Trump and his allies foresaw a ticking timebomb centred on the president’s son – but it has not turned out that way
Where’s Hunter?
The rhetorical question about Joe Biden’s troubled son was posed time and again by Donald Trump during last year’s US presidential election but never caught fire in the way “Lock her up!” did against Hillary Clinton.
Continue reading...About 28% of Peruvians wouldn’t choose any of the candidates, poll shows ahead of Sunday’s vote
An ultra-conservative millionaire who admits to scourging himself daily to repress sexual desire is just one of an assortment of low-polling candidates who all have a shot at becoming Peru’s next president.
Rafael López Aliaga is technically tied with five other contenders in an unpredictable contest to make a runoff vote in June, including a former goalkeeper, a Sorbonne-educated socialist and the daughter of the country’s jailed former leader Alberto Fujimori.
Continue reading...On 23rd anniversary of Good Friday agreement, Martin says onus on political leaders ‘to step forward’
The Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that political leaders must not allow Northern Ireland to “spiral back to that dark place of sectarian murders and political discord” after the region was marred by another night of disorder.
On the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement 23 years ago, the taoiseach said there was “a particular onus on those of us who currently hold the responsibility of political leadership to step forward and play our part and ensure that this cannot happen”.
Continue reading...Revealed: groups banned from other sites fundraising on GiveSendGo as data breach identifies high-dollar donors
A data breach from Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has revealed that millions of dollars have been raised on the site for far-right causes and groups, many of whom are banned from raising funds on other platforms.
Related: How the far-right group ‘Oath Enforcers’ plans to harass political enemies
Continue reading...Former president tells Guardian Brazil faces perhaps gravest moment in its history and is ‘adrift on an ocean of hunger and disease’
Jair Bolsonaro’s perverse and “genocidal” response to one of the world’s deadliest Covid outbreaks has left Brazil “adrift on an ocean of hunger and disease”, the country’s former president Dilma Rousseff has claimed.
Speaking to the Guardian this week – as Brazil’s coronavirus death toll hit devastating new heights, with more than 12,000 deaths in the last three days – Rousseff said her country faced perhaps the gravest moment in its history.
Continue reading...The world has turned a blind eye to Denis Sassou Nguesso’s controversial re-election, which will extend his iron-fisted reign to more than 40 years
The result of last month’s presidential election in Congo-Brazzaville brought no surprises. After 36 years in power, Denis Sassou Nguesso, 77, clinched 88% of the vote with a turnout of more than 67%. Accusations of vote irregularities, including ballot box stuffing, were widespread. His closest rival, who had urged for a “vote for change” died of Covid on the day of the vote.
Television showed a triumphant Sassou at home with his smiling henchmen, as the interior minister, Raymond Zéphirin Mboulou – instead of the head of the electoral commission – announced the win. The question now is whether or not the African Union, the US, the EU, the UK and former colonial power France will simply turn a blind eye to another disputed election result while Congolese are dying from extreme poverty?
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China
Continue reading...In Kupang, Indonesia, residents wait for aid after torrential rain, destructive winds and flooding forced thousands into shelters
On Sunday at midnight, Linda Tagie, 29, rested her three-year-old baby on the bed. Linda, who lives together with her husband, 79-year-old mother-in-law and only child in Sikumana, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia, was shocked by a strong wind and heavy rain. The electricity suddenly went off.
“I prayed and prayed in the dark,” she said. The wind eventually stopped on Monday morning. She walked out of the house and found the roof gone from the back part of the house. “Electricity cables, tin roofs, and trees lie on the street in front of our house,” she said.
Continue reading...Platform co-founded by Jack Ma, who has criticised Chinese authorities, misused its dominance, say state regulators
Chinese regulators have hit e-commerce company Alibaba with a fine of 18.2bn yuan (US$2.78bn) over practices deemed to be an abuse of its dominant market position, according to state-run media.
The Xinhua news agency said the state administration for market regulation had assessed the fine after concluding an investigation into Alibaba that began in December.
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The FBI has arrested a man involved in the Jan.6 attack on the US Capitol, who allegedly had plans to detonate a bomb to take down the FBI, CIA, and other agencies, the Washington Post reports.
Seth Aaron Pendley was arrested Thursday, Justice Department officials said, after he allegedly sought materials for explosives from an undercover FBI agent. His plans, according to a criminal complaint, hinged on bombing the Amazon Web Services building in Ashburn, Va, in an attempt to disable Internet access in key government agencies, hinder operations, and upset “the oligarchy”.
Feds just charged Seth Aaron Pendley, 28, of Wichita Falls, with trying to blow up a data center in Virginia. Allege he tried to buy an explosive device from an undercover FBI employee in Ft. Worth, bragged to friends on Facebook he was at Jan. 6 Capitol attack @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/EHMk5z3QFH
The case highlights a growing concern among law enforcement and terrorism experts that the insurrection could inspire further domestic terrorist attacks, and officials praised the unidentified person who first alerted them to Pendley’s online posts.
