Category Archives: World News

Fundraiser for US man exonerated after 43 years in prison tops $1.4m

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  • Kevin Strickland, 62, wrongly convicted of 1978 triple murder
  • Says criminal justice system ‘needs to be torn down and redone’

By mid-afternoon on Saturday, a fundraiser for a man who spent 43 years in prison before a judge in Missouri this week overturned his conviction in a triple murder had raised more than $1.4m.

The Midwest Innocence Project set up the GoFundMe page as it fought for the release of Kevin Strickland, 62, noting that he would not receive compensation from the state and would need help paying basic living expenses while struggling with extensive health problems.

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Early action against Omicron is imperative to avoid devastating consequences | Ewan Birney

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Scientists have sprung into action to identify the new Covid variant. We don’t yet know if it is a major threat - but we should not take any chances

It was only a matter of time before a new Sars-CoV-2 variant of concern emerged, requiring an urgent global response. It would seem that the Omicron variant, identified by scientists across Africa, including the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), poses the next major threat in the course of the pandemic. Early evidence from their genomic surveillance suggests that this new variant is a serious cause for concern and it is imperative that we act fast in response to this new information.

The variant has also been detected in Botswana and Hong Kong, and will undoubtedly continue to arise in other territories in the coming days; travel-related cases have appeared in Belgium and Israel. Two cases of the new variant have been detected in the UK at the time of writing.

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Tonga’s drug crisis: Why a tiny Pacific island is struggling with a meth epidemic

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Spike in drug use has caused problems across Tongan society, with arrests doubling in two years and children severely affected

After more than four decades spent living in New Zealand, Ned Cook knew it was time to return to his home country of Tonga.

His country was in the grip of a methamphetamine epidemic that was ripping families apart and overrunning the country’s hospitals and jails. Cook, a trained drug and alcohol abuse counsellor, with a history of drug abuse himself, had been preparing for years to return to Tonga to combat it.

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Covid live: PM announces new measures after two cases of Omicron variant detected in UK

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Masks mandatory in shops and on public transport; PCR tests reintroduced for travellers to UK

The UK should cut the gap between the second dose of a Covid-19 vaccination and the booster jab from six to five months, the Labour party said on Saturday, Reuters reports.

As the new Omicron variant sparked concern around the world, Alex Norris, Labour’s junior health spokesperson, said:

This new variant is a wake-up call.

The pandemic is not over. We need to urgently bolster our defences to keep the virus at bay.

If you look at where most of the mutations are, they are similar to regions of the spike protein that have been seen with other variants so far and that tells you that despite mutations existing in other variants, the vaccines have continued to prevent very severe disease as we’ve moved through Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.

At least from a speculative point of view we have some optimism that the vaccine should still work against this variant for severe disease but really we need to wait several weeks to have that confirmed.

The processes of how one goes about developing a new vaccine are increasingly well oiled.

So if it’s needed that is something that could be moved very rapidly.

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Inside Dunkirk’s desperate refugee camps: ‘They take risks because they feel they have no choice’

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Among the makeshift tents near the French beaches, we ask what drives people to make the perilous journey in small boats and what could prevent more deaths

There was a time when, if you googled the phrase “Dunkirk, small boats”, reports of one of Britain’s finest hours would stack up in the results. Not last week. The beaches near Dunkirk have now become synonymous not with the embarkation point of dramatic rescue but of despairing tragedy.

Details of the 27 people, among them seven women and three children, who drowned in the Channel on Wednesday have been very slow to emerge, their anonymity itself an indication of their desperation. The first to be named was a Kurdish woman from northern Iraq, Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin, a newly engaged student, who was WhatsApp messaging her fiance, who lives in the UK, when the group’s dinghy started deflating. The 24-year-old had travelled through Germany and France to join Mohammed Karzan in the UK, paying people smugglers thousands of euros to get across the Channel in the absence of other possible routes. Karzan said that he had been in continuous contact with his fiancee and was tracking her GPS coordinates. “After four hours and 18 minutes from the moment she went into that boat,” he said, “then I lost her.”

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Asylum in the UK: the key numbers

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So often in debates about asylum, statistics are used out of context to back up a politically motivated point, or as fuel in the government’s culture war against asylum seekers. Here are the key statistics about the UK’s asylum system in context

13,210. The number of people the UK granted protection to via asylum or resettlement routes in the year to September 2021 This is significantly lower than before the pandemic hit in March 2020.

64%. The proportion of initial asylum applications that were successful in the year ending September 2021. This rate has increased in recent years. In addition, almost half of unsuccessful applications are granted on appeal.

17th. The UK’s ranking against EU countries in terms of the number of asylum applications it gets, adjusted for population. The UK’s asylum application per capita rate is almost half the EU average. Germany received 122,015 asylum applications in the year ending March 2021; France, 93,475.

37,562. The number of asylum applications in the UK in the year ending September 2021. This is 18% higher than last year, which saw a dip as a result of the pandemic, and less than half the peak of 84,312 that was seen in the early 2000s.

