Tag Archives: WorldNews

Air strike on bus in Yemen kills dozens, including children

Saudi values genocide

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A strike on a bus in rebel-held northern Yemen killed at least 29 children Thursday, the Red Cross said, as the Saudi-led coalition faced a growing outcry over the attack.

The Guardian view on Saudi Arabia: time to back Canada | Editorial

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Riyadh’s thin-skinned response to Ottawa’s justified criticism is intended as a warning to others. Europe should take heed

It is famously hard to pick a fight with Canadians, but Saudi Arabia’s forceful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is not a man to be held back by what others think. That trait has led to both reforms (allowing women to drive) and a crackdown on those advocating them (arresting women who campaigned for the right). When Ottawa responded by calling for the immediate release of peaceful activists, including Samar Badawi, who has family in Canada, Riyadh lashed out at what it called reprehensible interference in its internal affairs. It expelled the Canadian ambassador, cancelled flights to Canada, froze new trade and investment, and is reportedly selling Canadian assets. Some measures – withdrawing students, and transferring home patients currently undergoing treatment – seem more damaging to those Saudi citizens than their hosts.

This absurd overreaction reflects the bullishness of the man who led the charge to war in Yemen and the blockade which has failed to bring Qatar to its knees as planned. But he has surely been emboldened by Donald Trump’s embrace, and the US president’s own attacks on Canada. It was little surprise when the state department said it would stay out of this row; more disappointing is the reticence of others. The UK has merely urged restraint on its two “close partners” and said it regularly raises rights concerns, including recent arrests.

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Boris Johnson is auditioning to lead a grim, insular Britain | Martin Kettle

Clown Boris should be bonked out of politics before he really hurts someone!

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Ambition has shifted Johnson ever further to the right as he seeks to emulate Donald Trump’s route to power

For many years it struck me as amusing rather than ominous that the place where I first spent any time with Boris Johnson was a Munich beerhall. We were journalists covering a defence summit in the 1990s. We’d both filed our pieces – he to the Telegraph, me to the Guardian – and we were bored. So, along with the man from the Times, we took a taxi into the city centre and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer and chatting. Johnson made a lot of good jokes, and one or two rather loud and tasteless ones about Hitler and Munich beerhalls.

Related: Boris Johnson’s contempt for Muslim women is part of a dangerous pattern | Sayeeda Warsi

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Revealed: detail of exclusive Russian deal offered to Arron Banks in Brexit run-up

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Leaked document lays out for first time deal proposed to Leave.EU backer, sparking new questions over Moscow’s role

The full details of Russia’s gold deal offer to Arron Banks ahead of the EU referendum are revealed in a leaked document which mentions exclusive “opportunities not available to others” and support from a Kremlin bank.

A seven-slide presentation, seen for the first time, shows how Banks – the main donor behind Leave.EU – was offered the chance of making potentially enormous profits in a deal featuring a Russian gold company.

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Argentina abortion vote won’t end legalisation fight, activists say: ‘It’s going to happen’

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After a bill to legalise abortion fell in the senate, women’s rights leaders say it is just a temporary setback

Women’s rights activists in Argentina have pledged to continue the fight for legal abortion, despite a resounding defeat in the country’s senate when a majority of men over 50 years of age voted against a bill that would have legalized elective abortion up to the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

After more than 15 hours of debate, legislators voted 38 to 31 against the bill early on Thursday, although opinion polls showed the reform had strong public support.

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Ten months without power: the Puerto Ricans still without electricity

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Almost a year after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island’s ailing power infrastructure, the Ruiz family is one of 1,000 still off the grid

They have eaten by candlelight for the past 10 months, powerless and isolated.

Their small home, with its wooden walls and tin roof, nestled high up in the hills of Utuado municipality, somehow survived Hurricane Maria without a scratch. Most others in the surrounding area of this mountainous region were swept apart by the wind. But the hurricane’s raw strength last September didn’t leave everything on their property unscathed. It uprooted a mango tree a few metres down their steep pathway, which crashed onto a pylon that had brought electricity up the slope for 23 years and cut this family of four off from the grid for almost a year.

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