International

Iran executes 4 over links to Israeli intelligence: judiciary

Tehran, Iran (AFP) Iran on Sunday put to death four people accused of working with Israel’s intelligence service, the judiciary said. “This morning, the sentences of four main members of the gang of mobsters related to the Zionist intelligence service were executed,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported. Iran carried out the sentences four days after the Islamic republic’s supreme court upheld the penalty of capital punishment for “their intelligence cooperation with the Zionist regime […]

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More than 500 Ukrainian localities without power: ministry

Kyiv, Ukraine (AFP) More than 500 Ukrainian localities remained without power Sunday following weeks of Russian airstrikes on the electric grid, an interior ministry official said. “The enemy continues to attack the country’s essential infrastructure. Currently, 507 localities in eight regions of our country are cut off from electricity supplies,” deputy interior minister Yevgueny Yenin told Ukrainian television. “The Kharkiv region is the worst hit with 112 isolated villages,” Yenin added. Another 90 villages were […]

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Strong quake hits Indonesia’s Java island, injures one

Jakarta, Indonesia (AFP) A strong earthquake hit Indonesia’s main island of Java on Saturday, injuring at least one person and shaking the same town devastated by a tremor last month that left more than 330 people dead. The 5.7-magnitude quake struck on land at a depth of 112 kilometres (70 miles), with the epicentre located 18 kilometres southeast of the West Java city of Banjar, according to the United States Geological Survey. Indonesia’s meteorological agency, […]

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Shanghai axes some Covid testing requirements

Beijing, China (AFP) Authorities in China’s financial hub of Shanghai will from Monday scrap some testing requirements in the country’s latest relaxing of its strict zero-Covid policy following nationwide protests unseen in decades. Multiple cities have started to roll back some restrictions after public resentment at harsh and prolonged containment measures reached a boiling point last weekend, when spontaneous protests broke out in multiple Chinese cities. Shanghai residents will no longer need a 48-hour negative […]

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Indonesia’s Mount Semeru erupts, forcing thousands to flee

Lumajang, Indonesia (AFP) by Agus Harianto with Agnes Anya in Jakarta Indonesia’s Mount Semeru erupted Sunday spewing hot ash clouds a mile high and rivers of lava down its side while sparking the evacuation of nearly 2,000 people exactly one year after its last major eruption killed dozens. The burst from the highest mountain on Indonesia’s main island of Java, around 800 kilometres (500 miles) southeast of the capital Jakarta, prompted authorities to raise the alert […]

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Prince William awards Earthshot prizes as US visit wraps up

Boston, United States (AFP) by Peter HUTCHISON Prince William honored climate change innovators during a star-studded ceremony in Boston Friday at the culmination of a US trip overshadowed by a race row and estranged brother Harry’s Netflix series. Britain’s heir to the throne rewarded five entrepreneurs with £1 million each ($1.2 million) as part of his Earthshot Prize initiative to support efforts to save the planet from warming temperatures. Annie Lennox and sisters Chloe x Halle […]

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US hoax trials spotlight misinformation profiteer

Washington, United States (AFP) by Anuj CHOPRA American radio host Alex Jones reaped millions spouting conspiracy-laden falsehoods that helped drive up sales of products like libido boosters, exploiting an internet ecosystem that experts say makes misinformation a lucrative business. Jones, a serial provocateur who founded the far-right website InfoWars, has been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages for calling a 2012 mass shooting in an elementary school –- which left 20 first graders and […]

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Biden, Macron pledge US-French alliance on Ukraine, democracy

Washington, United States ( AFP) by Francesco Fontemaggi and Sebastian Smith US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron emerged from White House talks Thursday pledging to close ranks in helping Ukraine and pressuring Russia’s Vladimir Putin to make peace. Following lengthy Oval Office talks they also signaled they’d calmed the waters on a burgeoning US-EU trade dispute. Addressing a joint press conference on the second day of Macron’s rare state visit to Washington, […]

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PRES. Biden has ‘no intentions’ to meet with Russia’s President Putin now: W.House

Washington, United States (AFP) The White House poured cold water Friday on President Joe Biden’s conditional offer to sit down with President Vladimir Putin, saying he has “no intentions” at present of holding a meeting. “He’s got no intentions to talk to Mr Putin right now. And as he also said, Putin has shown absolutely no inclination to be interested in dialogue of any kind. In fact, quite the contrary,” White House National Security Advisor […]

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French Pres. Macron caps US visit with New Orleans trip, meetup with Musk

  New Orleans, United States (AFP) by Francesco FONTEMAGGI President Emmanuel Macron on Friday visited New Orleans, a city emblematic of historic Franco-American ties, to promote the French language and conclude his state visit to the United States. The French president, on the third day of a US trip that included a lavish reception at the White House a night earlier, strolled New Orleans’s historic French Quarter — and held an unannounced face-to-face meeting with […]

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Biden, Prince William meet in chilly Boston

  Boston, United States (AFP) US President Joe Biden met briefly Friday with Britain’s Prince William in Boston where the two quickly hit on the most British of conversation topics — the bad weather. As the heir to Britain’s throne strode up outside the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum without an overcoat, Biden remarked that it was “freezing.” Prince William chuckled and later could be heard informing the president that “when we got in […]

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Pres. Biden signs emergency law forcing US rail unions to accept wages deal

Washington, United States (AFP) US President Joe Biden signed into law Friday a rare intervention by Congress forcing freight rail unions to accept a salary deal, avoiding a possibly devastating strike — but putting the pro-union Democrat in an awkward political position. Biden signed the law in a brief White House ceremony only a week before unions who had rejected the deal were expected to have gone on strike, threatening crucial supply chains across the […]

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