Joe Biden sought to clarify US policy on a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine after his remarks about how the Nato alliance might respond to a 'minor incursion' triggered alarm in Kyiv. Biden told reporters at the White House: 'If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion. Let there be no doubt if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price'
Continue reading...Category Archives: World News
Ivanka Trump asked to cooperate with Capitol attack committee
Investigators seek testimony from former first daughter, with panel increasingly focused on Donald Trump’s inner circle
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack is asking Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the former president, to appear for a voluntary deposition to answer questions about Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
The move by the panel marks an aggressive new phase in its inquiry into the 6 January insurrection, as House investigators seek for the first time testimony from a member of the Trump family about potential criminality on the part of the former president.
Continue reading...US accuses Russia of conspiring to take over Ukraine government
Treasury imposes sanctions on four current and former Ukraine government officials it says involved in alleged conspiracy
The US has alleged that Russian intelligence is recruiting current and former Ukrainian government officials to take over the government in Kyiv and cooperate with a Russian occupying force.
The US Treasury on Thursday imposed sanctions on two Ukrainian members of parliament and two former officials it said were involved in the alleged conspiracy, which involved discrediting the current government of the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Continue reading...Canada’s Prince Andrew high school announces plan to change name
School attempt to distance itself from the growing controversy surrounding the Duke of York
A Canadian high school named after the Duke of York has announced plans to rename itself, in an attempt to distance itself from the growing controversy surrounding the Queen’s second son.
The principal of Prince Andrew high school in the province of Nova Scotia told families on Wednesday to expect the change as the school looks for a name that “upholds our values as a safe and inclusive” space.
Continue reading...Stranded dog saved from rising tide after rescuers attach sausage to drone
Team in Hampshire ties sausage to drone as ‘last resort’ to rescue Millie the jack russell from mudflats
As the tide rose, it began to look perilous for Millie the jack russell-whippet cross, who had defied the efforts of police, firefighters and coastguards to pluck her from treacherous mudflats.
So the rescuers had to think imaginatively, and came up with the idea of attaching a sausage to a drone and hoping the scent of the treat would tempt Millie to safety. It worked gloriously and Millie has been reunited with her grateful owner after following the dangling sausage to higher, safer ground.
Continue reading...Djokovic-backed ‘biotech’ firm’s approach likened to homeopathy
Exclusive: QuantBioRes says it designs treatments for viral diseases based on electromagnetic frequency
A Danish “biotech” company in which Novak Djokovic holds a majority stake is working on a “frequency” treatment for Covid-19 that an expert says bears similarities to the principles of homeopathy.
The world No 1 men’s tennis player was forced to leave Australia on Sunday after the country’s immigration minister cancelled his visa on the basis that his presence in Australia might risk “civil unrest” as he is a “talisman of anti-vaccination sentiment”.
Continue reading...What happens when your star is cancelled but you can’t cancel the film?
Scandals affecting Armie Hammer, Kevin Spacey and Johnny Depp have all hit their movies. We look at how film companies cope when leading players’ box-office stock crashes
Does Armie Hammer ever yearn for the time when the worst thing people said was that nobody liked him? “Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen” was the cruel but incisive headline of a 5,000-word BuzzFeed article from 2017 which concluded that only a wealthy white man could not merely have withstood so much failure but have been rewarded for it. The US actor tweeted about the piece, calling it “bitter AF” before making a celeb’s exit from the social media platform: he deleted his account then quietly reactivated it.
Those must seem now like halcyon days. Hammer’s fall began a year ago when messages surfaced online, purportedly sent from him to various extramarital partners, suggesting an erotic interest in cannibalism. Sexual assault allegations were made by multiple women, while an accusation of rape prompted a Los Angeles police investigation. Hollywood tends to act fast when handling a scandal in the age of social media and #MeToo: Hammer was dropped immediately by his agents, William Morris Endeavor. He exited projects including the Jennifer Lopez romcom Shotgun Wedding, Amma Asante’s cold war thriller Billion Dollar Spy and The Offer, a 10-part series about the making of The Godfather. His scenes in Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy Next Goal Wins were reshot with Will Arnett taking his place.
