Category Archives: World News

‘No safe place’: people in Rafah describe terror as Israeli assault begins

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With fuel dwindling for aid trucks and main entry points to south of Gaza closed, residents wonder how they will survive

Aid agencies in Gaza have less than a day’s fuel for trucks and tankers that deliver vital food, medicine, water and diesel to millions across the territory, threatening an almost complete shutdown of operations including bakeries and hospitals, officials have warned.

All main entry points to the south of Gaza are closed and there has been widespread looting of existing stocks in Rafah after aid agencies were forced to leave warehouses unguarded following warnings to evacuate the area from Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) ahead of the military offensive launched on the city on Tuesday morning.

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Israeli offensive on Rafah would break international law, UK minister says

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Andrew Mitchell says military action on city will not eradicate Hamas and priority is to secure a permanent ceasefire

An Israeli military offensive on the city of Rafah would break international humanitarian law and not lead to the eradication of Hamas, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s deputy foreign minister, said on Tuesday, but he held back from spelling out any planned British consequences if a full-scale invasion goes ahead.

The line, agreed with the US, is aimed at limiting the options of the Israeli government so that it will accept a version of the three-stage peace deal adopted by Hamas. The UK said its aim was to secure a permanent and sustained ceasefire, and the removal of Hamas from the future governance of Gaza.

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‘Magical moment’ as fire-ravaged Brazil museum receives big fossil donation

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Collection of more than 1,000 fossils including rare dinosaurs given to National Museum in Rio six years after devastating blaze

Nearly six years after it was engulfed by a devastating fire that inflicted incalculable damage on Brazil’s cultural heritage, the country’s national museum has received an important donation of more than a thousand fossils as part of a campaign to help rebuild the collection lost to the flames.

The fire, caused by an electrical short-circuit on the night of 2 September 2018, consumed the former imperial palace which housed the 200-year-old museum in a park just north of Rio de Janeiro’s city centre and destroyed about 85% of its archive of 20m artefacts.

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Bullfighting firm in Seville to give free tickets to under-eights

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Company says move is best way to introduce tradition but critic claims it could psychologically damage young children

A firm managing bullfights at Seville’s bullring is to give free tickets to children under eight, adding to a national debate about the controversial Spanish tradition.

The company, Pages, said adult spectators with a ticket for the “novilladas” – practice bullfights involving younger bulls – at Seville’s Maestranza may be accompanied by a child free of charge, which it said was “the best way to introduce the little ones” to the world of bullfighting.

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Serbia prepares warm welcome for Xi in contrast to China-EU tensions

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Chinese president hails two countries’ friendship before his arrival, after visiting Pyrenees with Macron

Chinese flags adorned highways as Serbia got ready to give a home-from-home welcome to Xi Jinping, contrasting tensions on the first leg of the Chinese president’s six-day European tour over a potential trade war with the EU.

Xi prepared for his arrival in Belgrade on Tuesday night by hitting out against Nato for its 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in the Serbian capital, in which three Chinese journalists were killed.

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Israeli forces say they have control of Gaza side of Rafah crossing

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Israel says it is beginning mission to ‘take out’ Hamas brigades in city, as aid officials say flow of supplies through crossing has halted

Israeli military forces have taken control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Israeli officials have said, in the first stage of what appears to be a wider offensive targeting Hamas in the southernmost parts of Gaza.

“This is the beginning of our mission to take out the last four Hamas brigades in Rafah. You should be in no doubt about that whatsoever,” an Israeli government spokesperson said.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Belarus to hold tactical nuclear drills; Kyiv detains two Ukrainian officials over plot to kill Zelenskiy – as it happened

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Ally to take part in exercises alongside Russia; Ukraine says it has exposed network of agents run by Moscow

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other at the global chemical weapons watchdog in The Hague of using banned toxins on the battlefield, the organisation said on Tuesday.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that the accusations were “insufficiently substantiated” but added that “the situation remains volatile and extremely concerning regarding the possible re-emergence of use of toxic chemicals as weapons.”

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China angles for Gaza mediation role to expand influence in Middle East

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Beijing joins France in urging Israel against Rafah offensive in latest effort to make its diplomatic mark

Xi Jinping, sensing a diplomatic opening, is stepping up China’s intervention in the Middle East crisis, issuing a joint statement with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to urge Israel not to go ahead with an offensive in Rafah.

The rare moment of Sino-European synergy is the latest effort by China to make its diplomatic mark in a region in which it has deep economic interests, but more shallow diplomatic moorings.

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Putin sworn in for fifth term in ceremony boycotted by US and UK

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Russian president claims mandate for Ukraine invasion and ‘correctness of the country’s course’

Vladimir Putin has been sworn into his fifth term as Russia’s leader in a ceremony attended by Russia’s political elite but boycotted by the UK, US and most European envoys.

The ceremony, which begins a presidential term that could end with Putin in power for 30 years, was marked by a bellicose speech trumpeting Russia’s national interests as he wages war in Ukraine and clashes with the west.

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Why has Israel moved into Rafah and what is status of its ceasefire talks with Hamas?

