Category Archives: World News

More than 7,300 Afghans to be resettled in UK after MoD data leak, says National Audit Office

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Watchdog’s report says government is unable to calculate exact cost of response to data breach, raising doubt over £850m estimate

More than 7,300 Afghans are expected to be resettled in the UK as a result of a major government data breach, according to a National Audit Office report that raises doubts over officials’ claims of a £850m cost.

The accidental leak by an MoD official in 2022 of 18,700 Afghans’ details who had worked with or for the British government led to the opening of a new route by which those endangered could seek relocation to the UK from their home country.

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US conducts ‘kinetic strike’ against drug boat from Venezuela, killing 11, Trump says

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Trump says ‘we took it out’ referring to the operation in international waters, amid US-Caracas tensions

The US military has killed 11 drug traffickers from Venezuela during a “a kinetic strike” in the Caribbean Sea, the US president, Donald Trump, has claimed amid growing tensions between Washington and Caracas.

Trump trailed the announcement during an address at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the US had “just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out … a drug-carrying boat”.

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Argentina couple under house arrest amid search for painting stolen by Nazis

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Daughter of former Nazi official and her husband to be questioned after raid on home failed to find masterpiece

A federal court in Argentina has ordered house arrest for the daughter of a former Nazi official and her husband after a raid failed to locate a painting stolen from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam.

Authorities raided a home in the coastal city of Mar del Plata last week after a Dutch newspaper identified a painting seen in a real estate photo as an Italian masterpiece registered on a database of lost wartime art.

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Putin hails ties with China as Kim Jong-un arrives in Beijing on eve of parade

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Russian president says relations at ‘unprecedentedly high level’ as dozens of leaders gather for Victory Day events

Vladimir Putin has hailed Russia’s “unprecedentedly” high level of ties with China, as dozens of leaders including the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, arrived in Beijing on the eve of a massive military parade intended to showcase a Chinese-led global order.

Putin called China’s leader, Xi Jinping, a “dear friend” after the two held talks at the Great Hall of the People and then at Xi’s personal residence. “Our close communication reflects the strategic nature of Russia-China relations, which are at an unprecedentedly high level,” Putin told Xi, according to a video on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel. “We were always together then, and we remain together now.”

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Outcry as Swedish ‘cultural canon’ snubs Abba and anything since 1975

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Critics argue ‘shared map’ of Swedish culture is ‘very exclusionary’ and a ‘nationalist education project’

The Gustav Vasa 1541 bible, Pippi Longstocking, Ikea, the right to roam, paternity leave, Sámi joiks, the Nobel prize and works by Ingmar Bergman and August Strindberg all made it into Sweden’s long-awaited, much-criticised proposal for a “cultural canon”.

However, notable omissions from the list of 100 works and references that have formed Sweden’s culture and history – intended, its creators said in Uppsala on Tuesday, to establish a “shared map and compass” for Swedish citizens and new arrivals to Sweden – included Abba and anything from after 1975, a period that has seen Sweden transform into an international, multicultural society.

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Margaret Atwood releases short story critiquing book bans in Canada

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Author quipped she wrote ‘suitable’ piece after Alberta school ban included her novel The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood has released a new short story critiquing elected officials for a wide-ranging book ban in the Canadian province of Alberta. The controversial decision to remove books purportedly containing “explicit sexual content” has seen numerous works of literature swept up in the dragnet, including Atwood’s dystopian work The Handmaid’s Tale.

In a social media post, Atwood wrote that since her famed work was no longer permissible in Alberta schools, she had written a “suitable” short work for teens, adding the work was necessary because the province’s minister of education thought students were “stupid babies”.

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Modi’s warm meeting with Xi shows impact of Trump’s ‘tariff tantrum’

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China seizes on opportunity for geopolitical realignment after India was hit with one of US’s harshest trade penalties

They stood together like old friends, heads thrown back in jovial laughter, clutching one another’s hands affectionately. Except this was no ordinary gathering of three men, but a meeting of three of the most powerful non-western leaders: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.

The overt displays of intimacy were widely regarded by observers as a telling message of defiance aimed at their western counterparts, in particular Donald Trump, who just a few days earlier had slapped India with 50% import tariffs, among the harshest of the US president’s trade penalties.

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Five children in Gaza among those killed by Israeli strike while fetching water

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Latest attack comes as Israel’s military urges people to leave Gaza City with 60,000 more reservists to be called up

At least nine people, including five children, have been killed in an Israeli strike while fetching water in al-Mawasi, an area of southern Gaza which Israel has designated as a safe zone, health officials said.

A doctor from al-Nasser hospital shared a picture of the children’s bodies in the hospital, as well as a picture of water jugs left in a pool of blood at the site of the attack on Tuesday.

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Belgium to recognise Palestinian state at UN and sanction Israel – as it happened

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Foreign minister says move is not aimed at Israeli people but ‘ensuring their government respects international and humanitarian law’. This live blog is closed

At least 63,633 Palestinian people have been killed and 160,914 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

At least 76 Palestinian people, including 12 aid seekers, were killed in the last 24 hours alone, the ministry said.

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Italy considers hiding state flight paths after jamming of von der Leyen plane

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EU member states debate how to make leaders’ flights more secure as Russia blamed for GPS loss

Italy is considering keeping state flights secret after the satellite signal of the aircraft carrying the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, was allegedly jammed by Russia, Italian defence ministry sources said.

