State media report number of casualties currently unknown in blaze at telecommunications firm
A fire engulfed a skyscraper in the central Chinese city of Changsha, with authorities saying that no casualties had yet been found.
The blaze broke out in a 42-floor building housing an office of the state-owned telecommunications company China Telecom, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.
Continue reading...Hatice Cengiz, fiancee of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and other campaigners condemn plan
Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to touch down in London on Sunday to pay his respects to the Queen has been condemned by Hatice Cengiz and other human rights defenders as a “stain” on the monarch’s memory and an attempt by the Saudi crown prince to use mourning to “seek legitimacy and normalisation”.
Cengiz, who was engaged to Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was killed and dismembered by Saudi agents in the Istanbul consulate in 2018, said she wished that Prince Mohammed would be arrested for murder when he lands in London, but said she feared that UK authorities would turn a blind eye to serious and credible allegations against the future king.
Continue reading...Ascension of King Charles III has prompted renewed questioning of a British monarch as head of state
In a crisp black suit, white shirt and black tie, Daniel Pryce reached the end of a mile-long driveway flanked by palm trees and clipped lawns. He had come to King’s House to perform his duty, as he put it, by signing a book of condolence for the Queen, whom he served as equerry on her final visit to Jamaica in 2002.
“The very last moment of that visit, as she was about to alight the aircraft, she turned around and she shook my hand and she said ‘Thank you, Daniel’,” the 58-year-old recalled on Tuesday as flags flew at half mast in serene sunshine. “It was the first time she referred to me by my first name and that was special for me.”
Continue reading...Ex-officer was head of army base in Iguala when students were abducted in what a report called a ‘state crime’
Mexican authorities have arrested a retired general and two other members of the army for alleged links to the disappearance of 43 students in the south of the country in 2014.
The assistant public safety secretary, Ricardo Mejia, said that among those arrested was the former officer who commanded the army base in the Guerrero state city of Iguala in September 2014, when the students from a radical teachers’ college were abducted.
Continue reading...Highest red alert issued in Shanghai as meteorological autumn does not give way to cooler temperature in France
Typhoon Muifa made landfall in eastern China on Wednesday evening, shortly after affecting Japan in previous days, arriving as a Category 2 storm and billed as the strongest on record to hit Shanghai, China’s largest city.
China’s central meteorological observatory issued its first highest typhoon red alert of the year. The tropical system brought sustained winds of 95mph, a threat of up to 200mm of rainfall and waves in excess of five metres.
Continue reading...Study says global economy is in steepest slowdown after a post-recession recovery since 1970
The world may be edging toward a global recession as central banks simultaneously raise interest rates to combat persistent inflation, the World Bank has warned.
The three largest economies, – the US, China and the eurozone – have been slowing sharply, and even a “moderate hit to the global economy over the next year could tip it into recession”, the bank said in a study.
Continue reading...Economists accuse bondholders of standing to make huge profits at the expense of the crisis-hit country
More than 100 economists and academics have urged international lenders to crisis-stricken Zambia to write off a significant slice of their loans during financial restructuring talks this month.
Zambia is seeking up to $8.4bn (£7.3bn) in debt relief from major lenders, including private funds run by the world’s largest investment manager, BlackRock, to help put its public finances back in order.
Continue reading...Ratu Meli Bainimarama has been charged with assault, stalking, choking and other charges in Windsor local court
The son of the Fijian prime minister is facing criminal charges in relation to domestic violence-related allegations in a New South Wales court.
Ratu Meli Bainimarama, 36, has been charged with 17 offences related to domestic violence, including five charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, two charges of stalking, four charges of common assault, one charge of destroying or damaging property, one charge of intentionally distributing an intimate image without consent and four counts of intentionally choking a person without consent.
Continue reading...Official says some of the more than 440 bodies found buried in forest had their hands tied behind their backs
Ukrainian officials have said that some of the bodies pulled from a mass grave outside the recently recaptured city of Izium showed signs of torture.
Oleg Synegubov, the regional governor, said some of the more than 440 bodies buried in a forest near the north-eastern city also had their hands tied behind their backs.
Continue reading...Mass burial site with 440 bodies found in recaptured Izium; Ukraine’s loss of grain storage capacity threatens global food supply; Putin praises Xi’s ‘balanced’ approach to Ukraine war
Ukrainian authorities have found a mass burial site of more than 440 bodies in the eastern city of Izium that was recaptured from Russian forces, a regional police chief has said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy likened the discovery to what happened in Bucha outside Kyiv early in the war, Reuters reported. “Russia is leaving death behind it everywhere and must be held responsible,” he said.
The European Union chief, Ursula von der Leyen, said she wanted the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to face the international criminal court over war crimes in Ukraine. “That Putin must lose this war and must face up to his actions, that is important to me,” she told the TV channel of German news outlet Bild on Thursday.
Ukraine has lost nearly 15% of its grain storage capacity in the war, threatening its role as a key food supplier to the world, a report said. The US government-backed Conflict Observatory said Russians had seized 6.24m tonnes of food storage capacity, and another 2.25m tonnes of capacity in Ukrainian hands had been destroyed, Agence France-Presse reported. As a result, farmers were running out of room to store their output for shipment, which could discourage plantings for the next crop, especially winter wheat, the report said.
Pope Francis said it was morally legitimate for countries to provide weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself from Russian aggression. “This is a political decision which it can be moral, morally acceptable, if it is done under conditions of morality … Self-defence is not only licit but also an expression of love for the homeland,” he said. “Someone who does not defend oneself, who does not defend something, does not love it. Those who defend [something] love it.”
