Category Archives: World News

Year of war in Ukraine tests China’s ‘no limits’ relationship with Russia

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There are signs Beijing wants a quick political resolution to conflict as its patience with Russia wears thin

Few analysts expected China’s peace plan for Ukraine, which officials trailed all week, to have any concrete measures for solving the crisis. Their suspicions were correct. The position paper published by China’s foreign ministry on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion called for the “sovereignty of all countries” to be respected, without detailing what this meant for Ukraine. In each of the 12 points, the plan reiterated Chinese talking points about the conflict without offering a solution.

The Chinese peace plan is the culmination of a flurry of diplomatic meetings that kicked off at the Munich security conference on 17 February. There Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, presented a bullish front to western officials, denying claims made by Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, that China was on the verge of sending weapons to Russia. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said such a move would be a “red line” for the bloc. Wang insisted China wanted peace.

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Weather tracker: record-breaking heat in Australia

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Australia swelters while in Brazil there have been record downpours

Southern Australia has recorded significant heat over the past week with maximum temperatures widely reaching in excess of 35C (95F), as well as more than 10C above the climatological average. Many stations in the south, across Western Australia and South Australia, recorded temperatures in excess of 40C with Eucla and Red Rock Points recording their highest February temperature of 46.8C on 22 February. Two large blocking high pressure systems south and west of Australia have allowed heat to stall across western and southern parts. This will be pushed further eastwards through this week, although lessening in severity.

In addition to this, many parts of the west coast have had high sea surface temperature anomalies throughout February, about 1-2C above normal. Because of this there is a chance that further cyclogenesis off the north-west coast may take place in the coming weeks – bringing further tropical storms.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv and Moscow welcome China’s intervention in peace process

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Zelenskiy says some points in Chinese statement for peace ‘understandable’ while Kremlin adds Beijing’s involvement appreciated

In joyful news: the Ukrainian football team that has not played in their home city since 2014, qualified for the knockout stages of the Europa League on Thursday with coach Igor Jovicevic hailing the win at French side Rennes as a “victory for Ukraine.”

AFP reports that Shakhtar defeated Rennes 5-4 in a penalty shootout after their playoff had ended 3-3 on aggregate and then went to extra-time.

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Guantánamo Bay sends two inmates to Pakistan after 20 years

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Pair were held for al-Qaida involvement but never charged – their release leaves 32 people detained in prison camp

The US has transferred two brothers from its Guantánamo Bay detention centre to Pakistan, bringing the total number of people held at Guantánamo down to 32, according to the Pentagon.

Abdul Rabbani and Mohammed Rabbani were arrested in 2002. Abdul Rabbani was an al-Qaida facilitator while Mohammed Rabbani was a financial and travel facilitator for prominent al-Qaida leaders, according to the Pentagon’s website.

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‘Victory for Ukraine’: Shakhtar Donetsk have unlikely win in Europa League

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Football team that has been exiled from its home ground and endured an exodus of star players pulls off stunning win against Rennes on anniversary of war

Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk have not played in their home city since 2014. The underground car park of their ground in Donbas is being used by the Russians to store weapons. They have endured an exodus of star foreign players, including the sale of star winger Mykhailo Mudryk to Chelsea last month.

But in a David and Goliath win over French side Rennes, Shakhtar Donetsk have gatecrashed their way into the last 16 of the Europa League.

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Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 16 additional years for LA rape conviction

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Disgraced producer was previously convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York and is serving a 23-year term

Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 additional years in prison on Thursday, three months after being convicted of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles.

The disgraced film producer, whose pattern of predatory behavior galvanized the #MeToo movement, was previously convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York in 2020 and is currently serving a 23-year prison term. The new sentence nearly doubles the 70-year-old producer’s remaining prison time.

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This ‘climate-friendly’ fuel comes with an astronomical cancer risk

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Almost half of products cleared so far under a new US federal ‘biofuels’ program are not, in fact, biofuels

The Environmental Protection Agency recently gave a Chevron refinery the green light to create fuel from discarded plastics as part of a climate-friendly initiative to boost alternatives to petroleum. But, according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and the Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, one out of four people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.

“That kind of risk is obscene,” said Linda Birnbaum, former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “You can’t let that get out.”

This story was updated on 23 February 2023 to correct how much plastic ends up in the oceans each year. It is millions of tons, not hundreds of millions of tons.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive ProPublica’s biggest stories as soon as they’re published

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UN calls for immediate Russian withdrawal from Ukraine

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Resounding vote before anniversary of war sees 141 countries condemning Russian invasion with seven against and 32 abstentions

The UN has overwhelmingly voted to call for Russia to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine, marking one year since Moscow’s invasion by calling for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace”.

Applause broke out when the result was announced, with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, calling the resolution “a powerful signal of unflagging global support for Ukraine” in a tweet late on Thursday.

