Category Archives: World News

Lebanon faces ‘depressing’ Christmas as internet crisis stops festive calls

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With telecoms barely working, a plunging currency and young people emigrating, it’s a bleak Christmas for weary Lebanese

In Lebanon’s year of loss and deprivation, simple pleasures have steadily drained away along with its fortunes. But amid a crisis renowned for breaking new ground, few Lebanese had thought their ability to stay in touch was at risk – until a pre-Christmas warning sent shudders through the country.

The telecommunications minister, Johnny Corm, warned this week that a lack of funds and fuel could soon see Lebanon’s already struggling internet grind to a halt, making festive calls and messages even trickier than usual – and a financial and social disintegration like no other even more acute.

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‘We’ve heard it all before’: Ukrainians brush aside talk of Russian invasion

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In Kyiv and beyond, people carry on with the festive season despite rhetoric about imminent conflict

Russia is threatening war on Ukraine, but in Kyiv the city council is putting up Christmas trees rather than bomb shelter notices, and organising concerts rather than army recruitment drives.

Amid a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border and in annexed Crimea, hostile rhetoric between Russia and the US and its allies is edging towards a cold war high, with Ukraine the battlefield for any actual fighting. Ukrainians, however, just emerging from Covid quarantine, are enjoying ice rinks and markets put up for the holiday season and would rather think about how to celebrate the coming new year.

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‘My grandmother hid Jewish children’: Poland’s underground refugee network

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As thousands attempt to cross the Belarus-Poland border seeking asylum in Europe, local activists are trying to help

In the attic of a cottage in the woods near the Polish village of Narewka, a young Iraqi Kurd crouches, trembling with cold and fear. Through the skylight, the blue lights of police vans flash on the walls of his hiding place. Outside, dozens of border guards are searching for people like him in the snowstorm. Downstairs, the owner of the house sits in silence with his terrified wife and children.

The young Kurd is one of thousands of asylum seekers who entered Poland across the border with Belarus, where countless others have become trapped on their way to Europe. The Polish family have offered him shelter. But if the Polish police find him, he risks being sent back across the frontier into the sub-zero forests of Belarus, while his protectors risk being charged for aiding illegal immigration.

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Two Hong Kong universities remove Tiananmen artworks after Pillar of Shame dismantled

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CUHK’s Goddess of Democracy and a sculpture at Lingnan University were removed overnight as authorities move to erase memorials to the massacre

Two more Hong Kong universities have removed works of art marking Beijing’s deadly 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square democracy protesters, as authorities move to erase memorials to the event.

The removals come a day after Hong Kong’s oldest university took down a statue named the Pillar of Shame, commemorating the events of 1989, sparking outcry by activists and dissident artists in the city and abroad.

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Locked-out New Zealanders outraged as visa scheme for rich foreigners resumes

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Critics say the wealthy will be able to buy their way in while citizens lose out on quarantine spots

A controversial New Zealand scheme that offers visas to wealthy foreign investors has resumed operating after a year’s hiatus due to the pandemic, prompting concern from overseas New Zealanders who fear it will place additional strain on the country’s overburdened managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system.

Martin Newell, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Grounded Kiwis, said the scheme’s resumption would prompt “disbelief” among New Zealanders overseas, who may lose out on MIQ spots to the investors.

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Why Putin is acting like a man who has run out of time

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Analysis: As Ukraine drifts from the control he desires, disdain for potential negotiating partners leaves the option of force

Vladimir Putin has deployed his troops to the border with Ukraine, delivered impossible demands on Europe and appears ready to launch a new offensive to establish his domination over Kyiv.

Putin is said to feel a “historical mission” to reverse Ukraine’s drift towards the west, despite his own role in creating a rift by annexing Crimea and fuelling a war in Ukraine’s south-east. But his current fast pace raises questions of why he appears to feel the moment to act is now, as if he is running out of time.

