Category Archives: World News

Björn Andrésen, Swedish actor who starred in Death in Venice, dies aged 70

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Actor who also starred in Midsommar and became a musician was nicknamed ‘the most beautiful boy in the world’ – a title he struggled with all his life

Björn Andrésen, the Swedish actor best known for his breakout role in the 1971 film Death in Venice, has died aged 70.

At 15, Andrésen was cast in Italian director Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice, based on Thomas Mann’s novella, in which he played Tadzio, a beautiful boy with whom an older man, played by Dirk Bogarde, becomes obsessed.

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Javier Milei hails ‘tipping point’ as his far-right party wins Argentina’s midterm elections

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The result falls short of giving Milei a congressional majority but has been widely described as surprising by Argentinian analysts

The party of Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei, has won Sunday’s midterm elections after a campaign in which US president Donald Trump announced a $40bn bailout for the country and made continued aid conditional on the victory of his Argentinian counterpart.

With more than 95% of ballots counted, Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, won 40.84% of the nationwide vote in an election widely seen as a de facto referendum on the self-styled anarcho-capitalist’s nearly two years in power.

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Radiohead’s Thom Yorke says he would ‘absolutely not’ play in Israel now

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Singer says he will not perform in Israel while Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power, eight years after Radiohead defied criticism to perform in Tel Aviv

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has said he would not now perform in Israel, eight years after the band defied pro-Palestinian activists to play a show in Tel Aviv.

“Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime,” he told the Sunday Times magazine, referring to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

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Boy thrown from Tate Modern’s 10th floor can now run and swim, says family

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French child, who was six years old at the time of the incident in 2019, suffered life-changing injuries

A boy who was thrown from the 10th floor of Tate Modern in London six years ago can now run and swim limited distances, his family has revealed.

The unnamed French boy, who his parents call their “little knight”, suffered life-changing injuries in the attack in August 2019. Jonty Bravery is serving a minimum 15-year jail term for his attempt to murder the boy.

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US and China reach ‘final deal’ on TikTok sale, treasury secretary says

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Scott Bessent said plan was part of framework for trade deal but did not share details on transferring app’s ownership

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Sunday that the US and China have finalized the details of a deal transferring TikTok’s US version to new owners.

“We reached a final deal on TikTok,” Bessent said on Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan. Alluding to Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, Bessent continued: “We reached [a deal] in Madrid, and I believe that as of today, all the details are ironed out, and that will be for the two leaders to consummate that transaction” during a meeting scheduled for Thursday in Korea.

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French police arrest two men over €88m Louvre jewel heist

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One man arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport and another just outside Paris, officials confirm

French police have arrested two suspects believed to have helped steal crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m) from the Louvre museum in Paris, officials have said, a week after one of the country’s most spectacular heists in decades.

The Paris public prosecutor confirmed media reports on Sunday that one man had been detained at about 10pm (8pm UK time) on Saturday at the capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport by officers from the armed robberies and serious burglaries squad.

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Trump sanctions have swift impact but will world stop buying Russian oil and gas?

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Analysts say president’s war on Russia’s fossil fuel revenues is a chance to bring peace to Ukraine and profit to US

Donald Trump’s stated mission to broker peace in Ukraine could come down to this simple question: can the US president convince the world to stop buying Russia’s fossil fuels?

Last week, Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in an effort to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.

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Russia arrests Ukrainian biologist for backing curbs on Antarctic krill fishing

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‘Trumped-up’ charges spark diplomatic row as scientists express fears for health of 70-year-old Leonid Pshenichnov

A diplomatic row has erupted over the “illegal” detention of one of Ukraine’s scientists, who has been accused by the Kremlin of undermining Russia’s industrial trawling for krill in Antarctica.

Leonid Pshenichnov, 70, a Ukrainian biologist who is an expert on Antarctica, has a decades-long record of scientific research and contributions to conservation, including support for marine protected areas in the region.

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Russian drone attack on Kyiv leaves three people dead and dozens wounded, mayor says

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Vitali Klitschko says six children hurt in overnight attack that sparked fires in apartment buildings

An overnight Russian drone attack on Kyiv killed three people and wounded dozens, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital has said.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration said early on Sunday that “several” Russian drones were operating over the city, and warned people to “remain in shelters”.

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Do populists always crash the economy?

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Argentina is counting the cost of its turn to Javier Milei. Politicians from Donald Trump to Giorgia Meloni and Nigel Farage will be closely watching what happens next

“Cambio, cambio.” Under the blazing sun, dozens of money changers are hawking US dollars along Florida Street, a bustling pedestrian strip in Buenos Aires. Known as arbolitos (“little trees”), they are thriving ahead of the 26 October midterm elections in a country long used to saving in the greenback.

