Category Archives: World News

Two Proud Boys members get lengthy prison terms for Capitol attack

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Dominic Pezzola sentenced to 10 years while Ethan Nordean received an 18-year sentence for roles in 2021 insurrection

Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.

Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.

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World Cup kiss echoes abuse suffered by millions of women, says Spain’s equality minister

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Irene Montero calls incident a ‘lower-intensity’ form of sexual violence as push to oust Spanish football chief Rubiales continues

Luis Rubiales’s unsolicited kissing of Jenni Hermoso is just one instance of the abuse suffered by millions of women around the world, Spain’s acting equality minister has said.

Irene Montero described the incident, in which the Spanish football president grabbed the player by the head and planted a kiss on her lips at the Women’s World Cup final medal ceremony, as a “lower-intensity” form of sexual violence that is often invisible and normalised in society.

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Grief and anger after Johannesburg blaze that killed at least 74

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Mourners gather outside 80 Albert Street amid criticisms of government response and lack of support for victims and families

South African authorities were on Friday still searching for clues behind the cause of the most deadly fire in the country’s history, with at least 74 people confirmed to have died and dozens more being treated in hospital.

About 400 people are thought to have lived in informal settlements in the building at 80 Albert Street in central Johannesburg, which relied on illegal electricity connections for power and had no emergency exits. It is owned by the City of Johannesburg.

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German-Iraqi woman charged with killing lookalike to fake her own death

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Woman accused of contacting beauty blogger on Instagram and offering free salon treatment before killing her with accomplice

A 23-year-old German-Iraqi woman has been indicted for murder after allegedly seeking out a lookalike on Instagram and killing her with an accomplice, in an effort to fake her own death.

The woman, identified as Shahraban Kh-B, was initially thought to have been the murder victim when the blood-soaked body of a young woman was found last August in a parked Mercedes in Ingolstadt, southern Germany.

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Canada warning over US travel comes at ‘concerning time’, LGBTQ+ groups say

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Canadian advocacy groups alarmed by anti-LGBTQ+ laws in America and say legislation is having an impact across the border

Canadian LGBTQ+ rights and civil liberties organizations are speaking out about the rise in hostile laws and hate crimes in the United States.

The development comes after the Canadian government earlier this week warned LGBTQ+ Canadian citizens about the risks of visiting the US due to a growing wave of anti-LGBTQ+ local laws.

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Germany says it ended training of Saudi border forces after abuses reported

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Statement comes amid concern about allegations Saudi forces have killed hundreds of migrants

Germany ended a training programme for Saudi border forces, who have been implicated in the mass killing of migrants at the country’s border with Yemen, after it was alerted to reports of “possible massive human rights violations”, the German interior ministry has said.

In a statement to the Guardian, the ministry said training undertaken by the federal police service for the Saudi border force had been “discontinued after reports of possible massive human rights violations became known and, as a precaution, are no longer included in the current training programme [for Saudi security forces]”.

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Georgia’s ruling party seeks to impeach president over EU visits

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Salome Zourabichvili’s meetings in Berlin and Brussels violated constitution, party leader says

Georgia’s ruling party is seeking to impeach the president over her visits to the EU, which it said were made against the will of the government, the local news agency Interpress has reported.

Salome Zourabichvili met the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in Berlin on Thursday and the European Council president, Charles Michel, in Brussels on Friday to drum up support for Georgia’s campaign to receive EU candidate status.

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US pro-Israel groups in bitter feud over Netanyahu’s far-right government

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Hardline Aipac – condemned for unquestioning support of PM – calls liberal rival J Street ‘grave threat’ to Israel’s security

A public feud has broken out between the US’s leading pro-Israel lobby groups over who represents the true interests of the Jewish state in Washington under the most rightwing government in its history.

The hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has called its smaller and more liberal rival, J Street, a “grave threat” to Israel’s security and accused it of endorsing the country’s “most virulent critics” in Congress.

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Prominent Iranian liberal Majid Tavakoli set to be sent back to prison

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After avoiding street protests, former ‘heart of the student movement’ says he is being jailed just for thinking

One of Iran’s most prominent liberal thinkers appears to be days away from being sent back to jail to serve a new six-year sentence, despite the fact he has kept a low profile and not taken part in street demonstrations.

Majid Tavakoli was first arrested in September last year at the outset of nationwide protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in what was seen as a “preventive arrest”. He was among a large group of dissidents swept up in a state dragnet in response to the “women, life, freedom” movement prompted by Amini’s death.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Swedish lawmakers to boycott Nobel ceremony following Russia invitation – as it happened

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The Nobel Foundation said invitations for the 2023 events were extended to all countries with diplomatic missions in Sweden and Norway

There cannot be “sustainable peace” in Ukraine unless the country regains control of Crimea, Donbas and other territories occupied by Russia, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said at the European House Ambrosetti business forum in Italy on Friday.

Russia has previously said it is open to peace talks with Kyiv but insists on its claim to four Ukrainian provinces it said it annexed last year and fully or partly controls, as well as Crimea that it annexed in 2014 – a condition Kyiv will not accept.

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Thai king reduces ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra’s prison sentence to one year

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Thaksin, who returned to Thailand last week, ‘accepted his crime and showed remorse’, says royal gazette

King Maha Vajiralongkorn of Thailand has reduced the sentence of Thaksin Shinawatra from eight years down to one, just over a week after the former prime minister returned from more than 15 years in self-imposed exile.