Vladimir Putin thanked the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, for his “balanced” approach to the Ukraine crisis and blasted Washington’s “ugly” policies, at a meeting that followed a major setback for Moscow on the battlefield. Putin told his Chinese counterpart on Thursday: “We understand your questions and your concerns in this regard, and we certainly will offer a detailed explanation of our stand on this issue during today’s meeting, even though we already talked about it earlier.”
Germany will supply Ukraine with additional armoured vehicles and rocket launch systems but will not provide the battle tanks that Kyiv has long asked for, says the German defence minister, Christine Lambrecht. She said on Thursday that Soviet-made BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles would also “very quickly” head to Ukraine from Greece.
The UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation board of governors passed a resolution demanding Russia end its occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Reuters reports. Thursday’s resolution is the second on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passed by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board.
The US president, Joe Biden, announced a new $600m arms package for Ukraine, according to a White House memo sent to the state department on Thursday. Reuters reports the memo does not detail how the money will be used, but sources said it was expected to include munitions and more Himars rocket systems.
The US has imposed new sanctions on 22 Russian individuals and two Russian entities. The people include Maria Alexeyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights, who has led Russia’s efforts to deport thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and forced the adoption of Ukrainian children into Russian families. The entities include Task Force Rusich, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group that has participated in combat alongside Russia’s military in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian volunteer medic captured by Russian forces during their deadly siege of Mariupol delivered devastating testimony before US lawmakers on Thursday, recounting her experiences of torture, death and terror. Yuliia Paievska, who was detained in the port city in March and held by Russian and pro-Russia forces for three months, spoke before the Helsinki commission, a government agency created in part to promote compliance with human rights internationally.
Continue reading...Charity says 19 million people facing starvation in report highlighting link with extreme weather
Extreme hunger is closely linked to the climate crisis, with many areas of the world most affected by extreme weather experiencing severe food shortages, research has shown.
The development charity Oxfam examined 10 of the world’s worst climate hotspots, afflicted by drought, floods, severe storms and other extreme weather, and found their rates of extreme hunger had more than doubled in the past six years.
Continue reading...Death at Bernstein high school comes as new data shows 200 people dying a day of fentanyl overdoses
A teenage girl at a Hollywood high school died on Tuesday and another was hospitalized, after taking what police believe were counterfeit pills filled with fentanyl.
The incident, which is being investigated as a homicide by Los Angeles police, comes as federal officials announced new national counts of overdose deaths, showing nearly 200 people in the US are dying each day due to overdoses of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
Continue reading...Biden has begun speaking at the White House about the agreement reached to head off a rail workers strike.
You can watch it below:
Continue reading...Study says climate crisis likely to have significantly increased rainfall and made future floods more likely
The intense rainfall that has caused devastating floods across Pakistan was made worse by global heating, which has also made future floods more likely, scientists have found.
Climate change could have increased the most intense rainfall over a short period in the worst affected areas by about 50%, according to a study by an international team of climate scientists.
Continue reading...Wang Qishan to be at service despite banning of Conservative MPs due to complaints about Chinese repression
The Chinese vice-president, Wang Qishan, is to attend the Queen’s funeral in a move that has prompted complaints from a group of British Conservative MPs that have been banned from travelling to China due to their campaigns against Chinese repression.
Wang will be the most senior Asian political leader to attend the service at Westminster Abbey and among the representatives of authoritarian states, a grouping that also includes Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is expected to lead a delegation to London, although his attendance at the funeral has not yet been confirmed.
Continue reading...LVMH announced measures after Emmanuel Macron urged France to reduce power consumption
LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, plans to lower the thermostat at its stores around the world as part energy-saving measures this winter.
The French conglomerate will also turn off the lights at its stores earlier, starting in France in October before being deployed worldwide.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy meets Von der Leyen in Kyiv as Russia steps up attacks on power and utilities providers
Russia hit the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih with cruise missiles again on Thursday, after a devastating strike the day before destroyed a reservoir dam and caused extensive flooding.
The latest attack on the home city of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, caused serious damage. Two missiles struck the same reservoir hit on Wednesday, which was being repaired, Kryvyi Rih’s military administrator, Oleksandr Vilkul, said. He urged residents to stay in shelters.
Continue reading...Russian leader seems keen to curry favour with Chinese president as battlefield setbacks and sanctions bite
Vladimir Putin has told Xi Jinping that he understands China’s “questions and concerns” about the war in Ukraine, in a rare nod to tensions between the two states caused by the Russian invasion.
The remarks came as Xi and Putin met on Thursday for the first time since the war began, at a summit in Uzbekistan where the Russian president was expected to court the Chinese leader personally as an ally in his conflict with the west.
Continue reading...Enoch Burke, who had also refused to refer to pupil as ‘they’, spent 11 days in prison
A school teacher in Ireland who refused to call a transgender pupil by the pronoun “they” has spent 11 days in prison for ignoring a court order to stay away from the school.
Enoch Burke failed to obtain a court injunction on Wednesday that would have paved his release and return to school, leaving him in Mountjoy prison in Dublin.
Continue reading...Six men charged over deadly attack on girls, aged 15 and 17, of Dalit caste
Two sisters in Uttar Pradesh have been found raped, murdered and hanging from a tree in the latest incident of sexual violence to shock India.
The bodies of the girls, aged 15 and 17, were found suspended from a tree by their shawls near their home in Lakhimpur district on Wednesday afternoon. They belonged to the Dalit caste, the lowest in India’s hierarchical and discriminatory Hindu caste system, which used to deem Dalits as “untouchables”.
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