World News

48318 readers
2089 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
1
 
 

Africa’s wealth disparity has reached unprecedented levels, with just four billionaires now holding more wealth than 750 million people combined – half the continent’s population.

According to a report from Oxfam entitled Africa’s Inequality Crisis and the Rise of the Super-Rich, released on Thusday, Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, South Africans Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer and Egyptian businessman Nassef Sawiris control a combined $57.4 billion (€49.07bn).

This staggering concentration of wealth highlights the deepening inequality across the continent, the report warns.

Number of African-born millionaires to skyrocket over next decade: report

2
 
 

Pakistan police on Friday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her account on popular video-sharing app TikTok.

In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.

"The girl's father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her," a police spokesperson told AFP.

According to a police report shared with AFP, investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday "for honor." He was subsequently arrested.

3
4
 
 

Donald Trump on Thursday announced a 35% tariff on Canadian imports, starting Aug. 1, citing that Ottawa had retaliated with tariffs against Washington.

“Instead of working with the United States, Canada retaliated with its own Tariffs,” Trump said in his letter to Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, posted on Truth Social.

5
6
7
8
 
 

raeli strikes have killed at least 16 Palestinians, including 10 children and three women, and wounded many others as they attempted to collect nutritional aid for children in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

In one video, a group of children and a woman who were victims of the attack are seen placed on a cart being pulled by a donkey, illustrating a lack of emergency vehicles and equipment compounded by a severe lack of fuel in the besieged enclave.

9
10
 
 

Polish prosecutors have launched an investigation into far-right leader Grzegorz Braun after he declared the gas chambers at Auschwitz to be “fake” and said it is a “fact” that Jews have committed ritual slaughter of Christians. Denial of Nazi crimes is an offence in Poland that carries a jail sentence of up to three years.

Braun, who finished fourth in the recent presidential elections with 6.3% of the vote, made his remarks during an interview today with radio station WNET. The veteran far-right politician, who is a member of the European Parliament, has a long history of hateful and conspiratorial rhetoric regarding Jews and other minorities.

During the interview, Braun referred to what he claimed are the “lies of the Talmud, the Haggadah [two Jewish religious texts], and the Holocaust”. He said that Jewish organisations “condemn those who tell the truth that ritual murder is a fact and Auschwitz with its gas chambers is a lie”.

A longstanding antisemitic canard is that Jews murder Christians, in particular children, and use their blood for religious rituals. Meanwhile, many modern antisemites deny the fact that gas chambers were used at Auschwitz and other German-Nazi camps to murder Jews during the Holocaust.

After the interviewer contested Braun’s remarks, he reiterated them, saying that the Auschwitz Museum provides a “pseudo-historical account” about what happened at the camp and blocks research into the gas chambers. He also cited a book by an Israeli historian that he says proves Jews carried out ritual murder.

That led the interviewer to immediately cut short the broadcast, saying that there “are limits to political cynicism and sensationalism when it comes to several million victims and their memory”.

Subsequently, Anna-Maria Żukowska, head of the parliamentary caucus of The Left (Lewica), one of the groups that make up Poland’s ruling coalition, announced that she was filing a complaint to prosecutors regarding Braun’s remarks.

She accused him of violating article 55 of Poland’s law on the Institute of National Remembrance, which criminalises public denial of Nazi and communist crimes. Those found guilty can be punished by up to three years in prison.

Late on Thursday afternoon, the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw announced that it had initiated an investigation into whether Braun had committed the offence of denying Nazi crimes.

Meanwhile, Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Museum, which is a Polish state institution, issued a statement condemning Braun’s “scandalous” comments, which he said were not only a violation of the law but also “an insult to the memory of the victims of the camp”.

“Grzegorz Braun’s words are not a ‘political provocation’, but a conscious lie and an act of ideological, antisemitic hatred,” said Cywiński. “They cannot remain without a decisive response from the state and all decent people – for whom the memory of Auschwitz is of particular importance.”

The museum director noted that, while it was primarily Jews who were victims of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, ethnic Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and Roma were also murdered in them.

At least 1.3 million prisoners were transported to Auschwitz during the war, with at least 1.1 million of them killed at the camp. Around one million of those victims were Jews, most of whom were murdered in gas chambers immediately after their arrival. The second largest group of victims were ethnic Poles.

