List of All Articles with Tag 'world'

By Steve Keating The world's biggest game needs to be played on the world's biggest stage says New

North Korea has so far declined to respond to US outreach about the fate of a US soldier

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to lift prices on its subways, buses and commuter rails on Wednesday

The Belarus Red Cross has sparked international outrage after its chief told Belarusian state television that the organization is actively involved in bringing Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied areas to Belarus. Both Ukraine and the Belarusian opposition have decried the transfer as unlawful deportations, and there have been calls for international war crimes charges for the authoritarian Belarus leader, similar to the charges against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The actions of the Belarus Red Cross drew stern criticism from the International Federation of Red and Red Crescent Societies. Belarus has been Moscow’s closest ally since Russia's invasion started in February 2022, with its leader Alexander Lukashenko allowing the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops and weapons into Ukraine. Lukashenko has also welcomed a Russian military presence in Belarus and the deployment of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons there. Belarusian opposition figures have accused Lukashenko of facilitating the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Belarus, allegations Minsk angrily rejected. A report aired Wednesday by the state Belarus 1 TV channel showed Dzmitry Shautsou, the head of the Belarus Red Cross, visiting the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Lysychansk in the Luhansk region. In the footage, he says the organization was actively involved in bringing Ukrainian children to Belarus for “health improvement” purposes. “The Belarus Red Cross has taken — and is taking, and will be taking — an active part in it,” Shautsou said. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged the International Criminal Court “to issue an arrest warrant" for Shautsou, saying that he "has publicly confessed to the crime of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine.” The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which brings together 191 national organizations, said it contacted the Belarus Red Cross to express its "grave concern” and to advise it to “stop any similar activity in the future.” Last month, Belarusian opposition activist Pavel Latushka said he has provided the ICC with material allegedly detailing the forced transfer of 2,100 Ukrainian children from at least 15 Russia-occupied Ukrainian cities to Belarus with Lukashenko’s approval. In May, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office announced an investigation into the forced transfers. Belarusian authorities have confirmed hosting more than 1,000 children, aged 6-15, from Russian-held parts of Ukraine for health reasons. The first group of 350 children arrived in April, officials said, without providing further details. Shautsou from the Belarus Red Cross said he was working with a state-backed charity foundation to make “the children forget the horrors of the war and just rest, feel that there's an island of happiness.” The Belarus Red Cross is the biggest humanitarian organization in Belarus and is part of the international Red Cross movement. The Geneva-based umbrella organization — the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies — said it had learned about Shautsou’s visit to Donbas through the media. it said it referred the issue to its compliance committee, which investigates any “alleged breaches of integrity.” “These actions risk damaging the trust of our work in supporting communities in need, whoever they are, and whichever side of the frontlines they are on,” the federation said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. It stressed that the Belarus Red Cross chief doesn’t speak on behalf of the federation “and his statements do not represent our views.” Latushka, who used to be a top official in Lukashenko's government, insists that taking Ukrainian children to Belarus is illegal and violates international norms. He has called on the ICC to launch a probe as some of those “children are under the guardianship of the Ukrainian state, including orphans, children with disabilities and those whose parents were stripped of parental rights.” “We have evidence that after being taken Belarus, some Ukrainian children ended up in Russia, which must become a subject of an international probe,” Latushka told the AP, speaking over the phone. In March, the ICC issued warrants for both Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. Judges in The Hague said they found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the two were responsible for the war crimes of unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. Moscow has angrily rejected the move. European Parliament members on Tuesday called on the ICC “to consider a similar arrest warrant" for Lukashenkо. ___ Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Dreams spurred by $1B Powerball, $720M Mega Millions jackpots, but expert warns: Take it slow Officials to discuss use of police force in Fargo shooting that killed gunman who fired on officers Two planets sharing same orbit around their star? Astronomers find strongest evidence yet

