Category Archives: World News

Pregnant woman’s death causes outrage over crisis-hit Portugal health service

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Health minister quit this week after woman, 34, died while being moved from hospital due to lack of space

The death of a pregnant woman who could not receive treatment in Lisbon’s main hospital because of a lack of capacity has been met with outrage in Portugal, where a months-long health crisis has shut emergency services across the country and put maternity care under extreme pressure.

The 34-year-old woman was admitted to Lisbon’s Santa Maria hospital on 23 August with respiratory problems and high blood pressure. Owing to a lack of space in the neonatal service, she was transferred to another hospital, but she died after a heart attack in the ambulance.

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Putin will not attend Gorbachev funeral, Kremlin says

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Russian president lays wreath at hospital where Soviet leader died but will snub funeral

Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin has said, in what will be seen as an extraordinary snub by the Russian president.

Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at 91, will also not receive an official state funeral, a Kremlin spokesperson indicated, making him the first leader since Nikita Khrushchev not to be given that honour.

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Russia-linked firm could gain stake in company behind UK’s national lottery

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PPF in line to acquire shares in Allwyn Entertainment, whose UK arm won lottery licence from Camelot

A Czech investment firm with significant interests in Russia could end up owning a 5% stake in the company behind the UK’s national lottery, it has emerged.

První Privatizační Fond (PPF) is poised to acquire shares in Allwyn Entertainment AG via the listing of an investment vehicle in New York in September. Allwyn’s UK subsidiary won the licence to operate the lottery from Camelot this year.

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Energy price inflation: how the UK and EU could fight it

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What can be done about rising prices – and would nationalising gas and electricity firms help?

Governments across Europe have been funding relief measures to help people with energy and petrol bills. The UK announced a £15bn package in May, largely in the form of cash payments to households, while EU member states are estimated to have spent €280bn (£243m) over the past year on everything from subsidies and price caps to one-off payments. But bills for households and businesses are reaching unsustainable levels, with further increases expected next year, sharpening the debate over whether ministers should be intervening directly in energy markets to help bring prices down.

As Russia threatens to further reduce gas supplies, politicians in Italy, Spain, Greece and the Czech Republic are among those pushing for coordinated action. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Monday Brussels was considering measures to be adopted by the 27 member states. What are the options?

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Rights groups call for inquiries into Uyghur abuses in China after damning UN report

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Governments urged to launch formal investigations after UN findings on treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang

Governments around the world should establish formal independent investigations into human rights abuses in Xinjiang, victims and human rights groups have said, after the 11th-hour release of a long-awaited UN report.

The report by the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) was published minutes before Michelle Bachelet ended her tenure.

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IMF offers Sri Lanka provisional $2.9bn loan to tackle debt crisis

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Funding still needs to be approved but could offer breathing space amid country’s economic turmoil

The International Monetary Fund has tentatively offered Sri Lanka a $2.9bn (£2.5bn) loan to help the country recover from the worst economic crisis since it gained independence from Britain in 1948.

The funding is meant to provide some breathing space for Sri Lanka, which is scrambling to restructure nearly $30bn in debt to creditors including China, India and a string of international banks.

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‘What’s this about?’: bodycam footage shows confusion as Florida man arrested for voter fraud

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Byron Smith registered to vote after a key amendment, but didn’t know he was ineligible – now he faces up to five years in prison

Byron Smith was standing outside his house when the Tampa police officer put the handcuffs around his wrists. “What’s this about?” Smith asked, flustered, standing in the early afternoon Florida summer heat.

Minutes later he was sitting in the back of a police cruiser, still trying to figure out why he was being placed under arrest, body camera footage obtained by the Guardian shows. “Did you vote?” the officer asked him. “Not this time, no,” Smith, 65, replied. “They took that right away from me.” The officer then told him a $1,000 bond had been set for him. “What’s the charge?” Smith asked. “It was for something about false voting and something else,” the officer said.

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Wife of Malaysia’s jailed ex-PM handed 10 years in prison for bribery

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Rosmah Mansor convicted of receiving over £1m to help a firm get a schools business contract

The wife of the former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for soliciting and receiving bribes in exchange for government contracts, one week after her husband was sent to prison for corruption linked to the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal.

Rosmah Mansor, 70, had pleaded not guilty to three charges of soliciting bribes and receiving 6.5m ringgit (£1.3m) in exchange for helping a company secure a contract to provide solar power to schools.

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Top corruption prosecutor held in jail as Guatemalan elite bids to purge foes

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Virginia Laparra detained in conditions ‘bordering on torture’, which critics say is retaliation for her efforts to fight corruption

A Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutor has been locked up for six months in conditions “bordering on torture”, as the country’s ruling elite pursues a strategy to purge the justice system and derail corruption investigations against their allies.

Virginia Laparra, 42, a senior anti-corruption prosecutor, was accused of abuse of authority in apparent retaliation for reporting her suspicion that a judge had leaked sensitive details from a sealed corruption case to a colleague in 2017.

