The Fiji Times

Polls close in tight Alberta election race that could rehsape Canada’s climate agenda

EDMONTON, Alberta (Reuters) -Polls closed across Alberta on Monday evening as Canada’s main oil-producing province neared the end of a tight election race that is expected to have a significant bearing on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate goals, which are already seen as lagging global peers. The battle between populist Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative...

El Salvador court sentences ex-President Funes to 14 years in prison

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) – A court in El Salvador sentenced former President Mauricio Funes and his justice minister to more than a decade behind bars for their ties to criminal groups and failure to comply with duties, the attorney general’s office said on Monday. Funes was sentenced to 14 years and his former justice and...

Libya court sentences 23 to death for Islamic State campaign

MISRATA, Libya (Reuters) – A Libyan court sentenced 23 people to death and another 14 to life in prison on Monday for their role in a deadly Islamic State militant campaign that included beheading a group of Egyptian Christians and seizing the city of Sirte in 2015. The Attorney General’s office said in a statement...

Uganda enacts harsh anti-LGBTQ law including death penalty

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni signed one of the world’s toughest anti-LGBTQ laws, including the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”, drawing Western condemnation and risking sanctions from aid donors. Same-sex relations were already illegal in Uganda, as in more than 30 African countries, but the new law goes further. It stipulates capital punishment...

Plastic recycling in focus as treaty talks get underway in Paris

(Reuters) -As talks start this week on a global plastics treaty, debate is emerging between countries wanting to limit the production of more plastics and the petrochemical industry favoring recycling as the solution to plastic waste. Ahead of a meeting starting on Monday, many countries have said a goal of the treaty should be “circularity”...

Former Canadian soldier extradited to Thailand over gang killing

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Canadian national Matthew Dupre has been successfully extradited to Thailand in connection with the killing last year of a criminal gang member, Thai authorities said on Monday, after the former soldier arrived in Bangkok on a special air force flight. Dupre, 38, is wanted for the alleged murder of suspected criminal Jimi...

U.N. warns more than one million may flee Sudan bloodshed

CAIRO (Reuters) – Estimates that about a million people might flee Sudan by October may be conservative and conflict there risks increasing people trafficking and spreading weapons across a fragile region, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday. More than 350,000 people have already fled across Sudan’s borders since war between the...

Eastern Canada’s Halifax declares emergency over wildfire, shutting schools

(Reuters) – The eastern Canadian city of Halifax declared a state of local emergency late on Sunday after a wildfire caused evacuations and power outages, with authorities shutting several schools in the affected area. The Halifax Regional Municipality has set up temporary accommodation for people fleeing the fire, and reminded residents in early on Monday...

Iranian female journalist goes on trial on charges linked to Amini protests

DUBAI (Reuters) – An Iranian journalist went of trial behind closed doors on Monday on charges linked to her coverage of the funeral of a Kurdish-Iranian woman whose death in custody last year triggered months of unrest, her lawyer told ILNA news agency. The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in custody of the morality...

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai loses bid to terminate national security trial

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A Hong Kong Court on Monday rejected an application to terminate a landmark national security trial against media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a case that could see him spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted. Jimmy Lai, 75, is the founder of now shut pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and...

NASA looks to spice up astronaut menu with deep space food production

(Reuters) – In the 2015 sci-fi film “The Martian,” Matt Damon stars as an astronaut who survives on a diet of potatoes cultivated in human feces while marooned on the Red Planet. Now a New York company that makes carbon-negative aviation fuel is taking the menu for interplanetary cuisine in a very different direction. Its...

Wind industry aims to provide a third of Japan’s power by 2050

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s wind power body has set a mid-century goal to increase capacity to 140 gigawatts (GW) from less than 5 GW now, it said on Monday, to meet a third of the country’s electricity demand and help it to hit its 2050 carbon neutrality target. Offshore wind is meant to be central...

Spain’s PM Sanchez calls snap general election in July

MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday he would dissolve parliament and the country would hold an early general election on July 23 following the results of Sunday’s local elections. “I took the decision when looking at the results of the elections of yesterday,” Sanchez told the nation in a televised address....

Debt-ridden Sri Lanka gets $350 million loan boost from Asian Development Bank

COLOMBO (Reuters) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday approved a $350 million special policy-based loan to provide budget support to Sri Lanka for economic stabilisation, the regional lender said in a statement. The programme is part of a broader package of financial assistance anchored by the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility...

