Category Archives: World News

Canada to restore right of citizens born abroad to pass citizenship to children also born outside country

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Federal government to amend Citizenship Act, removing ‘second-generation cut-off’ introduced by Conservative government

Canada plans to restore the right of citizens born abroad to pass their citizenship to children also born outside the country, following a court ruling that a “first-generation limit” in the law was unconstitutional.

The federal government announced legislation to amend the Citizenship Act, removing a “second-generation cut-off” introduced by the previous Conservative government, after an Ontario court ruled in December that the limit was unconstitutional.

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ICJ ruling underlines risks for Israel as its isolation grows

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Court order is a warning that Israel’s offensive in Gaza risks creating conditions that could be framed as potentially genocidal

The provisional measures issued by the international court of justice ordering an immediate halt to Israel’s military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah represent the starkest warning yet to Israel that its offensive risks creating conditions that could be framed as potentially genocidal.

The ruling, agreed by a majority of 13-2 judges, almost exclusively cited UN agencies and senior officials – including the UN’s secretary general – to paint a picture of the disastrous situation facing Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children.

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University of Toronto gives pro-Palestinian activists 24 hours to end encampment

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Canadian university gives protesters one day to close up protest camp on downtown campus or potentially face police action

The University of Toronto (UofT) has warned pro-Palestinian activists that they have 24 hours to accept a proposal to end a three-week protest camp on the schools’ downtown campus – or risk being treated as trespassers and potentially face police action.

In a statement Meric Gertler, the university president, cited harassment, discrimination and lack of inclusion as reasons the encampment needs to be removed.

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New Caledonia unrest continues as police shoot man dead – as it happened

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Police officer detained after shooting of 48-year-old man as death toll reaches seven following days of upheaval linked to proposed voting changes

Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, has said that “282 Australians and their family members have now returned from New Caledonia.”

“We are planning further flights from Noumea tomorrow,” she added.

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Olympic Games’ €1.4bn clean-up aims to get Parisians swimming in the Seine

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Organisers expect 75% of identified bacterial pollution will be gone by the time the starting gun fires for the open water events

Beside a sign saying “No swimming”, Pierre Fuzeau defiantly pulled on his swimming cap, slipped into the green water of the Ourcq canal on Paris’s northern edge, and set off with a strong front-crawl.

The 66-year-old company director regularly joins his open-water swimming group for well-organised illegal dips, including in the River Seine, where swimming has been banned since 1923 largely as a result of the health risk from unclean water and bacteria from human waste.

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‘Quitting is the devil’s fruit!’: why anime is firing up sports stars

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Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke, NFL stars and Olympic athletes are finding inspiration in the characters’ resilience

The Bournemouth striker Dominic Solanke twice thought he had scored the opening goal against Brentford on 11 May. Each time he wheeled away to celebrate, he put on an orange mask with a spiral pattern and one eyehole before posing in front of the cameras.

The goal was ruled out by VAR but the celebration went viral, as journalists wrote about “masked mayhem” and others wondered what this “bizarre” celebration could mean.

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Barcelona police criticised for baton charge at protest over fashion show

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Police response to protest over closure of Park Güell for glitzy event was ‘totally out of proportion’, resident says

Catalan police have been criticised for baton-charging people protesting against the closure of Barcelona’s Park Güell for it to host a Louis Vuitton-organised fashion show, as anger grows that the city is being overrun by tourists and glitzy international events to the detriment of local life.

A residents association complained that in the lead-up to the event the whole neighbourhood had been cordoned off. “For days the neighbourhood has been saturated with police and private security companies,” said one resident, Aidà Almirall Serra, adding that armed police had demanded ID cards and searched parents’ bags when they picked up their children from nursery.

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Excess weight may have caused Mallorca building collapse, officials say

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Investigation under way after four people killed and 16 injured in Medusa Beach Club in Palma

Investigators on the Spanish island of Mallorca are looking into whether overloading and structural issues caused the collapse of a beachfront restaurant and club, killing four people and injuring 16 others.

The two-storey Medusa Beach Club in Palma de Mallorca collapsed at about 8.30pm local time (7.30pm BST) on Thursday night. One firefighter told the local newspaper Última Hora he had arrived to find a “nightmarish” scene, with people screaming and crying and rubble piled high on the ground floor.

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Peruvian reporter is target of smear campaign after taking on political elite

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Gustavo Gorriti, who has long exposed corruption, is the target of a criminal investigation campaigners call ‘politically motivated’

For more than four decades, Gustavo Gorriti has been a thorn in the side of corrupt elites, relentlessly uncovering government wrongdoing in Latin America – most recently exposing an unprecedented level of graft in Operation Car Wash, the continent-wide scandal that has ensnared nearly every elected Peruvian president of this century.

Gorriti made his name reporting the bloody rise of the Mao-inspired Shining Path. He was kidnapped by military intelligence agents during Alberto Fujimori’s 1992 power grab after unmasking his shadowy spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos.

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Kabosu, dog that inspired ‘Doge’ meme and became face of Dogecoin, dies

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Atsuko Sato announces death of her shiba inu, whose 2010 photo led her to be described as the ‘Mona Lisa of the internet’

The Japanese dog whose photo inspired a generation of oddball online jokes and the £18bn Dogecoin cryptocurrency beloved by Elon Musk has died, her owner said.

“She quietly passed away as if asleep while I caressed her,” Atsuko Sato wrote on her blog on Friday, thanking the fans of her shiba inu called Kabosu – the face of the ‘Doge’ meme.

