World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

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World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk


Taiwan president warns of ‘catastrophic consequences’ if island falls to China

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:39 PM PDT

Tsai Ing-wen says Taiwan will 'do whatever it takes to defend itself' against an increasingly assertive Beijing

Taiwan is committed to defending its democracy against an increasingly aggressive China, the island's president has vowed, warning of "catastrophic consequences" for the region should it fall.

The comments from Tsai Ing-wen, in an essay published on Tuesday, came amid record-breaking incursions by Chinese warplanes into its air defence zone. On Tuesday Taiwan's premier, Su Tseng-chang, said the "over the top" activity violated regional peace, and Taiwan needed to be on alert.

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Estimated 216,000 children abused by French Catholic priests, report finds

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:21 AM PDT

Abuses committed by priests as well as non-religious people, says independent commission

An investigation into sexual abuse in the French Catholic church has found that an estimated 216,000 children were victims of abuse by clergy since 1950.

The revelations in France are the latest to rock the Roman Catholic church after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years.

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Facebook whistleblower to take her story before the US Senate

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 08:00 PM PDT

Frances Haugen, who came forward accusing the company of putting profit over safety, will testify in Washington on Tuesday

A former Facebook employee who has accused the company of putting profit over safety will take her damning accusations to Washington on Tuesday when she testifies to US senators.

Frances Haugen, 37, came forward on Sunday as the whistleblower behind a series of damaging reports in the Wall Street Journal that have heaped further political pressure on the tech giant. Haugen told the news program 60 Minutes that Facebook's priority was making money over doing what was good for the public.

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Historical climate emissions reveal responsibility of big polluting nations

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

Six of top 10, including China and Russia, yet to show ambition on emissions cuts before Cop26

Analysis of the total carbon dioxide emissions of countries since 1850 has revealed the nations with the greatest historical responsibility for the climate emergency. But six of the top 10 have yet to make ambitious new pledges to cut their emissions before the crucial UN Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.

The six include China, Russia and Brazil, which come only behind the US as the biggest cumulative polluters. The UK is eighth and Canada is 10th. Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries and the cumulative amount of CO2 emitted is closely linked to the 1.2C of heating the world has already seen.

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Hillsong founder Brian Houston to plead not guilty to concealing sexual abuse charge

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 04:11 PM PDT

Police allege megachurch founder was aware of information relating to the abuse of a young man in the 1970s by his late father

The Hillsong founder Brian Houston will plead not guilty to charges alleging he concealed child sexual abuse by his late father in the 1970s.

The megachurch founder did not appear during a first mention of the case at Sydney's Downing Centre local court on Tuesday morning.

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Photos show Manila Bay mangroves ‘choking’ in plastic pollution

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 05:13 PM PDT

The Navotas mudflats are among the last of their kind and act as a crucial feeding ground for migratory birds, but they are being buried in plastic

There are stray, abandoned flip flops, old foil food wrappers, crumpled plastic bags, and discarded water bottles. The Navotas mudflats and mangroves in Manila Bay are buried in a thick layer of rubbish.

It is "almost choking the mangrove roots," Diuvs de Jesus, a marine biologist in the Philippines who photographed the area on a recent visit, said.

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EU ‘failing to stop meat industry exploiting agency workers’

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

MEPs call for EU ban on all outsourced labour after Guardian investigation finds unequal pay and terms

The EU is facing calls to ban outsourcing in the meat industry, after a Guardian investigation revealed how agency workers were exploited by companies that took no responsibility for pay and conditions.

Katrin Langensiepen, vice-chair of the European parliament's employment and social affairs committee, said the EU should ban subcontracting across all economic sectors to ensure workers receive the same pay and conditions for the same work.

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One in five 15- to 24-year-olds globally ‘often feel depressed’, finds Unicef

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 11:30 PM PDT

Covid's toll on mental health of children and young people laid bare in report citing fears about the future, family and lockdowns

Almost one in five 15- to 24-year-olds around the world say they often feel depressed, according to a new UN report.

The children's agency, Unicef, and Gallup conducted interviews in 21 countries during the first six months of the year.

