Category Archives: World News

Rightwing group pours millions in ‘dark money’ into US voter suppression bid

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Tax filings reveal advocacy arm of Heritage Foundation spent $5m on lobbying in 2021 to block voting rights in battleground states

The advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative thinktank based in Washington, spent more than $5m on lobbying in 2021 as it worked to block federal voting rights legislation and advance an ambitious plan to spread its far-right agenda calling for aggressive voter suppression measures in battleground states.

Previously unreported 2021 tax filings from Heritage Action for America, which operates as the foundation’s activist wing, shows that it spent $5.1m on contracting outside lobbying services. The outlay comes on top of $560,000 the group invested in its own in-house federal lobbying efforts that year, as well as registered lobbying by Heritage Action staffers in at least 24 states.

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UAE’s Cop28 president will keep role as head of national oil company

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Campaigners warn ‘breathtaking conflict of interest’ could jeopardise climate negotiating process

Sultan Al Jaber, the government minister for United Arab Emirates who will preside over this year’s crucial UN climate talks, will retain his roles as head of the country’s oil company and sustainable energy businesses, UAE has confirmed.

Campaigners have been angered by the decision, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday and confirmed on Thursday by the UAE government, which they see as a clear conflict of interest, with some likening it to putting a tobacco company head in charge of an anti-smoking treaty, and warning it could jeopardise the negotiating process and hasten climate breakdown.

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Long-awaited trial of 24 aid workers accused of espionage starts in Lesbos

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Trial of Sarah Mardini and fellow defendants lifts lid on ‘farcical’ treatment of humanitarians, say campaigners

Sarah Mardini, the refugee immortalised in the recent Netflix movie, The Swimmers, was the talk of Lesbos this week as the long-awaited trial of 24 aid workers accused of espionage, got underway on the island.

Eight years after the Syrian and her younger sister, Yusra, saved 18 fellow passengers from a sinking dinghy off the isle, it was Mardini’s name that stood out as appeals court judge, Styliani Spyridonidou, conducted a roll call of defendants at the start of a hearing that has fuelled widespread human rights concerns. But,although Mardini’s story hogged the Greek headlines, the 27-year-old student, accused of spying after returning to the island to assist refugees, was not present.

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Putin scolds defence industry minister in televised meeting for ‘fooling around’

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Russian leader publicly berated Denis Manturov, eye-rolling and shuffling papers during the live call, as his war in Ukraine caused fresh problems

Vladimir Putin has publicly scolded a senior minister and ally during a meeting broadcast on state television as sanctions from the stalling war in Ukraine caused fresh economic headaches for the Russian president.

Speaking during a live video call with officials on Wednesday, the Russian leader appeared agitated and berated deputy prime minister Denis Manturov, who is also his trade and industry minister and responsible for overseeing Russia’s weapons and defence industry and supplies of equipment for troops. Putin criticised him for working too slowly on the country’s aircraft contracts, according to a transcript of the call later published by the Kremlin.

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Democratic lawmakers demand Biden revoke Bolsonaro’s visa after Brazil riot

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Former president entered the US after his election loss and is staying in Florida

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including some of the top members of the House foreign affairs committee, sent a letter to Joe Biden on Thursday demanding former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s diplomatic visa be canceled in the wake of the rampage in Brazil’s capital by his supporters.

“We request that you reassess his status in the country to ascertain whether there is a legal basis for his stay and revoke any such diplomatic visa he may hold,” said the letter. It continued: “The United States must not provide shelter for him, or any authoritarian who has inspired such violence against democratic institutions.”

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White House pledges to cooperate with special counsel over classified documents – as it happened

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Attorney general Merrick Garland may announce the appointment of a special counsel to handle the matter of the classified documents discovered at Joe Biden’s properties, Bloomberg News reports.

Garland is scheduled to make a public address at 1.15pm, though the justice department has not said what the speech will be about. In November, Garland appointed veteran prosecutor Jack Smith to handle the investigation into government secrets found at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, as well as his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

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Alireza Akbari appears in heavily edited confession aired on Iranian TV

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British-Iranian, who was sentenced to death for allegedly spying for MI6, gave reports on Iran’s nuclear programme, he says in TV interview

Alireza Akbari, the British-Iranian dual national sentenced to death for allegedly spying for MI6, gave his British handlers reports on Iran’s nuclear programme and efforts to evade western economic sanctions, according to an edited TV confession aired by news agencies close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

In the video, which was aired on Thursday and appeared to be heavily edited, Akbari was also asked about the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh who was shot dead in in Tehran in 2020.

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Usain Bolt reportedly missing millions from investment accounts

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  • Athlete’s manager says Jamaican authorities investigating
  • Olympic champion noticed discrepancies this week

An investigation has been launched after millions of dollars reportedly went missing from an account belonging to eight-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt.

Bolt’s manager, Nugent Walker, told the Gleaner that Jamaica’s Financial Investigations Division and Financial Services Commission are looking into the case at investment firm Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL). SSL is also understood to have called the police.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv warns of threat of missile attacks from Belarus – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

The Russian human rights commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova said both Moscow and Kyiv were interested in future contacts between their rights commissioners, the Russian state-owned Tass news agency has reported.

