Rising temperatures due to climate change prompted the Iranian administration to announce government organizations and schools closed for Wednesday and Thursday this week.
Administration spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said the decision had been taken with the health of citizens in mind and on a proposal from the Health Ministry.
Climate experts said July was the hottest month in recorded history around the globe.
A study showed that Earth had not experienced such temperatures in 120,000 years.
One drone managed to penetrate the air defenses and hit one of the high-rises in Moscow City where some of Europe’s tallest skyscrapers are located, Sobyanin said in a Telegram post around 3:40am.
“Several drones were shot down by air defense systems while trying to fly to Moscow. One hit the same tower in the City as the last time,” the mayor wrote.
He added that the building’s facade on the 21th floor was damaged.
According to photos and videos from the scene, the drone hit the 50-story building of the ‘IQ Quarter’ complex, which contains offices of several Russian government agencies, including the ministries of trade, economy, and telecommunications.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or injuries, but “emergency services are working at the scene,” according to the mayor.
All flights to and from Vnukovo Airport in southwestern Moscow were briefly suspended as a precaution.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced in a statement that a total of three drones were involved in the raid. Two of them were destroyed mid-air outside Moscow, while the third was suppressed by electronic warfare systems, veering off course and crashing into a “non-residential complex in Moscow City.”
On Sunday, Kiev made another attempt to attack Moscow City. According to the MOD, all incoming aircraft were shot down or suppressed by air defenses, but their debris damaged the glass facades of two skyscrapers. One person was injured.
Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Ukraine is launching “terrorist strikes” on Moscow and other civilian targets in Russia out of frustration over its failures on the battlefield. The attempted drone attacks on Moscow are “some sort of acts of desperation against the background of those failures. And, of course, Kiev resorts to such terrorist tactics,” Peskov added.
An article on Shargh Daily said the motion was based on the simplistic assumption that people make financial calculations when it comes to all matters and seek to increase their benefits and decrease their costs, thus, faced with a potential fine, they would automatically decide to wear their hijab properly.
“It is really weird that such plans are devised in the country’s decision-making system,” the article read.
Given the economic pressures and the recent sex tape scandals involving government officials, the article said, “there is practically no social capital to exert such restrictions” as those in the administration’s proposed law.
Furthermore, the motion allows “arbitrary treatment” when it comes to deciding what type of hijab is proper and what type isn’t, it added.
“The ratification and implementation of this law will probably produce criminals in their millions,” Shargh wrote.
“Can a law that targets such a heavy mass of people for punishment find the opportunity to be carried out at all?”
The blast targeted a political party gathering in the town of Khar in Bajaur district. More than 200 people were wounded.
The Takfiri terrorist group announced in a statement issued on its news arm Ama that a bomber from Daesh “detonated his explosive jacket in the middle of a crowd.”
Virtually 1,000 people had gathered under a large tent as their party prepared for parliamentary elections due later this year.
Parliament is likely to be dissolved after it completes its term in the next two weeks with national elections to be held by mid-November or earlier.
The administration of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to hunt down those responsible for the bombing.
A spokeswoman for the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has said what happened in Pakistan was “a terrible attack” that sought “to instill terror.”
The food aid arm of the United Nations said in a report that the program will come to a halt in August, which will adversely affect many people suffering from malnutrition in the war-torn Arab country.
“The severe funding shortage, coupled with the continuous interruption of supplies, will force us to completely suspend malnutrition prevention activity in Yemen, starting next August, which will have an impact on the 2.4 million malnourished people in the country, who are among the most vulnerable,” it said.
To mitigate the critical situation in Yemen, the UN agency added it intends to redirect the limited funds available to treat the most severe cases of malnutrition, which pose a greater danger than moderate malnutrition.
Due to the severe funding deficit, the WFP has found it necessary to convert more than 900,000 beneficiaries of cash-based transfers to in-kind food distributions, according to the report.
