Category Archives: World News

Frida Kahlo’s husband may have helped her die, reveals Diego Rivera’s grandson

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The revered Mexican artist’s suffering was so great, she ‘probably’ asked her soulmate to assist in ending her life, documentary is told

People’s love of Frida Kahlo’s vibrant art is matched by fascination with her colourful private life. Now the battle to win greater attention for her talent – above and beyond her extraordinary, painful personal story – faces another potential knock.

A documentary about the Mexican artist is to reveal a secret suspicion that endures within the family of her husband and great love, the renowned muralist Diego Rivera.

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Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll likely to ‘more than double’, UN says

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At least 24,596 people have been confirmed dead after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck on Monday

The death toll from the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is likely to “more than double”, according to a United Nations emergency relief coordinator.

Martin Griffiths, speaking to Sky News on Saturday, said he expected tens of thousands more deaths.

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South African rap artist AKA shot dead outside restaurant in Durban

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Parents of Kiernan Forbes pay tribute to ‘beloved son’ who was killed alongside another man while walking to car

One of South Africa’s top rap artists, known as AKA, has been shot dead outside a restaurant in the eastern city of Durban, his family said.

Kiernan Forbes, 35, won multiple South African awards, was nominated several times for a Black Entertainment Television award in the US and was once nominated for an MTV Europe music award.

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Iran marks 44 years since revolution amid protests

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Anti-government hackers interrupted televised speech by president Ebrahim Raisi, who appealed to the ‘deceived youth’ to repent

Iran marked the 44th anniversary its revolution on Saturday with state-organised rallies, as anti-government hackers briefly interrupted a televised speech by the president, Ebrahim Raisi.

Raisi, whose hardline government faces one of the boldest challenges from young protesters, appealed to the “deceived youth” to repent so they can be pardoned by Iran’s supreme leader.

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Toronto mayor quits after admitting affair with former staffer

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John Tory acknowledged relationship in a statement and apologised to his wife and family, and ‘all those hurt by my actions’

The mayor of Toronto has resigned, shortly after the Toronto Star newspaper reported he had an affair with a former staff member.

John Tory, 68, acknowledged the relationship in a statement announcing his departure, saying it had ended earlier this year and the employee had left city hall.

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Alarming levels of PFAS in Norwegian Arctic ice pose new risk to wildlife

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Oxford University-led study detects 26 types of PFAS compounds in ice around Svalbard, threatening downstream ecosystems

Norwegian Arctic ice is contaminated with alarming levels of toxic PFAS, and the chemicals may represent a major environmental stressor to the region’s wildlife, new research finds.

The Oxford University-led study’s measurements of ice around Svalbard, Norway, detected 26 types of PFAS compounds, and found when ice melts, the chemicals can move from glaciers into downstream ecosystems like Arctic fjords and tundra.

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Unidentified object shot down over Alaska by US military, White House says

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Spokesman John Kirby says object, the size of a small car, was ordered by President Biden to be downed

• Chinese ‘spy balloon’ wakes up world to new era of war on edge of space

A US fighter jet has shot down an unidentified high-altitude object over Alaska that was the size of a small car but the nature, purpose or origin of the object remains unclear.

US officials said the targeted aircraft brought down on Friday was considerably smaller than the Chinese balloon downed last Saturday over the Atlantic, and carefully avoided characterising it as a balloon, drone or plane, giving nothing away about the description of the object other than its rough size, its altitude and its direction of travel.

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Crackdown on ‘birth tourism’ as pregnant Russians flock to Argentina

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South American country has seen rise since Ukraine invasion in Russian women arriving to have children and thus gain citizenship

Immigration authorities in Argentina are cracking down on Russian women who since the invasion of Ukraine have started travelling to Buenos Aires to give birth in order to gain Argentinian citizenship for their children.

The director of Argentina’s immigration office, Florencia Carignano, said on Friday that a judicial investigation has been launched into what she described as a lucrative business that promises Argentinian passports for the Russian parents.

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US announces 180-day exemption to Syria sanctions for disaster aid

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Assad regime still insists on handling all aid shipments to war-torn and quake-ravaged country that has been all but cut off from help

The US has temporarily eased its sanctions on Syria in an effort to speed up aid deliveries to the country’s north-west, where almost no humanitarian assistance has arrived despite the deaths of thousands in this week’s earthquake.

The tremor that has killed nearly 23,000 people there and in neighboring Turkey added to the devastation suffered in Syria’s north, which was already badly damaged by the civil war and is now mostly under opposition control, with Bashar al-Assad’s government present only in some areas.

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Spanish film-maker Carlos Saura, director of ¡Ay Carmela!, dies aged 91

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One of Spain’s most prolific auteurs continued to work until the end – his last film, Walls Can Talk, was released last week

Veteran Spanish film-maker Carlos Saura, director of award-winning films such as Peppermint Frappé, ¡Ay Carmela! and Tango, has died aged 91, the day before he was due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Goyas, Spain’s version of the Oscars.

