Category Archives: World News

Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian forces gradually pushing occupiers ‘away from Kharkiv’, says Zelenskiy – live

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Ukraine’s president cautioned against creating a pressure of expecting ‘certain victories’, however, in his nightly address

The Ukrainian MP Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, a former head of the security services in the country, has been interviewed on Sky News in the UK from Kyiv. He said that yesterday “we saw again the Victory Day madness in Moscow”. He told viewers:

The same day in Ukraine, in the city of Odesa, the city of Mykolaiv, Russians shelled our cities, our civilians. In Putin’s speech we did not hear any news, any good news for anybody, for us, for the whole world. It’s still the same Soviet kind propaganda. Conducting a war on our soil because of this “Russia’s motherland”. It sounds really like madness, especially on Victory Day.

How can we use civilians as a shield when the Russian Black Sea fleet, the Russian Caspian Sea fleet are shelling missiles, Kalibr and others, against civilians? There is no protection.

The war will continue until Vladimir Putin wants to stop it. We understand any night in any city we can expect shelling at any minute, any hour. That is Putin’s responsibility and his decision.

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China’s pro-Russia propaganda exposed by online activists

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Mistranslations falsely blame Ukrainians for atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces against civilians

A number of Chinese government-linked media outlets and pro-Russia social media accounts are spreading pro-Kremlin sentiment on the Chinese internet by mistranslating or manipulating international news about the war in Ukraine.

In response, online, anonymous volunteers – such as those under the Twitter account Great Translation Movement – have exposed China’s pro-Russia propaganda by highlighting mistranslations that falsely blame Ukrainian troops for bombings and atrocities perpetrated by Russian forces against civilians.

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Zelenskiy calls for end to blockade of Odesa port to prevent global food crisis

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Concern after Russian missiles struck the Black Sea port on Monday as Biden accuses Putin of ‘revisionist history’ in his Victory Day speech

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has urged the international community to take immediate steps to end a Russian blockade of his country’s ports in order to allow wheat shipments and prevent a global food crisis.

The Black Sea export port of Odesa was struck by missiles on Monday. Zelenskiy said: “For the first time in decades there is no usual movement of the merchant fleet, no usual port functioning in Odesa. Probably this has never happened in Odesa since world war two.

The United States cited “anecdotal reports” that some Russian troops in Ukraine were not obeying orders. “Mid-grade officers at various levels, even up to the battalion level” were refusing to move forward in the Donbas offensive.

The UN human rights council is due to hold a special session on Thursday to address alleged Russian human rights violations during its war in Ukraine. More than 50 countries, including Britain, Germany, Turkey and the US, backed a request by Ukraine and demanded an extraordinary meeting of the UN’s top rights body.

A mine-sniffing dog credited with detecting more than 200 explosives since the start of the war in Ukraine has been given a medal. Patron, a two-and-a-half-year-old jack russell whose name means “ammo” in Ukrainian, was presented with the award by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv.

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Russian forces conducting ‘storming operations’ on the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine says – as it happened

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This blog has now closed. You can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war in our new live blog

As Vladimir Putin wages a bloody and unrelenting war in Ukraine, Guardian foreign correspondent Luke Harding has examined Putin’s unlikely path to the Russian presidency.

From his humble beginnings in St Petersburg to his mysterious and “mediocre” career in the KGB, in this video report we chronicle how Putin deftly manoeuvred himself to become one of the most powerful autocrats in modern history:

Chinese exports to Russia fell in April for the second month as China’s northern neighbour grappled with economic sanctions, while Russian shipments to China surged, a balm to hard-hit Russian firms facing international economic isolation.

Shipments to Russia fell 25.9% in April from a year earlier in dollar terms, worsening from a 7.7% decline the previous month, according to Reuters calculations based on customs data on Monday.

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South Korea’s new president offers North economic plan in return for denuclearisation

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Elected in a tight contest in March, Yoon Suk-yeol proposes ‘audacious’ plan for Pyongyang at his inauguration in Seoul

South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has offered North Korea “an audacious plan” to transform its creaking economy in return for abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

Speaking on the first day of his presidency on Tuesday, Yoon said: “While North Korea’s nuclear weapon programmes are a threat not only to our security and that of North-east Asia, the door to dialogue will remain open so that we can peacefully resolve this threat.”

