Category Archives: World News

China signals ‘business as usual’ in foreign policy with return of Wang Yi

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Mystery surrounds removal of Qin Gang as foreign minister, but one thing is clear: Xi Jinping retains tight control

Wang Yi’s return to the helm of China’s foreign ministry is a reminder that Chinese Communist party elite politics are as opaque and brutal as ever. His predecessor, Qin Gang, was abruptly removed with no explanation on Tuesday after just seven tumultuous months in the job.

The decision provided some closure to the weeks of speculation about Qin’s absence. But although Qin’s personal fate remains unclear – he has still not been seen in public since his final meetings as foreign minister on 25 June – the reinstatement of Wang underlines the fact that Beijing wants to maintain continuity in its foreign policy.

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Cambodia PM Hun Sen steps down and hands over power to son

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Hardline leader announces end of four-decade rule after his party’s landslide victory in election

Cambodia’s authoritarian leader, Hun Sen, has said that he will resign and hand power to his eldest son, after ruling the country for almost four decades.

Under Hun Sen, political opponents have been imprisoned, forced into exile and their parties banned. Just days ago his party claimed a landslide victory after running virtually unopposed in an election that was widely expected to be his last before the succession.

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Ghana abolishes death penalty, with expected reprieve for 176 condemned prisoners

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Country joins growing list of African nations free of capital punishment, but execution remains for high treason

Ghana has become the 29th country in Africa to abolish the death penalty in a move hailed by human rights activists.

The decision means that the 176 people currently on death row, including six women, are likely to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

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Rumours swirl over dramatic fall of Xi loyalist Qin Gang

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Sacked foreign minister’s rise was linked to his ties to president; his disappearance and dismissal have caused a scandal

The dismissal of Qin Gang, a key Xi Jinping loyalist, from the post of Chinese foreign minister is shaping up to be one of the country’s biggest political scandals in years. Qin spent just seven months in the role, the shortest tenure of any to have served, and mysteriously disappeared from view last month. He was sacked on Tuesday, replaced with his predecessor Wang Yi, and is yet to reappear in public.

Political purgings – if that is what has happened to Qin – are not rare in China. Thousands of officials, including high-ranking political rivals of Xi, have been targeted by anti-corruption campaigns or shuffled out of view – sometimes literally, as in the case of the former president Hu Jintao, who was physically removed from his seat at a Communist party meeting in Beijing last year.

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Malaysian musicians prepare lawsuit against the 1975 over festival cancellation

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Authorities cancelled the Good Vibes festival after frontman Matty Healy criticised the country’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws, leading musicians and food vendors to seek damages

A group of Malaysian musicians and festival vendors are preparing a class action lawsuit against the 1975 after frontman Matty Healy’s onstage criticism of the government’s anti-LGBTQ+ at the Good Vibes festival saw the entire event cancelled.

On Friday, Healy paused the band’s set at the Kuala Lumpur event to admit that he hadn’t looked into the country’s punitive LGBTQ+ laws before agreeing to perform there. “I don’t see the fucking point, right, I do not see the point of inviting the 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with,” he said.

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Ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra will return to Thailand next month, daughter says

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Influential figure who has spent 15 years in exile is set for comeback at a time of political crisis in homeland

Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has spent more than 15 years in self-imposed exile to avoid legal charges, will return to the country next month, his daughter has said, amid tense political deadlock.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who recently ran as a prime ministerial candidate for Pheu Thai, the party backed by her father, said Thaksin would return on 10 August.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian security service claims responsibility for Crimea bridge blast in October – as it happened

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Domestic intelligence agency claims responsibility for first time for sabotage operation that damaged Kerch Bridge in October 2022

The south of Ukraine is under an air alert again. Suspilne reports it is “due to the activity of Russian aviation in the Black Sea.”

The all clear has sounded across southern Ukraine.

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‘Like a blowtorch’: Mediterranean gripped by wildfires as blazes spread in Croatia and Portugal

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‘There is no magical defence mechanism,’ says Greek prime minister as fires burn in northern Africa and southern Europe

Wildfires were burning in at least nine countries across the Mediterranean as blazes spread in Croatia and Portugal, with thousands of firefighters in Europe and north Africa working in extreme heat to contain flames stoked by high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds.

High temperatures and parched ground sparked wildfires in countries on both sides of the Mediterranean, with at least 34 people killed in Algeria, where 8,000 firefighters on Tuesday battled blazes across the tinder-dry north. Fires burned in a total of 15 provinces, leading to the evacuation of more than 1,500 people.

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Revealed: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’

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Exclusive: Billions deployed since early 2021 in a move critics say is an attempt to distract from human rights record

Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have labelled an effort to distract from its human rights record.

Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years according to analysis by the Guardian, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football.

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Michael K Williams: drug dealer in overdose death of Wire actor sentenced to 30 months in prison

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Williams’ nephew and The Wire creator David Simon spoke on behalf of Carlos Macci, 72, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to possessing and distributing narcotics

A 72-year-old man linked to a crew of drug dealers blamed in the fentanyl-laced heroin death of The Wire actor Michael K Williams has been sentenced to more than two years in prison at a proceeding in which the actor’s nephew recommended compassion for the defendant.

Carlos Macci was sentenced to 30 months in prison by US district judge Ronnie Abrams, who told Macci that selling heroin and fentanyl “not only cost Mr Williams his life, but it’s costing your freedom” – in part because he did not stop selling drugs after Williams died.

