Category Archives: World News

Wave of Israeli airstrikes kill at least 40 people across Gaza, says Hamas

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Missiles hit encampments for displaced Palestinians as talks on response to Israel truce offer ‘almost complete’

A wave of Israeli airstrikes on encampments for displaced Palestinians has killed at least 40 people across Gaza, as Hamas officials said consultations on response to Israel truce offer “almost complete”.

Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said two Israeli missiles hit several tents in the al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, resulting in at least 16 deaths, most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded.

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Cory Booker to visit El Salvador in effort to return wrongly deported man to US

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Democrats press Trump administration to follow supreme court order to bring back Kilmar Ábrego García

Cory Booker plans to travel to El Salvador, a source familiar with the New Jersey senator’s itinerary said, as Democrats seek to pressure the Trump administration to return a wrongly deported Maryland resident.

Booker’s trip to the Central American country would come after the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen traveled there this week to meet with his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian national deported last month in what the Trump administration acknowledged was an “administrative error”. Despite a supreme court ruling saying his administration must “facilitate” Ábrego García’s return, Trump has refused to take steps to do so, and El Salvador’s government on Wednesday denied Van Hollen a meeting with the deportee.

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Kilmar Ábrego García’s wife rejects Trump officials’ depictions of him as ‘violent’

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Jennifer Vasquez Sura criticizes DHS’s attempt to smear her wrongly deported husband over 2021 civil protective order

The wife of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man unlawfully deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, has strongly criticized the Trump administration’s attempt to smear his character, saying a temporary restraining order against him was “out of caution” and that “he is a loving partner and father” who is being denied justice.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura said she “acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar” when she got the civil protective order in 2021, according to a statement emailed to the Baltimore Sun.

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Macron announces joint commission with Haiti amid calls for reparations

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France imposed harsh ‘ransom’ after revolution that campaigners say stunted Caribbean country’s development

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has announced a joint commission with Haiti to examine the countries’ shared past as Haitian campaigners demand a reimbursement of billions of dollars worth of “ransom” paid to France.

Macron announced his intention to create the commission as campaigners renewed calls for reparations on the bicentenary of an agreement to pay 150m francs to France in 1825 to compensate slave-owning colonists after the Haitian Revolution.

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New daily weight-loss pill shows success at clinical trial

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Orforglipron also reduced blood sugar levels in participants with type 2 diabetes

A significant trial of a daily weight-loss pill has found that it helped people to shed the pounds and reduce their blood sugar levels, making it a contender to join the new wave of drugs that combat obesity and diabetes.

People who took a 36mg pill of orforglipron lost an average of 7.3kg (16lbs) over nine months, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial reported by the drug’s manufacturer, Eli Lilly, on Thursday.

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ICJ hears Sudan case accusing UAE of ‘complicity in genocide’

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United Arab Emirates says Sudan ‘misusing’ world court in proceedings relating to African nation’s civil war

The international court of justice will rule in the next few weeks on whether the United Arab Emirates can be plausibly found “complicit in the commission of genocide” by arming the Rapid Support Forces militia in Sudan’s civil war.

The case was brought by Sudan, whose acting justice minister, Muawia Osman, told the world court in The Hague last week that the country’s “ongoing genocide would not be possible without the complicity of the UAE, including the shipment of arms to the RSF”. Sudan wants ICJ judges to force the UAE to stop its alleged support for the RSF and make “full reparations”, including compensation to victims of the war.

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Uyghur rights group calls on hotel chains not to ‘sanitise’ China abuses in Xinjiang

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Growth in international hotels coincides with government effort to push region as a tourism destination

Almost 200 international hotels are operating or planning to open in Xinjiang, despite calls from human rights groups for global corporations not to help “sanitise” the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in the region, a report has said.

The report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) identified 115 operational hotels which the organisation said “benefit from a presence in the Uyghur region”. At least another 74 were in various stages of construction or planning, the report said. The UHRP said some of the hotels also had exposure or links of concern to forced labour and labour transfer programmes.

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Nvidia’s CEO makes surprise visit to Beijing after US restricts chip sales to China

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Jensen Huang causes stir on social media and is reported to have met founder of AI company DeepSeek

The chief executive of the American chip maker Nvidia visited Beijing on Thursday, days after the US issued fresh restrictions on sales of the only AI chip it was still allowed to sell to China.

Jensen Huang’s surprise visit was on the invitation of a trade organisation, according to a social media account affiliated with state media.

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Move over, Med diet – plantains and cassava can be as healthy as tomatoes and olive oil, say researchers

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Findings from Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region indicate traditional eating habits in rural Africa can boost the immune system and reduce inflammation

Plantains, cassava and fermented banana drink should be added to global healthy eating guidelines alongside the olive oil, tomatoes and red wine of the Mediterranean diet, say researchers who found the traditional diet of people living in Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro region had a positive impact on the body’s immune system.

Traditional foods enjoyed in rural villages also had a positive impact on markers of inflammation, the researchers found in a study published this month in the journal Nature Medicine.

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Ex-UK defence minister ‘disgusted’ by Trump’s attitude to Putin and Russia

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Grant Shapps also compares calling Sumy strike a ‘mistake’ to statements by IRA terror group when it killed civilians

Pronouncing himself “disgusted” by Donald Trump’s favorable attitude to Russia and Vladimir Putin, the former UK defence minister Grant Shapps said the US president calling a Russian missile strike that killed dozens in Ukraine last weekend a “mistake” was an example of “weasel language we used to hear … from the IRA” terrorist group.