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‘They keep telling us: war, war, war’: Putin accuses west of expanding towards Russia – video

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Vladimir Putin has accused the west of 'coming with its missiles to our doorstep' as he reiterated demands for no further Nato expansion in Europe. 'They keep telling us: war, war, war,' Putin said on Thursday.

The Russian president did little to reduce tensions over Ukraine as he spoke at a televised press conference, saying he would be prepared to launch an intervention if he felt Ukraine or its western allies were preparing an attack on Russia’s proxies in the country

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Typhoon Rai: more than 3m people directly affected in Philippines

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Some areas still cut off a week after disaster, with power outages and shortages of food and clean water

More than 3 million people have been directly affected by the devastation wreaked by Typhoon Rai, which caused widespread power outages and water shortages, and has left some areas completely cut off from relief teams even a week after the disaster.

Rai first hit the Philippines last Thursday, and has been described by the Red Cross as one of the worst typhoons to hit the country in December in five decades. The true scale of the destruction is still unknown because of the extensive communication cuts, and damage to roads, ports and airports.

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Harry and Meghan release first photo of Lilibet on Christmas card

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Image taken at home shows daughter held up by her mother, as prince sits with son Archie on his knee

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have released the first picture of their daughter, Lilibet, with Meghan holding up the laughing child in an image on their Christmas card.

The photo, which also shows Prince Harry with curly haired Archie on his knee, was taken by Alexi Lubomirski this summer at the couple’s home in Santa Barbara, California.

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Putin accuses west of ‘coming with its missiles to our doorstep’

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Russian president again voices anger at Nato expansion and says he would be prepared to intervene in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has accused the west of “coming with its missiles to our doorstep” as he reiterated demands for no further Nato expansion in Europe.

The Russian president did little to reduce tensions over Ukraine as he spoke at a televised press conference, saying he would be prepared to launch an intervention if he felt Ukraine or its western allies were preparing an attack on Russia’s proxies in the country.

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The dog who got me through 2021: Leo the Peke made my blood pressure drop and my heart swell

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He is not a big name among dogfluencers, but whenever I felt stressed, something about this pekingese Instagram pup calmed me

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, went the New Yorker cartoon. Nearly 30 years later, it says so in your profile.

My Instagram feed is full of dogs, or people posting as their dogs from their own accounts. Some I know well, like my sister’s sweet but vacant pug Margot.

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Volcano-hit La Palma gets a piece of Spain’s biggest lotto

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After volcanic eruptions and tourism woes, island gets some Christmas cheer as tickets scoop €400,000

After grappling with volcanic eruptions that dragged on for three months, piling on to the tourism woes brought by the coronavirus pandemic, a bit of luck has landed in the Canary Island of La Palma.

Spain’s Christmas lottery – the two-century-old tradition that on Wednesday showered €2.4bn in prize money across the country – included a nugget of good news for the hard-hit island as two local kiosks said they had sold winning tickets worth a total of €400,000.

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‘We don’t have a limit’: Yasuyoshi Chiba – agency photographer of 2021

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Yasuyoshi Chiba has been chosen by the picture desk as its agency photographer of the year. We hear from the AFP photojournalist

In 2021 Yasuyoshi Chiba’s work consistently stood out to the Guardian picture editing team. From his coverage of the elections in Uganda at the start of the year, through to his images from the Kimana Sanctuary in Kenya and the harrowing work in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

Yasuyoshi Chiba

The year has been a reminder that my work is dealing with an unexpected future. Thanks to the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccines, the world has slowly resumed, and I also again feel the value of being in the field for photography.

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Voices of Covid doctors: ‘It was always about trying to save you’ – video

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Healthcare workers around the world have been on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic for almost two years, which put them through the darkest days of their careers. Five doctors who have worked in hospitals in Uganda, New Zealand, the US, India, the UK and Brazil told the Guardian about how the pandemic had tested them personally and professionally, but how they continue to find hope and resolve to keep working.

