Category Archives: World News

Fighting intensifies in Sudan’s capital as US warns of new sanctions

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Clashes continue around presidential palace in Khartoum despite international calls to end hostilities

Fighting in Sudan has intensified as warring factions seek to secure strategic locations, as pressure grows from international powers to end hostilities and allow humanitarian assistance to reach millions of desperate civilians.

Fierce battles on Thursday between the Sudanese army and its paramilitary opponents, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), reminded residents in Khartoum, the capital, of the fierce combat that marked the first days of the war almost three weeks ago.

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Pakistani minister flies to India for first visit by a senior official in 12 years

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Foreign minister plays down any prospect of reconciliation effort as he stresses trip to Goa is purely for regional summit

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, arrived in Goa on Thursday, the first visit to India by a senior Pakistani official in 12 years.

Yet few held out hope that the trip signalled efforts for reconciliation between the two neighbours and rivals. Speaking as he boarded the plane to Goa, where India is chairing the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) council of foreign ministers on Friday morning, Bhutto Zardari emphasised that his presence would be “focused exclusively on SCO” and avoided any mention of India.

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End ‘megaphone diplomacy’ between UK and Hong Kong, says British diplomat

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Consul general calls for ‘constructive engagement’ with territory as Chinese vice-president says he will attend king’s coronation

Britain’s most senior diplomat for Hong Kong has called for an end to “megaphone diplomacy” between the UK and the Chinese territory, saying British and Hong Kong diplomats would make more progress with closed-door discussions.

Brian Davidson, the consul general to Hong Kong and Macau, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that the UK-Hong Kong relationship had weathered “some difficult headwinds” over the past four or five years, but that “we are looking to lean back into a constructive engagement to see where we can collaborate”.

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Trading in PacWest shares suspended amid fears of new US banking crisis

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Banks seek to calm markets as investors fear repeat of First Republic and SVB failures

[NEW]Trading in shares of the California-lender PacWest have been suspended after plummeting 42% amid wider fears about the health of the US’s regional bank sector.

PacWest had sought to calm markets on Wednesday and said it was in talks with several potential investors after its shares plummeted by as much as 60%. But the sell-off continued on Thursday and affected other regional banks.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: US denies involvement in Kremlin drone attack; Zelenskiy calls for ICC to punish Putin

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White House says: ‘We had nothing to do with this’; Ukraine’s president says ‘whoever brings war must receive judgement’ in speech to ICC

Here is more on the oil refinery attack from Tass and Reuters.

Part of an oil refinery in southern Russia is on fire after it was hit by a drone attack, Tass news agency cited local emergency services as saying early on Thursday.

Tass said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. It cited a source as saying a fuel reservoir was on fire but gave no details.

Ukraine rarely claims responsibility for what Moscow says are frequent drone strikes against infrastructure and military targets, particularly in regions close to Russia.

Last June the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region, bordering Ukraine, suspended operations after two unmanned aerial vehicles attacked its facilities.

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EU urged to protect grassroots AI research or risk losing out to US

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Experts warn Brussels it cannot afford to leave artificial intelligence in the hands of foreign firms such as Google

The EU has been warned that it risks handing control of artificial intelligence to US tech firms if it does not act to protect grassroots research in its forthcoming AI bill.

In an open letter coordinated by the German research group Laion, or Large-scale AI Open Network, the European parliament was told that “one-size-fits-all” rules risked eliminating open research and development.

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UK competition watchdog launches review of AI market

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CMA to look at underlying systems of artificial intelligence tools amid concerns over false information

The UK competition watchdog has fired a shot across the bows of companies racing to commercialise artificial intelligence technology, announcing a review of the sector as fears grow over the spread of misinformation and major disruption in the jobs market.

As pressure builds on global regulators to increase their scrutiny of the technology, the Competition and Markets Authority said it would look at the underlying systems, or foundation models, behind AI tools such as ChatGPT. The initial review, described by one legal expert as a “pre-warning” to the sector, will publish its findings in September.

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Belize likely to become republic, says PM, as he criticises Rishi Sunak

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Exclusive: Johnny Briceño attacks his UK counterpart’s refusal to apologise for atrocities of slavery

The prime minister of Belize, Johnny Briceño, has sharply criticised Rishi Sunak’s refusal to apologise for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, and said it was “quite likely” Belize would be the next member of the Commonwealth realm to become a republic.

Speaking to the Guardian in the country’s capital, Belmopan, Briceño argued the British government had a moral responsibility to apologise for the atrocities of slavery and added to the calls throughout the English-speaking Caribbean for financial reparations from the UK.

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Fire and concrete: will France’s model of radical climate protest catch on?

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As campaigning hots up around the world once again, eyes have been turning to the country that is taking things further

In the UK, when climate activists want to block a road, they sit down on it. When their fellow activists in France want to do the same, they build a wall across one side, and set the other side on fire.

As Extinction Rebellion drew tens of thousands to their peaceful “Big One” protests in London last month, in the south of France 8,500 environmental protesters occupied the road from Toulouse to the town of Castres.

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Kherson preparing for imminent Russian assault after night of heavy shelling

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Citizens of Kherson stock up on food and water ahead of curfew, with some saying they are expecting ‘something big’ in days

Residents of the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson are stocking up on food and water after another night of heavy Russian shelling and before an announced 56-hour curfew due to begin on Friday evening.

