Category Archives: World News

Australian defence minister warns China risks sparking arms race

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Richard Marles outlines vision of economic cooperation and military deterrence but warns lack of transparency can upset balance

China’s military buildup must be accompanied by transparency and reassurances to its neighbours or risk triggering an arms race, Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, has said.

Speaking in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Saturday, Marles laid out a vision of economic cooperation balanced with military deterrence, but sounded a warning about militarisation in the Asia Pacific.

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‘The return of banditry’: Russian car industry buckles under sanctions

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Prices have spiralled out control since invasion of Ukraine as market struggles to adapt

Eldar Gadzhiev’s heart sank when he heard the sputtering from the engine of his Skoda one day in April. Gadzhiev, who owns a fleet of four cars that he leases as taxicabs in Moscow, knew it was a terrible and expensive time for a breakdown.

Prices for spare parts, if you even could find them, had spiralled out of control since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two months earlier. “I understood that I was in a bad situation,” he said. “I thought: the repairs are going to cost as much as the car.”

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US warns of ‘stark’ stakes in Taiwan Strait if status quo unilaterally altered

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Defence secretary says US does not support Taiwan independence, which China says would prompt it to take island back

The US has warned of “especially stark” stakes in the Taiwan Strait if the status quo is unilaterally altered, as China reiterated its resolve to take the island back if it declares independence.

Speaking at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on Saturday, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington does not support Taiwanese independence, and the Joe Biden administration “categorically” opposes any change of the status quo.

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Ginni Thomas pressed 29 lawmakers in bid to overturn Trump loss, emails show

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Wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas accused of ‘undermining democracy’ after Washington Post revelation

Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, was accused of “undermining democracy” after it emerged that she emailed 29 Republican lawmakers in Arizona in her effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.

The Washington Post had previously reported that Ginni Thomas sent emails pressuring two Arizona Republicans to reject Biden’s win and choose their own electors.

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Hopes fade of finding missing men as Brazilian police report finding ‘apparently human’ material

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Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, missing for more than five days, had failed to show up in Atalaia do Norte at the end of a reporting trip

Hopes of finding a British journalist and a Brazilian guide faded on Friday as police announced an unsettling development in the search for the two men last seen five days ago on a remote river in Amazonia.

“Search teams found on the river, near to Atalaia do Norte, apparently human organic material,” Brazil’s federal police said in a statement.

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National Museum of Slovenia cancels art exhibition over alleged fakes

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Show claiming to feature works by Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso abruptly cancelled as police launch investigation

An exhibition in Slovenia claiming to feature works by Picasso, Van Gogh and Matisse was abruptly cancelled this week over fears some works were forged, prompting a police probe on Friday.

The National Museum of Slovenia planned to officially open the show on Wednesday this week, entitled “Travels” and featuring 160 paintings owned by the little-known Boljkovac family.

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UK deportation flight to Rwanda can go ahead, high court judge rules

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Judge refuses to grant interim relief after lawyers for asylum seekers argued policy was unlawful

A high court judge has ruled that a controversial deportation flight to Rwanda that was due to take off early next week can go ahead.

Mr Justice Swift refused to grant interim relief – urgent action in response to an injunction application made by several asylum seekers facing offshoring to Rwanda.

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Prosecutors ask for life sentences for 12 men at Paris attacks trial

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France’s biggest ever criminal trial enters final weeks, with prosecutors expressing regret about unanswered questions

French prosecutors have called for life sentences for 12 of the 20 men suspected of key roles in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks on a stadium, bars and restaurants and a rock gig at the Bataclan concert hall.

As the biggest criminal trial ever held in France entered its final weeks, prosecutors summed up the evidence and regretted that there were still key, unanswered questions about the coordinated attacks that killed 130 people and injured more than 490.

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Draft legislation on overriding Northern Ireland protocol to be published next week

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Draft legislation to be issued Monday, as Keir Starmer promises a Labour government would repeal law if it passes

Legislation to disapply parts of the Northern Ireland protocol will be published next week, but senior government sources acknowledge it is going to be a “difficult” process to get it through parliament.

The new laws are aimed at unilaterally changing parts of the protocol to make trade easier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but critics say overriding the post-Brexit treaty could contravene international law.

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Democrats promise more on Trump’s January 6 role after dramatic TV hearing

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Vivid evidence around Capitol attack laid out by committee, but Republicans dismiss first primetime hearing as political theatre

The jagged divide in American politics was on full display on Friday, in the wake of the first primetime hearing staged by the House January 6 committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol.

