Category Archives: World News

Amsterdam ‘stumbling stones’ commemorate gay victims of Nazis

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Four brass memorial plaques embedded in street remember Jews and resistance fighters

More than 75 years after they were murdered in the gas chambers or shot, gay victims of Nazi persecution were remembered with “stumbling stones” laid in Amsterdam this week.

The Netherlands has about 8,500 Stolpersteine, (stumbling stones), the brass memorial plaques embedded in the street that call on passers-by to remember individual victims of the Nazi genocide and oppression, a mental “stumbling” that forces pedestrians to reckon with the past.

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St Vincent PM bloodied by rock thrown by anti-vaccine protester

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  • Ralph Gonsalves taken to hospital after attack on Thursday
  • Nurses and police protesting over fears of mandatory vaccines

Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, has been taken to hospital after a protester threw a rock at his head during an anti-vaccine demonstration led by nurses and other workers in the eastern Caribbean island,.

Related: CNN fires three employees for coming to work unvaccinated

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Snickers Spain pulls advert after accusations of homophobia

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Controversial commercial comes as series of homophobic attacks are reported across Spain

Snickers in Spain has pulled a controversial advertisement and apologised for any “misunderstanding that may have been caused” after the 20-second film was widely condemned for being homophobic.

The advert shows the Spanish influencer Aless Gibaja ordering a “sexy orange juice” while a friend trades puzzled looks with the waiter. The waiter responds by handing Gibaja a Snickers ice-cream bar, and after a bite, Gibaja appears to transform into a bearded man with a deep voice.

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Six EU states overtake UK Covid vaccination rates as Britain’s rollout slows

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Malta, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Ireland overtake UK in fully jabbed percentages

Six EU states have now fully inoculated a larger share of their total populations with a coronavirus vaccine than the UK, after the bloc’s dire initial rollout took off while Britain’s impressive early jab rate has slumped.

According to government and health service figures collated by the online science publication Our World In Data, Malta, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Ireland have all overtaken the UK in terms of the percentages of their populations who are fully vaccinated.

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UK agrees to consider providing safe haven for Afghan journalists

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U-turn over those who worked for British media follows outcry from newspapers and broadcasters

The foreign secretary has agreed to consider allowing Afghan journalists who worked for the British to flee to the UK if their lives are endangered by the resurgence of the Taliban, after an outcry from a coalition of British newspapers and broadcasters.

Dominic Raab signalled the policy U-turn on Friday, saying he recognised the bravery of the Afghan journalists. A scheme that was set up to offer a safe haven to Afghans who worked with the British will be expanded to include those who worked as journalists, it was reported.

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‘New wave of volatility’: Covid stirs up grievances in Latin America

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A new series on Covid’s global political impact starts by looking at how the pandemic has fuelled turbulence in Latin America and the Caribbean

For Filipe da Silva, hitting the streets was about staying alive.

“Unfortunately, Brazil elected a murderer,” the 28-year-old declared as he and thousands of fellow protesters streamed through the seaside city of Fortaleza last month to decry the president’s bungling of a Covid epidemic that has killed more than half a million people.

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‘It is a bit annoying’: Italy’s Covid pass restrictions kick in

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Green pass rule has prompted some protests but not on same scale as similar scheme in France

The ritual of coffee and breakfast at the bar in Italy has become slightly more complicated as restrictions on unvaccinated citizens kicked in.

People can still drink coffee and eat a cornetto, a type of croissant, while standing at the bar or sitting at an outside table without needing to present a so-called green pass. But not if they are seated inside.

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Chinese uproar as state TV host calls gold-medal winner a ‘manly woman’

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Shot put champion Gong Lijiao quizzed about boyfriends and settling down into ‘a woman’s life’

The Chinese state media channel CCTV has been roundly criticised after a TV anchor described an Olympic medallist as a “manly woman” and asked her if she had plans for “a woman’s life”.

Gong Lijiao, 32, won a gold medal in the women’s shot put on Sunday with a personal best of 20.58 metres. It was the first gold medal in a field event for any Chinese athlete ever, and the first gold for an Asian athlete in shot put.

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‘We can’t go back’: the Russian gay family who took refuge in Spain

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Family was targeted in hate campaign on social media after appearing in a food chain’s ad

A Russian lesbian family who received death threats after they appeared in an advertisement for the food chain VkusVill say they feel safe in Barcelona and accepted for who they are.

The family were targeted in a hate campaign on social media after they appeared in the ad. The company later apologised and replaced the photo with one of a heterosexual family.

