Category Archives: World News

Trump’s $1tn for Pentagon to add huge planet-heating emissions, study shows

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Exclusive: 17% increase in military spending will add emissions equivalent to those of some entire countries

Donald Trump’s huge spending boost for the Pentagon will produce an additional 26 megatons (Mt) of planet-heating gases – on a par with the annual carbon equivalent (CO2e) emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia, new research reveals.

The Pentagon’s 2026 budget – and climate footprint – is set to surge to $1tn thanks to the president’s One Big Beautiful Act, a 17% rise on last year.

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Restaurant in China criticised for putting baby lion cuddles on menu

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Diners jump at chance to snuggle with cubs but wildlife experts accuse firm of ‘exploiting wild animals for selfies’

A restaurant in northern China has been criticised by animal welfare groups for offering an unusual item on the menu: lion cub cuddles.

According to a screenshot of a menu circulating on social media, Wanhui – a restaurant in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province – has a four-course set afternoon menu costing 1,192 yuan ($166/£124) that includes playtime with the in-house animals.

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Sudan’s children face growing threat of deadly infectious diseases as vaccination rates halve

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The country, beset by war, has the world’s lowest rates of vaccination, says the World Health Organization, as global immunisation drive also stalls

Children in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.

In 2022, more than 90% of young children in Sudan received their routine vaccinations. But that figure has nearly halved to 48%, the lowest in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

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Von der Leyen calls for new EU taxes on big firms in €2tn budget proposal

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Plan, which also includes levies on tobacco and electronic waste, ignites major political scrap to define bloc’s future

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has called for new EU taxes on large companies, tobacco and electronic waste as part of a proposed €2tn (£1.7tn) budget.

Announcing the planned EU budget for 2028 to 2034, she effectively fired the starting gun on a major and complex political fight to define the EU’s future.

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Fire destroys main stage at Belgium’s Tomorrowland festival on eve of opening

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Blaze came a day before thousands of electronic dance music fans were set to descend on the Belgian event

The main stage of the Tomorrowland music festival near Antwerp was totally destroyed by fire on Wednesday, a day before thousands of electronic dance music lovers were due to arrive at the Belgian event.

There were no injuries, organisers said, insisting they would still go ahead with the festival over the next two weekends.

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Small Canadian town reels after teen boy allegedly assaults eight-year-old girl

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Police initially thought the girl was attacked by an animal due her injuries, but later arrested a 17-year-old boy

A small rural community in Canada is reeling after police said the horrific attack of an eight-year-old girl was not caused by an animal, as they had suspected, but allegedly by a teenage boy who they have now charged with attempted murder.

The residents of Quadeville, a town of a few hundred people in southern Ontario, are questioning local law enforcement’s handling of the case after officials initially told them to keep their children indoors to protect them against a possible offending animal.

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Israel strikes Syria’s defence ministry in third day of attacks

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One person killed and 18 injured, say Syrian officials, as Israel intervenes in clashes between government forces and Druze fighters

The Israeli military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus twice on Wednesday as it intervened in the clashes between the Syrian army and Druze fighters in southern Syria in the country’s deadliest violence in months.

The strikes collapsed four floors of the ministry and ruined its facade. The strikes killed one person and injured 18, Syrian officials said.

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Bear that bit man in Norway roams free after hunt in which wrong animal shot

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Search for female and her cubs on hold to campaigners’ relief after court had quashed injunction against cull

The hunt for a brown bear that bit a man on the elbow has been put on hold, the Norwegian environment agency has announced, in a case that angered animal rights campaigners after officials shot the wrong bear.

The agency said on Wednesday it did not now plan to act on a bear-culling order it issued in late June in Jarfjord, near the border with Russia, after a female bear bit a man’s arm, leaving him needing stitches.

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Hungary opposition figures urge Democrats to organize against autocratic takeover by Trump

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Forum speakers said Donald Trump’s second term resembles strongman Viktor Orbán’s first years in power

Democrats must organize urgently for the 2026 midterm elections and avoid a “it can’t happen here” mentality to stop Donald Trump from staging a full-scale autocratic takeover, a Hungarian opposition parliamentarian has said.

Katalin Cseh, a critic of Hungary’s strongman prime minister, Viktor Orbán, told a forum on authoritarianism that the central European country’s experience held vital lessons for Trump’s opponents in their attempts to resist his assaults on US institutions and democratic norms since his return to the White House.

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Volcano on Reykjanes peninsula in Iceland erupts for ninth time since 2023

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Iceland’s weather agency advises residents to stay indoors because of high levels of toxic gas from 1.5-mile fissure

A volcano erupted on Wednesday on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula in the south-west of the country, the ninth eruption in region since the end of 2023.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said the eruption had begun just before 4am local time (05:00 BST), and live video feeds showed lava spewing from a fissure in the ground.

