La Presse étrangère

Nationwide warns inflation and rising interest rates will weigh down housing market

UK house prices have fallen at their fastest rate for two and a half years as the fallout from Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget put buyers off according to Nationwide, which warned inflation and rising interest rates would weigh on the market in the coming months.

The price of an average home dropped 1.4% to £263,788 in November, according to the lender’s house price index, accelerating a slowdown that saw prices fall 0.9% in October. It was the third monthly fall in a row, and the biggest drop since June 2020.

Magpies implement 14 recommendations of Do Better review with four in progress as president Jeff Browne says new systems will build inclusive club

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Collingwood says it is making strides to remove the stain of racism and wants other AFL teams to learn from its lessons, two years after an external review found systemic racism within the club.

The Do Better report, the result of an independent review in 2020 by the Jumbunna Institute, outlined 18 recommendations for Collingwood to transform its processes, values and culture to become a more inclusive workplace – all of which were adopted by the club.

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Shanquella Robinson reportedly died while on holiday after viral video shows her being beaten, apparently by an American woman

The US is weighing an extradition request from Mexico after authorities in the country charged an American woman with murdering another US woman shown being beaten while they vacationed in a viral video.

Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur have not named the suspect in the death of North Carolina’s Shanquella Robinson, who reportedly died of a severe spinal cord or neck injury while on holiday in Mexico on 29 October.

US Army has awarded contract for six additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems; winter officially begins for Ukraine amid mass power cuts

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance

A bridge is seen collapsed over a river near Lyman city, Ukraine.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov also accused Nato of trying to drag India into what he called an anti-Russian and anti-Chinese alliance at a time when he said the West was attempting to squeeze out Russian influence.

Climate change minister tells parliament official projection of 40% cut does not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments

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Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has declared the country on track to reach a 40% cut in climate pollution by 2030 – just short of the national target of 43% – but the government has been told a “big upward shift in momentum” is needed to tackle the problem.

Giving the country’s first climate statement to parliament, which is now required annually under legislation passed earlier this year, Bowen said the official projection of a 40% cut did not factor in all Labor’s policy commitments, and that those measures would “lift our result to at least 43%”.

The statement did not shed light on what the government would do to make deeper cuts in line with its goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, an expectation raised by a UN-backed report if the Great Barrier Reef is to avoid being nominated as a world heritage site “in danger”. It also did not mention the country’s vast coal and gas export industries.

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Farha, debut film of Jordanian film-maker, depicts Zionist atrocities against Palestinians during Nakba conflict

A Netflix film depicting Zionist forces murdering a Palestinian family during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation has been condemned by Israeli officials as “creating a false narrative”.

Farha, the debut of the Jordanian film-maker Darin Sallam, has been shown at several film festivals around the world since its release last year, and is Jordan’s Oscars entry for 2023. It is due to begin streaming to a global audience on the online entertainment service on Thursday.

Wave of illness caused by RSV, influenza and other infections has seen more than three-quarters of pediatric hospital beds full

When his son was born seven weeks early, weighing only 2.5lbs, RH watched as the little boy stayed in the neonatal intensive care unit for 37 days.

When they finally left the hospital, RH, who asked to use his initials for health privacy, breathed a sigh of relief. The baby, despite his difficult start, was perfectly healthy. But only a few months later, the child landed back in the hospital with a dangerous virus, RSV.

Head of Royal College of Emergency Medicine says lengthy waits forcing ambulances to be ‘wards on wheels’

More than 200 people who died last week in England are estimated to have been affected by problems with urgent and emergency care, according to the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Dr Adrian Boyle, who is also a consultant in emergency medicine, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that a failure to address problems discharging patients to social care was a “massive own goal”.

The three stowaways were rescued by the Spanish Coastguard in Las Palmas on Monday

The Spanish coastguard has rescued three men who stowed away on a tanker that arrived in the Canary Islands from Nigeria by balancing on its rudder just above the waterline.

In a photograph distributed on Twitter by the coastguard on Monday, the three stowaways are shown perched on the rudder of the oil and chemical tanker Alithini II.

Incendiary devices sent to PM, defence ministry, arms firm and an airbase, as well as Madrid letter bomb

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Police in Spain are investigating four more incendiary devices and letter bombs, a day after one exploded at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid.