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Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child sexual abuse images

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Security researchers fear neuralMatch system could be misused to spy on citizens

Apple will scan photo libraries stored on iPhones in the US for known images of child sexual abuse, the company says, drawing praise from child protection groups but crossing a line that privacy campaigners warn could have dangerous ramifications. The company will also examine the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages for the first time.

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‘A violation’: football star recounts having to strip during match to prove she was female

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Tabitha Chawinga, a Malawi international who plays in China, has called for greater safeguards against abuse in her home country

The international footballer Tabitha Chawinga is calling on Malawi’s football authorities to introduce safeguards to protect women from abuse at all levels of the game.

Chawinga, who became the first woman from Malawi to sign for a European football team when she joined the Swedish club Krokom/Dvärsätts IF in 2014, said that she had been forced to strip in public during a match to prove she was female and was regularly trolled on social media about her looks.

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Ethiopia suspends aid groups for ‘spreading misinformation’

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Médecins Sans Frontières and Norwegian Refugee Council, active in war-torn Tigray, in talks over ban

The Ethiopian government has suspended the work of two international aid organisations for three months, including in the conflict-hit Tigray region, accusing them of spreading misinformation.

Ethiopia Current Issues Fact Check, a government-run website focused on Tigray, accused Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) of violating several rules.

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Bryan Adams photographs Cher, Grimes and Iggy Pop for Pirelli calendar

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Jennifer Hudson, St Vincent and other music stars also feature in touring-themed photoshoots conceived by rocker-photographer

Images of recording artists including Cher, Iggy Pop, Jennifer Hudson and Grimes will feature in one of the world’s best known photographic commissions.

For the 2022 Pirelli calendar, the rock star and photographer Bryan Adams has captured superstar singers as if they were touring – precisely what they have been unable to do for more than a year.

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Eight dead as wildfires continue to rage across southern Europe

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Deaths occur in Turkey with Italy and Greece also badly hit and thousands evacuated

Eight people have died and thousands have been evacuated from their homes as extreme wildfires continue to rage in parts of southern Europe.

Related: The photo that has come to define Turkey’s wildfires

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Biden grants ‘safe haven’ to Hongkongers in US amid China crackdown

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President signs memo allowing people from Hong Kong currently residing in US to live and work in country for 18 months

Joe Biden has granted temporary refuge to people from Hong Kong amid the Chinese government’s effort to crush the pro-democracy movement and tighten its control on a city once known for its freedom.

Related: Hong Kong singer and activist arrested over ‘corrupt conduct’

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Russian gay family in controversial ad flee to Spain after threats

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Lesbian couple faced hate campaign after supermarket chain VkusVill called the promotion ‘a mistake’

A lesbian couple and their family, who were featured in an advert for a Russian supermarket chain that led to a national scandal have fled the country after facing online abuse and death threats.

Mother Yuma, daughters Mila and Alina, and Alina’s girlfriend Ksyusha have said they were forced to leave Russia for Spain after they featured in an ad in which they said they enjoyed VkusVill’s onigiri rice balls and hummus.

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Ghana court frees 21 arrested for attending May LGBTQ+ event

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Acquittal comes after attorney general said evidence insufficient to prosecute for unlawful assembly

A Ghanaian court has acquitted and freed 21 people who were arrested during a crackdown on homosexuality in May for attending an LGBTQ+ event.

Gay sex is a criminal offence in the west African country and members of the LGBTQ+ community often face discrimination.

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Belarus sprinter who fled to Poland tells compatriots ‘not to be afraid’

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Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has arrived in Poland under diplomatic protection after seeking help in Japanese airport

A Belarusian sprinter who took refuge in the Polish embassy to avoid being bundled on a plane back to Minsk has spoken out about her dramatic experience, telling Belarusians “not to be afraid and, if they’re under pressure, speak out”.

In her first press conference from Poland, where she arrived under diplomatic protection this week, the Olympic athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she had decided not to return to Belarus after her grandmother told her by telephone that she had been slammed on television as a traitor and called “mentally ill” for criticising her coaches’ “negligence”.

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Saga of sprinter shows nothing in Belarus is outside politics

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Analysis: Krystsina Tsimanouskaya stunned, but Lukashenko regime’s brutal suppression of all criticism is proving pervasive

The saga of the sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya has shown how the Belarusian government’s brutal suppression of all criticism has politicised the lives and actions of even those hesitant to openly oppose the country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko.

“I am stunned that this situation has become a political scandal,” Tsimanouskaya said during a press-conference in Warsaw, where she arrived from Tokyo via Vienna on Wednesday. “This situation was only about sport … all that I wanted was for people to take responsibility.”

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