Category Archives: World News

Poland deploys planes due to threat of drone strikes in nearby Ukraine

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‘Preventive operations’ included putting air defence systems on high alert and followed serious Russian incursion earlier in the week

Polish and allied aircraft have been deployed in a “preventive” operation in Poland’s airspace because of a threat of drone strikes in neighbouring areas of Ukraine, and the airport in the eastern Polish city of Lublin was closed, authorities have said.

The alert on Saturday lasted about two hours. On Wednesday multiple Russian drones had crossed into Poland, prompting Nato to send fighter jets to shoot them down, underlining long-held concerns about the expansion of Russia’s more than three-year war in Ukraine.

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Ukraine drone starts fire at one of Russia’s largest oil plants

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Head of Bashkortostan region reports second drone shot down and minor damage to Bashneft’s Ufa refinery

A Ukrainian drone has crashed into one of Russia’s largest oil-refining complexes, sparking a fire and causing minor damage, a Russian official has said.

The complex, which belongs to Russian oil company Bashneft, lies on the outskirts of the central Russian city of Ufa about 870 miles (1,400km) from the frontline in Ukraine.

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Universities around the world cut ties with Israeli academia over Gaza war

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Educational bodies from Europe to South America are boycotting Israeli institutions, though Universities UK said it did not support the action

A growing number of universities, academic institutions and scholarly bodies around the world are cutting links with Israeli academia amid claims that it is complicit in the Israeli government’s actions towards Palestinians.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 63,000 people have been killed in the territory – the majority of them civilians – with the true toll likely far higher. UN-backed experts have confirmed parts of Gaza, much of which has been reduced to rubble, are now in a “man-made” famine.

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British ice dancer and same-sex skating partner to compete in Finland after rule change

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Mille Colling and Emma Aalto given go-ahead to compete in qualifier for national championships next month

A British ice dancer and her skating partner are to become Finland’s first same-sex team to take part in a competition after a rule change by the country’s skating federation.

Millie Colling, 20, who was born in Gateshead and moved to Finland at the age of six, and Emma Aalto, 19, will compete in a qualifier for the national championships next month after pressing for an amendment to the rules to allow them to enter as a team.

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Trump declines to call for unity after Charlie Kirk killing in stunning move

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President tells Fox News ‘the radicals on the left are the problem’ and refuses to seek common way forward

Donald Trump has declined to call for the US to come together as a way of fixing the country’s divisions in the wake of the assassination of his close associate, the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk, preferring to cast “vicious and horrible” radicals on the left of US politics as the sole problem.

In an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the US president was asked what he intended to do to heal the wounds of Kirk’s shooting in Utah. “How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?” he was asked by the show’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who commented that there were radicals operating on the left and right of US politics.

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Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar shatters Gulf’s faith in US protection

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The attack in Doha upended a decades-old assumption – and left Arab leaders questioning how much they can still rely on Washington

On Thursday, Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, led a funeral at the state mosque. Flanked by officials in white thobes, he prayed over six caskets – one draped in a Qatari flag and five bearing Palestinian flags.

Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Doha on Tuesday, which also killed a Qatari officer, marked an unprecedented moment for the Gulf kingdom. The attack undercut the assumption that has underpinned Qatari foreign policy for three decades and reverberated across the Arab region: be useful to the United States, and it will protect you.

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‘We took the gloves off’: ex-IDF chief confirms Gaza casualties over 200,000

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Retired general Herzi Halevi says ‘not once’ had legal advice constrained Israel’s military decisions in the strip

A former Israeli army commander, Herzi Halevi, has confirmed that more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured in the war in Gaza, and that “not once” in the course of the conflict were military operations inhibited by legal advice.

Halevi stepped down as chief of staff in March after leading the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the first 17 months of the war, which is now approaching its second anniversary.

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Brazilians take to the streets to celebrate Bolsonaro conviction

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Indigenous groups and other minorities praise verdict while US officials issue warnings of possible sanctions

• Operation World Cup: the murder plot at the heart of Brazil’s trial of the century

• Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years for plotting military coup in Brazil

Thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets to rejoice at Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction for plotting a coup, as progressive politicians celebrated the historic move and rightwing figures linked to Donald Trump responded with anger and threats.

Chile’s leftwing president, Gabriel Boric, led regional congratulations of the decision to jail Bolsonaro for 27 years for leading a criminal organisation that sought to seize power after the far-right populist lost the 2022 election.

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North Korea executes citizens who distribute foreign TV shows, UN finds

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Human rights report highlights crackdown on personal freedoms in most restrictive country in the world

North Korea has executed people for distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, according to a UN human rights report.

Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher – including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said.

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Rome woman banned from feeding birds amid neighbours’ pigeon ‘hell’

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Banning order comes after multiple complaints from residents of apartment block about feathers and droppings

Rome’s mayor has ordered a woman to stop feeding dozens of pigeons that have overrun an apartment block, after furious residents, claiming to be drowning in feathers and guano, demanded relief from what has been described as a Hitchcockian nightmare.

