Category Archives: World News

The rising cost of the climate crisis in flooded South Sudan – in pictures

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Families facing severe hunger are wading through crocodile-infested waters in search of water lilies to eat. Susan Martinez and photographer Peter Caton return with Action Against Hunger to find that the dire situation they reported on in March has only worsened

Desperate families in flood-ravaged villages in South Sudan are spending hours searching for water lilies to eat after another summer of intense rainfall worsened an already dire situation.

People have no food and no land to cultivate after three years of floods. Fields are submerged in last year’s flood water and higher ground is overcrowded with hungry people, in what is quickly becoming a humanitarian crisis.

Nyanyang Tong, 39, on her way to the Action Against Hunger centre with her one-year-old son, Mamuch Gatkuoth, in Paguir

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Barbados declares Rihanna a national hero during republic ceremony – video

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Barbados has declared singer Rihanna a national hero during its republican celebrations in Bridgetown. The country's prime minister, Mia Mottley, said, ‘On behalf of a grateful nation, but an even prouder people, we therefore present to you, the designee, for national hero of Barbados, ambassador Robyn Rihanna Fenty may you continue to shine like a diamond.' Rihanna accepted the honour to cheers from the crowd. The ceremony was part of celebrations as Barbados became the world’s newest republic.

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Despite reports of milder symptoms Omicron should not be understimated

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While anecdotal accounts suggest the variant may cause less severe illness and it will take weeks for definitive data

As the world scrambles to contain the new variant, some are hopefully seizing on anecdotal reports from South Africa that it may cause only mild illness. But although previous variants of the coronavirus have been associated with different symptoms and severity, it would be dangerous to assume that Omicron is a viral pussy cat, experts say.

At a briefing convened by South Africa’s Department of Health on Monday, Unben Pillay, a GP from practising in Midrand on the outskirts of Johannesburg, said that while “it is still early days” the cases he was seeing were typically mild: “We are seeing patients present with dry cough, fever, night sweats and a lot of body pains. Vaccinated people tend to do much better.”

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Covid live: boosters may protect against Omicron, says Israel’s health minister, as US checks vaccine effectiveness

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Nitzan Horowitz says ‘already room for optimism’ that vaccines will cover new variant; US Food & Drug Administration checking if tweaks needed

Stock markets in Asia have bounced back again as investors’ concerns about the new Omicron Covid variant eased. In Australia the ASX200 was up more than 1%, while in Japan the Nikkei was up 0.75%.

It followed a stronger showing on Monday on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones industrial average closed up 0.6% and the broader S&P500 was up 1.2% after some hefty losses on Friday, when news of the new strain shook confidence.

There are so many unknowns about Omicron and the market has been jumping at shadows.

After such a strong run and with elevated valuations, the market will always be susceptible to the odd shakeout on news that could bring risk.

Hong Kong’s very stringent system of boarding, quarantine and also testing requirements has successfully stopped the transmission of the three Omicron cases, that we have identified in our designated quarantine hotel, from going into the community.

Non-Hong Kong residents from these four places will not be allowed to enter Hong Kong.

The most stringent quarantine requirements will also be implemented on relevant inbound travellers from these places.

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New Zealand’s National party anoints ex-airline boss Chris Luxon as leader

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Luxon, who has spent just a year in parliament, will be the party’s fifth leader in as many years after he replaced Judith Collins

New Zealand’s opposition has announced a new leader, former airline boss Christopher Luxon, after its leader Judith Collins flamed out of the role last week.

The National party emerged from its caucus meeting on Tuesday to announce Luxon, a political novice and former Air New Zealand chief executive, would be taking the party’s helm. He will be National’s fifth leader in as many years, and will work alongside deputy Nicola Willis. The party was forced into a new leadership vote last week, after leader Judith Collins self-destructed in an ill-fated attempt to take down political rival Simon Bridges.

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Queen congratulates Barbados as it becomes a republic

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Monarch sends message marking ‘momentous’ day and wishing Barbadians peace and prosperity

As Barbados removes the Queen as its head of state and becomes a republic, the monarch has sent her congratulations on the nation’s “momentous” day.

Prince Charles arrived on the Caribbean island on Sunday to join the inauguration ceremony of the president-elect, Sandra Mason, who replaces the Queen as head of state overnight as Barbados sheds the vestiges of a colonial system stretching back 400 years.

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Covid: UK aims for 500,000 jabs a day in bid to outpace Omicron variant

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Ministers to ramp up vaccinations to 3.5m a week as minimum gap for boosters is halved to three months

Ministers are targeting a return to half a million UK Covid jabs a day as the waiting time for boosters was cut to three months in a bid to outpace the Omicron variant that scientists believe is already spreading in the community.

Confirmed Omicron cases rose to 11 in England and Scotland on Monday, with scientific advisers braced for hundreds more to be detected in the next week or so.

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Trump’s ‘fact-free’ approach caused briefing challenges, CIA report says

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Ex-president’s chaotic style resulted in presidential daily briefing being delivered more regularly to Mike Pence

Donald Trump’s “fact-free” approach to the presidency created unprecedented challenges for intelligence officials responsible for briefing him, according to a newly released account from the CIA.

The 45th president’s chaotic and freewheeling style, and his disinclination to read anything put in front of him, resulted in the presidential daily briefing, or PDB – a crucial security update including information about potential threats to the US – being delivered more regularly to Vice-President Mike Pence instead, the report states.

