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A golfer who was caught up in a climate change protest that disrupted the end of a PGA tournament in the US has said he was “scared for my life”.

Akshay Bhatia was finishing his final round of the Travellers Championship in Connecticut, alongside Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim, when Extinction Rebellion activists stormed the 18th green, spraying coloured smoke and powder.

Six protesters, some of whom were wearing T-shirts with the slogan “NO GOLF ON A DEAD PLANET”, were tackled by police and arrested following the stunt on Sunday afternoon.

CROMWELL, CT - JUNE 23: Protesters are arrested after running onto the 18th green during the final round of the 2024 Travelers Championship on June 23, 2024, at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, CT. (Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire) (Icon Sportswire via AP Images)
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Pic: AP

Bhatia said: “I was scared for my life. I didn’t even really know what was happening. But thankfully the cops were there and kept us safe, because that’s, you know, that’s just weird stuff.”

It came after the tournament was also delayed on Saturday when three people were injured after lightning struck a tree close to the course.

CROMWELL, CT - JUNE 23: Protesters run onto the 18th green during the final round of the 2024 Travelers Championship on June 23, 2024, at TPC River Highlands in Cromwell, CT. (Photo by M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire) (Icon Sportswire via AP Images)
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A protester faces off with a police officer. Pic: AP

The protest caused a delay to play of around five minutes. The tournament was later won by Scheffler in a play-off.

The world number one, who was himself arrested while driving during last month’s PGA Championship, praised the police response. He said officers “got it taken care of pretty dang fast, and so we were very grateful for that”.

Mr Scheffler added: “When something like that happens, you don’t really know what’s happening, so it can kind of rattle you a little bit.

“That can be a stressful situation, and you would hate for the tournament to end on something weird happening because of a situation like that.”

Jun 23, 2024; Cromwell, Connecticut, USA; Scottie Scheffler and Akshay Bhatia wait while the eighteenth hole green is attended to after protesters spread powder during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands. Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports
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Scottie Scheffler (left), Akshay Bhatia (middle) and a member of staff (right) wait as police remove the protesters. Pic: Reuters

Extinction Rebellion blamed climate change for the lightning and wider storm on Saturday, telling the AP news agency it was “due to increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather conditions”.

“Golf, more than other events, is heavily reliant on good weather. Golf fans should therefore understand better than most the need for strong, immediate climate action,” the group said.

Protesters are taken into custody after they ran onto the course as Akshay Bhatia, left, walks away on the 18th hole during the final round of the Travelers Championship golf tournament at TPC River Highlands, Sunday, June 23, 2024, in Cromwell, Conn. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
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Police made six arrests. Pic: AP

Some of the crowd around the 18th green booed and shouted insults at the protesters during the incident. At one point they also chanted “U-S-A”.

The smoke bombs and powder left behind a white and red residue on the putting surface, which was cleaned up by groundstaff using leaf blowers.

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Fellow golfer Kim said: “They left a lot of marks on the greens, which is not right for us players – especially when two guys are trying to win a golf tournament.

“But I’m very grateful for the tour and the tour security for handling that really well and making us players feel a lot safer.”

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Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney apologises to Donald Trump over anti-tariff advert featuring Ronald Reagan

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Canada's prime minister Mark Carney apologises to Donald Trump over anti-tariff advert featuring Ronald Reagan

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has apologised to Donald Trump over an anti-tariff advert featuring a clip of Ronald Reagan.

Speaking at the Asia-Pacific summit in South Korea, he also said he had reviewed the commercial and told Ontario Premier Doug Ford not to air it.

“I did apologise to the president,” Mr Carney said on Saturday, confirming earlier comments made by the US president on Friday.

“I told [Doug] Ford I did not want to go forward with the ad,” he added.

The private conversation with Mr Trump happened at a dinner hosted by South Korea’s president on Wednesday.

The commercial, commissioned by Mr Ford, included a quote from Republican former president Ronald Reagan saying that tariffs cause trade wars and economic disaster.

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Mr Trump said the advert was misleading and, in response, announced that he was increasing tariffs on goods from Canada and halting trade talks with Canada.

In a post on Truth Social, he wrote: “Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now.”

It prompted the Ontario premier to pull the ad.

On Friday, the US president expressed his irritation at the advert but also told reporters he had accepted Mr Carney’s apology.

“I like him [Carney] a lot but what they did was wrong,” he said.

“He apologised for what they did with the commercial because it was a false commercial.”

But, critically, he added that the US and Canada will not restart trade talks.

Mr Ford has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s tariffs and trade policies, which are hurting Ontario’s carmakers and steel industry.

