Caribbean nation elects governor general to new role prior to former British colony becoming a republic
Barbados has elected its first president with just weeks to go until the Caribbean island becomes a republic and ceases to recognise Queen Elizabeth as its head of state.
The island’s governor general, Dame Sandra Mason, was elected almost unanimously by the former British colony’s parliament on Wednesday, with only one member declining to vote.
Continue reading...Officials from fossil fuel firms may attend fringe events but campaigners hail lack of official role
Fossil fuel firms have been given no official role in the Cop26 climate summit, it can be revealed, against a background of growing concern among UK officials that big oil’s net zero plans do not stack up.
Private emails from civil servants in the Cop unit, seen by the Guardian, show doubts about one oil major’s net zero plans, with an official saying BP “[does] not currently fit our success criteria for Cop26” and another noting “it’s unclear whether [its net zero] commitments stack up yet”.
Continue reading...Social media firm announces deal after long-running battle with national and regional newspapers
France has hailed a victory in its long-running quest for fairer action from tech companies after Facebook reached an agreement with a group of national and regional newspapers to pay for content shared by its users.
Facebook on Thursday announced a licensing agreement with the APIG alliance of French national and regional newspapers, which includes Le Parisien and Ouest-France as well as smaller titles. It said this meant “people on Facebook will be able to continue uploading and sharing news stories freely amongst their communities, whilst also ensuring that the copyright of our publishing partners is protected”.
Continue reading...President hails ‘excellent’ test, as rocket gets high enough, but fails to put dummy payload into orbit
South Korea’s first domestically produced space rocket reached its desired altitude but failed to deliver a dummy payload into orbit in its first test launch.
The South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, still described the test as an “excellent accomplishment” that takes the country a step further in its pursuit of a space launch programme.
Continue reading...People stranded in flood waters in northern India had to be airlifted to safety by Indian air force helicopters.
At least 150 people have died in India and Nepal after heavy rains produced flash floods that wrecked crops, blocked roads and washed away bridges
Continue reading...Mayor’s plan follows Putin announcing a weeklong nationwide paid holiday to stop spread of virus
Moscow authorities have announced a weeklong closure of most non-essential services from 28 October, as Russia registered its highest daily number of coronavirus deaths and infections since the start of the pandemic.
“The situation in Moscow continues to develop in the worst scenario … In the coming days, we will reach a historic peak in coronavirus battle,” the Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said in a statement on Thursday explaining his decision to introduce the measure.
Continue reading...Deadly side-effect of heat stress is threat to rising numbers of workers in hot climates, doctors warn
Chronic kidney disease linked to heat stress could become a major health epidemic for millions of workers around the world as global temperatures increase over the coming decades, doctors have warned.
More research into the links between heat and CKDu – chronic kidney disease of uncertain cause – is urgently needed to assess the potential scale of the problem, they have said.
Continue reading...Global heating is having a deadly impact on Nicaragua’s sugar cane workers, who toil in temperatures of up to 45C
At the Sacuanjoche clinic in Chinandega, the largest city in Nicaragua’s sugar cane-growing region, nephrologist Nelson Garcia does the rounds of his patients. Many are suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD); most fell ill while working long hours under the beating sun in the nearby sugar cane fields, and now have damaged and failing kidneys.
“People arrive with a host of symptoms here; some are really nauseous, or vomiting, or have severe diarrhoea,” Garcia says, adding that although unsure exactly how many people he has treated for heat stress and related kidney diseases this year, he knows it is a lot. “Others are physically weakened, tired, or have nasty muscular cramps, while others complain about having no appetite or libido – there really are so many symptoms.”
Continue reading...Climate activists have gathered on Capitol Hill to demand that Democrats’ reconciliation package effectively address the climate crisis.
One protester with Greenpeace carried cutouts of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin, portraying Schumer as Manchin’s puppet.
Continue reading...Nicholas Burns calls Beijing an ‘aggressor’ and that US responsibility is ‘to make Taiwan a tough nut to crack’
US president Joe Biden’s nominee to be ambassador to Beijing on Wednesday said China was aggressive and untrustworthy, insisting that boosting Taiwan’s defences against the threat of Chinese invasion should be a US priority.
Speaking to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which is due to confirm his appointment, Nicholas Burns denounced recent Chinese warplane incursions into Taiwan’s air defence zone, calling them “especially objectionable”.
