Category Archives: World News

‘Putin chose this war,’ Biden says as he announces new sanctions – US politics as it happened

Posted on by

Some congressional Republicans have attempted to blame Joe Biden’s foreign policy for enabling Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

“These developments were not inevitable,” congressman Andy Barr said. “The Biden Administration’s weak and feckless foreign policy not only failed to deter this aggression, it invited this outcome.”

Continue reading...

Covid live: Iceland to lift all remaining curbs; coronavirus isolation rules end in England

Posted on by

Latest updates: Iceland confirms no extra restrictions for unvaccinated; people in England who test positive for Covid no longer have to self-isolate

Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here again, taking over the live blog from Tom Ambrose to bring you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.

We start with the news that the Queen has postponed two scheduled virtual audiences on Thursday after her Covid-19 diagnosis, Buckingham Palace said.

The two virtual audiences that had previously been scheduled to take place today will now be rescheduled for a later date. Her Majesty is continuing with light duties. No other engagements are scheduled for this week.

Continue reading...

The Kamila Valieva case shows yet again that the IOC is betraying teen athletes

Posted on by

This rotten organisation stood by while the 15-year-old skater and her Olympic dreams were publicly crushed

A fish rots from the head. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the head of the Olympic movement, and it is rotten to the core. Long ago, this vile organisation abandoned its stated principles of “excellence, friendship and respect” to embrace greed, corruption and abuse.

For many, the enduring image of Bejing 2022 will not be one of Olympic glory, but the tragic and bizarre spectacle attending the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva. Once again, the Russians got caught cheating: Valieva tested positive for a banned medication. Still the IOC allowed her to compete, and then stood by while this child and her Olympic dreams were publicly crushed. After her performance collapsed, her despicable coach humiliated her, badgering her about on-ice failures as Valieva left the rink.

Sarah Klein is a civil attorney and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse

Continue reading...

‘We don’t want this’: Russians react to the Ukraine invasion

Posted on by

People on the streets of Moscow express anger and a sense of hopelessness after Putin’s move

A dark, sombre mood filled the Moscow air on Thursday morning as Russians were coming to terms with the fact that their president had launched a broad military offensive targeting Ukraine.

“I am embarrassed for my country. To be honest with you, I am speechless. War is always scary. We don’t want this,” said Nikita Golubev, a 30-year old teacher.

Continue reading...

Tycoon’s son sentenced to death in Pakistan in high-profile rape and murder case

Posted on by

Zahir Jaffer tortured and beheaded Noor Mukadam, in July last year, in case that sparked outrage over violence against women

A court in Islamabad has sentenced to death the tycoon’s son who raped and murdered Noor Mukadam, a case that sparked outrage in Pakistan.

Mukadam, 27, the daughter of a former Pakistani diplomat, was held captive, tortured and beheaded in July last year by Zahir Jaffer, a member of a well-known industrialist family.

Continue reading...

Volodymyr Zelenskiy calls on citizens to take up arms for ‘future of Ukraine’ – video

Posted on by

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on Ukrainians who were able to defend the country from Russian forces to come forward, and said Kyiv would issue weapons to anyone who wanted to use them to defend the country's sovereignty. 

Russian forces unleashed an attack on Ukraine on the orders of Vladimir Putin, who announced a 'special military operation' at dawn, amid warnings from world leaders that it could spark the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

Zelenskiy announced after the attack that Ukraine would rupture ties with Moscow

Continue reading...

Boris Johnson promises massive sanctions to ‘hobble’ Russian economy

Posted on by

PM says ‘we will not just look away’ and Putin’s ‘barbaric adventure’ in Ukraine must end in failure

Boris Johnson has said that “a vast invasion is under way, by land, by sea and by air” in Ukraine, as he promised to impose “massive” sanctions that would “hobble” the Russian economy.

Speaking as world leaders scrambled to respond to the attacks that began in the early hours of Thursday morning, the UK prime minister said Russia had “attacked a friendly country without any provocation and without any credible excuse”.

Continue reading...

Explosions hit Ukraine’s major airports as Russia begins invasion – video

Posted on by

Footage shows explosions at Ukrainian airports near major cities including Kharkiv and Mariupol in the early hours of Thursday morning. Blasts from artillery rockets were filmed around 5am near Mariupol. Footage also showed smoke rising near Kharkiv military airport and a video posted on social media captured an explosion near the Ivano-Frankivsk airport in western Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a 'special military operation' at dawn. World leaders have warned the move could provoke the biggest war in Europe since the second world war

Continue reading...

Stay or flee? Kyiv comes to terms with disaster of Russian invasion

Posted on by

Moments of normality puncture mood of shock, fear and quiet disgust in Ukraine’s capital

It began in darkness soon after 4.30am local time. There were distant explosions in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the whine of car alarms. A nation shook itself awake. What had been foretold by western governments, by experts, and – late in the day – by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was actually happening. Russia was attacking and invading.

Vladimir Putin’s apparent goal: the subjugation of a nation, a culture, a people. It was unthinkable in the twenty-first century. And yet, with imperial swagger, Russian troops, tanks and planes were on the move.

Continue reading...

Russia invades Ukraine as Putin launches war to ‘demilitarise’ neighbour

Posted on by

Russia appears to be targeting military infrastructure in early strikes with explosions reported at airfields, military headquarters and military warehouses

Russian forces have unleashed an attack of Ukraine on the orders of Vladimir Putin, who announced a “special military operation” at dawn, amid warnings from world leaders that it could spark the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

Within minutes of Putin’s short televised address, at about 5am Ukrainian time, explosions were heard near major Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv.

