Category Archives: World News

‘We had to do this’: Berlin museum to drop ‘Russian’ from name

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Museum on site where Nazis agreed to surrender in 1945 will be renamed Museum Berlin-Karlshorst

A Berlin museum dedicated to German-Russian relations on the site where the Nazis agreed to unconditionally surrender in 1945 is to drop the word “Russian” from its name before anniversary events to mark the end of the second world war in Europe.

With tensions already high in the lead-up to the 77th anniversary on 8 and 9 May of Nazi Germany signing the surrender agreement, the German-Russian museum’s director, Jörg Morré, said he would be renaming it Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.

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Guardian wins Amnesty media award for best use of digital media

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Award given for the interactive reconstruction of the moment Israeli forces hit a residential tower block in Gaza

The Guardian has won a prestigious Amnesty media award for the interactive reconstruction Countdown to the airstrike: the moment Israeli forces hit al-Jalaa tower, Gaza, showing the race to evacuate residents of a block of flats before their homes were turned to rubble.

The Best Use of Digital Media award was given to the Guardian’s Global Development reporter Kaamil Ahmed and interactive designer Garry Blight, Airwars’ Joe Dyke and the Gaza-based journalist Anas Baba for their use of video, images and audio captured by the residents of al-Jalaa tower in the hour after Israeli forces called to tell them it would be demolished.

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Canada plane crash mystery deepens with two murder suspects among dead

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Investigation into the crash at Sioux Lookout revealed two of four passengers were fleeing murder and conspiracy charges

A plane crash in the rugged hinterlands of Canada during seemingly calm weather has prompted a federal investigation into what could have brought down the small aircraft.

But revelations that two of the passengers were fleeing murder and conspiracy charges and had links to organized crime have only deepened the mystery over the doomed flight.

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Peru’s leader and his wife investigated for allegedly plagiarizing master’s thesis

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TV station finds 54% of document was apparently copied but Pedro Castillo calls accusations ‘malicious’

Peruvian prosecutors are investigating President Pedro Castillo and his wife for alleged plagiarism after a local television station said an investigation showed the couple may have copied more than half the master’s thesis they co-authored.

Panamericana television’s Panorama program used a transparency request to obtain the text of the 121-page thesis and submitted it to the plagiarism detection service Turnitin. Panorama said the couple appeared to have plagiarized 54% of it from other authors.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Israel says Putin has apologised for Lavrov’s Hitler comments; fresh attempt to evacuate Azovstal civilians – live

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Israeli PM says he has accepted Putin’s apology, after Russia’s foreign minister said Adolf Hitler ‘had Jewish blood’

Russia’s RIA news agency is carrying additional details from Moldova’s unrecognised breakaway Transnistria region, which claimed earlier this week to have foiled a drone attack it says originated within Ukraine. Transnistria borders Ukraine to the west.

The report quotes Transnistria’s foreign minister Vitaly Ignatiev saying:

The red increased terrorist threat code remains. We managed to neutralise the drone that flew with explosives in the direction of the Mayak radio and television centre. We minimised this threat, but the danger of terrorist attacks remains

The drone that was neutralized, we were able to track the tracking of its movements, and everything suggests that it was launched from the territory of Ukraine , six kilometres from the border of Transnistria

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Esper book details Trump rage at Pence and proposal to hit Mexico with missiles

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Memoir from ex-defense chief Mark Esper details extraordinary outbursts he says he helped to defuse

In the heated summer of 2020, thwarted in his desire for a violent crackdown on protesters for racial justice, Donald Trump included his vice-president in a complaint that senior advisers were “losers”.

Trump’s second defense secretary, Mark Esper, details the Oval Office outburst in a new book. A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Defense Secretary in Extraordinary Times, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

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US stocks see worst day this year as Fed rate hike rattles investors

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Dow falls 3.1% a day after the Fed chair announces biggest hike in two decades to combat inflation

US stock markets suffered their worst day of the year on Thursday as investors worried about the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates to tackle soaring inflation.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost over 1,000 points (3.1%). The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 3.5% and 4.9% respectively. Tech stocks were particularly hard-hit, with Amazon dropping 7.6% and Tesla falling 8.3%.

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Three people killed and at least four injured in attack in Israeli town of Elad

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Israel launches hunt for suspects after two Palestinian suspects carrying axe and firearm attacked passersby

Three people have been killed and at least four more injured in the central Israeli town of Elad, in the latest in a spate of street attacks that have sent tensions soaring in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent weeks.

Israeli forces have launched a hunt for two Palestinian suspects, backed by a large deployment of security personnel, helicopters, drones and roadblocks. Police said the suspects were 19 and 20 years old and came from the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

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Swiss police seize 500kg of cocaine at Nespresso factory

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Workers at plant in Romont alert authorities to mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans

Swiss police have seized more than 500kg of cocaine from a shipment of coffee beans delivered to a Nespresso plant.

Workers at the plant in Romont, in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg, alerted authorities to a mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans, police said.

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UK imposes sanctions on Roman Abramovich-linked steel firm Evraz

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Foreign Office says company part-owned by billionaire ‘operates in sectors of strategic significance to government of Russia’

The UK government has placed sanctions on Evraz, the multinational steelmaker part-owned by the billionaire Roman Abramovich that was formerly counted among Britain’s biggest companies.

The Foreign Office said on Thursday that Evraz “operates in sectors of strategic significance to the government of Russia” and the action would “further chip away at Putin’s financial reserves and siege economy, and support Ukraine’s continued resistance”.

