Category Archives: World News

‘I worry my daughters will never know peace’: women flee the Taliban – again

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Families fearful of what will happen to girls and young women as the Islamist militants gain ground are joining the tens of thousands of displaced Afghans

It was an exceptionally hot summer morning, on 13 July, when people in Malistan district, in the southern Afghan province of Ghazni, woke up to find that the conflict that had swirled around them for weeks had reached their small town and Taliban fighters were closing in.

By noon that day, 22-year-old Fatima, seven months pregnant, was seeking shelter from bullets raining down on her home in the village of Qol-e Adam, which was caught in the vicious crossfire between Taliban militants and government forces.

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South Korean politicians seek to criminalise ‘semen terrorism’

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Recent court rulings have punished men on charges of property damage rather than sexually criminal behaviour

Politicians in South Korea are seeking to make amendments to existing laws in order to make “semen terrorism” a punishable sex crime.

The move comes after a string of controversial court verdicts that have punished men who secretly ejaculated onto women’s belongings for “property damage”, and not for sexually criminal behaviour.

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Turkey floods kill 17 as country battles fresh disaster

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Heavy rains and mudslides in northern regions come after devastating wildfires ravaged the south of the country

Heavy rains have triggered severe floods and mudslides in northern Turkey, killing at least 17 people and forcing thousands to leave their homes and shelter in student dormitories.

Rescue efforts continued on Thursday after torrential rain hit the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun.

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Hear be kiwis: New Zealand celebrates as distinctive cry of iconic bird returns

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Kiwi watchers have recorded the sound of the bird’s song at many sites that were silent just five years ago

It’s a frigid, early-winter night, and across the forests and farmlands of Northland, people are crouching in the dark. They’ve timed this night for the waning moon, so moonlight doesn’t disturb any visitors. Scattered through the night, they sit, silently, and listen.

The sound they’re all hoping for is a high-pitched, piercing cry, or guttural croak – a sign that Aotearoa’s threatened, iconic kiwi has returned to patches of forests that had fallen silent.

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Brazil: evangelical superstar expelled from congress over alleged role in husband’s murder

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Lower house votes to strip the disgraced celebrity of her mandate in latest dramatic chapter of a saga that has gripped country

Brazilian lawmakers have voted to expel the gospel star turned congresswoman Flordelis over her alleged involvement in the murder of the husband with whom she had raised more than 50 children.

In the latest dramatic chapter of a saga that has gripped Brazil, 437 members of Brazil’s 513-member lower house voted to strip the disgraced evangelical celebrity of her mandate as a result of “conduct incompatible with parliamentary decorum”.

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Prison term raises pressure on Canada and US in high-stakes China standoff

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Jail term for Michael Spavor viewed by Canada as retaliation over Huawei finance chief’s detention – is a bargain likely to be reached?

Hours after a court in China sentenced Canadian Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage, Meng Wanzhou appeared in a Vancouver courtroom, as final arguments began in her fight against extradition to the United States.

The two cases, while not officially linked, are at the heart a geopolitical feud between the United States and China, which has left Canada suffering collateral damage.

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Algeria declares three days of mourning as wildfire death toll reaches 69

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Scores of fires blaze across 17 provinces as calls made for aid convoys and Morocco and France offer help

Algeria’s president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has declared three days of national mourning amid the death toll from raging wildfires in the north of the country rising to 69.

The state-run news agency APS said the rash of more than 50 fires which broke out on Tuesday had claimed four more lives, bringing the total to 69, including 28 soldiers deployed to help the emergency services.

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‘Old-style espionage’: Briton’s arrest feels like cold war throwback

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Analysis: eastern bloc spy agencies historically would target western staff in junior roles

The arrest of a British citizen in Berlin for allegedly spying for the Russians has a distinctly cold war flavour.

In recent years the Kremlin has been accused of carrying out a number of spectacular cyber-operations. They include the hacking and dumping in 2016 of thousands of Democratic party emails. Moscow’s audacious goal, according to Washington: to help elect Donald Trump as US president.

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Joe Manchin voices ‘serious concerns’ about $3.5tn budget after Senate approval – live

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Joe Biden held a virtual meeting today with business, university and healthcare leaders to discuss strategies to get more Americans vaccinated against coronavirus.

The meeting included the CEOs of Kaiser Permanente, United Airlines and DESA, Inc., as well as the president of Howard University. All four have already announced vaccine requirements for their employees or students.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said on Wednesday that pregnant women should get vaccinated after an analysis of data that showed no increased risk of miscarriage among women who received it.

The advice comes as hospitals in hot spots around the US are see disturbing numbers of unvaccinated mothers-to-be seriously ill with the virus, the Associated Press reports.

Related: CDC urges pregnant women to get Covid vaccine, finding no increased risk of miscarriage

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Covid live: UK sending poor countries ‘to back of queue’ by ordering boosters; Iran calls for urgent pandemic action

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UK accused of sending countries who are struggling to access vaccines ‘to back of queue’; pandemic ‘number-one’ problem in Iran, says supreme leader

Two US companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines after data from clinical trials showed their mRNA formula was more effective than cheaper vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca and the American drugs maker Johnson & Johnson.

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to provide their doses on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic ends.

