Category Archives: World News

IPCC steps up warning on climate tipping points in leaked draft report

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Scientists increasingly concerned about thresholds beyond which recovery may become impossible

Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that global heating will trigger tipping points in Earth’s natural systems, which will lead to widespread and possibly irrevocable disaster, unless action is taken urgently.

The impacts are likely to be much closer than most people realise, a a draft report from the world’s leading climate scientists suggests, and will fundamentally reshape life in the coming decades even if greenhouse gas emissions are brought under some control.

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Death of Romany man knelt on by Czech police must be ‘investigated urgently’

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Council of Europe and human rights groups demand answers after footage shows man being pinned to the ground

Human rights organisations are leading calls for an urgent investigation into the death of a Czech man who died after being restrained by police, after footage of the incident went viral on social media.

The neck restraint technique used during the arrest of a Romany man was “reckless, unnecessary and disproportionate, and therefore unlawful”, according to Amnesty International, who also called on the local authorities for an immediate, impartial investigation and a ban on coercive techniques that severely restrict breathing.

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WHO voices concerns over Sputnik V Covid vaccine plant

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WHO reports issues with quality control data and test results as Slovakia announces it is offloading 160k doses

The World Health Organization has said it has concerns about the methods used at one plant producing the Sputnik V vaccine, as Slovakia announced it would sell or donate 160,000 of the 200,000 doses it has ordered of the Russian shot.

The WHO, which along with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is reviewing Sputnik V for eventual approval, said in a report on Wednesday it had issues with the integrity of quality control data and test results at one of the four production sites it had seen.

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All UK arrivals in EU should be quarantined, says Angela Merkel

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German leader’s comments come as disease control agency says Delta variant will account for 90% of EU cases by end of August

Angela Merkel has said travellers from the UK should be quarantined wherever they arrive in the EU, as the union’s agency for disease control forecast that the Delta variant of Covid will account for 90% of cases in member states by the end of August.

Ahead of Thursday’s summit with fellow EU leaders, the German chancellor said she wanted better coordination to fight the spread of the highly transmissible variant that has surfaced strongly in the UK and is now bedding down in the bloc.

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Sadia Hussein: the FGM survivor who is saving girls from the knife

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Being cut, aged 10, led to extraordinary pain and complications in childbirth. Now Hussein’s campaign to end mutilation has led to a staggering change in attitudes

Sadia Hussein had been in labour for three days when she felt she could take no more. She could hear her mother crying in the distance, pleading with God to save her daughter’s life.

But even though things were clearly not progressing as they should have been, the women in her small Kenyan village were resistant to the idea of sending her to hospital. Her mother told her that doctors would “tear her apart” with a pair of scissors; that, at home, they could at least use a razor. “So now, on top of the overwhelming pain of labour, there was this continuous cutting,” Hussein recalls.

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Scientists identify 29 planets where aliens could observe Earth

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Astronomers estimate 29 habitable planets are positioned to see Earth transit and intercept human broadcasts

For centuries, Earthlings have gazed at the heavens and wondered about life among the stars. But as humans hunted for little green men, the extraterrestrials might have been watching us back.

In new research, astronomers have drawn up a shortlist of nearby star systems where any inquisitive inhabitants on orbiting planets would be well placed to spot life on Earth.

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Hong Kong’s Apple Daily, symbol of pro-democracy movement, to close

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Tabloid founded by Jimmy Lai and targeted by police raid last week will print final edition on Thursday

Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, will shut down online at midnight on Wednesday and print its final edition on Thursday, in a move observers fear signals the death knell for press freedom in the territory.

The paper and its activist founder, Jimmy Lai, had become symbols of the pro-democracy movement and a thorn in the side of Hong Kong’s government and police, making it a prime target in the government’s efforts to stifle Hong Kong’s media.

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‘The blackest day’: Apple Daily’s demise comes as no surprise

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Analysis: a palpable chill has run through the Hong Kong media, amid warnings about ‘fake news’

The fate of Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s bestselling tabloids, should not come as a surprise. On the day Jimmy Lai, its founder, was sentenced to 14 months in prison in April, a commentary in the pro-Beijing newspaper Ta Kung Pao called for a ban on Apple Daily in order to “close national security loopholes”.

The 72-year-old media tycoon and his 26-year-old newspaper have been among the most high-profile critics of Beijing and the controversial national security law (NSL), which they deem “draconian”, but which the authorities say is “necessary”. The law bars secession, subversion and foreign collusion.

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AI helps return Rembrandt’s The Night Watch to original size

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Rijksmuseum reproduces Dutch master’s work in all its glory, 300 years after it was cut to fit between doors

The Night Watch by Rembrandt has enraptured millions visiting Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum and its previous homes over the centuries, dazzling with its scale and fine detail.

But it is only from today, thanks to the use of artificial intelligence to recapture some of the Dutch master’s genius, including the sweep of his brush strokes and perspective of his eye, that it can for the first time in 300 years be enjoyed in its complete form.

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‘We thought we would return’: 10 years on, Syrian refugees dream of home – photo essay

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A decade after civil war broke out, women who fled to Lebanon are still struggling to build a life amid the country’s unfolding economic crisis

Millions of Syrians have fled fighting over the past 10 years. The vast majority of refugees – more than 3.5 million – are living in Turkey, but more than 850,000 are living in informal settlements in Lebanon.

