Prisons agency boss says fire broke out after inmates lit mattresses during protest at jail in Tuluá
Fifty-one inmates have died during a riot in a prison in the Colombian city of Tuluá in one of the worst recent incidents of its kind in the country.
The director of the national prisons agency said a fire had started during a protest by prisoners overnight.
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The Ukrainian authorities of Mariupol have posted a message from the city’s mayor, Vadym Boychenko, expressing concern for the fate of the elderly in the city under the occupying forces of Russia. It quotes him saying:
People of respectable age were taken care of in Mariupol. They created conditions for them to meet a decent old age. But the Russian occupiers took it away from them. Instead, they are forced to somehow survive without quality medical care, without medication and care. Most of them are children of World War II, for whom the Russian occupiers repeated what the whole world says “never again.” Staying in the city is dangerous for their health, because they will be the first to suffer from infectious outbreaks.
Continue reading...PM insists manifesto promise of above-inflation increase will be kept despite Downing Street ‘reality check’ briefing
Boris Johnson faces a potential rift with senior ministers and generals at the start of a vital Nato summit in Madrid, after Downing Street indicated it would ditch a key manifesto commitment on defence spending.
In a chaotic sequence of events, a senior government source said there needed to be “a reality check” on the pledge to increase the defence budget each year by 0.5% above inflation, only for Johnson to try to argue it would be achieved.
Continue reading...Mexican foreign minister mourns ‘huge tragedy’ as US investigates effort to smuggle people across border
Fifty-one people believed to be migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said.
The discovery in Texas may prove to be the deadliest tragedy among thousands of people who have died attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades.
Continue reading...Mayor of town near Bologna says thousands of litres of water wasted due to double-shampooing of customers’ hair
The mayor of an Italian town has banned hairdressers and barbers from shampooing their customers’ hair twice in an attempt to conserve water during one of the most severe droughts in decades.
Carlo Gubellini, the mayor of Castenaso, near Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region, said thousands of litres of water was squandered each day through double-shampooing, which many hairdressers believe is beneficial, and hence double-rinsing.
Continue reading...Josef Schütz given five-year jail sentence in Germany but is unlikely to be put behind bars
A German court has handed a five-year jail sentence to a 101-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, the oldest person so far to go on trial for complicity in war crimes during the Holocaust.
Josef Schütz was found guilty on Tuesday of being an accessory to murder while working as a prison guard at the Sachsenhausen camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, between 1942 and 1945.
Continue reading...Nairobi biodiversity talks end in stalemate, prompting open letter to world leaders calling for action before Montreal conference
UN biodiversity negotiations have reached crisis point due to a lack of engagement from governments, leading NGOs have warned, three years after experts revealed that Earth’s life-support systems are collapsing.
Last week, countries met in Nairobi for an extra round of talks on an agreement to halt the human-driven destruction of the natural world, with the final targets set to be agreed at Cop15 in Montreal. Governments have never met a target they have set for themselves on halting the destruction of nature despite scientists warning in 2019 that one million species face extinction, and that nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history.
Continue reading...Further 16 people in hospital after tragedy in San Antonio. Plus, Louisiana judge blocks abortion ban
Good morning.
Forty-six people were found dead and 16 others were taken to hospital after being found inside a tractor-trailer rig yesterday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, Texas officials have said.
Has anyone been arrested? Three people were taken into custody but it was unclear if they were connected to human trafficking, McManus said. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have launched a federal investigation into the deaths, with support of local police and the border force.
What else do we know? Here’s everything we know about the trailer truck deaths so far.
What’s happening in California? California voters will decide in November whether to guarantee the right to an abortion in their state constitution.
What has Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said about the supreme court justices? The congresswoman says Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch lied under oath to Congress about their views on Roe.
Continue reading...Saifuddin Abdullah points to risk of regional arms race but pledges increased trade and cooperation on cybersecurity with Australia
Malaysia’s foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, has said that his country’s concerns about the Aukus nuclear submarine pact remain unchanged, after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday with his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong.
Saifuddin told reporters he communicated Malaysia’s ongoing concern about the security deal between Australia, the UK and the US during a “very candid” discussion with Wong on her first visit to the Malaysian capital as Australia’s foreign minister.
Continue reading...Russia’s attack on a shopping centre in Kremenchuk met with global outrage as officials confirm at least 18 killed in the strike
Continue reading...G7 leaders say missile strike on mall in Kremenchuk was a war crime, as rescue efforts continue
World leaders have denounced Russia’s deadly strike on a shopping centre in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk as “abominable” and a war crime.
The search for survivors continues after the missile strike on a mall that had more than 1,000 people in it at the time, according to Ukraine’s president, Volodoymyr Zelenskiy.
Continue reading...Incident marks one of the deadliest tragedies involving people attempting to cross US border from Mexico in recent decades
Forty-six people were found dead in a sweltering tractor-trailer that was abandoned on a remote back road in San Antonio, Texas shortly before 6pm local time (12am GMT) on Monday.
Sixteen people were taken to hospital, including four children, and treated for heat stroke and exhaustion.