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An elite liberal arts university has taken steps in re-evaluating its admission process by ending legacy preferences following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action. Wesleyan University, a private college in Connecticut, announced in a letter on Wednesday that terminating its use of legacy admissions would benefit diversity on campus and cited the Court’s ruling as a catalyst in the decision. “In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action, we believe it important to formally end admissions preference for ‘legacy applicants,’” Wesleyan University President Michael S Roth wrote. “We still value the ongoing relationships that come from multi-generational Wesleyan attendance, but there will be no ‘bump’ in the selection process.” The school is the first prominent higher education institution to end legacy admissions following the Court’s decision to end affirmative action in June. Going forward, Wesleyan said it will promote a diverse student body by recruiting students from areas across the US outside of big cities and coasts, recruiting veterans and investing in a pipeline to recruit community college graduates. They also plan to increase financial aid support by normalising a three-year option, creating a scholarship program to recruit and support undergraduates from Africa and developing more free-credit bearing courses online. In his letter, Mr Roth clarified that an applicant’s connection to the university has never guaranteed them a spot and family members of alumni are admitted on their own merits “as has been almost always the case for a long time.” The announcement marks Wesleyan’s formal ending of any legacy-based admissions. Wesleyan joins a small group of other colleges and universities that have ended legacy admissions like Amherst College which concluded legacy preference in 2021, John Hopkins University which made the decision in 2020 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which has never considered legacy. For more than 20 years, colleges and universities have used affirmative action to help establish a diverse pool of accepted students. Race is not used as the sole factor in determining a student’s acceptance but it can be considered if there are two applicants with nearly identical qualifications that meet or exceed the school’s application standard. Mr Roth echoed this in his letter, saying Wesleyan “has never fixated on a checked box indicating a student’s racial identification” and has always taken a “holistic view” by looking at applicants’ records, letters of recommendation, college essays and more. But in a 6-3 decision last month, the Court struck down the long-used tool in two consolidated cases: Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v University of North Carolina. Now, institutions of higher education can no longer consider race as a factor unless a student volunteers information about their race or culture in their personal essay. Advocates of affirmative action called on colleges and universities to re-evaluate their admissions processes and establish other methods of cultivating a diverse campus. President Joe Biden encouraged schools to “not abandon their commitment to ensuring student bodies of diverse backgrounds” and directed the Department of Education to analyse practices that hold diversity back. Those practices include legacy admissions which Mr Biden said, “expands privilege instead of opportunity.” Read More Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action, banning colleges from factoring race in admissions Slim majority of Americans support Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling, but most believe politics rules the court Harvard sued over ‘legacy admissions’ after Supreme Court targets affirmative action Biden condemns Supreme Court striking down affirmative action: ‘This is not a normal court’

Netflix Inc., which reports second-quarter financial results Wednesday after markets close in the US, stopped offering its lowest-priced

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A new bipartisan Senate bill would hold venture-capital firms and other large investors accountable in some cases for

Vladimir Putin will not attend a summit in South Africa next month – allowing the hosts to avoid a decision whether or not to arrest the Russian leader thanks to an international warrant over war crime allegations. As a signatory to the International Criminal Court (ICC) which issued the warrant, South Africa would be expected to detain Mr Putin once he sets foot in the country. Although it has refused to honour that obligation in the past, allowing safe passage to Sudan’s then-president Omar al-Bashir in 2015, who was facing allegations of war crimes against his own people. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights Maria Lvova-Belova in March in relation to the forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia . The announcement that Mr Putin will stay away from the two-day summit in August comes a day after court documents showed South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa had sought permission from the ICC not to follow through with the arrest, saying it would amount to a “declaration of war”. South Africa’s largest opposition party, Democratic Alliance, had gone to court to try and compel authorities to carry out the arrest if Mr Putin arrived, but Mr Ramaphosa appeared dead set against the move. “South Africa has obvious problems with executing a request to arrest and surrender President Putin,” he said in an affidavit filed in late June but made public on Tuesday. “Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war. It would be inconsistent with our constitution to risk engaging in war with Russia.” On Wednesday, a statement from South Africa’s presidency said that by “mutual agreement” Russia would be represented by its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, at the summit of Brics nations – Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa. The Russian state RIA news agency later said, citing the Kremlin, that Mr Putin will take part in the summit via video call. Speaking just before the announcement by South Africa, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, told reporters that everyone understood – without having it explained to them – what an attempt to infringe on Mr Putin’s rights would mean. But he said that Russia did not tell South Africa that an arrest would mean war. The Kremlin has called the warrant issued against Mr Putin outrageous and legally void, because the country is not a member of the organisation. “No, no such formulations were uttered, no one gave anyone to understand that,” Mr Peskov said. “It is clear to everyone in this world what an attempt to infringe on the rights of the head of the Russian State means. So there is no need to explain anything to anyone here.” South Africa has been trying to deal with the issue of the arrest for months. It sees Russia has an ally, but clearly does not want to inflame tensions with Western nations either. South Africa has consistently abstained from voting at the United Nations to condemn Russia’s aggression, calling instead for dialogue to end the war. Claiming neutrality, the country is also part of efforts by a group of at least six African nations who recently embarked on a peace mission to Kyiv and Moscow to meet with both Mr Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In his court submission, Mr Ramaphosa suggested such efforts might be jeopardised by an attempt to arrest Russia’s president. “An arrest of President Putin would introduce a new complication that would foreclose any peaceful solution,” he said. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

The gap between VMware Inc.’s stock price and the value of Broadcom Inc.’s proposed takeover narrowed by almost