Category Archives: World News

MPs seeking ‘fast-track’ freeze on oligarchs’ assets before formal sanctions

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Amendment to the economic crime bill comes after criticism that UK has been slower to act than US or EU

Russian oligarchs suspected of having links to Vladimir Putin could have their UK assets seized even before the British authorities have completed formal steps to impose sanctions, under far-reaching plans tabled for debate in parliament on Monday.

The move – put forward in an amendment to the economic crime bill by former Tory cabinet minister David Davis and backed by a cross-party group of MPs – would, if passed, amount to the toughest action yet to clamp down on illicit Russian cash in the UK.

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Feud over ‘antisemitic’ Wailing Wall painting closes Israel museum

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Exhibited artists cover up their work in protest after piece portraying ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is removed

Four overlapping black and white rectangles make up Israeli artist David Reeb’s painting Jerusalem. On two, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is portrayed praying at the Western Wall – known also as the Wailing Wall – from two different angles, his hands pressed against the stone. Opposite the images, thick brushstrokes spell out phrases in Hebrew: “Jerusalem of gold”, the title of a nationalistic song – and “Jerusalem of shit”.

The work was among several explicitly political, daring pieces featured in an exhibition that opened in December at the newly renovated Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art near Tel Aviv.

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How one man’s love of isolation put an Italian ghost town on the map

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Abandoned hamlet’s last remaining resident is now its unofficial guide. Our writer joins him for a tour

Giuseppe Spagnuolo wakes up at about 6am each day, eats the leftovers of the previous night’s dinner for breakfast, greets the stray cats he calls his “security guards” and clambers down the steps of his crumbling home to splash his face with water from the fountain in the square. Occasionally, he walks up to the next village, if his “aches and pains” allow, for coffee in the bar.

For 25 years, Spagnuolo has been the only inhabitant in Roscigno Vecchia, a long-abandoned hamlet 400m up a mountain in the Cilento area of Italy’s southern Campania region. “If you’ve experienced the school of life like I have, then you can easily live this way,” the 74-year-old said, sitting in front of the fire in his kitchen, which is cluttered with pots, pans, bottles of wine, tinned tomatoes, cheese and hanging salamis.

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Tens of thousands join rallies around the world in support of Ukraine

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Demonstrators gathered in cities across Europe, the US and South America to demand an end to Russia’s invasion

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in cities including Santiago, Vancouver Paris and New York in support of Ukraine, demanding an end to Russia’s invasion.

The protesters rallied on Saturday against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attack, which began on 24 February and appeared to be entering a new phase with escalating bombardment.

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Visa and Mastercard will both suspend operations in Russia

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Transactions to be cut off after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged companies to take action

Visa and Mastercard have announced tonight they will be suspending operations in Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

Visa said in a statement that it would cut off transactions “over the coming days” and consequently cards issued in Russia would not work abroad as well as foreign issued cards in Russia.

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Defiant Putin warns the west: your sanctions are akin to an act of war

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Ukraine told: your statehood is in doubt as Russian bombs end ceasefire in Mariupol

Vladimir Putin delivered a chilling warning to the west over the imposition of sanctions on Russia on Saturday, warning that measures designed to cripple his country’s economy were “akin to an act of war”.

In comments that were both defiant and threatening, the Russian president also told Ukraine’s leaders that their nation risked being dismantled as an independent sovereign state if they continued to resist Russia’s invasion.

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Sydney is no place to build a Māori meeting house – it is disrespectful to Aboriginal people | Morgan Godfery

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Marae embody deep connections to the land and are a statement of indigeneity – but Māori aren’t indigenous in Australia

When most New Zealanders hear the term “marae” they think of the typical Māori meeting house.

The angular facade, decorated in red and white carvings, and the open space for the “encounter” where guests arrive in the warmth of welcome, in the grief of a tangi (funeral), or in the uncertainty of a disagreement.

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Ukraine: UN says more than 1.3 million have fled since Russian invasion began

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United Nations calling exodus Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since end of second world war

More than 1.3 million Ukrainians have crossed borders since the Russian invasion started on the 24 February in what the United Nations is now calling Europe’s fastest-moving refugee crisis since the end of the second world war.

Figures released today by the United Nation’s Refugee Agency (UNHCR) show that to date 1.37 million people have fled Ukraine into neighbouring European countries after the military offensive ordered by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

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Russia-Ukraine war latest: western sanctions akin to declaration of war, says Putin; Russia and Ukraine to hold third round of talks on Monday – live

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Vladimir Putin criticises economic sanctions imposed on Russia, and warns western countries against implementing a no-fly zone over Ukraine

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said 66,224 Ukrainian men had returned from abroad to help fight against Russia’s invasion.

That’s how many men returned from abroad at this moment to defend their country from the horde. These are 12 more combat and motivated brigades! Ukrainians, we are invincible,” Reznikov said in statement posted online.

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Mariupol evacuation postponed as Russia accused of breaking ceasefire

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Local authorities in Ukrainian city ask residents to return to shelters and wait for further information

Authorities in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol have said an evacuation of civilians has been postponed because Russian forces encircling the city were not respecting an agreed ceasefire.

In a statement, the city council asked residents to return to shelters in the city and wait for further information on evacuation.

