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Channel: World news | The Guardian

Former MP and his brother shot dead on live TV in India

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Atiq Ahmed, jailed since 2019, was in police custody and taking questions from journalists when attackers struck

A former Indian MP convicted of kidnapping and facing murder and assault charges has been murdered along with his brother in a dramatic shooting broadcast live on TV.

Atiq Ahmed, a former MP who was serving a life sentence in jail, and his brother Ashraf Ahmed were in police custody outside a hospital in Prayagraj, in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, when three men fired more than 20 rounds of bullets at them from close range as they took questions from reporters. The two brothers died on the spot.

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Protests show depth of mistrust in Israeli government, says Rothman

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Architect of Israel’s judicial changes doubles down for next round of legislative battle when Knesset reconvenes in May

The vicious fight in Israel over the government’s proposed judicial changes “transcends issues of left and right, and comes down to public distrust in government”, one of the architects of the plans has said, acknowledging that there is room for compromise going forward.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned to office in December at the helm of a coalition of conservative and religious parties that make up the most rightwing government in the country’s history. The new administration’s most pressing item on its agenda proposed what it called “judicial reform” to limit the supreme court’s ability to overturn laws and to give politicians more control over the appointment of justices.

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Suspected IS fighters kill 26 desert truffle hunters in Syria

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Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says latest attack brings the number of foragers killed since February to 200

Suspected Islamic State fighters killed at least 26 people in Syria on Sunday, a war monitor said, the latest in a spate of attacks targeting people foraging for desert truffles.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “civilians and at least 10 pro-regime fighters” were among “the 26 people killed in an attack by Islamic State fighters while they were collecting truffles in the desert east of Hama”.

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Hungary and Poland provide model for Israel’s assault on judiciary

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Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions remind many of first steps taken by ‘illiberal’ governments in Budapest and Warsaw

At the height of the protests in Israel over Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned judicial changes early last month, a Polish minister gave a revealing radio interview in Warsaw.

“Of course, we are talking with Israel, and to some extent we shared our experiences in this regard,” said the deputy foreign minister, Paweł Jabłoński, when asked for his views on the proposed Israeli laws.

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China’s defence minister and Putin vow to strengthen military cooperation

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Li Shangfu travelled to Moscow where he said ties between the countries ‘surpass military-political alliances of the cold war era’

Vladimir Putin and China’s defence minister Li Shangfu have vowed to deepen military cooperation between China and Russia after the men met in Moscow over the weekend.

Li, who met the Russian president on Sunday on his first trip overseas in the role, said China was willing to work with Russia to have close strategic communications between their militaries.

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Japan’s PM gives G7 security pledge after pipe bomb attack

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Security tightened ahead of summit in Hiroshima next month after incident on Saturday

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has vowed to ensure the safety of politicians and officials attending this year’s round of G7 meetings, days after he escaped unharmed after apparently being targeted in a pipe bomb attack.

The incident on Saturday came as foreign ministers began three days of talks in Japan, this year’s G7 president, that will be followed by other high-level meetings culminating in the leaders’ summit in Hiroshima in May.

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Penny Wong and Paul Keating spar as minister warns against ‘frenzied’ Taiwan war speculation

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Wong also hits back at former prime minister saying his comments diminish ‘his legacy and the subject matter’

Penny Wong has warned politicians and media against playing “the most dangerous of parlour games” by adding to “frenzied” speculation about a war over Taiwan.

The Australian foreign affairs minister said on Monday that such a conflict would be “catastrophic for all” and there would be “no real winners” – but the warning was quickly overshadowed by a fresh war of words with Paul Keating.

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India heatwave: temperatures hit 40C

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Indians warned to stay vigilant during spell of very hot weather. Elsewhere, sandstorms plague China

The heatwave that has been plaguing the states of West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh in India is forecast to continue through the coming week. Daytime temperatures of 40C have been recorded for several consecutive days in these regions, about 5C above the seasonal average.

This excessive heat is linked to a north-westerly flow of air, which is also bringing much drier than usual conditions. The authorities have advised people to be vigilant about their health by staying hydrated, wearing breathable clothing and avoiding street food, which could easily go off in these conditions. They have also closed schools and universities for a week in response to schoolchildren complaining about headaches.

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Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo: the feared ex-warlord taking on Sudan’s army | profile

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Commonly known as Hemedti, the general of the Rapid Support Forces rose through ranks of Janjaweed in 2003-05 war

The story has it that Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – known universally as Hemedti or “little Mohammed” – first became a fighter in the Sudanese Arab Janjaweed militia in Darfur after an armed attack killed dozens of members of his family.