The UN agency highlighted that it believes that the move, despite the unfortunate circumstances, is necessary to ensure the survival of the program and the continued provision of aid to those who need it the most.
The funding for the WFP’s six-month plan, spanning from August 2023 to January 2024, has been severely slashed.
Only 28% of the total required amount of $1.05 billion has been met. Notably, contributions worth $139 million were confirmed in June from Australia, the European Union, Norway, the United States, and the Yemen Humanitarian Fund.
The underfunding of the critical plan threatens the WFP’s ability to provide necessary aid to those suffering from malnutrition in Yemen. This raises significant concerns about the future well-being of millions of malnourished individuals in the crisis-hit Arab nation.
Saudi Arabia initiated a brutal war of aggression against Yemen in March 2015, enlisting the assistance of some of its regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates, as well as massive shipments of advanced weaponry from the US and Western Europe.
The Western governments further extended their political and logistical support to Riyadh in their failed bid to restore power in Yemen to the country’s former Saudi-installed government.
The former Yemeni government’s president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, resigned from the presidency in late 2014 and later fled to Riyadh amid a political conflict with Ansarullah. The movement has been running Yemen’s affairs in the absence of a functioning administration.
The war further led to the killing of tens of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire nation into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Hissein Ibrahim Taha, the OIC secretary general, renewed his call on the Swedish and Danish authorities to take formal measures and expressed his disappointment that “no measures had been taken in this regard so far.”
In a resolution, the OIC chief expressed “grave concern” over the increasing incidences of intolerance, discrimination and acts of violence in the world, and said attempts to spread Islamophobia are on the rise in many parts of the world, as evidenced by the increasing number of incidents of religious intolerance, negative stereotypes, hatred and violence against Muslims.
“Not taking measures by the authorities in Sweden and Denmark to prevent the recurrence of such acts is contrary to UN Security Council Resolution No.2686 (2023) adopted on June 14, 2023 pertaining to international tolerance, peace, and security,” Ibrahim Taha stated.
The OIC head also condemned all attempts to desecrate the Qur’an as well as other holy books, values and symbols of Islam and other religions under the guise of freedom of expression, and called upon the international community to unanimously stand against such provocative attempts.
The resolution further called on member states to consider taking necessary measures in their interactions with countries where the desecration of the Holy Quran is occurring, especially Sweden and Denmark, including recalling their ambassadors, or making decisions in economic, cultural, or other fields to express their strong disapproval of the recurring disrespect towards the Quran.
A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on Monday that the two sides discussed confidence-building measures during the two-day talks, including the lifting of sanctions and travel bans as well as the return of Afghan central bank assets held abroad.
The delegations also discussed combating narcotics and human rights issues, Abdul Qahar Balkhi said.
No country has formally recognised the Taliban since its return to power.
The group took over in August 2021 as Afghanistan’s Western-backed government collapsed in the aftermath of the US’s chaotic withdrawal from the country after 20 years of conflict.
Since their takeover, the Taliban has faced international condemnation, including from several Muslim-majority countries, over restrictions the group has imposed on women’s education. Afghanistan is also grappling with a humanitarian crisis, with almost half of its population – 23 million people – receiving assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP) last year.
The US State Department announced in a statement that its officials told the Taliban that Washington was open to technical talks on economic stability and repeated concerns about “deteriorating” human rights in the country.
Attendees – including US Special Representative Thomas West and Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights Rina Amiri – voiced “grave concern regarding detentions, media crackdowns, and limits on religious practice”, according to the statement.
The officials also called anew on the Taliban to reverse bans on girls’ secondary education and women’s employment as well as for the release of detained Americans.
They also “voiced openness to continue dialogue on counternarcotics”, recognising a “significant decrease in cultivation” of poppies this growing season.
Taliban fighters used the plant, from which opium is extracted, to help fund their armed struggle for years. By 2020, 85 percent of the world’s opium was flowing out of Afghanistan, according to the United Nations. But since their takeover, authorities have banned the crop.