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‘Greta is right’: climate pledges must be matched by action, say Mars executives

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 09:01 PM PDT

The company will tie executive pay to emissions reduction and eliminate deforestation through its supply chain

The chief executive of Mars, one of the world's largest consumer products companies, has warned that "all too often" corporate commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions fall short and threaten to undermine their credibility and necessary change on climate action.

Grant Reid's comments, and those of Mars's chief sustainability and procurement officer, Barry Parkin, come after the climate activist Greta Thunberg condemned many of the climate actions promised by global leaders as so much "blah, blah, blah".

Eliminate deforestation in its supply chain

Link executive pay to cutting greenhouse gas emission

Challenge its 20,000+ suppliers to take climate action and set meaningful targets.

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Russian actor and director blast off to make first film in orbit

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:13 AM PDT

Pair will spend 12 days on International Space Station in effort to beat US to making first film in space

A Russian actor and a director have rocketed to space on a mission to make the first movie filmed in orbit.

Yulia Peresild, 37, and Klim Shipenko, 38, blasted off Tuesday for the International Space Station (ISS) in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft together with the cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, a veteran of three space missions. Their Soyuz MS-19 lifted off as scheduled from the Russian space launch facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

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K-beauty, hallyu and mukbang: dozens of Korean words added to Oxford English Dictionary

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 09:18 PM PDT

New additions highlight Korean culture wave as interest in the country's food, fashion and entertainment spreads

The Korean culture wave has swept through the editorial offices of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which has added more than 20 new words of Korean origin to its latest edition.

The "definitive record of the English language" included words alluding to the global popularity of the country's music and cuisine, plus one or two whose roots in the Korean language may be less obvious.

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Coronavirus live news: California deploys National Guard, Pfizer jab ‘highly effective’ against hospitalisations

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:27 AM PDT

Extra help called in for overwhelmed hospitals in California; two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech are about 90% effective at preventing hospitalisations for at least six months, research reveals; Russia's daily Covid cases hits highest level in months

Senegal has had only a handful of new daily Covid infections so far this week, with only two cases yesterday – the lowest number since the pandemic reached the country.

"Two cases were recorded today, the lowest ever recorded," said the health ministry spokesperson Ngone Ngom. "They were in the past seven, 10 cases, but from the top of my head I think this is the lowest."

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Anger and grief: New Zealanders fearful as Covid elimination strategy ends

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 06:59 PM PDT

Concerns about the toll a suppression approach may take have dampened excitement about loosened restrictions

New Zealanders are grieving for the end of the country's Covid elimination strategy and anxious about what the future holds, a day after prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced the country would switch to a suppression approach.

"It's kind of a grieving for what we are losing," microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles, one of the pandemic response's most prominent science communicators, said. "We are very clearly losing alert level one, and the freedoms and privileges that come with [it]."

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Global vaccine rollout vital to securing deal for nature, warns UN biodiversity chief

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:30 PM PDT

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema says access to Covid jabs for developing world will be critical to the success of in-person Kunming Cop15 summit

Governments hoping for a global agreement to halt biodiversity loss must put more effort into access to Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries, the UN's biodiversity chief has warned.

Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said the Kunming Cop15 summit, at which governments will try to forge a "Paris agreement for nature", was vital for halting the global crisis of species loss.

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Why are so many pregnant women not taking the vaccine?

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 09:01 PM PDT

Only 31% of pregnant Americans are fully vaccinated. I felt responsible for this bean-like bundle forming in my body. But the conflicting advice made it hard for me to decide

These are the first three things I did when I found out I was pregnant in February. I took about six more tests. Then, I called the doctor's office to make an appointment. A few days later, I signed up for a Covid-19 vaccine. I stood in line, freezing, at a high school in Coney Island to get my shot.

Deciding to get the vaccine that same month was not easy – even as a former health reporter accustomed to deciphering medical journals. I felt a very visceral and personal responsibility toward this bean-like bundle forming in my body. There were only preliminary studies about vaccine safety – saying the vaccine was likely safe – but based on participants who didn't know they were pregnant during trials. Gynaecologists and family physicians had not yet achieved full and public consensus on their recommendations as most have now.

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Arguments, anticipation and carefully encouraged scandals: the making of the Booker prize

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

Its knack for creating tension and controversy has helped it remain an energising force in publishing for more than 50 years – but how do writers, publishers and judges cope with the annual agony of the Booker?

