Analysis: convoy estimated to be 40 miles long raises fears of siege tactics and escalating civilian casualties
In the satellite image, the trees of the forest just north of the Ukrainian village of Rudnya-Shpylivska – population 107 – appear as if you could brush them with your hand.
Before last week, this hamlet was almost too small to notice, a place that cars would speed past on the P02 highway, those trees a blur.
Continue reading...A vast, fast-moving cloud of ash hundreds of metres tall and several kilometres wide has swept over southern Paraguay, blown in from wildfires raging in neighbouring Argentina after two years of severe drought.
A weather front of cold air from the south acted 'like a broom', explained Eduardo Dose, a Paraguayan hydrologist, scooping up soot from burnt pastures and forests as well as dust from drought-stricken wetlands. Strong winds then channelled the choking cloud
Wildfires send giant cloud of ash across southern Paraguay
Continue reading...Dozens of diplomats walked out of a speech by the Russian foreign minister to the UN human rights forum on Tuesday.
Sergei Lavrov was addressing the UN human rights council remotely, after cancelling his attendance previously because of what the Russian mission in Geneva said on Monday were EU states blocking his flight path, when delegates from the UK, US and EU started to walk out in protest.
Yevheniia Filipenko, Ukraine's ambassador to the UN, said the organisation was taking a 'very strong stance in defence of its own principles'
Continue reading...During an emergency session of the European parliament, Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the EU via video link to 'prove that you are with us' as Ukraine defends itself against an onslaught from Russia, a day after Kyiv officially asked to join the bloc. EU lawmakers, many bearing the Ukrainian flag, gave Zelenskiy a standing ovation. The Ukrainian president has remained in Kyiv to rally his people against the invasion. As he spoke on Tuesday, a Russian armoured column was bearing down on the capital
Continue reading...The mind-boggling hoard of jewellery the plundering first lady tried to smuggle out of the Philippines is being remade as sculpture by artist Pio Abad – with all its sparkle gone
Over his three terms as president of the Philippines from 1965, Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda were able to cream off some $10bn of the nation’s assets through offshore banks. New revelations that a close associate of the dictator was also able to maintain an account with Credit Suisse as late as 2006 therefore comes as no surprise to Manila-born Pio Abad. For a decade the artist has been making work under the title The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders, a reference to the aliases the couple used with the Swiss bank.
“It’s funny when a 10-year project becomes news,” says Abad, who is now London-based. “These institutions are very culpable for what happened in the Philippines.”
Continue reading...Friends become possessed by conspiracy theories after moving into Epstein’s old apartment in this smirking love letter to Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut
In 2019, reviewing a re-release of Eyes Wide Shut, Peter Bradshaw pointed out that in the age of Epstein, the idea of a secret society of the rich and powerful exploiting the vulnerable no longer seemed far-fetched. Now comes The Scary of Sixty-First, a kind of cinematic love letter to Stanley Kubrick set in the New York of Eyes Wide Shut, about Jeffrey Epstein and the conspiracy theories around his death. It’s a shallow, outrage-baiting movie out to shock but not much else. Disappointingly, the director and co-writer is supersmart switched-on Dasha Nekrasova, an actor who plays Kendall’s press adviser Comfrey in Succession and co-hosts the Red Scare podcast.
The movie begins like an episode of Girls: friends Noelle (co-writer Madeline Quinn) and Addie (Betsey Brown) move into a suspiciously cheap rented apartment in Manhattan’s swanky Upper East Side. Eli Keszler’s pounding synth-y score signals something is up; so too does the creepy second bedroom, which has a mirror on the ceiling and doors that lock from the outside. Then comes a knock at the door. A woman credited only as The Girl (played by Nekrasova, possessing Chloë Sevigny levels of aloof cool), tells them that the apartment was previously owned by Epstein.
Continue reading...Steve Bladon led his Lincolnshire school tirelessly through the pandemic and thought the worst was over – then fatigue set in
Last month, Steve Bladon, a father of four, watched with some unease as the prime minister announced the lifting of all Covid restrictions in England. After two years of the pandemic – the lockdowns, the legal requirements to self-isolate, the social distancing and mandatory masks – the message from government was that it may not be over, but it’s time to learn to live with Covid.
As the headteacher of a primary school in a small town in Lincolnshire, Bladon, 46, knows as much as anyone about living with the virus. He has led his team and school community tirelessly through the pandemic, delivering remote education and food parcels, reassuring anxious parents and keeping colleagues calm.
Continue reading...European stocks are falling again, but not collapsing... The UK’s FTSE 100 index has followed the rest of Europe and is now trading 11 points, or 0.15%, lower at 7,447, giving up earlier modest gains.
Germany’s Dax has lost 1% while France’s CAC and Italy’s FTSE MiB are 0.7% and 0.9% lower respectively.
Russia exposed stocks more mixed this morning: Polymetal, JPMorgan Russian Securities and Petropavlosk all lower again, whilst Evraz and Ferrexpo rallied a bit. The rouble has come off its lows and trades around 91 to the US dollar. At the moment it looks as though the Russian central bank is doing a not terrible job of supporting the currency, but through some pretty tough measures – massive rate hike and capital controls. How long can this last? First Switzerland and now even Monaco is kicking out Russian money!
As for Russia and Ukraine....the dreadful situation gets worse as heavy shelling of built-up areas shows us what is to come. Talks yesterday didn’t get far but the two sides have agreed to try again as a massive Russian convoy starts to encircle Kyiv. Bombing of civilians will harden Western public opinion against Russia – voters are already taking a pretty hard line across Europe. Unified public opinion complicates matters for governments who might prefer to base policy solely on the advice of their military intelligence and strategic advisors. But that is the way of things.
