North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has watched an extreme martial arts demonstration by soldiers at a military event marking the 76th founding anniversary of its ruling party. In the video aired by the North's state-run television station, KRT, soldiers performed multiple shows of strength: smashing items, breaking free from chains, lying on glass and throwing knives. Kim smiled and clapped as he watched the show at the Defence Development Exhibition 'Self-Defence-2021'. During the exhibition, Kim said his country's weapons development is necessary in the face of the US' hostile policies and a military buildup in South Korea.
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‘We’re ready’: Fiji prepares to welcome tourists almost two years after closing borders
Fully vaccinated travellers from select countries including New Zealand and Australia will be able to visit from November
Fiji says it is already experiencing a boom in demand after announcing this week that it would open up quarantine-free travel to visitors from select countries, almost two years after closing its borders due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our website data is well up – we are seeing a real lift in interest. It is exciting, and we want to encourage people to come and spend Christmas and new year in Fiji,” Tourism Fiji chief executive Brent Hill said.
Continue reading...New Zealand modelling shows Covid cases could peak at 5,300 a week in Auckland next year
Plans for how health system would deal with surge revealed as country records 71 new cases
New Zealand is preparing to face up to 5,300 cases of Covid-19 a week in Auckland and the neighbouring region of Northland alone next year, even with a vaccination rate of 90%, according to modelling from the Ministry of Health.
The minister of health, Andrew Little revealed the plan for how the health system could manage a surge in cases after the current vaccination drive, as the country recorded 71 new cases on Thursday.
Continue reading...‘Sophisticated’: ancient faeces shows humans enjoyed beer and blue cheese 2,700 years ago
Austrian Alps salt miners had a ‘balanced diet’, with an analysis of bronze and iron age excrement finding the earliest evidence of cheese ripening in Europe
It’s no secret that beer and blue cheese go hand in hand – but a new study reveals how deep their roots run in Europe, where workers at a salt mine in Austria were gorging on both up to 2,700 years ago.
Scientists made the discovery by analysing samples of human excrement found at the heart of the Hallstatt mine in the Austrian Alps.
Continue reading...‘Many crime scenes’: at least five dead in bow-and-arrow attacks in Kongsberg – video
A police official describes bow-and-arrow attacks in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg that have killed five and wounded two others. The government said police had launched a large-scale investigation. Kongsberg police chief Øyvind Aas said police would investigate whether the attacks amounted to an 'act of terror'. The death toll was the worst of any attack in Norway since 2011, when far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them teenagers at a youth camp.
Continue reading...‘Last chance’: WHO reveals new team to investigate Covid origins
A group of 26 experts will also be tasked with examining new pathogens and how to prevent future pandemics
The World Health Organization has unveiled a team of scientists it wants to revive the stalled inquiry into Covid-19’s origins, with one senior official saying it may be the last chance.
The group of 26 experts will be charged with producing a new global framework for studies into the origins of emerging pathogens of epidemic and pandemic potential – and their remit includes Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
Continue reading...Biden officials announce ambitious plan to dot US coastline with wind farms
- Farms envisaged on east coast, west coast and Gulf of Mexico
- Biden aims to generate enough power for 10m homes by 2030
Seven major offshore wind farms would be developed on the east and west coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico under a plan announced Wednesday by the Biden administration.
The projects are part of Joe Biden’s plan to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, generating enough electricity to power more than 10 million homes.
Continue reading...At least five people killed in bow and arrow attack in Norway
Police say suspect has been apprehended after attack in town of Kongsberg, 70km from Oslo
At least five people have been killed and two others injured in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg by a man armed with a bow and arrow, police said.
Øyvind Aas, the police chief in the town, about 70km southwest of the capital, Oslo, told a press conference on Wednesday night that the attacker had been arrested and “according to our information, is the only person implicated”.
Continue reading...Azor review – eerie conspiracy thriller about the complacency of the super-rich
Andreas Fontana’s debut feature is an unnervingly subtle drama about a Swiss private banker visiting clients in Argentina during the period of the military junta and ‘disappearances’
Pure evil is all around in this unnervingly subtle, sophisticated movie; an eerie oppression in the air. Andreas Fontana is a Swiss director making his feature debut with this conspiracy drama-thriller, shot with a kind of desiccated blankness, about the occult world of super-wealth and things not to be talked about. The title is a Swiss banker’s code-word in conversation for “Be silent”.
It is set in 1980 in Argentina, at the time of the junta’s dirty war against leftists and dissidents, and you could set it alongside recent movies including Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo (2018) and Francisco Márquez’s A Common Crime (2020), which intuited the almost supernatural fear among those left behind when people they knew had vanished and joined los desaparecidos, the disappeared ones. But Azor gives a queasy new perspective on the horror of those times, and there is even a nauseous echo of the Swiss banks’ attitude to their German neighbours in the second world war.
Continue reading...House Capitol attack panel issues subpoena to Trump official Jeffrey Clark
In targeting Clark, House investigators followed up on a Senate report that detailed his efforts to abuse the DoJ to support Trump
The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on Wednesday issued a subpoena to top Trump justice department official Jeffrey Clark, escalating its inquiry into the former president’s efforts to reinstall himself in office and the 6 January insurrection.