Continue reading...Belgian-Briton Zara Rutherford is youngest woman to fly solo around world
Nineteen-year-old completes 52,000km journey that took in 31 countries and five continents
A Belgian-British teenager has flown into the record books by becoming the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
Zara Rutherford, 19, touched down at Kortrijk-Wevelgem airport in Flanders just after 1pm local time on Thursday, completing a 52,000km (28,100 nautical mile) journey that took in 31 countries across five continents.
Continue reading...Western Australia suspends border reopening indefinitely amid Omicron spread
State had been due to open up to double-jabbed international and interstate travellers on 5 February
The reopening of Australia’s most isolated state has been suspended indefinitely to allow West Australians to get booster shots, as the more transmissible Omicron variant rips through the nation.
Just one month after promising that from 5 February double-vaccinated interstate and international travellers would be allowed to enter Western Australia without quarantine, the WA premier, Mark McGowan, has said that all entrants will need to self-isolate for 14 days, be triple-dose vaccinated and take tests.
Continue reading...‘His family robbed the country’: personality cult of ex-Kazakh leader crumbles
Anger over corruption and economic inequality is largely directed at Nursultan Nazarbayev and family
Walking through the home-town museum built to honour Nursultan Nazarbayev, the former Kazakhstan president who built a personality cult around his rule, there are few signs of the anger that swept across the central Asian country earlier this month.
Visitors to the imposing three-storey building in Shamalgan are treated to a maquette of the house where the young Nazarbayev grew up, a Mercedes that was part of his presidential motorcade in a glass box in the museum’s grounds, and family artefacts including a suit worn by his brother.
Continue reading...Biden lays bare Nato divide over Russian aggression against Ukraine
Analysis: Greatest tension is between US and Germany over arms sale and energy dependency
Joe Biden confirmed at his press conference on Wednesday what has been apparent for weeks – Nato remains divided over how to respond to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
His admission of a split was overshadowed by his passing remark that a minor incursion would be treated differently to a full-scale invasion. The White House afterwards clarified that a minor incursion meant cyber-attacks, as opposed to a movement of Russian troops into Ukraine sovereign territory.
Continue reading...Peru seeks compensation after oil spill devastates marine life – video
Peru has demanded compensation from the Spanish oil firm Repsol after freak waves caused by a volcanic eruption near Tonga caused a disastrous oil spill. The spill happened in an area rich in marine life such as seabirds, sea lions and otters. Locals have only rudimentary equipment to try to clear the oil.
Peru’s prime minister, Mirtha Vásquez, has claimed the Pampilla refinery, run by Repsol, apparently did not have a contingency plan for an oil spill
Continue reading...By 2050, a quarter of the world’s people will be African – this will shape our future | Edward Paice
Africa’s unprecedented population growth will impact geopolitics, global trade, migration and almost every aspect of life. It’s time for a reimagining of the continent
In 2022 the world’s population will pass 8 billion. It has increased by a third in just two decades. By 2050, there will be about 9.5 billion of us on the planet, according to respected demographers. This makes recent comments by Elon Musk baffling. According to him, “the low birthrate and the rapidly declining birthrate” is “one of the biggest risks to civilisation”.
Fertility rates in Europe, North America and east Asia are generally below 2.1 births per woman, the level at which populations remain stable at constant mortality rates. The trajectory in some countries is particularly arresting. The birthrate in Italy is the lowest it has ever been in the country’s history. South Korea’s fertility rate has been stuck below one birth per woman for decades despite an estimated $120bn (£90bn) being spent on initiatives aimed at raising it. Japan started the century with 128 million citizens but is on course to have only 106 million by 2050. China’s population will peak at 1.45 billion in 2030, but if it proves unable to raise its fertility rate, the world’s most populous country could end the century with fewer than 600 million inhabitants. This is the “big risk” alluded to by Musk. The trouble is, his statement seems to imply that “civilisation” does not include Africa.
Continue reading...Why is the UK government still getting away with complicity in the Yemen war? | Owen Jones
For seven years, the Yemeni people have been pummelled with Saudi bombs, many from Britain. Yet Westminster is silent
This is a far greater scandal than the parties in Downing Street. In a just world, it would prove the downfall of our prime minister. This week, airstrikes by the Saudis and their allies killed more than a dozen people in Yemen, civilians among them. Last month an estimated 32 civilians died as a result of the ongoing conflict. The country has been convulsed by civil war since 2014. For seven years, a Saudi-led coalition has been pummelling the impoverished country with bombs, many of them supplied by Britain. Through our staunch military alliance with the Saudi dictatorship, our government is directly complicit with these atrocities.
