Category Archives: World News

Canada budget adds tens of billions to deficit as Carney spends to dampen Trump tariffs effect

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Entitled ‘Canada Strong’ the 2025 budget envisions significant new defence spending, a reduction of the civil service and ‘generational investments’

A protracted trade war with the United States and a weakening domestic economy has forced Mark Carney to run a deficit tens of billions larger than initially forecast in his first-ever federal budget.

The spending plan, titled “Canada Strong” envisions significant new defence spending, a reduction of the country’s civil service and “generational investments” that would reshape the nature of the country’s economy.

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Typhoon Kalmaegi: death toll rises to 66 as widespread flooding hits central Philippines

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Among the 66 fatalities were six military personnel whose helicopter crashed on the island of Mindanao during a humanitarian mission

Typhoon Kalmaegi has left at least 66 people dead with 26 others missing in the central Philippines, many in widespread flooding that trapped people on their roofs and swept away scores of cars in a hard-hit province still recovering from a deadly earthquake, officials said.

Among the dead were six people who were killed in a separate incident when a Philippine air force helicopter crashed in the southern province of Agusan del Sur on Tuesday while en route to help provide humanitarian help to provinces battered by Kalmaegi, the military said without providing other details, including what could have caused the crash.

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Jamaica PM says hurricane Melissa caused damage equivalent to nearly one-third of GDP

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At least 75 people were confirmed dead across the Caribbean, including 43 in Haiti and 32 in Jamaica

Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness has said last week’s Hurricane Melissa, the strongest-ever storm to hit the country’s shores, caused damage to homes and key infrastructure equivalent to roughly 28% to 32% of last year’s gross domestic product.

Holness told the Caribbean nation’s lower house the $6bn to $7bn estimate was conservative, based on damages assessed so far, and short-term economic output could decline by 8% to 13%.

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Hegseth announces another deadly US strike on alleged drug boat

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Pentagon secretary says two people killed in attack on boat in eastern Pacific, bringing total killed to 66 in 16 strikes

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.

The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.

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Dick Cheney’s role in ‘war on terror’ may have paved way for Trumpism

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Former US vice-president a key figure in expanding White House’s power and ‘corrupting the intelligence-policy relationship’ to sell Iraq war

Dick Cheney, who has died aged 84, came to be seen as a moderate in his later years for his staunch opposition to Donald Trump, but he also stands accused of paving the way for Trumpism by undermining the independence of the intelligence agencies and US adherence to international law.

As George W Bush’s second-in-command in the “war on terror” declared after the 9/11 attacks, Cheney made himself one of the most powerful vice-presidents in US history, and was a key protagonist in the push to invade Iraq, as well as the use of torture on suspected al-Qaida members detained without charge in the CIA’s offshore “black sites”.

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Sudan civil war spiralling out of control, UN secretary general says

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António Guterres calls for the violence to end but there appears little appetite for ceasefire proposed by US

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said the war in Sudan is spiralling out of control as he called for a halt to the fighting and an end to the violence.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are reportedly backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized El Fasher in Darfur last week after a near 18-month siege. Some of its soldiers have posted videos of civilians being shot, including in the town’s maternity hospital.

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Brazil to seek independent inquiry into deadly police raid that killed 121 people

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Brazilian president Lula called police assault on two of Rio’s largest clusters of favelas ‘disastrous’ and a ‘massacre’

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said his government will seek an independent investigation into what he called a “disastrous” police “massacre” that left at least 121 people dead.

Four officers and at least 117 others were killed when police launched a major assault on two of Rio’s largest clusters of favelas, the Complexo do Alemão and the Complexo da Penha, early last Tuesday to execute 100 arrest warrants.

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Sheinbaum denies reports US will send troops to Mexico: ‘It’s not going to happen’

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President says she’s repeatedly rejected such offers from Trump for US to confront Mexico’s powerful drug cartels

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has flatly denied reports that the United States is planning to send troops into Mexico to confront the country’s powerful cartels, noting that she had repeatedly rejected such offers from Donald Trump.

“It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference on Tuesday. “We do not agree with any process of interference or interventionism.”

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Munich’s surfers left stunned after famed river wave vanishes

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Eisbach wave in the Bavarian city had been a surfing magnet for decades but disappeared after a cleanup

A standing wave in a Munich stream that has been a surfing magnet for more than four decades has vanished, leaving urban surfers high and dry.

Water levels in the Eisbach (“ice brook”) dropped last week for annual cleanup work along the streambed.

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Teenager taken to Ghana away from UK ‘gang culture’ to stay for now, court rules

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Boy had sought court order to force his return, after parents took him on trip to Ghana and returned without him

A British teenager whose parents left him in Ghana, fearing he was at risk from “gang culture” in the UK, should stay there until at least the end of his GCSE exams, a judge sitting at London’s high court has ruled.

The boy took legal action against his parents, seeking a court order that would force his return, after they enrolled him in a boarding school and arranged for him to live with extended family in Ghana without telling him.

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Friedrich Merz says Syrians no longer have reason for asylum in Germany

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Chancellor suggests deportations could begin ‘in the near future’ as government seeks to counter rise of AfD

Syrians no longer have reason to be granted asylum in Germany after the end of their country’s civil war, according to Friedrich Merz, who said they will instead be encouraged to return to help with the reconstruction of their homeland.