The new subpoena underscores the select committee’s far-reaching mandate in scrutinizing the origins of the Capitol attack, as it pursues an investigation into Donald Trump’s role in pressuring the justice department (DoJ) to do his bidding in the final weeks of his presidency.
Continue reading...Don’t drink from tap, Canadian city says, as gasoline suspected in water supply
State of emergency in Iqaluit, capital of Nunavut territory, as officials say they are testing water for petroleum hydrocarbons
Officials in Canada’s northernmost capital have declared a local state of emergency after finding possible evidence of gasoline in the city’s tap water.
Residents of Iqaluit, the capital of the Arctic territory of Nunavut, have been told not to drink, boil or cook with the city’s water.
Continue reading...Chile president Piñera faces impeachment after Pandora papers leak
Opposition politicians launch proceedings against Sebastián Piñera over possible irregularities in mining company sale
Opposition politicians have launched impeachment proceedings against Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera, over possible irregularities in the sale of a mining company, after new details about the deal were revealed in the Pandora papers.
Lawmakers cited an “ethical duty” to hold the president accountable for the alleged irregularities in his involvement in the controversial Dominga project.
Continue reading...Will China’s plan to build more coal plants derail Cop26?
Analysis: while the short-term consequences are grim, veteran analysts talk of a wobble rather than a fall
China’s decision to build more coal plants is a setback for climate action, but analysts say it could still meet its long-term emission reduction targets and may even have scope to raise its ambition at Cop26 in Glasgow.
In recent days, Beijing has announced a buildup of coal capacity to address the most severe power cuts in a decade, which have caused rolling blackouts in half its provinces.
Continue reading...UK ‘colluding in torture’ by leaving women and children in Syria camps
Rights watchdog accuses Britain of turning a blind eye to degrading treatment of those who lived under IS
Britain is colluding in torture and degrading treatment by refusing to repatriate women and children held in indefinite detention in Syrian prison camps, according to a report from a human rights watchdog.
The assessment by Rights and Security International (RSI) accuses the UK and others of turning a blind eye to lawless and squalid conditions in two camps that contain 60,000 women and children, many held since the collapse of Islamic State.
Continue reading...Scientists abused and threatened for discussing Covid, global survey finds
Poll of 321 scientists found 15% received death threats after speaking publicly on the pandemic
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Scientists around the world have received threats of death and sexual assault after speaking to the media about Covid-19, a survey has revealed.
Of 321 scientists asked by Nature magazine, 15% said they had received death threats and 22% had been threatened with physical or sexual violence as a result of talking publicly about the pandemic.
Continue reading...Claims that Russia is using energy as a weapon is nonsense, says Putin – video
President Vladimir Putin says Russia is ready to provide more gas to Europe if requested, emphatically rejecting the suggestion that Moscow is squeezing supplies for political motives. European gas prices have hit record levels this month, but the Kremlin has repeatedly denied that Russia is deliberately withholding supplies in order to exert pressure for quick regulatory approval of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea to Germany
Continue reading...British football coach sentenced to 25 years’ jail in Dubai over CBD vape liquid
Billy Hood’s family and campaign group Detained in Dubai working to appeal against convictions
A British football coach has been sentenced to 25 years in jail in Dubai after police discovered four bottles of vape liquid containing CBD in the boot of his car.
Billy Hood, 24, from Kensington, was sentenced for trafficking, selling and possessing drugs after he claims he was forced by police to confess in Arabic, a language he does not speak.
Continue reading...Eritreans of Italian descent demand Rome finally grant them citizenship
Group of more than 300 descendants of people born under Italian rule accuse state of ‘crime of colonial racism’
Hundreds of Eritreans of Italian descent who trace their ancestry to the period of Italy’s colonial rule are demanding Italian citizenship, a right denied to them by Benito Mussolini’s racial laws.
A group of more than 300 grandchildren or great-grandchildren of people born to Italian fathers and Eritrean mothers have written to the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, and other government officials urging them to “finally examine and resolve an issue that has never really been addressed, a crime of colonial racism that marked the life of thousands of innocent women and men, and which continues to discriminate against generations of Italians”.
Continue reading...Agnes Tirop: world record holder found dead as Kenya police seek husband
- ‘Kenya has lost a jewel,’ says African nation’s athletics body
- Tirop smashed the 10km women-only world record last month
One of Kenya’s leading athletes, Agnes Tirop, has been found stabbed to death at her home in Iten, with police treating her husband as a suspect. The 25-year-old athlete, who broke the women-only 10,000m road record last month and also won bronze medals at the 2017 and 2019 world championships, was discovered by police on Wednesday after being reported missing by her father.
Tom Makori, the head of police for the area, confirmed that Tirop’s husband was a suspect after going missing. “When [police] got in the house, they found Tirop on the bed and there was a pool of blood on the floor,” he said. “They saw she had been stabbed in the neck, which led us to believe it was a knife wound, and we believe that is what caused her death.
Continue reading...Killing of two boys for alleged shoplifting shocks Colombia
Pair were taken away by armed men on motorbikes and later found shot dead on edge of town
The murder of two boys for allegedly shoplifting in Colombia has evoked memories of some of the country’s darkest days of armed conflict.
The pair, who were 12 and 18, were allegedly trying to rob a clothing store in Tibú, a small town near the Venezuelan border, last Friday when they were apprehended by bystanders who taped their hands together, according to witnesses quoted by local media.
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