A secondary school dropout turned camel trader, the general and deputy head of state whose Rapid Support Forces [RSF] are now battling the Sudanese army forces loyal to army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan, is also widely feared.

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Sudan violence escalates as rival factions reject ceasefire calls

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Neither side shows any willingness to heed appeals from US, UK, African Union and Arab states as death toll nears 100

Rival government factions in Sudan have rejected calls for a ceasefire and intensified their battle for control of the vast and strategically important country as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict gather momentum.

At least 97 people have been killed and many hundreds wounded as clashes have spread since Saturday, when violence erupted between army units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing Sovereign Council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council.

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Alabama shooting: 16-year-old girl says brother was killed saving her life

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Alexis Dowdell pays tribute to older brother Phil, 18, who was shot dead on Saturday night along with three other teenagers

A teenage boy who was killed in a mass shooting that erupted at his sister’s 16th party in Alabama over the weekend died as he pushed the birthday girl to safety, his sister said.

In an interview with CNN, Alexis Dowdell described her final words to her 18-year-old brother, Philstavious “Phil” Dowdell, as he died on Saturday night along with three other teens.

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Oklahoma officials recorded making racist and threatening remarks

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Residents demand resignations after sheriff and officials recorded discussing desire to murder journalists and lynch Black citizens

A sheriff and several officials of a rural Oklahoma county are under pressure to resign after a local newspaper recorded their racist and expletive-laden conversation about their desire to murder journalists and lynch Black citizens.

Dozens of residents of McCurtain county protested at the sheriff’s office in Idabel on Monday, echoing calls from the Oklahoma governor, Kevin Stitt, and the city’s mayor, Craig Young, for the officials to step down.

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‘Buckets of tears’: mother of Black teen shot after going to wrong address speaks

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Cleo Nagbe says son Ralph Yarl has been mentally replaying shooting ‘over and over’ after last week’s attack by white man

The mother of Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who was shot by a white man after ringing the man’s doorbell, says that her son has been mentally replaying the shooting “over and over”.

Cleo Nagbe says that her son is still facing physical challenges from last week’s attack, when Andrew Lester, a white Kansas City resident, shot Yarl twice, once in the head and once in the arm, after the 16-year-old went to a mistaken address to pick up his siblings.

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Girl’s teddy bear with recording of late mom’s heartbeat mistakenly donated to thrift shop

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Four-year-old’s father dropped off the stuffed bear at a Tennessee Goodwill, after which it was quickly sold

A heartbroken four-year-old girl’s lost teddy bear, containing a recording of her late mother’s heartbeat, has sparked a desperate search in Tennessee after it was mistakenly donated to a thrift shop.

The tie-dyed bear was dropped off by the girl’s father among other donations at the Goodwill Industries store in New Tazewell about 50 miles (80km) north-west of Knoxville, company officials say, and was quickly sold.

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Chris Christie derides Ron DeSantis for being outfoxed by Disney

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Florida governor’s campaign against entertainment giant shows he is no conservative, says former New Jersey governor

Ron DeSantis’s attacks on Disney and his struggles to bend the entertainment giant to his will show the Florida governor is both not a true conservative and should not be trusted to lead talks with the leaders of China and Russia, a potential rival for the Republican presidential nomination said on Tuesday.

“I’ll tell you this much,” Chris Christie told Semafor. “That’s not the guy I want sitting across from President Xi [Jinping] and negotiating our next agreement with China.

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Fox News v Dominion: defamation lawsuit over election lies goes to trial – live

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House Republicans could as soon as next week vote on their proposal to raise the US government’s debt limit, while also cutting spending to a variety of Joe Biden’s priorities, Punchbowl News reports.

The US government has hit the legal limit on how much debt it can take on, and is expected to run out of money sometime in early June, which could cause it to default on its debt for the first time in history. That would have major negative ramifications for the economy, but the GOP lawmakers say they won’t support increasing the debt ceiling without concessions from Democrats, such as spending cuts.

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Arrest of SNP treasurer overshadows Humza Yousaf’s policy relaunch

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Colin Beattie arrest announced as new first minister prepared to set out ‘fresh vision’ to MSPs

Attempts by Scotland’s new first minister, Humza Yousaf, to stamp his authority on his already beleaguered administration were scuppered by the arrest of the Scottish National party’s treasurer hours before a major policy statement.

