Category Archives: World News

Funeral of refugee activist Viraj Mendis to draw mourners from all over Europe

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Mendis, who stayed in Manchester church for two years in 1980s to fight deportation, has died aged 68 in Germany

Refugees and human rights activists are making their way to Bremen in north-west Germany for the funeral of a man who fought for freedom and safety for asylum seekers.

Viraj Mendis came to prominence after seeking sanctuary in a Manchester church where he spent two years in the 1980s. He died aged 68 on 16 August in Bremen, which offered him sanctuary after he was deported from the UK.

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Basel to host Eurovision song contest for Switzerland in 2025

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City fought off competition from Berne, Geneva and Zurich to host event, which began in Switzerland in 1956

The Swiss city of Basel will host Eurovision in 2025, as the song contest’s 69th edition returns to the country where it was born in 1956.

The Alpine republic won the right to host next year’s event after the Swiss artist Nemo won the 2024 contest with the song The Code.

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Gina Rinehart’s personal message to NGA about her portrait revealed in FOI documents

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Billionaire wrote to the National Gallery weeks before furore erupted, after a ‘concerned friend’ had told her about the now infamous painting

Gina Rinehart wrote to the National Gallery of Australia a month before the furore erupted about a portrait of her in the gallery, saying a “concerned friend” had brought it to her attention.

The email, released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, was sent on behalf of Rinehart to Nick Mitzevich, the director of the NGA and Ryan Stokes, the chair of the gallery, on 15 April.

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Man sprays paint at German party leader during campaign event

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Sahra Wagenknecht attacked while about to speak on stage in run-up to Thuringia and Saxony state elections

The leader of a breakaway populist leftwing party in Germany, Sahra Wagenknecht, has been sprayed with pink paint while campaigning in elections in the eastern state of Thuringia.

Wagenknecht, a former high-profile member of the far-left party Die Linke, who this year founded the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), was attacked on stage on Thursday as she prepared to address crowds in Erfurt. She ducked as a man approached the stage and spattered paint in her direction, which hit her dress and face.

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Former Red Brigades member arrested in Argentina after four decades on run

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Leonardo Bertulazzi, 65, wanted in Italy for kidnapping and other crimes allegedly committed as part of far-left group

Police in Argentina have arrested a former Red Brigades member who has spent more than 40 years on the run from the justice system in Italy, where he is wanted for crimes including kidnapping and criminal association that he allegedly committed as part of the far-left guerrilla group.

Leonardo Bertulazzi had been living in Argentina for years as a refugee, a status he lost under the administration of the country’s radical rightwing president, Javier Milei. He was previously sentenced in absentia to 27 years in prison, and Italian police officers were present in Buenos Aires during his capture.

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WHO delivers 1.2m polio vaccine doses to Gaza as pauses in fighting agreed

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Three-day humanitarian pauses in several areas planned to allow inoculation of more than 640,000 children

The World Health Organization has said it delivered 1.2m doses of polio vaccine to Gaza, with 400,000 more to follow, as part of an emergency campaign after the first case of the childhood disease in the war-hit coastal strip in quarter of a century.

The vaccinations, due to begin this weekend, will be accompanied by three-day pauses in the fighting in several areas of the territory to allow the inoculation of more than 640,000 children.

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Weather tracker: At least three dead as Typhoon Shanshan barrels through Japan

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Severe gusts and heavy rain leave dozens injured and more than 250,000 homes without power

Typhoon Shanshan has killed at least three people and injured about 40 as it barrels through Japan, with more than 250,000 homes left without power.

At the time of writing, 24-hour rainfall totals have reached 300-400mm across swaths of Miyazaki, in the Kyushu region. Up to 630mm of rain has been recorded at one site near Shiiba after about 500mm fell since midnight on Thursday.

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Israeli military launches fatal airstrike on humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza

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IDF claims ‘armed assailants’ tried to hijack vehicle leading convoy of medical supplies, but aid organiser says those killed were transport company staff

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they carried out an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy in Gaza aimed at “armed assailants” trying to hijack it but the charity that organised the aid said people killed in the strike were employees of the transport company it was working with.

The convoy, organised by the US-based NGO Anera, was carrying medical supplies and fuel to an Emirati-run hospital in Rafah on Thursday evening at the time of the attack. Its route had been coordinated in advance with the IDF, under a deconfliction process intended to prevent aid vehicles being bombed.

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Venezuela’s Maduro ‘has no democratic legitimacy’, EU decides

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Josep Borrell and European Council will not acknowledge president-elect as leader without seeing voting tallies

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said its members have given up hope of Nicolás Maduro producing evidence that he won Venezuela’s election and will not accept his legitimacy as president-elect.

Addressing reporters after EU foreign ministers held a video call with Edmundo González, the former diplomat widely believed to have beaten Maduro in the 28 July vote, Borrell announced: “The European Council decided that Maduro has no democratic legitimacy as president.”

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Special relationship at risk if UK bans arms sales to Israel, says Trump adviser

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Robert O’Brien says UK could face US counter-embargos and put its role in F-35 fighter jet project in danger

Labour risks a serious rift in the UK’s special relationship with the US if it goes ahead with a ban on arms sales to Israel, Donald Trump’s last national security adviser has warned.

