International

China’s NPC live news: Xi addresses parliament’s closing session

China’s President Xi Jinping addresses NPC delegates in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing [Noel Celis/Pool] Monday is the final day of China’s annual parliamentary meeting, known as the National People’s Congress. ‘Xi Jinping politics is very much about one-man politics’: AnalystReactions to this morning’s speech are coming in.Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told Al Jazeera security is key for Xi.“Security is the most important thing in terms of party politics. His [Xi] people can safeguard his position and then he can have many, many terms, even a lifelong term.“Xi Jinping’s politics is very much about one-man politics. [H]e wants people to think…

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Oscars 2023: India’s ‘Elephant Whisperers’ wins Best Documentary Short Film

  Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga accept the Best Documentary Short Subject award for “The Elephant Whisperers” onstage during the 95th Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre Los Angeles: It is a historic day for India! Indian documentary film ‘Elephant Whisperers’ won the Oscar in the ‘Best Documentary Short Film’ category. Producer Guneet Monga along with director Kartiki Gonsalves took centre stage to accept the honour. The documentary won against ‘Haul Out,’ ‘How Do You Measure A Year?’ ‘The Martha Mitchell Effect,’ and ‘Stranger At The Gate’. The film’s plot revolves around a family who adopts two orphan baby elephants in Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Well, this is not the first time that Guneet Monga has brought the Oscar to…

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Saudi Aramco reports record profit of $161.1 billion in 2022, more than Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Tesla combined

On Sunday, Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco announced that it had recorded a net profit of $161.1 billion for 2022, a 46 per cent increase from the previous year. The increase in profits was attributed to higher energy prices, increased volumes sold, and improved margins for refined products. The profits are nearly triple that of Exxon’s $56 billion and more than that of Google, Amazon, Tesla and Microsoft combined for the same time period. This announcement comes after similar reports from international peers such as BP, Shell, and Chevron, which have mostly posted record profits for last year. Oil prices in 2022 experienced a wild swing, climbing on geopolitical worries amid the war in Ukraine, then sliding on weaker demand…

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Iran ratifies more than 100 arrests over schoolgirl poisonings

Iran’s Interior Ministry confirmed Saturday the arrest of more than a hundred people linked to the poisoning of schoolgirls in several schools in the country, an action that Tehran considers a plot orchestrated by “enemy” countries. The ministerial portfolio has provided details on the investigations opened, days after it announced that several people had been arrested for their alleged responsibility in the events without providing information on the numbers. Thus, it has indicated that among those arrested there are cases of people who acted ”out of mischief” with the ”aim of closing classes”, as well as those arrested ”with hostile motives”, whose purpose was ”to sow terror among the people and students, creating skepticism towards the system”, according to IRNA…

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Hundreds of Russians killed in Bakhmut battle as snipers ‘create killing zone’

Hundreds of Russian troops have been killed in Bakhmut as Vladimir Putin’s troops seek to wrest control of the frontline Donetsk city – with Kyiv’s snipers said to have set up a “killing zone”. Some 520 Russian troops were killed and wounded in Bakhmut alone in one day’s fighting, Ukraine’s military said, claiming Russia had suffered 2,000 fatalities since Friday – marking some of the deadliest days of the war since the invasion began. Seeking to replenish its heavy losses, Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his Wagner private army had opened recruitment centres in 42 cities – as the UK asserted that the impact of casualties “varies dramatically” across Russian regions. Losses are more than 30 times higher in many eastern regions than in Moscow, with the…

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Paris overwhelmed by stench of rubbish after bin men join pension protest strike

Stink is filling the air of Paris with 5,400 tonnes of rubbish left on the streets after rubbish collectors joined the strike against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms.  In some arrondissements, heaping piles of rubbish bags left to rot outside are forcing pedestrians to step off the sidewalk and walk onto the roads, and are also drawing out scavenging rodents that have grown bolder over the last few days.  Instead of spring blossoms, the air is sweet with a sickly smell of stewing fumes, particularly in areas dense with restaurants and cafes. And visiting tourists are having to get creative at reframing their Parisian vacation pictures for rubbish-free shots. Along with rubbish collectors, the city’s three main garbage incinerators have also shut…

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Drop Kamala Harris, Hollywood stars urge Joe Biden

A group of Hollywood Democrats, including major stars, has reportedly urged Joe Biden to drop Kamala Harris as running mate.  CNN said the group voiced its doubts about the vice-president in a Zoom call with former California senator Barbara Boxer. Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt, actor Ron Livingston and Beverly Hills, 90210 star Gabrielle Carteris were on the call.  According to CNN, the group complained to Ms Boxer – who preceded Ms Harris in the Senate – that the vice -president was a political liability. Ms Harris’s polling ratings remain negative, with 49.5 per cent of voters disapproving of her record and only 41.9 per cent supporting her, according to the Five Thirty Eight polling site.  It is not only Hollywood that has…

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Features|Food

Inside Ukraine’s wartime wine industry Despite the dangers of war, many winemakers have continued to operate, buoyed by growing demand for local wines. Roman Danyliak inside his vineyard’s cellar in western Ukraine Lviv and Kyiv, Ukraine – Roman Danyliak, a towering 55-year-old winemaker with white hair and weather-beaten skin, looks out over his six-hectare (645,800sq-foot) vineyard. For a long time, he felt that Friend’s Winery, which he co-owns with his friend, Myron Zvozkii, nestled among the scenic undulating hills surrounding the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, had never been fully accepted by winemakers from the warmer climes of southern and eastern Ukraine more traditionally associated with winemaking. Over the past decade, he says, warmer weather, which he attributes to climate…

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French Senate approves Macron’s pension plan amid new protests

French unions call for an additional day of nationwide strikes and protests as Senate vote brings pension plan closer to becoming law. The French Senate has approved President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pension reform plan as hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied in cities across the country to oppose the changes. Senators voted late on Saturday to adopt the reforms by 195 votes to 112, bringing the package — whose key measure is raising the retirement age by two years to 64 — closer to becoming law. “After hundreds of hours of discussions, the Senate adopted the pension reform plan. It is a key step to make a reform happen that will guarantee the future of our pension system,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne…

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News|Israel-Palestine conflict

Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in occupied West Bank The Israeli army says ‘gunmen opened fire’ at an army position west of Nablus, with their soldiers responding with ‘live fire’. Israeli forces gather at the Huwara checkpoint near Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank [File: Mohamad Torokman] The Israeli military says its forces shot and killed three Palestinian men who opened fire on soldiers in the occupied West Bank, the latest bloodshed in a year-long wave of violence in the region. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said the men were killed on Sunday by Israeli fire near the city of Nablus and identified them as Jihad Mohammed al-Shami, 24, Uday Othman al-Shami, 22 and Mohammed Raed Dabeek, 18. The Israeli…

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