World

Los Angeles, Sep 8 (IANS) The US Air Force launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in the Vandenberg Space Force Base, 260 km north from Los Angeles downtown.

"An Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launches during an operational test at 1:13 A.M. PDT, Sept. 7, at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.," the Air Force confirmed on Twitter.

The test's purpose was to validate and verify the safety, security, effectiveness, and readiness of the weapon system, the Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) which directed the operation, said in a statement on Wednesday, adding "the ICBM's reentry vehicles traveled approximately 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands," which provided valuable data to ensure a continued safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.

"Such tests have occurred more than 300 times before, and this test is not the result of current world events," it noted.

Airmen from the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB, Montana, 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming, and 91st Missile Wing at Minot AFB, North Dakota, supported the Wednesday's test launch, AFGSC said.

--IANS
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United Nations, Sep 8 (IANS) United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for collective action to reduce air pollution and maintain a healthy planet.

"Together, we can reduce air pollution and keep people and the planet healthy and safe," the UN chief said Wednesday in a video message on the International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies.

The secretary-general warned that air pollution denies billions of people their human rights. Dirty air affects 99 per cent of people on the planet, and the poor suffer the worst, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Especially women and girls, whose health suffers by cooking and heating with dirty fuels," he said. "The poor also live in areas choked with fumes from traffic and industry."

"Air pollutants also cause global warming. Wildfires are further polluting the air," Guterres added.

He said that when people are exposed to air pollution and extreme heat, their risk of death is some 20 per cent higher.

"On this third International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies, I call on all countries to work together to combat air pollution," Guterres said.

He called on the international community to "invest in renewable energy and swiftly transition away from fossil fuels, rapidly move to zero-emission vehicles and alternative modes of transport, increase access to clean cooking, heating and cooling, and recycle waste instead of burning it."

UN member states recognise the need to substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution and contamination by 2030, as well as reduce the adverse environmental impact of cities by paying particular attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management by 2030.

--IANS
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Cupertino (California), Sep 8 (IANS) Apple on Wednesday launched the new iPhone 14 series with four models -- iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max -- that starts from Rs 79,900.

Customers in India can get the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 for Rs 79,900 and the 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus for Rs 89,900.

They will be able to pre-order iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus beginning September 9, with iPhone 14 availability beginning September 16 and iPhone 14 Plus beginning October 7.

Customers can get iPhone 14 Pro for Rs 129,900 and iPhone 14 Pro Max for Rs 139,900 (starting prices).

iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will be available in deep purple, silver, gold, and space black in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage capacities.

The Pro models feature the Always-On display, Crash Detection, Emergency SOS via satellite, and an innovative new way to receive notifications and activities with the Dynamic Island.

Powered by A16 Bionic, the fastest chip ever in a smartphone, iPhone 14 Pro introduces a new class of pro camera system, with the first-ever 48MP Main camera on iPhone featuring a quad-pixel sensor, and Photonic Engine, an enhanced image pipeline that dramatically improves low-light photos.

iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will be available in four gorgeous new finishes: deep purple, silver, gold, and space black. Pre-orders begin September 9 with availability beginning September 16.

Available in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch sizes,1 both models include a new Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion that features the Always-On display for the first time ever on iPhone, enabled by a new 1Hz refresh rate and multiple power-efficient technologies.

The Dynamic Island enables new ways to interact with iPhone, featuring a design that blends the line between hardware and software, adapting in real time to show important alerts, notifications, and activities.

With the introduction of the Dynamic Island, the TrueDepth camera has been redesigned to take up less of the display area.

The A16 Bionic chip in iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max is generations ahead of the competition, and unlocks unparalleled experiences like the Dynamic Island, powers all-day battery life, and delivers impressive computational photography capabilities.

"With the new, larger 6.7-inch display on iPhone 14 Plus, users can enjoy more content onscreen when browsing the web and even more text," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.A

"Both phones have a powerful new Main camera with a huge leap in low-light performance, advanced connectivity capabilities with 5G and eSIM, and the incredible performance of A15 Bionic, which helps enable even better battery life. All of this, tightly integrated with iOS 16, makes iPhone more essential than ever," he added.

