Category Archives: World News

Nephew of jailed Hotel Rwanda dissident hacked by NSO spyware

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Latest findings suggest Rwandan government has deployed surveillance campaign against relatives of Paul Rusesabagina

The mobile phone of a Belgian citizen who is the nephew of Paul Rusesabagina, a jailed critic of the Rwandan government made famous by his portrayal in Hotel Rwanda, was hacked nearly a dozen times in 2020 using Israeli-made surveillance technology, according to forensic experts at The Citizen Lab.

The findings follow earlier revelations by the Guardian and other media partners in the Pegasus Project, an investigation of Israel’s NSO Group, that Rusesabagina’s daughter, a dual American-Belgian national named Carine Kanimba, was under near-constant surveillance by a client of NSO Group from January to mid-2021, when the hacking attack was discovered by researchers at Amnesty International’s security lab.

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Russian shelling leaves six dead in eastern Ukraine, reports say – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Reuters has a quick snap that Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has instructed the military to prioritise destroying Ukraine’s long-range missile and artillery weapons, according to a defence ministry statement.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence has claimed that Russia is using the private military company Wagner in Ukraine to reinforce its frontline forces, but that losses they have sustained are likely to be impacting their effectiveness.

Russia has used private military company Wagner to reinforce front-line forces and to mitigate manning shortfalls and casualties.

Wagner has almost certainly played a central role in recent fighting, including the capture of Popasna and Lysyschansk. This fighting has inflicted heavy casualties on the group.

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China banks told to bail out property developers as mortgage boycotts threaten economy

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Intervention comes as thousands of homebuyers refuse to make mortgage repayments in deepening property sector crisis

Chinese banks have been told to bail out struggling property developers to help them complete unfinished housing projects and head off the growing mortgage strike that threatens to seriously damage the economy.

With thousands of homebuyers banding together to refuse to keep up with mortgage instalments on unfinished apartments bought off the plan, regulators have stepped up efforts to encourage lenders to extend loans to qualified real estate projects.

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Farnborough airshow to focus on cleaner flying and potential fighter jet deal

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Manufacturers to emphasise their efforts to reduce environmental impact of planes

Low-emission air travel and a potential deal for Japan to help build the UK’s next-generation Tempest fighter jet are set to take centre stage at the annual Farnborough airshow this week.

Executives from global aerospace manufacturers and airlines will gather at the airport in Hampshire after a four-year gap. The show, which begins on Monday, normally happens every two years but was cancelled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, as the aviation industry faced potential collapse.

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France braces for record temperatures as wildfires rage across Europe

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Thousands evacuated as above 40C forecast for some French regions on Monday and more lives lost in soaring heat in Spain

France was bracing on Monday for the peak of the heatwave gripping the country, with crushing temperatures expected from the Mediterranean, as wildfires continued to rage across Europe.

Forecasters have put 15 departments in France on the highest state of alert for extreme temperatures, including Gironde in the south-west, where wildfires have already wrought havoc.

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Zelenskiy fires Ukraine’s spy chief and top state prosecutor

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SBU’s Ivan Bakanov and war crimes prosecutor Iryna Venediktova sacked after their officials found to be collaborating with Russia

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has fired the head of Ukraine’s powerful domestic security agency, the SBU, and the state prosecutor general, citing dozens of cases of collaboration with Russia by officials in their agencies.

Sunday’s abrupt sackings of SBU chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelenskiy, and the prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, who played a key role in the prosecution of Russian war crimes, were announced in executive orders on the president’s website.

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Sudan: scores of people killed in tribal clashes in Blue Nile state

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Fighting between the Hausa and Birta ethnic groups broke out last week over the killing of a farmer

The death toll from days of tribal clashes in the southern Sudanese state of Blue Nile has climbed to at least 65 people, according to a senior health official.

Around 150 people have been injured in the fighting between the Hausa and Birta ethnic groups, the state’s health minister, Gamal Nasser al-Sayed, said.

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Russia is preparing for the next stage of its offensive in Ukraine, military officials say – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Today is the anniversary of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Donetsk in 2014, which killed 298 people onboard, including 196 Dutch nationals and 38 Australians.

With the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, this year’s anniversary has hit the international community even harder. Russia denied involvement in the downing of MH17, despite the findings of an international investigation that found multiple witnesses who saw an anti-aircraft missile launcher that had secretly crossed into Ukraine from Russia in the hours before it shot down the commercial flight.

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Bernie Sanders condemns Joe Manchin for sabotaging president’s agenda

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Senator also rebukes Biden for Saudi Arabia trip: ‘I don’t believe we should maintain a warm relationship with a dictator like that’

Bernie Sanders harshly criticized prominent fellow Democrats on Sunday, accusing his Senate colleague Joe Manchin of sabotaging the president’s agenda and rebuking Joe Biden for traveling to Saudi Arabia last week.

During an appearance on ABC’s This Week, Sanders interrupted host Martha Raddatz when she said Manchin had “abruptly pulled the plug” on supporting a scaled-back version of a spending bill that is crucial to Biden’s agenda. Manchin said he would not support provisions in the bill that increase spending to combat climate change and close tax loopholes. Democrats cannot pass the bill without Manchin’s support in a US Senate that is divided 50-50, with vice-president Kamala Harris serving as a tiebreaker in the event one is needed.

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UAE sentences ex-lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi to three years in prison

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US citizen Asim Ghafoor detained in Dubai and convicted two days later of money laundering and tax evasion

The United Arab Emirates has sentenced the former lawyer of Jamal Khashoggi – the dissident Saudi journalist who was killed at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 – to three years in prison on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.