Thanks to Dr Peter Kavuma, Dr Dalilah Restrepo, Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, Dr Anne Menezes and Dr Megan Smith, who is also a spokesperson at the campaigning organisation EveryDoctor

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‘A breakthrough, not a breakdown’: one woman’s quest to transform mental health care in India

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Psychologist Ratnaboli Ray’s recovery from a mental health crisis inspired her to fight for women suffering in ‘abysmal’ conditions in West Bengal’s state institutions

  • Photography by Ranita Roy for the Guardian

Ratnaboli Ray regards one of the lowest points of her life as a breakthrough. After years in an arranged marriage in which she felt stifled and trapped, her mental health took a catastrophic turn in 1997, when she was in her mid-30s.

“I was feeling very caged, I was not able to express myself,” she says, from her home in West Bengal, India. She describes the psychological symptoms as like a pressure cooker bursting. “I used to get angry, have weeping spells. I was neglectful of my young son.”

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Mandatory Covid jabs in Malawi ‘violate human rights’, say civil society groups

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Measure aimed at frontline workers to reduce spread of Omicron variant may increase unrest in country with low vaccine take-up, critics warn

Civil rights groups in Malawi have cautioned the government on its decision to make the Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for frontline workers.

From January, it will be compulsory for public sector workers, including healthcare staff, police and teachers, as well as journalists, to be vaccinated, after an announcement by Malawi’s health minister, Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, last week.

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Covid live: Catalonia to introduce curfew; Italy bans public NYE celebrations

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Latest updates: UK says risk of hospitalisation 70% lower with Omicron; France set to report highest case numbers

The premier of Australia’s most populous state of NSW, Dominic Perrottet, addressed the media on Thursday to confirm masks will be mandated for inside areas and density limits would also be imposed.

As of midnight tonight, we will be requiring that masks are worn in indoor settings.

We are encouraging people, particularly over the holiday period, if you can work from home, please work from home.

In addition to that, we’re encouraging people not to mingle and when you’re out and out at a restaurant or cafe and a pub or a club, please where possible don’t mingle.

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New Zealand ends 2021 with one of world’s best Covid outcomes – but it wasn’t all good news

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Few cases and high vaccination rates, but these successes have come at a cost

As the Covid-19 pandemic hurtles towards its second anniversary, New Zealand will emerge from 2021 with some of the best health outcomes in the world, despite confronting its toughest few pandemic months.

This year New Zealand experienced its longest lockdown, its highest daily case numbers (222 in mid-November), more hospitalisations than in 2020 and a pivot away from the government’s ambitious elimination approach to one of strict virus control. But it can now boast a 90% double vaccination for the eligible population and one of the lowest per capita death rates, while its cases in the current outbreak are trending downwards.

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Outcry as memorial to Tiananmen Square victims removed from Hong Kong University

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Site of the Pillar of Shame at city’s oldest university under guard after workmen cut up statue

Hong Kong’s oldest university and the territory’s authorities have been accused of rewriting history after cutting up and removing a statue mourning those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

The erasure of the memorial from where it had stood for nearly 25 years came as Beijing has intensified its targeting of political dissent in Hong Kong since the Covid pandemic.

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Nord Stream 2: how Putin’s pipeline paralysed the west

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Gazprom’s $11bn project to deliver gas from Russia to Germany seems impossible to abandon and impossible to carry forward

The saga of Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline between Russia and Germany running along the Baltic seabed, has been stuck so long it has been likened to a suitcase at an airport without a handle – impossible to abandon, and impossible to carry forward. Most of the original cast of characters – Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel, Matteo Renzi, David Cameron, Petro Poroshenko – have left the political stage. Only one politician has survived the entire story: Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, and the master of divide and rule.

First announced in 2015, the $11bn (£8.3bn) pipeline owned by Russia’s state-backed energy giant Gazprom has been built to carry gas from western Siberia, doubling the existing capacity of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and keeping 26m German homes warm at an affordable price.

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