Author: Steven Sahiounie

The US, UK, France, and Germany want the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to pass a resolution declaring it “essential and urgent” for Iran to explain traces of uranium found outside its declared nuclear sites, Reuters reported on Friday, citing a draft of the resolution. The measure, which requires a simple majority to be passed, will be considered during the board’s quarterly meeting on Wednesday. The IAEA’s Board of Governors, made up of 35 member states, “decides it is essential and urgent … that Iran act to fulfill its legal obligations and … take the following actions without delay,”…

The UK government froze assets belonging to Russian businessmen and entities worth £18 billion ($20.6 billion) this year, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), which is part of the UK’s Treasury, said in its annual report on Thursday.The figure tops all other UK sanctions regimes put together and makes Russia Britain’s most-sanctioned nation, the OFSI said.UK sanctions have so far targeted around 1,200 Russian individuals, over 120 entities, and 19 banks. The punitive measures include asset freezes, travel bans, and transport sanctions.“Today’s report shows the scale of UK sanctions – freezing over £18 billion of Russian assets to stop…

Over the past year, China has achieved noteworthy developments in areas including the construction of internet infrastructure, the digital economy and the improvement of digital public services, according to the China Internet Development Report 2022.The report was released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies on Wednesday at the World Internet Conference in the water-town of Wuzhen in east China’s Zhejiang Province.How has China’s internet infrastructure developed? What role has China’s internet industry played in its economy? How many people in China are online? Let’s look at the data in the report.Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the…

Space-savvy audiences at this year’s Airshow China can catch a glimpse of the model of the country’s next-generation manned rocket for a moon landing, and a life-size replica of the orbiting China Space Station. With a takeoff weight of 2,100 tonnes, the new launch vehicle is 90 meters long. It has a lunar-transfer-orbit capacity of 27 tonnes and a near-Earth orbit capacity of 70 tonnes. The rocket to carry taikonauts is expected to make its maiden flight in 2027, said Zhao Xinguo, an official at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, at the ongoing 14th China International Aviation and…

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Climate change in the United States is unfolding at a faster pace when compared to change dynamics in other parts of the planet, which means that natural disasters will occur more often in the region, the US media reported, citing a new federal report released on Monday.The US has experienced warming 68% faster than the planet as a whole over the past 50 years, the draft document read.Natural disasters will occur more frequently in the US, in particular wildfires and floods, as rainfall and heat extremes are proliferating.According to the document, climate change is unleashing “far-reaching and…

Dubai-based Nakheel has secured AED17bn ($4.6bn) in funding that the local developer says will drive its new growth phase. It has refinanced AED11bn and secured additional funds of AED6bn. The finance will be utilised to accelerate the development of its new projects, including Dubai Islands and other large waterfront projects. The refinancing of AED11bn has been secured through a syndicate of three banks – Mashreq Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank and Emirates NBD. In August, Nakheel released details of a new masterplan for the reclaimed islands next to the Deira corniche. The islands, now known as Dubai Islands, were originally part…

“The US sanctions against Zimbabwe have been piled on since 2001, following a government decision to repossess land from minority white farmers for redistribution to landless indigenous Zimbabweans,” Dr. Mamdouh G. Salameh, an international oil economist and global energy expert, told Sputnik. “The sanction-induced economic mire has inflicted a myriad of real challenges on Zimbabweans, especially amid an unprecedented global pandemic.””Though the Zimbabwean government said the land reform would promote democracy and the economy, Western countries launched repeated sanctions with little regard for the average person’s suffering,” the economist continued.The issue of Western restrictions slapped on Zimbabweans was raised by…

With the significant decline in the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound, Egypt as a tourist destination has become very much in demand as an inexpensive trip. This was reflected in the rise in tourist numbers to Egypt, which have grown by 30 percent this year, Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Ahmed Issa, announced in a press interview on the sidelines of the World Travel Market in London. Egypt is seeking to incentivize tourist arrivals, with the aim of receiving 30 million tourists annually. The Egyptian minister explained that access to this figure is related to numbers, and the…

When Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan used a brew of nutrients, proteins, and drugs to resuscitate a pig’s brain hours after its death, he discovered the line between life and death wasn’t as clear as he’d once thought. His goal hadn’t been to reanimate the brain but rather to study its wiring. As soon as he published the sensational results in 2019, interest in his lab’s activities flooded in from around the world.“A lot of colleagues at Yale and elsewhere came knocking on our door, saying, ‘We need to try this in kidneys, we need to try that,’” Sestan says.…

A child plays in a fountain in the warm weather in London, Friday, June 17, 2022 as a blanket of hot air stretching from the Mediterranean to the North Sea is giving much of Western Europe its first heat wave of the summer. (AP photo)At least 15,000 people have died in Europe because of hot weather in 2022 so far, the World Health Organization said Monday, with Spain and Germany among the worst-affected countries.The three months from June-August were the hottest in Europe since records began, and the exceptionally high temperatures led to the worst drought the continent has witnessed…