The Guardian
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‘If you keep looking we will kill you’: death stalks those searching for Mexico’s disappeared
Organised crime groups are targeting some of the only people looking for victims of the country’s cartel wars – their relatives
Beneath the cooling towers of Mazatlán’s power plant, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, a dozen women pick through the marshland, looking for the upturned soil – and the scent – that betrays the location of a buried body.
They are part of Hearts United for One Cause, one of hundreds of collectives scattered across Mexico looking for the members’ missing relatives. But these searchers have been marked out by another layer of tragedy: one of them was murdered in February, and another disappeared in October.
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Are Xi and Putin still ‘best friends’? - The Latest
Xi Jinping welcomed Vladimir Putin to Beijing with pomp and pageantry, just days after hosting Donald Trump. But as Russia’s war in Ukraine makes Moscow increasingly dependent on China, and western leaders thaw relations with Beijing, what does the power imbalance mean for Xi and Putin’s relationship? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s deputy head of international news, Devika Bhat
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Meghan Markle’s anniversary candle: who wouldn’t want to pay $64 to celebrate someone else’s marriage?
It smells like sunshine, blue skies and love and laughter, apparently. And it’s all in aid of her and Harry’s eight years together
Name: Anniversary candle.
Appearance:A “modern and elegant” candle, “housed in a beautiful ceramic vessel”.
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Open plan is not the answer: design professionals on the dos and don’ts of small space living
From furniture with ‘skinny legs’ to making sure spaces work for multiple purposes, three experts who live in tiny homes share their best lessons
In 2010 Colin Chee picked up the keys to his 37 square metre off-the-plan apartment in Melbourne’s city centre. “It was only then that I realised how shit it was.”
With no design experience and a limited budget, his quest to find inspiration eventually led to the birth of Never Too Small, a YouTube channel showcasing clever designs for small spaces from around the world. Launched in 2017, it now has more than 3 million subscribers.
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‘Spooks hotel’: inside the five-star nerve centre of the US takeover of Venezuela
Diplomats, businessmen and US marines mingle at the JW Marriott hotel in Caracas as deals are done and the country’s resources divvied up
Over breakfast in one of the swankiest hotels in Caracas, you can hear them mulling Venezuela’s past, present and future in sporadically hushed tones. As diners tuck in to plates of fried eggs, black beans and arepas, snatched fragments of conversation speak of election roadmaps, political fragmentation and oil-fuelled economic growth.
But the murmured discussions are not being conducted in Caribbean Spanish by Venezuelan officials pondering their country’s direction after the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro. The accents are North American and belong to the US officials, diplomats and spies now calling many of the shots here after Donald Trump’s controversial military intervention on 3 January. Neighbouring tables are occupied by huddles of musclebound US marines, tattoos covering their bulging calves, baseball caps covering their heads, and walkie-talkies strapped to their hips.
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‘I don’t worry about a robot takeover’: AI expert Michael Wooldridge on big tech’s real dangers (and occasional blessings)
Almost 50 years after he first got his hands on a computer, the Oxford professor still believes in the power of technology. Can his beloved game theory explain why Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs consistently misuse it?
Michael Wooldridge is like the teacher you wish you’d had: approachable, able to explain difficult things in simple terms, neither dauntingly highbrow nor off-puttingly cool, and genuinely enthusiastic about what he does. “I love it when you see the light go on in somebody, when they understand something that they didn’t understand before,” he says. “I find that incredibly gratifying.”
He comes across a regular sort of guy, which, as an Oxford professor with more than 500 scientific articles and 10 books to his name, he clearly isn’t. Typically, his favourite work is his contribution to Ladybird’s Expert Books – an update of the classic children’s series – on artificial intelligence. “I’m very proud of this,” he says, as he hands me a copy from his bookshelf. We’re in his study in the University of Oxford’s somewhat municipal computing department on a sunny spring day. Maybe it’s the campus setting, but our discussion almost takes the form of a seminar.
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Israeli security minister stirs diplomatic outrage with flotilla activist abuse video
Far-right figure Itamar Ben-Gvir shares footage of himself taunting bound international detainees
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has sparked a diplomatic crisis by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid.
Three activists were taken to hospital as result of Israeli violence, lawyers representing the group said. They were subsequently discharged. Dozens of others have suspected broken ribs, resulting in breathing problems.
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Xi and Putin condemn ‘irresponsible’ US foreign policy at Beijing summit
Chinese and Russian leaders boast of close ties and warn ‘of a drift back to the law of the jungle’
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin issued a joint condemnation of “irresponsible” US foreign policy on Wednesday, warning of “a drift back to the law of the jungle”.
The statement came after the Chinese and Russian leaders held a summit in Beijing that followed a visit to the capital by Donald Trump.
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US indicts former Cuban president Raúl Castro as it seeks to oust regime
Charges filed in Miami against 94-year-old for allegedly shooting down exiles’ planes in 1996
The United States issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, and five others on Wednesday in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decades-old communist regime.
The 94-year-old political figurehead was charged in Miami, Florida, with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft.
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US and Israel ‘hoped to install Ahmadinejad as Iran’s leader’
Airstrike at the start of the war was aimed at freeing populist ex-president from house arrest, US newspaper claims
Fresh questions have been raised over the US and Israeli effort to depose the Iranian regime after it was claimed that Israel wanted to put the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power.
Ahmadinejad’s turbulent presidency, from 2005 to 2013, was marked by incendiary attacks on Israel but he recast himself as a critic of the regime and champion of the poor after falling out with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
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