Category Archives: World News

Russia bans 963 Americans from entering country

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List includes Biden and other senior officials, but not Trump, as country says it is retaliating against what it calls hostile US actions

Russia on Saturday released a list of 963 Americans it said were banned from entering the country, a punctuation of previously announced moves against president Joe Biden and other senior US officials.

The country, which has received global condemnation for its 24 February invasion of Ukraine, said it would continue to retaliate against what it called hostile US actions, Reuters reported.

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Taliban enforce face coverings for Afghanistan’s female news presenters

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Move is part of hardline pivot after militants hinted at more moderate restrictions when taking power last year

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have begun enforcing an order requiring all female TV news presenters in the country to cover their faces while on air, as part of a hardline shift that has drawn condemnation from rights activists.

After the order was announced on Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. However, on Sunday most female presenters were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice began enforcing the decree.

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Airstrikes target Mykolaiv and Donbas regions; Ukraine EU bid could take 20 years, says French minister – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. Please join us again in a few hours when we will relaunch our live blog and in the meantime check out our latest Ukraine coverage here.

Gazprom halts gas exports to Finland

Russia’s state gas company, Gazprom, said it has halted gas exports to Finland. The country refused Moscow’s demands to pay in roubles for Russian gas after western countries imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

In addition to the humanitarian catastrophe created by the (Russian) occupiers and collaborators, the city is on the verge of an outbreak of infectious diseases, he said on the messaging app Telegram.

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Biden says ‘everybody’ should be concerned about spread of monkeypox

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National security adviser assures public that the US has a ‘vaccine that is relevant to treating’ virus

Joe Biden said Sunday that “everybody” should be worried about the spread of monkeypox recently, and his national security adviser assured the public that the US has a “vaccine that is relevant to treating” the virus.

During an official visit to South Korea, Biden told reporters, “They haven’t told me the level of exposure yet but it is something that everybody should be concerned about.” The president, who was speaking at Osan airbase, also added: “It is a concern in that if it were to spread it would be consequential.”

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In the firing zone: evictions begin in West Bank villages after court ruling

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Palestinians in Masafer Yatta – or Firing Zone 918 to the Israelis – vow to rebuild as homes are bulldozed

Below the dusty plateau, home to Khribet al-Fakhiet village, on the southern edge of the occupied West Bank, sheep, goats and camels belonging to Palestinian Bedouin roam the hills. The Israeli town of Arad glitters in the distance and, across the valley to the east, the mountains of neighbouring Jordan rise up to meet the sky. Much closer to home, the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Yair looms from the next ridge.

Bone-shattering unpaved roads crisscross this poverty-stricken, hilly semi-desert, part of the 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control. Palestinians call it Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages with a population of about 1,000. To the Israeli state, however, this is Firing Zone 918, a military training area in which civilians are prohibited. The fight for control of this 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) is one of the fiercest battles of the Israeli occupation.

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World leaders respond to Anthony Albanese’s Australian election victory

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Pacific leaders welcome Labor’s plan for action on climate while one French minister says defeat of Scott Morrison ‘suits me very well’

World leaders have congratulated Anthony Albanese on his election victory in Australia, while former heads of government in the Pacific have urged him to “make a radical shift towards strong and urgent climate action”.

One French minister was barely able to conceal his glee at the Coalition’s loss, while Fiji welcomed Labor’s “plan to put climate first”.

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Syria’s barrel bomb experts in Russia to help with potential Ukraine campaign

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Over 50 specialists skilled in delivering crude explosive working with Putin’s forces

Technicians linked to the Syrian military’s infamous barrel bombs that have wreaked devastation across much of the country have been deployed to Russia to help potentially prepare for a similar campaign in the Ukraine war, European officials believe.

Intelligence officers say more than 50 specialists, all with vast experience in making and delivering the crude explosive, have been in Russia for several weeks working alongside officials from Vladimir Putin’s military.

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Mexico’s migrant checks on buses and highways ruled racist and illegal

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Landmark ruling follows case of three young Indigenous Mexicans detained and abused on suspicion of being Guatemalan migrants

Mexican immigration agents can no longer conduct stop and search operations on buses and highways after the country’s supreme court ruled that such checks are racist, discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional.

The landmark ruling, handed down in Mexico City on Wednesday, found in favour of three young Indigenous Mexicans who were detained and abused by immigration (INM) officials in 2015 during a US-backed crackdown.

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Australia’s rightwing government weaponised climate change – now it has faced its reckoning

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PM Scott Morrison has been dumped by electorate fed up with inaction on emissions and eager for change

When Scott Morrison won Australia’s federal election in 2019, it seemed like the country would never emerge from the climate wars that had begun a decade earlier.

Morrison had taken the prime ministership late in 2018 after conservatives in the ruling Liberal-National Coalition deposed Malcolm Turnbull, in part, for his attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia’s energy sector.

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Ukrainian man drives 3,700km to be reunited with parents and fiancee – who live just 10km away

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Only a 10-minute drive apart but cut off by war, Serhi Belyaev took a perilous road trip to be with his loved ones again

It is a 10-minute drive from Serhi Belyaev’s house in the village of Tsyrkuny to his fiancee’s home in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. A quick spin west on Soborna Street, over the E40 motorway on to the Lesia Serduika highway, and you are there. That was, until the war came.

