Category Archives: World News

New Covid variants ‘will set us back a year’, experts warn UK government

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Vaccine-beating variant is ‘realistic possibility’, say scientists, amid calls for contingency plans to be revealed

Ministers are being pressed to reveal what contingency plans are in place to deal with a future Covid variant that evades current vaccines, amid warnings from scientific advisers that such an outcome could set the battle against the pandemic back a year or more.

Recent papers produced by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have suggested that the arrival of a variant that evades vaccines is a “realistic possibility”. Sage backed continued work on new vaccines that reduce infection and transmission more than current jabs, the creation of more vaccine-production facilities in the UK and lab-based studies to predict evolution of variants.

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At least 304 dead as Haiti struck by 7.2-magnitude earthquake

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Prime minister declares month-long state of emergency after earthquake felt across the Caribbean

At least 304 people have died, with 1,800 injured and hundreds missing after Haiti was struck by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that reduced churches, hotels and homes to rubble, in the latest tragedy to hit a Caribbean nation already mired in profound humanitarian and political crises and still reeling from the recent assassination of its president.

The earthquake on Saturday, which struck the country’s south-west at 8.29am local time, was felt across the Caribbean and rekindled painful memories of the devastating 2010 quake that killed more than 200,000 people. The prime minister, Ariel Henry, has declared a month-long state of emergency.

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Ivory Coast confirms first Ebola case since 1994

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Woman, 18, is in intensive care in Abidjan as emergency plan to identify her contacts begins

Ivory Coast has recorded a case of Ebola, its health minister has said, the first occurrence of the deadly disease in the country in nearly three decades.

Officials at the Institut Pasteur confirmed the case after testing samples taken from an 18-year-old Guinean woman, health minister Pierre N’Gou Demba said on RTI state television.

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Flooding death toll passes 57 in Turkey’s Black Sea region

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People thought to be trapped in collapsed buildings in Bozkurt as rescuers search for survivors

Families of those missing after Turkey’s worst floods in years anxiously watched rescue teams search buildings on Saturday, fearing the death toll from the raging torrents could rise further.

At least 57 people have died from the floods in the northern Black Sea region, the second natural disaster to strike the country this month.

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‘A way to be heard’: the New Zealand Pasifika youth subculture devoted to emergency sirens

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Siren kings battle their way through several carefully judged rounds to establish who has the loudest, clearest sound

On the streets of south Auckland, Pasifika youth equipped with plastic siren cones have created a new sound – one that stormed TikTok, and took over a moment in pop music. Sometimes disparaged or dismissed, they say their work with sirens is more than just a sound or a hobby. It’s also about community, creativity and respite from struggle.

These are the Siren Kings – a street subculture devoted to the volume and clarity of music, channelled through the unusual vector of emergency-evacuation sirens.

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Poland’s president signs bill to curb claims on property seized by Nazis

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Move to limit Jewish people’s opportunity to seek restitution sparks furious response from Israel

Poland’s president has decided to sign a bill that would set limits on the ability of Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and retained by postwar communist rulers, drawing fury from Israel, which said the law was antisemitic.

“I made a decision today on the act, which in recent months was the subject of a lively and loud debate at home and abroad,” Andrzej Duda said in a statement published on Saturday. “After an in-depth analysis, I have decided to sign the amendment.”

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Numerous deaths as earthquake causes widespread damage in Haiti – video

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Haiti’s prime minister, Ariel Henry, has said numerous lives have been lost after the Caribbean country was struck by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that caused significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.


The US Geological Survey said the quake struck about 150km (93 miles) west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, at about 8.30am local time and had a depth of 10km.

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Cybersleuths find men who allegedly attacked officer during US Capitol riot

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David Walls-Kaufman and Taylor F Taranto appeared to target Jeffrey Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable, suit says

A group of cybersleuths have tracked down two men who allegedly attacked police officer Jeffrey Smith at the US Capitol during the 6 January insurrection, leaving him with injuries that have been linked to his death days later.

In a new complaint, attorney David P Weber – who represents Smith’s widow, Erin – wrote that David Walls-Kaufman and and Taylor F Taranto appeared to specifically target Smith because his eyes and face were vulnerable.

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‘Saddam Hussein’s spies in London laid a trap – and sent my son Farzad to his death’

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Nosrat Bazoft, mother of the Observer reporter executed by the tyrant in 1990, reveals for the first time how the unreported theft of a briefcase of documents on a secret Iraqi weapon may have sealed her son’s fate.

Leaning back in a loose cotton shirt within the lobby of Baghdad’s Royal Tulip Al Rasheed hotel, Farzad Bazoft looks like a man at ease. Despite investigating Iraq’s secret arms programme in the back yard of Saddam Hussein, the Observer journalist knew that the following day he would be gone, back to the safety of London.

Farzad never made it to the UK. The picture chronicles his last night of freedom. Within 24 hours he would be imprisoned in solitary confinement. Then he would be starved and beaten, the start of a chain of events that would culminate, amid international furore, with his execution at the behest of Saddam.

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Brazilian singer turned congresswoman held over husband’s murder

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Flordelis dos Santos de Souza arrested in Rio after losing protection of parliamentary privilege

The Brazilian gospel star turned congresswoman accused of masterminding the murder of her preacher husband has been arrested after she was expelled from congress earlier this week.

Flordelis dos Santos de Souza, an evangelical celebrity famed for raising more than 50 children she claimed to have rescued from lives of poverty and crime, was detained on Friday night at her home near Rio de Janeiro.

