Boris Johnson has claimed Russia is bent on a 'full-scale invasion of Ukraine' and said the UK would immediately impose economic sanctions.
Speaking after a 6.30am Cobra meeting, the prime minister said the UK was prepared to continue ratcheting up measures
Pro-choice supporters danced outside Colombia's constitutional court in downtown Bogotá, the capital, after it decriminalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Judges ruled five against four to decriminalise the procedure in the South American country after rulings in Mexico and Argentina also lowered barriers to abortion.
Anti-abortion protesters demonstrated against the ruling
Continue reading...Successful trials found growing crops beneath panels – known as agrivoltaics – reduced water loss and resulted in larger plants
Solar panels are not a new way of providing cheap power across much of the African continent, where there is rarely a shortage of sunshine. But growing crops underneath the panels is, and the process has had such promising trials in Kenya that it will be deployed this week in open-field farms.
Known as agrivoltaics, the technique harvests solar energy twice: where panels have traditionally been used to harness the sun’s rays to generate energy, they are also utilised to provide shade for growing crops, helping to retain moisture in the soil and boosting growth.
Continue reading...Ahead of key Uttar Pradesh elections, state police accused of being ‘mercenaries’ of hardline Hindu nationalist government
According to police in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it was suicide. The young Muslim man they had brought into their custody had, out of despair, killed himself in the police station toilets. But, as photos of the scene emerged, so too did suspicions.
The 22-year-old man, Altaf, was 165cm (5ft 5in) tall and weighed 60kg (9.5 stone), but the toilet tap he had supposedly hanged himself from was just 76cm off the ground and made of flimsy plastic. And why, as the police later claimed in court, was the CCTV in the police station mysteriously not working that day?
Family and friends tell a very different story: that Altaf, a Muslim man living in the town of Kasganj, was in love with and planned to marry a Hindu girl. That powerful local Hindu vigilante groups opposed to interfaith unions found out and reported him to the police. And that on 9 November 2021, Altaf was arrested and tortured to death in police custody and his family pressured to keep quiet.
Continue reading...Colombia has decriminalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, following rulings in Mexico and Argentina that improve access to abortion
Colombia has decriminalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, adding to a recent string of legal victories for reproductive rights in Latin America.
The South American country’s constitutional court ruled five against four to decriminalise the procedure on Monday evening. The decision follows a series of rulings in Mexico and Argentina that lowered barriers to abortion.
Continue reading...Russian deployment follows decision to recognise territories in south-east will be viewed in Ukraine and by other western allies as an occupation
Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to enter the Russian-controlled areas of southeast Ukraine following a decision to recognise the territories as independent states.
The decision to dispatch his troops to perform “peacekeeping duties” will be viewed in Ukraine and by other western allies as an occupation of the region and likely trigger tough sanctions and a Ukrainian military response.
Continue reading...Bellingcat founder Elliot Higgins says Russia’s propaganda films have got worse but that Russian viewers, especially the older generation, tend to believe fake TV footage
The video shows a ghostly scene. A night-time battle is taking place in a forest. There are flashes and mysterious bangs. An unidentified figure cries out in pain. The wounded man is wearing a helmet. Otherwise there are few clues as to where the footage was shot, or what exactly is going on.
A TV report by Russia’s state-run channel one gave the answer. The man seen in eerie silhouette was a Ukrainian saboteur, it said. He was part of a diversionary team sent across enemy lines into pro-Russian separatist territory. His mission? To blow up a local chlorine plant in the rebel-held town of Horlivka, the channel said.
Continue reading...This was a supreme leader marshalling his minions for a decision that will change the security architecture in Europe and may well lead to horrific war
Sitting alone at a desk in a grand, columned Kremlin room, Vladimir Putin looked across an expanse of parquet floor at his security council and asked if anyone wished to express an alternative opinion.
He was met with silence.
Continue reading...The Pacific country was coronavirus-free until last month but an outbreak of thousands of cases is overwhelming the health system
Frontline health workers in Solomon Islands have warned that its health system is on the brink of collapse as the country struggles to deal with a devastating outbreak of Covid-19.
A senior doctor and two nurses at the National Referral Hospital (NRH) in the capital of Honiara have told of how there are no beds for Covid patients – leading to people dying on the floor of the wards – as well as a lack of facilities and staff shortages that have led to Covid-positive nurses being recalled to work and probationary nurses tending to critically ill patients solo, when they should be supervised by a more senior nurse.
Continue reading...Row breaks out over Google Maps definition as UK insists it still maintains sovereignty
When you are searching online for some of the remotest islands on the planet, it helps to get the name right. But a row has broken out over the labelling of the Chagos Islands on Google maps.
The UK maintains that it still holds sovereignty over what it terms British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – one of the smallest of red dots on the traditional cartographic globe.
