Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed to set aside his veto following last-ditch talks on the eve of the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania
Sweden is to be allowed to join Nato after Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, agreed to set aside his veto and recommend to his parliament that Sweden’s application go ahead.
The Monday night breakthrough came in last-ditch talks on the eve of the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Continue reading...Eruption near Reykjavik follows week of small earthquakes in area, as authorities advise against travel to site
A volcano has erupted about 30km (19 miles) from Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, the country’s meteorological office has said, marking the third time in two years that lava has gushed out in the area.
“The eruption is taking place in a small depression just north of Litli Hrútur, from which smoke is escaping in a north-westerly direction,” the office said.
Continue reading...Police take action as activists, politicians and the company involved all condemn tactics used by managers investigating who put sanitary towel in wrong bin
Three senior managers from a Kenyan dairy company have been arrested over allegations of indecent assault after they forced a group of female employees to undress in order to find out which of them was on their period.
The incident, which happened last week at Brown’s Food Company’s dairy factory in Limuru, in central Kenya, followed failed attempts by the managers – all three of whom are women – to find out who had put a sanitary towel in the wrong bin.
Continue reading...Beijing is source of ‘systemic challenges’ but alliance members are divided on how to engage
Nato leaders and their allies are heading to Vilnius, Lithuania, this week, for two days of meetings starting on Tuesday. Among them is Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president, who will give one of the opening speeches.
The summit will be dominated by discussions about the alliance’s relationship with Ukraine. But Yoon’s attendance reflects a growing interest among members in stepping up their dialogue with countries in the Asia-Pacific.
Continue reading...Several people missing as much of rest of north-eastern US braced for potentially punishing rains
Heavy rain washed out roads and forced evacuations in the US north-east on Monday, with more downpours forecast throughout the day. One person in New York drowned as she was trying to leave her home.
The slow-moving storm reached New England. Heavy downpours with possible flash flooding were forecast in parts of Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine.
Continue reading...Consumers, farmers and even McDonald’s struggle in shortage blamed on irregular weather
Listening to the chatter at Delhi’s vegetable markets, only one question is on everyone’s lips: just how much will a tomato cost today?
Prices of tomatoes, a staple of Indian cooking, have soared by more than 400% in recent weeks as the country has been gripped by a nationwide shortage.
Continue reading...High pressure forecast to raise temperatures to 48C as hot weather sweeps Spain, France, Germany and Poland
Temperatures in Italy could get close to breaking a European record this week as a fierce heatwave grips much of the continent.
An anticyclone – an area of high pressure – named Cerberus will cause temperatures to exceed 40C (104F) across much of the country by Wednesday, with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia predicted to bear the brunt at 47-48C.
Continue reading...Congressman who has pleaded not guilty to 13 fraud-related counts condemned as ‘disgrace’ by prospective opponent
George Santos, the Republican congressman whose résumé has been shown to be largely fabricated and who has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, stoked outrage by comparing himself to the great civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks.
“Rosa Parks didn’t sit in the back, and neither am I gonna sit in the back,” Santos told Mike Crispi Unafraid, a rightwing podcast.
Continue reading...Erdoğan throws another obstacle in way of agreement by insisting Turkish EU membership be back on table
Joe Biden will try to nail down a four-country deal that would lead to Turkey allowing Sweden into Nato in return for the sale of US F-16 jets to Ankara, on the condition they are not used to threaten Greece.
But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a surprise obstacle in the way of Biden’s plan by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”
Continue reading...Twitter owner calls Facebook founder a ‘cuck’ as rancour grows over launch of Threads, a competitor to Musk’s network
Twitter owner Elon Musk has suggested he and Mark Zuckerberg should have “a literal dick-measuring contest” in the latest broadside aimed at his rival billionaire.
In a message inspired by the Meta chief executive’s launch last week of Threads, a Twitter competitor, Musk added a ruler emoji.
Continue reading...Russian president’s spokesperson says Yevgeny Prigozhin among 35 of group’s commanders invited to Moscow
The Kremlin has said the Wagner group head, Yevgeny Prigozhin, met Vladimir Putin on 29 June, five days after his mercenary fighters marched towards Moscow in an aborted rebellion.
The Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Putin invited 35 senior Wagner commanders including Prigozhin to the Kremlin, adding that the meeting lasted three hours.
