Category Archives: World News

‘We want no more hatred’: leftwing ex-president Lula on verge of comeback in Brazil

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Polls suggest Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is close to majority of votes needed to stop election run-off against Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil’s leftwing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appeared on the verge of a startling political comeback on Sunday as more than 156 million Brazilians took part in the country’s most important election in decades.

As the veteran ex-president cast his vote in Brazil’s industrial heartlands on Sunday morning, Lula voiced optimism he was heading for victory over the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

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Co-founder of collapsed energy firm Bulb hopes to expand battery business

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Loss-making venture led by Amit Gudka eyes continent as countries move towards using renewable power

The co-founder of collapsed energy supplier Bulb is planning to expand his loss-making battery storage venture into Europe as the energy crisis escalates.

Amit Gudka hopes to develop Field Energy, the business he set up after leaving Bulb in February 2021, on the continent as countries attempt to switch toward renewable power.

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Greetings from 1980: Dutch postcard finally arrives – 42 years late

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Ludwina Verhoeven’s sister sent her the card, which features a photograph of their campsite, while on holiday

A 64-year-old Dutch woman has welcomed the news that she is finally to receive a postcard from her sister, despite it arriving 42 years late.

The card, saying simply “Greetings”, signed Veronica, Jan and Matthijs and addressed to Ludwina and Piet Verhoeven in Nieuw-Vennep, south-west of Amsterdam, was posted in the summer of 1980 from Hoeven in the southern province of Brabant.

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‘A day of hope’: Lula fans eager to see Bolsonaro defeated

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Supporters of leftwing frontrunner confident he will prevail as 156 million Brazilians cast their votes

Gabriela Leoncio has been waiting for the chance to free Brazil from Jair Bolsonaro for four years. On Sunday that chance came.

“It’s been a joke-slash-tragedy,” the restaurant host, 29, said of the president’s tumultuous far-right administration as she cast her vote against him in her country’s most important election in decades.

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Biden administration seeks delay over Prince Mohammed immunity decision

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Representatives seek delay in court proceeding over Khashoggi murder after news crown prince has been named prime minister

The Biden administration is seeking a 45-day delay in a court proceeding in which it has been asked by a US judge whether it believes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman should be granted sovereign immunity in a case involving the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Representatives from the US justice department said in a legal notice filed on Friday that the department was seeking the extension after Saudi Arabia announced in a press release last week that Prince Mohammed had been named prime minister.

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US skier Hilaree Nelson given Sherpa cremation after death in Himalayas

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Friends and family fly in and Buddhist monks light pyre at funeral in Nepal of extreme skier

A famed extreme skier from the United States who was killed after falling from one of the world’s tallest mountains was on Sunday given a traditional funeral at a Sherpa cremation ground.

Buddhist monks officiated at a ceremony attended by family, friends and government officials.

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Mark Hamill calls for more drones for Ukraine to fight Russian invasion

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Star Wars actor promotes Ukrainian drive for donations and compares Russia to ‘evil empire’

The Star Wars actor Mark Hamill has said Ukraine needs more drones to fight off the Russian invasion and compared Moscow to the dark side of the force in the film series.

Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the films, was made an ambassador to the United24 project – which Ukraine set up to elicit donations, including the donation of drones to the Ukrainian army – by the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

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Iran says it is due $7bn for release of US-Iranian father and son

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Frozen funds expected to be released in exchange for freedom of Baquer and Siamak Namazi, says state media

Iran is awaiting the release of about $7bn (£6.3bn) in funds frozen abroad, state media said on Sunday, after it allowed an Iranian-American to leave the country and released his son from detention.

Baquer Namazi, 85, was permitted to leave Iran for medical treatment abroad, and his son Siamak, 50, was released from detention in Tehran, the UN said on Saturday.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine declares full control of Lyman – as it happened

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Key city in east of country ‘fully cleared’ of Russian forces, says Zelenskiy; European leaders call annexation ‘blatant’ violation of international law

The Ukrainian armed forces have updated their estimate of Russian casualties in the war so far.

As of this morning they claim that around 60,110 Russian soldiers have been killed and 2,377 tanks destroyed.

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Cordon bleugh? Worms and crickets could soon be tickling French palates

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Burgundy insect farm ramps up production to offer a meat-free future

In a box-like building on an out-of-town industrial estate in Burgundy, trays of Alphitobius diaperinus – otherwise known as the lesser mealworm – are being fattened up by robots then cooked, dried and turned into protein-rich powder and oil.

This is the headquarters of Ÿnsect a French company that is building the world’s largest insect farm, to open at the end of the year in preparation for what the French company believes will be a large increase in demand for a healthy alternative to meat.

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Philadelphia’s rising Democratic star on another school shooting: ‘I can’t become resigned to it’

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Malcolm Kenyatta talks to the Guardian about why the deadly incident at Roxborough high school hit him like a ‘gut punch’

A day after a shooting killed a 14-year-old boy and wounded four other children following a football scrimmage at Philadelphia’s Roxborough high school, Malcolm Kenyatta visited his alma mater to talk to students and staffers for the first time in more than a year.