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IDF sent tanks into city in southern Gaza on Tuesday as it said terms of ceasefire deal were undecided

On Monday, thousands left eastern neighbourhoods of Rafah in southern Gaza after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) told people to move to a “humanitarian zone” north-west of the city to avoid being harmed in an imminent attack. Then Hamas, after a week of stalling, accepted terms for a ceasefire put forward by mediators. Hours later, Israel said it would participate in a new round of ceasefire talks but that the conditions of a deal were still far from decided. Finally, after airstrikes overnight, the IDF sent a column of tanks and other armoured vehicles to seize the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Tuesday.

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Extra virgin olive oil prices tipped to top £16 a litre next month

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Price rise for mass-market types expected as global production falls to lowest level in more than 10 years

Olive oil prices are set to climb further this year – heading to more than £16 a litre for a bottle of extra virgin – amid a drop in global production to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Lower production in Greece, Morocco and Turkey as part of the natural cycle of olive growth is expected to offset an improving situation in Spain and Italy, where trees have suffered from extreme heat and drought in recent years as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on harvests.

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Germans grill Olaf Scholz over soaring cost of doner kebabs

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Die Linke party is among those calling for a Dönerpreisbremse or price cap on the hugely popular street food

The soaring cost of doner kebabs has led to growing calls in Germany for a government subsidy programme to keep the inflation-hit dish, one of the country’s favourites, affordable as politicians report it is frequently cited as a concern in doorstep conversations with voters.

The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has become so used to being asked about the price of kebabs during public appearances that his government has even posted on social media to explain that price rises are in part due to rising wage and energy costs. “It’s quite striking that everywhere I go, mainly from young people, I’m asked whether there shouldn’t be a price brake for the doner,” Scholz has said.

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‘A colonial mindset’: why global aid agencies need to get out of the way

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With the world’s humanitarian system in crisis, many NGOs now recognise that local charities can deliver much more at far less cost

Before civil war engulfed her Ethiopian home region of Tigray in 2020, Tsega Girma was a prosperous trader who sold stationery and other goods. But when hungry children displaced by the conflict started appearing in the streets, she sold everything and used the proceeds to buy them food.

After that money dried up, Tsega appealed to Tigray’s diaspora for donations. At the height of the war, her Emahoy Tsega Girma Charity Foundation provided meals to 24,000 children a day.

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Thousands rally across Israel calling for Netanyahu to accept ceasefire deal

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Protesters march towards Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem with banner saying: ‘The blood is on your hands’

Thousands of Israelis around the country have joined rallies calling for the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to the terms of a ceasefire deal that Hamas accepted on Monday.

Protesters gathered near the defence headquarters in Tel Aviv, while in Jerusalem at least 100 protesters marched towards Netanyahu’s residence with a banner saying: “The blood is on your hands.”

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UCLA creates campus safety role amid condemnation of response to mob attack

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University and police denounced as masked group marched on campus and attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week

The University of California, Los Angeles, said that it would create a new office dedicated to campus safety following mounting criticism of authorities’ slow response to a brutal attack on pro-Palestinian protesters by a mob of “instigators”.

The school’s chancellor, Gene Block, said on Sunday that urgent changes were needed to “better protect our community moving forward” and announced that a new office of campus safety would oversee the university police department and the UCLA office of emergency management, “effective immediately”.

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‘Special treatment’: Harvey Weinstein in private unit in New York hospital

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Former mogul, whose New York rape conviction was overturned in April, kept away from other detainees in special medical unit

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Harvey Weinstein is being kept in a private room inside Bellevue hospital’s intensive care unit on a floor away from all other detainees, the City has learned.

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US soldier detained in Russia and accused of theft, officials say

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Officials say Staff Sgt Gordon Black, 34, was stationed in South Korea and was in the process of returning home to Texas

An American soldier has been arrested in Russia and accused of stealing, according to two US officials.

US officials said the soldier, Staff Sgt Gordon Black, 34, was stationed in South Korea and was in the process of returning home to Fort Cavazos in Texas. Instead, officials said, he traveled to Russia.

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Israel under huge pressure to accept three-stage ceasefire agreed by Hamas

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Benjamin Netanyahu faces chorus of diplomatic pressure not to go ahead with full-scale offensive on Rafah

Israel is coming under huge diplomatic pressure to accept a three-stage ceasefire surprisingly agreed by Hamas, despite the apparent determination of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to continue with a planned offensive in Rafah.

Netanyahu’s office said that the proposal Hamas accepted was “far from Israel’s essential demands” but that it would nonetheless send negotiators to continue talks on a deal.

At the same time, the Israeli military said it was conducting “targeted strikes” against Hamas in eastern Rafah.

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Israeli airstrikes on Rafah begin despite mounting ceasefire pressure

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Palestinians in Gaza thrown into confusion by Hamas’s acceptance of a deal, followed by Israel’s sceptical response and bomb attacks

Rafah’s fate hung in the balance on Monday after Hamas said it had accepted a ceasefire-for-hostage deal but Israel responded sceptically and said it would press on with its campaign on Gaza’s southernmost city, carrying out night airstrikes.

The more than 1 million Palestinians taking refuge in Rafah were thrown into confusion by the day’s events. Israel issued orders for the evacuation of part of the city earlier on Monday, triggering an exodus of thousands of people.

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