Category Archives: World News

The great escape: seal flees killer whales by jumping on to photographer’s boat

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Charvet Drucker captures dramatic video and photos of seal being hunted by orcas in Salish Sea, north-west of Seattle

A wildlife photographer on a whale-watching trip in waters off Seattle captured dramatic video and photos of a pod of killer whales hunting a seal that survived only by clambering on to the stern of her boat.

Charvet Drucker was on a rented 20ft (6 metre) boat near her home on an island in the Salish Sea about 40 miles north-west of Seattle when she spotted a pod of at least eight killer whales, also known as orcas.

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Florida kills man on death row in state’s 16th execution this year

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Bryan Frederick Jennings, convicted over rape and murder of young girl in 1979, given three-drug lethal injection

A man found guilty in the 1979 rape and murder of a six-year-old girl was executed in Florida on Thursday.

Bryan Frederick Jennings was pronounced dead at 6.20pm local time after being administered a three-drug lethal injection. Jennings was sentenced to death for the killing of Rebecca Kunash, whom he drowned in a canal, according to reports.

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Donald Trump pardons UK billionaire and former Tottenham owner Joe Lewis

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Lewis was fined $5m and given three years probation by New York judge over ‘brazen’ insider trading scheme

Joe Lewis, the British billionaire and former owner of Tottenham Hotspur FC, has been pardoned by Donald Trump over a 2024 conviction for his part in a “brazen” insider trading scheme.

Lewis, 88, was fined $5m (£3.8m) and given three years probation by a New York judge last year but was spared jail time after pleading guilty to involvement in a plan that prosecutors said was designed to enrich his friends, lovers and employees.

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Canada says Russia and China are ramping up spy efforts in Arctic region

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Canada’s spy agency says it has observed intelligence threats targeting country’s government and private sector

Canada’s domestic spy agency says Russia and China have a “significant intelligence interest” in Canada’s Arctic, and are targeting both the country’s government and its private sector.

In his annual speech on threats facing Canada, Dan Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), flagged mounting concerns over hostile nations growing increasingly emboldened in the Arctic.

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‘The pain remains’: France remembers victims of 2015 Paris attacks

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Bells ring out across French capital marking 10th anniversary of country’s deadliest peacetime attack

France has paid tribute to the 130 people killed 10 years ago by Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers who targeted a stadium, bars, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall in the country’s deadliest peacetime attack.

“The pain remains,” Emmanuel Macron wrote on social media on Thursday as he visited each of the sites that were attacked. Bells rang out across the city as a remembrance ceremony began at a memorial garden in central Paris attended by relatives and survivors.

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Serbia secretly agreed deal with Jared Kushner firm to develop protected Belgrade site

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Government established joint venture with Trump’s son-in-law in February 2024 to build hotel, apartments and museum complex

The Serbian government has established a joint venture with a property development company owned by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to develop a hotel complex in Belgrade, giving Serbia until next May to demolish the existing buildings, according to leaked documents.

An independent Serbian news magazine, Radar, published what appears to be a 2024 investment agreement giving Kushner’s firm Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC a 77.5% stake in the joint venture, and the Serbian government a 22.5% stake.

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Irish government announces plan to build 300,000 homes within five years

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Proposal includes 72,000 social homes to tackle housing crisis, but critics call it ‘old wine in a new bottle’

The Irish government has announced a long-awaited plan to tackle the country’s severe housing shortage by building 300,000 new homes within five years.

It plans to boost supply by increasing construction capacity and the amount of zoned and serviced land, and to increase support for vulnerable groups, according to proposals published on Thursday.

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Row over definition of ‘gender’ hangs over Cop30 plans to support women

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Advocates say conservative states’ push to define gender as ‘biological sex’ would backslide on decade-old language within the UN

A row over the definition of the term “gender” threatens to bog down pivotal talks at the Cop30 climate summit.

Before the UN talks in Brazil, hardline conservative states have pushed to define gender as “biological sex” over their concerns trans and non-binary people could be included in a major plan to ensure climate action addresses gender inequality and empowers women.

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State-sanctioned fuel smuggling cost Libya $20bn over three years – report

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Policy body calls for western-backed investigation into oil officials known to be at heart of illegal enterprise

A surge in state-sanctioned fuel smuggling between 2022 and 2024 cost the Libyan people about $20bn (£15bn) in lost revenue – an alarming sum that demands decisive international sanctions against those responsible, according to the most comprehensive report published on how Libya’s primary revenue source has been systematically pillaged.

The report by the investigative and policy body the Sentry states that “politicians and security leaders who claim to serve the public and fight organised crime have, in fact, acted as the chief architects of Libya’s fuel-smuggling industry, often with backing from foreign states”. Some of the imported fuel has also been smuggled into Sudan, where it has prolonged that country’s civil war.

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Mexico takes action to combat sexual abuse after president publicly groped

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Secretary for women presents plan, including prison sentences, after Claudia Sheinbaum was groped on street

The shocking public groping of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has prompted rapid political action to tackle sexual abuse, as well as public debate on how best to address the problem, which is widespread across the country.

