Category Archives: World News

How risk of kidnap became the cost of an education in Nigeria

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Abductions are rife in the north of the country, where armed gangs target schools and colleges with apparent impunity

When his two daughters were abducted from their university dormitories by armed men in April, Friday Sani volunteered to deliver the ransom. In two bags he carried banknotes to the value of more than 40m naira (£70,000), the price to free Victory and Rejoice, and 37 others taken from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Kaduna.

In April and May more than 70 students were abducted from the federal college and the nearby Greenfield University. With little faith that police could help, a group of parents went to the kidnappers, through an intermediary, and paid to get their children back.

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Community-led upgrade to a Nairobi slum could be a model for Africa

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Mukuru, one of Kenya’s largest informal settlements, has cleaned up its act with improved water, roads and sanitation

The people who live in Mukuru, one of the vast, sprawling “informal settlements” in Nairobi, used to dread the rains, when the slum’s mud-packed lanes would dissolve into a soggy quagmire of sewage, stagnant water and slimy rubbish.

But a few years ago, things began to change. On a newly paved road Benedetta Kasendi is selling sugar cane from a cart. It gives her a clean platform, somewhere she can keep her wares tidy. Her biggest challenge now is what to do with the sugar-cane waste as she does not want to clog up Mukuru’s revamped sewers.

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‘Super rare’: Antarctic penguin washes up in New Zealand, 3,000km from home

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Expert say the bird’s presence is a reminder of the threats penguins face due to warming waters and changing habitats

An Antarctic penguin has traversed 3,000km of icy waters to find himself far from home and on new and puzzling shores: the south-eastern coastline of New Zealand.

The Adélie penguin in question, affectionately named “Pingu” by locals, was spotted looking somewhat lost at Birdlings Flat, a small settlement on New Zealand’s South Island.

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PNG residents evicted a decade ago for casino development face violence and poverty: report

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Former residents of the Paga Hill settlement in Port Moresby say their displacement has led to a range of problems

Many former residents of a settlement in Papua New Guinea who claim they were forcibly evicted nearly a decade ago say they are living without access to sanitation, electricity and water and some have faced homelessness, violence and community tension as a result of the move, according to a new report.

In 2012 the Paga Hill Development Company (PHDC), a PNG registered company with significant ties to Australia, announced its plan to create the Paga Hill Estate, which would include a resort, casino, and an aquarium. In 2012 police, backed by bulldozers, began moving into the settlement of Paga Hill in Port Moresby, to clear the area.

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‘We are stranded’: man describes hardship on Poland-Belarus border as crisis deepens – video report

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A migrant man stranded on the Poland-Belarus border along with thousands of other people made a plea to authorities for help on Thursday. Speaking in Kurdish, the unidentified man described the problems migrants were facing without any amenities or essential items. Countries bordering Belarus have warned the migrant crisis on the European Union's eastern borders could escalate into a military confrontation. Meanwhile, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko hinted at shutting down gas supplies to Europe on Thursday amid the escalating migration dispute with the EU.

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South Africa’s last white president issues posthumous apology for apartheid – video

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The former South African president FW de Klerk recorded a message to the nation shortly before his death on Thursday, in which he apologised for 'the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage' the apartheid regime had caused. De Klerk oversaw the end of white minority rule as the country's last apartheid president and shared the Nobel peace prize with Nelson Mandela, but was a controversial figure in the country. Many blamed him for violence against Black South Africans and anti-apartheid activists during his time in power

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Fearful of overwhelmed morgues and battling lockdown protests, New Zealand faces up to Covid peak

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The country that kept the virus out for so long is now coming to terms with endemic Covid

Fears of overwhelmed morgues, record Covid cases, anti-lockdown protests – the headlines this week in New Zealand might evoke deja-vu for anyone who lived through the pandemic in Europe, Asia or America.

New Zealand has recently generated a series of news stories that could have been a year-old dispatch from the opposite side of the globe. National radio announced that hospitals had been buying portable refrigerators to prepare for the possibility of growing Covid deaths. In the capital, Wellington, a crowd of thousands of “pro-freedom” anti-vaccination protesters gathered in front of parliament – one of the first organised, medium-scale expressions of dissatisfaction from a country that had held on to extraordinarily high levels of social support for its Covid response.

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Scholz pushes new measures to tackle Germany’s rising Covid cases

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Chancellor-in-waiting sticks with plan to lift nationwide state of emergency

Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz has pushed ahead with a plan to phase out a state of national emergency by the end of the month, despite the country recording the highest coronavirus case numbers since the start of the pandemic.

“The virus is still here and threatening the health of our citizens,” Scholz said in a parliamentary debate on Thursday, as he called on MPs to support a catalogue of new measures to curb the spread of Covid that would replace the state of emergency. “Therefore it is very, very important that we take all measures to ensure we can protect their health.”

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FW de Klerk obituary

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Last president of South Africa under apartheid who oversaw the orderly transfer of power

Frederik Willem – FW – de Klerk, who has died aged 85, was the last president of South Africa under apartheid. He was often compared with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, for his work in consigning a bankrupt and reviled regime to oblivion.

When De Klerk succeeded PW Botha in 1989, he oversaw an event no less unexpected than the collapse of Soviet communism was when Gorbachev came to power in 1985. His stunning act of realpolitik in announcing sweeping political reform, including the release of his eventual successor, Nelson Mandela, was the grand gesture that saved his country, and in 1993 they shared the Nobel peace prize. The following year Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected leader.

