Category Archives: World News

White Canadian man found guilty of murder of two Indigenous hunters

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Jury finds Anthony Bilodeau and his father guilty in the deaths of Maurice Cardinal and his nephew, Jacob Sansom, who were Métis

A white man who shot and killed two Indigenous hunters on a country road in the Canadian province of Alberta has been found guilty of murder and manslaughter in a case that laid bare racial tensions in the region. The man’s father was also found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.

Anthony Bilodeau, 33, and his father, Roger Bilodeau, 58, were charged in the deaths of Maurice Cardinal, 57, and his nephew, Jacob Sansom, 39, on a March 2020 evening. After deliberating for less than a day, an Edmonton jury found both men guilty late on Tuesday.

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‘Like McDonald’s with no burgers’: Singapore faces chicken shortage as Malaysia bans export

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Move to ease inflation threatens city-state’s de-facto national dish of poached chicken and rice

Supplies of Singapore’s beloved de-facto national dish, chicken and rice, are under threat after neighbouring Malaysia banned exports of the meat in an attempt to ease domestic price increases.

The Malaysian prime minister, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, announced last week that the country would block exports of 3.6 million chickens a month from 1 June to stabilise supply at home. The ban is expected to lead to price increases and shortages in Singapore, which relies upon Malaysia for a third of its poultry imports.

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Rohingya refugee deported from Kashmir to Myanmar reunited with family

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Separated in March, Hasina Begum’s family have now settled in Bangladesh as India continues to deport Rohingya despite UN refugee status

A Rohingya woman deported to Myanmar from Indian-administered Kashmir in March has been reunited with her family in Bangladesh.

Hasina Begum, 37, was deported from Jammu despite having UN refugee status, leaving her husband and three children behind in Kashmir. She was the first Rohingya refugee to be deported from among 170 who were detained by authorities in the region in March 2021.

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Indian singer KK dies aged 53 after falling ill while performing

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Krishnakumar Kunnath, a star Bollywood singer best known as KK, complained of feeling cold and unwell before collapsing

Star Bollywood singer Krishnakumar Kunnath, popularly known as KK, has died of a suspected heart attack at age 53 after a concert on Tuesday, prompting a flood of tributes from fans including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.

“His songs reflected a wide range of emotions as struck a chord with people of all age groups,” Modi said on Twitter.

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Biden praises Ardern for ‘galvanising action’ on gun control and climate change

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US president welcomes New Zealand’s PM to Oval Office and speaks of devastation caused by mass shootings

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has met US president Joe Biden to discuss shared concerns about China’s growing influence in the Pacific, as well as extremism and dealing with the aftermath of mass shootings.

The two leaders spoke for more than an hour, with Biden saying Ardern’s leadership on issues like climate change, violence and extremism was of international importance.

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Three jabs best for preventing Covid infections, global analysis finds

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Number of doses, not vaccine combinations, key to boosting immunity, according to largest study of its kind

Three doses of the same Covid-19 vaccine or a combination of jabs work equally well in preventing infections, according to the largest study of its kind.

While the effectiveness of individual coronavirus vaccines is well known, the evidence around combinations of jabs has been less clear, especially for particular groups such as older people and those who are immunocompromised.

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Canada to decriminalize some drugs in British Columbia for three years

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Policy aims to stem record number of overdose deaths by easing a fear of arrest by those who need help

Canada’s government has announced that it will allow the province of British Colombia to try a three-year experiment in decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs, hoping it will help stem a record number of overdose deaths by easing a fear of arrest by those who need help.

The policy approved by federal officials doesn’t legalize the substances, but Canadians in the Pacific coast province who possess up to 2.5g of illicit drugs for personal use will not be arrested or charged.

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Most of Sievierodonetsk has fallen to Russia, says governor of Luhansk

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Mayor of besieged Ukrainian city tells residents to stay in cellars as Russian forces advance ‘block by block’

Russian forces have taken control of most of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk but have not surrounded it, the governor of Ukraine’s Luhansk province has said as heavy fighting continued in and around the key city and civilians were told to stay underground.

Serhiy Gaidai said in an online post late on Tuesday that Russian shelling had made it impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies or evacuate people.

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Russia’s Alexei Navalny faces extra 15 years in jail over ‘extremism’ claims

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Political foe of Russian president Vladimir Putin was already sentenced to nine-year term earlier this year

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is facing new criminal accusations that could extend his current prison term by 15 years.

In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Navalny said an investigator had visited him in prison to declare that the authorities had opened a new investigation against him on charges of “creating an extremist group to fan hatred against officials and oligarchs” and trying to stage unsanctioned rallies.

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EU leaders say gas unlikely to be part of new round of Russia sanctions

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Estonian PM says gas sanctions would be more difficult because it would affect whole of Europe

EU leaders suggested Russian gas was unlikely to be part of the next round of sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s war machine, hours after agreeing a historic but incomplete oil embargo.

After nearly a month of wrangling, the EU agreed to ban 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of the year, with an exemption for Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. These landlocked central European countries, heavily dependent on Russian oil, can continue being supplied via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline for an indeterminate period.

