With a gathering storm over his leadership, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday apologised and said he had made a mistake by not realizing that former whip Chris Pincher was unsuitable for a job in government after complaints of sexual misconduct were made against him.
“In hindsight, it was the wrong thing to do. I apologize to everyone who’s been badly affected by it,” Johnson told broadcasters.
“I just want to make absolutely clear that there’s no place in this government for anybody who is predatory or who abuses their position of power,” Johnson said.
In the interview, Johnson did not deny having used the phrase “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” previously, saying that while there was there were rumours and innuendo, the complaint he had been made aware of had been cleared up.
“What I wanted was to give Chris Pincher, if not the benefit of the doubt, then the ability to prove that he could do better,” he said, adding “I’m afraid that he couldn’t and I feel very, very bitterly disappointed, but also sorry for the mistake I made.”
Johnson’s finance and health ministers resigned on Tuesday in what could spell the end for his premiership.
Both finance minister Rishi Sunak and health minister Sajid Javid sent resignation letters within minutes of each other to the Prime Minister, in which both took aim at his ability to run an administration that adhered to standards.
A German firefighter from Nuremberg has given up holidaying in Thailand to volunteer for work on the frontline in Ukraine’s Kharkiv.
Nils Thal from Nuremberg felt guilty about lying on a beach in Asia while the war was going on in Ukraine. He says he tried to volunteer to help refugees in neighbouring European countries but was frustrated at the amount of bureaucracy involved.
So he volunteered to help Ukrainian firefighters as they tackle burning buildings and search for survivors under the rubble caused by Russia’s war.
“I felt kind of guilty lying in Thailand on the beach while something like this is going on. And this is why I decided to come here to help directly,” Thal told Reuters.
Thal, who is now on a sabbatical from his job back home, said his father had initially tried to persuade him not to go to the war zone.
Now he says that once his sabbatical is over he will try to get unpaid leave in order to return to Ukraine.
“If you want to live in a civilised world, we have to do something, that’s it. And I am kind of proud to stay on the right side of the history here,” he said.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has come under heavy attack since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24.
Josiane Hodonou’s small plantain flour business has almost doubled its production since the start of the war in Ukraine. With wheat flour becoming hard to find, some people see the cooking banana as a viable alternative.
Walking through a plantain field just outside of Porto-Novo in Benin, Hodonou is choosing the right fruits for her next batch of flour, each plantain branch costing from US$2.30 to US$11 depending on the number of bananas per branch.
Once she finds everything that she needs, she heads back to her workshop to start the process.
Hodonou began producing plantain flour back in 2018 at a very small scale, but lately her production has nearly doubled.
“Before the war in Ukraine I produced at least 80 kg per month. But now because of the war in Ukraine which caused the price of wheat to increase and made it hard to find in the market, I produce up to 150 kg per month when the market is on,” she says.
West Africa is facing its worst food crisis on record, driven by Islamist insurgencies that have forced millions of people off their land in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
The region has also seen worsening floods and droughts linked to global warming.
The conflict in Ukraine is making a dire situation even worse.
The war has disrupted shipping in the Black Sea, a major artery for grains and other commodities, throttling exports from Russia and Ukraine to markets including Africa.
According to a United Nations report on the impact on trade and development of the war in Ukraine, Benin had been importing all of its wheat supplies from Russia up until March 2022.
Today, Hodonou believes plantain is the way forward.
According to the FAO, Benin produces around 19,000 tons of plantain per year. The fruit plays a important role in the local economy and when processed into flour it can be used to make bread, fritters, cakes and even thicken sauces.
“Generally we use wheat, which is not local, it’s not from here. Now that there is the crisis in Ukraine, wheat flour is becoming hard to find in markets and it’s also expensive. But we have bananas, plantains at our disposal, we can produce it, so that’s why plantain flour has value.
Instead of using wheat to make our cakes, pancakes and everything else, we now use plantain flour. We just mix all the normal ingredients with the plantain flour,” she says.
The start was a bit tedious for Hodonou, she was only able to produce 20 kg of flour per month because she had to dry the plantain in the sun. Now using a hydrator, she is able to produce more at a faster pace.