Democrats responded to the dramatic presentation of new evidence and stark testimony about the deadly insurrection in Washington with promises of more to come, especially around the role of Donald Trump.

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Primetime January 6 hearing shows set-piece TV can still pack a punch

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First of public Capitol attack hearings delivered precision and panache – and a narrative arc designed for maximum effect

It was one of the more unexpected takeaways of the night: in the age of six-second videos and frenetic social media posts around the clock, primetime set-piece television can still land a punch.

The first of the public hearings from the US congressional committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington by extremist supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January last year was delivered with all the choreographed panache of an old-school TV spectacular or the Super Bowl.

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Home Office misled refugees about UN involvement in Rwanda plans, court told

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Letters to asylum seekers assured them UNHCR was ‘closely involved’ in deportation scheme, high court hears

The United Nations refugee agency has made a dramatic intervention to try to halt Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

In a late submission of evidence, the UNHCR claimed the home secretary misled refugees over the organisation’s support for the plan. The agency has also said the scheme failed to meet the required standards of “legality and appropriateness” for transferring asylum seekers from one country to another.

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Knee problem forces Pope Francis to cancel Africa trip

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Pontiff, 85, had planned to visit Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in early July

Pope Francis has scrapped a trip to Africa owing to an ongoing problem with his knee, raising further scrutiny about the 85-year-old pontiff’s health.

The Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said the planned visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan in early July had been cancelled “at the request of his doctors in order not to jeopardise the results of the therapy that he is undergoing for his knee” and would be rescheduled to a later date.

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Indigenous groups scour forests and rivers for Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

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Indigenous activists have been searching for the missing pair since just hours after they vanished, with support from armed members of the military police

Warm rain lashed the speedboat as it barrelled south towards the spot where Binin Matis’s mentor vanished without a trace.

“He was like a father to me,” said the 31-year-old Indigenous leader as his vessel advanced to the U-shaped bend where Bruno Pereira was last seen. “Now he’s gone, I’m not sure what I’ll do.”

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China calls theory that Covid originated in Chinese lab ‘politically motivated lie’

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WHO report has said origins of virus are still unknown and recommended further investigation

China has repeated its assertion the theory that the Covid-19 pandemic began with a leak from a Chinese laboratory is “a politically motivated lie”, after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended continued investigations this week.

“The lab leak theory is totally a lie concocted by anti-China forces for political purposes, which has nothing to do with science,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a daily briefing on Friday.

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Australian soap opera Neighbours wraps up filming after 37 years

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Show shared final photo of cast and crew on final day of filming when ‘tears were shed’

Neighbours has shared a final photo of its cast and crew after filming wrapped on the last scene of the long-running Australian soap opera.

The show’s executive producer revealed tears were shed on the final day of filming but feels its 37-year run is an “incredible achievement” that should be celebrated.

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Cholera warning from Mariupol mayor – as it happened

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This blog is closed. You can catch up on the week in Ukraine here. Live coverage will resume later.

The UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss will raise the case of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, the two British men sentenced to death by a pro-Russian court in occupied Ukraine, when she speaks to Ukraine’s foreign secretary Dmytro Kuleba later today, PA Media reports.

Truss has already called it a “sham judgement” and insisted it has “absolutely no legitimacy”.

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Xi Jinping says ‘persistence is victory’ as Covid restrictions return to Shanghai and Beijing

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Both cities back on high alert, with new lockdowns in Shanghai , and the shutdown of entertainment venues in Beijing

Xi Jinping has reiterated China’s commitment to zero-Covid, declaring “persistence is victory”, as Shanghai and Beijing were hit with new lockdowns, shutdowns, and mass testing drives just a week after the cities celebrated the easing of restrictions.

In response to China’s worst outbreak of the pandemic, Shanghai spent months under an arduous and strict citywide lockdown, while Beijing authorities imposed localised lockdowns, venue and public transport shutdowns, and work-from-home orders. In the last week both had begun easing restrictions, with authorities praising the containment of the community outbreaks of the Omicron variant.

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Home Office tried to ‘sanitise’ staff education module on colonialism

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Disagreements have led to delay in course rollout as civil servants think empire material ‘too controversial’

Civil servants have attempted to “sanitise” a Home Office teaching module on race, empire and colonialism, according to those involved in devising a mandatory course on British history for the department’s 36,000 employees.

Disagreements have led to a year-long delay in the rollout of the project, which was due to be launched in June 2021. Home Office civil servants are understood to be nervous that some of the proposed material addressing issues of race, colonialism and empire is “too controversial” and have urged academics to tone down some of the content.

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