Category Archives: World News

Deadliest summer for heat-related deaths in Arizona’s biggest county

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Maricopa county’s 359 heat-associated fatalities this year outpace 339 deaths confirmed in 2021, figures show

This summer was the deadliest on record for heat-related deathsin Arizona’s largest county, with public health statistics this week confirming 359 such deaths just days before the end of the six-month heat season.

The jump comes amid a growing homelessness crisis in the area and raises questions about how to better protect vulnerable people in the desert south-west as temperatures soar.

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Protesters defy crackdown at universities across Iran

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Tension mounts as ceremonies marking 40 days since Mahsa Amini’s death expected to take place on Wednesday

Students have protested at universities across Iran, defying a bloody crackdown as tensions mount on the eve of planned ceremonies marking 40 days since Mahsa Amini’s death.

“A student may die but will not accept humiliation,” demonstrators chanted at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, in an online video verified by AFP.

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New Zealand couple detained in Iran for months leave the country

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Influencers Christopher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray had disappeared after entering Iran in July and had been prevented from leaving

Two New Zealand social media influencers who were detained in Iran for almost four months have been released and have now left the country.

Social media influencers Christopher “Topher” Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray were undertaking a trip called Expedition Earth in which they aimed to travel across 90 countries in a Jeep. The two recorded their travels with near-daily vlogs and Instagram posts, and documented their border crossing into Iran from Turkey in early July.

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Florida governor debate: DeSantis defends abortion ban with false claims

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Charlie Crist, former Republican who switched parties, puts governor on defensive during Florida’s sole gubernatorial debate

In the sole debate of the Florida governor’s race, the Republican incumbent, Ron DeSantis, was put on the defensive by his Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, on subjects including abortion and DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.

Crist called Florida’s 15-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape or incest, “callous and barbaric”.

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Hu Jintao argued about official papers before being escorted out of congress

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Footage shows former Chinese president involved in apparent disagreement over documents

China’s former leader Hu Jintao was arguing about official papers, moments before he was escorted off the stage at a key Communist party meeting in Beijing, new footage shows.

Hu’s apparently reluctant departure from the stage at the 20th congress of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) was a rare moment of unscripted drama at what was otherwise a carefully choreographed week of political theatre.

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Photos of lockdown mundanity win £15,000 Taylor Wessing prize

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Judges commend Clémentine Schneidermann for simple series capturing neighbour in Wales

A series of portraits documenting the mundane, daily chores of life in lockdown have won one of the world’s most prestigious photography prizes.

The National Portrait Gallery has named French photographer Clémentine Schneidermann as winner of the 2022 Taylor Wessing photographic portrait prize for her series Laundry Day. The photographer, who lives and works between Paris and south Wales, wins £15,000.

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Tigray peace talks begin in South Africa but hopes low for halt to fighting

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Violence has intensified recently as Ethiopia and TPLF seek to bolster their negotiating position

Peace talks aiming to end the nearly two-year-old war in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia have started in South Africa, although the chances of bringing the conflict to an immediate stop are believed to be low.

Representatives of the Ethiopian government and a team sent by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a political organisation that has ruled the northern region for decades, are to spend five days together in the most serious effort yet to find a negotiated solution to the conflict.

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Uber whistleblower calls on Europe to tackle ‘undemocratic’ power of tech companies

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Mark MacGann tells MEPs Uber had ‘almost unlimited finance’ to silence drivers with legal disputes

The whistleblower who revealed how Uber flouted the law and secretly lobbied governments around the world has called on European lawmakers to take on the “disproportionate” and “undemocratic” power held by tech companies.

Speaking to a committee of MEPs in the European parliament, Mark MacGann, who was Uber’s top lobbyist in Europe, said the cab-hailing company’s practices were “borderline immoral” as he recalled the “almost unlimited finance” executives had to lobby and silence drivers with legal disputes.

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Norway arrests ‘Brazilian researcher’ accused of spying for Russia

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Investigators believe man posing as academic at University of Tromsø, in sensitive far north, was using false identity

Norway’s domestic security agency has arrested a man claiming to be a Brazilian academic whom it suspects of being a Russian spy.

“We have requested that a Brazilian researcher at the University of Tromsø be expelled from Norway because we believe he represents a threat to fundamental national interests,” the police security service (PST) deputy chief, Hedvig Moe, told the public broadcaster NRK.

