Category Archives: World News

Is Russia’s Covid vaccine anything more than a political weapon?

Posted on by

Observers say the Sputnik V jab is aimed more at sowing political division than fighting coronavirus

Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has yet to win EU regulatory approval and is likely to play little part in the bloc’s rollout, but it has already achieved what some observers say is one of its objectives – sowing division among, and within, member states.

“Sputnik V has become a tool of soft power for Russia,” said Michal Baranowski, a fellow with a US thinktank, the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It’s planted its flag on the vaccine and the political goal of its strategy is to divide the west.”

Continue reading...

AstraZeneca CEO hits back at Covid vaccine supply criticism

Posted on by

Pascal Soriot says firm is doing its best to produce more and ‘should be proud of what we did in the world’

AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, has mounted a robust defence of the drugmaker’s Covid-19 vaccine efforts, and said the business should be proud of what it has done for the world and is doing its “very best” to produce more, as the company faces legal action from the EU over delivery shortfalls, and shipments to poorer countries have also been delayed.

The company generated $275m (£197m) in revenues from the Covid vaccine it developed with Oxford University in the first three months of the year and shipped 48m doses to 120 countries through the global vaccine-sharing initiative Covax, 80% of which went to low and middle-income countries. In total, it has supplied more than 300m vaccine doses to more than 165 countries so far this year.

Continue reading...

Grief and anger as Covid victims overwhelm Delhi’s crematoriums

Posted on by

As bodies pile up at the Ghazipur crematorium, staff and relatives turn their ire on the Modi government

The bodies came, one after another, after another, after another. So many bodies that the ambulances and trucks carrying them into the crematorium blocked traffic.

In Delhi, a city where someone dies from Covid-19 every four minutes, every day is a battle not just for hospital beds but for a space to say goodbye to the dead with dignity.

Continue reading...

Germany first to hand back Benin bronzes looted by British

Posted on by

Culture minister says country is facing up to ‘historic and moral responsibility’ by returning artefacts to Nigeria

Germany is to become the first country to hand back the Benin bronzes looted by British soldiers in the late 19th century, after the culture minister, Monika Grütters, announced it would start returning a “substantial” part of the artefacts held in its museums to Nigeria from next year.

“We face up to our historic and moral responsibility to shine a light and work on Germany’s historic past,” Grütters said after museum experts and political leaders struck an agreement at a summit on Thursday.

Continue reading...

Biden’s world: how key countries have reacted to the US president’s first 100 days

Posted on by

The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?

At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.”

Continue reading...

Joe Biden’s 100 days in office rally interrupted by protesters – video

Posted on by

During a speech at a drive-in rally in Duluth, Georgia, to mark 100 days in office, Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by protesters calling for an end to private prisons, a demand that Biden agreed to, saying that the US was 'working to close all of them'.

The president praised the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty of killing George Floyd, and declared that 'America is on the move again, choosing hope over fear, truth over lies, light over darkness'. Georgia is a particularly important state for Biden after he became the first Democrat to win there since Bill Clinton in 1992 

Continue reading...

‘Sexual predator’: actor Noel Clarke accused of groping, harassment and bullying by 20 women

Posted on by
  • Actor-producer categorically denies allegations from all 20 women
  • Bafta suspends outstanding contribution award and actor’s membership
  • Alleged misconduct including claims he secretly filmed naked audition
  • Doctor Who and Kidulthood star allegedly showed colleagues sexually explicit photos and videos of women

When Noel Clarke appeared on stage at the Royal Albert Hall on 10 April to collect his Bafta, the typically self-assured actor looked a little on edge. Viewers might have concluded that Clarke was simply overwhelmed: he was clutching one of the most prestigious accolades bestowed by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the prize for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema.

Yet there were other reasons why Clarke – and Bafta – may have felt preoccupied.

Continue reading...

‘The situation in India can happen anywhere,’ says WHO Europe director – video

Posted on by

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the kind of struggle India was having against a devastating resurgence in Covid cases could happen anywhere in the world, during a briefing on Thursday.

Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said relaxing measures and allowing mass gatherings should be avoided, especially where vaccination coverage was low and there were contagious variants.

The B.1.617 coronavirus variant – thought to be partly responsible for India's crisis – is now considered a 'variant of interest' by the WHO

Continue reading...

Alexei Navalny looks gaunt as he appears in court after hunger strike

Posted on by

Kremlin critic makes first public appearance since announcing he was gradually ending hunger strike

Alexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since holding a 24-day hunger strike, appearing gaunt but spirited during a courtroom appeal against a defamation conviction that he has called politically motivated.

A photograph released by the court showed Navalny, appearing by video link, with a shaved head and wearing a prison jacket. “I am a creepy skeleton,” said Navalny, who appeared in the courtroom on a video feed. “I weighed this much in 7th grade.”

Continue reading...

Millions at risk from Covid surge in Syria amid test and oxygen shortages

Posted on by

In country where 90% of population live in poverty, ‘situation is deteriorating extremely rapidly’

Aid agencies and the UN have warned that a “rapid and accelerating” wave of coronavirus and shortages of equipment such as tests and oxygen is putting millions of people across conflict-ravaged Syria at risk from the virus.

