Category Archives: World News

Truss hits out at China’s ‘inflammatory’ reaction to Pelosi’s Taiwan visit

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UK foreign secretary calls US House speaker’s trip ‘perfectly reasonable’ and urges China to de-escalate

Liz Truss has criticised China’s “inflammatory” response to a senior US politician visiting Taiwan and called for a de-escalation ahead of military drills expected over the coming days.

Hours after the US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ended a historic trip to the island about 100 miles east of China, the UK foreign secretary said her meetings with human rights activists and others were “perfectly reasonable”.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Scholz insists turbine at centre of Russian gas row works; 10m Ukraine border crossings since invasion – as it happened

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German chancellor says no reason to hold up return of turbine behind energy standoff; UN says number of border crossings from Ukraine passes 10m mark

Mykola Tochytskyi, deputy minister of foreign affairs, has repeated Ukraine’s request for the skies over nuclear installations to be closed to prevent a potential accident and their misuse. He posted to Twitter saying:

The Russian leadership openly threatens the world with its ability to use nuclear weapons, backed by the clear calls to do so by the Russian state media.

For the first time in history, civil nuclear facilities have been turned into military targets and springboards for the Russian army in breach of the non-proliferation provisions on peaceful use of nuclear energy.

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Tinder chief leaves dating app after one year

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News of Renate Nyborg’s exit came as Match Group reported results that missed Wall Street expectations

The chief executive of Tinder has left the dating app after less than a year after the market value of its parent company plunged by more than a fifth after reporting disappointing results.

The departure of Renate Nyborg was one of a number of management changes announced by the $20bn Match Group, which owns dating brands including Hinge, Tinder and Match.com.

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At least 24 people dead as flash flooding hits eastern Uganda

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More than 5,600 displaced and 400,000 left without clean water after heavy rain causes two rivers to burst banks

At least 24 people have died and more than 5,600 people have been displaced by flash flooding in eastern Uganda.

Two rivers burst their banks after heavy rainfall swept through the city of Mbale over the weekend, submerging homes, shops and roads, and uprooting water pipes. About 400,000 people have been left without clean water, and more than 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of crops have been destroyed.

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Bristol bus boycott campaigner Roy Hackett dies at 93

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Civil rights activist led 1963 protests paving the way for passing of UK Race Relations Act

The civil rights activist Roy Hackett, who was one of the lead organisers of the Bristol bus boycott, has died at the age of 93.

The 1963 campaign, which lasted four months, mobilised people across the city to stop using Bristol Omnibus Company buses because of its refusal to hire black and Asian people. At the time, a “colour bar” in Britain meant that people from minority ethnic backgrounds could legally be banned from housing, employment and public places.

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South African police arrest more than 120 after gang-rape of eight women

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Dozens of zama-zamas – illegal miners from other countries – now being held in crime crackdown following music video shoot attack

Dozens of men detained after the alleged gang-rape of eight women on a music video shoot in South Africa are expected back in court on Wednesday as police made more arrests of artisanal miners blamed by local people for widespread violence.

The arrests on Tuesday near Krugersdorp, a city north-west of Johannesburg, bring the total number of people detained since the attack to more than 120.

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Delta flights attendants race to unionize: ‘We’re the people behind the profits’

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Workers say they just want a fair deal on pay, conditions and schedules at an airline has long resisted union efforts

Flight attendants at Delta are currently pushing to form a union at the only major airline in the US where flight attendants are not unionized.

Workers are racing to gather union authorization cards signed by a supermajority at Delta to trigger a union election over the next few months, as signatures are only valid for one year.

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Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan: calls for calm in Asia as US-China tensions rise

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South Korea calls for dialogue and Japan conveys concerns over drills, while North Korea praises China

The historic visit to Taiwan of the US House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has provoked a furious response from China, and heightened fears of a crisis in the Taiwan strait. In Asia and beyond, the visit has put governments on edge.

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Magnolia species lost to science for 97 years rediscovered in Haiti

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Conservationists find native magnolia for first time since 1925 after original habitat destroyed by deforestation

A conservation team has rediscovered a native magnolia tree in a forest in Haiti for the first time since it was lost to science in 1925.

Boasting pure white flowers and uniquely shaped leaves, the northern Haiti magnolia (Magnolia emarginata) was found originally in the forest of Morne Colombo, which has since been destroyed by deforestation. It was considered endangered and featured on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of threatened species, and its discovery has sparked new hope for the potential rewilding of Haiti’s forests.

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Ukrainians at risk from anti-refugee tensions in host countries, report warns

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Falsehoods and disinformation could cause breakdown in relations with local communities, says World Vision

Ukrainian refugees are likely to become victims of rising tensions and disinformation campaigns in their host countries, a report has warned.

False reports exaggerating how much aid refugees receive compared with local people, as well as linking refugees with violent crime and political extremism, could cause a breakdown in relations with local communities, the charity World Vision said.

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Outrage as Solomon Islands government orders vetting of stories on national broadcaster

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All stories are to be approved by the government before broadcast on the SIBC, prompting grave concerns about press freedom

The Solomon Islands’ government has prompted outrage by ordering the censorship of the national broadcaster, forbidding it from publishing material critical of the government, which will vet all stories before broadcast.

