Twenty people remain in intensive care in Bangkok, where plane landed on Tuesday following mid-air emergency
Passengers and crew onboard a Singapore Airlines flight that hit extreme turbulence over Asia suffered skull, brain and spinal injuries, the head of a Bangkok hospital has said.
Twenty people remain in intensive care in the Thai capital, where flight SQ321 made an emergency landing on Tuesday after the terrifying high-altitude ordeal.
Continue reading...European court of human rights rejects appeals over Mikheil Saakashvili’s criminal cases heard in Georgian courts
The former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili was fairly convicted of abuses of power for ordering the beating of an opposition MP and pardoning four murderers, human rights judges in Strasbourg have ruled.
Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, was said by the European court of human rights on Thursday to have failed to show he had been unfairly treated in his trials in 2018.
Continue reading...Two people arrested over theft of José Capelo portraits in Madrid in 2015 – one of which is still missing
Police in Madrid have recovered a portrait by Francis Bacon, valued at €5m (£4.3m), which was one of five works by the famously thirsty and hell-raising artist that were stolen from the home of the painting’s subject almost a decade ago.
The pictures, whose total value has been put at €25m, disappeared in 2015 after a break-in at the Madrid home of José Capelo, a Spanish banker and close friend of Bacon who sat for the painter.
Continue reading...Sources describe Palestinian inmates being beaten, kept shackled to hospital beds or made to stand for hours
Prisoners held at an Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert are being subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses, with at least one reported case of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing, according to two whistleblowers who worked at the site.
The sources described harrowing treatment of detainees at the Israeli Sde Teiman camp, which holds Palestinians from Gaza and suspected Hamas militants, including inmates regularly being kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded and forced to wear nappies.
Continue reading...Taiwan’s military says its forces are on alert as China carries out mock strikes with jets carrying live missiles
Dozens of Chinese fighter jets carrying live missiles have carried out mock strikes against Taiwanese targets, China’s military has said, on the first day of surprise military drills announced as “punishment” after Taiwan inaugurated its new president.
On Thursday morning the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced the immediate beginning of two days of drills, codenamed Joint Sword-2024A, surrounding Taiwan and its islands near the Chinese border.
Continue reading...Video showing capture of five women from military base released in effort to pressure government to agree ceasefire deal
An Israeli group representing the families of hostages held in Gaza has released footage showing the capture of five female Israeli soldiers from a military base during the 7 October Hamas attacks.
The three-minute video shows the women sitting on the ground, some bruised and bloodied, with their hands tied, after their capture from the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel.
Continue reading...Wind causes part of stage to fall at event for presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez in San Pedro Garza García
Nine people were killed and at least 50 others injured when a stage structure collapsed at a campaign event for the Mexican presidential candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez, local officials have said.
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said a gust of wind caused the accident in the city of San Pedro Garza García in the northern state of Nuevo León.
Continue reading...Lawyers for founder of software firm Autonomy, charged over $11bn Hewlett-Packard deal, suggest they may move for mistrial
The British entrepreneur Mike Lynch is expected to take the stand in a San Francisco federal courthouse on Thursday as a key witness in his own criminal fraud trial, which began in March.
US authorities have charged the former software tycoon with 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy relating to his company’s acquisition deal with Hewlett-Packard in 2011. If convicted, Lynch faces up to 25 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
Continue reading...U-turn by ex-president’s most enduring rival during Republican primaries provokes swift backlash
Nikki Haley, who emerged as Donald Trump’s most enduring rival and trenchant critic during the Republican primary elections, has said she intends to vote for the former US president in November.
Haley was speaking at the Hudson Institute thinktank in Washington on Wednesday, her first public appearance since dropping out of the race in March. She was asked whether Joe Biden or Trump would do a better job on national security issues.
Continue reading...Invitation-only meeting comes on heels of controversial dinner at Mar-a-Lago where Trump reportedly offered $1bn quid pro quo
Donald Trump was continuing to ask fossil-fuel executives to fund his presidential campaign on Wednesday, despite scrutiny of his relationship with the industry.
The former president attended a fundraising luncheon at Houston’s Post Oak hotel hosted by three big oil executives.
