Police blamed the accident, in which passengers burned to death, on speeding and reckless driving
At least 20 passengers burned to death when a bus collided with another vehicle and caught fire in south-west Nigeria, police and an official have said.
The accident at Lanlate in the Ibarapa area of Oyo state on Friday, is the latest road crash in the vast west African nation of 210 million people.
Continue reading...António Guterres calls for ‘massive financial support’ in wake of disaster that has killed at least 1,391 people
The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, has visited several areas of Pakistan ravaged by floods, as he rounded off a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the disaster.
Record monsoon rains and glacier melt in the country’s northern mountains have triggered floods that have killed at least 1,391 people, sweeping away houses, roads, railway tracks, bridges, livestock and crops.
Continue reading...American commentators, academics and others are calling into reconsideration of monarchy’s lasting influences
The death of Queen Elizabeth II revived longstanding criticism in the US over the monarchy’s enrichment from the British empire’s violent colonization of African, Asian and Caribbean nations and their diasporas.
Since her death on Thursday, American commentators, academics, and a former US diplomat, among others, took to social media and elsewhere to call for fully wrestling with the British monarchy’s lasting influence in light of the monarch’s death.
Continue reading...Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal held for more than a year after being stopped while hiking along Iraqi border in 2009
Three Americans who were jailed by Iran for more than a year and accused of being spies while hiking along the border with Iraq are suing their former captors, hoping to persuade a judge to award them damages for the torture they say they endured.
The lawsuit being pursued by Sarah Shourd, her ex-husband and fellow journalist Shane Bauer, and their friend Josh Fattal is being overseen by federal judge Richard Leon in Washington, who in 2019 ordered Iran to pay Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian $180m for imprisoning him for more than a year on false espionage charges.
Continue reading...Ex-adviser says president in 2020 agreed that his son-in-law had to be replaced by Steve Bannon but did not dare try to fire him
In June 2020, less than five months before polling day, Donald Trump agreed to a “coup d’état” to remove his son-in-law Jared Kushner from control of his presidential re-election campaign and replace him with the far-right provocateur Steve Bannon.
The coup had support from Donald Trump Jr but according to a new book by the former Trump aide Peter Navarro it did not work, after Trump refused to give Kushner the bad news himself.
Continue reading...Head of state role in doubt in realms from Jamaica to New Zealand after death of Queen Elizabeth II
King Charles’s ascension to the throne has reignited a debate over whether the royal family deserves a global role in the 21st century, no more so than in the 14 Commonwealth realms where the British monarch remains the head of state.
A legacy of empire and slavery that was entwined with British royalty for centuries has raised tough questions about the place of a foreign king, and republican movements from the Pacific to North America to the Caribbean will be assessing whether they should seize the moment.
Continue reading...Russia sends reinforcements to Kharkiv region amid Ukrainian counter-offensive; Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant situation increasingly precarious, says UN watchdog
Russia said on Friday it was dispatching reinforcements to the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have announced robust gains as part of a broader counter-offensive. Russian state media broadcast footage of columns of Russian tanks, support vehicles and artillery travelling along paved roads and dirt tracks. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said his forces had liberated more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region and that fighting continued in the eastern Donbas and the south.
The European Commission has urged EU states to reassess the terms on which they grant visas to Russian travellers and to root out applicants that pose a security threat. “We should not be naive, Putin’s aim is to destroy the EU and he would like to attack us where we are weakest,” the EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, said on Friday.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said on Friday that it had pushed back against Russian attacks near 10 settlements, the Kyiv Independent reported. The staff said Russian forces had launched more than 12 missiles and more than 12 airstrikes on Ukrainian territory in the past 24 hours.
Shelling has destroyed power infrastructure at Enerhodar, the Ukrainian city where staff operating the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant live. The shelling possed a growing threat to the plant, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday.
The UN nuclear watchdog said conditions at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant were increasingly precarious and that a safety zone around it needed to be immediately established to prevent a nuclear accident. The International Atomic Energy Agency director, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said on Friday that there was minimal chance of re-establishing reliable offsite power lines to the plant and that its Ukrainian operator was considering shutting down the only remaining operating reactor.
EU finance ministers supported a €5bn ($5bn) loan for Ukraine to help maintain the country’s schools, hospitals and other needed operations amid Russia’s invasion. The loan, agreed on Friday, will be backed by guarantees of EU member states and is part of an overall €9bn package announced in May.
The EU executive have pledged to devise unprecedented measures in the coming days to address an energy price shock as a result of Russia’s war on Ukraine, including a controversial gas price cap that could further anger the Kremlin. European energy ministers tasked the European Commission with working through this weekend to draw up legal texts that will include emergency funding for consumers struggling to afford soaring bills.
A Russian-appointed official in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region announced on Friday that civilians were being evacuated from three of the region’s Russian-controlled territories that have come under threat from the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Continue reading...Political violence breaks out in Mato Grosso state after argument between followers of rival presidential candidates
A supporter of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has stabbed to death a backer of leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the latest instance of rising political tensions in the buildup to this year’s election.
The violence happened in the west-central state of Mato Grosso, after tempers frayed during an argument over support for the two candidates. Bolsonaro trails Lula in the polls in an election riven by intense polarisation.
