Category Archives: World News

Intense fighting around Severodonetsk as Zelenskiy says Donbas is ‘hell’

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Russian forces thought to be trying to cut one of the main supply routes to Ukrainian defenders in the area

Intense fighting has been reported around the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk as Russian forces appear to be stepping up an offensive to encircle its Ukrainian defenders.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk – known collectively as the Donbas – were being turned into “hell” and warned that what he called the “final stage of the war” would be the bloodiest.

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Armageddon Time: film featuring Trump family is attack on capitalism, says maker

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New movie set in 80s US and starring Succession star Jeremy Strong with Jessica Chastain as Donald Trump’s sister, traces fault lines of political and social division back to Reagan era

A new film set in 1980s New York, in which Donald Trump’s property mogul father, Fred, and high-achieving lawyer sister Maryanne appear as characters is a direct attack on late-stage capitalism, according to its principal cast and director.

Armageddon Time, which is premiering at the Cannes film festival and stars Succession’s Jeremy Strong alongside Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain as Maryanne Trump, in a cameo, is set during the run-up to the election of Ronald Reagan as president and examines the layers of privilege that determine the future of children attending different schools in the same city.

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Biden security agents sent home from Seoul after reported drunken assault

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Unnamed team member reportedly got into dispute with South Korean citizen outside hotel where Biden is expected to stay

Joe Biden’s visit to South Korea and Japan has got off to a bad start with two Secret Service agents set to be sent home after one was accused of drunkenly assaulting a South Korean the day before the president arrived in Seoul, officials said.

Earlier reports said a member of his advance security detail was arrested for allegedly assaulting a South Korean citizen in Seoul.

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Tamil refugees detained by UK on Chagos Islands go on hunger strike

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Forty-two hunger strikers are part of group of 89 Sri Lankans whose boat was intercepted in Indian Ocean by UK military

Dozens of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who have been detained for more than seven months in a military base on an overseas territory claimed by Britain have gone on hunger strike in despair at their plight.

The 42 hunger strikers are part of a group of 89 Sri Lankans, including 20 children, whose boat was intercepted and escorted to Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean by the British military after running into distress while apparently headed to Canada from India in October.

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Dave Chappelle attack suspect charged with attempted murder over roommate stabbing

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Isaiah Lee, 23, pleads not guilty over stabbing that took place in December, months before incident during Chappelle’s standup set

A man charged in an on-stage attack of comedian Dave Chappelle has now also been charged with the attempted murder of a roommate months earlier, authorities said on Thursday.

Isaiah Lee, 23, has pleaded not guilty in the December stabbing that occurred during a fight at a Los Angeles transitional living facility, the LA county district attorney’s office said.

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Russian soldier says he will accept punishment for Ukraine war crime

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Tank commander Vadim Shysimarin, 21, tells court he was ‘nervous’ and ‘didn’t want to kill’ unarmed civilian

A Russian tank commander who pleaded guilty earlier this week to shooting dead an unarmed Ukrainian civilian has said he will accept any punishment from the court, on the third day of the first war crimes trial resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Vadim Shysimarin, 21, told courtroom No 201 of the Kyiv tribunal that he “was nervous about what was going on” on the day 62-year-old Oleksandr Shelipov died and that he “didn’t want to kill”.

Artem Mazhulin, AFP and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Ancient forest found at bottom of huge sinkhole in China

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Scientists believe site in Guangxi with trees up to 40 metres tall may contain undiscovered species

An ancient forest has been found at the bottom of a giant sinkhole in China, with trees up to 40 metres (130ft) tall.

Scientists believe it could contain undiscovered plant and animal species.

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‘Sleepwalking through extinction’: China urged to end delays to Cop15 summit

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Covid lockdowns in host country frustrate scientists as no date in sight for key UN conservation conference after two years of delays


China has been urged to name a date for a key UN nature summit this year, amid growing frustration with Beijing and concerns among experts that we are “sleepwalking through this cataclysmic climate extinction”.

After two years of delays, governments had been scheduled to meet in Kunming, China, for Cop15 in late April to negotiate this decade’s targets to halt and reverse the rampant destruction of ecosystems and wildlife crucial to human civilisation. It had been hoped the summit would be a “Paris moment” for biodiversity, with China holding the presidency for a major UN environmental agreement for the first time.

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Pete Buttigieg says US backs new Marshall plan to rebuild Ukraine

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Exclusive: Transportation secretary says there is global support for reconstruction effort to help recovery from Russian invasion

A leading figure in the Biden administration has backed a recovery programme for Ukraine in the style of the Marshall plan, which helped rebuild Europe after the second world war.

Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, said there was plenty of political will at home and internationally towards cooperating in long-term reconstruction efforts including to buttress existing infrastructure in Ukraine.

