Category Archives: World News

New Zealand’s prison penpals: ‘I had to look at the good things I see in him’

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Experts say writing to people on the outside can help prisoners build purpose – but it goes both ways in what can be a difficult relationship

For the first time since 82-year-old Jan Skilling was a young girl, she has time to spare.

Widowed at 40 and responsible for a nest of kids, grandkids, and now “more great-grandkids than I care to count”, Skilling has spent any spare hour since she can remember looking after everyone but herself. So, in 2017, with retirement from her teaching career looming, she knew it was time for a change.

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Iran’s supreme leader says rejected election candidates were ‘wronged’

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei concedes that some candidates disqualified from 18 June vote were unfairly treated

Iran’s supreme leader has said that some candidates rejected from this month’s presidential election had been “wronged” and unfairly smeared, but the country’s powerful Guardian Council said the decision to ban them would not be reversed.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on Iran’s affairs, last month endorsed the watchdog’s rejection of several prominent candidates – including former parliament speaker Ali Larijani – for the 18 June vote.

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Nigeria suspends Twitter after president’s tweet was deleted

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Information minister blames use of platform for ‘activities capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence’

Nigeria’s government has announced an indefinite suspension of Twitter in the country, two days after the social media company removed a post from president Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists.

The information minister, Lai Mohammed, said the government had acted because of “the persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence”.

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UN experts urge Canada and Vatican to hold swift mass graves investigation

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Nine experts call for ‘full-fledged investigations’ after discovery of remains of 215 Indigenous children at former residential school

UN human rights experts have urged the Canadian government and the Vatican to hold swift and thorough investigations into the discovery of unmarked graves at a former residential school in British Columbia.

The unmarked graves of up to 215 Indigenous children were discovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential Schools last week, using ground-penetrating radar.

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UK strikes trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein

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Digital documents to be used to cut post-Brexit paperwork under agreement hailed by Liz Truss as ‘massive boost’

A trade deal struck with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein with provisions for digital paperwork to cut down the time and costs of post-Brexit border bureaucracy has been championed by the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, as a “major boost”.

After months of difficult talks, the comprehensive trade deal was hailed by both the UK and Norwegian governments as being pioneering in its scope and measures, with tariff-free trade in industrial goods secured.

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German cardinal offers to resign over sexual abuse ‘catastrophe’

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Reinhard Marx tells pope he wants to share responsibility for church’s failure to deal with abuse by clergy

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of Germany’s most senior Catholics, has offered his resignation to the pope over the “catastrophe” of sexual abuse by clerics and other church members.

Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising and a prominent liberal, said in a letter to Pope Francis that he wanted to share responsibility for the abuse that had taken place over decades and the failure of the church to deal with it.

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EU bans Belarus planes from its airspace over activist arrest

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Move follows forced landing of Ryanair flight and detention of Raman Pratasevich last month

The EU has banned Belarusian carriers from its airspace and airports over the forced landing of Ryanair flight FR4978 and arrest of the opposition activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich.

EU ambassadors agreed during a meeting on Friday to require member states to deny the country’s carriers landing and taking off rights and forbid them from overflying the territory of the 27 member states from Saturday.

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US government report finds no evidence UFOs were alien – but doesn’t rule it out

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Officials cannot explain strange movements in skies that baffle the US military and scientific establishment, New York Times reports

US intelligence authorities have not found any evidence that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) seen by navy pilots in recent years were otherworldly alien spacecraft– but apparently did not rule it out, either.

Officials cannot explain the strange movements in the skies that continue to baffle the US military and scientific establishment, the New York Times has reported, based on information from senior administration officials who were briefed on the outcome of a much-awaited government assessment about these phenomena.

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Belize gripped by arrest of Ashcroft son’s partner over officer’s death

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Discontent simmers over police handling of investigation as Canadian Jasmine Hartin awaits bail hearing

A late-night stroll in the moonlight, then a sudden and fatal gunshot. What exactly happened between the socialite partner of the son of a billionaire Tory donor and a senior police officer in the early hours of last Friday in the resort of Mata Rocks has gripped the small Caribbean nation of Belize and turned into an international drama. It is now a major test for the country’s legal and criminal system.

This week a 32-year-old Canadian woman, Jasmine Hartin, was accused of the negligent manslaughter of a local police superintendent, Henry Jemmott. The case has attracted attention because Hartin is the partner of Andrew Ashcroft, son of Michael Ashcroft, the Conservative party donor and Belize’s most influential resident. Lord Ashcroft is a former Tory party deputy chairman, a one-time member of the House of Lords, and a billionaire.

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What do you think of it so far? Voters rate Amlo’s Mexico ‘transformation’

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President Andrés Manuel López Obrador remains popular but midterm elections may reflect judgments of his handling of the pandemic and endemic violence

Nearly three years have passed since Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president of Mexico and, before a sea of euphoric supporters, promised: “I will not fail you. You will not be disappointed.”

Related: ‘Huge incentives to kill’: Mexico crime groups target election candidates

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Uefa and UK discuss easing restrictions for Euro 2020; Putin blames money for EU delay of Sputnik V approval

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UK currently has the strictest entry requirements of any host country; Russian president spoke as Serbia starts to produce vaccine

Here are some of the key developments over the past few hours:

A quarter of elderly black people in the UK have not been vaccinated, recent figures show, despite signs that hesitancy is improving generally.

Nearly six months after the government kicked off the country’s most ambitious vaccination campaign, almost one in four black people over the age of 70 were not vaccinated as of 26 May, compared with 97% of white people of the same age.

