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KABUL: Many women in the Afghan capital are delaying a return to fully covering their faces in public in defiance of orders from Islamist Taliban rulers. Others are staying at home and some have been wearing COVID-19 face masks anyway. The Taliban, who swept back to power as the government collapsed, on Saturday ordered women to cover their faces in public, a return to their past hard-line rule and an escalation of restrictions on girls and women that are causing anger at home and abroad. The consequences of disobedience are aimed at a woman’s closest male family member, ranging from a warning to imprisonment. The UN Security Council will meet on Thursday to discuss the order and the United States said it would increase pressure on the Taliban administration. It was not clear whether any men had yet faced consequences by Wednesday and Taliban authorities said they would first focus on “encouraging” adherence. In Kabul, one of the more liberal areas of Afghanistan, there were indications that women were pushing back. At least two protests took place this week, as demonstrators criticized growing attempts to limit women from public life. “We want to be known as living creatures, we want to be known as human beings, not slaves imprisoned in the corner of the house,” one protester said. A seller of all-enveloping burqas in Kabul told Reuters in the days after the announcement sellers had lifted prices around 30 percent, but they had since come back to around 1,300 Afghanis ($15) as there was no increased demand. “Most women prefer to buy a hijab (a headscarf), not a burqa. A burqa is good according to the Taliban, but it is the women’s last choice,” he said. Reuters spoke to two female doctors and a teacher — the few formal jobs still available to women — who said that covering faces and wearing loose garments would interfere with their work. “We are doctors, we do operations and we have to wash our hands up to our elbows,” said a doctor, who declined to be identified for security reasons. Outside the capital there were some signs that Saturday’s announcement was fueling stricter oversight of women’s dress. A doctor in southeastern Afghanistan said Taliban officials had told her not to treat female patients who did not have a male chaperone and were not fully covered. A university student in northern Afghanistan said university officials since Saturday were becoming much stricter on dress code, telling her on Monday that her colorful headscarf was unacceptable and she must wear all black. Fahima, a woman living in the western province of Herat, ran a business before the Taliban took over but now must wait for her teenage son to come home from school so she can leave the house with him just to buy groceries. “I can barely leave home,” she said.

YEREVAN: An explosion at a retail market in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Sunday sparked a fire, killing one person and injuring 20, the emergency situations ministry said. The blast, the cause of which was not immediately known, ripped through the “retail market in Surmalu. According to preliminary information it started a fire. There are victims,” the ministry said. Photos and videos posted on social media showed a thick column of black smoke over the market and successive detonations could be heard. The ministry said there were 10 firefighting trucks on the spot and another 10 were on their way.

ODESA, Ukraine: The United Nations-chartered ship MV Brave Commander will depart Ukraine for Africa in coming days after it finishes loading more than 23,0000 tons of wheat in the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi, a UN official said. The ship, which arrived in the port near Odesa, will sail to Ethiopia via a grain corridor through the Black Sea brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in late July. It will be the first humanitarian food aid cargo bound for Africa since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. under the framework of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The cargo was funded with donations from the United Nations World Food Programme, US Agency for International Development and several private donors. A total 16 ships have now departed from Ukraine following the deal with Russia to allow a resumption of grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, after they were stalled for five months due to the war. The agreement was reached last month amid fears that the loss of Ukrainian grain supplies would lead to severe food shortages and even outbreaks of famine in parts of the world. Ukraine has some 20 million tons of grain left over from last year’s crop, while this year’s wheat harvest is also estimated at 20 million tons. So far most of the cargoes under the deal have carried grain for animal feed or for fuel. As part of the UN deal, all ships are inspected in Istanbul by the Joint Coordination Center, where Russia, Ukrainian, Turkish and UN personnel work.

BEIJING: Seven people were killed by a torrent of water that came rushing down a river in a popular recreational spot following mountain rains in southwestern China, authorities said Sunday. Workers and volunteers mobilized to urge people to leave the area after receiving an imminent heavy rain warning about 2:40 p.m. on Saturday, the emergency management bureau in Pengzhou city said. People could be seen scrambling to flee in videos posted on social media, but some were caught when the torrent hit about 50 minutes later at 3:30 p.m. One man at the scene said several people were washed away, including some children, when the water flow in the lower reaches of the river suddenly increased in just 10 to 20 seconds, the state-owned China National Radio reported. The Chengdu city government said Sunday that seven people had died and three others were hospitalized with minor injuries. Pengzhou is a tourist spot about 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. A video showed a helicopter rescuing a person stranded on a small outcropping by descending to just above the water and opening a door so the person could climb in. Elsewhere in China, heavy rain flooded streets in the northwestern city of Xining on Saturday night. Heavy to torrential rain was forecast for the northeast from Sunday to Monday afternoon, with 10 to 18 centimeters (4 to 7 inches) of rainfall expected in parts of Liaoning and Jilin provinces. A heat wave was hovering over a wide swath of southern China, with forecast highs on Sunday of 35 to 39 degrees Celsius (95 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit) and possibly surpassing 40 degrees (104 Fahrenheit) in some places including Shanghai. Jiangsu province warned that road surface temperatures could rise to 72 degrees (162 Fahrenheit), raising the risk of flat tires, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

SYDNEY:  A gunman fired about five shots inside Canberra’s main airport Sunday, sending passengers fleeing but injuring no-one before he was detained by Australian police. The airport was evacuated and locked down, leading to the suspension of flights. Images posted on social media showed a police officer restraining a man on the ground inside the terminal as the emergency alarm sounded in the capital’s main airport. “A male has entered Canberra Airport in the departures area. He has sat in one of the areas adjacent to the glass windows,” detective acting superintendent Dave Craft told reporters outside the airport building. “After approximately five minutes, this male has removed a firearm from his possession and let off approximately five rounds,” he added. Craft said the crime scene indicated that the man had fired shots at the glass inside the terminal. “There was no shots directed at people, or persons, passengers or staff,” he said Several apparent bullet impacts were visible on the glass front of the airport, according to images shown by Australia’s public broadcaster ABC. A woman identified only as Helen was quoted as telling a reporter for The Guardian newspaper that she saw a man “shooting into the air” not far from the check-in counter, describing him as being middle-aged and “clean cut.”