Following a meeting this week in Turkey with her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, Moskalkova said she believed Ukraine had adopted a pragmatic approach to discussions between the two sides.

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Revealed: Exxon made ‘breathtakingly’ accurate climate predictions in 1970s and 80s

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Oil company drove some of the leading science of the era only to publicly dismiss global heating

The oil giant Exxon privately “predicted global warming correctly and skilfully” only to then spend decades publicly rubbishing such science in order to protect its core business, new research has found.

A trove of internal documents and research papers has previously established that Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use.

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Turkey summons Swedish ambassador over Erdoğan effigy

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Swedish government distances itself from hanging of presidential dummy in Stockholm stunt by Kurdish group

Turkey has summoned the Swedish ambassador after a Kurdish group hung an effigy of the Turkish president in Stockholm, in a stunt that has inflamed tensions between the two countries over Sweden’s bid to join Nato.

Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, said his government strongly distanced itself from “threats and hatred against political representatives”. Without naming any specific country, he added: “Portraying a popularly elected president as being executed outside City Hall is abhorrent.”

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Putin’s military reshuffle is more about politics than a change of strategy

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The Russian president may have put Gen Gerasimov in charge of the invasion to balance tensions between the army and the Wagner group

Another month, another Russian military reshuffle: Vladimir Putin changes the general in charge of his forces in Ukraine with something of the frequency of a Premier League club desperate to secure immediate success.

It is obvious that such inconsistency demonstrates that the Kremlin is dissatisfied with the conduct of the war but the decision to put Gen Valery Gerasimov, the head of the armed forces, in charge of the invasion is eye-catching for other reasons too.

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Reward offered to find Iran-born woman seized by fake police in Canada

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Elnaz Hajtamiri woman was abducted on 12 January 2022 from an Ontario house by three men disguised as police officers

Investigators in Canada are offering a C$100,000 reward in a bid to solve the brazen kidnapping of an Iranian Canadian woman by assailants disguised as police officers that continues to baffle detectives.

Elnaz Hajtamiri was violently abducted on 12 January 2022, from a house in an Ontario beach community, by three men disguised in police gear, who hauled her barefoot through the snow and into a waiting SUV.

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Hundreds of civilians trapped in Soledar amid fierce fighting, Ukraine says

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Donetsk governor says 559 civilians could not be evacuated, while Ukraine claims troops are ‘holding on’ to city

Hundreds of civilians remain trapped in Soledar, Ukraine has said, as bloody fighting continues over control of the largely destroyed salt mining town in eastern Ukraine.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, told Ukrainian state TV that 559 civilians remained in Soledar, including 15 children, and could not be evacuated.

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Woman ordered to repay employer after software shows ‘time theft’

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Company tells Canadian tribunal it installed software on Karlee Besse’s laptop after finding files over budget and behind schedule

A Canadian woman has been ordered by a civil tribunal to compensate her former employer for “time theft” after she was caught misrepresenting hours worked by controversial tracking software.

Karlee Besse, who worked remotely as an accountant in British Columbia, initially claimed she was fired from her job without cause last year and sought C$5,000 ($3,729; £3,066) in compensation – both in unpaid wages and severance.

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British Council workers in Afghanistan step closer to UK relocation

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Minister speaks of ‘progress’ on security checks, but Foreign Office clarifies no green light yet for contractors

A group of 47 British Council contractors forced to live in hiding since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan have cleared the penultimate hurdle for being accepted on to a scheme designed to relocate them in the UK.

The group was said to have passed security checks and been invited to provide biometrics at a visa centre, after which they would have to have a final set of security checks.

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Lula suspects pro-Bolsonaro staff helped mob enter presidential palace

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President vows thorough investigation and says ‘many people were complicit … the truth is the palace was full of Bolsonaristas’

The Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said he suspects hardcore supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro among the presidential staff facilitated the entry of insurrectionists who stormed his presidential palace seeking to overthrow Brazil’s government.

Speaking to a group of political journalists in Brasília’s Planalto palace – one of three buildings trashed by the pro-Bolsonaro mob last Sunday – Lula vowed to carry out a “thorough screening” of employees in the wake of the historic attack.

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Anger brews in Italy over Ireland’s plans for alcohol health warnings

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Critics say warnings are a ‘direct attack’ against Italy as a key exporter of wine

A plan by Ireland to put stark health warnings on bottles of wine, beer and spirits has caused anger in Italy.

Ireland is free to go ahead with the measure, which would warn consumers about the risks of cancer and liver diseases linked to alcohol, after a deadline passed for the European Commission to oppose it.

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Sri Lanka ex-president Sirisena ordered to compensate 2019 Easter bombing victims

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Supreme court finds top government, police and intelligence officials were responsible for ‘failing to prevent’ bombings

The supreme court in Sri Lanka has ordered the former president Maithripala Sirisena to pay millions in compensation to the victims of the 2019 Easter bombings, the first time the courts have acknowledged the government’s role in the attacks.

The top court found that Sirisena and several other top government, police and intelligence officials were responsible for “failing to prevent” the bombings in April 2019, “despite receiving intelligence ahead of the attack”.

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