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Just one of 50 aviation industry climate targets met, study finds

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Charity’s report says nearly all targets set since 2000 have been missed, revised or quietly ignored

The international aviation industry has failed to meet all but one of 50 of its own climate targets in the past two decades, environment campaigners say.

A report commissioned by the climate charity Possible assessed every target set by the industry since 2000 and found that nearly all had been missed, revised or quietly ignored. The charity says the findings undermine a UK government plan to leave airlines to reduce their emissions through self-regulation.

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Sri Lanka troops rescue ex-PM as houses torched in deadly night of unrest

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Mahinda Rajapaksa rescued in pre-dawn military operation after day of protests in which eight people were killed

Sri Lankan troops have conducted a dramatic pre-dawn operation to rescue Mahinda Rajapaksa – who resigned as prime minister on Monday – firing warning shots in the air to disperse thousands of anti-government protesters who had stormed his official residence in Colombo.

Eight people have been killed and over 200 wounded after pro-government supporters provoked violence among previously peaceful protests, which have been taking place for weeks in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis.

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‘People laugh but think twice’: Belgian cartoonist takes on plastic pollution

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Pieter De Poortere is putting his best-known character, Dickie, to work to help galvanise opposition to a giant plastics plant in Antwerp

Belgian cartoonist Pieter De Poortere was trying to do his bit for the environment: eating less meat and diligently sorting his rubbish – glass, paper, plastics. He realised it wasn’t enough. “I thought if we all sort out our trash, then everything will be recycled, everything will be OK, then we are doing great. But actually that is not true,” he said pointing to the problems of the global waste industry, where wealthy countries’ plastic may be dumped, or burned on open fires in poorer countries.

So he put his best-known character to work, as part of an international art project that launched in April, aiming to draw attention to the problem of plastic production.

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New Zealand, once Covid-free, tops 1 million cases since pandemic began

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Figure means 20% of population has been infected with Covid but modellers say true number is likely three times higher

New Zealand has recorded more than 1m cases of Covid-19, after spending the first 18 months of the pandemic largely free of the virus.

The milestone reflects a stark change in New Zealand’s pandemic experience, with more than 986,000 of those cases hitting in the months since the start of 2022. The country has had a huge spike in cases since Omicron breached the borders in December 2021, and the government loosened most restrictions in March.

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Marcos Jr aims to fulfil family’s ‘destiny’ as Philippines president

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Late dictator’s son promises unity but opponents fear family’s return to power could reverse democratic gains

It was in 1986 that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family were forced to leave the Philippines in disgrace. Helicopters airlifted the family from the Malacañang Palace, as protesters filled the streets. Marcos Sr, after ruling with an iron fist for 20 years, had been toppled by a popular uprising, the People Power Revolution.

Crowds stormed the abandoned palace, discovering the extent of the family’s opulence. There were grand artworks, boxes of commemorative gold coins, lavish jewellery, hundreds of gowns, dresses, and, infamously, an enormous collection of designer shoes belonging to the former first lady, Imelda Marcos.

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Two slain in Mexico are the latest in unrelenting slaughter of journalists

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The president has been accused of failing to address the wave of violence and has been incessant with his attacks on reporters

The unrelenting slaughter of Mexican journalists has continued after two more newspeople were gunned down by unidentified assassins – taking the 2022 death toll to 11 in what is the deadliest country for media professionals outside a warzone.

Yesenia Mollinedo Falconi and Sheila Johana García Olivera were murdered in the town of Cosoleacaque, about 350 miles east of the capital Mexico City, around 3pm on Monday.

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Priti Patel blames lawyers as she admits Rwanda plan will ‘take time’

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Home secretary attacks ‘specialist lawyers’ as Labour calls delayed plan little more than a press release

Priti Patel has admitted that it will take time to establish the government’s high-profile plan to send people who arrive in the UK without authorisation to Rwanda, amid growing suspicion that it will not solve the migration crisis in the Channel.