Continue reading...Reviewers rave about Greta Gerwig’s ‘funny and smart’ satire, whose all-star cast includes Gosling as Ken alongside Margot Robbie’s Barbie and singer Dua Lipa
Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s ambitious satire in which Margot Robbie’s titular blonde escapes Barbieland to experience the real world, has drawn ecstatic reactions from audiences at an early screening.
Variety’s social media editor Katcy Stephan called the movie “perfection” and added: “Greta Gerwig delivers a nuanced commentary on what it means to be a woman in a whimsical, wonderful and laugh-out-loud funny romp. The entire cast shines, especially Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in roles they were clearly born to play.”
Continue reading...Democratic congresswoman says rightwing Florida governor, trailing Trump in the polls, has made ‘very large, critical errors’
Ron DeSantis has made “very large, critical errors” in the Republican presidential primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, the biggest of which is the Florida governor’s attempt to “out-Trump Trump” and appeal to the hard-right GOP base.
“The dynamics of these races change from day to day,” the New York progressive congresswoman told MSNBC. “I think that Governor DeSantis has made some very large, critical errors.
Continue reading...Country’s top cop said 90% of miners despoiling Yanomami land had been expelled, though experts say they are only displaced
Brazil’s top federal police chief for the Amazon has celebrated the government’s success in driving thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest Indigenous territory but warned the “war” against environmental criminals is not yet over.
Speaking during a visit to the Amazon city of Belém, Humberto Freire estimated environmental and police special forces had expelled 90% of the 20,000 miners who had been devastating the protected Yanomami territory, since launching their clampdown in February.
Continue reading...A 25-year-old man has been detained after attack that also left one person injured
A man has killed six people, three of them young children, and injured a seventh in a knife attack at a kindergarten in southern China.
The 25-year-old began his rampage in the town of Lianjiang, in Guangdong province, at 7.40am local time on Monday, police said.
Continue reading...Ukrainian forces claim to have registered ‘a definite advance’ on the southern flank of Bakhmut; an investigation suggests Russia has lost 47,000 troops in Ukraine so far
Continue reading...Phenomenon is forecast to expand as it strengthens, triggering conditions of more than 30C in parts of Europe
Parts of southern and western Europe have been experiencing unusually high temperatures. Areas of Spain and Portugal have recorded daily maximum temperatures in the high 30s celsius for more than a week, exceeding 40C in parts of southern Spain on Sunday. Italy, France, Germany and the Benelux region also reached the low- to mid-30s celsius in places at the weekend.
The heat is caused by a large area of high pressure that is stagnating over Europe and preventing the usual pattern of low pressure systems moving eastwards into Europe from the Atlantic. This is known as a blocking high and results in very dry and stable conditions, as the fronts associated with more dynamic weather patterns are forced away by the high pressure.
Continue reading...Research into loss of trawler with hundreds of deaths strongly contradicts official accounts – while finding a failure to mobilise help and evidence that survivor statements were tampered with
Attempts by the Greek coastguard to tow a fishing trawler carrying hundreds of migrants may have caused the vessel to sink, according to a new investigation by the Guardian and media partners that has raised further questions about the incident, which left an estimated 500 people missing
The trawler carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the coast of Greece on 14 June. There were 104 survivors.
Continue reading...Female students reportedly given sham disciplinary ‘hearings’, suspended from classes and threatened with ‘zero grades’ for defying head covering law
At least 60 female students in Iran have reportedly been barred from university for flouting the country’s mandatory hijab law.
Videos recently shared by citizen journalists show the harassment of women and girls in subways, streets and university campuses by disciplinary committees and pro-regime civilians. In defiance, female university students across the country have been recording themselves without headscarves.
Continue reading...Anti-corruption protests have drawn a stream of European politicians to the country – and the man tasked with cleaning up its act is confident that he can deliver
In December, amid sub-zero temperatures, thousands of Mongolians turned up in Sükhbaatar Square in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, to protest about rampant corruption, and for a moment the Asian democracy, sitting uneasily between China and Russia, looked as though it might crumble.
That this would have mattered to the west is shown by the number of European politicians who since have travelled to the capital, including not just Emmanuel Macron, the French president, but Polish president, Andrzej Duda, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, and her French counterpart, Catherine Colonna.
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