Ukraine war: Kyiv orders partial evacuation of liberated city
Ukraine has ordered some residents to leave Kupiansk, as Russia seeks to re-take the city it left last year.
Kharkiv's regional authorities said families with children and people "with limited mobility" must leave due to "constant" shelling by Russian forces.
Russia seized the north-eastern city early in the full-scale invasion, with Ukraine recapturing it last September.
Meanwhile, Russian mercenaries say they have "practically encircled" the key city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
The comments were made by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who heads the paramilitary Wagner group.
TikTok ‘acting too slow’ to tackle self-harm and eating disorder content
Organisations including NSPCC say app has chosen to deny the problem and must take meaningful action
TikTok has been urged to strengthen its content moderation policies around suicide and eating disorder material by organisations including the NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation.
The groups claimed TikTok had not acted swiftly enough following the publication of research suggesting the app’s recommendation algorithm pushes self-harm and eating disorder content to teenagers within minutes of them expressing interest in the topics.
Belarus jails Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Ales Bialiatski
Pro-democracy activist Ales Bialiatski was facing charges for financing anti-government protests
Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a court in Belarus on Friday – a ruling that has drawn widespread criticism.
The pro-democracy activist and founder of the Viasna human rights group, which provided legal and financial help to protesters during a wave of unrest in 2020, was convicted of financing protests and tax evasion along with three others.
The 60-year-old and his colleagues – Valentin Stefanovich and Vladimir Labkovich – were arrested in 2020 on charges connected to Viasna’s provision of money to political prisoners and helping pay their legal fees.
Chinese parliament set to centralize CCP power
As China's rubber-stamp parliament gathers in Beijing this weekend, President Xi Jinping is officially set to kick off his third term, while China's Communist Party is gearing up for more institutional reform.
Around 3,000 delegates from across China are making their way to the Chinese capital, Beijing for the start of the annual parliamentary conference this weekend. The dual political sessions are expected to endorse a list of top officials for key government positions, pass a plan to overhaul several government agencies and institutions, while also formally confirming Chinese leader Xi Jinping's precedent-busting third term in power.
Typically called the "two sessions," the meetings in Beijing include the gathering of China's rubber-stamp parliament — the National People's Congress (NPC) — and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which is an advisory body.
Turkish opposition alliance splits over anti-Erdogan candidate
Turkey's opposition alliance fractured on Friday after one of the leaders refused to endorse a joint candidate against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The cracks emerged a day after the six opposition party leaders held a meeting in Ankara to discuss whom to field against Erdogan in the May 14 polls.
Five parties endorsed Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a bookish former civil servant who heads Turkey's main secular party, as the frontrunner in the bid to end Erdogan's rule.
But Meral Aksener, leader of the nationalist IYI Party, has resisted Kilicdaroglu, backing instead Istanbul's popular opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu or Ankara's mayor Mansur Yavas.
US agency assessment backing Covid lab leak theory raises more questions than answers – and backlash from China
The US Department of Energy’s assessment that Covid-19 most likely emerged due to a laboratory accident in China has reignited fierce debate and attention on the question of how the pandemic began.
But the “low confidence” determination, made in a newly updated classified report, has raised more questions than answers, as the department has publicly provided no new evidence to back the claim. It’s also generated fierce pushback from China.
“We urge the US to respect science and facts, stop politicizing this issue, stop its intelligence-led, politics-driven origins-tracing,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The Department of Energy assessment is part of a broader US effort in which intelligence agencies were asked by President Joe Biden in 2021 to examine the origins of the coronavirus, which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
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