With the price of wheat flour increasing from 60 cents to over US$1 and the produce becoming harder to find in markets, small businesses are starting to use more of Hodonou’s flour.
Baker, Agathe Bankole, says she had to switch to plantain flour to continue baking goods. The plantain flour is more expensive, US$3.10 for 500 grams, but it is available and she can bake many things with it.
As an added bonus, Hodonou says plantain flour is gluten free thus better for ones health.
A Russian scientist who was arrested in Siberia last week on suspicion of state treason and flown to Moscow despite suffering from advanced pancreatic cancer has died, lawyers and a family member said on Sunday.
Physicist Dmitry Kolker, 54, had been taken from his hospital bed, where he was being fed through a tube, and bundled onto a flight of more than four hours to Moscow, where the lawyers said he was taken to Lefortovo prison and later died in a nearby hospital.
His cousin Anton Dianov told Reuters from the United States that the accusation against the laser specialist – that he had betrayed state secrets to China – was preposterous.
“He was a scientist, he loved his country, he was working in his country despite many invitations from leading universities and labs to go work abroad. He wanted to work in Russia, he wanted to teach students there,” he said.
“These charges are absolutely ridiculous and extremely cruel and unusual to be levied on such a sick man. They knew that he was on his deathbed and they chose to arrest him.”
The family and lawyers said Kolker was detained, and his house searched, by the FSB security service. They said the treason charges – which carry a sentence of up to 20 years – were based on lectures Kolker had delivered in China, even though the content had been approved by the FSB.
Reuters did not receive a reply to an emailed request for comment from the FSB.
Lawyer Alexander Fedulov told Reuters he had attempted to contact the authorities on behalf of Kolker but been turned away from the FSB investigative department and from the prison.
He said he would file a legal complaint on Monday over the circumstances of Kolker’s detention.
On Saturday (July 2), state news agency TASS said Russia had detained a second scientist in Novosibirsk on suspicion of state treason. It was not clear if the two cases were connected.
A number of Russian scientists have been arrested and charged with treason in recent years for allegedly passing sensitive material to foreigners. Critics of the Kremlin say the arrests often stem from unfounded paranoia.
Dianov, the cousin, said Kolker was also a highly accomplished concert pianist and organist who performed in both Russia and Europe.
Police on Monday announced they had captured a person of interest associated with a shooting that killed six people and wounded more than 36 when a man with a high-powered rifle opened fire from a rooftop at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
More than 36 people were injured, mostly with gunshot wounds, said Jim Anthony, a spokesperson for the NorthShore University HealthSystem. The 26 victims taken to the Highland Park hospital ranged in age from 8 to 85, said Brigham Temple, an emergency room doctor.
Police confirmed they captured 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III, who was from the area. They said he was driving a silver 2010 Honda Fit automobile.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office posted an online wanted poster of Crimo, showing a thin-faced bearded man with facial and neck tattoos. It said he weighed 120 pounds (54 kg) and was 5 feet 11 inches (1 meter 80 cms) tall.
They said he was driving a silver 2010 Honda Fit automobile.
Officials said a rifle was recovered from the scene.
Crimo appears to have published several self-made rap songs using the artist stage name “Awake The Rapper.”
The shooting caused toddlers to abandon tricycles and parents to run for safety with their children, turning a civic display of patriotism into a scene of panicked mayhem.
Police did not have a motive for the shooting.
The shooting comes with gun violence fresh on the minds of many Americans, after a massacre on May 24 killed 19 school children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which followed a May 14 attack that killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker called for an end to mass shootings after six people were killed and dozens wounded.
“The President agrees with me: This madness must stop,” Pritzker told media.
U.S. President Joe Biden called for a moment of silence amid celebrations for the U.S. Independence Day, after the incident that turn a civic display of patriotism into a scene of panicked mayhem.
Pope Francis said he hopes to be able to go to Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after a visit to Canada later this month, during an exclusive interview with Reuters on Saturday.
Speaking of the situation in Ukraine, Francis noted that there have been contacts between Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about a possible trip to Moscow.
No pope has ever visited Moscow, and Francis has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
When the Vatican first asked about a trip several months ago, Francis said Moscow replied that it was not the right time.
But he hinted that something may now have changed, and it is possible he would visit Moscow and Kyiv following his Canada trip.
