Author: admin@primenews

Over half a century ago, India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi talked about the staggering challenge for developing nations: to industrialize without harming the environment. “On the one hand the rich look askance at our continuing poverty — on the other, they warn us against their own methods,” she told a United Nations event in Stockholm in 1972, the first global conference to make the environment a major issue. “We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people,” she added. Her words have never been more relevant. The…

The Republican candidates for president largely avoided criticising frontrunner Donald Trump in their final debate outing in Alabama. For almost two hours, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy fended off moderators’ invitations to attack him. Only ex-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addressed Mr Trump directly, saying he would use another term in office to persecute political rivals. Mr Trump maintained his policy of non-attendance at the debate. The former president has refused to take part in any of the preceding three contests and has consistently called on the Republican Party to cancel the bouts, insisting that no other candidate…

Similar to doing an MOT on a car, scientists believe they can run a blood test to check how fast a person’s internal organs are ageing, and even predict which ones might soon fail. The Stanford University team say they can monitor 11 major body parts, including the heart, brain and lungs. They tried it on thousands of adults, mostly middle-aged or older. One in five reasonably healthy adults aged 50-plus might have at least one fast-ageing organ, the results suggest. And one to two in every 100 might have several organs that test older than their birthday years. While…

With world leaders at COP28 in Dubai, there is a renewed sense of urgency to limit emissions to curb the harshest impacts of climate change. Many of these governments have pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to keep global warming levels below a 1.5C rise on pre-industrial levels. But after months of record-shattering heat, 2023 is set to be the warmest year on record. And scientists now anticipate average global temperatures to pass the 1.5C threshold within the next five years. Use the interactive chart below to see which countries are on track with their commitments to meet the…

The maker of Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes says its smoking business in the US is dying out. British American Tobacco (BAT) wrote off £25bn ($31.5bn) in value due to the changed outlook for brands such as Newport and Camel. The move cut the brands’ worth by more than a third, and sent the company’s share price down more than 8%. BAT cigarette sales have struggled as US smoking rates fall and buyers turn to vapes and other alternatives. Demand for its brands has also dropped as buyers squeezed by higher prices prioritise other purchases or opt for cheaper…

A ChatGPT feature allowing users to easily build their own artificial-intelligence assistants can be used to create tools for cyber-crime, a BBC News investigation has revealed. OpenAI launched it last month, so users could build customised versions of ChatGPT “for almost anything”. Now, BBC News has used it to create a generative pre-trained transformer that crafts convincing emails, texts and social-media posts for scams and hacks. It follows warnings about AI tools. BBC News signed up for the paid version of ChatGPT, at £20 a month, created a private bespoke AI bot called Crafty Emails and told it to write text…

Robert Jenrick has resigned as immigration minister, saying the government’s emergency Rwanda legislation “does not go far enough”. He said “stronger protections” were needed to end “the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme”. The government said the bill, unveiled earlier, made clear in UK law Rwanda was a safe country for asylum seekers. But it stops short of what some on the Tory right were demanding. In his resignation letter to Rishi Sunak, Mr Jenrick said the prime minister had “moved towards my position” on the emergency legislation. “Nevertheless, I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation…

Four BTS band members have urged their fans not to turn up at army camps when they begin mandatory military duty. The K-pop stars’ label announced that RM, Jimin, V and Jung Kook would enlist soon – some reports say next week. The four then posted a video, with RM saying they could become a “nuisance” for other soldiers enlisting and their families. Three older band members are already in the army, with Jin, the oldest, being the first to join last December. Their send-offs had attracted crowds of fans, endearingly known as the ARMY, who gathered outside the military…

Taylor Swift has capped off a stellar 2023 by being named Time Magazine’s person of the year. The star, whose Eras tour broke box office records and provoked an inquiry into Ticketmaster’s sales practices, follows the likes of Barack Obama, Greta Thunberg and Volodymyr Zelensky. She told the magazine that she is “the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt”. The award goes to an event or person deemed to have had the most influence on global events over the past year. The singer also admitted to the magazine that the toll of her 180-minute Eras concerts often left her feeling physically…

The FBI has arrested a man in Arizona over a religiously motivated terror attack on a remote Australian property last year that left six dead. Donald Day Jr, a 58-year-old US citizen, faces two charges relating to the incitement of violence online. He “repeatedly” sent online messages containing “Christian end of days ideology” to the attackers, police say. The ambush left two police officers and a neighbour dead, as well as the three shooters involved. Mr Day was arrested by FBI agents in Heber Overgaard, north-east of Phoenix, on Friday and could face up to 10 years in prison if…