Man wielding knife is shot by police officers after holding people hostage at Ruijin hospital
Four people have been wounded in a stabbing at a Shanghai hospital, local police said, before the knife-wielding attacker was shot and subdued by officers.
Huangpu district police said on social media that they received emergency reports at 11.30am local time (0430 BST) on Saturday of a stabbing at Ruijin hospital.
Continue reading...President urged to act more forcefully to deal with rising inflation, gun violence and dire supreme court rulings
At an Independence Day barbecue, crises cascading around him, Joe Biden declared that he had “never been more optimistic about America than I am today”.
Of course there were challenges, grave ones, the US president told the military families assembled on the south lawn of the White House. And the nation had a troubling history of taking “giant steps forward” and then a “few steps backwards”, he acknowledged.
Continue reading...Soviet-era ports being resuscitated but officials say only way to mitigate global hunger is to end Russia’s Black Sea blockade
Ukraine is restoring and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade.
Before the war, Ukrainian river ports on the Danube were seldom used, with some of them in complete disrepair. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its control of exit routes to the Black Sea , Kyiv is resuscitating its old river harbours in order to avoid the sea blockade and accelerate the exportation of the country’s wheat.
Continue reading...Authorities keen to avoid repeat of fatal glacier fall and avalanche but need to protect local tourism industry
The summer season was just getting into the swing in the mountain towns based around the Marmolada, the highest peak in the Italian Dolomites, when a huge mass of ice from a glacier on its north side snapped off last Sunday afternoon, causing a fatal avalanche.
Hotels, restaurants and mountain refuges were packed, and trails busy with hikers, climbers and cyclists, many flocking to the mountains in search of slightly fresher temperatures during Italy’s intense heatwave.
Continue reading...Authorities say blaze brought under control but likely to take days to extinguish amid drought conditions, heat and strong winds
Nearly 1,000 firefighters backed by water-dropping planes have been deployed to battle a massive blaze in France’s southern Gard region that burned 600 hectares (1,500 acres) and forced the evacuation of residents.
Local authorities said on Friday the wildfire had been brought under control but would take days to extinguish.
Continue reading...Luhansk governor says Russian forces shelling indiscriminately, Kyiv criticises Moscow at G20 summit, US sends Ukraine more artillery systems
Luhansk’s governor said Russian forces were indiscriminately shelling populated areas on Friday, Reuters reports. “They are not stopped even by the fact that civilians remain there, dying in houses and yards,” Serhiy Gaidai said.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister has asked all residents in the Russian-occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions to “evacuate by all possible means”. There would be “harsh battle” as the Ukrainian army would be “de-occupying these territories”, he said.
Belgium will reopen its embassy in Kyiv and send a new ambassador, the Belgian prime minister confirmed. The embassy would open next week and ambassador Peter Van De Velde, whom Alexander De Croo met before he was sent to Ukraine, will represent Belgium.
Ukraine’s military says it has destroyed two Russian command posts near Kherson, according to Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the joint southern command of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The Ukrainian foreign minister criticised Russia at the G20 summit in Bali, saying it prefers to follow its own rules instead of cooperating multilaterally with the international community. “I am strong supporter of multilateralism,” Dmytro Kuleba said. “But it lacks tools to protect itself from those who disrespect other nations, who prefer to play with common rules instead of playing by the rules. We have such a country at this table today – Russia.”
The Ukrainian parliament adopted a set of new laws on Friday during its plenary session. The new laws include safety guarantees for journalists working in battle areas, improved social protection for rescuers, and postponed transitioning to keep records of the gas volumes in units of energy.
The US is sending four more Himars, or high mobility artillery rocket systems, to Ukraine, a US senior defence official said at a press briefing on Friday. The four additional Himars will bring the total number given to Ukraine to 12. According to the official, the first eight were especially useful as the fighting in Donbas against Russian forces evolved into an artillery fight.
Continue reading...Rubens Villar Coelho ‘produced a fake Brazilian ID’ to investigating officer and had other aliases in Peru and Colombia
Police have arrested a man linked to the killing of British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian indigenous advocate Bruno Pereira but officials in the Amazonian city of Manaus warned his detention has not yet produced any evidence he is implicated in the 5 June murders.
Media in the area around Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia where the couple went missing named Rubens Villar Coelho as a possible suspect in the case that brought global attention to the remote Amazonian region last month.
Continue reading...Rogers, which dominates mobile and internet market, says teams working to restore service amid widespread disruptions
A major outage of mobile and internet networks caused widespread disruptions across Canada on Friday, affecting banks, police emergency lines and customers in the second outage to hit one of the country’s biggest telecom providers in 15 months.
Customers gathered at coffee shops and public libraries to access alternate networks, while financial institutions reported problems with everything from automated machines to cashless payment systems.
Continue reading...It’s official; Biden has formally signed an executive order protecting access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare services.
Here is a previous post detailing what is in the executive order.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin dares west to beat Russia on battlefield; Serhai Haidai says Sievierodonetsk ‘is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster’
The situation in occupied Sievierodonetsk “is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster” and the city is being widely looted by Russian troops, according to Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, Serhai Haidai.
He posted to Telegram this morning, claiming:
In Sievierodonetsk, 80% of housing was destroyed or damaged. Some people try to return for things, but more and more often … they find an empty apartment, even if it survived. Having entered the city, the Russians first deported part of the local population, took away the keys, and then began to rob everything. They drive up to high-rise buildings in trucks. If the furniture is good, they take it away. It is no longer just about household appliances.
