Category Archives: World News

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte appears by video link in Hague accused of crimes against humanity – as it happened

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Duterte faces charges over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups say killed tens of thousands. This live blog is closed

Philippine ex-president Rodrigo Duterte is appearing by video link before judges at the international criminal court.

Duterte would follow the proceedings through a video link, a court spokesperson said.

To some Duterte’s arrest this week came as a sudden shock. But for years many brave Filipinos, from priests, politicians, pathologists, to relatives of the victims and journalists, have worked tirelessly, in and out of the spotlight, to expose the horrors of the deadly campaign and collect enough evidence to hold Duterte to account.

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Putin makes clear Russia will only play ball with Ukraine by his rules

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While carefully avoiding an outright rejection of US ceasefire proposals, Moscow is playing for time

For once, the US president and European leaders were on the same page.

Grasping for a familiar metaphor, a chorus of western heads of state declared this week that “the ball was in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed in talks with the US on Tuesday to an immediate 30-day ceasefire.

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Weather tracker: Cyclone Jude causes chaos in Mozambique

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More than 200mm of rain fell in 24 hours, destroying 900 homes and leaving 40,000 people without power

Cyclone Jude was the third cyclone to hit Mozambique this season. First spotted as a depression last Friday to the south-west of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, it intensified over the next few days to a moderate tropical storm, affecting northern Madagascar on Saturday and killing at least one person.

Jude strengthened into a tropical cyclone as it tracked westwards over the Mozambique Channel, where sea surface temperatures of close to 30C provided the heat and moisture necessary to fuel the cyclone.

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UK hoping to work with China to counteract Trump’s climate-hostile policies

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Ed Miliband visits Beijing as part of plan to create global axis working in favour of climate action

The UK is hoping to shape a new global axis in favour of climate action along with China and a host of developing countries, to offset the impact of Donald Trump’s abandonment of green policies and his sharp veer towards climate-hostile countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy and net zero secretary, arrived in Beijing on Friday for three days of talks with top Chinese officials, including discussions on green technology supply chains, coal and the critical minerals needed for clean energy. The UK’s green economy is growing three times faster than the rest of the economy, but access to components and materials will be crucial for that to continue.

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Fears for human rights as Peru passes ‘simply brutal’ anti-NGO law

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Experts say legislation will prevent vulnerable people from accessing justice in latest government-backed crackdown

Human rights groups in Peru have voiced alarm over a controversial anti-NGO law that prevents civil society organisations from taking legal action against the state for human rights abuses – a move that activists say will prevent the vulnerable from accessing justice.

Peru’s deeply unpopular congress added a harsher amendment to an existing bill which was fast-tracked through the chamber with 81 votes in favour, 16 against and four abstentions on Wednesday.

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Schumer decision to vote for Republican funding bill a ‘huge slap in the face’, says AOC – US politics live

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Senate working to avert partial government shutdown before midnight deadline

Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen rejected on Friday president Donald Trump’s latest remarks about annexing Greenland, saying the Danish autonomous island could not be taken over by another country.

“If you look at the Nato treaty, the UN charter or international law, Greenland is not open to annexation,” he told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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Tesla tells US government Trump trade war could ‘harm’ EV companies

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Letter from Elon Musk’s firm to US trade representative warns of ‘downstream impacts’ of tit-for-tat tariffs

Elon Musk’s Tesla has warned that Donald Trump’s trade war could expose the electric carmaker to retaliatory tariffs that would also affect other automotive manufacturers in the US.

In an unsigned letter to Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, Tesla said it “supports fair trade” but that the US administration should ensure it did not “inadvertently harm US companies”.

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Jonathan Powell: the veteran negotiator being lauded over US-Ukraine detente

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Insiders say UK national security adviser avoids limelight, but it found the ‘calm operator’ this week

In the topsy-turvy world in which Keir Starmer and his aides operate, the US putting the onus on Russia to agree to a truce with Ukraine marked a significant victory.

The proposed 30-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is the culmination of two weeks of high-wire negotiations involving Ukraine, the US, UK, France and Germany.

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Ed Davey calls on Keir Starmer to back Canada against Trump attacks

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Lib Dem leader says PM should make public show of support for ally against ‘shocking attacks’ on its sovereignty

The leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats has called on the prime minister to publicly support Canada and oppose the “shocking attacks” on Canadian sovereignty, as the Trump administration further escalates its global trade war against longstanding allies.

Ed Davey, who leads the third largest political party in the UK, has called on Keir Starmer to travel to Canada in a show of support to the nation’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, as the commonwealth nation faces a generational crisis under Trump’s tariff war and suggestions that the country might become the 51st US state.

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‘All the birds returned’: How a Chinese project led the way in water and soil conservation

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The Loess plateau was the most eroded place on Earth until China took action and reversed decades of damage from grazing and farming

It was one of China’s most ambitious environmental endeavours ever.

The Loess plateau, an area spanning more than 245,000 sq miles (640,000 sq km) across three provinces and parts of four others, supports about 100 million people. By the end of the 20th century, however, this land, once fertile and productive, was considered the most eroded place on Earth, according to a documentary by the ecologist John D Liu.

