Category Archives: World News

China woos global south and embraces Putin at belt and road Beijing summit

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Development drive’s forum will focus on poorer countries as Xi’s relations with the west become increasingly frosty

World leaders are gathering in Beijing for China’s belt and road initiative (BRI) forum, the third such event since the trademark global development drive was launched by President Xi Jinping 10 years ago.

The BRI was originally envisioned as a vast physical and digital infrastructure project to connect China with central Asia, south-east Asia, Europe and the rest of the world. It later broadened into a mammoth infrastructure financing vehicle for Chinese lenders to support projects in nearly every corner of the world, particularly in the global south. With that support came China’s mounting influence on the world stage, even as western countries became increasingly sceptical of the BRI.

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Meta’s settlement talks with Kenyan content moderators break down

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Facebook parent company and two subcontractors face court hearing over unfair dismissal allegations

Settlement talks have collapsed between Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and Kenyan content moderators over a lawsuit alleging unfair dismissal, a tech rights group working with the plaintiffs has said.

The 184 moderators sued Meta and two subcontractors earlier this year after they allegedly lost their jobs with one of the subcontractors, Sama, for organising a union. They say they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at a second firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors.

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China and Russia harden positions on Gaza as war stirs geopolitical tensions

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Conflict highlights growing gulf with west, as other big developing powers face difficult diplomatic choices

China and Russia have hardened their positions towards the conflict in Gaza in recent days, as the war between Israel and Hamas aggravates existing geopolitical tensions and underscores the growing gulf between the cold war allies and western powers such as the US, UK and France.

The Chinese foreign minister said over the weekend that Israel’s bombing campaign had gone “beyond the scope of self-defence” and that it “should stop collective punishment of the people of Gaza”.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian foreign minister arrives in Beijing and confirms visit to North Korea

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Russia’s foreign minister is in Beijing ahead of a visit by Vladimir Putin to the Chinese capital and will then go to North Korea

The US special representative for Ukraine's economic recovery, Penny Pritzker, has arrived in Kyiv.

Reuters reports that Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Monday, and exchanged views on the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

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Macron calls for ‘ruthless’ approach to extremism in wake of Arras attack

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Schools pay tribute to teacher killed last week as country placed on highest security alert

French secondary schools will hold a minute’s silence on Monday after a teacher was killed by a former pupil in what the government called an Islamist terror attack, prompting Emmanuel Macron to call for a “ruthless” approach towards extremists.

France has been placed on its highest level of security alert after a 20-year-old terrorist suspect who had been under surveillance walked into his old high school in Arras, northern France, on Friday and stabbed to death a French teacher, Dominique Bernard, and injured three others. The 57-year-old teacher died from several wounds to the neck.

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Former Bank of China boss arrested on corruption charges

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Liu Liange charged with accepting bribes and illegally granting loans amid country’s anti-corruption drive

China has arrested the former head of one of the country’s largest commercial banks on charges of accepting bribes and illegally granting loans, amid a two-year anti-corruption drive targeting the financial sector.

China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which is investigating corruption within the ruling Communist party, said on Monday that Liu Liange had been arrested, after announcing the start of the investigation in March.

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Republican Will Hurd on his failed quest for president: ‘I’m going to always look at this fondly’

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The former Texas congressman’s long-shot 2024 bid has come to an end, but he has no regrets – and he insists Trump’s nomination is not inevitable

Will Hurd wanted to be the most powerful man in the world. Like so many candidates before him, he knew the loneliness of the long distance runner criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire in a quest for votes that might make him president of the United States. But it was not be.

This week Hurd called it a day after a campaign that failed to make much of a splash. Indeed, arguably his biggest headline came in July when he declared, “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” and was roundly booed at the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner. Unrepentant, Hurd told them: “Listen, I know the truth is hard.”

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Martti Ahtisaari, ex-Finland president and Nobel peace laureate, dies aged 86

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Tributes paid to former leader who oversaw his country’s vote to join EU and won Nobel peace prize in 2008

The Former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, a renowned peace broker, has died aged 86.

The Social Democrat was president of Finland between 1994 and 2000. After a lengthy career that earned him a global reputation as a peace mediator and the Nobel peace prize, he retired from public life in September 2021 owing to dementia.

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Israel denies report of ceasefire in southern Gaza

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Hamas official also reportedly denies temporary ceasefire is in place – and says border crossing to Egypt remains closed

The Israeli government has denied having agreed a ceasefire in southern Gaza to allow humanitarian aid in and for some people to leave.

The office of the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a one-line statement on Monday morning, saying: “There is no ceasefire.” A Hamas official, Izzat El Reshiq, also told the Reuters news agency the border crossing at Rafah between Egypt and Gaza remained closed and denied a temporary ceasefire was in place.

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Poland election: Law and Justice party on course to be ousted from power

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Former PM Donald Tusk hails ‘the end of evil times’ as early results suggest opposition parties will be able to form governing coalition

Poland’s ruling populists appear to be heading for electoral defeat in what would be one of the most consequential European political turnarounds of recent years. With the majority of votes counted, results suggest an opposition led by Donald Tusk should have a path to create a new governing coalition.

A Tusk government would probably transform Poland’s domestic political agenda and restart relations with Brussels, which had frayed over PiS’s attacks on the independent judiciary and other rule-of-law issues.

