Officers responded to reports of a man in his late teens or early 20s carrying a firearm in Scarborough’s Port Union area
Police in Toronto have shot and killed a man after he was spotted carrying a rifle near an elementary school, prompting an emergency lockdown for hundreds of students.
Officers responded to reports of a man, described as being in his late teens or early 20s, carrying a firearm in Scarborough’s Port Union area of the Canadian city about 1pm.
Continue reading...Doctors performed procedure in 2002 without consent while Francisca was under anesthesia because she was HIV positive
The Chilean state has apologised to a woman who was forcibly sterilised by doctors because she was HIV positive.
The woman, known only as Francisca and then 20, was diagnosed with HIV in March 2002 while pregnant with her first child. But while she was under anaesthesia during a Caesarean section, doctors at a public hospital performed a surgical sterilisation on the grounds that it would be irresponsible for an HIV-positive woman to have more children. When Francisca woke up after the operation, she was informed by a nurse that she had been sterilised without her consent.
Continue reading...James Wharton says he didn’t know Hungarian talkshow host Zsolt Bayer was speaking at rightwing event
The chair of England’s university regulator, who was criticised for participating in a conference in Hungary on the same platform as a notorious far-right journalist accused of antisemitism, has said he did not know who he was appearing alongside.
James Wharton, chair of the Office for Students (OfS), addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) via a video message last Friday, on the same day as Zsolt Bayer, a talkshow host who has called Jews “stinking excrement”, referred to Roma as “animals”, and used racial epithets to describe Black people.
Continue reading...Genivaldo de Jesus Santos dies of asphyxiation as video shows officers forcing him into vehicle then releasing gas grenade
Brazilians have responded with outrage to the death of a mentally ill Black man who was bundled into the back of a police car by officers who then released a gas grenade inside the vehicle.
Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, was stopped by the federal highway police in the city of Umbaúba on Wednesday. Video footage of the incident shows two officers in helmets holding the car boot closed on his thrashing legs, as clouds of gas billow out of the vehicle.
Continue reading...Israel claims the Al Jazeera journalist was killed during a battle between its soldiers and Palestinian militants
A Palestinian investigation into the shooting of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh has concluded that she was deliberately killed by Israeli forces as she tried to flee, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has announced.
The conclusion echoed the results of a preliminary investigation announced nearly two weeks ago and was widely expected. Israel rejected the findings, with the defence minister, Benny Gantz, calling them, “a blatant lie.”
Continue reading...Timothy Tymoshenko was sent to Poland because of his distress but does not qualify for Homes for Ukraine scheme
A British man who has turned his Polish castle into a makeshift hotel for Ukrainian refugees has accused the UK government of showing “no humanity whatsoever” for not allowing a severely autistic teenager to come to live with an approved foster carer in Lancashire.
Pleas are mounting for compassion to be shown to Timothy Tymoshenko, 16, who fled the war in Ukraine without his parents. He is living with his 17-year-old brother, Yurii, in what was once a private palace for the prince-bishop of Wrocław in Piotrowice Nyskie, a tiny Polish village near the Czech border.
Continue reading...US secretary of state vigorously defends existing global order but admits Washington sees Beijing a ‘long-term challenge’
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for a vigorous defence of the existing global order, but stressed that Joe Biden’s administration did not seek a “cold war” with China.
“President Biden believes this decade will be decisive,” Blinken said in a China policy speech on Thursday. “The actions we take at home and with countries worldwide will determine whether our shared vision of the future will be realised.”
Continue reading...Jean-Luc Martinez is accused of conspiring to hide origin of works taken out of Egypt during Arab spring
The former president of the Louvre museum in Paris has been charged with conspiring to hide the origin of archaeological treasures that may have been taken out of Egypt during the Arab spring uprisings, in a case that has shocked the world of antiquities.
Jean-Luc Martinez was charged this week after he was taken in by police for questioning, a French judicial source told Agence France-Presse. Martinez ran the Paris Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, from 2013-21.
Continue reading...Governor of Luhansk says Ukrainian troops retreating in some areas, as city of Lyman reportedly captured
Officials in Ukraine have admitted that Russia has the “upper hand” in fighting in the country’s east, as Ukrainian forces fell back from some of their positions in the Donbas region.
Amid reports that Lyman, the site of an important railway junction, had largely been taken by Russian forces, Ukraine’s general staff reported that Russian forces were also advancing on Sievierodonetsk, Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
Continue reading...Medical charity’s president calls publication of controversial photographs ‘a mistake’ and says guidelines will be tightened
The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières has apologised for publishing photographs of a teenage rape survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its website, following criticism that the images were unethical and racist.
Dr Christos Christou also announced that the medical charity had tightened its guidelines on photographing vulnerable minors, such as survivors of sexual abuse, requiring that they should not be identified visually or by name.