We think there is a clear financial as well as a moral case for divestment with respect to our Russian holdings.
Morals drive finance and if you are a financial investor and you don’t think about the moral impacts of what you are doing you are both shortsighted and, dare I say it, immoral.
Continue reading...Deputy prime minister says those that leave ‘want to be as close to their home country as possible’
• Russia-Ukraine crisis: live news
The UK’s deputy prime minister has suggested Ukrainians would prefer to flee to countries nearer to home amid criticism that the Britain’s support for refugees is “heartless” and pressure to offer more help from Conservative MPs.
Under plans set out on Sunday evening, Ukrainian nationals settled in the UK will be able to bring their “immediate family members” to join them, which applies only to spouses, unmarried partners of at least two years, parents or their children if one is under 18, or adult relatives who are also carers.
Continue reading...Rescuers searching rubble of base in Okhtyrka in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces gather outside Kyiv
More than 70 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the eastern city of Okhtyrka after a Russian missile strike on a military base, in what is thought to be the biggest loss of life in a single incident in Moscow’s invasion.
The death toll – reported by Ukrainian officials in the city – follows a sharp intensification of the Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including the use of multiple-launch rocket systems against civilian areas, which has led to increasing casualties.
Continue reading...More that 15,00 homes destroyed in Port Harcourt in government plan to ‘sanitise the waterfronts by removing shanties’
The bulldozers rolled into Urualla, Port Harcourt, early on 30 January. By the end of the day, hundreds of people were homeless, their belongings scattered and lost, as government clearances of waterfront slums in the southern Nigerian city got under way.
Over six days, the homes of more than 15,000 families in eight slum communities in the Diobu area of the city were destroyed. Another three neighbourhoods are earmarked to be cleared.
Continue reading...Darknet survey finds 42% sought contact after watching sexual abuse online, with escalating porn habits driving users to illegal material
The largest ever survey on the thoughts and behaviours of people who watch child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online has found significant evidence that those who watch illegal material are at high risk of going on to contact or abuse a child directly.
Nearly half (42%) of respondents to the survey, the first of its kind, said they had sought direct contact with children through online platforms after viewing CSAM, and 58% reported feeling afraid that viewing CSAM might lead to them committing abuse in person.
Continue reading...Concerts, dance recitals and exhibitions have been postponed indefinitely after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted responses from the cultural sphere, with Russian artists and companies beginning to feel the repercussions of decisions taken by the Kremlin. Not only has Russia been stripped of two prestigious events – the Champions League men’s final and Formula One’s Russian Grand Prix –but an increasing number of performances by Russians are being cancelled worldwide.
Continue reading...The ‘vacuum bomb’, which Ukraine says the Russians have used in the invasion, ignites a fireball that sucks in all surrounding oxygen
Fears have risen over the use of thermobaric weapons by Russia after the Ukrainian ambassador to the US said a vacuum bomb – another term for the weapon – had been used during the invasion.
The use of such weapons, which suck in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion, has yet to be independently confirmed, though footage from Ukraine has shown thermobaric rocket launchers on Russia’s TOS-1 vehicles.
Continue reading...Experts say there is enough variation in samples to argue there was also a Tyrannosaurus imperator and a regina
With its immense size, dagger-like teeth and sharp claws, Tyrannosaurus rex was a fearsome predator that once terrorised North America. Now researchers studying its fossils have suggested the beast may not have been the only tyrannosaurus species.
Experts studying remains thought to belong to T rex have suggested their variation shows evidence of not one species but three.
Continue reading...Prosecutors say they cannot determine how many were killed because attackers cleaned up the scene and removed any bodies
Mexicans have been left wondering what happened to about a dozen men who disappeared after they were seen lined up against a wall by drug cartel gunmen.
In a video apparently filmed by a resident of the town San José de Gracia in the western state of Michoacán and posted on social media, bursts of gunfire broke out and smoke covered the scene.
Continue reading...A deluge of reports and footage posted on social media appears to show acts of discrimination and violence against African, Asian and Caribbean citizens while fleeing Ukrainian cities and at some of the country’s border posts. They are among hundreds of thousands of people trying to escape after Russia's invasion
Continue reading...Sergei Roldugin, 71, formerly a high-profile orchestra cellist, is one of 26 new additions to 680-strong list
A Russian oligarch, who is part of a financial network known as ‘Putin’s wallet’ in Moscow, according to the EU, is one of 26 businessmen, officials and military figures who have been added to the bloc’s expanding sanctions list.
Sergei Roldugin, 71, the former principal cellist of the Kirov Opera Theatre’s orchestra in the 1980s and godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, is among those who it is claimed are threatening the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Continue reading...From inside a makeshift bunker in the basement of their block of flats in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, Olia and her neighbours give an insight into their lives as they reach day five of heavy shelling from Russian forces. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, was the focus of dozens of Grad missiles targeting civilian areas in an apparent change of tack by Moscow. Olia, a young artist, reflects on the conflict so far and explains how she is keeping her spirits up
Continue reading...Analysis: against the backdrop of the invasion of Ukraine, Kwasi Kwarteng announces clean-up measures
Britain has long been a haven for people of negotiable integrity to stash their cash, often via property deals made with the help of an army of lawyers, PR advisers and bankers.
Not only are super-mansions in London and the home counties a safe bet from an investment point of view, but the ability to disguise ownership via a labyrinthine network of shell companies offers a degree of anonymity to those who prefer their financial dealings to remain secret.
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