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Swedish retailer Ikea is becoming a landlord in Japan with a tiny apartment it will rent out in Tokyo. The 10-square-meter (107-square-foot) apartment is located in the Shinjuku district and will cost just 99 yen ($0.86) per month to rent, according to details released by Ikea this week. Only one unit is available, and it is fully furnished with Ikea furniture and accessories. The company is accepting applications from potential tenants, who must be over 20 years old, until December 3.
Source: cnn.com
Israel has identified a case of a Covid-19 variant with a large number of mutations first detected in South Africa, the health ministry said Friday. Two more cases were detected in "people returning from abroad", it said, adding that they had been placed in quarantine.
Source: france24.com
Turkish police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Thursday to push back thousands of people, many of them women, who took to the streets of Istanbul to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The protests, part of a week of nationwide mobilisation, came amid calls for Turkey to rejoin the Istanbul Convention.
Source: aljazeera.com
The pre-Roman falcata, a double-edged, curved sword used by the Iberians between the fifth and first centuries BC, was seized along with 202 other archaeological pieces after it appeared on what Policía Nacional officers termed “a well known social media site”. The sword, which has been dated to between the third and first century BC, is particularly sought after because of the original condition of its blade.
Source: theguardian.com
The multi-award winning music producer and guitarist, Nile Rodgers, is to auction his guitars, cars and personal items to raise money for his We Are Family Foundation. The not-for-profit organisation provides mentoring for talented teenagers around the world. One of the guitars being auctioned is a replica of his famous Hitmaker. The auction of over 160 lots takes place at Christie's in New York on 16 December.
Source: bbc.com
At least 35 people have been killed in days of fighting between herders in Sudan’s western Darfur region with more than a thousand homes set on fire, officials have said. The violence broke out on November 17 between armed Arab herders in the rugged Jebel Moon mountains close to the border with Chad, said Omar Abdelkarim, Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commissioner in West Darfur state on Thursday.
Source: aljazeera.com
The country is set to open the 3,000-year-old Avenue of Sphinxes to the public Thursday in an elaborate ceremony in the southern city of Luxor that follows decades of excavation efforts. The ancient walkway, nearly two miles long and about 250 feet wide, was once named “The Path of God.” It connects the Temple of Luxor with the Temple of Karnak, just up the Nile river to the north.
Source: nbcnews.com
The storyboards for the doomed 1970s film version of sci-fi classic Dune have sold for €2.66m ($3m) at auction, about 100 times the expected price. Long considered a mythical object by sci-fi fans, the notebook of drawings for the film by Franco-Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky triggered a bidding war at Christie’s in Paris.
Source: theguardian.com
A hospital patient will become the first person in the world to have a 3D-printed prosthetic eye. Steve Varze, from Hackney, east London, will receive the eye on Thursday at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. It is hoped the eye will be more realistic than a traditional acrylic prosthetic eye. It will also cut the time it takes for patients to be fitted with their prosthetics in half, from six weeks to three.
Source: bbc.com
Sweden's first female prime minister, Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, resigned on Wednesday after less than 12 hours in the top job after the Green Party quit their two-party coalition, stoking political uncertainty.
Source: reuters.com
Agriculture Minister Lobin Low sent a letter to Tyson inviting him to become the official ambassador for the country's cannabis crop, and said legalisation in Malawi had created new opportunities. Tyson, a former world heavyweight champion, is an entrepreneur and has invested in a cannabis farm in the US. But the move has been criticised by some as the former boxer was imprisoned for sex offences in the 1990s.
Source: bbc.com
North Korea has banned people from wearing leather trench coats after the fashion item became a favourite of dictatorial ruler Kim Jong-un, it has been claimed. First worn by Kim in 2019, the coat became popular among the North Korean elite who were keen to show their loyalty to the Supreme Leader and who could afford real leather. Fashion police have been deployed to confiscate the coats amid fears they are cheapening the Supreme Leader's look and undermining his authority.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
Germany recorded 351 fatalities in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll since the start of the pandemic to 100,119, according to figures from the Robert Koch Institute, a public health agency.
Source: france24.com
Thirty-one migrants headed for the UK have drowned in the English Channel near Calais after their boat sank. The International Organisation for Migration said it was the biggest single loss of life in the Channel since it began collecting data in 2014.
Source: bbc.com
Libya's electoral commission on Wednesday announced its rejection of the candidacy of Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, a son of slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi, to run in next month's presidential election. Wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, Seif al-Islam, who registered to run on November 14, was among 25 candidates whose bids have been rejected, the HNEC commission said in a statement.
Source: france24.com
The Lebanese pound sank to a new low on the black market Wednesday, with no end in sight to the economic and political crisis plunging ever growing numbers into poverty. According to websites monitoring the black market rate, the pound was trading at 24,000 to the dollar, or 16 times less than its official peg value of 1,500.
Source: france24.com
Ethiopian Olympic heroes Haile Gebrselassie and Feyisa Lilesa say they are ready to go to the front line in the war against rebel forces. Their announcement comes after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said he would go to the front to lead the war. Tigrayan rebels say they are advancing towards the capital Addis Ababa.
Source: bbc.com
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plummeted last week to the lowest level in more than half a century, another sign that the U.S. job market is rebounding rapidly from last year’s coronavirus recession. Jobless claims dropped by 71,000 to 199,000, the lowest since mid-November 1969. The drop was much bigger than economists expected.
Source: apnews.com
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