25,700. The number of people who have arrived in the UK so far this year after making the dangerous Channel crossing in small boats. This is three times the total number who arrived via this route in 2020.

83,733. The number of people awaiting an initial decision on their asylum application at the end of September 2021. Delays in the asylum system have increased rapidly since 2018: this is 41% higher than a year ago.

86%. The proportion of refugees worldwide who live in low-income countries neighbouring their country of origin. A very small proportion choose to travel to Europe. The UK is home to just 1% of the 26.4 million refugees who have been forcibly displaced from their home country across the world. Around half of the world’s refugees are under the age of 18.

£39.63. The amount that people seeking asylum get per week to subsist on in the UK. In France, it’s £42.84, and in Germany £65.63. In Germany, they are allowed to work 3 months from making their applications, in France it’s 6 months. In the UK they’re not allowed to work at all regardless of how long it takes for their application to be processed.

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While Americans mark Thanksgiving, Republicans panned over Harris attack

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Criticism of vice-president over French cookware purchase backfires as people point out Donald Trump’s presidential largesse

An attack on Kamala Harris for buying expensive French cookware rebounded on the Republican party over Thanksgiving, moving social media users to compare the vice-president’s culinary outlay with the cost to taxpayers of Donald Trump’s four years in power.

On a visit to Paris earlier this month, Harris reportedly spent more than $500 on cookware at E Dehillerin, a shop near the Louvre museum. She told reporters she was making the purchase with Thanksgiving cooking in mind, prompting laughter when she said her husband, Doug Emhoff, was her “apprentice” in the kitchen.

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Boris Johnson tightens rules on travel and mask-wearing over Omicron concerns

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Travellers to UK must take PCR tests and masks to be made mandatory in shops and on public transport

Boris Johnson has announced fresh measures to curb the spread of coronavirus including mandatory masks in shops and PCR tests for travellers entering England after two cases of the Omicron variant were detected in the country.

Amid mounting global concern over Omicron, named a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization on Friday, the prime minister set out a series of steps the UK is taking to maximise its defence against Covid-19.

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Priti Patel blames ‘evil’ gangs for Channel crossings but the reality is far more complicated

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Analysis: The UK government’s own experts say many journeys are actually organised directly by desperate families

The government repeatedly insists that sophisticated criminal networks are driving the Channel crossings by people seeking asylum in Britain. Of all the contested claims advanced by the home secretary on the issue, it remains among the most pervasive.

True to form, in the aftermath of Wednesday’s drownings, Priti Patel wasted little time reiterating her determination to “smash the criminal gangs” behind such crossings.

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WTA still ‘deeply concerned’ over Peng Shuai’s ability to communicate freely

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Statement says Chinese player’s responses to chief of sport body were ‘clearly’ influenced by others

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has said it remains “deeply concerned” about the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, weeks after she disappeared following her allegations against a high-ranking Chinese former politician.

The WTA said in an email statement on Saturday that its chief executive, Steve Simon, had attempted to contact Peng through “various communication channels” including two emails. It said it was concerned about her welfare and ability to communicate freely and that her responses were “clearly” influenced by others.

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Omicron’s full impact will be felt in countries where fewer are vaccinated

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Analysis: the new coronavirus variant seems highly transmissible, but the big question is whether it causes severe disease. Either way, poorer nations will be hit hardest

In early August Gideon Schreiber and a team of virologists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel began playing around with the spike protein of the Sars-CoV-2 virus – the protein that allows the virus to enter our cells – to see if they could predict future mutations that could yield dangerous new variants of Covid-19.

At the time, Schreiber noted with concern that there were a variety of ways in which the spike protein could evolve. If all of these mutations occurred at once, it could yield a variant that was both extremely transmissible and potentially capable of evading some of the body’s immune defences, blunting the efficacy of the vaccines.

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Succession’s plot twist prompts surge of interest in leaving money in wills to Greenpeace

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When Cousin Greg was disinherited by his grandfather in favour of the environmental group, inquiries about such legacies soared

In one bewildering and painful scene in the hit TV drama Succession, Cousin Greg sees his future of ease and wealth turn to dust. His grandfather, Ewan, announces he is giving away his entire fortune to Greenpeace, depriving Greg of his inheritance.

Now Greenpeace is hoping to benefit in real life as well as in the fictional world of the media conglomerate Waystar Royco. Thousands of people have looked into leaving money to the environmental group since the darkly comic storyline about Cousin Greg losing his inheritance and then threatening to sue the organisation was broadcast. More than 22,000 people have accessed online advice about making donations in their wills to Greenpeace. The group’s legacy webpage has also seen a tenfold surge in traffic since the episode was first broadcast earlier this month.

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‘We will start again’: Afghan female MPs fight on from parliament in exile

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From Greece the women are advocating for fellow refugees – and those left behind under Taliban rule

It is a Saturday morning in November, and Afghan MP Nazifa Yousufi Bek gathers up her notes and prepares to head for the office. But instead of jumping in an armoured car bound for the mahogany-lined parliament in Kabul, her journey is by bus from a Greek hotel to a migrants’ organisation in the centre of Athens. There, taking her place on a folding chair, she inaugurates the Afghan women’s parliament in – exile.

