Category Archives: World News

Demonstration in Oslo seeks removal of windfarms in Indigenous region

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Campaigners use traditional Sámi tents to block roads in Norwegian capital in protest against turbines on reindeer pastures

Hundreds of Indigenous and environmental campaigners have blocked a main thoroughfare in Oslo to demand the demolition of two windfarms that have been described by the Norwegian government as a “violation of human rights”.

The Wednesday protest traces its roots to a landmark 2021 decision by Norway’s supreme court that found 151 wind turbines in the western region of Fosen had trampled on the rights of Sámi reindeer herders by encroaching on their pastures.

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Zelenskiy fears Middle East conflict could hit military aid to Ukraine

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President warns of ‘dangerous situation’ for his country as western attention shifts to Israel after Hamas attack

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he fears that the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel and US politics could threaten military support for his country, as he made a surprise visit to Brussels where Nato defence ministers are meeting.

“I want to be honest with you, of course it is a dangerous situation for people in Ukraine,” he said on his first visit to Nato headquarters since Russia’s 2022 invasion, making an in-person plea for continued assistance at a time when turbulence in the US Congress threatens to disrupt aid for Kyiv and the world’s attention is drawn to the crisis unfolding in the Middle East.

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Lula urges end to ‘insanity of war’ as Latin Americans killed in Hamas attack

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Brazil president calls for humanitarian aid to protect Israeli and Palestinian citizens, while Latin Americans also taken hostage

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has called for an end to “the insanity of war” as it emerged that more than a dozen Latin Americans were killed during Hamas’s assault, with citizens of Brazil and Argentina taken captive in the Gaza Strip.

By Wednesday morning, Latin American government and media reports had confirmed the deaths of seven Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Peruvians, one Colombian and one Paraguayan. At least 15 Argentinians, three Peruvians, two Mexicans and one Brazilian remain missing.

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Top Mexican court to give new life to controversial Trump-era border policy

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‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which forces people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while US claims are processed, set to be revived

The Mexican supreme court is poised to give new life to a controversial US-Mexico border policy at a time when both countries are looking for ways to slow the flow of migrants heading north.

The “Remain in Mexico” policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, is a Trump-era policy that forced people seeking asylum in the US to wait out their legal proceedings in Mexico for months or even years. The government of Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador accepted the arrangement and allowed thousands of asylum seekers to be sent back to the country from the US.

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Fears of more casualties as further earthquakes hit Afghanistan

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Hospitals are at capacity since the quakes occurred around the city of Herat, and the Taliban are ill-equipped to respond effectively

Another powerful earthquake struck western Afghanistan on Wednesday morning, days after a series of quakes in the same region killed thousands of people.

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit an area 28km (17 miles) south of Herat’s regional capital at 5.11am local time, killing one person and injuring at least 150 people.

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Politicians, not public, drive U-turns on green agenda, says UN biodiversity chief

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People are ahead of governments, says David Cooper, who blames backtracking on parties seeking ‘wedge issues’ for electoral gain

Government backtracking on environmental promises is being driven by politicians and vested interests, not the public, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, as he called for greater support for those experiencing short-term costs from green policies.

David Cooper, acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), told the Guardian he believed the public mood was not moving against greater environmental protections, and that vested interests opposed to action on the climate crisis and nature loss were trying to frustrate progress.

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Israel-Hamas war live: UN chief urges Israel to allow ‘life-saving’ supplies into Gaza after only power station runs out of fuel

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UN secretary general called for essential supplies of fuel, food and water to be allowed in Gaza and called for immediate release of Israeli hostages

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was reluctant to be specific when asked on Tuesday whether the government had evacuation plans in place to assist Australian citizens and residents in the coming days. “We are working on a range of contingency arrangements that I won’t detail publicly for obvious reasons, but we do work on these contingencies,” he told ABC TV.

“It is a priority to keep Australians safe. And the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are working on a 24-hour basis to ensure that whatever support can be given is there. Australia believes in looking after our citizens and that is just what we do.”

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Hamas gunmen ‘killed families in their beds’ at Kfar Aza kibbutz, say Israeli forces

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Grim scene of ‘massacre’ at one of the first Israeli settlements reached by militants during assault

In Kfar Aza, no one was too old, too young or too weak for slaughter. It took the Israeli army half a day to reach the kibbutz of 750 people in southern Israel and fighting continued there for three days. In that time Hamas gunmen killed and mutilated dozens of civilian residents.

