Category Archives: World News

Antony Blinken urges Russia to release US journalist in call with Sergei Lavrov

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Russian foreign minister rejects request and says US must not ‘make a fuss’ over arrest of Evan Gershkovich

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, called for Russia to free the detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich in a rare phone call with his Moscow counterpart since the start of the war in Ukraine.

The American’s plea was rejected by Sergei Lavrov, who responded by saying that US officials and media outlets must “not make a fuss” or try to politicise the plight of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter.

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Switzerland’s attorney general to investigate Credit Suisse takeover

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Inquiry to focus on whether emergency state-backed UBS takeover breached criminal law

Switzerland’s federal prosecutor has launched an investigation into whether last month’s state-backed takeover of the stricken bank Credit Suisse by its bigger rival UBS broke Swiss criminal law.

The office of the attorney general said it was looking into potential breaches by government officials, regulators and executives at the two banks who thrashed out an emergency merger over a frantic weekend in mid-March to prevent a wider financial meltdown.

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Israeli government approves far-right minister’s proposal of national guard

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Itamar Ben-Gvir says force will focus on Arab unrest as police chief voices concerns and opposition figures denounce it as ‘militia’

Israel’s government has authorised the establishment of a national guard proposed by the far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said it would focus on Arab unrest, as political rivals accused him of setting up a sectarian “militia”.

The previous government had begun moves to set up an auxiliary police force to tackle internal political violence after pro-Palestinian protests in mixed Jewish-Arab areas during the Israel-Gaza conflict in May 2021. However, that government ended before the force was finalised.

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Parisians vote on banning e-scooters from French capital

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Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo supports ban after three people died and 459 were injured in accidents during 2022

Parisians are voting on Sunday on whether to rid the streets of the French capital of electric scooters, although some say the city’s leaders ought to be focusing on more pressing issues.

Paris was a pioneer when it introduced e-scooters, or trottinettes, in 2018 as the city’s authorities sought to promote non-polluting forms of urban transport.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese pop pioneer and Oscar-winning composer, dies aged 71

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Sakamoto was one of Japan’s most successful musicians, acclaimed for work in Yellow Magic Orchestra as well as solo albums and film scores

Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese musician whose remarkably eclectic career straddled pop, experimentalism and Oscar-winning film composition, has died aged 71.

Sakamoto’s management company said he died on Tuesday. He had been undergoing treatment for cancer.

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Israeli airstrikes wound five Syrian soldiers, state media say

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Attack near western city of Homs early on Sunday was Israel’s third in recent days

Five Syrian soldiers were wounded in the latest Israeli airstrike on Syria, the state news agency Sana reported on Sunday, while Iran said two Revolutionary Guards officers had died in earlier attacks.

Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory during more than a decade of civil war, primarily targeting Iranian-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

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Burkina Faso expels reporters from two French newspapers

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Le Monde and Libération correspondents sent home in junta’s latest move against media from former colonial power

Burkina Faso has expelled correspondents from Le Monde and Libération, the newspapers said on Sunday, the latest move the junta running the west African country has taken against French media.

Burkina Faso, where two coups took place last year, is battling a jihadist insurgency that spilled over from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

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‘It’s like we don’t exist’: Japan faces pressure to allow same-sex marriage

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Diplomats add their voices to Japanese campaigners in demanding LGBTQ+ rights as Hiroshima prepares to host the G7 summit

Akane Kousaka and her partner live in fear of the day when one of them falls ill or is injured in an accident. The LGBTQ+ couple have a “partnership certificate” issued by their ward office in Tokyo, but it comes with none of the legal guarantees afforded married heterosexual couples – including the right to visit a spouse in hospital.

“We might be able to get special permission, but we shouldn’t have to rely on other people’s goodwill … it’s not right,” Kousaka told the Observer. Other countries were leaving Japan behind, she added.

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Second killing in a day by Israeli forces in Jerusalem and West Bank

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Authorities say both deaths were in response to threats: a man grabbing a police officer’s gun at al-Aqsa mosque, and a car ramming near Beit Ummar

A man was killed by Israeli soldiers after a West Bank car ramming on Saturday, the army said, in an escalation threatening to end a relative lull during the holy month of Ramadan so far.

The Palestinian’s death came less than 24 hours after an Arab Israeli allegedly snatched a gun from a police officer at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound and fired it before being shot dead.

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Two women attacked with yoghurt in Iran arrested for not covering hair

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Country’s chief justice says unveiled women will be prosecuted ‘without mercy’ after defiance

Two women have been arrested in Iran for not covering their hair in public after having a tub of yoghurt thrown over them.

