Category Archives: World News

Latest US-Iran nuclear talks conclude with claims of ‘significant progress’

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Mediators say more talks to be held next week but no clear evidence two sides any closer on uranium enrichment

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday with the Omani mediators claiming that “significant progress” had been made and predicting the talks would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna.

But there was no immediate evidence to support suggestions that the two sides had drawn closer together on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks.

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Cuba vows to fight ‘terrorist aggression’ after attack from US-registered boat

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Cuban president says country will ‘defend itself with determination’ after deadly coastal assault by exiles

Cuba has vowed to defend itself against any “terrorist and mercenary aggression”, a day after border guards said they had killed four exiles on a Florida-registered speedboat that opened fire on a patrol.

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, wrote on X that the Caribbean country would “defend itself with determination and firmness” after the incident in which six other people on the boat were injured.

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Cuba vows to fight ‘terrorist aggression’ after attack from US-registered boat

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Cuban president says country will ‘defend itself with determination’ after deadly coastal assault by exiles

Cuba has vowed to defend itself against any “terrorist and mercenary aggression”, a day after border guards said they had killed four exiles on a Florida-registered speedboat that opened fire on a patrol.

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, wrote on X that the Caribbean country would “defend itself with determination and firmness” after the incident in which six other people on the boat were injured.

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Anxiety mounts across Middle East amid fears of US-Iran war

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People across region are bracing for possibility of conflict as embassies evacuate staff and flights are cancelled

Anxiety is growing over a potential war between Iran and the US in the Middle East, with embassies evacuating staff and airlines cancelling flights as tensions mount.

As critical talks over Iran’s nuclear programme entered their second round on Thursday night, and a vast US military buildup continued in the Middle East, the Trump administration warned of drastic consequences if Iranian negotiators failed to make significant concessions.

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Italian woman awarded compensation after breaking ankle while working from home

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University of Padua employee fractured ankle when getting up to fetch documents during video meeting

An Italian woman who fell and broke her ankle while working from home has obtained compensation in an unprecedented court ruling hailed a victory for workers’ rights.

In April 2022, the woman, an employee in the University of Padua’s law department, fractured her ankle in two places. The injury, which happened during a Zoom meeting where she fell after she got up from her desk to fetch documents, required surgery and treatment lasting more than four months.

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Mafia accused of using Naples hospital for fraud and illegal transport of corpses

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Four arrests over Camorra’s alleged infiltration of San Giovanni Bosco to carry out lucrative criminal activity

Italian police on Wednesday arrested four people over an alleged Camorra plot to infiltrate a Naples hospital, stage fake crashes for insurance payouts and spirit corpses away on oxygen-masked stretchers to profit from private ambulance transfers.

The investigation, prompted by the testimony of a state witness, uncovered a web of lucrative criminal activity allegedly carried out by members of the Contini clan of the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, inside San Giovanni Bosco hospital. Prosecutors said the “operations were made possible by the organisation’s capacity for intimidation, a force that bent public officials and private citizens alike to its will”.

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Ocado to cut 1,000 jobs in £150m cost-saving drive

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Major restructure by retail technology business will lead to reduction of about 5% of global workforce

Ocado is to cut 1,000 jobs as the retail technology business attempts to slash costs by £150m in a major restructure.

The group confirmed about 5% of its global workforce is being cut, with about two-thirds of the job losses affecting its UK operations.

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Two women arrested in Uganda for allegedly kissing in public could face life sentence

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Wendy Faith and Alesi Diana Denise were taken into custody under laws that have outraged LGBTQ+ community and rights activists

Two women have been arrested and detained in Uganda after allegedly kissing in public, an act of “same-sex activity” which can lead to a life sentence in the east African country..

Wendy Faith, a 22-year-old musician known as Torrero Bae, and Alesi Diana Denise, 21, were taken into custody after police raided their rented room in Uganda’s north-west Arua City last week.

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‘A devastating force’: how recent Mediterranean storms turned to tragedies

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Atmospheric machine-gun has fired storm after deadly storm at the region this year, leaving a trail of widespread destruction

For Andrés Sánchez Barea, in Spain, it was the fear that arose when water started to spurt from plug sockets. For Nelson Duarte, in Portugal, it was the helplessness that hit as violent winds smacked down trees and tore tiles from roofs. For Amal Essuide, in Morocco, it was the reality that dawned when a corpse was pulled onboard a boat in the flooded medina.

Each moment of horror is a fragment of the destruction wrought by an atmospheric machine-gun that in recent weeks has fired storm after storm at the western Mediterranean. Scientists do not know if climate breakdown helped pull the trigger, but research suggests it loaded the chamber with bigger bullets.

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Kash Patel fires FBI officials linked to Trump documents case, reports say

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Dismissals follow revelations that FBI subpoenaed records of Patel and Susie Wiles before Trump returned to office

At least 10 FBI employees connected to an investigation of Donald Trump have reportedly been dismissed following revelations that the agency subpoenaed personal records of current FBI director Kash Patel and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles in the years before Trump returned to office.

The ousters, reported by CBS News and CNN, were linked to the federal investigation led by former justice department special counsel Jack Smith into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents that were found at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort after his first term.