The phones have the A15 Bionic chip with a 5-core GPU, which offers incredible performance and efficiency for demanding workloads, and is designed with privacy and security built in.

iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will be available in midnight, blue, starlight, purple, and (PRODUCT)RED1 finishes.

Both models have an updated internal design for better thermal performance, Super Retina XDR displays with OLED technology that supports 1200 nits of peak HDR brightness and Dolby Vision.

iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus also feature the durable Ceramic Shield front cover -- exclusive to iPhone and tougher than any other smartphone glass.

iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus have a new 12MP Main camera featuring a larger sensor and larger pixels, a new front TrueDepth camera, the Ultra Wide camera to capture more of a scene, and Photonic Engine for a giant leap in low-light performance.

With a new dual-core accelerometer capable of detecting G-force measurements of up to 256Gs and a new high dynamic range gyroscope, aCrash Detection' on iPhone can now detect a severe car crash and automatically dial emergency services when a user is unconscious or unable to reach their iPhone.A

The iPhone 14 lineup also introduces Emergency SOS via satellite, which combines custom components deeply integrated with software to allow antennas to connect directly to a satellite, enabling messaging with emergency services when outside of cellular or Wi-Fi coverage.A

Emergency SOS via satellite will be available to users in the US and Canada in November, and the service will be free for two years, said the company.

iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus feature iOS 16, offering a reimagined Lock Screen along with new communication, sharing, and intelligence features that together change the way users experience iPhone.A

iOS 16 will be available as a free software update on September 12.

--IANS
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Paris, Sep 7 (IANS) France's energy tariff shield will remain the same for all households in 2023, Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced.

On Tuesday, Le Maire told French daily RMC/BFMTV that without the energy tariff shield, energy bills would soar on January 1, 2023, reports Xinhua news agency.

For electricity, the increase would be on average 120 euros ($119) per month, while gas bills would rise by 180 euros per month, he said.

However, although the price of energy will still increase, it will be "as contained as possible", by the tariffs, Le Maire added, and for low-income households, "there will be an energy check."

Six million people will receive up to 150 euros each, he said.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the tariff shield on electricity and gas, and state-financed rebate on fuel have already cost 24 billion euros.

Last week, the country's National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) said that the energy tariff shield introduced by the government has helped to put the brakes on inflation.

INSEE said that the measure had stopped inflation in France from rising by 3.1 percentage points between the second quarter of 2021 (Q2 2021) and the second quarter of 2022 (Q2 2022).

--IANS
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Beirut, Sep 7 (IANS) Lebanese Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab said that September could be a decisive month in the indirect border demarcation negotiations between Beirut and Israel.

"Things are going in the right direction, and we should remain hopeful that this file will end soon," Bou Saab said following his meeting with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace on Tuesday.

The Deputy Speaker added that an expected visit this week by US mediator Amos Hochstein would "not bring a definitive solution" to Lebanon's maritime border dispute with Israeli authorities but that it would be "another positive step towards one".

He added that the ongoing communications with Hochstein will "intensify" in September.

"There are many complications, but they are being solved one after the other, and for that reason, we are saying that things are on the right path."

Lebanese authorities are trying to end a dispute with Israel over maritime borders, which has escalated after the Jewish state on June 5 sent a vessel to the Karish field, which Tel Aviv says as being within its economic zone, while Beirut claims as in the disputed waters.

Israel previously announced that it plans to extract gas from the disputed area with Lebanon as early as September, prompting the Hezbollah in Lebanon to threaten attacks if Israel proceeds without first resolving the maritime border dispute with Beirut.

Lebanon and Israel are demarcated by the Blue Line published by the UN on June 7, 2000 for the purposes of determining whether Israel had fully withdrawn from Lebanon.

It has been described as:"temporary" and "not a border, but a "line of withdrawal".

--IANS
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Seoul, Sep 7 (IANS) North Korea on Wednesday slammed the US having taken issue with its human rights situation, calling the move a "grave provocation."

In July, a US State Department spokesperson expressed concerns over the North's rights situation following Seoul's appointment of a new envoy for Pyongyang's human rights, reports Yonhap News Agency.

A researcher at the North's Korea Association for Human Rights Studies dismissed the remarks and accused Washington of using the issue to strengthen its "hostile policy", according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"This is another grave provocation violating sovereignty of our dignified state under the pretext of 'human rights'," Ri Jin, the researcher, was quoted as saying in an English-language KCNA report.

