Category Archives: World News

Pakistani military use age-old tactics to keep Imran Khan away from election

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Former PM, once military’s golden boy, has been sentenced in two separate cases to 10 and 14 years

The script seems eerily familiar. Imran Khan, once the golden boy of Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, found himself at the receiving end of not one, but two, damning court verdicts this week.

Sentenced to 10 years in jail on Tuesday, and 14 years on Wednesday, the brazen timing of the convictions in two separate cases made one thing abundantly clear: the military will stop at nothing to keep Khan away from Pakistan’s general election, which will be held next week.

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Thai court rules Move Forward party must end bid to reform lese-majesty law

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Opposition leader rejects claims party is seeking to cause deterioration of monarchy

Thailand’s constitutional court has ruled that the opposition party’s pledge to reform the country’s lese-majesty law is unlawful and that it must cease such efforts.

The court ordered the Move Forward party and its leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, to stop all forms of communication aimed at bringing reforms to the law, under which criticism of the powerful royal family can lead to up to 15 years in prison on a single charge.

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Diseases spread in overcrowded Rafah as Gaza’s population forced south

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Crisis in southern Gaza only set to worsen in coming days as Israeli forces push deeper into Khan Younis

Haneen Harara wakes up each morning in the southern Gazan city of Rafah thinking about the long queues and crowds that stand between her and the survival basics of food, water and medical care.

The film-maker and employee at a Dutch charity considers herself lucky that she and 15 members of her family reached the city on Gaza’s border with Egypt in time to find a house at which to stay. Many others have found shelter from the winter cold in tents that fill with water every time it rains.

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Ethiopia hails return of its first plane, stolen by Mussolini in 1930s

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Red two-seater named after Emperor Haile Selassie’s daughter abandoned in 1936 after Italy invaded country

Almost nine decades after it was stolen by Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime, the Italian government has officially returned Ethiopia’s first plane.

The official handover of the aircraft, named Tsehay in honour of the princess daughter of Emperor Haile Selassie, was celebrated on Tuesday by the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed.

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Iran not seeking war with US but ‘not afraid of it’, says military chief

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Head of Islamic Revolutionary Guards defiant as US prepares ‘very consequential response’ to drone attack on Jordan base

The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has vowed the country is not afraid of war with the US, as the Pentagon weighs how directly to respond to the killing of three US servicemen in a drone attack in Jordan.

The IRGC commander-in-chief, Maj Gen Hossein Salami, said: “We hear some threats from American officials about targeting Iran. We tell them that you tested us and we know each other. We do not leave any threat unanswered, and we do not look for war, but we are not afraid of it. This is the well-known truth.”

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South Sudan flooding hampers efforts to contain hepatitis E outbreak

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MSF begins vaccine drive against incurable disease, which is spread via dirty water and kills thousands of pregnant women

A push to tackle an outbreak of hepatitis E in South Sudan is being hampered by flooding that has isolated populations and turned villages into islands.

A pioneering vaccination drive has begun to protect people against a spate of cases but the true scale of the disease outbreak is unknown.

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‘Incomprehensible’ that Abramovich’s Chelsea funds not yet spent on Ukraine

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Lords report says UK government must break impasse over details of how frozen assets should be spent

Peers have criticised the UK government for failing to agree a deal with the former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to spend £2.5bn from his sale of the London football club.

Members of the House of Lords’ European affairs committee have described ministers’ failure to spend the money on Ukraine “incomprehensible”, nearly two years after the sale was agreed.

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Italy lodges protest after citizen led in chains into Budapest court

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Hungarian ambassador summoned amid national uproar at treatment of Ilaria Salis, accused of attacking neo-Nazis

Italy’s government has said that authorities in Hungary went “too far” in putting in chains an Italian woman who is awaiting trial for allegedly attacking neo-Nazis.

Italian ministers summoned Budapest’s ambassador in protest on Tuesday.

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French move to make abortion a ‘guaranteed freedom’ gains big win in lower house

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Constitutional change could face fight in Senate after national assembly approves measure by 493 votes to 30

France’s lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a measure to inscribe abortion as a “guaranteed freedom” in the constitution, a pledge made by the president, Emmanuel Macron, last year.

But the controversial plan now goes to the upper-house Senate, where it faces resistance from the conservative Republicans and the far-right National Rally.

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British police and security services to help protect Paris Olympics

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France and UK also agree to deploy more drones and sea barriers to stop small boats crossing Channel

UK security experts will help France to protect the Paris Olympics in a sign of closer cooperation, the Home Office has said.

Both governments also plan to deploy more drones and sea barriers to prevent small boats carrying asylum seekers from crossing the Channel.

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Iran on high alert as Biden mulls response to killing of US servicemen

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Tehran warns Washington but regime unsure of degree of support for interventionist foreign policy

Iran has told the US via intermediaries that if it strikes Iranian soil directly, Tehran will itself hit back at American assets in the Middle East, drawing the two sides into a direct conflict.

