Coming of age day is a Japanese holiday held every January to celebrate those who have reached 20, the official age of adulthood in Japan. Many ceremonies around the country have been scaled back as authorities continue to implement measures to tackle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic
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France to push for EU-wide UK migration treaty over Channel crossings
French government wants whole bloc to act despite warnings other member states have no appetite
France will press the EU to negotiate an asylum and migration treaty with the UK in an attempt to deter people from making the dangerous Channel crossing.
The French government, which last week took up the six-month rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers, wants the whole bloc to act, despite warnings that other member states have no appetite for a migration treaty with Britain.
Continue reading...Bronx fire: baby rescued from burning New York building – video
A baby was rescued from a massive fire in New York where at least 19 people were killed, including nine children, and dozens were injured.
A witness filmed the rescue attempts in the 19-floor apartment block in the Bronx after a fire that officials said started because of a malfunctioning space heater, spread smoke through the building
Continue reading...China battles Omicron outbreak weeks before Winter Olympics
Cases of Covid variant come in run-up to lunar new year, when millions of people usually travel to see family
China is battling to stamp out its first outbreak of the Omicron variant, only weeks before the Chinese new year and the Beijing Winter Olympics, with cases recorded in at least two distant provinces.
On Monday, health authorities reported 97 new locally transmitted cases for the preceding 24 hours, across several cities. At least 30 cases were in Henan province, while at least 31 new cases were reported in the Tianjin, including 15 children aged five to 15.
Continue reading...The struggling shopkeepers of Afghanistan – in pictures
Nearly four months after the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, the country is at risk of near-universal poverty. The economic crisis has worsened since the Taliban took over and most Afghans live on less than $2 a day. We take a look at the shopkeepers trying to make ends meet
Continue reading...Painting a bigger picture: Senegal’s pioneering ‘first lady’ of graffiti
Artist, poet and singer, Dieynaba Sidibé, AKA Zeinixx, has made her way to the top of the country’s male-dominated hip-hop scene and wants her messages of hope to inspire young women
When Dieynaba Sidibé discovered graffiti, it was love at first sight. She was 17 and had already begun experimenting with painting and drawing.
“It was on TV. I was sitting in my living room and I saw people doing big walls and I thought, ‘This is what I need’,” the Senegalese artist says, one hoop earring shaking as she laughs. “I don’t like small things. I was doing big canvases, and I said to myself: ‘A wall is a bigger surface for expression’.”
Continue reading...Polar priest: the church in the world’s northernmost town – a photo essay
Photojournalist Giuia Besana visits the world’s northernmost priest who runs the Svalbard Church in Longyearbyen, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago. Pastor Siv Limstrand is the community’s guiding figure as it looks to an uncertain future in the face of economic shifts and the effects of climate change
Located in the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, Longyearbyen is the world’s northernmost settlement. Here, winter temperatures range from -13 to -20C and inhabitants are prepared for two and half months of complete darkness in winter, the constant danger of polar bears, and avalanches.
The road to the cabin of Siv Limstrand, in Adventdalen Valley, an 18-mile-long valley east of Longyearbyen, during a brief moment of daylight
Continue reading...Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi: ‘Global recognition is double-edged’
He has been detained at airports and told never to return to Iran. But the director, who could be about to win his third Oscar, refuses to be silenced about outrages in his own country – and in the west
Withdrawing your film from the Oscars would be career suicide for most directors, but in November Asghar Farhadi appeared to do precisely that. Shortly after Iran’s state-controlled film board put his movie, A Hero, up for the best international feature Oscar, Farhadi released a statement on Instagram saying he was “fed up” with suggestions in Iranian media that he was sympathetic to the country’s hardline government. “If your introduction of my film for the Oscars has led you to the conclusion that I am in your debt,” he wrote, “I am explicitly declaring now that I have no problem with you reversing this decision.”
Farhadi, it could be argued, can afford to make such a gesture. He has already won two international feature Oscars – for A Separation in 2012 and The Salesman in 2017 – and many more awards besides (A Hero won the Grand Prix at Cannes last year). Such achievements inevitably convey national hero status. At the same time, he seems to have trodden a careful line when it comes to his country’s oppressive regime. Other Iranian film-makers, such as Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, have paid a heavy price for criticising aspects of Iranian society, from prison sentences and house arrests to travel bans. Farhadi seems to have been spared similar treatment. Hence the accusations that he was “pro- government”.
