Foreign minister Penny Wong says all hostages, including a New Zealand-born Australian academic, have been freed
Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, has said all hostages taken by a Papua New Guinean criminal gang have been released, including an Australian academic, and will be reunited with their families.
“Thank you to PNG’s Government for its leadership in securing a safe & peaceful resolution,” Wong tweeted on Sunday afternoon.
Continue reading...Protests in Berlin against supplying of arms to Ukraine; Zelenskiy adviser dismisses ‘unrealistic’ China proposal; Beijing considering sending drones and ammunition, says US
Continue reading...March follows Kais Saied’s allegation that undocumented sub-Saharan migrants were part of plot to change country’s culture
Hundreds of people in Tunisia’s capital took to the streets on Saturday to protest over the president’s anti-migrant clampdown.
On Tuesday, amid wider moves against his critics, President Kais Saied accused undocumented sub-Saharan migrants of being part of a plot to change the country’s character, bringing longstanding racial tensions to the surface.
Continue reading...Comments from French president come after Joe Biden said it was ‘not rational’ for Beijing to be negotiating a peace deal
Ukraine has issued a postage stamp with a reproduction of a Banksy mural, of a boy defeating a grown man in judo, to mark the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
It was painted by the British street artist on a demolished wall in the town of Borodianka, north-west of Kyiv, where many buildings were reduced to rubble by Russian aircraft at the start of the invasion.
Continue reading...Researchers have found a racial bias by match officials in the country’s top league, but say it could be linked to crowd pressure
Referees in Italy’s top football league give more yellow and red cards to Black and darker-skinned players than to their light-skinned teammates, research shows.
Officials in Serie A awarded an average of 20% more fouls per season against darker-skinned players from 2009 to 2019, with 11% more yellow cards and 16% more red cards.
Continue reading...Environmental Protection Agency orders rail company to ‘pause’ shipments from site pending a review of plans to dispose of waste near Houston and Detroit
Federal environmental authorities have ordered a temporary halt in the shipment of contaminated waste from the site of the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month, amid fears of further harm from the toxic waste.
Hazardous waste disposal facilities near Houston and Detroit are planning to receive most of the contaminated water and soil from the East Palestine train wreck site, raising the risk that some of the dangerous chemicals could end up in the environment elsewhere.
Continue reading...Vote largely peaceful in Africa’s largest economy but half of polling stations opened late due to technical issues
Polls have shut in Nigeria, after tens of millions cast their votes to decide a tight and unpredictable contest for the presidency and parliament of Africa’s most populous nation and its biggest economy.
The opening of more than half of all polling stations was delayed by at least an hour with many others suffering problems with new voting technology, civil society groups said. There was some sporadic violence across the country, including a suspected attack by Islamic extremists and some disruption by hired thugs.
Continue reading...Dressed in open-necked shirt and jeans, premier joins 12,500 paraders on original route of Oxford Street
Amid the rainbow tulle, sequins and sparkles of Sydney’s 45th Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade emerged the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in a simple open-necked shirt and jeans.
Albanese is the first sitting prime minister to join the parade, which celebrates and continues to push for equality for the LGBTQIA+ community.
Continue reading...Parents and brother of Abby Choi’s ex-husband arrested after police make grisly discovery at rented village home
Hong Kong police have made three arrests over the murder and dismemberment of a 28-year-old model after what authorities allege was a financial dispute with her ex-husband’s family.
The partial remains of the influencer Abby Choi, who last week appeared on the digital cover of L’Officiel Monaco fashion magazine, were found in a village house, police said.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president shows steel and emotion in marathon press conference, as Joe Biden says having China as peacemaker is ‘just not rational’
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has cautiously welcomed China’s peace plan to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but said it would be acceptable only if it led to Vladimir Putin pulling his troops out from all occupied Ukrainian territory.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv to mark the first anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale attack, the Ukrainian president said he “wanted to believe” Beijing was interested in a “fair peace”. That meant not “supplying weapons to Russia”, he said, adding: “I’m doing my best to prevent that from happening. This is priority number one.”
Continue reading...US secretary of state warns peace plan proposed by China draws ‘false equivalence’ by calling on both sides to stop fighting
The US has launched a fresh bid to win over abstaining and neutral states by urging them not to be fooled by Russian calls for a temporary or unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine, warning that a peace plan proposed by China drew “false equivalence” by calling on both sides to stop fighting.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken was speaking at a highly charged meeting of the UN security council where he reminded his fellow diplomats that the Russian envoy only a year ago had dismissed his warnings that Moscow was about to launch an invasion of Ukraine.
