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Jan 14, 2025 - World

UN agency says more than half of the displaced people are children, as gang attacks see upswing in Port-au-PrinceMore than 1 million people have been forced from their homes in Haiti amid a sharp upswing in gang attacks in the country’s embattled capital, Port-au-Prince, the UN has said.The UN’s migration agency, the IOM, said that never before had such a large number of Haitians been reported to have been displaced by violence. More than half of those internally displaced people (IDPs) were children who were bearing the brunt of Haiti’s security breakdown. Many had been displaced repeatedly. Continue reading...

Jan 14, 2025 - World

A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the "Seven to Eight" program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros ($850,000).The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as AI image-creating technology to send Anne what appeared to be selfies and other messages from Pitt.To extract money, they pretended that the 61-year-old actor needed money to pay for kidney treatment, with his bank accounts supposedly frozen because of divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie. Anne, an interior decorator in her 50s with mental health problems, spent a year and half believing she was communicating with Pitt and only realized she had been scammed when news emerged of Pitt's real-life relationship with girlfriend Ines de Ramon."The story broadcast this Sunday has resulted in a wave of harassment against the witness," TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on his X account. "For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it from our platforms."Anne was said by the channel at the time of its broadcast to have been suffering from severe depression and was hospitalised for treatment. The story and subsequent media coverage went viral on Monday.Toulouse Football Club tweeted that "Brad told us that he would be at the stadium on Wednesday" for the team's next match, before withdrawing the message and posting an apology.Netflix France also posted on social media promoting "four films to see with Brad Pitt (really) for free", while other media commentators made fun of Anne's gullibility.She was first contacted by a woman posing as Pitt's mother shortly after she began using Instagram for the first time while on a ski trip with her family in France. "I ask myself why they chose me to do such harm like this," she told TF1. "I've never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell."© Agence France-PresseAdd to cart Print Share this document Copy the linkTe

Jan 14, 2025 - World

Queen Elizabeth II was not told officially for nearly a decade that one of her most senior courtiers had admitted he was a Soviet spy, newly declassified British files revealed Tuesday.Anthony Blunt, an art historian and the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures overseeing the official Royal Art Collection, confessed in 1964 that he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.However, the queen was not fully informed about Blunt for around another nine years, according to files from Britain's domestic MI5 spy agency released by the National Archives.She took it "very calmly and without surprise", according to the records.It was decided to tell the monarch when ministers became concerned that the truth would become public when Blunt died.He had been recruited by the Soviets while he was at the University of Cambridge, joining a spy ring that included other infamous double agents Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Kim Philby.Blunt was a senior MI5 officer during World War II and passed vast quantities of secret intelligence to his handlers from the KGB Soviet spy agency.He was questioned several times after Maclean and Burgess fled to the Soviet Union in the 1950s.But without a confession, he was allowed to keep his position at the heart of the British establishment until the early 1960s.By then, the queen -- who died in 2022 after a record-breaking seven-decade reign -- "was not at all keen on Blunt and saw him rarely", the records show.Blunt was publicly unmasked by former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in a parliamentary statement in 1979 and he died four years later.The files are being released now ahead of the opening of an exhibition focusing on the work of MI5 at the National Archives in west London.Exhibits will include a vivid report of Blunt's interview when he finally confessed.© Agence France-Presse

Jan 14, 2025 - World

TikTok on Tuesday labeled as "pure fiction" a report that China is exploring a potential sale of the video-sharing platform's US operations to billionaire Elon Musk as the firm faces an American law requiring imminent Chinese divestment.Citing anonymous people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News had earlier reported that Chinese officials were considering selling the company's US operations to Musk's social media platform X.The report outlined one scenario being discussed in Beijing where X would purchase TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance and combine it with the platform formerly known as Twitter."We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction," a TikTok spokesperson told AFP.The report estimated the value of TikTok's US operations at between $40 billion and $50 billion.Although Musk is currently ranked as the world's wealthiest person, Bloomberg said it was not clear how Musk could execute the transaction, or if he would need to sell other assets.The US Congress passed a law last year that requires ByteDance to either sell its wildly popular platform or shut it down. It goes into effect on Sunday -- a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.The US government alleges TikTok allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users and is a conduit to spread propaganda. China and ByteDance strongly deny the claims.TikTok has challenged the law, taking an appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on Friday.At the hearing, a majority of the conservative and liberal justices on the nine-member bench appeared skeptical of arguments by a lawyer for TikTok that forcing a sale was a violation of First Amendment free speech rights.Bloomberg characterized Beijing's consideration of a possible Musk transaction as "still preliminary," noting that Chinese officials have yet to reach a consensus on how to proceed.Musk is a close ally of Trump and is expected to play an influential role in Washington in the coming four years.He also runs electric car company Tesla, which has a major factory in China and counts the country as one of the automaker's biggest markets.Trump has repeatedly threatened to enact new tariffs on Chinese goods, which would expand a trade war begun in his first term and which was largely upheld, and in some cases supplemented, by outgoing President Joe Biden.© Agence France-Presse

Jan 14, 2025 - World

by Danny KEMPJoe Biden said Monday that America was stronger on the global stage than it had been for decades, in a swansong foreign policy speech one week before Donald Trump's White House comeback.The outgoing US president took aim at Russia, China and Iran, and urged the West to maintain support for Ukraine in an address at the State Department setting out his international legacy.But Biden's unspoken target was Trump as he touted his rebuilding of international alliances over the last four years after his Republican rival's chaotic first term."The United States is winning the worldwide competition compared to four years ago," said Biden, after diplomats at the State Department gave him a standing ovation."America is stronger. Our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker."The Democrat added that America's ties with its allies were the strongest "in decades," and said partners in the NATO military alliance were now "paying their fair share."Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO countries, at one point saying he would encourage Russia to do "whatever the hell it wants" to allies that did not pay their way.The incoming president has also previously expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin -- but Biden mocked Putin over the progress of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine."When Putin invaded, he thought he'd conquer Kyiv in a matter of days. The truth is, since that war began I'm the only one that stood in the center of Kyiv, not him," said Biden.Biden became the first sitting US president to visit a warzone not controlled by American forces when he made a top secret visit to Ukraine's capital in 2023.He said the United States and its allies "can't walk away" from Ukraine, to which Washington has sent billions of dollars in military aid since the war started in 2022.- China won't 'surpass' US -"There is more to do," said Biden.Trump has vowed to get a Russia-Ukraine peace deal "in 24 hours" and there are fears in Kyiv he may force a ceasefire that sees Ukraine cede territory to Moscow.Biden meanwhile insisted that China would "never surpass us" and that the United States would remain the world's dominant superpower."According to the latest predictions, on China's current course they will never surpass us -- period," Biden said.He added that Washington managed its complex ties with Beijing and that the relationship "never tipped over into conflict" in his four years as president.Biden's speech was more restrained on Israel's war in Gaza, with his administration facing criticism from within his own party for its unstinting support of Israel.But he said a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal was "on the brink" of "finally coming to fruition."The Democrat also defended another major foreign policy fiasco -- the fall of Afghanistan's US-backed government to the Taliban and the bloody US withdrawal of 2021."Ending the war was the right thing to do. And I believe history will reflect that," Biden said.The 82-year-old president finally urged the Trump administration to continue Biden's green energy policies, saying climate deniers under Trump were "dead wrong" and "come from a different century."Biden's foreign policy speech will be followed by a farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office in primetime on Wednesday.© Agence France-Presse