Police Scotland said Colin Beattie, 71, the SNP MSP for Midlothian North and Musselburgh and a former banker, had been taken into custody on Tuesday morning and was being interviewed by detectives as part of an investigation into the party’s funding and finances.

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Rishi Sunak’s wife’s stake in childcare firm not mentioned in six ministerial registers

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Exclusive: No 10 urged to explain as lists of interests since 2019 do not refer to Akshata Murty’s shares

Opposition parties have called on Downing Street to provide answers over Rishi Sunak’s family financial interests as the Guardian discovered that previous ministerial registers made no mention of his wife’s stake in a childcare firm, even though it began in 2019.

The prime minister could be ordered to apologise to the House of Commons if an inquiry announced on Monday into his declarations about the investment finds he breached the code of conduct for MPs.

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Harry Styles, Cleo Sol and Inflo top nominations for 2023 Ivor Novello awards

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British songwriting awards also acknowledge Florence + the Machine, Wet Leg, Central Cee and more

Harry Styles, Little Simz, and Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner are among the 72 nominees for this year’s Ivor Novello awards, which honour the best in British and Irish songwriting.

At three apiece, the most nominations are given to Harry Styles and his co-writer Kid Harpoon after the huge success of Styles’ third studio album Harry’s House; and to Cleo Sol and Dean “Inflo” Josiah Cover, for their work with rapper Little Simz and soul collective Sault.

In 2021, Styles won his first Ivor Novello for most performed song, eight years after Noel Gallagher praised the awards“because clowns like One Direction aren’t invited”.

Styles is nominated for the same award this year, for his track As It Was, alongside Ed Sheeran who makes history for being the first artist to have a song nominated two years in a row, for Bad Habits, which won the category in 2022. Sheeran’s track Shivers is also nominated, alongside Glass Animals’ Heat Waves.

Rounding out the category is Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill, 37 years after it was nominated for best contemporary song. The 1985 hit had a remarkable resurgence after being featured in Netflix show Stranger Things, and reached No 1 in the UK charts – something that Kate Bush called “extraordinary”.

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Channel 4 announces Partygate the True Story docudrama

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Broadcaster says programme will contrast revelry in Downing Street with hardship across rest of UK

Partygate, the scandal that helped bring down Boris Johnson and may yet cost him his parliamentary seat, is being made into docudrama for Channel 4.

Partygate the True Story will dramatise numerous drunken parties in Downing during the Covid lockdown, including booze runs to fill a staff wine fridge, vomiting officials, and the breaking of a child’s swing during a garden party.

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Tories pushing for tougher migration bill could make ‘tactical retreat’

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Hardliners may instead lobby for a commitment in next manifesto to use as a dividing line with Labour

Conservatives who want to railroad through measures to curb small boat crossings by pulling the UK out of the European convention on human rights (EHRC) could make a “tactical retreat” and instead lobby for a commitment in the party’s next manifesto.

Some of those who put their name to a rebel amendment to the illegal migration bill, which is due to go through its final parliamentary stages next Tuesday, told the Guardian a climbdown was possible.

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Why Rishi Sunak may be the most socially conservative PM of his generation

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Portrayed as a Cameronite liberal, Sunak is in fact deeply conservative on everything from trans rights to refugees

It was one of the many strange quirks of the summer Tory leadership contest: that Liz Truss captured the mantle of the true blue Conservative while Rishi Sunak found himself painted as a wet, Cameronite liberal.

But in the past five months of his premiership, that portrayal of Sunak has started to become laughable. He is perhaps the most socially conservative prime minister of his generation, more so than Truss, Boris Johnson or even Theresa May.

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UN ready for ‘heartbreaking’ decision to pull out of Afghanistan

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Officials say it will leave in May if Taliban cannot be persuaded to let local women work for organisation

The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.

The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.

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Northern Irish man dies and Indian man missing on Annapurna climb in Nepal

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Noel Hanna died during descent of world’s 10th highest mountain, say expedition organisers

A Northern Irish climber has died and an Indian climber is missing after falling into a crevasse in separate incidents on Mount Annapurna, the world’s 10th highest mountain.

Another Indian climber fell ill on the way down from the 8,091-metre (26,540ft) summit but survived after spending the night in harsh conditions on the mountain.

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China ready to broker Israel-Palestine peace talks, says foreign minister

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China is positioning itself as a regional mediator after brokering the restoration of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia

China’s foreign minister told his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts his country is ready to help facilitate peace talks, state media reported.

