Top World News

Nov 21, 2024 - World

Indian chair of Adani Group, worth about $85bn, accused of agreeing to pay bribes to obtain solar energy contractsGautam Adani, one of the world’s richest men, has been indicted in New York over an alleged multibillion-dollar scheme to pay $250m in bribes and conceal it from US investors.Prosecutors charged the chair of the Indian conglomerate Adani Group and two other executives of a renewable energy company with securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud. Continue reading...

Nov 21, 2024 - World

Case marks first time a trans person has successfully challenged use of such conversion practices in countryA transgender woman in China has won a record amount of compensation from a hospital that subjected her to several sessions of electroshock conversion practices without her consent.Changli county people’s court in Qinhuangdao, a city in Hebei, approved a 60,000 yuan (£6,552) award to Ling’er, a 28-year-old performance artist who was recorded male at birth but identifies as a woman. LGBTQ+ activists described the award, approved on 31 October, as a victory for trans rights in China. Continue reading...

Nov 21, 2024 - World

Wars have spread and intensified, with far-reaching impacts on global economic growth and food security, according to latest Conflict Intensity IndexThe proportion of the world engulfed by conflict has grown 65% – equivalent to nearly double the size of India – over the past three years, according to a new report.Ukraine, Myanmar, the Middle East and a “conflict corridor” around Africa’s Sahel region have seen wars and unrest spread and intensify since 2021, according to the latest Conflict Intensity Index (CII), published by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft. Continue reading...

Nov 20, 2024 - World

Woman says French-Algerian writer’s prize-winning Houris uses her story as she told it to therapist Aicha DehdouhTwo complaints have been filed in Algeria against the French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud, the winner of France’s most prestigious literary award, and his wife, a therapist, alleging that they used a patient’s life story as the basis for his prize-winning novel.The writer, the first Algerian novelist to be awarded the Prix Goncourt, won this year’s prize for his novel Houris, a fictional account of a young woman who lost her voice when an Islamist cut her throat during the country’s brutal 1992-2002 civil war. Continue reading...

Nov 20, 2024 - World

President-elect Donald Trump's decision to select a former Rose Bowl tight end embroiled in a masculine toilet scandal to represent the nation abroad was received with the all the decorum such an announcement could expect. "UPDATE: Trump picks Matthew Whitaker for NATO ambassador," the news outlet Tennessee Holler told readers Wednesday. "You may remember him as the acting attorney general who was on the board of a company that boasted toilets for 'well-endowed men.'"Whitaker was indeed acting attorney general during Trump's first administration and, as multiple reports show, subjected to intense media scrutiny for pedaling toilets purportedly designed to keep large penises from touching human waste, as a "MASCULINE TOILET" press release explained in 2014. But as Vanity Fair, the Washington Post, Miami New Times, the Wall Street Journal and GQ reported in 2018, the former federal prosecutor ran a Florida-based invention company that the news outlets, customers and investigators described as "a scam.""Whitaker was also a cartoonish, grifting dope who shilled for a company that hawked time-travel cryptocurrencies, Bigfoot dolls, and toilets specially designed for men with big d----," GQ reported at the time. "[It] was shut down for good and paid a $26 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year for its alleged wrongdoing."The Post added, "The FTC alleged in a 2017 complaint that the company bilked customers with fraudulent promises that it would help them market their invention. The FBI has also investigated World Patent Marketing."It appears political spectators have not forgotten these reports, as responses to Trump's latest appointment pick show. ."Everything old and disastrous is new and disastrous again," replied writer Polly Sigh. "Trump’s former inept acting-AG and 'masculine toilet' salesmen, Matthew Whitaker, will be Trump’s NATO Ambassador.""The guy who ran a major toilet scam is now Trump’s nominated US Ambassador to NATO," wrote American public health scientist Eric Feigl-Ding. "That is all."ALSO READ: A giant middle finger from a tiny craven man"Trump's choice for Ambassador to NATO was out here running toilet scams and intimidating people who complained," wrote Brandon Weathersby, of the anti-Trump political group American Bridge. "Another [poo emoji] pick." "This isn’t a nomination—it’s a sabotage mission," Democratic activist Chris D. Jackson replied. "This move is a direct attack on the foundation of our global partnerships." "He has no foreign policy experience of any kind that I can find in his bio, announcement or wiki," added NBC News reporter Garrett Haake, "but appears to be the only NATO ambassador who would have played in a Rose Bowl."However Brooke Rollins, of the influential conservative political group America First Policy Institute, said she was thrilled."FOR THE WIN! Strength. Smarts. Dedication. MAGA. All the qualities in our own [Whitaker] that will make him an outstanding United States Ambassador to NATO," Rollins wrote. "Congratulations, my friend!!! You are the right man to represent America in a continent at war and under threat."