Category Archives: World News

Tesla shares fall 12% after Musk’s Twitter deal; Moscow threatens to halt gas flows to Poland, Bulgaria – live

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Investors worry Elon Musk may have to sell Tesla shares to fund Twitter deal, as global stocks slide and US dollar rises to pandemic high

Lloyds Banking Group has raised concerns over the “uncertain” outlook for the UK economy amid soaring inflation, warning that the cost of living crisis could result in higher defaults on its loans, reports our banking correspondent Kalyeena Makortoff.

It came as the bank reported a 14% drop in first quarter pre-tax profit to £1.6bn from £1.9bn a year earlier, although that was better than the £1.4bn that analysts had expected.

The Nasdaq led the equity market wipe-out overnight, with its near 4% retreat led by Tesla, which fell by 12.2%. You could look at it two ways.

Either Elon Musk sold his latest stock awards to generate the $21bn in cash for his part of the Twitter buyout, or the street is starting to wonder how he could possibly effectively run Tesla, Starlink, Space-X and Twitter simultaneously. I do as well.

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‘Unsafe’ UK accommodation threatens asylum seekers’ health – report

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Exclusive: poor healthcare and conditions at sites such as Napier worsen mental and physical illness, Doctors of the World says

Asylum seekers’ accommodation is “unsafe” due to inadequate healthcare, while poor living conditions are exacerbating or creating mental and physical health problems, according to a new report by Doctors of the World.

The charity’s research, published on Wednesday, details the barriers to medical care and medication for asylum seekers in initial accommodation across the UK.

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New Zealand unveils plan to tackle climate crisis by adapting cities to survive rising seas

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Proposals to prepare the country for more floods, massive storms and wildfires include building away from high-risk areas and protecting cultural sites

The New Zealand government has released new plans to try to prepare the country for the catastrophic effects of the climate crisis: sea level rise, floods, massive storms and wildfires.

The proposals, released for consultation on Wednesday, outline sweeping reforms to institutions, councils and laws to try to stop people building in hazardous areas, preserve cultural treasures, improve disaster responses, protect the financial system from the shocks of future disasters, and reform key industries including tourism, fisheries and farming.

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Myanmar junta sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to five years for corruption

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Deposed leader has been detained since a military coup in 2021 and has been charged with offences ranging from fraud to violating the official secrets act

Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to five years in prison after she was found guilty of corruption by a court in military-controlled Myanmar, the latest in a series of legal cases condemned as an attempt to remove her as a political threat.

Myanmar’s former leader, 76, has been detained since a military coup in February last year plunged the country into a political crisis and escalating conflict. Since then, she has been charged with at least 18 offences, ranging from election fraud to violating the Official Secrets Act. The various charges carry maximum sentences that could lead to Aung San Suu Kyi spending the rest of her life in detention.

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Outcry as Singapore executes man with learning difficulties over drugs offence

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Campaigners decry ‘broken system’ in Singapore that disproportionately punishes drug mules rather than those who coerce them into work

A man with learning difficulties has been executed in Singapore for attempting to smuggle a small amount of heroin, despite repeated pleas for his life to be spared, in a case campaigners have described as a “tragic miscarriage of justice”.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian national, was arrested in 2009, aged 21, for attempting to carry 43g of heroin – about three tablespoons – into Singapore. He was sentenced to death the following year, and then spent more than a decade on death row.

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Global mystery hepatitis outbreak spreads to Asia and Canada

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Japan reports child with acute liver disease of unknown origin, and Canada investigating similar cases, with nearly 200 now recorded worldwide

A mysterious liver disease that has infected children in a dozen countries around the world has reached Asia, with a case reported in Japan.

The case in Japan of acute hepatitis – or inflammation of the liver – of unknown origin was flagged by local authorities on 21 April in a child who had tested negative for adenovirus – a possible cause being investigated worldwide – and Covid-19.

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Twitter takeover: EU and UK warn Elon Musk must comply or face sanctions

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EU commissioner raises hate speech concerns as UK draws attention to penalties in online safety bill

The UK and EU have warned that Twitter must comply with new content rules or face sanctions that range from fines to a total ban, as concerns were raised that hate speech will increase on the platform under the ownership of Elon Musk.

The world’s richest man has agreed a $44bn (£34bn) deal to buy the social media network, which will hand control of a platform with 217 million users to a self-confessed “free speech absolutist”.

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Massacre in Tadamon: how two academics hunted down a Syrian war criminal

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After a rookie militiaman secretly watched a video of 41 people being brutally killed, he knew he had to get the horrific images to the outside world

• Warning: this report contains images readers may find upsetting

On a spring morning three years ago, a new recruit to a loyalist Syrian militia was handed a laptop belonging to one of Bashar al-Assad’s most feared security wings. He opened the screen and curiously clicked on a video file, a brave move given the consequences if anyone had caught him prying.

The footage was unsteady at first, before it closed in on a freshly dug pit in the ground between the bullet-pocked shells of two buildings. An intelligence officer he knew was knelt near the hole’s edge in military fatigues and a fishing hat, brandishing an assault rifle and barking orders.

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More than half of Americans have had Covid, including three of four children

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A CDC report showed a striking increase in those with coronavirus antibodies between December and February

More than half of Americans show signs of a previous Covid-19 infection, including three out of every four children, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

The findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come after researchers examined blood samples from more than 200,000 Americans and looked for virus-fighting antibodies made from infections, not vaccines. They found that signs of past infection rose dramatically between December and February, when the more contagious Omicron variant surged through the US.

