Category Archives: World News

Watch in full: Biden, Johnson and Morrison announce Aukus and nuclear-powered submarine deal – video

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The US, the UK and Australia have announced they are setting up a trilateral security partnership aimed at confronting China, which will include helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. US President Joe Biden, UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison announced the deal together virtually

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Nicki Minaj claim that Covid vaccine can cause impotence dismissed by Trinidad and Tobago

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Minister says health officials found no evidence that any patient reported such side effects: ‘We wasted so much time running down this false claim’

Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed claims by the rapper Nicki Minaj that a cousin’s friend had become impotent after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that health officials in the Caribbean country had found no evidence that any patient had reported such side-effects.

“As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad … and none that we know of anywhere in the world,” the minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, said in a press conference on Wednesday.

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EU commissioner calls for urgent action against Pegasus spyware

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Didier Reynders condemns hacking of political opponents and journalists and says bloc closely watching Hungary investigation

The EU must swiftly legislate to further protect the rights of activists, journalists and politicians following the Pegasus spyware scandal, and the perpetrators of illegal tapping must be prosecuted, the bloc’s justice commissioner has told the European parliament.

Didier Reynders told MEPs that the European Commission “totally condemned” alleged attempts by national security services to illegally access information on political opponents through their phones.

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The Activist: ‘tone-deaf’ new TV show has activists compete to lobby G20 leaders

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CBS programme has caused a social media storm for its crass choice of format and ill-qualified judges

Producers have billed it as an exciting new twist on reality television: an X-Factor style competition between campaigners that will give them the chance to lobby world leaders at the G20.

But The Activist, a show announced last week by the American network CBS, has already learned to its cost that people power can be unpredictable, ruthless and highly effective.

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In Germany’s election, the fate of the EU is at stake | Timothy Garton Ash

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After Merkel, the incoming coalition will have to prove that democracy can meet Europe’s great challenges


In Brussels last week, I found everyone waiting for Berlin. In Berlin, I found everyone electrified by an unexpectedly wide-open election. One thing, however, is clear: the new German government will be a coalition, and almost certainly of three, rather than two, parties.

That points to the deepest question underlying this pivotal European event: can democracy deliver? More precisely: can the European model of change through democratic consensus, of which Germany is a prime example, produce the actions Europe badly needs if it is to hold its own in the 21st century?

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SpaceX rocket to take world’s first all-civilian crew into orbit

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Four-person Inspiration4 mission will orbit Earth for up to four days and marks latest step in space tourism

The world’s first crew of “amateur astronauts” is preparing to blast off on a mission that will carry them into orbit around Earth before bringing them back home at the weekend.

The four civilians, who have spent the past few months on an astronaut training crash course, are due to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8.02pm local time on Wednesday (1.02am UK time on Thursday).

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Covid live: EU pledges 200m more jabs to other countries; Italy to make ‘Green Pass’ mandatory for private sector

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EU to share millions of jabs to speed up global immunisation; Italy set to make a vaccination pass mandatory for both public and private sector workers

Covid restrictions will return if the virus gets “out of control” again this year, the UK health secretary has said, with a dangerous new variant or the NHS at risk of being overwhelmed identified as the moment “plan B” could be triggered.

Sajid Javid said he thought another lockdown was unlikely but admitted it would be “irresponsible” to rule out ordering people stay at home in England for a fourth time since the pandemic began.

Related: Javid: Covid curbs will return in England if cases get out of control

Cuba is seeking approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) for three Covid-19 vaccines, according to the state-run corporation that produces them, even as it begins administering shots en masse to toddlers.

Rolando Perez Rodriguez, director of research and development at BioCubaFarma, made the announcement during a discussion broadcast by state media on Tuesday evening on a vaccination campaign that aims to immunize more than 90% of the population by November, Reuters reports.

There have already been some exchanges in Havana and at the office in Geneva. Now begins a procedure and exchange to evaluate the documentation delivered.

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Facebook and Google condemned over ads for ‘abortion pill reversal’

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Adverts promoting ‘dangerous, unproven and unethical’ procedure shown millions of times, study finds

Facebook has served “abortion reversal” adverts 18.4m times since January 2020, according to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), promoting an “unproven, unethical” and “dangerous” procedure.

Google shows the adverts on more than four-fifths of searches related to abortion across a number of US cities, according to the CCDH research, targeted at search terms such as “unwanted pregnancy” and “abortion pill”.

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‘A more human LinkedIn’: Spain media project helping Covid jobless

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Un Mismo Equipo allows unemployed and often homeless people to advertise their skills to potential employers

The Covid crisis came scything through Alejandro’s* life with a speed, ferocity and vindictive thoroughness that stuns him to this day. Almost overnight, the widowed craftsman’s business supplying leather pieces to shops, markets and the military folded, his meagre savings gave out, his father died from coronavirus, the electricity was cut off and he found himself relying on food banks to feed himself and his teenage daughter.

“Things were hard before the pandemic,” he says. “But if you’d told me one day that everything that’s happened to me would happen to me, I’d never have believed you.

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Von der Leyen: EU must acquire ‘political will’ to build own military

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European Commission president’s state of union speech urges bloc to learn lessons from US withdrawal from Afghanistan

The EU must learn the lessons of the abrupt end of the US-led mission in Afghanistan and acquire the “political will” to build up its own military force to deploy to future crises, the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said.

