Raging floods caused by heavy rain devastated parts of Germany and Belgium on Thursday, killing more than 40 people, destroying buildings and sweeping away vehicles. The full extent of the damage remains unclear because many villages were cut off by floodwaters and landslides
Continue reading...Category Archives: World News
Covid live: WHO says vaccination proof should not be needed for travel; Barcelona curfew returns as cases rise
WHO condemns banning people from travel if they aren’t fully jabbed; Catalan city and surrounding area returning to curfew after just two and a half months
- France achieves record jabs with Macron’s ‘big stick’ approach
- Long Covid has more than 200 symptoms, study finds
- Sydney hospitals stretched to ‘the brink’ as Covid crisis sidelines staff
- Health service could be overwhelmed this winter, UK report warns
- See all our coronavirus coverage
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus will share proposals for a phase 2 study into the origins of the coronavirus with member states tomorrow, its emergency director Mike Ryan has said.
“We look forward to working with our Chinese counterparts on that process and the director-general will outline measures to member states”, Ryan said.
Related: Covid origins: Australia’s role in the feedback loop promoting the Wuhan lab leak theory
Related: Did Covid come from a Wuhan lab? What we know so far
Increased drinking during the Covid pandemic may have fuelled a sharp rise in deaths from diseases caused by alcohol, data for England suggests. While hospitality venues closed for much of last year during lockdown, figures suggest an increase in drinking at home.
According to a report by Public Health England, which looked at alcohol consumption and harm during the pandemic, the number of deaths in England from diseases caused by drinking increased by 20% in 2020 compared with 2019.
Related: Surge in alcohol-related deaths in England during lockdown, report finds
Continue reading...Biden to host Merkel at White House as German chancellor prepares to leave office – live
- German-US pair to meet before holding joint press conference
- US president hopes to strengthen alliances after Trump’s tenure
The Guardian’s Luke Harding, Julian Borger and Dan Sabbagh report:
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
Related: Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House
In their meeting this afternoon, Joe Biden and Angela Merkel will almost certainly discuss the future of Afghanistan as the US military withdraws from the country.
Biden said last week that the withdrawal from Afghanistan will conclude by August 31, although the Pentagon has said that the operation is already 90% complete.
But even as high-level US diplomats head to the region, they are encountering doubts from Afghanistan’s neighbours about any such security partnerships with the US. This is in contrast to 2001, when Central Asian countries made their territory available for US bases, troops and other access when the US hit back for the 9/11 attacks plotted by al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
There is distrust of the US as a reliable long-term partner, after an only partly successful war in Afghanistan and years of widely fluctuating US engagement regionally and globally, say former American diplomats. Russia also says a permanent US military base in its Central Asia sphere of influence would be ‘unacceptable’.
Related: US aims to woo Central Asian leaders for secure base near Afghanistan
Continue reading...At least 38 dead in ‘catastrophic’ flooding in western Germany
More missing as buildings give way amid heavy rain and flooding
At least 38 people have died and dozens are missing or awaiting rescue from rooftops after heavy rain and floods caused buildings to collapse in two western German states.
Up to 70 people were reported missing after several houses collapsed overnight in Schuld in the Eifel mountain range in Rhineland-Palatinate state.
Continue reading...Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries dies after shooting
Family announces death of 64-year-old just over a week after attack in Amsterdam, reports say
The Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has died just over a week after he was shot in the head in central Amsterdam, local media have reported, citing a statement released by the veteran journalist’s family.
“Peter fought to the end but was unable to win the battle,” the statement said, according to RTL Nieuws. “He died surrounded by the people who love him. Peter lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free.’.”
Continue reading...How public ‘apologies’ are used against domestic abuse victims in Chechnya
Activists say Ramzan Kadyrov’s regime uses televised confessions ‘under duress’ to hold back women’s rights, despite changes in society
Khalimat Taramova, the 22-year-old daughter of a prominent Chechen businessman, sits demurely on a velvet sofa ornately embellished in gold. She is wearing a modest dress and a headscarf. With her on the sofa are three men dressed in suits. They are appearing on Grozny TV, the state television channel of Russia’s Chechen Republic.
