Greater bamboo lemur births in captivity are extremely rare and park is only UK collection to have bred it this year
Cotswold wildlife park has successfully bred one of Madagascar’s most endangered lemurs.
The as yet unnamed youngster was born to a breeding male, Raphael, and female, Bijou, at the wildlife park.
Continue reading...Andrei Kelin says by providing weapons Britain is ‘killing Russian soldiers and civilians’
Moscow’s ambassador to London has said the UK is waging a proxy war against Russia, while predicting the “end of Ukraine” as Russian invading forces make deeper advances into the country.
In an interview with the BBC, Andrei Kelin said Ukraine continued to fight but claimed “the resistance is more feeble and feeble”.
Continue reading...Rise in VAT, inflation and people working from home has led small business owners to demand government support
Blazing Salads, Dillingers, Assassination Custard and Brasserie Sixty Six in Dublin, Church Lane and Sage in County Cork, and Barnacles in Galway.
These are just some of the most recent additions to the list of more than 600 restaurants that have been forced to close in Ireland in the last year in what is being seen as a growing crisis for the country’s high street and tourist offering.
Continue reading...This blog is closing now. You can read our full report on the latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon here and our report on the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza here.
At least 42,603 Palestinian people have been killed and 99,795 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Of those, 84 Palestinians were killed in the latest 24-hour reporting period, according to the ministry, which has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory.
Continue reading...Internet chatter and Oklahoma arrest of alleged would-be IS attacker indicate terror group’s planning
After the FBI arrested an Afghan man in Oklahoma planning an election day shooting on behalf of the Islamic State, the terrorist organization re-entered what has become one of the most chaotic news cycles leading up to a November vote.
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, of Oklahoma City admitted to investigators he and a co-conspirator expected to die as IS martyrs as they opened fire on crowds on election day, according to charging documents.
Continue reading...After Han Kang’s Nobel award and South Korean cinema hits, Penguin publishes new English edition of maxims by Lee Seong-bok in wake of US success
A collection of wise maxims written by a 72-year old poet, calmly setting out illuminating advice to other poets, is the latest and perhaps most unlikely book to benefit from a surge in demand for South Korean literature.
“Kick against words like you would kick back on a swing. You’ve got to feel as if the soles of your feet are touching the sky,” suggests Lee Seong-bok in his hit title Indeterminate Inflorescence.
Continue reading...The owner of X is just one of many who may prefer Donald Trump to greater regulation under the Democrats
Way back in the 1960s “the personal is political” was a powerful slogan capturing the reality of power dynamics within marriages. Today, an equally meaningful slogan might be that “the technological is political”, to reflect the way that a small number of global corporations have acquired political clout within liberal democracies. If anyone doubted that, then the recent appearance of Elon Musk alongside Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania provided useful confirmation of how technology has moved centre-stage in American politics. Musk may be a manchild with a bad tweeting habit, but he also owns the company that is providing internet connectivity to Ukrainian troops on the battlefield; and his rocket has been chosen by Nasa to be the vehicle to land the next Americans on the moon.
There was a time when the tech industry wasn’t much interested in politics. It didn’t need to be because politics at the time wasn’t interested in it. Accordingly, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple grew to their gargantuan proportions in a remarkably permissive political environment. When democratic governments were not being dazzled by the technology, they were asleep at the wheel; and antitrust regulators had been captured by the legalistic doctrine peddled by Robert Bork and his enablers in the University of Chicago Law School – the doctrine that there was little wrong with corporate dominance unless it was harming consumers. The test for harm was price-gouging, and since Google’s and Facebook’s services were “free”, where was the harm, exactly? And though Amazon’s products weren’t free, the company was ruthlessly undercutting competitors’ prices and pandering to customers’ need for next-day delivery. Again: where was the harm in that?
Continue reading...Canada’s PM, Justin Trudeau, claims Indian diplomats are implicated in murders on Canadian soil
A gruelling week for Indian diplomacy began with an explosive Canadian press conference on Monday. Senior Canadian police officials accused Indian diplomats of being involved in “criminal” activities on Canadian soil, ranging from homicide and targeted assassinations to extortion, intimidation and coercion against members of the Canadian Sikh community.
They alleged that Indian diplomats – including the high commissioner himself – were implicated not only in the high profile killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh activist who was gunned down outside a gurdwara in a suburb of Vancouver last June, but also linked to other murders on Canadian soil. The diplomats had even worked with a gang run by India’s most notorious mob boss to get their dirty work done, they alleged.
Continue reading...UN special coordinator says ‘nightmare in Gaza is intensifying’ and calls for immediate end to violence
At least 87 people have been killed or are missing and 40 injured after intense Israeli airstrikes overnight in the north of the Gaza Strip, part of the country’s ferocious renewed assault on the area, medics in the besieged Palestinian territory have said.
In the past 24 hours 108 people had been killed in bombings across the territory, according to local health officials on Sunday. “The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying. Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern strip amidst relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis,” Tor Wennesland, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said in a statement.
