Category Archives: World News

Centre-right party ahead in Finnish presidential election

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Liberal Green party is a close second and goes through to second round, while far-right Finns have been knocked out

Finland’s former prime minister Alexander Stubb and the country’s former foreign minister Pekka Haavisto have progressed through to the second round of the presidential elections, knocking out a rightwing populist candidate.

With all votes counted, Stubb, of the centre-right National Coalition party, had won 27.2% of votes, while the liberal candidate Haavisto, a member of the Green party who is running as an independent, had secured 25.8%, election officials said.

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Three US service members killed in ‘despicable’ drone attack in Jordan, Biden says

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Iranian backed militia took credit for attack that injured 34 troops and killed first US soldiers in battle since start of the Gaza conflict

The spectre of a direct US-Iranian military conflict drew closer on Sunday when the US president Joe Biden announced three US servicemen have been killed and more than 34 injured following a drone attack on a US service base on the border of Jordan and Syria. Biden blamed Iranian backed militia mainly based in Iraq for the “despicable” attack and vowed revenge.

Responsibility for Saturday’s attack on Tower 22, a military outpost on the Jordanian Syrian Iraqi borders was claimed by the Iranian backed umbrella group Islamic Resistance, and the US made no attempt to disguise its belief that Iran was ultimately responsible.

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Charity with Prince Harry as director investigating rape and torture claims

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African Parks examines alleged atrocities against Indigenous people by its Congo Republic guards after ‘decade of alerts’ from Survival International

A wildlife charity that has the Duke of Sussex as a board member is investigating allegations of rape and torture by its guards in the Republic of the Congo.

African Parks, which manages 22 national parks and protected areas across 12 countries, said the investigation was its “highest priority” and encouraged anyone with knowledge of any abuse to contact it.

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AfD narrowly loses first election since mass deportation meeting revelations

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District runoff in Thuringia closely watched to gauge whether huge protests against party have dented support

The far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland party has been narrowly beaten in its first electoral test since revelations came to light of its involvement in a plan for the mass deportation of foreigners that has sparked huge protests across Germany. Its candidate lost against a conservative rival in a district administrative election the importance of which resonated far beyond the local area.

In a tight second-round runoff in the district of Saale-Orla in the south-eastern state of Thuringia, the AfD candidate, Uwe Thrum, had victory snatched from him by his Christian Democrat (CDU) rival Christian Herrgott by 4.6 percentage points.

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Talks on Israel-Hamas hostage deal ‘constructive’ but meaningful gaps remain

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US, Qatari, Israeli and Egyptian officials met in Paris and will continue to discuss options

Talks on Sunday initiated by Qatar, the US and Egypt aimed at brokering a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas were “constructive” but meaningful gaps remain, a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office has said.

The statement said the parties would continue to hold discussions this week. “There are still significant gaps in which the parties will continue to discuss this week in additional mutual meetings,” the statement added.

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UN chief urges donors to reconsider UNRWA funding withdrawal

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António Guterres says loss of funding from US and others means aid into Gaza for whole of this month cannot be guaranteed

The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has appealed to the 10 donor countries that have withdrawn funding from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees to reconsider, saying the agency and Palestinians in desperate need should not be penalised due to the alleged acts of a dozen staff.

Guterres said nine UNRWA staff had already been dismissed for alleged involvement in Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and any UN employee involved in acts of terror would be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

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Famine in Gaza is being made ‘inevitable’ says UN rapporteur

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Countries defunding UNRWA, the main aid distributer in Gaza, accused of collectively punishing more than 2.2 million Palestinians

The Gaza Strip is facing “inevitable famine” because of the decision by western countries to pause funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian affairs after Israeli accusations that 12 of the group’s employees took part in the Hamas attack on 7 October last year.

Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said on Sunday “famine was imminent” and now “inevitable”, in a comment following the news that the US and nine other countries were suspending additional funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).

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UK committed to ‘protecting innocent lives’, says Shapps after Houthi attack

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British warship HMS Diamond targeted in Red Sea but no injuries or serious damage sustained

Grant Shapps said the UK remained “undaunted” after Iran-backed Houthis targeted HMS Diamond in the Red Sea during their latest round of strikes.

The defence secretary’s comments came after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that the Royal Navy warship HMS Diamond “deployed its Sea Viper missile system” to destroy the drone deployed by the Yemen-based Houthi group on Saturday. It said there were no injuries to the crew and no damage to the ship.

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Ukraine’s security service arrests five people accused of $40m arms fraud

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Two ministry of defence officials among those arrested over contract for mortar shells that never arrived

Ukraine’s SBU security service has arrested five people who allegedly tried to steal nearly $40m (£31m) that was supposed to be used to buy shells for the country’s military in its war against Russia.

The SBU said on Saturday it had arrested two senior officials from the ministry of defence. They had allegedly conspired with the chief executive of a little-known arms firm, Lviv Arsenal, over a contract for 100,000 mortar shells. Another employee and an alleged accomplice were also detained.

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Protesters throw soup at Mona Lisa in Paris

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Visitors at Louvre look on in shock as Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece attacked by environmental protesters

Two environmental protesters have hurled soup at the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for “healthy and sustainable food”. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged.

Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting, their right hands held up in a salute-like gesture.

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Finland goes to the polls as border tensions with Russia rise

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All presidential candidates champion independence and country’s new role in Nato as relations with Moscow deteriorate

Finns headed to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president, an office whose importance has grown as tensions with neighbouring Russia have increased since the invasion of Ukraine.