The city is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster – there is no centralised water supply, gas supply, or electricity supply.
Last night, for the first time in several weeks, there was no night shelling of Kharkiv. But we have no right to lose our vigilance. After all, just yesterday evening, the enemy massively shelled the Nemyshlyan district of the city. Damaged houses, garages, containers, outbuildings. In total, four people died and nine were injured in Kharkiv oblast during the day.
Active hostilities continue on the contact line. In the Kharkiv direction, the enemy is shelling the positions of our defenders and the civilian population with artillery and rocket systems.
Continue reading...Drop in chickpea crop could have serious impact on countries such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan
Growers are warning of a global chickpea shortage, endangering supplies of hummus just as barbecue season gets into gear, in a development which could have serious consequences for countries that rely on the pulses as an essential source of protein.
Supplies of chickpeas could drop as much as 20% this year, according to the Global Pulse Confederation, as difficult weather conditions and the war in Ukraine hit production.
Continue reading...Parliament approves measures to use mothballed sites to produce electricity and preserve gas supplies
Germany’s two houses of parliament have passed emergency legislation to reactivate mothballed coal-fired power plants in order to support electricity generation amid fears of gas shortages as Russia curbs capacity.
The move has been described as “painful but necessary” by the government’s environmentalist economics minister, Robert Habeck. It has the backing of leading Greens in the coalition government, who argue it is needed as a short-term crisis management tool.
Continue reading...Remarks come after Pat Cash accused Kyrgios of ‘cheating, manipulation and abuse’ at this year’s championships
The Wimbledon finalist Nick Kyrgios has said that Australia’s tennis legends have a “sick obsession with tearing [him] down”.
The 27-year-old claimed he was “the outcast” of his compatriots before describing himself as an inspiration to others who have been surrounded by “negative headlines and clouds”.
Continue reading...Police believe attacker bore grudge against Abe as some critics question level of security surrounding Japan’s longest-serving PM
Sorrow and disbelief descended on Japan after Shinzo Abe – the former prime minister and a towering political figure – was shot dead while giving a campaign speech on Friday morning.
Abe, 67, was pronounced dead early in the evening, prompting a flood of tributes from current and former world leaders, and anger that a politician could be gunned down in broad daylight in one of the world’s safest societies two days before an election.
Continue reading...Dos Santos’s near-four-decade rule was marked by brutal civil war lasting almost three decades
Angola’s former president José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Africa’s second biggest oil producer for nearly four decades, has died aged 79.
Dos Santos died at the Teknon clinic in Barcelona, Spain, where he was being treated following a prolonged illness, the presidency said.
Continue reading...This blog has now closed.
Japan has close to “zero-tolerance” of gun ownership – an approach that experts say contributes to its extremely low rate of gun crime. There were six reported gun deaths in Japan in 2014, according to the National Police Agency, and the number rarely exceeds 10, in a country of 126 million people. In 2006, just two people were killed in gun attacks.
The 1958 law on the possession of swords and firearms states: “No one shall possess a firearm or firearms or a sword or swords.”
Among the few exceptions are shotguns for hunting and sport. Even then, prospective owners must attend classes and pass written and practical exams. They must then undergo psychological assessments to determine they are fit to own a firearm. Police background checks are exhaustive and even involve questioning the gun owners’ relatives.
Civilian ownership of handguns is banned. The few violations reported in the media usually involve members of the country’s yakuza crime syndicates. According to police, there were 21 arrests for the use of firearms in 2020, with 12 of them gang-related, Nikkei Asia reported.
Here is some further reaction from Australia.
Court of appeal judgment allows £5bn lawsuit against mining giant BHP by more than 200,000 victims of 2015 Mariana dam disaster
More than 200,000 victims of Brazil’s worst environmental disaster will have their case heard in a UK court, making it the largest group claim in English legal history.
The lawsuit is against the Anglo-Australian mining company BHP – one of the biggest companies in the world – for their involvement in the collapse of the Mariana dam in 2015, which released toxic mining waste down 400 miles (640km) of waterways along the Doce River. Claimants are seeking at least £5bn ($6bn) in compensation.
Continue reading...UK prime minister’s fellow populist is facing a tough re-election fight in October against former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Tremors from the political earthquake that shook the United Kingdom have reached Brazil, where the left is hoping the demise of a British populist leader presages the downfall of their own far-right authoritarian.
Boris Johnson’s political collapse was met with a mixture of hope and humour, with Ciro Gomes, one of the presidential candidates in October’s Brazilian election, describing the leaders of both nations in similar terms.
Continue reading...Foreign affairs minister meets Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at G20 in Bali to push for end to ‘coercive’ sanctions
Penny Wong, Australia’s foreign affairs minister, says Canberra and Beijing have taken the “first step towards stabilising the relationship” after the first face-to-face meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers since 2019.
After a meeting with Wang Yi, her Chinese counterpart, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali on Friday, Wong told reporters Australia would continue to push for an end to Beijing’s “coercive” trade sanctions against a range of exports, and would also not recoil from any domestic policy decisions taken “on the basis of our national interest, our security and our sovereignty”.
Continue reading...Russian president dares the west to try to win on the battlefield and says chances of talks growing dimmer
Vladimir Putin has issued one of his most ominous warnings yet, claiming Moscow has barely started its campaign in Ukraine and daring the west to try to defeat it on the battlefield.
Speaking at a meeting with parliamentary leaders on Thursday, the Russian president said the prospects for any negotiation would grow dimmer the longer the conflict dragged on.
Continue reading...