In her annual state of the union speech in the European parliament in Strasbourg, Von der Leyen, a former German defence minister, said the withdrawal of the US-led mission in Afghanistan, and the subsequent collapse of President Ashraf Ghani’s administration, raised troubling questions.

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Drought puts 2.1 million Kenyans at risk of starvation

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National disaster declared as crops fail after poor rains and locusts, while ethnic conflicts add to crisis

An estimated 2.1 million Kenyans face starvation due to a drought in half the country, which is affecting harvests.

The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in 23 counties across the arid north, northeastern and coastal parts of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months, after poor rains between March and May this year.

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#DoNotTouchMyClothes: Afghan women’s social media protest against Taliban

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Women around the world are sharing pictures of themselves in traditional colourful clothes in a campaign against the new strict dress code for female students

After street demonstrations across major cities in Afghanistan, women have now taken to social media to protest against the Taliban’s hardline policies towards them.

An online campaign has seen Afghan women around the world share photos of themselves wearing traditional colourful clothes, using the hashtag #DoNotTouchMyClothes.

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North Korea fires two ballistic missiles into sea, South Korea military says

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Launch comes as Chinese foreign minister is in Seoul to discuss stalled nuclear diplomacy and two days after North tests a new long-range cruise missile

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military has said, two days after the North claimed to have tested a new missile in its first weapons test in six months.

South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said the missiles flew from a central inland area towards the waters off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast and that further analysis with US officials was under way. “Our military maintains a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the US,” the JCS said.

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‘Wine is our livelihood’: locals still recovering from German floods

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Estimated €50m worth of wine has been lost in the Ahr valley since the floods

Tanja Lingen barely dares to think about the night her two sons went into the family vineyard cellar to salvage what they could of the supplies and equipment as waters from the nearby river Ahr rose to dangerous levels.

“They removed the fermentation airlocks on the oak barrels and replaced them with tight plastic stoppers just in the nick of time,” she says. They even had the presence of mind to film the dramatic scene, by chance capturing the fast disappearing chalk markings on the barrels which meant it was possible to identify what was in them.

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‘Heartbroken’ Osage Nation leaders decry sale of sacred Missouri cave with ancient artwork

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Indigenous leaders had hoped to purchase the land, which is home to 1,000-year-old drawings and was auctioned off for $2.2m

A Missouri cave containing Native American artwork from more than 1,000 years ago was sold at auction Tuesday, disappointing leaders of the Osage Nation who hoped to buy the land to “protect and preserve our most sacred site”.

A bidder agreed to pay US$2.2m to private owners for what’s known as “Picture Cave,” along with the 43 hilly acres that surround it near the town of Warrenton, about 60 miles (97km) west of St Louis.

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Court rules against woman who became face of China’s #MeToo movement

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Zhou Xiaoxuan, who accused CCTV host of sexual harassment, vows to appeal ‘unfair treatment’

A Chinese woman whose sexual harassment case against a popular TV host sparked a nationwide debate over #MeToo has accused a Beijing court of unfair treatment and vowed to appeal after it ruled against her.

The Haidian people’s court said in a judgment released late on Tuesday that Zhou Xiaoxuan did not meet the standard of proof in claiming that Zhu Jun, her superior at work, sexually harassed her.

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Outcry over killing of almost 1,500 dolphins on Faroe Islands

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Many Faroese horrified by what Sea Shepherd group claims was largest such massacre in the islands’ history

• Story contains graphic image that some may find distressing.

Even the staunchest defenders of traditional whaling in the Faroe Islands have condemned the “cruel and unnecessary” massacre on Sunday of a superpod of nearly 1,500 dolphins, which were driven into shallow waters of the Skálabotnur beach on the island of Eysturoy and left writhing for hours before being killed.

The Sea Shepherd group, which has been campaigning to stop the traditional Faroese “Grind” hunt since the 1980s, has claimed Sunday’s hunt was “the largest single killing of dolphins or pilot whales in the islands’ history”, with more animals perishing than in an entire season at the infamous “Cove” at Taiji, Japan.

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Facebook aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals

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Social media firm reportedly kept own research secret that suggests app worsens body image issues

Facebook has kept internal research secret for two years that suggests its Instagram app makes body image issues worse for teenage girls, according to a leak from the tech firm.

Since at least 2019, staff at the company have been studying the impact of their product on its younger users’ states of mind. Their research has repeatedly found it is harmful for a large proportion, and particularly teenage girls.

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Spain cuts soaring energy bills with emergency measures

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Government expects to redirect €2.6bn from firms to consumers in next six months, with average monthly bill falling by 22%

Spain’s government has passed emergency measures to reduce sky-high energy bills by redirecting billions of euros in extraordinary profits from energy companies to consumers and capping increases in gas prices.

In the first such broad response in Europe, where wholesale prices have doubled in a year, Spain plans to limit the profits that energy companies using hydropower and other renewable power generators can make from surging electricity prices.

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Haiti prosecutor calls for prime minister to be charged over president’s killing

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Ariel Henry, 71-year-old neurosurgeon, became country’s leader in July, two weeks after assassination of Jovenel Moïse

The investigation into the assassination of the Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has taken a sensational turn after the country’s chief prosecutor asked a judge to charge Haiti’s prime minister in connection with the crime.

Ariel Henry, a 71-year-old neurosurgeon, became Haiti’s principal leader in July, two weeks after Moïse was killed at his home in the capital Port-au-Prince.

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