Hey all! Friendly neighborhood mod here!

I've just been added to this group, "Worldnews", in addition to my existing group "World", along with @[email protected] (HEY SQUID!)

The reason being, the mods here had effectively retired. Hurts, the lead mod, stepped away and hadn't been active for MONTHS, and post and comment reports were PILING up, to a point where the Admins asked in our Discord chat going "Hey, what's going on with worldnews?"

Which left ME confused, because "world" has a friendly name of "World News" and is generally up to date on the report queue unless two users are engaging in:

https://youtu.be/17ocaZb-bGg

Which, (sigh), happens way more often than I'd like, but what are you going to do?

Before they left 5 months ago, Hurts had pinned a question asking, basically, "Do we NEED world AND worldnews?" which I think is a valid question.

There are some key differences, world doesn't accept video links or text pieces, but there's no rule against that in worldnews, so it's a little more free-form than world, although both require legitimate news sources.

So for now, consider the discussion OPEN! Keep them both? Close one or the other?

The volume difference is pretty dramatic:

world:

!

worldnews:

!

"Looking at Gaza, it almost appears that the four horsemen are galloping across it." \- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2024-03-24/secretary-generals-press-encounter-the-foreign-minister-of-egypt

@worldnews

cross-posted from: https://lemy.lol/post/21905961

> By Matthias Williams and John Irish > March 19, 20244:34 AM GMT+5:30Updated 17 hours ago > > Putin wins 87% of vote in weekend election, says Kremlin > Western governments say election was rigged, undemocratic > Condemn holding of election in occupied Ukraine regions > China, North Korea, India, Iran congratulate Putin > > LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Western governments lined up on Monday to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin's landslide reelection as unfair and undemocratic, but China, India and North Korea congratulated the veteran leader on extending his rule by a further six years. > > The contrasting reactions underscored the geopolitical fault lines that have gaped wider since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, triggering the deepest crisis in relations with the West since the end of the Cold War. > > > Arriving in Brussels on Monday, EU foreign ministers roundly dismissed the election result as a sham ahead of agreeing sanctions on individuals linked to the mistreatment and death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. > > "Russia's election was an election without choice," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at the start of the meeting. > > Playing on Moscow's reference to its war in Ukraine as a "special military operation", French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne said Paris had taken note of the "special election operation". > Advertisement · Scroll to continue > "The conditions for a free, pluralistic and democratic election were not met," his ministry said. > > British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the election outcome highlighted the "depth of repression" in Russia. > > "Putin removes his political opponents, controls the media, and then crowns himself the winner. This is not democracy," Cameron said. > France, Britain and others condemned the fact that Russia had also held its election in occupied regions of Ukraine that it claims to have annexed during the war. > > The Kremlin dismissed such criticism, saying the 87% of the vote won by Putin during the three-day election showed the Russian people were consolidating around him. > Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia's election had no legitimacy. > President Vladimir Putin speaks after polling stations closed in Moscow. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab > "It is clear to everyone in the world that this figure (Putin)... is simply sick for power and is doing everything to rule forever," Zelenskiy said. > U.S. President Joe Biden has not yet commented but a White House spokesperson on Sunday said Russia's election was "obviously not free nor fair". > > > OUTSIDE WEST, PUTIN CONGRATULATED > In sharp contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated Putin, and said Beijing would maintain close communication with Moscow to promote the "no limits" partnership they agreed in 2022, just before Russia invaded Ukraine. > "I believe that under your leadership, Russia will certainly be able to achieve greater achievements in national development and construction," Xi told Putin in his message, according to Xinhua News. > Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered his congratulations on Putin's "decisive" victory and the Kremlin said the two men expressed readiness on the telephone to pursue their "effective coordination" in the OPEC+ oil producers group. > Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi echoed that message, saying he looked forward to strengthening New Delhi's "time-tested special and privileged strategic partnership" with Moscow. > India and China, along with Russia, are members of the BRICS group of emerging economies that aims to challenge U.S. domination of the global economy. > North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, accused by the West of supplying weapons to Russia, also extended congratulations to Putin, stressing their desire for further expansion of bilateral relations with Moscow. > In Africa, where the West has been struggling to win support for its efforts to isolate Moscow over the Ukraine war, some newspapers saw Putin's re-election as reinforcing the stance of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. > Those three states in the Sahel region have strengthened ties with Russia following coups in recent years at the expense of their traditional French and U.S. allies. > "In Africa, this re-election could sound like a non-event, but given the context in the Sahel it takes on a particular meaning, because Putin embodies the new geopolitical balance of power on the continent with a growing (Russian) presence and influence," said Burkina Faso daily Aujourd'hui au Faso". > The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here. > Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Matthias Williams in London and John Irish in Paris Editing by Gareth Jones and David Gregorio.

