Category Archives: World News

Hong Kong security law: verdict expected in first ever trial

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Tong Ying-kit case seen as a departure from Hong Kong’s common law traditions, with accused denied bail and a jury trial

Three Hong Kong judges are expected to deliver a verdict on Tuesday in the first trial of a person charged under the national security law, a landmark case with implications on how the legislation reshapes the city’s common law traditions.

Former waiter Tong Ying-kit, 24, has pleaded not guilty to charges of terrorism and inciting secession, as well as an alternative charge of dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm. The acts he is accused of allegedly occurred on 1 July 2020 shortly after the law was enacted.

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Jeff Bezos offers Nasa $2bn in exchange for moon mission contract

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  • Billionaire lost out to Elon Musk’s SpaceX in lunar bid
  • Contract is to build craft to take astronauts to the moon

Fresh off his trip to space, Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover up to $2bn in Nasa costs if the US space agency awards his company Blue Origin a contract to make a spacecraft designed to land astronauts back on the moon.

Nasa in April awarded SpaceX, owned by rival billionaire Elon Musk, a $2.9bn contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the lunar surface as early as 2024, rejecting bids from Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. Blue Origin had partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper in the bid.

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Covid vaccines mandated for employees of a US federal agency for the first time – as it happened

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In a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation vaccine monitor, 23% of Republicans said they definitely won’t get vaccinated, while 16% of independents and 2% of Democrats said the same.

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said local leaders, particularly in areas with low rates of vaccination, needed to lead outreach efforts to get people vaccinated.

Related: Fauci says health officials considering mask guidance revision for vaccinated

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Britney Spears asks for accountant to replace father as conservator

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  • Los Angeles court filing reveals singer’s request for Jason Rubin
  • Father Jamie Spears has been conservator for 13 years

An attorney for Britney Spears has asked that a new conservator be named to oversee the pop singer’s finances following recent testimony that she wanted her father ousted from the role, the New York Times reported on Monday.

In a Los Angeles court filing, lawyer Matthew Rosengart requested that accountant Jason Rubin be named the conservator of Spears’ estate, a post currently held by her father, Jamie Spears, the Times reported.

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Biden and Kadhimi seal agreement to end US combat mission in Iraq

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Joe Biden and the Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, have sealed an agreement formally ending the US combat mission in Iraq by the end of 2021, more than 18 years after troops were sent to the country.

Coupled with Biden’s withdrawal of the last American forces in Afghanistan by the end of August, the Democratic president is completing US combat missions in the two wars that George W Bush began under his watch.

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Pink offers to pay fines for Norwegian women’s beach handball team

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European Handball Federation fined players €1,500 for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms

Pop star Pink has offered to pay the “sexist” fines handed out to the Norwegian women’s beach handball team after they refused to wear bikini bottoms while playing.

The European Handball Federation, the sport’s governing body, fined the team €1,500 (£1,295) last week for “improper clothing” at the European Beach Handball Championships.

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Russia blocks access to websites of Alexei Navalny and close allies

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Action comes as Kremlin increases pressure on opponents and critics ahead of parliamentary elections

Russian authorities have restricted access to Alexei Navalny’s website and those of dozens of his close allies, the imprisoned opposition leader’s team has said.

The action came as the government increased pressure on opposition supporters, independent journalists and human rights activists ahead of the country’s parliamentary election. The September vote is widely seen as an important part of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to cement his rule before a 2024 presidential election.

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Billionaire tycoon named as Lebanese PM as economic crisis bites

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Protesters wanted someone from outside the elite, but parliament went for Najib Miqati, who has led the country twice before

After a year-long standoff, Lebanon has named a new prime minister who its feuding factions hope can ward off a total economic collapse and save an estimated 2 million people from the brink of poverty.

Protesters had demanded the selection of a figure removed from the political elite, but the Lebanese parliament instead named a billionaire tycoon, Najib Miqati, who had led the country twice before, with little success, and was accused by a state prosecutor in 2019 of embezzlement – a charge he denies and has described as politically motivated.

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‘What can we do?’ Chinese discuss role of climate crisis in deadly floods

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Media and citizens have begun asking if China has properly prepared for climate emergency

At about 5pm last Tuesday, as heavy rainfall continued to pound her apartment building in Zhengzhou, the climate policy researcher Zhang Jin headed out to her local supermarket. But the buns and vegetables were almost all gone, and the queue in the supermarket was “over a hundred metres’ long”, she later recalled.

Related: China floods: thousands trapped without fresh water as rain moves north

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‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study

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More heatwaves even worse than those seen recently in north-west of America forecast in research

“Record-shattering” heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research. The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives.

The shocking temperature extremes suffered in the Pacific north-west and in Australia 2019-2020 were “exactly what we are talking about”, said the scientists. But they said the world had yet to see anything close to the worst impacts possible, even under the global heating that had already happened.

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Covid: more EU states to restrict venue access for unvaccinated people

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Ireland and Italy among those joining France in requiring vaccine passes to enter bars and restaurants

An increasing number of European governments are planning to prevent unvaccinated people from being able to attend hospitality venues such as bars and restaurants this summer, as Emmanuel Macron celebrates the fruits of the recent announcement of the policy in France.

France on Monday passed the threshold of 40 million people having received at least one vaccine dose – close to 60% of the population. Macron tweeted: “Together we will defeat the virus. We continue!”

