Category Archives: World News

Spanish police recover rare 2,000-year-old Iberian sword

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Double-edged, curved falcata particularly sought after because of the original condition of its blade

More than 2,000 years after it was last wielded by a warrior somewhere on the Iberian peninsula, a rare, magnificent – and plundered – sword has been recovered by Spanish police, who tracked it down before it was sold online.

The pre-Roman falcata, a double-edged, curved sword used by the Iberians between the fifth and first centuries BC, was seized along with 202 other archaeological pieces after it appeared on what Policía Nacional officers termed “a well known social media site”.

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Interpol appoints Emirati general accused of torture as president

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Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi of United Arab Emirates elected despite concerns of human rights groups and MEPs

An Emirati general accused of torture has been elected president of Interpol, despite the concerns of human rights organisations and members of the European parliament who fear the global police agency will be at risk of exploitation by repressive regimes.

The appointment follows generous funding by the United Arab Emirates for Interpol, which is based in Lyon, France, and accusations Abu Dhabi has abused its system of “red notices” for wanted suspects to persecute political dissidents.

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Turkey accused of using Interpol summit to crack down on critics

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Campaigners claim Ankara is abusing its position as host, by pressuring the police body to harass dissidents living abroad

Human rights activists have accused Turkey of using its role as host of Interpol’s general assembly to push for a crackdown on critics and political opponents who have fled the country.

The alert came after the Turkish interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, said his government would use the three-day event in Istanbul to persuade the international criminal police organisation’s officials and delegates to find, arrest and extradite Turkish dissident citizens – particularly those it labels terrorists – abroad.

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The everyday assault of disabled women: ‘It’s inappropriate sexual touching at least once a month’

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They are almost twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as non-disabled women. Why is so little being done to address this harrowing, pervasive problem?

Amy Kavanagh is as happy as anyone else that the world is opening up – but there is one thing she is not thrilled to be experiencing again. “As much as I’m excited to be getting out and socialising again, it comes at a cost,” she says. Kavanagh is blind and sexual harassment is as frequent in her everyday life as it is disturbing. “I get harassed in public, on the street, in shops, on public transport, in cabs and even in professional environments. Pre-pandemic, I experienced inappropriate sexual touching at least once a month,” she says.

While there has been a renewed focus on women’s safety since the deaths of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, little attention has been paid to the harassment and violence faced by disabled women. Yet women with a disability are almost twice as likely to have experienced sexual assault (5%) as women without a disability (2.8%), according to ONS data for the two years to March 2020. This is not an anomaly; in the previous three years, the figure was 5.7%. In 2021, a survey of more than 1,000 disabled women carried out by the Trades Union Congress found that 68% had experienced sexual harassment at work. The figures constitute a hidden blight on disabled women’s lives.

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All options fraught with risk as Biden confronts Putin over Ukraine

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Analysis: Moscow presents Washington with a no-win situation: capitulate on Ukrainian sovereignty or risk all-out war

Joe Biden is preparing for a virtual summit with Vladimir Putin with the aim of fending off the threat of another Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The summit has been previewed by the Kremlin. The White House has not confirmed it, but Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said that “high-level diplomacy is a priority of the president” and pointed to the teleconference meeting with Xi Jinping earlier in November.

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Return to the refugee camp: Malawi orders thousands back to ‘congested’ Dzaleka

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People who’ve integrated into society are expected to return to the country’s oldest refugee camp, as cost of living and anti-refugee sentiment rises

Dzaleka, Malawi’s first refugee camp, is about 25 miles north of the capital Lilongwe. Built 25 years ago in response to a surge of people fleeing genocide and wars in Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it was then home to between 10,000 and 14,000 refugees. But the camp now houses more than 48,000 people from east and southern African countries – four times more than its initial capacity.

Several hundred continue to arrive each month, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and in August 181 babies were born there. The deteriorating situation in neighbouring Mozambique is swelling the numbers further, as is the government’s recent decree that an estimated 2,000 refugees who had over the years left Dzaleka to integrate into wider Malawian society should go back, citing them as a possible danger to national security.

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‘A long fight’: relief across the US as men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery

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‘I never thought this day would come,’ says Ahmaud Arbery’s mother as some say it’s ‘not true justice’

Relief, emotion and a sense of hope came flooding out in Brunswick, on social media, from the White House and across the US as the nation came to terms with the Ahmaud Arbery verdicts and their place in history.

Outside the Georgia courthouse, a joyous, flag-waving crowd repeatedly chanted: “Ahmaud Arbery! Say his name!” as the Arbery family, surrounded by their attorneys, emerged to address them.

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Bosnia and surrounding region still heading for crisis, says top official

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International community’s high representative calls for diplomatic engagement from US and Europe

The top international official in Bosnia has said that the Serb separatist threat to re-establish their own army had receded for now, but the country and surrounding region were still heading for crisis without substantial diplomatic engagement from the US and Europe.

Christian Schmidt, a German former minister serving as the international community’s high representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, said the Serb separatist leader, Milorad Dodik, had been persuaded by regional leaders to suspend his plans to pull Serb soldiers out of the Bosnian national army and reconstitute a Bosnian Serb force.

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At least 31 reported dead after dinghy capsizes in Channel

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Two survivors in intensive care as four are arrested over drownings in boat described as like ‘a pool you blow up in your garden’


At least thirty one people including five women and a young girl have died trying to cross the Channel to the UK in an inflatable dinghy, officials say, in what is the deadliest incident since the current crisis began.

Two survivors are in intensive care while police have arrested four people suspected of being linked to the drownings. The International Organisation for Migration said it was the biggest single loss of life in the Channel since it began collecting data in 2014.

