World

Despite its champions being honored with a Nobel Peace Prize, press freedom has a "sword of Damocles" hanging over it, this year's two laureates lamented on Thursday.

Maria Ressa of the Philippines, co-founder of the news website Rappler, and Dmitry Muratov of Russia, editor of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, will receive their prize in Oslo on Friday for "their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression."

Italian film director Lina Wertmueller, the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for directing, has died aged 93, local news media reported Thursday.

Wertmueller, considered the country's most famous female director, began her career in movies as an assistant to Federico Fellini before going on to become the queen of Italian comedy with a series of films in the 1960s and 1970s.

U.S. President Joe Biden will gather 111 world leaders in a virtual meeting dubbed the Summit for Democracy, in what Washington hopes will be a boost for global democracy threatened by an increase in authoritarian rulers.

Biden will deliver opening remarks on Thursday at 8:00 a.m. (1300 GMT).

A government watchdog group on Thursday called on Congress to investigate whether former President Donald Trump used the power of his presidency to help lay the groundwork for his planned social network before leaving office.

In October, Trump announced the launch of a social network and media platform through Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that would merge with the newly-formed Trump Media & Technology Group. The SPAC, which has already come under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal regulators amid scrutiny of its fluctuating stock price, was incorporated in December 2020, while Trump was still in office, according to Delaware records. The SPAC's chief financial officer is Brazilian lawmaker Luiz Philippe de Orléans e Braganza, a close ally of right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, sometimes described as the "Trump of the Tropics."

Russian media outlets this week were nostalgic for former President Donald Trump this week after current President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin of severe consequences should he invade Ukraine.

The Daily Beast's Julia Davis reports that Russian media personalities this week longed for the days when Trump would regurgitate Russian propaganda by casting doubt on his own intelligence agencies' claims that Russia interfered with the 2020 presidential election.

Early data indicates the Omicron Covid variant may more easily reinfect people who have already had the virus or been vaccinated than previous variants, but could also cause milder disease, the WHO said Wednesday.

"Emerging data from South Africa suggests increased risk of reinfection with Omicron," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, adding that "there is also some evidence that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta".

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he had warned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of unprecedented US sanctions should Russian troops massed on the border of Ukraine launch an attack.

A day after talking for two hours by video link, Biden said Putin got "the message."

The Catholic church is moving forward on the sainthood of Pope John Paul I, who died after just 33 days as pope. Requirements of sainthood include a miracle, which is said to be that the late pope healed an 11-year-old girl.

But as the Washington Post explained, John Paul I is more known for his death than for anything else.

A sketch that has lain hidden for centuries under the thick layers of paint Rembrandt applied to create "The Night Watch" offers new insight into the Dutch master's creative process, museum officials said Wednesday.

Hailing a "breakthrough" in the understanding of Rembrandt's most famous work, Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits told reporters: "We always suspected Rembrandt must have made a sketch on the canvas before embarking on this incredibly complex composition, but we didn’t have the evidence."

Malik Mutaliyev walks by an abandoned amusement park in wintry Baikonur, a secretive town in Kazakhstan's inhospitable steppe that appeared alongside the eponymous Baikonur Cosmodrome where the Soviet Union's space program rose to glory.

"Our town has lived through a lot: Perestroika, the fall of the Soviet Union, electricity shortages. We've been through it all," says the 67-year-old former chief architect of Baikonur.

The dress sword carried by Napoléon Bonaparte when he staged a coup in 1799 and five of his firearms sold at auction for nearly $2.9 million, US auctioneers announced Tuesday.

The lot, which was put up for sale by the Illinois-based Rock Island Auction Company, was sold on December 3 via phone to a buyer who has remained anonymous, company president Kevin Hogan told AFP.