7 women and girls die when boat carrying migrants capsizes while arriving to Spain's Canary Islands
Scientists walk near the crater at the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands of La Palma, Spain on Wednesday Dec. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Saul Santos)
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UN assembly elects Germany's ex-foreign minister as next president after Russia demands secret vote
Annalena Baerbock of Germany addresses the United Nations General Assembly after she was elected as president of the 80th session of the body, Monday, June 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly elected Germany's former foreign minister Annalena Baerbock to be the next head of the 193-member world body in a secret-ballot vote demanded by Russia. Baerbock got 167 votes, almost double the 88 votes needed to win, while high-ranking German diplomat Helga Schmid received 7 votes as a write-in and 14 countries abstained. Germany had nominated Schmid for the assembly presidency but replaced her with Baerbock after she lost her job as the country's foreign affairs chief in the recent election. The decision drew some criticism in Germany. When Baerbock appeared before the assembly to discuss her candidacy on May 15, Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky lashed into her, saying: 'Ms. Baerbock has repeatedly proved her incompetence, extreme bias and lack of understanding of the basic principles of diplomacy.' Polyansky accused her of having pursued an 'anti-Russia policy,' which he said gave Russia reason to doubt that as General Assembly president she would be 'able to act in the interests of peace and dialogue.' Baerbock brushed off Russia's request for a secret ballot. 'I am grateful … the overwhelming majority of member states have voted in favor of my candidacy and I'm looking forward to work with all member states together in these challenging times,' she said. Baerbock will replace current assembly president Philemon Yang, a former prime minister of Cameroon, at the start of the 80th session in September. She will preside over the annual gathering of world leaders in late September and anniversary events marking the founding of the United Nations in 1945. The one-year presidency of the General Assembly rotates by region. The assembly, which is the U.N.'s most representative body, has taken the spotlight in reacting to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. That's because any action by the U.N. Security Council has been blocked by the veto power of Russia on Ukraine and the United States on Gaza. Baerbock said in her acceptance speech that the theme of her presidency will be 'Better Together,' stressing that the world is 'walking on a tightrope of uncertainty' in very challenging times. The birth of the United Nations on the ashes of World War II 'reminds us: We have lived through difficult times before,' she said. 'And it is up to us to take up these challenges.' Baerbock pointed to more than 120 armed conflicts around the world today as another reminder that the U.N.'s primary mission, 'to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,' remains unaccomplished. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Baerback will take the presidency as the world faces not only 'conflicts, climate catastrophe, poverty and inequality' but divisions and mistrust. 'Aid and development funding are drying up, and our institutions and structures still reflect the world of yesterday, not a vision of tomorrow,' he said. 'This is a moment for us to unite, to forge common solutions, and to take action to confront these challenges.' Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press
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4 hours ago
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World chess champ Magnus Carlsen slams table after defeat to Gukesh Dommaraju
Watch World chess champ Magnus Carlsen slammed his fist on the table after losing to 19-year-old reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju in Norway.
CTV News
6 hours ago
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Milky Way may not be destroyed in galactic smash-up after all
This photo illustration depicts a view of the night sky just before the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. (NASA) PARIS, France — The Milky Way may not have a catastrophic collision with another huge galaxy as has been predicted, computer simulations revealed Monday, giving our home galaxy a coin-flip chance of avoiding destruction. But don't worry either way: no galactic smash-up is expected for billions of years, long after our ageing Sun will have burnt away all life on Earth. The Milky Way and the even-larger galaxy Andromeda are speeding towards each other at 100 kilometres (60 miles) a second, and scientists have long predicted they will collide in around 4.5 billion years. That would be bad news for our neighbourhood. Previous research has suggested that the Sun - and our Earth - could wind up in the centre of this newly merged 'Milkomeda' galaxy and get sucked into its supermassive black hole. Alternatively, the Sun could be shot out into the emptiness of intergalactic space. However 'proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated', according to a new study in the journal Nature Astronomy. There is only a roughly 50 per cent chance the Milky Way and Andromeda will smash into each other in the next 10 billion years, the international team of astrophysicists determined. 'It's basically a coin flip,' lead study author Till Sawala of the University of Helsinki told AFP. The researchers ran more than 100,000 computer simulations of our universe's future, using new observations from space telescopes. A galaxy merger in the next five billion years is 'extremely unlikely', Sawala said. Much more likely is that the galaxies will zoom relatively close to each other -- say, a little under 500,000 light years away. In only half of the simulations did dark matter then eventually drag the two galaxies together into a cataclysmic embrace. But this would likely only occur in around eight billion years -- long after our Sun has died, the researchers found. 'So it could be that our galaxy will end up destroyed,' Sawala said. 'But it's also possible that our galaxy and Andromeda will orbit one another for tens of billions of years -- we just don't know.' possible encounter scenarios between our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. These galaxy images illustrate three possible encounter scenarios between our Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Top left: Galaxies M81 and M82. Top right: NGC 6786, a pair of interacting galaxies. Bottom: NGC 520, two merging galaxies. (NASA) Galaxy's fate 'open' 'The fate of our galaxy is still completely open,' the study summarised. The researchers emphasised that their findings did not mean that previous calculations were incorrect, just that they had used newer observations and taken into account the effect of more satellite galaxies. Future data releases from Europe's recently retired Gaia space telescope as well as Hubble could provide a definitive answer to this question within the next decade, Sawala predicted. How much all this all matters to us is a matter of debate. The Sun is expected to make Earth inhospitable to life in around a billion years. 'We might have some emotional attachment' to what happens after we're gone, Sawala said. 'I might prefer the Milky Way not to collide with Andromeda, even though it has absolutely no relevance to my own life -- or the lives of my children or great-great grandchildren.' Article by Daniel Lawler.