Nobody seems to be talking about the continuing genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar nor India's heartless and illegal current actions.

>“Refoulement is against international human rights law, regardless of if you’ve signed the refugee convention" - John Quinley III, director of international rights group

>"The times of peace are over, the post-war era is over. We live in new times - in the pre-war era; for some of our brothers, this is no longer even the pre-war era, but the period of full-scale war in its most cruel version," Tusk said.

Police in Australia have charged a 45-year-old man with assault after a video clip went viral appearing to show him standing in front of young Indigenous children whom he'd restrained with zip ties.

Western Australia Police Acting Assistant Commissioner Rod Wilde said police received a call Tuesday afternoon from a resident in the town of Broome, who reported that children — later said to be aged six, seven and eight — were swimming without permission in an "unoccupied pool" at a neighboring property.

Ten minutes later, the police said they received a second call from the man, telling them he'd restrained the children for causing damage at the same location.

The two leaders were a few hundred metres away when the port of Odesa was struck in lethal attack

Heavily armed gangs tried to seize control of Haiti’s main international airport on Monday, exchanging gunfire with police and soldiers in the latest attack on key government sites in an explosion of violence that includes a mass escape from the country’s two biggest prisons.

The Toussaint Louverture International Airport was closed when the attack occurred, with no planes operating and no passengers on site.

Associated Press journalists saw an armored truck on the tarmac shooting at gangs to try and prevent them from entering airport grounds as scores of employees and other workers fled from whizzing bullets.

Kremlin claims audio of officers discussing UK help with missiles shows involvement of ‘collective west’

British soldiers are “on the ground” in Ukraine helping Kyiv’s forces fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles, according to a leak in Russian media of a top-secret call involving German air force officers.

The Kremlin said the leak demonstrated the direct involvement of the “collective west” in the war in Ukraine, while former British defence ministers expressed frustration with the German military in response to the revelations.

Released on Friday by the editor of the Kremlin-controlled news channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, the audio recording – confirmed as authentic by Germany – captures Luftwaffe officers discussing how Berlin’s Taurus missiles could be used to try to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Russia with occupied Crimea.

Penalty for breaching competition law is four times higher than forecast as Brussels looks to send message to tech firms

Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU after an investigation found it had limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.

The fine is nearly four times higher than expected as the European Commission attempts to show it will act decisively on tech companies who abuse their dominant position in the market for online services.

The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said a smaller fine would have been nothing more than the equivalent of a parking fine and the €1.8bn was designed to act as a deterrent against a repetition of such practices by Apple or others.

Eiffel Tower lit up to mark change, seen as way of protecting law that decriminalised abortion in 1975

The French parliament has enshrined abortion as a constitutional right at a historic joint session at the Palace of Versailles.

Out of 925 MPs and senators eligible to vote, 780 supported the amendment, which will give women the “guaranteed freedom” to choose an abortion.

There was thunderous applause in the chamber as the result was announced on Monday; in central Paris, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated to mark the occasion.

The measure had already been passed by the upper and lower houses, the Sénat and the Assemblée Nationale, but final approval by parliamentarians at the joint session at Versailles was needed to effect constitutional change.

Photographer Kirsty Mackay’s project The Magic Money Tree explores the impact of poverty in the Black Country, South Shields and Bristol

In 2023 I set out to document the UK’s cost of living crisis. I had a picture in my mind that what we were experiencing was the culmination of 13 years of Conservative governments. The work is titled The Magic Money Tree after Theresa May’s words on BBC Question Time: “There isn’t a magic money tree that suddenly delivers all the money everybody wants.”

A 500 percent fuel price hike will take effect in Cuba this week, a month later than initially planned, the government of the cash-strapped island nation said Wednesday.

Finance Minister Vladimir Regueiro announced via government mouthpiece Granma that the higher prices will enter into force on Friday, March 1.

