Category Archives: World News

Al-Qaida enjoying a haven in Afghanistan under Taliban, UN warns

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Intelligence report raises fears country could again become base for international terrorists

Al-Qaida has a haven in Afghanistan under the Taliban and “increased freedom of action” with the potential of launching new long-distance attacks in coming years, a UN report based on intelligence supplied by member states says.

The assessment, by the UN committee charged with enforcing sanctions on the Taliban and others that may threaten the security of Afghanistan, will raise concerns that the country could once again become a base for international terrorist attacks after the withdrawal of US and Nato troops last year.

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Starmer urges PM to request India release UK citizen Jagtar Singh Johal

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Labour leader writes to Boris Johnson after UN working group declared Johal’s five-year detention arbitrary

Keir Starmer has asked Boris Johnson to intervene and request that the Indian government release a British citizen after a UN working group declared his five-year detention arbitrary and without any legal basis.

In a letter, the Labour leader asks why Johnson has not acted to ask for the release of Jagtar Singh Johal given the findings of the UN report on arbitrary detention last month.

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Elon Musk seeks 10% job cuts at Tesla over ‘super bad feeling’ about economy

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Email to executives also calls for hiring freeze at electric car maker, which has 100,000 staff worldwide

Elon Musk is considering a hiring freeze and job cuts of up to 10% of staff at Tesla because he has a “super bad feeling” about the state of the economy, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

Tesla currently has about 5,000 job openings advertised worldwide, and 100,000 employees. The email was sent to Tesla executives late on Thursday with the subject line “pause all hiring worldwide”, and comes days after Musk ordered all employees to return to the office for at least 40 hours a week or face immediate termination.

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‘Disgusting’ behaviour at Canadian police undercover training course sparks inquiry

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The British Columbia program was abruptly shut down and nine officers are reportedly under investigation after the incident

Policing experts in Canada have called for an overhaul of undercover tactics after reports that officers at a training session participated in “disgusting, appalling” behaviour, including penetrating a colleague using a vegetable, defecating on another and exposing genitalia.

According to Global News and CTV, the BC Municipal Undercover Program was abruptly shut down after the workshop in May, which included a role-playing exercise in which some participants went to “extreme lengths” to prove they were not officers.

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Hong Kong police warn Tiananmen anniversary gatherings will break the law

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Hong Kong has commemorated 1989 crackdown for decades, but national security law imposed in 2020 has put a stop to annual vigils

Hong Kong police have warned that people risk breaking the law if they gather on Saturday to commemorate China’s Tiananmen crackdown - particularly in the city’s Victoria Park, the site of a once annual candlelit vigil.

Discussion of the 4 June 1989 crackdown, when the Chinese government set troops and tanks on peaceful protesters, is forbidden in mainland China. For decades Hong Kong exercised its semi-autonomy and freedom of speech to hold an annual candlelit memorial for the victims. But after the national security law was brought in in 2020, that came to an end.

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Mexico police arrest alleged serial killer who lured women with job offers

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At least seven young women believed to have been killed after responding to ads on Facebook

Authorities in Mexico have arrested a suspected serial killer accused of luring at least seven young women on Facebook with false job offers.

Surveillance camera footage from two states showed the man meeting with the victims in public places, and in one case driving a victim away on a motorbike, officials said.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: Russia occupying 20% of Ukraine, says Zelenskiy; Merkel condemns ‘barbaric war of aggression’ – live

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Ukrainian president says 100 Ukrainians dying every day; former German chancellor makes first speech since leaving office

The official Telegram channel of Ukraine’s Mariupol authority has again posted accusations of war crimes being committed by pro-Russian occupation forces since they took full control of the city after the surrender of Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal steel plant. They say:

In the Mariupol district, the occupiers imprison and shoot Ukrainian volunteers and officials. All of them refused to cooperate with collaborators and the occupation authorities.

The fake Donetsk People’s Republic court sentenced the head of one of the Azov villages to ten years in prison. At least one civil servant was executed by firing squad.

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‘It’s very painful’: Sarah Jessica Parker lifts lid on Kim Cattrall rift

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Actor speaks at length for first time about supposed falling out with her ex-Sex and the City colleague

Sarah Jessica Parker has spoken at length for the first time about her supposed feud with former Sex and the City co-star Kim Cattrall. For six seasons, the pair starred together in the show, which focused on the lives of four New York women.

They went on to appear alongside each other in the two follow-up movie adaptations, but in recent years there has long been talk of a falling out between the two actors, largely fuelled by barbed statements Cattrall has made.

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Vietnamese man extradited to Germany over oil executive kidnapping

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Fugitive Vietnamese state company official Trinh Xuan Thanh was abducted from Berlin park in July 2017

A Vietnamese man has been extradited to Germany to face charges of taking part in a brazen cold war-style kidnapping of an oil executive ordered by Hanoi, prosecutors have said.

The suspect, identified only as Anh TL, was sent to Germany from the Czech Republic after he was detained in Prague last month on the basis of German and European arrest warrants.

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Prague’s Orloj clock at centre of row over artist’s ‘amateur’ restoration

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Artist accused of putting likenesses of friends and acquaintances on 15th-century clock, possibly as a joke

One of Prague’s most famous landmarks, a 15th-century astronomical clock, is at the centre of an embarrassing row amid claims that an artist endowed it with likenesses of his friends and acquaintances in an expensive restoration project, possibly as a joke.

The 600-year-old Orloj – long a magnet for tourists who gaze up in wonder as the 12 apostles are set in motion by the clock striking the hour – reopened in a blaze of fanfare in 2018 after a £2.1m refurbishment to the city’s medieval old town hall that included an upgrade to the clock’s intricate machinery.

