Category Archives: World News

Scholz to lead SPD into snap German election after Pistorius withdraws

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Chancellor’s popular rival says he is unavailable to stand, leaving Scholz as the default candidate

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will be nominated as the candidate to lead his Social Democratic party (SPD) into the February general election after his more popular defence minister, Boris Pistorius, pulled out of the race.

After weeks of calls for a change at the top of the ticket, Pistorius released a video on Thursday in which he said he was “not available” to stand as the SPD flag-bearer in the snap election triggered after Scholz sacked his finance minister, Christian Lindner, imploding the three-year-old ruling coalition.

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Middle East crisis: Netanyahu thanks Orbán for invite after ICC warrant, saying Hungary on ‘side of justice and truth’ – as it happened

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Israeli PM thanks his Hungarian counterpart after he extends invite in defiance of moves by International Criminal Court

The US have said they “fundamentally reject” the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for senior Israel officials and said the court does not have jurisdiction over the matter.

On Thursday, arrest warrants were issued by the court for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the late Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif over alleged war crimes committed in Gaza.

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Hungary invites Netanyahu to visit as world leaders split over ICC arrest warrant

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Viktor Orbán says he will not enforce ICC decision that requires court members to detain Israeli PM if he enters their country

Hungary’s illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said he will invite his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, to visit in defiance of an international criminal court arrest warrant, as world leaders split over the ICC’s momentous decision.

The world’s highest criminal court issued warrants on Thursday for Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and the Hamas commander Ibrahim al-Masri, commonly known as Mohammed Deif, who is believed to be dead, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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China reels from spate of suspected ‘revenge against society’ attacks

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Stabbings and car rammings raise fears that China’s strained social safety net is leading to growing violence

China is grappling with a spate of violent rampages that have left dozens of people dead, sparking a conversation about whether “revenge against society” attacks are becoming more common.

On 19 November, a 39-year-old man drove a car into a group of people near a school in Changde, a city in central China, injuring several students. Days earlier, another car-ramming attack in the southern city of Zhuhai had killed 35 people outside a sports centre, China’s deadliest mass killing in a decade. That same week, a former student in another city stabbed to death eight people and injured 17 others at a vocational college.

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Armed gang steal jewels from French museum’s £6m ‘national treasure’

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Thieves fired shots and took parts of 1904 work by goldsmith Joseph Chaumet from Hiéron Museum

Armed robbers snatched jewels worth millions from a work by the famed Parisian goldsmith Joseph Chaumet classed as a national treasure, in a brazen heist at a French museum.

The thieves arrived on motorbikes at the Hiéron Museum in Paray-le-Monial, in central France, at about 4pm local time on Thursday. Three entered the building and one stood guard outside, said the local mayor, Jean-Marc Nesme.

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UAE urges countries to honour fossil fuels vow amid Cop29 impasse

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Petrostate’s rebuke comes as Saudi Arabia and allies try to derail transition promise made at climate talks last year

The world must stand behind a historic resolution made last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”, the United Arab Emirates has said, in a powerful intervention into a damaging row over climate action.

The petrostate’s stance will be seen as as a sharp rebuke to its neighbour and close ally Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to unpick the global commitment at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan this week.

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UN chief calls for de-escalation after Russian strike on Ukraine – as it happened

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UN secretary general António Guterres’s spokesperson says Russia’s use of a new ballistic missile is ‘yet another … worrying development’. This blog is now closed

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has issued a statement on X after Vladimir Putin said Russian forces had hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new experimental mid-range ballistic missile.

The Russian leader has “admitted” to taking a step “toward escalating and expanding this war” by using a new ballistic missile on Ukraine, Zelenskyy wrote.

Putin struck our city of Dnipro, one of Ukraine’s largest cities. This is a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war — a cynical violation of the UN Charter by Russia.

Putin alone started this war—an entirely unprovoked war — and he is doing everything to prolong it, now for over a thousand days.

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More than 40 killed in north-west Pakistan in gun attack on Shia convoy

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Violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa follows killing of dozens of people in clashes between Sunnis and minority Shias

At least 42 people have been killed and 20 wounded after gunmen opened fire on vehicles carrying Shia Muslims in Pakistan’s restive north-west, in one of the region’s deadliest such attacks in recent years, police said.

The attack happened in Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where sectarian clashes between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shias have killed dozens of people in recent months.

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Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro charged with plotting coup d’état

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Police accuse 37 people of crimes including conspiracy and trying to tear down one of world’s largest democracies

The former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest allies are among dozens of people formally accused by federal police of being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a rightwing coup d’état.

Federal police confirmed on Thursday that investigators had concluded their long-running investigation into what they called a coordinated attempt to “violently dismantle the constitutional state”.

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How Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz unravelled in just eight days

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In a Washington farce for the ages, the far-right Republican has withdrawn from consideration for US attorney general – how did it happen?

Donald Trump decided to nominate Matt Gaetz as attorney general last Wednesday, during a flight home from Washington, where the president-elect had visited Joe Biden at the White House. The pick proved as surprising as it was controversial. Just eight days later, after a week of relentless hullabaloo, Gaetz withdrew from contention.

