World News

Over 250,000 people suffered domestic violence in Germany last year, according to a media report citing official figures.

Pro-Palestine protesters will be legally protected while marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday after a New South Wales supreme court decision.

The bridge is expected to be closed for about five hours, from 11.30am, and additional police are being mobilised to observe a march that could include up to 50,000 people.

In her judgment, Justice Belinda Rigg said “the march at this location is motivated by the belief that the horror and urgency of the situation in Gaza demands an urgent and extraordinary response from the people of the world”.

“The evidence indicates there is significant support for the march.”

50,000 seems a bit on the small side for a Sydney Harbour Bridge march. Hopefully there will be many many more than that.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/33847388

"When you really break it down, it’s like trying to sing while you're starving."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/45330004

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5719320

Ramallah- July 31, 2025: In a grave escalation of its assault on Palestinian agricultural sovereignty, Israeli military forces carried out a violent raid this morning targeting the Seed Multiplication Unit of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC)’s Seed Bank, located in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Using bulldozers and heavy machinery, the Israeli army destroyed the storage warehouses and infrastructure of the unit, where essential equipment, seed materials, and tools for indigenous seed reproduction were kept. The destruction was carried out without warning, under military protection, and constitutes a direct blow to Palestinian efforts to preserve local biodiversity and ensure food sovereignty.

This deliberate targeting of a civilian agricultural facility is a strategic attack on the very foundations of Palestinian resilience. The Seed Bank has played a critical role in safeguarding traditional seed varieties and empowering small-scale farmers through local seed reproduction and exchange.

The attack comes amid increasing settler violence, land grabs, and systemic efforts by the Israeli occupation to dismantle the means of survival for Palestinian communities. Destroying a national seed bank is an act of erasure, intended to sever the generational ties between farmers and their land.

We call on all international partners, human rights defenders, and solidarity movements to speak out forcefully against this crime.

We urge immediate international intervention to hold the Israeli occupation accountable for its repeated violations of agricultural, environmental, and human rights.

From age and ID restrictions on the Internet, to charging rappers with “terrorism,” the U.K. is demolishing the most basic civil liberties. If we let them, U.S. leaders may be close behind.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/45325294

https://archive.is/XjUjC

Taiwan’s failure to secure a trade deal with Donald Trump before his August 1 deadline has deepened fears that Washington could water down security support for Taipei to smooth relations with Beijing.

Trump on Thursday imposed a 20 per cent tariff on imports from Taiwan. The levies are due to take effect next week.

MEE’s investigation can reveal that:

• The woman accusing Khan of sexual misconduct wrote in May 2024 in text messages to Khan that there were “games being played” and attempts to make her a “pawn in some game I don’t want to play”. Two internal ICC investigations into the allegations were closed after she refused to cooperate with them

• The complainant had previously sought and obtained Khan’s help in another complaint against a second senior ICC official. This was during the period in which she later alleged Khan had repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Investigators found no wrongdoing on the part of the individual who was the subject of her complaint

• Thomas Lynch, Khan’s special assistant, who he tasked to liaise with Israel on the Palestine investigation, played a key role in making the allegations against Khan official. Privately however, Lynch had expressed his own doubts about the allegations to Khan’s wife and said that the timing was suspicious. In response to questions from MEE, Lynch described allegations in this article as “false and misleading”.

• A female ICC lawyer told MEE there was a group of people within the court who disagreed with Khan’s approach and who were working to discredit him. She said she had been approached in May 2024 and asked if Khan had ever behaved inappropriately towards her: “I told them he is the last person on my list of men who would do that”

• Two former ICC judges have told MEE they have grave concerns about the way the OIOS investigation into the allegations against Khan has been conducted, questioning why the prosecutor was publicly named as the subject of a complaint, and the need for an external investigation into his alleged misconduct

MASERU, Lesotho (AP) — The southern African nation of Lesotho has had its U.S. export tariff reduced from a threatened 50% to 15% but its crucial textile industry still faces massive factory closures, officials said on Friday.

Despite a reduction announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, the country’s textile sector says it remains at a competitive disadvantage and faces ongoing factory closures and job losses.

In April, the Trump administration announced a 50% tariff on imports from Lesotho, the highest among all countries.

The tariffs were paused across the board but the anticipated increase wreaked havoc across the country’s textile industry, which is its biggest private sector employer with over 30,000 workers.

About 12,000 of these workers work for garment factories exporting to the U.S. market, supplying American retailers like Levi’s and Wrangler.

The Associated Press reported this week that clothing manufacturer Tzicc has seen business dry up ahead of the expected tariff increase, sending home most of its 1,300 workers who have made and exported sportswear to American stores, including JCPenney, Walmart and Costco.

Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee toured a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution site in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, which has been almost completely destroyed and is now a largely depopulated Israeli military zone.

cross-posted from: https://metawire.eu/post/247532

US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he had ordered two nuclear submarines to deploy near Russia, responding to what he called "foolish and inflammatory" threats from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

The party of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele approved constitutional changes in the country's National Assembly on Thursday that will allow indefinite presidential reelection and extend presidential terms to six years.

Lawmaker Ana Figueroa from the New Ideas party had proposed the changes to five articles of the constitution. The proposal also included eliminating the second round of the election where the two top vote-getters from the first round face off.

New Ideas and its allies in the National Assembly quickly approved the proposals with the supermajority they hold. The vote passed with 57 in favor and three opposed.

Bukele overwhelmingly won reelection last year despite a constitutional ban, after Supreme Court justices selected by his party ruled in 2021 that it allowed reelection to a second five-year term.

International outcry over images of emaciated children and increasing reports of hunger-related deaths have pressured Israel to let more aid into the Gaza Strip. This week, Israel paused fighting in parts of Gaza and airdropped food. But aid groups and Palestinians say the changes have only been incremental and are not enough to reverse what food experts say is a “ worst-case scenario of famine” unfolding in the war-ravaged territory.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said he is "disappointed" by an increased tariff on some exports to the United States.

Donald Trump escalated a trade war by boosting the tariff rate from 25% to 35%, saying that Canada had "failed to cooperate" in curbing the flow of fentanyl and other drugs across the US border. The Canadian government says it is cracking down on drug gangs.

However most goods from Canada will dodge the import tax imposed by the US thanks to an existing trade treaty, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

Economists and financial analysts have warned that the new levies will raise prices for businesses and consumers in the US and weigh on the economy, predictions that the Trump administration has dismissed.

Parents advised to be vigilant over summer holidays to risk of offenders using in-game live chats to target their children