Category Archives: World News

Carney’s ‘nation-building’ programme misses mark to be truly transformative for Canada

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The $C56bn plan focused on investing in a resource economy falls short of changing Canadians’ day-to-day lives

Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney likes to say that when he was young, “we used to build big things in this country, and we used to build them quickly.”

That idea – of sprawling projects that transform nations, has influenced both his narrative as an economist-turned politician and his government’s multibillion dollar investment spree. “It’s time to get back at it, and get on with it,” he said in September.

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Epstein sought to restore his reputation after guilty plea, documents reveal

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Documents include emails depicting coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists

Jeffrey Epstein and his associates worked to suppress negative press and rebuild his image in the years after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida of solicitation of prostitution and of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, newly released documents reveal.

The documents, among 20,000 pages released on Wednesday by Republican members of the House oversight committee, include emails and memos that depict a coordinated effort to influence online search results and journalists, and restore Epstein’s reputation.

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Venezuela’s Maduro urges Trump to avoid Afghanistan-style ‘forever war’

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Authoritarian leader calls for US to make peace amid military buildup and strikes against alleged drug smugglers

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump not to lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”, as the American military buildup in the region intensified and Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vowed to purge the Americas of “narco-terrorists”.

Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war, after the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the region.

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London judge rules BHP Group liable for Brazil’s 2015 Samarco dam collapse

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About 600,000 people seeking compensation a decade on from disaster that killed 19 and devastated villages

The global mining company BHP Group has been found liable for the deadly 2015 collapse of a Brazilian dam, in a landmark ruling that could pave the way for a multibillion-dollar payout.

The high court in London on Friday, Mrs Justice O’Farrell ruled that BHP was responsible for the collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana despite not owing the dam at the time.

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South Africa to investigate ‘mysterious’ arrival of 153 Palestinians on plane

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Passengers held on runway for 12 hours after landing in Johannesburg without travel documents

South Africa will investigate the “mysterious” arrival of scores of Palestinians who were kept on a charter plane at Johannesburg for 12 hours by border police because they did not have travel papers, the president has said.

A group of 153 Palestinians arrived at OR Tambo international iarport in Johannesburg on a chartered Global Airways flight from Kenya on Thursday without departure stamps, return tickets or details of accommodation, according to the border authorities.

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British-Egyptian activist stopped from flying to UK, says family

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Egyptian authorities prevented Alaa Abd el-Fattah from attending human rights awards in London

Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer and human rights campaigner who was freed from jail in September, was stopped from flying to the UK by Egyptian passport control, his family has said.

Abd el-Fattah was pardoned after more than 10 years in jail but his status, including his right to travel back and forth between Britain and Egypt, was left unclear and subject to discussion between the family and authorities.

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The UK wants to emulate Denmark’s hardline asylum model – but what does it actually look like?

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Denmark has slashed asylum numbers by granting only short-term status and by targeting ‘ghettoes’, which critics say has damaged the country’s values

Of all the measures introduced to deter people from seeking asylum in Denmark over the last decade, it is the impermanence of refugees’ status that is often cited as the most effective.

Before 2015, refugees in Denmark were initially allowed to stay for between five and seven years, after which their residence permits would automatically become permanent. But 10 years ago, when more than a million people arrived in Europe fleeing conflict and repression, largely from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea, the Danish government dramatically changed the rules.

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Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil, report says

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One in every 25 participants at 2025 UN climate summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist, according to Kick Big Polluters Out

More than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the Cop30 climate negotiations in Belém, significantly outnumbering every single country’s delegation apart from the host Brazil, new analysis has found.

One in every 25 participants at this year’s UN climate summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist, according to the analysis by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition, raising serious questions about the corporate capture and credibility of the annual Cop negotiations.

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Russian attacks on Kyiv ‘calculated and wicked’, says Zelenskyy

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Ukrainian president calls for more air defence from Europe and US after six killed and dozens injured in strikes across capital

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Russia’s latest attack against Ukraine as “deliberate, calculated and wicked”, after six people were killed and dozens injured in a wave of night-time strikes across Kyiv.

Air raid sirens sounded shortly after midnight and residents of the capital made their way to shelters or lay between two walls in their apartments. Soon afterwards the whine of Shahed drones could be heard in the sky, with heavy machine-gun fire from Ukrainian air defences.

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The great escape: seal flees killer whales by jumping on to photographer’s boat

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Charvet Drucker captures dramatic video and photos of seal being hunted by orcas in Salish Sea, north-west of Seattle

A wildlife photographer on a whale-watching trip in waters off Seattle captured dramatic video and photos of a pod of killer whales hunting a seal that survived only by clambering on to the stern of her boat.

Charvet Drucker was on a rented 20ft (6 metre) boat near her home on an island in the Salish Sea about 40 miles north-west of Seattle when she spotted a pod of at least eight killer whales, also known as orcas.

