Authoritarian president moves up holiday celebrations yet again to apparently distract from political crisis
“Whatever happened to Christmas?” Frank Sinatra once asked. In Venezuela, the answer is that it has been brought forward to October.
The country’s strongman president, Nicolás Maduro, made the curious announcement that this year’s festivities would begin in October on Monday, in the midst of a political bleak midwinter for his crisis-stricken land.
Continue reading...Caroline Darian overwhelmed as details are revealed during trial of father, Dominique Pélicot, and 50 other men
Harrowing details have emerged at the trial of a French man charged with enlisting dozens of strangers to rape his drugged wife, with their daughter temporarily leaving the courtroom as she became overwhelmed by emotion.
The case against Dominique Pélicot, 71, has horrified France after the allegations were only exposed by chance when he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket.
Continue reading...Inquiry to follow preliminary investigation unearthing 2,400 allegations of historic abuse
The Irish government is to set up a statutory commission of inquiry into sexual abuse at schools run by Catholic religious orders after a preliminary investigation found almost 2,400 allegations of historic abuse.
The investigation, led by a leading barrister, Mary O’Toole, documented 844 alleged abusers in 308 schools run by 42 religious orders across the Republic of Ireland.
Continue reading...Bobi Wine’s party, the National Unity Platform, said police ‘made an attempt on his life’
Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine has been shot in the leg in a confrontation with police just outside the capital, Kampala, his opposition group said.
Photos posted online on Tuesday showed Wine surrounded by followers who yelled that he had been shot in the leg before some supported him into a waiting car.
Continue reading...Brazilian president makes comments after supreme court votes to uphold X ban over refusal to obey court orders
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.
Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.
Continue reading...British manufacturer’s share price slumped 6.5% after engines failed on Cathay Pacific flight on Monday
• Cathay Pacific says 15 jets need new part after Rolls-Royce engine problem
An engine failure on a Cathay Pacific flight on Monday has put the spotlight on the British manufacturer Rolls-Royce, which makes and maintains the power plant on the Airbus A350.
As airlines that operate the twin-aisle plane inspect their fleets, investors are trying to establish whether there will be broader implications for Rolls-Royce. The A350, which carries up to 410 passengers, is used mainly on lon-haul routes.
Continue reading...Engagement of Nomcebo Zuma, 21, to King Mswati, 56, confirmed at annual Umhlanga reed dance
A daughter of the former South African president Jacob Zuma and the king of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, have become engaged during a traditional ceremony in which Nomcebo Zuma was among hundreds of women and girls dancing for the monarch.
Zuma, 21, appeared on Monday night at the annual reed dance as the liphovela – the royal fiancee or concubine – and will become King Mswati III’s 16th wife.
Continue reading...Netanyahu has made control of the strip between Gaza and Egypt a condition in ceasefire negotiations
Continue reading...Minister requests review of building project for bike shelter at Leinster House in Dublin
Ireland’s prime minister, Simon Harris, has said he is “angry and annoyed” at the “inexcusable” €336,000 cost for a bike shelter at Leinster House in Dublin, the seat of the Irish parliament.
The taoiseach told a news conference that “people can see the benefit of having somewhere to park a bike at a workplace” but what they don’t get is “the extraordinary sum of money” the shelter cost, and neither does he.
Continue reading...Supermodel says she is in remission after being diagnosed seven years ago and rejecting traditional medicine
Elle Macpherson has said she was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago but is now in remission despite refusing chemotherapy.
The Australian supermodel and actor, who rose to fame in the 1980s, is publishing a memoir – Elle: Life, Lessons, and Learning to Trust Yourself – in which she says she took a holistic approach to the illness, going against the advice of 32 doctors.
Continue reading...180 more people have been wounded after two ballistic missiles hit Ukrainian city, says president Volodymyr Zelenskiy
A Moscow court sentenced a prominent physicist to 15 years in a penal colony on Tuesday after finding him guilty of “treason” – the latest prison term for a scientist accused of sharing state secrets.
Several high-profile scientists have been arrested in recent years, with at least three detained since Moscow launched its Ukraine offensive in 2022.