Dozens of babies die in orphanage as Sudan war takes grim toll on Khartoum

(Reuters) – In the days after war erupted in Khartoum, Dr Abeer Abdullah rushed between rooms at Sudan’s largest orphanage, trying to care for hundreds of babies and toddlers as the fighting kept all but a handful of staff away. Children’s cries rang through the sprawling building as heavy gunfire rocked the surroundings, she said....

Japan aims to destroy any N.Korean missile after it warns of satellite launch

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan aims to destroy any North Korean missile that violates its territory and is making preparations to do so, its defence ministry said on Monday after North Korea told Japan of a plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11. Nuclear-armed North Korea says it has completed its first military...

Eastern Canada’s Halifax declares emergency over wildfire

(Reuters) – The eastern Canadian city of Halifax declared a state of local emergency late on Sunday after a wildfire caused evacuations and power outages. “Emergency responders are working around the clock to keep people safe and reduce the threats posed by the fires,” the municipal authority in the capital of Nova Scotia province said...

Nigeria’s Tinubu gets his turn as president, familiar problems await

LAGOS (Reuters) – Bola Tinubu will be sworn in as Nigeria’s president on Monday under the cloud of a disputed election and pressure to quickly improve economic and security conditions, which many complain worsened under his predecessor Muhammadu Buhari. Two of Tinubu’s main opponents in the February election are challenging his victory on the basis...

New Zealand to maintain 15 defence personnel in Solomon Islands through year end

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s government on Monday said it will maintain defence personnel in the Solomon Islands at the request of local authorities until at least Dec. 31, 2023, extending a peace-keeping mission by as much as seven months. New Zealand deployed defence force staff to the Pacific country in late 2021 at the...

China will launch Shenzhou-16 mission to Chinese space station on May 30

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will send three astronauts to its now fully operational space station on Tuesday as part of a crew rotation, in the fifth manned mission to the Chinese space outpost since 2021, the China Manned Space Agency announced on Monday. The spacecraft Shenzhou-16 will lift off atop a Long March 2F rocket...

US President Biden congratulates Erdogan on election win

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday congratulated Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on winning the second round in Turkey’s presidential election, one of the most consequential in the country’s modern history. “I look forward to continuing to work together as NATO Allies on bilateral issues and shared global challenges,” Biden said in a...

Britain’s Prime Minister Sunak congratulates Erdogan on election win

(Reuters) – Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Sunday congratulated Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on his re-election in Turkey’s presidential election. Prime Minister Sunak reiterated strong relationship between United Kingdom and Turkey, as economic partners and close NATO allies, according to a Downing Street statement.

North Korea notifies Japan of plan to launch satellite

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) -North Korea has notified Japan of a plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11, a Japanese coast guard official said on Monday. Analysts say the military satellite is part of nuclear-armed North Korea’s efforts to advance surveillance technology, including drones, to improve its ability to strike targets in the...

Oil climbs after US leaders strike provisional debt deal

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil prices rose in early Asian trade on Monday after U.S. leaders reached a tentative debt ceiling deal, possibly averting a default in the world’s largest economy and oil consumer. Brent crude futures climbed 39 cents, or 0.5%, to $77.34 a barrel by 2317 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was...

Italy PM says good ties with China possible without Belt and Road

MILAN (Reuters) – Good relations with China are possible even without being part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in an interview published on Sunday, as her government weighs abandoning the project. Italy is the only major Western country to have joined China’s BRI scheme, which envisions...

UK health minister says will not negotiate on pay with nurses’ union

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s health minister, Steve Barclay, said on Sunday that the government would not negotiate on pay with the nurses’ union, as the threat of further strikes looms. The government’s offer, which includes a one-off payment equivalent to 2% of salaries in the 2022/23 financial year and a 5% pay rise for 2023/24, was...

South Africa to investigate U.S. allegations of arms shipment to Russia

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate U.S. allegations that a Russian ship had collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year, the presidency said in a statement on Sunday. The U.S. ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety said on May 11 that he was...

Indonesia seeks $700 million to install 200 MW of solar power

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian state utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara seeks a $700-million investment to install a 200-megawatt (MW) solar panel that will replace diesel power generators in a bid to reduce carbon emission, the company said late on Saturday. The plan is part of its target to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2060. PLN...

Somalia says it will revert to direct vote for officials starting next year

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia will start electing its president and other officials by direct vote next year, the government announced on Sunday, ending a system of indirect voting in the Horn of Africa country that has endured three decades of conflict and clan battles. Amid widespread insecurity caused by an Islamist insurgency and weak state...

World

31st May

IMF hoping for board meeting on Pakistan before current program expires