Category Archives: World News

Russian warship fires warning shots at cargo ship in Black Sea

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Action marks first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting grain deal

A Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the south-western Black Sea on Sunday as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month.

In July, Russia halted participation in the Black Sea grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export agricultural produce via the Black Sea. Moscow said that it deemed all ships heading to Ukrainian waters to be potentially carrying weapons.

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Hawaii fires: questions arise over response as death toll rises to 93 – as it happened

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Search for victims continues as more than 2,200 structures damaged or destroyed and more than 2,100 acres scorched

As search and rescue crews continue to uncover the scale of the massive and devastating toll in the historic town of Lahaina, anger is building among residents over various aspects of the government response, from warnings during the inferno to aid distribution afterwards. Residents have asked why emergency sirens didn’t warn Lahaina residents in time to evacuate.

Officials have said there wasn’t time to adequately alert the city before the wind-driven firestorm tore through homes and businesses. Along with the lack of warnings, residents are questioning why plans weren’t in place to ensure a quick and effective response for victims still grappling with the ongoing issues caused by the fire, including contaminated water, widespread power outages, and a lack of response programming and infrastructure that could help streamline aid brought in from the outside.

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Gunman kills one and injures eight in attack on Shah Cheragh shrine in Iran

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Governor says man has been detained after attack on Shia shrine in southern city of Shiraz

A gunman opened fire on Sunday night at a prominent shrine in southern Iran, killing one person and wounding eight others in an attack that followed another assault there months earlier, authorities said.

Officials offered no immediate motive for the attack in the city of Shiraz at Shah Cheragh, which draws Shia pilgrims to its domed mosque and the tomb of a prominent member of the faith from its earliest days.

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Miss Universe cuts ties with Indonesia pageant over sexual assault claims

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Six Miss Universe Indonesia contestants allege they were asked to strip for ‘a body check for scars and cellulite’

The global organiser of the Miss Universe beauty pageant has cut ties with its franchise in Indonesia days after several contestants alleged they had been sexually abused in the run-up to the competition’s crowning ceremony in Jakarta.

Six contestants in the Miss Universe Indonesia pageant are understood to have filed complaints with police, alleging that organisers asked contestants to strip down to their underwear for “a body check for scars and cellulite” two days before the ceremony in July.

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Arrest of Saudi scholar and influencer another sign of social media crackdown

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Detention of public health expert Mohammed Alhajji surprised many observers as he was seen as apolitical

A prominent Saudi scholar and Snapchat influencer has been arrested by Saudi authorities in what experts said was evidence of the kingdom’s extreme crackdown on social media users.

The arrest of Mohammed Alhajji, a public health expert who completed his dissertation in the US, follows the disappearance and recent arrests of other prominent influencers for “crimes” that include the perceived criticism of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and support for women’s rights.

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‘At what price?’: German press sceptical over Harry Kane’s £100m transfer

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Bayern Munich fans delighted but commentators question price tag and Germany’s failure to nurture homegrown talent

There may have been tens of thousands of Harry Kane fans tracking his Cessna flight’s path to Munich on Saturday, followed by standing ovations when he finally appeared before Bayern Munich supporters – many already wearing “Harry Kane – 9” shirts – to the stirring strains of Rock You Like a Hurricane by German rock band the Scorpions, but scepticism about the wisdom of the Tottenham Hotspur striker’s £100m transfer was rife among German commentators.

The affection for the 30-year-old striker was not in doubt. “Citizen Kane is now officially a Bavarian!” ran one typical headline, and the greetings servus (hello) and willkommen (welcome) towards “Herry” (as some Germans pronounce it) came thick and fast at his first press conference, at which he was flanked by bottles of water and Bavarian wheat beer.

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Polish prime minister to hold referendum on EU’s immigration plan

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Mateusz Morawiecki to ask voters if they want to accept ‘thousands of illegal immigrants’ under the bloc’s proposed new rules

Poland’s rightwing prime minister has said he will go ahead with a referendum on EU migration reforms, in which voters will be asked if they are willing to accept “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa”.

Mateusz Morawiecki announced in a video published online on Sunday that the referendum would coincide with a parliamentary election on 15 October. Migration and security will be central topics of the election, as Morawiecki’s ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), seeks to retain power.

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Mudslide in north-western Chinese city leaves 21 dead and six missing

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Officials say 900 homes in Xi’an were left without power in disaster that struck after unusually high rainfall and typhoons

A mudslide in China’s north-western city of Xi’an has killed 21 people, with six still missing, officials said on Sunday.

The city’s emergency management authority released an update on the number of casualties from Friday’s disaster as China grappled with unusually high summer rainfall.

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‘The state is murderous’: Brazilians vow justice for 13-year-old boy shot by police

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Thiago Menezes Flausino, who dreamed of becoming a footballer, was the ninth child to die in a shooting this year in Rio

Those who knew Thiago Menezes Flausino described him as a boy with dreams. These were brutally shattered by several police bullets this week, when the 13-year-old became one of the latest victims of state violence in a Rio de Janeiro favela.

“He dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. He’d passed tryouts for a bigger team and was going to start playing on the day he was killed,” said his aunt Nataly Bezerra Flausino, standing outside the evangelical church where her nephew’s funeral was being held on Tuesday, mere months after his baptism.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: seven people killed by Russian shelling in Kherson region – as it happened

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Russian military targeted residential areas, factories and mobile communications towers, says regional governor

Here’s video of Ukrainian border guards placing a new sign on Snake Island.

