World News

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/36268916

Exit poll: Labour to win landslide in general election

"The poll suggests Sir Keir Starmer's party has won with an estimated overall majority of 170 seats - while the Conservatives, led by Rishi Sunak, look likely to record their lowest seat tally in the party's history."

State-owned power company China Three Gorges Renewables Group will build an 8 GW solar farm as part of a nearly $11 billion integrated energy project.

"As reported by Eurogamer, 48-year-old Anthony Bray, of Nuneaton in Warwickshire, England, was spotted carrying a replica of the iconic weapon from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda series openly in the local town centre.

Warwickshire Police spotted Bray on June 8 via CCTV walking down the street with something in his hand. Bray was said to have approached officers with the item visible in his hand, at which point he was arrested as he was carrying a bladed article."

China's bribery campaign across Oceania continues.

Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on "diehard" Taiwan independence separatists, said four people familiar with the matter.

The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions.

"Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel," said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm. He declined to identify the companies or industries for confidentiality reasons.

"The companies are still concerned that there may be some grey areas such as whether a benign social media post or voting for a particular political party or candidate in Taiwan elections could be interpreted as engaging in pro-independence activities," Zimmerman said.

A member of the Hamas political bureau has accused Israel of trying to evade negotiations for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. Husam Badran added on Wednesday that the occupation regime is trying to distract attention from this obvious fact.

“We are keen to reach an agreement to stop the war, and our communication with the mediators continues,” explained Badran. “We exchanged some ideas with the mediators aiming to stop the war and agree on a comprehensive [Israeli] withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.”

He noted that the “enemy” knows that putting pressure on the movement’s leadership and constant threats is of no use. “We are the party most keen to end the war, and we are most concerned with achieving the basic demands of our people, upon which there is a national consensus.” The Hamas official also accused the Biden and earlier administrations in Washington of being “completely biased” in favour of the occupation state.

The New York Times cited officials on Tuesday, and said that Qatar has sent Hamas new amendments to the US proposal for a prisoner exchange deal.

Citing unnamed sources, however, Israel’s Kan channel reported that, “Hamas added a new condition to the negotiations, which is the army’s withdrawal from the Philadelphia axis along the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip.”

The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor field team documented a compound and comprehensive crime against a civilian family comprising an elderly woman and her four children, including three young women and a one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter.

The family was attacked with gunfire and bombs after Israeli forces stormed their house on Thursday evening, 27 June. They were later taken outside and detained for over three hours despite their injuries in their home, near Israeli tanks in a dangerous combat zone, where they were used as human shields. The 65-year-old mother, identified as Safiya Hassan Musa Al-Jamal, was run over by an Israeli tank and killed in front of her son.

“I had assumed that we would be taken to a medical facility so that my mother could be treated, but instead they tackled me and my mother, putting her on the ground. After a few minutes, I realised we had arrived at the Mushtaha Roundabout, at the end of Al-Nazzaz Street. I inquired as to my location. "Your mother will be taken by ambulance," he said. My mom was on the ground, unconscious. There were two tanks on the right and left surrounding the roundabout. After the soldiers entered the tank, it started to move backward and ran over my mother.

Euro-Med Monitor has previously documented many instances of the Israeli army killing Palestinian civilians by intentionally running over live civilians with military tanks. Sixty-two-year-old Jamal Hamdi Hassan Ashour was one such victim. He was deliberately run over in Gaza City’s Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood on 29 February after he was arrested. The father of five was subjected to harsh interrogation by members of the Israeli army, who bound his hands with plastic zip-tie handcuffs before running him over with a military vehicle from the bottom to the top of his body.

The first African-born MP to enter the German parliament has announced he will not be standing in next year’s federal election, weeks after he revealed the hate mail, including racist slurs and death threats, he and his staff had received.

Karamba Diaby, 62, who entered the Bundestag in 2013 in a moment hailed as historic by equality campaigners, said he wanted to spend more time with his family and to make room for younger politicians.

Diaby said the racist slurs and death threats were “not the main reasons” for his decision, having frequently emphasised he would not be cowed by threats. But they are widely believed they have played a part.

He has increasingly faced racist abuse in recent years. His constituency office in Halle, Saxony Anhalt, has been an arson target, and has had bullets fired through the window. Some staff have faced blackmail attempts to stop them working for him and have been subjected to and threats, Diaby said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/17193627

Defence secretary Lloyd Austin says package will include anti-tank weapons and air defence interceptors including Patriot systems. What we know on day 861