The price of electricity will rise by 25 percent from the same date for the country's biggest consumers, he added.

Havana had announced a five-fold increase in the fuel price from February 1 as part of a series of measures seeking to cut the communist-run nation's budget deficit.

Emmanuel Macron sure knows how to make a headline.

But did the French president, who once called Nato brain dead, really mean it when he said this week that Europe shouldn’t rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine to prevent Russia winning the war? Was it a trial balloon, an off-the-cuff soundbite uncoordinated with allies, or the start of a real strategic debate?

As ever, Macron’s bazooka had several targets: forcing European partners to consider how far they are prepared to go to avert a Russian victory; pressuring the US to go on arming Ukraine; keeping the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, off balance; hitting back at German criticism of France’s modest spending on assistance to Kyiv; and trying to wrongfoot domestic opponents in the forthcoming European parliament election campaign.

Above all, the French leader was grasping for the mantle of leadership of European and western support for Ukraine, just as US assistance is stymied by a Republican blockade in Congress at the behest of Donald Trump before the presidential election campaign.

A Russian-American detained in Russia on a treason charge carrying up to 20 years in prison told her boyfriend "it's safe there" before she travelled to see relatives in Yekaterinburg, the woman's former mother-in-law said.

A Russian court on Thursday rejected an appeal by Ksenia Karelina, a 32-year-old resident of Los Angeles, who was detained by the FSB security service on suspicion of raising funds for Ukraine's armed forces.

Karelina's lawyer had asked the court to lift her detention and replace it with house arrest, state news agency RIA said.

Global carbon pollution from energy hit a record high last year, driven partly by increased fossil fuel use in countries where droughts restricted hydropower production, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report published Thursday.

Steep cuts in carbon emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, will be needed in the coming years if targets to limit a global rise in temperatures and prevent runaway climate change are to be met, scientists have said.

“Far from falling rapidly — as is required to meet the global climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement — CO2 emissions reached a new record high,” the IEA said in the report.

Global emissions from energy rose by 410 million metric tons, or 1.1%, in 2023 to 37.4 billion metric tons, the IEA analysis showed.

France shut several schools in October last year over concern about bedbug infestations. France has blamed the Kremlin for spreading misinformation about the pests.

The panic that gripped France in the fall of 2023 over the alleged spread of bed bugs was amplified by disinformation on social media accounts linked to the Russian state, a French minister said Friday, March 1.

The comments by Europe Minister Jean-Noël Barrot followed growing warnings from France about the dangers of Russian disinformation particularly aimed at undermining support for Ukraine as it fights the invasion.

"The issue of bedbugs was artificially amplified on social networks by accounts that have been established to be of Russian inspiration or origin," he told TF1 television. "It was very largely amplified by accounts linked to the Kremlin," he added.

Report says Xiangguo Qiu secretly worked with Wuhan Institute for Virology and posed a ‘threat to Canada’s economic security’

A leading research scientist at Canada’s highest-security laboratory provided confidential scientific information to Chinese institutions, met secretly with officials and posed “a realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security” according to newly released intelligence reports.

The dismissal of Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, has been shrouded in mystery ever since the couple were escorted from Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory in 2019 and formally fired two years later.

Intelligence assessments released late on Wednesday afternoon alleged that Qiu’s “close and clandestine relationships” with Chinese institutions which showed a “reckless judgment” could have harmed Canada’s national security. The assessments were among more than 600 documents released after a long fight with opposition legislators who had demanded information behind the sackings.

CSIS, Canada’s intelligence agency, concluded that in security-screening interviews, Qiu repeatedly lied about about her relationship with research institutions linked to the Chinese government. Even when confronted with contradictory evidence, “Ms Qiu continued to make blanket denials, feign ignorance or tell outright lies.”

Two weeks after two Chinese fishermen drowned while being chased by Taiwan’s coast guard, tensions remain high in the waters around Kinmen, a group of outlying islands controlled by Taiwan but nestled just a stone’s throw from the shores of China.

China’s coast guard ships are now a common sight in the area, making increasing incursions into Taiwan’s prohibited or restricted waters – a designation Beijing now rejects.

Signs of the most recent flare-up are also visible in the harbors of Kinmen, where dozens of fishing boats lie idle following temporary restrictions on fishing activities.

