Main suspect handed life sentence for 2015 Islamist attacks on Paris
Paris, FranceReuters A French court on Wednesday handed a life sentence to the lone survivor of the Islamist squad that killed 130 people in a night of carnage across Paris, bringing some closure to survivors and a country whose psyche was left scarred. Salah Abdeslam was found guilty on terrorism and murder charges, with no […]
Families fret over fate of migrants trapped in Texas truck
Oaxaca City, Mexico Reuters Before he began the journey that ended in disaster, Jose Luis Vasquez lived in a remote mountainous community in southern Mexico, where a single telephone connects a few Indigenous families to the outside world, local residents said. Now the 31-year-old is in a hospital in San Antonio, Texas, after becoming severely […]
NATO backs military aid for “heroic” Ukraine, Russia steps up attacks
Madrid, Spain/Kyiv, UkraineReuters NATO on Wednesday branded Russia the biggest “direct threat” to Western security after its invasion of Ukraine and agreed plans to modernise Kyiv’s beleaguered armed forces, saying it stood fully behind Ukrainians’ “heroic defence of their country”. At a summit dominated by the invasion and the geopolitical upheaval it has caused, NATO […]
Chinese spacecraft acquires images of entire planet of Mars
Beijing, China Reuters An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has acquired imagery data covering all of Mars, including visuals of its south pole, after circling the planet more than 1,300 times since early last year, state media reported on Wednesday. China’s Tianwen-1 successfully reached the Red Planet in February, 2021, on the country’s inaugural mission there. A […]
EU countries reach deal on climate laws after late-night talks
LuxembourgReuters EU countries clinched deals on proposed laws to combat climate change early Wednesday, backing a 2035 phase-out of new fossil fuel car sales and a multibillion-euro fund to shield poorer citizens from CO2 costs. After more than 16 hours of negotiations, environment ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states agreed their joint positions […]
Salvadoran President vows tougher war on gangs after police killed
San Salvador, El Salvador Reuters President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador pledged on Tuesday that his government will “intensify” already tough efforts to combat gangs after three police officers were gunned down earlier in the day. Bukele declared a state of emergency in March in an effort to rein in a spike in homicides, suspending […]
Books: Reappraising the Persians
DAVID ADAMS reads historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jone’s new book on the history and culture of the Achaemenids…
StrangeSights: Sleep not the point at ‘zero star’ hotel; a new ugliest dog; and, the world’s largest folk-dance?
DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
Updated: Two Mexicans charged after death of 51 migrants in sweltering Texas truck
Updated: 4pm (AEST)San Antonio, Texas, USReuters At least 51 migrants have died after being trapped inside a sweltering tractor-trailer truck found abandoned in Texas, authorities said on Tuesday, as two Mexican nationals tied to the unprecedented smuggling tragedy were charged in US federal court. The deceased migrants, 39 men and 12 women, most of them […]
Climate change is driving 2022 extreme heat and flooding
London, UKReuters Extreme weather events – from scorching heatwaves to unusually heavy downpours – have caused widespread upheaval across the globe this year, with thousands of people killed and millions more displaced. In the last three months, monsoon rains unleashed disastrous flooding in Bangladesh, and brutal heatwaves seared parts of South Asia and Europe. Meanwhile, […]