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‘Funny and kind of sad’: how Clarkson’s Farm has captured Chinese viewers

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Jeremy Clarkson’s reality TV show has particular appeal for young people with no experience of farming

To one Chinese reviewer, Jeremy Clarkson is “a stupid old British man with too much money who farmed for a year without harvesting anything”. To another, he is “the British version of Li Ziqi”, a 33-year-old woman who is one of China’s biggest internet celebrities thanks to videos of herself farming and cooking in the idyllic Sichuanese countryside.

Clarkson’s Farm, the former Top Gear presenter’s beguilingly popular reality television show about his pivot from petrolhead to farmer, has been hugely successful on his home turf, becoming the most watched show on Amazon Prime in the UK. It is also a hit in China.

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Singapore Airlines tightens seatbelt rules after turbulence flight death

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Airline adopts ‘more cautious approach’ after incident that left one person dead and more than 100 injured

Singapore Airlines has tightened seatbelt rules on its flights after one passenger died and more than 100 were injured when one of its planes hit severe turbulence.

Passengers and crew onboard flight SQ321 suffered skull, brain and spine injuries when they were thrown violently around the cabin during Tuesday’s terrifying high-altitude ordeal. Some passengers said the turbulence happened so fast there was no time to fasten their seatbelts.

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Weather tracker: Pakistan heatwave continues wild changes in weather patterns

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Dangerously high temperatures follow wettest April since 1961 as country swings between extremes

Pakistan is in the midst of an intense heatwave, with hundreds of heatstroke victims being treated in hospitals across the country.

Temperatures soared to 49C (120F) on Wednesday in Mohenjo-daro, in the southern Sindh province. These temperatures are more than 8C above May’s average daytime temperature. Authorities in Punjab have been forced to close schools for a week and are advising people to remain indoors. Many labourers have, however, continued to work out of financial necessity.

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More than 200 EU staff sign letter expressing concerns over Gaza crisis

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Exclusive: Signatories cite union’s ‘continued apathy’ to plight of Palestinians and seek official call for ceasefire

More than 200 staff members of EU institutions and agencies have signed a letter expressing “growing concern” over the union’s response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, arguing that it runs contrary to its core values and aim of promoting peace.

The letter, signed by 211 people in their personal capacity as citizens and addressed to the EU’s top three officials, begins by condemning the 7 October attacks “in the strongest terms”.

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More than 300 dead in Papua New Guinea landslide, local MP says

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Emergency response teams sent in to village in remote Enga province, but blocked road is hampering efforts

More than 300 people have been killed in a landslide in a remote region in northern Papua New Guinea, a local politician has said.

Amos Akem, an MP for Enga province, said the landslide struck Yambali village, about two hours’ drive from the provincial capital, Wabag, in the early hours of Friday. The road to Yambali from the capital is blocked, hampering relief efforts.

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China testing ability to ‘seize power’ in second day of military drills around Taiwan

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PLA says exercises launched in response to president’s inauguration will test capacity to ‘launch joint attacks and occupy key areas’

China has conducted mock missile strikes against Taiwan on a second day of military drills, which it said was testing its ability to “seize power”, and inflict punishment for “separatist acts” after the inauguration of the island’s new president.

The exercises, which involved Chinese military units from the air force, rocket force, navy, army and coastguard, were announced suddenly on Thursday morning. Maps showed five approximate target areas in the sea surrounding Taiwan’s main island and other areas near Taiwan’s offshore islands, which are close to the Chinese mainland.

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Pakistani poet was abducted because of human rights activism, says wife

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Ahmad Farhad was pushed into vehicle hours after posting about threats from country’s spy agency, says Syeda Urooj Zainab

The wife of a Pakistani poet and journalist who was abducted from outside his house last week has accused the country’s spy agency of responsibility, saying it acted because of his activism.

Ahmad Farhad was pushed into a vehicle after returning from a dinner in the early hours of Wednesday 15 May and driven away.

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ICJ expected to make new ruling on Israel’s war in Gaza

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Court may order a halt to offensive, in what would be another sign of growing international isolation for Benjamin Netanyahu

The international court of justice is expected to issue a new ruling on Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza at 3pm (1400 BST) on Friday, as the US expressed concern over Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it.

Amid speculation that the ICJ could order a halt to Israel’s offensive, a second top global court – the international criminal court – identified the three judges who will hear a request for arrest warrants against Hamas leaders, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

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Australian in intensive care with severe spinal injury after ‘horrifying’ Singapore flight, husband says

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Kerry Davis was flung to ceiling when flight SQ321 hit turbulence before falling motionless to floor of plane

An Australian woman suffered a spinal injury and has no sensation from her waist down after her flight to Singapore hit extreme turbulence earlier this week, as others onboard are treated for skull and brain injuries.

The Boeing 777-300ER hit what an airline official described as “sudden extreme turbulence” over Myanmar, sending passengers and crew flying and slamming some into the ceiling. The flight, SQ321 from London to Singapore on Tuesday, made an emergency diversion to Bangkok.

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Building collapses at Mallorca beach killing at least four and injuring 21

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Ceiling of Medusa Beach Club on the seafront at Palma de Mallorca gave way, according to reports

At least four people have been killed and about 21 people injured after a building collapsed on a beachfront in Mallorca on Thursday, emergency services said.

Rescue workers were trying to reach several people who were believed to be trapped by the collapse, which happened at about 20.30 local time (19.30 BST) at the two-storey Medusa Beach Club in Palma de Mallorca.

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