The warning comes as Iran waits on high alert to see how Joe Biden responds to the death of three US servicemen deemed by Washington to have been killed by a Tehran-backed militia based in Syria.

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EU must defend Ukraine even if US reduces military support, Macron says

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French president says future security architecture of Europe could no longer be settled by the US and Russia

The European Union has to make bold decisions to defend Ukraine, pre-empting any US decision to withhold or reduce its military support, Emmanuel Macron has said.

In a speech in Sweden, which hopes to be the next country to join Nato, the French president also said the future security architecture of Europe, including arms control agreements covering European territory, could no longer be settled simply by the US and Russia, and Europe had to have a right to determine its own future.

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Biden says he has decided how US will respond to Jordan drone attack

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Iran-backed militia Washington blamed for attack announces it has suspended anti-US operations

Joe Biden has said he has decided how to respond to a drone strike in northern Jordan which killed three American soldiers and wounded dozens more, as the Iran-backed militia that Washington blamed for the attack said it had suspended anti-US operations.

As Washington pondered its response, Kataib Hezbollah announced the suspension of all its military operations against US troops in the region, claiming the decision was intended to prevent “embarrassment” to the Iraqi government.

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Belgian port blockaded as farmer protests spread across Europe

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Roads around Zeebrugge could be obstructed until midnight on Wednesday, hitting commercial trade

The Belgian port of Zeebrugge was blockaded on Tuesday, causing gridlock on surrounding roads as a wave of farmer protests spread across Europe.

Authorities at the North Sea port, one of the biggest in Europe, said all access roads were blocked by 5pm (1600 GMT) on Tuesday, in a demonstration that will hit commercial trade, including imports and exports of food to and from the UK, Ireland and Scandinavia.

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Andrew Tate loses appeal against ruling that stops him leaving Romania

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Bucharest court upholds restriction on online influencer, who is charged with human trafficking and rape

A Romanian court has rejected an appeal by the online influencer Andrew Tate to ease judicial control measures imposed while the legal case continues in which he is charged with human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.

The Bucharest court of appeal’s decision on Tuesday upheld a ruling by another court on 18 January that extended by 60 days the geographical restrictions against Tate, 37, stipulating that he cannot leave the country.

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Netanyahu rules out ceasefire deal that would mean Gaza withdrawal

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Israeli PM also says he will not accept any truce that would require release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners

Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not accept any ceasefire deal that requires the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners or the departure of Israeli troops from Gaza, as the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said he was willing to travel to Cairo to discuss the proposals.

Haniyeh said the group’s aim remained to end Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and secure a full pullout of Israeli forces from the territory.

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Israeli special forces disguised as doctors kill three militants at West Bank hospital

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Counter-terrorism officers enter Jenin’s Ibn Sina hospital wearing doctors’ scrubs and women’s clothes

Israeli forces dressed in doctors’ scrubs and women’s clothes have killed three Palestinian militants in an undercover operation in a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

A border police counter-terrorism unit and a unit from the internal security forces, known as the Shin Bet, entered Ibn Sina hospital on the outskirts of the city’s refugee camp early on Tuesday, CCTV footage of the aftermath of the operation showed.

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Saudi Arabia surprises oil markets by ditching plan to increase production

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Blow to Joe Biden, who had hoped to benefit from lower pump prices in an election year

Saudi Arabia has cast doubt on the future of the global oil market after abandoning plans to grow its crude production capacity by 1m barrels a day.

The world’s biggest exporter signalled a big change in policy by ordering the state oil company, Saudi Aramco, to drop plans to expand its maximum production capacity to 13m barrels a day by 2027.

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Somalia to launch its first current affairs TV show led by women

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New show will follow Question Time format answering audience questions on taboo subjects from periods to women in politics

Somalia’s only all-female media team, Bilan, is launching the country’s first TV current affairs show to be hosted by a woman.

The debate show, which plans to address some taboo subjects, will also be the first programme on Somali television to have a panel of at least 50% women, and the first to broach contentious topics, such as a critical shortage of female teachers and the challenges faced by women trying to get into politics, as well as environmental issues.

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Israel denies its forces are storming al-Amal hospital in Gaza – as it happened

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Denial comes after Palestinian Red Crescent Society says hospital in Khan Younis is under attack; White House declines to give further details of response

The Wafa Palestinian news agency reports that “dozens of Palestinian civilians” have been killed today by Israeli airstrikes, including “intense and fierce airstrikes at the city of Rafah”, which is in the south of the Gaza Strip and is one of the areas Israel’s military has repeatedly told Palestinians to flee to for safety.

Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah for Al Jazeera, said the strike in Rafah caused “a great deal of panic and concern as people believe the military operation is expanding step by step”. He said a house was destroyed and a number of people were reported dead, as “the Israeli military continues bombing, killing and maiming Palestinians across Gaza”.

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