Footage shows dozens of firefighters working on the eight-storey building that housed mental health services and medical care
Twenty-seven people were feared dead after a blaze at a building in a commercial district of the Japanese city of Osaka on Friday, the local fire department said.
Television footage showed dozens of firefighters working inside and outside the eight-storey building after the blaze was extinguished.
Continue reading...US lawmakers have ramped up pressure on China in a bid to censure the country’s treatment of the Muslim minority
The United States has unleashed a volley of actions to censure China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority, with lawmakers voting to curb trade and issuing new sanctions on Beijing.
The United States has been ramping up pressure on China amid a crop of disputes, with president Joe Biden’s administration a day earlier targeting producers of painkillers that have contributed to America’s addiction crisis.
Continue reading...Kim Jong-un emerged onto the world stage as a virtual unknown in 2011, a young man thrust into power at the head of North Korea – a nuclear-armed state – after his father's unexpected death.
In the decade since, he has ruthlessly purged alleged political opponents, extended his country's nuclear capabilities, and tightened his grip on power as North Korea's supreme leader.
From diplomatic summits with Donald Trump to executing members of his own family and failing to stave off famine in his own country, Guardian correspondent Justin McCurry charts the highs and lows of Kim's first 10 years in office.
Continue reading...Some observers said he would survive a few months as the head of a nuclear-armed state but, a decade later, the North Korean leader has proved them wrong
It was not, perhaps, the image Kim Jong-un would have wanted to project in his first public appearance as the latest authoritarian leader of North Korea in 2011. As wailing citizens exhibited their grief along the snowbound streets of Pyongyang, Kim, then only in his late 20s, cut a forlorn figure.
Dressed in a long black coat, Kim walked with grim purpose alongside the hearse carrying his father, Kim Jong-il, one hand resting on the bonnet of the 1970s Lincoln Continental, the other executing an awkward salute. He was later seen crying and drying his eyes at the burial service, in footage broadcast on state television.
Continue reading...Brexit minister David Frost is seeking agreement on customs and imports to NI and could drop insistence on total exclusion of ECJ
The UK is to change tack in negotiations over the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol and will push for an “interim” deal to avert any further deterioration of political stability in the region.
Brexit minister David Frost is set to propose a new approach based on a “staged solution” with a deal on customs declarations and physical checks on goods a priority to address the immediate impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.
Continue reading...Electricity from coal plants has risen by 9% this year to fuel economic recovery from Covid, says watchdog
Coal power is on track to hit a new global record this year after an economic rebound that could drive worldwide coal demand to an all-time high in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.
The amount of electricity generated from coal power plants has soared by 9% this year after a surge in fossil fuel demand to fuel the recovery from Covid lockdowns, a report by the watchdog says.
Continue reading...Company will also send warnings to 48,000 people believed to be targeted by malicious activity after investigation
Facebook has banned seven “surveillance-for-hire” companies from its platforms and will send warning notices to 48,000 people who the company believes were targeted by malicious activity, following a months-long investigation into the “cyber mercenary” industry.
The social media company said on Thursday that its investigation had revealed new details about the way the surveillance companies enable their clients to “indiscriminately” target people across the internet to collect intelligence about them, manipulate them – and ultimately compromise their devices.
Black Cube, an Israeli company that gained notoriety after it emerged that the disgraced media mogul and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein had hired them to target women who had accused him of abuse. Black Cube rejected Facebook’s claims about its activities.
Cobwebs, another Israeli company that Facebook said enabled its clients to use public websites and dark web sites to trick targets into revealing personal information. The company also reportedly works for US clients, including a local police department in Hartford, Connecticut.
Cytrox, a North Macedonian company that Facebook said enabled its clients to infect targets with malware following phishing campaigns.
Continue reading...Outside of a country’s wealth, there are a number of factors that have been associated with slower and faster Covid-19 vaccine rollouts
Continue reading...MPs promise to raise situation of Ali Mushaima’s father, Hassan, who has been detained in Bahrain for 10 years
A Bahraini man whose father has been detained for 10 years in the Gulf country will end a 23-day hunger strike outside Bahrain’s embassy in London on Friday after MPs vowed to raise his father’s case in the Commons.
Ali Mushaima said he was suffering from back pain and had found the cold nights on a pavement outside the embassy “tough to take”.
Continue reading...Carcasses found in four provinces, including one pregnant female, with nine arrests made
Poachers have killed 24 rhinos in South Africa during the first two weeks of December after a lull in killings during the Covid pandemic.