“The next border sign will be installed in our Ukrainian Crimea after its liberation by the defence forces of Ukraine,” a uniformed man said, standing before a post painted blue and yellow like the country’s flag, in a video shared on Facebook by the head of the border service, Serhiy Deineko.

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‘I’m not afraid’: Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate who fought the cartels

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Killing of Fernando Villavicencio ahead of elections comes as country struggles with surge in drug-related violence

Millions of Ecuadorians will have seen the phone camera footage showing the last seconds before presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed, shot through the windows of a white pickup truck after being escorted by unarmed policemen who were helpless to save him.

The images that followed showed panic and chaos as the burst of gunfire sent screaming supporters to the ground. Another clip filmed inside the campaign meeting, which Villavicencio had just left, showed panicked followers fleeing or ducking for cover and bloodstains on the tiled floor.

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‘The Holocaust happened on British soil’: Inquiry into​ Nazi camps creates bitter divide on Alderney

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An official investigation of claims that many more people than previously thought died during Nazi control of the Channel Island has pleased some, but dismayed others

Their foreboding entrance smothered in ivy, the tunnels gouged out of sheer rock beside Water Lane on the island of Alderney have long terrified generations of the island’s children.

For decades, though, it seemed that was as far as the notoriety of the dank tunnels on the outskirts of St Anne, the capital of the tiny Channel Island, would extend.

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We risk being seen as the ‘nasty party’ again, warn senior Conservatives

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Moderate Tories fear the party’s attack on human rights will alienate many voters and damage the UK’s global standing

The Conservatives risk being seen once again as the “nasty party” by trying to win votes with a divisive attack on human rights, senior party figures have warned.

Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure from his party this weekend over his pledge to stop the boats crossing the Channel. It follows another week that ended in Channel deaths after the capsizing of a boat, while the total number of people making the dangerous crossing since 2018 rose above the 100,000 mark.

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Taiwan vice-president says ‘don’t be afraid’ to fight authoritarianism in New York speech

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William Lai issues global appeal during US stopover after China denounces him as a ‘troublemaker’

Taiwan’s vice-president has urged the world to stand up against the “increased threat from authoritarianism” and reiterated a willingness to talk to China, in a speech made in New York during a brief US stopover condemned by Beijing.

William Lai, a frontrunner to be Taiwan’s next president at elections in January, said in New York on Sunday: “If Taiwan is safe, the world is safe, if the Taiwan Strait is peaceful, then the world is peaceful,” according to a read out from Taiwan’s presidential office.

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Hawaii wildfires: deadliest US blaze in a century kills at least 93 people

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Governor says death toll in Lahaina is expected to rise after ‘worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced’

At least 93 people have died in the fire that consumed the historic town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and officials warned that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages.

Meanwhile, anger at the government response to the deadliest wildfire in recent US history is mounting. Residents have raised questions over various aspects of the government response, from warnings during the inferno to aid distribution in the days since.

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Andrea González picked to replace Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate

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Fernando Villavicencio fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in capital, Quito

The political party of Ecuador’s assassinated presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, picked its vice-presidential candidate to replace him on Saturday, just a week before the election.

Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.

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Peru announces air security pact with US in bid to stop drug planes

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Deal revives agreement from 20 years ago and will allow intelligence and training support for Peru’s air force

Peru announced an air security agreement with the US on Saturday in what the government described as a push to stop planes belonging to drug gangs from entering the South American country’s airspace.

The deal revives a bilateral security cooperation pact with the US from 20 years ago, according to a government statement, and will permit new intelligence and training support to flow to Peru’s air force.

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Hawaii fires: rescuers comb through debris in Lahaina as death roll rises to 80 – as it happened

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At least 1,000 people reported missing following fires, as a new fire burns in Kaanapali in West Maui

Hawaii resident Ella Tacderan spoke to the Guardian about her experience of the devastation in Maui where her family home once stood.

“A nightmare” scene, Tacderan said:

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Russia-Ukraine war: two drones shot down near Crimean bridge – as it happened

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Russian defence ministry says 14 Ukrainian drones destroyed by air defences and another six jammed electronically over the occupied peninsula

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, has posted a video of Russian soldiers from the Moscow area asking for aid from Russia, detailing how they were sent to the frontlines without training or equipment.

Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the defence council of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine has confirmed that there were explosions in the city this morning. On Telegram, he said that so far there were no losses connected to the explosions.

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Eritrean diaspora vow to continue disrupting festivals that ‘promote dictatorship’

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Events marred by violence in Sweden, Canada and the US were billed as cultural, but activists say they are militaristic and full of hate speech

After opponents of the Eritrean government stormed a festival in Stockholm that was allegedly promoting the east African country’s regime earlier this month, setting light to cars and throwing stones, the Swedish government tried to distance itself from it all. The justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, said it was “not reasonable for Sweden to be drawn into other countries’ domestic conflicts”.

But in the sunlit cafeteria of a community space in Kista, a few miles from the festival site in Järvafältet, a wooded area north of the Swedish capital, Abdulkader Habib disagreed. Opposition to Eritrea’s dictator, Isaias Afwerki, was not an Eritrean problem: “this is a big international problem,” he said.

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