More protests loom in Venezuela as opposition disputes election results
Opposition calls for ‘popular assemblies’ across nation as Nicolas Maduro’s election victory spurs fraud claims.
More protests are expected in Venezuela as opposition leaders are disputing the results of a weekend election that saw President Nicolas Maduro secure another term in power.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called for families to turn out on Tuesday for “popular assemblies” across the South American nation.
Machado told reporters a day earlier that a review of available voting records from Sunday’s presidential contest showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had achieved a “categorical and mathematically irreversible” victory over Maduro.
Greening the desert: is Sisi’s grand plan using up all of Egypt’s water?
The ‘Future of Egypt’ envisages turning tracts of desert into farmland to grow crops for export. But with sky-high food price inflation and a water deficit, critics doubt it is viable
For the two hours drivers can spend on the eight-lane, often empty, highway from Cairo to El Dabaa on the north coast, all there is to see is miles and miles of intensively farmed land on each side. Ten years ago, this expanse of the Western desert was little more than rocks and sand.
It is the first stage of the vast Future of Egypt project, which will eventually encompass 2.2m feddans (9,240 sq km, or 3,500 sq miles) – an area the size of Cyprus.
“The map of the Egyptian desert is changing colour,” declared a recent promotional video, “from yellow to green”.
Top German court finds fault with electoral law reform
The Bundestag has too many seats. The German government wanted to change this for the next election. Parliament can shrink. But the reform must be revised, the Federal Constitutional Court has ruled.
There has long been cross-party agreement that the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, is far too big. With the last general election in 2021, it had ballooned to 736 members, making it larger than any other democratically elected parliament in the world — and very expensive.
In March 2023, the three ruling parties — the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) — together passed a new electoral law aiming to limit the size of Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, to 630 seats.
The opposition center-right Christian Democrat Union (CSU), the Left Party and others took the new law to the Federal Constitutional Court. They feared for their seats in parliament.
More than 90 dead, hundreds feared trapped in southern India landslides
Landslides in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Tuesday killed at least 93 people, according to local authorities. Hundreds are still feared missing after heavy monsoon rains collapsed hillsides and triggered torrents of mud, water and tumbling boulders.
Landslides in India triggered by pounding monsoon rains struck tea plantations and killed at least 93 people Tuesday, with at least 250 others rescued from mud and debris, officials said.
The southern coastal state of Kerala has been battered by torrential downpours, with blocked roads into the disaster area in Wayanad district complicating relief efforts.
"93 dead bodies have been found so far," Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters. "This is one of the worst natural calamities that our state has seen."
Australian police officer recalls 2022 ambush by extremists in rural area that left 2 officers dead
By ROD McGUIRK
A police officer testified Tuesday he did not know where bullets were coming from as two colleagues were shot in an ambush by three Christian extremists on a rural Australian property two years ago.
Constable Randall Kirk told a coroner’s inquest he was also shot as he fled the property in the Wieambilla region of Queensland state on Dec. 12, 2022, after his colleagues Constable Matthew Arnold and Constable Rachel McCrow had been killed.
They were ambushed by brothers Gareth and Nathaniel Train and Gareth’s wife Stacey Train, conspiracy theorists who hated police, State Coroner Terry Ryan was told.
Girls killed in Southport stabbing, aged 7, 9, and 6, named by police
Summary
Three girls who were killed in the mass stabbing in Southport on Monday have been named by police
Bebe King, 6, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, died on Monday; Alice Aguiar, 9, died in the early hours of Tuesday
Five children and two adults remain in a critical condition after the attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class
The event was organised by Leanne Lucas - people have paid tribute to her bravery but her condition is not known - while a local man has been called a "hero" for intervening in the attack
Swift herself has reacted, saying "the horror of yesterday's attack in Southport is washing over me continuously"
A 17-year-old male, arrested on suspicion of murder, remains in custody
He was born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents and moved to Southport in 2013 - in Cardiff, ex-neighbours remember a "normal family" with "normal kids"
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