Category Archives: World News

Newly discovered whale species could have been heaviest animal ever

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Fossils found in Peru from extinct species show it may have had body mass of 85-340 tonnes – heavier than blue whales

The fossilised bones of an ancient creature that patrolled coastal waters 40m years ago belong to a newly discovered species that is a contender for the heaviest animal ever to have existed on Earth.

Fossil hunters discovered remnants of the enormous and long-extinct whale in a rock formation in the Ica desert of southern Peru. Fully grown adults might have weighed hundreds of tonnes, researchers believe.

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Indigenous territory still in crisis despite Brazil’s expulsion of miners

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Six months after Lula’s government cracked down on garimpeiros, a legacy of malnutrition and malaria is taking its toll on Yanomami

Six months after the Brazilian government launched an operation to turf out illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous reserve, the Yanomami population there continues to live in fear, battling a legacy of violence, destruction and disease.

A new report released by three Indigenous organisations on Wednesday, applauds the success of the government’s crackdown but highlights the challenges that lie ahead in fully addressing the humanitarian crisis caused by the invasion of wildcat miners during the Jair Bolsonaro years.

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Xi Jinping replaces generals in charge of China’s nuclear arsenal

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Leader tightens grip over country’s military leadership with biggest shake-up in a decade

Two of China’s top generals overseeing its nuclear missiles have been replaced with scant explanation in the biggest shake-up of the country’s military leadership in a decade, underlining Xi Jinping’s commitment to tightening control over the armed forces.

Two men from outside the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) were appointed to head the unit, state media have reported. Wang Houbin, from the navy, was appointed as commander and Xu Xisheng, from the air force, its political commissar – a Chinese Communist party role of equal grade to military commander.

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Italian singer Baby K decries selfie ‘madness’ after being hurt by fan

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Artist forced to cancel summer tour after being ‘charged at’ by woman at the end of concert

The Italian singer Baby K has hit out against the “madness” of selfies and called for greater protection for artists after she was injured by a fan and forced to cancel the rest of her tour.

In a video posted on TikTok, she said she suffered “breast trauma” after being “charged at” by a woman at the end of a concert on Monday in Teramo, Italy, as a crowd of fans surged around her for selfies.

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Women’s health at risk from UK aid cuts, Foreign Office warned

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Thousands more women will be forced into unsafe abortions and die in pregnancy and childbirth, ministers told

Hundreds of thousands more women will face unsafe abortions and thousands will die in pregnancy and childbirth as a result of UK aid cuts in 2023-24, Foreign Office ministers were warned in an internal assessment.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) published its programme allocations for the next two years last month, showing that official development assistance (ODA) spend is due to rise marginally in 2023-24 and then increase by 12% in 2024-25 to £8.3bn.

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Ukraine’s birth rate plummets in aftermath of Russian invasion, data shows

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In 2023, an average of 16,000 babies have been born a month, compared to as many as 23,000 babies born monthly before Russia’s invasion

Ukraine’s birthrate has fallen by 28% since the start of the war, according to new data, with 38,324 fewer babies born in the country in the first six months of this year compared with 2021, before Russia invaded.

While birthrates have been declining by 7% per yer since 2015, according to Ukrainian data analytics company OpenDataBot, the drop from 2021 to 2023 is the largest since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. The next steepest drop was in 2015, in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

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Immortal cells: Henrietta Lacks’ family settle lawsuit over HeLa tissue harvested in 1950s

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Cells taken without consent from cancer victim can reproduce indefinitely and were sold for unjust profit by Thermo Fisher Scientific, relatives argued

Laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific has settled a lawsuit brought by the estate of Henrietta Lacks, a long-deceased cancer victim whose “immortal” cells have lived on to fuel biomedical research for decades, lawyers for the estate have said.

The story of Lacks, a young African American woman who died in Baltimore in 1951, was made famous in Rebecca Skloot’s 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which became a movie in 2017 featuring Oprah Winfrey.

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Four Nigerians survive 14 days on ship’s rudder before Brazilian rescue

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Four men traveled about 5,600km before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in south-eastern port of Vitória

On their 10th day at sea, the four Nigerian stowaways crossing the Atlantic in a tiny space above the rudder of a cargo ship ran out of food and drink.

They survived another four days, according to their account, by drinking the sea water crashing just meters below them, before being rescued by Brazilian federal police in the south-eastern port of Vitória.

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Warsaw sends troops to border, accusing Belarus of violating its airspace

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Polish military says army helicopters crossed eastern flank, adding to tensions caused by proximity of Wagner fighters

Poland has rushed troops to its eastern border after accusing Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, of violating its airspace with military helicopters.

The Belarusian military denied any such violation and accused Poland, a Nato member and one of Ukraine’s most fervent backers in its conflict with Russia, of inventing the accusation to justify a buildup of its troops.

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Meta to end news access in Canada over publisher payment law

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Move comes in response to Canadian legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishers

Meta has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada, the company said on Tuesday.

The move comes in response to legislation in the country requiring internet giants to pay news publishers.

