Category Archives: World News

Rohingya being forcibly conscripted in battle between Myanmar and rebels

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Myanmar military has conscripted 1,000 Rohingya men and boys since February, with fears some are being used as human shields, according to NGOs

For more than four hours Abdullah* waited in the darkness as soldiers marched 30 of his neighbours from their homes in the Myanmar border state of Rakhine and forced them by gunpoint to join him on the truck that would take them all to a military base.

By the morning they were standing in front of a military commander ordering them to fight with the army against a local rebel group – some of the 1,000 Rohingya people the Myanmar military has conscripted since February, according to Human Rights Watch.

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US gives Saudis green light to try to revive peace deal with Houthis

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Saudis are keen to end their engagement in Yemen and US needs Saudi support to end Gaza conflict

US determination to keep Saudi Arabia engaged in a peace process with Israel has led Washington to give Riyadh an informal green light to try to revive a peace deal with the Houthis, the Yemen-based rebels who have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea since November.

The proposed Yemen UN roadmap for peace was agreed in outline in early December but progress was immediately frozen as the Houthis escalated their campaign of attacks in the Red Sea in what they billed as an act of solidarity with Palestine.

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‘Pressured to withdraw’: BJP accused of intimidation tactics in India polls

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Opposition say ruling party undermining democracy by using police to harass candidates into not contesting in elections

When the people of Gujarat cast their votes last week in India’s six-week-long election, there was one constituency in the state that stood silent. There were no polling stations or impatient queues of people, and no one with the tell-tale inky finger. In Surat, no voting was necessary – the outcome was already decided.

Mukesh Dalal, from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), won the seat by default after every other candidate was either disqualified or dropped out of the race. It was the first time in 73 years that Surat’s candidate was appointed, not elected.

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Kristi Noem banned by two more Native tribes in South Dakota

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Governor, plagued by dog-killing story, unwelcome in 20% of her state after she accused tribal leaders of benefiting from cartels

Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who was once considered one of Donald Trump’s top vice-presidential contenders, has been banned from nearly one-fifth of the state after two more tribes voted to prohibit her from their lands.

The move by the Yankton Sioux tribe and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe last week follows criticism from the governor who has – without evidence – accused tribal leaders of “personally benefiting” from drug cartels. The Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes banished Noem earlier this year.

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Michael Cohen: Stormy Daniels payment needed Trump sign off and he told me to ‘figure this whole thing out’ – live

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Former Trump lawyer tells trial that ex-president said, ‘Just do it. Go meet up with Allen Weisselberg and figure this whole thing out’

More people here this morning in support of Donald Trump, per poolers:

JD Vance, the Ohio senator who is being floated as a potential Republican running mate to Trump

Tommy Tuberville, the Republican senator of Alabama

Boris Epshteyn, a longtime Trump aide who was charged with conspiracy, fraud and forgery in Arizona

Jason Miller, a Trump campaign adviser

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Ex-US military intelligence official says he quit over ‘moral injury’ of Gaza war

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Harrison Mann, who resigned from Defense Intelligence Agency in November, said he kept quiet about motives out of fear

A former US military intelligence official released a letter on Monday that explained to his colleagues at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that his November resignation was in fact due to “moral injury” stemming from US support for Israel’s war in Gaza and the harm caused to Palestinians.

Harrison Mann, an army major, would be the first known DIA official to quit over US support to Israel. A US airman fatally set himself on fire in February outside Israel’s embassy in Washington and other military personnel have protested.

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UN denies Gaza death toll of women and children has been revised down

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Spokesperson says confusion results from Gaza health ministry’s new way of classifying those not yet fully identified

The UN has denied that the estimated death toll of women and children in the war in Gaza has been revised downward, pointing towards a confusion between the total numbers of dead bodies recorded, and the number of those who have so far been fully identified.

After the Gaza health ministry’s revised totals of those killed first appeared on the website of the UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha), they were quickly seized on as proof by pro-Israel media and commentators that the UN had previously been exaggerating the toll.

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Israel deepens offensive in Rafah and re-enters northern areas of Gaza

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IDF launches most intensive fighting in weeks as Oxfam warns Palestinians face deadly epidemic

Israeli troops have continued their offensives across Gaza, deploying tank fire, artillery bombardment and airstrikes against Hamas militants in the most intensive round of fighting for weeks.

In the far south of the devastated territory on Monday, witnesses reported helicopter strikes and street battles in Rafah as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) consolidated their hold on neighbourhoods east of the strategic Salah al-Din road, which bisects the city.

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‘The whole country will strike’: protesters vow to keep fighting Georgia’s ‘foreign agents’ bill

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As draft law described by the US as ‘Kremlin-inspired’ nears its final vote, opposition and youth groups say they will keep defending civil liberties

As the “foreign influence” bill was being nodded through the Georgian parliament’s legal committee at 9am on Monday, a wet and tired Zviad Tsetskhladze, 18, and Luka Natsvlishvili, 17, were among thousands of protesters left with little option other than to shout chants at a grim wall of riot police.

An overnight vigil designed to block the governing party’s MPs from accessing the parliamentary estate had failed. Meanwhile, the opposition leader in the parliament, Tina Bokuchava, 40, had barely made it past the entrance of the imposing stone building. Her colleagues on the committee only got as far as the corridor outside.

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Smiles, waves and flashed body parts: video portal links Dublin and New York

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Dubliners urged to give ‘Irish welcome’ via interactive sculpture, but bad behaviour has also been on display

Rain sluiced down on a grey Dublin afternoon but the crowd clustering around the portal ignored the downpour and waved at a man cycling towards the screen on a sunny morning in Manhattan.

He gazed back, waved and wobbled before recovering his balance and vanishing down Fifth Avenue, eliciting a cheer from the sodden observers on North Earl Street.

