South Africa: Drought-stricken Cape Town will not run out of water this year as previously feared, the city says. The all-clear was given after new projections showed that, without rainfall, "Day Zero" — the day the city runs out of water — would be on August 27. "As this date falls deep within the normal rainfall period, it is no longer appropriate to project the date without any consideration of rainfall ... Day Zero can be avoided completely this year," deputy mayor Ian Neilson said. The rainy season is expected to start in May. The city is suffering its worst drought in recorded history, with the dams supplying the city with water about 23 per cent full. "Day Zero" had recently been predicted for July 9, although earlier this year, the city said it may have to stop water supply as early as mid-March. Residents continue to be limited to using 50 litres of water per person per day.
Sri Lanka: A grenade blast has killed one person in further violence between majority Buddhist Sinhalese and minority Muslims in Sri Lanka despite the Government's blocking of social media in efforts to halt the bloodshed. The South Asian country has been rocked by communal clashes in its central highlands following attacks on Muslims by nationalist Sinhalese crowds. Communal tensions have grown over the past year with some hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam and vandalising Buddhist archaeological sites. Muslim groups deny these allegations. Police declared a curfew until 4pm in the central highlands district of Kandy, the epicentre of the violence since Sunday in the wake of the death of a Buddhist youth in an altercation with a group of Muslims.
United States: The second big, blustery storm to hit the Northeast in less than a week brought wet, heavy snow to a corner of the country where tens of thousands of people were still waiting for the power to come back on from the previous bout. The nor'easter closed schools, businesses and government offices, grounded thousands of flights and raised fears of another round of fallen trees and electrical outages as it made its way up the East Coast. It also produced "thundersnow," with flashes of lightning and booming thunder from the Philadelphia area to New York City.
France: French companies will have three years to erase their gender pay gaps or face possible fines under plans presented by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe to unions and employers. Men are on average paid 9 per cent more than women in France, even though the law has required equal pay for the same work for the past 45 years. Under the plans, companies with more than 50 employees will have to install special software hooked up directly to their payroll systems to monitor unjustified pay gaps. If a company fails to erase a pay gap detected by the software over three years, inspectors could impose a fine of up to one per cent of the firm's wage bill.
Brazil: A former chief executive officer of Brazil's state oil company Petrobras has been sentenced to 11 years in prison as part of sprawling corruption investigation that has ensnared many of the country's top business and political leaders. Federal Judge Sergio Moro found Aldemir Bendine guilty of corruption and money laundering in connection with about US$1 million in bribes paid by construction giant Odebrecht. Moro said Bendine used his influence to illegally help the builder between 2014 and 2017. He was arrested in July and is the only ex-Petrobras CEO implicated in the so-called "Car Wash" investigation.
Greece: A Greek prosecutor has charged seven men with alleged membership in a violent neo-Nazi group linked to a series of arson attacks on far-left and migrant-related targets. All seven Greeks were formally accused of membership in a criminal organisation, arson, causing explosions and possession of explosives and weapons. The suspects were arrested by anti-terrorism police in a series of raids in Athens and two provincial towns.
Britain: NME, the pop music newspaper that created the first British singles chart in 1952, will be printed for the final time this week as it shifts focus to a digital audience. The paper — called New Musical Express in full — documented the rise of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 1960s, punk in the 1970s and the Britpop explosion led by Blur and Oasis in the 1990s. It was relaunched in 2015 as a free publication, achieving a circulation of more than 307,000 copies a week, just beating its previous record sale in 1964. Time Inc's UK group managing director Paul Cheal said the move to free print had boosted the brand's online audience but it was facing increasing production costs and a tough advertising market. "Unfortunately we have now reached a point where the free weekly magazine is no longer financially viable," he said. Time Inc said NME's digital brand NME.com attracted more than three million British unique users and more than 13 million global unique users a month.
Iran: A Tehran prosecutor says a woman who removed her obligatory Islamic headscarf in public in late December has been sentenced to 24 months in prison. Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi as saying the unidentified woman took off her headscarf in Tehran's Enghelab Street last month to "encourage corruption through the removal of the hijab in public." In February, police detained 29 women who removed their headscarves as part of an anti-hijab campaign known as "White Wednesdays." The police say the campaign, advocated by Farsi-language satellite TV networks based abroad, purportedly encourages women participants to take their white headscarves off on Wednesdays. Women showing their hair in public in Iran can be sentenced to prison, usually up to two months, and fined US$25.
France: The Eiffel Tower has been lit up to honour women's rights and promote the French equivalent of the Time's Up movement. The message "Maintenant On Agit" ("Now We Act") was displayed on the Parisian monument ahead of International Women's Day tonight NZT in the northern hemisphere. Launched by the Foundation of Women, the movement aims to raise funds for associations helping women pursue cases before justice, "so that no woman ever again has to say #MeToo." Over 160 French actresses have already joined the movement.
United States: A New Hampshire woman who won a Powerball jackpot worth nearly US$560 million plans to give as much as US$50 million to charity as a legal fight to keep her identity private proceeds, her lawyers said. The New Hampshire Lottery Commission handed over US$264 million — the amount left after taxes were deducted — to the woman's lawyers. "My client doesn't want any accolades. She doesn't want any credit. She just wants to do good things," said William Shaheen, one of the woman's lawyers. The unidentified woman signed her ticket after the drawing, but later learned from a lawyer that she could have shielded her identity by writing the name of a trust. They said she was upset after learning she was giving up her anonymity by signing the ticket — something the lottery commission acknowledged isn't spelled out on the ticket but is detailed on its website. A judge is considering her lawyer's request that her privacy interests outweigh what the state says is the public's right to know who won the money.
Syria: Government forces have bombarded Eastern Ghouta anew in an effort to slice the rebel enclave in two, intensifying a campaign to deal the opposition its biggest defeat since 2016. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said pro-Syrian government forces had managed to bring the strip of territory linking the north and south of what remains of rebel-held Eastern Ghouta within firing range, effectively bisecting the densely populated region on the outskirts of Damascus.
Britain: Prime Minister Theresa May has accused Jeremy Corbyn of "mansplaining" as the pair clashed in the House of Commons. Labour leader Corbyn noted that International Women's Day is a chance to celebrate "how far we've come" on equality for women but also reflect on "how far we have to go" in the UK and elsewhere. It prompted the PM to reply: "I thank the right honourable gentleman for telling me it is International Women's Day tomorrow — I think that's what's called mansplaining."
Germany: The nationalist Alternative for Germany party came under fire from the Government, after some of its lawmakers travelled to Syria and met officials close to President Bashar al-Assad. Several members of the party, known as AfD, posted pictures of their trip on social media this week, including from a meeting with Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, an Assad loyalist who threatened in 2011 to unleash suicide attacks in the West. AfD wants Syrian refugees in Germany to return home, claiming the conflict there is over. A regional AfD lawmaker from western Germany, Christian Blex, wrote on Twitter: "Met open and friendly people everywhere who were very happy about our visit. Everything is totally relaxed here." German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said "the Syrian regime demonstrates every day how inhumanely it treats its own population."
- agencies