Robert O’Brien, still one of the key security voices in the Trump circle, said the UK was endangering its future role in the F-35 project as well as facing the risk of US congressional counter-embargos. The F-35 fighter jets are made in part by British arms firms and are used by Israel’s air force as part of its bombing of Gaza.

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WHO says Israel has agreed pauses in Gaza fighting to allow polio vaccinations

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Tentative announcement follows Israeli PM approving designated places to treat estimated 640,000 children

The World Health Organization has announced it has “a preliminary commitment” for humanitarian pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of children against polio, with the first vaccinations to begin as early as this weekend.

The UN is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the UN’s global health body confirmed on 23 August that at least one baby has been paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

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Sweden warns of heightened risk of Russian sabotage

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Weapons facilities targeted as security companies report more sabotage attempts, espionage and cyber-attacks

Swedish authorities have warned of a heightened risk of Russian sabotage, in particular of weapons facilities, as the defence industry said it was being increasingly targeted.

Security companies in Sweden reported a rise in sabotage attempts, including using drones over defence company facilities to document and map them, “more aggressive” espionage, cyber-attacks and misinformation.

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Five Palestinian fighters killed in West Bank mosque as Israeli assault continues

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Deaths in Tulkarm bring toll to 16 during Israel’s deadliest operation in West Bank since 7 October Hamas attack

The Israeli military said it had killed five Palestinian fighters inside a mosque in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, in the midst of one of the largest assaults on the occupied territory for months.

The overall toll of 16 Palestinians killed in less than two days would make it the deadliest Israeli operation in the West Bank since the 7 October Hamas attack in Israel which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and ignited the Gaza war.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Putin regime ‘threatening world with nuclear catastrophe,’ says Ukraine – as it happened

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IAEA has urged both sides to refrain from fighting around nuclear plants

Russia said Thursday that it took two more east Ukrainian villages - in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions - as its forces continue their advance deeper into the country.

The defence ministry said Russian forces captured the village of Mykolaivka, around 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, as well as the settlement of Stelmakhivka in the neighbouring Lugansk region.

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Stray bullets and closed schools: Rio’s kids suffer as police crack down on gangs

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Thousands of schoolchildren in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas miss classes and risk violence as Brazil’s police battle drug gangs

Textbooks and marker pens are not all that science teacher Roberto Brandão, 54, takes with him each morning when he sets off for work in a school in one of Rio de Janeiro’s largest favelas. He also carries a first-aid kit in case he or any of his students is hit by a bullet.

“I always have it in my backpack because I could be shot at any time,” he said, displaying the red waterproof bag after attending a seminar on how police operations are affecting children’s learning in Maré.

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Anger in China after women lock crying toddler in plane toilet to ‘educate’ her

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After video of incident causes online outrage, airline says girl was taken to lavatory with grandmother’s consent

Two women in China have been accused of child abuse after they separated a crying toddler from her grandmother and locked her in the toilet of a plane, on a domestic flight.

In a video uploaded by one of the women to social media, the girl can been seen wailing and trying to get out of the locked lavatory door. One of the women can be heard saying “if you stop crying, you can go out” and “if you stop crying, auntie will take you back to grandma”. Neither of the women are thought to be related to the child.

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South Korea’s climate law violates rights of future generations, court rules

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Absence of legally binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions from 2031-49 deemed unconstitutional

South Korea’s constitutional court has ruled that part of the country’s climate law does not conform with protecting the constitutional rights of future generations, an outcome local activists are calling a “landmark decision”.

The unanimous verdict concludes four years of legal battles and sets a significant precedent for future climate-related legal actions in the region.

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Two Stand News journalists in Hong Kong found guilty of sedition

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Chris Patten condemns ‘dark day for press freedom’ as Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam convicted over 11 articles

Two journalists from the closed Hong Kong media outlet Stand News have been found guilty of conspiring to publish seditious materials – the first such convictions since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese control – after a trial that was closely observed as a bellwether for the city’s diminishing press freedom.

The former editor-in-chief Chung Pui-kuen and former acting editor-in-chief Patrick Lam were arrested on 29 December 2021 after police raided the outlet’s newsroom.

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‘A test case for German democracy’: populists ride high before state elections

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Political landscape faces upheaval as far-right AfD and left-conservative BSW expected to perform strongly

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has plastered the city centre of Erfurt with eye-catching posters of a jet soaring through a clear blue sky, conjuring up many Germans’ dream of a tropical holiday. Only the tagline reveals a darker message: “Summer, Sun, Remigration.”

As it campaigns for votes in its east German heartland, the AfD has long since embraced the slogan that last winter sent hundreds of thousands of Germans on to the streets in protest against revelations of a rightwing “master plan” to deport unwanted foreigners and citizens alike.

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Xi Jinping holds surprise meeting with senior Biden aide in Beijing

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Chinese leader speaks with Jake Sullivan, who was making his first visit to Beijing as US national security adviser

Xi Jinping has spoken with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in a surprise meeting during the senior Biden aide’s three-day visit to Beijing.

The meeting on Thursday afternoon came after days of talks between Sullivan and senior Communist party officials including the foreign minister, Wang Yi, and a vice-chair of the central military commission believed to have the ear of Xi.

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