“The best time to buy is now,” says one arbolito, declining to give her name. “[The dollar] went down a little but it is a fake-out – it’ll rise again.”

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At least four killed in Russian strikes overnight on Ukraine

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Attacks come after Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeals to US for long-range missiles and urges allies to expand sanctions on Russian oil

Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight into Saturday killed at least four people and wounded 20, officials said, and prompted fresh pleas from Ukraine’s president for western air defence systems.

In the capital, Kyiv, two people were killed and 13 were wounded in a ballistic missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, Kyiv’s police said.

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Trump raises tariffs on Canada by 10% in retaliation for anti-tariff TV ad

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Move is response to ad sponsored by Ontario that referenced Ronald Reagan’s support for free trade

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he will raise US tariffs on Canada by 10% in retaliation for an anti-tariff advertisement sponsored by the Ontario government, which has further strained one of the world’s largest trade partnerships.

The statement, posted on Trump’s Truth Social account, came after several days of public disputes over the ad, which referenced Ronald Reagan’s support for free trade and provoked the US president’s anger.

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Leftwinger Catherine Connolly wins Ireland presidential election by landslide

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Independent pledges to be ‘president for all’ after taking 63% of vote in upset for political establishment

The leftwing independent candidate Catherine Connolly has a won landslide election victory and been declared Ireland’s next president.

She pledged to be a “president for all” after securing 63% of the first preference votes, a stunning result that shook the political establishment and will make her the republic’s 10th head of state.

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Catherine Connolly’s landslide shakes Ireland’s establishment – but not its politics

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Connolly’s stunning victory humbles old parties and energises the left, yet it’s no revolution: the presidency remains symbolic

Catherine Connolly’s landslide victory in Ireland’s presidential election is a stunning political feat that humiliates the establishment but does not signify a national swerve to the left.

There was nothing inevitable about her triumph, let alone its scale. In July, when she declared her candidacy, she was a one-woman act: an independent leftwing member of parliament from Galway who was unfamiliar to most voters.

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Australia Women’s Cricket World Cup players ‘touched inappropriately’ in India

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  • Two players were walking to a cafe from their Indore hotel

  • A man has been arrested after being identified on CCTV

A man has been arrested for approaching two of Australia’s women cricketers and allegedly touching them inappropriately in Indore, Indian police said on Saturday.

The incident occurred on Thursday in Indore, a day off for the team after their six-wicket victory over England.

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Turkey likely to be excluded from Gaza stabilisation force after Israeli objection

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Doubts over whether Ankara will be part of 5,000-strong force to be deployed to prevent postwar power vacuum

Turkey will probably be excluded from the 5,000-strong stabilisation force that is to be set up inside Gaza after Israel made clear it did not want Turkish troops taking part.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said it was a requirement that Israel is comfortable with the nationality of the multinational force, set up to prevent a security vacuum when the massive task of reconstruction in Gaza starts. Turkey has said it is willing to offer troops, but Israel has let it be known that it disapproves of Turkish troops taking part in the force.

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Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit dies at 93 after more than a decade out of the public eye

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Prime minister Charnvirakul cancels trip to Asean summit in Malaysia after news of the Queen Mother’s death

Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, who brought glamour to a postwar revival in the country’s monarchy and who, in later years, would occasionally wade into politics, has died aged 93, the Thai Royal Household bureau has announced.

The palace said she had been hospitalised since 2019 due to several illnesses and developed a bloodstream infection on 17bOctober before passing away late on Friday.

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Lithuania shuts airports and Belarus border after weather balloon incursion

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Vilnius and Kaunas airports closed down after balloons drift into country’s airspace for third time this month

Lithuania closed its two biggest airports on Friday and shut crossings on its border with Belarus after helium weather balloons drifted into its territory, the third such occurrence in the Baltic state this month.

European aviation has repeatedly been thrown into chaos in recent weeks by drone sightings and other air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and the Baltic region.

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Napoleon’s soldiers who died in Russian retreat had unexpected diseases, study finds

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Analysis of DNA from teeth of troops buried in mass grave suggests soldiers had paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever

When Napoleon ordered his army to retreat from Russia in October 1812, disaster ensued. Starving, cold, exhausted and struggling with sickness, an estimated 300,000 soldiers died.

Researchers now say they have identified two unexpected diseases among soldiers who died in the retreat – paratyphoid fever and relapsing fever – which provide fresh insights into their plight.

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