Category Archives: World News

EU plan to halve use of pesticides in ‘milestone’ legislation to restore ecosystems

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Proposals – the first in 30 years to tackle catastrophic wildlife loss in Europe – include legally binding targets for land, rivers and sea

For the first time in 30 years, legislation has been put forward to address catastrophic wildlife loss in the EU. Legally binding targets for all member states to restore wildlife on land, rivers and the sea were announced today, alongside a crackdown on chemical pesticides.

In a boost for UN negotiations on halting and reversing biodiversity loss, targets released by the European Commission include reversing the decline of pollinator populations and restoring 20% of land and sea by 2030, with all ecosystems to be under restoration by 2050. The commission also proposed a target to cut the use of chemical pesticides in half by 2030 and eradicate their use near schools, hospitals and playgrounds.

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Chinese city stripped of ‘civilised’ title after attack on female diners

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Tangshan loses national honorary status as police officials investigated over incident that shocked China

The northern Chinese city of Tangshan has been stripped of a national honorary title as the fallout from the assault of four women at a restaurant earlier this month continues.

The civilisation office of the Communist party of China’s central committee announced on Wednesday it had decided to remove Tangshan from the list of “national civilised cities” – the highest recognition for a Chinese city.

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Hong Kong plunges lower in global human rights index

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Region now on par with Saudi Arabia in some indicators – and coming closer to converging with China

Hong Kong has plunged further in a human rights ranking report, bringing it on a par with Saudi Arabia in some indicators, and closer to converging with China as the Communist party government deepens its control on the region.

The rankings report by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) also highlighted a deepening divide in China between high scores in quality of life indicators and some of the world’s lowest for civil and political rights. But the organisation found rights to basic essentials were often stripped from people for political reasons.

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Somalia: ‘The worst humanitarian crisis we’ve ever seen’

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Children starving to death ‘before our eyes’ say aid workers as G7 leaders warned only ‘massive’ and urgent funding will avert famine

Only a “massive” and immediate scaling-up of funds and humanitarian relief can save Somalia from famine, a UN spokesperson has warned, as aid workers report children starving to death “before our eyes” amid rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition.

In a message to G7 leaders who are meeting from Sunday in Germany, Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) regional director for east Africa, said governments had to donate urgently and generously if there was to be any hope of avoiding catastrophe in the Horn of Africa country.

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‘We want justice, not fuel’: Sri Lanka’s Tamils on north-south divide

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In the middle of a crippling economic crisis, demonstrating is a luxury the country’s Tamil minority cannot afford

For months now, the sounds of protest and anger have rung out across Colombo, Sri Lanka’s largest city. Every day, along the city’s seafront promenade of Galle Face, people have gathered in their tens of thousands to rage against the government for plunging the country into its worst financial crisis in modern history.

But 200 miles north, in the district of Mullaitivu, the streets are silent. The economic crisis has hit Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, who are concentrated in the north and eastern provinces, as hard as those in the south; the fishermen here say they are already starving. But they will also tell you that protesting is a privilege in Sri Lanka – one they have never been afforded.

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Europe and UK pour 17,000 tons of cooking oil into vehicles a day

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Analysis finds 58% of rapeseed oil in Europe is burned for fuel despite soaring prices and climate impact

Europe and the UK are pouring 17,000 tons – or about 19 million bottles – of cooking oil into vehicle fuel tanks every day, even though it is up to two-and-a-half times more expensive than before 2021, according to new analysis.

The equivalent of another 14 million bottles a day of palm and soy oil – mostly from Indonesia and South America – is also burned for fuel, the research says.

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Wrist-worn trackers can detect Covid before symptoms, study finds

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Sensor tech can alert wearer to Covid early, helping to prevent onward transmission

Health trackers worn on the wrist could be used to spot Covid-19 days before any symptoms appear, according to researchers.

Growing numbers of people worldwide use the devices to monitor changes in skin temperature, heart and breathing rates. Now a new study shows that this data could be combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose Covid-19 even before the first tell-tale signs of the disease appear.

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‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their lives

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Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threats

In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.

Testifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”

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Dom Phillips was ‘collateral damage’ in drunken ambush, claims Brazil vice-president

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Hamilton Mourão’s claim sparked anger from Indigenous communities who believe organised crime was involved

Brazil’s vice-president has claimed that British journalist Dom Phillips was “collateral damage” in an attack on his travelling partner, the Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira, as grisly details emerged about the killing of the two men in early June.

One of the three men in custody for the killings said he and his accomplices tried to burn the bodies after shooting them dead at the edge of a river in western Brazil.

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Tokyo mayoral win a ‘huge surprise’ for candidate living in Belgium

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Japanese national Satoko Kishimoto won ward of 500,000 people 5,800 miles away with online campaigning

A Japanese woman living in Belgium has been elected as mayor of a district in Tokyo after coming to prominence through her online campaigning during the Covid pandemic.