While the official Covid-19 death toll in Syria is low compared with other parts of the Middle East, credible data collection is almost impossible, and the country is vulnerable: 10 years of war have devastated the infrastructure, economy and healthcare systems.

Continue reading...

White House investigating ‘unexplained health incidents’ similar to Havana syndrome

Posted on by

Two US officials experienced symptoms similar to ones suffered abroad that were probably result of directed energy device

The White House has said it is investigating “unexplained health incidents” after a report that two US officials in the Washington area experienced sudden symptoms similar to the “Havana syndrome” symptoms suffered by American diplomats and spies abroad.

Related: CIA file on Russian ESP experiments released – but you knew that, didn't you?

Continue reading...

Researchers ‘shocked’ to find Egyptian mummy was a pregnant woman

Posted on by

Archaeologists studying Warsaw’s national collection of mummies expected to uncover a male priest

Polish researchers examining an ancient Egyptian mummy that they expected to be a male priest were surprised when X-rays and computer tests revealed instead that it was a mummy of a woman who had been seven months pregnant.

The researchers said on Thursday it was the world’s first known case of such a well-preserved ancient mummy of a pregnant woman.

Continue reading...

Italian judge is asked to put Egyptian officers on trial over Giulio Regeni death

Posted on by

Case of student whose body was found in Cairo in 2016 finally reaches courtroom

Italian prosecutors have asked a judge to put four senior members of Egypt’s powerful security services on trial over their suspected role in the disappearance and murder of Giulio Regeni in Cairo in 2016, as the case finally reached a courtroom five years after his death.

The 28-year-old doctoral student went missing in Cairo on 25 January 2016 while researching Egypt’s unions. His body was discovered on an outlying Cairo highway nine days later, displaying signs of extreme torture and abuse.

Continue reading...

Michael Collins obituary

Posted on by

Astronaut and pilot of the command module Columbia during 1969’s Apollo 11 mission

On 20 July 1969, Michael Collins, who has died aged 90, became the most solitary human in the universe – even if he derided that categorisation as “phony philosophy”. He orbited the moon alone, inside Apollo 11’s command module Columbia, and out of touch with ground control for 48 minutes on each orbit. Meanwhile, and more famously, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were becoming the first men to set foot on that rock, some 240,000 miles away from Earth.

As the command module pilot, on $17,000 a year, Collins was, he later wrote half-jokingly, “the navigator, the guidance and control expert, the base-camp operator, the owner of the leaky plumbing – all the things I was least interested in doing”. He was also, thought Aldrin, probably Nasa’s best-trained command module pilot.

Continue reading...

‘We are not special’: how triumphalism led India to Covid-19 disaster

Posted on by

Huge surge in cases followed erroneous ‘supermodelling’ study suggesting herd immunity had been achieved

They will be remembered as India’s lost months: the stretch between September and February when Covid-19 cases in the country defied global trends, falling sharply throughout the coldest months of the year until they reached four-figure daily totals.

It was inexplicable. Was it the Indian climate? A protection conferred by childhood immunisations? Some speculated India may have naturally reached herd immunity. It was a tantalising idea that took hold in India’s highest circles of policymaking, media and science – even a government-commissioned study suggested herd immunity may indeed have been achieved. It would prove one of the most fatal miscalculations of the Covid-19 pandemic so far.

Continue reading...

‘Devastating for women and girls’: UK cuts 85% in aid to UN family planning

Posted on by

UNFPA says £130m being withheld would have helped prevent 250,000 child and maternal deaths in poorest countries

The British government is slashing its funding to the UN population fund (UNFPA) in a move described as “devastating” for women and girls.

The agency confirmed on Wednesday that the UK, its largest donor, is cutting funding for contraceptives and reproductive health supplies by 85% this year – from £154m to £23m – and cutting core funding from £20m to £8m.

Continue reading...

Heavenly Harmony: China launches first module of new space station – video

Posted on by

China has successfully launched the first module of its new space station, part of an ambitious plan for Beijing to have a permanent human presence in space. The Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, unmanned core module, launched from Wenchang in China’s Hainan province, is expected to become fully operational in 2022, with about 10 more missions required to launch and assemble parts

Continue reading...

‘I am not my trauma’: survivors of sexual abuse at a Ugandan girls’ shelter – photo essay

Posted on by

German national Bernhard ‘Bery’ Glaser took advantage of his ‘rich white foreigner’ status to systematically abuse girls in his care. Photographer DeLovie Kwagala captured the stories of 15 women

Eve was just eight years old and recently orphaned when she was taken to live at a girls’ shelter on Bugala island, in the Ugandan sector of Lake Victoria.

Bery’s Place had been set up in 2006 by Bernhard “Bery” Glaser, a German national living in Uganda, as a refuge for traumatised children and victims of sexual violence. Yet Eve and other girls living there at the time say that Glaser was hiding a dark secret. Taking advantage of his “rich white foreigner” status to entice parents to leave their daughters at the home, Glaser was using Bery’s Place as a cover for routine and systematic sexual and emotional abuse of the children in his care, the girls allege.

Continue reading...