The Abu Dhabi money laundering court also ordered Asim Ghafoor, a US citizen, to pay a fine of more than $800,000 (£675,000) stemming from his in absentia conviction, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency reported.

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Ukraine mourners bury four-year-old Liza as Russian attacks intensify

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Rockets and missiles continue to pound Ukrainian towns amid fears of renewed Russian offensive

Mourners in central Ukraine have buried a four-year-old girl who was killed by a Russian missile strike in the city of Vinnytsia last week, as officials and analysts warned that Moscow’s operational pause of recent days had come to an end, signalling further death and pain to come.

Twenty-three people were killed in the attack, and one person is still missing.

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Trump won’t blunt January 6 inquiry by entering 2024 race, panel member says

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‘No one is above the law,’ says Elaine Luria in response to whether Trump could shield himself from threat of prosecution by simply announcing run

Donald Trump won’t blunt the investigation by the congressional committee investigating the deadly January 6th attack on the Capitol by announcing that he’s running for the Oval Office again, a member of the panel said Sunday.

Elaine Luria, a Virginia congresswoman and one of seven Democrats on the committee, told CNN’s Dana Bash, “The bottom line is that no one is above the law – whether he’s a president, former president or a potential future presidential candidate, we are going to pursue the facts.”

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Plane carrying munitions crashes in Greece killing all onboard

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Army and explosive experts use drone amid toxicity fears from wreck reported to be Ukrainian aircraft

A large cargo aircraft transporting munitions from Serbia to Bangladesh has crashed and exploded in a ball of flames in northern Greece, killing all eight crew onboard.

Serbia’s defence minister, Nebojša Stefanović, said the plane was carrying 11.5 tonnes of military products, including illuminating mortar shells and training shells, and the buyer was the Bangladesh defence ministry.

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British man found dead in Florence hotel room named by local media

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Rugby league clubs and stars pay tribute to player Ricky Bibey, a two-time Challenge Cup winner

A former rugby league player has been named by Italian media as the man found dead in a hotel room in Florence.

Ricky Bibey, a two-time Challenge Cup winner with Wigan Warriors and St Helens, was found dead in the room at the Hotel Continentale on Saturday morning, alongside a 43-year-old woman who had suffered serious injuries.

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Kigali summit to outline strategy for nature conservation in Africa

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First continent-wide meeting aims to set out plans to halt and reverse habitat and species loss in protected areas on land and sea

African leaders will gather in the Rwandan capital this week for the first continent-wide meeting to set out plans for the conservation of nature across Africa.

The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (Apac) in Kigali will attract close to 3,000 delegates, including protected area directors from the continent’s 54 countries, youth leaders and Indigenous and community representatives, to discuss the role of protected areas in conserving nature, promoting sustainable development, and safeguarding the continent’s wildlife.

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Home Office in fresh row with UNHCR over Rwanda asylum policy

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Despite court hearing, Home Office continues to claim UNHCR is supportive of controversial scheme

The Home Office has been accused of misrepresenting the UN refugee agency’s stance on sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, in a new disagreement between the two organisations, the Guardian has learned.

The Home Office and UNHCR have clashed previously over the safety and suitability of the Home Office’s policy of forcibly removing some asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK on small boats or in the back of lorries to Rwanda to have their claims processed there.

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Family of captured Ukrainian human rights activist plead for help

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Campaign launched to highlight plight of Maksym Butkevych amid fears he is being singled out over ties to UK

Family and friends of a prominent Ukrainian human rights activist who signed up to fight Russia and was captured have launched a public campaign to highlight his plight over fears he is being wrongly accused of being a “British spy” due to his ties to the UK.

Maksym Butkevych, 45, a former BBC Ukrainian service producer who studied at Sussex University and who sits on the board of Amnesty International’s Ukraine section, is well known as a human rights defender due to his work with refugees in Ukraine.

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Forest fires rage across Europe as heatwave sends temperatures soaring

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Civil defence authorities battle blazes that have forced evacuation of thousands of people across continent

Firefighters in Portugal, Spain, France, Greece and Morocco are battling forest fires raging across tens of thousands of hectares as this week’s heatwave continues to bring extreme temperatures and cause hundreds of deaths across south-western Europe.

The second heatwave of the summer – with temperatures hitting 47C (116F) in Portugal and 45C in Spain – has triggered wildfires that have forced the evacuation of thousands of people.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Russian forces ‘preparing new offensive’ – live

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Representative of Ukraine’s defense ministry says ‘preparations for next stage of offensive actions are under way,’ Kyiv Independent reports

Two people were killed in Nikopol on Saturday when heavy Russian shelling hit the southern Ukrainian town, the emergency services and regional governor said.

The regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyn Reznichenko, said Russia fired 53 Grad rockets at the town, Reuters reports.

We assess [that] an official Russian delegation recently received a showcase of Iranian attack-capable UAVs.

We are releasing these images, captured in June, showing Iranian UAVs that the Russian government delegation saw that day.

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Sri Lanka’s political crisis continues as Ranil Wickremesinghe bids to be president

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Protesters angry prime minister who they say propped up Rajapaksa dynasty in running to lead country

Sri Lanka’s political crisis is looks likely to continue this week after the ruling party decided to nominate the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as its candidate to be the next president.

After the dramatic toppling of Sri Lanka’s strongman president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the campaign has begun for who will take up executive power at a time when the country is facing some of the worst economic and political upheaval since independence.

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