Continue reading...Authorities say they are gradually re-establishing electrical service across the island, including to hospitals
Cuba’s government said on Saturday it had made some progress in gradually re-establishing electrical service across the island, including to hospitals and parts of the capital, Havana, after state-run media earlier reported the national grid had collapsed for a second time in 24 hours.
Most of Cuba’s 10 million people, however, remained without electricity on Saturday afternoon.
Continue reading...Shia group has not claimed responsibility for attack on PM’s home but says it fired several barrages of rockets
Benjamin Netanyahu’s house in the seaside town of Caesarea was hit by a drone on Saturday, causing superficial damage and no casualties, as Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon rage unabated after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The Israeli government said that one of the prime minister’s three homes was targeted by three drones, two of which were intercepted, and that neither Netanyahu nor his wife, Sara, were home at the time.
Continue reading...Jean-Noël Barrot says Russian victory would ‘push the international order toward chaos’ as he backs negotiations
France’s foreign minister pledged his support for Ukraine’s plan for ending the war with Russia, telling reporters in Kyiv on Saturday that he would work with Ukrainian officials to secure other nations’ backing for the proposal.
Presented by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, this week, Kyiv’s “victory plan” hopes to compel Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine through negotiations.
Continue reading...Data suggests canvassers linked to Elon Musk’s America Pac falsely claimed to have visited homes of potential voters
Donald Trump’s campaign may be failing to reach thousands of voters they hope to turn out in Arizona and Nevada, with roughly a quarter of door-knocks done by America Pac flagged by its canvassing app as potentially fraudulent, according to leaked data and people familiar with the matter.
The potentially fake door-knocks – when canvassers falsely claim to have visited a home – could present a serious setback for Trump as he and Kamala Harris remain even in the polls with fewer than 20 days until an election.
Continue reading...The history of ‘decapitation strategies’ tells us it is almost impossible to know what effect assassinating a key figure such as Yahya Sinwar will have
Israelis and others have welcomed the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the mastermind of the 7 October 2023 attacks, as an “Osama bin Laden moment”. This reflects how many in Israel feel about the death of a man responsible for the murder of 1,200 people, mostly civilians and their compatriots, but terrorism experts have long debated the efficacy of eliminating the leaders of violent extremist groups, with some suggesting the strategy is counter-productive.
The truth is that no one is sure.
Continue reading...Former guerillas were accused of 1989 killing, but supporters say government wants to intimidate activists
Six former guerrillas, whose trial for a civil war-era murder was criticised by fellow environmentalists as politicised, have been acquitted by a court in El Salvador.
Prosecutors had sought up to 36 years in prison for the former rebels of the hard-left Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front.
Continue reading...ABC election pundit Antony Green calls win for Labor-Greens coalition on Saturday night
Australia’s “for ever government” has lived up to its name, with Labor retaining power to extend its record reign in the ACT beyond a quarter of a century.
The ACT Labor leader, Andrew Barr, already the longest-serving political leader in the country, fended off a negative swing and an independent surge to win his third election as chief minister.
Continue reading...Driver in Stalowa Wola described fearing he had hit person after he saw body in road
A funeral home in Poland has apologised after a body that it was transporting fell out of a hearse and into traffic.
Polish media reported that a man was driving down a street on Friday in Stalowa Wola, a city in south-eastern Poland, when he saw a sheet on his car window. When the sheet slid down, he saw a body lying on the road. For a moment the driver feared that he had hit the person.
Continue reading...Researchers hope to uncover how people died and how diseases have developed over 1,000 years
Deep beneath the streets of Paris, the dead are having their last word. They are recounting 1,000 years of death in the city: how many are buried in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up Les Catacombes, what killed them and how the diseases that may have led to their demise have developed over the centuries.
In the first ever scientific study of the site, a team of archeologists, anthropologists, biologists and doctors is examining some of the skeletons of an estimated 5-6 million people whose bones were literally dumped down quarry shafts at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th.
Continue reading...Lawyer Elvino Dias and official Paulo Guambe shot as their party plans a national strike over disputed election
Attackers killed a Mozambique opposition lawyer and a party official after firing rounds at a car in which they were travelling, ratcheting up tensions before protests against a disputed election result, the EU and rights groups have said.
Mozambique’s new opposition Podemos party and its presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, have rejected provisional results showing a probable win for Frelimo, the party that has ruled Mozambique for half a century. They have called for a nationwide strike on Monday.
Continue reading...Unique experiment in German-language public broadcasting 3sat faces pressure from populist right
In many countries around the world, breakfast TV means celebrity interviews, soap operas and last night’s football highlights. On the German-language channel 3sat this Sunday morning, it means a one-hour philosophical discussion on trauma psychology, followed by a book review programme and a classical concert by the Munich Radio Orchestra.
The collaboration between public broadcasters in Austria, Germany and Switzerland is a unique experiment in pan-European broadcasting that has defied doubters for almost four decades: highbrow television.
Continue reading...