Related: One in four elderly black people in the UK still not vaccinated

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‘Unchain your wife’: the Orthodox women shining a light on ‘get’ refusal

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Orthodox Jewish men give their wives a ‘get’ as the couple is divorcing, which seals the divorce according to religious law

On Route 59 in Monsey, New York, an Orthodox Jewish enclave in upstate New York, there is a large billboard that says in big block letters: “Dovid Wasserman. Give your wife a get!”

A “get” is a document Orthodox Jewish men give their wives as the couple is divorcing; it seals the divorce according to religious law, meaning that the husband decides if and when the divorce is final. Without it, the woman cannot move on with her life.

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‘This isn’t ideological’: reluctant ‘green hero’ behind Exxon coup

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Tiny hedge fund Engine No 1 says a strong climate strategy simply makes good business sense

The activist hedge fund behind ExxonMobil’s boardroom coup last week has claimed another seat from the oil giant’s board, to take the number of new directors who will push for climate action from within the company to three.

The result of last week’s shareholder vote has installed the hedge fund, named Engine No 1 after a San Francisco fire station, as a reluctant hero of the climate movement.

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‘Running dry’: Zimbabweans turned away for vaccinations after shortages

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As staff sit idle in treatment centres, anger focuses on government failures to secure supplies as fears of a third wave increase

Hundreds of people are being turned away from vaccination centres in Zimbabwe as the country’s supplies of China’s Sinovac vaccine appear to have run out, triggering panic that the government is failing to acquire new stocks.

While the government said that it had taken delivery of more medicines in recent weeks, centres in Harare have not had any stocks for nearly a week and there is growing anger at the failure to communicate acute vaccine shortages, which are being reported around the country.

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Amazônia: life and death in the Brazilian rainforest

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The 10th edition of the Carmignac photojournalism award was dedicated to the Amazon and the issues related to its deforestation. Photojournalist Tommaso Protti, accompanied by journalist Sam Cowie, travelled thousands of miles across the Brazilian Amazon. From the eastern region of Maranhão to the western region of Rondônia, through the states of Pará and Amazonas, they portrayed modern-day life in the Brazilian Amazon, where social and humanitarian crises overlap with destruction of the rainforest.

As I sat in my hotel room in Marabá, a city in the Amazon state of Pará, Jornal Nacional – Brazil’s flagship news programme – transmitted images of the country’s newly elected president, Jair Bolsonaro. “The Indigenous in their reservations are like animals in a zoo,” he said. It was November 2018.

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Palestinians welcome end of Netanyahu era – but fear more of the same

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Relief in the occupied territories is mixed with sense that ‘nothing will change’

“It is the end of Netanyahu’s dark era,” says Kareem Hassanian, 44, a Palestinian psychologist who lives in the Gaza Strip, a place still counting the cost of the latest devastating war between Israel and Hamas.

He adds quickly: “And it’s the beginning of a new dark era. The new coalition won’t be different from the previous one. Israel still occupies Palestine. We will not see the end of the occupation in the coming years.”

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European finance ministers say deal to stop global tax abuse is ‘within reach’

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France, Germany, Italy and Spain increase pressure for an end to loopholes that enable multinationals to pay minimal tax

The EU’s four biggest economies have raised the pressure for a landmark agreement to curb tax abuse by multinational companies to be reached at G7 meetings in London on Friday.

Sending a united message in a letter in the Guardian, the finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy and Spain said a critical moment had been reached to strike a blow against tax avoidance as governments around the world attempt to rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Trouble in paradise: Indian islands face ‘brazen’ new laws and Covid crisis

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‘Authoritarian’ rules upset sleepy Lakshadweep’s Muslim majority while Covid cases soar from zero to 10% of population

According to local people, the problems for Lakshadweep, an archipelago of paradise islands in southern India, began the day the new government-appointed administrator, Praful Khoda Patel, landed on a charter flight.

The Lakshadweep islands, an Indian union territory off the coast of Kerala, have a population of just 64,000 and are renowned for their crystal-blue waters, white sands and relatively untouched way of life. They had, up to that point, also remained completely unaffected by the pandemic, due to strict controls on movement and enforced quarantine.

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‘Africa has so much talent – we can’t even grasp it’: Angélique Kidjo on pop, politics and power

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She’s played with everyone from Tony Allen to David Byrne. Now the Grammy winner is singing with a new generation of African stars, celebrating their continent while confronting its failings

On a video call from Paris, Angélique Kidjo, 60, shifts and leaps in her seat with the restive energy of a teenager. “I’m always changing and innovating and this album is no different,” she says. “Change brings life to things; it keeps me going. In life, you never know what to expect.”

Over a career that spans five decades, the Beninese artist has crossed paths with everyone from Gilberto Gil and Tony Allen to Talking Heads, Bono and Vampire Weekend. She has four Grammy wins in “world music” categories – second only to Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

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Opposition decries ‘hostage’ video as Belarus airs more footage of detained journalist

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Supporters say Raman Pratasevich’s apparent confession, in which the blogger broke down in tears, was the result of ‘abuse, torture and threats’

Detained journalist Raman Pratasevich appeared on Belarusian state television on Thursday, tearfully confessing to his role in anti-government protests in an interview which the opposition said was made under duress.

In his third appearance since his Ryanair plane was forced to land in Belarus by the authorities on 23 May, Pratasevich admitted to plotting to topple President Alexander Lukashenko by organising “riots” and recanted earlier criticism of the veteran leader.

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