The separate phone calls between Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, and the Israeli and Palestinian top diplomats comes amid recent moves by Beijing to position itself as a regional mediator.

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UK imposes sanctions on art collector accused of financing Hezbollah

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Nazem Ahmad, who has owned works by Picasso and Warhol, suspected of laundering money for militant group

A high-profile art collector has been put on a Treasury sanctions list and charged in the US over claims that he uses his collection, which has included masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Antony Gormley and Andy Warhol, to launder money for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Nazem Ahmad, a diamond and art dealer who once posed in his Beirut penthouse for a glossy magazine and featured in a piece about the “world’s most beautiful homes and the fascinating people who live in them”, has been targeted in the UK under new counter-terrorism powers.

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Revealed: how Cypriot firm helped the ‘Orthodox oligarch’ after he was placed under sanctions

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Konstantin Malofeyev, accused of aiding pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, appeared to continue moving money through the global system

An oligarch accused of financing pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine appeared to continue moving millions of dollars through the global banking system with the help of a Cypriot financial services firm after he was placed under sanctions by western governments, the Guardian can reveal.

Konstantin Malofeyev, a banker whose business interests include the Kremlin-supporting Tsargrad media group, has been described by the US authorities as “one of the main sources of financing” for the promotion of Russian interests in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

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Spain’s former king to return from self-exile for sailing regatta

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Juan Carlos is promised a warm welcome by mayor on visit to boating competition in Galicia

Spain’s self-exiled former king, Juan Carlos, who abandoned the country almost three years ago after a series of damaging financial allegations that further tarnished his diminished reputation, is due to make a trip home to take part in a sailing regatta this week.

The 85-year-old former monarch, who retains the title rey emérito (king emeritus), has been living in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, since August 2020.

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India and Russia in ‘advanced talks’ over free trade agreement

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Deal would build closer economic ties as most western states push to isolate Moscow over Ukraine

India and Russia have entered “advanced negotiations” over a free trade agreement that aims to build closer economic ties as most western governments push to isolate Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

In a development likely to add to tensions in Washington, London and EU capitals, Russia and India’s trade ministers said on Monday the two countries were in talks to strike a free trade deal.

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Absolut vodka exports to Russia discontinued after outcry in Sweden

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Firm’s owner, Pernod Ricard, faced calls for boycott and political pressure after resuming some exports in April

The maker of Sweden’s Absolut vodka has said it is ceasing all exports to Russia after calls to boycott the brand flared up in Sweden and on social media.

The Absolut Company said it had “decided to stop the export of its brand to Russia”.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin and Zelenskiy visit troops near frontline

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This blog has now closed, you can read more of out Ukraine war coverage here

You may have seen that we are testing a new feature across some of the Guardian’s live blogs, including the Ukraine live blog, which allows you to contact some of our live bloggers directly. This is for people who want to message us, they are not public comments.

If you have something you’ve seen you think I’ve missed, or you have questions or comments about the war or our coverage, or have spotted one of my regular typos or transliteration errors, please do drop me a line.

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Caught short at 35,000ft: plane forced to turn back after toilets malfunction

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Five of eight toilets broke down on Austrian Airlines flight carrying 300 people from Vienna to New York

An Austrian Airlines plane had to return two hours into a flight from Vienna to New York after five of its eight toilets broke down.

About 300 people were onboard Monday’s eight-hour, Boeing 777 flight. The crew decided to turn around after finding a technical problem was preventing the toilets from flushing properly, a spokesperson for the airline told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday.

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Aged care sector warns Albanese government’s planned $4.8bn spend not enough to keep homes open

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Growing demand and ageing population expected to drive up costs by 23% in fifth-largest area of government expenditure

The Albanese government will spend an extra $4.8bn on aged care in next month’s budget to maintain funding commitments, but the sector has warned it will still not be enough to keep all residential care homes open amid staff shortages.

The cost of aged care is expected to rise by 23% next financial year to $29.6bn and become the fifth-largest area of government expenditure.

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Chinese-Australians face fewer racist insults than at height of diplomatic tensions with Beijing, survey finds

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Lowy Institute poll indicates one in five Chinese-Australians were called offensive names in 2022, down 10 points from 31% in 2020

Chinese-Australians have continued to experience racist insults but at a lower rate than when diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing erupted in 2020, a new study has found.