Continue reading...Poland’s PM visits Kyiv as allies demonstrate support on first anniversary of invasion
The first Polish Leopard tanks have arrived in Ukraine, as western allies including the G7 announced a range of further economic, military and financial sanctions against Russia, in a renewed effort to weaken Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
Speaking on the anniversary of the Russian invasion, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, confirmed that four Leopard tanks had been delivered to Ukraine. “Poland and Europe stand by your side. We will definitely not leave you, we will support Ukraine until complete victory over Russia,” he said, standing alongside the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, during his visit to Kyiv.
Continue reading...Bola Ahmed Tinubu remains frontrunner for president but a new voice has captured the youth vote
The posters lining the roads of Lagos show the face of a smiling, bespectacled 70-year-old above a slogan promising renewed hope. Vote for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, pedestrians and drivers negotiating the chaos of the Nigerian commercial capital are told. Vote for peace, justice, unity.
On Saturday, the 6 million inhabitants of Lagos who have collected their voting cards will have to decide whether Tinubu and his ruling All Progressives Congress might fulfil any of these promises. So too will another estimated 81 million voters among the 220 million inhabitants of Africa’s most populous country. Their collective decision will determine the result of Nigeria’s seventh presidential elections since the end of military rule in 1999.
Continue reading...President says start of Russian invasion was ‘longest day of our lives’ and urges allies to ‘respect promises’
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has declared victory to be inevitable as his country marked the anniversary of the moment invading Russian tanks poured across its border and missiles pummelled its cities, an event he described as “the longest day of our lives”.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv late on Friday, Zelenskiy said: “If our partners respect all their promises and deadlines, victory inevitably awaits us.”
Continue reading...Child died and father tested positive for H5N1, prompting fears of possible person-to-person transmission
The discovery of two cases of bird flu within the same family in Cambodia has highlighted the concern over potential human-to-human spread of the virus, although experts have stressed the risk remains low.
On Thursday, Cambodian authorities reported an 11-year-old girl from Prey Veng province had died from H5N1, with subsequent testing of 12 of her contacts revealing that her father also had the virus.
Continue reading...Steven Guilbeault wants to block logging of critical old-growth forest to prevent owls from going extinct in British Columbia
Canada’s environment minister plans to use a rare emergency order to protect the last of an endangered owl species in an area where critical old-growth forest is slated for further clearcutting.
Steven Guilbeault advised the environmental groups Ecojustice and the Wilderness Committee that he believed the spotted owl was facing “imminent threats to its survival” and he would use the powers to block further destruction of its habitat in British Columbia, the groups announced on Thursday afternoon.
Continue reading...Nato secretary general says Beijing ‘does not have much credibility’ because of failure to condemn Russia’s invasion
Western leaders have largely dismissed a peace plan for Ukraine laid out by China’s government, arguing that Beijing does not have the international credibility to act as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
China’s government called for peace talks while urging all parties to avoid nuclear escalation and end attacks on civilians, in a statement which appeared to maintain Beijing’s stance that the west was fuelling the conflict and which analysts dismissed as anodyne.
Continue reading...Daniel Kurtzer says legalised settlements are ‘a significant violation of a commitment the Israeli government made to the American government’
A former US ambassador to Israel has accused Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government of breaking a written agreement with Washington by legalising a group of hardline nationalist and religious settlements in the West Bank.
Daniel Kurtzer, who served in Tel Aviv during the George W Bush administration, also warned that some ministers in Netanyahu’s new coalition are not interested in a peace agreement with the Palestinians. He called on the Biden administration to be more proactive in stopping Israel’s “creeping annexation” of the West Bank.
Continue reading...Chemicals company says disruption from Ukraine war, rising costs and inflation will continue this year
The German chemicals company BASF has said it will cut 2,600 jobs as Europe’s largest economy braces for recession triggered by the energy crisis that intensified after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago.
The year was “dominated by the consequences of the war in Ukraine and in particular by increased raw material and energy prices”, BASF said in a statement on Friday. It paid additional energy costs of €3.2bn (£2.8bn) globally during 2022.
Continue reading...Jaouhar Ben M’barek is most prominent opposition figure to be rounded up in president’s campaign of detentions
Tunisian security forces have arrested Jaouhar Ben M’barek, the most prominent opposition figure to be rounded up in an escalating campaign of detentions targeting rivals of the president, Kais Saied.
“Jaouhar was arrested late last night and we haven’t seen the charges against him,” his sister Dalila Msaddek, a lawyer, told AFP on Friday.
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