The US delegation also met representatives of the Afghan central bank and the Ministry of Finance, with the State Department saying it “took note” of falling inflation as well as rising exports and imports in 2023.
It added it would be open to “a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilisation issues soon”, the statement said.
The US froze about $7bn in Afghan central bank funds held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York after the Taliban took power. Half of the funds now are in a Swiss-based Afghan Fund.
A US-funded audit of the Afghan central bank failed to win Washington’s backing for a return of assets from the trust fund.
Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told Reuters that Kyiv did not attack and would not attack civilian vessels or any other civilian objects in the Black Sea, calling Russian statements “fictitious”.
Russia’s defence ministry announced it had thwarted an attack from Ukrainian drones overnight on civilian transport vessels in the Black Sea, according to the Interfax news agency.
“Undoubtedly, such statements by Russian officials are fictitious and do not contain even a shred of truth. Ukraine has not attacked, is not attacking and will not attack civilian vessels, nor any other civilian objects,” Podolyak stated.
The Kremlin believes there’s “an obvious threat” after the latest drone strike on Moscow, presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated in a call with journalists on Tuesday.
“There is an obvious threat, and measures are being taken,” Peskov said when asked about the strikes, but declined to elaborate on the attacks and measures taken to prevent them.
Peskov’s remarks came after a drone struck the same Moscow building that was hit on Sunday, according to the city’s mayor. It comes after three drones were brought down by Russian air defenses on Sunday.
Russia announced Ukraine launched three drones toward Moscow on Tuesday, in what the country’s Ministry of Defense has labeled a “terrorist attack.”
“On the night of 1 August, an attempt by the Kiev regime to launch a terrorist attack by unmanned aerial vehicles against facilities in Moscow… was foiled,” the ministry statement said.
According to the ministry, the three drones were brought down.
“Two Ukrainian UAVs were destroyed in the air by air defence facilities over the territory of Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts of Moscow region,” it added.
A third drone was intercepted and lost control before crashing into a complex of non-residential buildings in Moscow City, the statement added. It hit the very same building that was struck in Ukrainian drone strikes on Sunday.
The Moscow City area is mostly a financial district of the city but the building that was hit – for the second night in a row – houses some government offices.
Among the offices at the building are the delegations of the Ministry of Economy, the Scientific and Technical Library of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Digital Development, their subordinate structures and a local body of the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology (Rosstandart).
Employees at the Ministry of Digital Development have been working remotely since the first drone attack on Sunday, Russian state media reported.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak stated the drone strikes on Moscow are a sign the Russian capital is becoming “used to a full-fledged war.”
“Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the authors of the war to collect all their debts,” Podolyak said in a post on Twitter Tuesday.
“More unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, more war,” he added.
Russian forces repelled a Ukrainian naval drone attack on two of its patrol vessels in the Black Sea, according to a statement posted on the Russian Defense Ministry’s Telegram channel on Tuesday.
“Overnight, the Ukrainian armed forces made an unsuccessful attempt to attack with three uncrewed boats the patrol vessels Sergei Kotov and Vasily Bykov of the Black Sea Fleet, which were carrying out tasks to control navigation in the southwestern part of the Black Sea, 340 kilometers southwest of Sevastopol,” the statement read.
The statement added that the three Ukrainian naval drones “were destroyed by fire from the regular weapons of the Russian ships,” while the Russian ships “continue to carry out their assigned tasks.”
The Vasily Bykov is one of the two Russian vessels that participated in the attack on Snake Island on 24 February 2022.
Russian military chief of staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov visited the front lines in the Zaporizhzhia region, the country’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
In a Telegram post, the ministry said Gerasimov inspected the command post of the troop grouping in the Zaporozhye direction, using the Russian spelling for Zaporizhzhia.
