About 200 pilot whales have perished after being stranded on an exposed, surf-swept beach on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, Australian rescuers said Thursday.. "The environmental conditions, the surf out there on the exposed west coast, Ocean Beach, is certainly taking its toll on the animals."
The Swiss will vote Sunday on whether to ban intensive livestock farming in the largely rural country, which already has some of the world's strictest animal welfare laws.. The Swiss would also have to invest large amounts in costly inspections of foreign farms, it argues.
The results of the 2021 census in Northern Ireland are due on Thursday, with expectations of a Catholic majority in the UK-run province for the first time in its history.. If trends continue as expected, census figures showing a Catholic majority will add urgency to calls from nationalists for a referendum, known as a border poll, on the unification of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
"Don't worry, it's us" who are firing, said Nataliya, a shopkeeper in Siversk, implacable behind her counter as the Ukrainian artillery bombarded Russian positions about 10 kilometres away.. "Our forces have pushed them back so strongly that we have forced them into counter-battery fire," he said, explaining that the Russians now concentrate their fire on the Ukrainian guns supporting the troops on the offensive.
The UN nuclear watchdog and Western powers voiced alarm Wednesday over the safety of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant as Kyiv accused Russia of new shelling.. Europe's largest atomic facility was seized by Russian troops in March, and shelling around it has spurred calls from Kyiv and its Western allies to demilitarize areas around nuclear plants in Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron met Wednesday with the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, seeing progress in easing tensions that have flared in recent months.. The three leaders together "noted their concerns about the resurgence of violence in the east of the DRC," the French presidency said in a statement.
Relatives of the 43 Mexican students who disappeared in 2014 protested Wednesday outside Israel's embassy, demanding the extradition of a former top investigator wanted in connection with the case.. "Israel is protecting Tomas Zeron, a human rights violator who tortured those he detained at the time to build the 'historical truth,'" Meliton Ortega, a representative of the students' families, told AFP. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Israel's embassy in Mexico City, with no visible police presence.
Climate groups called Wednesday for the World Bank's president to be removed after he refused multiple times to say if he believed man-made emissions contributed to global warming.. The Big Shift, a consortium of climate groups, called Wednesday for the World Bank's board to remove Malpass over the comments.
The US embassy in Cuba said Wednesday it would resume "full immigrant visa processing" next year for the first time since 2017, when the mission was closed over alleged sonic attacks on diplomatic staff.. The US embassy resumed limited visa services in Havana in May, but announced "full resumption" from early 2023, enabled by an increase in embassy personnel.
A young woman lawyer was found murdered in Ecuador 10 days after going missing, the government said Wednesday, in the latest femicide in a country plagued by violence against women.. In the first months of 2022 there had been 206 murders of women, according to Geraldine Guerra from the Aldea NGO that tracks femicides in the country.
