Haiti summons French ambassador after Macron called its leaders ‘morons’

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Government protests ‘unfriendly and inappropriate’ comments by French president caught on camera

Haiti’s government has summoned the French ambassador to the country to protest about “unfriendly and inappropriate” comments from Emmanuel Macron, who was caught on camera calling the country’s leaders “morons”.

The French president had on Wednesday described the decision of the Caribbean country’s transitional presidential council to oust the prime minister earlier this month amid an escalation in gang warfare as “completely dumb”.

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Canada denies it has evidence linking Modi to killing of Sikh separatists

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Trudeau adviser shuts down foreign ministry’s allegations that Indian government was behind intimidation plot

Canada, which expelled six Indian diplomats over allegations they were involved in a plot against Sikh separatists, has denied it has evidence Narendra Modi was linked to violence on Canadian soil.

The Canadian foreign ministry last month alleged Amit Shah, considered the number two in Modi’s government, was behind a campaign of intimidation in Canada. Ottawa says it has evidence linking Indian government agents to the 2023 murder of the Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

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Scholz to lead SPD into snap German election after Pistorius withdraws

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Chancellor’s popular rival says he is unavailable to stand, leaving Scholz as the default candidate

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will be nominated as the candidate to lead his Social Democratic party (SPD) into the February general election after his more popular defence minister, Boris Pistorius, pulled out of the race.

After weeks of calls for a change at the top of the ticket, Pistorius released a video on Thursday in which he said he was “not available” to stand as the SPD flag-bearer in the snap election triggered after Scholz sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, imploding the three-year-old ruling coalition.

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Middle East crisis: Netanyahu thanks Orbán for invite after ICC warrant, saying Hungary on ‘side of justice and truth’ – as it happened

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Israeli PM thanks his Hungarian counterpart after he extends invite in defiance of moves by International Criminal Court

The US have said they “fundamentally reject” the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for senior Israel officials and said the court does not have jurisdiction over the matter.

On Thursday, arrest warrants were issued by the court for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the late Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

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Burnayi Lurnayi: Bendigo development aims to provide safe homes for Aboriginal women

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Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation says the development will help Indigenous women stay in the increasingly unaffordable regional city

Traditional owners have partnered with community housing providers in central Victoria to build a new housing project aimed at addressing the high rates of homelessness faced by Aboriginal women.

The development, named Burnayi Lurnayi, meaning “young women” in Dja Dja Wurrung language, is being built in the Bendigo suburb of Flora Hill, in a partnership between the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation (Djarra) and community housing organisation YWCA.

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Greens and some independents are biggest winners from Labor’s proposed donation cap, data shows

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Labor and Coalition would have missed out on $4.1m and $4.7m in donations after public funding boost, while the Greens would have been $2.9m better off

The Greens and independent MPs who ran low-cost campaigns have emerged as the biggest winners from Labor’s proposed donation cap and increased public funding of elections, data shows.

According to a Guardian Australia analysis of 2021-22 data, the Greens would have lost just $2.7m in donations if Labor’s proposed $20,000 cap had been law at the time, a sum more than made up for by a $5.6m increase in public funding. In net terms, the Greens would have been $2.9m better off.

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Hungary invites Netanyahu to visit as world leaders split over ICC arrest warrant

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Viktor Orbán says he will not enforce ICC decision that requires court members to detain Israeli PM if he enters their country

Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said he will invite his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, to visit in defiance of an international criminal court arrest warrant, as world leaders split over the ICC’s momentous decision.

The world’s highest criminal court issued warrants on Thursday for Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri, commonly known as Mohammed Deif, who is believed to be dead, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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China reels from spate of suspected ‘revenge against society’ attacks

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Stabbings and car rammings raise fears that China’s strained social safety net is leading to growing violence

China is grappling with a spate of violent rampages that have left dozens of people dead, sparking a conversation about whether “revenge against society” attacks are becoming more common.

On 19 November, a 39-year-old man drove a car into a group of people near a school in Changde, a city in central China, injuring several students. Days earlier, another car-ramming attack in the southern city of Zhuhai had killed 35 people outside a sports centre, China’s deadliest mass killing in a decade. That same week, a former student in another city stabbed to death eight people and injured 17 others at a vocational college.

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Armed gang steal jewels from French museum’s £6m ‘national treasure’

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Thieves fired shots and took parts of 1904 work by goldsmith Joseph Chaumet from Hiéron Museum

Armed robbers snatched jewels worth millions from a work by the famed Parisian goldsmith Joseph Chaumet classed as a national treasure, in a brazen heist at a French museum.

The thieves arrived on motorbikes at the Hiéron Museum in Paray-le-Monial, in central France, at about 4pm local time on Thursday. Three entered the building and one stood guard outside, said the local mayor, Jean-Marc Nesme.

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‘Clearly an industry win’: concern over leaked classified document on NSW pokies reform

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Government urged to dismiss recommendations, including unchanged poker machine operating hours

The New South Wales government has been urged to dismiss recommendations from senior members of an independent panel on gambling reform before they are even finalised. These include what has been described as a “ridiculous” call for poker machine operating hours to remain unchanged.

A leaked confidential report by the panel’s executive committee, titled “draft roadmap for gaming reform”, also details how gamblers would still be able to anonymously use poker machines until 2028.

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Second Melbourne teen, Holly Bowles, dies after a suspected methanol poisoning in Laos

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The 19-year-old’s death comes as Vang Vieng’s tourism police says manager and owner of Nana backpacker hostel taken in for questioning

A second Australian teenager, Holly Bowles, has died after suspected methanol poisoning in Laos, it has been confirmed.

The 19-year-old’s death comes just one day after her friend Bianca Jones also died in a Thai hospital. The pair had been travelling through Laos together and fell ill a week ago.

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