Category Archives: World News

Bernie Sanders accuses ex-Starbucks chief of unprecedented union-busting

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Howard Schultz defends company’s practices before Senate committee, while Republicans condemn Sanders’ ‘witch-hunt’

Starbucks’ former chief executive Howard Schultz was accused at a Senate hearing on Wednesday of running “the most aggressive and illegal union-busting campaign in the modern history of our country”.

The hearing, “No Company is Above the Law: The Need to End Illegal Union Busting at Starbucks,” was chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Starbucks’ anti-union activities.

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‘They’re killing us’: anger grows after deadly fire at Mexican migrant center

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Protesters call for justice as blaze at detention facility in Ciudad Juárez highlights tough US immigration policies

A loud voice cut through the thick quiet of the night: “¡Justicia! ¡Justicia! ¡Justicia!” Frark Martín Pérez Pérez, 32, chanted angrily, and hundreds followed.

Justice is what the crowd of about 400 migrants from Latin America gathered to protest about on Tuesday outside the migrant processing centre in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the US border, where at least 40 were killed in a fire on Monday night.

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King Charles to lay wreath to German victims of wartime air raids

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Planned visit to St Nikolai memorial in Hamburg contrasts with approach taken by his mother

King Charles will this week become the first British monarch to lay a wreath to the German victims of allied air raids in the second world war.

The move is a departure from his mother’s handling of the historically sensitive subject on previous royal visits to the country.

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Switzerland and France accused of lack of climate action in ECHR hearing

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Group of Swiss women and French ex-mayor suing their governments in first such cases heard by rights court

The governments of Switzerland and France have been accused of breaching the human rights of their citizens by not acting decisively enough on climate change, at a landmark legal hearing in Strasbourg.

A panel of judges at the European court of human rights heard petitions from a group of Swiss women and a French former mayor seeking to bolster climate action in their countries. Although climate litigation has spread quickly around the world, these are the first such cases to be heard by the ECHR.

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‘Microcosm of Brexit Britain’: Norfolk documentary is surprise German hit

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Jens Meurer’s Seaside Special follows Brexit-divided Cromer as town prepares for annual variety show

A German film director’s whimsical and heartfelt portrait of Cromer has become an unexpected hit among audiences and critics in his home country, sparking an interest in the town on the north Norfolk coast.

Seaside Special follows the town as it prepares for its annual end-of-pier variety show – a burlesque mix of song and dance, standup comedy and slapstick performed twice a day for three months – in the summer of 2019, set against the tumultuous backdrop of clashing views within the community over Brexit.

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Italian plan to ban lab-grown food criticised as misguided

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Minister says aim is to ‘safeguard our nation’s heritage’ but campaigners say artificial meat holds promise

The Italian government has approved a draft law that would ban food grown in laboratories, including artificial meat, as it seeks to “safeguard our nation’s heritage”.

Under the ban, which needs to be passed in both houses of parliament, those who produce, export or import food grown from animal cells would face fines of up to €60,000 and risk having their manufacturing plants closed.

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‘This is very bad for them’: months of leaks rattle Canada’s low-profile spy agency

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Allegations of attempted meddling by China put uncomfortable spotlight on publicity-shy CSIS

Most Canadians have no idea where the country’s spy agency is located, nor do they know much about its daily operations. This is not because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service operates in a particularly clandestine fashion, it’s because most Canadians don’t care.

The CSIS, a civilian-run organisation based in a triangular structure of concrete and glass on the outskirts of Ottawa, lacks the intrigue of Britain’s MI5 and the notoriety of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

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Priyanka Chopra Jonas: Bollywood’s fair skin fixation helped drive me away

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Actor and former Miss World announced move to US at pinnacle of her fame in India eight years ago

The Indian actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas has spoken of how Bollywood’s enduring obsession with fair skin was one of the reasons she left the industry to try her luck in Hollywood eight years ago.

Chopra, 40, is a former Miss World and was at the pinnacle of her fame in India when she abruptly announced the move to the US.

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NZ mulls harsher law against refugee boat arrivals – despite no refugee boats ever having arrived

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Opponents claim that bill put forward by Labour government amounts to fear-mongering in an election year

Large groups of asylum seekers arriving to New Zealand by sea could be detained in prison for up to 28 days without a warrant, under a law change that was proposed even though a refugee boat has never reached the country.

The bill – put forward by the Labour government – passed its first reading on Wednesday. It also determines that asylum seekers who arrive in groups of 30 or more by sea would have no possibility of attaining the entry permissions or temporary visas conferred on other travellers to New Zealand – including asylum seekers who enter the country by air.

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Victory over big pharma opens door to cheaper tuberculosis drugs

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India’s patent office turns down bedaquiline extension to Johnson & Johnson, clearing the way for generic versions

People with drug-resistant tuberculosis in India could soon have access to critical medication at a far lower cost after the authorities rejected US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson’s application to extend a patent.

The firm wanted to extend its patent on bedaquiline, which expires in July, until 2027, which would have prevented cheaper generic versions reaching the market.