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Cop26: End trillions in subsidies given to fossil fuel industry, says UN chief – day 11 live

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All the latest news from the UN climate change conference in Glasgow

The UN’s António Guterres is underwhelmed by the pledges so far.

Bit of a theme here in the final push of the summit to make Cop26 a world-saver, rather than a historical disappointment. Lots of voices calling for more “ambition”.

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FW de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, dies aged 85

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Office issues posthumous video in which De Klerk apologies for ‘damage that apartheid has done’

South Africa’s last white president, FW de Klerk, who with Nelson Mandela oversaw the end of apartheid, has died in Cape Town aged 85, with his office issuing a prerecorded posthumous video apology for the country’s discriminatory system of white minority rule.

“I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt and the indignity and the damage that apartheid has done to Black, Brown and Indians in South Africa,” a gaunt De Klerk said in the recording.

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Federal appeals court grants Trump request to block release of records linked to Capitol attack – as it happened

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Speaking at Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day, Joe Biden thanked all of those who have served in the US military.

“Our veterans represent the best of America,” Biden said. “You are the very spine of America, not just the backbone. You’re the spine of this country.”

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Covid live: Germany reports record 50,000 new cases; Dutch experts recommend lockdown amid record cases

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Robert Koch Institute records 50,196 new cases of coronavirus in Germany; Netherlands would have western Europe’s first lockdown since the summer

Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Care Forum, said there was a “human cost” to the UK government’s mandatory jab policy for care home staff, which became effective from today.

PA Media quotes Rayner on BBC Breakfast saying that about 8% of staff are leaving their jobs, on top of those who have already quit the sector since the policy was announced.

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Boeing admits full responsibility for 737 Max plane crash in Ethiopia

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‘Significant milestone’ paves way for families of 157 victims of 2019 crash to seek compensation, say lawyers

Boeing has admitted full responsibility for the second crash of its 737 Max model in Ethiopia, in a legal agreement with families of the 157 victims.

Lawyers for the families said it was a “significant milestone” for families to achieve justice.

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Orbán rival promises new constitution if he defeats Hungary PM

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Opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay says he will restore rule of law if he wins next April’s elections

The opposition leader who hopes to topple Hungary’s autocratic ruler, Viktor Orbán, has vowed to introduce a new constitution and “restore the rule of law” if he wins next April’s elections.

Péter Márki-Zay, a small-town mayor who became the surprise choice as prime ministerial candidate of six opposition parties, made the comments during a visit to Brussels, where he is meeting senior EU officials and politicians, with the message that his priorities are democracy and European integration.

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Belarus threatens to cut gas deliveries to EU if sanctioned over border crisis

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Lukashenko responds to possible sanctions as thousands of migrants camp in freezing temperatures at Poland border

Alexander Lukashenko has threatened to cut deliveries of gas to Europe via a major pipeline as the Belarusian leader promised to retaliate against any new EU sanctions imposed in response to the crisis at the Poland-Belarus border.

Backed by the Kremlin, Lukashenko has struck a defiant note after inciting a migrant crisis at the border, where thousands of people, mainly from Middle Eastern countries, are camped out as temperatures plunge below freezing.

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Why an old £400m debt to Iran stands in way of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release

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The UK signed an arms deal with pre-revolutionary Iran that it never fully delivered on. Will it finally pay the refund it owes?

The former UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that practicalities, not principles, are holding back the payment of a £400m British debt to Iran, seen as a precondition of the release of British-Iranian dual nationals held in Tehran, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

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Nature under threat: a Cop26 photographic competition – in pictures

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The Earth Project, in collaboration with Nature Picture Library photography competition, aims to raise awareness of the huge challenges faced by nature, as well as the impacts of climate change on global ecosystems. Some of the world’s leading photographers came together to illustrate nature under threat, linking to one of the main goals of Cop26: to help protect and restore ecosystems in countries adversely affected by the climate crisis

  • The overall winning images, by Rivoni Mkansi of a rhino being dehorned to deter poaching; by Doug Gimesy of little blue penguins silhouetted against Melbourne city, and by Jo-Anne McArthur of pigs in an industrial farm, were selected by an online vote for three galleries

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Chinese Communist party elevates Xi’s status in ‘historical resolution’

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Analysts say move is designed to put president on same level as Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping

Xi Jinping’s grip on power has received a big boost after the ruling Communist party (CCP) passed a rare “historical resolution” praising the president’s “decisive significance” in the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

It is only the third resolution of its kind in the party’s 100-year history. The two previous resolutions were passed under Mao Zedong, who led the Communists to power in 1949, and Deng Xiaoping, whose reforms in the 1980s turned China into an economic powerhouse.

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Foreign citizens caught up in crackdown on Tigrayans in Ethiopia

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Americans and Britons among those detained as part of sweeping arrests critics say are based on ethnicity

American and British citizens have been swept up in Ethiopia’s mass detentions of ethnic Tigrayans under a new state of emergency in the country’s escalating war.

Thousands of Tigrayans in the capital, Addis Ababa, and across Africa’s second most populous country have already been detained amid fears of many more such detentions as authorities ordered landlords to register tenants’ identities with police. Men armed with sticks were seen on some streets as volunteer groups sought out Tigrayans to report them.

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