Thursday, Jul 18th
Last update06:35:59 AM GMT
International Glance
U.K. authorities raided Cambridge Analytica’s offices overnight amid an investigation into whether the political consulting firm illegally acquired Facebook data to target voters.
Around 18 investigators were seen entering the company’s London headquarters after obtaining a warrant to search its database and servers Friday night, the Guardian reported. The search lasted seven hours, according to the BBC.
Boko Haram has released more than 100 of the schoolgirls it abducted last month, returning them to their village in north-east Nigeria.
Waving the black and white flag used by the Islamic State and wearing balaclavas, military fatigues and ammunition belts, members of the group released most of the girls they had abducted in Dapchi early on Wednesday morning.
On 19 February armed militants pretending to be soldiers herded the girls into trucks and escaped. The Nigerian government was initially slow to act but then said it would negotiate with the group for the girls. It has denied any ransoms were paid.
Audrey Hepburn glides through the credits of the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s in a black dress that is in no way little. It’s a long, narrow sheath, though she can still amble down Fifth Avenue unimpeded. The dress is sleeveless – yet gloves cover her arms far above her elbows – and collarless, with a striking back strap revealing her shoulder blades. Several generations have worshipped images of Hepburn in that dress as defining sophistication.
This was the work of Hubert de Givenchy, who has died aged 91. His clothes for Hepburn made her feel secure. “I put them on and I feel protected,” she said. He helped her to downplay the trampiness of Holly Golightly, who trips into Sing Sing prison in Givenchy’s lampshade hat, and shops at Tiffany’s in his tailored coat. No wonder Jacqueline Kennedy commanded Givenchy to outfit her state visit to Paris that year.
The former Russian double agent poisoned with a nerve agent in an attempted murder last weekend was linked to the company that compiled the infamous 'Trump dossier' alleging the US president had compromising Russian connections, British media have reported.
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were in critical condition in intensive care after the attack in Salisbury, England, on Sunday afternoon (Monday NZ Time). There are reportedly fears that Skripal was unlikely to recover, though his daughter has a better chance.
Skripal was convicted of treason and imprisoned in 2006 in Russia for passing intelligence to MI6. In 2010, he was pardoned and sent to the UK as part of a spy swap deal.
The former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was deliberately poisoned with a nerve agent in a case that police are now treating as attempted murder, Scotland Yard’s assistant chief commissioner has confirmed this afternoon.
Mark Rowley said the police officer who was first to the spot where the pair were found in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon was now “seriously ill” in hospital. His condition had deteriorated, Rowley said, adding: “Wiltshire police are providing support to his family.”
Describing the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter Yulia, as a major incident Rowley said that scientists had identified the toxin used. He refused to reveal the poison.
Aid agencies, including the Red Cross and World Food Programme, are calling for an urgent ceasefire to allow them to reach the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta, as rockets and barrel bombs dropped by pro-regime forces killed dozens more people on the fourth day of an intense assault.
The calls were echoed by the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, who demanded an immediate suspension of “all war activities” in the rebel-held Damascus suburb, which he described as a “hell on earth”.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal woes deepened after one of his closest confidants agreed to testify against him in a growing corruption scandal, complicating the Israeli leader’s efforts to hold on to his job.
Shlomo Filber, the suspended Communications Ministry director and onetime chief of Netanyahu’s bureau, signed an agreement to become state witness. He turned on his former boss less than a week after police recommended pressing charges against Netanyahu in two other influence-peddling cases -- and a day after news broke that police were investigating whether another longtime Netanyahu associate sought to bribe a judge.
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