Only a couple of weeks before the programme was shown on 14 June, Taramova fled her home, where she said she was subjected to violence after going against her family’s wishes. She sought help from a group of women’s rights activists, the Marem project , who let her stay in a flat owned by one of its members in the neighbouring republic of Dagestan. In a video released on social media on 6 June, she pleaded for the Chechen authorities not to come looking for her.
Continue reading...EU launches legal action over LGBTQ+ rights in Hungary and Poland
Ruling is part of ongoing fight for rule of law and freedom from discrimination in heart Europe
The EU executive has launched legal action against Hungary and Poland to defend LGBTQ+ rights in the latest battle over values with the two nationalist governments in central Europe.
The announcement that Hungary and Poland’s governments could end up in the EU’s highest court is part of an ongoing existential fight for the rule of law and freedom from discrimination in the heart of Europe.
Continue reading...France achieves record Covid jabs with Macron’s ‘big stick’ approach
800,000 vaccinations in single day follows announcement that visits to many public venues will require a health pass
Within 72 hours of the French learning they would soon need to be vaccinated or tested to go to the cafe, more than 3 million had booked appointments and France had broken its vaccination record, administering 800,000 shots in a single day.
At the same time, daily infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, continued to climb, reaching nearly 9,000 on Wednesday – and on Bastille Day, about 20,000 demonstrators nationwide protested against what some called a “dictatorship”.
Continue reading...EU companies can ban employees wearing headscarves, court rules
Prohibition can only be implemented against all religious symbols as part of a policy of neutrality
Private employers in the EU can ban people from wearing religious symbols, including headscarves, in order to present an image of neutrality, the bloc’s highest court has ruled.
Companies can ban headscarves provided such a prohibition is part of a policy against all religious and political symbols, the court said on Thursday, reaffirming a 2017 ruling. The latest judgment went further by examining the grounds employers can use when making such prohibitions.
Continue reading...Fresh evidence of violence at Libyan detention centres as boats turned back
Amnesty International says sexual abuse and beatings rife at camps for those forcibly returned after trying to cross the Med
New evidence of starvation and abuses inside migrant detention centres has been collected from migrants inside seven facilities across Libya.
A report by Amnesty International comes less than a month after Médecins Sans Frontières announced it was suspending its operations at two centres in Libya because of increasing violence towards refugees and migrants.
Continue reading...Self-censorship hits Hong Kong book fair in wake of national security law
Far fewer politically sensitive titles are on display in the first such event since Beijing imposed sweeping new regulations
Booksellers at Hong Kong’s annual book fair are offering a reduced selection of books deemed politically sensitive, as they try to avoid violating a sweeping national security law imposed on the city last year.
The fair was postponed twice last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. It usually draws hundreds of thousands of people looking for everything from the latest bestsellers to works by political figures.
Continue reading...South Africa: 10,000 troops deployed and reservists called up to quell unrest
Warnings of looming humanitarian crisis as looting and violence hits food, fuel and medicine chains
South Africa says it has put 10,000 soldiers on the streets and is calling up reservists for the first time for decades following days of looting and violence that have threatened food and fuel supplies across the country.
The death toll stands at 117, and more than 3,000 people have been arrested according to official figures, since the former president Jacob Zuma began a 15-month jail term, sparking protests that rapidly turned into a wave of looting of shops, malls and warehouses.
Continue reading...Kremlin papers appear to show Putin’s plot to put Trump in White House
Exclusive: Documents suggest Russia launched secret multi-agency effort to interfere in US democracy
Vladimir Putin personally authorised a secret spy agency operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security council, according to what are assessed to be leaked Kremlin documents.
The key meeting took place on 22 January 2016, the papers suggest, with the Russian president, his spy chiefs and senior ministers all present.
Continue reading...Land defenders: will the Cáceres verdict break the ‘cycle of violence’ in Honduras?
Conviction of businessman who conspired in murder of indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres raises hopes of end to impunity
When Bertha Zuñiga heard that a former Honduran army intelligence officer and businessman had been found guilty of collaborating in the murder of her mother, Berta Cáceres, she breathed a big sigh of relief. Five years after the environmental campaigner was assassinated by hired hitmen, this was the verdict her family and friends had been waiting for.
