Former Alicante postman arrested after bags of letters dating back to 2012 discovered at sold home
From Monday to Friday, he clocked in dutifully at the central post office in the Spanish city of Alicante, picking up bags and bags of mail to be delivered.
But exactly what the former letter carrier did next is now under investigation after more than 20,000 undelivered letters – dating back to 2012 and 2013 – were found crammed into bin bags in his home.
Continue reading...Disciplinary action against members of BJP fails to quell growing anger in Muslim world over comments insulting the prophet
Six more countries have joined diplomatic protests across the Muslim world over derogatory remarks insulting the prophet Muhammad made by spokespeople for the party of Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Indonesia, the UAE, the Maldives, Jordan, Bahrain and Libya have joined Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Afghanistan in lodging official complaints over comments from representatives of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party. Meanwhile hardline party members have reacted angrily to disciplinary action against the pair after their comments went viral in the Middle East.
Continue reading...President says result is ‘great news’, while adviser says ‘the world needs such leaders’
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has declared himself “very happy” at Boris Johnson’s confidence vote win, hours after one of his senior advisers tweeted a picture of the two men and thanked the UK prime minister for helping to protect “the free world from barbaric invasion”.
Zelenskiy described Johnson’s narrow victory on Monday evening as “great news”, in remarks via video link to an event hosted by the Financial Times on Tuesday. “I’m glad we haven’t lost a very important ally. This is great news,” he said.
Continue reading...Police begin process to transport Indian-born pair wanted on criminal and money-laundering charges
Police in Dubai are coordinating with their South African counterparts to secure the extradition of two wealthy Indian-born brothers wanted by South African authorities on criminal and money-laundering charges who were arrested in the emirate on Monday.
Atul and Rajesh Gupta are accused of paying bribes in exchange for lucrative state contracts and influence over ministerial appointments during the chaotic nine-year presidency of Jacob Zuma, which ended amid allegations of systematic corruption in 2018. The brothers fled to Dubai shortly after Zuma’s fall from power.
Continue reading...Long deployments and a lack of training, support, food and equipment all affecting morale as war drags on
Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s east has brought it some battlefield success as its military has advanced slowly in fierce fighting in Donbas.
But those gains have come at a high price for the Russian invasion force, with evidence that high-level casualties are growing and that some units may be approaching exhaustion as the war moves past its 100-day mark.
Continue reading...Ex-UN climate envoy says continent’s need for energy is so great it should be able to widely use the fossil fuel
African countries should be able to exploit their vast natural gas reserves despite the urgent need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, the former UN climate envoy Mary Robinson has said.
Robinson, the chair of the Elders group of former world statespeople and business leaders, said African countries’ need for energy was so great that they should use gas widely, in contrast to developed countries that must halt their gas use as quickly as possible to stave off climate breakdown.
Continue reading...Chief justice says it is clear that justice had seriously miscarried in case of Alan Hall, who was convicted of murder of Arthur Easton in 1985
A New Zealand man who spent 19 years in prison for murder has had his conviction quashed after the supreme court found there had been a substantial miscarriage of justice when key evidence was not disclosed in the original trial – something the crown itself acknowledged was wrong.
Alan Hall, who has autism, was convicted at age 23 of the murder of Arthur Easton in his Papakura home in 1985. Easton had been stabbed by an intruder and the murder weapon – a bayonet – and a woollen hat were found at the scene.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Beykush winery struggled to get bottles to judges in UK from its site on edge of Russian-occupied territory
A small Ukrainian winemaker whose vineyards sit on the edge of territory newly occupied by Russia has won gold in the prestigious Decanter World Wines awards.
“I can’t say we were surprised that we won because our wine is really, really good,” said Svitlana Tsybak, the chief executive of Beykush winery and president of the Ukrainian association of craft winemakers.
Continue reading...Reports of presence at Ream base on Gulf of Thailand would significantly expand its presence in Indo-Pacific
A Cambodian naval base being constructed with the assistance of China will include a portion for the exclusive use of the Chinese military, according to a report in the Washington Post.
The Chinese and Cambodian governments have previously denied reports that Cambodia will allow a Chinese military presence at the Ream naval base on the Gulf of Thailand.
Continue reading...Investigation launched as first cases in a year blamed on vaccine refusal fuelled by clerics and falsification of records by parents
Pakistan’s polio eradication campaign is in disarray after an alarming jump in cases last week. Eight polio cases have now been reported in children over the past month in North Waziristan district, bordering Afghanistan. They are the first cases in more than a year.
This new outbreak, officials believe, is due to parents falsely marking themselves and their children as vaccinated, and the government has launched an investigation into the outbreak.
