Category Archives: World News

Fears for safety of British journalist missing in Brazilian Amazon

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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.

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European unity on Ukraine growing more difficult, says Estonian PM

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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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France puts 18 on trial over alleged involvement in vast horsemeat scandal

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Defendants are accused of participation in supply of horsemeat unfit for human consumption across Europe

When Aline Oudin was forced to find a new home for her beloved 28-year-old chestnut horse Ténor du Pluvinage, she placed an advert asking if anyone could offer him a new field to see out his final days.

A man in his 60s responded saying he was looking for a calm companion for the young mare he had bought his daughter, so Oudin let him take the horse away with the promise she could visit him regularly.

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Ryanair forces South Africans to do Afrikaans test to prove nationality

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Airline accused of discrimination after it introduces test due to ‘high prevalence of fraudulent passports’

Ryanair is facing accusations of racial discrimination after forcing South Africans to take a test in Afrikaans before boarding flights home from the UK and Europe.

The budget airline, which claimed the “simple questionnaire” was part of efforts to tackle fraudulent South African passport holders, is facing criticism for conducting the general knowledge test in a language that is the third most used in the country and had a controversial role in the oppression of black citizens during apartheid.

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Ukraine war deepens China’s mistrust of the west

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Analysis: the conflict in Europe has entrenched the differences between Beijing and the US and its allies

More than 100 days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s strategic assessment of the conflict is becoming clearer: it does not wish to be cast in the same light as Russia, but the war has deepened Beijing’s mistrust of the west.

In Beijing’s view, the pessimism has been exacerbated by the US and its allies’ recent efforts, for example, to help Taiwan increase its international recognition. On Monday last week, Beijing made the second-largest incursion into Taiwan’s air defence zone this year with Taipei reporting 30 jets entering the area, including more than 20 fighters.

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Prophet Muhammad remarks embroil India in row with Gulf states

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‘Insulting’ comments by spokespeople for ruling Bharatiya Janata party met with anger in Middle East

The Indian government has become embroiled in a diplomatic row with Gulf states after two ruling party spokespeople were accused of making Islamophobic and derogatory comments insulting the prophet Muhammad.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) suspended its national spokesperson, Nupur Sharma, and expelled its Delhi media head, Naveen Kumar Jindal, after their comments went viral in the Middle East, where they were met with a chorus of diplomatic anger.

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Russia-Ukraine war: UN says war creating human trafficking crisis; Russian ships pushed back, Ukraine claims – live

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‘Unprecedented’ displacement of millions of Ukrainians; Russian warships pushed back more than 100km, Ukraine says

Russian forces continue to storm the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and fired missiles at the nearby cities of Sloviansk, Lysychansk and Orikhove, Ukraine’s military has said.

Russian troops fired at Ukrainian units defending Sievierodonetsk with mortars and artillery fire, damaging infrastructure in the towns of Metolkino, Borivske, Ustynivka and Toshkivka, according to the latest operational report released by Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces.

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‘Lost’ alligator found in west Texas desert in ‘rare sighting’

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American alligators usually live in and around rivers, swamps, marshes and lakes – not the desert

Finding alligators in swampy states like Florida and Louisiana is no big deal, but it’s much different when you’re talking about the west Texas desert.

And that’s exactly where one of the large reptiles turned up last week, when Midland county sheriff’s office deputies spotted a gator at a trailer park.

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Capitol attack panel to unveil new evidence against Trump at public hearings

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Committee intends to reveal previously secret White House records, photos and videos to prove how Trump broke the law

The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack will unveil new evidence at Watergate-style public hearings next week showing Donald Trump and top aides acted with corrupt intent to stop Joe Biden’s certification, according to sources close to the inquiry.

The panel intends to use the hearings as its principal method of revealing potential crimes by Trump as he sought to overturn the 2020 election results, the sources said, in what could be a treacherous legal and political moment for the former president.

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US bird flu outbreak: millions of birds culled in ‘most inhumane way available’

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Controversial asphyxiation method used in 73% of culls this year despite vets urging its use to be limited

The US poultry industry has increasingly switched to “the most inhumane method available” to cull tens of millions of birds during the latest outbreak of avian influenza, according to government data.

Outbreaks of the disease, also known as bird flu, have wreaked havoc across Europe and the US this year, with 38 million birds killed in the US so far.

But how these birds are killed has generated controversy, with veterinarians and animal welfare campaigners urging an end to the use of the ventilation shutdown method, which kills animals by sealing off the airflow to the poultry sheds and increasing temperatures to lethal levels.

