Category Archives: World News

Greenland ice sheet on brink of major tipping point, says study

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Scientists say ice equivalent to 1-2 metres of sea level rise is probably already doomed to melt

A significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink of a tipping point, after which accelerated melting would become inevitable even if global heating was halted, according to new research.

Rising temperatures caused by the climate crisis have already seen trillions of tonnes of Greenland’s ice pour into the ocean. Melting its ice sheet completely would eventually raise global sea level by 7 metres.

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Palestinian girl, six, pulled alive from rubble after airstrike demolishes her home – video

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A six-year-old Palestinian girl was found deep inside a pile of rubble after her home was destroyed by an Israeli strike in Gaza that killed her mother and all four of her siblings.

Suzy Eshkuntana, trapped for seven hours under the debris, was reunited in Shifa hospital with her father, who was also being treated for his wounds. The family’s home was hit by Israeli air strikes early on Sunday in Gaza City, a wave of attacks that Gaza health officials said killed 42 people including 10 children and raised the death toll in Gaza after a week of bombardment to more than 200.

Israel says it is attacking the militant Islamist Hamas movement that controls the densely populated Gaza Strip and that - along with Islamic Jihad and other militant groups - has fired more than 3,000 rockets towards Israeli towns and cities, killing 10 people, including two children

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US supreme court agrees to consider major rollback of abortion rights

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Court will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a 15-week ban on abortion, setting up a showdown

The US supreme court agreed on Monday to consider a major challenge to reproductive rights, saying it will take up Mississippi’s bid to enforce a ban on almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Related: ‘It would be glorious’: hopes high for Biden to nominate first Black woman to supreme court

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‘Massive destruction’: Gaza’s hospitals under strain after Israeli strikes

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Deaths of doctors have further hit medical services struggling with damaged facilities and medicine shortages

In her bed in Gaza City’s Shifa hospital, 25-year-old Aya Aloul recalls the moment her 66-year-old father, Moeen, one of Gaza’s few neurologists, was killed in an Israeli strike, one of two key Palestinian medical staff killed within hours on Sunday.

Covered in wounds and bruises caused by shrapnel and falling masonry, she described the bombing of the family’s home in the Rimal neighbourhood. “I get scared,” Aya told the Guardian on Monday, “so, since the war began, I’ve slept next to my parents’ bed, putting a mattress on the floor.

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Belgium ambassador’s wife invokes immunity over Seoul assault claims

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Police will not pursue case after boutique staff alleged they were slapped and hit on head in row over shoplifting

The wife of Belgium’s ambassador to South Korea will exercise her diplomatic immunity to avoid criminal charges on allegations she hit two boutique staff in a row over shoplifting, police have said.

The ambassador, Peter Lescouhier, previously said that he “sincerely regrets the incident involving his wife”, adding that he “wants to apologise on her behalf”.

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New Zealand to cut ‘low-skill’ immigration and refocus on wealthy

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Government signals sweeping changes to address ‘reliance on temporary migrant labour’

New Zealand has become an increasingly appealing destination for those seeking a haven – from Covid-19, economic recession or chaotic international politics. In recent years, the country gained a reputation for “billionaires’ boltholes”, as mega-rich speculators including Peter Thiel bought up remote properties in scenic, isolated regions.

But in a post-Covid world, the emigration dream will be less accessible – at least for those who don’t fall into the mega-rich category. On Monday, the New Zealand government announced it would be narrowing pathways for those hoping to migrate and work in the country, particularly those it classed as “low-skill” and low-wage workers. It simultaneously announced new measures to attract rich investors.

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‘On bad days, we don’t eat’: Hunger grows for thousands displaced by conflict in Chad

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As war forces more to flee, humanitarian organisations facing funding shortfalls and increasing demand are unable to keep pace

The number of people having to leave their homes in the Lake Chad region of central Africa has more than doubled over the past year with agencies warning they are struggling to feed people.

The fighting, which last month claimed the life of the president of Chad, Idriss Déby, has displaced more than 400,000 Chadians, according to the International Organization for Migration, a rise from 169,000 at the start of 2020. More than 65,000 people were displaced in the first quarter of this year.

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Yanomami beset by violent land-grabs, hunger and disease in Brazil

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Indigenous people in the grip of a humanitarian crisis as Bolsonaro gives encouragement to wildcat miners with designs on their rainforest territory

A photograph of an emaciated Yanomami girl, huddled listlessly in a hammock beside an empty cooking pot over an unlit fire. Shaky footage of indigenous people screaming as they flee in panic to a soundtrack of gunfire.

Shocking images shared on Brazilian social media this week have cast a spotlight on a spiral of violence, malnutrition and disease that threatens fresh devastation for the Yanomami people and their ancestral territory in the Amazon state of Roraima.

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Tokyo Olympics: more than 80% of Japanese oppose hosting Games – poll

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Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency on Friday as the nation battles a fourth wave of Covid infections

More than 80% of Japanese oppose hosting the Olympics this year, a new poll published on Monday showed, with just under 10 weeks until the Tokyo Games.

The latest survey comes after Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency Friday as the nation battles a fourth wave of virus infections.

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‘Revolution dwells in the heart’: Myanmar’s poets cut down by the military

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Khet Thi, who captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public, was the third poet to be killed by the military since the coup

His words captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public in the face of military brutality: “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know revolution dwells in the heart.”

