Blaze at 65-metre high ‘mountain of shame’ in Ghazipur still not completely put out
Parts of a fire that broke out on Monday at a gigantic landfill site on the outskirts of Delhi known as the “mountain of shame” were still smouldering 24 hours later, choking local residents who have complained of breathing in toxic fumes.
Dozens of firefighters struggled to douse the flames at the landfill site in Ghazipur, due to its height and a lack of access roads.
Continue reading...Tri-national was excluded from deal leading to release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori
Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian left behind when two others were released from Iranian detention a fortnight ago, has ended a nine-day hunger strike at the pleading of his family, his daughter has said.
He remains in jail in Tehran contrary to an agreement the British claimed it had struck with the Iranians.
Continue reading...Animated film, influenced heavily by magical realism, breaks frequent representation as country beset by drugs and violence
When Encanto was announced the winner of the Oscar for best animated film on Sunday night, Martín Anzellini – the Colombian architect who helped develop the film’s representation of his home country – had little idea. Instead, he was watching Encanto at home with his twin toddler daughters, who had yet to see it.
“Once we finished watching the film, I checked my phone and saw my WhatsApp was going wow!” Anzellini said. “It was so exciting, I almost cried. And I hugged my daughters, as my work on the film was for them.”
Continue reading...Pledge of $10bn will see electronic spy agency ASD double and ramp up ability to launch offensive cyber operations
Australia’s electronic spy agency will double in size and ramp up its ability to launch its own offensive cyber operations as part of a $10bn national security budget pledge curiously dubbed Redspice.
But the funding is spread over 10 years and only $4.2bn will be spent in the first four-year budget cycle. Given the government is partly offsetting the package with savings from other parts of the defence portfolio, the cyber pledge is worth only $588.7m in new money in the first four years.
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Continue reading...More than 6,ooo people have left their homes as renewed violence in the Casamance region spills into the Gambia
It was late morning when the bullets burst through the corrugated roof of Maimouna Kujabee’s farmhouse. First, she hit the ground. Then she took off, running from her village in Ziguinchor, in Senegal’s Casamance region, as fast as her children could manage.
Through fields and forest, with only the clothes on her back, Kujabee did not stop until she reached Bajagar, in the Gambia, about a mile north of the border. “The sun was hot. I ran until my sandals were cut up,” says Kujabee.
Continue reading...Manasseh Sogavare says it is ‘utter nonsense’ that China’s presence is a threat to regional stability
Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has dismissed foreign criticism of the country’s security negotiations with China as “insulting” and called those who leaked the draft agreement “lunatics”, in his first comments to parliament on the proposed treaty.
“We find it very insulting, Mr Speaker, to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs,” Sogavare said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Peace talks set to start on Tuesday, overshadowed by reports that Roman Abramovich was possibly poisoned during informal negotiations in Kyiv
Continue reading...Director of Chatham House says Britain’s role in Ukraine crisis is an opportunity to work more formally with Brussels
Britain should use its leading role in the Ukraine war urgently to repair its relations with the EU by offering to help strengthen European security both via Nato and rapidly evolving EU defence plans, the director of Chatham House, Dr Robin Niblett, has proposed.
That will require working more formally with Brussels on foreign policy and defence, including issues such as cyber, intelligence and disinformation, said Niblett, who heads Britain’s leading foreign policy thinktank.
Continue reading...Legacy of ‘colonial-era ideologies’ is condemned as community leaders demand reparations for imperialism
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s recent tour was in “sharp opposition to the needs and aspirations of the Caribbean people”, a human rights alliance from the region has said.
The British monarchy’s historic role in the slave trade continues to damage the Caribbean’s society and economy, Jamaica’s Advocates Network said in an open letter published jointly with representatives from Belize and the Bahamas.
Continue reading...The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack is expected to discuss Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, tonight, before it officially considers holding in criminal contempt of Congress two of Donald Trump’s most senior White House advisers, Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro.
The move to initiate contempt proceedings against the two Trump aides amounts to a biting rebuke of their refusal to cooperate with the inquiry, as the panel deploys its most punitive measures to reaffirm the consequences of noncompliance.
Continue reading...Tax on households over $100m aims to ensure wealthiest Americans no longer pay lower rate than teachers and firefighters
Joe Biden proposed a new tax on America’s richest households when he unveiled his latest budget on Monday.
The Biden administration wants to impose a 20% minimum tax on households worth more than $100m. The proposal would raise more than $360bn over the next decade and “would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters”, according to a factsheet released by the White House.