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As 1.3 million people flee, Ukraine’s refugee crisis is only just beginning

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Analysis: despite the EU’s solidarity in helping those escaping war, aid agencies are overwhelmed with many people stuck at borders

Just over a week after Russian rockets first began to slam into Ukraine, more than 1.3 million people have fled over the borders of neighbouring European countries into a frightening and uncertain future. What we are witnessing, the United Nations has warned, is the largest refugee crisis in a century.

All week, the world has watched families fighting to board trains in chaotic crowds, fathers kissing their children goodbye through car windows, and seen the shock and exhaustion on the faces of those who have made it to safety.

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First female judge presides over hearing at top court in Egypt

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Radwa Helmi sits on bench of state council, marking ‘historic’ step along road to equality

Radwa Helmi has made history as the first female judge to sit on the bench of Egypt’s state council, a top court in the Arab country.

Helmi, making her appearance in a Cairo courthouse, was among 98 women appointed last year to join the council, one of Egypt’s main judicial bodies, after a decision by the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

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‘We understand what war means’: Poles rush to aid Ukraine’s refugees

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Ordinary citizens are volunteering time and money – but the pleas for the government to do more are getting urgent

In a giant food depot in Poland, a few miles from the border with Belarus, thousands of people, many of them women and children wrapped in woollen blankets, are crammed together in corridors and hallways. As Polish locals and volunteers frantically work alongside soldiers to try to distribute food and water to those most in need, buses pull up outside carrying more shellshocked and exhausted people needing help.

There is no attempt to register the new arrivals. There is no time. Just over a week since Russia invaded Ukraine, those working here know that this crisis has just begun. Since the violence began, more than 650,000 people have crossed into Poland, leaving their lives behind and becoming refugees.

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UK nationals should leave Russia while they can, Foreign Office says

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Website update advises Britons to ‘consider leaving by remaining commercial routes’

The UK government has urged British nationals in Russia whose presence is “not essential” to consider leaving the country amid the mounting crisis in Ukraine.

The Foreign Office said it had updated its travel advice to say that Britons who can should use the remaining commercial routes to leave Russia.

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Italy seizes yachts and villas from Russian oligarchs, say state sources

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Authorities clamp down on wealthy individuals placed on EU sanctions list over Russian invasion of Ukraine

Italian police have seized villas and yachts worth at least €140m (£126m) from four high-profile Russians who were placed on an EU sanctions list after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sources said on Saturday.

A police source said a villa owned by the billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov on Sardinia, and a villa on Lake Como owned by the Russian state TV host Vladimir Soloviev, had both been seized.

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China sets lowest economic growth target in decades at annual meeting

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Premier Li Keqiang warns of risks in economic outlook as the coronavirus, a property slump and uncertainty in Ukraine play out

China has set its lowest annual GDP target in decades, as premier Li Keqiang warned of a “grave and uncertain” outlook against the backdrop of the coronavirus, a slowing economy and uncertainty over the war in Ukraine.

Li announced on Saturday the unusually modest target of about 5.5% growth for 2022 – the lowest since 1991 – in an address to about 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People.

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Afghan journalist Zahra Joya among Time’s women of the year

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Now a refugee in the UK, Joya and the Rukhshana Media agency defied threats to report on life for women under the Taliban

The Afghan journalist Zahra Joya has been named as one of Time’s women of the year 2022 for her reporting of women’s lives in Afghanistan through her news agency, Rukhshana Media.

Now living as a refugee in the UK, Joya continues to run Rukhshana Media from exile, publishing the reporting of her team of female journalists across Afghanistan on life for women under Taliban rule.

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‘When I surf I feel so strong’: Sri Lankan women’s quiet surfing revolution

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Women and girls have challenged conservative attitudes in the hallowed surf spot of Arugam Bay

Growing up in a small fishing village along the east coast of Sri Lanka, Shamali Sanjaya would often sit on the beach and look out at the boisterous waves. She would watch in envy as others, including her father and brother, grabbed surfboards, paddled out into the sea and then rode those waves smoothly back to shore. “I longed for it in my heart,” she said.

But as a local woman, surfing was strictly out of bounds for her. In Sri Lanka’s conservative society, the place for women was at the home and it was only the men, or female tourists, who were allowed to ride the hallowed waves in Arugam Bay, considered Sri Lanka’s best surf spot.

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Reporter killed in Mexico to become seventh journalist killing this year

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Juan Carlos Muñiz, who covered crime for Testigo Minero, killed in Fresnillo as website says ‘this social breakdown …is out of control’

A journalist has been killed in the central Mexican state of Zacatecas, becoming the seventh killed in the country so far this year.

Juan Carlos Muñiz, who covered crime for the online news site Testigo Minero in Fresnillo, was killed on Friday, according to the state governor David Monreal.

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Sky News journalists evacuated after being shot at by Russian ‘death squad’

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Footage shows team’s vehicle being attacked by a Russian ambush squad on Monday near Kyiv

A Sky News crew has been evacuated back to the UK from Ukraine after journalists were shot during an ambush by a suspected Russian “death squad” on Monday.

The team of five were attacked while out in a car, after unsuccessfully trying to visit the town of Bucha near Kyiv.

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