While the president’s powers are limited, the head of state – who also acts as supreme commander of Finland’s armed forces – helps to direct foreign policy in collaboration with the government, meaning the changing geopolitical landscape in Europe will be the main concern for the winner.

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Far-right Israeli ministers call for resettlement of Gaza – as it happened

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This blog has now closed. You can see our full report on the drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan here and our report on western countries’ decision to cut funding to UNRWA here. And see all coverage of the Israel-Gaza war and Middle East crisis here.

The Israeli army on Sunday said special forces were continuing to engage in “intensive battles” in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis, where it claimed troops eliminated “terrorists and located large quantities of weapons”.

Strikes were also carried out in central and northern Gaza, it added.

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Russia-Ukraine war: attacks on Russian enlistment offices signal dissatisfaction with war, says UK – as it happened

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There have been 220 attacks on Russian military enlistment offices since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022

Three civilians, including a teenage boy, were wounded in an overnight Russian strike in the Donetsk oblast, according to the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general.

Russian troops launched a rocket attack on a residential area in the city of Myrnograd at about 1.30am, injuring a 15-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man in their own homes. A 30-year-old resident of a neighbouring house sustained a brain injury.

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Chinese courts to rule on Hong Kong commercial disputes under new law

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Legislation will further erode differences between legal systems of Hong Kong and mainland

A new law giving Chinese courts the authority to enforce rulings in commercial disputes in Hong Kong comes into effect on Monday, further reducing the barriers between the Hong Kong and Chinese legal systems.

The law puts into effect an agreement signed between China’s supreme people’s court and the government of Hong Kong in 2019 and is designed to reduce the need for re-litigation in civil and commercial disputes, in cases where there is a connection to mainland China.

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Death, guns and ‘corrupt cop’ claims: saga that gripped New Orleans reaches its end

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The verdict in the manslaughter trial over the 2016 death of Saints star Will Smith brings to a close a turbulent eight years of legal wrangling

Ever since the New Orleans tow-truck company owner Cardell Hayes shot the retired local pro-football champion Will Smith to death and wounded the former athlete’s wife on a city street late on the night of 9 April 2016, people on all sides of the case have made it as complicated as possible in their fight for what they consider to be justice.

It is a case that has gripped south-eastern Louisiana – where football players are huge celebrities – and also involved dark, if unsupported, allegations of another deep south staple: police corruption. Competing theories and narratives have vied for supremacy, with almost as many different ideas of what happened as people willing to voice them.

Ramon Antonio Vargas covered the New Orleans Saints in 2013 and 2014 at the New Orleans Advocate and also covered the case of Hayes and Smith before joining the Guardian in 2022.

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Breslau 1941: clandestine photos tell of the Holocaust’s upheaval and terror

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Images taken secretly some 80 years ago are being published for the first time to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day

A remarkable series of photographs of Jewish families being forced to leave their homes in Germany in the middle of the second world war has been published for the first time, following a chance discovery.

The images are a striking new testament to the sudden upheaval and terror of the Holocaust and were taken secretly by an amateur photographer. He is believed to have wanted to pass down the scenes he was witnessing, despite the risk to himself. They show groups of people gathering outside a restaurant near the railway station in the Silesian city of Breslau, now Wrocław in Poland. Jewish men, women and children of all ages were held here for a few days before deportation by train. Almost all are certain to have been killed just a few days later in a documented shooting in Lithuania. Others were killed at a later date in Poland.

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Ukraine levels up the fight with drone strikes deep into Russia

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Unable to match Putin’s military might, Ukraine is engaging in ‘smart warfare’ to attack the enemy’s oil and gas supply lines

Last week, a motorist driving in Russia’s Leningrad region came across something unusual. Men had blocked off the road. In front, a large olive-green military vehicle with cigar-shaped missiles on the back was reversing and then parked up on a snowy verge. “Fuck! It’s an S-300,” the driver exclaimed, before adding: “So guys, let’s prepare for the worst.”

This surreal roadside encounter took place outside St Petersburg, more than 620 miles (about 1,000km) from the border with Ukraine and Russia’s near two-year all-out war. The Kremlin’s security services were apparently taking no chances. They were deploying the S-300 air defence missile system in order to protect Peter the Great’s imperial capital from small but devastating drones.

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Thousands march against femicide in Kenya after rise in killings

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Reports of at least a dozen cases of femicide since start of year prompt protests across the country

Protests against femicide have taken place across Kenya after a rise in killings this month.

Reports of at least a dozen cases of femicide since the start of the year have prompted public outrage, debate and demonstrations across the country, including in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.

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Jack Russell terrier who loves to surf makes a splash on beaches of Peru

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Four-year-old dog named Efruz ‘loves the sea’, according to his owner, and often perches on a surfboard to ride waves

Clad in a yellow vest, little Efruz balances himself on the front of the surfboard as waves foam around him and his companion as they skim over the Pacific waters off Peru.

Efruz is a four-year-old Jack Russell terrier and he is a common sight these hot days of the southern hemisphere summer.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Ukraine repelling three-pronged attack on Avdiivka, says UK – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

A Russian team shot and killed a brother and sister from the Khotin community of the Sumy oblast this morning, the regional military administration said.

The brother and sister were living in the village of Andriivka, which is located in the 5-km border zone.

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