Spain’s Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, the body that hands out the Goya awards, confirmed his death on social media, saying: “Saura, one of the essential film-makers in the history of Spanish cinema, has died at home today at the age of 91, surrounded by his loved ones. His final film, Walls Can Talk, came out last week and demonstrated his tireless activity and his love for his work until the very last moment.”

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US congresswoman poured coffee over attacker to deter him, chief of staff says

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Man, 26, arrested after attack in elevator in Angie Craig’s Washington apartment building early on Thursday morning

Angie Craig, a Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota who was assaulted in her Washington apartment, reportedly deterred her attacker by pouring hot coffee over him, it emerged on Friday.

“Representative Craig defended herself from the attacker and suffered bruising, but is otherwise physically OK,” her chief of staff, Nick Coe, said in a statement on Thursday.

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George Santos: puppy theft charge news follows Romney’s ‘sick puppy’ barb

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Republican at centre of string of scandals was charged in Pennsylvania with theft over purchase of puppies in 2017

The New York Republican congressman George Santos, who is at the centre of a bizarre string of scandals and who the Utah senator Mitt Romney this week called a “sick puppy”, was charged with theft in Pennsylvania in 2017 – over a purchase of “puppies”.

The scandal, reported by Politico, is not Santos’s first involving dogs and his charity, Friends of Pets United. A New Jersey veteran alleges Santos raised money for an operation for his dog, then absconded with the money.

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UK’s Turkish and Syrian communities rush to aid earthquake victims

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Determination to get donations to stricken areas is galvanising people haunted by fears for family and friends

Dozens of volunteers are packing boxes piled high on a north London industrial estate, filling them with vital donations to be sent to Gaziantep, the south-eastern province in Turkey devastated by the earthquake that hit in the early hours on Monday.

Huseyin Goran, 36, has been helping for three days straight. “The first two days I didn’t sleep and did as much as I could. I took a three-hour rest and carried on.”

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Child among two people killed in Jerusalem bus stop attack

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Palestinian driver rams car into people on outskirts of city, in incident described by PM as terrorist attack

Two people including a child have been killed and several injured after a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a group of people at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

A police spokesperson said the driver, who was shot at the scene, was dead. An Israeli security official identified him as Hussain Qraqaa, 31, a resident of Issawiya in East Jerusalem.

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Marina Ovsyannikova says she still fears for her life after ‘chaotic’ escape to France

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Former Russian TV editor, who was under house arrest, described her journey across Europe last October

Marina Ovsyannikova, the former Russian state TV editor who famously interrupted a live news broadcast to protest against the start of the Ukraine war, has described her “chaotic” escape from house arrest in Moscow and how she fled across Europe to seek asylum in France.

“I didn’t want to emigrate until the very last moment,” Ovsyannikova said at a Paris press conference with the journalists’ organisation Reporters without Borders. “Russia is still my country, even if war criminals have power there. But I had no choice – it was either prison or exile. I’m very grateful to France, a free country, to have welcomed me.”

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Survivors pulled from rubble 100 hours after quake as toll passes 23,000

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Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless in often sub-zero winter conditions

A second convoy of aid trucks has crossed into stricken north-western Syria from Turkey, as rescuers continued to pull survivors – including a newborn baby – from the rubble 100 hours after an earthquake that has killed more than 23,000 people.

Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in often sub-zero winter conditions after 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude quakes struck within hours of each other on Monday. Dozens of countries have pledged help and sent emergency teams.

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Barcelona shopkeeper fined €7,501 over job ad seeking ‘woman over 40’

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Labour inspectors say Javier Marcos’s shop assistant job ad discriminated on grounds of both sex and age

A Barcelona shopkeeper has been fined €7,501 (£6,600) for placing an advertisement for a shop assistant stating that the applicant should be “a woman over 40”.

Javier Marcos, who runs a small curtain-making business in the Fort Pienc area of the city, said he wanted to replace his only female employee, who is retiring, with someone with a similar profile.

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Russia-Ukraine war: ‘no indication’ of direct military threat to Moldova or Romania, says US – as it happened

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

The latest inteligence briefing on the situation in Ukraine from the UK’s Ministry of Defence suggests that “Russian forces have likely made tactical gains in two key sectors” since 7 February. It states:

On the northern outskirts of the Donbas town of Bakhmut, Wagner Group forces have pushed 2-3km further west, controlling countryside near the M-03 main route into the town. Russian forces increasingly dominate the northern approaches to Bakhmut.

To the south, Russian units have made advances around the western edge of the town of Vuhledar, where they re-launched offensive operations in late January 2023.

At 4am, the enemy launched rocket attacks on the city of Kharkiv and the region with S-300 missiles. Critical and infrastructure facilities were targeted. Fires broke out, which the rescuers managed to quickly put out. However, some areas of the city remain without electricity. Specialists are working to eliminate the consequences of the impact. Fortunately, there were no casualties.

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