“I know there is still a long road, maybe very long and very hard, but to have achieved a guilty verdict against the [former] president of a corporation, [who is] connected to the armed forces: it is unprecedented in our country,” says Zuñiga, 30.
Continue reading...Long Covid has more than 200 symptoms, study finds
Calls for national screening programme as symptoms revealed range from brain fog to tinnitus
The largest ever international study of people with long Covid has identified more than 200 symptoms and prompted researchers to call for a national screening programme.
The study found the myriad symptoms of long Covid – from brain fog and hallucinations to tremors and tinnitus – spanned 10 of the body’s organ systems, and a third of the symptoms continued to affect patients for at least six months.
Continue reading...Nepal sees huge rise in maternal deaths as Covid keeps women at home
Health workers fear deaths could reach levels not seen this century as up to 90% miss check-ups and many opt for home births
Earlier this month, 21-year-old Lakhu BK decided to have her baby at home in her village in the far west of Nepal. She had feared contracting Covid-19 if she went to a health centre. She lost her life giving birth.
“I thought my daughter-in-law will die from [the] virus but did not think she would die from being unable to give birth,” said her mother-in-law, Pamfi BK, 50.
Continue reading...One of Napoleon’s hats could fetch €600,000 at auction
Felt bicorne is part of sale at Sotheby’s in Paris to mark bicentenary of Napoleon’s death
One of Napoleon’s distinctive black felt bicorne hats, perhaps worn during his army’s crushing defeat of Russia in 1807, is to appear at auction.
Sotheby’s in Paris on Thursday announced it would commemorate the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death with a sale dedicated to a man who still splits opinion. Should he be celebrated as a brilliant military strategist, or damned as a ruthless warmongering dictator?
Continue reading...Citizenship for sale: fugitives, politicians and disgraced businesspeople buying Vanuatu passports
Revealed: more than 2,000 people, including individuals sought by police, have purchased passports, and with them visa-free access to the EU and UK
- Who’s buying Vanuatu’s passports? Crypto moguls, wanted men and even a prime minister
- Ex-bikie and missing property magnate among Australian names granted Vanuatu citizenship
A controversial “golden passports” scheme run by the Pacific nation of Vanuatu saw more than 2,000 people, including a slew of disgraced businesspeople and individuals sought by police in countries all over the world, purchase citizenship in 2020 – and with it visa-free access to the EU and UK, the Guardian can reveal.
Among those granted citizenship through the country’s development support program were a Syrian businessman with US sanctions against his businesses, a suspected North Korean politician, an Italian businessman accused of extorting the Vatican, a former member of a notorious Australian motorcycle gang, and South African brothers accused of a $3.6bn cryptocurrency heist.
Continue reading...‘We’re going to get this done’: Biden on Capitol Hill to push infrastructure package – live
- President to discuss massive $3.5tn plan over lunch with Democrats
- Senate minority leader McConnell hits back at Biden on voting rights
Joe Biden is meeting with a bipartisan group of mayors and governors to discuss the bipartisan infrastructure framework.
Among the attendees are New Jersey governor Phil Murphy and Illinois governor JB Pritzker, both Democrats, as well as Vermont governor Phil Scott, a Republican.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her appointees to the January 6 select committee earlier this month, after the chamber voted in favor of forming the panel.
In addition to Republican Liz Cheney, Pelosi named Democrats Bennie Thompson, Elaine Luria, Jamie Raskin, Stephanie Murphy, Pete Aguilar, Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren to the committee. Thompson, who chairs the House homeland security committee, will serve as chairman.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live: riots hamper medical services in Covid ravaged South Africa; record cases in Indonesia and Vietnam
South Africa vaccine rollout disrupted by unrest; Indonesia reports 54,517 new cases; Vietnam has 2,934 new cases
- EU not adding UK to safe travel list
- Delta variant gains ground in US amid vaccine divide
- ‘Safe and secure’ Olympics promised as Tokyo Covid cases soar
- WHO warns of ‘chaos’ if individuals mix Covid vaccines
- Battle for oxygen as Myanmar faces worst Covid outbreak
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 12,116 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 230 more fatalities, bringing its total figures to 2,616,827 infections and 235,507 deaths, Reuters reports.
The government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher, and separate data published recently suggested the actual death toll could be 60% higher than the official count.
Continue reading...