Continue reading...President promises talks as he seeks to quell serious unrest over plans to enfranchise French nationals in Pacific territory
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has vowed not to force through voting change in the Pacific territory of New Caledonia after anger over the plans sparked more than a week of unrest, arson and looting that left six people dead and hundreds injured.
“I have pledged that this reform will not be forced through in the current context,” Macron said as he made a visit to New Caledonia. He said more talks were needed and he would review the situation within a month.
Continue reading...Jake Sullivan appears critical of decision by Spain, Ireland and Norway to formally recognise Palestinian state next week
The US is concerned about Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Wednesday.
Sullivan’s remarks, at a White House briefing, followed the announcement by Ireland, Spain and Norway that they will next week formally recognise a Palestinian state. They also came amid efforts by the Biden administration and Congress to coordinate a response to a decision by the international criminal court (ICC) to seek an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over Israeli actions in Gaza.
Continue reading...Israel indicates agreement involving defence pact with US is not possible if Palestinian state is a condition
The US is worried that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may be willing to torpedo a potential normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia if it entails ending the war in Gaza and committing to working towards a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the Senate’s foreign relations committee on Tuesday: “There’s an opportunity for Israel to become integrated in the region, to get the fundamental security it needs and wants, to have the relationships it’s wanted since its founding. The Saudis have been clear that this would require calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state,” he said, adding: “It may well be at this moment, Israel is not able or willing to proceed down this pathway.”
Continue reading...Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leads prayers in capital city days after death of Ebrahim Raisi and seven others in helicopter crash
Tens of thousands of Iranians attended the Tehran funeral of the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, whose death in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountain on Sunday has opened up a potentially volatile moment in Iranian politics.
He died with seven others, including the foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was hailed by Hamas on Wednesday as the minister for the resistance.
Continue reading...UN says 1m people face catastrophic levels of hunger as food aid piles up on Egyptian side of border
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is set to worsen once again as deliveries of aid and fuel to the Palestinian territory slow to a trickle in the wake of Israel’s two-week-old ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah.
The UN has suspended food distribution in Rafah owing to a lack of supplies and insecurity, the world body said late on Tuesday, and delivery operations from the new US-funded floating pier have also been halted after desperate people seized most of the shipment offloaded on to trucks on Saturday, an incident in which one person was killed.
Continue reading...Recognitions point to erosion of US ‘ownership’ of Israel-Palestine peace process and open route towards statehood
Continue reading...Reports say investigators looking into possibility that Russian security services ordered vandalism in Paris
France is investigating whether graffiti painted on the wall of Paris’s Holocaust memorial last week was a destabilisation operation coordinated from Russia, French media have reported.
On the morning of 14 May, about 20 spray-painted red hand symbols were discovered on one of the memorial’s exterior walls, which is dedicated to honouring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the Nazi occupation of France.
Continue reading...Joe Biden does not believe unilateral recognition is the right path; Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre said ‘there cannot be peace in the Middle East if there is no recognition’
Irish prime minister Simon Harris said on Wednesday that he expected other countries to join Ireland, Spain and Norway in recognising a Palestinian state in the coming weeks.
“Today, Ireland, Norway, and Spain are announcing that we recognise the state of Palestine,” Harris said at a press conference, reports Reuters.
Continue reading...Lai Ching-te’s inauguration speech has been panned by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which labelled the new president a “dangerous separatist”.
Beijing has warned of undefined reprisals against Taiwan after the inauguration speech of new president Lai Ching-te in which he maintained his government’s position on sovereignty, and did not concede to Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is a province of China.
In a statement late Tuesday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) called Lai’s speech “a downright confession of Taiwan independence”, and again labeled Lai a “dangerous separatist”.
Continue reading...More than 2,500 attacks in 2023, including medics killed and clinics bombed, in war zones such as Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine
Attacks on health workers, hospitals and clinics in conflict zones jumped 25% last year to their highest level on record, a new report has found.
While the increase was largely driven by new wars in Gaza and Sudan, continuing conflicts such as Ukraine and Myanmar also saw such attacks continue “at a relentless pace”, the Safeguarding Health in Conflict coalition said.
Continue reading...