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"We condemn the US air attack that targeted a site last night on the Iraqi-Syrian border, which represents a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security," a statement from Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi's office said on Monday, stressing that the nation refuses to become the arena for third parties to settle their scores. The military also promised to carry out all the investigations and procedures needed to avoid such incidents in the future.

The US military said in a statement: "As demonstrated by this evening's strikes, President Biden has been clear that he will act to protect US personnel."

While the US military did not elaborate whether anyone was killed or injured in the attacks, Iraqi militia groups have confirmed that at least four members of Kataib Sayyed al-Shuhada militia were killed in the strikes.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh warned Washington against "creating crisis" in the region, stating it would ultimately backfire on the US itself. "Certainly, what the United States is doing is disrupting security in the region, and one of the victims of this disruption will be the United States."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has defended US airstrikes on Iranian-backed militia targets either side of the Iraq/Syria border, claiming they were "necessary" and "appropriate" to send a "clear" message to these groups. Blinken's "message" was likely aimed at Tehran as much as the militias themselves.

Iraq's Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) denied on Monday any presence of arms depots at the positions struck by the US Air Force on the country's border with Syria.

"As a result of the airstrike, four soldiers, who were carrying out the routine task of preventing the penetration of IS terrorists (banned in Russia) from Syria to Iraq, have been killed ... They were not involved in any activity against foreign forces in Iraq," the statement obtained by Sputnik read, adding that "there were no depots in the militia positions that were hit by the airstrike".

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Sweden poised to lift some Covid restrictions from July 1 as cases fall

© AFP / Jonathan NACKSTRAND
FILE PHOTO. People wait for their turn to enter Stockholm's City Hall, known as venue for the Nobel Prize banquets and converted now into a Covid-19 vaccination centre.

From July 1, Sweden will relax some of its Covid-19 restrictions, including removing curfews and increasing the number of people allowed into venues, as its infection rates continue to decline and more people opt for vaccination.

Health Minister Lena Hallengren announced on Monday that Swedes can expect to take one step forward closer to normality by the end of this week. The decision to ease protection measures comes as case rates have fallen, with the reproduction rate of the virus dropping to 0.89 as more people have been vaccinated. As a result, Hallengren announced that, "from Thursday, life can start to go back to a little bit more like it was before the pandemic."

Even vaccine manufacturers admit that the vaccinated can still catch and spread the coronavirus, and countries across the northern hemisphere have seen a reduction of cases, regardless of vaccine uptake, so it's unlikely that this claimed decrease in cases has anything to do with vaccine status and instead it's probably because the coronavirus is most virulent during winter months. We saw the same pattern last summer.

The government will unlock the country in phases, moving it first to an eased 'stage 2' level on July 1. The guidance from its Public Health Agency (PHA) for this stage means the number of spectators at outdoor stadiums can increase from 500 to 3,000, though all attendees must remain seated.

Another change due to be made pertains to the hospitality and events sector, with restaurants and pubs no longer restricted to a 10.30pm curfew and no limits being imposed on the numbers who may share a table outside. The recommendation to mingle only with those in one's family or who are immediate contacts will also be scrapped, although meeting outdoors rather than indoors will still be encouraged.

'Encouraged', 'recommended', note that these restrictions weren't being aggressively enforced by the police, unlike some of the deeply disturbing scenes documented elsewhere, with religious leaders and even pregnant women being arrested.

Stage 3 is expected to follow later in the month, with social distancing limits on the number of people allowed to meet both indoors or outdoors lifted, and Stage 4 is anticipated to be implemented by the fall. This phase will see the removal of all limits on public and private gatherings. The final step, stage 5, will lift all the remaining restrictions.

The (currently) relatively harmless coronavirus is likely to reemerge again this winter, and so, if signs in more oppressive countries are anything to go by, such as the UK and Singapore, these restrictions will never be fully lifted and, come autumn citizens will probably find themselves back under some form of lockdown: "Four more weeks to, er..." - The UK government's weakest excuse for a lockdown yet

Sweden took a relaxed approach to the outbreak of coronavirus in 2020 compared to other European countries, and did not impose a lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, relying instead on its citizens' voluntary efforts. However, it was the last among its Nordic neighbors to begin easing restrictions on June 1. Iceland fully lifted its domestic Covid curbs on June 26.

Over the course of the pandemic, Sweden recorded 1.09 million cases and 14,619 deaths, according to the PHA. As of June 26, 26.6% of its population had been fully vaccinated.

The Pentagon isn't alone in investigating strange objects spotted in the skies: according to reports, the Chinese military has also been tracking UFOs, and in recent years has registered an uptick in sightings.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) uses a three-tiered system to investigate instances of "unidentified air conditions" - a euphemism reminiscent of the US military's term for UFOs, "unidentified aerial phenomena," the South China Morning Post reported.

The PLA relies on reports from military radar stations, air force pilots, police stations, weather stations, and Chinese Academy of Sciences observatories to gather as much data as possible about mysterious flying objects. The information is then processed by the military and undergoes preliminary analysis, before being submitted to a national database. PLA headquarters then assigns a "threat index" to each sighting, based on the object's behavior, physical features and any other relevant variables.

But Chinese analysts have been "overwhelmed" in recent years by the growing number of sighting reports from "a wide range of military and civilian sources," according to the Post, prompting the PLA's UFO task force to rely on artificial intelligence to help sort through the data. Many of the reports are ultimately attributed to natural phenomena which are picked up by radar or trigger electronic sensors, according to Chinese military researchers cited by the paper.

While such reports conjure up images of alien craft, sightings of unidentified objects in China's airspace are "more likely caused by humans than aliens," according to a Chinese radar scientist quoted by the outlet. The increasing popularity of recreational drones, as well as an uptick in military activity in the South China Sea, could also explain why the PLA has been inundated with UFO reports.

China's only officially confirmed UFO sighting occurred in 1998, when two military jets intercepted a low-flying object that appeared above an airbase in Cangzhou, Hebei province. The object was described as a "short-legged mushroom" with beams of light shooting down from its underside. The object was able to quickly accelerate before disappearing from radar, according to a report about the incident published in an official newspaper.

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