A minister in New Zealand cycled to hospital to give birth, and emus are raiding a town in drought-hit Australia region.
Afghanistan calls for ceasefire with the Taliban
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has declared a conditional ceasefire with the Taliban ahead of Eid, with effect from Monday, Al Jazeera reported. Eid ul Adha will be observed Tuesday.
Addressing the nation on the 99th Independence Day in Kabul Sunday, Ghani announced the ceasefire Sunday and said it will last till Prophet Mohammad’s birthday, which is celebrated in Afghanistan on 21 November, if “the Taliban reciprocate”.
Though the Taliban did not give a formal response, it released a statement announcing the release of “hundreds of prisoners” on the occasion of Eid, Al Jazeera added.
Just this June, Kabul had announced a ceasefire with the Taliban — “the first formal, nationwide ceasefire since the 2001 US invasion” — for the Eid ul-Fitr holiday in June, which ended after the Taliban rejected the government request for an extension.
Ghani’s announcement follows a bloody week of violence in Ghazni, just a two hours’ drive from Kabul, where over 100 soldiers and 95 civilians gave died in fighting triggered by a Taliban siege. “(The siege) eased last week when Afghan soldiers backed by US forces pushed back the group’s heavily armed fighters,” the report added.
New Zealand minister cycles to hopital to give birth
A minister in New Zealand cycled to hospital to give birth to her baby, the BBC reported. Julie Genter, the minister for women, rode the bicycle as the car she was supposed to ride lacked space for the “support crew”.
Also an associate minister for transport and health, Genter is an avid advocate of cycling. As she left for the hospital to get her labour induced, Genter wrote on her Instagram account Sunday, “My partner and I cycled because there wasn’t enough room in the car for the support crew… but it also put me in the best possible mood!”
Ardern is the second member of the Kiwi cabinet to give birth recently, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern returning to office after her maternity leave just this month.
These Chinese sex dolls can answer your questions
China’s push for artificial intelligence seems to have a new taker: The sex doll industry, Reuters reports.
The Chinese firm making these since 2016 is hoping the dolls — which only offer a very basic ability to answer questions apart from moving eyes, arms and torsos — will eventually take off with overseas buyers. WMDOLL is one of China’s biggest manufacturers of sex dolls, robotic lovers of deeply contested relevance that have been offered up as salve to the lonely.
The handmade dolls manufactured by WMDOLL can be personalised for customers to have the height, hairstyle and eye colour they seek.
The AI dolls, still not nearly as popular as their non-robotic equivalents, are priced between 10,000 yuan (Rs 1.01 lakh) and 50,000 yuan (Rs 5.07 lakh).
Why emus are raiding a town in Australia
Large numbers of emus have been flocking to a mining town in New South Wales, Australia, in search of food and water as the country continues to struggle with extreme drought, the BBC reported.
“We’re seeing mobs of them,” BBC quoted wildlife worker Emma Singleton as saying. She added that the birds had been out for weeks and were being provided with food and water by the locals.
Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, was officially declared entirely in drought on 8 August.
Russia grants nod for pride parade, then cancels it
What would have been Russia’s first-ever gay pride march on 26 August was called off less than 24 hours after it was granted permission, The Independent reported.
Nikolai Alekseev, a prominent gay rights activist in Russia, had announced on Facebook Thursday that they had been granted permission to hold the pride march in a village called Yabloneviy, near the town of Novoulyanovsk (800 kilometres east of Moscow).
Later, the town’s municipal chief Gennady Denikayevis was reported to have told a local radio channel. “I have made the decision that there will be no gay parade on the territory of the Novoulyanovsk municipality, we intend to defend traditional family values and… our children from the propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.”
“Such parades are often shut down by Russian authorities due to a 2013 law which banned ‘homosexual propaganda’ and demonstrations supporting gay rights,” The Independent report added.
US ice cream makers see Chinese dream hurt by trade dispute
US based ice cream brands such as Haagen-Dazs and Bassetts that operate in China worry that the trade dispute between the two countries will cost their nascent local operations dear, reports Global Times.
On 3 August, China announced plans to impose 25 per cent import tariffs on ice cream and other related products from the US, as part of Beijing and Washington’s tariff war.
Ice cream importers and wholesalers, meanwhile, are also reportedly shunning US brands for those from other countries.
Why Indians and Chinese see each other through the West’s lens
In an oped in Global Times, journalist Ai Jun points out an interesting trend. Owing to inadequate people-to-people contact between the people of India and China, much of the mutual perception draws from the West’s experience of both cultures.
Jun writes, “Until today, most of what the Chinese read about India and what Indians learned about China came from the West. Their understanding of each other is basically shaped by the West.”
“It is time for Asian countries to walk out of Western influence and restructure their understanding of their own geopolitics,” Jun adds.