‘We are indebted to the concerned citizen who came forward to report the defendant’s alarming online rhetoric, said Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. attorney in Dallas. “In flagging his posts to the FBI, this individual may have saved the lives of a number of tech workers’”.
As the Biden Administration scrambles to make space for the growing number of people crossing the US-Mexico border, officials announced that migrant families will now be held at hotels in Arizona, the Associated Press reports.
According to a statement from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will takeover several hotels in the Phoenix area along the southwest border.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which places unaccompanied children with “sponsors,” most often parents and close relatives — has found space in convention centers, military bases and other large venues. Los Angeles County officials said Friday that its fairgrounds will be used to temporarily house up to 2,500 unaccompanied children.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and frequent Biden critic, asked the administration to close a holding facility for unaccompanied children at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, citing allegations that they aren’t getting enough to eat and boys are unsupervised in showers.
Continue reading...Adam Kinzinger tweeted that congressman ‘needs to resign’ and linked to article claiming Gaetz paid $900 to accused sex trafficker
The House ethics committee on Friday announced it will open an investigation into the Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, amid a widening scandal involving allegations related to sex trafficking.
In a statement the committee said it was aware of the public allegations that Gaetz may have engaged in “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”
Continue reading...An explosive eruption rocked La Soufrière volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St Vincent on Friday following mandatory evacuation orders from the local government. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the burst that occurred just four days short of the 42nd anniversary of the last eruption.
Continue reading...National Emergency Management Organisation warned residents to leave and said ash plume had reached 20,000ft
The Caribbean island of St Vincent has been rocked by a string of explosive eruptions at La Soufrière volcano, which spewed clouds of ash miles into the air a day and forced thousands to flee for safety.
Related: Saint Vincent orders evacuations as volcanic eruption appears imminent
Continue reading...Government says killing of Giorgos Karaivaz, reportedly by two men on a motorbike, has ‘shocked us all’
A prominent Greek crime journalist has been shot dead in what was described as an “execution-style” murder near his home in Athens.
Giorgos Karaivaz, who sought to illuminate Greece’s seamier underside with his coverage of law and order stories on the private Star TV channel, died of gunshot wounds outside his home in the south of the city.
Continue reading...Government prepares rescue package as rare freezing temperatures damage crops and vines
Winemakers across France are counting the cost of several nights of frost this week that threaten to decimate grape harvests in some of the country’s best-known and prestigious wine-producing regions.
The government is readying an emergency rescue package after rare freezing temperatures that could cause some of the worst damage in decades to crops and vines.
Continue reading...EMA says four serious cases reported, one fatal, and also expands inquiry into AstraZeneca vaccine
The EU’s drug regulator is reviewing reports of rare blood clots in four people who received Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine and has expanded its inquiry into AstraZeneca’s shot to include reports of a bleeding condition.
Of the four serious cases of clotting and low platelets, three occurred in the US during the rollout of J&J’s vaccine from its Janssen pharmaceuticals unit, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday, adding that one person had died and one case was reported in a clinical trial. It was the first news of EMA’s inquiry into the J&J vaccine.
Continue reading...Amazon has won a victory in its hard-fought campaign to stop workers at an Alabama warehouse forming the company’s first union, in a tough blow for the US labor movement.
Workers at the Bessemer, Alabama, plant have voted 1,798 to 738 to reject the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Counting concluded on Friday morning, and attention will now focus on some 505 challenged ballots , but the margin of victory was too greatto change the outcome.
Continue reading...Nikolai Glushkov was strangled by assailant who then wrapped dog lead around his neck, inquest told
The prominent Kremlin critic Nikolai Glushkov was strangled at his home in south-west London by an unknown assailant who wrapped a dog lead around his neck in a crude attempt to “simulate” the appearance of suicide, an inquest heard.
Glushkov’s body was discovered on 12 March 2018 at his suburban home in New Malden. His daughter Natalia Glushkova told the hearing that she and Glushkov’s partner, Denis Trushin, had called round that evening after growing concerned.
Continue reading...Paris has repeatedly dismissed UN report into attack that killed 19 wedding guests as not credible
France is facing growing calls to accept responsibility for an airstrike that killed 19 civilians at a wedding in a village in Mali in January, following the publication of a United Nations report into the attack.
The damning investigation by the UN released last month, its first into French military action, said the airstrike hit Bounti village on 3 January, killing 19 guests at the wedding and three militants.
Continue reading...Erna Solberg breached ban on events attended by more than 10 people
Norway’s prime minister, Erna Solberg, has been fined 20,000 kroner (£1,713) after breaking coronavirus social-distancing rules when organising a family gathering to celebrate her birthday.
The matter came to light in a report by the public broadcaster NRK, which triggered a police investigation.
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