Category Archives: World News

US releases footage of Russian jet crashing into American drone over Black Sea

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Pentagon says video has been edited for length but shows events in sequential order

A remarkable video released by the Pentagon shows the moments before a Russian fighter crashed into a $32m US Reaper drone after spraying it with jet fuel on Tuesday morning over the Black Sea.

The declassified footage shows an Su-27 Flanker jet making two exceptionally close passes of the uncrewed drone, spraying fuel in front of it, a harassment tactic that US experts say has not been seen before.

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Rural populist party emerges as big winner in Dutch elections

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Success of Farmer-Citizen Movement in provincial vote is heavy blow to Mark Rutte’s four-party coalition

A new populist party surfing a wave of rural anger at government environmental policies has emerged as the big winner in Dutch provincial elections, dealing a heavy blow to the four-party coalition of the prime minister, Mark Rutte.

The success of the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) in Wednesday’s vote, which will determine the makeup of the senate, casts doubt over the government’s ability to pass key legislation, including its plans to slash nitrogen emissions.

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More than a quarter of Republicans approve of Capitol attack, poll shows

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Survey also reveals more than half of Republicans think January 6 was a form of legitimate political discourse

More than a quarter of Republicans approve of the January 6 Capitol attack, according to a new poll. More than half think the deadly riot was a form of legitimate political discourse.

The Economist and YouGov survey said 27% of Republicans either strongly or somewhat approved of the riot on 6 January 2021, which Donald Trump incited in an attempt to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden.

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‘Path of error and danger’: China angry and confused over Aukus deal

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Deal is designed to counter perceived threat from Beijing but analysts in China say it could push region closer to conflict

When the UK, the US and Australia announced the details of their multibillion-dollar deal to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines on Monday, the reaction in China was both outrage and confusion.

The allies were “walking further and further down the path of error and danger”, said Wang Wenbin, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, on Tuesday. The Chinese mission to the UN accused the three countries of fuelling an arms race.

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Russian soldier who confessed to killing Ukrainian civilian jailed over ‘fake news’

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Daniil Frolkin handed 5.5-year sentence in move widely seen as attempt to silence other servicemen

A Russian soldier who confessed to killing a civilian in Ukraine last year has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison by a military court in Russia’s far east on charges of spreading “fake news” about the army.

In an interview with the independent news outlet Istories last August, Daniil Frolkin, 21, said he shot and killed a male civilian in Andriivka, a village near Kyiv that was occupied by Russian forces shortly after the start of the invasion.

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Chile’s government pledged to put feminism into practice – has it delivered?

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President Gabriel Boric promised a feminist movement but conservative values remain strong in the country

One tumultuous year has now passed since Latin America’s first self-declared feminist government installed itself in La Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace, vowing to bring progressive, gender-equal politics to a quiet corner of South America.

Standing beside the country’s youngest ever president Gabriel Boric at his inauguration was Izkia Siches, the first woman to be named Chile’s interior minister and one of 14 women in Boric’s 24-person cabinet – the highest proportion of female ministers in Latin America and one of the highest anywhere in the world.

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Tokyo citizens hand in record ¥3.99bn of lost cash

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Police department says it has returned almost ¥3bn to owners, while ¥480m has gone to finders

The honest citizens of Tokyo handed in a record ¥3.99bn (£24.5m) in lost cash to police last year – an average of more than £67,000 a day.

Japan’s national police agency said the amount was up ¥600m from the previous year, and beat the previous high of ¥3.84bn declared at police stations across the capital in 2019.

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Israeli president warns of civil war as Netanyahu rejects judicial compromise

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Herzog offers alternative to far-right coalition’s changes but PM says it perpetuates current situation

What are the Israeli protests about and what happens next?

A compromise proposal presented by Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, on controversial legislative changes has been rejected by the governing coalition, putting a swift end to hopes that the country’s political crisis can be immediately resolved.

In a televised address to the nation on Wednesday night, Herzog revealed what he called “the people’s directive” aimed at ending the 10-week standoff between Israel’s new hardline government and the large protest movement opposed to the plans, which would give politicians much greater control of the judiciary.

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Chinese ChatGPT rival from search engine firm Baidu fails to impress

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Shares plummet after Ernie Bot AI chatbot software falls short of expectations at unveiling in Beijing

The Chinese search engine company Baidu’s shares have fallen by as much as 10% after it presented its ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence software, with investors unimpressed by the bot’s display of linguistic and maths skills.

The AI-powered ChatGPT, created by the San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems and programming code on demand within seconds, prompting widespread fears over cheating or of professions becoming obsolete.

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Libyan general says 2.5 tonnes of missing uranium found near storage base

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UN nuclear watchdog raised alarm hours earlier amid concerns about radiological and security risks

More than 2 tonnes of natural uranium reported missing by the UN’s nuclear watchdog in war-torn Libya have been found, a general in the country’s east has said.

Gen Khaled al-Mahjoub, the commander of eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s communications division, said the containers of uranium had been recovered barely 5km (3 miles) from where they had been stored in southern Libya, and after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported their disappearance earlier on Thursday.

