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Ukraine

FRESH Russian strikes hit cities across Ukraine late this week, in a wave of attacks that have crippled the country’s energy infrastructure as winter sets in and temperatures drop.

Repeated barrages have been disrupting electricity and water supplies to millions of Ukrainians, but the Kremlin blamed civilians’ suffering on Kyiv’s refusal to negotiate, rather than Russian missiles.

The fresh strikes had come with snow falling for the first time this season and after officials in Kyiv warned of “difficult” days ahead as a cold spell approaches.

The salvoes also came as Moscow and Kyiv confirmed the extension of an agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea, which aims to help the global supply of food. |

Libya

THE UN’S mission in Libya voiced alarm this week as it called for the release of dozens of persons “detained without legal basis” at a prison near the capital Tripoli who are on hunger strike.

More than 70 inmates launched the strike last month to protest “the prolonged arbitrary detention of many inmates, conditions of detention and illtreatment, including denial of family visits and medical care”, it said.

The prison is controlled by the powerful Al-Radaa force which acts as the police. | AFP

Ebola

UGANDA’S President Yoweri Museveni has urged foreign visitors not to cancel their plans over fears of the Ebola outbreak in the East African nation, insisting that the disease was under control.

Since the outbreak was declared in the district of Mubende on September

20, cases have spread across the country, including to the capital Kampala, with 55 deaths reported nationwide, according to Ugandan authorities.

But Museveni has dismissed talk of a nationwide lockdown, saying it is not needed.

In an address to the country this week, he said the Ebola outbreak was limited to six out of 146 districts in Uganda. | AFP

A MUSICAL adaptation of Monsoon Wedding which started showing this week in Qatar had to remove alcohol and kissing, but the hit film’s director Mira Nair insists it has not lost its “soul”.

One of the biggest made-in-India international hits, the 2001 film recounts the chaotic preparations for the Delhi wedding of an Indian girl to an IndianAmerican man.

But just as its plot exposes cultural clashes in an Indian family, bringing an adapted version to Qatar has also meant some upheaval. Alcohol is largely banned and public displays of affection are also forbidden, leaving viewers in Islamic

Qatar without some elements of a typical Punjabi celebration. | AFP