Category Archives: World News

Accused Canadian serial murderer admits killing four Indigenous women

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Jeremy Skibicki, charged with four counts of first-degree murder, is believed to have left bodies of at least two victims in a landfill

An accused serial killer in Canada, who police believed disposed of his victims by dumping some of them in landfills, has admitted to killing four Indigenous women, with his lawyers arguing a mental disorder meant he was not criminally responsible for the crimes.

Jeremy Skibicki is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Rebecca Contois, Morgan Harris, Marcedes Myran and an unidentified woman, who was named Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe (Buffalo Woman) by Indigenous leaders. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and had been due to stand trial this week.

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Students stage pro-Palestine occupations at five more UK universities

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The protesters in encampments at Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Soas are demanding institutions end ties to Israel

Students at five UK universities have become the latest protesters to stage occupations to pressure their institutions into divesting funds from and ending partnerships with Israel.

Students set up encampments at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas) and at Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool and Edinburgh universities. They are the latest in a global student uprising that is expected to build over the coming week across European campuses after starting at universities in the US, where hundreds of students and staff have been arrested for their involvement.

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Ghent students occupy university building in climate and Gaza protest

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More than 200 expected to join protest calling for climate action and to cut ties with Israeli institutions

More than 100 students have occupied Ghent University in the first European protest to fuse demands about Gaza and the climate crisis.

Ghent’s centrepiece UFO building was peacefully taken over by students calling for concrete action to meet the university’s 2030 climate plans, and asking the university to cut ties with institutions connected to the Israeli military.

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Panama elects former security minister José Raúl Mulino as next president

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Mulino, who won 34.3% of vote, pledges to welcome business and investment without forgetting ‘those who are hungry’

José Raúl Mulino, a former security minister, has emerged from a chaotic campaign to become Panama’s next president — and will now have to address a cocktail of social discontent with just a fraction of the seats in parliament.

Amid record turnout, Mulino won 34.3% of the vote, followed by the lawyer Ricardo Lombana on 24.8% and former president Martín Torrijos on 16%.

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Russia threatens UK military and orders nuclear drills after ‘provocation’

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Vladimir Putin responds to recent statements from David Cameron and Emmanuel Macron over Ukraine war

Russia has threatened to strike British military facilities and ordered its military to hold battlefield nuclear weapons drills in a move the Kremlin described as a response to comments from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on western troops fighting in Ukraine and from the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, on using British-supplied weapons against Russia.

The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that troops from the southern military district would “practise the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons … in response to provocative statements and threats by certain western officials against the Russian Federation.”

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Xi’s European tour: where is Chinese leader going and what are visit’s aims?

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Emmanuel Macron and Viktor Orbán among leaders Xi is meeting, with several key issues on the table

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has begun a three-country tour of Europe – his first state visit to the continent in five years – at a time when China-EU ties are under strain from trade disputes and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

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Call for port extension to be halted as genocide remains are found on Namibia’s Shark Island

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Researchers say more bodies of Herero and Nama people from early 20th century concentration camp could be in waters around port

The Namibian authorities are being urged to halt plans to extend a port on the Shark Island peninsula after the discovery of unmarked graves and artefacts relating to the Herero and Nama genocide.

Forensic Architecture, a non-profit research agency, said it had located sites of executions, forced labour, imprisonment and sexual violence that occurred when the island was used by the German empire as a concentration camp between 1905 and 1907.

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Thousands of Palestinians evacuate eastern Rafah amid Israeli attack threat

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Overnight Israeli strikes increase numbers leaving southern city for ‘humanitarian zone’ on coast

Thousands of people have fled Rafah amid deep international concern that an Israeli military attack on Gaza’s southernmost city is imminent and a new, bloody phase in the conflict is beginning.

International leaders have scrambled to dissuade Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, from ordering a full-scale assault on the city, which aid agencies say would cause a new humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and lead to many civilian deaths.

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Russia-Ukraine war as it happened: Moscow says British military facilities could be targeted after Cameron’s remarks

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British ambassador is summoned and told that installations and equipment in Ukraine and elsewhere could be targeted

The British ambassador to Moscow, Nigel Casey, was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry, Russian state agency RIA reported on Monday. Reuters said the ministry did not give the reason but there is speculation that it is linked to statements made last week by the foreign secretary, David Cameron, saying he had no issue with British-supplied weapons being used by Ukraine to strike inside Russia.

It comes as Russia has cited statements by the west as justification for upcoming nuclear weapons drills.

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House set to vote on Marjorie Taylor Greene effort to remove Mike Johnson

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Far-right congresswoman has spearheaded effort to oust fellow Republican as speaker but motion to vacate widely expected to fail

The House is expected to vote this week on a motion to remove Republican Mike Johnson as speaker, but the effort, spearheaded by hard-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, faces virtually no chance of success.

Greene announced on Wednesday that she would move forward with forcing a vote on Johnson’s removal this week, following through on a threat she first issued in late March. Greene has consistently attacked Johnson for advancing bills that have attracted widespread bipartisan support, such as the government spending proposal approved in March and the foreign aid package signed into law last month.

