Category Archives: World News

The rap star of Karachi: ‘My veil cannot take away the talent I have’

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Eva B, who was brought up in a notorious slum, has become Pakistan’s latest music sensation

Her phone has been buzzing with non-stop messages and calls. Eva B, once a little-known rapper from the Karachi urban-slum settlement of Lyari, has become Pakistan’s newest music sensation, racking up millions of views on YouTube.

She is not just the first female rapper from Pakistan, she is the first veil-wearing female rapper from Pakistan’s Baloch minority. She says her brother had told her if she wanted to rap she had to wear a veil, but that it is now a part of her identity and personality as a musician.

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New Zealand authorities deploy Barry Manilow against Covid protesters

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Sound system on parliament grounds plays vaccine messages, Macarena and the crooner’s 1970s hits

New Zealand authorities have deployed Barry Manilow against protesters at its parliament, playing his greatest hits at hundreds camped out over coronavirus restrictions.

The protest began when a convoy of trucks and cars drove to parliament from across the country, inspired by protests in Canada. At first there were more than 1,000 protesters but that number dwindled as the week wore on before growing again on Saturday.

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Ukraine crisis live: US threatens ‘crippling’ sanctions on Russia if it invades

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Latest updates: US president said he remained prepared to engage in diplomacy but warned he was prepared for other scenarios

US staff at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organisation, began leaving by car from the rebel-held city of Donetsk in east Ukraine on Sunday, Reuters reports.

The OSCE conducts civilian monitoring operations in the self-proclaimed separatist republics – such as Donetsk and Luhansk – where war since 2014 has killed 14,000 people. The OSCE has not commented on the US staff withdrawals.

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Mauritius measures reef hoping to lay claim on Chagos Islands

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Dispute over archipelago in Indian Ocean involves neighbouring Maldives and UK historical claim


Under a glaring sky, Mauritian survey teams set off in two tender boats to measure Blenheim Reef on Sunday morning.

A line of breakers marked the outer line of the atoll. An inflatable, carrying two Swedish marine experts retained by the Mauritian government, found an entrance through submerged rocks and surf into calmer water inside.

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The rumba radio station, the DJ … and 110,000 albums looking for a noisy new home

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The unique Gladys Palmera archive may cross the Atlantic from Madrid to secure a permanent base

On a hillside an hour from Madrid, not far from the sepulchral splendour of the Escorial monastery, with its royal tombs, imperial maps and sacred relics, lies another, rather less austere, treasure house.

The Gladys Palmera collection, kept in a sprawling, tropical-hued complex crammed with 1950s Mexican film posters and prowled by the odd decorative monkey and jaguar, is the largest private archive of Latin American music in the world.

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Embrace or avoid? Midterms dilemma for Democrats as Biden’s ratings plunge

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For Democrats in tight re-election races, being photographed with a president whose approval rating hovers at 40% is a risk

With a handshake and brief embrace, congresswoman Abigail Spanberger welcomed Joe Biden to her Virginia district last Thursday. The event was an opportunity to highlight the administration’s plans to lower the cost of prescription drugs, but it also provided an opportunity for the US president to promote the members of his party ahead of the midterm elections in November.

“In every chapter in her career, in every chapter, she’s always been about one thing: service,” the president said of Spanberger, a Democrat whose competitive re-election race is on the front line of the battle for control of the House.

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‘Don’t take the damn thing’: how Spotify playlists push dangerous anti-vaccine tunes

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Conspiracy theory songs claiming Covid-19 is fake and calling vaccine ‘poison’ are being actively promoted in Spotify playlists

Songs that claim Covid-19 is fake and describe the vaccines as “poison” are being actively promoted to Spotify users in playlists generated by its content recommendation engine.

Tracks found on the world’s largest music streaming service explicitly encourage people not to get vaccinated and say those who do are “slaves”, “sheep”, and victims of Satan. Others call for an uprising, urging listeners to “fight for your life”.

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Freedom convoys: legitimate Covid protest or vehicle for darker beliefs?

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The blockade of Ottawa has sparked copycat action around the globe, and such disparate demonstrations of grievance may prove hard to shut down

It only took six dozen trucks, and a few hundred protesters to bring Canada’s capital to a standstill and close a critical border crossing with the US, throttling the car industry that straddles the line between both countries and relies on a constant flow of trade.

On Saturday, Canadian authorities finally began taking action to clear the Ambassador Bridge into the US, the busiest land crossing in North America, which had been blockaded by just over a dozen trucks and smaller vehicles, and a crowd a few hundred strong.

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US and allies condemn North Korea over missile test ‘provocations’

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Joint statement from US, Japan and South Korea urges Pyongyang to return to negotiations and stop its recent spate of ‘destabilising’ missile launches

The top diplomats of Japan, South Korea and the United States declared their unity against North Korea on Saturday after a series of ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang.

After a day of meetings in Honolulu, US secretary of state Antony Blinken, South Korean foreign minister Chung Eui-yong, and Japanese foreign minister Hayashi Yoshimasa condemned the series of seven launches as “destabilising” in a joint statement.

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I’ll fight to overturn US ban on my ‘Queer Bible’, says British author

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Former model Jack Guinness caught up in furore over Mississippi mayor’s attempt to withhold funding for library until ‘homosexual materials’ are withdrawn

A British writer, presenter and former model says he is shocked to find himself at the centre of an unprecedented wave of book banning in the US.

