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The "Suneung" university entrance exam is a major event in the education-obsessed South, and officials take extreme measures, from rescheduling flights to pausing construction, to ensure students can give their best performance.

At a church in Seoul's wealthy Gangnam district, parents gathered for a nine-hour prayer marathon, with specific requests to God tailored around the structure of the multiple choice exam, which will be taken by 522,670 pupils this year.

Pastor Lee Chan-soo, who has held "Suneung prayer sessions" since 1992, said he tried to use the sessions to prepare parents to face any exam disappointments with equanimity. "The Suneung isn't everything in life. It's just the start," he said. "They are still our loving children and God's children regardless of the test scores."

At the Bongeunsa Buddhist temple, one of Seoul's largest, head monk Wonmyung was trying to comfort parents, who were performing rituals to help their children. Some parents bowed 108 times before the altar -- which in Buddhist theology should result in their wishes coming true.

For parents who are unable to pray in person, many churches and temples stream the sessions live on YouTube. Yoido Full Gospel Church, one of the largest churches in South Korea with about 480,000 members, is holding a YouTube live for the entire duration of the exam, featuring gospel songs and the faithful speaking in tongues.

Lee Sang-joon, 21, who is taking the test for the third time, told AFP he was "so happy" when he learned about the reforms, which gave him fresh hope of pursuing a medical career. This year is his "final chance" to succeed, he said. "It was nearly impossible to go to medical school, the top 0.01 percent in the country could go in. Now it's about 0.015 percent, which sounds like a chance to me".

Thousands of trainee doctors and medical students stopped working in February in protest of the plans, which sharply increased the number of places available for trainee doctors. But the government has pressed ahead, even as a roughly nine-month work stoppage has hit hospitals across the country.

To minimise noise around the more than 1,200 test centres nationwide, traffic has been ordered to slow, with bus and taxi driver unions agreeing not to honk during test hours. Construction work near the schools will also be halted. During the crucial listening portion of the English test, the land ministry imposed a nationwide ban on all aircraft takeoffs and landings outside of emergency situations.

Businesses were asked to adjust opening hours to alleviate traffic congestion and ensure that students arrived on time for the test, which started at 8:40 am. Even the stock market will also open an hour later at 10:00 am.

Anxious parents wept while wishing their children good luck and police escorted test-takers who were running late into schools early Thursday.

Niger's recent diplomatic shift away from France towards Russia has marked a turning point in the nation’s resource management strategy, particularly concerning its abundant uranium reserves.

Following the military coup in July 2023, which resulted in the removal of President Mohamed Bazoum, Niger's military junta has been taking increasingly bold steps to redefine its international partnerships, especially in the critical mining sector. On 8 November, Mining Minister Ousmane Abarchi announced that Niger is actively seeking to attract Russian investment in uranium and other natural resources.

"With regards to French companies, the French government – via its head of state – has said it does not recognise the Niger authorities," he said. "Does it seem possible in this case that we, the State of Niger, accept that French companies continue to exploit our natural resources?"

Tensions between France and Niger escalated after the junta’s decision to revoke Orano’s licence to operate at the Imouraren uranium mine in June of this year. This deposit is one of the largest in the world and has been a focal point of French investment over the years. Since its involvement began in the early 2000s, Orano has invested over €1 billion in developing the mine.

This comes as Niger signed an agreement with the Russian company Glavkosmos earlier this month to acquire advanced satellite technology.

The junta’s increasing reliance on Russia not only signifies a search for allies in a complicated political and security environment but also represents an outright rejection of France's former influence in the region.

The updated risk assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was announced at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, which is being skipped by the leaders of many top polluting nations.

Oceans have absorbed around 90 percent of the excess heat in the atmosphere due to the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Rising ocean temperatures have spurred mass bleaching events at coral reefs across the world, threatening crucial ecosystems for marine life as well as the livelihoods of people who rely on them.

The updated assessment of the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species looked at reef-building corals, which live in warm, shallow waters in tropical areas. Its analysis found that 892 reef-building coral species are now considered threatened, representing 44 percent of the total.

That study found that almost one in three -- or 23 out of 85 -- species of Atlantic coral is critically endangered, more than previously thought.

His visit comes only two days after the defence minister of Iran's nemesis Israel warned the Islamic republic was "more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities". Israel has long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies.

Grossi's trip comes after Donald Trump -- who pulled out of a hard-won nuclear deal with Iran negotiated under Barack Obama -- was voted back into the White House. Trump said last week that he was not seeking to harm Iran and instead wanted its people to have "a very successful country", while insisting "*they can't have a nuclear weapon".

In 2015, major world powers including the United States reached an agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme after 21 months of talks. The text provided for an easing of international sanctions on Iran in exchange for guarantees that it would not seek nuclear weapons.

The IAEA says Iran has considerably increased its reserves of enriched uranium to 60 percent, close to the 90 percent needed to develop an atomic bomb.

The foundations of Iran's nuclear programme date back to the late 1950s, when the United States signed a civil cooperation agreement with then-Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In 1970, Iran ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which requires signatory states to declare and place their nuclear materials under the IAEA control.

The parliamentarians called on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in Iran, to reconsider his long-standing religious edict or fatwa banning nuclear weapons.

CACI Premier Technology Inc was found liable at the conclusion of a long-running trial for its role in the torture of the three men at the notorious prison in 2003 and 2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights said. Suhail Al Shimari, a middle school principal, Asa'ad Zuba'e, a fruit vendor, and Salah Al-Ejaili, a journalist, were each awarded $14 million in damages, the center said in a statement. The three men filed suit against CACI, a private company based in Arlington, Virginia, in 2008.

Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, became a potent negative symbol of the US occupation of Iraq after evidence emerged of detainee abuse by American soldiers at the facility. Most of the abuse took place at the end of 2003, when CACI employees were working in the prison, according to the suit.

Katherine Gallagher, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, welcomed the jury's verdict saying it "makes clear CACI's role in this shameful part of our history." "Private military and security contractors are put on notice that they can and will be held accountable when they breach the most fundamental international law protections -– like the prohibition against torture," Gallagher said.

Once seen as a beacon of stability in South America, Ecuador has become one of the world's most violent nations and a major drug trafficking hub in recent years. Much of the violence has taken place in prisons where more than 460 inmates have been killed since February 2021, often in gruesome fashion, with their bodies dismembered and burnt.

"This morning, in a pavilion of the Litoral penitentiary, serious incidents were reported between inmates, resulting in a preliminary toll of 15 dead and 14 wounded," the prison service said.

The Andean country registered a record 47 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023, up from a rate of six per 100,000 in 2018.

tit-for-tat gang attacks left at least 17 dead near Guayaquil last month and prison officials continue to be targeted. Five penitentiary staff were shot dead in the space of a month between late August and late September.

A 62-year-old man surnamed Fan drove a small SUV through the gate and "forced his way into the city's sports centre, ramming people who were exercising on the internal roads", police said Tuesday. Preliminary investigations suggested Fan's attack had been "triggered by (his) dissatisfaction with the division of property following his divorce", their statement said.

He was found in his car cutting himself with a knife, and is currently in a coma after self-inflicted injuries to his neck and other parts of his body, unable to undergo interrogation, they added.

The 43 people wounded are not currently in life-threatening condition, police said.

Some were attempting to take videos but were blocked by a police car and security guards shouting "No filming!"

Drivers in this former Soviet Central Asian state are forbidden to stop until they reach their final destination -- a storage zone where the waste will be buried under thick layers of compacted clay and rock.

Three decades on from independence, Kyrgyzstan is still dealing with the consequences of the Cold War nuclear arms race, when Central Asia provided the Soviet Union with all of its uranium. Kyrgyz authorities say there are now six million cubic metres of radioactive waste in 30 sites such as Min-Kush, which require complex and costly disposal measures.

"When the Soviet Union collapsed, Kyrgyzstan had neither the equipment nor the money to transfer the waste to safe sites," said Ilgiz Ernis, deputy mayor of the Min-Kush municipality. "The process was badly delayed," he said.

The disposal work is now in its final stages and is being carried out by the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom as well as the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Radioactive waste has also been found in the river running through Min-Kush that flows into the Syr Darya, the second-largest river in the region, potentially threatening up to 80 million people.

Health risks from radiation were covered up in Soviet times but, unlike many other parts of the Communist bloc, atomic industry towns like Min-Kush had no food shortages. "Everything was available," Berdaliyeva remembered. Scientific studies have found an abnormal prevalence of illnesses such as cancer and depleted immune systems among people living close to nuclear waste sites.

The town in central Kyrgyzstan wants to turn the page from its toxic past and local officials are even hoping that it could have tourism potential. "The transfer of uranium waste to a safer area will allow Min-Kush to be taken off the red list for tourism," deputy mayor Ernis said.

Some 200,000 vulnerable New Zealanders were abused in state care in the seven decades since the 1950s, according to a six-year public inquiry that described its findings as an "unthinkable national catastrophe". Youngsters were sexually abused by church carers, mothers were forced to give up children for adoption, and troublesome patients were strapped to beds for seizure-inducing electroconvulsive therapy.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on Tuesday apologised on behalf of successive governments that turned a blind eye to such harrowing reports. "I am sorry you were not believed when you came forward to report your abuse," he said in an address delivered to parliament.

Survivor Tu Chapman told reporters the government had to answer for "decades of abuse, neglect, and torture by those running state, church and faith-based institutions".

Many victims reported lingering trauma that has fuelled addiction and other problems. The report found that some of the abuse was "overlaid with racism" targeting Indigenous Maori.

Elephant conservation has been a roaring success: numbers in Tsavo rose from around 6,000 in the mid-1990s to almost 15,000 elephants in 2021, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).But the human population also expanded, encroaching on grazing and migration routes for the herds. Resulting clashes are becoming the number one cause of elephant deaths, says KWS.

A nine-year study published last month found that elephants avoided farms with the ferocious bees 86 percent of the time.

The deep humming of 70,000 bees is enough to make many flee, including a six-tonne elephant

It has been effective, but recent droughts, exacerbated by climate change, have raised challenges. It is also expensive -- about 150,000 Kenyan shillings ($1,100) to install hives -- well beyond the means of subsistence farmers, though the project organisers say it is still cheaper than electric fences.

"An elephant ripped off my roof, I had to hide under the bed because I knew I was going to die," said a less-fortunate neighbour, Hendrita Mwalada, 67.

For those who can't afford bees, Save the Elephants offers other solutions, such as metal-sheet fences that clatter when shaken by approaching elephants, and diesel- or chilli-soaked rags that deter them.

"I don't think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic," the newly appointed minister said in response to a question about the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for a normalisation of ties between Israel and Arab countries. The normalisation drive was a part of the 2020 Abraham Accords overseen by Donald Trump, and the process could resume after the president-elect returns to the White House in January.

A Palestinian state would be "a Hamas state", Saar added

Abbas, in comments carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, said Sunday that "security and stability" could only be achieved with the establishment of "sovereignty and independence on the land of the Palestinian state".

As Saar spoke in Jerusalem, Arab and Muslim leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia for a summit addressing the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is also fighting Hamas ally Hezbollah.