Citlalli Hernández, Mexico’s secretary for women, presented a presidential plan to confront the issue, which would include actions such as ensuring prison sentences for sexual abuse across Mexico, encouraging women to report incidents, and training prosecutors and other officials on how to handle the matter.

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US government reopens after shutdown with House to vote on Epstein files next week – politics live

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Even if bill passes the House, it will still need to get through the Senate before files can be released

After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and the minority party won no concessions from the party in power, writes Guardian US’ senior politics reporter Chris Stein in this analysis piece:

The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. You can see how lawmakers voted via this interactive:

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Latest Epstein emails cast further doubt on Andrew’s claim of cutting ties

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Messages sent months after former prince said he ended relations and also appear to confirm Virginia Giuffre photo

Newly released Jeffrey Epstein emails have cast further doubt on Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s account of when he cut ties with the child sex offender and his denials about meeting his accuser Virginia Giuffre.

In March 2011, four months after he later claimed to have ended his relationship with Epstein, the former prince told him and the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell “I can’t take any more of this” in response to allegations put forward by the Mail on Sunday.

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‘Utter hypocrisy’: tobacco firm lobbied against rules in Africa that are law in UK

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British American Tobacco pushed Zambian ministers to drop or delay ad bans, health warnings and restrictions on flavoured products, letter shows

British American Tobacco has been accused of “utter hypocrisy” for lobbying against tobacco control measures in Africa that are already in place in the UK.

A letter seen by the Guardian, sent from the company’s subsidiary in Zambia to the country’s government ministers, asks for plans to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship to be abandoned or delayed.

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Democrats sift through shutdown’s ashes after resistance finally breached

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After 42-day standoff, government is back open – and minority party won no concessions from party in power

More than 42 days ago, beleaguered congressional Democrats employed a tactic they were not known for using – refusing to fund the government unless their demands, in this case, an extension of tax credits that lowered costs for Affordable Care Act health plans, were met.

Fast forward to Wednesday evening, and the federal government is back open, the Democrats’ resistance breached by the combined forces of Congress’s Republican majorities and a splinter group of Democratic senators who provided just enough votes to get a funding bill past the chamber’s filibuster.

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House passes funding bill to end US shutdown – see how lawmakers voted

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Bill passes House with with 222 in favor and 209 against. Here’s how Republicans and Democrats voted

The US House of Representatives voted to pass the funding bill to end the longest government shutdown in US history. Trump signed the bill into law on Wednesday night.

The legislation comes in the wake of a Senate-brokered compromise in which a handful of Democrats voted toforego the extension of expiring healthcare subsidies, which have been at the heart of the long impasse. The bill extends government funding at current levels through January. Three year-long provisions, which fund programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the USDA and FDA, and legislative branch operations, are also included.

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Israeli president condemns ‘serious’ attack by settlers on West Bank villages

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Isaac Herzog makes rare statement on often-ignored violence as settlers injure Palestinians and attack soldiers

Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, injuring four Palestinians and attacking Israeli soldiers in the latest incident of rising settler violence.

The settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf, setting vehicles on fire and damaging property belonging to a Bedouin community, with charred remains of cars left behind the next day.

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French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal pardoned and to be released from prison

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Eighty-one year-old, who has prostate cancer, can now be transferred from Algeria to Germany for medical treatment

The French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal has been pardoned and is to be released from prison, the Algerian presidential office said in a statement on Wednesday.

The move, which will mean Sansal can be transferred to Germany for medical treatment, comes after the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, urged Algeria to free Sansal.

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India confirms deadly Delhi car blast being treated as terror incident

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Cabinet says explosion near Red Fort that killed 12 is suspected to have been perpetrated by ‘anti-national forces’

India has confirmed it is treating the explosion that killed 12 people outside Delhi’s Red Fort on Monday as a “terror incident” perpetrated by “anti-national forces”.

The statement by the cabinet, led by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, confirmed mounting speculation that a terrorist attack was behind the blast that took place during peak time in one of the capital’s busiest areas and outside one of India’s major landmarks.

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Pakistani parliament votes to give army chief new powers and legal immunity

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Critics say constitutional amendment, which will also limit supreme court’s independence, is ‘funeral for democracy’

Pakistan’s parliament has passed a controversial amendment to its constitution that will expand the powers of the army chief and grant him lifelong legal immunity while limiting the independence of the supreme court, in a move critics described as a “funeral for democracy”.

Field Marshal Asim Munir, Pakistan’s powerful army chief who is widely seen as a de facto ruler of the country, was the main benefactor from the 27th constitutional amendment, which was passed by the parliamentary lower house on Wednesday.

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Canada pushes to join Eurovision: ‘This is about protecting our identity’

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Country explores taking part in the glitzy song contest as it distances from the US and seeks to deepen ties with Europe

When Canada released its federal budget this month, much of it was standard fare, from the plans to downsize the public service to the boost in defence spending.

But one line tucked in the nearly 500-page document has captured imaginations on both sides of the Atlantic: a mention that the government is working with Canada’s national broadcaster to explore participation in the Eurovision song contest.

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