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How ‘super-detector’ dogs are helping free Iraq from the terror of Isis mines

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Branco and X-Lang are part of an elite team – four canines and their Yazidi handlers – leading a groundbreaking sniff-search for the homemade devices that litter the land

On the wide, flat plain of the Sinjar district of northern Iraq, Naif Khalaf Qassim lets his dog, an eight-year-old Belgian shepherd, range across the dry earth on a 30-metre leash until Branco stops and sits, tail wagging, looking towards his handler with enthusiasm.

Branco has detected something underground and, when the mine-clearing team is brought in to investigate, they find an improvised explosive device (IED), known locally as a VS500.

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‘Those children could be my relatives’: Canada’s first Indigenous forensic pathologist on unmarked graves

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Kona Williams says many unanswered questions remain about how to investigate remains found at the sites of residential schools

In her job as a forensic pathologist, Kona Williams investigates hundreds of deaths a year.

But when she heard that unmarked graves had been found at the site of a residential school in late May, she was seized by a grim realization.

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Cars swept away as Belgian town hit by worst floods in decades – video

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The southern Belgian town of Dinant was hit by the heaviest floods in decades on Saturday after a two-hour thunderstorm turned streets into torrential streams that washed away cars and pavements. It was the second time in just over a week that downpours have affected the region  – more than 200 people died in flooding across Belgium and Germany last week. Although the latest flooding has been described as worse than previous weeks, no deaths or injuries have been reported


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Celebrations after Tunisian president sacks prime minister, dissolves government – video

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Crowds of people flooded Tunis on Sunday to celebrate the news that Tunisia's president dismissed the government and froze parliament, in a move that dramatically escalated a political crisis and which his opponents called a coup.

President Kais Saied said he would assume executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister, in the biggest challenge yet to the democratic system Tunisia introduced following its 2011 revolution.

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Coronavirus live news: China reports highest cases since January; France adopts vaccine passports law

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China starts testing 9.3 million people in Nanjing as 76 new cases reported; French parliament adopts law despite protests

Virtual contact during the pandemic made many over-60s feel lonelier and more depressed than no contact at all, new research has found.

Many older people stayed in touch with family and friends during lockdown using the phone, video calls, and other forms of virtual contact. Zoom choirs, online book clubs and virtual bedtime stories with grandchildren helped many stave off isolation.

Related: Virtual contact worse than no contact for over-60s in lockdown, says study

More than 450 key workers with long Covid have told a cross-party parliamentary inquiry of their experiences of the condition, including struggles to return to work and lack of financial support, with one in 10 having lost their job.

Nurses, teachers, GPs, police officers and midwives were among those who shared their experience of long Covid, symptoms of which include debilitating fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, sleeping difficulties and brain fog.

Related: Over 450 key workers with long Covid tell MPs of their struggles

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Schooled for success: the academy in India giving rural children a chance

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Competition is stiff for places at an elite school in Uttar Pradesh, set up by an IT mogul, offering poor students an education out of reach for most

Manu Chauhan used to dread running out of notebooks and pens. Though school in the village of Akrabad in Uttar Pradesh was free, stationery was not. He would have to go to his dad to ask for money, knowing his father earned 3,000 rupees (£30) a month selling insurance.

In September, Chauhan, now 18, will fly to the US to take up his place at Stanford University to study international relations, after graduating from an Indian academy that is educating future leaders in a state that has produced eight of India’s 14 prime ministers.

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Afghanistan civilian casualty figures at record high, UN says

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Report reveals ‘acute rise’ in deaths and injuries since 1 May as Taliban exploit departure of foreign troops

Record numbers of civilians have been killed and injured in Afghanistan in intense fighting since 1 May, when international forces began their final drawdown and the Taliban launched a major offensive.

The heavy toll so far comes largely from battles in rural areas, according to the UN. If the conflict were to spill into more densely populated towns and cities, the consequences could be catastrophic, it says in its report, The Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.

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Tunisia president accused of staging coup after suspending parliament

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Kais Saied invokes emergency article of constitution after violent protests against country’s biggest party

Often touted as the lone success story of the Arab spring revolutions a decade ago, Tunisia is facing a critical challenge to its fledgling democracy after its president suspended parliament and dismissed his prime minister in what critics described as a coup.

Kais Saied, an independent without a party behind him, announced he was invoking an emergency article of Tunisia’s constitution late on Sunday night after a day of violent protests against the country’s biggest party, the moderate Islamist Ennahda movement.

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Blue ticked off: the controversy over the MSC fish ‘ecolabel’

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The MSC’s coveted blue tick is the world’s biggest, and some say best, fishery ecolabel. So why is it in the headlines – and does it really do what it says on the tin?

This month, two right whales in the Gulf of St Lawrence were found entangled in fishing gear. One, a female, was first spotted entangled off Cape Cod last year, but rescuers were not able to fully free her; the other, a male, is believed to have become entangled in the Gulf.

Hunted to near extinction before a partial whaling ban in 1935, North Atlantic right whales are once more critically endangered, with only 356 left. The main threat remains human contact: entanglement in fishing gear, and ship strikes. Fatal encounters, caused in part by the whales’ migratory shift into Canada’s snow crab grounds, have soared: more than a tenth of the population died or were seriously injured between 2017 and 2021, mostly in Canada and New England.

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