It had been well over a decade since Kenyatta, a 32-year-old Black state legislator in Pennsylvania representing north Philadelphia, roamed those same halls as an ambitious student-body president. One of Pennsylvania’s youngest legislators and its first openly gay lawmaker of color, since he was elected in 2018, Kenyatta has advocated for reducing gun violence in a state where Republicans have long dominated the legislature despite having a Democratic governor.

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‘These people had our backs’: US veterans lobby to rescue allies trapped in Afghanistan

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The Afghan Adjustment Act would offer permanent resident status to Afghans who fled the Taliban but Congress has not taken action

​​A group of 12 people sit in camp chairs – chatting, smoking, listening – in the dark. Behind them, the Capitol building in Washington DC is luminescent, bringing into focus the Afghan flag. Well, the version of the flag before the Taliban changed it. It flies above their heads, catching the yellowy light of dusk.

Since Kabul fell to the Taliban in August last year, military veterans and organizations have been lobbying Congress to offer Afghan evacuees long-term visas to stay in the US. Now, with no action taken and thousands coming to the end of their temporary stays, a different route is being taken to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act. This bipartisan bill would grant thousands of Afghans permanent status in the US.

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Polls put Lula on brink of comeback victory over Bolsonaro in Brazil

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But hopes leftwing former president will defeat Jair Bolsonaro tempered by fear a runoff contest could mean weeks of turmoil and violence

Brazil’s former leftwing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on the brink of an astonishing political comeback, with polls suggesting he is poised to defeat his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro in Sunday’s election.

Eve of election polls suggested Lula was within a whisker of securing the overall majority of votes that would guarantee him a first-round victory against Brazil’s radical incumbent, whose calamitous Covid response, assault on the Amazon and foul-mouthed threats to democracy have alienated more than half of the population.

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Pro-Kremlin neo-Nazi militia inciting the torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners

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Task Force Rusich, linked to the Wagner Group, advises its fighters not to report the capture of Ukrainians to Russian commanders

A neo-Nazi pro-Kremlin group active in Ukraine is inciting atrocities against prisoners of war and explicitly advocates the torture of captives including “removing body parts”. The self-styled “Task Force Rusich” is fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin and is linked to the notorious Wagner Group mercenaries.

A message on Rusich’s Telegram channel sent on 22 September advocates the “destruction of prisoners on the spot”.

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Tylenol murders: daughter tells of toll of unsolved killings, 40 years on

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Seven people died in 1982 after taking painkillers from bottle someone – police do not know who – had slipped cyanide pills into

Forty years after the infamous Tylenol murders killed her father and two other close relatives, a Wisconsin woman refuses to take the popular pain pills.

Kasia Janus also always verifies products are properly sealed before she buys anything at stores, she said in a recently published series of interviews with CNN that described the gut-wrenching legacy left behind for her by the unsolved Tylenol killings, which made tampering with medications as well as other consumer goods a federal crime but remain unsolved.

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‘It feels inevitable’: Ukraine starts to believe it can win back Crimea

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Even as Russia lays claim to more of the country, confidence is growing that the former territory can be retaken

From an elegant mansion in Kyiv’s government quarter, Tamila Tasheva is planning what the Ukrainian takeover of Crimea might look like.

Tasheva, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s top representative for Crimea, and her team spend their days discussing issues such as how many Ukrainian teachers or police should be sent to the peninsula if Kyiv regains control, and what else would be required to help reverse eight years of Russian rule.

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Australia to launch rescue mission for women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps

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Exclusive: More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children related to Islamic State combatants held in al-Hawl And Roj camps

The Australian government is preparing to launch a mission to rescue dozens of Australian women and children trapped in Syrian detention camps.

More than 20 Australian women and more than 40 children – the widows, sons and daughters of slain or jailed Islamic State combatants – remain within the al-Hol and Roj detention camps in north-east Syria.

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Venezuela swaps prisoners with US in hint of thawing relations

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Exchange of Maduro nephews for seven Americans is unusual gesture of goodwill from socialist president but Washington denies any change in policy

Venezuela has freed seven imprisoned Americans in exchange for the US releasing two nephews of President Nicolás Maduro’s wife who had been jailed for years on narcotics convictions.

The swap of the Americans, including five oil executives held for nearly five years, follows months of back-channel diplomacy by senior US officials – secretive talks with a major oil producer that took on greater urgency after sanctions on Russia put pressure on global energy prices.

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125 dead after crowd crush at Indonesian football match

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Police and match organisers under scrutiny after officers fired teargas in response to rioting fans

At least 125 people have been killed and around 320 injured at a football match in Indonesia in one of the world’s worst ever sports stadium disasters.

Police used teargas in response to a pitch invasion by rioting fans, causing a crush among panicked spectators.

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