Category Archives: World News

Argentina opposition calls for impeachment of Javier Milei after cryptocurrency collapse

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President endorsed $Libra crypto token on Friday before it collapsed, leading some to call it a financial ‘rug pull’

Opposition politicians in Argentina have called for the impeachment of president Javier Milei after he touted a cryptocurrency which quickly collapsed and reportedly led to millions of dollars in losses this weekend.

Milei endorsed the little-known cryptocurrency token $Libra on Friday evening, announcing on X that the project was “dedicated to boosting the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small businesses and entrepreneurs”. His post linked to a website where the digital coin could be bought, the domain name of which included Milei’s popular catchphrase “long live freedom”.

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Netanyahu seeks to draw Trump into future attack on Iranian nuclear sites

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Israeli PM urges US to help ‘finish the job’ as Washington makes early maximalist demand over Tehran’s programme

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that, with Donald Trump’s support, his government will “finish the job” of neutralising the threat from Iran, amid US reports that Israel is considering airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in the coming few months.

Trump has said he would prefer to make a deal with Tehran, but also made clear that he was considering US military action if talks failed, and his administration has laid down an early maximalist demand: Iranian abandonment of its entire nuclear programme.

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Meta plans to link US and India with world’s longest undersea cable project

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Project Waterworth, which involves cable longer than Earth’s circumference, to also reach South Africa and Brazil

Meta has announced plans to build the world’s longest underwater cable project, which aims to connect the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions.

The tech company said Project Waterworth involved a 50,000km (31,000-mile) subsea cable, which is longer than the Earth’s circumference.

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‘Allo ‘Allo! Europe’s leaders get together dans Paris for emergency sommet | John Crace

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Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer and others discuss Trump, Russia and Ukraine at hastily arranged conference

Emmanuel Macron: Bienvenu á Paris.

Keir Starmer: Bonjour, Monsieur le President. Thank you for organising this “once-in-a-generation” summit at such short notice.

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Europe tries to shore up fragile unity as it realises it cannot rely on US

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Leaders attend Paris summit for urgent talks on Ukraine after week that showed how far values have diverged

They came smiling, but the task was immense. After dozens of summits at which a hesitant and discordant EU had failed to agree on anything like a cohesive plan for the end of the war in Ukraine, this one had, suddenly and vitally, to be different.

The leaders of France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and – speaking for the Nordic and Baltic states – Denmark, plus Britain’s prime minister and the heads of Nato and the European Commission and Council, arrived in Paris reeling from a historic week.

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France tries five suspected IS militants over kidnap of four journalists in Syria

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One suspect, Mehdi Nemmouche, is serving a life sentence for a 2014 attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels

Five suspected Islamist terrorists accused of kidnapping and torturing four French journalists covering the war in Syria have gone on trial in Paris.

The men include the French jihadist Mehdi Nemmouche, 39, who is serving life imprisonment for an attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014 in which four people died.

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Netanyahu ‘committed’ to Trump’s plan to take over Gaza

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Comments suggest Israeli PM will reject Hamas pledge to hand over control of territory to the PA

Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that he is “committed” to Donald Trump’s plan to take over and develop the Gaza Strip, amid uncertainty over whether Israel will send a delegation to Qatar to discuss the second stage of the fragile ceasefire in the war with Hamas.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli prime minister said: “Just as I have committed to, on the day after the war in Gaza, there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. I am committed to US president Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza.”

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Xi Jinping tells Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Chinese tech chiefs to ‘show their talent’

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Analysts say address to symposium suggests crackdown on sector may be ending in effort to tackle economic slump

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has told businesses to “show their talent” at a meeting of Chinese industry leaders including the Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, as he attempts to halt an economic slump in the world’s second-largest economy.

Xi met Ma, who was at the centre of a crackdown on the tech industry in recent years, as well as the bosses of the electric carmaker BYD, the battery manufacturer CATL, Tencent, Xiaomi, and the founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei

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Rwanda-backed M23 rebels capture eastern DRC’s second-largest city

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Congolese authorities accused of abandoning Bukavu after government confirms fall to militia group

M23 rebels have captured and occupied Bukavu, the second-largest city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Congolese government has confirmed, days after the Rwanda-backed militia launched an attack.

In a statement posted on X, the DRC communications ministry said it was monitoring the situation “marked by the entry of the Rwandan army and its auxiliaries” and it was “doing everything possible to restore order, security and territorial integrity”.

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Singapore opposition leader, found guilty of lying to parliament, could face electoral ban

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Pritam Singh’s conviction is a blow to the city state’s struggling political opposition, which is seeking to challenge the entrenched ruling party in upcoming elections

Singapore’s opposition leader has been convicted of lying to parliament while helping a fellow party member to cover up a false witness account, in a case that could disqualify him from running in upcoming national elections.

Pritam Singh, 48, secretary-general of the Workers’ Party, was found guilty on Monday on two counts of lying to a parliamentary committee that was investigating a fellow MP.

