World
EU clears 431 million euros aid for cleaner transport in German cities
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission said on Wednesday it had cleared 431 million euros ($482.8 million) of public support by German authorities to cities to adapt diesel-powered municipal and commercial vehicles to reduce their...
Emissions need to be halved to avoid 3C warming: scientists
LONDON (Reuters) – Emissions need to be halved by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius but temperatures are on track to reach double that by the end of the century even if countries’ current plans are fully implemented, research by scientists shows. A group of European researchers, Climate Action Tracker, tracks countries’ progress...
Iran says there will be no war with United States: IRNA
LONDON (Reuters) – There will not be any military confrontation between Iran and the United States, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council was quoted as saying on Wednesday by state news agency IRNA. Worries about a military confrontation between Iran and the United States have mounted since attacks last week on two oil...
Eviation targets commuters with electric plane Alice
LE BOURGET, France (Reuters) – An electric plane capable of flying up to 650 miles with nine passengers made its debut at the Paris Airshow on Tuesday, with its manufacturer targeting regional commuter routes such as the French capital to the southern city of Toulouse. Eviation Aircraft said the plane – called Alice – was...
Poor nations hosting most refugees worldwide, need more Western help – U.N
GENEVA (Reuters) – Developing countries, not rich Western nations, are bearing the brunt of the world’s refugee crisis and are hosting most of the record 70.8 million displaced people who have fled war and persecution, the United Nations said on Wednesday. Half of the world’s forcibly displaced are children and the 2018 total is the...
Japan says G20 summit to debate trade including WTO reform
TOKYO (Reuters) – Substantial discussions on trade, including reform of the World Trade Organization, will likely take place at a summit of Group of 20 major economies next week in Osaka, a senior Japanese finance ministry official said on Wednesday. Japan, which chairs this year’s G20 gatherings, will take a neutral stance in the U.S.-China...
El Salvador president rules out talks with criminal gangs
SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – El Salvador President Nayib Bukele ruled out negotiations with criminal gangs on Tuesday and vowed to go after their finances in a bid to reduce violence in the Central American country. Bukele, 37, took office this month pledging to bring down a sky-high murder rate and reduce poverty, corruption and mass...
Cuban artist sketches under the sea among fish and coral reefs
PUNTA PERDIZ, Cuba (Reuters) – Some artists like to go on a countryside retreat to foster their creative process. For Cuba’s Sandor Gonzalez, there is no better place to sketch than several meters below the surface of the sea, surrounded by iridescent Caribbean fish and fantastical coral forms. The 42-year-old first won renown at home...
Tiny bulletproof vests centrepiece of New York art exhibit on school shootings
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rows of tiny bullet-proof vests hang on clothing racks and “safety defence” lunchboxes adorn the walls. It looks like an apparel store — almost. But the “Back to School Shopping” art installation by the artist WhIsBe is a commentary on U.S. mass school shootings, intended to raise the question: How long...
Scientists amazed as Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years early
LONDON (Reuters) – Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared. A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession...
France leads the world in mistrust of vaccines
PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) – For Marie-Claire Grime, who works in a pharmacy northeast of Paris, questions about vaccines are a daily challenge. They come mainly from parents who say they’re worried about “a lot of chemicals” being put into their children, she says. She does her best to allay such fears. “We spend time deconstructing the...
Women’s sex toy maker sues New York City subway, calls ad ban sexist
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A new lawsuit asks why New York City’s subway accepts advertisements depicting erectile dysfunction, bare buttocks, inflatable plastic breasts, “Kyng”-sized condoms and cactuses shaped like phalluses, but is refusing ads for women’s sex toys. Dame Products, a women-owned startup that promises to “close the pleasure gap” for women by selling “toys,...
Exhausted polar bear wanders into Siberian city
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A starving polar bear has strayed hundreds of kilometers from its natural Arctic habitat and wandered, exhausted, into the major Russian industrial city of Norilsk in northern Siberia. The female bear, visibly weak and seemingly ill, lay despondently on the ground for hours on Tuesday in Norilsk’s suburbs, its feet caked in...
Apollo astronauts celebrate 50 years since first moon landing
PARIS (Reuters) – Three astronauts instrumental in the groundbreaking U.S. space programme of the 1960s and 70s gathered at the Paris Air Show on Tuesday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the mission that first put a man on the moon. Walter Cunningham, 87, who was part of the Apollo 7 mission, Al...
19th June
Strong quake strikes northwest Japan, triggers small tsunami, power cuts
TOKYO (Reuters) – A strong and shallow earthquake struck Japan’s northwest coast around Niigata prefecture on Tuesday, triggering a small tsunami, shaking buildings and cutting power to around 9,000 buildings. The magnitude 6.4 quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), lasted for as long as 20 seconds and damage included a landslide that struck...