Cywiński said that the museum would itself file a notification to prosecutors regarding Braun’s remarks. He also appealed to Polish media to stop giving space to Braun, who “has repeatedly shown that he cannot function in the public space without vandalism, lies, hate speech and racism”.

Last week, Braun was presented by prosecutors with seven sets of charges relating to four incidents, including his attack on a Jewish religious celebration in parliament two years ago.

He is also being investigated over a series of incidents during the recent presidential election campaign, including when he vandalised an LGBT+ exhibition, made antisemitic remarks during a televised debate, and removed a Ukrainian flag from a public building.

11
 
 

Donald Trump praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for his strong grasp of the English language on Wednesday. But the African leader was educated in Liberia, where English is the official language.

As he hosted five African leaders at the White House, Trump asked Boakai: “Such good English, it’s beautiful. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?”

Boakai informed Trump of his place of education, prompting Trump to express his curiosity. “That’s very interesting,” he said, “I have people at this table who can’t speak nearly as well.”

Several Liberians voiced their offense over Trump’s comment to Boakai, given the US president’s past remarks on African countries and the colonial legacy left by the US organization in Liberia.

“I felt insulted because our country is an English-speaking country,” Archie Tamel Harris, a Liberian youth advocate, told CNN.

12
 
 

The warning was direct, blunt and left no room for doubt. "We expect all ICC actions against the United States and our ally Israel – that is, all investigations and all arrest warrants – to be terminated," said Reed Rubinstein, legal adviser at the US State Department, before delegates of the 125 member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, July 8, at a meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York from July 7 to 9.

If the ICC arrest warrants for crimes against humanity and war crimes issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant on November 21, 2024, as well as ongoing investigations into crimes committed in the Gaza Strip and the settlement of Palestinian territory, are not dropped, "all options remain on the table," he declared.

13
14
15
 
 

The Catholic Church's approval of blessings of couples in same-sex relationships "will remain" under Pope Leo XIV, the head of the Vatican's doctrine office told an Italian reporter in a brief interview.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández made the statement in response to a question from a journalist for the Rome-based daily Il Messaggero as he left the Holy See Press Office on July 3.

Fernández's remarks are the clearest indication to date since Pope Leo's election of a likely continuation of Pope Francis' gay-blessings declaration. However, the impromptu interview falls short of an explicit, official statement from the Vatican.

Under Francis, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2023 released a document entitled "Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings," which opened the door to church blessings for couples in "irregular" situations, including same-sex relationships.

The document, signed by Fernández and his deputy Msgr. Armando Matteo, and approved by Pope Francis, stressed that such blessings could not take the form of a liturgical rite, and did not imply formal approval of "irregular" unions.

The blessings document generated considerable conservative backlash, and some critics of the late Pope Francis had expressed hope that Pope Leo would rescind or ignore it.

16
 
 

The Spanish government authorizes the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems with an initial funding of 350 million euros.

Recent developments show the Spanish government backing away from its previous statements and authorizing the acquisition of Israeli defense technology from Elbit Systems.

The procurement involves tactical radio communication systems (SCRT), with initial funding of 350 million euros ($393 million) allocated in the 2025 defense budget. The comprehensive deal includes subsequent phases and additional acquisitions totaling 768 million euros ($862 million).

17
 
 

Brazilian president says ‘if he charges us 50%, we’ll charge him 50%’ after Trump cited trial of Bolsonaro to justify tariff

Brazil threatened to hit back against Donald Trump’s plan to introduce 50% tariffs on its exports with its own 50% tariff on US goods, setting the stage for a precipitous trade war.

“If he charges us 50%, we’ll charge him 50%,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, told local news outlet Record, a day after Trump threatened to impose steep duties on Brazilian goods and accused the country of conducting a “witch-hunt” against its former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing a trial over his attempt to overturn his 2022 election defeat.

Brazil could appeal to the World Trade Organization, propose international investigations and “demand explanations”, Lula suggested. “But the main thing is the Reciprocity Law, passed by Congress,” he told Record, referring to recent legislation designed to defend Latin America’s largest economy from tariff attacks.

