Footage has emerged of a group of ostriches on the run through the streets of Chongzuo in China.
It is believed the ostriches escaped from a farm owing to the gate not being closed properly, according to local media.
No injuries were reported and the owner managed to recapture the majority of the ostriches with the help of the police.
The incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday and no injuries were reported
Continue reading...A fire swept through a Rohingya refugee camp in south-eastern Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying hundreds of homes, according to officials and witnesses, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The blaze hit Camp 16 in Cox’s Bazar, a border district home to more than a million Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a military-led crackdown in Myanmar in 2017.
Mohammed Shamsud Douza, a Bangladeshi government official in charge of refugees, said emergency workers had brought the fire under control. The cause of the blaze has not been established, he added
Continue reading...The ‘exceptional find’ was discovered only feet from a badger’s den in the northern region of Asturias
A trove of 209 Roman coins in a cave in northern Spain – hailed by researchers as an “exceptional find” – is believed to have been uncovered by a badger desperately foraging for food.
The coins, dating from between the third and fifth century AD, were spotted in a cave in the municipality of Grado in the northern region of Asturias. They were found mere feet from the den of a badger, months after Storm Filomena dumped heavy snow across swaths of the country.
Continue reading...About 1,200 homes destroyed by blaze in area that is home to nearly a million people who fled military crackdown in Myanmar
Thousands of people have been left homeless after a fire gutted parts of a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, police say.
About 850,000 of the persecuted Muslim minority – many of whom escaped a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar that UN investigators concluded was executed with “genocidal intent” – live in a network of camps in Bangladesh’s border district of Cox’s Bazar.
Continue reading...She has played the Queen and a gangster’s moll but her latest casting has sparked controversy
Nobody is quite what they seem. And actors? Well, for actors that’s the job. Dame Helen Mirren, as well as being herself for 76 years, has by now notably been Lady Macbeth, a London gangster’s moll, a thief’s wife, an alcoholic cop, an action hero, Prospero and also a British monarch at least four times. Now she takes on Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, in a new biopic, and the casting has caused controversy.
The choice of a non-Jewish actor to star as a woman with such a prominent place in the history of Israel has prompted irritation on both sides of the argument. Another illustrious dame, Maureen Lipman, was first to raise the issue – or “blast” Mirren, according to some reports last week – and then Dame Esther Rantzen defended the director’s choice. It is the latest instance of a ‘Jewface’ row, a backlash to the assignment of a major Jewish role to someone not from that minority background.
Continue reading...South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Libya among countries hardest hit; Nadhim Zahawi says he supports reducing isolation to five days
More on the Philippines, after the country set a record for new 28,707 Covid infections for a second consecutive day.
A senior government official confirmed an increase in hospital beds and medical resources in and around the capital Manila have been ordered, Reuters reports.
Continue reading...With the economy in freefall and allegations of political interference, people have taken to the streets to advocate for federal future
In his sun-filled office in north Nicosia, Şener Elcil is plotting his next protest. Anger, he says, is in the air in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.
The economy is in freefall, thanks to the self-declared republic’s financial and political dependence on Turkey. Thousands have taken to the streets, spurred by inflation rates that have left many struggling to make ends meet; ahead of parliamentary polls later this month, calls for a boycott are mounting, while a blacklist of Turkish Cypriot dissidents, reportedly drawn up at the behest of Ankara, has spawned consternation and fear.
Continue reading...The US-run enclave has proved hard to dismantle over two decades, a legal anomaly and lead weight wrapped around America’s global reputation
On 4 January 2002, Brig Gen Michael Lehnert received an urgent deployment order. He would take a small force of marines and sailors and build a prison camp in the US-run military enclave on Cuba’s south coast, Guantánamo Bay.
Lehnert had 96 hours to deploy and build the first 100 cells, in time for the first plane-load of captives arriving from the battlefield in Afghanistan on 11 January. The job was done on time: a grid of chain-link cages surrounded by barbed wire and six plywood guard towers manned by snipers. There were five windowless huts for interrogations. It was named Camp X-Ray.
Continue reading...The new government risks being isolated, particularly in the EU where English remains the working language, warn critics
When a new five-party coalition took office in the Czech Republic a week before Christmas, it was expected to herald a reaffirmation of the country’s Europhile and western credentials after years of ambivalence and hedging under an outgoing populist government.