The devices have now been sent to the prime minister, the defence ministry, an arms company that makes rocket launchers donated to Kyiv, and a military airbase near the Spanish capital, as well as the one found at the embassy.

The jury said they could not come to a consensus over the allegations after a month-long trial

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked at the trial of That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson, who is charged with three rapes.

Los Angeles judge Charlaine F Olmedo had ordered the jurors to take Thanksgiving week off and keep deliberating after they told her on 18 November that they could not come to a consensus about the rape allegations after a month-long trial in which the Church of Scientology played a supporting role.

The former Coalition minister denies he influenced government contracts, declaring in parliament he had ‘zero involvement’

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Revelations that Stuart Robert met consultants who facilitated access for a company bidding for lucrative contracts in his portfolio of government services are “concerning”, Bill Shorten has told federal parliament.

Shorten, the government services minister, revealed after question time on Thursday that Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency had agreed to establish a “joint review” into the “Synergy 360 lobbying scandal”.

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2 October 2018: the ECE tender opened – three companies including Infosys were shortlisted.

29 May 2019: the member for Fadden was appointed minister for human services and the NDIS.

26 June 2019: leaked emails reveal the minister met Infosys and his good friend Milo, a paid consultant to Infosys, in Sydney.

2 July 2019: final valuation was submitted – negotiations on value and period of contract continued for another four months.

8 November 2019: Infosys was awarded the first of four contracts valued at $18m.

19 November 2019: the minister met Infosys.

30 December 2019: the minister met his friend Milo on the Gold Coast, which triggered an email from Milo saying “minister gave insights on progress of Infosys and future opportunities”.

1 February 2020: the minister was guest speaker at an Infosys conference at Melbourne Park on the afternoon of the Australian Open tennis finals.

1 July 2020: Infosys was awarded a further $142m contract.

The ruangrupa collective’s last show was removed from key German exhibition for caricatures of Jews

An Indonesian collective that became embroiled in an antisemitism row earlier this year has taken the No 1 spot in the annual ranking of the contemporary art world’s most influential people and organisations.

The ruangrupa group, founded in Jakarta in 2000, are the first artists from Asia to top the ArtReview Power 100. Their position “reflects the growing influence of the global south and the move towards greater diversity in the art world,” ArtReview said.

US secretary of state says Beijing’s ties with Moscow also discussed at alliance meeting after the two countries sent bombers into South Korean airspace

Nato allies are concerned about China’s rapid and opaque military buildup and its cooperation with Russia, and discussed concrete ways to address the challenges posed by Beijing, US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said.

“The members of our alliance remain concerned by the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] coercive policies, by its use of disinformation, by its rapid, opaque military buildup, including its cooperation with Russia,” Blinken told a news conference on Wednesday after a two-day meeting of foreign ministers from the defence alliance.

Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts

Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.

The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.

Sun Chunlan says Omicron less pathogenic as Beijing appears to respond to zero-Covid protests by relaxing some measures

• China’s zero-Covid policy explained in 30 seconds

One of China’s most senior pandemic response officials has said the country is entering a “new stage and mission” in the latest indication of the government’s changing approach after mass protests against its zero-Covid policy.

Sun Chunlan, China’s vice-premier, made the comments to national health officials on Wednesday, according to state media outlet Xinhua. It came as several regions including Shanghai began to lift lockdowns despite continuing high case numbers.

Pair urge president to withdraw military support to Netanyahu’s coalition government if Palestinians are expelled or land annexed

Two former senior US diplomats have made a highly unusual call for the Biden administration to cut weapons supplies to Israel if the incoming far-right government uses them to annex Palestinian land, expel Arabs or finally kill off the diminishing possibility of a Palestinian state.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former US ambassador to Israel under George W Bush, and Aaron David Miller, a US Middle East peace negotiator during several administrations, have called for what they described as an “unprecedented and controversial” break from America’s largely unconditional military and diplomatic support for Israel if “the most extreme government in the history of the state” pursues the stated aims of some of its members.

Police announce arrest of suspect in pair of 40-year-old sexual assaults and slayings in Toronto

A 61-year-old Canadian man has been charged in the cold case killings of two women who were found dead in their Toronto homes within months of each other almost four decades ago.

The Toronto police chief, James Ramer, said Joseph George Sutherland, of Moosonee, Ontario, was arrested on Thursday and charged with first-degree murder in the killings of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice in 1983.

