Auction house credits younger, tech-savvy collectors for highest annual sales in its 277-year history
Sotheby’s has sold a record $7.3bn (£5.5bn) worth of art and other collectibles so far this year – the most in its 277-year history.
The auction house said on Wednesday that an “influx of younger, tech-savvy collectors” buying luxury items such as handbags, jewellery, wine and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) during the pandemic had helped lift sales to the record high.
Continue reading...Controversy leads to parliamentary inquiry, calls for ‘must-be-won’ draw similar to UK’s – and Shergar jokes
It has been said that even the dead racehorse Shergar has a better chance of winning Ireland’s national lottery than a member of the public.
For six months the jackpot has yet to be won, prompting calls for an investigation, a reduction in the number of balls to increase the chances of a win and on Wednesday, a parliamentary inquiry.
Continue reading...Early trials show jab effective in people of all ages who have already received doses of any vaccine
Efforts by the British and French drugmakers GSK and Sanofi Pasteur to produce a Covid-19 vaccine have suffered a further setback, with final clinical data on the jab and a potential launch delayed until next year as they struggle to find enough uninfected people to test it on.
The two vaccine specialists announced positive preliminary results from a trial that showed the vaccine raised antibody levels against Covid by nine to 43 times when given as a single booster shot in people who had already received doses of AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, for all age groups.
Continue reading...Russian leader defies western boycott and forms ‘new model of cooperation’ with Chinese leader
Vladimir Putin has confirmed he will attend the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, an event that Boris Johnson and other western leaders have boycotted in protest at human rights abuses in China.
Putin made the pledge during a video call with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, as he said that a “new model of cooperation has been formed between our countries, based on other matters of principles such as non-interference in [each other’s] internal affairs”.
Continue reading...Decision follows court ruling that Russia was behind 2019 murder of Chechen dissident in German capital
Germany has expelled two Russian diplomats and accused the Kremlin of infringing on its sovereignty after a German court ruled on Wednesday that the 2019 murder of a Chechen dissident in Berlin took place at the behest of the Russian authorities.
Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, 40, a Georgian citizen who fought against Russia during the second Chechen war in the early 2000s, was shot twice in the head at close range in the Kleiner Tiergarten, a park in central Berlin, in August 2019.
Continue reading...European leaders to tell Kremlin further aggression will carry ‘severe cost’, leak reveals
EU leaders will unite in warning Vladimir Putin that there will be “massive consequences and severe cost” if Russia invades Ukraine, a leaked draft has revealed.
The message will be sent to the Kremlin via a post-summit communique on Thursday, although EU officials decline to flesh out what measures could be taken.
Continue reading...Rights groups warn 23-year-old Noof al-Maadeed is at imminent risk, despite reassurances from Qatar authorities
Human rights groups are demanding Qatari authorities show proof of life for a feminist activist, amid growing fears that she has been killed or detained.
Noof al-Maadeed has been missing since mid-October after returning to Qatar from the UK. The young activist fled the Gulf kingdom two years ago, documenting her escape on social media, after alleged attempts on her life. She had recently returned to Qatar after being given reassurance by the authorities that she was safe.
Continue reading...There is a ‘very small window of opportunity’ to intervene, say aid workers, as poverty, conflict, drought and a freeze in humanitarian funding bring Afghanistan to the brink
Leading UK charities have launched a joint winter appeal to save the lives of 8 million people at risk of starvation in Afghanistan, as aid workers in the country warn of a “small window of opportunity” to intervene.
A combination of conflict, economic collapse, drought and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the country to a tipping point, according to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), the umbrella group of 15 aid agencies behind the appeal.
Continue reading...EU risk assessment advises against Christmas mixing owing to new Covid variant’s high transmissibility
Christmas get-togethers may need to be downsized as Omicron is now “very likely” to increase the death toll in Europe even if it proves to be less severe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said.
The new Covid variant’s high transmissibility means that more people are forecast by the EU agency to be admitted to hospital or killed this winter than previously projected.
Continue reading...From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America
• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below
You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021
By Alaa Abd El-Fattah
Alisha was eight when she died after being badly burned near a coal mine in Hwange. Families who live in fear of the ground opening up under their children’s feet say more must be done
Alisha Muzvite was out playing when she was caught short and went behind a bush to go to the toilet. But as the eight-year-old crouched down, the ground beneath her shifted, pulling her into one of the underground fires which burn all around her home in Hwange in north-west Zimbabwe.
