Category Archives: World News

Israel’s attack on hospital in Gaza may constitute a war crime on many fronts

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Double-tap strike suggests killing of civilians, rescue workers and journalists deliberate and not a mistake

Israel’s twin strike on the Nasser hospital in Gaza, which killed five journalists including staff working for the Associated Press, Reuters, NBC and Al Jazeera, is a potential violation of international law writ large.

The attack targeted a civilian building, specifically a hospital, in a reckless double-tap strike that killed civilians, with rescue workers and journalists among them. All categories that should be protected under international law.

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‘I can’t sleep, I can’t get on with my life’: how Europe’s tougher rules are keeping families apart

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Tighter family reunification laws are causing long separations, traumatising children, and can push people towards traffickers, campaigners say

Standing outside Germany’s parliament in June, Ahmad Shikh Ali fought back tears as he held up a blurry photo of his three-year-old son. Since fleeing Aleppo more than two years ago, Shikh Ali had done all he could to secure his son a safe future: moving to Hanover, getting full-time employment and wading through endless paperwork so that his wife and son could join him.

He was close to reuniting with his family, with just two cases in front of his in the queue. That was, until Germany’s lower house of parliament passed a bill in June to suspend family reunifications for migrants like him for at least two years.

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France summons US ambassador Charles Kushner over antisemitism allegations

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Kushner says in letter to Macron he’s concerned over ‘rise of antisemitism’ and ‘lack of sufficient action’ to confront it

France summoned the American ambassador Charles Kushner after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging France had failed to do enough to stem antisemitic violence, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

Kushner, who is Jewish and whose son is married to US President Donald Trump’s daughter, published the open letter in the Wall Street Journal amid deep divides between France and the US and Israel.

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‘No place is safe’: families flee Gaza City as Israel vows to press on with offensive

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Others refuse to leave as aircraft and tanks bomb outskirts of city where about half of Gaza’s 2m people now live

Israeli aircraft and tanks have pounded the eastern and northern outskirts of Gaza City, destroying buildings and homes, as Israeli leaders vowed to press on with an expanded large-scale offensive on the city.

Witnesses reported the sound of continuous explosions overnight from Saturday night into Sunday morning in the areas of Zeitoun and Shejaia. Meanwhile, tanks shelled houses and roads in the nearby Sabra neighbourhood and several buildings were blown up in the northern area of Jabaliya.

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Israeli strikes hit Yemen’s capital in retaliation for earlier Houthi attacks

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Health officials report dozens of casualties in Sana’a, including six deaths

Israeli strikes have hit the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in retaliation for Houthi missiles fired towards Israel, with Houthi health officials saying the attack had killed six people.

The strikes on Sunday were the latest in more than a year of direct attacks and counterstrikes between Israel and Houthi militants in Yemen, part of a spillover from the war in Gaza.

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Russia says Europe’s leaders don’t want peace in Ukraine as Vance says US will keep trying

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Russian foreign minister praises Trump’s effort and got defensive when asked if Putin was ‘stringing along’ Trump

Russia accused western European leaders on Sunday of not wanting peace in Ukraine, as Moscow’s most senior diplomat praised efforts by Donald Trump to end the war, while Vice-President JD Vance said the US would “keep on trying” to broker talks in the absence of a deal.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, made the comments during a sometimes contentious interview on NBC on Sunday morning, during which he denied his country had bombed civilian targets in Ukraine.

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Russia accuses Ukraine of strike on nuclear plant in wave of drone attacks

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Moscow says operating capacity of reactor at Kursk site reduced by 50% as Kyiv celebrates independence day

Moscow has accused Kyiv of launching dozens of drone attacks, including one that sparked a fire at a nuclear power plant, as Ukrainians marked 34 years since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.

The drone attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia, 37 miles (60km) from the border with Ukraine, caused damage to an auxiliary transformer and forced a 50% reduction in the operating capacity of a reactor, Russian authorities said. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the alleged attack.

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Heatwave that fuelled deadly wildfires was Spain’s ‘most intense on record’

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Country’s weather agency says 10-day period from 8-17 August was hottest since at least 1950, as fires still rage

A 16-day heatwave Spain suffered this month was “the most intense on record”, the country’s state meteorological agency (AEMET) has said.

Provisional readings for the 3-18 August heatwave exceeded the last record, set in July 2022, and showed an average temperature 4.6C higher than for previous such phenomena, the agency said on X.

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Declaration of famine in Gaza lays bare Israel’s disregard for humanitarian duty

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The IPC’s findings that a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are starving should mark an urgent turning point in this war

The declaration on Friday of widespread famine in Gaza by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) should mark a turning point in the war. The IPC, which represents a fastidious survey of available data, is regarded as the international gold standard in nutritional crises.

Long-criticised by humanitarians in other emergencies for its overabundance of caution, the IPC’s declaration of Level 5 – “catastrophic” hunger – in Gaza is a significant moment. Famine, under the IPC’s exacting criteria, requires three critical thresholds to be passed: extreme food deprivation, acute malnutrition and starvation-related deaths, all of which are now visible in Gaza.

