Category Archives: World News

Colombian ex-army officer gets life in prison for killing of Haiti president Jovenel Moïse

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Retired army officer Germán Alejandro Rivera García, 45, is second of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami

A retired Colombian army officer has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 2021 assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, which caused unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation.

Germán Alejandro Rivera García, 45, is the second of 11 suspects detained and charged in Miami to be sentenced in what US prosecutors have described as a conspiracy hatched in both Haiti and Florida to hire mercenaries to kidnap or kill Moïse, who was slain at his private home near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on 7 July 2021.

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Buffy Sainte-Marie denies allegations she misled public about Indigenous ancestry

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Singer calls allegations ‘deeply hurtful’ after documentary questions ‘shifting narrative’ surrounding her Cree roots

Folk singer and social justice advocate Buffy Sainte-Marie has denied allegations that she misled the public about her Indigenous ancestry, after a Canadian documentary questioned the “shifting narrative” surrounding her Cree roots.

On Friday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s investigative wing, the Fifth Estate, published an investigation into the singer’s ancestry, alleging her life story is part of a broader narrative “full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies”.

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Captain of Thai cave football team took his own life at UK school, coroner rules

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Inquest finds death of Duangphet Phromthep, 17, could not have been foreseen or prevented

The captain of the Thai football team who were trapped in a cave for several days in 2018 took his own life while at school in the UK, a coroner has ruled.

Duangphet Phromthep died at Kettering general hospital on 14 February, two days after being found unconscious at Brooke House College in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.

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US asks Qatar to ‘turn down the volume’ of Al Jazeera news coverage

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Secretary of state Antony Blinken made request of Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed during frantic trip to Doha

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has reportedly asked Qatar to moderate Al Jazeera’s coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas, amid concerns within the Biden administration that the channel is inflaming public opinion and heightening the risks of a wider conflict.

Blinken raised the satellite news channel’s coverage with the Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, according to the website Axios, which said the US’s top diplomat had disclosed the request in a meeting with US Jewish leaders.

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US envoy to UN says Arab states ‘empowering Hamas’ with Gaza ceasefire motion

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Resolution tabled by by Jordan calls for restraint from Israel but does not say Hamas was behind 7 October attack

The US envoy to the UN has accused Arab states of empowering Hamas and turning a blind eye to evil by tabling a draft resolution at the general assembly calling for restraint from Israel but failing to name Hamas as the perpetrators of the massacres of 7 October.

Linda Thomas Greenfield, who faced successive attacks by member states for failing to condemn Israel’s use of violence in Gaza, insisted the US mourned every loss of civilian life but also hit back by claiming the draft motion tabled by Jordan gave cover to Hamas.

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UN general assembly calls for immediate truce – as it happened

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United Nations resolution passes with 120 votes in favour of truce. This blog is now closed. Our live coverage continues here

A member of the Hamas delegation visiting Moscow has said that it needs time to locate all of the hostages who have been taken to Gaza by various Palestinian factions, Reuters is reporting, citing Russia’s Kommersant newspaper.

Kommersant also reported a member of the Hamas delegation saying that it could not release the hostages until a ceasefire was agreed and that Israeli bombing of Gaza has killed 50 of the hostages seized during raids by Palestinian militants.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskiy claims equivalent of Russian brigade lost near Avdiivka; Putin warns of weapon smuggling from Ukraine – as it happened

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Ukraine’s president tells British PM brigade’s worth of troops lost trying to encircle embattled city; Putin demands action on weapons trafficking

The Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov has claimed Russia destroyed “at least four” of the Leopard tanks supplied to Ukraine by the west in the Zaporizhzhia region within the past 24 hours.

Zaporizhzhia is one of the regions Russia partly occupies and has claimed to annex.

I think it’s really important that one of the outcomes of this meeting is that we don’t lose focus on Ukraine. Because of all the other things that are happening in the world, and not least in the Middle East, it would be very easy to lose focus on the war in Ukraine – and essential that we don’t do that.

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Sam Bankman-Fried admits to ‘large mistakes’ in crypto fraud trial testimony

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Bankman-Fried says his biggest mistake was not implementing a dedicated risk management team for crypto trading platform FTX

Sam Bankman-Fried admitted to making management mistakes while at the helm of FTX, his former multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency empire, during testimony in his defense at trial.

“I made a number of small mistakes and a number of large mistakes,” Bankman-Fried, 31, said in sharing his version of the rise and fall of crypto trading platform FTX. The biggest mistake, he said, was not implementing a dedicated risk management team.

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‘What are they waiting for?’: Britons in Gaza feel abandoned by UK government

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Those unable to leave or with family trapped there say they feel hopeless and have had no help

In late August, Nasser Hamid Said made an emergency trip from London to Gaza with his wife and two children after the death of his sister. For the past 20 days the family have been caught up in an altogether different nightmare: sheltering with relatives amid nonstop Israeli airstrikes and growing fears of an invasion.

