Remarks come as Italian PM suspends defence agreement with Israel amid growing domestic pressure over conflict
Donald Trump lashed out at one of his closest allies on Tuesday, saying Italy’s Giorgia Meloni lacked courage in light of her failure to join the US in attacking Iran.
“I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president said in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Continue reading...Byelection wins and defections push Canada’s Liberals into majority government under the prime minister
Mark Carney has said he will govern with “humility, determination and a clear understanding of what this moment demands” after his Liberals swept three byelections Monday evening, forging a parliamentary majority just more than a year after he took power.
Carney has achieved only the third majority government in two decades – and has done so in a highly unusual fashion, cobbling together both ballot box wins and defections from rival parties.
Continue reading...Hui Ka Yan expresses remorse in trial proceedings after collapse of world’s most indebted property developer
A former steelworker who rose to become one of China’s richest people has pleaded guilty to charges including fundraising fraud after the collapse of Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer.
The property group’s founder, Hui Ka Yan, “pleaded guilty and expressed remorse” in trial proceedings at a court in China’s southern city of Shenzhen against him and Evergrande, the court said in a posting on its official WeChat account. He also pleaded guilty to misuse of funds and illegally taking public deposits.
Continue reading...Brian Hooker told police that Lynette Hooker fell overboard and that strong currents carried her away
Police in the Bahamas have released without charges a Michigan man who said his wife disappeared after falling overboard from a small boat in waters off the Caribbean island country, authorities said on Monday.
Brian Hooker, of Onsted in southern Michigan, had been in police custody since 8 April – five days – after being questioned by authorities.
Continue reading...Military has described devastating attack that killed up to 200 people, many of them civilians, as a ‘precision airstrike’
Survivors and observers have questioned the Nigerian military’s rationale for a devastating airstrike on a busy market that killed as many as 200 people, many of them civilians.
The hit on Jilli market on the border of the north-eastern Borno and Yobe states on Saturday is the latest in a string of attacks by the country’s air force over the past decade with a high civilian death toll.
Continue reading...A top UN official has criticised lack of global urgency as reports confirm the world’s largest humanitarian crisis is worsening
Efforts to end Sudan’s catastrophic war have been criticised as “unacceptable” by the country’s top UN official as a series of new reports confirm that the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis is worsening.
Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of the third anniversary of the war, Denise Brown expressed her concern over the apparent lack of political urgency to end a conflict that has forced 14 million Sudanese to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of people are missing.
Continue reading...Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was arrested after reporting on friendly fire incident during US conflict with Iran
The detention of a prize-winning international journalist over his reporting of a friendly fire incident in Kuwait is raising questions about the crackdown on freedom of speech across the Middle East as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran, the Committee to Protect Journalists has warned.
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, born in the US and a Kuwaiti national, was arrested on 3 March during a brief visit to Kuwait. He published footage of a US air force F- 15 E Strike Eagle crashing in al Jahra west of Kuwait city. On his Substack he said the pilot and weapons officer had successfully ejected and survived. He added that video circulating online showed local residents assisting one of the crew in a civilian truck.
Continue reading...Carney’s Liberals will now be able to pass legislation without the support of opposition parties – and govern until 2029
The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has secured a parliamentary majority for his Liberal government, CBC News reported. The victory will help him push through a legislative agenda he says is needed for an increasingly divided geopolitical world.
Three special elections were held on Monday in Ontario and Quebec, with two in districts – known as ridings – that have long voted Liberal.
Continue reading...Regime hopes to capitalise on deepening transatlantic split by briefing previously sidelined European countries
In a move designed to increase pressure on the US to make compromises in its conflict with his country, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi has been briefing European capitals on the nature of the offer Iran had been willing to make about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and future stewardship of the strait of Hormuz during the weekend talks in Islamabad.
After the inconclusive talks, Araghchi held phone briefings with the French and German foreign ministers, Jean-Noël Barrot and Johann Wadephul, as well as the Saudi, Omani and Qatari foreign ministers.
Continue reading...Péter Magyar would ‘talk to Russian president, but won’t initiate contact’; Ukraine welcomes defeat of Orbán. What we know on day 1,511
Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new leader, said he would ask Vladimir Putin to end the killing in Ukraine if they speak, and plans to review Hungary’s Russian energy contracts and renegotiate them if needed. Magyar said he would talk to the Russian president, but won’t initiate contact. “If Vladimir Putin calls, I’ll pick up the phone,” he said in his first news conference after his landslide win against Viktor Orbán, a Putin ally. “If we did talk, I could tell him that it would be nice to end the killing after four years and end the war. It would probably be a short phone conversation and I don’t think he would end the war on my advice,” he said.
Ukraine welcomed with relief on Monday the defeat of Orbán, its harshest critic in the EU, an outcome that paves the way for a €90bn ($105bn) loan that Kyiv urgently needs to fund the war with Russia.
