Category Archives: World News

Central Africa: fighting kills six soldiers and 22 jihadists in Lake Chad region

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Three-week operation by troops from Niger and Nigeria targeted area that has become a bolthole for Boko Haram and Isis-linked militants

Six soldiers and at least 22 jihadists have died in fighting in the Lake Chad region of central AfricA, a joint force deployed to the area said on Friday.

The force described the operation, conducted by troops from Niger and Nigeria backed by fighter planes, as a “success” and said it had benefited from “decisive support by American partners”.

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Former South Korean president Park Geun-hye pardoned for corruption

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Moon Jae-in, her successor, has freed Park from 22-year sentence three months ahead of presidential election

South Korea’s disgraced former president Park Geun-hye has been pardoned by her successor, Moon Jae-in, in a special amnesty that could influence voters in a presidential election that is just three months away.

Park has been serving a 22-year sentence following her impeachment in 2017 and conviction for corruption and abuse of power, after a scandal that exposed webs of double-dealing between political leaders and conglomerates.

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At least 16 dead after third migrant boat in three days sinks in Greek waters

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People still missing despite major rescue effort as smugglers switch to more perilous route from Turkey

At least 16 people have died after a migrant boat capsized in the Aegean Sea late Friday, bringing to at least 30 the combined death toll from three accidents in as many days involving migrant boats in Greek waters.

The sinkings came as smugglers increasingly favour a perilous route from Turkey to Italy, which avoids Greece’s heavily patrolled eastern Aegean islands that for years were at the forefront of the country’s migration crisis.

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Christmas travel chaos as airlines cancel more than 3,000 flights

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Passengers returning home for festive season face disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffed

Passengers travelling home for Christmas have been hit with disruption worldwide after airline companies cancelled more than 3,000 flights on Friday, according to a flight tracking website.

The surge of Christmas Eve cancellations came as the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights.

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French zoo closes after pack of nine wolves escapes

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Four wolves were shot dead by park workers and five anaesthetised by officials at scene

Authorities in the south of France have temporarily shut down a zoo after a pack of nine wolves escaped from an enclosure during visiting hours, officials have said.

No humans were injured in the incident last weekend at the Trois Vallées zoo in Montredon-Labessonnié in the south-west Tarn region but four of the wolves were shot dead by park workers and five were anaesthetised by local officials on the scene, Fabien Chollet, a local official, told AFP on Friday.

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Polish deputy PM says Germany wants to turn EU into ‘fourth reich’

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Jarosław Kaczyński’s remarks in far-right newspaper are latest episode in Poland’s lengthy standoff with EU

The head of Poland’s ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has said Germany is trying to turn the EU into a federal “German fourth reich”.

Speaking to the far-right Polish newspaper GPC, the head of the Law and Justice party (PiS) said some countries “are not enthusiastic at the prospect of a German fourth reich being built on the basis of the EU”.

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The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America

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From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases

The Great Indian Kitchen

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Bangladesh: dozens dead after fire sweeps through ferry – video

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At least 39 people have been killed and 70 injured after a fire ripped through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh.

The blaze began in the engine room of the ferry in the early hours of Friday morning, officials said, but the cause was not immediately clear. It took 15 fire engines two hours to get it under control.

People were forced to jump from the vessel, which was carrying about 800 passengers, into the freezing river water to escape

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Covid live news: 1.7 million people in UK had coronavirus last week; hundreds of Christmas flights cancelled

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ONS figures are highest on record so far; Christmas for many in disarray as US and Australian airlines say flight crews hit by Covid

Here’s a story that echoes the cancellation of flights happening over the US.

Thousands of Australians have had their domestic flights cancelled in the hours leading up to Christmas, as frontline staff were ordered to test and isolate amid a rise in Covid cases.

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Briton missing in Afghanistan after reports of Taliban arrest

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Grant Bailey was working as security consultant in Kabul where he liaised with US state department

A British man is missing in Afghanistan after a report he has been detained by the Taliban. Grant Bailey was arrested in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he has been working as a security consultant.

The arrest came during a Taliban security clampdown, according to the Daily Mirror.

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Chinese officials face punishment over Covid lockdown in Xian

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Disciplinary body says people to be held accountable for failing in efforts to prevent and control outbreak

Officials in the north-western Chinese city of Xian are facing punishment for “not doing a good job” after a Covid-19 outbreak led to the lockdown of its 13 million residents.

All domestic flights out of Xian and most trains from the city scheduled for Friday were cancelled. Officials say the outbreak has been traced to the arrival of a plane from Pakistan.

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Russia fines Google £73m over failure to delete ‘illegal’ content

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Moscow ruling is first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia and comes amid fears of internet crackdown

A Moscow court has said it is fining Alphabet’s Google 7.2bn roubles (£73m) for what it says is a repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia.