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Russia’s war in Ukraine threatens to spill over in dangerous new phase

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Analysis: Mysterious explosions in Moldova raise possibility of new Putin gambit after early failures

A series of mysterious explosions in Moldova have raised the threat of Russia’s war in Ukraine spilling over into new territory, with unpredictable consequences.

The blasts destroyed radio antennas in a Russian-garrisoned sliver of eastern Moldova along the Ukrainian border, Transnistria, which had been peaceful since a brief conflict in 1992 waged by Kremlin-backed separatists against the Moldovan army.

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Time running out to reach Iran nuclear deal, warn experts

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Letter signed by former diplomats says Iran close to developing nuclear weapons capability

Leading former diplomats including seven ex-UK foreign and defence ministers have warned the Iran nuclear talks are heading to “corrosive stalemate devolving into a cycle of increased nuclear tension” and urged Tehran and Washington to show more flexibility.

Year-long talks in Vienna on reviving the deal and for the US, which was pulled out of the agreement by Donald Trump, to lift sanctions on Iran have in effect ground to a halt in a dispute over whether the west will lift the foreign terrorist organisation designation, and sanctions, against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

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Russia accused of shelling Mariupol humanitarian corridor

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Safe passage deal for civilians was a trap, say Ukrainians, as Putin’s forces step up eastern offensive

Russia has stepped up attempts to encircle defending forces in the east of Ukraine and stood accused of shelling a humanitarian corridor out of Mariupol, as the US vowed to move “heaven and earth” to help Ukraine win the war.

Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in Moscow and Germany, a fresh wave of civilian deaths were reported across eastern Ukraine as Vladimir Putin’s forces escalated their barrage of key targets on Tuesday and appeared to renege once again on giving safe passage to women and children.

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Russia warns of an immediate ‘proportional response’ if Britain continues its ‘direct provocation’ of Ukraine – 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

Details are scant, but there are reports that the ministry of internal affairs in Transnistria says that two radio antenna that relayed Russian radio have been destroyed in Transnistria, the breakaway eastern region of Moldova.

Reuters quotes the ministry saying: “In the early morning of 26 April, two explosions occurred in the village of Maiac, Grigoriopol district: the first at 6.40 and the second at 7.05”

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California police detain three in baby kidnapping as grandma unloaded car

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Police say baby Brandon Cuellar, who has since been found, was taken from home at about 1pm on Monday

A 3-month-old baby who was kidnapped from his San Francisco Bay Area home was found Tuesday and three suspects were detained, police said.

The baby, Brandon Cuellar, was taken to a hospital as a precaution, the San Jose police department announced on Twitter, without saying where the boy was located.

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Why are UK supermarkets rationing cooking oil?

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Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose have limited sales after concerns over shortages caused by Ukraine war

The latest supermarket data from Kantar shows shoppers have been stockpiling cooking oil due to concerns about the shortage of sunflower oil caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.

Here we look at what’s behind the shortages, what the situation means for consumers and how long it might last.

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‘We weren’t prepared for this’: Kyiv area morgues at breaking point

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Morgue staff are struggling to keep up with the number of casualties, with bodies piled in refrigerated trucks

The first body arrived in late February, a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. The next day, two more. By the beginning of March, the morgue, on the outskirts of Kyiv, had no more space for the dead who, every day, arrived by the dozen from the cities of Bucha and Borodyanka – at the time occupied by the Russian forces.

When Moscow’s withdrawal from the areas north of the capital early in April unveiled the brutality of mass graves, with hundreds of civilian corpses buried in residential districts, every morgue in the Kyiv region was already at breaking point.

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Four killed by female suicide bomber near China institute in Pakistan

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Baloch Liberation Army claims responsibility saying it was the first such attach by a female assailant

A suicide bomber from a Pakistani separatist group has killed four people, including three Chinese nationals, in an attack on a minibus carrying staff from the Confucius Institute at Karachi University.

The Baloch Liberation Army – one of several groups fighting for independence in Pakistan’s biggest province – claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bombing, saying it was the first suicide attack by a female assailant.

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Moldova holds security meeting as tensions rise over breakaway region

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President calls meeting amid fears Transnistria – controlled by pro-Russia separatists – could be drawn into Ukraine war

Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, is convening a meeting of her security council on Tuesday after a series of incidents in the breakaway Moldovan republic of Transnistria and a warning from Moscow that the Russian-backed region could be drawn into the war in Ukraine.

Transnistria, which borders western Ukraine, is controlled by pro-Russia separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot.

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Torture photos added to evidence in trial of alleged Dutch drug kingpin

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Images show woman who looks like smuggler known as Godmother of the Coke, who disappeared in 2019

Photographs found on a phone showing the torture of a woman believed to be a Moroccan-Dutch drug smuggler nicknamed the Godmother of the Coke have been added to the prosecution’s evidence against a suspected drug kingpin in his trial in Amsterdam for multiple murders.

Three disturbing images of a woman who bears a close resemblance to Naima Jillal, who disappeared in 2019, were reportedly found on a BlackBerry when Ridouan Taghi was arrested three years ago in Dubai.

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