World News

Molten lava flows out from a fissure on the Reykjanes peninsula north of the evacuated town of Grindavik, western Iceland, on 16 March 2024. Photo: AFP A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Friday, the meteorological office said, spraying red-hot lava and smoke in its sixth outbreak since December. "An eruption has begun. Work is under way to find out the location of the recordings," the meteorological office said in a statement without providing further detail. Livestreams from the area showed glowing hot lava shooting up from the ground. Studies had shown magma accumulating underground, prompting warnings of new volcanic activity in the area located just south of Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. The most recent eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, home to some 30,000 people or nea...

By Andrew Osborn, Reuters Nick Paton Walsh. Photo: PAUL ZIMMERMAN / AFP Russia's FSB security service said on Thursday it had opened a criminal case against a journalist working for CNN who it said had illegally crossed the Russian border to film a report inside the Kursk region after a Ukrainian cross-border incursion. The FSB named the journalist as Nick Paton Walsh, a British citizen who works as CNN's chief international security correspondent. Moscow had banned him from entering Russian territory as part of its standoff with the West. The FSB said it had opened similar criminal cases against two Ukrainian journalists, Diana Butsko and Olesya Borovik. The security service, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a statement that international arrest warrants for the thr...

By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt, Reuters Vice President Kamala Harris will make the most important speech of her political life on Friday when she accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president a month after the party forced President Joe Biden to exit the race. Harris' own presidential ambitions were always clear, but had been undermined by her own shaky 2020 campaign and bumpy vice presidential term. Since being thrust to the top of the ticket, she has tightened the race against Republican Donald Trump. Her forceful stump speeches have been met by a surge in enthusiasm from voters. If Harris wins on 5 November, she will be the first Black, South Asian woman elected president. Photo: Brett Johnsen/NurPhoto/AFP In her speech Harris, 59, plans to talk about her life a...

By Matteo Negri for Reuters Divers return to shore in Porticello harbour near Palermo with one of the bodies recovered from the yacht that sank on Monday. Photo: AFP A series of "indescribable, unreasonable errors" by the crew led to the shipwreck in which British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and six others died earlier this week, the yacht manufacturer's chief executive has told Reuters . The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht with 22 people aboard - 12 passengers and 10 crew - capsized and sank within minutes of being hit by a pre-dawn storm while anchored off the coast of northern Sicily. "The boat suffered a series of indescribable, unreasonable errors, the impossible happened on that boat ... but it went down because it took on water. From where, the investiga...

Shein said in the report it had suspended orders from the suppliers that had employed children under 16. Photo: Costfoto/NurPhoto By Helen Reid, Reuters Fast fashion retailer Shein found two cases of child labour at its suppliers last year, it said in its 2023 sustainability report, as it stepped up audits of manufacturers in China to assuage criticisms of its low-cost business model ahead of a planned flotation. Shein said in the report it had suspended orders from the suppliers that had employed children under 16, sourcing from them again only after they had strengthened their processes, including checking workers' identity documents. The company said both cases had been "resolved swiftly", with remediation steps including ending underage employees' contracts, arranging medical checku...

Internet personality Andrew Tate put under house arrest. Photo: AFP / Daniel Mihailescu By Octav Ganea, Reuters A Romanian court has ordered internet personality Andrew Tate to be placed under house arrest, his representative said, after he was among six people taken into custody in an investigation into human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The former professional kickboxer and his brother Tristan were among six people detained on Wednesday for an initial 24 hours after Romania's anti-organised crime prosecuting unit DIICOT conducted four home searches in Ilfov county and the Bucharest municipality. DIICOT asked the Bucharest court to arrest the Tate brothers for 30 days, but the judge decided to place Andrew Tate under house arrest and Tristan under judiciary control for that pe...

British tech magnate Mike Lynch. Photo: AFP / Pool / Ben Gurr The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank earlier this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent tempest, a source close to the rescue operation said. His body was brought ashore in a blue body bag and driven in an ambulance to a nearby hospital morgue. Lynch's 18-year daughter Hannah is still unaccounted for, the source said. The bodies of the other four people who vanished when the boat went down were recovered from the yacht on Wednesday. The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in a matter of minutes after ...

By Karl Puschmann Everyone involved was only ever on the attack. Before the show aired its creators and stars came out guns blazing. Photo: Lucasfilm Ltd. The Acolyte was supposed to be the chosen one. The much-hyped Star Wars series was supposed to bring balance and unity back to Star Wars fans. It was supposed to be a hit that competed with streaming rivals like Netflix's Stranger Things, Prime Video's The Boys or Disney's own The Mandalorian. It was supposed to offer a new hope. Instead, it offered a weekly dose of cringe and nonsense. This week it was cancelled. It's been fascinating to watch. Not the show itself, which proved to be car-crash viewing, but rather the entire discourse surrounding the show. Everyone involved was only ever on the attack. Before the show aired its cr...

By Geoffrey Miller and Miriam Neigert* of This combination of file pictures created on August 3, 2024 shows US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaking on March 26, 2024, in Raleigh, North Carolina; and former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking in the first presidential debate with US President Joe Biden in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27, 2024. Photo: AFP Analysis - Tim Walz speaks Mandarin. But don't expect to hear Kamala Harris' running mate deploying his Chinese language skills on the US election campaign trail. While languages are inextricably interlinked with identity, they are also becoming a political hot potato. In February, Donald Trump warned supporters that migrants "have languag...

France's top diplomat in the Pacific, Veronique Roger-Lacan, says the argument of New Caledonia Congress President Roch Wamytan that the French territory is not France "does not fly" and Paris has a "totally impartial" stance on the decolonisation process. Photo: RNZ Pacific The French Ambassador to the Pacific wants to set the record straight reminding people the France is the "administering power" and in control of New Caledonmia for now. "New Caledonia is France and it's legally in international public law," Véronique Roger-Lacan told RNZ Pacific on Wednesday. "This is how it is. New Caledonia is France," Her comments follow New Caledonia Congress President, Roch Wamytan, doubling down on indigenous Kanaks' aspirations to seek self-determination. Wamytan told RNZ Pacific that Paris "...