Continue reading...Two members of government vote against extending emergency regulations, which give 475,000 Jewish settlers the same rights as citizens in Israel
Israel’s government suffered a defeat at the hands of the opposition on Monday when it voted down a push to uphold Israeli law in settlements on the occupied West Bank, posing a challenge for the ruling coalition.
In force since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, the law, giving settlers there the same rights as citizens in Israel, is automatically ratified by parliament every five years. But two members of the broad coalition, a member of the Arab Ra’am party and a member of the leftist Meretz party, voted at first reading against the bill.
Continue reading...Business owners at the centre of a scandal that led to former president Jacob Zuma’s resignation
Two wealthy Indian-born business brothers who were allegedly at the centre of a massive web of state corruption in South Africa have been arrested in Dubai, Pretoria announced on Monday.
The arrests came as an investigation was concluded into massive plundering of state institutions during former president Jacob Zuma’s era.
Continue reading...Canadian planes enforcing UN North Korea sanctions had to avoid colliding with Chinese jets in encounter in international airspace
Justin Trudeau has denounced Beijing’s “irresponsible and provocative” actions after a recent encounter in international airspace over Asia.
The incident, in which Canadian aircraft deployed in Japan encountered, and in some cases had to avoid colliding with, Chinese jets, has again raised tensions between Beijing and Ottawa, just as the crisis over Canada’s 2018 arrest of the Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou, began to subside.
Continue reading...Officials say Orlando Jorge Mera, founder member of Modern Revolutionary party, shot and killed by close friend
The Dominican Republic’s minister of the environment and natural resources has been shot and killed in his officeby a close friend, the office of the president said in a statement on Monday.
Authorities said Orlando Jorge Mera was shot by Miguel Cruz, who has been detained. No further details were immediately available.
Continue reading...Li Jiaqi, a blogger with millions of fans, had his livestream abruptly cut on Friday, and has posted nothing since
One of China’s top bloggers has gone silent after livestreaming footage of a cake apparently shaped like a tank just before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, prompting debate over the highly sensitive event among tens of millions of young fans.
Discussion of the crackdown on 4 June 1989, when China set troops and tanks on peaceful protesters, is all but forbidden on the mainland.
Continue reading...While jury deliberated in Toronto, news broke that the Canadian rock musician had been charged with another sexual assault
The Canadian rock musician Jacob Hoggard has been found guilty of violently raping a young woman, but acquitted of sexually assaulting a second – all while facing a new, third charge of sexual assault.
After a month-long trial and six days of deliberation, a Toronto jury handed down its verdict on Sunday evening in a court case that heard testimony from both victims recounting their alleged violent encounters with Hoggard, the former frontman of the Canadian rock band Hedley.
Continue reading...UK and US have so far promised a handful; official says with 60 they can stop Russians ‘dead in their tracks’
Ukraine needs 60 multiple rocket launchers – many more than the handful promised so far by the UK and US – to have a chance of defeating Russia, according to an aide to the country’s presidency.
Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to the president’s chief of staff, told the Guardian that while he believed the rocket launchers were “a gamechanger weapon”, not enough had been committed to turn the tide in the war.
Continue reading...Jim Fitton, 66, hoped for short suspended sentence after collecting fragments during archaeology tour
Lawyers for a British geologist handed a 15-year sentence by an Iraqi judge after being convicted of smuggling antiquities will immediately appeal against the shock verdict, which has left his family “stunned”.
Jim Fitton, 66, arrived at court in Baghdad hoping for a short suspended sentence after being charged with collecting fragments from a site in southern Iraq during an organised archaeology tour. Instead, he was found guilty under a Saddam-era law that legal experts should not have applied to the case.
Continue reading...Dom Phillips disappeared on a trip to one of the remotest corners of the Amazon days after receiving threats
Fears are growing over the safety of a British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert who have disappeared in one of the remotest corners of the Amazon just days after receiving threats.
Dom Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian in Brazil, was last seen over the weekend in the Javari region of Amazonas state – a vast region of rivers and rainforests near the border with Peru.
Continue reading...Kaja Kallas warns pain of sanctions will test relations, and also criticises Macron’s stance on Putin
European unity over the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proving difficult to maintain in the face of the war’s impact on inflation and living standards across the continent, Estonia’s prime minister has said.
Kaja Kallas also criticised the French president, Emmanuel Macron, for trying to provide Vladimir Putin with a diplomatic way out of the conflict, saying the only effect was to give the Russian leader the belief that he will not be isolated or face justice for his army’s war crimes.
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