Category Archives: World News

Items belonging to Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira found in Amazon

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Clothing and backpack belonging to the missing British journalist and Indigenous expert found by small but determined search team

Personal items belonging to the British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira have been found in an area of flooded forest near the Amazonian river on which they were last seen.

The objects were discovered on Saturday thanks to a small but determined Indigenous search team that has spent the past seven days on the frontline of the hunt for the two missing men who had both, in different ways, championed the Indigenous cause.

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Global nuclear arsenal set to grow for first time in decades

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Thinktank also says nuclear powers must take immediate action to prevent rise amid heightened risk of weapons’ use

The global nuclear arsenal is expected to grow in the coming years for the first time since the cold war, and the risk of such weapons being used is the greatest in decades, a leading conflict and armaments thinktank says.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western support for Kyiv has heightened tensions among the world’s nine nuclear-armed states, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) thinktank said on Monday in a new set of research.

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Will a kiss on the head bring victory for Emmanuel Macron?

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France’s president will be hoping his habit of planting a peck on a pate on polling days will bring him luck in parliamentary elections

Emmanuel Macron’s apparent habit of kissing a bald supporter on the head on election day has sparked French media speculation over whether it was a superstitious gesture as his centrists face a tough challenge from the left.

As the French president went to vote in the first round of the parliamentary elections in the northern seaside resort of Le Touquet, where he has a house, he approached waiting supporters before grabbing party activist Grégoire Campion and kissing him on his bald head.

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Former British soldier killed fighting Russian forces in Ukraine

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Jordan Gatley’s family say he died in the battle for the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk

A former British soldier has died fighting Russian forces in the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk, his family have said.

Jordan Gatley left the British army in March “to continue his career as a soldier in other areas” and had been helping Ukrainian troops defend their country against Russia, his father Dean wrote in a statement posted on Facebook on Saturday.

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Hope of finding Dom Phillips alive has gone, say mother-in-law and wife

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The British journalist was travelling in the Amazon with Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira when they went missing

The wife and mother-in-law of missing British journalist Dom Phillips have said their hopes of finding him alive had gone, in a heartfelt and heart-breaking message that paid tribute to him and his travelling companion Bruno Pereira.

Phillips, a longtime contributor to the Guardian, and Pereira, an experienced Indigenous advocate, went missing on 5 June in a remote part of the western Amazon.

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Fighting in eastern Ukraine rages as Sievierodonetsk chemical plant hit

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Regional governor says Azot plant, where hundreds of civilians are taking shelter, remains under Ukrainian control

Fierce fighting has continued in the strategic city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, where Russian shelling caused a fire at a chemical plant in which hundreds of civilians are believed to have taken shelter during some of the most intense bombardment of the war.

The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said in an interview with local television that the Azot chemical plant remained under Ukrainian control, adding that fighting was under way on Sunday on the “outskirts of the city, in the streets directly near the plant”.

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‘I am amazed’: 101-year-old Dutch woman reunited with painting looted by Nazis

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Exclusive: she will sell the 1683 portrait of Steven Wolters by Caspar Netscher through Sotheby’s so her family can benefit from the proceeds

At the age of 101, a Dutch woman has been reunited with a painting that had been looted from her father by the Nazis during the second world war, but she has decided to sell it through Sotheby’s in London so that her family can benefit from the proceeds.

Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck, a non-practising Baptist who joined the Dutch Resistance, had never given up hope of finding the 1683 portrait of Steven Wolters by Caspar Netscher, a Dutch master whose paintings are in the National Gallery, London.

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Pilot shortages, fuel prices and Covid: US braces for travel chaos

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US sees rise in travel after ‘two years of pent-up demand’ – but issues continue to cloud the industry

On a recent Friday night Laura Waring needed to fly from Newark, New Jersey, to San Diego to help set up her healthcare information technology company’s conference, which was scheduled to start the next Monday.

But after her flight was repeatedly delayed and then canceled, Waring slept for about 45 minutes on a cot at Newark airport before she woke up cold and uncertain how she would get to California.

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Liz Truss accused of ignoring evidence of rendition of UK citizen to Nigeria

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Family of Nnamdi Kanu, a separatist leader, say he was seized and tortured in Kenya and then flown to Nigeria

The family of a British citizen have accused the foreign secretary of ignoring “overwhelming evidence” he was taken to Nigeria in an act of extraordinary rendition and failing to end his “unlawful” imprisonment there.

Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, has been held there since June last year.

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Indian state razes Muslim homes after riots over prophet remarks

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Uttar Pradesh authorities demolish property belonging to people allegedly involved in unrest

Authorities in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have demolished the homes of several people accused of involvement in riots last week triggered by derogatory remarks made by ruling party figures about the Prophet Muhammad.