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Yoon arrives in Japan for historic talks with Kishida – and beloved omurice

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Leaders expected to use first summit since 2011 to address Japan’s use of Korean forced labour, as well as threats posed by North Korea and China

Yoon Suk Yeol will be treated to his favourite dish – omelette rice – when he becomes the first South Korean president to visit Japan in more than a decade on Thursday, as hopes rise for an end to years of animosity between the north-east Asian neighbours.

Given that the menu for official dinners has been a diplomatic flashpoint between the two countries, efforts by Yoon’s hosts to accommodate his palate are evidence of the recent thaw in relations, as regional tensions rise over North Korean missiles and Chinese military activity.

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Russia-Ukraine war: US says drone incident with Russia ‘is being investigated’ – as it happened

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US secretary of state Antony Blinken says collision of Russian fighter jet with US drone was ‘reckless and unsafe action’

Thanks for following along – that’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the rest of the day’s news.

AFP has this flash of news, saying Russia has called on the US to halt what it calls its “hostile” flights, after the collision of a Russian fighter jet with a US MQ-9 Reaper drone that the Pentagon said was conducting a routine flight.

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Argentina’s inflation rate soars past 100%, its worst in over 30 years

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Annual rate of 102.5% is denting purchasing power, savings, economic growth and government’s chances in elections next year

Argentina’s annual inflation rate tore past 100% in February, the country’s statistics agency announced, the first time it has hit triple figures since a period of hyperinflation in 1991, over three decades ago.

Inflation over 12 months clocked in at 102.5% in the second month of the year, according to government data released on Tuesday, with a higher-than-expected 6.6% monthly rise in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), and a 13.1% year-to-date increase.

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Chinese business tycoon and Bannon ally Guo Wengui arrested in $1bn fraud conspiracy

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US attorney says Wengui, also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, used stolen money to buy a $3.5m Ferrari and finance a $37m yacht

Guo Wengui, a self-exiled Chinese tycoon with close links to prominent Trumpist Republicans including Steve Bannon, has been indicted on 12 counts relating to an alleged $1bn fraud.

The charges announced by the US attorney for the southern district of New York on Wednesday include wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

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Russia plans to recover wreckage of US drone downed over Black Sea

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‘I certainly hope for success,’ says senior Kremlin official of hopes of raising debris from seabed west of Crimea

Moscow has said it intends to recover the wreckage of a US drone brought down on Tuesday following an interception by Russian fighter jets, but the White House said the debris could be in such deep water that recovery is impossible.

“I don’t know if we can recover [it] or not, but we will certainly have to do that, and we will deal with it,” Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s security council, said on Wednesday. “I certainly hope for success.”

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Turkey has made its mind up about our Nato membership, says Finland

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Swedish prime minister also said he hopes Sweden’s accession will be ratified by Ankara after May elections

Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has said he expects his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to tell him whether Turkey is endorsing the Nordic country’s Nato membership application when the two meet in Ankara later this week.

“It was known that once President Erdoğan has made his decision concerning ratification of Finland’s membership of Nato, he would wish to meet and fulfil his promise directly from president to president,” Niinistö told Reuters on Wednesday.

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Contest launched to decipher Herculaneum scrolls using 3D X-ray software

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Global research teams who can improve AI and accelerate decoding could win $250,000 in prizes

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 laid waste to Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum where the intense blast of hot gas carbonised hundreds of ancient scrolls in the library of an enormous luxury villa.

Now, researchers are launching a global contest to read the charred papyri after demonstrating that an artificial intelligence programme can extract letters and symbols from high-resolution X-ray images of the fragile, unrolled documents.

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SVB collapse may be start of ‘slow rolling crisis’, warns BlackRock boss

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Larry Fink tells investors more ‘shutdowns and seizures’ in US possible and predicts inflation and interest rates to rise

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank could just be the start of “a “slow rolling crisis” in the US financial system with “more seizures and shutdowns coming”, the chief executive of the world’s largest asset manager has warned.

The CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, also predicted in a letter to investors and company bosses that inflation would persist and rates continue to rise, trends that both contributed to SVB’s collapse.

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Pakistan court orders police to halt efforts to arrest Imran Khan

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High court move follows violent clashes between police and supporters outside former PM’s house in Lahore

A court in Pakistan has ordered police to suspend an operation to arrest Imran Khan, after violent clashes between the former prime minister’s supporters and law enforcement outside his house.

The vicinity of Khan’s residence became a battleground on Tuesday, when police arrived after a lower court in Islamabad issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for not appearing before it despite several summonses.

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Spanish monastery admits girls to choir for first time in 700-year history

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Mixed group to take over duties of Escolania choir at Montserrat monastery one weekend a month

Women and girls are to be admitted to a choir at the Montserrat monastery near Barcelona, home to the famous Escolania all-boys choir, for the first time in its 700-year history.

The new chamber choir, made up of a mix of about 25 boys and women and girls aged 17 to 24, will be separate from the Escolania, which comprises 45 boys aged nine to 14.

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