“Mothers, fathers, babies, young families killed in their beds, in the protection room, in the dining room, in their garden,” Maj Gen Itai Veruv of the Israel Defence Forces told the BBC, as his troops searched homes for bodies of victims. “It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre.”

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Luton airport closed and flights suspended after huge fire in car park

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Authorities say car park suffered ‘significant structural collapse’ after blaze

Luton airport has been closed after a huge fire ripped through a multi-storey car park, causing it to collapse and forcing all flights to be suspended.

In an update on Wednesday morning, the airport advised people not to travel to the airport and said all flights would be suspended until 3pm. Passengers were also advised to contact their airline for information about flights.

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Cheng Lei: Australian journalist released after three years in Chinese detention

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Anthony Albanese announces Cheng has been freed and is back in Australia after being detained in August 2020 over national security-related accusations

The Australian journalist Cheng Lei – jailed for three years in China on ill-defined allegations of sharing Chinese state secrets overseas – has been freed and reunited with her family in Australia.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese,said she had been returned to Australia on Wednesday afternoon.

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FGM ban in the Gambia under threat as calls grow to repeal law

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Women’s rights campaigners denounce ‘hugely regressive’ proposals from political and religious leaders to decriminalise practice

Political and religious leaders in the Gambia are threatening to introduce a bill to decriminalise female genital mutilation, eight years after the practice was outlawed.

Members of the country’s national assembly have backed a proposal for the 2015 law to be scrapped while the Supreme Islamic Council has issued a fatwa condemning anyone who denounces the practice and calling for the government to reconsider the legislation.

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Governments scramble to evacuate citizens from Israel amid pleas for help

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Countries including Canada, Germany and Australia organise evacuation flights while the US and UK insist commercial options still available as Israeli forces gather near Gaza

Countries around the world have been scrambling to evacuate their citizens from Israel after the deadly attack launched by Palestinian militants at the weekend, while some foreigners, faced with cancelled flights, have pleaded for help from their governments.

People from the US, Australia, Argentina, Cambodia, Canada, Nepal, Thailand, Russia, the UK, Ukraine and France and elsewhere are confirmed to be among those killed in the violence.

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Wednesday briefing: Is Britain about to get invaded by bedbugs?

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In today’s newsletter: With Paris under siege by these tiny, blood-sucking terrors, many on the other side of the Channel are wondering if they’re next – and what can be done

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Good morning. Paris is being overrun by bedbugs, at a time when the country is hosting the Rugby World Cup and preparing to host the 2024 Olympics. The news has alarmed people living in France and those visiting: in a moment of particularly acute panic, the deputy mayor of the French capital declared that “no one is safe”, which certainly intensified the concern.

A bedbug epidemic on the other side of the Channel has unsurprisingly left many people worried that the hordes of insects are about to hop on a direct train to St Pancras International and invade the UK. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said everything is being done to ensure that the problem does not get out of control, though he has acknowledged that it is a “real cause for concern”. Transport for London is disinfecting seats on buses and tubes every day and Khan is also in contact with Eurostar.

Gaza | A massive Israeli military buildup is continuing along Gaza’s border, as the country’s military confirmed the death toll from Saturday’s Hamas attack – the deadliest militant assault in its history – had passed 1,200 and wave after wave of airstrikes hit the territory.

Labour | Keir Starmer has made a direct appeal for “despairing” Conservative voters to back Labour at the next election, telling them he would repair a Britain broken by 13 years of Tory governments.

Bibby Stockholm | The Home Office plans to return asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm barge next week following a lengthy evacuation after legionella was found there.

Disinformation | The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk over the alleged disinformation about the Hamas attack on Israel, including fake news and “repurposed old images”, on X, which was formerly known as Twitter.

Luton airport | A major incident has been declared at London Luton airport after a huge fire broke out at a car park in the terminal, with all flights being suspended.

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Record number of Poles abroad register to vote in election

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Total expected to surpass 600,000 as polls suggest close-run race with PiS seeking third term in power

More than half a million people have registered abroad to vote in Poland’s election on Sunday, as the ruling Law & Justice party hopes for an unprecedented third consecutive term in power.