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Taiwan shoots down drone off Chinese coast for first time

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Action near islet comes after Taipei vowed to take tough measures to deal with increase in such intrusions

Taiwan’s military has shot down for the first time an unidentified civilian drone that entered its airspace near an islet off the Chinese coast, after the government vowed to take tough measures to deal with an increase in such intrusions.

Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own against the objections of the Taipei government, has held military exercises around the island since early last month in reaction to a visit to Taipei by the US House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

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Sarah Palin loses Alaska special election to Democrat Mary Peltola

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Peltola’s victory in the state’s first ranked choice voting election makes her the first Alaska Native to serve in the House

The Democrat Mary Peltola has won the special election for Alaska’s only US House seat, besting a field that included the Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.

Peltola, who is Yup’ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will become the first Alaska Native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the seat. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican US Representative Don Young’s term. Young held the seat for 49 years before his death in March.

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Libyans have lost faith in political class, US diplomat says after Tripoli clashes

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UN security council hears bleak assessment of country’s prospects after violence between militia in capital

Libyans have lost faith that the political class and its allied militias and mercenaries are willing to end their robbery of the nation’s wealth, a senior US diplomat has warned, after some of the worst violence in Tripoli in years.

More than 32 people were killed and 150 wounded in clashes in the capital last week between militia allied to the rival prime ministers Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and Fathi Bashagha.

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Canada: police trio charged with manslaughter over shooting death of 18-month-old

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Jameson Shapiro killed by police gunfire after officers called to domestic dispute in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, in November 2020

Three police officers in Canada have been charged with manslaughter in the death of an 18-month-old boy, nearly two years after he was killed by police gunfire.

Ontario’s police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit, announced the charges on Wednesday afternoon.

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UN says 50 civilians killed in April by Mali’s army

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Alleged massacre took place on market day in Hombori after military convoy hit explosive device

At least 50 civilians were killed during a military operation conducted by Mali’s army and “foreign troops” on 19 April, according to a report by the UN.

The UN has repeatedly accused Malian soldiers of summarily executing civilians and suspected militants during their decade-long fight against groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State.

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Nasa’s Moxie instrument successfully makes oxygen on Mars

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Researchers hope scaled-up version could one day generate oxygen to sustain humans on Mars

An instrument the size of a lunchbox has been successfully generating breathable oxygen on Mars, doing the work of a small tree.

Since February last year the Mars oxygen in-situ resource utilisation experiment, or Moxie, has been successfully making oxygen from the red planet’s carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere.

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Short breaks can help boost energy at work, study suggests

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Romanian research shows ‘micro-breaks’ of up to 10 minutes may help to reduce fatigue

It may not be long enough to pop to the shops or head out for a run, but taking a work break of less than 10 minutes could still boost wellbeing, research suggests.

The team behind the analysis say “micro-breaks” appear to reduce fatigue and help workers feel more vigorous.

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Shamima Begum ‘smuggled into Syria for Islamic State by Canadian spy’

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Canada and UK accused of covering up involvement of double agent in British teenager’s recruitment for IS

Shamima Begum was smuggled into Syria for Islamic State at the age of 15 by a Canadian spy whose role was covered up by the police and Britain’s security services, it has been claimed in a book out this week.

Begum, along with her schoolfriends Kadiza Sultana, then 16, and Amira Abase, then 15, were met at Istanbul bus station for their onward journey to Syria by a man called Mohammed al-Rashed.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow could expand conflict and should not be underestimated, warns Germany – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed. You can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Conservative leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak said the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev will be “remembered by us all” and that he helped “bring peace to Europe”.

Boris Johnson has paid tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev, describing him as a man “who changed the world and unquestionably changed it for the better”.

Mikhail Gorbachev is one of those people who changed the world and unquestionably changed it for the better. When you look at what he did to make Europe whole, free, to give freedom to the countries of the former Soviet Union – it was quite an extraordinary thing.

And of course, Mikhail Gorbachev is one of those people who triggered a change, a series of changes, that perhaps he didn’t anticipate.

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Freeland ambush highlights growing threats to women in Canadian public life

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Trudeau warns of increasingly toxic atmosphere in politics and journalism, with robust debate replaced by slurs and harassment

Justin Trudeau has warned of an increasingly toxic atmosphere in Canadian public life, amplified by the anonymity of social media and disproportionately targeting women and visible minorities in politics and journalism.

Encounters with disgruntled constituents have long been accepted as a reality of Canadian politics, but the tradition of friendly debate has increasingly been replaced by racial slurs, threatening phone calls at night and fears for the safety of politicians’ families.

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Gazprom to pay Kremlin £8.6bn after record profits

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Politicians wait to see whether Russia switches back on Nord Stream 1 gas supply to Europe

Russian state-backed energy firm Gazprom is poised to hand a bumper £8.6bn payout to the Kremlin after notching up record profits.

The company reported a net profit of 2.5tn roubles (£35.8bn) for the first six months of this year. Oil and gas prices soared during that period, pushed higher by concerns over supplies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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