Japan’s planned release of wastewater from the Fukushima power plant raises concerns in Pacific Island nations that are still grappling with the legacy of nuclear testing decades ago.Pacific Island nations have urged Japan to delay the release of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant over fears it could contaminate fishing grounds. The appeal on Wednesday came days after Japan announced that treated wastewater from the Fukushima plant — which was destroyed in an earthquake and a tsunami in 2011 — could be released into the sea “around this spring or summer”. More than 1 million tonnes of water are…
Author: National Tone
Randon, who became a nun in 1944, said work and caring for others were the main reasons for her longevity.The oldest person in the world, French nun Lucile Randon, has died at the age of 118. Randon, who took the name of Sister Andre when she became a nun in 1944, died in her sleep on Tuesday at the nursing home where she lived. “There is great sadness but … it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it’s a liberation,” spokesperson David Tavella, of the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home in the southern French town of Toulon, told…
Wall Street banks have shown deep falls in their investment banking businesses in the fourth quarter, prompting thousands of job cuts, but executives are looking for signs that corporate CEOs are regaining confidence in doing deals again. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs reported a plunge in fourth-quarter profits on Tuesday, as Wall Street dealmakers handling mergers, acquisitions, and initial public offerings faced a sharp drop in their businesses in 2022. Rising interest rates roiled markets last year and global investment banking revenue sank more than 50 percent from the year-earlier quarter, according to data from analytics firm Dealogic. Banks are…
The youngest of Shah Ibrahim Shahin’s children sit huddled next to each other on the thin “toushaks” – traditional Afghan floor mattresses – trying to stay warm amid freezing weather. The adults, wrapped in thread-bare woollen clothes, surround them in a small chilly room, which makes up the entirety of their home, in the northern Afghan province of Baghlan. Many provinces in Afghanistan have seen an exceptionally cold winter in the last two weeks, with temperatures dropping to as low as -21 degrees Celsius (-5.8 Fahrenheit) in Kabul. More than 20 people have died due to the cold wave, according…
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Jim Ratcliffe is entering the bidding to buy Manchester United. The billionaire owner of petrochemicals firm INEOS is ready to make an offer to United owners the Glazer family, who outlined their willingness to sell the Premier League club in November. “We have formally put ourselves into the process,” INEOS said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday. Ratcliffe, one of the richest people in Britain, is a United fan and has previously indicated a desire to buy the club. However, INEOS said in the summer that it was no longer interested in bidding…
The government has agreed to toughen the Online Safety Bill with jail sentences for tech bosses for failing to protect kids.Tech bosses could be jailed in Britain if their platforms fail to protect children from online harm after the government agreed to toughen a proposed law to avoid the prospect of a first parliamentary defeat for the prime minister. Rishi Sunak faced losing a vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday after 50 lawmakers from his Conservative Party and the main opposition party said they would support another amendment to the long-delayed Online Safety Bill. The rebels had tabled…
A 35-year-old man has been charged with assaulting Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale after Sunday’s north London derby at Tottenham.Joseph Watts has been charged with “assault by beating, going on to an area adjacent to a playing area and throwing a missile on to a football playing area” after Spurs’ 2-0 Premier League defeat to rivals Arsenal.Watts, of Hackney, east London, was charged on Tuesday and is due to appear at Highbury Magistrates’ Court on February 17.A Metropolitan Police statement said: “A man has been charged with assaulting an Arsenal player after a match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday…
Braving stressful waits, red tape and repeated visits, Nigerians are rushing to pick up their voting cards for next month’s presidential election, where three main candidates are vying to replace President Muhammadu Buhari. Nearly 10 million new voters have been registered for the February 25 ballot, of whom 84 percent are people under age 34 – a key block of ballots. But the Independent National Electoral Commission, known as INEC, also claimed 1.12 million of those new registrations were invalid. The election in Africa’s most populous country is shaping up to be an exceptional event. For the first time since…
Tocoa, Honduras – The killing of two Honduran water defenders this month has sparked international outrage, with the United Nations calling for an investigation and locals questioning the government’s commitment to protecting environmental activists. Aly Dominguez, 38, and Jairo Bonilla, 28, were members of the Guapinol water defenders movement, organising to protect their rivers from a controversial open-pit iron oxide mining project in Carlos Escaleras National Park. In recent years, several activists have been killed in unclear circumstances amid community opposition to the mine. The families of Dominguez and Bonilla say they were killed by unidentified gunmen after weeks of…
New legislation passed by the Italian government earlier this year to curb undocumented migration to Italy has been slammed by search-and-rescue organisations working on the Mediterranean who say the move will increase deaths in the region. On January 2 this year, the Italian government passed a raft of legislation aiming to deliver on one of the conservative party’s key election promises on migration. This legislation requires captains of rescue ships to request a port immediately after a rescue and head to it rather than continuing at sea and assisting with multiple distress calls. This also means that the vessels are…