Just after 7.20pm on 20 October 1981, the 100 or so guests for the Booker prize ceremony sat down under the oak panelling of the Stationers' Hall in the City of London. Dinner was mousse of avocado and spiced mushrooms, goujons of sole, breast of pheasant Souvaroff, black cherry pancake and hazelnut bombe. The menu's vaguely fashionable ingredients (avocado!) announced the year's prize as at least tentatively modern. (Back in 1975, there had been la tortue verte en tasse (green turtle soup), a dish from another age altogether.) Among the guests were prominent figures, then and now, of London's cultural scene: Joan Bakewell, Alan Yentob, Claire Tomalin. The seating plan had been kept flexible in case Italo Calvino declared himself available at the last moment.

It was the year BBC began regular live TV coverage of the Booker prize, which was as fundamental to its fame, through the great era of terrestrial television, as the carefully encouraged scandals that regularly detonated around it. The year before, Anthony Burgess had demanded to know the result in advance, saying he would refuse to attend if William Golding had won – which he had. The prize's administrator, Martyn Goff, leaked the story, and Burgess's literary flounce made for gleeful headlines. Over Goff's 34 years in charge, many more semi-accurate snippets from the judging room were let slip. "I was somewhat dismayed to find that purposive, often very misleading, leaking was going on," Hilary Mantel, a judge in 1990, told me. It was by such steps that the Booker became not just a book prize, but a heady tangle of arguments, controversy and speculation: a cultural institution.

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‘I saw something in Bruce Springsteen that nobody else saw’: the world according to Stevie Van Zandt

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 01:00 AM PDT

The Boss's trusty sideman has many plans – from saving central America to TV Hogmanay at the Playboy Mansion – and he's more than happy to share his rock wisdom

It is the middle of the 1980s, and Stevie Van Zandt, having departed the E Street Band and left Bruce Springsteen's side, is pursuing a solo career. He has also parlayed decades of experience playing in bar bands into a new and unusual role: international activist and campaigner against injustice. And so he finds himself, in company with Jackson Browne, in Nicaragua, against which the US is waging a proxy war.

He arranges a meeting with Rosario Murillo, the wife of Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, as he notes in his memoir, Unrequited Infatuations. "After a few drinks, I moved off the small talk and suddenly asked her if she loved her husband. She was taken a bit aback but said, Yes, señor, very much. 'Well,' I said, 'you should spend as much time with him as possible, because he's a dead man walking. It's just a matter of time and time is running out' … She was a very smart woman married to a revolutionary. But she was expecting a pleasant conversation about the arts, and the reality of what I was saying hit her hard."

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Intimate data: can a person who tracks their steps, sleep and food ever truly be free?

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:00 AM PDT

Big tech now encourages us to monitor everything from our heart rate to our glucose levels via smartphones and watches. How much privacy have we lost to the promise of self improvement - and is it time to stop?


First we counted our steps, then our heartbeats, blood pressure and respiratory rates. We monitored our sleep, workouts, periods and fertility windows. But there is plenty left to measure as we are sold the promise of self-optimisation by the vast and sometimes controversial frontier of health tracking – an increasingly medicalised market that has flourished since pedometers went digital and watches got smart.

The latest health metric available to consumers comes from a medical device originally designed for people with diabetes; it allows users to track their blood sugar levels. But, as always, the big questions are: will it make us healthier, and is it wise to sacrifice ever more intimate data?

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‘Volcanoes are life’: how the ocean is enriched by eruptions devastating on land

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 11:01 PM PDT

Lava is destroying much of La Palma but the last eruption in the Canaries appears to have 'fertilised' the surrounding seas

The eruption of the volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands is a vivid reminder of the destructive power of nature but, as it lays waste all before it on land, for marine life it is likely to be a blessing.

When the lava reached the sea near the La Palma marine reserve on Tuesday night, every marine organism that was unable to swim out of danger was instantly killed. However, unlike on land, which lava renders lifeless for decades (and with forest not returning for more than a century), marine life returns quickly and in better shape, research shows.