Higher oil prices caused by the war in the Middle East could raise inflation rates in Ukraine by 1.5 to 2.8 percentage points, Ukraine’s top central banker said on Monday. The National Bank of Ukraine governor, Andriy Pyshnyi, said the central bank would stick to its target of lowering inflation to 5% in three years, using all available tools to ensure that goal was met. “We’re trying to walk on a razorblade,” Pyshnyi said through an interpreter, noting prices have already started to rise.
The Ukrainian military struck a Russian chemicals plant in Cherepovets in the Vologda region, Kyiv’s drone forces commander said on Monday. The plant produces chemicals that serve as raw materials for TNT, hexogen and components for munitions, Robert Brovdi said on Telegram.
Russian and Belarusian athletes will be permitted to compete in World Aquatics events with their respective uniforms, flags and anthems, the sport’s governing body said on Monday. Competitors from both countries were banned from international sports events after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which was launched in part from Belarusian territory.
Continue reading...Iran warns Americans they face higher pump prices due to prohibition imposed on Monday evening
The US blockade of ships using Iranian ports in the Gulf has come into effect, turning the six-week-old conflict between the US-Israeli coalition and Iran into a test of economic endurance.
US Central Command (Centcom) made no formal announcement of the start of the blockade but had said it begin on Monday at 5.30pm Iranian time and would apply to any ships entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, while ships using non-Iranian ports would not be impeded.
Continue reading...Gonzales, who admitted affair with aide who later died by suicide, says he will file retirement from office on Tuesday
Representative Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas, announced on Monday he was stepping down from Congress after acknowledging an extramarital affair with a staffer.
Gonzales, who was facing a growing threat of expulsion by his colleagues, admitted last month that he had an affair with an aide who later died by suicide.
Continue reading...Stephen Doughty says US withdrawal of support means bill cannot complete passage through parliament
A treaty over ceding sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has become “impossible to agree at political level” and the corresponding bill will not complete its passage through parliament, a Foreign Office minister has said.
Stephen Doughty told the Commons that the agreement with Mauritius was initially negotiated in close coordination with the US, but Donald Trump’s position “appears to have changed”.
Continue reading...Brian Hooker says wife Lynette fell overboard from dinghy but family members have cast doubt on that account
Police in the Bahamas on Monday were set to again interview a US man who said his wife fell overboard from their boat.
In a statement on Sunday to the Guardian, Brian Hooker’s attorney, Terrel Butler, said: “The police have requested another interview with [Brian Hooker] tomorrow.”
Continue reading...Alexandre Ramagem fled country after he was sentenced to 16 years for his role in plotting military coup in Brazil
When Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for an attempted coup, six other members of his cabinet were also found guilty and all began serving their sentences – except for one.
Days before the verdict, Alexandre Ramagem, Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, fled by car to Guyana and boarded a flight to the United States, where he has remained ever since.
Continue reading...Orbán is out in Hungary and talks have failed to end the war in Iran – ill-fated road trip has been setback for Maga aims
Shortly before JD Vance’s ill-fated week crisscrossing the world, Donald Trump asked him during a private Easter brunch about how the Iran negotiations were shaping up. “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said to laughs in the room. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”
The joke at Vance’s expense contained an unfortunate nugget of truth: this is not an administration that rewards failure.
Continue reading...Dozens of feral pachyderms linked to drug kingpin to be killed because of threat to native species and villagers
Colombian officials have authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos descended from animals brought to the country in the 1980s by Pablo Escobar, after the feral beasts displaced native species and threatened local villagers.
The environment minister, Irene Vélez, said the decision was reached because other methods to control their population had been expensive and unsuccessful, including neutering some of the animals or moving them to zoos. Vélez said that up to 80 hippos would be affected by the measure. She did not say when the hunting would begin.
Continue reading...Stunning loss of rightwing populist in Hungary carries symbolic significance for opponents of Donald Trump
For US Democrats seeking rays of light in the dark landscape of Donald Trump’s authoritarian onslaught, illumination has arrived from the unlikely source of Budapest.
Viktor Orbán’s stunning defeat in Hungary’s general election – ending 16 years of unbroken rule for his governing Fidesz party – carries symbolic and psychological significance for American politics out of all proportion to the central European country’s modest size and distance from the US.
Continue reading...Pontiff makes first papal visit to country as he starts 11-day tour that will also include stops in Cameroon and Angola
Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Algeria for the first papal visit to the country, calling for peace on the opening stop of a tour of Africa that signals the continent’s growing importance to the Catholic church.
The 11-day trip, which will include stops in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, is the longest by Pope Leo since being elected to the papacy in May last year.
Continue reading...Lack of ballot papers and defective computers disrupt election that Keiko Fujimori appears to be leading
Peruvians will have to wait at least until the end of Monday to know the result of the presidential election held on Sunday, after the voting process descended into chaos in some polling stations due to a lack of ballot papers or defective computers.
In an unprecedented move, Peru’s electoral agency ONPE announced on Sunday night that it would extend voting for an extra day to allow tens of thousands of Peruvians in the country and abroad, who had been unable to vote, to cast their ballots.
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