Category Archives: World News

‘A little bit of deja vu’: Canada’s Greens turn to ex-leader in bid to revive fortunes

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Elizabeth May, who led party between 2006 and 2019, to replace Annamie Paul, who quit following 2021 electoral rout

When Canada’s Green party wanted fresh leadership, it turned to a Princeton educated lawyer and adviser at the international criminal court who became the first Black and Jewish woman to ever lead a federal party in Canada.

But after less than a year of legal feuds, infighting and an electoral rout Annamie Paul stepped down, calling her time as leader “the worst period of my life”.

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BBC’s Alex Scott wears rainbow armband for England World Cup match

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Pundit opts to wear OneLove armband in apparent gesture of solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in Qatar

The BBC pundit Alex Scott wore a rainbow armband as she presented coverage of England’s first match of the Qatar World Cup, in an apparent gesture of solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in a country where same-sex relationships are illegal.

Her decision to wear the OneLove armband – which officially represents a stand against all forms of discrimination – came hours after the England and Wales teams decided not to wear the same armbands after being informed that players could receive yellow cards for breaching Fifa rules on clothing.

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Earthquake on Indonesia’s main island of Java kills at least 162 people

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Rescue operation under way after magnitude-5.6 quake triggers landslides and causes buildings to collapse

At least 162 people have been killed after a magnitude-5.6 earthquake struck Indonesia’s main island of Java, triggering landslides and causing buildings to collapse.

The US Geological Survey said the quake, which struck late in the afternoon, was centred in the Cianjur region of West Java province at a depth of 6.2 miles (10km).

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Gunmen kidnap more than 100 people in north-west Nigeria

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Children among those seized from villages and farms, say residents

More than 100 people, including women and children, were abducted when gunmen raided four villages in Nigeria’s north-western Zamfara state on Sunday, the information commissioner and residents said.

Kidnapping has become endemic in north-west Nigeria as roving gangs of armed men seize people from villages, highways and farms and demand ransom money from their relatives.

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Iran players stay silent for anthem in apparent support for protests

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World Cup footballers did not sing before match against England in apparent show of support for protesters back home

Not a single member of the Iranian team sang their country’s national anthem at the start of their World Cup match with England, in an attempt to distance themselves from their government.

One official on the touchline sang, only serving to highlight his isolation, but there was heavy booing of the anthem by the large Iranian crowd inside the stadium.

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Christie’s cancels T rex skeleton auction after doubts raised

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Sale of 1,400kg skeleton withdrawn after New York Times reported claims of similarities to T rex sold in 2020

The British auction house Christie’s has been forced to call off the £20m auction of a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton just days before it was due to go under the hammer after a well-known paleontologist raised concerns that parts of it looked similar to another dinosaur.

Christie’s said on Monday that the 1,400kg (3,100lb) skeleton – nicknamed Shen – had been withdrawn from the auction in Hong Kong on 30 November, when it was set to be the star lot.

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‘We are all Mahsa’: Iranians in Doha for World Cup voice anger at regime

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Signs of uprising were everywhere outside the stadium hosting England v Iran

Hundreds of Iranian fans arrived at Doha’s Khalifah stadium on Monday with a secret: they wanted their national team to lose.

“In my heart, I don’t want them to win,” said Mokhtar, 59, wincing visibly at the admission. The propaganda value of defeating Iran’s former colonial master, England, would simply be too irresistible for the country’s embattled rulers, he said.

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Nun who wowed The Voice of Italy becomes waitress in Spain

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Cristina Scuccia, who stunned judges in 2014 contest, explains decision to leave nunhood on talkshow

A nun who became a singing sensation after winning Italy’s version of The Voice has stunned TV viewers again after announcing that she has kicked the habit and is now a waitress in Spain.

Sister Cristina Scuccia, from Sicily, shocked judges, including the late Raffaella Carrà, during her blind audition for the show in 2014, giving a rapturous performance of the Alicia Keys’ hit song No One. After realising the incredible voice belonged to a nun, Carrà, who died last year, said: “I couldn’t speak for several minutes.”

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LGBTQ+ groups condemn Fifa over OneLove armband sanctions threat

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Campaigners hit out after teams including England and Wales say players will not wear armband at World Cup in Qatar

LGBTQ+ rights activists and campaigners have condemned Fifa’s threats to impose sanctions on players who wear OneLove armbands at the World Cup in Qatar.

England, Wales and five other European nations have confirmed their players will not wear the armband, saying the football governing body had made it clear their captains could be booked or forced to leave the pitch if they did so.

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US blogger’s killers escape on motorbikes from Bangladeshi court

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Men on death row for murder of secular writer snatched by bikers who sprayed police with chemical

Two Islamist militants who were on death row in Bangladesh for the killing of a US blogger critical of fundamentalist Islam have made a dramatic escape on motorbikes while being escorted to a court hearing in the capital, Dhaka.