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Solar-powered off-road car finishes 620-mile test drive across north Africa

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The Stella Terra was designed by students at Eindhoven University of Technology and completed trip without recharging

A solar-powered car said to be the first in the world capable of driving off-road over long distances without recharging has completed a 620-mile (1,000km) test drive across Morocco and the Sahara.

The two-seat Stella Terra, designed by students at the Eindhoven University of Technology, completed the journey across a variety of challenging landscapes as part of a final test of its lightweight frame and aerodynamic profile.

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‘Can we save the wild salmon of Iceland?’: Björk releases ‘lost’ song to fight fish farming

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The Icelandic singer discusses her collaboration with Rosalía and how artists pick up on the environmental emergency

Iceland’s fish farming industry is “a couple of wild guys who want to make money quick and sacrifice nature”, the Icelandic singer Björk has said before the release of a “lost” song to help fight the increasingly controversial practice.

In an interview with Guardian Seascape, she added that artists were often the “canaries in the coalmine” of environmental emergencies because it was their job to be sensitive.

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Weighty issue: Japan Airlines lays on extra plane after sumo wrestlers make aircraft too heavy to fly

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Concerns over fuel capacity with wrestlers onboard led to national carrier taking the ‘unusual step’ of transferring sumo rikishi to another flight

Japan’s flagship carrier has been forced to lay on an extra flight at short notice after concluding that two of its planes were at risk of exceeding their weight limits. The culprit was not excess baggage, however, but a passenger list that included some of the country’s heaviest men.

Japan Airlines took the “very unusual” step of transferring a number of sumo wrestlers to a hastily arranged special flight last week over concerns that the two aircraft they had originally been due to fly would be unable to carry sufficient fuel due to weight restrictions.

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Banana fortune heir Daniel Noboa wins Ecuador presidential election

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Luisa González, handpicked by Rafael Correa as successor, loses to 35-year-old who promises tough line on violent crime and cocaine trafficking

Daniel Noboa, the heir to a banana fortune who pledges a hard line on rocketing violent crime, employment for the young and foreign investment, will become Ecuador’s youngest ever president at 35 after winning by a margin of around five points over his rival, the leftist lawyer Luisa González.

With 90% of votes counted on Sunday night in Ecuador, Noboa had 52.29% of the vote against 47.71% for González, according to Ecuador’s electoral council.

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New Zealand Labour shed votes to the right but also the left – the price of a progressive policy bonfire

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The party’s supporters feel like it got a kicking from everyone. After a dire result, analysts pointed to its inability to meet its lofty aspirations

It was an assessment with a distinctly New Zealand flavour. “At the end of the day, there’s one unavoidable reality,” said Chris Hipkins, the defeated Labour prime minister, speaking to reporters after he conceded the country’s election on Saturday. “We lost because not enough people voted for us.”

But that was only part of it. Hipkins’ ruling, centre-left Labour party had crashed from the historic highs of its 2020 election result, in which it won 50% of the vote, to a dismal 27% on Saturday, nearly halving its seats in parliament. However, the punishing loss was not only a clear defeat by the right-leaning parties that will form the next government – the size and shape of which will be determined when a final vote tally is announced on 3 November; the blows also came from Labour’s left.

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White House seeks weapons package for Israel amid ‘real risk of escalation’

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National security adviser says deployment of USS Eisenhower is to send message that ‘no group should seek to exploit the situation’

Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan toured the US Sunday morning shows to sell White House policy on the conflict between Israel and Hamas as Israeli forces massed on the border ahead of an expected ground incursion into Gaza amid a deepening humanitarian crisis there and fears over the conflict spreading.

Responding to an Axios report that Iran warned Israel through the United Nations that it will intervene if the Israeli operation in Gaza continues, Sullivan told ABC’s “This Week” that he could not confirm it.

But, he said, the US is “concerned” about the conflict spreading. “We see a real risk of escalation on the northern border and that is why President Biden has been so clear and so forceful in saying that no state and no group should seek to exploit the situation to their advantage or should escalate the conflict.”

The deployment of the USS Eisenhower from the US to the region is “to give additional capacity to respond to any contingency and also to send a clear message of deterrence that no one should get involved in this, no one should escalate this”, he added.

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Hamas holding up to 10 Britons hostage in Gaza, says foreign secretary

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James Cleverly says updated figure of those captured in attack on Israel is ‘not an unreasonable estimate’

Up to 10 Britons are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, the foreign secretary has said, higher than previous informal estimates.

Israel estimates that 126 people from different countries are being held hostage, with reports previously suggesting six of those taken were British. Up to 17 British people, including children, are thought to be dead or missing since the conflict began last weekend.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia striking Avdiivka ‘with everything they have’, says city official

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Volodymyr Zelenskiy praises troops for holding their positions in areas including Avdiivka, where fighting is ‘particularly hot’

In this clip, the Ukrainian commander, Dmytro Lysyuk, says Russia’s large scale tactics do not work.

At least six people have been killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine in the past 24 hours, local officials reported Sunday.

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Poles vote as PiS hopes to win third term and fend off Tusk-led opposition

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Ability of populists or Civic Coalition to form a government is likely to depend on other, smaller parties

Poles are voting in the country’s parliamentary election, with the populist Law and Justice (PiS) government trying to win a third term in office and see off a challenge from an opposition led by the former prime minister and European Council president Donald Tusk.

Polling in the run-up to the vote suggested the race was too close to call, and the ability for either PiS or Tusk’s Civic Coalition to form a government is likely to come down to the results of other, smaller parties.

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