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Fifteen injured in southwest China quake

Fifteen people were injured when a shallow earthquake hit southwestern China on Sunday afternoon and shook the popular tourist city of Lijiang, state media said.

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The quake struck on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which put the magnitude at 5.4 and depth at 38 kilometres (24 miles).

State broadcaster CGTN said 15 people were injured, citing the local earthquake agency.

The China Earthquake Networks Centre later measured the magnitude at 5.5 with a depth of 10 kilometres.

The epicentre was 115 kilometres away from Lijiang in Yunnan province, the USGS said.

China is regularly hit by earthquakes, especially in its mountainous western and southwestern regions.

In September three people were killed and dozens injured when a shallow quake hit Sichuan province, and tens of thousands of homes were damaged.

A 7.9-magnitude quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left more than 80,000 people dead.

Among them were thousands of children, killed when poorly constructed school buildings collapsed, but the government failed to release an exact number of dead as the issue took on a political dimension.

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Dubai announces new timings for paid parking, metro, buses during Ramadan 2023


Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced new timings for paid parking zones and public transportation during Ramadan on Tuesday.
The revised timings for the Islamic holy month will go into effect from Thursday, officially the first day of Ramadan.

Paid Parking

The paid parking zones across the city will be split into two payable time slots. The first shift will start at 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m., and the second paid shift will begin at 8:00 p.m. until midnight from Monday to Saturday.
The Tecom zone F was not included in the revision so paid parking is still enforced from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Parking in paid zones will remain free on Sundays and multi-story car parks are 24-hour paid parking zones.

Public Transportation

Metro
The Dubai metro will run from 5:00 a.m. to midnight, from Monday to Thursday and on Saturday.
On Friday, both the red and green lines will operate from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day.
On Sunday, both lines will run from 8:00 a.m. to midnight.
Tram
The Dubai tram will run from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day, from Monday to Saturday.
On Sunday, the light rail system will operate from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day.
Bus
All current intercity bus routes operating from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Sharjah, Ajman, and Fujairah will run from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. the following day.
The metro feeder bus service within Dubai will coincide with the first and last metro timing.
Vehicle testing centers, including Tasjeel and Shamil will be closed on Sundays during the holy month.
A detailed list of revised timings for other means of public transportation including the water bus, Abra, and Dubai Ferry, and other RTA services are available online.

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Russia’s Black Sea Fleet thwarts drone attack on Crimea’s Sevastopol


The Russian navy “repelled” a drone attack on the port of Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea early on Wednesday, the Kremlin-backed governor of the city said.
The peninsula, seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, is home to Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet and has been hit by a series of drone attacks since the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine.
The attack came just four days after President Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to Sevastopol.
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“In total, three objects have been destroyed,” the Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.
He said military personnel had shot at the drones with “small arms” and that “air defense was also working.”
Razvozhayev added there were no casualties and claimed no ships had been damaged, but said that the explosions blew out windows in nearby buildings.
These included the Moscow House cultural center, a well-known building that is beyond the port.
But Razvozhayev downplayed the attack, saying the navy “confidently and calmly” repelled it. He urged calm saying the “situation was under control.”
In a later post, he dismissed reports that people were leaving Crimea, saying it was a “lie” spread by Kyiv.
“Information is spreading about evacuations from the peninsula by ferry crossings and other such nonsense,” he said.
A day earlier Kyiv said Russian missiles were destroyed in a blast in Crimea, but denied responsibility for the incident.
In October, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was hit by a major drone attack that the Kremlin blamed on Ukraine.
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Taliban acting finance minister becomes central bank governor


The Taliban administration’s former acting finance minister, Mullah Hidayatullah Badri, has been appointed as governor of Afghanistan’s central bank, a finance ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

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Badri, who acted as the Taliban’s finance minister and oversaw budgets after they regained power in 2021, had already taken up his new role, finance ministry spokesman Ahmad Wali Haqmal told Reuters.

The reason for the appointment and who would replace Badri at the finance ministry were not immediately clear. His predecessor as central bank governor was Haji Mohammad Idris.

Badri was head of the economic commission of the Taliban government, as they conducted a 20-year insurgency against the former Western-backed government of Afghanistan, according to Taliban officials. In that time, he ran most of the Taliban’s fundraising, they say.

Afghanistan’s central bank appointments have been closely watched by Washington, which froze billions of the bank’s reserves held in the US and later transferred half of the money to a trust fund in Switzerland overseen by US, Swiss and Afghan trustees.

One of several proposed US conditions on considering letting the central bank access to the funds has been replacement of senior Taliban members at the institution with experienced professionals. The aim would be to build confidence in the central bank being insulated from political interference.

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