Boris Johnson promises Ukraine UK-led troop training scheme on Kyiv visit

PM announces programme including battle skills and counter-explosive tactics that will take place outside Ukraine

Boris Johnson has announced that the UK will oversee a new three-week training programme for Ukrainian soldiers, as he visited Kyiv for the third time this year for talks with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The prime minister had been expected to address Conservative MPs at the Northern Research Group conference in Doncaster on Friday, but pulled out at the last minute.

Continue reading...

‘Marching towards starvation’: UN warns of hell on earth if Ukraine war goes on

Unprecedented food shortages could spark riots in dozens of countries as Black Sea blockade adds to pressures, says WFP chief

Dozens of countries risk protests, riots and political violence this year as food prices surge around the world, the head of the food-aid branch of the United Nations has warned.

Speaking in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday, David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the world faced “frightening” shortages that could destabilise countries that depend on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia.

Continue reading...

Heaven Supermarket: the Beijing bar at centre of Covid outbreak

Self-service bar popular with locals and foreigners has been shut down after being linked to hundreds of cases

Heaven Supermarket’s ability to attract young Chinese customers and foreigners has always been viewed with envy by its competitor bars in the Chinese capital.

Located in one of the busiest nightlife districts in Beijing, the bar is modelled as a large self-service liquor store with chairs, sofas and tables. It is not the fanciest in its presentation, but on Chinese review websites, patrons highlight its affordability and down-to-earth attitude.

Continue reading...

In his own words: Dom Phillips’ reporting on Brazil and the Amazon

Dom Phillips, whose death in the Amazon has shocked many, was a frequent contributor to the Guardian. Here are some of his outstanding pieces of journalism

Over some of the most tumultuous years in Brazil, Dom Phillips bore witness to the politics of his adopted home and to the fate of the Amazon rainforest. Travelling into the forest is a slow and laborious process, yet Phillips returned again and again.

Phillips wrote regularly for the Guardian and other publications. Here, we have collected some of his most outstanding pieces of journalism.

For more than a decade after the reserve was set up in 1998, its 16 uncontacted Indigenous tribes were among the best protected in Brazil. Yet today it is invaded on multiple fronts, leaving its isolated groups – who hunt with bows and arrows or blow-pipes, and avoid contact with modern society – at risk. Contact with outsiders can be deadly for these groups, who lack immunity to diseases like flu.

“The vulnerability of these peoples is growing,” Beto Marubo, a Javari Indigenous leader, told the United Nations permanent forum on indigenous issues in New York in April. “There is no effective protection.”

Continue reading...

‘Frankly insulting’: Rwanda resents its portrayal in UK asylum row

Kigali government seeks to shift narrative with managed tours of processing facilities and accommodation for deportees

Rwanda has been caught in the eye of a British political storm this week, and its officials are not happy with how the country has been portrayed.

It was preparing to welcome asylum seekers on Tuesday until a dramatic 11th-hour ruling by the European court of human rights.

Continue reading...

‘Frankly quite stupid’: rights groups condemn Biden’s Saudi Arabia visit

Critics question value of US president’s visit, raising fears it will endanger dissidents and legitimise regime’s human rights stance

Rights advocates fear Joe Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia will endanger dissidents abroad and be seen by the authorities there as giving the green light to restrict civil liberties domestically.

Abdullah Alaoudh, of the thinktank Democracy for the Arab World Now and son of jailed cleric Salman al-Odah, said: “Right before inauguration, he [Biden] said he will be sure to protect Saudi dissidents – those were his words. We’re not protected by someone shaking hands with the same person who is threatening us every day and taking our families hostage due to our activism here in the US.”

Continue reading...

China launches third aircraft carrier in military advance

Fujian unveiled amid heightened tensions with US over self-ruled Taiwan

China has launched its third aircraft carrier, the first designed and built entirely in the country, marking a significant military advance for the Asian superpower.

The announcement comes as tensions between China and the US have ramped up in recent weeks over Beijing’s sabre-rattling towards self-ruled Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province to be seized by force if necessary.

Continue reading...

Taipei cools tempers by cutting traffic light wait time for summer

More than 770 crossings will have countdowns shorted by up to a minute and a half

Authorities in Taipei have shortened waiting times at traffic lights for the summer, fearing that pedestrians could become ill if they are forced to stand in the tropical heat for too long.

The announcement on Friday will see more than 770 intersections in the Taiwanese capital cut waiting times by as much as one and a half minutes. On average, the signal countdowns are being cut by 30 seconds each. The new times will run between 9am and 4.30pm until September.

Continue reading...

International investigators visit war-torn areas near Kyiv – as it happened

This blog is now closed – we will be returning in a few hours to bring you all the latest developments

Ukraine’s navy has claimed on social media that it has struck the Russian rescue tug Spasatel Vasily Bekh, which it says was in the process of the “transportation of ammunition, weapons and personnel of the Black Sea Fleet to Snake Island.”

The claim has not been independently verified, and as yet there is no comment from the Russian navy on the status of the ship.

Fighting continues on the line of contact. In the Kharkiv direction, the enemy tried to conduct reconnaissance by fighting in the Kochubeyevka area, but suffered losses and withdrew. In the Izium area, the occupiers are trying to continue the offensive in the direction of Slavyansk. Our defenders repel all attacks of the enemy.

Continue reading...