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Giorgia Meloni speaks of ‘burden’ of being Italy’s first female PM

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Leader restates support for Ukraine and vows crackdown on illegal immigration in address to MPs

Giorgia Meloni said she felt a “burden weighing on my shoulders” after “breaking the heavy glass ceiling” to become Italy’s first female prime minister, in an address to parliament restating her pledge to back Ukraine and her opposition to illegal immigration.

Meloni, the leader of Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots, has taken the helm of Italy’s most rightwing government – which includes Matteo Salvini’s far-right League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – since the second world war.

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‘Groundbreaking milestone’: world reacts to Rishi Sunak as next British prime minister

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World leaders lauded the significance of Sunak’s victory as the UK’s first prime minister of colour

Rishi Sunak’s arrival in No 10 as Britain’s third prime minister in less than two months drew calls for stability from Europe and continued support from Ukraine, as well as cheers in New Delhi and praise as a “groundbreaking milestone” from the US.

In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wished the UK’s new head of government success in overcoming “all the challenges facing British society and the whole world today”, adding: “I’m ready to continue strengthening the strategic partnership together!”

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HBO Max series ¡García! brings fictional Francoist spy to small screen

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Show portrays adventures of agent who wakes from cryogenic sleep to find himself in modern Spain

Three years after the remains of Francisco Franco were finally removed from the granite chambers of the Valley of the Fallen, another relic of the dictatorial regime is stirring from a long slumber deep inside the monument’s damp and bone-stacked caverns.

Fortunately, the relic in question is not a long-dead falangista but rather a fictional Francoist secret agent whose adventures in contemporary Spain have moved from the pages of three graphic novels to the small screen.

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US basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal rejected by Russian court

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Russian court rejects appeal by Griner against nine-year prison sentence for drugs possession and smuggling

A Russian court has rejected an appeal by the US basketball star Brittney Griner against her nine-year prison sentence for possession and smuggling of drugs.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist was arrested on 17 February at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia.

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Peter Tatchell stopped in Qatar while staging LGBT+ rights protest

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Incident outside National Museum in Doha comes less than a month before start of men’s football World Cup

The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been stopped by police in Qatar while staging a protest against the Gulf state’s criminalisation of LGBTQ+ people.

Tatchell’s protest outside the National Museum of Qatar in the capital, Doha, comes less than a month before the start of the Fifa World Cup, which is expected to attract 1.2 million visitors from around the world.

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Russia steps up Ukraine ‘dirty bomb’ claim in letter delivered to UN

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Kyiv’s allies dismiss allegation it could use such a weapon on its own soil as scientifically absurd and a distraction effort

Russia has stepped up its nuclear propaganda and delivered a letter to the United Nations claiming that Ukraine is preparing to detonate a “dirty bomb” on its territory, an allegation dismissed by Kyiv, western governments and weapons experts as absurd and an attempt at distraction or pretext for Moscow’s own escalation.

The letter was addressed to the UN secretary general and the Gabonese ambassador, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the security council, and follows calls by Russia’s defence minister to foreign ministers in recent days making similar unfounded allegations.

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Ukraine arms manufacturer charged with treason over bugged phone calls

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Vyacheslav Boguslaev allegedly said he ‘completely understands’ why factory was bombed by Russia

Alleged recordings of the head of a major Ukrainian aircraft manufacturer accused of aiding the Russian military – saying he “completely understands” why a Russian missile was fired at his factory – have been released by Kyiv’s security services after his arrest at the weekend.

Vyacheslav Boguslaev, the president of Motor Sich, has been charged with treason after a raid at the weekend on his home in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia. The manufacturing heavyweight is suspected of selling engines – before and after the invasion – for Russian attack helicopters that have been used extensively against Ukrainian troops.

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Indian minister calls for abolition of 1,500 laws dating back to Raj

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Archaic laws include fining those who fail to beat a drum to beat back locusts or report money found in street

An Indian minister has called for his country to abolish 1,500 archaic laws dating back to the British Raj.

On the statute book are laws that range from equating kites with aircraft so that anyone wanting to fly a kite needs a licence, to a requirement for car inspectors to have “well-brushed” teeth.

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More than 30 dead in tribal fighting on Papua New Guinea’s ‘island of love’

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Another 15 people are missing after tensions between two groups boiled over into violence

Tribal warfare on Kiriwina Island in Papua New Guinea’s east has left 32 people dead and 15 others missing, with fighting continuing.

The fighting erupted on Monday between the Kulumata and Kuboma people on the island, which is in Milne Bay province.

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