Author: Dwight Mills

The eve of Ramadan is a frantic time for Tunisian coppersmith Chedli Maghraoui, who skilfully puts a new shine on families’ favourite kitchenware before the Muslim holy month starts. From couscous pots to beloved tea sets, the metalware gets a professional polish from the 69-year-old craftsman who labours away solo at his workshop in the old city of Tunis. So great is the pre-Ramadan rush that he has to politely tell customers he is just unable to work any faster: “I can’t do it — I still have other orders and, as you can see, I’m working alone.” Maghraoui scrubs…

The latest Essential poll suggests the elite security consensus is not reflective of the prevailing national mood Recently my stream’s algorithm served me up Pine Gap, a gripping if sometimes slow-moving geopolitical drama that I managed to miss when it first aired on Aunty in 2018. Set around the joint US-Australia surveillance facility near Alice Springs, the series paints in the grey spaces that lie at the heart of our most significant alliance on a national, professional and personal canvas. As a showdown in the South China Sea looms, our protagonists are caught between the demands of a trigger-happy US…

Recent polls show the former president inching further ahead of DeSantis in a hypothetical 2024 GOP primary contest. Florida Gov. DeSantis is hitting back at Trump after weeks of staying silent in the face of escalating attacks by the former president. DeSantis’ new offensive posture comes as he slips in polls of potential 2024 GOP presidential candidates. Though the governor hasn’t officially announced his campaign, he and Trump are considered the runaway favorites for the nomination. DeSantis all but confirmed his future plans in an interview with British TV personality Piers Morgan, where he also lobbed several unsubtle jabs at…

Civil defence members in northwest Syria criticise the UN and international community for a slow aid response after two deadly earthquakes. Syrians living in the rebel-held northwest region have decried the lack of humanitarian aid for victims of two powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria, describing catastrophic scenes in an area already ravaged by 12 years of civil war. On Sunday, United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths acknowledged the shortcomings, saying the Syrian population in the territory feel “abandoned” because the assistance they had hoped for had not yet arrived. “We have so far failed the people in northwest…

A renewed decline in business activity in January signalled a difficult start to the new year for firms across the North West, according to the latest Regional PMI® data from NatWest. However, the survey signalled increased optimism from local businesses towards the year ahead outlook and continued to take on additional staff, amid further signs that cost pressures had passed their peak. The headline North West PMI Business Activity Index – a seasonally adjusted index that measures the month-on-month change in the combined output of the region’s manufacturing and service sectors – slipped back into sub-50 contraction territory in January,…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for President Joe Biden found more classified documentsat his home in Wilmington, Delaware, than previously known, the White House acknowledged Saturday. White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement that a total of six pages of classified documents were found during a search of Biden’s private library. The White House had said previously that only a single page was found there. The latest disclosure is in addition to the discovery of documents found in December in Biden’s garage and in November at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, from his time as vice president. The apparent mishandling of classified documents…

For the first time ever, US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, a source familiar with the project confirmed to CNN. The US Department of Energy is expected to officially announce the breakthrough Tuesday. The result of the experiment would be a massive step in a decadeslong quest to unleash an infinite source of clean energy that could help end dependence on fossil fuels. Researchers for decades have attempted to recreate nuclear fusion – replicating the fusion that powers the…