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Oxford University Press to stop publishing China-sponsored science journal

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Move follows concerns several papers in Forensic Sciences Research did not meet ethical standards on DNA collection

Oxford University Press (OUP) will no longer publish a controversial academic journal sponsored by China’s Ministry of Justice after years of concerns that several papers in the publication did not meet ethical standards about DNA collection.

A statement published on the website of Forensic Sciences Research (FSR) states that OUP will stop publishing the quarterly journal after this year.

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‘A family of traitors’: Trump’s Brazil tariffs ultimatum backfires on Bolsonaro

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US president’s attempt to help his rightwing ally avoid jail has sparked wave of anger and given boost to rival Lula

Silvana Marques was one of thousands of Brazilians who flocked to São Paulo’s most famous art museum one afternoon last week. But the 51-year-old teacher wasn’t there to marvel over fog-filled London landscapes at Masp’s new Monet retrospective. She had come to join a protest heaping scorn on Donald Trump.

Beneath the museum’s brutalist hulk, Marques spotted a cardboard effigy of the US president and took a picture with her phone before the Trump dummy was set on fire. “Laranjão safado,” which translates as big orange dirtbag, she wrote under her photo on Instagram. Nearby, demonstrators hoisted a red banner into the air which read: “Nice try Trump. But we’re not afraid.”

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Trump tries to move on amid Epstein files backlash as speaker calls for their release – US politics live

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President tries to downplay issue amid growing outrage from conservatives

President Donald Trump will meet with Qatar’s prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Wednesday to discuss negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire deal, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X.

Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since 6 July, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire that envisages a phased release of hostages, Israeli troop withdrawals from parts of Gaza and discussions on ending the conflict.

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Ukraine wing of US-founded terrorist group says it was involved in killing of intelligence officer in Kyiv

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The Base, a far-right group with suspected links to Russia, said killing of Ivan Voronych was ‘only the beginning’

The Ukrainian wing of an internationally proscribed far-right terrorist organization with suspected links to Russia is claiming involvement in the brazen assassination of an intelligence officer in Kyiv.

Late last week, a masked assailant shot and killed Col Ivan Voronych of the Ukraine security service (SBU) as he walked through a Kyiv parking lot in broad daylight. Shocking footage of the assassination circulated in Ukrainian media and caused a stir among residents in the capital.

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Trump threatens to impose drug and chip tariffs as soon as 1 August

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US president talks of low tariff to give pharmaceutical firms a year or so to build, and then making it ‘very high’

Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical products and semiconductors as soon as 1 August, the latest deadline for the introduction of his “reciprocal” levies on individual countries.

The US president told reporters late on Tuesday the taxes on drug imports could be announced “probably at the end of the month, and we’re going to start off with a low tariff and give the pharmaceutical companies a year or so to build, and then we’re going to make it a very high tariff”.

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EU accused of ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ of Palestinians over failure to confront Israel

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Stinging rebuke from Amnesty International follows EU ministers declining to endorse any sanctions over Gaza war

The EU has been accused of a “cruel and unlawful betrayal” of Palestinians and European values after failing to take action to impose sanctions on Israel over the war in Gaza.

The stinging rebuke from Amnesty International, echoed by other human rights organisations, came after EU ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday declined to endorse any measures to sanction Israel over the brutal war in Gaza and endemic violence in the West Bank.

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Houthi-linked dealers sell arms on X and WhatsApp, report says

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Traders affiliated to Iran-backed rebel group found to have been running weapon stores on social media for years

Arms dealers affiliated with Houthi militants in Yemen are using X and Meta platforms to traffic weapons – some US-made – in apparent violation of the social media firms’ policies, a report has revealed.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed group of rebels who have controlled swathes of Yemen since 2014, are designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, Canada and other countries.

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Thousands of Afghans relocated to UK under secret scheme after data leak

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Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme

Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that required the UK to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.

The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

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‘The worst day of all time’: Afghans speak of safety fears after UK data leak

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Law firm representing thousands says some already killed and others in hiding as a result of government ‘blunder’

When Abdullah received an email from the British government saying his details had been included in the military data leak, it became “the worst day in all time”.

Speaking from Afghanistan, where he is in hiding, Abdullah fears he will be tortured and killed.

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UK’s cavalier attitude leaves Afghans facing yet more fear and uncertainty

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Leaked details are just another example of how the UK let down Afghans who believed in what Britain promised their country

This week’s revelations about the UK’s dangerously cavalier treatment of Afghans who worked with British forces are shocking but not surprising.

The carelessness with which Britain went to war in Afghanistan was matched by the carelessness with which it left the country and its people to Taliban rule two decades later.

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