Continue reading...Police find group ‘collecting olives in flagrante’ near Seville, with lucrative fruit a tempting target for criminals
Police in southern Spain have thwarted the theft of almost half a tonne of olives as the country’s harvest season begins and the lucrative fruit becomes a tempting target for opportunistic thieves and professional criminal gangs.
The verdeo – or collecting of the green olives – takes place in the early autumn and marks the beginning of the harvest season. As it got under way in Seville province this week, officers from Spain’s Guardia Civil force prevented 465kg (73st 2lbs) of olives from being stolen near the town of Albaida del Aljarafe.
Continue reading...France led by caretaker administration since July snap election
Eric Ciotti, a right-wing politician who had allied himself with the far-right ahead of the elections, has expressed his opposition to Xavier Bertrand.
BFMTV reports that Emmanuel Macron will hold new phone consultations with different political groupings.
Continue reading...Pontiff lands in Jakarta before travelling on to Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore over 12 days
Pope Francis arrived in Muslim-majority Indonesia on Tuesday to kick off a four-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific that will be the longest and farthest of the 87-year-old’s papacy.
The head of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics touched down in the capital, Jakarta, for a three-day visit devoted to inter-religious ties, and will then travel to Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore.
Continue reading...Israeli PM says move will embolden a genocidal Hamas as British government faces growing backlash
Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the UK government’s decision to suspend some arms export licences to Israel, describing it as a shameful decision that would embolden a genocidal Hamas.
The Israeli prime minister said his country was at war to also protect British hostages and vowed the UK measures would not prevent it from winning the conflict in Gaza.
Continue reading...Office attendance in UK capital similar to levels in Toronto and Sydney, thinktank finds
Workers in London have been slower to return to the office than those in other global cities such as Paris and New York, a report has found.
London was near the bottom of the pack, with office attendance similar to levels in Toronto and Sydney, according to research by the Centre for Cities thinktank, which surveyed employees and employers in six big cities.
Continue reading...Singapore Airlines also says it is inspecting aircraft after component failure on rival’s Airbus A350
Cathay Pacific has said it identified 15 Airbus A350 aircraft that need component replacements after a part failed on one of its Rolls-Royce engines minutes after takeoff from Hong Kong on Monday.
A second carrier, Singapore Airlines, said on Tuesday it was also inspecting the engines of its Airbus A350 aircraft “as a precautionary measure”.
Continue reading...Democratic Republic of the Congo officials say 129 people died in failed jailbreak at Makala facility in Kinshasa
More than 100 people were killed while trying to escape from a prison in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early hours of Monday, the security minister has said.
In a post on X on Tuesday morning, Jacquemain Shabani said 129 people had died and 59 others were injured in the escape attempt at Makala prison in Kinshasa. Twenty-four of those who died were killed by gunfire, while the others lost their lives in a crush during the chaos, he said.
Continue reading...Vaccination is likely to be an uphill struggle after re-emergence of the disease in the territory, where war has decimated healthcare
Like so many in Gaza, Eid al-Attar, a teacher from the north of the territory, now spends his days trying to find enough food and water to keep his family alive. Displaced eight times since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, the 42-year-old has tried his best to shield his five children from the conflict. Now the Palestinian territory is facing a new danger: the highly infectious and potentially deadly disease, polio.
“We cannot protect our children. We are exposed to death at any moment due to the constant bombardment and insecurity. And I cannot protect them from diseases either,” he said in Deir al-Balah on Sunday as a UN-led vaccination campaign got under way.
Continue reading...The centre ‘may be holding’ but if the far right continues to win elections, the European project faces a rocky few years
Alternative für Deutschland’s stunning success in Germany’s regional elections was described as “bitter” and “worrying” by chancellor Olaf Scholz. It is also concerning for the EU, which is grappling with existential problems, from Russia’s grinding war on Ukraine to the climate crisis, while at the beginning of a new five-year cycle after the European elections earlier this summer.
“A dark day for Germany is a dark day for Europe,” said French centrist MEP leader Valérie Heyer. While the results in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony were not a surprise after the AfD’s strong showing in June’s European parliamentary vote, they confirm the steady rise of parties once considered beyond the pale.
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