It was a Washington farce for the ages. But how did it happen?

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Putin says Russia fired experimental ballistic missile into Ukraine

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President says missile was in reply to Kyiv’s strikes in Russia with western missiles, and appears to directly threaten US and UK

Vladimir Putin has said Russia fired an experimental ballistic missile at a military site in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday morning, and that Moscow “had the right” to strike western countries that provided Kyiv with weapons used against Russian targets.

The Russian president, speaking during an unannounced televised address to the nation, appeared to directly threaten the US and UK, who earlier this week allowed Ukraine to fire western-made Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles into Russia.

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Defence firm Thales faces bribery and corruption investigation

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UK Serious Fraud Office and French equivalent ‘will pursue every avenue’ in allegations against Paris-based company

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating suspected bribery and corruption at Thales Group, a multinational aerospace and defence electronics contractor.

The company, which is headquartered in Paris and has a UK subsidiary employing more than 7,000 staff, is known in defence circles for its varied businesses, which include making missiles and launchers, supplying sonar systems for the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines and designing the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.

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Poor nations may have to downgrade climate cash demands, ex-UN envoy says

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Rich country budgets are stretched amid inflation, Covid and Ukraine war, Mary Robinson tells Cop29

Poor countries may have to compromise on demands for cash to tackle global heating, a former UN climate envoy has said, as UN talks entered their final hours in deadlock.

In comments that are likely to disappoint poorer countries at the Cop29 summit, Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and twice a UN climate envoy, said rich country budgets were stretched amid inflation, Covid and conflicts including Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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US moves to list giraffes under Endangered Species Act for first time

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Climate crisis, habitat loss and poaching have reduced its numbers – but will Trump put the kibosh on protections?

They are the tallest animal to roam the Earth and have become an icon of children’s books, toys and awed wildlife documentaries. But giraffes are in decline, which has prompted the US government to list them as endangered for the first time.

Giraffes will be listed under the US Endangered Species Act, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed in a move that will cover five subspecies of the animal. The agency hopes the listing will crack down on the poaching of giraffes, as the US is a leading destination of rugs, pillowcases, boots, furniture and even Bible covers made from giraffe body parts.

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Severed horse head found at Sicilian property, in echo of Godfather scene

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Local authorities think head discovered at businessman’s property may be part of mafia intimidation tactic

A severed horse’s head has been discovered at the property of a Sicilian businessman, in what local authorities believe may be a mafia intimidation tactic reminiscent of a scene from The Godfather.

The animal’s head was left on the seat of a digger owned by the man, a construction contractor in Altofonte, near the Sicilian capital, Palermo. The remains of a pregnant cow and its calf were also found at the site.

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Deus in machina: Swiss church installs AI-powered Jesus

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Peter’s chapel in Lucerne swaps out its priest to set up a computer and cables in confessional booth

The small, unadorned church has long ranked as the oldest in the Swiss city of Lucerne. But Peter’s chapel has become synonymous with all that is new after it installed an artificial intelligence-powered Jesus capable of dialoguing in 100 different languages.

“It was really an experiment,” said Marco Schmid, a theologian with the church. “We wanted to see and understand how people react to an AI Jesus. What would they talk with him about? Would there be interest in talking to him? We’re probably pioneers in this.”

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British lawyer among six to die in suspected methanol poisoning in Laos

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As well as Simone White, two Danes, an American and two Australians have died after incident in town popular with backpackers

A British lawyer is among six people to have died in a suspected mass methanol poisoning in Laos.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it was “supporting the family of a British woman who has died in Laos, and we are in contact with the local authorities”.

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Malian singer Rokia Traoré to be extradited from Italy to Belgium

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Italy’s highest court rejects musician’s appeal after she was arrested in Rome in June over child custody dispute

Malian musician Rokia Traoré, who was arrested in Rome last June over an international child custody dispute, will be handed over to Belgium in the coming days after Italy’s highest court rejected her appeal, her lawyer said on Wednesday.

Traoré, 50, a former goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, was arrested on 20 June at Rome’s Fiumicino airport under a European arrest warrant.

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‘Reward for terrorism’: Israeli politicians unite to condemn ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu

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Leaders from across spectrum are outspoken in rejection of court’s ‘antisemitic’ and ‘outrageous’ decision

Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum united to condemn the decision by a three-judge panel of the international criminal court to issue arrest warrants for the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

Netanyahu’s office described the warrants as “an antisemitic decision … equivalent to the modern Dreyfus trial”, referring to the 1894 trial of a French artillery captain of Jewish descent that has become one of the most prominent examples of antisemitism.

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War crimes charges will be hard stigma for Netanyahu to shrug off

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The ICC warrants are a legal earthquake and could weigh heavier on the Israeli PM and his former minister over time

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The arrest warrants issued by the international criminal court (ICC) represent an earthquake on the world’s legal landscape: the first time a western ally from a modern democracy has been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global judicial body.

Inside Israel, the warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant will not have an immediate impact. In the short term they are likely to rally support around the prime minister from a defiant Israeli public.

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