Instead, the new administration – headed by Petr Fiala, a former political science professor who replaced the former oligarch Andrej Babiš as prime minister – has found its carefully crafted outward-looking image tarnished by embarrassing revelations about its members’ poor English-speaking skills.
Continue reading...The author is being held after tweets criticising President Yoweri Museveni and his son
Ugandan satirical novelist Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, who was named International Writer of Courage by PEN last year, has been illegally detained and tortured for criticising the president and his son, his lawyer said.
Gunmen came to the writer’s house on 28 December after a series of tweets about the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, including one calling him a thief and his son and presumed successor “an incompetent pig-headed curmudgeon”.
Continue reading...America’s biggest city is seeing another winter spike, but with good vaccines and a new message many residents say this wave feels different
In the spring of 2020, Hart Island, a mile from City Island in the Bronx, was a focal point of grief in New York. It was here, at the city’s public cemetery or potter’s field, the final resting place of more than a million people, that officials ordered trenches dug to accommodate those the coronavirus was expected to kill.
The trenches were never filled. Many bodies were returned to funeral parlors or stored in mobile freezers on Randall’s Island, better known for music festivals and the Frieze art fair than cold storage of corpses.
Continue reading...The tragic events of last week, in which dozens lost their lives, have exposed hidden political tensions
For many Kazakhs, the full story behind the unrest of the past week remains as murky as the mist that enveloped Almaty, the country’s largest city and the centre of violence, at the same time.
People were unable to access accurate information, as an internet blackout froze almost all access to the outside world during a tragic few days of violence in which military vehicles rolled through the streets, government buildings burned and state television carried rolling threats that “bandits and terrorists” would be eliminated without mercy.
Continue reading...Latest developments as Philippines reports record 26,458 cases and scientist says Omicron variant could become endemic in UK
The north-east and north-west of England are seeing “concerning” rates of the Omicron variant, an expert has said.
Figures showed that three of the five UK areas with the biggest week-on-week rises in Covid case rates are Middlesbrough (748.8 to 2,651.4), Copeland (1,731.3 to 3,525.8) and Redcar & Cleveland (846.8 to 2,564.3).
Continue reading...At least 30 wounded as aid workers report seeing children among casualties in Tigray region
An airstrike in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray has killed 56 people and wounded at least 30 in a camp for the internally displaced, two aid workers have said.
Both aid workers, who asked not to be named, said the number of dead has been confirmed by the local authorities.
Continue reading...Irish musician says Shane O’Connor, last seen on Friday morning, ‘was the very light of my life’
Sinéad O’Connor’s 17-year-old son has died, two days after he was reported missing.
The musician shared the news on social media, writing that he “decided to end his earthly struggle” and asked that “no one follows his example”.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
Continue reading...President strikes different tone in tacit admission that ignoring the most powerful force in the Republican party is risky
In the first moments of his presidency, Joe Biden called on Americans to set aside their deep divisions inflamed by a predecessor he intentionally ignored. He emphasized national unity and appealed to Americans to come together to “end this uncivil war”.
Nearly a year later, as a divided nation reflects on the first anniversary of the 6 January assault on the US Capitol, the uncivil war he sought to extinguish rages on, stronger than ever. In a searing speech on Thursday, Biden struck a different tone.
Continue reading...Thousands affected at popular destination of Murree with eight of those killed from same family
At least 22 people have died after heavy snow trapped them in their vehicles as tens of thousands of visitors thronged Pakistan’s hill town of Murree, officials have said.
Atiq Ahmed, an Islamabad police officer, said eight of the 22 fatalities were from the family of fellow Islamabad police officer Naveed Iqbal, who also died. All 16 died of hypothermia, officials said.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong
Continue reading...Tennis star accuses Australian government officials of unfairly pressuring him to accept visa cancellation, documents show
Novak Djokovic relied on a weeks-old Covid infection to justify his vaccine-free travel to Australia and was given a green light by the federal government just days before arriving in the country, court documents reveal.
Court documents associated with Djokovic’s challenge to his visa cancellation were published by the federal circuit court late Saturday, ahead of an urgent hearing on Monday.
Continue reading...Karim Masimov was fired this week as unrest raged across the country, with dozens killed and public buildings ransacked
The former head of Kazakhstan’s domestic intelligence agency has been detained on suspicion of high treason, the agency said, after he was fired amid violent protests.
The National Security Committee, or KNB, said in a statement on Saturday that its former chief Karim Masimov had been detained on Thursday after it launched an investigation into charges of high treason.
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