"It is a revelation of its attempt at stronger and more open enforcement of its hostile policy toward the DPRK over the 'human rights issue,'" Ri added.

DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Ri repeated Pyongyang's claims that Washington has committed human rights violations through its foreign intervention.

--IANS
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Los Angeles, Sep 7 (IANS) The US has confirmed more than 20,000 monkeypox cases, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

A total of 20,733 known monkeypox cases had been reported nationwide as of Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the CDC data.

California had the most cases with 3,833, followed by New York with 3,526 and Florida with 2,126, the data showed.

So far the US has the world's highest tally of monkeypox cases.

--IANS
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Los Angeles, Sep 7 (IANS) A wildfire in Southern California that killed two people and injured a third has exploded to over 2,400 acres (9.71 square km) within 24 hours as of Tuesday morning, authorities said.

The Fairview fire started Monday afternoon near the city of Hemet in Riverside County amid a brutal heat wave that has scorched Southern California for days. It was only 5 per cent contained to date and the evacuation order and warning remain in place, Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Riverside County Fire Department.

The department said at least seven structures had been destroyed and several more damaged. officials estimated that thousands of structures in the area remain threatened by the fire.

The two victims of the fire appeared to be attempting to flee before being overcome by the blaze, officials said in a media briefing Tuesday morning.

Due to the blaze, all schools in Hemet Unified School District will be closed on Tuesday.

School district officials said in a statement that the decision "was not made lightly." After considering local authorities' advisement and evacuation orders, transportation impacts, the current level of fire containment, and the possibility of power outages with anticipated high temperatures, they felt that closing schools on Tuesday is necessary to ensure the safety of students, staff, and families.

--IANS
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Rome, Sep 7 (IANS) The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) gave its approval to the distribution of two coronavirus vaccines specifically tailored to confront the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.

The approval from AIFA came on Tuesday after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) last week endorsed the use of the updated Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines and concluded the Comirnaty and Spikevax vaccines were safe for use in individuals over the age of 12, Xinhua news agency reported.

Italy began distributing Covid-19 vaccines in December 2020, but the new boosters represent the first time the country has approved a coronavirus vaccine dose engineered for a specific variant of the virus.

As in the past, priority will be given to those aged over 60 or other residents with health conditions that make them specifically vulnerable to Covid-19.

"The AIFA-continuous booster dose is available to all subjects under the authorised indication and may be administered at least three months after completion of the primary vaccination cycle or any booster dose already received," said the agency in a press release.

The development comes amid a lull in the spread of Covid-19 in Italy. On Tuesday, the country recorded nearly 25,000 new infections and 80 new deaths, a decline from recent peaks surpassing 100,000 daily infections in mid-July.

But health officials have urged prudence going forward amid fears of a new wave of the virus in winter -- a period that has seen spikes in Covid-19 cases and deaths since the virus became widespread in Italy in 2020.

--IANS
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Peshawar, Sep 6 (IANS) With PTI Chairman Imran Khan to address a rally in Peshawar, reports have emerged that YouTube has been shut down in Pakistan, media reports said.

Ahead of the former Prime Minister's address, multiple users had started complaining on Twitter that the streaming website was not working for them. #YouTubeDown also emerged as a top trend on the microblogging website Twitter, Geo News reported.

The disruption in YouTube service was also confirmed by internet tracker, NetBlocks, in a tweet.

In response to the reported blockage, PTI said that it will air its Chairman's speech on Twitter Space.

The blockage comes after the PTI Chairman, earlier on Tuesday, said he'd had enough of the Pakistan Democratic Movement's (PDM) "cabal of crooks" maligning him, Geo News reported.

PDM — the ruling parties who have formed the government after ousting Khan from the Prime Minister's office in April — severely criticised Khan's recent comments against the military and its top brass.

The armed forces were also livid following the PTI chairman's Faisalabad speech, where he said that if a "patriotic" army chief were appointed, he would not spare the incumbent rulers.

In response, Khan tweeted that he was following the "intense propaganda" launched by the PDM's "cabal of crooks" against him, which stems from them being "petrified of PTI's soaring popularity".

--IANS
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