Category Archives: World News

Spain launches inquiry after dams drained for profit during drought

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Firm used water to generate cheap electricity while price to customers in grip of heatwave is at record high

The Spanish government has launched an inquiry after it emerged that a power company drained two reservoirs during a heatwave and drought in order to profit from exceptionally high electricity prices.

Iberdrola, the country’s second biggest producer, drained the dams in Zamora and Cáceres provinces in western Spain over a period of a few weeks to produce cheap hydroelectricity while the price to consumers is at a record high.

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What does the Taliban’s return mean for al-Qaida in Afghanistan?

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UK defence secretary is worried that ‘al-Qaida will probably come back’ – but it is already there

As the Taliban prepare to rule Afghanistan after sweeping across the country in less than a week, an obvious question is what does this mean for the future of al-Qaida and other extremist Islamist groups committed to waging a global jihad.

There is no doubt that the astonishing rapidity of the Taliban’s victory will deliver a tremendous boost to Islamist extremists everywhere – whether al-Qaida, Islamic State, fighters in Mozambique or Syria, or jihadi fanboys in bedsits in Birmingham or Manila.

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Germany ‘set for biggest rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years’

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Increase means country will slip back from goal of cutting emissions by 40% from 1990 levels

Germany is forecast to record its biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 this year as the economy rebounds from the pandemic-related downturn, according to a report by an environmental thinktank.

Berlin-based Agora Energiewende said the country’s emissions would probably rise by the equivalent of 47m tons of carbon dioxide.

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British man accused of spying for Russia will not be extradited from Germany

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Counter-espionage laws too weak to deal with spies acting against British interests

The British national accused of selling secrets to Russia will not be extradited back home to face justice despite the seriousness of the claims.

Britain’s “archaic” counter-espionage laws have been exposed, say sources, by the arrest of David Smith, 57, a security guard contracted to the Berlin embassy. They say there is little point in bringing him home because the current legislation is too weak to deal with spies acting against British interests.

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Expulsions lead BBC to fear for reporters in authoritarian regimes

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Broadcaster says relations with China and Russia are fraught as its correspondent Sarah Rainsford is forced out of Moscow

BBC news executives vowed on Saturday night to continue to report from Russia and China despite growing fears that both countries are becoming increasingly difficult to cover.

After a surprise Russian move last week that will force correspondent Sarah Rainsford permanently out of Moscow at the end of the month, a senior figure in BBC news said that Russia’s decision not to renew her visa marks a new low in relations. “Efforts are being made to keep communications open but the feeling is that Sarah is sadly right when she says she doesn’t see Russia changing its mind,” he said.

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Among ruins of bombed city towers, Gazans still reel from shock and pain

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Three months on from the devastating conflict, little has been rebuilt of the bombed high-rises that were homes and offices

Four years ago, Jehad Judah was pleased to be able to afford to buy his family a flat in al-Jalaa, a 14-storey building in downtown Gaza City. The upscale tower block was home to about 700 people as well as lawyers, computer software businesses and journalism bureaus belonging to the Associated Press of the US and Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

The 54-year-old bespectacled civil servant spent the first 30 years of his life living in the jumble of breeze-block housing of a nearby refugee camp. After he met his wife in 2001, the couple moved to Gaza to start a family. The Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the strip which came along a few years later made life in the city hard, but al-Jalaa still offered a decent standard of living, he said.

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Afghan women’s defiance and despair: ‘I never thought I’d have to wear a burqa. My identity will be lost’

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As city after city falls to the Taliban, women fear that the freedoms won since 2001 will be crushed

In a market in Kabul, Aref is doing a booming trade. At first glance, the walls of his shop seem to be curtained in folds of blue fabric. On closer inspection, dozens and dozens of blue burqas hang like spectres from hooks on the wall.

As the Taliban close in on Kabul, women inside the city are getting ready for what may be coming. “Before, most of our customers were from the provinces,” says Aref. “Now it is city women who are buying them.”

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Afghanistan: Taliban close in on Kabul as last government stronghold in north falls – live updates

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Capital hit by blackout as insurgent fighters reach outskirts and western nations race to evacuate citizens

We’ll have more from Jalalabad shortly. Reuters is reporting that the Taliban’s taking of the city has been confirmed by an official source.

US secretary of state Anthony Blinken has just tweeted that he has had a “wery productive conversation” with Canada’s foreign minister:

Very productive conversation with Canadian Foreign Minister @MarcGarneau about our efforts to reach a diplomatic solution in Afghanistan. I am grateful for Canada’s shared commitment to bring vulnerable Afghans to safety.

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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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