Ukrainian president says men’s capture shows Moscow is trying to involve Beijing in the war ‘directly or indirectly’
Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals fighting with the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian president said they were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”.
Continue reading...The move has sent shock waves through a region of US strategic importance that had respected Trump as tough on Beijing
Vietnam had tried to appease Donald Trump: tariffs on US goods were reduced; regulations were passed to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its Starlink in the country. The prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh, even joked in January that he would happily “play golf all day long” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida if it could “bring benefits to my country and my people”.
The strategies do not appear to have worked. Trump has inflicted an extraordinary 46% tariff on Vietnam that threatens to devastate its economic growth plans and undermine relations between the two countries. The tariff has sent shock waves through Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse where Trump has always been fairly popular, and across south-east Asia.
Continue reading...Crews search for survivors after more than 160 injured at Jet Set in Santo Domingo
More than 70 people have died and about 160 others injured in the Dominican capital early on Tuesday after the roof collapsed at a nightclub where politicians, athletes and others were attending a merengue concert, authorities said.
The death toll reached 79 by the late evening as crews continued to search for survivors in the rubble at the one-storey Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo, said Juan Manuel Méndez, director of the Center of Emergency Operations.
Continue reading...Under-16s will be barred from using the app’s Live feature unless they have parental permission
Meta is expanding its safety measures for teenagers on Instagram with a block on livestreaming, as the social media company extends its under-18 safeguards to the Facebook and Messenger platforms.
Under-16s will be barred from using Instagram’s Live feature unless they have parental permission. They will also require parental permission to turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in their direct messages.
Continue reading...Illegal practices included use of bots to hoard tickets for attraction in Rome for resale at inflated prices
An Italian ticketing company and six tour operators have been fined almost €20m (£17m) for illegal practices that made it difficult for regular visitors to access Rome’s Colosseum at the standard cost.
Italy’s antitrust authority, AGCM, said the practices, including using software bots to hoard tickets and resell them at higher prices, made it “essentially impossible” to buy tickets online for site.
Continue reading...Pete Hildebrand says health secretary ‘never said anything’ about vaccine’s efficacy when he visited for funeral
A Texas man who buried his eight-year-old daughter on Sunday after the unvaccinated child died with measles says Robert F Kennedy Jr “never said anything” about the vaccine against the illness or its proven efficacy while visiting the girl’s family and community for her funeral.
“He did not say that the vaccine was effective,” Pete Hildebrand, the father of Daisy Hildebrand, said in reference to Kennedy during a brief interview on Monday. “I had supper with the guy … and he never said anything about that.”
Continue reading...Beijing accuses US of blackmail and adding a ‘mistake on top of a mistake’ as Wednesday deadline for latest levies looms
China’s government says it will “fight to the end” if the US continues to escalate the trade war, after Donald Trump threatened huge additional tariffs in response to China’s retaliatory measures.
On Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry accused the US of “blackmail” and said the US president’s threats of additional 50% tariffs if Beijing did not reverse its own 34% reciprocal tariff were a “mistake on top of a mistake”.
Continue reading...Ex-Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean says cut of 0.5 points needed because of ‘crazy situation’ in US
The Bank of England should use its meeting next month to cut interest rates by at least half a percentage point to 4% in response to the financial turmoil created by Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, the former deputy governor Charlie Bean has said.
He believes an aggressive strategy is needed to combat the fallout from Trump’s tariff war, which has knocked trillions of pounds off global stock markets, undermining business and consumer confidence.
Continue reading...President says the pair had a ‘great discussion’ while prime minister says Israel will eliminate trade deficit with US
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, met with Donald Trump on Monday for the second time since the US president’s return to office, marking the first effort by a foreign leader to negotiate a deal after Trump announced sweeping tariffs last week.
Speaking alongside Trump in the Oval Office, Netanyahu said Israel would eliminate the trade deficit with the US. “We intend to do it very quickly,” he told reporters, adding that he believed Israel could “serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same”.
Continue reading...President, sitting in Oval Office with Benjamin Netanyahu, warns Tehran of ‘great danger’ if talks are not successful
Donald Trump has announced that the US is to hold direct talks with Iran in a bid to prevent the country from obtaining an atomic bomb, while also warning Tehran of dire consequences if they fail.
Sitting beside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, Trump indicated that discussions would start this coming weekend, though he also implied communications had already begun.
Continue reading...New Civil Liberties Alliance says president’s invocation of emergency powers to impose tariffs is unlawful
A libertarian group backed by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch has mounted a legal challenge against Donald Trump’s tariff regime, in a sign of spreading rightwing opposition to a policy that has sent international markets plummeting.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a suit against Trump’s imposition of import tariffs on exports from China, arguing that doing so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) – which the president has invoked to justify the duties on nearly all countries – is unlawful.