Ngozi Fulani was questioned repeatedly about her background by royal aide at Buckingham Palace reception

A black British charity leader said she felt she was being forced to denounce her citizenship when she was “interrogated” by the late queen’s lady-in-waiting about where she “really came from”.

Ngozi Fulani, who founded the domestic abuse charity Sistah Space, was questioned repeatedly about her background by the royal aide Susan Hussey at a Buckingham Palace reception.

Nadav Lapid, chair of the International film festival India, spoke out against work that critics say is anti-Muslim propaganda

A row has erupted in India after an Israeli director described a controversial film about Kashmir as propaganda and a “vulgar movie”, prompting the Israeli ambassador to issue an apology.

Nadav Lapid, who was chair of this year’s panel of the international film festival of India (IFFI), spoke out against the inclusion of The Kashmir Files at the event.

First global analysis follows discovery of toxic pollution particles in lungs and brains of foetuses

Almost a million stillbirths a year can be attributed to air pollution, according to the first global study.

The research estimated that almost half of stillbirths could be linked to exposure to pollution particles smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), mostly produced from the burning of fossil fuels.

Elon Musk has been warned he has ‘huge work ahead’ to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act

The EU has raised the prospect of a substantial fine or ban for Twitter after warning that it must “significantly increase” efforts to comply with new online legislation.

Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, was told he had “huge work ahead” to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires tech firms to tackle problems including abusive posts and disinformation.

Hong Kong’s immigration department withheld Timothy Owen KC’s application for an extension of his work visa on Thursday

Hong Kong has temporarily blocked a top British human rights lawyer from representing jailed pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, in a trial stymied by delays and calls for an intervention from Beijing.

British King’s Counsel Timothy Owen was set to represent Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, who has been in jail on protest-related offences since his high-profile arrest in 2020.

Opposition to unveil plan to reverse biodiversity loss rather than simply halting it, which is government’s current target

The government will not be able to achieve its nature targets by 2030, even though they are “embarrassingly poor”, the shadow environment minister and leading wildlife groups have said.

Next week at the Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal, Alex Sobel will be discussing Labour’s “science-led, joined-up plan to tackle the climate and ecological emergency”. The plan will aim to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030, rather than simply halting it, which is the government’s current target.

Blast at Kyiv’s embassy in Madrid injures staff member; nine people killed in fires to heat homes in Ukraine

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Mehran Samak was killed by security forces after honking car horn in celebration of Iran’s defeat to US, human rights groups say

An Iranian man was shot dead by security forces after Iran’s national team lost to the US and exited the World Cup, as anti-government demonstrations took place inside and outside the stadium in Qatar and across Iran.

Mehran Samak, 27, was shot dead after honking his car horn in Bandar Anzali, a city on the Caspian Sea coast, north-west of Tehran, according to human rights activists.

Announcements ordered the removal of ‘control orders’ and to designate areas as low risk

Authorities have abruptly lifted Covid restrictions in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing, where protesters scuffled with police on Tuesday night, as police searched for demonstrators in other cities and the country’s top security body called for a crackdown on “hostile forces”.

After days of extraordinary protests in the country that also prompted international demonstrations in solidarity, the US and Canada urged China not to harm or intimidate protesters opposing Covid-19 lockdowns.

Latest updates: Labour party expects to retain seat but Tories will be pleased to win above 20% of vote, says election expert

YouGov have published the results of its latest poll on voting intention, showing that support for the Conservatives has dropped by a further three percentage points, and Labour have dropped by one percentage point, though the party retains a strong lead. Right-wing populist party Reform have gained four percentage points, though support remains low, at 9%. The other parties have stayed stable.

A poll in Scotland suggests that more people support Scottish independence than want to remain part of the United Kingdom.

The research found that 49% of Scottish respondents said they would vote Yes and 45% said they would vote No if there were to be a referendum tomorrow on whether Scotland should be an independent country, with the remainder saying they do not know.

Redfield & Wilton Strategies carried out the poll on November 26-27, days after the UK Supreme Court ruled another independence referendum cannot be held without Westminster’s consent.

Support for independence was higher than a comparable poll on 18 September last year, when 44% of respondents said they would vote Yes while 47% said they would vote No.