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Former Sri Lankan president admitted to hospital after arrest

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Ranil Wickremesinghe, who faces charges of using public funds for private travel, treated for acute dehydration

Sri Lanka’s former president was admitted to hospital on Saturday, a day after he was charged with using public funds to finance private international travel, as the government intensified its crackdown on corruption.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, 76, was remanded in custody on Friday after being accused of using taxpayers’ money to pay for a two-day visit to the UK in September 2023 to attend a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton granting an honorary professorship to his wife.

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Family of UK aid volunteer reportedly killed in Ukraine ‘disappointed’ by Foreign Office

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Relatives of Annie Lewis Marffy in ‘red-tape limbo’ over recovery of her body and issuing of death certificate

The family of a British aid volunteer reportedly killed in a drone strike in Ukraine said they were very disappointed by the reaction from the Foreign Office.

Annie Lewis Marffy, 69, travelled from her home in Silverton, near Exeter in Devon in late May to deliver supplies packed into a green Toyota Rav4 in a mission arranged by the non-profit organisation Aid Ukraine UK. She was to take the vehicle in convoy with a British volunteer to Kramatorsk in the contested Donbas region.

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Dutch foreign minister quits over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

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Caspar Veldkamp resigns after cabinet reaches deadlock on adopting harsher measures over situation in Gaza

The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has resigned after a cabinet meeting failed to secure sanctions against Israel, weakening the Netherlands’ already fragile caretaker government.

Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party also walked out after the cabinet debate late on Friday reached an impasse over adopting harsher measures against Israel.

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North Korea accuses South Korea of ‘deliberate provocation’ after warning shots fired at soldiers on border

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Seoul says military fired warning shots on Tuesday after troops from the North briefly crossed border

South Korea fired warning shots at North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the heavily fortified border earlier this week, Seoul said on Saturday, after Pyongyang accused it of a “deliberate provocation” that risks “uncontrollable” tensions.

South Korea’s new leader Lee Jae Myung has sought warmer ties with the nuclear-armed North and vowed to build “military trust”, but Pyongyang has said it has no interest in improving relations with Seoul.

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Israeli children refused access to leisure park in southern France

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Manager of zipline facility detained for alleged religious discrimination after group of eight- to 18-year-olds turned away

The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children were refused access.

The children, aged eight to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the Tyrovol zipline adventure park in Porté-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenees mountains, the Perpignan prosecutor’s office said.

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Canada to drop counter-tariffs on some US goods one day after call with Trump

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Mark Carney says change will go into effect on 1 September but tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos will remain

Canada will drop its counter-tariffs on some American goods in the coming days, Mark Carney has said, as the country’s prime minister looks to end a protracted trade war with longtime ally the United States.

From 1 September, the Canadian government will remove some levies on US goods that comply with the North American free-trade pact, a move meant to “match” how the White House treated Canadian goods. Levies on steel, aluminum and autos will remain in place.

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Eswatini government faces court challenge over men deported by US

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Group of NGOs claim deal was unconstitutional and violated the imprisoned men’s human rights

A group of NGOs is challenging Eswatini’s acceptance of five people deported by the US, arguing the deal was unconstitutional and violated the imprisoned men’s human rights.

The men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, who the US said were dangerous criminals, were flown to the small southern African country in July, as the Trump administration attempts to deport millions of migrants and asylum seekers.

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Prigozhin knew he was ‘doomed’ after failed rebellion, says mother

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Violetta Prigozhina, 85, says she warned her son not to defy Putin’s authority before he was killed in a plane crash

The Russian warlord and businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin looked “doomed” after his failed mutiny and told his mother he expected to die in the days before his private plane crash.

Prigozhin, the founder of the notorious Wagner mercenary group, died when his business jet went down in the summer of 2023, two months after his fighters briefly seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and advanced towards Moscow in a short-lived rebellion against Russia’s military leadership.

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Ukraine attacks pipeline that sends Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia

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Hungary’s foreign minister claims missile strike on energy infrastructure is ‘another attempt to drag us into war’

Ukraine has hit a key pumping station on the Druzhba oil pipeline bringing fuel to Europe from Russia, knocking out supplies to Hungary and Slovakia, the only remaining EU member states still receiving Russian oil.

As Ukraine targets infrastructure crucial to Moscow’s war effort in response to the Russian onslaught, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, announced the attack on the Unecha pumping station in the Bryansk region.

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Trump administration accused of wanting to revoke visas ‘based on speech, not conduct’ – US politics live

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State department reviewing records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation

The US vice-president, JD Vance, previewed in Georgia on Thursday the lines of attack candidates will use to defend the president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the midterms next year, calling it “the biggest tax cut for families that this country has ever seen”.

Vance touted an increase in the child tax credit, the elimination of taxes on overtime and on tips in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act while speaking in a warehouse for ATLA Refrigeration in Peachtree City, Georgia.

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UN-backed experts declare famine in and around Gaza City

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IPC says famine is ‘entirely man-made’ and immediate response is needed or avoidable deaths will soar

An “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza’s largest city and its surrounding area, UN-backed experts have declared, in an escalation of the devastated territory’s humanitarian crisis.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a globally recognised organisation that classifies the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition, found that three key thresholds for famine had been met.

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