World

LONDON (Bywire News) - Protesters waving the Afghanistan flag have been killed by the Taliban, witnesses say. Earlier today, protesters in the capital city of Kabul marched through the streets carrying flags and chanting “our flag, our identity” and tearing down Taliban flags in retaliation to the country’s takeover by the militant extremists. Yesterday, there were reports of Taliban soldiers firing at, and killing, protesters in the cities of Jalalabad, Asadabad and Khost. Afghan First Vice President Amrullah Saleh praised the protests on Twitter:   از حرکت شجاعانه و میهن دوستانه مردم با عزت کشورم در نقاط مختلف بخاطر برافراشتن پرچم ملی برضد گروه نیابتی طالب ابراز حرمت ، حمایت و قدردانی می نمایم. شماری درین راه با عزت شهید شدندSalute those who carry the national flag & thus stand for dignity of the nation & the country. — Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) August 19, 2021   In Asadabad, where several people were killed, witness and protester Mohammed Salim said: "Hundreds of pe...

LONDON (Bywire News) - Boris Johnson's official spokeswoman has been well and truly roasted on social media after making an incredibly unpopular suggestion on climate change. Writing on Twitter, Allegra Stratton - who was appointed as the PM's spokeswoman in October 2020 - said that if people wanted to fight climate change, they shouldn't rinse their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.   Could not rinsing dishes b4 the dishwasher be your #onestepgreener ahead of #COP26? If that’s too hard a habit to kick, pick something else. At COP26 we have big asks for the world on cash, coal, cars and trees but the micro matters too. Change is coming. https://t.co/2f23IyBBPW — Allegra Stratton (@AllegraCOP26) July 27, 2021   Unsurprisingly, given the fact that 71% of global emissions are caused by just 100 multinational corporations, people were not exactly impressed at Stratton's attempt to lay the burden of responsibility for climate change at the door of ordinary people:   [BYWIRE_DO...

LONDON (Bywire News) - A 'Big Pharma CEO' has been caught on camera saying that he doesn’t want to sell vaccines to poorer countries because there’s no profit in it. Despite the big pharmaceutical companies being predicted to make a staggering $30bn in revenue this year - and handing out a monstrous $26bn in dividends to shareholders - they are strangleholding poorer countries who cannot afford their prices, and they refuse to give up their patents to allow developing nations to produce their own generic vaccines. In addition, the $26bn paid out from multinational pharma companies to their shareholders alone would be enough to vaccinate 1.3bn people - or the entire population of Africa. That is why the People’s Vaccine is urging governments and pharmaceutical companies to sell vaccines at affordable prices. But, as the 'Big Pharma CEO' puts it: “That’s an absolutely terrible idea”. In a Twitter rant after his shocking comments were exposed, the CEO also exposed the astonishing greed o...

LONDON (Bywire News) - The millionaire ex-banker Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak is lobbying G7 partners to exclude Financial Services firms located in the City of London from Joe Biden's proposals for a Global Minimum Corporation Tax. According to source close to negotiations, Sunak believes that the tax would unfairly hit banking bosses in the capital because they supposedly already "pay a fair share of tax". When the agreement was announced on Saturday, Sunak lauded the deal - which would effectively outlaw tax havens across the globe - as "historic", and claimed that the "seismic" changes would create "a fairer tax system fit for the 21st century" that would significantly benefit UK taxpayers. As reported by Bywire at the time, research conducted into the proposals found that a "15% Minimum Global Corporation Tax could raise an extra £13.5bn a year for the UK’s public purse, rising to over £22bn a year if the rate was raised to 25%." However, it is believed that Sunak - who made his m...

LONDON (Bywire News) - The government's controversial plans to spend £200m on a new Royal Yacht are set to be scuppered as it would contravene rules contained in a World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade deal that Boris Johnson himself negotiated. Last month, the UK government announced plans to build a new national flagship - to replace HMS Britannia which was decommissioned in 1997 - in order to promote British trade and industry across the globe. At the time, Johnson said that the vessel would reflect "the UK’s burgeoning status as a great, independent maritime trading nation”, and Number 10 proudly boasted that the ship would be built by British shipbuilders. However, the proposals were also widely criticised, with many claiming that £200m was a huge waste of money, especially when the economy is facing major struggles due to the pandemic, and that there were other more important areas to focus cash on - with Labour's Bridget Phillipson saying: "Right now our country faces huge chall...

LONDON (Bywire News) - The European Court of Justice has ruled that Tesco breached both EU and UK law by paying their shop floor staff less than those who work in distribution centres.  Employees who work on the shop floor, who are mostly female, accused Tesco of paying them up to £3 an hour less than employees who work in distribution centres, who are mainly male, for work that has now been ruled of equal value.  The landmark decision could also lead to as many as 25,000 current and former Tesco staff receiving a share of £2.5bn in compensation for 7 years of underpay. A similar Supreme Court case in March, which successfully argued on behalf of 44,000 Asda employees, set a legal precedent that retail shop floor workers should be paid the same as those who work in the supermarket’s depots. Kiran Dauka, a partner in the employment team from legal firm Leigh Day who represented the Tesco employers, said after the ruling: "This judgement reinforces the Supreme Court's ruling that the ro...

Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, angry at living conditions on a remote Bangladeshi island, suffered baton injuries as they protested against the lack of access to a visiting U.N. team, two of the refugees said.