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Spot the difference: why drongos are likely to clock African cuckoo eggs 94% of the time

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Zambia study finds egg variability and random nest selection by cuckoos helps fork-tailed drongos rumble impostors

Cuckoos might be the ultimate avian con artists, laying lookalike eggs in the nests of other birds to avoid raising their own young, but researchers say at least one potential victim is remarkably good at rumbling the fraud.

Scientists studying the African cuckoo have revealed that while the birds are able to produce almost identical-looking eggs to those of the fork-tailed drongo, the latter is likely to reject an impostor egg about 94% of the time.

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UK inaction let Wagner group flourish and grow, say MPs

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Foreign affairs select committee condemns government’s ‘dismal lack of understanding’ about group’s hold in Africa

A decade-long failure by the British government has allowed the Wagner network to grow, spread its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, according to a highly critical report from the UK’s foreign affairs select committee.

It called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.

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Public health experts excoriate Canada Covid response and call for inquiry

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Country failed to collect and share data, masking issues and inequalities, according to editorial in British Medical Journal

Prominent public health experts have called on Canada to launch an inquiry into its Covid response, arguing that the country’s failure to collect and share data masked issues and inequalities that – if properly addressed early on – could have saved lives.

The call to action came alongside a scathing editorial in the British Medical Journal, titled “The world expected more of Canada”, which argues that Canada’s “overall impression of adequacy” conceals important inequalities.

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Six men guilty of murder over Brussels terrorist attacks in 2016

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Islamic State bombers killed 32 and injured more than 300 in attacks at subway station and airport

Six men have been found guilty of murder and attempted murder for their part in the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks that killed 32 people and injured more than 300.

They include Salah Abdeslam, who is already serving a life sentence in France for his role in the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks which targeted the Bataclan theatre and France’s national stadium, killing 130 people and injuring 350. He was arrested four days before the Brussels attack.

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Ecuador declares prison emergency as inmates killed and 100 guards taken hostage

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President Lasso imposes 60-day order and authorizes armed forces to retake control of country’s violence-plagued prisons

Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, has declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout the country’s prisons and authorized the armed forces to retake control of jails, following violence in the country’s most notorious prison that left 18 dead and a string of protests in which inmates took nearly 100 guards hostage.

The measure – the second state of emergency that Lasso has ordered in less than 24 hours – will be in effect for 60 days and orders the immediate mobilization of the military and police in an effort to regain control of the prisons.

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Mexican security forces were complicit in kidnapping of 43 student teachers, report reveals

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Report finds army, navy, police and intelligence agencies knew, minute by minute, where the student teachers were

Mexican security forces at local, state and federal level were complicit in the 2014 abduction of 43 student teachers and concealed documents which showed where some of them were taken, a report prepared by an independent investigatory panel has concluded.

The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) tasked with investigating the case said in their findings that the Army, Navy, police and intelligence agencies knew, minute by minute, where the students were.

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‘Like Squid Game’: British tourists in Rhodes on their holidays from hell

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Holidaymakers booked into luxury hotels but sleeping in a sports hall feel let down by tour operators but are touched by the kindness of locals

“Have you ever watched Squid Game? This is how it feels.” The words of one British tourist, among the last remaining of 700 holidaymakers put up in an evacuation centre in Rhodes after fleeing the raging wildfires, summed up the chaos and panic that many had experienced as dream holidays had gone up in smoke.

Susan Johnson, 64, from Salisbury, had arrived in Rhodes on Saturday night for a luxurious stay in a five-star hotel, but after landing she had been bussed to Venetokleio sports hall, where she had spent the following four days. She was growing increasingly tired and frustrated and was in pain. “We’re still not sleeping at night,” she said on Tuesday morning. “You don’t sleep properly.”

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Fight for Israel’s future in balance after a win for Netanyahu coalition

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A constitutional crisis is brewing, more protests are expected and PM looks weak despite victory

One of the most extraordinary moments of Monday, a fateful day in Israeli history, came just before the first part of the governing coalition’s contentious judicial overhaul was voted into law. Benjamin Netanyahu was sitting in the plenum of the Knesset building in Jerusalem sandwiched between his justice minister, Yariv Levin, the architect of the wide-ranging legislation, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, its most vocal critic on the government’s benches.

The two fellow Likud members argued bitterly over Netanyahu’s head as the longtime prime minister, never usually one to shy away from a fight, sat quietly between them. He may as well have not been there.

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At least 18 die in attack in Sudanese city of Omdurman

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Dozens also injured as army shells three neighbourhoods in city close to capital, Khartoum

At least 18 people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Omdurman as the war between the national army chief and his former deputy continues.

Dozens of people were also injured when the army shelled three neighbourhoods in the city, which lies next to the capital, Khartoum, residents said.

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Russian fighter jet fires flares at US drone in Syria

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Latest aggressive intercept by Russia in region sees drone damaged, a week after jet flew dangerously close to US aircraft

A Russian fighter jet flew within a few meters of a US drone over Syria and fired flares at it, striking the American aircraft and damaging it, the latest in a string of aggressive intercepts by Russia in the region.

A senior air force commander said the Russians attempted on Sunday to knock the MQ-9 Reaper drone out of the sky. It came just a week after a Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US surveillance aircraft carrying a crew in the region, jeopardizing the lives of the four Americans on board.

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