The poet Khet Thi was taken from his home in Shwebo, in the Sagaing region, last Saturday. The next day, his wife collected his body from a hospital. His organs had been removed, she told BBC Burmese.

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Suez Canal starts work to extend double lane after Ever Given grounding

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Grounding of the container ship in a southern section of the canal in March delayed the passage of hundreds of vessels through the waterway

Egypt has started dredging work to extend a second lane that allows for two-way traffic in a southern section of the canal near to where a giant container ship got stuck for six days in March.

The state-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA) announced last week that it was planning to extend a second canal lane that opened in 2015 by 10km to make it 82km long, and would widen and deepen a single lane stretch at the southern end of the canal.

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Gaza suffers deadliest airstrikes yet as Israel targets Hamas leader – video report

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At least 33 Palestinians have been killed and 50 injured in the deadliest airstrikes since the start of fighting between Israel and Hamas six days ago. Israel targeted the home of the Hamas leader Yehya al-Sinwar over the weekend and destroyed the building that housed the offices of Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. At least 181 people in Gaza and 10 in Israel have been killed so far

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Joe Biden feels political ground shift as Israel-Gaza conflict rages on

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Analysis: US president may find himself increasingly isolated in his resolute defence of Israel

In his staunch defence of Israel, Joe Biden is sticking to a course set decades ago as a young senator, and has not so far given ground on the issue to the progressive wing of his party or many Jewish Democrats urging a tougher line towards Benjamin Netanyahu.

Biden has even been prepared to face isolation at the UN security council, at the potential cost of his own credibility on multilateralism and human rights. But analysts say that as the death toll rises with no sign of a ceasefire, the domestic and international pressures on the president could become impossible to ignore.

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Covid live: Matt Hancock says ‘high degree of confidence’ vaccines work against Indian variant, but urges caution

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UK health secretary says England will not make decision on further unlocking scheduled for 21 June until a week before

Greece reported 1,262 new coronavirus cases on Sunday alongside 50 deaths.

This is a fall from 1,427 infections recorded a week ago, when 51 deaths were also registered.

More than 20 million adults in the UK have had both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

Across the UK a total of 56,677,012 vaccines have been administered between 8 December and 15 May, including 36,573,354 people with their first dose (69.4%) and 20,103,658 with their second (38.2%).

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‘I’m filled with hope’: cash-strapped Algarve awaits return of UK tourists

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People in Faro are relieved and excited but do not expect a speedy recovery from impact of Covid

Tatiana stands by the counter of the souvenir shop where she works in downtown Faro, with little in the way of company besides the postcard racks, the shelves of trinkets and towels, and an all too familiar silence.

“Only three customers have come into the shop so far today,” says Tatiana, who lost her job at Faro’s airport last October after her contract was not renewed.

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Liz Cheney defiant over Trump as Republican civil war heats up

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Liz Cheney has become the figurehead of the conservative Never Trumpers – but the Wyoming congresswoman was for the former president in the last election.

Related: Can ‘Never Trump’ Republicans gain party control – or is it a lost cause?

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Trouble brews between Trappist monks and Belgian mineral empire

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David and Goliath legal battle ensues as silent religious order seeks to protect the taste of its beer

For a decade the monks of Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy, in Rochefort, south Belgium – one of only 14 abbeys in the world producing Trappist beer – have been fighting with a quarry owner over the purity of the local spring water.

The monks have doggedly claimed that plans by Lhoist, an international company run by one of Belgium’s richest families, to deepen its chalk quarry and redirect the Tridaine spring risked altering the unique taste of their celebrated drink.

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First-hand stories shed new light on Nazi death marches

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Wiener Holocaust Library in London has gathered testimonies and photographs of forced evacuations at end of second world war

First-hand accounts from survivors of Nazi death marches, which formed a last ruthless chapter of the genocide, are to go on display with testimonies translated into English for the first time.

During the death marches, tens of thousands of people died on roadsides of exhaustion, shot for failing to keep up, or murdered in seemingly random massacres as the Nazis moved people from concentration camps before liberation by the allies, leaving a trail of blood across Europe.

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UN champions Mauritian control of Chagos Islands by rejecting UK stamps

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Refusal to recognise British Indian Ocean Territory stamps is latest move to assert Mauritian sovereignty

Stamps issued by the British Indian Ocean Territory could soon be rendered invalid after the United Nations’ Universal Postal Union (UPU) council recommended they no longer be recognised, in the latest step rejecting the UK’s claim to the Chagos Islands.

The move by the UPU, the second oldest international organisation, is in recognition of Mauritian sovereignty over the strategically important islands in the Indian Ocean and is the first of what is likely to be many by UN specialised agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and International Monetary Fund.

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‘No safe place’: Associated Press reporter describes Gaza office attack

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A rush for escape as Israeli forces bombed the building that housed the US news agency and Al Jazeera

On Saturday, Israeli forces bombed the office which houses Associated Press and Al Jazeera in Gaza, alleging that Hamas military intelligence was operating inside the building.

Twelve AP staffers and freelancers were working and resting in the bureau when the Israeli military telephoned a warning, giving occupants of the building one hour to evacuate. The AP journalist Fares Akram told how he escaped the building.

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