World News

Photo: AFP There is one country that constantly produces the tallest people in the world - so what is their secret? Like in the rest of Europe and Western nations, heights in the Netherlands have increased dramatically over the past 200 years - but for some reason, the Dutch grow higher. The Dutch started shooting up in the late 19th century, Kristina Thompson, an associate professor of health and society at Wageningen University, told RNZ's Nights. "At the beginning of the 19th century, the Dutch were relatively short - they were around 163-165 centimetres for men. And we really start to see a massive shift towards the middle of the 19th century when the Dutch start growing at this tremendous rate. "And it was only really in the 20th century that the Dutch outstripped other nations and ...

Passengers gather around the departure and arrival boards at the Gare Montparnasse train station in Paris on July 26, 2024 as France's high-speed rail network was hit by malicious acts disrupting the transport system hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Photo: THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP Vandals targeted France's high-speed train network with a series of coordinated actions that brought major disruption to some of the country's busiest rail lines ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. The state-owned railway operator said arsonists had targeted installations along the lines connecting Paris with cities such as Lille in the north, Bordeaux in west and Strasbourg in the east. It urged all travellers to postpone their journeys. Repairs were underway but traffi...

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 ...