Continue reading...

CCTV shows Russian tanks entering Ukraine from Belarus and Crimea – video

Posted on by

Russian forces can be seen crossing into Ukraine across the Senkivka-Veselivka border checkpoint with Belarus in border guard CCTV and a separate video shows tanks crossing the border from occupied Crimea. 

The attack on Ukraine was on the orders of Vladimir Putin, who announced a 'special military operation' at dawn. World leaders have warned the move could provoke the biggest war in Europe since 1945

Continue reading...

Zelenskiy introduces martial law in Ukraine as sirens blare in Kyiv – video

Posted on by

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that Russia had carried out missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and the country's border guards, and that explosions had been heard in many cities. He said martial law had been declared across the country and that he had spoken by phone to the US president, Joe Biden

Continue reading...

Moment that Putin thundered to war, drowning out last entreaties for peace

Posted on by

As members of UN security council poured out calls for restraint, Russian president was already launching attack on Ukraine

It will go down as one of the most surreal sessions the United Nations chamber has ever witnessed, as the very war it was supposed to prevent broke out while it was sitting.

Vladimir Putin, with brutal timing, delivered a speech announcing that Russia would start a “special military operation” in Ukraine – while an emergency session of the UN security council was under way.

Continue reading...

‘House of love’: the calm, creative space changing young lives in Karachi

Posted on by

In Lyari, a slum notorious for violence in Pakistan’s most populous city, Mehr Ghar offers young people a safe place to hang out and study – and, for many, an alternative path to gang life

Living in Lyari was like living on the frontlines of a war, says Nauroz Ghani, who grew up in the Karachi slum notorious for its bloody gang battles. So used to the constant gunfire, he says he would “become restless if a day passed by without hearing the sound of a firing”.

“My teenage years were lost to violence,” says Ghani, 24. “I had no interest in getting an education. Instead, I was attracted by their guns and activities.” He saw dead bodies on the street and one boy was killed in front of him. “All of us who lived during those days have such memories. We lived in terror, but it had become habitual.”

Continue reading...

The west stood back and watched in Syria – it must not do the same in Ukraine | Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

Posted on by

It’s time for the US and its allies to show their steel in the face of Putin’s aggression. We have learned that nothing else will work

The Syria crisis continues unnoticed. It holds key lessons for the west about Putin yet it has gone virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world. War crimes and crimes against humanity continue in the Russian-sponsored dictatorship, even as some misguided leaders want to usher Bashar al-Assad, the architect of these crimes, back into acceptable society.

We can rest assured that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, unlike Assad, is not welcoming Putin with open arms. But in responding to the Ukraine emergency, there are lessons the west can and should learn from the situation in Syria.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a chemical weapons expert, fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge and an adviser to the Union of Syrian Medical Charities

Continue reading...

UK government accused of ignoring victims in efforts to tackle ‘sex for aid’

Posted on by

Foreign office’s ‘top-down’ approach failing people it is seeking to protect, says watchdog, with abuse cases still underreported

The British government has not listened to victims in its efforts to tackle abuse in the humanitarian sector after the “sex for aid” scandals, a UK watchdog has said.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai) said the government was falling short because of a “top-down” approach and needed to listen and learn from recipients of aid who remained reluctant to report abuse allegations.

Continue reading...

‘Their golden hour’: Donetsk and Luhansk leaders revel in rising profile

Posted on by

Ukraine crisis has thrust Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik into centre of events, amid claim they are puppets of Putin

For many Russians, it was an unfamiliar sight to see the faces of the two leaders of the pro-Kremlin proxy states in eastern Ukraine pop up on their television screens last Friday, announcing the mass evacuation of Donbas citizens to Russia.

Since then, however, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik, heads of the self-proclaimed republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, have seen their political profiles rocket, culminating on Monday with the two leaders asking the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to recognise their “republics”.

Continue reading...

Anti-Covid vaccine mandate protesters chase New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern outside school

Posted on by

Incident comes a month after prime minister’s vehicle was chased and forced on to a curb by demonstrators

A group of shouting protesters have chased the New Zealand prime minister’s van down a driveway as she visited a Christchurch primary school, amid tensions over increasingly volatile anti-vaccine mandate protests.

Jacinda Ardern, who was visiting a primary school in Christchurch, was met by a crowd of people shouting “shame on you” and “traitor”. Some held signs saying that the prime minister would be “put on trial” and “held responsible”, and one man brandished a fabricated arrest warrant – references to conspiracy theories that a cohort of world leaders and powerful people are secretly using vaccines to commit a genocide, and would soon be put on trial and hanged for treason.

Continue reading...

Hong Kong to allow in doctors from mainland China as Covid cases overwhelm hospitals

Posted on by

City, which is pursuing a zero-Covid strategy, is registering thousands of cases a day in its worst-ever wave of the virus

Hong Kong’s government has invoked emergency powers to allow doctors and nurses from the Chinese mainland to practise in the financial hub as it struggles to tackle a spiralling coronavirus outbreak.

“The regulation will provide a legal framework for the CPG (central people’s government) to render the necessary emergent support to Hong Kong in a more effective and expeditious manner,” the government said in a statement.

Continue reading...