MOSCOW – Russia said yesterday it had expelled more than 80 000 migrants in 2024, nearly twice as many as in 2023, as the country toughens migration policies after last year’s Crocus City Hall terror attack. More than 140 people were killed in the attack on the conference centre in March, which was allegedly carried...
HELSINKI – Finland is consistently ranked as Europe’s most media-literate country. The skills needed to spot online hoaxes are on the school curriculum, amidst a boom of mis- and disinformation campaigns. “Who knew what a troll was before?” literature and Finnish language teacher Saara Varmola asked her 14- to 15-year-old students, who all promptly raised...
TOKYO – Japanese authorities began culling some 50 000 chickens Sunday after a bird flu outbreak at a farm in the northern Iwate region. It is the 19th bird flu outbreak of the season in Japan, the agriculture ministry said. The latest farm reported increasing deaths of fowl. Test results confirmed Sunday that bird flu...
GAZA – Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip in a report documenting the 14-month conflict published yesterday. The report documents 41 attacks on MSF staff including air strikes on health facilities and direct fire on humanitarian convoys.The NGO said it was forced to evacuate hospitals and health...
BEIJING – China yesterday upheld the death sentence for a child trafficker whose crimes shocked the nation and traumatised dozens of victims. Yu Huaying (60), separated at least 17 children from their parents and sold them to other families during the 1990s. She was first handed the death penalty last year but appealed her sentence,...
AVIGNON – A court yesterday sentenced a French man to the maximum term of 20 years jail for committing and orchestrating the mass rapes of his now former wife Gisele Pelicot, with dozens of strangers he recruited online. Dominique Pelicot, who had already confessed to the crimes, was earlier found guilty by the court in...
SAINT DENIS DE LA REUNION – Rescuers raced against time yesterday to reach survivors after a devastating cyclone ripped through the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, destroying homes across the islands, with hundreds of people feared dead. Images from Mayotte, which like other French overseas territories is an integral part of France and ruled...
ANKARA – Turkey yesterday denounced an Israeli plan to double the population living in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights as a bid to “expand its borders”.“This decision is a new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation,” the foreign ministry said in a statement condemning the move. Israel’s government on Sunday...
AVIGNON – The French man who admitted enlisting dozens of strangers to rape his heavily-sedated wife yesterday asked for forgiveness from his family and hailed the courage of his now ex-spouse during his trial. “I would like to start by hailing the courage of my ex-wife, Gisele,” her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot said in his final...
ISTANBUL – More than 7 600 Syrian migrants crossed the Turkish border to return home in the five days after the fall of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, Turkey’s interior minister said yesterday. In a statement on X, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya listed the total number of Syrians “who returned voluntarily from Turkey” each day between...