Satoko Kishimoto, 47, who has lived in the Belgian city of Leuven with her husband and children for a decade, is now mayor of Suginami city, a ward of 500,000 people, more than 5,800 miles away from her home.

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Two Jesuit priests and man seeking sanctuary killed in Mexican church

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Incident occurred in violence-plagued remote mountainous region of Chihuahua, which has strong organized crime presence

Two elderly Jesuit priests have been killed inside a church after a man pursued by gunmen apparently sought refuge in a remote mountainous area of northern Mexico.

Javier Campos Morales, 79, and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, 80, were killed on Monday inside the church in Cerocahui, Chihuahua.

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Covid surges across Europe as experts warn not let guard down

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Calls grow for greater measures against wave of BA.4 and BA.5 cases in countries from Spain to Denmark

Multiple European countries are experiencing a significant surge in new Covid-19 infections, as experts warn that with almost all restrictions lifted and booster take-up often low, cases could soar throughout the summer leading to more deaths.

According to the Our World in Data scientific aggregator, the rolling seven-day average of confirmed new cases per million inhabitants is on the rise in countries including Portugal, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and Denmark.

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Two Canadians found dead in Playa del Carmen Mexican beach resort

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The victims, a man and woman, are the latest in a string of several violent incidents in Quintana Roo state

Two Canadians – one of whom was sought by Interpol – have been found dead of knife wounds in Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort of Playa del Carmen, the state prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Quintana Roo state, also home to resort towns including Cancún and Tulum, said the man and the woman were found dead on Monday at a hotel or condominium in the troubled resort, and a third person was reported injured.

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The small town with a big potato that inspired a global poetry win

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Robertson might be tiny but for poet and schoolteacher Peter Ramm, it is the secret weapon that helped him win the UK’s biggest prize for unpublished poetry

Robertson is a small, pretty town perched on the edge of the New South Wales southern highlands, almost teetering on the escarpment that falls away to the Illawarra and Shoalhaven coasts.

It is most famous as the home of The Big Potato – an appropriately tuber-shaped concrete monolith on the main street – and a triumphant rugby league team called the Spuddies.

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Police investigated over response to attack on female diners in Tangshan

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Spotlight on violence against women in China as nine men arrested and officers accused of ‘violating discipline’

Five police officials in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan are being investigated over their handling of a vicious attack on a group of women at a restaurant.

The provincial discipline commission of Hebei province said the five, including the district head of the Lubei police force, Ma Aijun, were accused of “seriously violating discipline and law”. Hebei province’s public security bureau announced separately on Tuesday that Ma’s deputy, Li, had been removed from his post.

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‘Like a scene from Titanic’: floods in Assam submerge entire villages

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India’s monsoon season has been worse than usual, sweeping away possessions and leaving people huddling on raised ground

People living in Assam, in north-east India, are usually stoical about the flooding that occurs to a greater or lesser extent every monsoon season. But this year they say the situation is dramatically worse. “It was like a scene from Titanic,” one man told local media of the rising waters that have flooded all but two of the state’s districts.

In some places entire villages are under water, while across the state 114,000 hectares of crops have been submerged and 5,000 livestock have been washed away. For those that remain, fodder is running out.

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Russian forces capture settlements near Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can find our latest coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here

Reuters reports the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, has said at an economic conference in Qatar that his country is committed to joining Nato, but must solve its territorial problems with Russia first.

Georgia is sandwiched between Russia in the north, with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan to its south. The breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are internationally recognised as part of Georgia’s territory, although a handful of states, including Russia, officially recognise them.

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US volunteer fighters captured in Ukraine could face death penalty, says Russia

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Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, from Alabama have been taken into detention in Donetsk

The Kremlin has said that two captured US volunteers are not covered by the Geneva conventions and could face the death penalty.

The remarks were made by Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, following claims in the Russian media that two of three US volunteers missing in Ukraine had been captured and were being held by pro-Russian separatist forces.

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Russian mercenaries accused of deadly attacks on mines on Sudan-CAR border

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Dozens of people said to have been killed in attacks allegedly involving Wagner Group fighters

Russian mercenaries have mounted a series of bloody attacks on artisanal mines in the lawless border zones between Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR) in an effort to plunder the region’s valuable gold trade, witnesses and experts have said.

Dozens of miners are thought to have died in at least three major attacks this year allegedly involving mercenaries working for the Wagner Group, a private military company that has been linked to the Kremlin by western officials. There are also reports of further attacks on mines in at least six other places across CAR.

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Indian police: grenade launcher seized from suspects in rapper’s murder

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Hip-hop star Sidhu Moose Wala was shot dead in his car in Punjab last month

Indian police say have arrested three men accused of murdering hip-hop star Sidhu Moose Wala and that they have seized a cache of weaponry including a grenade launcher from the suspects.

Moose Wala – also known by his birth name Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu – was shot dead in his car in the northern state of Punjab last month.

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