The two men were among those convicted of the murder of Avijit Roy, an American-Bangladeshi writer and blogger who was hacked to death with machetes in the streets of Dhaka in 2015.

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Sudan experiences worst dengue fever outbreak for more than a decade

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Floods caused by warming temperatures and a lack of preventive care are driving the spread of the disease in a country racked with political and economic upheaval

More than 1,400 people in Sudan have been diagnosed with dengue fever this year in the worst outbreak in the country for more than a decade.

Half of the country’s 18 states have registered cases and nine deaths recorded, including one child, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) who suspect the true number to be far higher.

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China reports first Covid deaths in six months as Beijing cases rise

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Three people died in the capital over the weekend and officials have called for residents to avoid ‘non-imperative’ travel

China reported the deaths of three people in Beijing over the weekend as its first fatalities from Covid-19 in six months, with cases rising despite a stringent zero-Covid policy.

China is the last major economy still welded to a no-tolerance policy on the virus and has enforced snap lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines even as the rest of the world adjusts to living with Covid.

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Iran arrests top actors who removed headcarves, in wider crackdown on celebrities

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Prominent Iranians in film and sport have been condemned for expressing solidarity with the protest movement

Iran has arrested two prominent actors who expressed solidarity with the country’s protest movement and removed their headscarves in public, according to state media.

Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi were both detained after being summoned by prosecutors looking into their “provocative” social media posts, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said.

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No 10 seeks to quell hardline Brexiters’ fears over reports of Swiss-style EU deal

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Minister rubbishes reports of ‘Chequers’-style plan, as businesses expected to call for more ‘practical’ immigration rules

Rishi Sunak is facing a new row on two fronts over Brexit, as he sought to quell a backlash from hardline Eurosceptics given suggestions the UK could seek a Swiss-style deal with Brussels, while businesses are expected to call for a more “practical” immigration stance.

Ahead of the prime minister’s address to business leaders in Birmingham on Monday morning, Downing Street tried to dampen down speculation that a deal similar to Theresa May’s “Chequers” plan could be adopted, claiming it was “categorically untrue”.

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Head of rights group during Argentina’s military dictatorship dies at 93

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Hebe de Bonafini co-founded Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in 1977 after her two sons were arrested and then disappeared

Hebe de Bonafini, who became a human rights campaigner when her two sons were arrested and then disappeared under Argentina’s military dictatorship has died, her family and authorities have reported. She was 93.

The death on Sunday was confirmed by her only surviving child, Alejandra, who expressed thanks for expressions of support her mother had received while hospitalised in the city of La Plata. Local officials said she had suffered from unspecified chronic illnesses.

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Turkey confirms deadly airstrikes in Syria and Iraq targeting Kurdish groups

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Strikes launched in retaliation for Istanbul bombing target ‘terrorist bases’, but civilian deaths reported by Kurdish officials

Turkey launched deadly airstrikes over northern regions of Syria and Iraq, the Turkish defence ministry said on Sunday, targeting Kurdish groups that Ankara holds responsible for last week’s bomb attack in Istanbul.

Warplanes attacked bases belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), and the Syrian People’s Protection Units, or YPG, the ministry said in a statement, which was accompanied by images of F-16 jets taking off and footage of a strike from an aerial drone.

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At least five people killed in shooting at gay nightclub in Colorado Springs

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At least 25 people were also injured in attack at Club Q, and suspect in custody after patrons confronted and subdued him, police say

At least five people were killed and another 25 were injured in a shooting late Saturday at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

The suspected shooter, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, is in custody, the chief of the Colorado Spring Police Department, Adrian Vasquez, said at a news conference Sunday morning.

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Shelling of Zaporizhzhia is playing with fire, says UN nuclear chief, as blasts reported

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Explosions cause damage at Ukrainian power plant, as Kyiv says it will investigate videos allegedly of surrendering Russians being shot

The UN nuclear energy watchdog has said the forces behind the shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant are “playing with fire”, after a series of explosions shook the facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has experts based at Zaporizhzhia, reported on Sunday that powerful explosions had shaken the area on Saturday night and Sunday. It said its on-site experts saw some of the explosions from their windows.

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Emmanuel Macron accuses Russia of feeding disinformation in Africa

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French president says Moscow is pursuing ‘predatory project’ to spread influence in African countries

Emmanuel Macron has accused Russia of feeding disinformation to further its “predatory project” in Africa, where France has had military setbacks.

In an interview with TV5 Monde on the sidelines of a conference of Francophone nations in Tunisia, he said there was a “predatory project” pushing disinformation into African countries, which was “a political project financed by Russia, sometimes others”.

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