World News

Governor of East Sepik Allan Bird said violence in the country had been getting worse during the past 10 years. Photo: ANDREW KUTAN Violent attacks on three remote villages in Papua New Guinea's (PNG) north has reportedly killed 26 people, including 16 children, while several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said. "I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights," UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement released on Wednesday. The death toll could rise to more than 50 as PNG authorities search for missing people, Turk said. Citing Provincial Police Commander in East Sepik James Baugen said, "It was a very ter...

By Soutik Biswas, BBC Vulture. File picture. Photo: AFP/SAM PANTHAKY Once upon a time, the vulture was an abundant and ubiquitous bird in India. The scavenging birds hovered over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses. Sometimes they would alarm pilots by getting sucked into jet engines during airport take-offs. But more than two decades ago, India's vultures began dying because of a drug used to treat sick cows. By the mid-1990s, the 50 million-strong vulture population had plummeted to near zero because of diclofenac, a cheap non-steroidal painkiller for cattle that is fatal to vultures. Birds that fed on carcasses of livestock treated with the drug suffered from kidney failure and died. Since the 2006 ban on veterinary use of diclofenac, the decline has slowed in some a...

Coast guard personnel and crew of a private company load a barrel of oil spill dispersant to be used in the oil spill response, at a port in Limay, Bataan. Photo: JAM STA ROSA / AFP The Philippine Coast Guard is preparing to deploy floating barriers and suction hoses to contain an oil spill and prevent it from reaching the capital, Manila. Authorities are racing to stop the oil spill from the MT Terra Nova, which capsized on Thursday as monsoon rains battered large swathes of the country. The leak appeared to be coming from the ship's engine, not its cargo tank, which was carrying close to 1.5 million litres of industrial fuel, officials said. An "enormous" spill stretching out over several kilometres has been detected and there are fears that the oil spill could be the worst in the cou...

Harvey Weinstein. Photo: AFP/Pool Jailed Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was moved to a New York hospital on Thursday with multiple ailments including Covid-19, his representatives said in a statement. New York City Correction Department records showed on Thursday that Weinstein, 72, was at the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward. Weinstein, convicted on rape charges in New York and California, suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and recently tested positive for Covid and had contracted double pneumonia, said the statement issued by publicist Juda Engelmayer, citing Craig Rothfeld, Weinstein's authorised representative and prison consultant. Jurors in Manhattan found him guilty of rape charges in February 2020, but the New York Court ...

A pan filled with fried eggs. Photo: AFP Several athletes have complained about a shortage of food at the Olympic Village in Paris, according to reports. Competitors have said the amount of food available, specifically eggs, which were rationed at breakfast on Wednesday, and grilled meats, is insufficient, according to the French newspaper L'Équipe. The official catering partner to the Olympic Village, Sodexo Live!, confirmed "a very high demand" for certain products and said that "volumes will be increased" to "satisfy the needs of the athletes". The Olympic Village is set to serve approximately 13 million meals during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. "It was requested to revise upwards the quantities initially planned, which the group will be able to satisfy," a spokesman for the Car...

By Max Matza for BBC News Undated images of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia provided by the Mexican Attorney General's office in Mexico City on August 1, 2003. Photo: AFP / Mexican attorney general press office / Handout One of the world's biggest drug lords, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested by US federal agents in El Paso, Texas. Zambada, 76, founded the crime syndicate with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is currently jailed in the US. Arrested with Zambada on Thursday was Guzman's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, said the US justice department. In February, Zambada was charged by US prosecutors with a conspiracy to make and distribute fentanyl, a drug more powerful than heroin that has been blamed for the US opioid crisis. In a written statem...

By Jamie McKinnell, ABC News Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian. Photo: AFP / JAMES GOURLEY Former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has failed to overturn a finding of serious corrupt conduct against her, after challenging a report by the corruption watchdog in the state's highest civil court. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) released its report last June after hearing evidence about a secret relationship between Berejiklian and former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire. It did not recommend criminal charges be pursued against Berejiklian, but made findings of serious corrupt conduct against the pair. The ICAC found the former premier breached public trust in 2016, 2017 and 2018 during the relationship by exercising official functions about grant funding for two projec...

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Photo: Brendan SMIALOWSKI and Patrick T. Fallon / AFP Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is performing better than President Joe Biden in battleground states likely to decide the 5 November election, narrowing the gap with Republican Donald Trump, according to an Emerson College/The Hill poll released on Thursday. The poll showed former president Trump leading in four of the critical states: Arizona 49 percent to 44 percent, Georgia 48 percent to 46 percent, Michigan 46 percent to 45 percent, and Pennsylvania 48 percent to 46 percent. Trump and Harris are tied at 47 percent in Wisconsin, according to the poll. Harris surpassed Biden's performance in an Emerson poll conducted ...

Photo: AFP Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu have met in an effort to close the remaining "gaps" in the push for a Gaza ceasefire deal, the White House said. The meeting at the White House came a day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to Congress as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside. US Vice-President Kamala Harris later met Netanyahu and said she had voiced "serious concerns" over casualties in Gaza. The Israeli prime minister faces pressure both at home and abroad to bring an end to the Israel-Gaza war, now in its ninth month. He said he had known the US president for 40 years - and that Biden had known every Israeli PM over the last half a century. "From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public serv...

By David Ljunggren and Nia Williams, Reuters Visitors evacuate Jasper National Park in Canada on July 22, 2024, due to a wildfire. Photo: LE MINH KHUE / AFP A raging wildfire has devastated the western Canadian tourist town of Jasper, potentially destroying up to 50 percent of structures, and firefighters were working on Thursday to save as many buildings as possible, authorities said. Jasper is in the middle of mountainous Jasper National Park, in the province of Alberta. The town and the park, which draw more than two million tourists a year, were evacuated on Monday, when officials estimated there were up to 10,000 people in the town and a further 15,000 visitors in the park. "There is no denying that this is the worst nightmare for any community," Alberta premier Danielle Smith t...