Afghanistan earthquake kills at least 1,000 but toll expected to rise

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

by Hani Richter

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Here's what you need to know.

Russian forces pound Ukraine's Kharkiv, earthquake in Afghanistan kills at least 920 and U.S. Senate advances its first significant gun legislation in decades.

Today's biggest stories

People remove debris of a building of the lyceum of railway transport destroyed by a missile strike, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in the town of Liubotyn, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine June 20, 2022. REUTERS/Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

Russian forces pounded Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv and surrounding countryside with rockets, killing at least 15 people, in what Kyiv called a bid to force it to pull resources from the main battlefield to protect civilians from attack.

The Russian strikes on Kharkiv, throughout Tuesday and continuing on Wednesday morning, were the worst for weeks in the area where normal life had been returning since Ukraine pushed Russian forces back in a major counter-offensive last month.

Seven Russian missiles hit the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said.

Indonesian President and G20 chairman Joko Widodo will meet leaders of Ukraine and Russia next week to advocate for peace and try to help ease a global food crisis, his foreign minister said, the first such trip by an Asian leader.

Russian and Turkish delegations have agreed to continue consultations on safe vessel departures and grain exports from Ukrainian ports, the Russian defense ministry said.

Here's what you need to know about the conflict right now

People carry injured to a helicopter following a massive earthquake, in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, June 22, 2022, in this screen grab taken from a video. BAKHTAR NEWS AGENCY/Handout via REUTERS

World

An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed 920 people in Afghanistan
, disaster management officials said, with more than 600 injured and the toll expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages.

Israel moved closer to its fifth election in less than four years after lawmakers gave an initial nod to dissolve parliament, with a comeback by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already dominating the campaign.

Authorities in Bangladesh intensified efforts to deliver food and drinking water to millions of people struggling after heavy rain unleashed catastrophic flooding across a quarter of the country.

When an ocean surge washed away Mureni Sanni Alakija's house in 2011, he took a loan to build a home farther away. But that too is no longer safe as the sea creeps inland in Okun Alfa, a neighborhood in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos.

Two prominent Chinese rights lawyers are set to go on trial behind closed doors this week on charges of state subversion, campaign groups said, part of a clampdown on dissent and rights activism under President Xi Jinping.

U.S.

The U.S. Senate took an initial step towards passing the country's first major gun-control legislation in decades, galvanized by two mass shootings in a nation that has long struggled to curb chronic gun violence.

U.S. state election officials recounted how supporters of Donald Trump threatened, insulted and harassed them, sometimes turning up at their homes, after they refused to help the former president overturn his 2020 election defeat.

Former President Donald Trump's pick for U.S. Senate in Alabama, Katie Britt, won the Republican nomination, defeating Mo Brooks, the firebrand congressman whom Trump had originally backed before changing his mind, Edison Research projected.

The elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where a teenage gunman killed 19 children and two teachers last month will be demolished, the city's mayor said.

A California jury in a civil case ruled that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted a woman at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a teenager and ordered the comedian to pay her $500,000 in damages for emotional distress from the incident.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

Two high-tech Airbus A350 jets sit idle with their windows taped and engines covered in a floodlit hangar in the Gulf, hobbled by an international legal dispute between European industrial giant Airbus and Qatar's national carrier.

One by one, over the last week of May, Twitter rang up some members of its incoming class of new hires who had recently graduated from college and revoked the job offers in 15-minute calls, according to some of the recipients.

U.S. President Joe Biden will call on Congress to pass a three-month suspension of the federal gasoline tax to help combat record pump prices, according to a senior administration official.

Toyota cut its July global production plan by 50,000 vehicles as semiconductor shortages and COVID-19 parts supply disruptions continued to curb output.

Boeing expects supply chain problems to persist almost until the end of 2023, led by labour shortages at mid-tier and smaller suppliers, partly due to the faster-than-expected return of demand, its chief executive said.

Quote of the day

"Ukraine has been a tough bite to chew (for Russia) and so would be Finland."

Timo Kivinen

General

Finland is ready to fight Russia if attacked - defense chief

Video of the day

U.S. babies, toddlers get their first COVID-19 shots

Babies and toddlers began getting the COVID-19 vaccine in thighs and arms across the United States, in many cases in front of cameras and a masked cheering audience.

And finally…

Top dog to be named at U.S. Westminster show

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show will name its best in show on Wednesday, extending a U.S. tradition that dates to 1877 in bringing together dog breeders and dog lovers for a competition that has become a mainstay annual television event.

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