Footage shows figure believed to be Zheng Xiyuan kicking down poster and pulling pro-democracy protester’s hair
One of China’s most senior diplomats in the UK was involved in the violence against pro-democracy protesters at the Manchester consulate, a British MP has said.
Alicia Kearns, a Conservative MP, told the House of Commons that Beijing’s consul general in Manchester, Zheng Xiyuan, was seen “ripping down posters” before a Hong Kong campaigner was attacked on Sunday.
Continue reading...Rio’s heavily armed paramilitary groups have exploded in influence in recent years to wield power over dozens of communities
The theme from Mel Gibson’s Braveheart filled the air as the man accused of helping spawn Rio’s paramilitary mafia movement was lowered into the soils of a graveyard called the Garden of Longing. Fireworks exploded overhead.
“My brother was a noble man with a magnificent heart,” said the dead man’s sibling, Natalino Guimarães, as he and hundreds of mourners prepared to say their last goodbye.
Continue reading...In interview from capital, Saleh Kebzabo says he wants powerful rebels to join transitional government
Chad’s new prime minister has said that uniting the population “is the only way forward” for the chronically unstable African country after its president, Mahamat Idriss Déby, appointed him to head an interim national unity administration.
Saleh Kebzabo, 75, a former opposition figure and journalist, has been tasked with leading the country towards the first free and fair elections in its political history.
Continue reading...Closure of major road bridge linking Essex and Kent causes fresh rush-hour delays
Just Stop Oil protesters remain on top of the M25 Dartford Crossing, threatening another day of commuter chaos.
The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge linking Essex and Kent was closed after it was scaled by two climbers from the group, whose demands include that the government “halts all new oil and gas licences and consents”.
Continue reading...PM Yair Lapid says he’s ‘deeply disappointed’ in the ‘hasty’ foreign policy shift and has summoned Australia’s ambassador to explain
Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, has criticised Labor’s decision to drop the recognition of West Jerusalem as that country’s capital and Australia’s ambassador has been summoned to explain.
Lapid has accused the Australian government of a “hasty” foreign policy shift, after it reversed the previous government’s decision.
Continue reading...After being involved in same wreck, Megan Warfield felt contractions start but stayed to help trapped woman
Megan Warfield, a firefighter in Baltimore county, Maryland, was nine months’ pregnant with her third child when the car she was riding in crashed and she began to experience contractions.
But she didn’t allow herself to go to the hospital and give birth until after helping free a woman trapped under another car in the wreck, actions that drew widespread praise.
Continue reading...Fresh protests ignited around Iran by 16-year-old Asra Panahi’s death after schoolgirls assaulted in raid on high school in Ardabil
Another schoolgirl has reportedly been killed by the Iranian security services after she was beaten in her classroom for refusing to sing a pro-regime song when her school was raided last week, sparking further protests across the country this weekend.
According to the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, 16-year-old Asra Panahi died after security forces raided the Shahed girls high school in Ardabil on 13 October and demanded a group of girls sing an anthem that praises Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Continue reading...UNFPA head urges countries to focus on helping women, children and marginalised people most vulnerable to demographic change
The world must not engage in “population alarmism” as the number of people living on Earth nears 8 billion, a senior UN official has said.
The global population is projected to reach that milestone on 15 November, with some commentators expressing worries about the impact of the growing number on a world already struggling with huge inequality, the climate crisis, and conflict-fuelled displacement and migration.
Continue reading...Governments across the continent have announced a range of measures to tackle any energy shortages this winter
Paris is switching off the Eiffel Tower lights an hour early, Milan has turned off public fountains, and Hanover is offering gym users cold rather than hot showers in an effort to combat potential energy shortages this winter.
At the same time, the public are being encouraged to do their bit by avoiding using household appliances between 4pm and 7pm, stock up on blankets and slow down their driving.
Continue reading...In Kyoto, local shop owners are ready to welcome back tourists but there is a way to go before a return to pre-Covid days
After more than two years of near-total isolation, Japan has reopened its borders to overseas visitors – but the road back to the pre-Covid tourism boom could be long and bumpy.
Last week, the country lifted some of the strictest pandemic border controls in the world when it removed a 50,000 daily cap on arrivals, reinstated waivers for short-term visas and dropped a rule requiring tourists to visit as part of group tours.
