
Kenya demonstrations: Children in hospital after being tear-gassed in Nairobi
There are demonstrations around the country over the rising cost of living and tax hikes.
2023-07-13 01:21

Missing French toddler – latest: Bloody car found in Haut Vernet search for Emile
Blood has been detected on the front of a car in Le Vernet, the French Alpine village where a two-year-old boy went missing on Saturday. “At the moment we don’t even know if it’s human blood”, MailOnline reported an investigative source as saying, noting that the traces have been transferred for scientific analysis to determine if they could be linked to missing Emile. “It might be a very old trace too, so everybody is being very cautious about the find”, the source added. Meanwhile, police confirmed that Emile’s parents home - in Bouilladisse - was searched on Monday, with one judicial source stating that “gendarmes were looking into the family’s background.” Two-year-old Emile was last seen playing in the garden of a property in Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute department of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, with his grandparents notifying the police of his disappearance at around 5.15pm local time on Saturday. Police added on Wednesday that at least 10 people were present at the property where Emile was last seen amidst a family reunion, with “several uncles and aunts of the child, of all ages, including some minors”, a police source said.
2023-07-13 01:00

Watch live: Joe Biden holds news conference after Nato leaders summit
Watch live as Joe Biden holds a news conference following talks at the Nato summit on Wednesday, 12 July. The US president met with world leaders in Lithuania as G7 countries announced an international framework that paves the way for long-term security assurances for Ukraine to boost its defences against Russia. On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the military alliance’s leaders for not extending membership to Ukraine, calling the inaction “absurd” Mr Biden has previously said that he thinks Ukraine is “not ready” for membership. His remarks came after US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Nato would be at war with Russia if Ukraine were to join the alliance now. Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary
2023-07-13 00:55

Europe agrees landmark nature and climate deal after tense negotiations
The European Parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of legally binding targets to protect and restore nature in the European Union, despite strong opposition from some policymakers.
2023-07-13 00:52

Milan Kundera, renowned but reclusive Czech writer and former dissident, dies in Paris at 94
Milan Kundera, whose dissident writings in communist Czechoslovakia transformed him into an exiled satirist of totalitarianism, has died in Paris
2023-07-13 00:51

House GOP leaders struggle to resolve standoff over social issues in defense bill
House Republican leaders are scrambling to find a path forward on a critical defense policy bill that faces an uncertain future as hardline conservatives push for amendments on controversial social issues that threaten to derail the must-pass legislation.
2023-07-13 00:49

