Video showing arrest of Fiji bus driver reignites debate about police use of excessive force

The incident was witnessed by a Fijian MP who said she intervened telling the police officer ‘You can deal with this without violence’

Fiji police have suspended an officer pending an investigation after a video showing what appeared to be the use of excessive force against a bus driver during an arrest was shared widely in the Pacific country.

The video appears to show a police officer attempting to remove a handcuffed bus driver from his bus in Labasa on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island on Monday.

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Dallas shooting suspect harbored delusions about Asian people, police say

Jeremy Smith, 36, arrested on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon over Koreatown hair salon attack that left three wounded

Authorities in Dallas said on Tuesday the man suspected of opening fire in a hair salon in the city’s Koreatown and wounding three women of Asian descent harbored delusions about Asian people since having a car crash involving an Asian man two years ago.

Police identified the gunman as Jeremy Smith, 36, and said he has been charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Smith was booked early on Tuesday is being held in Dallas county jail.

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China air crash that killed 132 may have been deliberate, says US report

WSJ sources suggest black box recorders from Boeing 737-800 indicate intentional input from cockpit

A China Eastern Airlines plane that crashed in March, killing 132 people, appears to have been intentionally flown into the mountainside below by someone at the controls, according to reports.

Analysis by US officials of the black box flight recorders found amid the wreckage suggests deliberate input from the cockpit forced the Boeing 737-800 plane into its catastrophic dive.

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Ukraine farming group calls for urgent end to ports blockade

Group warns of ‘cascade of export bans’ amid failure to ease grain bottlenecks fuelling shortages and inflation, MHP said

One of Ukraine’s largest farming groups has called for an urgent solution to unblock the country’s Black Sea ports as exports of grain, sunflower and rapeseed are being held up by the Russian naval blockade, driving inflation and shortages around the world.

G7 ministers have held urgent talks about trying to open routes through Romanian and Baltic ports, potentially fed with an army of 10,000 trucks making a five-day trip from Ukraine.

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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 83 of the invasion

Fate of Ukrainian soldiers unclear after evacuation from Mariupol; peace talks stall between Russia and Ukraine

The fate of more than 260 Ukrainian soldiers who have ended weeks of resistance at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol remains unclear, after the fighters surrendered and were transferred to Russian-controlled territory. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister said they would be swapped in a prisoner exchange, but some Russian officials said they could be tried or even executed.

Eight people died and 12 were wounded after Russia launched a missile strike on the village of Desna in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. The regional governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said Russia launched four missiles at about 5am local time on Tuesday. Two of the missiles hit buildings in the village, he said.

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have stalled, according to both sides. The Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said negotiations with Russia had been suspended, blaming Moscow’s “stereotypical mindset”. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said that virtually no peace talks were going on at the moment and blamed Ukraine for having “practically withdrawn” from the process.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, promised his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, that French arms deliveries to Kyiv would intensify in the coming days, the Élysée said. Zelenskiy said he had had a “long and meaningful” conversation with Macron.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Russian forces may have sustained “impressive losses” since their invasion of Ukraine. He said: “If it is true that Russia has lost 15% of their troops since the beginning of the war, this is a world record of the losses of an army invading a country.” Borrell also said all EU member states would support Finland and Sweden in their applications to join Nato.

Finland’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved a government proposal to join Nato, a day after Sweden confirmed its intention to join the alliance. The Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, said he was sure both countries would overcome Turkish opposition to their membership bids.

Niinistö and Sweden’s prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, will meet Joe Biden on Thursday, the White House said. The leaders are expected to discuss Finland and Sweden’s Nato applications, European security and support for Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion, it said.

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said Finland and Sweden joining Nato would probably make “not much difference”. The two Nordic countries “have been participating in Nato military exercises for many years”, Lavrov said.