You can be forgiven for knowing nothing about any of this: Yemen does not matter, you see. Its people have been relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy of death, and most of our media show little interest in scrutinising our government for slaughter that it is directly complicit in. The Saudi violence has only increased in Yemen since October, after the UN human rights council voted to end its war crimes investigation following intensive lobbying by the dictatorship in Riyadh.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Covid news live: WHO recommends lifting international travel bans, says proof of vaccination not necessarily needed
Blanket travel bans ineffective against Omicron spread, WHO says; Austria to introduce national vaccine lottery to encourage people to get jabs
- PM announces end to all Omicron Covid restrictions in England
- Czech folk singer dies after deliberately contracting Covid
- Increased Covid risk ‘trade-off’ in reopening Australian schools
- Djokovic has 80% stake in biotech firm developing Covid drug
- Boris Johnson, Covid and the UK – latest updates
Hong Kong will likely suspend face-to-face teaching in secondary schools from 24 January, local media reports.
The city’s Education Bureau made the announcement on Thursday, because of a rising number of coronavirus infections in several schools.
Continue reading...‘The Taliban hate us’: a former senior female police officer
Fahima fears she is being targeted because of the role she had, which included recruiting other women
*Fahima was the most senior policewoman in her province. Since the Taliban took over, women who worked in the police force have been targeted for assassination and beatings. She believes Taliban officials are particularly focused on tracking her down because of both her seniority and her role recruiting other women.
I fled to another city just two days after the country fell to the Taliban, because I knew they were looking for me in my home province. They found my address, and have been to my house and asked my family about me.
Continue reading...US film-maker faces trial in Italy after testifying in tainted blood scandal case
Kelly Duda faces fascist-era charge of ‘offending the honour or prestige’ of prosecutor in case alarming free speech advocates
An American film-maker has been put on trial in Italy for “offending the honour or prestige” of an Italian prosecutor after testifying in a criminal case against a former health ministry chief and representatives of a pharmaceutical company accused of supplying Italians with tainted blood products.
Kelly Duda, who revealed how contaminated blood taken from prisoners in Arkansas was sold around the world, faces up to three years in prison if found guilty of an offence that dates back to Italy’s fascist period.
Continue reading...‘For the first time, I felt free’: Pakistan’s women-led livestock market
In rural provinces, women have always reared animals but are excluded from selling them. A new market is changing attitudes
On Saturday, Rozina Ghulam Mustafa arrived at the market in Tando Allahyar city, Pakistan’s Sindh province, to sell the goats she had raised, milked and fed.
Usually her brother sells the animals, but he sold them too cheaply because he didn’t know their true value. “He has always sold our goats at a much lower price,” she says, standing inside an enclosure with 15 of them.
Continue reading...Nepal hospital trials ‘life-changing’ treatment for leprosy wounds
Technique using artificial scabs made from a patient’s own blood could also help those with diabetes, say doctors
Doctors at a Nepal hospital trialling a new treatment for skin wounds say the technique, which mimics the scabbing process, has “enormous potential”.
Trials at the mountaintop Anandaban leprosy hospital, south of Kathmandu, have been promising, bringing hope to patients worldwide. It is hoped that the treatment will also help millions living with diabetes, who have an increased risk of amputation.
Continue reading...‘Absolutely amazing’: Tongan man swept away by tsunami stayed afloat for 24 hours
Lisala Folau climbed a tree on his home island before being washed away and eventually managing to reach the capital
The story of a Tongan man washed away by the tsunami and who drifted and swam between islands for more than 24 hours has become one of the first to emerge from the island nation, five days after the disaster cut off communications between it and the rest of the world.
Lisala Folau, a retired disabled carpenter, told Tongan radio station Broadcom FM that he swam and floated from his island of Atata via two other uninhabited islands to eventually reach the main island of Tongatapu, a total distance of around 13 kilometres.
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