Category Archives: World News

Many people in Mexico without power as deadly heat leads to strain on grid

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Climate change has made high temperatures more common in the country, which has already surpassed peak energy demand of 2022

When Raquel Rubio’s 13-month baby developed a 102F fever last week, she rushed to the doctor. Her son, Liam, had been in Rubio’s apartment without air conditioning for several hours; Nuevo León, the Mexican state where she lives, had reached 109F that day.

The doctor confirmed Rubio’s suspicions that the heat was driving her son’s temperature, and instructed her to bathe Liam and keep him hydrated. But Rubio couldn’t go back home; she had been dealing with power shortages for the past two weeks and didn’t want to take her son back into the blistering heat.

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UK foreign secretary calls for expansion of UN security council

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James Cleverly says global south deserves more powerful voice at top table and review needed into five permanent members’ veto

The global south deserves a more powerful voice at the world’s top table by expanding the UN security council, the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said.

Cleverly also called for a review of the use of the veto by the council’s five permanent members, adding that the world’s poorest countries feel their voice is not heard even on issues of direct concern to them.

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UN expert calls for arms embargo on Haiti amid gang violence

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William O’Neill says ‘survival of a nation’ is at stake and also calls for deployment of an international force

A UN official has called for an immediate arms embargo for Haiti and an intervention force to combat endemic gang violence in the Caribbean state, after the killings of more than 200 gang members in recent months.

William O’Neill, who was appointed in April as an expert on human rights in Haiti, added his voice to growing calls for an international intervention in the country, which has descended into crime-fuelled anarchy since the murder of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021.

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Skin disease in orcas off North American coast concerns scientists

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Lesions found on 99% of southern resident orcas studied on Pacific north-west coast

Scientists studying an endangered population of orcas resident off the Pacific north-west coast of Canada and the US have recorded a “strong increase” in skin lesions on the animals’ bodies, which they believe is owing to the decreasing ability of their immune systems to deal with disease.

The lesions appear on the whales as grey patches or targets, or black pin points. Some resemble tattooed skin. Their presence on the animals’ graphically black and white bodies is “increasing dramatically”, according to Dr Joseph K Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society at the school of veterinary medicine at the University of California, lead author of the scientific paper.

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New Zealand broadcaster reprimanded over ‘graphic’ dolphin mating scene

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Nature series Our Big Blue Backyard drew one complaint to media watchdog that it should not have given the program a G, or general, classification

New Zealand’s media watchdog has reprimanded public broadcaster TVNZ for not giving a higher classification to a documentary with “dramatised” scenes of dolphin mating.

The nature series Our Big Blue Backyard drew the ire of one viewer who successfully complained to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA). In the offending scene, a female dolphin is targeted by a pack of male dolphins that mate with her.

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China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time

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Beijing bolstering position as global renewables leader with solar capacity more than rest of world combined

China is shoring up its position as the world leader in renewable power and potentially outpacing its own ambitious energy targets, a report has found.

China is set to double its capacity and produce 1,200 gigawatts of energy through wind and solar power by 2025, reaching its 2030 goal five years ahead of time, according to the report by Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks operating utility-scale wind and solar farms as well as future projects in the country.

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Ex-Rwandan military policeman found guilty of genocide by Paris court

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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.

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Russian general who may have known about Wagner mutiny goes missing

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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”.

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Mexico police station attacked as search continues for 14 missing employees

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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.

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Climate crisis linked to rising domestic violence in south Asia, study finds

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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.

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Bangladeshi labour leader beaten to death while trying to resolve dispute

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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.

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Kramatorsk strike death toll rises to 11 – as it happened

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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.

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Idris Elba: racist backlash made speculation over James Bond ‘disgusting’

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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.”

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Former Israeli PM and ex-parliamentarian investigated by police

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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.

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Deadly Russian missile strike on busy pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk

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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.

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Rights to Jorge Luis Borges’s work go to his wife’s nephews

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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.

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Amazon facing ‘urgent’ drug crisis after gutting of protections, says narcotics chief

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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.

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Ukraine defence minister expects Nato guarantee for after war

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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.

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Nato ready to face threat from ‘Moscow or Minsk’, says alliance head after Wagner chief’s exile

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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.

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