Continue reading...Signatories of legal opinion say territory’s government is using continued presence of overseas judges as ‘vote of confidence’
International judicial figures including the former UK attorney general Sir Robert Buckland have warned the remaining British, Australian and Canadian judges operating in Hong Kong that they are working in an environment where judicial independence has been wholly undermined and the Chinese Communist party can dictate the outcome of cases.
The group has backed a legal opinion that says the systematic threats to Hong Kong’s judicial independence will continue to intensify, and that the continued presence of overseas judges is being used by the territory’s government as a vote of confidence.
Continue reading...Federico Soda said there needed to be ‘more condemnation’ of the conditions in state-run detention centres in Libya
Europe has been accused by a senior international official of acquiescence over the plight of thousands of migrants in Libya held in arbitrary detention in “deplorable conditions”.
Federico Soda, chief of mission at the International Organisation for Migration’s mission in Libya, said not enough was being done by outside actors to try to change the war-torn country’s “environment of arbitrary detention and deplorable conditions” for migrants.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
Maksym Kozytskyi, the governor of Lviv, has posted a status update for the day. He said that there was one air alert overnight, but there were no strikes reported. He also said that for the first time since Lviv started accepting displaced people from elsewhere in Ukraine, there was not a single person who registered for temporary accommodation yesterday.
The impact of the war in Ukraine has been a strong theme running through the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this week. Today, in about half-an-hour, Vitaliy Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv, will be speaking about how to rebuild the Ukrainian capital after the war, and what aid will be needed. My colleague Graeme Wearden is there, and he will be covering that live on our business blog. I’ll bring you the top lines here.
Continue reading...Chris Murphy, the Democratic Connecticut senator who delivered a powerful “What are we doing?” gun law plea to the chamber in the immediate aftermath of the Texas shooting, will address the media a little later this morning with progress report on bipartisan talks.
Murphy is leading his party’s efforts to get enough Republican senators on board to pass some kind of firearms control measures, and met last night with Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as well as a group of fellow Democrats, Politico reports.
Continue reading...Foreign minister uses speech in Fiji to declare ‘this is a different Australian government’ that will act responsibly on climate change
The new foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has promised to treat Pacific island countries with respect, telling an audience in Fiji that Australia is “a partner that doesn’t come with strings attached” and won’t “impose unsustainable financial burdens”.
Wong promised to respect Pacific priorities and institutions as she set out an implicit contrast with China, which is pursuing a sweeping regional economic and security deal with Pacific nations that would dramatically expand Beijing’s influence and reach into those countries.
Continue reading...Reports handed to EU claim vessels likely to have entered coastal states’ waters where stocks are dwindling
European fishing fleets have been illegally netting tuna from dwindling stocks in the Indian Ocean, according to data presented to EU authorities and analysed by expert groups.
EU purse seine (a type of large net) fishing vessels were present in the waters of Indian Ocean coastal states, where they were likely to have carried out unauthorised catches, and have reported catches in the Chagos archipelago marine protected area and in Mozambique’s exclusive economic zone.
Continue reading...Parchin facility has previously come under scrutiny from UN nuclear watchdog
One person has been killed in an “industrial accident” near an Iranian military complex that has previously come under scrutiny from the UN nuclear watchdog, according to state media reports.
“An industrial accident took place [on Wednesday evening] in one of the factories in the Parchin area, leading to the death of one person and injuries to another,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency said. It gave no details of the cause of the accident.
Continue reading...Bombardment continues in 40 towns including the key city of Sievierodonetsk as police in Lysychansk collect bodies for mass burials
Fierce battles have continued to rage in eastern Ukraine with Russian troops on the verge of encircling a key industrial city, bringing a sharp rebuke of the west from Volodymyr Zelenskiy for not doing enough to help Kyiv win the war.
As the Ukrainian military reported on Thursday that 40 towns in the Donbas region were under Russian bombardment, Luhansk governor Sergiy Gaiday described fighting outside Sievierodonetsk, a key military goal for Russia, as “very difficult”, saying Russian troops were shelling the city from the outskirts with mortars.
Continue reading...President Macky Sall announces deaths of infants after blaze at hospital in Tivaouane
Eleven newborn babies have died in a hospital fire in Tivaouane, western Senegal, the country’s president has said.
Macky Sall tweeted on Wednesday night: “I have just learned with pain and dismay about the deaths of 11 newborn babies in the fire at the neonatal department of the public hospital. To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy.”
Continue reading...Portland jury finds Nancy Crampton Brophy guilty of killing chef Daniel Brophy in June 2018
A jury in the US city of Portland has convicted a self-published romance novelist who wrote an essay titled How to Murder Your Husband of fatally shooting her husband four years ago.
The jury of seven women and five men found Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder on Wednesday after deliberating for two days over Daniel Brophy’s death, according to reports.
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