“At the command post, the head of the General Staff heard a report by the commander of the grouping, Colonel-General Alexander Romanchuk, on the current situation, the nature of the enemy’s actions and the performance by Russian troops of combat tasks in the Orekhov (Rus for Ukr Orikhiv) tactical direction,” the post added.
It was not immediately clear when exactly Gerasimov was at the command post.
The Defense Ministry noted that Gerasimov “drew attention to the timely identification of the enemy, the launching of preventive strikes against it and the conduct of counter-battery warfare” during the inspection.
Gerasimov was thrust into the position of leading Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine in January this year.
The decision put Gerasimov, who was been chief of the General Staff for more than a decade, closer to direct supervision of Putin’s campaign and with more responsibility for it.
A drone has struck the same building in Moscow that was hit on Sunday, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated Tuesday.
“Several drones that were trying to fly into Moscow were shot down by [our] air defense. One flew into the same tower in [Moscow] City as last time. The facade at the 17th floor was damaged,” the mayor said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that war is “gradually returning” to Russia after the Kremlin accused Kyiv of targeting Moscow with drones.
The Russian defense ministry announced three drones were intercepted Sunday, but a business and shopping development in the west of the capital was hit. The fifth and sixth floors of a 50-story building were damaged, and no casualties were reported, state news agency TASS reported.
Kyiv and Zagreb have agreed on the “possibility” of using Croatian ports on the Danube river to export Ukrainian grain, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated after a meeting with his counterpart Gordan Grlic-Radman.
“We agreed on the possibility of using Croatian ports on the Danube and the Adriatic Sea to transport Ukrainian grain,” Ukraine’s Kuleba said on Monday, according to the Ukrainian government website.
“Now we will work to build the most efficient routes to these ports and make the most of this opportunity,” he stated.
“Every contribution to unblocking exports, every open door is a real, effective contribution to the world’s food security. I am grateful to Croatia for its constructive assistance,” he added.
The announcement follows Russia’s withdrawal from the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative, as well as several missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s grain storage and export infrastructure in the Odesa region, targeting both sea and river ports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky predicted Russian President Vladimir Putin will not survive “even 10 more years.”
In clips from the interview with Brazilian outlet Globo, posted to his Telegram page on Monday, Zelensky was asked if he thinks Ukraine is similar to the war in Syria and whether Ukraine could end up like Syria.
“No, it is not possible because Putin will not live that many years. He did not fight in Syria at the pace he is fighting us. The war in Syria is different,” Zelensky stated.
The Russian president “will not survive even 10 more years, he is not the same character anymore,” Zelensky continued, adding that the actions of the Russian troops on the battlefield “prove that today Russia is unable to occupy Ukraine completely and destroy us.”
The White House is criticizing senior Russian defense official Dmitry Medvedev’s comments suggesting Russia may resort to nuclear weapons if Ukraine is successful in its counteroffensive.
A National Security Council spokesperson called the rhetoric “reckless and irresponsible” on Monday. So far, the US has not seen any indications Russia is preparing to turn to nuclear weapons, the spokesperson added.
“The use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine — or anywhere — would be disastrous for the world and would have severe consequences for Russia,” the spokesperson said.
“We continue to monitor this closely, but we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture nor any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” the official added.
Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made the comments in a Telegram post. They are the latest in a series of nuclear threats made by Moscow since launching its war against Ukraine.
“Just imagine that the offensive… in tandem with NATO, succeeded and ended up with part of our land being taken away. Then we would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the stipulations of the Russian Presidential Decree,” Medvedev said in the post.
“There simply wouldn’t be any other solution,” he continued, adding, “Our enemies should pray to our fighters that they do not allow the world to go up in nuclear flames.”
US President Joe Biden said earlier this month that he does not believe Russia would deploy nuclear weapons.
Ukraine says Russian shelling of the city of Kherson has killed at least 4 people and injured 17 others, the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Andrii Yermak posted on Telegram on Monday.
“The enemy is hitting residential areas,” Yermak wrote, adding, “The Korabelny district and the central part of the city suffered the most. There are 4 dead and 17 wounded as of now.”