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The ad by the Ontario government has a voiceover of Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs on foreign goods while saying they cause job losses and trade wars.

The video uses five complete sentences from a five-minute weekly address recorded in 1987, but edited together out of order.

The ad does not mention that the former US president was explaining that tariffs imposed on Japan by his administration should be seen as a sadly unavoidable exception to his basic belief in free trade as the key to prosperity.

Meanwhile, Mr Carney said his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday were a turning point in relations after years of tensions.

He also met Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the sidelines of the summit.

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Donald Trump calls Nigeria ‘country of particular concern’ due to ‘slaughter’ of Christians

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Donald Trump calls Nigeria 'country of particular concern' due to 'slaughter' of Christians

Donald Trump has said he is designating Nigeria a “country of particular concern” as “thousands of Christians” are being killed there.

Posting on Truth Social, he said radical Islamists are committing “mass slaughter” and Christianity is “facing an existential threat” in the West African nation.

The US president said he was asking officials to “immediately look into this matter, and report back to me”.

Mr Trump quoted figures suggesting 3,100 Christians had been killed in Nigeria, but did not state any source for the numbers or timeframe.

He stated: “We stand ready, willing, and able to save our Great Christian population around the World!”

Nigeria now joins North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and China on a list of countries “of particular concern” due to violations of religious freedom.

The move is one step before possible sanctions – which could mean a ban on all non-humanitarian aid.

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The Nigerian government has vehemently rejected the claims. Analysts have said that, while Christians are among those targeted, the majority of victims of armed groups are Muslims in the country’s Muslim-majority north, where the most attacks take place.

Mr Trump’s move follows efforts by Republican senator Ted Cruz to get fellow evangelical Christians to lobby Congress over claims of “Christian mass murder” in Nigeria.

Boko Haram – which kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls in 2014 – is the main group cited in previous warnings by US and international governments.

The group has committed “egregious violations of religious freedom”, according to a 2021 report by the bipartisan US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

It said more than 37,000 people had been killed by Islamist groups in Nigeria since 2011.

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Churches and Christian neighbourhoods have been targeted in the past, but experts say Muslims are the most common victims of Boko Haram attacks, which routinely target the police, military and government.

Other groups operating said to be operating in the country include Boko Haram offshoot Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP).

About half of Nigeria’s population is estimated to be Muslim, who mostly live in the north, with roughly the other half following Christianity.

US travellers are currently urged to “reconsider” travel to Nigeria due to a threat of terrorism, crime, kidnapping and armed gangs. The UK advises its citizens along similar lines.

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Donald Trump announces dramatic drop in US refugee intake, with most of them white South Africans

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Donald Trump announces dramatic drop in US refugee intake, with most of them white South Africans

The US is drastically cutting the number of refugees it will allow into the country to 7,500, and giving priority to white South Africans.

The new figure, announced on Thursday in a memo in the Federal Registry, the official journal of the US administration, is a dramatic reduction from last year’s 125,000, set by former president Joe Biden.

No reason was given for the decrease, but the note said the admission of the 7,500 refugees during the 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.

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The notice posted to the register’s website said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.

It is half the 15,000 total set for 2021 during Donald Trump’s first term in office at the height of the COVID pandemic, which reports said was the previous lowest refugee admissions cap.

Refugee rights groups were quick to condemn the proposal, with International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) president Sharif Aly, saying that by “privileging Afrikaners while continuing to ban thousands of refugees who have already been vetted and approved, the administration is once again politicising a humanitarian programme”.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of Global Refuge, said: “Concentrating the vast majority of admissions on one group undermines the programme’s purpose as well as its credibility.”

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Human Rights First president, Uzra Zeya, called it a “new low point” in US foreign policy, which will “further destabilise front-line states that host over two-thirds of the world’s nearly 43 million refugees, undermining US national security in tandem”.

US President Donald Trump showed South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa printed-out articles in the Oval Office. Pic: AP
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US President Donald Trump showed South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa printed-out articles in the Oval Office. Pic: AP

In May, Mr Trump confronted South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House, claiming white farmers in his nation were being killed and “persecuted”.

A video purporting to show burial sites for murdered white farmers was played but was later shown to be scenes from a 2020 protest in which the crosses represented farmers killed over multiple years.

The South African government has vehemently denied that Afrikaners and other white South Africans are being persecuted.

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In January, the US president suspended the US Refugee Admissions Programme (USRAP) to, in his words, allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.

During the Oval Office meeting, Mr Ramaphosa said only that he hoped that Trump officials would listen to South Africans about the issue, and later said he believed there is “doubt and disbelief about all this in [Mr Trump’s] head”.

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