Philippe Hategekimana also convicted of crimes against humanity relating to mass killings in 1994
A Paris court has found a former Rwandan military policeman guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1994 slaughter in his home country and sentenced him to life in prison.
The court found Philippe Hategekimana, 66, guilty of nearly all the charges against him.
Continue reading...US intelligence claims Gen Sergei Surovikin, who has close ties to Yevgeny Prigozhin, had prior knowledge of uprising
A Russian general who previously led the invasion force in Ukraine has not been seen in public since Saturday, with US intelligence reportedly claiming he had prior knowledge of the uprising led by the Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Gen Sergei Surovikin is the head of the Russian aerospace forces and formerly Moscow’s supreme commander in Ukraine. Prigozhin had welcomed his appointment to that post in 2022, calling him a “legendary figure” and “born to serve his motherland”.
Continue reading...Assailants threw explosives at police station in state of Chiapas, following abduction of employees at gunpoint on highway
Assailants have thrown explosives at a police station in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas, as a massive search continued on Wednesday for 14 police employees abducted at gunpoint on a local highway.
The attacks highlight a new turf battle between cartels for control of drug and immigrant trafficking in the state, which borders Guatemala.
Continue reading...Increase of 1C in average annual temperature connected to more than 6% rise in physical and sexual domestic violence
As deadly heatwaves sweep through cities in India, China, the US and Europe amid the climate crisis, new research has found that rising temperatures are associated with a substantial rise in domestic violence against women.
A study published in JAMA Psychiatry on Wednesday found a 1C increase in average annual temperature was connected to a rise of more than 6.3% in incidents of physical and sexual domestic violence across three south Asian countries.
Continue reading...Shahidul Islam died in an assault on Sunday in Dhaka after meeting garment factory employees fighting for unpaid salaries
Police in Bangladesh are investigating the murder of a prominent trade union leader who was fatally beaten while trying to settle a dispute between a garment factory owner and workers over unpaid wages.
Shahidul Islam, 45, a top labour organiser for the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), was attacked on Sunday evening in Gazipur, a major garment industry hub on the outskirts of Dhaka, after intervening on behalf of workers who had gathered to demand back pay.
Continue reading...Three children among dead in Russian attack that hit pizza restaurant in eastern Ukraine; US president says ‘hard to tell’ if Putin weakened by Wagner mutiny. This blog is now closed.
Three children were among the dead, with another child wounded, after the Russian strike on a pizzeria in Kramatorsk, according to Ukraine’s regional governor of Donetsk, who warned the figure may still rise.
In a message posted to Telegram, Pavlo Kyrylenko said:
Eight dead and 44 injured - these are the preliminary consequences of yesterday’s attack on Kramatorsk. Three children were among the dead, one child was among the wounded.
The Russians struck with two missiles - one aimed at a private enterprise, the second at a pizzeria.
Continue reading...Star of The Wire and Luther says playing 007 would be the pinnacle of an actor’s career, but the discussion became ‘off-putting’
Idris Elba has said that the racist backlash to the prospect of him being cast as James Bond “made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting”.
Elba was speaking on the SmartLess podcast about the continued speculation linking him to the role, saying: “I was super complimented for a long time about this. We’re all actors and we understand that role is one of those coveted [roles] … Being asked to be James Bond [would be] like: ‘OK, you’ve sort of reached the pinnacle’. That’s one of those things the whole world has a vote in.”
Continue reading...Statements by Ehud Barak and Yair Golan on plans for judiciary reviewed on grounds of alleged sedition
The former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and a former parliamentarian, Yair Golan, are under police investigation for alleged incitement related to their calls for non-violent protest against the government’s proposals to overhaul the judiciary, according to Hebrew media.
Israeli news outlets reported on Tuesday that law enforcement agencies were reviewing statements made by the politicians, who represented Israel’s centre-left Labor party and leftwing Meretz party respectively, on the grounds of alleged sedition. Such charges are punishable by up to five years in prison.
Continue reading...Four children among 10 people killed in rocket attack on packed restaurant in eastern Ukraine city
Four children were among 10 people killed in a devastating Russian rocket attack on a packed pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said at least 56 people were injured, some critically, when two Iskander missiles slammed into the cafe in the city centre on Tuesday evening, when it was full of diners. The restaurant is popular with civilians and foreign journalists.
Continue reading...Widow of great Argentinian writer did not leave a will, which put the rights in limbo
A court has granted the rights to the works of the late Jorge Luis Borges, considered Argentina’s most internationally significant author of the 20th century, to five nephews of the author’s widow, who died in March.