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Rupert Murdoch has fuelled polarisation of society, Barack Obama says

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Former US president tells Sydney audience that media coverage has helped exacerbate divisions and that we no longer have a ‘shared story’

The former US president Barack Obama has suggested that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has led to greater polarisation in western societies through news coverage designed to “make people angry and resentful”.

Speaking to a capacity crowd of about 9,000 people at Sydney’s Aware Super Theatre on Tuesday night, Obama mixed childhood memories of transiting through Australia as a child with pointed observations about the current political discourse and the rise of China.

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Cosmic explosion last year may be ‘brightest ever seen’

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Astronomers say gamma-ray burst may have been result of star collapsing to form black hole

A cosmic explosion that blinded space instruments last year may be the brightest ever seen, according to astronomers.

The blast took place 2bn light years from Earth, producing a pulse of intense radiation that swept through the solar system in October last year.

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US court reinstates Adnan Syed murder conviction in Serial podcast case

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Maryland court orders conviction reinstated and new hearing held but ruling suggests Syed, 41, will not remain convicted for long

A court in Maryland has reinstated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, the Baltimore man whose alleged involvement in the 1999 murder of 17-year-old Hae Min Lee was the subject of the hit podcast Serial.

Syed, 41, was convicted of murdering Lee in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison, though he always maintained his innocence. In September last year, state prosecutors revealed they had uncovered new evidence they said undermined Syed’s conviction and pointed to two alternative suspects.

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Biden brings forward Belfast visit, putting meeting with king in doubt

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Charles and president likely to instead stage back-to-back visits to mark 25 years of Good Friday agreement

Hopes that Joe Biden’s landmark trip to Belfast next month will be rounded off by a meeting with King Charles are fading after the US president brought forward by a week his trip to celebrate 25 years of peace.

It now appears likely the king and the president will stage back-to-back visits in an echo of historic visits to Dublin by Barack Obama and the queen in 2011.

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French protesters and police clash in marches against pension changes

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Police use teargas and water cannon against hooded protesters on the margins in some cities

Protesters and police clashed on the edges of street demonstrations in France on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people took part in marches against Emmanuel Macron’s use of constitutional executive powers to push through an unpopular rise in the pension age to 64.

While demonstrations in Paris and Nantes were peaceful, with the majority of demonstrators chanting and calling for the pension changes to be scrapped, on the margins in some cities, men in masks or hoods clashed with police.

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Michel Houellebecq sex film to be released despite attempt to stop it

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Amsterdam court dismisses French author’s complaint against film that shows him having sex with young women

A Dutch art collective can release an experimental erotic film showing the French novelist Michel Houellebecq having sex with young women in spite of the author’s attempt to stop its circulation, an Amsterdam court has ruled.

Amsterdam’s district court on Tuesday afternoon dismissed a legal complaint by Houellebecq and his wife, Qianyun Lysis, that had aimed to curb the distribution of the film KIRAC 27 by Keeping It Real Art Critics, as well as a trailer that was uploaded on the art collective’s website last month but has since been taken down.

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Amsterdam tells young British men who want a ‘messy’ weekend to stay away

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In bid to reduce nuisance behaviour ads will be triggered if people search online for terms such as ‘stag party Amsterdam’

The city of Amsterdam is geo-targeting a campaign to tell young British men wanting a “messy” weekend to stay away.

Research has suggested these Britons aged 18-35, and Dutch men of a similar age, tend to cause most nuisance in the red light district, with stag parties, pub crawls and all-night drink and drug benders making life unbearable for residents.

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Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party dissolved

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Party refuses to comply with tough new registration law imposed by Myanmar’s military junta

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) has been dissolved after it refused to comply with a tough new party registration law imposed by Myanmar’s military, according to junta-controlled media.

The military, which seized power in a coup in February 2021, set Tuesday as a deadline for political parties to re-register under the restrictive new law. It has promised to hold an election, though such a vote has been widely dismissed as lacking in any credibility.

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Russian man detained after daughter’s anti-war drawings flees house arrest

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Alexei Moskalyov convicted of discrediting armed forces on social media, after police investigated daughter’s drawings

A Russian man who was detained by police after his daughter drew anti-war pictures at school was sentenced on Tuesday to two years after being convicted of discrediting the armed force.

But in a dramatic turn of events, a court spokesperson said the man, Alexei Moskalyov, had fled house arrest overnight and his whereabouts were currently not known.

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Israeli crisis continues as fired minister apparently refuses to quit

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Questions raised over Benjamin Netanyahu’s control over coalition as he makes concessions to far right

Israeli politics has descended into disarray with questions over whether a fired defence minister is refusing to step down and concerns Benjamin Netanyahu may have promised too much to far-right politicians in exchange for a deal aimed at quelling nationwide demonstrations.

Facing a climax in the 12-week protest movement against his plans to weaken the power of the courts, the prime minister on Monday evening announced a delay to the proposals, saying he wanted time to seek a compromise with political opponents.

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