Category Archives: World News

Swedish PM says Baltic sea now ‘high risk’ after suspected cable sabotage

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Regional leaders meet after undersea telecoms cables severed, while Chinese ship remains at anchor nearby

The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, has said the Baltic sea is now a “high risk” zone as he met Nordic and Baltic leaders days after a suspected sabotage attack on undersea cables.

The Swedish prime minister declined to speculate on who may have been responsible for the severing of two fibre optic telecoms cables in the Baltic last week. A Chinese ship – the Yi Peng 3 – that sailed over the cables about the time they were severed has remained anchored in the Kattegat strait between Sweden and Denmark since 19 November.

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Thousands return to southern Lebanon amid uneasy ceasefire

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Displaced people make their way home despite volatile situation and warnings from Israeli military

Thousands of people displaced from war-torn southern Lebanon have begun returning home after a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday, amid fears on both sides of the border about whether the truce would hold.

Israel heavily bombed the capital, Beirut, and the south of the country throughout Tuesday, killing 42 people, until the truce began at 4am local time, while Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel, triggering air raid sirens.

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Russia’s sabotage of western targets ‘could trigger Nato defence clause’

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German intelligence chief warns continued hybrid warfare by Moscow increases risk of alliance invoking Article 5

Russia’s acts of sabotage against western targets may eventually prompt Nato to consider invoking the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defence clause, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service has warned.

Speaking at an event of the German Council of Foreign Relations (DGAP) think tank in Berlin on Wednesday, BND chief Bruno Kahl said he expected Moscow to further step up its hybrid warfare.

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Bombshell police report details alleged Bolsonaro plot to stage rightwing coup

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Former president accused of leading role in apparent scheme to overturn 2022 election defeat by rival Lula

Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, has moved a step closer to jail after a federal police investigation laid bare what it called a murderous authoritarian plot to explode the country’s democratic system with a military coup that the far-right populist allegedly helped mastermind.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied involvement in an attempt to overturn the result of the 2022 presidential election, which he narrowly lost to his leftwing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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Biden administration claims win with Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire – but will it hold?

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Peace is shaky at best, as Israel will still strike targets in Lebanon and a power transition looms in the US

The Biden administration has claimed the long-awaited ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel as a diplomatic triumph achieved under tremendous pressure during a lame-duck period with a hostile Donald Trump administration waiting in the wings.

Speaking from a lectern in the Rose Garden of the White House, Joe Biden called the result “historic” and said that it “reminds us that peace is possible”. It would return civilians to their homes, he said, and had “determined this conflict will not be just another cycle of violence”.

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France says Netanyahu is immune from ICC warrant as Israel is not member of court

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Claim comes after Paris signalled it would fulfil obligations as signatory to Rome statute after arrest warrant issued

The French government has claimed that Benjamin Netanyahu has immunity from arrest warrants issued by the international criminal court for war crimes on the grounds that Israel is not an ICC member.

The claim came soon after Netanyahu’s cabinet agreed to a French-backed ceasefire in Lebanon and is in contrast to Paris’s attitude towards last year’s ICC war crimes warrant issued against Vladimir Putin, another leader of a non-member country.

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Romania regulator calls for TikTok suspension amid vote interference fears

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Far-right, pro-Moscow candidate Călin Georgescu came from 5% in polls to win presidential election’s first round

Romania’s telecoms regulator is asking for TikTok to be suspended as the country’s defence council prepares to discuss cyber risks to its elections, after a little-known ultranationalist came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote.

The country’s constitutional court will also examine two allegations of electoral fraud after Călin Georgescu, a Moscow-friendly, EU-sceptic and anti-Nato independent, topped the ballot in a result that upended Romanian politics.

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Israel’s ceasefire with Lebanon makes peace in Gaza ever less likely

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Joe Biden may have revived diplomatic efforts, but after compromising in Lebanon, Netanyahu has even less leeway in Gaza

Joe Biden has revived diplomatic efforts to achieve a truce in Gaza with the hope of building on momentum generated by the newly agreed ceasefire in Lebanon.

There are doubts, however, that such momentum exists outside the Biden administration, which is anxious to use its last few weeks to salvage scraps of diplomatic honour after the bloody past 14 months in the Middle East.

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French sovereign borrowing costs rise to highest premium in 12 years

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Government faces risk of collapse over planned austerity budget

French sovereign borrowing costs have soared to the highest premium since the eurozone debt crisis amid political turmoil as the government faces the risk of collapse over a planned austerity budget.

The gap between French 10-year government bond yields and their German equivalent ballooned to as much as 90 basis points on Wednesday, the widest level in 12 years, while shares listed on the Paris stock exchange also tumbled.

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‘Thank God we are home’: Lebanese return south after ceasefire with Israel

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People are relieved to be home but face having to rebuild lives among destroyed homes and villages

Before the ceasefire had even come into effect, Zeinab and Dina were already driving south. The two sisters had been forced to flee to Tripoli, northern Lebanon, for 64 days – they had counted – and they could not bear another day without seeing home.

“We were laughing and crying at the same time when we heard the news of the ceasefire. We were packing our stuff and still we didn’t believe it was happening, it was like a dream,” said Zeinab, 28, a resident of the town of Zibqeen in south Lebanon.