Continue reading...Joe Biden is in the intriguingly named Licking county, Ohio, where he’s at the groundbreaking ceremony of a new Intel factory and about to deliver remarks about the Chips Act, which will boost US production of semiconductors.
The White House says this particular groundbreaking is a different occasion from the usual “scripted, backslapping affairs for political dignitaries”.
Continue reading...Southern California prepares for arrival of tropical storm that could affect power grid, while crews work to subdue growing fires
Tropical Storm Kay surged toward California on Friday, whipping up strong gusty winds and threatening to fuel ferocious wildfires already burning across the state.
After days of record-breaking heat that tested California’s energy capacity, baked moisture out of the drought-stricken landscapes and spurred the spread of deadly fires , the arrival of Kay, which started as a hurricane but was downgraded to a tropical storm, brought risks of flash floods and threatened more trouble for the state’s electric grid.
Continue reading...Citizenship ceremony starts belatedly as officials adapt oath in moments following death of Queen Elizabeth II
Roberto Rocha was huddled with three others around a computer screen, as one of the friends prepared to become a Canadian citizen.
The pandemic had derailed the pomp of an in-person swearing-in ceremony, leaving 140 excited, polite faces to meet instead on a Zoom screen.
Continue reading...IAEA says shelling makes the ‘situation increasingly precarious’ as reliable supply is unlikely to be restored
A vital offsite electricity supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been destroyed by shelling and there is little likelihood a reliable supply will be re-established, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog chief has said.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said shelling had destroyed the switchyard of a nearby thermal power plant.
Continue reading...Brothers of Italy’s Federico Mollicone urges state broadcaster not to show episode with co-parenting polar bears
A senior member of a far-right Italian political party tipped to win general elections this month has appealed to state broadcaster Rai not to screen an episode of the globally popular children’s cartoon series Peppa Pig over the inclusion of a same-sex couple in its cast of characters.
The episode, called Families, was shown for the first time in the UK on Tuesday, and features two co-parenting lesbian polar bears. A character called Penny announces: “I live with my mummy and my other mummy. One mummy is a doctor and one mummy cooks spaghetti.” The family then sit down for a meal together.
Continue reading...Countries most responsible for climate crisis must ‘end war with nature’, says António Guterres
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said the world owes impoverished Pakistan “massive” help in recovering from the summer’s devastating floods because the country bears less blame than many others for the climate crisis.
Months of heavy monsoon rains and flooding have killed 1,391 people and affected 33 million while half a million people have become homeless. Planeloads of aid from the United States, the United Arab Emirates and other countries have begun arriving, but Guterres said there is more to be done to help a country which contributes less than 1% of global emissions.
Continue reading...Ukrainian forces appear to be continuing speedy advance in Kharkiv region as ‘fierce battles’ rage
Moscow is sending columns of military reinforcements to Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to reports in Russian media, after the first major Ukrainian counterattack since spring made big territorial gains this week.
Ukrainian troops have pushed Russian forces out of a number of settlements in the region that Moscow occupied since the first days of its invasion, and on Friday Ukraine’s army appeared to be continuing its speedy advance.
Continue reading...Countries that import large volumes fear Kremlin would respond by halting all gas flows, plunging them into recession
EU energy ministers have clashed over a plan to put a price cap on Russian gas, casting doubt on whether the measure will go ahead.
Speaking after emergency talks in Brussels in response to surging gas and electricity prices, the EU’s energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, said “nothing is decided” on proposals to curb Russia’s income.
Continue reading...Documents disclosed to high court case show repeated warnings about asylum processing plan
Until the then home secretary Priti Patel and Rwanda’s foreign minister, Vincent Biruta, sat together at a table in Kigali on 14 April and signed a deal to send asylum seekers to the east African country, few thought the agreement would actually happen.
Rumours had swirled for months about the controversial plans but nothing had come of previous Home Office ideas, both confirmed and unconfirmed, to halt the growing number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats, including wave machines in the Channel and a policy to turn around dinghies.
Continue reading...Opposition by quintet means Republicans lack votes in upper chamber to end filibuster, with bill heading back to state house
Five Republicans in South Carolina’s state senate have joined the Democratic minority to reject a near-total abortion ban, thwarting the controlling party’s intention to capitalize on the supreme court’s decision to overturn federal protections for the procedure.
Their opposition at a special session called on Thursday to approve a restrictive bill passed earlier in the South Carolina House meant Republicans lacked enough votes in the upper chamber, which they control 30-16, to end a filibuster.
Continue reading...Kohei Saito’s book Capital in the Anthropocene has become an unlikely hit among young people and is about to be translated into English
The climate crisis will spiral out of control unless the world applies “emergency brakes” to capitalism and devises a “new way of living”, according to a Japanese academic whose book on Marxism and the environment has become a surprise bestseller.
The message from Kohei Saito, an associate professor at Tokyo University, is simple: capitalism’s demand for unlimited profits is destroying the planet and only “degrowth” can repair the damage by slowing down social production and sharing wealth.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here
Ukraine’s counteroffensive in Kharkiv has proved that it can drive Russia out of its territories, a key adviser in President Zelenskiy’s government has said.
Writing on Twitter, Mykhailo Podoliak, adviser to the Head of the Office of President of Ukraine, said: “What does effective Ukrainian counteroffensive tell the world?
Continue reading...