Category Archives: World News

Japan’s ‘moon sniper’ lander heads for touchdown on lunar surface

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If all goes to plan, Jaxa’s lander will make Japan the fifth country ever to land on the moon

Japan is on final approach to become only the fifth country to land on the moon, in what would be a reversal of fortunes as it attempts to join a global space race centred on unravelling the mysteries of the lunar landscape.

If all goes to plan, the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) will begin its descent to the rocky lunar surface at midnight on Friday (1500 GMT) before touching down about 20 minutes later, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa).

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Israel added to list of ‘worst jailers of journalists’ for first time

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Israel is in sixth place after the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded 18 Palestinian journalists in its jails

Israel has joined a notorious band of authoritarian states with a history of imprisoning journalists by detaining Palestinian reporters without trial since the beginning of the latest war in Gaza.

A report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released on Thursday said that for the first time Israel figures in its list of “worst jailers of journalists”, putting it on a par with Iran.

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Gaza conditions go from catastrophe ‘to near collapse’, says Unicef – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. See all our coverage of the Middle East crisis here

While Iran has taken low-level action against Balochistan in the past, Tuesday’s strikes were unusually heavy-handed and Thursday’s retaliatory bombings were the first time that Pakistan has responded with comprehensive military action against its neighbour.

Sources in Islamabad said the decision was taken after heavy political and military pressure on the top army leadership to show strength against Tehran.

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Alarm as Alabama man to be executed via gas method rejected by veterinarians

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Death row prisoner Kenneth Smith, 58, to be killed via nitrogen-gas procedure animal scientists have ruled out for ethical reasons

Alabama is preparing to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas, an experimental method that veterinarians in the US and across Europe have deemed unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for most animals.

Barring last-minute appeals, Kenneth Smith, 58, is scheduled to be judicially killed on 25 January using a previously untested technique. Alabama’s department of corrections is proposing to strap him to a gurney, apply a respirator mask to his face, then force him to breathe pure nitrogen which would cause oxygen deprivation and death.

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French police protest for better pay and conditions during Paris Olympics

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Unions call for bonuses and childcare provision after suggestion all officers will be mobilised during Games

Police in France are holding a “Black Thursday” of work stoppages and demonstrations to demand better pay and conditions during this summer’s Olympic Games.

Several police unions, led by the two largest, Alliance and Unsa Police, said there should be bonuses of up to €2,000 (£1,720) as well as guarantees of holiday leave and childcare support for police this summer.

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Femicide in Kenya a national crisis, say rights groups

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At least four women have been murdered since the start of the year, leading to accusations of government inaction

Rights groups are calling for the Kenyan government to urgently investigate and prosecute cases of femicide, after the brutal murders of two women.

“This is a national crisis – we are not doing enough as a country to protect women,” said Audrey Mugeni, the co-founder of Femicide Count Kenya, an NGO that documents the number of women killed across the country each year.

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Albanian court to rule on migration deal with Italian government

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Judge to determine whether agreement criticised by human rights groups violates constitution

A court in Albania is due to rule on whether a deal with Italy’s far-right government would violate the constitution by allowing Albanian territory to be used for reception centres for people seeking to enter the EU by sea.

The agreement, announced in November by the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, would result initially in the non-EU member state hosting about 3,000 people but ultimately processing up to 36,000 a year.

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Sheryl Sandberg to leave board of Facebook parent Meta

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Former chief operating officer was lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model

Sheryl Sandberg is to step down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, nearly two years after quitting her executive role at the business.

Sandberg was the lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model as Meta’s chief operating officer.

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Pakistan hits separatist ‘hideouts’ in retaliatory strikes against Iran

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Drone and missile attacks in Sistan and Balochistan province come after Iran struck sites inside Pakistan

Pakistan has launched retaliatory strikes against militants in Iran in response to attacks by Tehran that targeted sites within Pakistan’s borders, heightening fears of further instability across the Middle East and surrounding region.

A statement by Pakistan’s foreign office early on Thursday said it had undertaken “a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts” in the Sistan and Balochistan province of Iran, adding that “a number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation”.

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Middle East conflicts and the Rwanda bill – Politics Weekly UK podcast

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As tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, this week John Harris speaks to Niku Jafarnia of Human Rights Watch about the regional conflicts. The Rwanda bill passed its third reading and Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, reveals what happened behind the scenes. And the former No 10 adviser Gavin Barwell talks about the increasingly vicious struggles within the Conservative party

Archive: GB News

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Jetsetting Orbán is speed-dating global strongmen – but at what cost?

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Hungarian PM met a who’s who of rightwing leaders on his travels in 2023, as critics point to failures at home

Europe’s pariah prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is jetting across the globe in search of friends.