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‘I didn’t really watch any tennis’: how Martin Parr captured the Grand Slam’s real champions

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:00 PM PDT

The photographer toured the four tournaments shooting thrilled fans instead of sweaty stars. He talks about why street photography is becoming impossible – and life after his cancer diagnosis

It's the morning after the night before at the US Open and the sports sections contain images of triumph and defeat. Ecstatic Emma Raducanu lying prostrate on the tennis court. Bereft Novak Djokovic sobbing into his towel. The photographer Martin Parr would have liked to have watched the finals, but he's been unwell and incapacitated, stuck on one floor of his house with the TV on the other. He briefly considered watching on his laptop but it just seemed too much bother. "I like tennis tournaments," he says, a little sheepishly. "That doesn't necessarily mean that I like tennis per se."

In this, one suspects, he is not alone. Parr's new book Match Point offers a vivid globe-hopping tour of the four grand slam tournaments, bounding from Melbourne to Paris to London to New York and mingling with the spectators as they ogle their iPhones or sunbathe on the grass or guzzle iced coffee at the refreshment stand (the book was commissioned by the Italian coffee firm Lavazza). Most people, he points out, visit Wimbledon in the same spirit that they would attend Ascot or the Chelsea flower show: it's a social event, an excuse to dress up. They might spend the entire day in the grounds at SW19 and go home without seeing a single ball being served.

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From bawdy fun to fantasising with Demi Moore: the best erotic podcasts

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 12:00 AM PDT

If it's audio kink you're after, there's a podcast for that. Rhik Samadder picks out the best out of the horny bunch

The biggest noise on the audio porn scene is Dipsea, whose range of consensual, sex-positive stories are written by women, for women. The stories, all between 10 and 20 minutes long, are streamlined, yet grounded in character and situation. By the time things descend into panting, the idea is that attuned listeners will be, too. The app has more than 400 stories behind a paywall: straight and queer and diverse in content, with a few enticing freebies concerning military-style yoga instructors and massages between friends. Anyone whose primary erogenous zone is inside their head will find succour here.

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UK police pay ‘lip service’ to protecting women, says father of abuse victim

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 11:00 PM PDT

Exclusive: Les Van Hagen, whose daughter Suzanne was killed by her partner, calls for inquiry into culture of policing

The father of a woman who died after being choked by her abusive partner has accused police of paying "lip service" to the protection of women and girls and called for a public inquiry into the culture of UK policing.

West Midlands police apologised last month for a number of failings in the case of Suzanne Van Hagen, 34, who suffered months of domestic abuse before she died in February 2013.

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Israel accuses Iran of attack attempt against Israelis in Cyprus

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 10:00 AM PDT

Nicosia says an armed individual was arrested after crossing from Turkish-controlled north

Israel has accused Iran of orchestrating an attempted attack against Israelis in Cyprus after police on the Mediterranean island said an armed individual had been arrested.

"This was a terrorist incident directed by Iran against Israeli businesspeople living in Cyprus," Matan Sidi, spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said in a statement.

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Nollywood booming while African film industries could create 20m jobs – report

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 12:01 AM PDT

UN study finds streaming services have increased demand for film productions from across the continent, but warns piracy and underinvestment hampering growth

Film industries in Africa could quadruple in revenue to $20bn (£15bn) and create an extra 20m jobs in creative industries, according to a report about cinema on the continent.

The booming film industry in Nigeria – Nollywood is the world's second largest film industry in terms of output – and Senegal were examples of African countries with defined business models and growing avenues for local film productions, which are increasingly sought after by television and streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, said the report by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

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Hollywood production crews vote to authorise first ever strike

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 02:24 AM PDT

Union calls for industry leaders to grant workers 'human necessities' such as adequate sleep and breaks

Film and television production in North America is in jeopardy of coming to a standstill after behind-the-scenes workers overwhelmingly voted to authorise a strike for the first time in its 128-year history.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees said 99% of registered members who participated, or 52,706 people, voted in support of a strike over the weekend.

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Senior state department official calls Biden’s deportation of Haitians illegal

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 03:53 PM PDT

Harold Koh, a legal adviser and Obama administration veteran, criticises use of health protocol to expel thousands of migrants

A senior legal adviser in the state department has accused the Biden administration of deporting Haitians illegally through the use of a public health law.

Harold Koh, a veteran of the Obama administration, had been due to leave government service to take up a teaching position at Oxford University. He wrote a letter to the state department leadership, lambasting the expulsions of thousands of Haitians in recent weeks.