An aunt pulled her to safety, but Alisha’s legs were so badly burned that they had to be amputated. More than a month after the accident, the little girl died of her injuries.
Continue reading...We return to the story of a journalist forced to flee as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August. Unable to return home without putting at risk everyone she loves and hounded by threatening calls, she remains in hiding in the country four months on
I am an Afghan female journalist and I have been on the run for more than four months. I have lived in numerous safe houses and the homes of people who’ve offered me refuge. I am constantly moving to avoid being caught, from province to province, city to city.
The Taliban insurgents have been threatening to kill me and my colleagues for two years, for our reports exposing their crimes in our province. But when they seized control of our provincial capital, they started to hunt for those who had spoken out against them. I decided to escape, for my own and my family’s safety.
Continue reading...Cumbre Vieja, the La Palma volcano that has been spewing lava in the Canary Islands for almost three months, has quietened but scientists have warned the lull does not necessarily mean the eruption is over. Photographer Jorge Guerrero surveys the island’s changed landscapes
Continue reading...With the king barely seen for 20 months, the crown prince is holding the reins of power – and unbothered by who knows it
Beaming in satisfaction as Arab rulers arrived in Riyadh on Tuesday, Mohammed bin Salman looked like a man in charge. As a succession of planes disgorged heads of state for a regional summit, the Saudi crown prince was there to receive them – standing in for his father at yet another big event.
But as Prince Mohammed ushered leaders of Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain along a purple carpet to a reception hall, the king’s absence loomed large. If the ailing monarch was to reappear in public – a once every five year gathering under his auspices would have been the time and place.
Continue reading...Authorities say mostly Iraqi Kurds drowned in the Channel dinghy incident, including a teenager and one child
French authorities have formally identified 26 out of 27 people who drowned last month in a Channel dinghy incident, with most of them being Kurds from Iraq.
A statement from the Paris prosecutor said that there were 17 men among the deceased aged 19-26, seven women aged 22-46, as well as a 16-year-old teenager and a child aged seven.
Continue reading...Officials hopeful that US and European nations will agree Tehran is in breach of its obligations
Tehran’s approach to talks on its nuclear programme in Vienna has become so uncompromising according to Israel’s lead diplomat on Iran, Joshua Zarka, that they “have reached the last stretch of diplomacy”.
Israeli officials said they were hopeful that the US and European nations would agree to put an emergency motion to the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stating that Iran was in breach of its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and the 2015 nuclear deal.
Continue reading...Aerial shot shows devastating effect of drought that has left people and animals without water
Six dead giraffes lie in a spiral on the dry earth, their bodies emaciated and interwoven. The aerial shot, taken by the photojournalist Ed Ram, shows the devastation of Kenya’s drought, which has left people and animals struggling for food and water.
Already weak, the animals had died after they got stuck in the mud, according to Getty Images. They were trying to reach a nearby reservoir, although it had almost dried up, the agency reported.
Continue reading...Cluj-based judge Cristi Danileţ has been suspended over two videos he posted on platform last year
A prominent judge in Romania has been suspended from his position for posting videos on TikTok in a move that has drawn widespread criticism, and condemnation from the US embassy.
Cristi Danileţ, a judge in Romania’s northern city of Cluj, was suspended on Monday by the superior council of magistrates over two videos he posted on TikTok last year, which a panel decided amounted to “behaviour that affects the image of the justice system”.
Continue reading...Soe Naing was arrested in Yangon while taking photos of a ‘silent strike’ protest against military rule
A freelance photojournalist in Myanmar has died in military custody after being arrested last week while covering protests.
Soe Naing is the first journalist known to have died in custody since the army seized power in February, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. More than 100 journalists have been detained since then, though about half have been released.
Continue reading...Police update public on investigation for first time in four years, after studying hours of CCTV footage from night couple were killed
Four years after the unsolved murders of pharmaceutical billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman, police in Toronto have appealed to the public to help identify a possible suspect in the case.
At a media briefing on Tuesday, homicide DS Brandon Price said police had studied hours of CCTV footage taken in the couple’s neighbourhood the night of the murders and had identified all people caught on camera – except for one person.
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