Local officials said Russia had intensified shelling on the city to provide cover for rotating troops.
“Such intensity of shelling is due to the rotation of enemy troops on the left bank [of the Dnipro river],” the head of Kherson region military administration Oleksandr Prokudin wrote in a telegram post on Monday.
“Russia has replenished its forces that our Armed Forces had previously destroyed,” he continued.
The death toll has risen to six, with 75 others injured, after two Russian missiles struck a residential area and a university in Kryvyi Rih, according to a revised death toll from the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region military administration, Serhii Lysak.
“Floors four through nine of the residential building have been completely destroyed,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Monday afternoon.
“The work is difficult – parts of the building’s structure were falling down,” he added.
More than 350 people are involved in the search and rescue effort following Monday’s strikes, according to Zelensky.
Russia used two ballistic missiles to target Kryvyi Rih, the head of the city’s Defense Council, Oleksandr Vilkul, told CNN earlier on Monday.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has yet to comment on Monday’s strikes on the central Ukrainian city.
Brigadier General Talaeinik said the missiles are capable of travelling at a low altitude. This takes the projectile off the enemy’s radar.
He described Abu Mahdi as Iran’s first long-range naval cruise missile, which uses artificial intelligence for determining the flight direction.
The spokesman for Iran’s Defense Ministry noted that Iran is among the world’s best defensive powers.
Talaeinik said Iran will never initiate a war but it will use offensive power for defensive purposes if needed.
United States officials have sought for months to reach what would be a historic agreement that Netanyahu has said would be a huge step towards ending the Israel-Palestine conflict, but Riyadh has signalled a deal would rest on Palestinian statehood.
“I can identify with what the United States president said in an interview a few days ago, where he said that the road is still long but that he thinks there will be a possibility of progress,” Hanegbi told public broadcaster Kan on Monday, adding that Israel is not involved in the US-Saudi discussions.
“I can say that Israel will not give in to anything that will erode its security,” he stated.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, visited Saudi Arabia in June with the explicit objective of promoting normalisation after declaring it a “national security interest” of the US.
US President Joe Biden last week dispatched his national security adviser to Riyadh to discuss a possible deal and on Friday said a rapprochement was “maybe under way”.
Asked whether the question of eroding Israel’s “security” included Riyadh establishing a civilian nuclear programme on its soil, Hanegbi stated that for that, Israel’s consent was not needed.
“Dozens of countries operate projects with civilian nuclear cores, and with nuclear endeavours for energy, this is not something that endangers them nor their neighbours,” he added.
US-Israeli ties have been strained in recent months by the Israeli government’s expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and highly contested judicial changes pursued by Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition.
Last year was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since the United Nations began keeping track of fatalities in 2005 with 150 people killed, including 33 minors. Officials have warned that 2023 will likely have a higher number of fatalities.
The idea of Israel and Saudi Arabia formally cementing ties has been under discussion since the Persian Gulf countries of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain established ties with Israel in 2020.
But on Monday, a member of a key party in Netanyahu’s government rejected any concessions towards the Palestinians as part of a pact.
“We certainly won’t agree to such a thing,” National Missions Minister Orit Strock told Kan.
“We are done with withdrawals. We are done with freezing settlements in Judea and Samaria,” Strock said, referring to the occupied West Bank.
Though it was unclear whether Strock was speaking on behalf of her entire party, such a position would pose a political obstacle for Netanyahu, who has cast the normalisation of ties with Saudi Arabia as a major foreign policy goal.
Her remarks were echoed by the head of another member of the coalition government, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who heads the far-right Jewish Power party. He told Army Radio that he has nothing against diplomatic deals with Arab countries.
“But if this deal includes concessions to the [Palestinian] Authority, handing over territory, arming the authority or giving … terrorists power, then I surely object,” he added.
© All Content by IFP News ( Iran Front Page ) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