Muslims have taken to the streets across India in recent weeks to protest against anti-Islamic remarks by two members of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).

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The Quiet Girl: Irish-language film breaks box office records in Ireland and UK

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An Cailín Ciúin, as it is known in Irish, has earned more than €600,000 since its release last month

An Irish-language film has shattered box office records in Ireland and the UK and become a standard-bearer for a language seldom seen on the big screen.

The Quiet Girl has astonished the industry by quadrupling the previous record for an Irish language film, and by last week earning more than €610,000 (£518,000) since its release in mid-May.

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Stars align for Cuban migrants as record numbers seek better life in US

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The journey to America, often via Nicaragua, has become more viable – and many are taking their chances at the border

One morning last spring, 22-year-old Ernesto Hernández set out from the outskirts of Havana on a rickety boat hoping to cross the Florida Straits. The plan was to leave behind a dilapidating communist-ruled island in which he saw no future, and sail into an American dream.

Nobody has heard from him, or the other six people onboard, since.

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Pakistani garment workers left destitute and starving after Missguided collapse

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Fashion retailer’s suppliers in Pakistan have sacked hundreds without pay, as invoices for completed orders remain unpaid

Hundreds of garment workers in Pakistan making clothing for collapsed fast fashion brand Missguided say they have been left destitute and starving after not receiving salaries for more than four months.

The workers, who typically earn between £100 and £160 a month, say that despite not being paid they have continued working even as the Manchester-based retailer went into administration, with suppliers claiming the company owes them millions of pounds for clothing already completed and shipped.

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Malaysia’s ‘mystery hybrid monkey’ could be result of habitat loss

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Researcher says proboscis monkey may have mated with silver langur when unable to reach female of own species

The emergence of a “mystery monkey”, believed to be a rare hybrid of two distantly related primates, highlights the importance of protecting habit connectivity, according to a researcher who studied the animal.

The female monkey first attracted attention in 2017, when photographs taken of it along the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia, were uploaded to social media wildlife photography groups.

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‘China’s Taiwan’: Beijing’s defence minister rails against ‘smearing and interfering’ US

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Wei Fenghe says ties are at critical juncture and puts onus on United States to improve bilateral relationship

China will “fight to the very end” to stop Taiwan from declaring independence, the country’s defence minister has vowed in a speech amid his counterparts from other countries including the United States.

“We will fight at all cost and we will fight to the very end. This is the only choice for China,” Wei Fenghe told the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore, where he called Taiwan “first and foremost China’s Taiwan”.

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Hong Kong NETs – foreign teachers of English – forced to take allegiance oath

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Authoritarian measures are widened to meet Chinese loyalty requirements, despite fears it will worsen teacher shortages

Foreign English-language teachers working in Hong Kong government schools will need to swear allegiance to the city, officials have ordered, as fears grow about the territory’s ability to retain educators in the face of increasing restrictions.

Hong Kong’s education bureau said on Saturday that native-speaking English teachers (NETs) and advisers working in government-run schools must sign a declaration by 21 June in order to continue working.

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Defence minister rubbishes Coalition claims on France compensation deal – as it happened

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Marles brushes off suggestions former Coalition government was close to signing compensation deal with France; nation records at least 24 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Interview with minister for NDIS and government services Bill Shorten now. First question is about energy policy.

Shorten says “the real issue about power, in my opinion is for 10 years we’ve had a decade of denial and delay.”

What we are suffering from this winter in the short term is floods of coal mines, outages of a plant which is more than 50 years old, but the real long-term problem is that we haven’t made a plan for transition to renewables, now the chickens have come home to roost.

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Biden faces anger over huge New Mexico wildfire sparked by federal burns

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President visits state beset by Hermits Peak Calif Canyon fire, result of two accidental fires that merged

Joe Biden landed in New Mexico on Saturday amid anger and frustration from wildfire survivors as he visited the state to review efforts to fight its biggest blaze in recorded history – which was started by federal officials.

Driven by drought and wind, the fire has destroyed hundreds of homes in mountains north-east of Santa Fe since two controlled burns by the US Forest Service went out of control in April.

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‘Enough is enough’: thousands rally across US in gun control protests

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The March for Our Lives rallies come after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York

Rallies for gun reform were held in Washington, New York, other US cities and around the world on Saturday, seeking to increase pressure on Congress to act following a spate of mass shootings.

In Washington, the son of an 86-year-old victim in the Buffalo supermarket shooting said: “Enough is enough. We will not go quietly into the night.”

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