Hungary, an EU and Nato member that has been backsliding on democratic norms for more than a decade, has become even more isolated in the western club over the past months. Orbán has irritated allies by blocking a much-needed EU financial aid package for Ukraine, while Hungary’s parliament has dragged its feet on ratifying Sweden’s bid to join Nato.

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Ecuador prosecutor investigating gang attack on TV station shot and killed

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Police arrest two after César Suárez killed in brazen daylight attack in Guayaquil amid dramatic recent surge in violence

The public prosecutor who was leading the investigation into the on-air assault on an Ecuadorian television station has been shot and killed in a brazen daylight attack in the crime-ridden city of Guayaquil.

César Suárez, who focused on cases involving organized trans-national crime in Guayas province – one of the country’s most violent areas – was ambushed in the north of the city on Wednesday afternoon.

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Cocaine, gangs and murder: Ecuador’s 10 days of terror – podcast

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Just a few years ago it was one of the most peaceful countries in Latin America. But last week drug gangs stormed a live TV broadcast and unleashed a wave of terror. Tom Phillips reports

Compared with its fellow Latin American countries Colombia and Mexico – which for decades have been destabilised by violent drug gangs – Ecuador was calm and peaceful. But a wave of terror last Tuesday showed just how quickly things have changed.

After the prison break by an infamous drug baron, chaos erupted. Masked men and boys interrupted a live TV broadcast and held journalists at gunpoint. Elsewhere, police officers and prison guards were taken hostage, explosions were heard and violence spread.

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Red Sea crisis: US launches fourth round of strikes on Houthis in Yemen

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US missile strikes came after a bulk carrier was hit by Houthi drones in the Gulf of Aden

The US military has fired another wave of missile strikes against Houthi-controlled sites, marking the fourth time in a week that it has directly targeted the group in Yemen.

The strikes were launched from the Red Sea, hitting more than a dozen sites – the officials told the AP news agency – and came after a drone launched from areas controlled by the Houthis hit a US-owned vessel in the Gulf of Aden.

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Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill passes third reading in Commons

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Flagship policy passes committee stage after tense lead-up in which Tory divisions came to the fore

Rishi Sunak has survived a damaging row over his flagship Rwanda bill after a Conservative rebellion melted away and dozens of rightwing MPs balked at further undermining the prime minister’s authority.

After a crucial 11th hour meeting of more than 45 Tory rebels, the group’s leaders concluded that defeating the bill by voting alongside Labour during an election year could risk collapsing the government.

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US woman jailed for 26 years over mother’s suitcase murder in Bali

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Heather Mack, 28, pleaded guilty to helping boyfriend kill Sheila Wiese-Mack in 2014 to gain access to $1.5m trust fund

An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her own mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during a luxury vacation in Bali has been sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Judge Matthew Kennelly gave Mack credit for the approximately two years she spent in custody in Chicago awaiting trial since her return to the US in 2021. Mack’s attorney Michael Leonard said her formal sentence will be about 23 years total.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger held at Munich airport over luxury watch

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Customs officials reportedly charge actor €35,000 after alleged failure to declare item intended for climate charity auction

Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly held by customs officers at Munich airport on Wednesday after allegedly failing to declare a €26,000 (£22,000) Audemars Piguet watch the Terminator star was planning to sell at an auction in aid of his climate crisis charity.

The Austrian-born actor and former governor of California, 76, was stopped at the airport for about three hours upon arrival from Los Angeles, according to the German tabloid Bild, which quoted customs officials.

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Mexican activist who searched for disappeared brother now missing after attack

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Lorenza Cano seized by gunmen in Guanajuato state after her husband and son shot dead in attack

A Mexican woman who spent five years looking for her disappeared brother has herself been abducted in an attack in which her husband and son were shot dead.

Lorenza Cano, one of Mexico’s many volunteer searchers trying to find the country’s 114,000 desaparecidos, was seized late on Monday by a group of gunmen who burst into her home in the northern city of Salamanca.

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Climate crisis to increase cancer risk for tens of millions of people in Bangladesh

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Scientists say sea level rises, flooding and extreme weather will accelerate release of arsenic into water supply

Climate breakdown will put tens of millions of people in Bangladesh at heightened risk of cancer from contaminated well water, according to research.

Sea level rises, unpredictable flooding and extreme weather caused by the climate heating up will accelerate the release of dangerous levels of arsenic into the country’s drinking water, say scientists.

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Hundreds of protesters clash with police in Russian republic of Bashkortostan

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Trial of local activist provokes one of largest reported demonstrations in country since Ukraine invasion

Hundreds of protesters have clashed with police in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan in a rare display of public outrage after a court convicted a local activist and sentenced him to prison, according to media reports and rights groups.

The unrest on Wednesday – one of the largest reported demonstrations since the war in Ukraine began in 2022 – erupted amid the trial this week of Fail Alsynov in the town of Baymak, about 870 miles (1,400km) south-east of Moscow, in the southern Ural mountains.

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