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EU plans to put Putin’s rumoured girlfriend on sanctions list

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Alina Kabaeva likely to join Patriarch Kirill, who supports war in Ukraine, on draft document of travel bans and asset freezes

The European Union plans to impose sanctions on Alina Kabaeva, long rumoured to be Vladimir Putin’s girlfriend, and Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox church.

Two sources said the EU has proposed sanctions on Kabaeva, a former Olympic gymnast whose appearance on a draft sanctions list was first reported by Bloomberg. Kirill, a long-serving Kremlin ally who has given his blessing to the war in Ukraine, appears on a draft document seen by the Guardian.

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Vaquita porpoise could survive … but only if illegal fishing stops immediately

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DNA study finds rarest cetacean, only found in Gulf of California, has enough genetic diversity to recover – if gillnet ban is enforced


Scientists studying the DNA of the world’s smallest cetacean and rarest marine mammal, the vaquita porpoise, have made a surprising and bittersweet discovery.

With a tiny population of fewer than 10 individuals left, the mammal was assumed by conservationists to be at a similar risk of harmful mutations and inbreeding as other species with small gene pools.

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Catalans demand answers after Spanish spy chief confirms phone hacking

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Paz Estaban told committee spyware was used on 18 Catalan activists with judicial approval, sources say

The Catalan government is calling for answers “from the highest level” after the head of Spain’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI) reportedly confirmed that 18 members of the regional independence movement were spied on with judicial approval.

The apparent admission – to a congressional committee – came two weeks after cybersecurity experts said at least 63 people connected with the Catalan independence movement had been targeted or infected with Pegasus spyware, and three days after the Spanish government said the phones of the prime minister and the defence minister had been targeted with Pegasus.

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Alleged Colombian cartel head due in New York court after extradition

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Victims of paramilitaries demand Dairo Antonio Úsuga come clean about atrocities committed by forces he commanded

The accused head of Colombia’s Gulf Clan cartel is due to appear in a federal court in New York on Thursday, as victims in his home country call for guarantees that he will come clean on atrocities committed by the feared paramilitary fighters he once commanded.

Dairo Antonio Úsuga, who is Colombia’s most wanted drug suspect for nearly a decade, was extradited from Colombia late on Wednesday on cocaine and weapons charges.

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Chanel’s Monte Carlo cruise show pays homage to racing and casinos

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Fashion company targets social media audience with playful details and slick Coppola video trailer

The jet-set catwalk show is back, with its sunny backdrops and international front row. But the new world order is complicating the seating plan.

At Chanel’s first fashion show outside France since the pandemic, the Monte Carlo beachfront played catwalk to a pageant of supermodels dressed in light-hearted tribute to grand prix glitz. The 67 models wore racing-driver jumpsuits tailored in pastel tweeds and gold lamé, and helmets emblazoned with No 5.

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Ministers accused of abandoning UK geologist at risk of execution in Iraq

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Family ‘baffled’ by Foreign Office after Jim Fitton arrested for taking pottery pieces from ancient site

The family of a British man who has been detained in Iraq for more than six weeks and faces execution for collecting fragments of pottery at an ancient site has accused British ministers of abandoning him, and expressed concern over the conditions he is being held in.

Jim Fitton, 66, who was on an organised geology and archaeology trip, was arrested at Baghdad airport as he tried to fly out. He was detained on suspicion of smuggling, after pieces of pottery he had been assured by guides were worthless were found in his luggage.

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Japanese premier warns of Ukraine-style invasion by ‘autocratic powers’

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Kishida also promised increased reliance upon nuclear power for future energy independence

Boris Johnson and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida have warned that the invasion of Ukraine could be replicated in east Asia if democratic powers do not stand up to autocratic ones.

“Ukraine may be east Asia tomorrow,” Kishida said on Thursday during a visit to London, as he called for Indo-Pacific leaders to recognise that the invasion of Ukraine was not just a European problem. Asked about the implications for Taiwan, he said: “We must collaborate with our allies and like-minded countries, and never tolerate a unilateral attempt to change the status quo by the use of force in the Indo-Pacific, especially in east Asia.”

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Hundreds of Iraqis hospitalised as thick sandstorm blankets country

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Flights suspended and authorities urge people to stay indoors as fifth sandstorm in a month hits Iraq

Hundreds of Iraqis have been taken to hospitals with breathing problems and Baghdad airport suspended flights for several hours as a thick sandstorm blanketed the country, the fifth to engulf Iraq within a month.

Iraqi state media said most of the patients suffered respiratory issues as clinics across the country’s north and west struggled to keep up with the influx. Authorities urged citizens to stay indoors.

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CIA director urged Bolsonaro to stop doubting Brazil’s voting system – report

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Fears Brazilian president might refuse to accept defeat in this year’s election as leftist rival Lula is set to announce candidacy

The CIA director William Burns urged Jair Bolsonaro to stop questioning his country’s voting system, it has been claimed, amid growing fears the Brazilian president might refuse to accept defeat in this year’s election.

Polls suggest Bolsonaro, a far-right populist famed for his adulation of Donald Trump, will struggle to secure a second term when about 150 million Brazilians head to the polls in October to choose their next leader.

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Xinjiang cotton found in Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss tops, researchers say

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Traces in shirts and T-shirts appear to contradict German firms’ promises to revise supply chains

Researchers say they have found traces of Xinjiang cotton in shirts and T-shirts made by Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss, appearing to contradict the German clothing companies’ promises to revise their supply chains after allegations of widespread forced labour in the Chinese region.

Recent reports have suggested more than half a million people from minority ethnic groups such as the Uyghurs have been coerced into picking cotton in Xinjiang, which provides more than 80% of China’s and a fifth of the global production of cotton.

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