On Tuesday, the South African environment ministry said carcasses had been discovered in four provinces across the country since the beginning of the month, with seven rhinos found dead in Kruger national park, six in KwaZulu-Natal and seven in Mpumalanga. Four, including a pregnant female, were shot dead by poachers at a game reserve in the Western Cape last week while a fifth is being treated for gunshot wounds.
Continue reading...With tensions escalating along the border with Russia, Luke Harding visits troops in Ukraine's Donbas region to gauge the mood ahead of a possible invasion. The war here has continued since 2014, when pro-Russian separatists seized Ukrainian cities. But in recent weeks large numbers of Russian troops have gathered on Ukraine's border, while talks between Vladimir Putin and US president, Joe Biden, have not provided the diplomatic solution many had hoped for
Continue reading...Private jet, which carried seven passengers and two crew members, was headed towards Orlando, Florida
Nine people died in a jet crash on Wednesday in the Dominican Republic, including acclaimed Puerto Rican music producer Flow La Movie.
The private jet, which carried seven passengers and two crew members, took off from La Isabela international airport in El Higüero and was headed towards Orlando, Florida. However, the pilots quickly declared an emergency and attempted to divert the flight to the nearby Las Américas international airport, crashing the plane in an attempted emergency landing.
Continue reading...As ban takes effect from midnight, UK travel operators say news is ‘devastating for ski industry’
France has banned all non-essential travel from the UK, starting on Friday night. We explain what it means if you have planned to visit over the festive period.
Continue reading...British tourists banned from entering France from Saturday; border controls in Portugal extended beyond 9 January to limit Omicron spread
New Zealand has detected its first case of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in a Christchurch managed isolation facility.
On Thursday afternoon, the director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said:
This is a person who is in managed isolation in Christchurch. The person arrived in New Zealand on a flight from Germany via Dubai that landed in Auckland...the people on that flight were transferred to Christchurch on a chartered domestic flight trip with all our usual protocols.
We fully expected we will find a case of Omicron and in fact, we are treating every border related case as if it were Omicron until proven otherwise. We have good protocols in place that are designed to stop the virus getting across the border.”
Continue reading...Olaf Scholz faces calls from some EU leaders to threaten Moscow with termination of Nord Stream 2
Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, faced pressure from fellow leaders at his first EU summit to include the future of Nord Stream 2 as part of the “massive price” to be paid in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Arriving in Brussels, Scholz, who replaced Angela Merkel last week, said his government was committed to protecting Europe’s borders, as Nato warned that the number of Russian troops being mobilised by the Kremlin was continuing to grow.
Continue reading...Latest Brexit red tape will come into force alongside a series of further checks at Dover and other ports
Van drivers will be required to get new international operating licences if they want to travel back and forth to the EU from May next year, the government has announced.
The additional red tape will come into force next year alongside a series of further checks at Dover and other ports that were delayed three times in 2021 because of lack of preparation for Brexit in Great Britain.
Continue reading...Hu Xijin became leading voice of strident nationalism with millions of social media followers
A controversial Chinese state tabloid editor who became a leading critic of the west’s China policy, emerging in the past decade as a prominent voice of strident nationalism, has announced his retirement.
Hu Xijin, a self-described former pro-democracy protester turned outspoken newspaper editor, has helped usher in a new era of brash, assertive nationalism since taking the helm of the tabloid Global Times in 2005.
Continue reading...Shortfall of 16p a day leaves children living on just rice as suppliers to Nike, Zara and H&M in Karnataka underpay by estimated £41m
Garment workers making clothes for international brands in Karnataka, a major clothing production hub in India, say their children are going hungry as factories refuse to pay the legal minimum wage in what is claimed to be the biggest wage theft to ever hit the fashion industry.
More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labour rights organisation that monitors working conditions in factories.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch says armed separatists in anglophone regions have made schools a battleground, with hundreds of school pupils and teachers attacked, kidnapped or threatened
Armed separatists in Cameroon’s anglophone regions have attacked, kidnapped and threatened hundreds of school pupils in nearly five years of violence that has forced more than 230,000 children to flee their homes, a report has found.
In a detailed analysis of the conflict that has gripped the English-speaking regions since 2017, dozens of students and teachers speak of brutal attacks by armed groups who have made education a battleground in their fight to form their own state.
Continue reading...Latest updates: unvaccinated arrivals must quarantine for five days; Poland reported 660 deaths in a day, the highest since April
A member of United States secretary of state Antony Blinken’s travelling press pool has tested positive for Covid-19 on arrival in Kuala Lumpur and is isolating, a state department spokesperson said.
Secretary Blinken and his senior staff were also tested upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur and were all tested negative, Reuters reports.
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