Britain to bid to host 2020 U.N. climate talks
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain said on Tuesday it would bid to host United Nations’ climate talks in 2020, with Italy holding the preliminary talks preceding it. Next year is the year the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement comes into force and when countries need to present new plans for more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions cuts. The...
Uganda clears three experimental Ebola treatments, watches for spread
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Health workers have got the all-clear to use three experimental Ebola treatments in Uganda, a week after the deadly disease spread over the border from Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said on Tuesday. Two people who had travelled from Congo died in Uganda last week, the World Health Organization said. A three-year-old...
Exclusive: Banks face new challenges in Italian diamond scandal
MILAN (Reuters) – A long-running criminal probe into diamond sales by Italian banks has uncovered what prosecutors say is further evidence of corruption by officials at UniCredit, Italy’s largest lender, and smaller rival Banco BPM. The allegations, some previously unreported, are laid out in documents used by prosecutors when they sought a magistrate’s order seizing...
From poo to food: Kenyan toilet waste key for new animal feed
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan farmer Victor Kyalo’s chickens have doubled the number of eggs they are laying. The reason: Human excrement. He is feeding them food from a Nairobi-based organics recycling company. Sanergy harvests waste from toilets it operates in a franchise network in Nairobi’s sprawling slums and feeds it to fly larvae, which become...
Trump says U.S. agency will begin removing millions of illegal immigrants
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Monday that U.S. authorities would begin next week removing millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally. “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump tweeted, referring to...
German interior minister warns of far-right threat after politician’s murder
BERLIN (Reuters) – The murder of a prominent politician by a suspected right-wing radical is an assault on Germany’s democratic system and should serve as a wake-up call, the interior minister said on Tuesday, pledging to combat all forms of extremism. The arrest of a right-winger over the shooting two weeks ago of Walter Luebcke,...
State cyber-attack poses big danger for UK banks: Bank of England
LONDON (Reuters) – A state-backed cyber-attack could secretly corrupt the records of British financial institutions over a period of months, posing a risk that banks would probably struggle to guard against on their own, a senior Bank of England policymaker said. Banks have focused mainly on stopping service outages, but the falsification of transaction records...
Sotheby’s snapped up by French tycoon Drahi for $3.7 billion
PARIS/BOSTON (Reuters) – Franco-Israeli cable magnate Patrick Drahi made a surprise move into the art world by snapping up Sotheby’s in a deal worth $3.7 billion, marking the art auction house’s return to private ownership after 31 years. The acquisition allows Drahi to join French billionaire Francois Pinault – who owns Sotheby’s main rival Christie’s...
Captain in fatal Budapest boat crash was sober at the time – police
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian police said on Tuesday they had found no evidence of alcohol or drug abuse by the captain of a cruise ship that struck and sank a small tourist vessel last month, killing 28 mostly Korean people on board. The Mermaid boat sank in seconds on May 29 after the Viking Sigyn...
Teenager who called UK’s Prince Harry ‘race traitor’ is jailed
LONDON (Reuters) – A teenage neo-Nazi who called for Britain’s Prince Harry a race traitor months after his marriage to U.S. actress Meghan Markle and suggested he should be shot was jailed for more than four years on Tuesday, the BBC reported. Michal Szewczuk, 19, posted far-right online propaganda which included an image of Harry,...
Southeast Asia should ban imports of foreign trash: environmentalists
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Environmental groups called on Tuesday for Southeast Asian countries to ban waste imports from developed countries to help tackle a plastic pollution crisis, as regional leaders prepare to meet this week in Bangkok. Southeast Asia has seen a staggering spike in imports of plastic and electronic waste from developed countries after the...
‘Sing Hallelujah to the Lord’ an unlikely anthem of Hong Kong protests
HONG KONG (Reuters) – The Christian hymn “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” has emerged as the unlikely anthem of Hong Kong’s protests against an extradition bill that have drawn millions of people onto the streets. Protests around the world often develop their own soundtrack, usually songs with lyrics of defiance and solidarity, aiming to keep...
Poverty in Italy stops growing for first time since 2015
ROME (Reuters) – The number of Italians living in absolute poverty held steady in 2018 after three straight years of growth, though the problem remains at a record high, data showed on Tuesday. About 5 million people or 8.4% of the population live in absolute poverty, defined as those unable to buy goods and services...
U.S. military releases new images from oil tanker attacks
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military on Monday released new images it says showed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) removing an unexploded limpet mine from a Japanese-owned tanker that was attacked on June 13 in the Gulf of Oman, as Washington blames Tehran for the attack. “Iran is responsible for the attack based on video evidence...
French court sees no ‘clear and illegal disruption’ in Gulf sports piracy case
PARIS (Reuters) – A French court has ruled that pirated sports content belonging to the Qatar-based broadcaster beIN was accessible via a Saudi-based satellite operator, but said it had not found evidence of “clear and illegal disruption”, court documents seen by Reuters showed. BeIN Media Group filed a complaint in France against Saudi-based Arabsat to...