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Taiwan’s president labels China a ‘foreign hostile force’ and ramps up security measures citing ‘infiltration’

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Lai Ching-te’s speech – which included a proposal to set up military courts – prompted an angry reaction from Beijing, which called him a ‘creator of crisis’

Taiwan’s new president has formally labelled China a “foreign hostile force” and ramped up national security measures in the face of growing threats and a string of spying cases.

The new measures announced on Thursday include a controversial proposal to restore a military court system in Taiwan, which was under martial law until the late 1980s.

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No Other Land director calls Florida mayor’s campaign against his film ‘very dangerous’

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Israeli Oscar-winner Yuval Abraham speaks out after Miami Beach mayor proposed evicting a local cinema for screening the Palestinian-focused documentary

The Israeli director of No Other Land has criticised a Florida mayor’s efforts to evict a local cinema after it screened his Oscar-winning documentary about Palestinian displacement in the West Bank, saying: “Banning a film only makes people more determined to see it.”

Steven Meiner, the mayor of Miami Beach, has issued a draft resolution calling for the termination of the city’s lease agreement with O Cinema, and withdrawing $40,000 in promised grant funding for the nonprofit that runs the independent cinema.

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US journalist sues Indian government after losing his overseas citizenship

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Raphael Satter had his OCI card taken away after publishing a story critical of an Indian businessman

A US journalist has taken the Indian government to court after his Indian overseas citizenship was unilaterally cancelled, after the publication of a story critical of a prominent Indian businessman.

Raphael Satter, who covers cybersecurity for the Reuters news agency in the US, received a letter from India’s ministry of home affairs in early December 2023, accusing him of producing work that “maliciously” tarnished India’s reputation and informing him that his Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card had been cancelled.

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Donatella Versace defied expectations to become a fashion icon of her own

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When she took over after her brother Gianni’s murder, few expected her to last 27 years and become a household name

When Donatella Versace took over the house of Versace in the aftermath of her brother Gianni’s murder, most observers privately assumed that her reign would be no more than a postscript. The bottle-blond younger sister, with no formal training and a drug addiction that was the fashion industry’s worst kept secret, was seen as a sentimental appointment by a shell-shocked family.

She proved everyone wrong. Versace is now defined as much by Donatella as by Gianni. She steps down from designing after 27 years as an icon in her own right, one of the most successful female designers in modern fashion history. Sober for 20 years, she has steered Versace to become a global household name, valued at $2bn (£1.6bn) when it was sold to Capri Holdings six and a half years ago.

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Destruction of Ukraine dam caused ‘toxic timebomb’ of heavy metals, study finds

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Researchers say environmental impact from Kakhovka dam explosion comparable to Chornobyl nuclear disaster

The destruction of a large Ukrainian dam in 2023 triggered a “toxic timebomb” of environmental harm, a study has found.

Lakebed sediments holding 83,000 tonnes of heavy metals were exposed when the Kakhovka dam was blown up one year into Russia’s invasion, researchers found.

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‘Several people’ arrested in EU bribery investigation linked to Huawei

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Homes searched in inquiry into alleged corruption at European parliament relating to Chinese technology giant

Several people have been arrested and homes searched as part of an investigation into alleged bribery and corruption at the European parliament relating to the Chinese technology giant Huawei, Belgian prosecutors have said.

The investigating judge in charge of the case has asked for seals to be fixed to the offices of two European parliament assistants alleged to be involved.

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Merz presses Greens to name their terms for German defence spending rise

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‘What more do you want from us?’ asks chancellor-in-waiting as he seeks urgent support for fiscal rule changes

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting has tried to win over the Greens to his ambitious but controversial plans to raise the country’s defence spending, promising to expand the scope of the plans and demanding of them: “What more do you actually want from us?”

The outgoing parliament met on Thursday to debate the creation of a €500bn (£420bn) fund for infrastructure investment and radical changes in Germany’s borrowing limits in order to boost defence spending.

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Israeli attacks on Gaza maternity wards and IVF clinic ‘genocidal acts’, says UN

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Israeli forces have used sexual violence as weapon to ‘dominate and destroy’ Palestinian people, report also says

Israel’s systemic attacks on women’s healthcare in Gaza amount to “genocidal acts”, and Israeli security forces have used sexual violence as a weapon of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people”, a UN report states.

The 49-page report on sexual and gender-based violence was drawn up by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, and presented to the UN human rights council.

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Argentina minister urged to quit after police violence at pensioner protest

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Photographer in coma and scores injured as police use teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon against retirees

Argentina’s hardline security minister is facing calls to resign after the violent police response to a protest by pensioners left a photographer in a coma and scores of other people injured.

More than 1,000 riot police used teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse demonstrators late on Wednesday.

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Canadians who visit US for more than 30 days will be fingerprinted

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New requirement hardens enforcement of existing law that hasn’t been applied consistently to Canadians entering the United States

Canadians who visit the US for more than 30 days will be required to register with authorities and have their fingerprints taken, as the Trump administration tightens migration rules amid soaring tensions between the North American neighbors.

The new requirement, effective from 11 April, will harden enforcement of an existing law, which states that all foreign nationals 14 years old or older who plan to stay in the US for 30 days or more must register with the authorities.

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