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia reported 7,703 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, bringing its total number of infections to 587,165. Malaysia is seeing a surge in COVID-19 infections, though cases have dipped since hitting a record on Saturday.   (Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Himani Sarkar)...

ZURICH - Lonza and Moderna are deepening their collaboration for COVID-19 vaccine production, with the Swiss contract drugmaker building a drug substance production line at a Dutch site to add capacity of up to 300 million doses annually. The new production line is expected to be operational by the end of 2021.   (Reporting by John Miller; Editing by Riham Alkousaa)...

LONDON (Bywire News) - The daughter-in-law of a billionaire Conservative Party donor charged with shooting dead a police officer in Belize could be let off with a fine. On Friday, following reports of a single gunshot, police found the body of Police Superintendent Henry Jemmott floating in the water next to a pier in San Pedro According to witnesses, Jemmott had been seen drinking with former estate agent Jasmine Hartin - whose father in law in the former Tory Deputy Chairman, and a politically-connected figure in Belize, Lord Ashcroft. According to Police Commissioner Chester Williams, Hartin's conduct raised red flags after she refused to give a statement about the officer's death without the presence of her lawyer. In the absence of a credible explanation, he said, Hartin had to be treated as a killer. “From what we know is that they are friends,” said Williams. “From what we have been made to understand they were drinking. From investigation, they were alone on the pier and yes t...

Cruise LLC, the autonomous vehicle (AV) company majority-owned by General Motors Co, has urged President Joe Biden to back efforts to speed thousands of self-driving cars to U.S. roads, saying the country risks lagging behind China, according to a previously unreported letter.

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party on Tuesday challenged the legality of a bid by a rival rightist to head a new Israeli government, but the last-gasp attempt at extending his leadership was rejected by President Reuven Rivlin. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu's former defence minister, announced on Sunday he would join a proposed alliance with centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, serving as its premier first under a rotation deal. They have until Wednesday midnight (2200 GMT) to present a final pact to Rivlin, who handed Lapid the task of forming a new government after Netanyahu failed to do so in the wake of a close election on March 23. In a letter to the legal counsels of the presidency and parliament, Netanyahu's conservative Likud said Lapid was not authorised to cede the premiership to Bennett. But Rivlin's office said in response that there was no legal merit to Likud's claim because Lapid would be sworn in as "alternate prime minister", second t...

Shares in Chinese toy makers, diaper producers and infant food companies soared for the second day on Tuesday, as investors piled into stocks seen as benefitting from Beijing's new three-child policy.

By Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard TAIPEI -Foxconn and its billionaire founder Terry Gou sought permission from Taiwan's government on Tuesday to buy COVID-19 vaccines from Germany's BioNTech SE after the island was hit with a rise in infections. The proposed purchase of 5 million doses, which would be distributed among the general population, comes after the government ceded to pressure from opposition parties to allow companies, religious groups and local governments to arrange imports. The Taiwanese government's own deal with BioNTech fell through earlier this year - a problem Taiwan has blamed on pressure from Beijing. China has denied the accusation. BioNTech declined to comment. Gou, who has retired from the world's largest contract manufacturer, said on Saturday they hope to airlift the shots from Germany to Taiwan without going via any middlemen. Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung expressed his gratitude to Gou and said the government was reviewing the application. After recor...

By Gwladys Fouche UTOEYA, Norway - Nearly 10 years after Anders Behring Breivik tried to kill her on the Norwegian island of Utoeya, Astrid Hoem is back there to explain to a group of teenagers how she ran for her life and hid in a beach cove while Breivik murdered others around her. "He shot a girl next to me, in the back. She told me: 'please tell my parents I love them because I am going to die'," Hoem, 26, tells the high school students. The girl survived. The students, who are on a three-day workshop on how to solve conflicts and challenge racist attitudes, listen in silence as Hoem recalls her memories: how she did not move for about two hours from under a rock, how she did not call friends in fear the ring would give their positions away to Breivik, how she thought Norway was at war. Breivik detonated a car bomb outside the prime minister's office in Oslo, killing eight, before driving to Utoeya and shooting 69 people gathered at a Labour Party youth camp on July 22, 2011. Surv...

North Korea's ruling party has amended its rules to create a de facto second-in-command under leader Kim Jong Un as he looks to revamp domestic politics, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Tuesday.

The European Union plans to kick off its 750 billion euro ($917 billion) pandemic recovery package with an initial 10 billion euro bond issue, France's junior minister for European affairs, Clement Beaune, said on Monday.

A Russian charter plane took home dozens of Russian embassy staff on Monday, abruptly ending what Czech officials say was a decades-old practice by Moscow of using a disproportionately huge mission in Prague as a base for its spy activities.

Colombian authorities are investigating 10 police officers who allowed civilians to shoot at demonstrators in Cali, a high-ranking official said on Monday, while the attorney general's office linked three more deaths to protests.

BRUSSELS - Finance ministers and central bankers from the group of seven rich nations (G7) will vow this week to keep supporting their economies as they emerge from the pandemic and to reach an "ambitious" deal on a minimum global corporate tax in July, a draft communique showed. The G7 officials, set to meet in London on June 4-5, will also say that once the recovery is well established, they will need to "ensure long-term sustainability of public finances" - code for a gradual withdrawal of public support. The G7 comprises the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Canada.   (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)...