World

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter with the Australia bureau.Meet an Australian supermodel for the ages: six feet tall with a sculptured visage, endless legs and piercing orange eyes.“They’re the glamour animal for the rainforest, here in North Queensland,” said Justin McMahon, a land manager for Rainforest Rescue, an environmental nonprofit that protects and restores the Australian rainforest.But the southern cassowary, a secretive, emu-like bird famed for its killer kick and razor-sharp, throat-slitting talons on each foot, isn’t just a pretty face.As the draft of a government recovery plan for the species released this week describes, the birds are what is known as ...

President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus said that the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny V. Prigozhin had arrived in Belarus on Tuesday, the state news agency reported, the first indication of Mr. Prigozhin’s whereabouts since he was promised sanctuary to end a brief rebellion that threw Moscow into crisis.The Belarusian leader also spoke in depth for the first time about what he said was his role in the negotiations between Mr. Prigozhin and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and he addressed what he called rumors about the role that the mercenary group might play in Belarus.As part of the deal, Mr. Prigozhin was allowed to go to Belarus and a criminal case against him and his fighters was dropped. Wagner fighters were given the choice of joining him in Belarus or being incorporated...

Voters in Toronto chose Olivia Chow, a left-leaning, veteran politician, as their new mayor at a moment when the city is confronting a litany of issues that are also facing other urban powerhouses trying to rebound from the pandemic.Ms. Chow ran on a platform vowing to “build a Toronto that’s caring, affordable and safe,” and she emerged with the most votes of the 102 mayoral candidates on the ballot, a record for Toronto, and one that underscores the public’s discontent with the city’s direction.“If you ever questioned your faith in a better future and what we can do with each other, for each other, tonight is your answer,” Ms. Chow said to a crowd of supporters during her victory speech.She won with 37.17 percent of the vote. Her nearest challenger, Ana Bailão, who had been endorsed by ...

A visibly angry Vladimir V. Putin on Monday denounced as “blackmail” a weekend rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group even as he defended his response to the mutiny and hinted at leniency for those who took part, saying that “the entire Russian society united” around his government.Speaking publicly for the first time in two days, Mr. Putin, in an address broadcast on Monday night, refused to utter the name of the Wagner boss behind the insurrection, Yevgeny V. Prighozhin. But his contempt was clear for those who had seemed, briefly, to threaten civil war and upend Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces are mounting a counteroffensive.“They wanted Russians to fight each other,” said Mr. Putin, Russia’s president. “They rubbed their hands, dreaming of taking revenge for th...

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group who mounted a brief uprising against Russia’s military command over the weekend, broke a long period of silence on Monday to deny, once more, that he had any intention of seizing power with his march on Moscow.“We went to demonstrate our protest, and not to overthrow the government in the country,” he said in an 11-minute, stream-of-consciousness voice memo published on the messaging app Telegram. The statement renewed his sharp criticism of Russia’s military leadership, both for what he claims was shabby treatment of his fighters and its handling of the invasion of Ukraine.Mr. Prigozhin said the protest was aimed at a move by the Ministry of Defense to force his mercenaries to sign contracts with the government, which he said...