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Muammar Gaddafi’s son disqualified from standing in Libya election

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was ruled ineligible amid disputes over rules and threats to peace process

Libya’s election commission said on Wednesday that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the former ruler and a strong candidate in December’s planned presidential election, was ineligible to run, compounding the turmoil surrounding the vote.

Gaddafi was one of 25 candidates that the commission disqualified in an initial decision pending an appeals process that will ultimately be decided by the judiciary. Ninety-eight Libyans registered as candidates.

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Ahmaud Arbery verdict: three men found guilty of murdering Black man as he jogged

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Travis McMicheal, Greg McMichael and William ‘Roddie’ Bryan all face the possibility of life in prison

The three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery have been found guilty of murder, following his 2020 shooting death in south Georgia, which led to a wave of racial justice protest and a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the US.

Travis McMicheal, his father, Greg McMichael, and their neighbour William “Roddie” Bryan were each convicted for murdering Arbery, who was unarmed, after pursuing him in February last year and claiming, without evidence, he had been involved in a spate of burglaries in their neighborhood.

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From environment to economy: what to expect from new German government

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Analysis: coalition wants Germany to remain Europe’s ‘anchor of stability’ but there will be some changes

Led by a party that has acted as Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner for 12 of the last 16 years, and two parties with an energy to do things differently, Germany’s next government represents an odd mix of status quo thinking and reformist instincts.

The coalition agreement presented by the Social Democratic party (SPD), the Greens and the Free Democratic party (FDP) on Wednesday gives a hint of how German could change – and how it could stay the same.

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Scientists warn of new Covid variant with high number of mutations

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The B.1.1.529 variant was first spotted in Botswana and six cases have been found in South Africa

Scientists have said a new Covid variant that carries an “extremely high number” of mutations may drive further waves of disease by evading the body’s defences.

Only 10 cases in three countries have been confirmed by genomic sequencing, but the variant has sparked serious concern among some researchers because a number of the mutations may help the virus evade immunity.

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Roman Abramovich wins first round of libel battle over Putin’s People book

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UK judge rules some passages convey a defamatory meaning, including claim Putin told him to buy Chelsea

A judge has ruled that a number of passages in the bestselling book Putin’s People convey a defamatory meaning against Roman Abramovich, including a claim that he bought Chelsea football club on Vladimir Putin’s orders.

The Russian oligarch said he was defamed by 26 specific passages in the book by the journalist Catherine Belton, all of which he says convey untrue meanings about him.

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Sweden’s first female prime minister resigns after less than 12 hours

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Magdalena Andersson quits on day one after the Green party withdraws support for her budget

Sweden’s first female prime minister, the Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, has resigned less than 12 hours into the job when her coalition collapsed, plunging the country into further political uncertainty.

Andersson said a decision by the Green party, the junior party in the coalition, to quit had forced her to resign. She added that she had told the speaker of parliament she hoped to be appointed prime minister again as the head of a single-party government.

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Erdoğan gambles on economy amid protests and rocketing inflation

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Analysis: push for interest rate cuts has divided party and left Turkish president in precarious position, say experts

Turkey’s president is gambling that a strong economic recovery from the pandemic will stay on track despite rocketing inflation that has hit living standards and sparked protests in major cities.

The $750bn economy is on course to expand by 9% this year following a return of tourism and a surge in demand for exports that has pushed factory output to pre-pandemic levels.

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Court cases threatening human rights group Memorial start in Russia

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Cases under ‘foreign agents’ law mark attack on civil society and attempt to recast Soviet history

Russia may dissolve Memorial, the country’s premier human rights group, in an attack on civil society and symbolic reversal of the freedoms won by dissidents at the fall of the Soviet Union.

A supreme court case, to be heard on Thursday, may mark a watershed in Vladimir Putin’s campaign to recast Soviet history by banning International Memorial, which began meeting in the late 1980s to shed light on atrocities and political repression under Joseph Stalin and other Soviet leaders.

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‘It’s as if we’re in Mad Max’: warnings for Amazon as goldmining dredges occupy river

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Hundreds of illegal goldmining dredges converge in search of metal as one activists describes it as a ‘free-for-all’

Environmentalists are demanding urgent action to halt an aquatic gold rush along one of the Amazon River’s largest tributaries, where hundreds of illegal goldmining dredges have converged in search of the precious metal.

The vast flotilla – so large one local website compared it to a floating neighbourhood – reportedly began forming on the Madeira River earlier this month after rumours that a large gold deposit had been found in the vicinity.

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German parties agree coalition deal to make Olaf Scholz chancellor

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Social Democrat, Green and liberal parties agree to form government after two months of talks

Germany’s new three-way coalition government of Social Democrats, Greens and liberals has addressed the public for the first time, pledging to put climate protection at the top of its agenda but stressing its first priority was to control the coronavirus pandemic.

Replacing Angela Merkel as chancellor after 16 years, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats used his opening speech to deliver a dramatic appeal to Germans to get vaccinated, announcing a seven-point plan to tackle the health emergency, which he called “very serious”, stressing that hospitals were close to capacity, and that his government would be considering the introduction of a vaccine mandate.

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Haile Gebrselassie says he is joining Ethiopian army to fight insurgency

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Two-time Olympic gold medallist enlists as alarm grows over war that threatens to engulf Addis Ababa

The two-time Olympic gold medallist Haile Gebrselassie has announced he is enlisting in the Ethiopian military to fight an insurgency that threatens the capital, Addis Ababa.

Gebrselassie, who set 27 long-distance running records, told Reuters he was joining up on Wednesday. The Olympic silver medallist runner Feyisa Lilesa would also enlist, local media reported.

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