He claimed to have dirt on the Bidens. Now the DoJ say he’s a Chinese spy. Who is Gal Luft?
An eight-count indictment against Israeli professor and think tank co-founder Gal Luft appeared in a small, 137-word item on page 10 of the New York Post. Under the headline “Anti-Biden witness indicted”, it described Mr Luft, 57, as “a key figure in House Republicans' investigation of the Biden family” and said the charges against him are for “arms trafficking and conspiring to flout US sanctions on Iran”. It ended with a line about how Mr Luft claims the case is an attempt to stop him “testifying to Congress about allegations the first family received payments from individuals with ties to Chinese military intelligence and that the Bidens had an FBI mole who shared classified information with their Chinese benefactors”. The low-key treatment was a far cry from how the anti-Biden tabloid covered Mr Luft just days earlier, when Post columnist Miranda Devine – a frequent purveyor of conspiracy theories about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter – wrote a column exclusively on a video on which Mr Luft claims he is being “hunted” by the FBI and facing “the rest of his life on the run”. Mr Luft’s dispatch to the Post came from parts unknown – as he has been a fugitive since February. He disappeared shortly after posting bail following his arrest by Cypriot authorities pursuant to an Interpol warrant on suspicion of arms trafficking. At the time, he tweeted that the arrest was part of a “politically motivated extradition request” by the US. “I've been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US … claiming I'm an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren't tragic. I've never been an arms dealer. DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim [and] Hunter Biden,” he said. Mr Luft’s Israeli lawyer, Mordechai Tzivin, told Ynet that his client was being targeted because he provided derogatory information about the Bidens to the FBI in 2019. The accusations "would be a good way to shut him up," Mr Tzivin said, “because he knows a lot of information on Hunter”. He added that it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that prominent Democrats would try to have his client killed. “If this would have happened in Russia, they would have carried out a 'diplomatic car crash,' but luckily, he is in a safe location where no one can hurt him,” he said. Despite Mr Luft’s claim that the arms charges coincide with his emergence as a figure in the Republican-led crusade to tar the Bidens with corruption allegations, it’s not clear from the public record that he ever said a word about Mr Biden or his son prior to his arrest. But the Israeli-American academic – who was once a Lieutenant Colonel in the Israeli Defense Forces and more recently served as co-director of the DC-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security – has been critical of US foreign policy since Mr Biden took office with the aim of restoring relations with America’s democratic allies. In January, his think tank released a report that accused the US of “pursuing illegal economic policies” by way of an "extremely trigger-happy" use of sanctions, most notably against Russia. And last year, he appeared on CNBC to criticise the Biden administration’s efforts to impose a worldwide oil price cap on Russian oil to keep Moscow from using petrodollars to finance the war in Ukraine. “It's kind of a ridiculous idea in my view,” Mr Luft said. "That's not how the oil market works," he said. "This is a very sophisticated market, you cannot force the prices down." He also spoke to the South China Morning Post in August last year about who the Chinese government would tap to lead its foreign ministry after that year’s Communist Party Congress and last September penned an op-ed for the same publication in which he complained that the Ukraine war had become “a quagmire” and ridiculed Mr Biden’s prediction that US sanctions would have an effect on Moscow’s economy. “To date, Russia’s economy has contracted by 4 per cent – a far cry from President Biden’s suggestion at the beginning of the war that it would halve. If anyone is nearing implosion, it is probably Europe’s heavily indebted economies, facing an unprecedented pre-winter energy crisis, inflation, deindustrialisation and a growing social unrest already causing fissures in the Western alliance,” he said. Indeed, the first mention of Mr Luft’s claims against the Bidens came in his February post-arrest tweet. And though Republicans have now embraced his claims to have been speaking out against the president and his family since 2019, there’s no evidence he voiced his alleged concerns to anyone, even though unproven claims about the Bidens have been a fast-track to stardom in GOP media circles since Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Based on that pattern, it might be reasonable to conclude that Mr Luft is hoping to garner himself enough goodwill in the GOP that, should he remain a fugitive, a future Republican president — perhaps Mr Trump — will pardon him. Read More ‘Whistleblower’ who accused Bidens of corruption is charged with arms trafficking and violating Iran sanctions GOP cries foul over spy charges for Biden ‘whistleblower’ Top Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Hunter Biden case. Here's what to know. Dems call for probe into whether Gal Luft made claims about Biden to help China Biden and Zelenskyy praise each other despite divisions over Ukraine war Finland's new finance minister apologizes for racist comments in 2008 blog post
2023-07-13 00:46

'Succession' leads all Emmy nominees with 27 as HBO dominates; 'Ted Lasso' leads comedy contenders
HBO dominated the Emmy nominations, with the elite trio of “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us” combining for a whopping 74 nods
2023-07-13 00:27

CNN uncovered a damning, secret investigation into sexual assault at the US Coast Guard Academy. This woman's case triggered that probe
CNN examined the case at the center of the US Coast Guard's most sweeping investigation into sexual assaults at its academy. Her case not only shows how the Coast Guard routinely dismissed serious sexual misconduct in the past, but also how its failures continue to reverberate.
2023-07-13 00:15

Biden 'looks forward' to Ukraine NATO membership, just not now
By Steve Holland VILNIUS U.S. President Joe Biden told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday that he looks forward
2023-07-12 23:54

List of top Emmy nominations
This year's Emmy for best drama nominees have been revealed
2023-07-12 23:53

NATO Latest: Zelenskiy Calls NATO Summit a ‘Great Success’
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the NATO summit was successful in providing Ukraine with security commitments after softening his
2023-07-12 23:27