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UK aid cuts imposed with no transparency, says watchdog

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Icai review cites lack of access to officials and papers to assess aid budget since Foreign Office-DfID merger

UK aid cuts have been imposed with inadequate transparency, according to an independent watchdog, which said it was becoming increasingly difficult to interact with the government.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai), a public body that reports to parliament, said the lack of cooperation, partly due to the disruption of aid cuts, has meant it was unable even to assess whether recommendations it had previously made had been followed.

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Covid live: Delta variant likely to represent 90% of infections in EU by September, says disease agency

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European centre for disease control warns it is vital for people to get fully vaccinated as the summer holiday season begins

Here is the latest on the Covid situation in Australia:

Related: Morning mail: Sydney awakes to restrictions, vaccines wasted, John McAfee dead

The US will ship three million doses of the Johnson & Johnson one-jab Covid-19 vaccine to Brazil on Thursday, the country with the second highest coronavirus death toll in the world, a White House official said.

The shipment - part of Washington’s pledge to donate 80 million vaccines - will depart Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on an Azul Airlines flight, bound for Campinas, a city in southeastern Brazil about 100 km (62.14 miles) from Sao Paulo, Reuters reports.

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App maps shady spots to guide Barcelona walkers along cooler routes

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Cool Walks aims to help pedestrians avoid dangerous heat and find public drinking fountains

A new app promises to help Barcelona residents find the shadiest route between two places to avoid extreme heat.

Cool Walks, a routing tool for pedestrians first developed at a data visualisation contest, aims to show users a variety of walking routes to take for their intended destinations.

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Tokyo Olympics organisers ban alcohol sales after public outcry

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Games officials faced accusations the event was getting preferential treatment while other Tokyo businesses still faced alcohol restrictions

The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have been forced to abandon plans to allow the sale of alcohol at venues after public outcry.

The president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Seiko Hashimoto, said on Wednesday that the decision had been made to ensure the Games were “safe and secure” during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Assad forces’ shelling in Syria causes 5,000 civilians to flee

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At least 31 people killed since start of June amid government attacks on Idlib area

About 5,000 civilians in the north-west of Syria have been forced to flee their homes after more government shelling targeting the contested area, a local aid agency said.

At least 31 people have died since the beginning of June, victims of Bashar al-Assad’s forces hitting civilian buildings in southern Idlib province. The buildings included a hospital, displacement camp school, and a White Helmets headquarters. The number of dead includes three children and a civil defence worker who was killed in an attack on the town of Qastoun on Saturday.

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Top Nicaraguan journalist flees country amid escalating crackdown

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  • Carlos Fernando Chamorro: ‘They won’t silence journalism’
  • Chamorro’s sister among 19 jailed in pre-election crackdown

Nicaragua’s most prominent journalist has fled the country for a second time after police raided his house during a widening crackdown on opposition figures by the country’s Sandinista rulers.

Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the editor of the Confidencial website and a member of one of the country’s most influential political families, said on Tuesday he had left the Central American country to “safeguard his freedom”.

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Death of Romany man knelt on by Czech police compared to that of George Floyd

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Video footage challenges official claims that the cause of death was unrelated to man’s arrest

Video footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of a Romany man who later died in an ambulance is being shared among Czechs on social media, leading many to compare his treatment to that of George Floyd.

The video, shot on 19 June, shows three police officers in Teplice, a town in the north of the Czech Republic, detaining a Romany man on the floor. As one officer holds the man’s feet, another appears to kneel on his neck, and a third tries to handcuff him. Voices of several Roma bystanders are heard in the video.

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Vatican urges Italy to stop proposed anti-homophobia law

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Law calls into question the church’s ‘freedom of organisation’ and threatens ‘freedom of thought’, letter claims

The Vatican has made an unprecedented intervention urging the Italian government to change a proposed law that would criminalise homophobia over concerns it will infringe upon the Catholic church’s “freedom of thought”.

A letter delivered by British archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary of relations with states, said parts of the legislation violated a treaty made between Italy and the Catholic church in the 1920s that secured the freedoms and rights of the church, Corriere della Sera reported.

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Coronavirus live: China could keep border restrictions for a year, report says; Italy to lift outdoor mask rules

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Fear of variants and desire to protect major events behind proposed China move; Italy to lift outdoor mask-wearing from 28 June

German chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping for better coordination on pandemic travel rules among the bloc’s 27 member states. She said it was problematic to have a patchwork of regulations.

“I regret that we haven’t managed yet to have completely uniform action among the member states on travel guidelines - that is coming back to haunt us,” she told reporters after a meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, according to AFP.

Eight members of the Ugandan Olympic team have been quarantined in Japan until early July, a local official has said, after a coach tested positive for coronavirus on arrival last week.

The country’s delegation arrived on Saturday just over a month before the pandemic-postponed Games. But despite being vaccinated and testing negative before travel, a coach tested positive during screening at Tokyo’s Narita airport, AFP reports.

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Covid vaccine map: how are countries around the world doing?

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More than 2bn Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide. Find out which countries are vaccinating the most

Since the first Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 was injected into the arm of a British woman in December 2020, hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.

Dozens of countries now have advanced vaccination campaigns as they rush to protect their people and get their economies back up and running. Many are in a position where the most vulnerable people are fully vaccinated, raising hopes that the pandemic’s worst effects may be over.

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