Fade out: Country music songwriter, singer and actor Kris Kristofferson goes silent forever at 88
Kris Kristofferson, who could recite William Blake from memory, wove intricate folk music lyrics about loneliness and tender romance into popular country music. With his long hair and bell-bottomed slacks and counterculture songs influenced by Bob Dylan, he represented a new breed of country songwriters along with such peers as Willie Nelson, John Prine and Tom T. Hall.
Catholic Holy See expels bishop, priests and laypeople from Peru movement over ‘sadistic’ abuses
According to the statement, the Vatican investigators uncovered physical abuses “including with sadism and violence,” sect-like abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority, economic abuses in administering church money and the “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.”
Argentinian court orders arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro and his right-hand man in tit-for-tat legal tussle
The order comes hours after Venezuela’s Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant for Argentina’s President Javier Milei amid a controversy between the two countries over the detention in Argentine territory – and delivery to the United States – of a cargo plane that Washington says was sold by a sanctioned Iranian airline to a Venezuelan state-owned company.
Haiti constitutes elections council consisting of religious groups, journalists, farmers and unions representatives
In Haiti, executive power is meant to be split between the president and the prime minister. The interim government in May tapped Garry Conille as prime minister. However, both councils face an uphill battle in bringing stability back to Haiti.
Week after sealing pact with Kenya, Germany seeks similar deal with Colombia for skilled labour
Germany has already struck such agreements with India, Georgia, Kenya, Uzbekistan and Morocco, which among other things seek to speed up the deportation of unsuccessful asylum seekers from those places.
Tree of life: Why African baobab is a ‘superfood’ consumers in US and Europe are jostling for
The global market for baobab products has spiked, turning rural African areas with an abundance of the trees into source markets. The trees, known for surviving even under severe conditions like drought or fire, need more than 20 years to start producing fruit and aren’t cultivated but foraged.
Microsoft founder, philanthropist Bill Gates calls for debt relief for burdened African countries
Progress towards reducing the number of children whose growth and potential are irrevocably harmed by malnutrition is not fast enough, nor is it happening equally around the world and within communities, said Habtamu Fekadu, managing director for nutrition for the nonprofit Save the Children. He said prevention efforts at scale are needed, and the most cost-effective intervention is to encourage mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children in the first six months of their lives.
Bill Gates defence of free speech seen as hypocritical after his support for suppression of truth on Covid vaccine
Bill Gates told CNBC any “solution” would involve “rules” for online speech, but he said he isn’t sure what form those rules would take or who would enforce them. Similarly, he told CNET “systems and behaviours” should be in place to target “misinformation.”
Mali turns into ‘meat grinder’ for Wagner whose elite fighters were butchered in Sahel that’s upset Russia’s Africa campaign
By cross-referencing public information with online posts from relatives and fighters, speaking to seven relatives and using facial recognition software to analyse battlefield verified footage, the news agency was able to identify 23 fighters missing in action and two others taken into Tuareg captivity after the ambush near Tinzaouaten, a town on the Algerian border.
Pope Francis arrives in East Timor where half of nation’s citizens are expected to attend Mass on Tuesday
East Timor, a half-island nation north of Australia, gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, after a brutal, decades-long occupation. Francis is the second pope to visit, following John Paul II, who came in 1989, in a trip that gave the country’s independence movement an historic boost.