Related: Covid-19 vaccines: the contracts, prices and profits

A new US practice of transferring asylum-seekers and migrants expelled under public health orders by plane to southern Mexico contravenes international law, the UN refugee agency has said.

Those being expelled may have urgent protection needs and risk being sent back to the very dangers they have fled in their countries of origin in central America without any opportunity to have those needs assessed and addressed, UNHCR said.

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Covid-19 vaccines: the contracts, prices and profits

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Raised charges and Covax deals on order books of Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca

Two US companies, Pfizer and Moderna, have raised the prices of their Covid-19 vaccines after data from clinical trials showed their mRNA formula was more effective than cheaper vaccines from Britain’s AstraZeneca and the American drugs maker Johnson & Johnson.

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have pledged to provide their doses on a not-for-profit basis until the pandemic ends.

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Hansle Parchment thanks woman who paid for taxi to race where he won Olympic gold

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  • 110m champion struggled to make final after taking wrong bus
  • Local volunteer stepped in to pay for taxi to Olympic Stadium

Jamaican hurdler Hansle Parchment has tracked down and thanked a Tokyo 2020 volunteer who paid for his taxi to the Olympic Stadium, where he subsequently won a gold medal.

Parchment told the story in a video posted to social media last weekend, which ended with him meeting the volunteer, whom he called Tiana. He thanked her, showed her the gold medal, gave her a Jamaican Olympic shirt and paid her back the money she had lent.

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Picasso pieces worth about $100m to be auctioned in Las Vegas

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Sotheby’s to sell 11 works in Bellagio hotel and casino, in one of most valuable Picasso auctions yet

Las Vegas: the city of sin, where you can gamble away your savings, get married on a whim, dine on an octuple bypass burger at the Heart Attack Grill – and soon, it has been announced, take part in one of the most valuable Picasso auctions ever staged.

Sotheby’s has announced it is to sell 11 Picasso works owned by MGM Resorts, which have a combined value of about $100m (£72m).

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Julian Assange loses court battle to stop US expanding extradition appeal

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Judges say psychiatric expert report can form part of Washington’s full appeal

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has lost a high court battle to prevent the US government expanding the grounds for its appeal against an earlier refusal to allow his extradition to face charges of espionage and hacking government computers.

On Wednesday, judges said the weight given to a misleading report from Assange’s psychiatric expert that was submitted at the original hearing in January could form part of Washington’s full appeal in October.

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Polish government’s media bill is latest move to silence its critics

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Analysis: legislation is likely to target US-owned broadcaster as press freedom continues to deteriorate

In 2015, the year that the populist Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in Poland, the country ranked 18th – its highest ever position – out of 164 countries on Reporters without Borders’ (RSF) annual World Press Freedom Index.

By this year it had fallen to its lowest ever position, 64th, continuing an annual slide that has left it just below Malawi and Armenia, in 62nd and 63rd, and just above Bhutan and Ivory Coast, with a classification from RSF of “problematic”.

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French Holocaust survivor Simone Veil’s memorial vandalised

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Police launch investigation after memorial in Brittany to former minister daubed with swastikas

A stone memorial commemorating the life of the Holocaust survivor and former minister Simone Veil has been defaced with swastikas, police have said, sparking fresh concern over antisemitism in France.

The memorial to Veil, at Perros-Guirec in the western Brittany region, was found to have been daubed with the Nazi insignia on Wednesday morning. An investigation has been launched.

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Sister of murdered UK backpacker ‘died in hospital after leading fight for justice’

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Inquest into death of Laura Daniels hears she travelled to Thailand for trial of Hannah Witheridge’s killers despite serious health problems

The sister of the murdered British backpacker Hannah Witheridge died in hospital after leading the fight for justice for her sibling and travelling to Thailand despite being seriously ill, an inquest heard.

Laura Daniels, a paediatric nurse, died in 2019 aged 30 after years of complications following surgery, five years after her 23-year-old sister was killed.

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German police arrest Briton on suspicion of spying for Russia

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Employee at British embassy in Berlin suspected of passing on documents in exchange for cash

German police have arrested a British man who worked at the British embassy in Berlin on suspicion of spying for Russian intelligence in exchange for cash bribes, according to prosecutors.

Germany’s highest public prosecutor said the man, identified only as David S, was arrested at his Potsdam apartment at 2.20pm on Tuesday, and his home and embassy workplace were searched.

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‘Sometimes I have to pick up a gun’: the female Afghan governor resisting the Taliban

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Salima Mazari, one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, tells of her motivation to fight the militants

It is early morning in Charkint, in the northern Balkh province of Afghanistan, but a meeting with the governor is already well under way to urgently assess the safety of the 30,000 people she represents. Salima Mazari has been in the job for just over three years, and for her, fighting the Taliban is nothing new, but since July she has been meeting with the commanders of her security forces every day as the Islamist militants’ attacks across the country increase.

As one of only three female district governors in Afghanistan, Mazari has attracted attention simply by being a woman in charge. What sets the 40-year-old apart, particularly amid the recent wave of Taliban violence, is her hands-on military leadership. “Sometimes I’m in the office in Charkint, and other times I have to pick up a gun and join the battle,” she says.

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