will also reduce the amount of nicotine a llowed in smoked tobacco products and cut the n umber of r etailers able to sell tobacco by 90%. “This legislation accelerates progress towards a smokefree future,” associate health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said in a sta tement. “Thousands of p eople will live longer, healthier lives and the health system will be $5 billion better off from not needing to treat the illnesses caused by smoking. . . ” Retailers licen sed to sell tobacco will be cut to 6 00 by the end of 2023 from 6,000.

Already boasting one of the lowest adult smoking rates among the 38 countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, New Zealand is further tightening anti-smoking laws as part of a government push to make the country “smokefree” by 2025. Only Bhutan, which banned cigarette sales in 2010, will have stricter anti-smoking l aws. Critics have warned that New Zealand's strict policy could fuel an unregulated illegal market in tobacco items. The new laws do not ban vape products.

BARBADOS TOP COURT REPEALS LAWS THAT CRIMINALISE GAY SEX

Suan Juan : A top court in Barbados has struck down colonial-era laws that criminalise gay sex, becoming the third nation in the conservative Caribbean region to do so this year. The ruling issued on Monday by the Barbados High Court is a pivotal moment for activists who have fought against such laws on the island, including one that demands up to a life sente nce for gay men found guilty of having sex. UNAIDS celebrated the ruling, saying it will help reduce the stigma that can prevent LGBTQ people from seeking HIV treatment services.