The latest poll, of 1,000 Scottish voters, also found 46% said they would support a referendum on Scottish independence being held in the next year, while 43% would oppose one, 9% said they would neither support nor oppose the prospect, and 2% said they did not know.

SNP depute leader Keith Brown said:

This poll shows growing support for what the people of Scotland expressed in the 2021 election, they want a choice to become an independent nation.

The chaos at Westminster in recent months has tanked the UK economy, accelerated inflation and crippled household budgets with soaring mortgages, all from successive Tory governments that Scotland didn’t elect.

Men on death row for murder of secular writer snatched by bikers who sprayed police with chemical

Two Islamist militants who were on death row in Bangladesh for the killing of a US blogger critical of fundamentalist Islam have made a dramatic escape on motorbikes while being escorted to a court hearing in the capital, Dhaka.

The two men were among those convicted of the murder of Avijit Roy, an American-Bangladeshi writer and blogger who was hacked to death with machetes in the streets of Dhaka in 2015.

Damaging optics of ‘family’ photo at CSTO summit highlights fragility of Russia’s influence in wake of war in Ukraine

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Armenia has asked the French president, Emmanuel Macron, to chair peace talks with Azerbaijan in a fresh challenge to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly loose grip on Russia’s regional allies in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

The snub from a traditional ally to Putin, who had hosted an inconsequential meeting of the warring countries’ leaders last month, comes immediately on the back of his disastrous summit with six former Soviet states.

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• Bill Shorten orders review into Stuart Robert ‘lobbying scandal’ claims
• Analysis: Labor’s industrial relations bill was progressing ‘relatively quickly’. Enter Michaelia Cash
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The government services minister Bill Shorten was on ABC radio RN Breakfast when he learned the Medibank hackers had released all the customer information on the dark web.

Josh Taylor has reported on that here.

Our democracy is precious, our federal government is crucial to the success of the nation, and I know, as you do, that trust in our parliament, in our commonwealth, in politicians, has been falling dramatically. That’s a real problem and I really hope this begins to restore the trust.

Ousted PM calls off march on Islamabad to avoid further chaos but continues to press for early elections, possibly by pulling his PTI party out of regional assemblies

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan told tens of thousands of supporters on Saturday that he would fight until his “last drop of blood” in his first public address since being shot in an assassination attempt this month.

The shooting was the latest twist in months of political turmoil that began in April when Khan was ousted by a vote of no confidence in parliament.

Trio were arrested in Bridgend at the weekend on suspicion of concealing the birth of a child

Three people have been bailed in connection with the discovery of the bodies of two babies found dead in a house in Bridgend.

Two men, aged 37 and 47, and a 29-year-old woman were arrested on Saturday on suspicion of concealing the birth of a child after the discovery in Wildmill, a 55-year-old Radburn estate on the outskirts of the Welsh town.

Both were bailed hours before Iran faces US in World Cup, following release of hundreds of other prisoners

Iran has released two former members of its international football team who were arrested on charges related to countrywide protests, just hours before the national squad was set to play the US at the World Cup.

Right-back Voria Ghafouri was detained last week and accused of tarnishing “the reputation of the national team and spreading propaganda against the state”, while retired goalkeeper Parviz Boroumand was arrested nearly two weeks ago on charges of participating in rallies in the capital, Tehran.

State media say Jiang died from leukaemia and multiple organ failure in Shanghai

• Jiang Zemin obituary

China’s former leader Jiang Zemin, who was elevated to the head of the Communist party as a loyalist during the Tiananmen protests and then presided over years of economic expansion, has died aged 96.

The cause of death was leukaemia and multiple organ failure, state media said. His life ended in a hospital in Shanghai, the city that was his power base, and has been the scene of recent protests against the government and its Covid controls.

With the deadly devastation fresh in the world’s mind, Pakistan pushed for damage funds with other frontline countries

In early September, after unprecedented rainfall had left a third of Pakistan under water, its climate change minister set out the country’s stall for Cop27. “We are on the frontline and intend to keep loss and damage and adapting to climate catastrophes at the core of our arguments and negotiations. There will be no moving away from that,” Sherry Rehman said.

Pakistan brought that resolve to the negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh and, as president of the G77 plus China negotiating bloc, succeeded in keeping developing countries united on loss and damage – despite efforts by some rich countries to divide them. Its chief negotiator, Nabeel Munir, a career diplomat, was backed by a team of savvy veteran negotiators who had witnessed the devastation and suffering from the floods, which caused $30bn (£25bn) of damage and economic losses. Every day, Munir repeated the same message: “Loss and damage is not charity, it’s about climate justice.”

