Man in 30's and woman in 70's dead after fire at Co Galway home
Western Correspondent, Pat McGrath reports on a house fire in Connemara this morning, resulting in the death of two people.
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The Irish Sun
a day ago
- The Irish Sun
Billionaire ‘supersperm' donor to leave vast fortune to his 106 children… and he's so rich they'll STILL get £160m each
THE billionaire founder of Telegram has made a new will - splitting his £17bn fortune among his 106 kids. Pavel Durov, 40, says he'll treat all his children equally, whether born via sperm donation or 'naturally'. 5 Pavel Durov is a Russian billionaire entrepreneur and the founder of Telegram Credit: East2West 5 The tech tycoon says he'll split his fortune among his 106 children Credit: East2West 5 Allegedly, three of the six kids that Durov fathered 'naturally' Credit: East2West The self-exiled Russian tycoon Durov said: 'I want them to live like normal people, to build their lives on their own, to learn to trust themselves, to be able to create - not to be dependent on a bank account.' Durov is the founder of Telegram messenger, which is known for its focus on privacy and encrypted messaging and boasts over a billion monthly active users worldwide. Dubbed the Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk of Russia, the tech tycoon has an estimated net worth of £17 billion. Read more world news He told the magazine he drafted his will because he feels threatened after refusing to share user data with the secret services of Russia and Western countries. Durov said: 'My work involves risks - defending freedoms earns you many enemies, including within powerful states. 'I want to protect my children, but also the company I created, Telegram. 'I want Telegram to always remain true to the values I stand for.' Most read in The US Sun Discussing his alleged 106 kids, he said: 'I decided that my children will not have access to my fortune until a period of 30 years has passed, starting from today… 'I want to make it clear that I make no distinction between my children: there are those who were conceived naturally, and those born from my sperm donations. 'They are all my children and they will all have the same rights. 'I don't want them to tear each other apart after my death.' 5 Durov with girlfriend Yulia Vavilova Credit: East2West 5 Durov is currently under investigation Credit: East2West Telegram founder Pavel Durov faces four more days of questioning after arrest over 'failing to stop terrorism' on app Durov said he has six children, for whom he is the 'official father, with three different partners. 'The others were born from my anonymous donations. 'The [Russian] clinic where I started donating sperm 15 years ago - to help a friend - told me that over 100 babies have been conceived this way in 12 countries.' He added: 'I have a newborn son - I'm missing his first months. 'He doesn't even have a passport because I wasn't at his birth in Dubai.' Durov is also a French citizen and currently lives in France, where he is under investigation. He was Authorities claimed Telegram's lack of moderation, limited cooperation with When Durov refused to hand over data on Ukrainian protesters to Russian security agencies, he was effectively forced to give up his company and move abroad in 2014. He said the French investigation into his affairs was 'completely absurd', adding, "Just because criminals use our messaging service among many others doesn't make those who run it criminals." He said: 'Telegram staff can't see or read user messages. 'That's why we've never revealed a single private message. 'If a court flags a user ID in a criminal case, we review metadata - IP address, phone number. That's it.' Telegram is widely used by both Russia and Ukrainian sides in the war. What is Telegram? TELEGRAM is a cloud-based instant messaging app that was launched in 2013 by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai Durov. Telegram became widely known for its strong emphasis on privacy and security, offering end-to-end encrypted messaging, channels for broadcasting to large audiences, and features including self-destructing messages. Telegram's commitment to privacy has made it popular with users around the world, but it has also attracted criticism from governments, which claim that the app is used by criminals and terrorists to communicate without detection.
RTÉ News
a day ago
- RTÉ News
Deforestation in Sierra Leone national park threatens chimps, humans alike
Esther and Rio, two orphaned baby chimpanzees, clung tenderly to their caregiver's chest at a sanctuary inside one of Sierra Leone's flagship national parks, where unprecedented deforestation and illegal urban encroachment pose a risk to both primates and humans. The young apes, who arrived at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary when they were just three months old, listened with wide eyes as other chimps screeched and played nearby. The park's dense vegetation, stifling heat and the metallic fever pitch of reverberating insects served as a backdrop for the country's spectacular biodiversity, which includes several protected species. While the sanctuary rehabilitates orphaned Western chimpanzees, it is also a leading site for wildlife research and conservation education programmes. It is extremely popular with tourists - but its keepers have defiantly kept it closed since late May. The protest is meant to spur the government into action over the rapid environmental degradation taking place in the national park where it is located. The deterioration does not just affect the chimps, experts say, but also inhabitants of the wider region including the nearby capital of Freetown, home to some two million people. Situated just 15km from the overcrowded metropolis, the sanctuary lies inside the country's Western Area Peninsula National Park (WAP-NP). Mining, logging and urban development have claimed vast swaths of the verdant park. Meanwhile, poachers place traps dangerously close to the terrain for the sanctuary's Western chimpanzees, which are listed as "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Since 2000, Sierra Leone has lost 39% of its forest cover, according to monitoring site Global Forest Watch. And of the 18,000 hectares (44,500 acres) of forest in WAP-NP, almost a third has been ruined or severely degraded since 2012. "The last two (or) three years we have seen an increase of chimpanzees rescued, simply because you have a lot of degradation outside where wild populations are," sanctuary director Bala Amarasekaran, who founded the facility in 1995, said. Freetown