18
 
 

The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which oversaw the development of GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs, has yet to receive definitive data on the outcome of the U.S. Air Force strike on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22. Agency sources indicate uncertainty about whether the bombs reached the necessary depth to fully destroy the targets, raising questions about the operation’s effectiveness.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi emphasized that Iran retains some nuclear capabilities despite the damage and could resume uranium enrichment in the coming months. Against this backdrop, experts suggest further escalation may require bolder action. Given the technological capabilities of the U.S. and Israel, more decisive options to permanently address the issue are under consideration.

19
 
 

Rubio meets Chinese counterpart at gathering, as questions remain about US trade polices and commitment to region

Even as they face among the most punitive tariffs globally, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has sought to reassure south-east Asian countries of Washington’s commitment to the region, saying they may get “better” trade deals than the rest of the world.

In his first official visit to Asia, Rubio met the foreign ministers of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Malaysia on Thursday, telling his counterparts that the US had “no intention of abandoning” the region.

His visit came days after Donald Trump renewed his threat to impose severe tariffson many south-east Asian countries if they did not strike deals by 1 August.

20
21
 
 

Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, has condemned the installation of new plaques in Poland at the site of the Jedwabne pogrom, during which hundreds of Jews were burned alive in World War Two.

It says that the inscriptions – which were installed as part of a crowdfunded alternative memorial and not by any official body – “falsify history” by trying to absolve Poles of blame for the massacre.

On Wednesday, Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading Polish newspaper, reported that seven large boulders had been placed near the official Jedwabne memorial.

The objects had appeared there shortly before today’s commemoration of the 84th anniversary of the pogrom, which occurred when Poland was under Nazi-German occupation.

Official findings by Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) have established that the direct perpetrators of the massacre were ethnic Poles who lived in the area. But it also noted that broader responsibility for the crime rested with the German occupiers.

However, many in Poland – in particular on the political right – question those findings, arguing that the pogrom was entirely the work of the Germans and claiming that the tragedy has been used as part of efforts to falsely shift blame onto Poles for Holocaust crimes.

One of the newly installed plaques reads, in Polish and English, that “evidence and witness accounts disprove the claims of Polish perpetration of the murder of Jews in Jedwabne…In reality, this crime was committed by a German unit”.

Another says that the fact Poland disappeared from the map of Europe for 123 years between 1795 and 1918 was “an unimaginable tragedy for Poles…[but] a source of satisfaction for many Jews”.

A further one says that, in the interwar period, “many Jews openly sympathised with communism, identified with the Soviets, who were hostile to Poland”, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.

The newspaper notes that Wojciech Sumliński – an author who has written books questioning the official findings regarding Jedwabne – spoke two years ago about installing such plaques as part of an alternative “monument” that would recognise the “truth” about Jedwabne.

Sumliński himself confirmed on Wednesday in a social media post that he was behind the new installation, which was paid for through a crowdfunding campaign. On Thursday, he and a large crowd of supporters gathered for the official opening of the new memorial, marking the occasion with a Catholic mass.

On Thursday, Yad Vashem issued a statement saying that it is “profoundly shocked and deeply concerned by the desecration of historical truth and memory at the Jedwabne memorial site in Poland”.

It says that the new plaques are “an apparent attempt to distort the story of the massacre of Jews” in order to “absolve the perpetrators” through the “blatant falsification of history”.

“Yad Vashem calls on the relevant Polish authorities to remove this offensive installation and to ensure that the historical meaning of the site is preserved and respected,” they wrote.

The new plaques were also condemned by Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, who told Gazeta Wyborcza they are a “disgrace” and a “manifestation of the disease that is antisemitism”.

22
23
 
 

Link without the paywall

https://archive.ph/A3pPJ

24
25
 
 

Iran has called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to abandon its double standards to resume cooperation on its nuclear program. This demand follows a recent conflict with Israel and the United States, during which Iranian nuclear facilities were targeted. In a conversation with European Council President Antonio Costa, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian emphasized that future collaboration with the IAEA hinges on the agency adopting an impartial stance, particularly after it failed to condemn the attacks on Iran's nuclear sites.

Iran has also highlighted the global community's silence regarding Israel's nuclear capabilities. Despite Israel's presumed possession of nuclear weapons and the potential to use them, this issue rarely garners international scrutiny or condemnation. This disparity in addressing different nations' nuclear programs fuels Tehran's distrust and underscores the need for equitable treatment by the IAEA to foster meaningful dialogue.

view more: next ›