Category Archives: World News

Berlin’s Watergate nightclub will close with New Year’s Eve last dance

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Upmarket Kreuzberg club blames economic pressures, a pandemic hangover and Berlin’s dated image as factors leading to end of 22-year party

Berlin’s Watergate nightclub, one of the institutions of the German capital’s nightlife, is to close down after 22 years, with its owners saying the night-time economy still hasn’t recovered after the pandemic.

In a statement, the club’s management said it had made the “difficult decision” not to extend its lease and close its premises after a New Year’s Eve party at the end of the year.

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Taliban’s curbs on women add to risk of polio outbreak, health officials warn

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Regime suspends polio campaign across Afghanistan over security concerns and women’s role in vaccination drive

Afghanistan is at risk of a polio outbreak, health officials have warned, after the Taliban suspended the vaccination campaign over security fears and restrictions on women.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 18 new cases of polio infection in the country so far this year, a significant increase from the six cases reported in 2023. Local healthcare workers say these numbers could be higher as many cases will not yet have been detected.

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Zimbabwe outlines plan to cull scores of elephants to feed people after drought

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Culling after severe drought wiped out crops across region is also part of effort to decongest country’s parks

Zimbabwean authorities have set out plans to cull 200 elephants to feed communities facing acute hunger amid the worst drought in four decades.

The El Niño-induced drought has wiped out crops across southern Africa, affecting 68 million people and causing food shortages across the region. In Zimbabwe, 7.6 million people are set to face food insecurity from January to April next year, the height of the lean season, according to the World Food Programme.

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Portugal wildfire deaths rise to seven after firefighters trapped in blaze

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More than 50 people injured as 54 fires burn across country amid hot, dry and windy weather

Seven people have been killed and more than 50 injured in wildfires ravaging central and northern Portugal, authorities have said, after three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped in flames.

Portugal’s civil protection service said 54 wildfires were burning nationwide, mainly in the north, with 5,300 firefighters mobilised. France, Greece, Italy and Spain sent eight water-bombing planes through the EU’s mutual assistance mechanism.

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Justin Trudeau’s future in doubt as party loses crucial Montreal election

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Victory by separatist Québécois candidate in once-safe Liberal seat puts pressure on Canadian PM to quit

Canada’s ruling Liberal party has lost a once-safe seat in Montreal, a result that is likely to put more pressure on the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to quit.

Elections Canada said that with 100% of the votes counted in the parliamentary constituency of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, the separatist Bloc Québécois candidate, Louis-Philippe Sauvé, had beaten the Liberal candidate, Laura Palestini, by a whisker: 28% to 27.2%. The New Democratic party (NDP) candidate received 26.1%.

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Democrats campaign carefully after apparent Trump assassination plot

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The party has been quick to condemn political violence – and is focusing its criticism on Trump’s unpopular policies

In comments to Fox News Digital on Monday, Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the repeated attempts on his life. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out,” he said.

Also on Monday, the former president released a list of quotes that the campaign described as incendiary. At the top of that list was a quote from Kamala Harris saying: “Trump is a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms.”

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Central Europe braces for further flooding as swollen rivers continue to rise

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Deadly Storm Boris has dumped up to five times average September rainfall in four days

As swollen rivers continued to rise, volunteers and emergency workers in towns and cities across a swathe of central Europe were reinforcing defences against floods that have killed at least 21 people in four countries.

Storm Boris has dumped up to five times the average September rainfall on parts of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia in four days, submerging entire neighbourhoods and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate.

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West Papua rebels propose terms for release of New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens

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Announcement comes hours after rebels said the Indonesian army had bombed its headquarters where Mehrtens is being kept

Rebels in Indonesia’s West Papua region have proposed terms for the release of the New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens a year and seven months after he was detained.

It comes hours after the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) released a statement saying the Indonesian army bombed its headquarters in Alguru, which is where Mehrtens is being kept. The statement also said Mehrtens “survived the attack”.

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Dominique Pélicot tells French trial: ‘I am a rapist,’ as he returns to dock

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Pélicot’s testimony set to be decisive for 50 other men accused of raping his then wife Gisèle over nine-year period

A 71-year-old French man accused of drugging his wife so that he and dozens of strangers could sexually assault her at her home has told a court that he admitted the charges and was a rapist.

“I am a rapist, like the others in this room,” Dominique Pélicot said, quietly and calmly, as he looked across the courtroom at the 50 other men who are also on trial accused of raping his wife in her own bed while she was drugged and in a state akin to a “deep coma”.

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Unease as Russia-friendly ‘queen of the elections’ aims for more German poll success

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Some see Sahra Wagenknecht’s brand of ‘left conservatism’ as a bulwark against AfD but others see reasons to be wary

Sahra Wagenknecht is not even on the ballot in the upcoming state election in Brandenburg. But her face is plastered on billboards across the sprawling, largely rural northern state that surrounds Berlin.

There she hopes her fledgling Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) will repeat the successes it enjoyed in polls in Thuringia and Saxony earlier this month, where it came third with vote shares in the double figures, performing so well that it is now a kingmaker for any possible coalition in either state.

