Category Archives: World News

Ireland ends 12.5% tax rate in OECD global pact

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Low-tax policy of past 18 years had attracted multinationals such as Google and Facebook to Dublin

Ireland has dropped its cornerstone low-tax policy of the past 18 years, which helped persuade some of the world’s biggest companies, including Google and Facebook, to site their European headquarters in Dublin.

The decision comes after months of wrangling over the fine print of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) agreement to operate a 15% minimum tax rate in more than 130 countries.

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Europe’s soaring gas prices: does Russia hold solution to crisis?

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Some believe Kremlin sees gas prices as chance for Gazprom to pressure west to speed up Nord Stream 2 approval

The natural gas market has entered uncharted territory. The movements in the price of gas on Wednesday had been, in the words of one analyst, “unprecedented since the year dot of gas liberalisation in Europe”. In record swings, Dutch wholesale gas, a European benchmark, soared by 30% within one period of three or four hours from an already eye-watering level.

These are chilling numbers for European governments with winter stretching ahead, and when the EU sneezes, the UK, heavily reliant on imports from across the Channel, also catches a cold.

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Canada invited Chelsea Manning to country just so she could be thrown out

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Bizarre request made ahead of immigration hearing for Manning, whose previous attempts to enter Canada have been denied

Canadian government lawyers recently invited US whistleblower Chelsea Manning to travel to a hearing in Montreal – so that border agents could then physically remove her from the country.

The bizarre request, which was eventually denied by an adjudicator, was made ahead of an immigration hearing set to begin on Thursday for Manning, whose previous attempts to enter Canada have been denied.

This article was amended on 7 October 2021 to correct a city name that was misspelled.

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Orphaned gorilla famous for selfie with rangers dies aged 14

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Ndakasi died in arms of her ‘lifelong friend, Andre Bauma’ says Virunga national park in DRC

Ndakasi, a mountain gorilla that famously posed in the background of a selfie taken by rangers at Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has died at 14 after a long illness, the park said.

“It is with heartfelt sadness that Virunga announces the death of beloved orphaned mountain gorilla, Ndakasi, who had been under the care of the park’s Senkwekwe Center for more than a decade,” a statement from the park said.

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Texas abortion ban temporarily blocked | First Thing

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US federal judge rules law violates right to abortion in first legal challenge to Senate Bill 8. Plus, Alaska hospitals ration care

Good morning.

Texas’s near-total abortion ban has been temporarily blocked after a US federal judge ruled that it violated the constitutional right to abortion, in the first legal challenge to Senate Bill 8.

Is Texas’s law unique? In some ways, yes. While other states have passed similar laws, SB8 delegates enforcement to private citizens, not prosecutors.

What has SB8’s effect been? Planned Parenthood said the number of patients at its Texas clinics fell by nearly 80% in the two weeks after the law took effect.

What did the federal judge say? “Women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the constitution,” Robert Pitman wrote.

How bad are conditions? The conflict has driven 400,000 people into famine-like conditions, while up to 7 million people need food assistance in regions such as Tigray, Amhara and Afar, according to the UN.

Meanwhile, whistleblower Frances Haugen accused Facebook of “literally fanning ethnic violence” in countries including Ethiopia because it is not properly monitoring its service outside the US.

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Fast track to disaster? Brazil’s Grain Train plan raises fears for Amazon

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Bolsonaro’s government plans to build a 1,00km railway to export soya beans despite warnings of a ‘catastrophe’ for indigenous people and the environment

The Final Countdown blared from speakers and the crowd broke into applause as one of Jair Bolsonaro’s top lieutenants strode into the Amazon auditorium with glad tidings of a railroad to the future.

“The ‘Grain Train’ is going to happen,” Brazil’s infrastructure minister, Tarcísio de Freitas, told the hundreds of mostly male spectators who had flocked there in a caravan of high-end SUVs.

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Coronavirus live: 1.1m in UK estimated to have long Covid; Finland to pause Moderna jab for men under 30

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Official figures suggest 1.7% of the population have long-Covid symptoms, Finnish decision comes after similar moves in Sweden and Denmark

A quick snap from Reuters reports that Uzbekistan has started producing the Russian-developed Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine domestically in a joint project with Russia. The nation already manufactures the Chinese-developed ZF-UZ-VAC2001 vaccine on its territory.

Just a little more from the UK’s education secretary and former vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi here. As part of his media round this morning he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain “My pledge to your viewers and the country, as the prime minister pledged, is children will catch up by the end of this Parliament. By next month, I’ll have the first cut of the evaluation of the tutoring programme, but it already looks good.”

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Hong Kong plans megacourt to deal with protest arrests backlog

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City’s leader announces initiative as thousands still await trial, and also reveals project for new metropolis

Hong Kong will build a new megacourt to address a shortage of space as it works through a backlog of the thousands arrested during the 2019 mass protests, and the more than 150 arrested under the national security law.

The city’s leader, Carrie Lam, announced the initiative on Wednesday in a policy address, which also included plans for a new metropolis on the border with mainland China and further tightening of national security laws.

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Unseen Van Gogh sketches that rework scorned masterpiece to go on display

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Preparatory work for ‘redoing’ of The Potato Eaters – savaged in his lifetime – to feature in exhibition

A collection of Vincent van Gogh’s preparatory drawings sketched ahead of a planned “redoing” of The Potato Eaters, a masterpiece brutally slated by buyers, friends and family at the time of its painting, are being exhibited for what is believed to be first time.