Closing Syria aid route would be ‘catastrophe’, UN warned

Russia expected to use security council veto to block resolution to keep open Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Idlib from Turkey

The last remaining UN humanitarian aid route into Syria looks set to be shut down in a vote at the body’s security council next month, another casualty of the collapse in relations between the west and Russia.

On 10 July the council is due to vote on whether to keep open the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Turkey, which helps service rebel-held Idlib.

Continue reading...

Pence the ‘hero’ who foiled Trump’s plot – could it lead to a 2024 run?

The former VP rejected the plot to overturn the election – the death knell for Trump and Pence’s marriage of convenience

Mike Pence was described as the hero of the hour, the man who stood his ground to Donald Trump’s coup plot and saved America from a violent “revolution”.

Yet among the rows of committee members, witnesses, reporters, congressmen and women and young citizens at Thursday’s January 6 hearing into the attack on the Capitol, the former vice-president was nowhere to be seen. Pence was 500 miles away in Ohio to promote “American energy dominance”.

Continue reading...

‘This is another pandemic’: a female survivor of domestic abuse in China speaks out

Chinese cyberspace is filled with videos showing violence against women and activists say only real social change will stop the abuse

Tang Ping, 31, a mother-of-two in the southern Chinese city of Nanning, says in 2014 when her first child was six months old, her husband – an academic – began routinely beating her. She felt hurt but also ashamed, blaming herself for not being a good enough wife. She did not know what to do.

Five years ago, after another round of violence, she finally summoned the courage to report her husband to the police. “I was told my injuries were not serious, therefore they could not intervene,” she says, as she prepares to legally dissolve the marriage this week.

Continue reading...

Hologram Zelenskiy promises Ukraine will defeat ‘the empire’

Ukrainian president attends Paris trade show as electronic apparition, urging tech companies to aid ‘digital revolution’ on lend-lease terms

Volodymyr Zelenskiy referenced Star Wars and the second world war as the Ukrainian president appeared as a hologram at a conference in Paris to seek aid from big tech firms.

He told a crowd of hundreds at the VivaTech trade show that he was offering technology firms a unique chance to rebuild Ukraine as a fully digital democracy.

Continue reading...

Biden Saudi visit is ‘presidential pardon for murder’, says ex-spy chief’s son

President ‘made it clear that there won’t be any direct consequences’ for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, says Khalid Aljabri

Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia and meeting with its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is “the equivalent of a presidential pardon for murder”, according to Khalid Aljabri, the son of the exiled former senior Saudi intelligence officer Saad Aljabri.

The US president once vowed to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah” after the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist whose 2018 murder was ordered, according to US intelligence. But this week the White House announced that Biden will meet the crown prince in Jeddah at the end of a four-day trip in July – a development described by Saudi human rights activists as a “betrayal”.

Continue reading...

Museum of Rescued Art showcases stolen relics that have returned to Italy

Etruscan, Greek and Roman artefacts that are being returned have gone on display in Rome

A museum to showcase dozens of relics that were stolen from cultural sites in Italy and trafficked to the US has opened in Rome.

About 100 of the 260 Etruscan, Greek and Roman artefacts that are gradually being returned to Italy have gone on display as part of the first exhibit in the Museum of Rescued Art, which is being hosted in a space among the ruins of the ancient Baths of Diocletian.

Continue reading...

Police losing narco war in deadly Amazon region where duo disappeared

A key police outpost lies in ruins after a daring raid – a sign of the growing danger on an increasingly lucrative smuggling route

In the crime-infested tri-border region where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, rumours abound over what happened at Puerto Amelia in January this year.

Were Brazilian drug traffickers responsible for burning the Peruvian police outpost on the River Yavarí to the ground?

Continue reading...

Civilian evacuation from Sievierodonetsk plant ‘impossible’, says governor – as it happened

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

Children born in Ukraine’s Kherson region since 24 February will automatically receive Russian citizenship, according to a statement by an official.

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed military-civilian administration in the occupied Kherson region has told Russian news agency RIA Novosti:

Children born after 24 February in the Kherson region will automatically receive citizenship of the Russian Federation. Plus, orphans will also be registered as citizens of the Russian Federation.

All of the main bridges over the Siverskyy Donets River, which link the contested town of Sieverodonetsk and Ukrainian-held territory, have now highly likely been destroyed.

Ukraine has probably managed to withdraw a large proportion of its combat troops, who were originally holding the town. The situation continues to be extremely difficult for the Ukrainian forces and civilians remaining east of the river.

Continue reading...

Greenhouse gases must be legally phased out, US scientists argue

A petition calls on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions under the Toxic Substances Control Act

Greenhouse gas emissions should be subject to legal controls in the US and phased out under the Toxic Substances Control Act, according to a group of scientists and former public officials, in a novel approach to the climate crisis.

“Using the TSCA would be one small step for [the US president] Joe Biden, but potentially a giant leap for humankind – as a first step towards making the polluters pay,” said James Hansen, a former Nasa scientist, who is a member of the group alongside Donn Viviani, a retired 35-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Continue reading...

‘They’re being cooked’: baby swifts die leaving nests as heatwave hits Spain

Ecologists raise concern over chicks’ attempts to escape high temperatures during one of earliest heatwaves on record

Hundreds of baby swifts in southern Spain have died after leaving their nests prematurely, in what ecologists described as an attempt to escape the extreme temperatures during one of the country’s earliest heatwaves on record.

Concerns were raised for the protected species late last week after residents in Seville and Córdoba noticed dozens of recently hatched birds scattered across sidewalks.

Continue reading...