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First Rwanda deportation flight to leave UK on 14 June, says Priti Patel

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Group of asylum seekers sent formal notices advising they will be relocated to east African country, say officials

The first deportation flight to Rwanda carrying people who arrived in the UK without authorisation is scheduled to leave on 14 June, Priti Patel has announced.

A group of asylum seekers has been sent formal notices by the Home Office advising they will be relocated to the east African country, officials have said.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer acquitted of lying to the FBI

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Michael Sussmann’s case is first courtroom test of special counsel John Durham’s inquiry into FBI’s Trump-Russia ties investigation

A lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was acquitted on Tuesday of lying to the FBI when he pushed information meant to cast suspicions on Donald Trump and his alleged links to Russia in the run-up to that year’s race.

The jury in Michael Sussmann’s case deliberated on Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning before reaching its verdict.

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Shanghai’s full Covid lockdown ends after two months

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City of 25 million people emerges from prolonged isolation under ruthlessly enforced restrictions

Shanghai has lifted a painful two-month lockdown, to the relief of the city’s 25 million residents, with authorities dismantling fences around housing compounds and ripping police tape off public squares and buildings.

Most residents have spent the past two months under a ruthlessly enforced lockdown that has caused income losses, stress and despair for millions struggling to access food or emergency healthcare.

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Trove of ancient Egyptian coffins and statues found at cemetery near Cairo

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Painted wooden coffins and bronze statues of deities dating to 500BC found by archaeologists in Saqqara

Archaeologists working near Cairo have uncovered hundreds of ancient Egyptian coffins and bronze statues of deities.

The discovery at a cemetery in Saqqara contained statues of the gods Anubis, Amun, Min, Osiris, Isis, Nefertum, Bastet and Hathor along with a headless statue of the architect Imhotep, who built the Saqqara pyramid, according to Egypt’s ministry of tourism and antiquities.

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14th-century samurai sword found in car at Swiss border

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Officers say 700-year-old artefact worth €650,000 was transported from Stuttgart on behalf of driver’s employer

Swiss customs authorities have discovered an antique Japanese samurai sword made nearly 700 years ago, after it was smuggled into the country.

The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security said the katana sword, dated to 1353 and valued at €650,000 (£550,000), was found in a car with Swiss plates during a routine search near Zurich. Several other objects were also found in the car, including an antique book, a contract and the sales invoice.

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Home Office cancels flight to deport Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq

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Campaigners against flight say Kurdish Iraqis had endured ‘unnecessary torture in pursuit of headlines’

The Home Office has cancelled a chartered deportation flight to Iraq that was due to depart from the UK on Tuesday evening.

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers were facing deportation to northern Iraq in the first flight of its kind for a decade.

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Attack on chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk criticised by Zelensky – as it happened

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Ukraine president calls bombing of major chemical plant ‘madness’; Gazprom halts gas flows to companies in three western European countries

Oleg Kryuchkov, who is an advisor to the Russian-appointed government in annexed Crimea, has told the RIA Novosti news agency that the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions have switched to using Russian mobile communications and internet networks. It quotes him saying:

Another terrorist attack in Kyiv brought down communications in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Russia played ahead of the curve. In the liberated territories, it is now exclusively Russian internet and communications. In fact, this is the end of Ukrainian propaganda, Zelenskiy’s towers of lies have fallen.

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Mass civil legal action to seek compensation for Ukrainian war victims

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Exclusive: Lawyers to target assets of Russian state, military contractors and affiliated business figures across globe

A consortium of Ukrainian and international lawyers is preparing to launch a mass civil legal action against the Russian state, as well as private military contractors and businesspeople backing the Russian war effort, in an attempt to gain financial compensation for millions of Ukrainian victims of the war, the Guardian can reveal.

The team, made up of hundreds of lawyers and several major law firms, plans to bring “multiple actions in different jurisdictions against different targets”, including the UK and the US, said Jason McCue, a London-based lawyer who is coordinating the initiative, in an interview in Kyiv.

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Mongolia under pressure to align with Russia and China

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Landlocked state is pursuing neutrality despite neighbours’ efforts to create triangle of anti-western cooperation

Mongolia, a squeezed outpost of democracy in north-east Asia, is under renewed pressure from its authoritarian neighbours, Russia and China, to shed its independence and form a triangle of anti-western cooperation in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

The country is doggedly pursuing a path of neutrality, coupled with a policy of economic diversification designed to keep its unique culture and still relatively recent independence alive, according Nomin Chinbat, its culture secretary.

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Unilever shares rise as billionaire investor Nelson Peltz joins board

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Hedge fund boss – whose daughter married Brooklyn Beckham – holds 1.5% stake in Unilever

Unilever’s share price has risen after the consumer goods company announced that the billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz is to become a board member.

Peltz, the US founder and chief executive of Trian Fund Management, has been building his Unilever stake since January amid growing speculation that he will push the Dove soap and Marmite manufacturer to shake up its sprawling operations, with the company under increasing pressure to sell off brands or consider a break-up.

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