Category Archives: World News

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

Posted on by

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”.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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

Continue reading...

Leaked papers link Xinjiang crackdown with China leadership

Posted on by

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Excerpts from previously unpublished documents directly linking China’s crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang province to speeches by the Chinese leadership in 2014 have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

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Jack Dorsey steps down as Twitter chief executive

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Botswana upholds ruling decriminalising same-sex relationships

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Channel crossings are an English issue, says French minister

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Dutch police arrest couple trying to flee quarantine for Spain

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Fiji sends 50 peacekeepers to Solomon Islands

Posted on by

Troops will join Australian-led force that also includes Papua New Guinea

Fiji will contribute 50 troops to an Australian-led peacekeeping force in Solomon Islands after anti-government rioting that razed parts of the capital of Honiara, the Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has said.

The Fijian contingent will lift the number of peacekeepers to about 200 troops and police officers, mostly Australian with a contribution of at least 34 personnel from Papua New Guinea.

Continue reading...

Michael Flynn appears to have called QAnon ‘total nonsense’ despite his links

Posted on by

Trump ally reportedly says conspiracy theory a ‘disinformation campaign’ created by CIA and the left, apparent recording reveals

Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, appears to have called QAnon “total nonsense” and a “disinformation campaign” created by the CIA and the political left – despite his own extensive links to the conspiracy theory and seeming eagerness to serve as its hero.

Flynn’s apparent statement was revealed by Lin Wood, a pro-Trump attorney and QAnon supporter once allied with the disgraced former general.

Continue reading...

Nursing unions around world call for UN action on Covid vaccine patents

Posted on by

Bodies in 28 countries file appeal for waiver of intellectual property agreement and end to ‘grossly unjust’ distribution of jabs

Nursing unions in 28 countries have filed a formal appeal with the United Nations over the refusal of the UK, EU and others to temporarily waive patents for Covid vaccines, saying this has cost huge numbers of lives in developing nations.

The letter, sent on Monday on behalf of unions representing more than 2.5 million healthcare workers, said staff have witnessed at first hand the “staggering numbers of deaths and the immense suffering caused by political inaction”.

Continue reading...

Lawyers turn to romcoms in fight for rule of law in Poland

Posted on by

Instead of drafting legal papers, award-winning group make short films intended to explain assault on judiciary

It was a summer day in 2017 when Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram, a 34-year-old lawyer, heard a crazy idea.

She had been messaged by a legal acquaintance, Michał Wawrykiewicz, who like her was worried about changes that Poland’s nationalist government was introducing to the judicial system. He wondered how they could convince people that the independence of the judiciary was not some abstract nicety but the firm ground underpinning democracy.

Continue reading...

Nelson, BLM and new voices: why Barbados is ditching the Queen

Posted on by

Michael Safi reports from the ground as island nation prepares to declare itself a republic

The first time, he stumbled on it by accident, after following a dirt track through fields of sugar cane that came to a clearing. There was a sign, Hakeem Ward remembers, beneath which someone had left an offering.

“The sign said it was a slave burial ground,” he says. “We went and Googled it, and then I realised it was actually one of the biggest slave burial grounds in the western hemisphere.”

Continue reading...

Bosnian Serb leader: Putin and China will help if west imposes sanctions

Posted on by

Exclusive: Milorad Dodik dismisses fears Serb separatists are planning breakup of Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Bosnian Serb leader accused of risking war by pursuing the breakup of Bosnia-Herzegovina has dismissed the threat of western sanctions and hinted at an imminent summit with Vladimir Putin, saying: “I was not elected to be a coward”.

In an interview with the Guardian, Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the tripartite leadership of Bosnia-Herzegovina, said he would not be deterred by the outcry from London, Washington, Berlin and Brussels.

Continue reading...

Omicron variant: G7 to hold emergency Covid meeting as Japan closes its borders

Posted on by

South African president and WHO’s Africa chief urge against travel bans, saying they ‘attack global solidarity’

G7 health ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Monday about the new Omicron Covid-19 variant spreading across the world and forcing border closures, as experts race to determine the level of threat posed by the new strain.

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

Continue reading...

Britain and Israel to sign trade and defence deal

Posted on by

Pact covers Iran as well as cybersecurity, despite controversy over use of Israeli firm NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in UK

Britain and Israel will sign a 10-year trade and defence pact in London on Monday, promising cooperation on issues such as cybersecurity and a joint commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The agreement was announced by Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid, despite evidence that spyware made by Israeli company NSO Group had probably been used to spy on two British lawyers advising the ex-wife of the ruler of Dubai, Princess Haya.

Continue reading...