Category Archives: World News

Landmark space mission set to create artificial solar eclipses using satellites

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Two satellites in Proba-3 mission expected to be launched on Wednesday in India and will work in tandem to study sun’s corona

Final preparations have begun for a landmark space mission that will use satellites flying in close formation to create artificial solar eclipses high above the Earth.

The Proba-3 mission is the European Space Agency’s first attempt at precise formation flying in orbit and calls for two spacecraft to loop around the planet in an arrangement that never deviates by more than a millimetre, about the thickness of a human fingernail.

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Still life quartet by Dutch golden age master to be shown together in Cambridge

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Jan Davidsz de Heem’s four paintings of sumptuous food and luxury objects were produced as series

A quartet of influential still lifes from the Dutch artist Jan Davidsz de Heem will go on display together for the first time since the 17th century at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

The four paintings were produced as part of a series by De Heem, who is considered to be a master of pronkstilleven – a style of ornate still life painting – during the Dutch golden age, depicting displays of sumptuous food and luxurious objects.

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Mauritian PM asks for independent review of Chagos Island deal with UK

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Recently elected PM Navin Ramgoolam tells parliament contents of negotiations ‘unknown’ to new government

The Mauritian prime minister has asked for an independent review of the Chagos Islands deal with the UK, according to parliamentary records.

According to the Mauritian parliament Hansard record, the new prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, said during a session on Friday: “I wish to inform the house that I have asked for an independent review of the confidential draft agreement agreed so far.”

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Zelenskyy says Ukrainian territory should be under ‘Nato umbrella’ to stop war

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President suggests bringing Kyiv-controlled land into western military pact could stop ‘hot stage’ of war

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested that Ukrainian territory under his control should be taken under the “Nato umbrella” to try to stop the “hot stage” of the war with Russia.

Speaking to Sky News, the Ukrainian president said that such a proposal has “never been considered” by Ukraine because it has never “officially” been offered.

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At least 27 people dead and 100 missing after boat capsizes in Nigeria

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About 200 passengers, mostly women, were on vessel that sunk in Niger River

At least 27 people have died and more than 100 are missing after a boat capsized in northern Nigeria, authorities have said.

About 200 passengers were on the boat that was going from the state of Kogi to neighbouring state of Niger when it capsized on the Niger River, the Niger state emergency management agency spokesperson, Ibrahim Audu, told the Associated Press.

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Canadian media companies sue OpenAI in case potentially worth billions

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Litigants say AI company used their articles to train its popular ChatGPT software without authorization

Canada’s major news organizations have sued tech firm OpenAI for potentially billions of dollars, alleging the company is “strip-mining journalism” and unjustly enriching itself by using news articles to train its popular ChatGPT software.

The suit, filed on Friday in Ontario’s superior court of justice, calls for punitive damages, a share of profits made by OpenAI from using the news organizations’ articles, and an injunction barring the San Francisco-based company from using any of the news articles in the future.

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Irish election exit poll predicts even split between three main parties

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Sinn Féin and Fine Gael both scored 21% in the poll, slightly ahead of Fianna Fáil on 19%

An exit poll in Ireland suggests a dead heat between Sinn Féin and the taoiseach’s party Fine Gael in the general election, with Fianna Fáil only slightly behind.

The survey of first preference votes is the first real indication of how Ireland voted after three weeks of canvassing in the snap election called by Simon Harris.

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Romanian court defers decision on annulling presidential vote

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Court has ordered recount of vote won by far-right candidate and will decide whether it needs to be rerun

Romania’s constitutional court has deferred a decision on whether to annul the first-round vote in the country’s presidential election until Monday, a day after parliamentary elections in which far-right parties are forecast to post major gains.

The court, which had already ordered a recount, considered for two hours on Friday a request to annul the 24 November vote, which was won by Călin Georgescu, a far-right, Moscow-friendly independent who had previously been polling at barely 5%.

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Leader of Ireland’s Social Democrats gives birth to baby girl on polling day

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Holly Cairns announces birth of daughter on day of Ireland’s general election
• Ireland’s election: the parties, the issues and the voting

The leader of Ireland’s Social Democrats party has announced the birth of a baby daughter on the day of the country’s general election.

Holly Cairns, who is standing for re-election in the Cork South-West constituency, posted on Instagram: “She’s here. We are completely in love with her.”

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Syrian rebels enter Aleppo three days into surprise offensive

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Insurgents had recaptured territory around Syria’s second city with civilians including children killed in fighting

Islamist insurgents have entered Syria’s second city of Aleppo in a shock assault, eight years after forces loyal to Damascus seized control of the city.

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began a major offensive earlier this week from their base in the Idlib countryside, a slim strip of land in Syria’s north-west. It took only three days for the fighting to reach Aleppo, with insurgents capturing territory around the city’s outskirts for the first time in four years as Syrian government forces pummelled rebel-held areas.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow behind ‘staggeringly reckless’ sabotage in Europe, MI6 chief says – as it happened

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German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, will travel to China next week, where she will meet her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, to discuss issues including the war in Ukraine, said a ministry spokesperson on Friday, according to Reuters.

