World News in Brief: Afghanistan education, Myanmar flooding, Syria recovery, homecare workers in New York

• Pakistan has historically utilized mediation as a core pillar of its foreign policy to manage conflicts between neighboring adversaries. • Unlike global superpowers, Pakistan's drive for mediation is fueled by immediate security threats, including refugee influxes, cross-border terrorism, and narcotics smuggling.

Government launches investigation into potential unsafe practices at Spanish healthcare company Grifols A chain of private plasma donation clinics in Canada said Friday it is pausing collections after the deaths of two donors and a new government investigation into potential unsafe practices.Grifols, the Spanish healthcare company that runs 17 clinics across Canada and is the country’s only private clinic for plasma donation, said it informed Health Canada of its decision to temporarily pause collections on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Planning consultation told ‘robust security measures’ will be needed amid growing resistance to such developmentsScottish police have warned that a proposed datacentre will require “robust security measures” to prevent “incursion” amid growing public resistance to such developments in Scotland.“A great deal of public opposition is likely” to a datacentre planned in Larbert, about 30 miles west of Edinburgh, the Scottish police have said in a letter submitted as a part of a planning consultation earlier this month. Continue reading...

Kobe, 18, who made discovery on site of former brewery in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, at first thought trove was €1 coinsFor a student with a summer job working on a Belgian building site, “money down the drain” has taken on a whole new meaning: excavating the trenches for a sewage system, he stumbled across a hidden trove of gold worth an estimated €9m (£8m).“We suddenly saw something lying there,” 18-year-old Kobe told the Belgian news network VTM. “At first I thought it was €1 coins. So we started digging them up. Then we saw a gold bar. It turned out to be a bit more than we thought.” Continue reading...

Students narrowly missing grades are being rejected, while some on oversubscribed courses are asked to deferStudents across the UK have found themselves unexpectedly squeezed out of their desired university courses as this year’s bumper crop of A-level grades ​h​as not always translated into ​​the places many were hoping for.​With close to a third of the A-levels awarded in England, Wales and Northern Ireland achieving the top A and A* grades this year, universities are taking a tougher stance by rejecting students who narrowly missed their expected grades and who in previous years would still have gained a place. Continue reading...

Biological parents given custody of child born in Texas amid dispute over surrogate mother’s claim of abortion requestA two-day-old baby with a rare heart defect at the center of a complex surrogacy dispute in Texas has been handed over to the parents’ custody and is receiving care, lawyers for the parents said on Friday.The baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a defect that requires surgeries to correct. The baby was born on Wednesday to surrogate mother McKenna West of Alaska after she reportedly refused requests to get an abortion from the biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed of California – requests they deny making. Continue reading...

With questions over Farage’s finances and a new face in No 10, could Barnsley council be a bellwether for changing Labour fortunes?Labour marked its worst performance in more than 50 years when voters went to the polls in Barnsley in May, but 100 days on from those seismic local elections, the political landscape has shifted drastically.Could the South Yorkshire town, where Reform UK reaped the benefits of dissatisfaction with Labour, prove to be a test case for whether the governing party has turned the tide? Continue reading...

The administrative work required to run an effective investment scam has been drastically cut by using merging technologyGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWithin days of clicking on an online ad for a cryptocurrency trading app, a 29-year-old Queensland man watched his dashboard soar with profits.Making investment gains was as simple as downloading the slick-looking app and browser extension linked to his crypto wallet. So he invested more. Continue reading...

Utility company’s plant, which has only run five times, now has an estimated total cost of £500mThames Water is preparing the UK’s only desalination plant to restart operations later this year – but it will only be ready in the winter, long after the current drought is likely to have passed.The utility company said that it was hoping to start operating its plant in Beckton, east London, “by the end of the year”, in order to help build up reservoir supplies over the winter for next summer. Continue reading...

UK team seeking to put suitcase-sized satellite in orbit around moon in search for 21cm line radio frequency signalLittle is known about what was happening shortly after the big bang, but now researchers are hoping to shed fresh light on the matter by harnessing the dark side of the moon.Scientists are hoping to put a suitcase-sized satellite into orbit around the moon, using the data it collects as it passes the far side to search for a radio frequency signal emitted by neutral hydrogen atoms in the early universe. Continue reading...

Marine conservationist says deliberate attack would be ‘act of extreme cruelty’ against an endangered populationSpanish officials have launched an investigation after the matriarch of an orca pod known for jostling and ramming boats off the Iberian Peninsula was spotted with wounds suggesting she had been shot by a pellet gun.On Friday, Spain’s environment ministry said Toñi, the oldest living member of the pod, had been seen swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar with markings on her dorsal fin that were “consistent with shots from a pellet gun”. Continue reading...