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Local authorities in Dnipropetrovsk region report that overnight an 18-year-old boy was killed and three men were wounded in a Russian strike in the area of Nikopol. A church and private houses were damaged.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Continue reading...Four people rescued say vessel had set off from Sfax in Tunisia and had taken on water in stormy conditions
At least 41 people are feared to have died after a boat sank in rough seas off the Italian island of Lampedusa in the central Mediterranean, Italian authorities and the UN said on Wednesday.
Four survivors who were rescued on Wednesday morning by a Maltese bulk carrier and eventually moved to a patrol boat from the Italian coastguard, said they had been on a vessel that set off from the Tunisian port of Sfax six days ago and sank on its way to Italy’s shores.
Continue reading...Arms firm Rheinmetall to refurbish vehicles following military aid package announced at Nato summit
Thirty secondhand Leopard I battle tanks are to be refurbished by the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall at the orders of the German government and exported to Ukraine, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed.
The tanks are part of a fleet of 49 vehicles that the Düsseldorf-based company purchased from the Belgian private defence company OIP Land Systems. Some of the vehicles are reportedly in such poor condition they will serve only for the supply of spare parts.
Continue reading...Trade with rest of world is shrinking and youth unemployment is at 20% but state interventions are expected
China’s economy is struggling. The recovery after the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions is faltering. Its trade with the rest of the world is shrinking. A decade-long boom in house prices has come to an end.
The most obvious manifestation of the troubles besetting the world’s second biggest economy is that China is now officially in deflation. In the US, the UK and the eurozone, prices are rising – albeit not quite as fast as they were a few months ago – but in China they are actually falling.
Continue reading...Body of Jimmy Hendricks, 66, from Austin, was found after he announced on Facebook plan to hike in Arches national park
A Texas man found dead while hiking in Utah was on the way to scatter his late father’s ashes, according to family members.
Jimmy Hendricks, 66, left his Austin home in mid-July for Nevada, where he planned to scatter the ashes on a mountain. Along the way, he made stops at Guadalupe Peak in Texas and the Grand Canyon.
Continue reading...Fire service says 17 people escaped ferocious blaze at gîte in Haut-Rhin
Eleven people have died in a fire at a holiday home for disabled people in north-east France.
The death toll was confirmed by a public prosecutor after firefighters spent hours combing the destroyed building – a converted barn – for the bodies of victims.
Continue reading...Youngsters faced a heatwave, flooded tents, sewage spills and an expensive evacuation – but concerns were raised before the event even began
Media outlets in South Korea have labelled its hosting of the World Scout Jamboree a “national disgrace”, a “survival game”, and a “worst nightmare”. Public outcry has intensified online and strangers are approaching scouts on the streets, apologising on behalf of their country and handing out gifts.
South Korea has successfully hosted large events such as the Fifa World Cup and Winter Olympics, but the mismanagement of the global scouting event, which struggled with heat and hygiene and eventually had to be evacuated as a typhoon approached, has left many wondering: where did it all go wrong?
Continue reading...Armed men had seized Alix Dorsainvil and daughter from clinic in a gang-controlled area of Port-au-Prince, where she works
An American woman and her daughter who were kidnapped in Haiti have been freed, nearly two weeks after their abduction in the capital Port-au-Prince.
Armed men seized the New Hampshire native Alix Dorsainvil and her daughter in late July from a clinic in a gang-controlled area of Port-au-Prince where Dorsainvil works.
Continue reading...Plant in Sergiev Posad previously made military equipment but officials downplay speculation blast was result of Ukrainian drone attack
An explosion has ripped through a factory said to house fireworks in the Moscow region, injuring at least 40 people and raising questions as to whether the blast was the result of an accident or of a targeted attack.
The explosion took place at about 10:40am local time on Wednesday at a factory workshop in Sergiev Posad, about 40 miles (65km) from central Moscow. Video of the blast showed a mushroom cloud of smoke rising into the air over the Zagorsk optical mechanical plant, which in the past has manufactured night-vision goggles and other imaging equipment for the Russian military. Factory officials ordered a “total evacuation” of the area.
Continue reading...Eight South American presidents including Brazil’s Lula say rich countries need to pledge more resources to help protect rainforest
Amazon leaders have called on rich countries to help them develop a Marshall-style plan to protect the world’s largest rainforest – but stopped short of committing to zero deforestation across the biome by 2030 amid divisions over oil extraction.
In a joint declaration at the end of a two-day summit in the Brazilian city of Belém on Wednesday, the eight South American countries that are home to the Amazon rainforest said ensuring its survival could not be solely up to them, as resources from the forest were consumed globally.
Continue reading...What might Chinese deflation mean for interest rates, commodity prices and even EV exports outside China?
When Australia’s central bank released its quarterly economic update last week, China’s “uncertain” economic outlook topped a list of domestic worries for Australia.
The International Monetary Fund too singled out China in its latest world economic outlook as among the “downside” tilts to its balance of risks.
Continue reading...Vessel becomes potential flashpoint as Beijing orders Philippines to remove wreck housing marines in South China Sea
An international row is growing between the Philippines, the US and China over a rusting ship that has been turned into a crucial military outpost in the South China Sea.
The dilapidated second world war-era ship was deliberately run aground on a tiny reef in the South China Sea in 1999 by the Philippines, and a small contingent of troops continue to stay on board to stake the country’s claim in the highly disputed water.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As thousands of scouts are evacuated from their quadrennial global get-together, the host nation’s handling of the event is in the spotlight
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Good morning. Imagine you are going on a school trip, but it’s with thousands of other schools, and the trip is to Fyre festival, and the guys from Trainspotting are taking care of the sanitation. Oh, and there’s an enormous hurricane on its way.