Borges’s wife, María Kodama, had devoted much of her life to fiercely protecting his legacy and it surprised many in Argentina’s literary circle that she did not leave a will, even though she had breast cancer.
Continue reading...Brazilian government warning comes as UN report says that flourishing organized crime groups are driving a boom in environmental devastation
The Brazilian government’s drug policy chief has admitted that the rapid advance of drug factions into the Amazon rainforest has produced a “a very difficult situation” in the region, as a UN report warned that flourishing organized crime groups were driving a boom in environmental devastation.
Marta Machado, the national secretary for drug affairs, said the previous administration’s intentional dismantling of Brazil’s environmental and Indigenous protection agencies had created a dangerous vacuum in the Amazon which had been occupied by powerful crime syndicates from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Oleksii Reznikov says entry to alliance non-negotiable and pledges need to be made now
Ukraine’s defence minister has raised the stakes before the next Nato summit, saying he expects a guarantee that his country will be invited to join the military alliance at the conclusion of the war with Russia, describing membership as non-negotiable.
Before the 33rd meeting of the alliance’s leaders taking place in a fortnight in Vilnius, Oleksii Reznikov said Kyiv recognised that accession to Nato was not possible while the conflict continued but insisted hard pledges for the future would need to be made.
Continue reading...At least ten killed after Russian strike hits restaurant in Kramatorsk; Ukraine reforms domestic weapons production with appointment of Herman Smetanin
Continue reading...Jens Stoltenberg says alliance has strengthened eastern flank and will protect ‘every inch of Nato territory’ after Prigozhin move
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance is ready to defend itself against any threat from “Moscow or Minsk” and has increased its military presence on its eastern flank in recent days after Belarus welcomed Wagner rebel leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“It’s too early to make any final judgment about the consequences of the fact that Prigozhin has moved to Belarus and most likely also some of his forces will also be located to Belarus,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
Continue reading...This year’s wildfire season is already worst on record as nearly 600m tonnes of carbon has been released since early May
Wildfires raging across Canada, made more intense by global warming, have released more planet-warming carbon dioxide in the first six months of 2023 than in any full year on record, according to the EU’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service.
This year’s wildfire season is the worst on record in Canada, with some 76,000sq km (29,000sq miles) burning across eastern and western Canada. That is already greater than the combined area burned in 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.
Continue reading...Moscow claims paramilitaries have agreed to hand over weapons after failed Rostov uprising
The Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on his private jet on Tuesday, as Moscow claimed the paramilitary force had agreed to hand over its weapons after the group’s failed insurrection.
“Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today,” the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said in comments first reported by Belta, the country’s national news agency.
Continue reading...Italy’s culture minister has called for the man who defaced the site with ‘Ivan+Hayley 23’ to be identified and prosecuted
Italian police are on the hunt for a young tourist who carved his and his girlfriend’s names into a wall of the Colosseum, sparking widespread condemnation.
The English-speaking tourist was filmed by an onlooker using keys to engrave “Ivan+Hayley 23” into the wall of the 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheatre on Friday afternoon.
Continue reading...Ernest Moret had devices seized after arrest by counter-terrorism police on arrival in London in April
The Metropolitan police have admitted downloading the sim card from the phone of a radical French publisher who was arrested by counter-terrorism police at St Pancras station in April, his lawyer has claimed.
Officers returned the iPhone and laptop it had seized from Ernest Moret, 28, to his London lawyer on Tuesday after the Met announced late on Friday that no further action would be taken against him. He had been arrested on his way to the London book fair and held for almost 24 hours under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Continue reading...Nature Restoration Law vote tied at 44 in favour and 44 against amid claims of lies and fake news
The future of the EU’s flagship environment laws are again hanging by a thread with a cliffhanger vote, flared tempers and accusations of lies, fake news and manipulation of voting in the European parliament.
Emotions were running high after voting on the European parliament committee steering through the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) ended in a dead heat on Tuesday, with 44 votes in favour and 44 against. It can now progress to a vote of the full parliament in a plenary session in July.
Continue reading...Report details widespread and systematic torture with summary executions of more than 70 people
Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic torture of civilians detained in connection with their attack on Ukraine, summarily executing more than 70 of them, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
It interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses for a report detailing more than 900 cases of civilians, including children and elderly people, being arbitrarily detained in the conflict, most of them by Russia. The vast majority of those interviewed said they were tortured and in some cases subjected to sexual violence during detention by Russian forces, the head of the UN human rights office in Ukraine said.
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