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US delegation to fly to UK over Northern Ireland tensions

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Nine-strong delegation led by close Biden ally will also visit Brussels and Dublin in significant intervention on division over Brexit protocol

One of Joe Biden’s closest allies is due to arrive in London on Saturday as part of an influential US congressional delegation seeking to calm tensions over Northern Ireland.

The nine-strong delegation includes Democratic and Republican delegates from the House of Representatives and Senate including members of the powerful ways and means committee chaired by Richard Neal, who will lead the group.

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Why the long face? Artist pilloried after creating half-horse, half-man sculpture

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Aidan Harte was thrilled to be asked to make a statue of a púca, a mythological mischievous spirit, but then his troubles began

In Irish mythology, a púca is a mischievous, shapeshifting spirit that can take the form of a horse and entice unwary travellers on to its back for a wild ride.

Aidan Harte knows how that feels. Eighteen months ago the sculptor was commissioned to create a 2-metre tall bronze statue of a púca for the town square in Ennistymon, County Clare.

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Cabinet committee blocked plan to double Australia’s support to Pacific, election-eve leak reveals

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‘Extraordinary’ revelation about national security decision shows the government is ‘falling apart’, Labor says

The Morrison government has been hit by an election-eve leak that cabinet’s national security committee blocked a proposal by the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, to double Australia’s support to the Pacific.

Labor said the “extraordinary” pre-election leak, first reported by the Australian newspaper, showed the government was “falling apart”, while Scott Morrison insisted the committee was “extremely tight”.

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Respiratory syncytial virus kills 100,000 under-fives every year

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The acute lower respiratory infection has surged after Covid restrictions eased, experts say

Respiratory syncytial virus is killing 100,000 children under the age of five every year worldwide, new figures reveal as experts say the global easing of coronavirus restrictions is causing a surge in cases.

RSV is the most common cause of acute lower respiratory infection in young children. It spreads easily via coughing and sneezing. There is no vaccine or specific treatment.

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Canada to ban Huawei and ZTE from 5G network, risking China tensions

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Move brings Ottawa into line with intelligence allies that have excluded Chinese tech firms from cutting-edge phone networks

Canada says it will ban Huawei and ZTE from the country’s 5G network, a move that puts it in line with intelligence-sharing allies, but risks further chilling relations with China.

The federal government made the announcement on Thursday afternoon after signalling for months it intended to block China’s flagship telecommunications companies from accessing 5G networks in Canada.

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Putin’s daughter flew to Munich ‘more than 50 times’, investigation suggests

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Investigation also suggests president’s youngest daughter is in a relationship with ballet dancer Igor Zelensky

Since the start of his military campaign against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has railed aggressively against pro-western Russians, whose appetite for European cuisine and climates meant “their mentality is there, not here, with our people”.

Yet his own daughter’s enthusiasm for sojourns to western Europe at least matches that of the oligarch “scum and traitors” he has decried, a joint investigation by independent Russian media outlet iStories and German magazine Der Spiegel suggests.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets engaged to longtime partner Riley Roberts

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Democratic congresswoman confirms engagement to Roberts, whom she met as a student at Boston University

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a break between visiting Amazon union workers and endorsing progressive candidates to get engaged to her longtime partner Riley Roberts.

Ocasio-Cortez, 32, confirmed to Insider on Thursday that she and Roberts, who met while both were at Boston University, got engaged last month while visiting her parents’ home town in Puerto Rico.

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Canadian premier abruptly quits amid surge in far-right influences

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Conservative Jason Kenney, Alberta premier, leaves province’s top job after barely surviving a leadership review

The abrupt resignation of Alberta’s premier has shocked the western province and raised questions about the ideological direction of Canada’s conservative movement amid a surge in far-right and populist influences.

Jason Kenney announced late on Wednesday that he was leaving the province’s top job after barely surviving a leadership review. A slim majority of party members – 51.4% – had voted in favour of keeping him in power but Kenney said that support wasn’t enough to justify remaining head of the governing United Conservatives.

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Sri Lanka defaults on debts for first time

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Economists fear Sri Lanka could be first of several, with IMF in talks with Egypt, Tunisia and Pakistan

Sri Lanka has defaulted on its debts for the first time in its history as it struggles with an economic and political crisis triggered by global shock waves from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

An inflation rate spiralling towards 40%, shortages of food, fuel and medicines and rolling power blackouts have led to nationwide protests and a plunging currency, with the government short of the foreign currency reserves it needed to pay for imports.

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Japanese university told to compensate 13 women after exam discrimination

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Juntendo University medical school made it harder for females to pass entrance exams

A medical school in Tokyo that made it harder for female students to pass entrance exams has been ordered to pay compensation to 13 women for gender discrimination.

Juntendo University said in 2018 that it had raised the bar for women in the exams to “narrow the gap with male students”, as a scandal over medical school admissions uncovered improper practices at several institutions.

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