Vladimir Putin has said that by abandoning Russian energy supplies, Europe risks paying the most expensive energy prices in the world. Speaking at a meeting with domestic oil managers and government officials, Putin said it was impossible for some European countries to quickly ditch Russian oil.

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Canada: trial of white men who killed two Indigenous hunters in 2020 begins

Roger Bilodeau and his son Anthony Bilodeau believed that Jacob Sansom and Maurice Cardinal were thieves, court hears

Two white Canadian men followed and then shot dead two Indigenous hunters because they believed they were thieves, prosecutors have told a court at the start of a murder trial in Alberta.

Roger Bilodeau, 58, and his son Anthony Bilodeau, 33, have both pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder over the deaths of Jacob Sansom and his uncle, Maurice Cardinal in March 2020.

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Mexican farmers demand redress for illegal mining and violence on their land

Owners of community land bought shares to join annual meeting of Fresnillo, a Mexican FTSE 100 company

Mexican farmers have travelled to London to demand that a FTSE 100 company compensates them for illegal mining on their land and explain violence against anti-mining activists.

Penmont mining, a subsidiary of Fresnillo, was ordered by an agrarian court in Mexico in 2013 to pay members of El Bajío community, co-owners of common land in Sonora, north-west Mexico, for the gold extracted and to restore the land to its original state.

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Fate of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers unclear as Azovstal resistance ends

Ukraine says there will be prisoner swap but some Russian officials have said forces could be tried or executed

The fate of hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who have ended weeks of resistance at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol remains unclear, after the fighters surrendered and were transferred to Russian-controlled territory.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister said they would be swapped in a prisoner exchange, but some Russian officials said on Tuesday they could be tried and even executed. MPs in Russia’s State Duma said they would propose new laws that could derail prisoner exchanges of fighters who Moscow claims are “terrorists”.

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Eagles of Death Metal tell Paris terror trial how band ‘ran for their lives’

Frontman and guitarist watched Bataclan fans’ excitement turn to confusion as gunmen opened fire

The frontman and the guitarist for the American rock band Eagles of Death Metal have told a Paris court how they watched from the stage in confusion and horror as terrorists opened fire on the crowd at their sold-out concert at the Bataclan in 2015.

Jesse Hughes, the band’s singer, and Eden Galindo, a guitarist, both said the attack, which left 90 people dead, had changed their lives for ever.

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Madrid show explores graphic art’s role as tool of resistance in Latin America

Graphic Turn: Like the Ivy on a Wall at Reina Sofía looks at calls for social justice and responses to repression

Forty-three kites bearing 43 black-and-white faces hang from the ceiling of the Reina Sofía, each one a mute appeal for answers, remembrance and justice.

Close by, T-shirts and posters clamour for equality, a forest of placards commemorates the detained, disappeared and dead of Uruguay’s military dictatorship, and an icon of the struggle for Peruvian independence undergoes a queer, pop art makeover.

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Painting traded for a cheese sandwich in 1973 sold at auction for C$350,000

Maud Lewis sold her paintings on Nova Scotia roadsides but found a larger audience after a documentary chronicled her life and work

A Canadian painting that was swapped 50 years ago for a grilled cheese sandwich has sold at auction for an “astounding” C$350,000 (US$272,000).

Black Truck by the folk artist Maud Lewis sold for 10 times its assessed value, setting a new high mark for a painter whose popularity has surged in recent years.

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‘We’re fed up with scary dreams’: thieves return temple treasures in India

Gang who stole statues from Hindu temple in India return most items, with note saying they had suffered nightmares

A gang of thieves have returned more than a dozen idols they stole from an ancient Hindu temple in India, saying they had been haunted by nightmares since the crime, according to police.

Last week, the group stole 16 statues from a 300-year-old temple to Lord Balaji – an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu – in Uttar Pradesh, police inspector Rajiv Singh told Agence France-Presse.

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Questions over future of evacuated Azovstal fighters – as it happened

This blog is now closed.