Moscow has increased pressure on big tech this year in a campaign that critics characterise as an attempt by Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the internet, something they say threatens individual and corporate freedom.

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River ferry fire kills dozens in Bangladesh

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Passengers jumped off vessel carrying 800 passengers and tried to swim ashore, officials say

A massive fire has swept through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh, leaving at least 39 people dead and 70 injured, officials have said.

Many passengers leaped from the vessel into cold waters to escape the fire. It took 15 fire engines two hours to control the blaze and another eight to cool down the vessel, according to Kamal Uddin Bhuiyan, the fire officer who led the rescue operation.

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As US west braces for omicron surge, leaders take a hands-off approach

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Experts call for public health measures beyond vaccines as health workers describe a ‘war zone’

As the highly transmissible Omicron variant began to surge across Colorado this month, Governor Jared Polis adopted a laissez-faire tone. Asked in a radio interview about the possibility of reinstating a statewide mask mandate, he replied that, with Covid vaccines now widely available, getting sick was the “own darn fault” of the unvaccinated.

But health workers at hospitals in parts of Colorado that have been overwhelmed by coronavirus patients in recent weeks say they’re bracing for even worse.

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End trade barriers to help tackle climate crisis, says WTO chief

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Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala calls for changes to ensure developing nations are resilient to affects of extreme weather

Removing trade barriers around the world would help to tackle the climate crisis, enable a “just transition” away from fossil fuels and make developing countries more resilient to the impacts of global heating, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took over as director general of the global watchdog last March, said: “Trade is part of the solution, not part of the problem … We need a global effort to climate-proof the supply chains and infrastructure of the most vulnerable economies or risk undoing hard-won economic progress and development.”

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‘It’s so liberating’: India’s first salon run by transgender men

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Founder Aryan Pasha wants La Beauté & Style to be an inclusive and comfortable space, as well as tackle prejudice and provide employment

The beauty treatments listed at the new La Beauté & Style salon are much the same as those offered by the dozen or so other parlours that dot the traffic-heavy Dilshad Extension area of Ghaziabad, 17 miles (28km) east of Delhi. But that is where the similarity ends.

The wall behind the reception desk is painted in rainbow colours; a mural of a trans man with flowing multicoloured locks decorates another wall; a woman wearing a sari is having her eyebrows plucked next to a trans man who is telling a stylist how he would like his hair cut.

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K-pop star Suga tests positive for Covid after BTS return from US

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Band’s management says singer self-isolating at home and is not showing any symptoms

Suga, songwriter and rapper for the K-pop sensation BTS, has tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from concerts in the US, the group’s management has said.

The 24-year-old, whose real name is Min Yoon-gi, was confirmed to have contracted the virus on Friday during his self quarantine after returning home to South Korea on Thursday, according to Big Hit Music.

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Lebanon faces ‘depressing’ Christmas as internet crisis stops festive calls

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With telecoms barely working, a plunging currency and young people emigrating, it’s a bleak Christmas for weary Lebanese

In Lebanon’s year of loss and deprivation, simple pleasures have steadily drained away along with its fortunes. But amid a crisis renowned for breaking new ground, few Lebanese had thought their ability to stay in touch was at risk – until a pre-Christmas warning sent shudders through the country.

The telecommunications minister, Johnny Corm, warned this week that a lack of funds and fuel could soon see Lebanon’s already struggling internet grind to a halt, making festive calls and messages even trickier than usual – and a financial and social disintegration like no other even more acute.

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‘We’ve heard it all before’: Ukrainians brush aside talk of Russian invasion

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In Kyiv and beyond, people carry on with the festive season despite rhetoric about imminent conflict

Russia is threatening war on Ukraine, but in Kyiv the city council is putting up Christmas trees rather than bomb shelter notices, and organising concerts rather than army recruitment drives.

Amid a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border and in annexed Crimea, hostile rhetoric between Russia and the US and its allies is edging towards a cold war high, with Ukraine the battlefield for any actual fighting. Ukrainians, however, just emerging from Covid quarantine, are enjoying ice rinks and markets put up for the holiday season and would rather think about how to celebrate the coming new year.

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‘My grandmother hid Jewish children’: Poland’s underground refugee network

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As thousands attempt to cross the Belarus-Poland border seeking asylum in Europe, local activists are trying to help

In the attic of a cottage in the woods near the Polish village of Narewka, a young Iraqi Kurd crouches, trembling with cold and fear. Through the skylight, the blue lights of police vans flash on the walls of his hiding place. Outside, dozens of border guards are searching for people like him in the snowstorm. Downstairs, the owner of the house sits in silence with his terrified wife and children.

The young Kurd is one of thousands of asylum seekers who entered Poland across the border with Belarus, where countless others have become trapped on their way to Europe. The Polish family have offered him shelter. But if the Polish police find him, he risks being sent back across the frontier into the sub-zero forests of Belarus, while his protectors risk being charged for aiding illegal immigration.

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