Category Archives: World News

Wisconsin and Florida voters head to polls in test of Trump’s popularity

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Conservatives bid to overturn liberal majority on Wisconsin supreme court while Florida votes to replace Mike Waltz

US voters are headed to the polls on Tuesday in Wisconsin and Florida in elections that some see as a test of Donald Trump’s popularity and the political clout of his billionaire ally Elon Musk.

The most closely watched contest is a battle for a seat on Wisconsin’s seven-member supreme court. Conservatives are trying to flip ideological control of the court, which currently has a 4-3 liberal majority. The contest, which features liberal judge Susan Crawford facing off against conservative Brad Schimel, will have huge consequences in the state.

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People displaced by Uganda oil pipeline ‘received inadequate compensation’

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Many of the people displaced by Eacop project were inadequately rehoused or compensated, report says

People displaced from their homes alongside the site of an oil pipeline under construction in Uganda have complained of being inadequately rehoused or compensated.

When completed, the East African crude oil pipeline (Eacop) will transport oil from the Tilenga and Kingfisher oilfields in western Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania.

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India trains thousands of medics to promote vaccine in huge push to end cervical cancer

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Vast scheme aims to counter disinformation and increase awareness in country where low HPV vaccine take-up means many die from the preventable disease

Tens of thousands of doctors across India are being trained to promote the HPV vaccine, in a push to eliminate cervical cancer in the country.

They will check with mothers attending medical appointments that they intend to vaccinate their daughters, and visit schools and community centres armed with facts and slideshows to counter vaccine disinformation.

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Large majority of Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against US, poll finds

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Survey shows between 56% and 79% across seven countries in favour if Trump introduces ‘Liberation Day’ levies

A large majority of western Europeans support retaliatory tariffs against the US, a survey has suggested, if Donald Trump introduces sweeping import duties for major trading partners as expected this week.

The US president appears likely to unleash a range of tariffs, varying from country to country, on Wednesday, which he has called Liberation Day. He also said last week that a 25% levy on cars shipped to the US would come into force the next day.

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Chester zoo unveils £28m ‘Africa’ facility – complete with chilly giraffes

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Nine-hectare site home to 57 species including rhino, zebras and ostriches in UK’s biggest such development

“Although we are trying to replicate Uganda and Kenya we are actually in Cheshire so the weather is slightly different,” admits Chester zoo boss, Jamie Christon, on a fresh and very grey Monday morning.

But ignore the chilliness and screw your eyes and you could well be transported to a sweeping African savannah where, one day, there will be giraffes, zebras, antelopes and ostriches roaming majestically side by side.

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Trump officials to review $9bn in Harvard funds over antisemitism claims

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Administration accuses university of failing to protect students and plans to look into federal grants and contracts

The Trump administration announced a review on Monday of $9bn in federal contracts and grants at Harvard University over allegations that it failed to address issues of antisemitism on campus.

The multi-agency joint task force to combat antisemitism said it will review the more than $255.6m in contracts between Harvard University, its affiliates and the federal government, according to a joint statement from the education department, the health department and the General Services Administration. The statement also says the review will include the more than $8.7bn in multi-year grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates.

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‘We weren’t stuck’: Nasa astronauts tell of space odyssey and reject claims of neglect

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Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams’ story markedly at odds with abandonment narrative painted by Trump and Musk

In the end, whatever Elon Musk and Donald Trump liked to insist, astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were never stuck, nor stranded in space, and definitely not abandoned or marooned.

The world heard on Monday, for the first time since their return to Earth two weeks ago, from the two Nasa astronauts whose 10-day flight to the international space station (ISS) last summer turned into a nine-month odyssey. And their story was markedly at odds with the narrative painted from the White House.

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Marine Le Pen attacks ban on French presidency run as a ‘political decision’

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Far-right leader, who was found guilty of embezzlement of European funds, says conviction is a ‘denial of democracy’

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has railed against a Paris court’s “political decision” to bar her from competing for the presidency in 2027, attacking the move to ban her from running for public office as “a denial of democracy”.

In a day of high political drama, Le Pen was found guilty of embezzlement of European parliament funds on a vast scale, a conviction for which she was also handed a four-year prison sentence, with two of those years suspended and two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet. She was also ordered to pay a €100,000 (£84,000) fine.

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Epstein and Prince Andrew accuser says she has days to live after bus crash

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Virginia Giuffre writes on social media she has ‘gone into kidney renal failure … they’ve given me four days to live’

Virginia Giuffre, a victim of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who once alleged she was sexually trafficked to Britain’s Prince Andrew, says she has just days to live after being involved in a vehicle accident.

“This year has been the worst start to a new year … I won’t bore anyone with the details, but I think it important to note that when a school bus driver comes at you driving 110km as we were slowing for a turn no matter what your car is made of it might as well be a tin can,” she wrote in a post on social media on Sunday, along with a photograph of herself lying in a hospital bed with a head injury.

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Trump’s bombing threat over Iran nuclear programme prompts backlash

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Iranian officials accuse US president of breaching UN charter and say ‘violence brings violence’

Iran has reacted with outrage after Donald Trump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear programme.

The US president said on Sunday that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”.