“I’m fearful for my children,” he said over the sound of airstrikes in the city of Jabalia. “We need from our government just help to get out. What are they waiting for? I don’t understand.”

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Israelis hesitant over Gaza ground invasion amid hostage fears, poll shows

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Only 29% of those surveyed backed an immediate offensive, while 49% said it would be better to wait

After the murderous onslaught by Hamas on 7 October, Israelis rallied around the prospect of a swift invasion of Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu’s government mobilised tanks and reservists amid widespread agreement that Israel needed to enter the enclave and destroy Hamas.

Three weeks later, however, there is still no invasion and many Israelis seem to no longer want one – at least not immediately.

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Swarm of earthquakes in Iceland heralds next volcanic eruption

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Scientists say rise in seismic activity confirms south-west region is in buildup phase

A seismic swarm has hit the Reykjanes peninsula in south-west Iceland with more than 5,500 small earthquakes in the last three days, raising the prospect of a volcanic eruption.

Iceland, located between the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates, among the largest on the planet, is a seismic and volcanic hotspot as the two plates move in opposite directions.

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Why did the US launch airstrikes on Syria and what happens next?

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The war in Gaza risks developing into a wider conflict, but for now, the actions seem to be more about messaging between Washington and Tehran

Over the last 10 days, US military bases in eastern Syria and western Iraq have been hit by rockets and drones. There have been 22 such attacks, although details are sketchy and some may not have been counted. More than 20 US service personnel have been injured, though not seriously, and a civilian contractor died of cardiac arrest.

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Emmanuel Macron condemns Viktor Orbán meeting with Vladimir Putin

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French president says Hungarian leader’s meeting risks weakening European unity against Russia

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s recent meeting and handshake with Vladimir Putin.

“In the situation we are in with Russia, we should not use these bilateral contacts to negotiate things about ourselves that would weaken our unity [on Ukraine],” Macron said after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.

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Pro-Moscow Ukrainian politician shot in apparent assassination attempt

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Oleg Tsaryov, who had been tipped to lead a puppet government after Russia’s 2022 invasion, is in a critical condition

A Ukrainian politician once said to have been considered for leader of a Kremlin-controlled puppet government in Ukraine is in a critical condition after he was shot twice in an apparent assassination attempt at a sanatorium in Crimea.

Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian figure who played a prominent political role in the 2014 war against the Kyiv government, was shot twice by an unknown assailant, his associates have confirmed.

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EU leaders says eurozone has shown ‘remarkable resilience’ as they discuss Ukraine, migration and the economy – as it happened

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The bloc’s leaders are hosting a series of meetings in Brussels

While European leaders were meeting yesterday with a strong focus on presenting a united front to the world on foreign policy, Hungary’s foreign minister was hanging out with his Russian and Belarusian counterparts.

Luxembourg’s Xavier Bettel, a big personality in European summits, says goodbye at his last European Council.

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UK accused of plan to further cut cost of bananas at expense of poorest African producers

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UK refusing to commit to EU pledge to stop cutting tariffs on big producers despite bananas being as cheap today as three decades ago

It is one of the few British supermarket staples to have bucked the trend during the cost of living crisis, with the price of a bunch of bananas today no more expensive today than three decades ago. Every country in the world with cheaper prices than the UK has its own producers of the fruit.

The government has now been accused of pursuing an irresponsible post-Brexit policy that could reduce the price of bananas further in the shops – but at the cost of the livelihoods of thousands of workers on small plantations in some of Africa’s poorest countries.

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Evidence mounts of North Korean arms to Russia in threat for Ukraine

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Despite questions over quality, scale of munition shipments indicates Moscow plans to continue conflict for long time

In pouring rain, a jubilant crowd waving pompoms and flowers greeted the Russian foreign minister as he stepped on to the airport asphalt in Pyongyang.

While the heavily choreographed welcoming scenes were a familiar sight in totalitarian North Korea, Sergei Lavrov’s rare visit to the country came amid mounting evidence that Pyongyang has started to provide artillery rounds to Russia, opening up a supply line that could have profound implications for the war in Ukraine.

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Taiwan election may open window for better China ties, report says

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International Crisis Group urges all parties including US to re-establish a baseline level of trust

Taiwan’s presidential election in January is a window of opportunity to resume dialogue between Taipei and Beijing, reduce tensions and lower the risk of conflict, an NGO has said.

A war over Taiwan is not inevitable but “the current trajectory is dangerous”, a report by the International Crisis Group says.

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New Zealand gangs may be forced to cover facial tattoos with makeup, incoming government says

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Ban on offensive facial markings could come as part of wider crackdown on gangs, National party says

New Zealand’s gangs may have to cover up offensive tattoos with makeup if the incoming government’s crackdown on gang activity goes ahead.

On Thursday, the National party’s police spokesperson, Mark Mitchell, told the national broadcaster RNZ that if its proposed ban on gang patches – large insignia sewn on to jackets, for example – does not work, then it would consider making gang members apply foundation over their facial tattoos, or face arrest.

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