Further political talks are also planned, said the spokesperson, adding that Baerbock will also meet German business representatives in the country.

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Ex-activist says FBI offered him deal to inform on fugitive arrested in Wales

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Peter Young says agency sought information from him about Daniel Andreas San Diego, who was on ‘most wanted terrorists’ list

A former animal rights activist who was on the run from the FBI for more than seven years claims that he was offered a deal to inform on one of the organisation’s most wanted fugitives who was arrested this week in Wales.

Peter Young, 47, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado, went on the run after being indicted in 1998 over a string of fur farm raids across three states the previous year. He was jailed in the US for two years in 2005 after spending years hiding from the FBI in the UK.

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Iran and Europe seek to break nuclear impasse before return of Trump

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Talks held in Geneva as Iran looks to avoid potential snapback of UN sanctions over nuclear programme

Iran and the so-called E3 grouping of the UK, France and Germany have agreed to continue holding talks in the near future in an attempt to find a way out of an impasse over Tehran’s nuclear programme, in what may be the last chance of a breakthrough before Donald Trump takes up the US presidency again.

Trump, who pursued a policy of “maximum economic pressure” against Iran during his first term, returns to the White House on 20 January.

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Abandoning Ukraine means ‘infinitely higher’ long-term security costs, MI6 chief says

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If Putin allowed to reduce Ukraine to vassal state ‘he will not stop there’, Richard Moore says in plea to Trump

Abandoning Ukraine would jeopardise British, European and American security and lead to “infinitely higher” costs in the long term, the head of MI6 has warned in a speech that amounted to a plea to Donald Trump to continue supporting Kyiv.

Richard Moore, giving a rare speech, said he believed Vladimir Putin “would not stop” at Ukraine if he was allowed to subjugate it in any peace talks involving the incoming US Republican administration.

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Bolivia’s former top anti-drug official to be extradited to US for drug trafficking

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Maximiliano Dávila Pérez, arrested in Bolivia in 2022, was accused of using his position to help transport cocaine

Bolivia’s highest court on Wednesday approved the extradition of the country’s former top anti-narcotics official to the US to face charges of trafficking narcotics.

Maximiliano Dávila Pérez briefly served as Bolivia’s top counter-narcotics official in 2019, before then president Evo Morales resigned. He later served as a police commander in Bolivia under the government of the current president, Luis Arce.

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China sentences journalist to seven years on spy charges, family says

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Dong Yuyu was detained in 2022 after meeting Japanese diplomats named agents of ‘espionage organisation’

A veteran Chinese state media journalist has been sentenced by a Beijing court to seven years in prison on espionage charges, his family has said.

Dong Yuyu, a senior columnist at the Communist party newspaper Guangming Daily, was detained in February 2022 along with a Japanese diplomat at a Beijing restaurant.

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Tesla owners turn against Musk: ‘I’m embarrassed driving this car around’

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The electric car brand was once a liberal favourite – but the CEO’s embrace of Trump has led to an angry backlash

As Elon Musk has embraced Donald Trump and various far-right conspiracy theories, he has left behind an aghast cohort of Tesla owners who suddenly feel embarrassed by their own cars. Many of them are now publicly displaying their dismay at Musk on their vehicles.

Sales of anti-Musk stickers have boomed since the world’s richest man declared his support for Trump and helped propel him to victory in the US presidential election, as owners of Teslas, the car brand headed by Musk, try to distance themselves from the South African-born multibillionaire.

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Crypto entrepreneur eats banana art he bought for $6.2m

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Conceptual work created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold at auction in New York last week

The cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun has fulfilled a promise he made after spending $6.2m (£4.88m) on an artwork featuring a banana duct-taped to a wall – by eating the fruit.

At one of Hong Kong’s priciest hotels, Sun, 34, chomped down on the banana in front of dozens of journalists and influencers after giving a speech hailing the work as “iconic” and drew parallels between conceptual art and cryptocurrency.

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Israeli military to remain in Gaza for years, food minister says

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Avi Dichter, of Israel’s security cabinet, made the comments as reports of the scale of Israel’s military infrastructure in the territory emerge

The Israeli military will remain in Gaza for many years, fighting against fresh Hamas recruits in the territory and could be responsible for delivery of humanitarian aid there, a senior Israeli minister has said.

The comments by Avi Dichter, Israel’s minister for food security and a member of the Israeli security cabinet, confirm an emerging picture of a long-term deployment of Israeli troops inside Gaza, with no immediate Israeli plan for any other administration to govern the territory’s 2.3 million people and begin reconstruction there.

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Women arrested by Taliban for begging report rape and killings in Afghan jails

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Draconian new laws allow mass incarceration of women and children forced to beg because of work ban

Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention.

Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused.

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