The evacuation of Ukrainian fighters from Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, their last remaining redoubt in the city, began on Monday. Here are some images from that evacuation:

A village in Russia’s western province of Kursk bordering Ukraine came under Ukrainian fire on Tuesday, regional governor Roman Starovoit said, according to Reuters, but there were no injuries, although three houses and a school were hit.

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Biden tells Buffalo shooting mourners: ‘Evil will not win. Hate will not prevail’ – as it happened

My colleague Ed Helmore is at the site of Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, and sent this dispatch about the importance to the predominantly Black community of the supermarket where it happened:

Tops Friendly on Jefferson Avenue in East Buffalo was more than just a grocery store. It served as community center, a place to hang out, a source of employment – and a spot for healthy sustenance unavailable at bodega stores in an area described as the oasis in a food desert.

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UK to table bill to scrap Northern Ireland Brexit protocol, Liz Truss says

Foreign secretary confirms plans to ditch parts of deal, saying Good Friday agreement ‘under strain’

Liz Truss has claimed the east-west relationship between Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been “undermined” by the Northern Ireland protocol, as she confirmed plans to table legislation that would scrap parts of the agreement.

The UK foreign secretary, who is also responsible for Brexit, set out plans for the move in a statement in the House of Commons. The bill is not expected to be published for several weeks, but if enacted could spark a trade war with the EU.

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Three ways EU could respond to UK ditching Northern Ireland protocol

Analysis: bloc has various retaliatory weapons available through the post-Brexit trade agreement

The EU could impose tariffs on UK fish and agricultural goods in just seven days if Boris Johnson goes ahead with moves to disapply parts of the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol, legal experts have said.

The short, sharp shock is one of the three key retaliatory weapons available through the trade agreement, according to Catherine Barnard, a professor of EU law at Cambridge University.

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North Korea on brink of Covid-19 catastrophe, say experts

Number to have fallen ill reportedly at almost 1.5 million as country grapples with what it calls ‘fever’

North Korea stands on the brink of a Covid-19 catastrophe unless swift action is taken to provide vaccines and drug treatments, experts have said, as the number of people reported to have fallen ill rose to almost 1.5 million.

The isolated country reported another big rise in new cases of what it continues to refer to as “fever” on Tuesday, days after it admitted it had identified Covid-19 infections for the first time since the start of the global pandemic.

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Elon Musk: Twitter deal cannot progress without proof on bot numbers

Tesla CEO and world’s richest person expressed concerns about presence of fake accounts on platform

Elon Musk has cast further doubt over his $44bn (£35bn) takeover of Twitter after stating the deal “cannot move forward” until the social media company proves that less than 5% of its users are fake or spam accounts.

The Tesla chief executive used his Twitter account to say the agreed deal would not progress until the firm showed proof that only a small proportion of its users were fake.

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Clashes in Tripoli as would-be prime minister attempts to claim power

Fathi Bashagha forced to withdraw in the face of opposition from Libya’s military

Fighting broke out in Tripoli after one of the two rival Libyan prime ministers entered the capital to claim the role only to flee hours later when he realised he had misjudged the scale of military opposition.

Fathi Bashagha said he had retreated to prevent further bloodshed. It was clear he found that the levels of militia support he had been promised were not forthcoming. He had entered the city in secret overnight with the support of one powerful armed group, the eighth brigade, but it found itself isolated and no other support arrived from outside the city.

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Beijing’s rhetoric in spotlight as Taiwan condemns California shooting

Deadly incident renews debate over cross-strait tensions and Beijing’s reunification rhetoric

Taiwan’s president has condemned the deadly shooting at a Taiwanese church in California by a man reportedly driven by hatred of the self-governing island, where debate about cross-strait tensions has intensified along with Beijing’s reunification rhetoric.

Tsai Ing-wen’s office issued a statement saying she condemned “any form of violence” and extended her condolences to those killed and injured, and that she had asked the island’s chief representative in the US to fly to California to provide assistance.

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