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Summer in the city: Lauren Oyler on a bike accident in Berlin

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The US author and critic recalls a summer of cycling in the German capital in 2018

• Read other authors on their memorable urban summers

Every summer when I come to Berlin, someone says, “Wouldn’t you rather be at the beach?” No. I want to drink beer from the Späti (corner shop) and marvel at the sudden appearance of disparate architectures. But increasingly, there are heatwaves.

If pressed, even these I can romanticise: everyone is carefree and dirty (even more so than usual) and doesn’t work (even more so than usual). I always end up crossing Alexanderplatz on a bike thinking, this is like a desert, but more than once I’ve run into someone I know in the bike lane, which renders the scene even more hallucinogenic. Still, I dread the heatwaves as if they are worse than they are. “They’re going to have to get air-conditioning,” I mutter with the rest of the Americans. The only real respite is, unfortunately, to go to the beach.

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Belarus repression and the Taliban advance: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A round-up of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Thailand to Mexico

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Bollywood’s Kareena Kapoor subject to online abuse over baby’s name

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Supporters say attacks over choice of name similar to 17th-century Muslim Mughal emperor rooted in prejudice against inter-faith marriage

Bollywood star Kareena Kapoor has received abuse online from extremists over her new baby’s name.

Kapoor has been attacked on social media for calling her second son Jehangir, the imperial name of the 17th-century Mughal emperor, which means “conqueror of the world”. Kapoor, a Hindu, and her husband, Saif Ali Khan, a Muslim and also a Bollywood star, have faced abuse for their marriage.

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Biden in an impossible bind as Afghanistan blame game begins

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The president has been condemned by Republicans as the Taliban advance – but the roots of the crisis date back years

The words of political leaders can come back to haunt them. “None whatsoever, zero,” Joe Biden said last month when asked if he saw any parallels between the US withdrawals from Vietnam and Afghanistan.

“The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”

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At the frontier of the climate crisis, one scientist’s quest to record the ‘invisible world’ of the Arctic

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Lighter nights, orange sunsets, straying killer whales: Wayne Davidson has observed the subtle signs of a tragically warming Arctic for four decades

Wayne Davidson has been taking atmospheric readings from the Arctic Weather Station at Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island, Nunavut, for 40 years.

The climate of the high Arctic, he believes, is a guide in many respects to our past and is also the place from which our climate future can be previewed, as this week’s IPCC climate change report laid out in stark terms.

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When Covid came to the anti-vax capital of Australia

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A noisy minority in NSW’s northern rivers are pushing back against Covid-19 restrictions

Benny Zable has lived in Nimbin on and off since 1973, when he arrived in town for the Aquarius festival – the event that seeded counterculture and escapist lifestyles into the northern rivers of New South Wales.

The 75-year-old artist and activist is a storied figure in this part of Australia, now a heartland for alternative health and wellness advocates, and notorious for low immunisation rates. He was also the first person from Nimbin to show up for a Covid-19 vaccine.

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BBC condemns ‘assault on media freedom’ as Russia expels reporter

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State media call Sarah Rainsford’s expulsion a response to alleged UK barriers for Russian journalists

Russia is to expel a senior BBC journalist in Moscow by refusing to extend her accreditation in a move the broadcaster condemned as a “direct assault on media freedom”.

Sarah Rainsford’s visa is due to expire at the end of August and will not be renewed. The state broadcaster Rossiya-24 first reported the decision on Thursday evening, calling it a response to alleged UK refusals or delays in issuing visas to Russian journalists.

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UN ‘gravely concerned’ by Democratic Republic of the Congo mass rape

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Hundreds of sexual assaults reported in south-east Tanganyika province as armed groups fight over goldmines

The UN has raised the alarm over widespread, systematic sexual violence in the south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), saying women were reporting armed groups carrying out mass rape.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN refugee agency, said its staff have heard horrific testimonies from forcibly displaced persons in Tanganyika province.

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Covid live news: England’s R number between 0.8 and 1.0; Thailand predicts daily cases to double by next month

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England’s Covid reproduction could be below one in some areas; Thai officials believe daily cases could rise to 45,000 within weeks

Some reaction to the developments.

WHO being hit from all sides- now Chinese govt unhappy. Dr Tedros right to push for an investigation into origins of COVID. We need to know where virus came from so we can learn & try to stop spillover events. https://t.co/O8YQavbTX4

.⁦@Peterfoodsafety⁩, who put his own professional reputation & the credibility of the @WHO & int’l process on the line asserting in the Feb Wuhan presser that a #COVID19 lab incident origin was “extremely unlikely” was actually lying. Game-changer. https://t.co/SPggpkn4H0

2/ This is recent Chinese propaganda (which is also anti-semitic) showing @drtedros doing @SecBlinken's bidding on tracing the origins of covid-19

I was talking to @MMKavanagh about China, the US and @WHO recently for a piece I'm working on. pic.twitter.com/VSXXn4m5JT

The Wall Street Journal reports that Ben Embarek’s remarks represent the most significant departure by a member of the WHO’s team from the conclusions expressed in their initial report (some of which he said to camera as linked to below in comments that may well now cause him some embarrassment).

In the interview with Danish TV for “the Virus Mystery” documentary, Ben Embarek said that a lab run by the Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention – not the Wuhan Institute of Virology which has hitherto been the focus – relocated on 2 December 2019.

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‘Maestro of humanity’: Italian surgeon Gino Strada dies at 73

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Tributes paid to doctor whose NGO set up world-class hospitals in war zones such as Iraq, Yemen and Sudan

Tributes have been paid to Gino Strada, the Italian surgeon and “maestro of humanity” known for setting up world-class hospitals for the victims of war, who has died aged 73.

The medic, who in 1994 co-founded the humanitarian organisation Emergency to provide free, quality healthcare for those injured in conflict, died on Friday in France, reports said.

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