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Italian government accused of using defamation law to silence intellectuals

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Philosopher being sued by Giorgia Meloni’s brother-in-law says such trials are part of a political strategy

The government of Giorgia Meloni is making strategic use of defamation suits to silence public intellectuals, a philosopher who is being sued by the Italian prime minister’s brother-in-law has claimed.

In the latest of a series of lawsuits drawing on Italy’s comparatively harsh defamation laws, Donatella Di Cesare of Sapienza University in Rome will appear at a criminal court in the Italian capital on 15 May, after a complaint by the agriculture minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, over comments she made comparing one of his speeches to Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

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Weather tracker: torrential rainstorms cause death and destruction in Brazil

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This part of South America is no stranger to major rainfall, but last week’s storms were particularly devastating

Torrential rainstorms in Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have caused the worst flooding the country has seen in 80 years, many deaths and the displacement of thousands of families. Central parts of the state were hit the hardest after the storms began last Monday, with unofficial weather stations in the area recording 50-100cm (20-40in) of rain over the past week.

Widespread floods and landslides have caused major damage to homes and infrastructure, most alarmingly triggering the partial collapse of a small hydroelectric dam on Thursday, which sent a 2-metre-high wave through the surrounding area. At least 57 deaths have been reported and 24,000 people have been displaced, alongside an estimated 500,000 being without power and clean water.

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Israeli airstrike that killed seven health workers in Lebanon used US munition, analysis reveals

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Human rights experts say attack was violation of international law, and that US supplying of weapon defies 1997 Leahy law

Israel used a US weapon in a March airstrike which killed seven healthcare workers in southern Lebanon, according to a Guardian analysis of shrapnel found at the site of the attack, which was described by Human Rights Watch as a violation of international law.

Seven volunteer paramedics, aged between 18 and 25, were killed in the 27 March attack on an ambulance center belonging to the Lebanese Succor Association in the town of al-Habariyeh in south Lebanon on 27 March.

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Conflict of interest concerns raised over MEPs’ second jobs

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Seven out of 10 have outside work with six earning more with work than as parliamentary representatives, analysis shows

Half a dozen members of the European parliament earn more from second jobs than as EU lawmakers, according to analysis that raises questions about potential conflicts of interest.

The campaign group Transparency International EU found that 70% of the European parliament’s 705 members have side jobs. Just over a quarter (26%) of side jobs were paid, with six lawmakers earning more than their €120,900 (£103,000) annual gross MEP salary.

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Fix Europe’s housing crisis or risk fuelling the far-right, UN expert warns

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Unaffordable rents and property prices risk becoming a key political battleground across the continent

Spiralling rents and sky-high property prices risk becoming a key battleground of European politics as far-right and populist parties start to exploit growing public anger over the continent’s housing crisis, experts have said.

Weeks before European parliament elections in which far-right parties are forecast to finish first in nine EU member states and second or third in another nine, housing has the potential to become as potent a driver of far-right support as immigration.

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Opposition cries foul over ‘dynastic dictatorship’ as Chad goes to polls

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Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno widely expected to win poll as observers voice doubts over electoral process

Chad goes to the polls on Monday in its first presidential election in three decades without Idriss Déby, the former president, in contention.

Ten men will be on the ballot, but Déby’s son, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, who seized power at the head of a junta on the day rebels shot and killed his father in April 2021, is widely expected to win.

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Higher costs and cramped conditions: the impact of Europe’s housing crisis

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Affording a home has become a political issue as rents and prices soar and supply plummets

Decades in the making, Europe’s housing crisis is being felt from the Netherlands to Portugal, Greece to Germany, and in Britain. Prices and rents have soared, availability and affordability have plunged and housing has become a political issue.

Between 2010 and 2022, property prices across the 27-member bloc surged by 47%, according to a 2023 Eurostat report. In some countries they almost trebled: Estonia recorded a 192% rise. Only in two member states, Italy and Cyprus, did they decline.

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Missing surfers died from gunshots after attempted robbery, Mexican officials say

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Families of two Australians and American who went missing in Baja California have identified the bodies, officials say

Mexican authorities have identified the three dead bodies found in a well in Mexico as Australian brothers Callum and Jake Robinson and their travelling companion, Jack Carter Rhoad.

The trio, who went missing in the Pacific coast state of Baja California, were killed with gunshots to the head, Mexican authorities said on Sunday.

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Police dismantle Palestinian solidarity encampment at USC

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Officers in riot gear raid encampment at dawn as university warns demonstrators that failure to leave could lead to arrest

Police have dismantled the student-led Palestinian solidarity encampment at the University of Southern California.

About 4am on Saturday, as many as 100 Los Angeles police officers in riot gear raided the encampment at dawn as anti-war student demonstrators slept in the tents. In a series of tweets during the raid, the university warned demonstrators to leave the area, adding that “people who don’t leave could be arrested”.

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