Around the world

North America There are some photo opportunities all self-respecting prime ministers will try to avoid. Like standing in front of a Nazi flag. Or admiring Hitler’s black Grosser Mercedes parade car. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott deftly avoided both when he visited the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Faced with a corridor featuring the two prized World War II artefacts, Abbott — surrounded by TV crews and photographers — stepped up the pace and headed to some firsthand footage of the 1944 D-Day landings. If not for his fleet-footed manoeuvre the images could have been devastating. It was later revealed Abbott had presented some Australian artefacts to the museum. The Australian War Memorial will loan its Canadian counterpart its William Longstaff painting for an exhibition in Ottawa on Canadians serving in Belgium in World War I. A set of 32 lithographs of drawings of Australians soldiers on the Western Front by William Henry Dyson will also be loaned. Latin America Sao Paulo subway workers have ignored a court ruling and extended a strike threatening to cause traffic chaos at the World Cup’s opening game in Brazil’s biggest city. The subway staff’s union voted to press on with the strike hours after a labour court ruled it was illegal and imposed a hefty fine for every day they fail to work. The strike has already caused huge traffic jams in the business hub of 20 million people as the city’s new stadium prepares to welcome more than 60,000 fans for Friday’s Brazil-Croatia game. Asia/Oceania Police say 24 students are feared drowned after they were swept away by strong waters in a river near a mountainous tourist resort in northern India. Police officer Dina Nath said a sudden discharge of water into the Beas River from a dam upstream took the students by surprise while they were taking pictures on a riverbank near Manali, 530km north of New Delhi. The engineering students had come to the tourist town in Himachal Pradesh state from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Europe Ireland should investigate the Catholic Church’s mistreatment and burial of babies who died decades ago in nun-operated homes for unmarried mothers, a senior church official has declared as the country confronts another shameful chapter of its history of child abuse. Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin made his appeal after revelations that hundreds of children who died inside a former Church-run residence for infants were buried in unmarked graves at the site in western Ireland. Middle East Declaring that Egypt had reached a “historic turning point”, Abdulfattah al-Sisi, the former head of the country’s military, was sworn in as President yesterday for a four-year term at the helm of a nation beset by unrest and economic problems. The retired field marshal used his first speech to the nation to highlight the fight against terrorism as his most pressing task. Referring to his Islamist opponents, the President gave a warning that there would be “no leniency” for acts of violence.