Officials from 53 cities convene in Greece to seek ‘creative solutions’ to counter rise in anti-Jewish hate

Mayors from around world have flown into Athens to focus minds – and efforts – on combatting antisemitism amid a worrying resurgence of near daily hate crimes against Jews.

Local officials from 53 cities in 23 countries will convene in the Greek capital from Thursday with the aim of not only debating shared challenges and experiences but also finding “creative solutions” to counter the alarming rise in incidents of bigotry and hate globally.

White House welcomes news of Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi’s death

The Islamic State jihadist group said its leader has been killed in battle, the third head of the violent extremist faction to have met a violent death.

A spokesperson for the group said Abu al-Hasan al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, an Iraqi, was killed “in combat with enemies of God”, without elaborating on the date of his death or the circumstances.

Sydney sneaks into Top 10 as rising energy prices send inflation soaring globally, Economist Intelligence Unit survey finds

New York was the world’s most expensive metropolis in 2022, sharing the unwanted title with Singapore, as soaring energy prices doubled the inflation rate across the major global cities, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual survey.

Last year’s leader Tel Aviv dropped to third, while Sydney snuck into the Top 10 and Moscow and St Petersberg in Russia scaled the rankings by as much as 88 places as sanctions and buoyant oil prices propelled prices higher, the EIU’s Worldwide Cost of Living report found.

Government watchdog says £3.5bn aid in 20 years to 2020 failed to achieve aim of stabilising Afghan government

The UK’s £3.5bn aid to Afghanistan between 2000 and 2020 was implicated in corruption and human rights abuses and failed to achieve its primary objective of stabilising the country’s government, an assessment by the UK government’s aid watchdog has found.

Describing the two-decade aid project as the UK’s single most ambitious programme of state building, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) says decisions to spend aid on counterinsurgency operations were flawed, adding that efforts to reduce gender inequality are likely to be wiped out by the Taliban.

A bipartisan push in the upper house means the ACT and Northern Territory are free to legislate on euthanasia after a 25-year ban

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The territory governments have had their rights to make laws on euthanasia returned after 25 years, with a bipartisan push in the federal Senate overturning a Howard-era ban on the final night of the parliament for the year.

The Australian Capital Territory will begin considering euthanasia laws early in 2023, after the repeal of the assisted dying ban was greeted with cheers and clapping in the Senate late on Thursday.

Prison services confirm attack on Janusz Waluś, who was due to be released after nearly three decades

The killer of the South African anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani has been stabbed in prison, days after the country’s top court ordered him to be released on parole, the prison service said.

In a statement, the Department of Correctional Services said on Tuesday it was “able to confirm an unfortunate stabbing incident” involving Janusz Waluś, who has spent nearly three decades in jail for the 1993 killing.

Exclusive: as the two nations prepare to co-host Cop15, Mélanie Joly discusses Canada’s long-awaited Indo-Pacific strategy

Canada will work with China when needed – but challenge it when necessary, the country’s foreign minister said, as the two nations prepare to co-host a major environmental summit despite years of diplomatic tensions.

Speaking to the Guardian after her government released its long-awaited “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, Mélanie Joly said that Canada will “promote and defend” its national interests in a region where nations are jockeying for influence and power.

Footage shows fireworks and cheering across Iran and at Qatar stadium after team representing Islamic Republic lost 1-0

Some Iranians have celebrated their team’s loss to the US and subsequent exit from the World Cup, as demonstrations against the government’s treatment of protesters took place inside and outside the stadium in Qatar and across Iran.

The contest between the Iranian and American sides, whose countries severed diplomatic ties more than 40 years ago, took place under increased security to prevent a flare-up over the anti-government protests that have taken place across Iran since the death in custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on 16 September.

Staff cuts at Chicago’s Howard Brown Health could squeeze care as attacks on LGBTQ+ and trans healthcare have escalated

Howard Brown Health, a nonprofit community health center in Chicago that is the largest provider of health and wellness care for the LGBTQ+ community and people living with HIV in the US midwest, has announced it wants to lay off at least 100 employees, or about 15% of staff.