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Brazil asks UN to ditch proposed levy on global shipping

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Those supporting the deal hope it will raise billions to help poor countries deal with climate breakdown

Brazil has asked the UN to throw out plans for a new levy on global shipping that would raise funds to fight the climate crisis, despite playing host to the next UN climate summit.

The proposed levy on carbon dioxide emissions from shipping will be discussed at a crunch meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that begins on Monday. Those supporting the deal, including the UK, the EU and Japan, are hoping the levy will raise billions of dollars a year, which could be used to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate breakdown.

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Trump policies make US ‘scary place to invest’ and risk stagflation, says Stiglitz

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Uncertainty created by tariffs and contempt for rule of law will deter investment, says top economist

Donald Trump’s tariff threats have made the US “a scary place to invest” and may unleash stagflation, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said.

“It risks the worst of all possible worlds: a kind of stagflation,” Stiglitz said in an interview with the Guardian.

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Friends of Russian anti-war singer cast doubt on official version of his death

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Vadim Stroykin reported to have killed himself by jumping from a ninth-floor window during visit by security services

No one knows exactly what happened in the final moments of Vadim Stroykin’s life.

The 59-year-old Russian singer-songwriter’s vibrant career came to a sudden end on 5 February when a team from Russia’s security services arrived at his cramped ninth-floor St Petersburg flat at 9am. They were investigating him for what has become one of the gravest offences in today’s Russia — donating to the Ukrainian army.

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Badenoch and Farage to vie for attention of Trump allies at London summit

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Event co-founded by Jordan Peterson will bring together global rightwing figures including senior US Republicans

Influential rightwingers from around the world are to gather in London from Monday at a major conference to network and build connections with senior US Republicans linked to the Trump administration.

The UK opposition leader, the Conservatives’ Kemi Badenoch, and Nigel Farage of the Reform UK party, her hard-right anti-immigration rival, will compete to present themselves as the torchbearer of British conservatism.

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New Zealand’s ‘Everyone must go!’ tourism campaign ridiculed as emigration hits record high

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Tagline has quickly become the subject of derision, with some critics likening it to a clearance sale slogan

A New Zealand tourism campaign targeting Australian visitors has been ridiculed for sounding like a clearance sale slogan and for being tone-deaf amid widespread public service job cuts and record numbers of New Zealanders moving overseas.

The government launched its “Everyone must go!” campaign on Sunday, in a bid to encourage Australian holiday-makers to visit New Zealand. The NZD$500,000 campaign will run on radios and social media in Australia between February and March.

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Egypt draws up Gaza reconstruction plan that would exclude Hamas

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Alternative to Trump plan would involve committee of technocrats but future military status of Hamas unresolved

An alternative to Donald Trump’s plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-owned “Riviera of the Middle East” is being prepared by Egypt in conjunction with the World Bank, under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance and control of the territory’s reconstruction.

The process would be handed over on an interim basis to the control of a social or community support committee. No member of Hamas would sit on the committee. But the future military status of Hamas within Gaza is unresolved, which is likely to be a barrier to Israeli endorsement of the plan.

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Ukraine recaptures frontline village amid signs of slowing Russian advance

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Pischane in Donetsk back under Kyiv’s control as Zelenskyy renews call for fighting to end ‘with just and lasting peace’

Ukrainian forces have recaptured a village on the frontline in the country’s east, amid signs Russia’s advance may be slowing down and as Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his call for the fighting to end “with a just and lasting peace”.

On Sunday, Ukrainian forces took back the village of Pischane, south-west of the city of Pokrovsk, military officials said. Russian units had made rapid gains in the area in December and January, seizing a string of settlements and threatening to cut off Pokrovsk.

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UK must act more promptly over latest Iran detentions, says Richard Ratcliffe

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Husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe expresses concern for Craig and Lindsay Foreman who were held in January

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has called on ministers to act “more promptly” than they did to help free his wife, after Iran detained a British couple on a motorcycle trip.

Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife was freed in 2022 after five years in a Tehran prison, expressed fears that the couple would now face the “brutal theatre” of court process to “get the government’s attention”.

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‘The US is ready to hand Russia a win’: newspapers on Europe’s Trump shock

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European papers express deep alarm at declaration of an ‘ideological war’, while the NYT says Putin may soon ‘realise his dream’

This year’s Munich security conference exposed the chasm in core values separating the Trump administration from most Europeans and sparked deep alarm at US efforts to control the Ukraine peace process and exclude European governments from it.

Here is what some of the main European and US newspapers had to say about it.

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Netanyahu says Israel working closely with US on Trump’s plan for Gaza

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Israeli PM and US secretary of state express joint support for ‘bold vision’ that would force 2 million people to leave

Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working closely with the US to implement Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which involves US ownership of the coastal strip, the removal of more than 2 million Palestinians and the redevelopment of the occupied territory as a resort.

The Israeli prime minister was speaking after a meeting in Jerusalem with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who defended the Trump plan as bold and visionary. Rubio and Netanyahu blamed Iran for the violence in the Middle East and insisted Tehran would be stopped from developing nuclear weapons.

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