Continue reading...Former and serving pilots told not to disclose sensitive information, in attempt to ‘mitigate risk’ of schemes
British defence intelligence is to issue a rare “threat alert”, warning that China’s military is trying to recruit serving and former RAF jet pilots to help train its own air force with generous recruitment packages.
Officials expressed “concern and disapproval” of these schemes because they posed “a threat to UK and western interests”. Although they are not explicitly banning pilots from providing training, they aim to take steps to “manage the risk”.
Continue reading...Residential building in Yeysk, near the Ukraine border, hit by Su-34 fighter-bomber, says defence ministry
A Russian military jet has crashed into a residential building shortly after taking off near the border with Ukraine, sparking a major fire that has reportedly left at least 13 people dead, according to Russian news agency Interfax, citing a senior official.
Video and photographs uploaded to social media on Monday showed a residential building engulfed in flames in Yeysk, a port and resort town in Russia located just south of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol across the Sea of Azov.
Continue reading...Scheduled session brought forward in view of dire conditions – rampant gang violence, a cholera outbreak and escalating famine
The US and Mexico have proposed the deployment of a multinational force in Haiti to help break the stranglehold of gangs over the distribution of fuel, water and other basic goods.
Presenting a resolution at a special session of the UN security council on Monday, the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called for “a limited carefully-scoped non-UN mission led by a partner country with the deep, necessary experience”.
Continue reading...Judges described the Sri Lankan author’s second novel as a ‘rollercoaster journey through life and death’ and praised its audacity and ambition
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the Booker prize for fiction. The judges praised the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”.
Karunatilaka’s second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida comes more than a decade after his debut, Chinaman, which was published in 2011. The Booker-winning novel tells the story of the photographer of its title, who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. With no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Mark Fullbrook said to have acted as Fathi Bashagha’s PR adviser, as officials were lobbied on foreign policy
Mark Fullbrook, the No 10 chief of staff, accompanied a controversial Libyan politician involved in an attempted military coup to a meeting in the Foreign Office to lobby officials on foreign policy, it has emerged, raising further questions over his influence.
Labour has said Fullbrook’s position as Liz Truss’s most senior official is “untenable” after it was revealed that he facilitated unofficial meetings in June with senior cabinet ministers for Fathi Bashagha, a Libyan politician. Bashagha, who is seeking international support as a rival prime minister, has links to the Russian Wagner Group and a military strongman in the east of the country.
Continue reading...Nikolai Avtukhovich, leader of group, sentenced to 25 years, says human rights NGO Viasna
A Belarus court has handed down prison sentences ranging from two-and-a-half to 25 years to a dozen opposition activists accused of terrorism and treason, the human rights NGO Viasna has said.
Nikolai Avtukhovich, the leader of the activist group, had been sentenced to 25 years, Viasna said on Telegram, in one of the heaviest sentences handed down recently in the reclusive country.
Continue reading...Fighter plane hits residential building in southern Russian city of Yeysk; Ukraine says it is first all-female exchange with Moscow. This blog is now closed
A large fire has broken out at an energy plant in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city, following strikes early on Monday morning, Reuters reports, citing the Dnipro mayor.
The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh is sheltering in an underpass at Kyiv station, near to where this morning’s attacks occurred:
Continue reading...Major retailers will begin selling hearing aids over the counter without a prescription and at a much lower cost, as part of a new Biden administration rule that take effect today.
“Starting today, hearings aids are now on store shelves across the country — for thousands of dollars less than they previously cost,” the White House said in a fact sheet on Monday.
Continue reading...Baton Rouge resident Patrick Ford discovers sunken Brookhill trading ship as lack of rainfall creates record-low water levels
Remains of a 19th-century ship were found in Louisiana’s capital as widespread drought creates record-low water levels in the Mississippi River.
Baton Rouge resident Patrick Ford discovered the trading ship during one of his daily searches of the Mississippi riverfront for artifacts, the local news station WBRZ reported.
Continue reading...The difficulties involved in freeing Brittney Griner from her imprisonment in Russia were brought into stark relief this weekend when a senior aide to Vladimir Putin said the issue is not a priority for the Russian president.
In August, the basketball star was given a nine-year prison sentence for bringing a small amount of cannabis oil into Russia. The 31-year-old said she uses the drug to treat pain and has lodged an appeal against her sentence.
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