Boat tours around Kinmen are still operating, though under a closer watch by Taiwan’s coast guard. Officers visit each boat before they set sail and warn captains not to stray into Chinese waters.

But for most residents in Kinmen, which for decades had been a military frontline for Chinese aggression, it’s life as usual.

The Russian air force lost another Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bomber on Thursday, the Ukrainian air force claimed. If confirmed, the Thursday shoot-down would extend an unprecedented hot streak for Ukrainian air-defenses.

The Ukrainian claim they’ve shot down 11 Russian planes in 11 days: eight Su-34s, two Sukhoi Su-35 fighters and a rare Beriev A-50 radar plane.

But those 11 claimed losses are worse than they might seem for the increasingly stressed Russian air force. In theory, the air arm has plenty more planes. In practice, the service is dangerously close to collapse.

Exactly how the Ukrainians are shooting down so many jets is unclear. It’s possible the Ukrainian air force has assigned some of its American-made Patriot missile launchers to mobile air-defense groups that move quickly in close proximity to the 600-mile front line of Russia’s two-year wider war on Ukraine, ambushing Russian jets with 90-mile-range PAC-2 missiles then swiftly relocating to avoid counterattack.

But the distance at which the Ukrainians shot down that A-50 on Friday—120 miles or so—hints that a longer-range missile system was involved. Perhaps a Cold War-vintage S-200 that the Ukrainian air force pulled out of long-term storage.

Thousands of mourners gathered in Moscow for the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny despite a heavy police presence and the threat of detention.

Mourners clapped and chanted Navalny’s name as his coffin arrived at the church where his funeral took place. Others shouted “Putin is a killer” or “no to war.”

Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, died aged 47 in an Arctic prison on February 16, sparking condemnation from world leaders and accusations from his aides that he had been murdered. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in his death.

Navalny’s team encountered difficulty in retrieving his body from Russian authorities and hiring a venue for his funeral, which was held Friday afternoon at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow’s Maryino district, where the Kremlin critic lived.

In an interview with the Star, Blair said the idea was discussed this week in Paris but Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned of “tragic” consequences for countries that send combat troops to support Kyiv.

Canada is open to sending a limited number of military personnel to train Ukrainian troops within Ukraine, so long as such an operation took place far from the front lines of the war with Russia in a clear, noncombat role, Defence Minister Bill Blair says.

In an interview with the Star, Blair said the idea was discussed earlier this week in Paris, where he attended a security summit alongside Canada’s NATO allies and fellow supporters of Ukraine. After the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron floated the prospect of sending troops into Ukraine, prompting a series of statements from Western allies — including Canada — who shot down the idea of sending combat soldiers into the war-torn country.

French president has faced a barrage of criticism, but said his comments were “weighed, thought through and measured.”

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said his refusal to rule out the prospect of sending Western troops to Ukraine was intentional, despite the uproar it has provoked.

Macron swept aside the barrage of criticism he has faced in France and on the international stage and insisted his statements on Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression against Ukraine were carefully thought out.

"These are sufficiently serious issues; every one of the words that I say on this issue is weighed, thought through and measured," Macron told reporters on the sidelines of a visit to the 2024 Olympic village near Paris. But he refused to answer any further questions on the topic.

SpaceX's Starlink user terminals are being openly sold in Russia, though CEO Elon Musk has denied knowledge of any such sales in the country.

The terminals, which link users with the Starlink satellite constellation are available on the Chinese company DJI's website in Russia.

The Shenzhen-based firm is better known as one of the world's leading drone producers. Soon after Russia began its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, DJI announced it would temporarily suspend business in both countries pending "compliance assessments."

• Draft heads to cabinet for approval next month, minister says
• Misuse of cannabis seen having negative impact on children
• Industry is projected to be worth $1.2 bln by next year

Reuters link

The world’s fastest-growing major economy is living up to its billing.

Gross domestic product in India surged 8.4% in the final three months of 2023 compared with a year prior, up from growth of 7.6% in the June-to-September period, the country’s statistics office said Thursday.

The latest rise is much stronger than analysts expected and means India’s economy “ended last year with a bang,” Thamashi De Silva, assistant India economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note.

“That pace of growth was the strongest among major economies last quarter,” she said, also noting that in 2023 as a whole GDP grew 7.7%. Timelier business activity data suggests “the economy has made a flying start to 2024 too,” she added.

