Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
At least 866 arrested since April, as police condemned for violence against protesters defending Vancouver Island’s ancient forests
A string of protests against old-growth logging in western Canada have become the biggest act of civil disobedience in the country’s history, with the arrest of least 866 people since April.
The bitter fight over the future of Vancouver Island’s diminishing ancient forests – in which activists used guerrilla methods of resistance such as locking their bodies to the logging road and police responded by beating, dragging and pepper-spraying demonstrators – has surpassed the previous record of arrests set in the 1990s at the anti-logging protests dubbed the “War in the Woods”.
Low-grade ventilation system at indoor carnival in Gangelt leading factor in outbreak among partygoers
Airborne viruses recycled through a low-grade ventilation system likely created Germany’s first super-spreader event of the Covid-19 pandemic, a CSI-style analysis of a carnival celebration has found.
The event at the town hall of Gangelt, a municipality on the border with the Netherlands, was labelled “Germany’s Wuhan” after it was found to be the driver of a major outbreak in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia last year.
Exclusive: Germany’s possible next chancellor on his plans for Europe, tackling inequality and how to revive the centre-left
The new frontrunner to win Germany’s national vote at the end of this month says he believes he can reawaken Europe’s centre-left from its decade-long slumber with a two-fold promise: to guarantee his country’s continued economic success, while at the same time putting an end to the myth that individual success is always self-made.
Germany’s vice-chancellor and finance minister, Olaf Scholz, has this summer surprisingly lifted his Social Democratic party (SPD) above Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in opinion polls, in large part due to a reputation for rational decision-making and fiscal prudence that mirrors that of the outgoing chancellor.
‘A cop asked me: “How can you take photographs?” I told him: “I have to document this. It’s history”’
I was asleep when the first plane hit. At the time, I lived just four blocks from the World Trade Center, right next to a hospital, a fire station and the HQ of the New York police. The sirens woke me up. They were nonstop. I turned on the television and saw one of the towers on fire. As I watched the second plane hit the south tower on TV, I also heard it because I lived so close.
I was working for Associated Press (AP) as a photo editor. I knew, as their closest staff member, that I should go out and document it. I got dressed, threw some film into my camera bag, and ran out to the World Trade Center. A lot of photography is like muscle memory. Even in a situation like this, your body knows exactly what to do. I remember a cop asking me: “How can you take photographs?” I told him: “I have to document this. It’s history.”
Gideon Mendel has been photographing people returning home after the devastation of recent wildfires on the island of Evia in Greece. The work follows his earlier projects about people affected by wildfires in New South Wales, Australia, and flooding globally
At the end of August, as part of my long-term work on the global climate emergency, I travelled to Evia in Greece to explore the impacts of the unprecedented fires that had devastated village communities and the ecology of the island. I chose not to chase the drama of the burning flames, but rather to seek out their aftermath. I encountered endless blackened landscapes and made these portraits of people whose lives have been destroyed by the fire they describe as a “burning hell”. I know that it was not easy for my subjects to return to their homes to be photographed, and for some this was the first time that they had stepped inside since the fire. However, I found that they embraced this moment of having their fractured situation witnessed and were keen to share their stories. I was moved by their openness to my camera after all the horrors of their recent experience. Visually I found that an eerily precise symmetry seemed to emerge from the unspeakable chaos of their ruined homes, many of which are situated in places of profound beauty. I hope that their gaze at the camera will provoke a visceral sense of the climate threat we all face.
A powerful earthquake has struck south-west Mexico near the beach resort of Acapulco, killing at least one person who was crushed by a falling post and causing rockfalls and damaging buildings. The 7.0-magnitude quake shook the hillsides around the resort, downing trees and pitching large boulders on to the road
56-year-old Su Min decided to leave her abusive relationship and embark on an open-ended solo road trip. In China, where women are frequently expected to serve the role of a dutiful housewife and support their husbands, her decision to strike out on her own could be seen as controversial. But after she began live-streaming her journey and her struggles, she became a Chinese internet sensation with online fans sending her donations to fund her new life. Su has become an accidental feminist icon, inspiring other women to leave behind restrictive gender expectations for a life of adventure.
Victoria Police in Australia say future organised large gatherings will not be tolerated, and police will act on intelligence to stop them, after dozens of worshippers gathered near a synagogue in Melbourne’s south east earlier this week, in breach of Covid-19 lockdown rules.
Six people so far have been fined $5452 each for the illegal gathering in Ripponlea on Tuesday morning, held to mark the start of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.
One of the other topics that has come up during the UK’s morning media round is the issue of vaccinations for 12- to 15-year-olds, and whether they should be able to overrule their parents and get the jab if they want it. Earlier on Sky News UK health secretary Sajid Javid said:
I think we should follow the same rules that we’ve had in this country, under the successive governments, for decades, which is that you first would try to seek the consent of parents. If there’s a difference of opinion between the child and the parent, then we have specialists that work in this area, the school’s vaccination service, they would usually sit down with the parent and the child and try to reach some kind of consensus. If ultimately that doesn’t work, as long as we believe that the child is competent enough to make this decision, then the child will will prevail.
We have a lot of case law about the competence of young people to make decisions on their own. Certainly, in respect of procedure which is of benefit to them. I think we should err on the side of giving young people the opportunity to make decisions.
Talks involving up to 20 nations come as militants ignore calls to form inclusive government in Afghanistan
The US is convening an expanded group of western nations to set a framework for cooperation with the new Taliban government, amid fears that isolating the militant group could backfire.
