Category Archives: World News

EU leaders announce intention to collectively rearm in face of Putin threat

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Versailles declaration says Russia’s war in Ukraine has heralded ‘tectonic shift in European history’

EU leaders have announced their intention to collectively rearm and become autonomous in food, energy and military hardware in a Versailles declaration that described Russia’s war as “a tectonic shift in European history”.

At a summit in the former royal palace, the 27 heads of state and government said on Friday that the invasion of Ukraine had shown the urgent need for the EU to take responsibility for its own security and to rid itself of dependencies on others.

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Ukraine woman who escaped Mariupol maternity ward gives birth

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Mariana Vishegirskaya, wearing same dotted pyjamas, is photographed holding newborn daughter

One of the pregnant women pictured escaping the ruins of the Mariupol maternity ward bombed by Russia has given birth to a daughter.

Mariana Vishegirskaya, wearing the same dotted pyjamas she was pictured in as she struggled down the stairs of the devastated hospital, was photographed on Friday by the Associated Press lying in a hospital bed holding her newborn daughter, Veronika.

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Gabriel Boric, 36, sworn in as president to herald new era for Chile

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Progressive former student leader hopes to transform a country still living in the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship

After a dizzying rise from student protest leader to head of state in just over a decade, Gabriel Boric has been sworn in as Chile’s youngest ever president.

“Know that we are going to do our best to rise to the challenges we face as a country,” he said as he received the presidential sash at a ceremony in the port city of Valparaíso.

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Mexican president lashes out at EU ‘lies’ over his media-bashing rhetoric

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador was urged to tone down his rhetoric by MEPs after a spate of journalist murders – he did the opposite

Mexico’s government has lashed out at the “corruption, lies and hypocrisy” of the European parliament after its members urged its populist president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to rein in his media-bashing rhetoric after the murders of at least six Mexican journalists.

Mexico’s press corps has been plunged into mourning this year by a succession of killings targeting media workers in what was already one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.

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Trump thought US troops were in Ukraine in 2017, ex-ambassador says in book

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Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired by Trump in 2019, reveals details of then president’s Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian counterpart

At an Oval Office meeting with the then Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, in 2017, Donald Trump asked his national security adviser if US troops were in Donbas, territory claimed by Russian-backed separatists, which Vladimir Putin last month used as pretext for a full and bloody invasion.

Describing the meeting in a new book, the then US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, writes: “An affirmative answer to that question would have meant that the United States was in a shooting war with Russia.”

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Iran nuclear talks on hold over last-minute Russian demands

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Moscow is insisting that Washington pledge not to sanction trade between it and Tehran over Ukraine

Talks on the revival of the Iran nuclear deal have become a casualty of the war in Ukraine after an indefinite pause was announced over last-minute Russian demands.

An agreement on the nuclear deal to bring the US and Iran back into compliance would have led to a swathe of US sanctions on Iran being lifted, including Iranian crude oil exports and petrochemicals, in return for limits on Tehran’s nuclear activity.

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Up to 10,000 Asian migrant workers die in the Gulf every year, claims report

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Campaigners say not enough is being done to prevent loss of life and the causes of death are not being properly investigated

As many as 10,000 migrant workers from south and south-east Asia die every year in the Gulf countries, according to a report by a group of human rights organisations.

More than half of the deaths are unexplained, said the report, and are commonly recorded as due to “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest”. But Gulf states are failing properly to investigate why so many migrant workers are dying.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Russia may be planning to use biological weapons, US says, as Russia warns of ‘uncontrolled spread of bio agents’

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The US tells the UN that Russia has a well-documented history of using chemical and biological weapons, after Russia warned about the potential for the ‘uncontrolled spread of bio agents’

Guardian reporter Peter Beaumont brings us this morning run-down from Lviv.

Russian jets bombed cities in the west of Ukraine in the early hours of Friday morning hitting Lviv, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, as the Kremlin’s war continued to creep further into Ukraine.

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‘We must welcome them’: how Europe is helping Ukrainian refugees

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Unlike the UK, EU countries have offered open sanctuary to the millions fleeing Russia’s attack in biggest refugee crisis since second world war

Over the past few days, images of desperate Ukrainian families being turned away by officials have thrown the UK’s response to what has been termed the biggest refugee crisis since the second world war into stark contrast with its European neighbours.

So far the UK has refused to match the EU’s decision to offer Ukrainians open sanctuary, instead operating a limited family reunification and humanitarian sponsorship system.

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‘We’re ready’: UK anti-fracking activists prepare to fight resurgence plans

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Boris Johnson’s suggestion practice could re-emerge after invasion of Ukraine has rallied campaigners

Anti-fracking campaigners have vowed to give energy firms “no peace” if the government lifts the moratorium on fracking, pledging “inconvenient and noisy” protests at every site.