A number said they planned to stay indoors before the curfew and planned closure of the city, adding that they had slept in their clothes or gone to shelters because of the intensity of the Russian attack.

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Russia accuses US of being behind drone attack on Kremlin

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Putin’s spokesperson claims, without providing evidence, that Washington was involved in alleged attempt to kill president

Russia has accused the US of being behind what it says was a drone attack on the Kremlin intended to kill Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to journalists on Thursday, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Ukraine was merely implementing plans “dictated” by Washington, but he did not provide any evidence to support the allegations.

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‘I’m in intense pain’: Vahid Beheshti passes 70 days on UK hunger strike

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Camped outside Foreign Office, Beheshti is demanding Iran’s Revolutionary Guards be proscribed

Vahid Beheshti’s hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office took a surreal turn on Wednesday – its 70th day – when he attended a royal coronation tea party at Buckingham Palace, arriving by wheelchair and wearing a suit and red tie.

He has lost more than 17kg (37lb), or a quarter of his body weight, and he told the Guardian that “my body and joints are now racked in intense pain”. As he left his tent, draped in the Iranian flag and surrounded by flowers, he clutched an envelope containing a letter for the king. After carefully smartening himself up, he was wheeled to a taxi by his wife, Mattie Heaven, a Conservative councillor.

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Thai woman suspected of cyanide poisonings is charged with 14 murders

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Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn accused of killing friends, an ex-partner and police officers known to her

A Thai woman accused of poisoning people with cyanide has been charged with 14 counts of murder, while her ex-husband is facing charges of fraud, police said, in one of the country’s worst suspected serial killing cases.

Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn was arrested last week after suspicions were raised over the death of her friend Siriporn Khanwong. The two had met to release fish at a pier in Ratchaburi on 14 April when Siriporn suddenly collapsed and died at the riverbank.

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Thai PM candidate keen to get back to campaigning two days after giving birth

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Baby brought out to media in incubator as Paetongtarn Shinawatra says ‘children are my secret power’ ahead of election

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, a leading candidate in the upcoming Thai election, has said she is keen to resume campaigning days after giving birth.

Speaking at a press conference held at a hospital in Bangkok, Paetongtarn said she remained confident that her Pheu Thai party would win a landslide victory.

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Israeli raid kills three men accused of killing UK-Israeli woman and daughters

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Two alleged Hamas operatives and alleged accomplice shot dead in operation in occupied West Bank

Israel said its security forces shot dead three Palestinians blamed for killing a British-Israeli woman and her two daughters last month, in a raid on Thursday in the occupied West Bank.

Two suspects in the killings, members of the militant group Hamas, and a third man accused of helping them were killed in an operation in Nablus by the army, police and the security service Shin Bet, a statement said.

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Grain trader Cargill faces legal challenge in US over Brazilian soya supply chain

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World’s biggest grain trader accused of ‘shoddy due diligence’ on deforestation and alleged rights violations

The world’s largest grain trader, Cargill, is facing a first-ever legal challenge in the United States over its failure to remove deforestation and human rights abuses from its soya supply chain in Brazil.

ClientEarth, an environmental law organisation, filed the formal complaint on Thursday, accusing Cargill of inadequate monitoring and a laggard response to the decline of the Amazon rainforest and other globally important biomes, such as the Cerrado savannah and the Atlantic Forest.

Soya beans bought from third-party traders, which make up 42% of all Brazilian soya Cargill purchases.

Soya beans owned by other companies that passes through Cargill ports.

Indirect land use change.

Soya sourced from the Cerrado savannah.

Soya sourced from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

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Britons trapped in Sudan say relatives were not allowed on flights

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Foreign Office accused of creating ‘confusion’ during evacuation, with some struggling to get visas or prove citizenship

British people trapped in Sudan have described being forced to make impossible choices about whether to fly home without family members the UK government will not allow on flights.

Suleiman, a British national who asked to withhold his family name, said a British official had called him to say he could be evacuated with his two children only if he left his pregnant wife behind. His children are also British nationals, and their mother is a Sudanese citizen.

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US judge throws out Donald Trump’s lawsuit against New York Times

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Lawsuit alleged newspaper sought out niece Mary Trump and persuaded her to join ‘insidious plot’ to obtain Trump’s tax records

A judge in New York has thrown out Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit accusing New York Times reporters of an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records.

The former president has also been asked to pay all attorneys’ fees and legal expenses the Times has incurred. The lawsuit alleged that the newspaper sought out Trump’s niece Mary Trump and persuaded her “to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office”.

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Trump described E Jean Carroll rape accusation as ‘ridiculous’, jury hears

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Jurors shown tape of deposition taken before case came to court in which Trump dismissed ‘the most ridiculous, disgusting story’

Donald Trump has described the accusation he raped the advice columnist E Jean Carroll as “ridiculous” in a deposition played to a New York jury on Wednesday.

The former president also said he could not remember when he was married to his various wives, but could find out. Asked if he had affairs while married, Trump said: “I don’t know.”

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Myanmar’s military rulers release more than 2,100 political prisoners

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The prisoners are to be released the most important Buddhist holy day of the year. However, deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains in jail

Myanmar’s ruling military council has said it is releasing more than 2,100 political prisoners as a humanitarian gesture.

Thousands more remain imprisoned on charges generally involving nonviolent protests or criticism of military rule, which began when the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

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