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House of Gucci is ‘painful and insulting’, says Gucci family

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Heirs of Aldo Gucci issue statement taking issue with Ridley Scott’s film but have stopped short of legal action

Surviving family members of the Gucci fashion dynasty have expressed unhappiness with their representation in the new film House of Gucci.

In a statement issued on Monday, the heirs of Aldo Gucci – who ran the fashion house for 33 years until the mid-1980s – said they were aggrieved by the lack of consultation by film-makers, as well as their portrayal as “thugs, ignorant and insensitive to the world around them”.

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Trucks overturn and buildings collapse as extreme winds hit Turkey – video

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Four people, including a foreign national, were killed and at least 19 were injured in Istanbul on Monday as extreme winds battered Turkey's biggest city and its surrounding regions, the governor's office said. The wild weather caused at least two lorries to overturn, blocking traffic on a busy highway in Istanbul. The winds have knocked down buildings and lifted concrete slabs off roofs and walls

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Leaked papers link Xinjiang crackdown with China leadership

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Secret documents urge population control, mass round-ups and punishment of Uyghurs

Excerpts from previously unpublished documents directly linking China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang province to speeches by the Chinese leadership in 2014 have been put online.

The documents – including three speeches by Chinese president Xi Jinping in April 2014 – cover security, population control and the need to punish the Uyghur population. Some are marked top secret. They were leaked to the German academic Adrian Zenz.

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Eitan Biran: cable car fall survivor must be returned to Italy, Israeli court rules

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Six-year-old boy has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel

Israel’s top court has ruled that a six-year-old boy who was the sole survivor of a cable car crash in northern Italy must be returned to relatives there within the next couple of weeks.

Eitan Biran has been at the centre of a bitter custody battle between relatives in Italy and Israel since his parents were killed in the Stresa-Mottarone aerial tramway crash on 23 May.

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Jack Dorsey steps down as Twitter chief executive

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Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has stepped down from his executive role at the social media company.

Dorsey will be replaced by chief technology officer (CTO) Parag Agrawal, the company announced on Monday.

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Botswana upholds ruling decriminalising same-sex relationships

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Court of appeal decision hailed as victory for LGBTQ+ community that could encourage other African countries to follow suit

Gay rights campaigners expressed joy at the Botswana court of appeal’s decision to uphold a ruling that decriminalised same-sex relationships, saying the country’s judiciary had set an example for other African countries.

The government had appealed a 2019 ruling that criminalising homosexuality was unconstitutional. The ruling had been hailed as a major victory for gay rights campaigners on the continent, following an unsuccessful attempt in Kenya to repeal colonial-era laws criminalising gay sex.

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Channel crossings are an English issue, says French minister

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UK accused of having a labour market akin to modern slavery that encourages people to make risky crossings

Senior French ministers have accused the UK of operating a labour market akin to slavery and called on London to open safe routes for migrants, as the two governments continued to deflect blame for last week’s drownings in the Channel.

The criticism came hours after France’s interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, held a crisis meeting with European ministers and border agencies to discuss the migrant emergency around the Channel ports.

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‘I feel inspired here’: refugees find business success in Naples

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From designing homewares to recording music, many who fled to Europe are building independent lives against the odds

Pieces of fabric of various vibrant shades fill the Naples studio where Paboy Bojang and his team of four are working around the clock to stitch together 250 cushions for their next customer, The Conran Shop.

They are not long from dispatching their first orders to Selfridges and Paul Smith, and with requests for the distinctive cotton cushions with ruffled borders flooding in from around the world, they will be busy for months to come.

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Covid live news: WHO says ‘very high’ global risk from new strain; Portugal identifies 13 Omicron cases in Lisbon football team

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World Health Organization briefing says mutations ‘concerning for potential impact on pandemic trajectory’; Belenenses started last match with nine players following Covid outbreak

G7 health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic, AFP reports.

The meeting was called by G7 chair Britain, which is among a steadily growing number of countries detecting cases of the heavily mutated new strain.

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Ex-defense secretary sues over withheld material from Trump era memoir

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Mark Esper claims material being improperly held from ‘unvarnished’ memoir of dealings with ex-president

The former US defense secretary Mark Esper claims in a lawsuit against the defense department that material is being improperly withheld from him as he seeks to publish an “unvarnished and candid memoir” of his time in Donald Trump’s cabinet.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Sunday in the US district court in Washington, describes the memoir, A Sacred Oath, as an account of Esper’s tenure as army secretary from 2017 to 2019 and his 18 months as defense secretary, which ended when Trump fired him in a tweet just days after the president lost his reelection bid.

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Dutch police arrest couple trying to flee quarantine for Spain

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Woman and man left hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19

Dutch military police say they have arrested a married couple who left a hotel where they were in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 and were attempting to flee the country.

The couple were arrested “in an airplane that was about to depart”, the police force, known as the Marechaussee, said in a statement. It was unclear whether they had tested positive for the new Omicron coronavirus variant.

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Nurdles: the worst toxic waste you’ve probably never heard of

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Billions of these tiny plastic pellets are floating in the ocean, causing as much damage as oil spills, yet they are still not classified as hazardous

When the X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in May, Sri Lanka was terrified that the vessel’s 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil would spill into the ocean, causing an environmental disaster for the country’s pristine coral reefs and fishing industry.

Classified by the UN as Sri Lanka’s “worst maritime disaster”, the biggest impact was not caused by the heavy fuel oil. Nor was it the hazardous chemicals on board, which included nitric acid, caustic soda and methanol. The most “significant” harm, according to the UN, came from the spillage of 87 containers full of lentil-sized plastic pellets: nurdles.

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