Polling commissioned by the Lowy Institute indicates one in five Chinese-Australians said they were called offensive names because of their heritage in 2022.

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Rural Australia and Tasmania to receive almost no benefit from stage-three tax cuts, analysis finds

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‘It’s arse about face … giving nothing to the people who are screaming for assistance,’ Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie says

Rural Australia and Tasmania will receive almost no benefit from the $250bn stage-three tax cuts, a new analysis has found, with Jacqui Lambie hardening her stance against them.

Research by the Australia Institute has concluded rural and regional communities will receive the least benefit from the controversial final stage of the Morrison government tax reforms, given their comparatively lower earnings.

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Albanese government urged to include pay rise for all childcare and aged care workers in budget

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Labor downplays delivering on women’s taskforce wishlist all at once but promises to ‘build upon’ investments in future budgets

Increased rent assistance and a pay rise for all childcare and aged care workers are among the “specific and urgent” recommendations for the May budget made by the women’s economic equality taskforce.

The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, has released the taskforce’s advice but played down the likelihood of delivering on the wishlist all at once, noting the “tight fiscal environment” and promising to “build upon” investments in future budgets.

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Students left with $13 a day as youth allowance falls behind rent rises, analysis finds

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Homelessness Australia report shows that after paying rent young people have little money to cover food, transport and utilities

Students are being left with as little as $13 a day to live on as the youth allowance fails to keep pace with soaring rents, a new analysis from Homelessness Australia shows.

The report compared the cost of sharing an average two-bedroom apartment against the maximum income support payments available to young student renters, revealing they are left with little money to cover food, transport, medicine, utilities and other costs.

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EPA’s water testing after Menindee fish kill was flawed and insufficient, expert says

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NSW environment agency took almost a month to release full results of six water samples taken from Darling-Baaka River five days after event

Scientists have raised concerns about the accuracy of government water testing results from Menindee after a mass fish kill last month, with one saying if it were a first year university assignment, he would fail them.

The New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) this week released the long-awaited test results on six water samples taken from the Darling-Baaka River almost one month ago, on 21 March. The samples were collected five days after millions of fish were reported to be floating on the river’s surface around the town of Menindee in far west NSW.

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The water samples were taken on 21 March, five days after the fish kill event began on 16 March.

The samples were collected by Water NSW, not the EPA.

Six samples do not provide an adequate sample size to draw accurate conclusions from.

Only one sample was taken at each of the six locations. He said multiple samples should have been taken as results can vary depending on whether samples were taken from the surface or deeper in the river.

Bacteria were not tested, and it should have been given there were millions of fish rotting in the water.

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FBI arrests two New Yorkers accused of running covert Chinese police station

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The station, in New York’s Chinatown, was allegedly run by Beijing’s ministry of public security to track Chinese dissidents

The FBI has arrested two men accused of running a covert station for China’s police force in New York, and using it as a base to track Chinese dissidents living in the US.

The station, in Manhattan’s Chinatown, was allegedly set up in February 2022 and operated by Beijing’s ministry of public security (MPS) as part of a campaign of transnational repression against Chinese pro-democracy activists and other political opponents around the world.

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UK should not ‘pull the shutters down’ on China, says James Cleverly

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Exclusive: British foreign secretary says failing to engage ‘closely and regularly’ with Beijing would be ‘really counterproductive’

Britain should not “pull the shutters down” on China, as it would be counterproductive to the national interest, the foreign secretary has told the Guardian.

In a warning to Conservative hawks, James Cleverly insisted there was not a binary choice to be made between treating China as either a threat or an opportunity, and said the UK’s approach needed to be more nuanced.

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Canada’s CBC ‘pauses’ Twitter use after government-funded media label

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Justin Trudeau has accused a rival of taking advantage of the decision by Twitter to attempt to defund the network

Prime minister Justin Trudeau has waded into a feud over Twitter’s decision to label Canada’s public broadcaster as “government-funded”, accusing his main political rival Pierre Poilievre of enlisting the help of tech executives in an attempt to defund the network.

Last week, the Conservative leader called on Twitter owner Elon Musk to label the English-language feed of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “government-funded” – but stopped short of asking for the French arm of the network to also be given the same label.

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Arrest of Chihuahua migration chief spotlights abuses in Mexican system

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Last month’s fatal fire in Ciudad Juárez is latest in a series of deaths and injuries dogging the country’s militarized migration agency

Mexican authorities have arrested the head of migration for the state of Chihuahua in connection with a fire which killed 40 people at a government-run detention facility in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez last month.