The layoffs were proposed as voluntary in the first instance, but the company says “a reduction in workforce is required”, suggesting that if 100 volunteers are not found then layoffs will be compulsory.

Company says its security system prevented the hacker accessing customer data or encrypted passwords

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Password manager LastPass has told customers that some of their information has been accessed in a cybersecurity breach, but says passwords remain safe.

LastPass is one of several password managers in the market that aims to reduce the reuse of passwords online, by storing themin a single app. It also makes it easier for users to generate strong passwords as required.

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Exhibitions in UK and Africa rewrite history by celebrating discoveries of overlooked black excavators in colonial era

The photographs are rare, the subject choice unusual, but what the photographer captured was a common sight in the early 20th century: a team of colonised people, hard at work under a hot sun, excavating an ancient monument.

Today, without these photos, taken in Kenya in the 1940s and 50s, there would be scarcely any evidence that African Kenyans were present at archaeological digs. Their contributions and priceless finds were credited to their European bosses – and their important role in unearthing the history of their own continent has been all but forgotten.

Eric Salata faced investigation over claims he assaulted two women at his clinic after incapacitating them

A doctor in Florida who was accused of drugging and raping his patients has been found dead, according to local authorities.

Investigators could not immediately determine how Eric Salata, 54, died when his body was discovered in woodland on Monday. But they said he had a gunshot wound to the head, was lying next to a pistol, and that they did not suspect he had been the victim of a crime.

Racing to wean itself off Russian gas supplies, Germany is set to buy 2m tonnes of liquid gas from Gulf state

German firms have signed a 15-year deal to buy 2m tonnes of liquid gas from Qatar, sending out mixed signals over the priority Germany places on human rights in the Gulf and its commitment to a carbon neutral energy supply.

The deal was announced by state-owned Qatar Energy and deliveries will start from 2026. The gas will be sold by Qatar to the US company ConocoPhillips, which will then deliver it to the LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel, Qatar’s energy minister said in the capital, Doha.

Richard Drax reported to have visited Caribbean island for meeting on next steps, including plans for former sugar plantation

The government of Barbados is considering plans to make a wealthy Conservative MP the first individual to pay reparations for his ancestor’s pivotal role in slavery.

The Observer understands that Richard Drax, MP for South Dorset, recently travelled to the Caribbean island for a private meeting with the country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley. A report is now before Mottley’s cabinet laying out the next steps, which include legal action in the event that no agreement is reached with Drax.

Six-week Los Angeles trial wrapping up after graphic testimony from four women accusing ex-producer of rape and sexual assault

Closing arguments began on Wednesday in the Los Angeles rape trial of Harvey Weinstein, following weeks of emotional testimony that saw multiple women take the stand, including the wife of California’s governor.

Marlene Martinez, a prosecutor in the case, began her final arguments with a photograph of Weinstein smirking at the camera, at the height of his power as a “titan of the film industry”. Seated in the courtroom, Weinstein, looking shrunken and pale as a corpse, stared at the photograph of himself on the screen.

Online scams such as banking and credit card fraud are the most prevalent cyberthreat, says Interpol

Police and investigators fear organised gangs of fraudsters are expanding across sub-Saharan Africa, exploiting new opportunities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic crisis to make huge sums with little risk of being caught.

The growth will have a direct impact on the rest of the world, where many victims of “hugely lucrative” fraud live, senior police officials have said.

Disgraced CEO said he ‘didn’t knowingly comingle funds’ with FTX’s sister company Alameda Research

“Look, I screwed up,” fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried told a conference in New York on Wednesday, but he maintained he “didn’t ever try to commit fraud” and was “shocked” by the collapse of his businesses.

Bankman-Fried, with glassy eyes and visibly shaking at times, appeared via video conference from a nondescript room in the Bahamas. He told the New York Times’s DealBook Summit he was “deeply sorry about what happened” but consistently argued he did not have a full picture of what was going on within the various branches of FTX, his now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, and its offshoots.

The pastoralists had been detained over the death of a police officer during protests against government plans to evict them from ancestral land

Prosecutors in Tanzania have dropped murder charges against 24 Maasai pastoralists who were detained over the death of a police officer earlier this year.

The officer died in June during protests against government plans to evict them from their ancestral land in Loliondo, in Ngorongoro District, to make way for a conservation and a luxury hunting reserve.