“All anybody needs Putin to do is get the hell out of a democratic neighboring country,” Shapps told the One Decision podcast, regarding attempts to end the war in Ukraine that has raged since Russia invaded in February 2022.

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Venice’s €5 tourist fee returns – and will double for last-minute day-trippers

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City authorities still hope the scheme, which made an unexpected €2.4m last year, will help tackle overtourism

Venice’s entrance fee will resume from Friday, with the main novelty this year being that last-minute day-trippers will pay double.

Last year, as part of an experiment aimed at dissuading day visitors during busy periods, Venice became the first major tourist city in the world to charge people to enter.

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Temu and Shein drop US ad spending as they face tariffs on even small sales

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E-tailers also hiking prices after Donald Trump ends ‘de minimis’ exemption for cheap shipments from China and Hong Kong

Temu and Shein are cutting back their spending on US social media advertising as they lose an exemption on tariffs for many of their shipments from China and Hong Kong.

The online e-tailers, both of which ship low-priced China-made goods direct to US shoppers, had been on an ad spree until recently. But under an executive order from Donald Trump, as of 2 May their sales valued at under $800 will no longer be exempt from US tariffs.

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US senator says El Salvador denied request to meet Kilmar Ábrego García

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Chris Van Hollen condemns ‘unjust situation’ and says vice-president blocked access to wrongly deported man

Maryland’s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says the government of El Salvador has denied his request to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday with the intention of meeting Ábrego García at the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), where US authorities have said that the Maryland resident is being held along with others deported at Donald Trump’s orders.

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Israeli minister met David Lammy on ‘private’ visit to UK, Foreign Office says

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Activist groups make request for arrest warrant to be issued for Gideon Sa’ar after unannounced trip to London

The UK Foreign Office has confirmed that the foreign secretary, David Lammy, met his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, while Sa’ar was on an unannounced visit to London.

The Foreign Office described Sa’ar’s visit as “private”, though it said Lammy had discussed a full range of Middle East issues with the Israeli foreign minister. News of Sa’ar’s presence in the UK – at a time when Israel is intensifying its offensive in Gaza, having ended a ceasefire last month – has triggered outrage among critics of Israel, and a formal request from activists for an arrest warrant to be issued against him on charges of alleged complicity in war crimes.

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US judge finds probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt over alien act deportations

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Judge also warned he could name independent prosecutor if White House stonewalled contempt proceedings

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that there was probable cause to hold Trump officials in criminal contempt for violating his temporary injunction that barred the use of the Alien Enemies Act wartime power to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members.

In a scathing 46-page opinion, James Boasberg, the chief US district judge for Washington, wrote that senior Trump officials could either return the people who were supposed to have been protected by his injunction, or face contempt proceedings.

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Ringleaders of attacks on French jails will be punished, Macron says

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Wave of assaults ‘declaration of war’ by drug gangs after crackdown on bosses operating from jail, French media say

Emmanuel Macron has warned that those behind a wave of apparently coordinated attacks on French prisons and staff will be “found, tried and punished”.

The president’s comments came after at least a dozen assaults on French jails in the past three days. In one attack, gunmen using automatic weapons fired at the entrance to Toulon prison in the south of France.

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MEPs call for EU court to suspend Hungary’s Pride ban

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Visiting delegation find ‘hostile atmosphere’ for LGBTQ+ people and say country heading in ‘wrong direction’

A delegation of EU lawmakers visiting Hungary has called on Europe’s top court to suspend a new law banning Budapest Pride, as they criticised a “very hostile atmosphere” for LGBTQ+ people in the country and urged a return to “real democracy”.

Tineke Strik, a Dutch Green politician who led a cross-party group of MEPs to investigate democratic standards in Hungary, said developments were going “rapidly in the wrong direction”.

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US pastor kidnapped during sermon in South Africa rescued after shootout

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Joshua Sullivan was abducted from his church by four gunmen, but is now recovering and in ‘excellent condition’

South African police have rescued an American pastor who was abducted last week while he was conducting a sermon, as kidnappings have soared over the last decade in the country.

Three unidentified suspects were killed during the “high-intensity shootout” on Tuesday in which Joshua Sullivan, a missionary from Tennessee, was rescued, the Hawks, the police unit that deals with serious crime in South Africa, said in a statement.

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Berlin palliative care doctor charged with murder of 15 patients

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Authorities say suspect had a ‘lust’ for killing and used drugs to paralyse the respiratory muscles of victims

Prosecutors have charged a Berlin palliative care doctor with the murder of 15 patients, alleging he acted out of a “lust” for killing.

The 40-year-old suspect is accused of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 using a deadly cocktail of sedatives. German press reports identified the suspect as Johannes M, but prosecutors have not released a name.

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Canada’s Green party removed at last minute from election debates

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Upheaval follows decision to shift timing of first debate over fears of clash with Montreal Canadiens ice hockey game

Canada’s Green party has been removed from the country’s two election debates amid accusations it would “undermine the integrity” of the events, just hours before leaders square off in Montreal.

The last-minute upheaval follows a decision to shift the timing of the first televised debate on Wednesday evening over fears the French language showdown would clash with a closely watched Montreal Canadiens ice hockey game.

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