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France begins evacuating its citizens and other Europeans from Niger

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Airlift follows coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum, as tensions grow between the two countries

France has started evacuating its citizens and other Europeans from Niger, days after a junta toppled the president, Mohamed Bazoum, and seized power in the west African country.

Tensions between Niger and former colonial power France have escalated after the coup on 26 July overthrew one of the last pro-western leaders in Africa’s Sahel region. France’s decision to swiftly evacuate its citizens goes further than its reaction to putsches in recent years in the other former French colonies of Mali and Burkina Faso, where French citizens were not evacuated after military coups.

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Armed robbers escape with up to €15m in jewellery from Piaget store in Paris

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Investigation under way after theft at Swiss luxury watch shop on Rue de la Paix in high-end Place Vendôme area

Armed robbers have raided a store of the luxury Swiss watch brand Piaget in central Paris, escaping with between €10m to €15m ( £8.5m to 12.8m) worth of jewellery, the Paris prosecutors office said.

The robbery took place around lunchtime on Tuesday at the store on the Rue de la Paix in the high-end Place Vendôme area, home to several jewellers, watchmakers and luxury brands. The area has seen a spate of armed robberies in recent years.

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Billionaire investor threatens to pull out of UK amid global outcry at new oil rush

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Australian mining entrepreneur Andrew Forrest criticises ‘clickbait’ fossil fuel plans as others say Britain has lost credibility

The billionaire Australian mining tycoon and investor Andrew Forrest has led international condemnation of the UK’s new oil rush, saying he would pull his major investment from the country if the prime minister pursued “clickbait” fossil fuel policies.

The iron ore magnate, who also runs the Minderoo Foundation philanthropic organisation, threatened to move his investments out of the UK over Rishi Sunak’s swivel towards new oil and gas drilling.

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Jeremy Hunt oversaw signing of San Marino low-tax treaty backed by Tory donor

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Exclusive: Maurizio Bragagni, who has given over £700k to Tories and £30k to chancellor, attended event

Jeremy Hunt oversaw the signing of a low-tax treaty with San Marino championed by a leading Tory donor, who with his companies has given more than £700,000 to the party and £30,000 to the chancellor.

Maurizio Bragagni, a prominent businessman and diplomat for San Marino, was present in No 11 when a “double taxation” treaty between the UK and San Marino was signed in May.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Poland to deploy more border troops after Belarus ‘violates airspace’; ‘drone shot down in Crimea’ – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. You can read the latest news at a glance here:

Here are some of the latest images that have been released from the site of a Russian strike on Kharkiv.

Reuters has a quick snap that Ukraine’s interior minister has claimed an attempt to cross into the country on its northern border in the Chernihiv region by a Russian saboteur group was foiled.

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‘Human in a costume’ sun bear draws crowds to Chinese zoo

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Visitor numbers rise by 30% as footage sparks claims animal could be a staff member in a bear suit

Visitors have flocked to a zoo in eastern China’s Zhejiang province after a video of one of its bears went viral with some suggesting she looked so human she could be a staff member in a bear suit.

Attendance numbers at Hangzhou zoo have risen by 30% to about 20,000 a day, with some people travelling overnight, since a video of the Malayan sun bear, named Angela, became a trending topic on Chinese social media over the weekend, Zhejiang-based Chao News reported.

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Aung San Suu Kyi given partial pardon by Myanmar junta

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Ousted leader granted clemency on five charges as part of amnesty but faces a further 14 cases

Myanmar’s junta has pardoned Aung San Suu Kyi on five legal charges, military-controlled TV has announced, although the deposed leader still faces more than two decades in detention.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained by the military since 1 February 2021 when it ousted her democratically elected government. The 76-year-old has since been sentenced for multiple charges – including incitement, electoral fraud and corruption.

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Drone hits Moscow tower housing ministries for second time, says mayor

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Russian defence ministry blames Kyiv for attack as Ukrainian presidential adviser says Kremlin should expect ‘more war’

A high-rise building in Moscow housing Russian government ministries has been hit by a drone for the second time in three days, the city’s mayor has said, as a Ukrainian presidential adviser said the Kremlin should expect more drone attacks and “more war”.

The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts near Moscow in a fresh wave of attacks on Tuesday, while it claimed a third was jammed and went “out of control” before it crashed in the Moscow City business district, a cluster of glass skyscrapers that was built to show Russia’s growing integration into world financial markets. The ministry blamed Ukraine for what it called an “attempted terrorist attack”.

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‘Even more insidious than the NRA’: US gun lobby group gains in power

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The National Shooting Sports Foundation has been aggressively pushing gun manufacturers’ interests, and is starting to eclipse its bigger rival

A business trade group representing 10,000 gunmakers, dealers and other firearm firms is emerging as a rising force in the US and starting to eclipse – in some respects – the might of the powerful but scandal-plagued National Rifle Association.

Meet the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s conservative and aggressive lobbying group. Its range of activities are broad but always geared to zealously and single-mindedly preserving and extending the power of the gun industry.

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