That may sum up what 4,500 British scouts have felt this week, after their trip of a lifetime to the World Scout Jamboree in South Korea turned into a bad comedy marked by successive calamities, natural and human-made, that yesterday culminated in the mass evacuation of all 43,000 young people.
Northern Ireland | A “monumental” data breach has exposed the names and rank of every serving Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer. A spreadsheet was mistakenly published online for up to three hours in response to a freedom of information request. The Police Federation for Northern Ireland said it was a “breach of monumental proportions”.
Security | The data of millions of voters was accessible to hackers in a cyber-attack by “hostile actors” discovered almost a year ago, the Electoral Commission has admitted. The watchdog apologised for the security breach in which the names and addresses of millions of voters were accessible to hackers as far back as 2021.
Health | Millions of people under the age of 65 in England will be denied flu and Covid jabs this winter despite one of the government’s top public health officials warning that coronavirus has not “gone away”.
Conservatives | The Home Office spent more than £1,500 of public money painting over cartoon murals that were meant to welcome children to a controversial asylum reception centre, it can be revealed.
France | Five Marseille police officers have been detained for questioning over the death of a 27-year-old man during rioting in the French city on 1 July. The public prosecutor suggested it was “probable” Mohamed Bendriss died after “a violent shock to the thorax caused by a ‘flash-ball’ type projectile”, a controversial police weapon, that caused him to go into cardiac arrest.
Continue reading...Proposal would have made it considerably harder to amend state constitution as voters give verdict on Issue 1
Ohio voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal that would have made it considerably harder to amend the state constitution in a major win for reproductive rights and democracy advocates in the state.
The result means that Ohio will keep its current process for amending the state constitution in place. The procedure first requires voters to collect a certain number of signatures from at least 44 of the state’s 88 counties to send an amendment proposal to the ballot and then a simple majority to pass it.
Continue reading...Maura Healey calls on federal government to provide ‘urgent action’ as shelters housing migrants and refugees reach capacity
Massachusetts governor Maura Healey declared a state of emergency on Tuesday as shelters housing migrants and refugees reached capacity, and called on the federal government to help.
In a letter addressed to US secretary of homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas, Healey said: “To our partners in the federal government, Massachusetts has stepped up to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making.
Continue reading...Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sets out ambitious programme to repair damage done by Bolsonaro and tackle environmental crime
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to haul the Amazon out of centuries of violence, economic “plundering” and environmental devastation and into “a new Amazon dream”, at the start of a major regional summit on the world’s largest rainforest.
Addressing South American leaders gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém, Lula offered a bold blueprint for the future of the Amazon, a 6.7m sq km region that is home to nearly 50 million people spread across eight countries and one territory.
Continue reading...Freddy Versluys says he has sold the former Belgium main battle tanks, which could be in combat in six months
Dozens of secondhand Leopard 1 tanks that once belonged to Belgium have been bought by a major European country for the Ukrainian army fighting Russia, according to the arms trader who sold them.
Freddy Versluys, CEO of the private defence company OIP Land Systems, told the Guardian that he sold 49 tanks to another European government, which he could not name due to a confidentiality clause. He said he also could not disclose the price. Versluys added it could be up to six months before they were on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Conclave represents handbrake turn in Brazilian government policy since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power
The leaders of Amazon nations including Brazil, Colombia and Peru have gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém for a rare conclave about the future of the world’s largest rainforest amid growing concern over the global climate emergency.
The environmental summit – convened by Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – represents a handbrake turn in Brazilian government policy after four years of Amazon destruction and international isolation under the country’s previous leader, Jair Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...Inaugural report shows Labour languishing on 29% of the vote while National records 34.5% as cost of living concerns dominate
A new political poll has put New Zealand’s centre-right opposition solidly ahead of the ruling Labour party in the lead up to October’s election, with the National and ACT parties recording the majority support needed to form a coalition government.
Labour languished on 29% of the vote in the Guardian Essential poll New Zealand, which polled more than 1,100 eligible voters, with National recording 34.5%. ACT received 11.6% of the vote. Respondents unsure about how they would vote – 6.1% of those surveyed – were included in the final result.
This poll was conducted by Essential Research and has a sample size of 1,163, using quotas set to be representative of the target population by age, gender and location. Respondents not eligible or not intending to vote are excluded from voting intention questions. Weighting is applied to the data using factors of age, gender, location and enrolment status, from Statistics New Zealand and New Zealand Electoral Commission data. The poll was conducted through online panels between 2-6 August 2023, has a maximum margin of error of +/- 2.9%, a weighting efficiency of 97%, and 6.1% were unsure on the party vote question. Unsure voters remain in the final result, but were removed for the purpose of calculating seats in Parliament. The full results are available at the Essential Report New Zealand.
Continue reading...President hosted rightwing mogul Agustín Edwards in September 1970 and discussed plans to foil socialist election-winner
Days before Salvador Allende’s confirmation as Chile’s president in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a rightwing Chilean media mogul to discuss blocking the socialist leader’s path to the presidency, newly declassified documents have revealed.
The documents, published in a new Spanish edition of the Pinochet files by archivist and writer Peter Kornbluh, include Nixon’s agenda for 15 September 1970, which shows a meeting in the Oval Office with Agustín Edwards, the owner of the conservative El Mercurio media group.
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