The Dutch artist considered his depiction of a peasant family from the village of Nuenen in Brabant eating a meal of potatoes as one of only four of his works that could be regarded as important, alongside The Bedroom, Sunflowers and Augustine Roulin (La berceuse).

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‘We were like family’: how Covid strained bonds between Nordic neighbours

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After Norway reintroduced a hard border with Sweden, a new nationalism began to replace the easy alliance of centuries

Thorild Tollefsbøl was born in Norway but has lived in Sweden, with the border in her back yard, for more than 70 years. She could hardly believe her ears when, while out for her daily walk in the woods near the small farm town of Lersjön one day last spring, she encountered a uniformed soldier from the Norwegian Home Guard who told her to turn around and walk back to the Swedish side. “We never really gave much thought to the fact that some houses were on the other side,” Tollefsbøl said of pre-Covid times.

Europe’s longest land border is the one that divides Norway and Sweden. For the most part, it is marked by little more than a 10-metre clearing in the woods and the occasional roadside welcome sign, accompanied by mostly unmanned customs stations – reminders that when you drive into Norway you are leaving the EU.

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Nord Stream 2 approval may cool gas prices in Europe, says Russia

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Deputy PM calls for rapid clearance from German regulator after prices reach an all-time high

Russia’s deputy prime minister has said certification of the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline, which is awaiting clearance from Germany’s regulator, could cool soaring European gas prices.

Prices have risen sharply in response to a recovery in demand, particularly from Asia, with storage levels low.

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Homeowners demand full payout in Ireland’s crumbling homes scandal

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Thousands could be left homeless in rural Ireland because of devastating building defect

Homeowners in Ireland hit by a devastating building defect that causes walls to “crumble like Weetabix” are set to reject a government compensation scheme unless it offers to cover 100% of their costs.

Campaigners say the prospect of dream homes being demolished is causing people to kill themselves and families to break up, and that thousands of people could be left homeless in rural Ireland.

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Facebook’s role in Myanmar and Ethiopia under new scrutiny

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Whistleblower Frances Haugen adds to long-held concerns that social media site is fuelling violence and instability

Whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony to US senators on Tuesday shone a light on violence and instability in Myanmar and Ethiopia in recent years and long-held concerns about links with activity on Facebook.

“What we saw in Myanmar and are now seeing in Ethiopia are only the opening chapters of a story so terrifying, no one wants to read the end of it,” Haugen said in her striking testimony. Haugen warned that Facebook was “literally fanning ethnic violence” in places such as Ethiopia because it was not policing its service adequately outside the US.

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Covid ‘still running rampant’ worldwide, warns creator of Oxford vaccine

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Prof Sarah Gilbert says failure to provide jabs to poor countries risks more deaths and dangerous new variants of virus

Coronavirus is “still running rampant” worldwide and the failure to ensure poorer countries can access vaccines risks more deaths and the emergence of potentially dangerous new variants, the creator of the Oxford jab has warned.

Pleading for immediate action to enable wider distribution of jabs across the world, Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert said the “ever-evolving” virus “continues to circulate unchecked”, and, as a result, every country in the world now faces the threat of “further Sars-CoV-2 variants” this winter.

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Rachele Mussolini wins most votes in Rome city council election

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Far-right Brothers of Italy candidate is granddaughter of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini

The granddaughter of Benito Mussolini won the highest number of votes in elections for Rome’s city council as support for Brothers of Italy, the far-right party to which she belongs, edged up in northern cities held by the left.

Rachele Mussolini secured more than 8,200 votes in the municipal elections on Sunday and Monday, an increase on the 657 received when she entered the council on her first mandate in 2016.

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Nato expels eight members of Russia’s mission for spying

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Russia rejects claim officers were secretly working as intelligence officers and warns of retaliation

Nato has expelled eight members of Russia’s mission to the military alliance, saying that they were secretly working as intelligence officers, and halved the size of Moscow’s team able to work at its headquarters.

“We can confirm that we have withdrawn the accreditation of eight members of the Russian mission to Nato, who were undeclared Russian intelligence officers,” said an official, speaking under customary condition of anonymity.

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England’s Covid travel red list to be cut to a dozen countries

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Ministers planning to take Brazil, Mexico and South Africa off list but decision to axe PCR test requirement hangs in balance

Ministers will slash England’s travel red list to about a dozen countries, but plans for replacing the requirement for a negative PCR test with a lateral flow one to avoid isolation hang in the balance.

Destinations including Brazil, Mexico and South Africa are expected to be moved off the red list on Thursday, meaning passengers returning from them will not have to isolate in a hotel for 11 nights at a cost of more than £2,000.

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Regional health experts and local mayors fear NSW reopening could spread Covid

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Tweed shire mayor says ‘many regions are facing the very real likelihood of their first Covid-19 outbreak’ ahead of the state lifting travel restrictions

All 10 local government areas in New South Wales with double-dose Covid vaccination rates below 50% are regional, with six of the 10 currently affected by outbreaks.

This could leave those areas at greater risk of adverse effects on health infrastructure and businesses in these areas, as NSW plans to reopen.

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Ruling in Princess Haya case raises fresh questions for Cherie Blair

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Analysis: Blair is an adviser to NSO Group, whose Pegasus spyware was found to have been used in phone hack

The finding by a senior judge that NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was used by the ruler of Dubai to hack the phone of his ex-wife and five of her associates, all resident in England, raises fresh questions about Cherie Blair’s involvement with the company.

NSO has previously said that its malware, which infects iPhones and Android devices to enable operators of the tool to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones, is only intended for use by its government clients against criminals and terrorists.

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