On Monday the government announced that the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), a public service broadcaster established in 1976 by an act of parliament, would be brought under government control.

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China cannot stop other world leaders visiting Taiwan, says Nancy Pelosi

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US House speaker leaves island as China orders live-fire drills off coast

The US House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has said Beijing cannot prevent world leaders from travelling to Taiwan, as she departed from the island on Wednesday to continue her tour of Asia.

In a newly released statement that summarised her trip, Pelosi expressed her admiration for Taiwan’s democracy and criticised China’s ruling Communist party for obstructing Taiwan on the world stage.

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‘Hoopla and yellow journalism’: Taiwanese Americans bemoan media fearmongering over Pelosi visit

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Hyperbolic tenor of debate shows lack of knowledge of country’s unique political situation, Taiwanese Americans say

Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan has inflamed US-China relations anew, with China’s military announcing it will conduct live-fire exercises around the island and state media condemning the visit as “stupid, reckless and dangerous”. Meanwhile, US commentators across the ideological spectrum, from Thomas Friedman to Tucker Carlson to Code Pink, have called Pelosi’s trip a reckless provocation to war.

But to Taiwanese Americans who have spent a lifetime grappling with the island’s strange geopolitical status, the hyperbolic tenor of the debate over Pelosi’s visit is indicative of how little most Americans know or care about the people of Taiwan.

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New Zealand house prices see fastest drop since GFC, but first homebuyers still shut out of market

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Property prices in New Zealand skyrocketed during the pandemic, but have fallen 2.5% in the last quarter

House prices in New Zealand are experiencing the fastest drop in value since the global financial crisis, but many first homebuyers remain locked out of home ownership due to an inflated market, the cost of living crisis and rising interest rates.

New Zealand has been plagued by a runaway housing market for years. Wellington and Auckland are among the least affordable property markets in the world, and homeownership rates have been falling since the early 1990s across all age brackets, but especially for people in their 20s and 30s. The average house price nationally is now more than NZ$1m.

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Nancy Pelosi tells President Tsai US will not abandon Taiwan – as it happened

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Another area of tension lies between the US and Russia, which Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has ratcheted up again this morning.

On his daily call with the media, Peskov said any talks on a possible prisoner exchange involving US basketball star Brittney Griner needed to be discreet, and that “megaphone diplomacy” would not achieve results, Reuters reports.

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Man trying to burn spider with lighter sparked Utah wildfire, police say

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Cory Martin, 26, arrested on suspicion of reckless burn and drug possession after telling police he tried to set fire to spider

A Utah man has been arrested on suspicion of starting a wildfire while trying to burn a spider with his lighter.

Cory Martin, 26, told police that he spotted the spider on Monday while he was in a hiking area in the foothills south of Salt Lake City near the city of Springville. He acknowledged starting the fire, but did not explain why he was trying to burn the spider.

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Putin’s reported girlfriend Alina Kabaeva hit with US sanctions

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Kabaeva, 39, former rhythmic gymnast the Kremlin denies is romantically involved with Putin, has assets frozen by US treasury

Vladimir Putin’s purported lover has been hit with sanctions from the US government’s treasury department over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Alina Kabaeva, 39, landed on the latest update to the federal Office of Foreign Assets Control’s specially designated nationals list, freezing any of her assets in the US and generally prohibiting Americans from dealing with her.

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Mood shifts in Taiwan as Nancy Pelosi visit raises fears of war

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Stoic, often fatalistic population paid little attention to talk of House speaker’s visit – until it was confirmed

At a central Taipei branch of a popular bank on Tuesday, a few clients came to Joseph Chiu, a teller, with an odd request: to withdraw millions of kuai from their accounts. “They worry the bank will close its doors tomorrow,” he said during an afternoon streetside smoke break.

Chiu said he wasn’t worried about such an event, and there is no indication that it is even a possibility, but it was a small sign that among Taiwan’s stoic, often fatalistic population, something had shifted this week.

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Justin Welby ‘affirms validity’ of 1998 gay sex is sin declaration

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Archbishop indicates he will not seek to punish churches that allow same-sex marriage in balancing act

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the global Anglican church, has sought to mollify conservative bishops around the world by “affirming the validity” of a 1998 declaration that gay sex is a sin.

He told more than 650 bishops attending the once-a-decade Lambeth conference that, for “a large majority” of conservative Anglicans, questioning biblical teaching was “unthinkable”.

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First shipment of Ukrainian grain reaches Turkish waters; Kremlin accuses US of direct role in war – as it happened

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First grain ship to leave Odesa since invasion reaches Turkish waters; Moscow says US is sharing intelligence with Ukrainian forces. This live blog is closed.

Ukraine’s ministry of defence quoted Scots poet Robert Burns’ Scots Wha Hae this morning while issuing what it claims are the latest casualty figures that it has inflicted on Russian forces.

They claim to have killed approximately 41,170 Russian troops, as well as destroying more than 1,750 tanks, 4,014 armoured combat vehicles, 223 jets and 191 helicopters. The claims have not been independently verified.

Liberating the city is one thing, but liberating the whole Kherson region is something else. We know it won’t happen now, but still have hope.

The roads of the region are dotted with numerous checkpoints, and you can always hear bombing raids. There are many soldiers in the cities.

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