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Florida kills man on death row in state’s 16th execution this year

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Bryan Frederick Jennings, convicted over rape and murder of young girl in 1979, given three-drug lethal injection

A man found guilty in the 1979 rape and murder of a six-year-old girl was executed in Florida on Thursday.

Bryan Frederick Jennings was pronounced dead at 6.20pm local time after being administered a three-drug lethal injection. Jennings was sentenced to death for the killing of Rebecca Kunash, whom he drowned in a canal, according to reports.

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Donald Trump pardons UK billionaire and former Tottenham owner Joe Lewis

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Lewis was fined $5m and given three years probation by New York judge over ‘brazen’ insider trading scheme

Joe Lewis, the British billionaire and former owner of Tottenham Hotspur FC, has been pardoned by Donald Trump over a 2024 conviction for his part in a “brazen” insider trading scheme.

Lewis, 88, was fined $5m (£3.8m) and given three years probation by a New York judge last year but was spared jail time after pleading guilty to involvement in a plan that prosecutors said was designed to enrich his friends, lovers and employees.

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Canada says Russia and China are ramping up spy efforts in Arctic region

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Canada’s spy agency says it has observed intelligence threats targeting country’s government and private sector

Canada’s domestic spy agency says Russia and China have a “significant intelligence interest” in Canada’s Arctic, and are targeting both the country’s government and its private sector.

In his annual speech on threats facing Canada, Dan Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), flagged mounting concerns over hostile nations growing increasingly emboldened in the Arctic.

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‘The pain remains’: France remembers victims of 2015 Paris attacks

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Bells ring out across French capital marking 10th anniversary of country’s deadliest peacetime attack

France has paid tribute to the 130 people killed 10 years ago by Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers who targeted a stadium, bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall in the country’s deadliest peacetime attack.

“The pain remains,” Emmanuel Macron wrote on social media on Thursday as he visited each of the sites that were attacked. Bells rang out across the city as a remembrance ceremony began at a memorial garden in central Paris attended by relatives and survivors.

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Serbia secretly agreed deal with Jared Kushner firm to develop protected Belgrade site

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Government established joint venture with Trump’s son-in-law in February 2024 to build hotel, apartments and museum complex

The Serbian government has established a joint venture with a property development company owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to develop a hotel complex in Belgrade, giving Serbia until next May to demolish the existing buildings, according to leaked documents.

An independent Serbian news magazine, Radar, published what appears to be a 2024 investment agreement giving Kushner’s firm Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC a 77.5% stake in the joint venture, and the Serbian government a 22.5% stake.

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Irish government announces plan to build 300,000 homes within five years

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Proposal includes 72,000 social homes to tackle housing crisis, but critics call it ‘old wine in a new bottle’

The Irish government has announced a long-awaited plan to tackle the country’s severe housing shortage by building 300,000 new homes within five years.

It plans to boost supply by increasing construction capacity and the amount of zoned and serviced land, and to increase support for vulnerable groups, according to proposals published on Thursday.

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Row over definition of ‘gender’ hangs over Cop30 plans to support women

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Advocates say conservative states’ push to define gender as ‘biological sex’ would backslide on decade-old language within the UN

A row over the definition of the term “gender” threatens to bog down pivotal talks at the Cop30 climate summit.

Before the UN talks in Brazil, hardline conservative states have pushed to define gender as “biological sex” over their concerns trans and non-binary people could be included in a major plan to ensure climate action addresses gender inequality and empowers women.

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State-sanctioned fuel smuggling cost Libya $20bn over three years – report

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Policy body calls for western-backed investigation into oil officials known to be at heart of illegal enterprise

A surge in state-sanctioned fuel smuggling between 2022 and 2024 cost the Libyan people about $20bn (£15bn) in lost revenue – an alarming sum that demands decisive international sanctions against those responsible, according to the most comprehensive report published on how Libya’s primary revenue source has been systematically pillaged.

The report by the investigative and policy body the Sentry states that “politicians and security leaders who claim to serve the public and fight organised crime have, in fact, acted as the chief architects of Libya’s fuel-smuggling industry, often with backing from foreign states”. Some of the imported fuel has also been smuggled into Sudan, where it has prolonged that country’s civil war.

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Mexico takes action to combat sexual abuse after president publicly groped

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Secretary for women presents plan, including prison sentences, after Claudia Sheinbaum was groped on street

The shocking public groping of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has prompted rapid political action to tackle sexual abuse, as well as public debate on how best to address the problem, which is widespread across the country.

Citlalli Hernández, Mexico’s secretary for women, presented a presidential plan to confront the issue, which would include actions such as ensuring prison sentences for sexual abuse across Mexico, encouraging women to report incidents, and training prosecutors and other officials on how to handle the matter.

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US government reopens after shutdown with House to vote on Epstein files next week – politics live

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Even if bill passes the House, it will still need to get through the Senate before files can be released

After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and the minority party won no concessions from the party in power, writes Guardian US’ senior politics reporter Chris Stein in this analysis piece:

The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. You can see how lawmakers voted via this interactive:

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