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Who is Jordan Bardella, likely successor to Marine Le Pen in French presidential race?

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Le Pen’s 29-year-old protege is the new anti-immigration face of French far right but observers point to his youth and lack of experience

The court ruling barring Marine Le Pen from running for president has recast a spotlight on her right-hand man, Jordan Bardella, as debate swirls over who may end up representing the far right in France’s 2027 presidential race.

While Le Pen’s lawyer has said she will appeal Monday’s court ruling, the process could drag on for months or years, leaving the ban firmly in place as the country heads towards presidential elections. Polls had long suggested that Le Pen, who helms the far-right the National Rally (RN) party, was among the leading contenders to succeed the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, after his second and final term ends in 2027.

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‘This will backfire’: Le Pen allies hit out at Paris court’s 2027 election ban verdict

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Elon Musk attacks decision along with other figures from the right including Viktor Orbán and Geert Wilders

Nationalist and populist figures around the world, from Elon Musk to Viktor Orbán, have united in condemnation of a Paris court verdict barring Marine Le Pen from running in the country’s 2027 presidential elections.

In a bombshell ruling many believe could boost support for the party, the figurehead of France’s far-right National Rally (RN) was sentenced on Monday to four years’ imprisonment – half suspended – and banned from running for public office for five years, for embezzlement of European parliament funds.

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Aftermath of the Myanmar earthquake – a visual guide

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The 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday wrought destruction across central areas of the country, including the capital

A devastating earthquake has wrought destruction across central Myanmar, toppling ancient sites, bringing down hospital buildings and collapsing homes.

The 7.7 magnitude quake on Friday was followed by a number of aftershocks along the Sagaing fault. It also caused damage in neighbouring Thailand, where a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.

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NYU canceled talk on USAID cuts for being ‘anti-governmental’, doctor says

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University called Dr Joanne Liu, ex-head of Doctors Without Borders, after planning to speak on Gaza and federal cuts

The former international head of Doctors Without Borders says she was left “stunned” after New York University canceled her presentation because some of her slides discussing cuts at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) could be viewed as “anti-governmental”.

Dr Joanne Liu, a pediatric emergency physician at Sainte-Justine hospital and a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who also served as the former international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), told CTV News last week that she was scheduled on 19 March to give a presentation at her alma mater on challenges in humanitarian crises.

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Myanmar healthcare facilities overwhelmed, WHO says, and scale of earthquake deaths and injuries ‘not fully understood’ – as it happened

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World Health Organization issues flash appeal for $8m of emergency support amid frantic search for survivors

AFP has spoken to relatives anxiously waiting at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok.

Daodee Paruay said she had been at the site for two days, hoping for a miracle. Her brother was an electrician working on site, and he is believed to be under the rubble. “We wait, we wait.” she said.

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New images reveal extent of looting at Sudan’s national museum as rooms stripped of treasures

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Only a few statues remain, with thousands of priceless artefacts from Nubian and Kushite kingdoms missing

Videos of Sudan’s national museum showing empty rooms, piles of rubble and broken artefacts posted on social media after the Sudanese army recaptured the area from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in recent days show the extent of looting of the country’s antiquities.

Fears of looting in the museum were first raised in June 2023 and a year later satellite images emerged of trucks loaded with artefacts leaving the building, according to museum officials. But last week, as the RSF were driven out of Khartoum after two years of war, the full extent of the theft became apparent.

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Greenland’s new PM rejects Trump’s latest threat: ‘We do not belong to anyone else’

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Newly sworn in Jens-Frederik Nielsen says ‘Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that’

The US will not get Greenland, its new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has said in response to Donald Trump’s latest statements that he wants to take control of the vast Arctic country.

“President Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that. We do not belong to anyone else. We determine our own future,” Nielsen said.

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Volunteer rescuers race to find survivors two days after Myanmar earthquake

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Red Cross says devastation is of a level not seen in Asia for over a century as more than 1,700 people killed

Rescue volunteers, many of them poorly equipped local people, raced to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings across central Myanmar, two days after a huge earthquake killed more than 1,700 people in the country and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.

Red Cross officials said Myanmar was facing “a level of devastation that hasn’t been seen over a century in Asia”, after a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the centre of the country on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.

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Trump ‘running out of patience’ with Putin over Ukraine ceasefire, says Finnish president

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Alexander Stubb – who played golf with Trump this weekend – suggested deadline and US sanctions package

Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin’s stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said after spending several hours with the US president – including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.

Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.

Stubb pointed out that a third golf partner on Saturday, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, already has a bill in the US Senate proposing what he has described as “bone-breaking” US sanctions on Russia if it did not accept an unconditional ceasefire.

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Donors quit Prince Harry’s charity when he left UK, says Sentebale chair

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Sophie Chandauka claims there is ‘significant correlation’ with drop in funders and prince’s move to the US

Donors abandoned the charity Prince Harry founded in memory of his late mother when he left the UK, the chair of Sentebale has said amid a bitter media row in which she accused the prince of trying to “eject” her through “bullying” and “harassment”.

Sophie Chandauka told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme that there was a “significant correlation” between a drop in funders and the Duke of Sussex’s departure to the US after the controversy caused by his rift with the royal family.

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