Workers have described the method as like “roasting animals alive”. European officials have said it should not be used in the European Union.

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Unscrupulous ivory traders can evade new UK ban, charity says

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Sellers could pass off elephant products as derivatives from unprotected mammals, Born Free Foundation says

Ivory peddlers may continue to sell elephant tusks after a new ban by disguising their products as walrus or narwhal derivatives, campaigners have warned.

From Monday, trade in elephant teeth and tusks is illegal in the UK, punishable by fines of up to £250,000 or up to five years in prison under the Ivory Act. Pre-1975 musical instruments and antique items of “outstanding importance” are exempted from the act, as well as ivory from non-elephant species.

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Zelenskiy visits Ukrainian troops on frontline as Russia pushes them back

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President makes rare publicised visit outside Kyiv to Lysychansk

The Ukrainian president has visited the frontline close to the fiercest fighting between his country’s troops and Russian forces in the east, where a regional official said the situation had worsened for Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the beleaguered city of Lysychansk on Sunday, just a few kilometres south from Sievierodonetsk, the main battlefield in the east where Russia has concentrated its forces.

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‘Weakness’ of UK position shaped Northern Ireland protocol negotiations, David Frost says

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Former Brexit negotiator criticises Irish government’s focus on ‘all-island’ economy

Boris Johnson’s former Brexit negotiator David Frost has said the “weakness” of the UK’s position shaped the negotiations for the Northern Ireland protocol but blamed a lack of pragmatism in the EU’s approach for the current difficulties.

Frost said the deal he negotiated while in Johnson’s government would have run smoothly only if it had never been fully applied by the EU.

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Platinum jubilee celebrations through Guardian lenses

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Guardian photojournalists share their jubilee experiences – including beach, street and park parties from Glasgow to Cornwall

Driving around Cornwall on Saturday, you’d have thought the Queen’s Jubilee had been cancelled. Bunting was hard to find, fancy dress was nowhere to be seen and, due to the grim weather, only a smattering of people braved the street lunch in Falmouth where free Cornish pasties were being doled out.

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Dozens dead in Nigeria as gunmen carry out ‘satanic’ attack on Catholic church

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More than 50 killed with explosives reportedly detonated in attack during mass at church in Ondo state

Gunmen attacked a Catholic church in Ondo state, Nigeria, during mass on Sunday, leaving dozens dead, in a “satanic attack” local officials said.

The attackers targeted the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the town of Owo just as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, state legislator Ogunmolasuyi Oluwole said.

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‘Significant’ consequences if lawmakers fail to act on gun control, Democrat warns

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Senator Chris Murphy says measures passed in Florida after Parkland shooting could attract Republican support

The Democratic senator leading his party’s push for stronger gun laws said on Sunday he believed measures passed in Florida following the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland could attract Republican support and provide a workable template for action in Congress.

Chris Murphy of Connecticut, speaking on CNN’s State of the Union, said he was optimistic that recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, could finally prompt enough bipartisan support for legislation that has previously proven elusive.

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Philadelphia, Tennessee and Michigan shootings leave at least nine dead and 27 wounded

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Gunfire erupted Saturday night in Philadelphia’s downtown area and near a Chattanooga nightclub and north-west of Detroit on Sunday morning

Gunfire killed three people and wounded at least 11 in one of downtown Philadelphia’s most popular entertainment districts late on Saturday night, hours before separate shootings in Tennessee and Michigan left six dead and at least 16 wounded, authorities said.

The violence erupted as many, including US president Joe Biden, call on Congress to enact meaningful gun control measures, especially in the wake of deadly mass shootings last month in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas.

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Christo before Christo: Paris exhibition reveals artist’s earlier works

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Exhibition to show items the artist experimented with before larger wrapped pieces that defined him

Long before scaling the heights of the Reichstag in Berlin or the Pont Neuf in Paris, the artist known as Christo started on a much smaller scale.

Having fled communist Bulgaria for Paris and working in a maid’s room, the impoverished refugee began creating his first wrapped sculptures using everyday objects such as cans, bottles and – when he found a bigger studio – old oil barrels.

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Newly released doctor’s letters show Adolf Hitler’s fear of illness

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Carl Otto von Eicken, an ear, nose and throat specialist, treated Nazi dictator for 10 years from 1935

The Swiss descendent of one of Adolf Hitler’s doctors has released details of letters that show how he treated the Nazi dictator for voice problems, the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday.

The letters show Hitler’s fear of serious illness. “If there is something bad, I absolutely have to know,” Hitler told the doctor after their first consultation in May 1935, according to the letters.

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