The Polish foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, said on Tuesday he expected the number of overseas voters to surpass 600,000 before a midnight deadline, a record number in the country’s history.

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Revealed: thousands who bought ‘golden passports’ through Dominica’s $1bn scheme

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Former Afghan spymaster, convicted millionaire and former Libyan colonel among those who became Dominican citizens

The Caribbean state of Dominica has sold citizenship to thousands of individuals including a former Afghan spymaster, a Turkish millionaire convicted of fraud and a former Libyan colonel under Muammar Gaddafi, the first detailed examination of the country’s controversial “golden passports” scheme has found.

The findings are from Dominica: Passports of the Caribbean, an investigation by the Guardian and 14 other international news organisations, in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

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Luxury rooms and a swim-up bar: hotel with funding from Dominica’s golden passport scheme

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Former Afghan spy chief among those to gain citizenship though investment in Caribbean island

Nestled in a valley formed by an extinct volcano on the Caribbean island of Dominica, the InterContinental Cabrits resort has 101 luxurious rooms overlooking an emerald bay. Its website invites guests to “explore and unwind in paradise while discovering the pristine island”.

But waterfront views and a swim-up rum bar are not the hotel’s only attraction: for the wealthy investors who helped fund the project, it was also a route to another nationality.

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Jacinda Ardern throws support behind Labour days before New Zealand election

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Former prime minister appealed to voters in Facebook video after being noticeably absent in lead up to 14 October election

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s former prime-minister, has made an eleventh-hour appearance to throw her support behind the party she once led, just days out from the country’s general election.

Ardern, who was elected in 2017 on a wave of ‘Jacindamania’ and enjoyed extraordinary popularity for much of her leadership, led the governing party for nearly six years up until her shock resignation in January 2023. But the former leader has been noticeably absent in the lead up to the 14 October election.

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White House condemns car-ramming incident at Chinese consulate in San Francisco

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Unnamed driver who crashed car into consulate building was shot by police and later died in hospital

The White House has denounced the violent incident at the Chinese consulate in San Francisco that began with a car crashing into the building and ended with police shooting the driver, who later died at a hospital.

“We condemn this incident and all violence perpetrated against foreign diplomatic staff working in the United States,” Adrienne Watson, White House National Security Council spokeswoman, to the Associated Press.

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Israel-Hamas war live: Israel reportedly identifies most hostages abducted by Hamas; Biden says US ‘has Israel’s back’

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IDF officers have reportedly told 100 families about their loved ones in Gaza; Biden says Israel ‘has a duty to respond’ to attacks

The US senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has criticised China’s response to the Israel-Hamas conflict while in China, calling on the government there to show more support for Israel.

Schumer spoke repeatedly about China’s response, including directly to China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Monday, during a rare meeting on a multi-day trip to the country.

“I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn the cowardly and vicious attacks upon them,” he told Xi in Beijing.

Earlier he had accused China’s foreign minister Wang Yi of showing “no sympathy or support for Israel during these tough, troubled times.”

On Sunday, China’s foreign ministry released a statement calling on “relevant parties” to end to hostilities and protect civilians. It said “the fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine”.

Speaking in Shanghai, Schumer said he was “very disappointed” with China’s initial statement. He also said he had asked for China to use its “influence” on Iran to “not allow the conflagration to spread”. On Monday, at the first daily press conference since a week-long holiday break in China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning responded to Schumer’s criticism by reiterating Beijing’s concern over the conflict and calling for peace.

Facing multiple questions on the topic, Mao said China was closely following the “recent escalation of tensions”.

“We are deeply saddened by the civilian casualties caused by the conflict and oppose and condemn acts that harm civilians. China opposes escalating the conflict and destabilising the region.”

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US prisoners who did not consent to ivermectin Covid treatment win payout

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Prisoners in Arkansas settle lawsuit for $2,000 each after accusing Washington county detention center of ‘medical experimentation’

The four Arkansas prisoners who sued their jail over allegations they knowingly prescribed them ivermectin to treat Covid without consent have settled the dispute for $2,000 each.

The quartet previously said they were administered the drug as a form of “medical experimentation” without prior informed consent or knowledge of the drug’s contents and potential side effects. Instead, the doctor at the jail told them they received “vitamins, antibiotics, and/or steroids”.

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