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Giorgia Meloni: Starmer showed great interest in our Albania migration deal

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Britain promises to send £4m to back Italian crackdown on irregular migration

Keir Starmer has shown “great interest” in the Italy-Albania migration deal, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said, as the UK vowed to send £4m to support her controversial crackdown on irregular migration.

Speaking at a press conference in Rome, the prime minister agreed with Meloni, stressing the importance of the relationship betwen the UK and Italy.

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Biden tells Trump of his relief he is safe; Secret Service says golf club visit was unscheduled – live

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President and predecessor share ‘cordial conversation’, White House says; acting director Ronald Rowe defends Secret Service actions

A law enforcement source has told CNN that they “expect a federal court in South Florida will require ‘a mental health assessment’ of Ryan Wesley Routh before any possible criminal proceedings”.

Several prominent foreign leaders have commented on what appears to have been an assassination attempt on Donald Trump yesterday.

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Rupert Murdoch attends court hearing in battle over future of media empire

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Murdoch, 93, in Nevada for case that could determine which family members will control businesses after his death

A probate court in Nevada is set to begin reviewing evidence behind closed doors in a case that could determine who will control Rupert Murdoch’s media empire after his death.

Murdoch, 93, arrived at court on Monday for the hearing. Last year, he moved to change the terms of his irrevocable family trust in an effort to ensure that his eldest son, Lachlan, remains in charge of his cadre of newspapers and television networks, including the Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel, according to reporting by the New York Times based on a sealed court document.

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French rape trial to resume after Dominique Pélicot health issues

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Trial of retired electrician, 71, and 50 other men had been adjourned while he was taken to hospitals for tests

The trial of Dominique Pélicot and 50 other men accused of rape will resume on Tuesday after he was deemed well enough to attend court.

The hearing was adjourned last week after the 71-year-old retired electrician, who has admitted drugging his wife, Gisèle, and inviting up to 90 men to rape her while she was unconscious and he filmed the attacks, was reportedly diagnosed with a urine infection and prostate problems and taken to hospital for tests.

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More than 200 inmates escape Nigerian prison in aftermath of flooding

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Prisoners fled when the walls of their jail collapsed in the country’s worst flooding in two decades

More than 200 inmates escaped from a prison in north-east Nigeria in the aftermath of the worst flooding there in over two decades, authorities have announced.

There have been 37 deaths in Borno state after parts of its capital, Maiduguri, were overrun by water on 9 September following the collapse of a dam, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). As many as 200,000 others have been displaced. Residents of the city said some areas were still flooded on Monday when the president, Bola Tinubu, visited.

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Death toll reaches 16 as ‘dramatic’ flooding in central Europe continues

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Czech Republic, Poland and Austria fear worst may yet be to come as thousands are evacuated to higher ground

The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in central and eastern Europe has risen to at least 16, with several more people missing, as authorities reported deaths in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria and warned the worst may be to come.

The number of victims in Poland rose to five after a surgeon returning from work drowned in the south-western town of Nysa, where the hospital was evacuated and patients rescued by raft. Four more people had died in the southern towns of Bielsko-Biała and Lądek-Zdrój, firefighters said.

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Starmer puts ‘pragmatism’ before perceptions in meeting with Meloni

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Some Labourites may see a hard-right populist but the British PM has an eye on the immigration policies of an ally

Keir Starmer will be under no illusions at the level of discomfort some in his party may have felt at the sight of their leader smiling and joking with Giorgia Meloni as they strolled through the gardens of the Villa Doria Pamphili on his trip to Rome on Monday.

The Italian prime minister’s brand of hard-right populism is far out of the comfort zone of many Labour MPs, and even though she governs, for the most part, from the centre-right, they are unable to shrug off her party’s neo-fascist roots.

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Iran has shown restraint after Israeli killing of Hamas leader, president says

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In wide-ranging press conference, Masoud Pezeshkian also addresses questions on Russia, Houthis and nuclear plans

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said Tehran has shown restraint so far in its response to the Israeli assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh because it believes Israel has been trying to lure it into a regional war.

Pezeshkian, a reformist who was elected unexpectedly three months ago, was speaking at a wide-ranging and unprecedented two-and-half-hour press conference in which nearly half of the questions were from foreign media.

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At least 16 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Palestinian officials say

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Five women and four children said to be among dead with strike hitting residential building in crowded Nuseirat camp

At least 16 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across central Gaza on Sunday night and Monday morning, including five women and four children, Palestinian health officials have said.

Rescuers said an airstrike early on Monday destroyed a residential building in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp in the heart of central Gaza, killing at least 10 people, including four women and two children.

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Europe beats the US for walkable, livable cities, study shows

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Cities such as Zurich and Dublin found to have key services accessible within 15 minutes for more than 95% of residents

When Luke Harris takes his daughter to the doctor, he strolls down well-kept streets with “smooth sidewalks and curb cuts [ramps] for strollers at every intersection”. If the weather looks rough or he feels a little lazy, he hops on a tram for a couple of stops.

Harris’s trips to the paediatrician are pretty unremarkable for fellow residents of Zurich, Switzerland; most Europeans are used to being able to walk from one place to another in their cities. But it will probably sound like fantasy to those living in San Antonio, Texas. That’s because, according to new research, 99.2% of Zurich residents live within a 15-minute walk of essential services such as healthcare and education, while just 2.5% of San Antonio residents do.

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