Continue reading...Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China says reporters tailed and manhandled by security despite assurances from Games officials
Reporting conditions for journalists covering the Beijing Winter Olympics fell short of international standards despite assurances from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCCC) of China has said.
The club said it was “dismayed” that at a time when global attention was trained on China more than ever the government and Olympic officials still failed to uphold their own rules on accredited foreign media. Instead “government interference occurred regularly during the Games”, both inside and outside venues, when journalists tried to interview athletes and local residents.
Continue reading...Woman hit by stray bullet during wild boar hunt sparks row over stricter regulations before presidential election
The accidental killing of a hiker by a teenager who was hunting wild boar has rekindled a bitter debate over stricter regulations of France’s hunting tradition before the presidential election in April.
The 25-year-old woman was walking with a friend along a marked trail near Aurillac in the heavily forested Cantal region when she was hit by a stray bullet on Saturday. She died instantly.
Continue reading...Apparent due diligence failures by Swiss bank prompts centre-right calls for EU to review relationship with Switzerland
The fallout from a huge leak of Credit Suisse banking data threatened to damage Switzerland’s entire financial sector on Monday after the European parliament’s main political grouping raised the prospect of adding the country to a money-laundering blacklist.
The European People’s party (EPP), the largest political grouping of the European parliament, called for the EU to review its relationship with Switzerland and consider whether it should be added to its list of countries associated with a high risk of financial crime.
Continue reading...Number of Palestinians killed rises year on year as firearms stolen from Israeli military proliferate on streets
There has been a break in the rain, and the sun is shining on the orange groves of Bir al-Maksur, a quiet Bedouin village near Nazareth in Israel’s north.
Three-year-old Ammar would have loved splashing in the winter puddles outside the Hujarat family’s home, his aunt said. But two days before, the little boy was shot and killed in a playground by a stray bullet fired during a car chase, and the grieving family is trying to make sense of the way his life ended.
Continue reading...Government sets deadline for 135,000 teachers to end pay strike, ignoring court order, after year of school closures due to Covid
The classrooms of Kambuzuma high school are deserted, with no staff to be seen and Tanaka Mupasiri*, 16, and his friends are milling around the school yard. It is 9am on a Thursday, normally a time when the school, in a high-density suburb or township on the outskirts of Harare, would be a hive of studious activity but Zimbabwe’s national teachers’ strike has thrown the education system into crisis.
Teachers in state schools have not been at work since 7 February and face a government deadline of Tuesday to return or lose their jobs.
Continue reading...Flemish work taken by notorious art thief ‘Erik the Belgian’ tracked down by officer doing academic research on art thefts
Spanish police have recovered the final piece of a 17th-century tapestry that was stolen 42 years ago by a notorious art thief.
The 4-metre by 6.5-metre tapestry, known as La apoteosis de las artes (The Apotheosis of the Arts), was one of six Flemish tapestries taken from the church of Santo Domingo in the town of Castrojeriz in northern Spain, in the early hours of 7 November 1980.
Continue reading...About 1.4m doses of Nuvaxovid to arrive in country this week, after EU approval in December
Germany will offer its population a new protein-based Covid-19 vaccine comparable to conventional flu jabs this week, in the hope of swaying a sizeable minority that remains sceptical of the novel mRNA technology used in the most commonly used vaccines.
About 1.4m doses of the Nuvaxovid vaccine developed by the US biotech company Novavax are to arrive in Germany this week, the country’s health minister, Karl Lauterbach, confirmed last Friday. A further million doses are to arrive the week after, with the German government’s total order for the year 2022 amounting to 34m doses.
Continue reading...With breakdancers, artists and parkourists facing a bleak future under the Taliban, a global network stepped in to help, drawing on the activist spirit of rap culture
A veteran of the hip-hop scene and internationally celebrated breakdancer, Nancy Yu – AKA Asia One – has her fair share of people contacting her looking for advice. But the message she received in 2019 from a young Afghan was a little different.
Frustrated by his breakdancing crew’s inability to get visas to perform internationally, Moshtagh* was wondering if Asia could help. “He felt they were really good, but they felt, like, invisible to the world,” she says. “I liked him. He wasn’t trying to bug me or say ‘we need this right now’ … He seemed rather humble and honest.”
Continue reading...Alienated civilians, ruined homes and Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline
Continue reading...Military, which seized power in February 2021, seeks to throw out UN case alleging it committed genocide
Myanmar’s military junta has appeared in place of the detained Aung San Suu Kyi at the UN’s top court, where it sought to throw out a case alleging that it committed genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority.
The decision to allow the junta to represent the country in court, after it seized power in a coup last year, was strongly criticised by advocacy groups and a former UN special rapporteur, who warned that it risked delaying justice.
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