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Democrats condemn McCarthy for handing Capitol attack footage to Tucker Carlson – as it happened

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The derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio has become a political football, but now we have an idea of what may have caused it: an overheating wheel bearing. Here’s more from the National Transportation Safety Board’s just-released interim report:

Crew members on the freight train that derailed in Ohio earlier this month, unleashing a huge blaze and spreading dangerous chemicals, tried to slow and stop the train after seeing an alert about an overheating wheel bearing, but it came off the tracks, according to an interim report released on Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

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Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza after militants fire rockets in wake of West Bank raid

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Region braced for escalation in violence as attacks from both sides follow deadliest Israeli army raid in decades in Nablus

Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip have exchanged fire just hours after the deadliest Israeli army raid in decades killed 11 Palestinians and wounded more than 100 more in the occupied West Bank, leaving the region braced for an escalation in violence.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said early on Thursday morning that it carried out airstrikes on two military sites operated by Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the strip, after the launch of six rockets from the blockaded enclave towards southern Israel.

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Tunisia’s president calls for halt to sub-Saharan immigration amid crackdown on opposition

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Kais Saied claims migrants are part of campaign to make country ‘purely African’ in move critics say is to distract from economic crisis

Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, has told a meeting of security officials that migrants are part of a wider campaign to change the demographic makeup of the country and make it “purely African”.

The president’s comments come alongside an extensive crackdown on critics and opposition figures in a campaign that human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have labelled a witch-hunt.

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At least six killed in open-pit coalmine collapse in north China

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Mining company operating in autonomous region of Inner Mongolia has history of safety violations

At least six people have died and dozens more are missing after an open-pit coalmine collapsed in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in north China.

One of the walls of the mine caved in at about 1pm local time on Wednesday, burying workers in tonnes of rocks and sand. Another collapse occurred five hours later, forcing the rescue operation to halt. The search resumed on Thursday morning, with fireengines, SUVs, bulldozers and rescue dogs being mobilised from across the province.

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‘Political propaganda’: China clamps down on access to ChatGPT

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Leading tech firms reportedly ordered to remove workarounds allowing access to US-based service

Chinese regulators have reportedly clamped down on access to ChatGPT, as Chinese tech firms and universities push forward with developing domestic artificial intelligence bots.

ChatGPT, the popular discussion bot created by US-based OpenAI, is not officially available in China, where the government operates a comprehensive firewall and strict internet censorship. But many had been accessing it via VPNs, and some third-party developers had produced programs that gave some access to the service.

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Pakistan’s fresh £580m loan from China intensifies debt burden fears

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Loan is on top of £25bn that cash-strapped Islamabad already owes Beijing and Chinese commercial banks

China has agreed to loan Pakistan $700m (£580m) to help it weather its worst economic crisis in a generation, in a development that will intensify concern among western countries about cash-strapped Islamabad’s debt burden to Beijing.

The loan comes on top of $30bn (£25bn) that Pakistan already owes China and Chinese commercial banks. Securing the financing will help to unlock bailout cash from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

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Russia-Ukraine war live: UN votes to demand Russian troop withdrawal but China abstains – as it happened

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Ukraine’s allies had been seeking to win over countries that have voted against or abstained in previous resolutions

The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said the conflict in Ukraine could last another year, PA news reports.

When asked whether he could see the war continuing for another 12 months, Wallace told LBC:

I think we will. I think Russia has shown a complete disregard, not only for the lives of the people of Ukraine but for its own soldiers. We are sitting here 12 months in and 188,000, actually more now, Russian soldiers are dead or injured as a result of this catastrophic miscalculation and aggression by President Putin.

When someone has crossed the line and thinks it is OK to do that to your own people, running effectively a meat grinder for an army, I think he is not going to stop.

There is already talk, I think, of an eastern European country supplying MiG-29s … We’re not going to see Nato, we’re going to see countries that are members of Nato potentially put in air force equipment or MiG-29.

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Russian invasion ‘an affront’, says UN chief, as assembly meets on Ukraine

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UN general assembly debates motion calling for unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine on anniversary of war

UN secretary general António Guterres has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an “affront to our collective conscience” as the 193-member General assembly meets ahead of a vote that the US said would “go down in history.”

Speaking on Wednesday during a special session of the general assembly, Guterres called the anniversary of Moscow’s attack “a grim milestone for the people of Ukraine and for the international community.”

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Brazil floods: death toll rises to 48 as landslides and looters prevent aid reaching survivors

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Dozens missing in south-eastern São Paulo state as rescue crews search for bodies in the rubble of homes

Search and rescue teams raced to find dozens of people that remained missing after heavy rains devastated coastal areas of Brazil’s south-eastern São Paulo state, as the official death toll rose to 48.

“We are currently working with a tally of at least 38 missing people,” the São Paulo governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, told reporters on Wednesday, as weather forecasters cautioned more rain was on its way.

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RT videos spreading Ukraine disinformation on YouTube despite ban – report

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The platform banned the Russia-controlled publication last year for its Ukraine falsehoods, but its content is still posted on various channels

Hundreds of videos produced by the Russia-controlled publication RT have found their way on to YouTube in the past year, despite the platform’s ban of such media last year.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, banned all Russian state-funded media from its platform globally in March 2022, citing a policy barring content that “denies, minimizes or trivializes well-documented violent events” as Russia sought to guide the narrative on its war in Ukraine.

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