Video footage that went viral on social media showed two female customers being approached by a man who engages them in conversation.

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Taliban holding three British men in detention in Afghanistan

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Charity medic, hotelier and ‘danger tourist’ reportedly arrested by Taliban’s secret police in January

Three British men including a charity medic and a self-styled “danger tourist” are being held in custody by the Taliban in Afghanistan, it has been reported.

The Mail on Sunday said Kevin Cornwell, a 53-year-old charity medic, and another British national who manages a hotel for aid workers in Kabul, who has not been named, were detained by the Taliban’s secret police in January.

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Female radio station in Afghanistan closed for playing music during Ramadan

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Sadai Banowan violated ‘laws and regulations of the Islamic emirate’, says local Taliban official

A female-run radio station in Afghanistan’s north-east has been shut down for playing music during the holy month of Ramadan, a Taliban official said.

Sadai Banowan, which means women’s voice in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only female-run station and started 10 years ago. It has eight staff, six of them female.

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Russia’s presidency of UN security council a ‘symbolic blow’, says Ukraine

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The last time Moscow held the post was in February 2022, when its troops launched invasion of Ukraine

A top Ukrainian official has criticised the “symbolic blow” of Russia assuming the rotating presidency of the United Nations security council.

Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, wrote on Twitter on Saturday: “It’s not just a shame. It is another symbolic blow to the rules-based system of international relations.”

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Pacific trade deal is more useful to Joe Biden than it is to the UK’s economy

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Hailed by Tory MPs as a Brexit benefit, CPTPP membership actually turns the UK into a willing pawn in Washington’s geopolitical game

Tory MPs hailed the UK’s entry last week into the Indo-Pacific trading bloc as a major step on the road to re-establishing Britain as a pioneer of free trade.

It was a coup for Rishi Sunak, said David Jones, the deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Tory Eurosceptics, who was excited to be aligned with “some of the most dynamic economies in the world”.

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Israeli police say man shot dead in Jerusalem had grabbed officer’s gun

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Man was killed near al-Aqsa mosque after allegedly firing officer’s gun, in what police describe as terrorist attack

A man detained by Israeli police near a flashpoint mosque compound in Jerusalem grabbed an officer’s gun and fired it, prompting the unit to shoot him dead, the force said on Saturday, describing the incident as a terrorist attack.

The incident overnight at the edge of al-Aqsa mosque complex, an icon of Palestinian nationalism, came at a high point of Muslim attendance for the holy month of Ramadan.

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Eight arrested in Pakistan after crush at free food point kills 12

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Police in Karachi say nine women and three children dead after crush outside factory during Ramadan alms-giving

Pakistani police have arrested eight people in the southern port city of Karachi after a crush killed 12 people at a Ramadan food and cash distribution point a day earlier.

Hundreds of women and children rushed to collect free food and cash outside a factory in an industrial area of the city on Friday. Business-owners during the Islamic holy month often hand out cash and food, especially to poorer people. An initial report from the police said nine women, aged between 40 and 80, and three children, aged between 10 and 15, had died in the crush.

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Andrew Tate speaks of ‘absolute clarity of thought’ after move to house arrest

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Social media influencer posts video about release from police custody in Romania after court ruling

Andrew Tate has posted a video saying he has “absolute clarity of thought” after he was moved from police custody to house arrest.

The social media influencer was released into house arrest on Friday after a Romanian court overturned a request by prosecutors for him to be detained until late April.

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‘I’m still alive’: Pope Francis leaves hospital after bronchitis treatment

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Pope, 86, responded well to antibiotic infusion for breathing difficulties, medical team says

Pope Francis has left hospital to return to the Vatican after being treated for bronchitis, quipping to journalists before being driven away: “I’m still alive.”

The pope, 86, was taken to Rome’s Gemelli hospital three days ago after complaining of breathing difficulties. He had responded well to an infusion of antibiotics, his medical team has said.

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Outrage as Moscow takes presidency of UN security council – as it happened

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Top Ukrainian official criticises the ‘symbolic blow’ of Russia assuming the rotating presidency. This blog is now closed

The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has promised to increase the supply of munitions to the country’s forces, during a visit to the headquarters of Moscow’s troops fighting in Ukraine, according to footage published by the defence ministry on Saturday.

In the video published on Telegram, Shoigu presides over a meeting with senior military officers, including Gen Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the general staff, Reuters reports.

The volume of supplies of the most demanded ammunition has been determined. Necessary measures are being taken to increase them.

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