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Arms sent to Ukraine will end up in criminal hands, says Interpol chief

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Jürgen Stock urges members to cooperate on arms tracing as weapons will flood hidden economy when war ends

Weapons sent to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February will end up in the global hidden economy and in the hands of criminals, the head of Interpol has said.

Jürgen Stock says once the conflict ends, a wave of guns and heavy arms will flood the international market and he urged Interpol’s member states, especially those supplying weapons, to cooperate on arms tracing.

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El Salvador accused of ‘massive’ human rights violations with 2% of adults in prison

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More than 36,000 people arrested in just over two months in crackdown orchestrated by President Nayib Bukele

Amnesty International has accused El Salvador’s government of committing “massive human rights violations” during an extraordinary security crackdown that has seen more than 36,000 people arrested in just over two months.

The clampdown was orchestrated by the Central American country’s authoritarian-minded president, Nayib Bukele, in late March after a sudden eruption of bloodshed that saw 87 murders in a single weekend.

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China’s Wang Yi visits Papua New Guinea amid tensions over election

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Ex-PM Peter O’Neill criticises timing of foreign minister’s visit, saying no agreements should be signed with Beijing before poll

China’s top diplomat has begun his visit to Papua New Guinea in the midst of the island’s national election as Beijing races to salvage a controversial deal in a battle of influence with Australia and other western powers.

The visit of Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, came a few days after a proposed economic and security deal collapsed on Monday. But his visit has also been criticised by the former Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter O’Neill, who is campaigning to take back the top job, in a series of media interviews, during which he said no agreements should be signed with China before the national election.

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Biden’s pledge to send rocket systems to Ukraine is no silver bullet

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Analysis: the long-delayed US deal offers just four systems that will take weeks to become operational, suggesting concerns about imposing a heavy defeat on Putin

The US decision to supply Ukraine with high-precision multiple launch rocket systems was marked with some fanfare in Washington including a rare newspaper commentary by Joe Biden himself.

The Himars (High mobility artillery rocket system) and the ammunition that Washington is sending with them, will allow Ukrainian forces to hit targets nearly 80km away with high accuracy. That’s twice the range of the US howitzers they have now, and about the same as the most powerful Russian rocket systems. US officials suggested they would help turn the withering artillery duel underway in the Donbas into a fairer fight.

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Rwanda accused of stalking, harassing and threatening exiles in US

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African state that signed deal with UK to host asylum seekers perpetrates ‘transnational repression’, Freedom House report says

Rwanda has been accused of being among the worst perpetrators of “transnational repression” in the US, stalking, harassing and threatening exiles there, according to a new report.

The report by the Freedom House advocacy group in Washington, names Rwanda alongside China, Russia, Iran and Egypt as the principal offenders in seeking to extend the reach of their repressive regimes into the US.

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North Korea’s Covid outbreak likely ‘getting worse’, WHO says

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Experts doubt state media claims that the worst is over, as WHO warns of global dangers of letting the virus spread unchecked

The World Health Organization has cast doubts on North Korea’s claims of progress in the fight against a Covid-19 outbreak, saying it believes the situation is getting worse, not better, amid an absence of independent data.

North Korean state media has claimed the Covid wave has abated, after daily numbers of people with fever topped 390,000 about two weeks ago.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow warns US over rocket shipments to Kyiv; Ukraine losing up to 100 soldiers a day – live

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US president claims supply of rockets move will enable Ukraine ‘to more precisely strike key targets’; Ukraine’s president says 500 wounded each day

Away from the war in their homeland, Ukraine’s men’s football team are competing for a place in this year’s Fifa World Cup in Qatar. Nick Ames writes for us:

When Ukraine face Scotland at Hampden Park tonight it will be less a rebirth than a reminder that, much as Russia might wish to erase the country’s cultural identity, its football heritage remains truly alive. The act of playing for a World Cup place on Wednesday night, and over the next five days if all goes well, is both one of defiance and of expectation that, despite everything, good things can lie ahead.

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Depp-Heard trial verdict: jury rules in favor of Johnny Depp

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The focus of the case was a 2018 editorial Heard wrote calling herself ‘a public figure representing domestic abuse’

The jury in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial has ruled in favor of Johnny Depp, finding that a Washington Post editorial she wrote defamed her former husband.

The jurors’ unanimous decision on Wednesday capped a seven-week trial in a Virginia courtroom which featured dozens of witnesses and experts weighing in on whether Depp was abusive to Heard – or vice versa – during their 15-month marriage.

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Denmark on course to back joining EU’s common defence policy

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Exit polls show majority of voters in favour of removing opt-out after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Denmark appears poised to join the EU’s common defence policy, becoming the last of the bloc’s members to sign up, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to reshape Europe’s security landscape.

Exit polls published as polling stations closed showed 69% of voters in favour of removing an opt-out to the EU’s common security and defence policy (CSDP). Thirty-one per cent of voters opposed the measure.

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Women in Canada’s military face greater harm from comrades than enemy, says judge

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Leadership ‘incapable of examining which aspects of its culture have been the most deficient,’ writes Louise Arbour in report

Some members of the Canadian military face greater harm from their comrades than from the enemy, according to a new report on sexual violence in the Canadian armed forces (CAF).

Called the Arbour report after its author, the former supreme court justice Louise Arbour, the 404-page document pinpoints the many failures of the CAF over the years to address misogyny, discrimination, sexual violence and trauma experienced predominantly by female members of the military.

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