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Angela Merkel memoirs to be published in November

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Freedom: Memories 1954-2021 will cover Merkel’s childhood, political rise and 16 years as German chancellor

Angela Merkel will release her long-awaited memoirs in November under the title Freedom: Memories 1954-2021, sketching her journey from life behind the Berlin Wall to the top echelons of power “more intimately than ever before”.

Merkel, whose image in Germany and abroad has been tarnished by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will turn 70 in July. She notes that her life can be neatly cleaved into experiences in “two German states – 35 years in the German Democratic Republic, 35 years in reunited Germany”, according to the book’s English publisher, Pan Macmillan.

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Russians having ‘tactical success’ in advance on Kharkiv, Ukraine says

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Kyiv replaces commander overseeing north-eastern Kharkiv frontline in effort to turn the tide as fighting continues

Russian forces continued their advance on Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region on Monday, achieving “tactical success”, Kyiv said, as fears grow that Moscow will achieve its biggest breakthrough since the early days of the war.

Some of the fiercest fighting is being conducted on the outskirts of the Ukrainian town of Vovchansk, which before the war had a population of 17,000. Ukrainian and Russian reports have confirmed that Russian troops have advanced into the outskirts of the town, where gunfire has been reported in industrial areas.

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Parents of over 900 Israeli soldiers urge IDF to call off ‘death trap’ Rafah attack

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Letter sent to defence minister and IDF chief says assault on city ‘appears to be nothing short of recklessness’

The parents of more than 900 Israeli soldiers deployed in Gaza have signed a letter urging the military to call off its ongoing offensive in Rafah, calling it a “deadly trap” for their children.

“It is evident to anyone with common sense that after months of warnings and announcements regarding an incursion into Rafah, there are forces on the other side actively preparing to strike our troops,” says the letter, sent on 2 May.

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British Columbia ‘extremely concerned’ as wildfire threatens to destroy town

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Out-of-control Parker Lake fire, which has already forced thousands to evacuate, bears down on Fort Nelson

Officials in western Canada were bracing for “volatile wildfire activity” on Monday as an out-of-control blaze, which has already forced the evacuation of thousands, threatened to destroy a northern British Columbia town.

The province’s wildfire service said the blaze was burning just 2km (1.2 miles) north-west of Fort Nelson, which has already seen about 3,500 people evacuated from there after an order to leave was issued on Friday.

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Weather tracker: Geomagnetic storms trigger northern lights

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Strong solar flares produce breathtaking displays across Europe and the US, with southern lights illuminating skies in New Zealand

Night skies were lit up around the world by a spectacular display of the northern lights on Friday, with sightings seen widely across Europe, the US and even New Zealand (as the southern lights). The lights occur when charged particles emitted from the sun reach the Earth’s atmosphere and collide with gases around the magnetic poles triggering breathtaking night-time auroras.

In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a “severe” G4 geomagnetic storm event, but by Friday evening it announced conditions had reached “extreme” G5 levels, the highest level on the space weather scale, for the first time since October 2003.

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EU condemns ‘intimidation, threats and physical assaults’ by authorities in Georgia – as it happened

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Josep Borrell reiterates concern about situation in Georgia, where pro-western protesters have continued to face a violent crackdown

Amid all the noise over the Socialist (PSC) victory and the mooted end of “el procés”, it’s worth looking at the performance of the Citizens party, which was once the great hope of the centre-right.

Although it finished first in the snap election that followed the independence crisis in December 2017, Citizens lost all its six seats last night and the party is now on the verge of extinction.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Ukraine says Russia attacking border in northern Kharkiv region and replaces commander on frontline – as it happened

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Kharkiv region’s governor says Russia is attempting to stretch front line; Ukrainian commander responsible for north-eastern frontline replaced

Russia’s new defence minister Andrei Belousov has said that soldiers need better access to housing, hospitals and welfare benefits.

Reuters reports:

We rejected that at the time and I think the same applies to the different requests that are now being made.

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Scandals fail to knock Germany’s AfD off course before electoral tests

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Far-right party’s poll numbers have fallen but analysts say negative headlines unlikely to sway its supporters

Scandals buffeting Germany’s far-right AfD are unlikely to do enough damage to blow the party off course before pivotal elections this year, analysts say, but the votes will offer crucial insights into whether the centre can hold against an anti-democratic onslaught.

Embarrassing allegations of spying for China and collusion with Russia, after the bombshell revelation in January of a mass “remigration masterplan” for foreigners and German nationals alike backed by several party members, have sent the AfD’s poll numbers plunging to as low as 15% nationwide. That is its worst score since April 2023.

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Michael Cohen says Trump told him to bury Stormy Daniels story: ‘Just take care of it’

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Former fixer tells hush-money trial Trump was ‘really angry’ after account of alleged sexual liaison with adult film star emerged

Donald Trump told his one-time fixer Michael Cohen to bury Stormy Daniels’s account of an alleged sexual liaison weeks before the election, demanding that he “just take care of it”, according to trial testimony in Manhattan court on Monday.

“This was a disaster, a fucking disaster,” Cohen, after he took the stand, recalled Trump saying. “Women will hate me.”

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Accused Islamic State terrorist Neil Prakash ‘enticed’ by sermon at Melbourne mosque, court told

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Notorious alleged jihadi changed from a peaceful convert after being influenced by an ‘inflammatory’ brand of Islam, a magistrate has heard

An accused Australian jihadi was “enticed” by a radical Islam sermon delivered on the day of his conversion and was influenced by members of the mosque, a court has been told.

Once branded Australia’s most-wanted alleged terrorist, Neil Christopher Prakash faced Melbourne magistrates court on Monday accused of six terrorism-related offences.

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