It took just hours for Russian forces to sweep into Belyaev’s village on 24 February, as they advanced on Kharkiv, the closest major Ukrainian city to the Russian border.

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Britain slashes humanitarian aid by 51% despite global food crisis

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Campaigners say ministers must change course as millions face famine in Africa and the Ukraine war threatens to disrupt global food supplies

Ministers have been accused of choosing the “worst moment in history” to slash the foreign aid budget, as provisional figures showed that UK overseas humanitarian funding was cut by more than half last year.

MPs and charity campaigners say the aid budget urgently needs to be increased to cope with the Ukraine conflict and the risk of famine in Africa. Up to 23 million people face acute hunger in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia due to drought.

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‘It’s a never-ending nightmare’: crew of refugee rescue ship facing jail

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Thousands of lives were saved by activists who have now been
put on trial in Sicily on trafficking charges

The crew of the Iuventa rescue ship has been credited with saving 14,000 lives in the Mediterranean Sea. Yet far from being feted for their life-saving work, four of the rescuers appeared in court in Italy this weekend on charges carrying a possible 20-year jail sentence.

“It feels like a never-ending nightmare,” campaigner Kathrin Schmidt told the Observer ahead of a preliminary hearing on Saturday in a court in the Sicilian coastal town of Trapani. “Everybody knows the pictures and videos of these already unseaworthy, but then overcrowded rubber boats… Stating that there is no necessity to rescue these people is a crime in itself.”

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US air force academy cadets denied commission over vaccine refusal

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Trio will receive college degrees but will not be commissioned ‘as long as they remain unvaccinated’, spokesperson says

For refusing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, three US air force academy cadets won’t be commissioned as military officers, though they will receive college degrees, a spokesperson for the school said Saturday.

Academy spokesperson Dean Miller said in a statement that the three cadets in question won’t be commissioned as air force officers “as long as they remain unvaccinated,” though they would get their bachelor’s of science degrees. The military branch had not decided yet whether to require the trio to reimburse the US for education costs in lieu of service, Miller said.

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Human skull found by Minnesota kayakers 8,000 years old, experts say

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Skull discovered in drought-depleted Minnesota River last summer to be returned to Native American officials

Native American officials will be given a partial skull discovered last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.

The kayakers found the skull in the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180km) west of Minneapolis, Renville county sheriff Scott Hable said.

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Guinea junta allows former leader Alpha Conde to leave country

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84-year-old who was ousted last year boards plane for Turkey to receive medical treatment

Guinean ex-leader Alpha Conde boarded a plane for Turkey on Saturday after the junta that toppled him authorised his travel abroad for medical treatment, officials said.

The 84-year-old Conte, who was ousted last year, has been allowed to travel out of respect for his “dignity and integrity” and for “humanitarian reasons”, the junta’s governing body said.

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Pakistan: former human rights minister arrested over land grabbing allegation

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Shireen Mazari’s daughter tweeted that her mother was beaten and taken away by police near her Islamabad home on Saturday

Pakistan’s former human rights minister was arrested on Saturday in the capital over a decades-old land grabbing allegation, her daughter and another former minister said.

Shireen Mazari, who served in the cabinet-level position under former prime minister Imran Khan, was detained by police near her Islamabad home, daughter Imaan Mazari said in a tweet.

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US heatwave brings historically high temperatures to dozens of states

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Temperatures between 20 and 30F above average in the mid-Atlantic and north-east, with Washington set to hit 96F (35.5C)

Dozens of states across the US began the weekend grappling with historically high spring temperatures, as a blistering heatwave that has scorched the country’s south and west moves east.

The early arrival of sweltering weather, before what’s expected to be another hot, dry summer, is forecast to break or tie roughly 130 heat records for this time of year, with temperatures between 20F and 30F above average in the mid-Atlantic and north-east.

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Zelenskiy signals readiness for new talks if Mariupol troops are not harmed

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Ukrainian leader tells TV station ‘there are things that can only be reached at the negotiating table’

Ukraine has suggested that it is willing to resume talks with Russia as Moscow claimed to have taken full control of the besieged city of Mariupol – its biggest prize since it invaded Ukraine in February.

Speaking to a television channel on Saturday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that “discussions between Ukraine and Russia will undoubtedly take place”.

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Monkeypox outbreak: WHO working on sexual contact theory, top adviser says

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David Heymann says experts developing guidance for countries, as New York City resident tests positive for Orthopoxvirus

A senior adviser for the World Health Organization has said the monkeypox outbreak seems to be spreading through sexual contact, and warned that case numbers could spike over the summer months as people attend major summer gatherings and festivals.

David Heymann, chair of the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential, led a meeting of the group on Friday “because of the urgency of the situation”.

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UK under pressure over Alexander Lebedev sanctions after Canada move

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Labour says the case for the British government to follow Ottawa’s lead is ‘extremely strong’

The British government is under pressure to impose sanctions on Alexander Lebedev after Canada targeted the former KGB agent in a fresh wave of restrictions against Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The billionaire Russian businessman, who little more than a decade ago bought the UK’s Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, was named in Ottawa’s latest sanctions announced on Friday.

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