threatened The dangers of deforestation extend well beyond chimpanzees, however, and also threaten humans, particularly those in Freetown whose water supply is controlled by the Guma Dam, located inside WAP-NP. The enormous structure sits about 6km south of the chimpanzee sanctuary and is surrounded by a green, old-growth tropical rainforest. In the valley below the dam, urbanisation is highly visible. The sprawl causes runoff which contains extra silt and sediment that collects in the dam's reservoir and creates sanitation issues, especially in the long rainy season. "This settlement did not exist three years ago," Maada Kpenge, managing director of the Guma Valley Water Company, said. But "every year a few houses get added to it" he said, stating that the squatting residents claim to own the land legitimately. "Every year we lose thousands of hectares of the forest," he said, adding that in 10 or 15 years' time there will be hardly any forest left. Without the trees to help regulate the water cycle and capture and retain water, the dam's level will additionally drop drastically. Under such circumstances, "living in Freetown would be a challenge, almost impossible," Kpenge said. The government faults opaque and corrupt land allocation practices carried out in the past, while highlighting new, stricter laws on land ownership that it says are helping. But activists and experts say the new regulations are not being adequately enforced. Ranger patrol AFP was able to follow a team of underequipped rangers who are attempting to enforce the rules and keep deforestation at bay. "We have so many challenges in the national park and so many (illegal) activities," Alpha Mara, commander of the forest guards within the National Protected Area Authority (NPAA), said. On the day AFP spoke with Mara, he and about 20 other rangers packed into one pickup truck to check on six sites located in the park and its buffer zone. Except for one man with a machete, the guards lacked weapons or protective gear to fend off traffickers and squatters. To tear down illicitly constructed structures or remove beams demarcating land that had been claimed illegally, the men used their bare hands. At one site, the ranger with a machete slashed the sheet metal of shacks. Suddenly, a terrified young woman emerged from one, holding a crying baby. The woman, Famata Turay, explained that her husband worked guarding the piece of land and was paid by a wealthy person living abroad who claimed it as his own. "This is illegal construction," ranger Ibrahim Kamara told her as he wrote up a report on the site. Turay said defiantly that she had been unaware. "I feel bad because I don't have any other place to sleep," she said after the rangers left, sobbing as she looked at her half-destroyed shack. Institutional failure Because of deforestation, already extreme temperatures could become unbearable for the majority of residents in Freetown and the surrounding region, experts warn. Deforestation also exacerbates soil erosion, which is already dire during the country's rainy season, as evidenced by Africa's deadliest ever landslide, which struck in Freetown in 2017 and killed 1,141 people. Back at the Tacugama sanctuary, its founder Amarasekaran was appalled at what he saw as the government's institutional failure. If someone is breaking the law, "there should be penalties, there should be prosecution (but) that is not happening," he said. The orphan chimps often arrive malnourished and disabled. Some additionally suffer from gunshot or machete wounds while others were caught by poachers then kept as pets in villages. Even after orphans such as Esther and Rio are rehabilitated, they must still spend the rest of their lives living on the sanctuary's dozens of hectares of protected wilderness, alongside some 120 other chimps. The apes have made Tacugama the country's "number one ecotourism destination", Amarasekaran said.
The Irish Sun
4 days ago
- The Irish Sun
Russia bombards Kyiv with deadliest strike in months with 14 killed as NATO warplanes scrambled on the border
AT least 14 people have been killed in one of the deadliest attacks on the Ukrainian capital in months. Waves of Russian drones and missiles blitzed Kyiv in a nine hour long attack - with dozens injured. 2 A rescue worker looks for survivors in the rubble of a multi-storey residential house destroyed by a Russian strike in Kyiv 2 An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike Vladimir Putin's assault blasted 27 locations around the capital, damaging scores of buildings and critical infrastructure facilities, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Branding it one of the largest attacks on the city since Russia invaded in February 2022, he said: "Today, the enemy spared neither drones nor missiles." A total of 14 people have been confirmed dead so far, among them a 62-year-old American citizen. Authorities say at least 44 others have been wounded in strikes on the capital that lasted almost nine hours. Rescuers are continuing to sift through the rubble of residential apartment blocks hit by 175 drones, over 14 cruise missiles and at least two ballistic missiles by Putin's forces. Cruel Vlad's attack lasted nearly nine hours and is the latest in a spate of mass drone and missile attacks on Kyiv. Further blasts in the southern port city of Odesa also injured 13 people, including one child, according to regional governor Oleh Kiper. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: 'In Kyiv, people are currently trying to get out of the rubble of an ordinary residential building. It is not clear how many there are. Most read in The US Sun "The Russians destroyed an entire entrance.' Poland's military operational commander announced that Nato aircraft had been scrambled amid intense Russian strikes on neighbouring Ukraine. It comes as world leaders met at the Group of Seven meeting in Canada - which Zelensky is expected to attend. The war leader called on Western allies to "finally react the way a civilised society reacts to terrorists". He added: "Putin is doing this solely because he can afford to continue the war. "He wants the war to continue. "It is bad when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to this. "We are contacting all partners at all possible levels so that there is an appropriate response. Read more on the Irish Sun "It is the terrorists who should feel the pain, not normal, peaceful people.' Zelensky was set to meet Donald Trump in Canada on Tuesday, but the US leader unexpectedly returned to Washington on Monday night instead of Tuesday because of tensions in the Middle East.
