Three female media workers were shot and killed in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad yesterday, their TV network said, in what appeared to be the latest targeted killing to rock the war-torn country. Zalmai Latifi, the director at Enikass TV, said the women were killed in two separate attacks. All three worked in the dubbing department for the broadcaster. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks. Journalists, religious scholars, activists and judges have all been targeted in a recent wave of political assassinations that has spread panic across Afghanistan and forced many into hiding -- with some even fleeing the country.

All 279 kidnapped Nigerian

students released: governor

All 279 girls kidnapped from their boarding school in northern Nigeria have been released and are on government premises, the local governor told AFP yesterday. Authorities initially said 317 girls were abducted in the raid by hundreds of gunmen on the Government Girls Secondary School in remote Jangebe village on Friday. But the governor said the “total number of female students abducted” was 279. Heavily armed criminal gangs in northwest and central Nigeria have stepped up attacks in recent years, kidnapping for ransom, raping and pillaging.

One in four will have hearing

problems by 2050: WHO

One in four of the world’s population will suffer from hearing problems by 2050, the World Health Organization warned yesterday, calling for extra investment in prevention and treatment. The first-ever global report on hearing said that the causes of many of the problems -- such as infections, diseases, birth defects, noise exposure and lifestyle choices -- could be prevented. One in five people worldwide have hearing problems currently, it said. Since nearly 80 percent of people with hearing loss live in poor countries, most are not getting the help they need.

Navalny poisoning: US

slaps sanctions on Russia

The United States yesterday imposed sanctions on seven senior Russian officials as it said its intelligence concluded that Moscow orchestrated the near fatal poisoning of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. In action coordinated with the European Union, President Joe Biden’s administration renewed demands that Russia free Navalny, who has been sent to a notorious penal colony after spurring massive rallies through his allegations of corruption by President Vladimir Putin. The announcement comes one day after EU member states approved sanctions on a partly overlapping list of four senior Russian justice and law enforcement officials involved in his detention. The targeted Russians will be restricted from traveling either to the European Union or the United States, with any assets in the Western nations frozen.