Von der Leyen, a fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Moscow’s war in Ukraine, was flying to Bulgaria on Sunday when her charter plane lost satellite navigation aids, delaying its arrival in Plovdiv, and reportedly forcing it to circle an airport for an hour.

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Sudan landslide kills at least 1,000 people, rebel group says

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Landslide destroyed a village in the Marra mountains area of western Sudan and left only one survivor

More than 1,000 people were killed in a landslide in western Sudan on Sunday, according to a rebel group that controls the area.

The landslide, which followed heavy rain, destroyed the village of Tarasin in the Marra mountains area of western Sudan and left only one survivor, said the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM).

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Jair Bolsonaro faces justice over alleged attempt to usurp Brazilian democracy

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Former president in court along with seven others accused of failed power grab after losing 2022 election

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and seven of his allies, including four senior members of the military, have gone on trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup – the first time in Brazilian history such powerful figures have faced justice for seeking to topple the country’s democracy.

Bolsonaro, a paratrooper turned far-right populist who governed from 2019 until 2023, stands accused of masterminding a failed power grab after losing the 2022 election to the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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Kim Jong-un arrives for Beijing military parade on special armoured train

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Slow but specialised form of transport has been used by the reclusive country’s leaders for decades

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has arrived in Beijing on his signature green train to attend a military parade in China celebrating the formal surrender of Japan in the second world war.

Kim left Pyongyang for China on Monday.

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Whisky maker Suntory’s CEO resigns amid investigation into suspected illegal supplements

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Takeshi Niinami bought supplements in the belief that they were legal, says Jim Beam and Laphroaig owner

Takeshi Niinami, one of Japan’s best-known business leaders, has resigned as chief executive of the drinks company Suntory after police raided his home as part of an investigation into suspected illegal supplements.

His resignation from the owner of the Jim Beam whisky brand has sent shockwaves through Japan’s corporate world, with Suntory executives attempting to reassure investors and consumers at a hastily arranged news conference.

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Archaeologists in Peru discover 3D mural that could date back 4,000 years

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The unprecedented find has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the Americas

Archaeologists in Peru have discovered a multicoloured three-dimensional mural that could date back 4,000 years, in an unprecedented find that has shifted archaeological understanding about the first civilisations in the Americas.

The centrepiece of the three-by-six metre mural is a stylistic depiction of a large bird of prey with outstretched wings, its head adorned with three-dimensional diamond motifs that visually align the south and north faces of the mural. It is covered with high-relief friezes and features designs painted in blue, yellow, red and black.

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Twenty missing in Indonesia protests, rights group says

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Mass protests first erupted last week, prompted by anger over the perks and benefits given to lawmakers, including a controversial housing allowance

At least 20 people are missing following violent protests that have gripped cities across Indonesia over the past week, a human rights group has warned.

Mass protests first erupted on 25 August, prompted by anger over the perks and benefits given to lawmakers, including a controversial housing allowance. Public fury escalated further when a motorcycle taxi driver, 21-year-old Affan Kurniawan, was run over by a police vehicle at a protest site.

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Nestlé fires CEO after investigation into ‘undisclosed romantic relationship’

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Company, which owns brands including KitKat, replaces Laurent Freixe with Philipp Navratil

Nestlé has dismissed its chief executive, Laurent Freixe, after an investigation into an “undisclosed romantic relationship” with a subordinate that was found to have breached its code of business conduct.

The Swiss-headquartered multinational, which owns consumer goods brands including KitKat chocolate, Häagen-Dazs ice-cream and Nespresso coffee capsules, named Philipp Navratil as his replacement.

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Guatemala says it is willing to receive hundreds of deported children from US

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Announcement comes a day after a US federal judge halted the deportation of 10 unaccompanied Guatemalan minors

Guatemala is ready and willing to receive about 150 unaccompanied children of all ages each week from the United States, the country’s president has said, a day after a US federal judge halted the deportation of 10 Guatemalan children.

Those children had already boarded a plane when a court responded to an emergency appeal on Sunday. They were later returned to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

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Climate change kills, Spanish PM tells deniers at launch of plan to tackle crisis

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Pedro Sánchez says country’s deadly August wildfires show society needs to mobilise and take immediate action

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for the climate emergency, warning: “If we don’t want to bequeath our children a Spain that’s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that’s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that’s greener.”

Sánchez said August’s heatwave-fuelled wildfires – which killed four people, burned through an area six times the size of Ibiza and required “the biggest human and technical deployment” ever seen in Spain – showed that immediate action must be taken to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.

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Bristol returns cultural artefacts taken from Larrakia people in Australia

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Objects including three-metre spears were collected in late 19th and early 20th centuries and donated to city’s museum

For decades, they have languished in storage in the basement of a museum in the English West Country. Finally, an extraordinary collection of weapons and ceremonial objects taken from the Larrakia people more than a century ago is beginning a winding journey home to the saltwater landscapes of the Northern Territory in Australia.

During an emotionally charged ceremony, Bristol city council formally handed over 33 objects including spears that would have been used to hunt creatures from fish to buffalo, some still gleaming with the red ochre used to decorate them.

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