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Dominique Pelicot has split personality caused by trauma, defence argues

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Lawyer for man who drugged wife and invited strangers to rape her says she has felt like ‘devil’s advocate’

Dominique Pelicot, the French man on trial for drugging his wife and inviting strangers to rape her, has a split personality caused by the effect of childhood trauma, his defence lawyer has argued.

In her summing up on Wednesday, Béatrice Zavarro told the court in Avignon there were “two Dominiques”, one a man apparently devoted to his family and the other with a “certain perversity”.

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Pakistan army and police accused of firing on Imran Khan supporters

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Multiple protesters said to have been killed and hundreds injured in Islamabad amid calls for Khan’s release from jail

Pakistan’s army and police have been accused of firing on civilians, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries to hundreds of protesters who had stormed Islamabad on Tuesday to demand the release of the former prime minister Imran Khan from prison.

As tens of thousands of Khan’s supporters stormed the capital on Tuesday in defiance of government orders, the army and paramilitary forces were deployed in huge numbers and issued with shoot-to-kill orders to try to stop the crowds reaching the heart of Islamabad’s sensitive Red Zone, which houses the parliament, supreme court and prime minister’s residence.

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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Myanmar junta chief

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Min Aung Hlaing accused of crimes against humanity over deportation and persecution of Rohingya minority

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) is seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar’s military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, for crimes against humanity over the deadly crackdowns against the country’s Rohingya minority that drove hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh.

Karim Khan said that “after an extensive, independent and impartial investigation” his office had concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe that the Myanmar junta chief “bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya committed in Myanmar and in part in Bangladesh”.

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Seoul slows down under blanket of heaviest November snow in 100 years

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First day of snowfall this season is heaviest on record, says weather bureau

South Korea’s capital has been blanketed by what the weather agency said was the heaviest November snowfall since records began over a century ago. It was the first snowfall of this year’s winter.

The Korea Meteorological Administration said 16.5cm (6.5 inches) of snow fell by 7am on Wednesday, compared with Seoul’s previous record of 12.4cm on 28 November 1972. It was the heaviest snowfall since records began in 1907, the KMA said.

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British mother of Egyptian political prisoner to press Lammy to take action

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Laila Soueif is to meet the foreign secretary, who in opposition called for the release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah

The British-born mother of an Egyptian political prisoner who has been on hunger strike for 58 days is preparing to meet the foreign secretary, David Lammy, to urge him to secure her son’s release.

Laila Soueif’s son Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British and Egyptian dual citizen who wrote eloquently about the Arab spring and its aftermath, was jailed for five years for “spreading false news”. He was due to be released in September, but has not been freed.

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UN chief says Lebanon ceasefire ‘first ray of hope amid darkness’ in conflict – as it happened

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Down to the final half-hour before the ceasefire comes into effect and AFP is reporting strikes on south Beirut after the Israel army’s evacuation warning.

“Urgent warning to residents of the Beirut area,” army spokesperson Avichay Adraee had earlier said in a post on X, telling people in the Bachoura area in the city centre to leave, as well as “all residents in the southern suburb area”, specifically in Ghobeiry.

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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire comes into force with Biden insistent on ‘permanent cessation of hostilities’

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Reports of cars heading south inside Lebanon despite Israeli army warning displaced residents not to return home immediately

A highly anticipated ceasefire aimed at ending the 14-month-old war between Israel and Hezbollah officially came into effect early on Wednesday morning, hours after Joe Biden hailed the “historic” moment.

The ceasefire officially began at 0200 GMT – 4am in Lebanon – after the heaviest day of raids on Beirut, including a series of strikes in the city’s centre, since Israel stepped up its air campaign in Lebanon in late September before sending in ground troops.

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Trump’s return raises questions over future of CIA’s Russian recruitment drive

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Intelligence agency has been trying to entice Russians disaffected by invasion of Ukraine but president-elect is likely to want to make an ally of Kremlin

For the past three years, the CIA has run an unusually bold outreach programme. It targeted Russians within the country’s government and security services, attempting to turn them into double agents.

Slickly produced recruitment videos portrayed cooperation with the US secret agency as the patriotic choice for officials disaffected with Vladimir Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine. The videos ended with instructions on how to contact the CIA in a secure manner.

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Plan to cut Berlin arts budget will ‘destroy’ city’s culture, directors warn

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Leading theatre figures warn ‘drastic’ reduction in funding will cause bankruptcy and harm city’s tourism appeal

Plans to slash Berlin’s culture budget by tens of millions of Euros have led to a huge backlash, with leading venues saying they have been forced to cut performances and others warning they will be pushed into bankruptcy.

About 450 institutes that are reliant at least in part on state subsidies, from theatres and opera houses to nightclubs and galleries, have formed an alliance in an attempt to force a rethink over the €130m (£108.6m) cuts. At around 12 to 13% of the current annual budget, they have been described even by those proposing them as “brutal”.

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Namibia goes to polls amid anger at high unemployment rate

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Swapo party could lose its majority for the first time since independence in 1990, if youth voter turnout is high

Namibians are going to the polls with the longtime ruling party’s parliamentary majority under threat if dissatisfied young people turn out in big numbers amid a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment globally.

The Swapo party could also be forced to contest a second round in the presidential election for the first time since the sparsely populated southern African country became independent from South Africa in 1990.

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