A San Antonio fire department official said they found “stacks of bodies” and no signs of water in the truck. “The patients that we saw were hot to the touch, they were suffering from heat stroke, exhaustion,” the San Antonio fire chief, Charles Hood, told a news conference. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer but there was no visible working A/C unit on that rig.”
A city worker heard a cry for help from the truck and discovered the gruesome scene, the police chief, William McManus, said.
A spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said that its Homeland Security Investigations division was investigating “an alleged human smuggling event” in coordination with local police.
San Antonio mayor Ron Nirenberg said the 46 who died had “families who were likely trying to find a better life … This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy.'”
Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican running for reelection, said in a tweet: “These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies.”
Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, called the suffocation of the people in the truck the “tragedy in Texas” on Twitter and said consular officials would go to the hospitals where victims had been taken to help “however possible”.
A spokesman for the Honduran foreign ministry told Reuters the country’s consulates in Houston and Dallas would be investigating the incident. Ebrard said two Guatemalans were sent to hospital and Guatemala’s foreign ministry said on Twitter that consular officials were going to the hospital “to verify if there are two Guatemalan minors there and what condition they are in”.
The incident is among the deadliest tragedies to have claimed thousands of lives of people attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck that was parked at a Walmart in San Antonio.
South Texas has long been the busiest area for border crossings. People ride in vehicles though border patrol checkpoints to San Antonio, the closest major city, from which point they disperse across the United States.
Galleries will showcase designers who are often overlooked, in an effort to acknowledge colonial histories within the museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum will open its first African fashion exhibition this week, more than 170 years after it was founded.
Featuring designers who have worked with names including Beyoncé and architect David Adjaye, Africa Fashion aims to look across the fashion of the continent, exhibiting designs, photographs and films from 25 of the 54 countries.
Continue reading...Maxwell, 60, faces 30 to 55 years in prison after she was found guilty of procuring teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse
Ghislaine Maxwell is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday morning in her New York sex-trafficking case, some six months after a jury found the British socialite guilty of luring teenage girls into Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit for him to abuse.
Maxwell, 60, faces up to 55 years in prison.
Continue reading...Journalists demand release of co-founder of Alt News after he was accused of insulting Hindus
The co-founder of a factchecking website has been arrested by police in Delhi weeks after he highlighted derogatory comments made by a spokesperson for Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) about the prophet Muhammad.
Mohammed Zubair, who set up the Alt News website, flagged the remarks made during a television debate at the end of May on Twitter, bringing them attention they may not otherwise have had.
Continue reading...Analysis: Duterte’s popularity remains undented among people in poorer areas despite attacks on human rights, rule of law and media
Six years ago, the tough-talking mayor of Davao City, known as “the Punisher” because of his merciless approach to crime, was on the brink of taking national power in the Philippines. He promised to move power away from Manila elites, tackle poverty, corruption, and drugs. “When I become president,” Rodrigo Duterte told one rally, “I will order the police to find those people [involved in drugs] and kill them. The funeral parlours will be packed.”
The latter prediction was, at least, correct. When Duterte steps down on 30 June, having reached the end of his term limit, he will leave behind a country in which human rights, the media and rule of law have been weakened, say analysts.
Continue reading...Southwest Chief train crash left at least 40 injured in remote rural area, according to unconfirmed reports
Three people were killed and several others were injured when a passenger train traveling from Los Angeles to Chicago struck a dump truck and derailed in a remote, rural area of Missouri on Monday, officials said.
Two of the people who died were on the train and one was in the truck, Missouri state highway patrol spokesman Corporal Justin Dunn said. It was not immediately clear exactly how many people were hurt, the patrol said, but hospitals reported receiving more than 40 patients from the crash and were expecting more.
Continue reading...Scores of people injured and at least 40 feared missing after strike in central city of Kremenchuk
A Russian missile hit a crowded shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, killing and injuring scores of people, the Ukrainian authorities said.
Ukraine’s president, Volodoymyr Zelenskiy, said more than 1,000 people were inside the building at the time of the strike. Images from the scene showed giant plumes of black smoke and flames, with emergency crews rushing in to search for victims and put out fires.
Continue reading...President Guillermo Lasso announces cut to gas prices in effort to quell protests demanding lower fuel and food prices
Ecuadorian Indigenous organizations have said they will meet with the government to discuss demands for lower fuel and food prices which have sparked two weeks of protests, hitting the country’s weakened economy and threatening its oil production.
President Guillermo Lasso late on Sunday announced a 10-cent per gallon cut to gasoline and diesel prices, the latest concession to try to quell the sometimes-violent demonstrations, which began on 13 June.
Continue reading...Prime minister asks disaffected Russian academics to defect to the UK alongside Ukrainian colleagues
Boris Johnson has issued an open invitation for disaffected Russian scientists to defect to the UK, as he used the G7 summit to argue that allowing Russia to prevail in Ukraine would usher in a highly damaging era of global instability.
As part of an expansion to a twinning system with Ukrainian universities, allowing Ukrainian academics to continue their research at UK institutions, Johnson said this offer extended to their Russian counterparts.
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