During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Germany took in more refugees than any other country in the EU, but the chancellor and others in his coalition cabinet argue that the situation has changed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government 11 months ago.

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Spain grants citizenship to descendants of civil war’s International Brigades

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About 32,000 volunteered to fight Franco dictatorship, including 2,500 men and women from Britain and Ireland

The Spanish government has granted citizenship to 170 descendants of volunteers in the International Brigades in recognition of their fight against fascism during the Franco dictatorship that followed the civil war.

An estimated 32,000 volunteers from around the world joined the anti-fascist brigades during the civil war, including approximately 2,500 men and women from Britain and Ireland, of whom 530 were killed.

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Manslaughter inquiry opened after death of worker in Rome tower collapse

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Contractor was trapped for 11 hours under fallen masonry at medieval landmark near the Colosseum

Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation over the death of a worker trapped when a medieval monument in central Rome partly collapsed.

Octav Stroici, 66, was rescued on Monday night after 11 hours under fallen masonry but died of his injuries at the city’s Umberto I hospital. Romanian foreign affairs officials, who said he came from their country, thanked rescuers for their efforts to save him during a long, complex and delicate operation.

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As criticism grows, is UAE ready to walk away from Sudan’s RSF militia?

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After mass killings in El Fasher and four years on from a coup, UAE now admits its Sudan policy has gone wrong

The United Arab Emirates’ diplomatic machine is for the first time admitting to mistakes in its Sudan policy after suffering reputational damage over its support for the Rapid Support Forces, the Sudanese paramilitary group that has carried out mass killings in El Fasher since it captured the city late last month.

Speaking in Bahrain on Sunday, Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s senior diplomatic envoy, said the UAE and others had been wrong not to impose sanctions on the instigators of the 2021 coup – led jointly by the RSF and the army – that overthrew Sudan’s transitional civilian government.

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Torture in Israeli prisons rose sharply during war, says freed Palestinian author

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Nasser Abu Srour says prisons became like ‘another front’ in Gaza conflict and tells of struggle to adjust to life outside

A celebrated Palestinian author who was freed last month after more than 32 years in Israeli prisons has said the use of torture increased dramatically during his last two years of captivity as Israel came to treat its jails as another front in the Gaza war.

Nasser Abu Srour, whose prison memoir has been translated into seven languages and is tipped to win a major international literary prize this month, was among more than 150 Palestinians serving life sentences who were freed as part of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and then immediately exiled to Egypt, where most remain in limbo.

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Peru severs diplomatic relations with Mexico after former prime minister claims asylum

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Peru's government has severed diplomatic relations with Mexico over the asylum claim of former Peruvian prime minister Betssy Chávez

Peru’s government has announced the country is severing diplomatic relations with Mexico over the asylum claim of the former Peruvian prime minister Betssy Chávez, who is under investigation for rebellion.

The Peruvian foreign minister, Hugo de Zela, told reporters Mexico’s decision to grant Chávez asylum at its embassy in Peru’s capital, Lima, constituted an “unfriendly act” that added to the existing tensions between the two countries. The office of Peru’s president, José Jerí, issued a statement accusing Mexico’s government of repeated interference in his country’s internal affairs.

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Trump threatens to cut funds if ‘communist’ Mamdani wins mayoral election

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President backs Cuomo in election eve Truth Social post as Mamdani hits back at Trump’s ‘threat – it is not the law’

On the eve of New York’s well-watched mayoral election, President Donald Trump issued a threat to its voters: stop Zohran Mamdani or pay.

“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”

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Chile to end Pinochet henchmen’s pampered prison life of tennis and barbecues

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Punta Peuco – where military human rights offenders enjoy privileged conditions – set to join public prison network

Inmates at an infamous high-security military prison in Chile, which houses the perpetrators of dictatorship-era human rights crimes, are set to lose their privileged conditions under plans to incorporate the prison into the public prison network.

President Gabriel Boric announced on Monday that Punta Peuco is being transformed into a regular prison to help deal with overcrowding in the penitentiary system.

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French taxi driver cleared of stealing from David Lammy after fare dispute

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Nassim Mimun, who left with Lammy’s and his wife’s bags after ‘tone escalated’, acquitted owing to lack of evidence

A French taxi driver accused of stealing money and luggage from David Lammy has been acquitted due to lack of evidence, a prosecutor said.

Nassim Mimun, 40, drove the deputy prime minister and his wife, Nicola Green, more than 600km (370 miles) from Forli, near Bologna in northern Italy, to the ski resort of Flaine in the French Alps on 11 April.

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UN resolution on international stabilisation force for Gaza could be ready within two weeks

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Resolution may be delayed without agreement over the force’s mandate and a timetable for Israeli withdrawal

A UN security council resolution mandating the introduction of an international stabilisation force into Gaza is likely to be ready within two weeks, but may be delayed if disputes cannot be resolved over the force’s mandate, including the question of US military leadership, its relationship with the Palestinian civil police force and a timetable for Israeli military withdrawal.

At a meeting in Istanbul of Muslim countries considering offering troops on Monday, the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said: “The countries will shape their decisions based on the mission and authority of the International Stabilization Force. I believe that if the mission conflicts with the principles and policies of the countries that will send troops, it will be difficult for these countries to send troops.”

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