The meeting on Wednesday, chaired by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, faces an all-male, Pashtun-dominated caretaker government that has ignored calls to form an inclusive administration.
Vietnam was a Covid success story but the latest lockdown, with people unable to leave the house even for food, is leaving tens of thousands hungry
When the strictest lockdown to date was imposed in Ho Chi Minh City, Tran Thi Hao*, a factory worker, was told that the government would keep her and her family well fed – but for two months they have eaten little more than rice and fish sauce.
She was put on unpaid leave from her job in July, while her husband, a construction worker, has not worked for months. They are behind on their rent, with another payment due soon.
Life for single mothers in Afghanistan has always been marred by stigma and poverty. Now with the Taliban in control, what few protections they had have disappeared
The day after Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh province, fell to the Taliban on 14 August, gunmen came for Raihana’s* six-year-old daughter.
Widowed when her husband was murdered by Taliban forces in 2020, Raihana had been raising her child as a single mother. After her husband’s death she had fought her in-laws for custody of her daughter and won, thanks to the rights she had under Afghan civil law – which state that single women can keep their children if they can provide for them financially.
Supporters and critics of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro gathered in their thousands across cities throughout Brazil during the country's Independence Day. Supporters of the far-right President, dressed in the green and yellow of the Brazilian flag, in a show of support for his attacks on the country's Supreme Court. But Bolsonaro's detractors also took to the streets to voice their concerns on issues including the president's handling of the pandemic and Brazil's low vaccination rates.
After 15 years campaigning, Satya Naresh believes it’s time for government action to stop the custom that causes a woman to die every hour through murder or suicide
For more than a decade, Satya Naresh has been trying to persuade India’s men to stop a wedding custom that he sees as one of the country’s worst social evils.
He wants men to declare: “I don’t want dowry”. The line is the name of the website he set up in 2006 as part of his campaign. Naresh wants Indian men not to expect the money, motorbike, sofa, TV, iPhone, gold jewellery or fridge that a future wife is expected to come with.
Anniversary of 9/11 and fall of Kabul trigger questions over US interventionism
The 20th anniversary of 9/11 and its fallout was always going to be a moment of deep soul searching about what has been lost and learned.
But the retrospective, until a few weeks ago, risked having a historical, even sepia, quality as the attention of political leaders moved to a more contemporary set of threats – health pandemics, climate emergencies, Big Tech and great power competition, including the rise of China. The “war on terror”, after all, looked if not won, at least drawn. It was even possible Islamist terrorism was a temporary manageable phenomenon, increasingly confined to Africa and some lethal loners in European shopping centres.
Chow Hang-tung, a barrister and organiser of the Hong Kong Alliance, wrote on Twitter ‘Any farewell words for me?’ before she was detained
Hong Kong police have arrested senior members of the group that organised the city’s annual Tiananmen Square massacre vigil, after it was accused of foreign collusion.
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China said police arrived at the offices or residents of several members early on Wednesday morning. The arrests come amid increasing crackdown on political, professional and civil society groups, which the government has accused of unpatriotic conduct or national security offences.
US president Joe Biden has emphasised the danger of the climate crisis after touring Hurricane Ida-impacted neighbourhoods. ‘People are beginning to realise this is much, much bigger than anyone was willing to believe,’ Biden said during a tour of Queens, New York. ‘Even the climate skeptics are seeing that this really does matter.’
Analysis: China’s handling of troubles in Afghanistan, Myanmar and North Korea will differ to the west, and mould its identity as a global power
First it was North Korea. Then came Myanmar. Now it is Afghanistan. The three ongoing crises in China’s neighbourhood seem to have little in common. But for Beijing they pose the same question: how to deal with strategically important yet failing states on its border, and how will China’s response define its identity as a global power.
For many years China watchers in the west have been looking for clues to how a rising power will exercise its influence on the world stage through its involvement in Africa or its relations with the US. But the way China approaches the three neighbouring countries may provide a clearer picture.
Police claim plans for end-to-end encryption will stop officers being able to access ‘incisive intelligence’
Facebook’s plans to allow encrypted messaging across all its platforms could prevent the detection of up to 20m child abuse images every year, a senior investigating officer has claimed.
Rob Jones, the director of threat leadership at the National Crime Agency, said the social media company’s goal of rolling out end-to-end encryption will stop officers from accessing “incisive intelligence” that allows them to rescue abused children.
Court orders Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from criminal code, clearing a path to decriminalisation across Mexico
Mexico’s supreme court has struck down a state abortion law, ruling that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies are unconstitutional, in a decision which advocates say provides a path to decriminalisation across the country.
In a unanimous 10-0 ruling, the top court ordered the northern state of Coahuila to remove sanctions for abortion from its criminal code – with several justices arguing the prohibitions on voluntarily interrupting a pregnancy violated women’s rights to control their own bodies.
Two armed robbers are in custody after a police chase, with a hunt under way for remaining suspects
A group of thieves have struck the Bulgari store on the Place Vendôme in Paris, making off with about €10m (£8.6m) in jewellery. They then led police on a high-speed chase during which two of the suspects were captured, sources have told AFP.
Three individuals, wearing sharp suits and armed with guns, robbed the recently revamped boutique on the Place Vendôme in central Paris, where the Ritz hotel is located, shortly before midday on Tuesday, police said.