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Taiwan and China: line that Biden must tread is finer than ever

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 11:30 PM PDT

Analysis: the fallout from a conflict triggered by miscalculation or accident could be catastrophic

A surge of Chinese aerial sorties over the sea separating mainland China and Taiwan has served as a reminder that the strait has the potential to be one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

According to Taiwan's defence ministry, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) made a total of 149 sorties in four days over the southern section of the Taiwan Strait, including flights by a dozen bombers and many jet fighters.

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Essential workers challenge Victoria and NSW vaccine mandates in court

Posted: 05 Oct 2021 01:41 AM PDT

Victorian teacher Belinda Cetnar and her husband Jack argue they could lose their livelihoods if they don't get vaccinated

A casual relief teacher is taking Victorian health officials to court over mandatory Covid vaccines, arguing there is no legal or ethical justification for making workers get the jab.

Separately, in New South Wales, a group of essential workers has argued in court that state's health orders regarding vaccines are an attempt to coerce them into being inoculated.

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By ending Covid elimination, Jacinda Ardern once again fails to turn compassion into policy | Morgan Godfery

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 08:25 PM PDT

Without a dramatic change in New Zealand's vaccination rates, Covid-19 risks becoming a disease for brown people

And so with that, a confusing 20-minute monologue in the Beehive theatrette, New Zealand's virus-beating elimination strategy is over. As the Delta variant's "tentacles", to borrow the prime minister's description, creep past the Auckland border, potentially wrapping themselves around parts of the Waikato, the government will no longer aim to cut the monster off at its head with tough alert level four restrictions. Instead public health officials will move to a suppression strategy aiming "to contain and control the virus" while we vaccinate our way out of the pandemic. At its simplest, Jacinda Ardern's message from the threatrette was vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.

For 18 months New Zealanders were living life as if there were no pandemic. We were gathering outdoors and indoors in the thousands, mask mandates were literally a foreign concept, and business and public services were operating more or less as normal. We were watching governments that let the virus rip with a good dose of horror and, if we're honest, a modest dose of smugness. And so yesterday's announcement – that the virus will remain resident in this country – feels like a form of whiplash. Only two weeks ago the prime minister stood in that familiar theatrette and told the country returning to zero cases was still the goal.

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New Zealand ruling against deep-sea mining set a global precedent – now Ardern should ban it | Phil McCabe and James Hita

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 12:00 PM PDT

Last week's court decision affirmed the view that seabed mining is too dangerous, too risky and too harmful to the environment

The decision by New Zealand's Supreme Court last week against a giant seabed mining proposal in the South Taranaki Bight is a wake-up call for the world's would-be seabed mining industry, both in the deep oceans of international waters and for countries contemplating such activities off their own coasts.

The mining operation, proposed by Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR), would have dug up 50 million tonnes of the seabed every year for 35 years, targeting 5m tonnes of iron ore and dumping the remaining 45m tonnes back into the ocean.

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Huntington Beach oil spill blackens beaches and waves – in pictures

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 01:18 PM PDT

An estimated 126,000 gallons of crude oil has leaked from an underwater pipeline near Los Angeles in one of the largest disasters in recent state history. The spill near Huntington Beach has created a miles-wide sheen in the ocean and washed ashore, threatening the coastal ecosystem and marine wildlife. Crews are scrambling to clean up the area, which officials say could take weeks or even months

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Biden calls Republicans 'hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful' on debt limit – video

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 11:59 AM PDT

In his address today on the need to raise the debt limit on Monday, US President Joe Biden lambasted the Republicans and their use of the filibuster to stymie the Democrats.

'So let's be clear — not only are Republicans refusing to do their job, they're threatening to use their power to prevent us from doing our job: saving the economy from a catastrophic event,' Biden said. 'I think, quite frankly, it's hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful'

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Cyclone Shaheen hits Oman and Iran, causing landslide and flooding – video

Posted: 04 Oct 2021 06:34 AM PDT

A cyclone that made landfall in Oman on Sunday has killed at least 13 people, and others are missing as the storm moved further inland and weakened. Omani state television broadcast images of flooded roadways and valleys as the storm churned deeper into the sultanate, its outer edges reaching the neighbouring United Arab Emirates

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