100 former French and British ambassadors accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing
France 24

100 former French and British ambassadors accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing

Former British and French diplomats are urging action over what they say is Israel’s ‘erasure’ of Palestine. More than 100 of those diplomats have penned a letter to the French President and the British Prime Minister, calling for a ban on trade and arms sales to press Israel to accept a Palestinian state. The unprecedented joint letter directly accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing and warns that th...

Man leaves young son on Mount Fuji before ascending Japan’s highest peak
The Guardian

Man leaves young son on Mount Fuji before ascending Japan’s highest peak

Boy, seven, had complained of feeling tired so father left him with snacks and a soft drink and continued his climbA man who abandoned his seven-year-old son on Mount Fuji in Japan after the boy complained of feeling tired while on a family hike has been reprimanded by local police.A worker on Japan’s highest mountain discovered the child sitting alone on a bench near the sixth station of the Fuji...

Watchdog investigating after ‘multiple’ people die in crash between police vehicle and car in Yorkshire

Watchdog investigating after ‘multiple’ people die in crash between police vehicle and car in Yorkshire

The Guardian

IOPC says police were pursuing a car before the collision on the A66 near MiddlesbroughThe police regulator has launched an investigation after ‘multiple people’ died in a collision involving a police vehicle near Middlesbrough.A number of people died in the crash on the A66 in South Bank, North Yorkshire, in the early hours of Saturday morning, according to local authorities. Continue reading...

20 sailors kidnapped by Somali pirates near Yemen on US-sanctioned ship

20 sailors kidnapped by Somali pirates near Yemen on US-sanctioned ship

SCMP

Somali pirates hijacked an oil products tanker off Yemen, a Somali maritime security official said, the latest in a resurgence of piracy that has seen six commercial vessels seized since April across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean. Six armed pirates hijacked the Eritrean-flagged M.T. Sibu 1 on Thursday about 136 nautical miles (252 kilometres) east of al-Mukalla, Yemen, and took it towa...

Andy Burnham says he wants to bring men’s World Cup back to UK in 2042

Andy Burnham says he wants to bring men’s World Cup back to UK in 2042

The Guardian

PM tells regional mayors he was keen to see tournament hosted in UK for first time after almost eight decadesAndy Burnham has said he wants to bring the men’s World Cup to the UK in 2042, a move which would see the tournament return to these shores for the first time in almost eight decades.At a meeting in No 10 North in Manchester on Friday, the prime minister told regional mayors he was keen for...

Jharkhand's Dhanbad turned a barren coal-belt hillock green; CISF is now trying the same experiment on 6 acres along Delhi’s Yamuna

Jharkhand's Dhanbad turned a barren coal-belt hillock green; CISF is now trying the same experiment on 6 acres along Delhi’s Yamuna

Times of India

In a remarkable effort to rejuvenate Delhi's Yamuna floodplain, CISF personnel have embarked on an ambitious forest reclamation project. By planting thousands of trees and vetiver grass near Sarai Kale Khan, they aim to combat land degradation and curb soil erosion along the riverbank. This initiative, inspired by a successful ecological effort in Dhanbad's mining regions, is part of a larger stra...

Chinese J-16 fighters arrive in Egypt ahead of Eagles of Civilisation 2026 joint drill

Chinese J-16 fighters arrive in Egypt ahead of Eagles of Civilisation 2026 joint drill

SCMP

A fleet of Chinese J-16 fighters has arrived in Egypt ahead of a joint exercise that will be the aircraft’s first-ever deployment to Africa. The planes and aviators taking part in the Eagles of Civilisation 2026 exercise arrived at an Egyptian airbase on Friday morning after a 6,000km (3,700-mile) journey that took nine hours and required the planes to refuel in mid-air, according to the People’s ...

Two UK men convicted of putting explicit content on OnlyFans without consent

Two UK men convicted of putting explicit content on OnlyFans without consent

The Guardian

Separate criminal convictions come as domestic violence charities warn of tech-facilitated abuse and coercionTwo men have been convicted this week in separate criminal cases that revealed they had posted explicit content on OnlyFans without the full consent of the women whose images were uploaded.In the first case, Alexander Tang, 37, took and uploaded 47 intimate images and four videos of a woman...

Hong Kong-built greenhouse gas tracker device ‘functioning well’ on space station

Hong Kong-built greenhouse gas tracker device ‘functioning well’ on space station

SCMP

A greenhouse gas monitoring instrument developed by a university in Hong Kong is operating successfully aboard Tiangong space station and is expected to contribute to sustainable development, the city’s technology minister has said. Secretary for Innovation, Technology and Industries Sun Dong also revealed more details on Saturday about the life of the city’s first astronaut, Lai Ka-ying, who he s...

Canada lowered a retired Boeing 737 onto the seabed off Vancouver Island; now it serves as an artificial reef for marine life

Canada lowered a retired Boeing 737 onto the seabed off Vancouver Island; now it serves as an artificial reef for marine life

Times of India

In an innovative environmental initiative, a Boeing 737 from Canadian Airlines has been transformed into an artificial reef off the coast of Chemainus, British Columbia. Sunk in 2006, this aircraft has undergone a thorough cleaning by dedicated volunteers before its descent. Now known as Xihwu Reef, it has become a thriving ecosystem, supporting over a hundred different marine species that benefit...

Antwerp's 'human zoo': Belgium confronts shame of colonial past

Antwerp's 'human zoo': Belgium confronts shame of colonial past

France 24

In 1894, when the Belgian city of Antwerp was hosting a World's Fair, more than a hundred Congolese people were forcibly brought to the city to be exhibited in the Congo Pavilion. In this "human zoo", seven Congolese men ultimately died of disease. Today, this shocking episode still haunts Belgium as one of its colonial history's darkest chapters. This year, a monument to the victims was unveiled....

Tupac murder trial: Cans the prosecution use the defendant's words against him?

Tupac murder trial: Cans the prosecution use the defendant's words against him?

France 24

Who killed Tupac Shakur? Three decades after the rap superstar was murdered in Nevada, a trial in Las Vegas intends to answer that question. 63-year-old Duane Davis is accused of orchestrating the drive-by killing. Kim Langtree, lecturer in Law and the University of Salford in the UK, has been following the case closely. She delivers her analysis of the case’s latest developments.

US kindergarten vaccination rates dip as exemptions hit record high

US kindergarten vaccination rates dip as exemptions hit record high

The Guardian

New CDC data shows MMR vaccination among kindergarteners declining slightly as non-medical exemptions climb to 4.2%A week after Donald Trump made a series of misleading claims about vaccines – including that some injections look “like the size of a soda bottle” – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the latest data on national kindergarten vaccination rates.CDC communicati...

Man arrested for driving under influence of drugs after 3-vehicle crash

Man arrested for driving under influence of drugs after 3-vehicle crash

SCMP

Hong Kong police have arrested a 38-year-old man on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs following a three-vehicle crash that left two people injured. Police said they received a report at 1.48pm on Saturday of a traffic accident along Pok Fu Lam Road involving a large truck and two light goods vehicles. The force said the 38-year-old driver of one of the light goods vehicles failed a...