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Jacinda Ardern living and working in Australia after move from US

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Exclusive: Former New Zealand PM ‘based out of Australia’, according to spokesperson, after rumours she was looking for houses in Sydney

The former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is living in Australia with her family, a spokesperson has confirmed.

“The family has been travelling for a few years now,” her office told the Guardian.

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Spanish officer who led 1981 coup dies on day documents declassified

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Antonio Tejero, who has died aged 93, was part of rightwing network whose efforts were thwarted by King Juan Carlos

The Spanish officer who led his armed followers into the Spanish congress in a failed military coup in 1981 has died on the same day that the socialist-led government declassified documents relating to the murky attempt to overthrow the country’s post-Franco democracy.

Antonio Tejero, who died aged 93, was part of a network of rightwing police and military officers whose efforts to seize power were thwarted after King Juan Carlos refused to support the coup and ordered the generals to obey the democratic constitutional order.

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US to offer passport services to citizens in illegal West Bank settlements

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Israel welcomes move described by Palestinian Authority as undermining possibility of an independent state

The US will provide on-site consular services in two Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank for the first time, breaking with previous policy, in a move that has been criticised by Palestinian officials as “a clear violation of international law”.

In a post on X, the US embassy in Jerusalem said that as part of an initiative to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence, it would provide Americans with routine passport services in the West Bank settlement of Efrat on Friday “for one day only”.

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Confusion over Chagos Islands deal as Foreign Office denies handover ‘paused’

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Minister ‘misspoke’ by telling MPs UK was ‘pausing for discussions with our American counterparts’, officials say

Plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius are still on track, the UK government has insisted, after a minister caused confusion by telling MPs that the deal was “paused”.

Hamish Falconer, a Foreign Office minister and former diplomat, was speaking on Wednesday as the deal came under increasing pressure from opposition parties in the UK and from Donald Trump.

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Israel responsible for two-thirds of record 129 press killings in 2025, says CPJ

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Committee to Protect Journalists report says Israel also to blame for 81% of ‘intentionally targeted’ journalist killings

A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israeli forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

It was the second consecutive year in which killings of members of the press reached unprecedented levels, and the second year running in which Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of the total, the New York-based independent organisation, which documents attacks on journalists worldwide, said in its annual report published on Wednesday.

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Nobody believed that Putin would invade Ukraine. Four years on, has Europe learned from the failures of 2022?

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I looked back to discover the untold story of how western intelligence was misread, even in Kyiv. The conclusion offers a stark warning for the future

Tuesday marked the fourth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and at this time of year it’s hard not to recall memories of the morning of 24 February 2022, when the fate of Ukraine and the history of Europe were irrevocably changed by the decision of the man in the Kremlin.

Around 9pm the evening before, I had received a message from a colleague at another news outlet. It was an unequivocal warning from an intelligence source that the war would start that night. We discussed it among the Guardian’s Ukraine reporting team and international editors. My colleague Emma Graham-Harrison, who was on an overnight train from Kyiv towards the frontline city of Mariupol, decided she would get off halfway, in the middle of the night, and beg a spot on the first train heading back to Kyiv. It turned out to be a wise move: Mariupol was soon under siege and the scene of much of the worst carnage of the war. Emma remained in Kyiv, part of our team covering the initial Russian attack on the capital.

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Diageo slashes dividend and vows to address Guinness capacity constraints in London

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Drinks maker cuts annual sale and profit forecast for second time in four months amid weak demand in US and China

Diageo has slashed its dividend and cut its annual sales and profit forecast for the second time in four months, as the maker of Guinness warned of capacity constraints affecting drinkers of “the black stuff” in London pubs.

The world’s largest spirits maker – which owns brands including Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky and Don Julio tequila – reported weak demand in the US and China in the first results released under the new chief executive, Sir Dave Lewis.

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Germany accused of ditching climate targets as it scraps renewables mandate

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Coalition government agrees to remove parts of controversial law and allow homes to rely on fossil fuels

Germany’s coalition government has been accused of abandoning its climate targets after agreeing to scrap parts of a contentious heating law mandating the use of renewables in favour of a draft law allowing homeowners to rely on fossil fuels.

While the previous law required most newly installed heating systems to use at least 65% renewable energy, often with a heat pump, the amended legislation will allow households to keep using oil and gas.

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Disputes over Hamas disarmament stall Gaza peace plan progress

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Hamas to almost certainly reject plan described in Israeli press, say experts, as no guarantee Israel will withdraw on surrender of weapons

Progress in the Gaza peace plan has stalled over disagreements on how Hamas should be disarmed, with Israel threatening to go back to full-scale war if the condition is not carried out quickly.

The second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire, which Washington declared had begun in January, was meant to involve Hamas disarming, Israeli forces withdrawing, and a Palestinian interim administration moving into Gaza backed by a Palestinian police force and an international stabilisation force (ISF).

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Ineos said to be in talks to sell parts of business to tackle rising debt

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Talks reportedly focused on assets of owner Jim Ratcliffe’s vinyls business Inovyn as group scrambles to cut costs

The chemicals empire owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is in talks to sell parts of the business in the hope of raising hundreds of millions of pounds to tackle its rising debts, according to a report.

The talks are at an early stage but have focused on selling assets from Ratcliffe’s vinyls business, Ineos Inovyn, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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