“Our people have nothing. Mothers are selling their children,” she tells a room packed with her peers. “We must raise our voices, we must put a stop to this,” says Yousufi Bek, 35, who fled Afghanistan with her husband and three young children after the Taliban swept to power in August. Some around her nod in agreement; others quietly weep.

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The Sicilian town where the Covid vaccination rate hit 104%

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An ‘extraordinary’ campaign is credited for Palazzo Adriano’s stellar uptake – even if topping 100% is a statistical quirk

While European governments weigh up new mandates and measures to boost the uptake of Covid jabs there is on the slopes of Sicily’s Monte delle Rose a village with a vaccination rate that defies mathematics: 104%.

The figure is in part a statistical quirk – vaccine rates are calculated by Italian health authorities on a town or village’s official population and can in theory rise above 100% if enough non-residents are jabbed there – but Palazzo Adriano, where the Oscar-winning movie Cinema Paradiso was filmed, is by any standards a well-vaccinated community. A good portion of the population has already taken or booked a third dose and since vaccines were first available it utilised its close-knit relations to protect its people.

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Widow of former South Korean dictator Chun Doo-hwan offers ‘deep apology’ for brutal rule

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During the final funeral service Lee Soon-ja says sorry for the pains suffered during her husband’s reign

The widow of South Korea’s last military dictator has issued a brief apology over the “pains and scars” caused by her husband’s brutal rule as dozens of relatives and former aides gathered at a Seoul hospital to pay their final respects to Chun Doo-hwan.

Chun, who took power in a 1979 coup and violently crushed pro-democracy protests a year later before being jailed for treason in the 1990s, died at his Seoul home Tuesday at the age of 90.

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‘Taste this, it’s salty’: how rising seas are ruining the Gambia’s rice farmers

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The farmers, mostly women, once grew enough but must now buy imported rice as the climate crisis edges them into poverty

In the sweltering heat of the late-morning west African sun, Aminata Jamba slashes at golden rice stalks with a sickle. “The rice is lovely,” she says, music playing in the background as her son, Sampa, silently harvests the grain. But even if the quality is high, the quantity is not.

While once Jamba could have expected to harvest enough rice to last the whole year, this year she reckons it will last three to four months. After that, she will have to look elsewhere for a way to feed her family and make enough money to live.

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Archaeologists unearth mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old in Peru

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Remains found inside an underground structure were tied up by ropes and with the hands covering the face

A team of experts has found a mummy estimated to be at least 800 years old on Peru’s central coast, one of the archaeologists who participated in the excavation said.

The mummified remains were of a person from the culture that developed between the coast and mountains of the South American country. The mummy, whose gender was not identified, was discovered in the Lima region, said archaeologist Pieter Van Dalen Luna on Friday.

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Kurdish woman is first victim of Channel tragedy to be named

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Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin from northern Iraq was messaging her fiancé when dinghy started sinking

A Kurdish woman from northern Iraq has become the first victim of this week’s mass drowning in the Channel to be named.

Maryam Nuri Mohamed Amin was messaging her fiance, who lives in the UK, when the group’s dinghy started deflating on Wednesday.

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Man killed by stray bullet while eating Thanksgiving dinner at home

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District attorney names victim and suspect in incident in suburbs of Philadelphia on Thursday

A man eating Thanksgiving dinner inside a home in the suburbs of Philadelphia was killed by a stray bullet that pierced a window, authorities said.

Edilberto Miguel Palaez Moctezuma, 25, was shot in the torso just before 9.30pm on Thursday, the Montgomery county district attorney, Kevin Steele, said in a press release. Palaez Moctezuma was flown to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

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Stephen Sondheim: master craftsman who reinvented the musical dies aged 91

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Scoring his first big hit with West Side Story at 27, the US composer and lyricist raised the art form’s status with moving and funny masterpieces including Follies and Company

‘His songs are like a fabulous steak’: an all-star toast to Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim, the master craftsman of the American musical, has died at the age of 91. His death, at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on Friday has prompted tributes throughout the entertainment industry and beyond. Andrew Lloyd Webber called him “the musical theatre giant of our times, an inspiration not just to two but to three generations [whose] contribution to theatre will never be equalled”. Cameron Mackintosh said: “The theatre has lost one of its greatest geniuses and the world has lost one of its greatest and most original writers. Sadly, there is now a giant in the sky. But the brilliance of Stephen Sondheim will still be here as his legendary songs and shows will be performed for evermore.”

Over the course of a celebrated career spanning more than 60 years, Sondheim co-created Broadway theatre classics such as West Side Story, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, all of which also became hit movies. His intricate and dazzlingly clever songs pushed the boundaries of the art form and he made moving and funny masterpieces from unlikely subject matters, including a murderous barber (Sweeney Todd), the Roman comedies of Plautus (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) and a pointillist painting by Georges Seurat (Sunday in the Park With George).

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