In a further attack on the legal profession, the home secretary blamed “specialist lawyers” as the main reason for the delays in setting up the scheme.

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Ferdinand Marcos Jr triumphs in Philippines presidential election

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Son of late dictator wins more than twice as many votes as nearest rival after campaign marred by extensive social media disinformation

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the son and namesake of the late dictator, has won a landslide presidential election victory, signalling an extraordinary rehabilitation for one of the country’s most notorious political families.

With more than 90% of an initial count concluded, Marcos Jr had almost 30 million votes, more than double the tally of his closest rival, the current vice-president, Leni Robredo, a former human rights lawyer.

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Senate Democrats aim to reveal which Republicans oppose abortion ahead of midterms – live

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Nancy Pelosi has assailed Republicans in her weekly “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow Democrats, saying once Roe v Wade abortion protections are overturned, basic human rights will be next.

In the missive, the House speaker says it is “urgent and essential” that Democrats share with the American public the “dangers of the Republican agenda” in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling ending almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections:

Republican state legislators across the country are already advancing extreme new laws, seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, ban abortion entirely with no exceptions, and even charge women with murder who exercise their right to choose.

These draconian measures could even criminalize contraceptive care, in vitro fertilization and post-miscarriage care, dragging our nation back to a dark time decades into the past.

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Washington Post wins public service Pulitzer for Capitol attack coverage

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Paper beat out two other finalists, the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Washington Post has won the 2022 Pulitzer prize for public service journalism, for The Attack, its account of the deadly assault on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January 2021.

The paper beat two other finalists: the New York Times, for challenging official accounts of US military engagements in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for an exposé of electrical fires in city rental operations.

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Ecuador prison riot leaves 43 dead in latest bloody episode

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Sixth deadly prison massacre in country fueled by rival drug gangs since the beginning of 2021, bringing death toll to nearly 400

Scores of inmates are feared dead in Ecuador after a deadly prison riot broke out between rival drugs gangs, in the latest bloody episode of a wave of violence that has engulfed the country’s prisons.

Forty-three prisoners were confirmed dead on Monday as more than 200 police commandos retook control of the maximum-security wing of the Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas prison, about two hours drive from the capital Quito, but the death-toll is likely to rise.

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Sri Lanka is the first domino to fall in the face of a global debt crisis

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The south Asian country is the first to buckle under economic pressures compounded by Russia’s war on Ukraine, but it won’t be the last

The departure of Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, follows weeks of protest and a deepening crisis. There is no bankruptcy system for states but if there was then the south Asian country – down to its last $50m (£40m) of reserves – would be first in line to use it.

A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week started work with officials in Colombo over a bailout that will include a tough package of reforms as well as financial support. But as the IMF and its sister organisation, the World Bank, know full well, this is about more than the mismanagement of an individual country. They fear Sri Lanka is the canary in the coalmine.

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Locust swarms destroy crops in Sardinia’s latest infestation

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Farmers on Italian island say they are disillusioned after previous damage and want compensation

Huge swarms of locusts are wreaking havoc on the Italian island of Sardinia, arriving a month earlier than in previous years.

The worst-affected area is the province of Nuoro, where the winged insects have decimated crops across 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) of land, following swarms in 2019 said to be the worst in decades and further infestations in 2020 and 2021.

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Sri Lanka’s PM resigns after weeks of protests over economic crisis

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Police are imposing nationwide curfew following violence at protest site in Colombo

Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has resigned after months of protests over the country’s deepening economic crisis, as once-peaceful protests turned violent and at least five people were killed in clashes.

Turmoil began to engulf the country on Monday following violence at a major protest site in Colombo, where pro-government supporters attacked demonstrators and police responded with teargas and water cannon.

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Jill Biden makes unannounced visit to Ukraine and meets first lady

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Surprise trip on Mother’s Day as Biden meets with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy

US first lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with the nation’s first lady, Olena Zelenskiy, as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.

US president Joe Biden has not visited the country, though he expressed a desire to when he was in Poland this spring, following Russia’s invasion in February, but at that time Russian tanks were advancing on the capital, Kyiv, and he hinted that his security advisers held him back.

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