The death of the migrants sparked outrage across Mexico after surveillance footage showed that officials failed to unlock the doors of the holding cell where migrants were trapped.

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Scientists discover pristine deep-sea Galápagos reef ‘teeming with life’

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Diving to 600m, researchers find reefs full of octopus, lobster and fish, raising hopes for corals’ survival amid rising sea temperatures

Scientists operating a submersible have discovered deep-sea coral reefs in pristine condition in a previously unexplored part of the Galápagos marine reserve.

Diving to depths of 600 metres (1,970ft), to the summit of a previously unmapped seamount in the central part of the archipelago, the scientists witnessed a breathtaking mix of deep marine life. This has raised hopes that healthy reefs can still thrive at a time when coral is in crisis due to record sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. It also showed the effectiveness of conservation actions and effective management, they said.

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Canada shuts baby eel fishery after string of attacks on harvesters

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Officials announce 45-day ban on harvesting elvers in provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

Canada has temporarily shut down its baby eel fishery following a string of attacks on harvesters, as well as mounting concerns over widespread poaching of the threatened fish.

Officials from the department of fisheries and oceans on Saturday announced a 45-day ban on harvesting the young eels, called elvers, in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, shuttering the lucrative C$50m (£30m) market.

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UK company mining gold in Amazon on disputed land

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London-listed Serabi Gold extracting gold without approval of Brazilian land registry and Indigenous communities

A London-listed company has been mining gold in the Amazon rainforest without approval from the Brazilian land agency or the consent of nearby Indigenous communities, according to an investigation by the Guardian and partners.

Serabi Gold has been blasting 4.5 metre-wide tunnels and trucking ore from the Coringa project site in Pará state. But interviews with land agency officials and documents seen by the Guardian, Unearthed and Sumaúma indicate that ownership of the area is disputed and the land was allegedly occupied by illegal land-grabbers.

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Ukraine criticises Brazil’s peace efforts and invites Lula to see invasion’s effects

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Kyiv accuses Brazilian president’s initiative for giving equal weight to ‘the victim and the aggressor’

Ukraine’s government has criticised Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for his efforts to broker a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, and invited the Brazilian leader to visit the war-torn country and see for himself the consequences of the Russian invasion.

The comments came a day after Russia’s minister of foreign affairs, Sergei Lavrov, visited Brasília, and praised Lula’s calls for a negotiated settlement.

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Opposition party leader is latest critic of Tunisian president to be arrested

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Ennahdha party’s Rached Ghannouchi, 81, is at least the 20th person to be held in recent months in crackdown by Kais Saied

Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Ennahda political party and one of the main opponents of the Tunisian president, Kais Saied, has been arrested, the latest in a string of opposition figures held.

Ghannouchi, 81, whose party was the largest in parliament before Saied dissolved the chamber in July 2021, was arrested by police at his Tunis home and taken “to an unknown location”, the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha said in a statement.

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Blinken warns Sudan’s rivals as US diplomatic convoy comes under fire

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Secretary of state condemns apparent attack by fighters linked to paramilitary RSF after days of deadly clashes

A US diplomatic convoy came under fire in Sudan in an apparent attack by fighters associated with Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said, in an incident he described as “reckless” and “irresponsible”.

The incident on Monday prompted a direct warning from Blinken, who separately telephoned the RSF leader Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and Sudan’s army chief, Gen Abdel Fatah al-Burhan, to tell them any danger posed to American diplomats was unacceptable.

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Tunisia bans meetings at opposition offices after detaining leader

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Police close headquarters of main opposition coalition as fears mount party will be banned

Tunisian authorities have banned meetings at all offices of the opposition Ennahda Islamist party and police have closed the headquarters of the Salvation Front main opposition coalition.

Ennahda fears the move will pave the way for banning the party. It came a day after police detained the leader of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, the most prominent critic of President Kais Saied and three senior officials, the party said.

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Humanitarian aid ‘impossible’ as fighting in Sudan traps millions

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Hopes of 24-hour ceasefire to evacuate civilians and wounded after US secretary of state intervenes

A major aid organisation says it is nearly impossible to provide humanitarian services in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where fighting between rival political factions has trapped millions of people in their homes.

“The truth is that at the moment it is almost impossible to provide any humanitarian services in and around Khartoum,” said Farid Aiywar, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies’ head of delegation for Sudan. “There are calls from various organisations and people trapped asking for evacuation.”

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