Category Archives: World News

Kim Jong-un closes slate of North Korea’s embassies as sanctions bite

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Regime can no longer afford all its diplomatic missions, including some to longtime allies such as Angola where it has maintained ties since 1975

While Kim Jong-un basks in the afterglow of his recent visit to Russia, North Korea is scaling back its presence overseas, with reported plans to close almost a quarter of its diplomatic missions blamed on its sanctions-hit economy.

While the regime moves closer to China and Russia amid new tensions on the Korean peninsula, years of UN-led sanctions have forced it to close embassies and consulates in as many as a dozen locations, including those in countries Pyongyang views as longtime allies.

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Ukrainian film-makers ‘looking for right angle’ as military drone operators

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Cinematographer Yaroslav Pilunskiy and film editor Ivan Bannikov are part of drone unit fighting Russians in Donetsk

Sometimes, if the situation allows on Ukraine’s brutal eastern frontline, Yaroslav Pilunskiy will fly his drone to “a place I know where the Russians are constantly shelling over a lake, against a beautiful sunset.”

Moscow’s expenditure on the munitions represents a movie budget that Pilunskiy, 51, could only dream about in his former life as one of Ukraine’s most respected cinematographers. “When the command staff ask what I’m doing, I say: ‘When else will I be able to film these pyrotechnics?’”

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Sweden’s schools minister declares free school ‘system failure’

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Exclusive: Lotta Edholm aims to limit the profit-making ability of friskolor in her plans for education reform

Sweden has declared a “system failure” in the country’s free schools, pledging the biggest shake-up in 30 years and calling into question a model in which profit-making companies run state education.

Sweden’s friskolor – privately run schools funded by public money – have attracted international acclaim, including from Britain, with the former education secretary Michael Gove using them as a model for hundreds of new British free schools opened under David Cameron’s government.

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Israel-Hamas war live: US says ‘far too many’ Palestinians have died as Gaza’s health ministry says toll is over 11,000

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US secretary of state says country has proposed longer ‘humanitarian pauses’ to Israel; Hamas-run health ministry says 11,078 people have been killed

It’s approaching mid-morning in Gaza now. The Guardian and other outlets have been reporting that the White House announced Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of northern Gaza to allow people to leave. However, there is yet to be a clear sign that this is taking place. Here are some scenes from the strip yesterday.

Here is our latest full report on recent developments in the Israel-Hamas war. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he isn’t seeking to govern Gaza, after earlier saying Israel may be responsible for its security indefinitely. It also includes reports of attacks on three hospitals in the territory, including the main Al Shifa hospital.

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Species of mammal named after David Attenborough believed extinct rediscovered

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Long-beaked echidna with spines of a hedgehog and snout of an anteater photographed on last day of expedition

Scientists have rediscovered a long-lost species of mammal described as having the spines of a hedgehog, the snout of an anteater and the feet of a mole, in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains more than 60 years after it was last recorded.

Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, named after British naturalist David Attenborough, was photographed for the first timesince 1961 by a trail camera on the last day of a four-week expedition led by Oxford University scientists in June and July.

Having descended from the mountains at the end of the trip, biologist James Kempton found the images of the small creature walking through the forest undergrowth on the last memory card retrieved from more than 80 remote cameras.

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Full prisons and false charges: Bangladesh opposition faces pre-election crackdown

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Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party are seeking a fourth consecutive term and are accused of harassing the rival BNP party

In Bangladesh, there is no more room left in the prisons. In the last two weeks alone, almost 10,000 opposition leaders, supporters and activists have been arrested after protests broke out against the ruling government, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

Thousands of other political prisoners have already been inside these cells for months, many facing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of criminal charges. Rajshahi central jailhas a capacity of about 4,000 prisoners. It now holds more than 13,600.

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Robert De Niro’s production company ordered to pay $1.3m to ex-assistant

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Canal Productions liable in gender discrimination suit filed by Graham Chase Robinson, while De Niro found not personally liable

Robert De Niro’s production company was found liable on Thursday by a jury for gender discrimination and retaliation, and ordered to pay $1.3m to the Hollywood star’s former assistant.

The 80-year-old actor and director was not found personally liable by the jury in New York after a two-week trial.

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Justin Trudeau condemns shots fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal

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Canadian prime minister says ‘attacking each other is not who we are’ after clashes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian groups

Justin Trudeau has condemned recent violence in Canada after shots were fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal and clashes broke out between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian students at a university in the city.

Police on Thursday said they were investigating overnight shootings at two Jewish schools in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood after staff reported finding bullet holes in the front doors of the schools.

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US Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024

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Controversial West Virginia Democrat, 76, has for years held outsized degree of power within party

West Virginia’s controversial Democratic US senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will instead “fight to unite the middle”.

The 76-year-old senator, who for years has held an outsized degree of power within the Democratic party and often defied its leadership, appeared in July at an event held by a political group exploring a third-party presidential bid.

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Canada: murder charge for ex-boyfriend of woman abducted by fake police

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Case of Elnaz Hajtamiri, taken from Ontario home by three men with police equipment in January 2022, had stumped investigators

The ex-boyfriend of a Canadian woman who was abducted by fake police officers has been charged with first-degree murder, marking the latest twist in a high-profile kidnapping case that had appeared to stump investigators for nearly two years.

