Moqtada al-Sadr, a powerful cleric whose resignation from Iraq politics spurred a spate of violence that claimed the lives of 23 people has apologised to Iraqi people affected by the unrest and ordered his supporters to call off a protest, vacate Baghdad’s Green Zone.
In other news, Ukraine has ramped up its efforts to take back Kherson from Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukrainian forces will be able to drive occupying Russian forces back to pre-2014 lines.
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‘I apologise to the people’ Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr orders his followers to leave Green Zone
Protestors started to depart from the Green Zone in Baghdad on Tuesday after Moqtada al-Sadr, a powerful cleric in Iraq, urged his supporters to call off a protest after violence claimed the lives of 23.
Sadr threatened to “disavow” anyone still in the high-security Green Zone after giving his supporters “60 minutes” to depart.
‘We will chase them to the border,’ says Zelensky, as Ukraine battles to retake Kherson
As it attempts to retake occupied Kherson, the Ukrainian military has claimed to have destroyed important Russian control stations, munitions, and stores.
Xi Jinping’s ‘zero-covid’ policy faces rare public criticism
In a rare happening, a Chinese think tank has issued a public discord with Beijing’s communist party’s severe “zero-Covid” policy and said that the curbs must change.
Eleven years after Fukushima disaster, Japan lifts evacuation orders
On Tuesday (August 30), eleven years after the catastrophic nuclear accident, the evacuation order in Futaba, the town that houses the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, was removed.
Futaba is the last of the eleven municipalities affected by the quake-induced tragedy to have an evacuation order removed.
Another woman sentenced to 45-year jail term in Saudi Arabia for using Twitter
Weeks after arresting a university student and sentencing her to a 34-year prison term for using Twitter, the Saudi Arabian authorities have sentenced another woman to decades in prison.
Kenya’s Odinga believes he won the elections, waiting for Supreme Court’s decision
Raila Odinga, the leader of the Kenyan opposition, said he will respect the court’s decision even though he still thinks he won the presidential election this month. This is Odinga’s fifth attempt at being president. He blamed previous defeats on rigging, accusations that have twice provoked violent protests in the country.
Ecuadorian government launches investigation into killing of four Galapagos tortoises
The Ecuadorian government has ordered an investigation into the killing of four Galapagos giant tortoises and according to BBC, the prosecutors believe that they were hunted and eaten.
We are in better position to counter Russia’s gas threat, says Olaf Scholz
A day before Russia shuts the all-important Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline which runs from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, German chancellor Olaf Scholz stated that Germany could counter the Russian gas threat.
Gazprom to reduce gas deliveries to Engie, France’s biggest gas supplier
A day after French PM Elisabeth Borne warned of energy rationing in the winter, Gazprom has dropped another bomb. Reportedly, the Russian state-owned gas company on Tuesday informed that gas deliveries to Engie, France’s biggest supplier of gas to households and businesses will be reduced, starting today due to a dispute over contracts.
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