Dozens dead as Yemen ravaged by floods
Yemen: Flash floods have ravaged areas of war-torn Yemen, leaving dozens dead and destroying thousands of homes, security officials and an aid group said.
With Yemen already mired in escalated fighting, widespread hunger and a major coronavirus outbreak, torrential rain is exacerbating the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.
“The combination of coronavirus, conflict and heavy rains this year is hurting millions of Yemenis across the country,” said Abdi Ismail, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross mission in Yemen.
In southern Yemen, 33,000 displaced people who were sheltering in camps lost their tents and belongings in the floods, the ICRC reported, adding that dozens have died across the country.
In the impoverished western provinces of Hajjah and Hodeida, security officials said 23 people had been killed or were missing over the last 24 hours, and 187 homes were destroyed.
Kosovo: Kosovo’s foreign minister said that she asked Apple to correct her country’s borders in its maps.
Meliza Haradinaj posted in her Twitter page that she had written a letter to Apple chief executive Tim Cook “to take immediate steps to correctly present
Kosovo’s internationally recognised borders in its Applemap Service”.
On those maps, Kosovo is shown as part of Serbia, something the minister said was in “in direct contradiction of the political and legal realities”.
Kosovo seceded from Serbia after a 1998-99 war that ended with a 78-day Nato air campaign against Serbian troops.
Kosovo, dominated by ethnic Albanians, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move recognised by some 100 countries, but not by Serbia.
Washington: Melania Trump has announced plans to redo the White House Rose Garden to make it more in line with the original design implemented during the 1960s Kennedy administration.
The first lady said yesterday in a statement that decades of use and changes made to support a modern presidency have taken a toll on the outdoor space just off the Oval Office.
President Donald Trump has been using the Rose Garden a lot more lately to make statements and hold news conferences in the age of the coronavirus.
The first lady also hosted a state dinner for Australia in the garden last year.
Plans described by the first lady include returning the Rose Garden to its original 1962 footprint with improved infrastructure and drainage and a better environment for the plants and flowers.
Milan: The famed La Scala opera house announced an autumn programme of concerts and ballets aimed as a signal of confidence that European cultural life can resume in full following the coronavirus lockdowns, and in support of artists who were left out of work.
La Scala’s musical director, Riccardo
Chailly, will launch the season on September 4 by conducting Verdi’s Requiem in Milan’s Duomo dedicated to victims of the coronavirus.