The data will further bolster optimism over the economic prospects of the world’s most populous nation.

With flashy celebrity ads and promises of deep discounts, a shop in Iran’s capital had offered consumers in the Islamic Republic one of the hottest products in the country — an iPhone that came out in 2021.

But instead of getting their hands on the handsets, police and prosecutors in Iran allege customers found themselves ensnared by a business owner running a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Yet the controversy surrounding the Kourosh, or “Son of the Sun,” Company extends far beyond just the alleged scheme.

It’s a sign of the economic woes plaguing Iran after decades of Western sanctions, now accelerating as Tehran rapidly advances its nuclear program, helps arm Russia in Moscow’s war on Ukraine, steps up support for proxy militias in the Middle East and violently cracks down on dissent ahead of parliamentary elections on Friday.

Decision by premier Danielle Smith further pits Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy

Alberta will block renewable energy projects on “prime” agricultural land and limit the placement of wind turbines to preserve “pristine viewscapes”, a decision that increasingly pits the western Canadian province against environmental groups pushing green energy – and the companies investing in it.

The decision, announced by the premier, Danielle Smith, and utilities minister, Nathan Neudorf, on Wednesday, follows a controversial six-month ban on new renewable energy projects that is due to expire on 29 February.

Alberta’s moratorium, announced in August, left energy companies uncertain about billions in future investment, even as the region, with its clear skies and an abundance of wind, led the country in new renewable projects.

Nearly a third of Alberta’s grid is now powered by renewables and the province has shifted away from coal at a far faster rate than expected.

Firm told it must take responsibility for toxic legacy of pollution and safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure

The oil firm Shell cannot be allowed to withdraw from the Niger delta before it takes responsibility for its toxic legacy of pollution and the safe decommissioning of abandoned oil infrastructure, a report says.

Shell plc is preparing to divest from the delta but a report warns that it must remain until it has cleaned up its legacy of pollution.

The report, by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Somo), says historical pollution remains a serious issue in the area and accuses Shell of trying to avoid responsibility despite the billions of dollars it has earned from the oil.

The allegations come as the Labour MP Clive Lewis said in the House of Commons that the departure of Shell, a British company, from the delta raised serious concerns that its environmental responsibilities and obligations could be evaded.

The report says there is a big transparency gap around the issue of funding for decommissioning. Nigeria has legal requirements for companies to set aside funds for decommissioning, but there is no means to establish how much funding companies have – or have not – set aside, the report said.

Health authorities in Gaza said on Thursday Israeli fire on people waiting for aid near Gaza City had killed 104 Palestinians and wounded 280, with one hospital saying it had received 10 bodies and dozens of injured patients.

A spokesperson for Israel's military said there was no knowledge of shelling at that location. The military later said dozens of people were hurt as a result of pushing and trampling when aid trucks arrived in northern Gaza.

An Israeli source said troops opened fire at "several people" in the crowd who posed a threat to them.

Ghana's parliament has passed a tough new bill that imposes a prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+.

It also imposes a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBTQ+ groups.

Lawmakers heckled down attempts to replace prison sentences with community service and counselling.

It is the latest sign of growing opposition to LGBTQ+ rights in the conservative West African nation.

The bill, which had the backing of Ghana's two major political parties, will come into effect only if President Nana Akufo-Addo signs it into law.

He previously said that he would do so if the majority of Ghanaians want him to.

Gay sex is already against the law in Ghana - it carries a three-year prison sentence.

North Korea’s munitions factories are “operating at full capacity” to produce weapons and shells for Russia, according to South Korea’s defense minister, as Moscow’s devastating war in Ukraine grinds into a third year.

The latest estimate from South Korea offers fresh clues on the crucial but highly secretive role North Korea is playing to help resupply Moscow’s war of attrition at a time when Ukraine’s own need for vital military resupplies is being held up by predominantly Republican lawmakers in Washington.

The weapons and military equipment, which include millions of rounds of artillery shells, is being delivered to Russia in exchange for shipments of food and other necessities, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said Monday.

Since August, Pyongyang has shipped about 6,700 containers to Russia, which could accommodate more than 3 million rounds of 152 mm artillery shells or more than 500,000 rounds of 122 mm multiple rocket launchers, according to Shin’s ministry.