Category Archives: World News

China floods: more than 30 killed in Beijing and tens of thousands evacuated

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Authorities relocated 80,000 residents from China’s capital after registering rainfall of up to 543mm in some districts

More than 30 people have been killed by heavy rain and flooding in Beijing and a neighbouring region, state media have reported, as tens of thousands more were evacuated from China’s capital.

State broadcaster CCTV said that as of midnight on Monday, 28 people had died in Beijing’s hard-hit Miyun district and two others in Yanqing district as of midnight. Both are outlying parts of the sprawling city, far from the downtown.

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Colombia’s former president Álvaro Uribe found guilty of witness tampering

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Ex-leader convicted over efforts to sway testimony in case tied to country’s armed conflict

A Colombian court has found the country’s former president Álvaro Uribe guilty of witness tampering.

The 73-year-old, who served as president from 2002 to 2010, was convicted on Monday of trying to persuade witnesses to lie for him in a separate investigation. He faces a 12-year prison sentence in a case that has become highly politicised.

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Trump cuts deadline for Putin to reach Ukraine peace deal to ‘10 or 12 days’

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US president expresses frustration with Putin after meeting with UK PM amid pressure on Russia for ceasefire

Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.

“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting. There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”

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Saudi Arabia and France to lead UN push for recognising Palestinian statehood

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Two countries open three-day conference at United Nations with goal as part of peaceful settlement to end war in Gaza

Saudi Arabia and France have opened a three-day conference at the United Nations with the goal of recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peaceful settlement to end the war in Gaza.

The conference began on Monday, just days after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Paris would officially recognise the Palestinian government in September in an effort to reinvigorate peace talks around a two-state solution that have all but been written off since the deadly Hamas raid and ensuing Israeli military operation that began in 2023.

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Von der Leyen ducks Trump’s trade blitz – but deal exposes EU’s faultlines

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Europe may have staved off an economic clash, but the compromise leaves the bloc facing higher tariffs and internal discord

There is no doubt that Ursula von der Leyen was under intense pressure on Sunday when she sat next to Donald Trump in the ballroom at his Turnberry golf course before what EU officials knew would be a gruelling round of trade talks.

As the European Commission president emerged less than an hour later to announce that the worst of Trump’s tariff threats had been avoided, the recriminations from inside the EU began almost immediately.

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Aid deliveries a ‘drop in the ocean’ amid Gaza’s desperate hunger, UN says, as Israel resumes military pause – as it happened

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UN says ‘vast amounts of aid’ needed to prevent catastrophic health crisis in Gaza

At least 43 Palestinian people have been killed across Gaza since dawn, including nine people seeking aid, Al Jazeera is reporting, citing hospital sources.

More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli fire while trying to get aid, most of them near Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food distribution sites, during its two months in Gaza, the UN says.

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Angela Rayner: No 10 officials guilty of ‘self-harm’ by briefing against ministers

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Exclusive: Deputy PM hits out at targeting of herself and others – often women – with negative headlines

Angela Rayner has hit back at anonymous No 10 officials who have briefed against senior cabinet ministers in recent months, warning them they are committing “self-harm”.

The deputy prime minister launched an outspoken defence of herself and other colleagues – often women – who have found themselves the subject of negative headlines in recent months, with several being tipped for the sack at a future reshuffle.

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Israel committing genocide in Gaza, say Israel-based human rights groups

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Reports detailing intentional targeting of Palestinians as a group, and systemic destruction of Palestinian society, add to pressure for action

Two leading human rights organisations based in Israel, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, say Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the country’s western allies have a legal and moral duty to stop it.

In reports published on Monday, the two groups said Israel had targeted civilians in Gaza only because of their identity as Palestinians over nearly two years of war, causing severe and in some cases irreparable damage to Palestinian society.

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Christopher Nolan criticised for filming in occupied Western Sahara city

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Organisers of local film festival warn production of The Odyssey in Dakhla could normalise repression by Morocco

The organisers of the Western Sahara international film festival (FiSahara) have criticised Christopher Nolan for shooting part of his adaptation of the Odyssey in a Western Saharan city that has been under Moroccan occupation for 50 years, warning the move could serve to normalise decades of repression.

The British-American film-maker’s take on Homer’s epic, which stars Matt Damon, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o and Anne Hathaway, is due to be released on 17 July 2026.

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Weather tracker: Cooldown in sight for south-east Europe after scorching heatwave

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Refreshing northerly airmass to bring abrupt end to extreme heat, offering respite for residents and firefighters

After enduring a relentless stretch of searing temperatures, relief is finally in sight for south-east Europe. The Balkans, which have been scorched by a brutal heatwave over recent weeks, have seen daily maximum temperatures soar, culminating in a peak on Saturday with widespread temperatures of 40C (104F) and above across Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria and neighbouring regions.

Turkey also suffered, with a scorching 50.5C (122.9F) recorded in Silopi on Friday, the country’s all-time highest maximum temperature. Now these places are set to experience a dramatic cooldown as a refreshing northerly airmass is moving in, bringing an abrupt end to the extreme heat and offering much-needed respite.

