Category Archives: World News

Police violently raid Lima university and shut Machu Picchu amid Peru unrest

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Students say they were beaten and thrown out of dormitories as authorities crack down on protests against president

Scores of police raided a Lima university on Saturday, smashing down the gates with an armoured vehicle, firing teargas and detaining more than 200 people who had come to the Peruvian capital to take part in anti-government protests.

Images showed dozens of people lying face down on the ground at San Marcos University after the surprise police operation. Students said they were pushed, kicked and hit with truncheons as they were forced out of their dormitories.

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Turkey condemns burning of Qur’an during far-right protest in Sweden

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Event in front of Turkish embassy will further inflame tensions between two countries

Turkey has condemned a demonstration involving the burning of Qur’ans in Sweden on Saturday, further inflaming tensions between the two countries amid Stockholm’s Nato bid.

The protest in Stockholm, which took place under heavy police protection in front of Turkey’s embassy, gathered about 100 people and a crowd of reporters, Agence France-Presse reported.

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Lula sacks head of Brazilian army after far-right insurrection

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Júlio Cesar de Arruda reportedly stopped police detaining suspected rioters who took refuge outside army headquarters

The head of the Brazilian army has been sacked by the country’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after claims the commander tried to shield rightwing rioters from arrest after the 8 January insurrection in Brasília.

Gen Júlio Cesar de Arruda, who only took up the role in late December, was removed from his position on Saturday, nearly two weeks after supporters of the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro brought havoc to Brazil’s capital in what Lula’s administration called a botched coup attempt.

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Ron DeSantis moves to permanently ban Covid mandates in Florida

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Governor proposes legislation to ban mask requirements and outlaw ‘discrimination based on vaccine status’

Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis has announced a proposal to permanently ban Covid mandates in the state.

In a press release issued earlier this week, DeSantis said that he has proposed legislation to “make permanent Covid freedoms in Florida”, adding that the “strong pro-freedom, anti-mandate action will permanently protect Floridians from losing their jobs due to Covid vaccine mandates, protects parents’ rights, and institutes additional protections that prevent discrimination based on Covid vaccine status”.

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Ron Klain to reportedly step down as Biden chief of staff

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New York Times reports Klain to announce departure in coming weeks, following two grueling years since president took office

Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, is reportedly set to step down from his position, in what will be the biggest change to the US president’s inner circle of advisors since he took office two years ago.

Klain will announce his departure in the coming weeks, according to the New York Times, after telling colleagues that he is ready to move on following a grueling period of successes and frustrations that stretch back to Biden’s successful 2020 election campaign.

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Elizabeth Holmes tried to ‘flee’ US with one-way Mexico ticket, prosecutors say

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New court filing says ex-Theranos founder booked flight departing 26 January last year, shortly after fraud conviction

The disgraced founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, made an “attempt to flee the country” by purchasing a one-way ticket to Mexico after she was found guilty on four counts of fraud last January, according to prosecutors.

In the new filing on Thursday, prosecutors said that “contrary to defendant’s assertion that she has a ‘flawless record with US Pretrial Services’ and claim that no evidence suggests she will flee while she pursues her appeal … the incentive to flee has never been higher and defendant has the means to act on that incentive.”

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‘Like knocking down the Eiffel tower’: battle to save historic Prague bridge

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A plan from Czech railways to replace the emblematic landmark with a modern structure is facing an impassioned backlash

A historic Prague railway bridge, whose importance to the city’s landscape has been compared to the Eiffel tower in Paris, has been earmarked for demolition in a move denounced by architects and preservationists.

The much-photographed Vyšehrad bridge – instantly recognisable for its parabolic lattice steel structure – is unfit to carry an anticipated rising volume of rail traffic, claims Czech Railways, which plans to replace it with a modern structure.

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Jeremy Renner broke more than 30 bones in snowplough accident

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Actor thanks people for messages of support since he was run over by six-tonne machine earlier this month

The actor Jeremy Renner has revealed he broke more than 30 bones during his serious snowplough accident.

Renner, known for playing the bow and arrow-wielding Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries on 1 January after he was accidentally run over by his six-tonne ploughing machine while trying to help a family member.

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Delight as dolphins spotted in New York’s Bronx River

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Encouraging sign for river that suffered as dumping ground for waste from nearby factories

Dolphins have been spotted frolicking in New York City’s Bronx River, an encouraging sign of the improving health of a waterway that was for many years befouled as a sewer for industrial waste.

A pair of dolphins was seen gliding through the river’s waters on Monday, the New York City parks department confirmed, near a small park in the city’s Bronx borough. The Bronx river rises north of New York City and cuts through the Bronx before terminating in the East River, the estuary that separates the Bronx and Manhattan from the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.

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Iran to rule on release of film-maker Jafar Panahi

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Lawyer for award-winning director says court of appeal expected to decide on case by end of week

Iran’s judiciary is to rule on whether to release the film-maker Jafar Panahi on bail after his conviction was overturned by the supreme court, his lawyer said.

Panahi, 62, who has won a number of awards at European film festivals, was arrested on 11 July last year and sent to jail to serve a six-year sentence which had been handed down in 2010 for “propaganda against the system”. He served two months at the time before being granted a conditional release. He was also barred from leaving Iran and making films, and was largely confined to his home until his arrest in July.

