Category Archives: World News

EU to ban Russian state-backed channels RT and Sputnik

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Ursula von der Leyen says stations will ‘no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war’

The EU has announced it will ban the Russian state-backed channels RT and Sputnik in an unprecedented move against the Kremlin media machine.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union. So we are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe.”

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Russian strategic slips lift Ukrainian morale, but should not obscure broader picture

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While the botched assault on Hostomel and the failure to take Kharkiv have surprised some commentators, these are but the opening salvos

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has so far been curiously uncoordinated, even haphazard, in its first four days – prompting fears that Kremlin may adopt more brutal and deadly methods to achieve victory at a higher cost.

Military analysts have been surprised by what they see as repeated errors, perhaps reflecting Vladimir Putin’s mistaken belief that Ukrainians had an underlying affinity with Russia and would simply acquiesce in the fall of Volodymyr Zelenskiy once Moscow’s troops rolled in.

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Putin’s nuclear posturing requires west to tread extremely carefully

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Challenge for Nato is to maintain support for Ukraine while making clear Russian leader has way out of crisis

Successive generations have experienced what it is like to feel the shadow of nuclear annihilation loom over their daily lives, from the Cuban crisis of 1962, to the missile standoff in Europe in the 1980s. This is shaping up to be our turn.

“I’ll be honest – I’m nervous,” Pavel Podvig, one of the world’s leading experts on Russian nuclear forces, said after Vladimir Putin declared a “special mode of combat duty of the deterrence forces”.

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‘A watershed moment’: EU shuts down airspace to Russia and finances weapons for Ukraine – video

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For the first time ever, the European Union will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons to a country under attack, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said, as she announced the bloc's commitment to supporting the Ukrainian war effort against Russia.

The EU will also shut down its airspace for any and all Russian aircraft and in another unprecedented step ruled it would ban Russian-state backed television channels RT and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, so that the Kremlin media machine 'will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union'

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Revealed: leaked files show how Ericsson allegedly helped bribe Islamic State

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Telecoms giant’s internal investigators uncover allegations it was involved in corruption in at least 10 countries

Confidential documents have revealed how the telecoms giant Ericsson is alleged to have helped pay bribes to the Islamic State terrorist group in order to continue selling its services after the militants seized control of large parts of Iraq.

The leak of internal investigations at Ericsson, which also found that the firm had put its contractors at risk and allowed them to be kidnapped by the militants, is potentially damaging for the multinational.

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Republican Tom Cotton refuses four times to condemn Trump on Ukraine

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The Republican senator Tom Cotton refused four times on Sunday to condemn or even comment on Donald Trump’s repeated praise for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

“If you want to know what Donald Trump thinks about Vladimir Putin or any other topic,” Cotton told ABC’s This Week, “I’d encourage you to invite him on your show. I don’t speak on behalf of other politicians. They can speak for themselves.”

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People gather around the world to show solidarity with Ukraine – video

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Thousands of people have gathered in cities around the world to show their support for Ukraine as Russia continues its invasion. More than 100,000 gathered in Berlin bearing signs reading 'stop the war', 'Putin's last war' and 'we stand with Ukraine'. From Tel Aviv to Tbilisi, demonstrators have let their disgust at Vladimir Putin's actions be known as the conflict continues to escalate

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Ukraine appeals for foreign volunteers to join fight against Russia

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President Zelenskiy issues call to arms to foreign nationals in battle against ‘Russian war criminals’

Ukraine’s embattled president has issued a call to foreign nationals who are “friends of peace and democracy” to travel to the country to fight against the Russian invasion.

The appeal from Volodymyr Zelenskiy, published on the Ukrainian presidency’s website early on Sunday, said the Ukrainian armed forces were in the process of setting up a foreign legion unit for international volunteers.

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Fighting on streets of Kharkiv after Russian tanks enter Ukrainian city – video

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Scenes from Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, show Ukrainian soldiers fighting on street corners with rocket-propelled grenades. Other videos show an alleged Russian convoy that was stopped by Ukrainian soldiers, tanks driving through residential areas and various missile fragments stuck in ground near residential buildings

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Macron to launch re-election race, as rivals face pro-Russia allegations

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The war in Ukraine is the biggest international crisis to overshadow a presidential race in decades

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is expected to launch his campaign for re-election this week in a race shaken by the war in Ukraine, with key candidates under attack over previous pro-Russia stances.

Macron has left the official declaration of his candidacy to the last minute because of the war, but he must make a move before the 4 March deadline to register.