A Mississippi mayor has told the Madison County Library to remove LGBTQ+ books from its shelves or lose funding. One of the books singled out as an example was The Queer Bible, a collection of LGBTQ+ history essays edited by Jack Guinness. Ridgeland’s Republican mayor, Gene McGee, has refused to release funds to the library until “homosexual materials” are withdrawn.

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Protests grow across Canada as police struggle to reopen key bridge

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Police had early success in clearing Ambassador Bridge, but demonstrators still choke vital trade route

Protesters opposed to Covid-19 vaccine mandates and other restrictions withdrew some of their vehicles from a US-Canadian border bridge on Saturday, but ramped up demonstrations in cities across Canada, including the capital, where police said they were awaiting more officers before ending what they described as an illegal occupation.

Late on Saturday police made the first arrest of a protester blocking the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, more than a day after authorities moved in seeking to end the blockade of the important trade corridor.

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Ukraine crisis: Kremlin denounces US ‘peak hysteria’ after Putin-Biden call

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US president and Russia’s leader make call after Macron tells Putin sincere negotiations are incompatible with an escalation in tensions; UK troops training Ukrainian army to leave this weekend

The Dutch foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra has called on Dutch citizens to leave Ukraine as soon as possible due to the security situation there and issued a notice advising against travelling to the country.

This report is from Reuters.

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Protests against Covid restrictions held in France and Netherlands

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French police fire teargas in Paris, while convoy of vehicles brings The Hague’s city centre to standstill

Demonstrators against Covid-19 restrictions in France and the Netherlands staged protests on Saturday inspired by the “Freedom Convoy” demonstrations in Canada.

In France police fired teargas at demonstrators on the Champs Élysées in Paris shortly after a convoy protesting against restrictions made it into the capital.

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Every beautiful thing came from the Papahaua mountains, and the trees were its lifeblood | Becky Manawatu

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Not only did the mountains seem to watch us, they stimulated a hunger to scour the forest floors and decipher codes stamped in lichen

  • Guardian writers and readers describe their favourite place in New Zealand’s wilderness and why it’s special to them

Although claiming a wild place as your favourite could be a masked attempt to tame it, the land either side of State Highway 67, between Big Ditch and Jones Creek just north of Waimangaroa, is my favourite. This stretch of highway which, if you’re heading north, has a row of houses to your left and a railway and the great Papahaua mountain range to your right, is called Birchfield.

There are no off-streets or gas stations. Not a single corner, nor corner store. Just some houses, several paddocks and, as of recently, one radio astronomy observatory. Perhaps it sounds a tame place, and to an extent – on a quick drive through the settlement – that’s fair.

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Exiled Chagos Islanders return without UK officials for first time

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Fifty years since they were deported to Mauritius by the UK, Chagossians are still fighting for their homeland

Returning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the pale sand and stood – hands joined together – in thanksgiving prayers.

For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated – the first time they could step ashore without close monitoring by British officials.

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Exiled Chagos Islanders bask in return ‘as pilgrims to abandoned place’

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Fifty years after the UK forcibly deported them, five Chagossians have visited the disputed archipelago with Mauritius’s help

Returning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the sand and stood – hands joined together – in prayer.

For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated – the first time they could step ashore without close close monitoring by British officials. It is 50 years since they were forcibly deported to Mauritius by the UK, which cleared the archipelago of its entire population to make way for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.

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The edge of war: what, exactly, does Putin want in Ukraine?

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The massive military buildup could be a bluff, or a political ploy designed for a Russian audience. Either way, the US is digging in

Russian spokespeople daily deny any intention to invade. So, too, did Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, when he met the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, last week, and when he spoke to US president Joe Biden on the phone. There are two problems with this. First, given Putin’s Johnsonian relationship with truth, few western governments believe the denials. Second, Putin has not explained why, if his intentions are peaceful, more than half of Russia’s armed forces, including 130,000 troops, are massed on Ukraine’s borders. It could all be a bluff. But who would bet the house on that?

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Love in a time of terror: the tragic couples who married at a Dutch Nazi transit camp

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‘Aunt Annie’ was killed in the Holocaust – but not before marrying her sweetheart in captivity. Now her great-niece has found 260 other couples who did the same

Saskia Aukema knew little about her great-aunt Annie, who was murdered during the Holocaust. All she knew was that Annie had declined to go into hiding like her siblings, and continued working as a hospital nurse, even after the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands began in May 1940.

“That was the family story: this was the woman who didn’t hide and chose to be with her patients. That was all I knew… this line, this one sentence,” she told the Observer.

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Thousands of Ukrainians rally in Kyiv in show of solidarity – video

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Ukrainians rallied in Kyiv on Saturday to show unity as international warnings of a Russian invasion sharpened.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told people not to panic, but more than 100,000 Russian troops are positioned near Ukraine and have carried out large-scale exercises, increasing tensions.

The US said on Friday an invasion could start at any moment, but Russia denied having any plans to launch one.

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US-Canada border standoff dissolves peacefully as police move in

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Many demonstrators drove away from Ambassador Bridge as scores of police approached shortly before dawn

A tense standoff at a US-Canadian border crossing crucial to both countries’ economies appeared to be dissolving peacefully Saturday as Canadian police moved in to disperse the nearly weeklong blockade and demonstrators began leaving without resistance.

Many demonstrators drove away from the Ambassador Bridge spanning the river between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, as scores of police approached shortly after dawn.

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