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Iran’s top diplomat to visit Damascus as Syria’s allies rally after fall of Aleppo
Sun, 01 Dec 2024 13:34:36 GMT
Bashar al-Assad’s supporters scramble to respond to sudden losses to Islamist insurgents in northern Syria
Iran’s top diplomat is expected to go to Damascus in a show of support to the Syrian regime as it attempts to repel the strongest challenge to its authority in years, after a sudden advance by Islamist insurgents in which it seized control of Aleppo.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters he would travel on Sunday to Syria to convey the strength of Tehran’s backing for Bashar al-Assad and his rule. Araghchi is expected in the Turkish capital, Ankara, the following day, as Damascus’s allies and opponents scramble to adapt to Assad’s sudden losses in northern Syria.
Continue reading...Simone White, 28, was one of six tourists to die in a suspected methanol poisoning at Vang Vieng hostel
The mother of a British lawyer who died after being served a drink that was allegedly spiked with methanol has said if it can happen to her daughter it can happen to anyone.
Simone White, 28, from Orpington, Kent, was one of six tourists killed in the popular backpacking town of Vang Vieng after an alleged mass poisoning. She was taken in for surgery just as her mother, Sue, 61, arrived at the hospital. It later became clear that Simone’s brain function was gone, and she died on Thursday 21 November.
Continue reading...This place has masses of appeal and real star potential – if only someone had made a film about it
Desi Yew Tree, 44 Pool Street, Wolverhampton, WV2 4HN. Desiyewtree.com. No reservations. Starters £4.50 – £11; Sharing grill platters £12 – £22; Main dishes £8.50 – £13. Beer from £4 a pint
I am but a man; as easily suggestible as any rampant digestive system attached to an equally rampant mouth. Show me a picture of a steaming bowl of ramen, the burnished rings of chashu pork peeking shyly from the cloudy broth, and I will immediately know that this is the only thing I wish to eat. Forever. Or at least for lunch. The hanging Cantonese roasted ducks, pressing their red and gold breasts to the windows of Chinatown restaurants, aren’t just a serving suggestion to me. They are benign sirens, calling me irresistibly to the table. I know how sophisticated food photography has become. That doesn’t stop the baser animal part of me, the bit throbbing away in some rudely undeveloped fold of my brain, demanding that I find a way to get my mouth around whatever I’m looking at. I like to think of myself as discerning and sophisticated; in truth, I am merely an advertiser’s dream.
Continue reading...Over 70 years ago, thousands of mixed-race boys and girls were torn from their mothers by order of the state. This week five survivors hope a court will censure Belgium for crimes against humanity
Monique was three years old when a white man from the government came to her village and changed everything. Everyone came out to see him, including Monique, who, as always, was with her “little auntie”, a girl of nine who was also her best friend. Monique cannot recall what the man looked like, but she remembers how sad everyone was after he had gone. Her mother had tears in her eyes that night. Monique would not see her for a long time.
The next day, Monique set off early with her uncle, aunt and grandmother on a three-day journey. Travelling on foot and by boat, with Monique in their arms, they went more than 100 miles from her birth village, Babadi, in the southern central Kasaï province in the Belgian Congo, to her new lodgings, the Catholic mission of the sisters of Saint-Vincent-de Paul in Katende. It was 1953 – the year Joseph Stalin died and Queen Elizabeth II was crowned – and Belgium still ruled the Congo, a vast African territory 75 times its size.
Continue reading...Palestinians from Gaza feel relief for the people of Lebanon. We are also heartbroken that we are still being slaughtered.
The post There’s a Ceasefire in Lebanon, but Israel Keeps Gaslighting Palestinians About Ending the Assault on Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
The U.S. has a long tradition of shielding Israel (and itself) from war crime allegations — and threatening The Hague.
The post War Crimes Have Never Stopped the U.S. Before appeared first on The Intercept.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...Agency says armed gangs looted several trucks carrying food supplies and urges Israel to ensure safe flows of aid
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has suspended aid deliveries through the main lifeline for the Gaza Strip after a fresh attack by armed gangs on a humanitarian convoy, amid a severe food crisis caused by more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
In a statement on Sunday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, said several trucks carrying food supplies were looted the day before on the road from Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel, now the main aid crossing point into the besieged Palestinian territory. The route had not been safe for months, he said on X, referring to the unprecedented hijacking of nearly 100 aid trucks last month.
Continue reading...As neighbors face an uncertain political future, the city’s only Afghan restaurant provides a sense of community – and ‘a bit of happiness’
An aromatic blend of spices and bolani, stuffed pan-fried bread, and the voice of Asad Badie, an Afghan pop singer who rose to stardom in the 1980s, foreshadowed a meal experience that one could easily believe was taking place thousands of miles away.
In reality, it was almost 1pm in Tucson, Arizona, when Ritiek Rafi and Ahmad Bahaduri started to greet and take orders from customers in Dari and English inside the only Afghan restaurant in the city.
Continue reading...Experts say they also enjoy ultra-processed treats at this time of year – the problem is when they become an everyday staple
From mince pies to pigs in blankets, Christmas is a time for indulgence – often on ultra-processed foods.
And as we eat our own body weight in chocolate while watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the 14th time, we often expect somebody who knows better to be tutting at us as they prepare healthier options.
Continue reading...Legal petition filed by 170 groups pushes environmental agency to tackle pressing health threat of pollution
A new legal petition filed by more than 170 top environmental groups demands that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) begin monitoring for microplastics in drinking water, an essential first step to reining in pollution viewed as one of the nation’s most pressing public health threats.
The scale of microplastic water pollution, the extent to which the substance is lodged throughout human bodies, and the many health implications have come into sharp focus in recent years, but the EPA still has not taken meaningful action, public health advocates say.