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Scholz announces €100bn rise in German defence spending after Russia’s Ukraine invasion – video

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Germany departed from longstanding policy again on Sunday with chancellor Olaf Scholz announcing the government would invest more than 2% of GDP in the military from its 2022 budget. He praised Russians who protested against the invasion for their bravery 

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Hundreds of thousands of refugees flee Ukraine as fighting escalates – video

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People are fleeing to Ukraine's borders with EU countries as they try to escape the invasion from Russia. The UN refugee agency is warning that as many as 5 million Ukrainians could leave

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Russia-Ukraine war latest news: US condemns Putin’s nuclear deterrence order; rouble crashes as markets open – live updates

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Vladimir Putin said nuclear move came after aggressive statements by Nato countries; satellite images show ground forces heading to capital; Ukrainian president says two sides to meet on Belarus border

Ukrainians are waking for the fourth day since Russia invaded and words of defiance are dominating social media this morning.

“It’s another morning in Ukraine and Russia still can’t advance in Kyiv,” Illia Ponomarenko, defence reporter at the Kyiv Independent writes.

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‘I’m a dead man walking’: ex-Russian spy says defectors in UK are at risk

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A Latvian double agent is getting death threats after British authorities inadvertently disclosed his alias

• Russia-Ukraine crisis: latest updates

In April 1997, Vechernyaya Moskva, one of the most popular newspapers in Moscow, published an article on a former Russian intelligence agent, Boris Karpichkov.

The article was illustrated with a picture of Karpichkov’s KGB identity papers, with the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle superimposed. It warned that the ex-KGB major was wanted by Interpol, faced interrogation by the Russian authorities and was being hunted by organised crime groups.

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The student, the Penguin and the king: elite Thai university roiled by dissent

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Head of student union forced out as debate on monarchy intensifies

Just a few years ago, student activism and protests were a rarity at Chulalongkorn University – considered Thailand’s most elite and staunchly conservative campus. Yet Thailand’s oldest university, named after King Chulalongkorn, has since become yet another battleground for debate over the role of Thailand’s monarchy and political system.

On Saturday, the head of the student union, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, said he had been removed from his post by the university, which accused him of activities that damaged its reputation, undermined public order and were incompatible with Thai culture.

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Reviled, harassed, abused: Narenda Modi’s most trenchant critic speaks out

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The Indian journalist Rana Ayyub speaks about the campaign to silence her that has led to charges of sedition and ‘defaming Hindus’

When I talked to the journalist Rana Ayyub in her Mumbai home last Wednesday she was calmer than she was when I had spoken to her three days earlier. But that is not saying much. Last Sunday her words were jumbled, her voice on edge. She said she had not slept. That she could not eat or keep food down. That she had had thoughts of self-harm.

“I was on a plane yesterday and I said to my brother, ‘Can you feel me sitting next to me?’ And he said, ‘Have you completely lost it?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m just not sure I’m sitting next to you. I feel like I’m in a dream.’ And afterwards, I spoke to my psychiatrist and she said, ‘You’re dissociating. You’ve had a traumatic experience –that’s your brain shutting down.’”

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Doomed ship of gold’s ghostly picture gallery is plucked from the seabed

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Eerie photographs recovered from the 1857 wreck of the SS Central America are now being published for the first time

It is one of the most famous treasure wrecks ever discovered, a steamer named the “ship of gold” after it sank in 1857 off the coast of South Carolina with one of the largest cargoes of gold ever lost at sea. Miners who had struck it rich in the California gold rush were among those bringing home to New York their hard-earned wealth, only to lose their lives when the SS Central America was struck by a hurricane, sinking nearly a mile and a half beneath the waves.

When nuggets, ingots and coins were recovered from the seabed in various expeditions between 1988 and 2014, the world was dazzled. But, with reported values of tens of millions of pounds, it sparked a complex legal case that landed its original treasure-hunter in jail.

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Ukraine: what will China do? There are signs it is uneasy about Putin’s methods

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Analysis: Beijing has held off from backing Russia, raising questions about the extent of any partnership

China’s decision to abstain on Friday night at the end of the UN security council vote condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine may be a source of deep frustration in the west, but it will also send a nervous tremor through the Russian ministry of foreign affairs that China’s protection is not unconditional.

UK-based diplomats, looking at the stance adopted by China in the middle of the week, were expecting Beijing to join Russia in voting against the US-sponsored motion, but in common with the United Arab Emirates and India, it abstained, leaving Russia isolated in deploying its veto power as a permanent member of the security council.

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Fighting on streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, as west bars Russian banks from Swift

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Russian troops enter key city after attacks on oil facilities as western allies agree to block major Russian banks from international payment system

The war in Ukraine intensified on Sunday, as Russian troops entered the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and Vladimir Putin unleashed a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities.

Kharkiv residents were urged to stay indoors by governor Oleg Sinegubov, who said “there has been a breakthrough in light equipment including in the central part of the city”. A nine-storey building was reportedly hit, with one woman killed.

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