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An earthquake of magnitude 6.0 shook Taiwan on Monday morning. Authorities said that the quake struck at 9.05am at a depth of 6.8km. Taiwan’s central weather bureau said that it hit Hualien county, halfway down the east coast of the island. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Source: independent.co.uk

Northern Italian regions risk losing up to half their agricultural output due to a drought, a farm lobby said on Friday, as lakes and rivers across much of Italy start to run dangerously low, jeopardising irrigation. The federation of Italian utility companies, Utilitalia, warned this week that the country's longest river, the Po, was experiencing its worst drought for 70 years, leaving many sections of the vast, northern waterway completely dried up.

Source: reuters.com

Several states across India, including Bihar and Telangana, have seen huge protests against a government plan to hire soldiers on fixed rather than permanent contracts. The new Agnipath scheme is aimed at people aged between 17.5 and 21. Successful candidates will join the armed services for four years, after which only a quarter of them will be retained.

Source: bbc.com

For Jung Ki-young, a South Korean software engineer, Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) decision to retire its Internet Explorer web browser marked the end of a quarter-century love-hate relationship with the technology. To commemorate its demise, he spent a month and 430,000 won ($330) designing and ordering a headstone with Explorer's "e" logo and the English epitaph: "He was a good tool to download other browsers."

Source: reuters.com

Monsoon storms in Bangladesh have killed at least 25 people and unleashed devastating floods that left more than four million others stranded, officials said Saturday. Floods are a regular menace to millions of people in low-lying Bangladesh, but experts say climate change is increasing their frequency, ferocity and unpredictability.

Source: france24.com

At least 31 people have died as the flood situation in India's Assam and Meghalaya states deteriorated with major rivers continuing to swell amid incessant rains. At least 1.9 million people in 28 districts of Assam have been affected by the floods with the newly formed Bajali district being the worst hit, private broadcaster NDTV reports.

Source: bdnews24.com

At least two people were wounded in an attack on a Sikh temple in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday morning, officials said. "There were around 30 people inside the temple. We don't know how many of them are alive or how many dead. The Taliban are not allowing us to go inside, we don't know what to do," the temple official, Gornam Singh, told Reuters.
 

Ukraine on Friday condemned the European Broadcasting Union's decision to strip it of the right to host next year's Eurovision song contest on security grounds after Russia's invasion. "We will demand to change this decision, because we believe that we will be able to fulfil all the commitments... We demand additional negotiations on hosting Eurovision-2023 in Ukraine," Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said in a statement.

Source: france24.com

Jean-Louis Trintignant, one of France's best-known actors who starred in more than 100 films, has died aged 91. Trintignant featured in Three Colours: Red, Z, The Conformist and Amour - which won an Oscar and the Palme d'Or. He died early on Friday in the southern Gard region "surrounded by loved ones", his wife told the AFP news agency.

 

British health officials reported another 50 cases of monkeypox across the country on Friday, for a total of 574 cases. That makes the U.K.’s outbreak the biggest to date beyond Africa.

Source: apnews.com

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other senior officials prepared aid to send to 800 families suffering from an unidentified intestinal epidemic, state media reported on Friday, as the country also battles its first COVID-19 outbreak.

Source: reuters.com

While leaving a restaurant and walking to a waiting car on Wednesday, Hanks and Wilson were approached by several fans, who asked for selfies. Hanks is seen shouting at the group after they caused his wife to trip. The footage, which includes strong language, has been uploaded to YouTube.

Source: bbc.com

Although Ukraine won the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, the UK broke its tradition of coming last or towards the end of the leaderboard by placing second following Sam Ryder's Spaceman performance. On 17 June, a statement was released announcing Ukraine's official withdrawal from hosting due to the ongoing war, with discussions now ongoing with the BBC for the UK to host.

Source: express.co.uk

In its response, WikiLeaks said that “this is a dark day for Press freedom and British democracy.” Assange plans to appeal against this decision, according to the statement. If convicted in the U.S., Assange could face a 175-year jail sentence.

Source: politico.eu

After two years of eating in near-monastic silence, children in Japan have been given permission to chat to their classmates over lunch, as Covid cases in the country continue to fall. Throughout the pandemic, primary and middle school classrooms have reverberated to the sound of cutlery meeting crockery and, in some cases, piped music, but the young diners have been silenced as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.

Source: theguardian.com

The ship began construction in Shanghai in 2018 and is China’s first domestically-developed aircraft carrier.

Source: aljazeera.com

And 10 others were wounded on Friday during an Israeli army raid in Jenin, a stronghold of armed Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank. The three men were killed when the Israeli forces opened fire on a vehicle in which they were travelling, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Source: france24.com

Polar bears face an existential threat from the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice, which they rely on as platforms to hunt seals. But in a new study, scientists have identified an isolated subpopulation of polar bears in Southeast Greenland that instead make use of freshwater ice pouring into the ocean from the region's glaciers, suggesting this particular habitat is less susceptible than others to climate change.

Source: france24.com