Category Archives: World News

Japan opens borders to tourists as last pandemic travel restrictions eased

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Japan removes strict Covid-19 travel curbs, fuelling hopes a tourist boom will reinvigorate the economy

Japan has fully opened its doors to visitors after more than two years of pandemic isolation.

On Tuesday, the country reinstated visa-free travel to dozens of countries, ending some of world’s strictest Covid-19 border controls. Japan has also lifted the 50,000-person entry cap and ended the requirement for tourists to travel as part of tour groups, Kyodo news agency reported.

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Half of poorest countries have cut health spending despite Covid, says Oxfam

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Analysis of budgets finds rich nations, including UK, ‘exacerbated explosion of economic inequality’

Many of the world’s poorest countries have cut health spending during the last two years, sometimes to make debt repayments to rich creditors, according to a report by Oxfam that shows inequality between rich and poor nations worsening during the coronavirus pandemic.

Analysis of national budgets across 161 nations found that despite the biggest global health emergency in a century, half of low- and lower-middle-income countries cut health spending, while almost half cut their welfare budgets and almost three-quarters cut education spending.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: US and UN condemn brutality and escalation after deadly wave of missile strikes across Ukraine

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Biden deplores Putin’s ‘utter brutality’ while Guterres ‘deeply shocked’ by Russia’s most widespread air strikes since start of invasion

Meanwhile, a series of images shared by Zaporizhzhia’s administrative head Anatoly Kurtev shows the aftermath of the overnight missile attack.

A series of blasts have rocked Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, according to local media reports and regional officials.

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GCHQ head: Putin making strategic errors due to unconstrained power

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British spy agency director to say in rare public address that Ukraine is ‘turning the tide’ against Russia

Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.

Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming is expected to add in a rare public address.

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Ukraine to demand step-change in western aid after Russian missile blitz

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Kyiv presses military and diplomatic wishlist as French president sees ‘profound change in nature of this war’

Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address G7 leaders on Tuesday to demand a significant increase in their military and diplomatic support after the biggest Russian missile attack on Ukrainian cities since the start of the war.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the attack, in which cruise missiles and armed drones rained down on parks, playgrounds, power stations and other civilian targets, as “a profound change in the nature of this war”.

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‘This only unites us’: defiance as deadly strikes bring war back to Kyiv

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Series of missiles shatter several months of calm but normal life quickly returns amid the destruction

Shevchenko Park in central Kyiv is a tranquil public garden, where the trees are turning golden against the city’s blue, autumnal skies. Presiding over the park is a statue of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet, persecuted by the Russians in the 19th century for writing in Ukrainian.

But on Monday that sense of calm was violently shattered when a series of missiles hit the city centre. War had returned to what had been, for several months, a mostly peaceful – if anxious – city.

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Uffizi Galleries sue Jean Paul Gaultier over use of Botticelli images

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Any use of Italy’s publicly owned art to sell merchandise requires permission and payment of a fee

Italy’s Uffizi Galleries are suing the French fashion house Jean Paul Gaultier for damages that could exceed €100,000 (£88,000) after the company’s allegedly unauthorised use of images of Botticelli’s Renaissance masterpiece The Birth of Venus to adorn a range of clothing products, including T-shirts, leggings and bodices.

The matter came to light earlier this year after the Uffizi in Florence was notified of the garments being advertised by Jean Paul Gaultier on its website and social media.

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Gunshots and blasts heard at Mahsa Amini protests in Iran

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Government officials struggle to end demonstrations sparked by death in police custody of Kurdish woman

Gunshots and explosions were heard in the Iranian Kurdish city of Sanandaj on Monday as the protests over the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini continued to unfold across the country and for first time spread to Iran’s crucial oil industry.

Government officials are struggling to end the protests led by young Iranians, especially women, previously regarded as uninterested by politics.

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Manslaughter trial over 2009 Air France crash begins with cries of ‘shame’

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Anger as airline and Airbus plead not guilty to charge 13 years after flight AF447 crashed, killing 228 people

A manslaughter trial over the 2009 crash of Air France flight 447 has opened in Paris, with the courtroom falling silent as a judge read out the names of 228 passengers and crew who died in the airline’s worst ever accident.

The grief of the victims’ families quickly erupted into anger as the chief executives of Air France and Airbus pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and offered their condolences.

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Russian pop star who criticised Ukraine war says she is in Israel

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Alla Pugacheva, whose husband has been declared a ‘foreign agent’, denounced invasion three weeks ago

The Russian pop singer Alla Pugacheva has said she is in Israel, three weeks after she publicly criticised Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine when Moscow declared her husband a “foreign agent”.

“I thank my multimillion army of fans for their love and support, for the ability to distinguish truth from lies,” the 73-year-old, known as the “queen of Soviet pop music”, said in an Instagram post on Monday.

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Israel says it is to compensate family of Palestinian who died after detention

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Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad was subjected to force by IDF soldiers at a West Bank checkpoint

Israel says it has reached a settlement with the family of a Palestinian-American man who died after soldiers used force to detain him, in a rare case of compensation for a Palestinian claim of wrongdoing by Israeli forces.

Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, 78, was detained at a checkpoint in Jiljilya in the occupied West Bank in January and “apprehended after resisting a check”, according to an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) statement. He was handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded for between 20 minutes and an hour, and found by locals after the soldiers left.

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UK announces sanctions against Iran’s morality police

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Move comes in response to violent suppression of protests over death of Mahsa Amini in police custody

Britain has announced sanctions against Iran’s morality police in its entirety as well as its national chief and the head of its Tehran division in response to the violent suppression of protests since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody.

The morality police have been responsible for the street patrols forcing women to wear hijab and attend re-education classes on modesty and chastity. Amini was stopped by the morality police over her clothing while walking in a park in Tehran and taken into detention.

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El Paso struggles to house migrants after shelter closes as border crossings surge

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City’s new facility has to find shelters for those without alternative after a 40-year beacon of refuge shuttered earlier this year

Chairs and tables lined El Paso’s new Migrant Welcome Center in west Texas, where families who have crossed the US-Mexico border without immigration papers were meeting with volunteers and city employees, or making phone calls to loved ones elsewhere in the United States.

Children amused themselves in a designated play area, while their parents worked out where the next steps of their journey would take them and how they would get there.

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Malaysian PM dissolves parliament and calls early election amid political strife

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Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who becomes shortest serving PM in Malaysian history, hopes to win stronger mandate for party

Malaysia’s prime minister, Ismail Sabri Yaakob, has called for an early election, hoping to win a stronger mandate for his party and stabilise the rocky political landscape that has plagued the country over the last four years.

The ruling party’s rush for an election comes as the economy, still recovering from the Covid pandemic, has begun to feel the pinch of rising costs and a global slowdown.

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Taiwan’s president calls for unity against Chinese disinformation before elections

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Tsai Ing-wen compares China’s ‘bullying’ to Russian invasion of Ukraine on de facto national day

Taiwan’s president has called for domestic political unity to combat Chinese disinformation and cyberwarfare destabilising society before next month’s local elections.

Addressing crowds at Taiwan’s de facto National Day on Monday, Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan had to increase its resilience and international standing in the face of China’s growing authoritarianism. She warned Beijing that Taiwan would not give up its democracy or sovereignty, but she remained willing to restart communications – which China cut off after her election in 2016.

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Thai PM announces crackdown on drugs in wake of nursery attack

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Attack that left 37 dead was carried out by former police officer dismissed from the force for methamphetamine possession

The Thai prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, has ordered a clampdown on drugs, including an emphasis on rehabilitation, following the mass shooting and stabbing at a nursery in north-eastern Thailand that left 37 people dead, mostly young children.

The unprecedented attack has shaken Thailand, where mass killings are rare, and prompted calls for a tougher stance on drugs. It was carried out by a former police officer, identified by police as Panya Khamrab, who had been dismissed from the force for methamphetamine possession.

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UK’s lost leadership role hurts Somalia’s fight against famine, says drought envoy

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Britain is no longer the key humanitarian player and ‘great ally’ it once was, says envoy trying to get support for Somalia’s drought

The UK has lost its leadership role in the world and is letting down its allies, a senior official in the Somali government has said.

Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the presidential envoy for Somalia’s drought response, said Britain used to be second only to the US as a key player in international forums and advocacy, but has since slipped, saying that countries such as Somalia were being left without support to face “the new climate reality”.

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‘A shift in political thinking’: many of New Zealand’s cities lurch right in local elections

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Experts say the progressive vote is disillusioned with incremental changes brought in by Ardern Labour government

Late in the campaign period of Auckland’s mayoral election came a spate of strange, oddly specific, billboard vandalism. As the race in New Zealand’s most populous city wound to its conclusion, boardings for Efeso Collins, an independent progressive candidate and mayoral frontrunner, were plasteredwith red “Labour” party logos.

Compared with the moustaches and monobrows that typically bedeck election billboards, it seemed an innocuous choice for vandals. But Collins’ campaign said it was an act of politicised sabotage. “None of our allies or volunteers have been doing it,” a spokesperson told The Spinoff. “We believe it’s an attack tactic.”

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Tigray rebels tortured and killed civilians in renewed fighting, survivors claim

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Witnesses claim the attacks in Amhara region last month were carried out on those the TPLF suspected of supporting Ethiopian federal forces

Tigrayan rebel forces have killed dozens of civilians during their latest occupation of a town in the Amhara region, survivors claim, after fighting resumed last month in the northern area of Ethiopia.

The alleged killings took place in the town of Kobo, located along the highway to the capital, Addis Ababa. Between 13-15 September, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters shot dead unarmed civilians they suspected of supporting federal forces and local militias, survivors have told the Guardian.

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North Korea says missile tests simulated striking South with tactical nuclear weapons

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Kim Jong-un said his forces were “completely ready to hit and destroy targets at any time from any location”

North Korea’s recent flurry of missile tests demonstrated its ability to carry out strikes with tactical nuclear weapons, its leader, Kim Jong-un, has said, adding that his forces were “completely ready to hit and destroy targets at any time from any location”.

Kim, who last month said the North’s transformation into a nuclear power was “irreversible,” said the drills were “an obvious warning and clear demonstration” to the country’s enemies.

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