Category Archives: World News

Vienna reclaims title of the world’s most liveable city

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Annual rankings return Austria’s capital to first place, as former title-holder Auckland tumbles to 34th and Ukraine war sees eastern cities slump

The Austrian capital, Vienna, has made a comeback as the world’s most liveable city, according to an annual report from the Economist.

Vienna snatched the top spot from New Zealand city Auckland, which tumbled down to 34th place due to coronavirus pandemic restrictions, according to the report by the Economist intelligence unit published on Thursday.

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Sri Lanka’s prime minister says economy has ‘completely collapsed’

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Ranil Wickremesinghe’s comments come as island faces its worst crisis in recent memory, though PM didn’t cite any new developments

Sri Lanka’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” after months of shortages of food, fuel and electricity, the prime minister told lawmakers in comments that underscored the country’s dire situation as it seeks help from international lenders.

Ranil Wickremesinghe told parliament the South Asian nation faces “a far more serious situation” than the shortages alone, and he warned of “a possible fall to rock bottom.”

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Boris Johnson and Prince Charles to hold Rwanda talks

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Pair are visiting for Commonwealth meeting, after Charles criticised government’s asylum policy

Boris Johnson will have a potentially awkward meeting with the Prince of Wales in Rwanda after the heir to the throne criticised the government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to the east African state.

The talks will take place at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Kigali this week. Prince Charles reportedly described the government’s plan to fly people 4,000 miles on a one-way ticket as “appalling”.

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Ecuador facing food and fuel shortages as country rocked by violent protests

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Government rejects conditions for dialogue to end 10 days of Indigenous-led demonstrations against economic policy

Violent protests against the economic policies of Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso have paralysed the country’s capital and other regions, but the government on Wednesday rejected their conditions for dialogue.

Quito is experiencing food and fuel shortages after 10 days of demonstrations in which protesters at times have clashed with police. After officials rejected the conditions for negotiations, the United States government issued an advisory urging travellers to reconsider visiting the country due to “civil unrest and crime”.

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British man facing death sentence in Donetsk told: ‘Time is running out’

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Aiden Aslin has been told his execution in Russian-occupied Ukraine will be carried out, his family say

A British man sentenced to death by a Russian proxy court for fighting in Ukraine has been told the execution will be carried out, his family have said.

Aiden Aslin, 28, and Shaun Pinner, 48, were sentenced on charges of “terrorism” by a court that is not internationally recognised earlier this month in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

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Isolated Afghanistan may face struggle for aid after earthquake

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Analysis: humanitarian appeals for Taliban-ruled country have had poor responses and there are sanctions complications

As Afghanistan reels from a powerful earthquake and starts to bury its more than 1,000 dead, the Taliban leadership in Kabul have appealed to the international community to clear any barriers created by sanctions and come to their aid.

“The government is working within its capabilities,” tweeted Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban official. “We hope that the International Community & aid agencies will also help our people in this dire situation.”

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Finland’s armed forces chief says his country is prepared for a Russian attack and ready to fight – 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

One of the leaders of the authorities imposed in occupied Ukraine has described the border between Russia and Ukraine as “worse than the Berlin Wall for the Germans”, according to a report from RIA Novosti.

It quotes Vladimir Rogov saying:

For us, the border with Russia is worse than the Berlin Wall for the Germans. According to various estimates, 60-68 per cent of the inhabitants of East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic [East Germany] had relatives in West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany [West Germany]. In Ukraine, depending on the region, 73-85 percent residents have relatives in Russia. Accordingly, this border should not exist.

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Daunte Wright’s family to receive $3.2m in settlement over police shooting

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The settlement also includes changes in police policies and training involving traffic stops

Authorities in Brooklyn Center, a city in the suburbs of Minneapolis, have agreed to pay $3.2m to the family of Daunte Wright, a Black man shot dead by a police officer who said she confused her gun with her Taser.

The tentative settlement also includes changes in police policies and training involving traffic stops like the one that resulted in Wright’s death, according to a statement from attorneys representing Wright’s family.

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Russia bears down on Lysychansk, targeting police and judicial buildings

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Moscow’s troops move on to city neighbouring Sievierodonetsk, after capturing all but chemical plant there

Sievierodonetsk and its neighbouring city, Lysychansk, continue to be battered by intense Russian shelling as Moscow edges closer to seizing the last pocket of resistance in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.

Luhansk’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Wednesday that Russian forces were moving towards Lysychansk, targeting the buildings of police, state security and prosecutors.

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US woman left traumatised after Malta hospital refuses life-saving abortion

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‘Desperate’ tourist who fell foul of country’s total ban fears for her life if complications set in while she waits for transfer to UK

Doctors have denied an American woman on holiday in Malta a potentially life-saving abortion, despite saying her baby had a “zero chance” of survival after she was admitted to hospital with severe bleeding in her 16th week of pregnancy.

Despite an “extreme risk” of haemorrhage and infection, doctors at the Mater Dei hospital in Msida told Andrea Prudente that they would not perform a termination because of the country’s total ban on abortion.

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Afghan quake: at least 1,000 people killed after 5.9 magnitude tremor

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Toll expected to rise after deadliest quake in two decades strikes during night near Khost, 95 miles south of Kabul

A powerful earthquake in a remote area of Afghanistan’s Paktika province has killed at least 1,000 people and injured at least 1,500, with the toll expected to rise in the impoverished country.

According to Taliban officials, hundreds more were injured in what appears to have been the deadliest quake in two decades, striking during the night with heavy rain hampering rescue efforts.

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One of earliest known mosques found in Israeli desert, say experts

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Remains thought to be more than 1,200 years old shed light on region’s transition from Christianity to Islam, say officials

Israeli archaeologists have unveiled a rare ancient mosque in the country’s south that antiquities officials said shed light on the region’s transition from Christianity to Islam.

The remains of the mosque, believed to be more than 1,200 years old, were discovered during works to build a new neighbourhood in the Bedouin city of Rahat, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement.

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Drone crashes into Russian oil refinery in possible attack

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Video shared on social media shows an explosion at the Novoshakhtinsk plant

Dramatic footage has emerged from Russia of what appears to be a drone crashing into an oil refinery and setting off a fiery explosion in what could be an attack inside Russia’s borders.

Video shared on social media showed the unmanned aerial vehicle crashing into the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, in Rostov, in what would be an embarrassing penetration of Russia’s air defence systems in its ongoing war in Ukraine.

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Panel makes case that Trump campaign knew alternate electors scheme was fraudulent

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Text appears to indicate campaign sought to use certificates it knew were not state-certified to obstruct Biden’s victory

The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack made the case at its fourth hearing on Tuesday that the Trump 2020 campaign tried to obstruct Joe Biden’s election win through a potentially illegal scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.

The panel presented a text message sent on 4 January 2021 that appeared to indicate the Trump campaign was seeking to use fraudulent election certificates they would have known were not state-certified to obstruct the congressional certification of Biden’s win.

Note: This post was updated to clarify the former US attorneys’ titles.

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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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