A document published in the royal gazette said the country’s most famous politician had “accepted his crime and showed remorse”, adding the former prime minister was elderly and ill.

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Former guard at Nazi death camp charged with being accessory to murder

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Gregor F, 98, who worked as guard at Sachsenhausen between 1943 and 1945, to be tried in juvenile court due to age at time

A former Nazi concentration camp guard has been indicted on charges of acting as an accessory to murder in the latest of a string of eleventh-hour attempts to gain justice for Holocaust victims and survivors.

The 98-year-old, identified as Gregor F, worked as a guard at the Sachsenhausen camp north of Berlin between 1943 and 1945.

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Holidaymakers on jetskis reportedly shot after entering Algerian waters

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At least one man dead after group on holiday in Morocco enter Algerian territory off beach resort of Saïdia

Algerian authorities are believed to have shot dead at least one Moroccan tourist after a group of holidaymakers accidentally strayed into Algerian waters on jetskis, one of the survivors told Moroccan media.

Mohamed Kissi said that the group of friends on jetskis had got lost off the coast and strayed into Algerian waters when his brother, Bilal Kissi, was shot dead; another man, Abdelali Merchouer, was missing, presumed dead. The men were reported to have French-Moroccan dual nationality.

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Himalayan avalanches are increasing risk for climbers in warming climate

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Experts warn that global heating is exacerbating inherent dangers of high altitude mountaineering

Avalanches in the Himalayas are causing an increasing number of deaths and threatening the safety of climbers, research suggests.

While high-altitude mountaineering comes with an inherent avalanche risk, global heating is exacerbating the danger during the climbing season in the Himalayan mountain range, experts warn.

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Former Proud Boys leaders sentenced to 17 and 15 years for US Capitol attack

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Joseph Biggs, who played leading role on January 6, gets 17 years in prison and former chapter leader Zachary Rehl 15 years

Two former leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group have each been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for spearheading an attack on the US Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.

The 17-year prison term for Joseph Biggs, a Proud Boys organizer, and 15-year sentence for Zachary Rehl, a leader of the group, were the second and third longest sentences handed down yet over the 6 January 2021 attack.

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Roman emperor statue seized from Cleveland museum in looting investigation

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Warrant issued in investigation into smuggling of antiquities looted from Turkey and trafficked through US

A headless bronze statue believed to depict the Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius has been seized from the Cleveland Museum of Art by New York authorities investigating antiquities looted from Turkey.

A warrant signed by a judge in Manhattan on 14 August ordered the seizure of the statue, which the museum acquired in 1986 and had been a highlight of its collection of ancient Roman art.

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Weather tracker: Hurricane Idalia leaves trail of damage in Florida

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Category 3 storm causes extensive flooding in south-east US, while heavy rain and winds also hit France and Italy

Hurricane Idalia struck northern Florida on Wednesday, bringing damaging winds and torrential rain. It made landfall near Keaton Beach on Florida’s Big Bend during the morning as a high-end category 3 hurricane, bringing sustained winds speeds near 125mph (200km/h) and a storm surge of 16ft along Florida’s north-west coastline.

Due to very warm sea surface temperatures, the storm strengthened rapidly over the Gulf of Mexico to category 4 status, before weakening to category 3 as it made landfall. It brought extensive flooding as it passed through and damaged power lines, leaving thousands without electricity.

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‘So many precious things were lost’: Rhodes after the fires – photo essay

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The photographer Gideon Mendel travelled to Rhodes a month after the fires as part of his Burning World project. He sought to document the impact on lives and landscapes

July 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded, and Rhodes in Greece was one of many places that faced scorching temperatures and wildfires. There were no human casualties but the fire ravaged about 135,000 hectares of forest and vegetation, burned more than 50,000 olive trees and many domestic animals, destroyed about 50 homes and led to the mass evacuation of tourists from the area.

I travelled to the region a month after the fires, making new work for my Burning World project. I choose not to document the flames but rather seek out their aftermath, the traces left behind on lives and landscapes.

The Ekaterini hotel in Kiotari, south Rhodes

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‘I wouldn’t give him a nickel’: one-time Giuliani donors rule out legal aid

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Billionaire Leon Cooperman, who backed Giuliani’s 2008 White House bid, says he won’t help with legal fees – and he’s not alone

As he attempts to meet mounting legal fees incurred in large part through his work for Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani will reportedly not get “a nickel” from one billionaire who backed his campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination – or, apparently, much from many others previously big donors.

“I wouldn’t give him a nickel,” the investor Leon Cooperman told CNBC. “I’m very negative on Donald Trump. It’s an American tragedy. [Rudy] was ‘America’s mayor’. He did a great job. And like everybody else who gets involved with Trump, it turns to shit.”

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Singapore to choose new president amid rare political scandals

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Election comes as minister faces a corruption investigation and voters express frustration with the electoral process

Singaporeans will select a new president on Friday, a vote that will measure public mood at a time when the ruling party, which has been in power for more than six decades, is reeling from a spate of uncommon political scandals.

The vote comes as a senior government minister is under investigation by the country’s anti-graft agency, and after the resignation of two senior lawmakers over an affair.

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