Category Archives: World News

Weather tracker: An unusually chilly start to May in India and eastern US

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Record minimum temperatures observed in northern India, as clashing conditions bring thunderstorms in US

It has been a historically chilly start to May in India, thanks to an unusually strong low-pressure system that moved in from the west, sweeping humid air from the Arabian Sea across the subcontinent. The resulting overcast skies reduced the heating effect from the sun, which combined with the brisk winds and abnormally high rainfall to lower temperatures significantly.

May is considered the final month of the Indian summer, before the monsoon season begins in June, and is the hottest time of the year for many parts of India. However, in the past week large parts of the country have been about 10C colder than normal, with many weather stations in northern India observing record minimum temperatures for the month.

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Serbia: man arrested after eight die in second mass shooting in days

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Arrest follows hunt for shooter who fired automatic weapon from moving vehicle in town south of Belgrade

A suspect has been arrested after at least eight people were killed and 13 injured in a second mass shooting in Serbia in as many days.

The man – who has been identified only by his initials UB – was detained near the city of Kragujevac, the interior ministry said.

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Students occupy schools and universities across Europe in climate protest

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Twenty-two institutions have been shut down as part of proposed month-long campaign

A wave of student occupations has shut down schools and universities across Europe as part of a renewed youth protest campaign against inaction on climate breakdown. Twenty-two schools and universities across the continent have been occupied as part of a proposed month-long campaign.

In Germany, universities were occupied in Wolfenbüttel, Magdeburg, Münster, Bielefeld, Regensburg, Bremen and Berlin. In Spain, students in occupation at the Autonomous University of Barcelona organised teach-outs on the climate crisis. In Belgium, 40 students occupied the University of Ghent. In the Czech Republic, about 100 students camped outside the ministry of trade and industry. In the UK occupations were under way at the universities of Leeds, Exeter and Falmouth.

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BA owner raises profit forecast as travel demand rebounds

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IAG expects to fly almost the same passenger numbers this year as before Covid pandemic

The owner of British Airways has upgraded its full-year profit expectations thanks to strong demand for holiday travel, as the airline group said it expected to fly almost the same number of passengers this year as it did before the coronavirus pandemic.

International Airlines Group (IAG) reported a first-quarter profit for the first time since 2019, before the travel industry was plunged into chaos by Covid lockdowns. It made an operating profit of €9m (£7.9m) in the first three months of the year.

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Jordan Neely: man killed by rider’s chokehold was talented dancer

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Neely, 30, whose subway death was ruled a homicide by New York’s medical examiner, remembered as kind and loving

Jordan Neely had a fan club.

The 30-year-old Michael Jackson impersonator had amassed a following within New York City and beyond, with thousands online admiring the young man’s aptitude for dance and creating a Facebook group to share his performances.

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Child marriage in decline – but will take 300 years to eliminate

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UN children’s agency welcomes drop in number of underage brides, but warns 12 million girls still getting married each year

The number of child marriages is declining worldwide, but at too slow a pace for any hope of eliminating the practice this century, Unicef, the UN children’s agency, has said.

In a new report, Unicef tentatively welcomed the reduction but warned that it was nowhere close to meeting its sustainable development goal of ridding the world of the practice by 2030.

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UK ministers urged to unseal files on Falklands attack that killed 56

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Calls follow release of account by captain who said he strongly warned against ‘folly’ of attempted landing in June 1982

The release of a witness account detailing the “folly” of an operation in which 56 service personnel died on ships off the Falkland islands – the deadliest day for the British military since 1945 – has prompted fresh calls for the government to unseal all files relating to the tragedy.

Attacks by Argentinian Skyhawk planes against the landing ships Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad killed dozens of service personnel on 8 June 1982 and left more than 150 injured, including Simon Weston, the Welsh guard whose disfigured face became a defining image of the conflict.

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‘Not safe for us’: Sudanese in north Africa warn fleeing relatives of danger

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People who sought route to Europe before fighting erupted in Khartoum speak of police brutality, torture and homelessness

Ever since fighting erupted in his home town of Nyala, the state capital of South Darfur in Sudan, in mid-April, Khaled’s mobile phone has not stopped ringing. Family members, friends and acquaintances want to know how to reach north Africa and which country is best for departing for Europe.

The 17-year-old, currently living in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, wishes he could tell them that the journey is simple and that countries like Tunisia and Libya are welcoming and safe.

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Ukraine shoots down its own drone over Kyiv after device ‘lost control’

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Onlookers cheered as drone, initially believed to be Russian, was taken down by air defence over the capital

The Ukrainian air force said it downed its own drone that lost control over Kyiv on Thursday, after a series of explosions shook the capital.

Andriy Yermak, Ukraine presidential chief of staff, initially said an enemy drone that had been shot down. But the air force later said it was Ukrainian and had been destroyed to avoid “undesirable circumstances”. No casualties were reported from the incident.

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Canada summons Chinese ambassador after MP and his family harassed

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Foreign affairs minister says Cong Peiwu was summoned to express frustration over attempts to meddle in Canadian politics

Canada has summoned China’s ambassador as Justin Trudeau’s government considers expelling a Chinese diplomat accused of involvement in a harassment campaign against a MP lawmaker and his family in retaliation for the lawmaker’s criticisms of Beijing.

The foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, told a parliamentary committee on Thursday that her office had summoned Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu to express frustration over attempts to meddle in Canada’s domestic politics.

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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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