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Zelenskiy attends memorial service for Ukraine helicopter crash victims

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Country’s president mourns interior minister, his deputy and five other senior officials who died

A tearful Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended a memorial service on Saturday for seven senior interior ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash this week.

The former interior minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy and five other high-ranking officials were killed when their French-made Super Puma helicopter crashed into a nursery on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv in foggy conditions on Wednesday.

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‘Ritual humiliations’: African music stars struggle to get visas to Europe

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A Kenyan DJ’s post of being denied transit through Amsterdam has put the spotlight on airlines’ alleged racist policies

Emma Nzioka, a Kenyan performer and DJ known as Coco Em, was looking forward to the Terra Sagrada festival in Cape Verde for nearly a year. Some of her favourite African artists, such as Boddhi Satva, would be playing.

But Nzioka did not make it to the festival last month, or out of the country, for that matter. At the check-in counter in Kenya, she was told she could not board her flight unless she bought a return ticket with the same airline (she had one with another airline) to “prove” she would return home. Although Nzioka was going to Cape Verde, she was transiting through Amsterdam.

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Over the moon! Buzz Aldrin marries ‘long-time love’ on his 93rd birthday

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Second man to walk on the moon says he and Anca Faur are ‘as excited as eloping teenagers’

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, has announced that he got married to his long-term partner on his 93rd birthday.

The retired astronaut celebrated his birthday on Friday and said on Twitter that he “tied the knot” with Dr Anca Faur, 63, in a small ceremony in Los Angeles.

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Burkina Faso: 66 women and children freed after kidnap by armed assailants

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Security forces stage rescue operation in country which is facing violent Islamist insurgency

Sixty-six women and children kidnapped by armed assailants in northern Burkina Faso last week have been freed, it has been reported.

The mass kidnapping was unprecedented in Burkina Faso, which is facing a violent Islamist insurgency that spread from neighbouring Mali in 2015.

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Top Tennessee pair fired after damning review of state’s execution protocol

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Report revealed multiple executions in recent years carried out without proper testing of lethal injection drugs

Two top Tennessee officials have been fired by the corrections department after an independent report revealed striking errors in the state’s lethal injection execution protocol.

According to official documents reviewed by the Tennessean newspaper, the deputy commissioner and general counsel, Debra Inglis, was fired, as well as inspector general Kelly Young, on 27 December.

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Ukrainian families vent frustration at struggle to find own homes in UK

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High-cost, low-quality housing market is pushing many from war-torn country to edge of homelessness

Maria, 22, came to the UK from Ukraine in March last year shortly after the war broke out. She and her mother travelled using the Ukraine family scheme visa to stay with her aunt. But when her aunt was evicted, they became homeless. For five months, Maria and her mother have been living in temporary accommodation in south London.

“It’s horrible actually, the corridors are so old and so dirty,” Maria says. “The council haven’t been very helpful. The room is so small and it’s hard with two adults in one room.”

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‘Attack on freedom’: Israel moves to claw back state funds from critical films

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Culture minister’s attack on two documentaries set in Palestinian territories part of campaign to silence dissent, film-makers say

Israel’s culture minister is attempting to revoke state funding from two documentary films dealing with the occupation of the Palestinian territories, increasing concerns that the country’s new hard-right government will follow through on promises to crack down on dissenting voices.

The minister, Miki Zohar, of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, has pledged to “revoke funding that promotes our enemy’s narrative” and withhold grants from films that “present Israeli soldiers as murderers”. He has also said he will require film-makers to sign a declaration they will not use state funds to create content that “harms the state of Israel or IDF soldiers”.

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Lula to visit Brazil’s Yanomami Indigenous territory amid vow to tackle crisis

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Move comes after country’s minister for Indigenous people says issue is an ‘absolute priority’

Brazil’s first-ever minister for Indigenous peoples, Sônia Guajajara, has vowed to make tackling the humanitarian crisis plaguing the country’s largest Indigenous territory “an absolute priority”, as she prepared to fly into the region with the new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Under the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, thousands of illegal gold miners poured into the Yanomami enclave in the Amazon, bringing violence, pollution and a healthcare calamity captured in a recent series of photographs of severely malnourished children and adults.

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Chris Hipkins set to become next prime minister of New Zealand

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Minister selected by Labour party to succeed Jacinda Ardern after her shock resignation on Thursday

A new prime minister for New Zealand has been chosen by the Labour party after the shock resignation of Jacinda Ardern on Thursday.

Chris Hipkins – the minister for education and policing, and one of the primary architects of the Covid response – was nominated uncontested by the party caucus on Saturday morning, after efforts by senior MPs to achieve consensus and secure a smooth transition in Ardern’s wake. The caucus is due to formally endorse his selection on Sunday.

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Brothers killed in Canada bank shootout aimed to kill as many police as possible

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Isaac and Mathew Auchterlonie were heavily armed, had strong anti-government views and did not expect to survive 2022 incident

Two brothers who died in a hail of gunfire last summer outside a Canadian bank had been planning their attack for years, with a goal to kill as many officers as possible, police said on Friday.

An investigation by the Vancouver Island integrated major crime unit found that 22-year-old Isaac Auchterlonie and his brother, Mathew, showed up at the Victoria, British Columbia, area bank on 28 June 2022 wearing full body armor and carrying semi-automatic rifles. Isaac and Mathew were two-thirds of a set of triplets.

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