Month: July 2023

Pope Urges World Leaders to Do More to Tackle Climate Change

Pope Francis said on Sunday that recent heat waves across many parts of the world and flooding in countries such as South Korea showed that more urgent action was needed to tackle climate change. “Please, I renew my appeal to world leaders to do something more concrete to limit polluting emissions,” the Pope said at the end of his Angelus message to crowds in St. Peter’s Square. “It is an urgent challenge, it cannot be postponed, it concerns everyone. Let us protect our common home,” the pope added. Francis has called on the world to rapidly ditch fossil fuels and …

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Voting Begins in Spain; Election Could See Another EU Country Swing Right

MADRID — Polling began Sunday in Spain in a general election that could make the country the latest European Union member to swing to the political right. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the early election after his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and its far-left partner, Unidas Podemos, took a beating in local and regional elections in May. Sánchez has been premier since 2018. Most opinion polls for Sunday’s voting have put the right-wing Popular Party, which won the May vote, ahead of the Socialists but likely needing the support of the extreme right Vox party if they want to form …

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Russia Says War Reporter Killed by Ukrainian Cluster Bomb

A Russian war reporter was killed and three colleagues were wounded in Ukraine on Saturday in what the defense ministry said was a Ukrainian attack using cluster munitions, prompting outrage from Moscow. In a separate incident, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said one of its journalists, Yevgeny Shilko, had been wounded elsewhere in Ukraine in a Russian attack with cluster munitions that killed a Ukrainian soldier. It said his life was not in danger. Cluster bombs are in the spotlight after Ukraine received supplies of them from the United States this month. Many countries ban them because they rain shrapnel over …

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Lukashenko to Make Working Visit to Russia, See Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko will meet Sunday, the Kremlin said, two days after Moscow warned that any aggression against its neighbor and staunchest ally would be considered an attack on Russia.  After Poland decided earlier this week to move military units closer to its border with Belarus in response to the arrival in Belarus of forces from Russia’s Wagner Group, Putin said Moscow would use all means to react to any hostility toward Minsk.  The Kremlin said Lukashenko is paying a working visit to Russia and will talk to Putin about further development of the …

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3 Dead in Serbia After Second Deadly Storm Rips Through Balkans

BELGRADE, Serbia — Three people died in Serbia during another deadly storm that ripped through the Balkans this week, local media said Saturday. The storm Friday first swept through Slovenia, moving on to Croatia and then Serbia and Bosnia, with gusts of wind and heavy rain. Authorities reported power distribution issues and extensive damage — including fallen trees — that destroyed cars and rooftops. On Wednesday, another storm killed six people in the region, four in Croatia, one in Slovenia and another in Bosnia. Meteorologists said the storms were of such powerful magnitude because they followed a string of extremely …

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Protesters Try to Storm Baghdad’s Green Zone Over Burning of Quran, Iraqi Flag in Denmark

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of protesters attempted to storm Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and the seat of Iraq’s government, early Saturday following reports that an ultranationalist group burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark. Security forces pushed back protesters, who blocked the Jumhuriya bridge leading to the Green Zone, preventing them from reaching the Danish Embassy. The protest came two days after people angered by the planned burning of the Islamic holy book in Sweden stormed the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad. Protesters occupied the diplomatic post for several …

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Kiss Between 2 Male British Band Mates Brings Halt to Malaysia Performance

A music festival in Malaysia’s capital was canceled Saturday after two male band members of a British band kissed on stage in defiance of the country’s anti-LGBT laws. During a performance at the Good Vibes Festival on Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Matty Healy, the frontman of The 1975, delivered a profanity laden speech before the kiss. “I made a mistake. When we were booking shows, I wasn’t looking into it,” he said. “I don’t see the (expletive) point … of inviting The 1975 to a country and then telling us who we can have sex with.” Healy then kissed bassist …

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World’s Biggest Permafrost Crater Thaws as Planet Warms

BATAGAI, RUSSIA – Stunning drone footage has revealed details of the Batagaika crater, a 1-kilometer-long gash in Russia’s Far East that forms the world’s biggest permafrost crater. In the video, two explorers clamber across uneven terrain at the base of the depression, marked by irregular surfaces and small hummocks, which began to form after the surrounding forest was cleared in the 1960s and the permafrost underground began to melt, causing the land to sink. “We locals call it ‘the cave-in,’” local resident and crater explorer Erel Struchkov told Reuters as he stood on the crater’s rim. “It developed in the …

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Spanish Election Could Put Far Right Back in Office for First Time Since Franco

MADRID — Voters in Spain go to the polls Sunday in an election that could make the country the latest European Union member to swing to the populist right, a shift that would represent a major upheaval after five years under a left-wing government. Here’s what you need to know about the vote. What is at stake? Opinion polls indicate the political right has the edge going into the election, and that raises the possibility a neo-fascist party will be part of Spain’s next government. The extreme right has not been in power in Spain since the transition to democracy …

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