Since the Russian invasion in February, the 85-year-old pontiff has repeatedly condemned the conflict and called for peace.
A month ago, Francis said he was planning to meet with Ukrainian officials to discuss the possibility of a visit to their country. He has been invited by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Ukraine’s Byzantine-rite Catholic Church and Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, Andriy Yurash.
Floods inundated properties on Monday as more heavy rain was set to drench Sydney, with fresh evacuation orders issued for tens of thousands of residents.
Relentless rain flooded several suburbs in Australia’s largest city, with officials warning of more wild weather to come.
An intense low-pressure system off Australia’s east coast is forecast to bring more heavy rain through Monday across New South Wales after several places in the state were hit with about a month’s rain over the weekend.
With about 30,000 residents in New South Wales state facing evacuation, frustration swelled in several suburbs in Sydney’s west after floods submerged homes, farms and bridges there, some for the third time this year.
No loss of lives has been reported so far as officials urged people to leave their homes when ordered and avoid driving on flooded roads.
Protesters gathered in Ohio’s Akron on Sunday following the release of footage showing police officers shooting an unarmed Black man, Jayland Walker.
Police played multiple videos at a news conference, one of which they said showed a gunshot being fired from the car driven by Walker, 25.
He fled in his car after officers attempted to pull him over for a minor traffic violation. Walker’s body was found with some 60 gunshot wounds after he fled a traffic stop last week.
On Sunday afternoon, the Akron NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) led a peaceful protest at city hall.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched in the streets of the city of some 200,000 people, waving “Black Lives Matter” flags and chanting.
The police body camera video showed a chase lasting several minutes, after which Walker jumped out of the car and ran away from police. Police say it appears he was turning toward officers, who at the time believed he was armed. A gun was later recovered from his car.
Emergency vehicles and cordon tapes were still seen outside Copenhagen’s Field’s mall in the early hours of Monday after three people were killed and several more were wounded in a shooting at the shopping center in Copenhagen.
Danish police said they had arrested a 22-year-old Danish man and charged him with manslaughter.
The attack rocked Denmark at the end of an otherwise joyful week, just after it hosted the first three stages of the Tour de France cycle race.
The event had sent hundreds of thousands of cheering Danes into the streets across the country.
The shooter had killed a man in his forties and two “young people”, a man and a woman, officials said. Several more were wounded, and among those were three in critical condition.
The suspect was apprehended at 5:48 p.m. (1548 GMT), carrying a rifle and ammunition. Police launched a massive search operation throughout the local Zealand region early Sunday evening in search of any accomplices.
English singer-songwriter Harry Styles on Monday expressed his condolences over a deadly shooting at a shopping mall in Copenhagen, after he cancelled a concert that was scheduled to be played in the same city.
“I’m devastated for the victims, their families, and everyone hurting. I’m sorry we couldn’t be together. Please look after each other,” Styles said in a tweet. His concert was due to be played on Sunday.
สมาชิกคณะกรรมาธิการด้านการสื่อสารของสหรัฐ ออกมาเรียกร้องให้ Apple และ Google ถอดแอปพลิเคชัน TikTok ออกจากระบบ และไม่ให้มีการเปิดดาวน์โหลดใน App Store เชื่อมีเอี่ยวสอดแนมข้อมูลจากรัฐบาลจีน
นาย Brendan Carr สมาชิกคณะกรรมาธิการด้านการสื่อสารของสหรัฐ ได้ส่งจดหมายถึงนาย Sundar Pichai และ Tim Cook ซีอีโอของ Apple และ Google ซึ่งเป็นเจ้าของแพลตฟอร์มระบบปฏิบัติการ iOS และ Android ขอความร่วมมือให้ทำการถอดแอปฯ TikTok โดยมองว่าแอปดังกล่าวกำลังถูกใช้เป็นเครื่องมือสอดแนมจากฝั่งรัฐบาลจีน
TikTok is not just another video app.That’s the sheep’s clothing.It harvests swaths of sensitive data that new reports show are being accessed in Beijing.I’ve called on @Apple & @Google to remove TikTok from their app stores for its pattern of surreptitious data practices. pic.twitter.com/Le01fBpNjn
SootinClaimon.Com 