Elnaz Hajtamiri was dragged from a property in an Ontario beach community on 12 January 2022 by three men with police equipment who forced their way into the home and hauled her barefoot through the snow to a waiting vehicle.

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Portugal to hold snap election – the second in two years – after PM quits

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President announces 10 March date for parliamentary election after António Costa stepped down on Tuesday

Portugal will hold a snap parliamentary election – its second in as many years – on 10 March, the president has announced after Tuesday’s abrupt resignation of the Socialist prime minister amid a corruption investigation.

In an address late on Thursday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said he would disband parliament, where the Socialist party has a majority of seats, only after the final vote on the 2024 budget bill, due on 29 November. The house approved the bill on first reading on 31 October.

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Israeli forces kill 18 Palestinians in daytime raid in West Bank

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At least 20 others injured in Jenin city and refugee camp, as IDF says it is conducting counter-terrorism raids

Eighteen Palestinians have been killed and at least 20 others injured by the Israel Defence Forces during an hours-long daytime raid on Jenin city and its refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

In the latest escalation in violence on the West Bank, occurring against the background of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the IDF said an airstrikehit an armed squad of men in the city.

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US says Israel to begin ‘humanitarian pauses’ to let people leave Gaza’s north

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Thousands move south as Israeli forces inch closer to two big hospitals in north where many have sought refuge

Thousands of Palestinians continued to flee south from northern Gaza on Thursday as the White House announced that Israel would begin to implement four-hour “humanitarian pauses” in parts of the area to allow people to leave.

The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the pauses would allow people to pass along two humanitarian corridors, which he described as “a significant first step”.

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Over half of UK nationals seeking to flee Gaza have left, Foreign Office says

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Distressing cases of families being split up prompt criticism officials are not doing enough to keep them together

More than half of the British nationals seeking to escape Gaza for Egypt have managed to do so, but there are still distressing cases of families being split up, the Foreign Office has confirmed.

It said more than 150 British nationals and families had crossed into Egypt, and that the total number that came forward seeking help to escape was in the low hundreds, a figure that had not changed in recent days.

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Spanish PM Sánchez set to stay in power with controversial Catalan amnesty deal

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Socialist party wins separatist support with offer that has provoked furious opposition, protests and questions from Brussels

Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is on the verge of securing another term in office after his socialist party won the support of Catalan separatists by offering a deeply controversial amnesty for those who took part in the illegal and failed push for regional independence six years ago.

The deal between the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) and the centre-right Junts (Together) comes after a week of tense negotiations and amid widespread concerns over the amnesty, which have led to street protests, dire warnings from conservative judges and questions from Brussels.

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Man found guilty of murdering Ashling Murphy in case that shocked Ireland

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Jozef Puska faces mandatory life sentence over January 2022 killing of 23-year-old teacher

A man has been found guilty in Dublin of the murder of Ashling Murphy while she was out jogging in broad daylight, in a case that sent shockwaves across Ireland.

Murphy, 23, a teacher and musician, was killed on a canal towpath near Tullamore in County Offaly in the Irish midlands in January last year after being set upon and stabbed 11 times in the neck and left to die in a deep ditch.

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Carles Puigdemont: from self-exile to unlikely kingmaker of Spanish politics

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Architect of Catalonia’s illegal referendum of 2017 has signed deal to support Spain’s socialists in return for amnesty

Despite the fast-moving, wildly unpredictable and frequently improbable turns Spanish politics has taken of late, very few pundits could have predicted the scenes that played out in Belgium on Thursday.

A little after 2pm, a 60-year-old Catalan politician and fugitive from Spanish justice addressed a packed conference at the Brussels press club. As reporters brimmed with questions that would go unanswered, Carles Puigdemont appeared to be relishing his moment.

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Bangladeshi woman killed after police open fire on protesting garment workers

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Employees making clothes for fast-fashion brands have been demonstrating against a new minimum salary of £92 a month

A Bangladeshi woman was shot dead on Wednesday after police in Dhaka opened fire during a protest held by garment workers demanding a wage increase. Anjuara Khatun, a 26-year-old machine operator at Islam Garments in Gazipur, was on her way home after the factory closed suddenly as a large group of protesters gathered nearby.

Her husband told reporters he heard gunshots when police opened fire on about 400 workers and then saw people carrying his wife’s motionless body. “She was shot in the head and died in the car on the way to the hospital,” he said. “There was blood oozing out from a hole in her head.”

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Rightwing politician shot in Madrid after Spain’s Pedro Sánchez strikes controversial deal with Catalan separatists – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

“Today we live in a democracy worse than yesterday,” the conservative People’s party deputy secretary Miguel Tellado wrote following news of an agreement between the socialists and Junts.

Spain’s socialist party and Catalan separatist party Junts have confirmed that they have reached a deal for Junts to support a Socialist-led government, Reuters reported.

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Spanish rightwing politician shot in face in Madrid

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Alejo Vidal-Quadras, formerly of PP and Vox, reportedly in stable condition after attack by masked gunman

A Spanish rightwing politician and former vice-president of the European parliament is reported to be in a stable condition in hospital after being shot in the face by a masked gunman in a wealthy Madrid neighbourhood.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former leader of the conservative People’s party (PP) in Catalonia who joined the far-right Vox party in 2014, was shot on a street in the Salamanca district of the Spanish capital at about 1.30pm local time on Thursday.

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