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New Zealand attorney general warns her government’s electoral reform could breach human rights law

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Judith Collins also said the controversial electoral law reform could disenfranchise Māori

New Zealand’s prime minister Christopher Luxon has defended his government’s plans to overhaul its electoral laws, despite warnings from his own attorney general the changes could breach human rights law and disenfranchise more than 100,000 voters.

The right-wing government last week announced its plan to shake up electoral laws it said were “outdated and unsustainable”, including closing voter enrolment 13 days before election day, reinstating a total ban on prisoner voting and prohibiting anyone from providing free food, drink or entertainment within 100 metres of a voting station.

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At least three people killed after train derails in southern Germany

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Regional passenger train carrying about 100 people derails near Riedlingen, leaving more people seriously injured

Three people were killed and several others injured when a regional passenger train derailed in a wooded area in southwestern Germany on Sunday, police said.

About 100 passengers were onboard the train when the accident occurred at about 6.10 pm local time near the town of Riedlingen in Baden-Wüerttemberg state.

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Starmer faces difficult task persuading Trump to take different path on Gaza

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PM will be hoping to convince Trump to push Netanyahu to revive peace talks when UK and US leaders meet on Monday

Moments after Air Force One touched down at Prestwick on Friday for a trip in which politics will take as big a billing as golf, Donald Trump was asked about his relationship with Keir Starmer.

“I like your prime minister. He’s slightly more liberal than I am, as you’ve probably heard. But he’s a good man,” the US president told reporters. At a time when the UK wants Trump’s ear on numerous weighty issues, his response to questions about the “special relationship” will have given Downing Street some reassurance.

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Mother of British victim of Air India crash left ‘heartbroken’ by casket error

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Amanda Donaghey provided DNA to officials in Ahmedabad but wrong remains were flown to the UK

The mother of one of the British victims of the Air India crash says her family is “heartbroken” after the wrong remains were sent home in his casket.

Air India’s London-bound Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a medical college hostel seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad on 12 June, killing 241 people onboard.

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Spanish teenager investigated on suspicion of creating AI-generated nude videos

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Modified images of minors appear on social media account allegedly owned by 17-year-old

Police in eastern Spain are investigating a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of using artificial intelligence to create and share fake nude images of his female schoolmates that he intended to sell online.

Guardia Civil officers in the Ribera Alta area of Valencia began investigating in December last year after a female student reported the creation of a social media account in her name that featured an AI-generated video.

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Keir Starmer to urge Trump to resume US role in Gaza ceasefire talks

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No 10 sources say PM is ‘horrified’ by crisis and hopes to convince US to help end ‘unspeakable suffering’

Keir Starmer will personally press Donald Trump to revive ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas when they meet on Monday amid growing international alarm over the starvation crisis in Gaza.

The prime minister is expected to ask the US president, who is on a four-day break in Scotland, to push for a resumption of peace talks after the US and Israel withdrew their negotiation teams from Qatar.

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Spanish discovery suggests Roman era ‘church’ may have been a synagogue

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Oil lamp fragments point to presence of previously unknown Jewish population in Ibero-Roman town of Cástulo

Seventeen centuries after they last burned, a handful of broken oil lamps could shed light on a small and long-vanished Jewish community that lived in southern Spain in the late Roman era as the old gods were being snuffed out by Christianity.

Archaeologists excavating the Ibero-Roman town of Cástulo, whose ruins lie near the present-day Andalucían town of Linares, have uncovered evidence of an apparent Jewish presence there in the late fourth or early fifth century AD.

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‘Really cautious’: why the ICJ is delaying a Gaza genocide verdict

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While Palestinians starve and global opinion hardens, judgment from international court may not come until 2027 – or later

While Palestinians in Gaza die in ever-increasing numbers from starvation each day and a growing number of legal scholars, aid officials and politicians have begun describing Israel’s actions as genocide, a definitive ruling on the question by the world’s top court will be a long time coming.

Experts on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said a judgment on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza is unlikely before the end of 2027 at the earliest, amid warnings that the international community should not use the court’s glacial proceedings as an excuse to put off action to stop the killing.

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Thousands in Greece and Turkey evacuate as winds and heat fan wildfires

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Czech firefighters and Italian aircraft join rescue effort in Greece, and firefighter among those killed in Turkey

Thousands of people in Greece and Turkey have been forced to evacuate homes as firefighters in the countries battled to contain wildfires fanned by strong winds and searing heat.

As temperatures in south-eastern Europe exceeded 40C for a seventh straight day, the Greek prime minister praised rescue workers for waging “a titanic battle” to bring blazes under control.

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‘That idiot Putin wants to take it all’: Russia’s kamikaze tactics fuel a slow advance in Ukraine

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Latest wave of displaced citizens curse ‘imperial ambition’ that has led to an estimated one million Russian casualties

It was last year when Valentyn Velykyi noticed Russia’s war with Ukraine was getting closer. In early summer, it arrived on his doorstep. “You could hear explosions day and night. Recently missiles started flying over my house. There’s a rumbling sound. You can see a trail in the sky,” the 72-year-old pensioner recalled.

Velykyi’s home is at No 18 Petrenko Street, in the small agricultural village of Maliyivka. It is located on the administrative border between Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk provinces in central-eastern Ukraine. Once Russian troops were far away. Latterly, they have crept nearer, besieging the city of Pokrovsk and capturing one grassy meadow after another.

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