Continue reading...Policymakers must act as extreme weather events put more pressure on food inflation and production worldwide
Your morning – and afternoon – coffee is the latest staple threatened by climate chaos: the price of quality arabica beans shot to its highest level in almost 50 years last week amid fears of a poor harvest in Brazil.
It follows warnings that orange crops have been wiped out by the catastrophic floods in Valencia, Spain; and the soaring cost of olive oil in recent years, as the southern Mediterranean has sweltered.
Continue reading...Report calls for course correction to avoid land abuse ‘compromising Earth’s capacity to support human and environmental wellbeing’
Land degradation is expanding worldwide at the rate of 1m sq km every year, undermining efforts to stabilise the climate, protect nature and ensure sustainable food supplies, a study has highlighted.
The degraded area is already 15m sq km, an area greater than Antarctica, the scientific report says, and it calls for an urgent course correction to avoid land abuse “irretrievably compromising Earth’s capacity to support human and environmental wellbeing”.
Continue reading...Melbourne south regional distribution centre to reopen to ‘improve availability of food and essential grocery items such as nappies, toilet paper and drinks’
Woolworths will reopen a key distribution centre in Melbourne on Monday in a bid to keep essential items on shelves amid ongoing industrial action.
Up to 1,500 employees began rolling 24-hour strikes on 21 November in warehouses in New South Wales and Victoria, seeking improved wages and safety. One of the major issues is a new system used at the warehouse that tracks workers down to the minute and logs performance each shift.
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Continue reading...Light, sequins, music, martinis… How to throw a proper party with top tips from Zandra Rhodes, DJ Fat Tony, Ashish Gupta and many more
Make it so that you don’t have to pretend, with individual dancefloors for the shy and retiring.
Continue reading...This place has masses of appeal and real star potential – if only someone had made a film about it
Desi Yew Tree, 44 Pool Street, Wolverhampton, WV2 4HN. Desiyewtree.com. No reservations. Starters £4.50 – £11; Sharing grill platters £12 – £22; Main dishes £8.50 – £13. Beer from £4 a pint
I am but a man; as easily suggestible as any rampant digestive system attached to an equally rampant mouth. Show me a picture of a steaming bowl of ramen, the burnished rings of chashu pork peeking shyly from the cloudy broth, and I will immediately know that this is the only thing I wish to eat. Forever. Or at least for lunch. The hanging Cantonese roasted ducks, pressing their red and gold breasts to the windows of Chinatown restaurants, aren’t just a serving suggestion to me. They are benign sirens, calling me irresistibly to the table. I know how sophisticated food photography has become. That doesn’t stop the baser animal part of me, the bit throbbing away in some rudely undeveloped fold of my brain, demanding that I find a way to get my mouth around whatever I’m looking at. I like to think of myself as discerning and sophisticated; in truth, I am merely an advertiser’s dream.
Continue reading...From actor Stephen Graham on his childhood heroes to the best Christmas gifts for foodies: the best original photographs from the Observer commissioned in November 2024
Continue reading...Escape rooms, murder mystery experiences and crazy golf are replacing traditional boozy lunches
From telling your boss what you really think of them, to an ill-advised hook-up with a colleague, the traditional British office Christmas party usually supplies enough drama to provide ammunition for workplace gossip well into January.
Now, though, the annual booze-fuelled debauch appears to be falling out of favour as companies respond to changing cultural mores and home working – not to mention the mounting legal risk posed by festive impropriety.
Continue reading...From alcohol-free prosecco to dealcoholised wine, here are our top picks for no-booze bubbles with plenty of sparkle
Party season is around the corner, but that doesn’t have to mean overdoing the booze until we try to undo the excesses in Dry January.
If you’re avoiding alcohol, there are plenty of good alternatives to sparkling wine that still feel celebratory and make that great sound when you pop the cork. And, for once, we can toast to “our good health” and actually mean it.
Continue reading...Conceptual work created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold at auction in New York last week
The cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun has fulfilled a promise he made after spending $6.2m (£4.88m) on an artwork featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall – by eating the fruit.
At one of Hong Kong’s priciest hotels, Sun, 34, chomped down on the banana in front of dozens of journalists and influencers after giving a speech hailing the work as “iconic” and drew parallels between conceptual art and cryptocurrency.
Continue reading...Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban
Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.
Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.
Continue reading...Biden said that the truce could be a prelude to a ceasefire in Gaza. Netanyahu’s actions seem to indicate otherwise.
The post Israel Agrees to Stop Bombing Lebanon — So It Can Keep Bombing Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.
A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas
Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.
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Continue reading...Democratic support for the bill dwindled as critics warned it would let Donald Trump crack down on political foes.
The post The House Just Blessed Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook by Passing Nonprofit-Killer Bill appeared first on The Intercept.
Sanders’s resolutions to block arms sales to Israel gained momentum, but ran headlong into White House opposition.
The post Bernie Sanders Lost Vote to Block Arms for Israel, Says U.S. Is “Funding the Starvation of Children in Gaza” appeared first on The Intercept.
From spices to seeds, coffee to candles, we opened the doors of some of this year’s more inventive countdown-to-Christmas offerings – with varying results
Advent calendars filled with everything from beauty products to chocolate, Lego to tea, are as much a staple in the run-up to Christmas as drinking too much and listening to Last Christmas for the 1,237th time.
So, we’ve sniffed, tasted and drunk our way through 12 of them, rating them by their contents, value for money, sustainability and festive factor. And for those who want to swerve products altogether, we’ve rounded up the most beautiful, feelgood paper Advent calendars we could find.
Continue reading...Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday
Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday
Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you
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Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
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