Continue reading...Fanpage: the Italian website that went from gossip to award-winning scoops
What started as a Facebook page is now an investigative news operation with millions of readers a day
It was 7.55am one February day in 2018 when members of an elite Italian police squad raided the Naples office of small news website. The previous day it had revealed links between elected politicians and organised groups in an illegal waste dumping racket, and its staff already at their desks looked on incredulously as the officers searched through their files.
The story sent shock waves through the political establishment and helped make fanpage.it what it is today: one of Italy’s most successful news sites.
Continue reading...Covid live: Record numbers admitted to US hospitals with coronavirus; Sweden to introduce stricter curbs
Over 132,000 patients currently on US wards with Covid; Swedish measures include work from home mandate
- Email shows Boris Johnson aide invited No 10 staff to lockdown party
- Novak Djokovic wins appeal against decision to cancel Australian visa
- Protesters on French island pelt MP with seaweed over Covid pass
- China battles Omicron outbreak weeks before Winter Olympics
- New Zealand not prepared for Omicron outbreak in ‘matter of weeks’
Two of New Zealand’s most prominent Covid-19 experts have warned that the country is unprepared to prevent the health system from being overloaded by an Omicron outbreak, with likely fatal consequences.
Otago University’s Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Michael Baker also said it was only a “matter of weeks” before the highly transmissible variant seeped into the community due to border failures.
Continue reading...New Zealand not prepared for Omicron outbreak expected in ‘matter of weeks’, experts warn
Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Michael Baker say country’s ‘traffic light’ Covid protection framework is ‘not fit for purpose’
Two of New Zealand’s most prominent Covid-19 experts have warned that the country is unprepared to prevent the health system from being overloaded by an Omicron outbreak, with likely fatal consequences.
Otago University’s Dr Nick Wilson and Dr Michael Baker also said it was only a “matter of weeks” before the highly transmissible variant seeped into the community due to border failures.
Continue reading...‘I’m more worried than excited about the future’: Japan’s Coming of Age Day tinged with anxiety
20-year-olds contemplate an uncertain future shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and Japan’s skewed demographics
On the second Monday in January every year, Japan’s 20-year-olds put on their best kimono and suits, brave the winter chill and congregate at event halls across the country to celebrate their official passage into adulthood.
In happier times, Coming of Age Day is a time to reunite with old school friends from the same neighbourhood and take endless commemorative photos, knowing that a party invariably involving the legal consumption of alcohol will be just reward for sitting through dreary speeches by local dignitaries.
Continue reading...Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announces positive Covid test
- Progressive congresswoman ‘experiencing symptoms’
- Office says political star had booster vaccine shot last year
The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has tested positive for Covid-19.
In a statement on Sunday evening, the office of the New York progressive said she was “experiencing symptoms and recovering at home.
Continue reading...‘The numbers are horrific’: New York City apartment building fire kills 19 – video
Nineteen people have been killed, including nine children, and dozens more injured in an apartment building fire in the Bronx borough of New York City. ‘The numbers are horrific,’ said New York City mayor Eric Adams. ‘This is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times here in the city of New York’
• The figure in the headline of this article was corrected on 10 January 2022
‘The numbers are horrific’: New York City apartment building fire kills dozens – video
Nineteen people have been killed, including nine children, and dozens more injured in an apartment building fire in the Bronx borough of New York City. ‘The numbers are horrific,’ said New York City mayor Eric Adams. ‘This is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times here in the city of New York’
Continue reading...US tells Putin to choose confrontation or dialogue over Ukraine
Secretary of state Tony Blinken says coming week of talks is moment of truth for Russian president
The US has told Vladimir Putin to choose between dialogue and confrontation on the eve of a critical week of diplomacy over Ukraine as Russian troops remained massed along its borders.
Senior diplomats and military officers from the US and Russia held a working dinner in Geneva on Sunday evening before Monday’s formal negotiations to discuss Moscow’s demands. Those were set out last month in two draft treaties, one with the US and one with Nato. Much of their content is unacceptable to Washington and the alliance, most importantly a pledge that Ukraine will never be a Nato member.
Continue reading...Fire in Bronx building leaves 19 people dead, including nine children
- More than five dozen people injured and 13 in critical condition
- City fire commissioner says space heater caused the blaze
Nineteen people including nine children were killed in an apartment fire in the Bronx in New York on Sunday, one of the worst fire disasters in the city in 30 years.
Thirteen people remained hospitalised in critical condition, authorities said late on Sunday afternoon. In all, more than five dozen were hurt.
Continue reading...China: more than 80 ostriches filmed running through the streets of Chongzuo – video
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...Fire sweeps through Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh – video
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...Hungry badger may have uncovered Roman coins in Spanish cave
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.
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