Continue reading...Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk, now in Guatemala, had racked up large tax debt at Stedsans forest retreat
A Danish chef couple who attracted international acclaim with a “forest resort” in Sweden have been tracked down to Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind 158 barrels of human waste.
Flemming Hansen and Mette Helbæk founded their purportedly eco-friendly retreat, Stedsans, in Halland, southern Sweden, after claiming to have “felt the call of the wild” in Copenhagen, where they ran a popular rooftop restaurant.
Continue reading...Ministers and more than 70 MPs attended photo call with Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed whose travel ban was called unacceptable
Cabinet ministers and more than 70 parliamentarians staged a show of solidarity with two MPs who were detained and barred from entry to Israel in what was the first time British MPs had been banned from the country.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, joined the photocall in Westminster Hall on Monday with the MPs, along with Hamish Falconer and housing minister Rushanara Ali. It was organised by the Rochdale MP Paul Waugh.
Continue reading...PRCS calls for international investigation after postmortem results add to evidence contradicting Israel’s account
Autopsies conducted on 15 Palestinian paramedics and civil emergency responders who were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza show they were shot in the upper body with “intent to kill”, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is demanding an international investigation into the attack.
The killings took place in the southern Gaza Strip on 23 March, days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory, and sparked international condemnation.
Continue reading...President poised to further impose taxes after Beijing announced a 34% tariff on US imports as global markets fall
Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 50% tariff on imports from China on Wednesday unless the country rescinds its retaliatory tariffs on the United States by Tuesday.
The news comes on the third day of catastrophic market falls around the globe since Trump announced his trade war last Wednesday with tariffs on the US’s trading partners.
Continue reading...Barbados PM and Caricom chair calls on Washington to engage in talks to ‘keep prices down for all of our people’
The Caribbean is a friend, not an enemy, leaders in the region have told Donald Trump after the US president’s imposition of worldwide import tariffs.
The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, invited Trump to talk with leaders in the region and “work together to keep prices down for all of our people”, adding: “I say simply to President Trump: our economies are not doing your economy any harm in any way. They are too small to have any negative or distorted impact on your country.”
Continue reading...Elaborate deception was only recently discovered when judge visited government office to renew his ID card
Police in the Brazilian state of São Paulo have uncovered that a judge spent 23 years working under a false identity – and a distinctly British one.
Born José Eduardo Franco dos Reis – a name fairly typical in a country once colonised by Portugal – he entered law school and served for over two decades as a judge using the false name Edward Albert Lancelot Dodd Canterbury Caterham Wickfield.
Continue reading...15 medics and rescuers killed last month in Gaza were shot in upper body ‘with intent to kill’, says president of Palestinian Red Crescent Society
Russia, China and Iran will hold consultations at expert level on the Iranian nuclear programme in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has been cited as saying.
Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iran unless it comes to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear programme, and the Kremlin said earlier today that Russia was ready to do all it could to help resolve tensions between the Washington and Tehran.
Macron said he strongly opposed any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. “We are firmly opposed to the displacement of populations and to any annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank,” Macron told journalists. “This would be a violation of international law and a serious threat to the security of the entire region, including Israel,” he said.
Macron said Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2007, should have no part in governing the strip after the war and reiterated his support for a reconstruction plan for the territory endorsed by the Arab League. “I salute here the crucial work of Egypt on this plan, which offers a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and should also pave the way for new Palestinian governance in the enclave led by the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “Hamas must have no role in this governance, and must no longer constitute a threat to Israel.”
Continue reading...Dozens seriously injured as fire engulfs tents used by Palestinian journalists in hospital complex in Khan Younis
An Israeli airstrike on a tent camp within a hospital complex in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis has killed 10 people, including a journalist, while seriously injuring dozens more after their encampment caught fire.
Images and video from the courtyard of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis showed people desperately attempting to extinguish the fires as it burned through a row of tents. One video showed people screaming as a bystander attempted to move a burning piece of furniture, while a journalist, later identified as Ahmed Mansour of the news outlet Palestine Today, sat upright engulfed by the blaze.
Continue reading...Relatives of Agnes Wanjiru say 13-year fight for justice has taken ‘heavy toll’ after meeting with John Healey
The family of a Kenyan woman who was allegedly killed by British soldiers have said their 13-year fight for justice has taken a “heavy toll”, and that they have been offered “too many empty promises” after a meeting with the defence secretary.
Agnes Wanjiru was 21 when she disappeared in March 2012. She was last seen in the company of British soldiers in a bar in a hotel in Nanyuki, a town in eastern Kenya where the British army has a military base, BATUK.
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