Several groups wrote to the Hiroshima city government asking it not to sign the agreement with US counterparts
Survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima have reacted angrily to an agreement that links the city’s peace park with a memorial in Pearl Harbor.
The sister-park agreement, signed this week by the US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, and the mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, is designed to promote peace and friendship between the former Pacific war enemies.
Continue reading...British MPs have been warned of ‘systematic ethnic cleansing’ at the hands of paramilitary forces
British MPs have been warned of the possibility of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and urged to put pressure on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group, which has been accused of murder and arson attacks on minority groups in the area.
While the RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army for control of the country in the capital, Khartoum, it has been accused of waging a separate war in Darfur where the Janjaweed militias, from which the RSF was formed, were accused of genocide almost 20 years ago.
Continue reading...Review of research finds particularly clear evidence that LEZs in cities reduce heart and circulatory problems
An increasing number of research studies are showing that low emission zones (LEZs) improve health.
More than 320 zones are operating across the UK, Europe and notably in Tokyo, Japan. These reduce air pollution across an area by curbing the number of highly polluting vehicles, normally older diesels. Schemes, including London’s ultra-low emission zone, can improve air quality. This should lead to improved health, but does this actually happen?
Continue reading...One of the leaders of the violence-scarred country’s ‘self-defense’ movement was cut down in rural Michoacán
One of the founders of Mexico’s “self-defense” movement, the lime farmer turned vigilante crusader Hipólito Mora, has been murdered in an ambush – the latest macabre chapter in the country’s unabating crime conflict.
Guillermo Valencia, a politician from the violence-stricken state of Michoacán, where Mora helped launch a rural revolt against narco-traffickers 10 years ago, announced the news on Twitter.
Continue reading...Police fire teargas at rioters as 6,000 march through Nanterre to protest against shooting of 17-year-old
Violence has erupted for a third consecutive night in France as Emmanuel Macron struggles to contain mounting anger after the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy of north African descent during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb.
The officer concerned was charged with voluntary homicide on Thursday and placed in provisional detention in the capital as an estimated 6,000 people marched through the streets of Nanterre in memory of the teenager, identified as Nahel M.
Continue reading...Sunak insists Rwanda is safe country to be sent to after court rules in favour of charities and 10 asylum seekers
The bitter legal battle over the government’s flagship immigration policy is set to reach new heights after Downing Street insisted it would fight to overturn a ruling that sending refugees to Rwanda was unlawful.
Charities and others were jubilant on Thursday after judges at the court of appeal ruled in favour of campaign groups and 10 affected asylum seekers, while the opposition claimed the policy at heart of Rishi Sunak’s “Stop the Boats” pledge was now unravelling.
Continue reading...Leaders already exploring plans with other African nations to tackle root causes of migration-related deaths
The EU may seek a new wide-ranging partnership with Egypt including measures to stem irregular migration and break criminal people-smuggling networks.
EU leaders are already exploring plans beyond a looming €1bn (£860m) deal with Tunisia to other countries in Africa as part of a wider bid to tackle the root causes of migration-related deaths and disappearances.
Continue reading...Johanson was venerated as a forthright educator who filled voids left by the absence of sex ed curricula at US and Canadian schools
Sex educator Sue Johanson, who once declared that “horny is a beautiful thing”, has died at the age of 93 after more than two decades of giving frank advice to audiences in Canada and the US.
Johanson gained an international audience with her plainspoken guidance to Canadians on her radio and TV programme Sunday Night Sex Show – and then Americans on her Talk Sex programme.
Continue reading...German man says he first contacted Scotland Yard about suspect Christian Brückner in 2008
The man who tipped off police about Christian Brückner, the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, has said his initial approach to the Metropolitan police in the year after she disappeared was ignored and he was only taken seriously when he contacted them again nine years later.
The German man, identified only as Helge B, said he had approached Scotland Yard in 2008, suspecting Brückner’s involvement in the child’s abduction, but he heard nothing back from them. Publicity around the 10th anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance in 2017 prompted him to contact them again, after which they acted on his information, he said.
Continue reading...Male suspect reportedly from Bristol could face a prison term of up to five years for the widely condemned act
Italian police have identified a man from England as the suspected culprit behind an inscription carved into a wall of the Colosseum, after a four-day search.
A young man wearing a blue flowery shirt was filmed by an onlooker using a key to scratch his and his girlfriend’s name into an internal wall of the 2,000-year-old monument last Friday. If convicted, the suspect could face a hefty fine and prison term under Italy’s strict cultural heritage protection laws.