Continue reading...Government declares state of emergency after arresting more than 600 gang suspects and ordering food restrictions
The government of El Salvador said it had arrested more than 600 gang suspects and ordered reductions in food for prison inmates, after a wave of killings over the weekend.
The government declared a state of emergency and locked down prisons after 87 murders were committed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. By comparison, there were 79 homicides in the entire month of February.
Continue reading...President says he was not calling for regime change but was expressing personal ‘moral outrage’ over Russia’s invasion
Joe Biden on Monday defended the unscripted remarks he made at the end of an important speech in Poland at the weekend, in which he said that Russian president Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”, which had prompted hurried efforts by other senior figures in the administration to play down the comment in the face of international criticism.
The US president, when questioned on Sunday after attending church following his return to the White House, denied that he was seeking “regime change” as a new policy.
Continue reading...Russian billionaire and Rustem Umerov had symptoms consistent with poisoning earlier in March, says source
The latest round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, set to begin in Istanbul on Tuesday, have been overshadowed by claims that the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and other members of an informal Russian-Ukrainian negotiating group suffered symptoms consistent with poisoning during an informal round of talks earlier this month.
The allegations surfaced on the eve of the first face-to-face peace talks in weeks, amid fears that the Kremlin was not ready to compromise, despite the stiff resistance its forces have encountered since the invasion began.
Continue reading...Analysis: overstretched Russian forces are trying to concentrate on the east, but Kyiv is doing its best not to let them
Russia’s military may have announced a change of plan at the end of last week to focus on the “liberation of Donbas”, but the apparent decision reflected the reality that Moscow’s initial multi-front invasion plan has failed in the face of dogged resistance from Ukraine.
The advance on Kyiv became bogged down after less than a week, particularly to the north-west of the city. If Ukraine’s declaration that it has retaken the heavily contested town of Irpin’ on Monday is correct, the advance may now even be going into reverse.
Continue reading...Gunmen with assault rifles burst into event in western state of Michoacán long plagued by violence between drug cartels
Mexican authorities have confirmed that 20 people were killed when a group of gunmen stormed a cockfight, in a small town in the western state of Michoacán.
Officials and witnesses described a choreographed massacre in which assailants in military uniforms arrived just after 10.30pm on Sunday night and opened fire with assault rifles at the crowds of primarily middle-aged men.
Continue reading...Apology sought after over 1,300 unmarked graves discovered since last May at church-run schools attended by Indigenous children
Pope Francis has heard first-hand the horrors of abuse committed at church-run residential schools in Canada, as Indigenous delegations pressed him for an apology.
Indigenous survivors are visiting the Vatican this week for meetings with the pope about the scandal that has rocked the Catholic church.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch says Venezuelan soldiers conducted joint operations with ELN in violence-plagued Apure state
Venezuelan soldiers conducted joint operations with Colombian rebels in the state of Apure earlier this year, as violence increased along a remote and often lawless stretch of the Colombia-Venezuela border, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch.
The report published on Monday said that in January a truce ended between the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and another rebel organization known as the Joint Eastern Command, leading to clashes, abductions and murders of civilians that forced more than 3,300 people to flee their homes in the Venezuelan state of Apure. In the Colombian province of Arauca, more than 3,800 people were displaced.
Continue reading...Billionaire lost his sight for several hours, according a source with direct knowledge of the incident; Ukraine president saying his people are ‘paying with their lives’ if sanctions don’t work
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has released its latest intelligence report, claiming there has been “no significant change” to Russian forces dispositions in Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
The report, released at 6am GMT, reads:
In the last 24 hours there has been no significant change to Russian forces’ dispositions in occupied Ukraine.
Ongoing logistical shortages have been compounded by a continued lack of momentum and morale amongst the Russian military, and aggressive fighting by the Ukrainians.
This poses a very serious risk of damaging the insulation structures built over the station’s fourth unit after its 1986 explosion.
Such damage will inevitably lead to the entry into the atmosphere of a significant amount of radioactive dust and contaminate not only Ukraine but also other European countries.”
Russian occupiers transport tens of tons of rockets, shells and mortar ammunition every day. Hundreds of tons of ammunition are being stored in the neighbouring city of Pripyat Chernobyl, which is also a short distance from the nuclear power plant.”
Continue reading...Major investors have launched a campaign calling for Sainsbury’s to help tackle the cost of living crisis by becoming the first supermarket group to pay all its workers the “real living wage” of £9.90 an hour, reports my colleague Rupert Jones.
Legal & General Investment Management, Nest (National Employment Savings Trust), which is Britain’s largest workplace pension scheme, and several MPs have formed a coalition to push for the change after reports that increasing numbers of supermarket workers are having to turn to food banks to feed themselves and their families.
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