For several months, on the third floor of a building at 108 Via Spartaco, a woman nicknamed “The Pigeon Lady” by the press has been feeding the flock of birds that has been plaguing the block. After countless complaints from residents, exasperated by the thick layer of guano covering the building’s interior and the public areas below – not to mention the parked cars – local authorities issued an order banning her from feeding the pigeons.

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Europe’s cruel summer: Ursula von der Leyen faces an EU under pressure

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European Commission president addresses a parliament reeling from Trump trade deal and escalations in Ukraine and Gaza

When Ursula von der Leyen arrived in the vast semi-circle debating chamber in the European parliament in Strasbourg, she greeted MEP leaders of some of Europe’s political groups warmly. Wearing a trim khaki-green jacket, the European Commission president smiled, shook hands and exchanged air kisses with some of the politicians, who had front-row seats for her annual state of the union address.

The hour-long speech on Wednesday had a stark message: Europe must fight for its place in an “unforgiving” world, facing major powers that are either “ambivalent or openly hostile” towards it.

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Hopes rise of pardon for Abd el-Fattah as Starmer speaks with Egypt president

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Decision expected soon after reports in Cairo about status of imprisoned dual-national human rights activist

Keir Starmer has spoken to Abdel Fatah al-Sisi amid reports the Egyptian president has directed his officials to study an internal request to grant a pardon to release the British-Egyptian human rights activist and writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

Abd el-Fattah’s British-based family are not commenting on developments save to say they are praying for his release.

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Jail for Bolsonaro by no means signals the end of his political movement

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With widespread support at home and from Trump, his heir will take the fight to Lula in the 2026 presidential election

Four years have passed since Jair Bolsonaro laid out three possible denouements for his extraordinary political career, during which the oft-ridiculed fringe politician rose to become one of leading lights of the global populist right alongside Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump.

“Going to jail, being killed or victory,” predicted Brazil’s then president as he grappled with a deluge of political crises in August 2021.

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Relief for campaigners as five-star hotel on Milos’s famous ‘moon beach’ halted

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Authorities revoke building licence for cascading hotel complex on one of Greece’s most photographed shorelines

Environmental campaigners have welcomed a decision to halt construction of a disputed five-star hotel on a Greek beach known for its outstanding natural beauty.

Local authorities on the Cycladic island of Milos said a building licence for the resort on the world-renowned “moon beach” had been revoked by the municipality’s planning department after falling short of inspection standards.

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Venezuela says 11 killed in US boat strike were not gang members amid reports vessel was returning to shore

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Interior minister says ‘murder has been committed’ while US Congress demands justification for attack

None of the 11 people killed in a US military strike on a boat in the Caribbean last week were members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s interior minister has said, while US media reported the attack came after the vessel had turned around and was heading back to shore.

The administration of Donald Trump has said the boat was transporting illegal narcotics, but has provided little further information about the incident, even amid demands from members of the US Congress for a justification for the action.

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Bolsonaro sentenced to 27 years for plotting military coup in Brazil

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Former president sought to ‘annihilate’ country’s democracy after losing 2022 election

​Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro ​has been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup​ and seeking to “annihilate” the South American country’s democracy.

Justices Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha and Cristiano Zanin ruled on ​Thursday that Bolsonaro – a former paratrooper who was elected president in 2018 – was guilty of seeking to forcibly cling to power after losing the 2022 election, meaning four of the five judges involved in the trial had found Brazil’s former leader guilty.

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Archaeologists scramble to evacuate Gaza artefacts threatened by Israeli strike

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Officials hurriedly remove nearly three decades of finds in ‘high-risk operation’

An official in charge of nearly three decades of archaeological finds in Gaza has described how the artefacts were hurriedly evacuated from a Gaza City building threatened by an Israeli strike.

“This was a high-risk operation, carried out in an extremely dangerous context for everyone involved – a real last-minute rescue,” said Olivier Poquillon, director of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF), which housed the relics.

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Canada: Carney unveils array of national projects to ‘turbocharge’ economy

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List leaves out oil pipelines and focuses on LNG expansion, mines and nuclear power as it fends off US trade war

Canada’s Liberal government has said that a liquefied natural gas facility, critical mineral mines, a nuclear reactor and port expansion will mark the first wave of major national projects to “turbocharge” the country’s economy as it fends off a trade war with the United States.

Notably, the list unveiled by the prime minster, Mark Carney, on Thursday does not include any new oil pipelines – projects which have proven to be deeply divisive and politically fractious in recent years.

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What did Jair Bolsonaro’s trial reveal about an attempted coup in Brazil?

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Far-right ex-president was found to have led a ‘criminal organisation’ to try to stay in power

Brazil’s supreme court has made Jair Bolsonaro the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted for attempting a coup.

The 70-year-old far-right leader claims he is the victim of political persecution, but three out of five judges concluded on Thursday that it was sufficiently proven that Bolsonaro and his close allies attempted to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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