celinemancenido (celinemancenido)

‘Women are terrified’: Ninth body found as South African police probe series of killings The body of a ninth woman has been found in the space of just two months in an area east of South Africa’s largest city, stoking fears in a country already facing dire levels of violence against women. The latest body was found Thursday morning in Dawn Park, Ekurhuleni, a region of Johannesburg. Some of the cases have similarities, but investigators do not yet know whether all nine deaths are linked or whether a serial killer could be involved. “Women are terrified,” Sabrina Walter, founder of Women For Change, a South African nonprofit that campaigns against gender-based violence and femicide, told CNN. “Women here have been changing how we live for years just to survive,” she said. “What is happening in Ekurhuleni has intensified that fear.”

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It’s ‘Black August’ in Russia, but Putin is sweeping this summer’s crisis under the rug The past summer in Russia has also been shaping up as a bleak season for Putin’s Russia. Progress on the contested front lines in Ukraine by Russian troops has been scant; the skies over Russian cities have been blackened by Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries and Amazon-style distribution centers; and long lines at the fuel pumps and rumors of a fresh wave of mobilization have Russians grumbling. Is this another Black August? Exiled Russian commentator Ilya Varlamov posted his thoughts on that question this week, saying recurring historical disasters in August were “a coincidence, of course.” But, Varlamov continued, “many Russians await August with apprehension. Especially now, when the country is truly in crisis. … The fuel crisis has returned, prices are rising and have no intention of stopping, the ruble is falling, elections are coming and God knows what else.”

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A power struggle in Iran could decide when Trump’s war ends More than four decades ago, after months of setbacks in the war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, thousands of young Iranian troops launched a surprise offensive that turned the tide. But rather than consolidate victory, the then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, wanted more: To topple the Iraqi dictator, who was drawing increasing support from Washington, and demonstrate to future enemies that war with Iran will exact a heavy cost. The Iraq conflict was a pivotal moment in shaping the modern Iranian state. Khomeini’s decision turned it into a six-year war of attrition that killed hundreds of thousands, one of the bloodiest conflicts in the region’s modern history. And now, years on, the question of whether to press on or cut a deal is once again facing Iran.

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n pictures: Rescuers pull survivors from Trishuli-3A hydropower tunnel Images show the rescues of two men from a tunnel at a hydropower plant in Nepal on Friday.

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