Continue reading...Killing of 17-year-old in Nanterre has triggered nights of clashes and politicians fear unrest will spread
Amid the twisted and smouldering carcasses of burned-out cars, the stench of melted tarmac and smoke-blackened buildings, French housing estates were braced for more nights of rioting and soul-searching on fractured race relations and deep distrust of the police.
“There’s so much anger,” said Chakir, a 21-year-old youth worker, who had been awake until 5am on the streets of his housing estate in Roubaix, northern France, where more than 100 young people had lit firework rockets with cigarette lighters and thrown them at lines of riot police. They were protesting after the death of a 17-year-old boy, Nahel, of Algerian background, who was shot dead at close range by police at a traffic stop in Nanterre, west of Paris, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Professor and two students were stabbed in attack on class on Wednesday at University of Waterloo
A suspect has been charged in the stabbing of a professor and two students during a class on gender issues at Canada’s University of Waterloo in what police are calling a hate-motivated attack.
Waterloo regional police said Geovanny Villalba-Aleman, an international student who had been studying at the University of Waterloo, faces three counts of aggravated assault, four counts of assault with a weapon and two counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
Continue reading...Leftwing opposition leader who was PM during eurozone crisis says party needs ‘profound renewal’
Alexis Tsipras, the former student activist who rose to become Greece’s first radical leftwing prime minister, has resigned as leader of Syriza four days after the party’s crushing defeat in general elections.
Eight years after taking Europe by storm, Tsipras said he was stepping down to make way for a new leader who could oversee Syriza’s “profound renewal”.
Continue reading...Congress party accused Narendra Modi of ‘abject failure’ over two-month long crisis between majority Meitei and Kuki groups
Rahul Gandhi, the leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, has visited a north-eastern state beset by two months of violence as a shootout there claimed two more lives.
The shooting on the outskirts of Imphal, the state capital of Manipur, also left four wounded.
Continue reading...Climate change has made high temperatures more common in the country, which has already surpassed peak energy demand of 2022
When Raquel Rubio’s 13-month baby developed a 102F fever last week, she rushed to the doctor. Her son, Liam, had been in Rubio’s apartment without air conditioning for several hours; Nuevo León, the Mexican state where she lives, had reached 109F that day.
The doctor confirmed Rubio’s suspicions that the heat was driving her son’s temperature, and instructed her to bathe Liam and keep him hydrated. But Rubio couldn’t go back home; she had been dealing with power shortages for the past two weeks and didn’t want to take her son back into the blistering heat.
Continue reading...James Cleverly says global south deserves more powerful voice at top table and review needed into five permanent members’ veto
The global south deserves a more powerful voice at the world’s top table by expanding the UN security council, the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said.
Cleverly also called for a review of the use of the veto by the council’s five permanent members, adding that the world’s poorest countries feel their voice is not heard even on issues of direct concern to them.
Continue reading...William O’Neill says ‘survival of a nation’ is at stake and also calls for deployment of an international force
A UN official has called for an immediate arms embargo for Haiti and an intervention force to combat endemic gang violence in the Caribbean state, after the killings of more than 200 gang members in recent months.
William O’Neill, who was appointed in April as an expert on human rights in Haiti, added his voice to growing calls for an international intervention in the country, which has descended into crime-fuelled anarchy since the murder of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.
Continue reading...Lesions found on 99% of southern resident orcas studied on Pacific north-west coast
Scientists studying an endangered population of orcas resident off the Pacific north-west coast of Canada and the US have recorded a “strong increase” in skin lesions on the animals’ bodies, which they believe is owing to the decreasing ability of their immune systems to deal with disease.
The lesions appear on the whales as grey patches or targets, or black pin points. Some resemble tattooed skin. Their presence on the animals’ graphically black and white bodies is “increasing dramatically”, according to Dr Joseph K Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society at the school of veterinary medicine at the University of California, lead author of the scientific paper.
Continue reading...Nature series Our Big Blue Backyard drew one complaint to media watchdog that it should not have given the program a G, or general, classification
New Zealand’s media watchdog has reprimanded public broadcaster TVNZ for not giving a higher classification to a documentary with “dramatised” scenes of dolphin mating.
The nature series Our Big Blue Backyard drew the ire of one viewer who successfully complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA). In the offending scene, a female dolphin is targeted by a pack of male dolphins that mate with her.
Continue reading...Beijing bolstering position as global renewables leader with solar capacity more than rest of world combined
China is shoring up its position as the world leader in renewable power and potentially outpacing its own ambitious energy targets, a report has found.
China is set to double its capacity and produce 1,200 gigawatts of energy through wind and solar power by 2025, reaching its 2030 goal five years ahead of time, according to the report by Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks operating utility-scale wind and solar farms as well as future projects in the country.
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