Continue reading...Partial human remains were found on Wednesday in a Florida wilderness area where authorities were searching for Brian Laundrie, the fiance of Gabby Petito, a young woman who disappeared on a road trip with Laundrie, the FBI said on Wednesday.
They also found items believed to belong to Laundrie after his parents, Chris and Roberta Laundrie, took part in the search with the FBI and police, more than a month after Laundrie was reported missing after heading to the vast Carlton Reserve park.
Continue reading...Analysis of wood from timber-framed buildings in Newfoundland shows Norse-built settlement 471 years before Columbus
Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, eight timber-framed buildings covered in sod stood on a terrace above a peat bog and stream at the northern tip of Canada’s island of Newfoundland, evidence that the Vikings had reached the New World first.
But precisely when the Vikings journeyed to establish the L’Anse aux Meadows settlement had remained unclear – until now.
Continue reading...Suspension will take effect from 11.59pm on Wednesday and will last until further notice
Morocco is banning flights to and from the UK because of rising coronavirus case rates. Airlines cancelled several flights between the countries on Wednesday before the suspension comes into effect at 11.59pm.
Latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control show the north African country’s weekly rate of reported coronavirus cases on 14 October stood at 10.4 per 100,000 people. The UK’s comparable rate is 445.5.
Continue reading...Crew prepare for mission to evacuate four dogs stranded on Spanish island between rivers of red-hot lava
An unprecedented drone operation is being prepared to rescue four dogs stranded for weeks between rivers of red-hot lava streaming from an erupting volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma.
The emaciated dogs are stranded in two empty water tanks in the town of Todoque, flanked by slow-moving lava flows from the Cumbre Vieja volcano that erupted on 19 September .
Continue reading...Sculpture and its futuristic creator held for 10 days, possibly in fear she is part of spying plot
She has been described as “a vision of the future” who is every bit as good as other abstract artists today, but Ai-Da – the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist – hit a temporary snag before her latest exhibition when Egyptian security forces detained her at customs.
Ai-Da is due to open and present her work at the Great Pyramid of Giza on Thursday, the first time contemporary art has been allowed next to the pyramid in thousands of years.
Continue reading...Moscow calls for aid to avert refugee crisis but also demands more inclusive government in Kabul
Russia has hosted the most high-profile international talks on Afghanistan since the Taliban took power, calling for an injection of aid to help the crippled economy but also demanding a more inclusive government.
Senior Russian diplomats made clear that formal recognition of the Taliban regime was not on the table until it does more to improve human rights and broadens an all-male cabinet, most of them clerics from the Pashtun ethnic group.
Continue reading...Brazilian president savaged for ‘macabre’ and ‘slovenly’ response to pandemic and ‘deliberate neglect’ of indigenous people
Jair Bolsonaro should be charged with crimes against humanity and jailed for his “macabre” reaction to a Covid outbreak that has killed more than 600,000 Brazilians, including a disproportionate number of indigenous citizens, a congressional inquiry has found.
Two of the most dramatic accusations against the Brazilian president – murder and genocide of the country’s indigenous populations – were removed from a previous draft of the report on Tuesday night after talks between opposition senators serving on the inquiry.
Continue reading...A man in Windsor received an unwelcome and surprising gift in his garden, courtesy of a passing aeroplane. Was he especially unlucky, or should all of us keep an eye on the skies?
Name: Aeroplane toilets.
Location: At the back, sometimes in the middle – and at the front if you are rich enough.
Continue reading...A volcano blasted ash two miles into the sky after erupting on Japan's southern island of Kyushu on Wednesday.
Officials warned of a risk of large falling rocks and lava flows within a radius of about half a mile around the mountain's crater, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Mount Aso erupted at about 11.43am local time (0343 BST), and the ash falls have been showering nearby towns in the prefecture of Kumamoto
Baltic state once seen as coronavirus success story announces month of restrictions including curfew
Latvia has announced a month-long Covid-19 lockdown after an unprecedented surge in infections, becoming the first country in Europe to reimpose far-reaching restrictions amid a new wave of cases in countries across the continent.
The Baltic country has one of the highest rates of new Covid cases relative to population in the world, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), after successfully keeping the virus at bay for months.
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