Steve Mason, campaign director of Frack Free United, said there was an army of retired “geri-activists” ready to lie down and face prosecution for the cause again.

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Russia may pressure Serbia to undermine western Balkans, leaders warn

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Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina urge western leaders to ‘engage more actively and strongly’ in the region

Russia is likely to expand its confrontation with the west by pressuring Serbia into undermining the independence of Kosovo and other western Balkan states, regional leaders have warned in interviews with the Guardian.

They also called for the EU and Nato to speed up their approach to applications for membership from Balkans countries, and bolster defences against Russian interference.

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Ardern’s Labour party slips to second in New Zealand polling for first time since pandemic began

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Jacinda Ardern remains preferred prime minister but her party records worst polling since 2017 amid Covid surge and rising living costs

For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Jacinda Ardern-led Labour party has slipped from being New Zealand’s most popular and been overtaken by the right.

A new TVNZ/Kantar Public poll found the centre-right National party had surged by seven points to 39%, compared with Labour’s 37% – making it Labour’s lowest result in the poll since it was elected in 2017.

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Harry and Meghan add voices to fierce critique of west’s Covid vaccine policies

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Pair join Gordon Brown and 126 others in attack on ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’

Prince Harry and Meghan, the actor Charlize Theron and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown are among 130 signatories to a letter lambasting wealthy countries’ approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, labelling it “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure”.

In a strongly worded open letter published on Friday, the signatories warned “the pandemic is not over”, and said the failure to vaccinate the world was down to “self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality”.

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Global Covid-19 death toll ‘may be three times higher than official figures’

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Researchers studying ‘excess deaths’ estimate that more than 18 million people died of disease by end of 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic may have claimed 18.2 million lives around the world, more than three times the official death toll, a new study suggests.

The higher figure is a better estimate of the true global casualty figure to the end of 2021, according to an analysis by a consortium of health researchers published in the Lancet.

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UK imposes sanctions on Roman Abramovich over ‘clear’ links to Putin

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Chelsea FC owner one of seven Russians to have assets frozen and be accused of ‘having blood on their hands’

Roman Abramovich, one of the world’s richest men, was finally subjected to sanctions by the UK government after ministers accused him of having “clear connections” to Vladimir Putin’s regime and being among a group of businessmen who had “blood on their hands”.

The owner of Chelsea FC was one of seven Russians worth up to £15bn who had their assets frozen on Thursday and were banned from travelling to Britain in a move designed to dramatically increase pressure on the Kremlin over its invasion of Ukraine.

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‘Serious escalation’: US believes North Korea testing intercontinental missile

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Pyongyang launches were to test parts of intercontinental ballistic missile and not satellite surveillance system, US concludes

The US believes North Korea is testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in what the Biden administration called a “serious escalation” that would trigger more sanctions.

Pyongyang conducted two recent missile launches which it said were ultimately intended for putting satellites into space. After scrutinising them, however, US intelligence has assessed that the real intention was to test parts of the new ICBM.

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US Congress passes bill for $13.6bn in emergency aid to Ukraine– as it happened

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International Red Cross warning comes as UN says Mariupol maternity hospital was third of its kind destroyed since invasion; Vitali Klitschko says half of Kyiv’s population has left

The UK’s ministry of defence has also just released its latest intelligence report on the situation in Ukraine, seemingly corroborating Ukrainian authorities.

The ministry said there has been a “notable decrease in overall Russian air activity” over Ukraine in recent days, noting it is likely due to the “unexpected effectiveness and endurance” of Ukrainian air defence forces.

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Spain’s far-right Vox breaks through into regional government

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People’s party’s deal with extremist rivals in Castilla y León called ‘pact of shame’ by Socialists

The far-right Vox party is set to form part of a regional Spanish government for the first time after cutting a deal to run the north-western autonomous community of Castilla y León with its bitter rivals in the conservative People’s party (PP).

The deal, which comes almost a month after the PP’s decision to call regional elections failed to produce the absolute majority it had hoped for, follows weeks of wrangling amid a PP leadership crisis.

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US conducting ‘legal review’ of possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine – as it happened

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Maya Yang reports:

North Carolina Republican congressman Madison Cawthorn has been charged with driving with a revoked license for the second time.

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Drone footage shows ambush of Russian tanks by Ukrainian forces

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Armoured vehicles in built-up area about 22 miles from central Kyiv come under repeated attack

Dramatic drone footage emerged on Thursday of a Ukrainian ambush on a Russian armoured column just outside Brovary, an eastern suburb of Kyiv.

Bellingcat, the specialist open source investigator, said it had geolocated the video, to a lightly inhabited area on the E95 road about 35km (22 miles) from the centre of Kyiv, a direct route to the east of the capital where Russian forces have been trying to mass.

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