Geneva / AFP The UN health agency on Tuesday urged countries to start taxing sugary beverages as they fight against an obesity epidemic, pointing to evidence that price hikes can dramatically reduce consumption. The World Health Organization’s recommendations on sweetened beverages came as the world seeks to bring down whopping obesity rates, with one in three adults overweight. “There …

  The US government reiterated its request that construction of an oil pipeline in North Dakota be paused, while authorities consider the impacts of its route on a Native American tribe. The Dakota Access Pipeline has been the subject of a months-long protest, in which Native Americans and their supporters have camped out in the state’s prairie lands to block …

  Aleppo / AFP Regime ally Russia carried out its heaviest strikes in days on Syria’s Aleppo on Tuesday, as at least five children were killed in rebel fire on a school in the war-torn country’s south. The raids in Aleppo killed at least 12 civilians, a monitor said, and caused massive damage in several residential areas of the city’s …