Ingenuity successfully takes flight, hovering at height of about 3 metres before touching back down
Nasa’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter has completed the first powered, controlled flight on another planet, the space agency has announced.
The small helicopter successfully took flight on the red planet on Monday morning, hovering in the air at an altitude of about 3 metres (10 feet), before descending and touching back down on the Martian surface.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch urges more coordination by governments to tackle China’s treatment of Turkic Muslims
The Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, where it has escalated its oppression of Turkic Muslims to unprecedented levels, Human Rights Watch has said, as the NGO called on governments to take direct action against officials and companies that profit from labour in the region.
HRW also recommended the EU delay ratifying its recent trade agreement with China until forced labour allegations were investigated, victims compensated, and there was “substantial progress toward holding perpetrators to account”.
Continue reading...Daw Myo Aye, labour organiser and a leader of civil disobedience protests, dragged from office by army
One of Myanmar’s leading trade union leaders has been arrested as part of escalating attacks on pro-democracy figures by the military junta.
Daw Myo Aye, director of Solidarity Trade Union of Myanmar (STUM), one of Myanmar’s largest independent unions, is a central figure in the movement for workers’ rights.
Continue reading...Suez vessel’s crew said to be ‘relaxed but apprehensive’, while 50 miles away a cautionary tale plays out on another ship
For two years Mohammad Aisha has been the lone resident of an abandoned container ship marooned off Egypt in the Gulf of Suez. If he needs to charge his phone, get drinking water or buy food, he has to row to shore, although he can only stay for two hours at most as the area is a restricted military zone. According to one doctor who examined him, the malnourished sailor has started to exhibit similar symptoms to prisoners held in poor conditions.
Aisha has been the custodian of the 4,000-tonne MV Aman, trapped onboard as a prolonged legal battle to sell the vessel and pay the crew plays out thousands of miles away. Less than 50 miles north, the crew of the Ever Given, now immersed in its own legal struggles, are hoping to avoid anything close to the same fate. On Sunday, representatives from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), an umbrella union that represents seafarers, boarded the ship to check on the crew’s wellbeing.
Continue reading...Alison McAlpine’s documentary draws out tales from locals and astronomers to evoke the magic and mystery of Chile’s stargazing hotspot
Cielo means “sky” in Spanish, and “heaven”, too. And it’s with a sense of humbled wonder at the immense mystery of it all that the Canadian film-maker Alison McAlpine casts her camera upwards in this beautiful documentary about the night sky. It’s filmed at the stargazing hotspot of Chile’s Atacama desert, where there is virtually no light pollution; the heavens appear to be within touching distance – as if a seam in the sky has been unpicked and the stars tumble out like diamonds.
For those of us who live in urban areas, we look up from noisy streets and bright city lights to the vast emptiness of the sky. In Atacama, it’s the reverse; the sky seems more alive than the earth – a bare, Martian landscape of rock and sand. With her cinematographer, Benjamín Echazarreta, McAlpine shoots some astonishing time-lapse photography, which features alongside interviews with astronomers at the European observatories in the desert and locals who eke out a living somehow. One man is a UFO photographer; he thinks that humans are more evil than the aliens and, knowing this, the aliens don’t bother to land.
Continue reading...Chinese firm could have been monitoring calls of KPN’s 6.5m users without its knowledge, report claims
The Chinese telecoms equipment supplier Huawei was able to monitor all calls made on one of the Netherlands’ largest mobile phone networks, according to a confidential report seen by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.
The report, made for KPN by the Capgemini consultancy firm in 2010, concluded that the Chinese company could have been monitoring the calls of the provider’s 6.5m users without the Dutch company’s knowledge, according to the newspaper.
Continue reading...Downing Street says next week’s visit won’t go ahead ‘in light of the current coronavirus situation’
Boris Johnson’s planned visit to India next week has been cancelled because of the country’s escalating coronavirus crisis, a joint statement by the UK and India has announced.
“In the light of the current coronavirus situation, prime minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week,” said the statement, released by Downing Street.
Continue reading...Wildfires on Table Mountain spread to historic university library and force evacuation of students
Police in Cape Town have arrested a man on suspicion of starting one of the wildfires raging on the slopes of Table Mountain.
Over the weekend one fire spread to the University of Cape Town (UCT), burning the historic campus library and forcing the evacuation of 4,000 students. Other fires broke out around Devil’s Peak, a spur of the mountain.
Continue reading...Doctors say opposition leader, who is on hunger strike, is in danger of a heart attack or kidney failure
Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a prison hospital as concerns have grown among supporters that the opposition leader is dangerously ill and could die “at any minute”.
Navalny’s transfer came after his doctors released paperwork showing that the Kremlin critic, who has been on hunger strike for nearly three weeks, said he was in danger of a heart attack or kidney failure.
Continue reading...Two men died after a Tesla vehicle believed to have been operating without anyone in the driver’s seat crashed into a tree north of Houston. The victims were reportedly found in the front passenger seat and the back seat of the 2019 Tesla Model S
Continue reading...Czechs expelled 18 Russians over Skripal suspects’ alleged role in deadly warehouse blast in 2014
Moscow has expelled 20 Czech diplomats in a tit-for-tat response after Prague accused Russian military intelligence of setting off a deadly blast at an ammunition warehouse in 2014.
Video from Moscow showed the Czech ambassador being summoned to the foreign affairs ministry where he was informed that four-fifths of his diplomatic envoys would be given 24 hours to depart the country.
Continue reading...Emotional scenes in arrivals hall as hundreds of travellers touch down on first day of quarantine-free travel from Australia
Lisa Tetai warned her son not to take a sick day when he picked her up from Auckland airport. “I thought there might be media there,” she explains.
She wasn’t wrong.
Continue reading...New law means people could face 20 years in prison for lockdown breaches, as campaigners warn of ‘human rights disaster’
Cambodians who break Covid rules could face 20 years in prison under a new law that human rights groups say takes the country “a step towards a totalitarian dictatorship”.
Prime minister Hun Sen warned that Cambodia was “on the brink of death” as a two-week lockdown was imposed in Phnom Penh on Thursday to try to control the spread of the virus.
Continue reading...President will also call on major economies to join him in bold action at virtual summit of 40 world leaders
Joe Biden faces a key test of his commitment to climate action this week, when he sets out his core plans for tackling the climate crisis and calls on all of the world’s major economies to join him in bold action to slash greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years.
The US president has made the climate emergency one of his administration’s top priorities, and stated that clean growth must be the route for the US to rebound from the coronavirus crisis.
Continue reading...As sole provider for his family, nine-year-old Gift is exhausted and, despite hopes of being a teacher, gets little chance to study
While other children play football or watch cartoons at home after school, nine-year-old Gift Phiri goes to work.
After his day at primary school in Mchengautuwa, in Malawi’s northern city of Mzuzu, the nine-year-old goes home to start work, hammering sharp-edged metal sheets, shaping them into charcoal cooking stoves. Gift, who lives with his grandmother, two younger siblings and another relative, started making the stoves after being trained by his grandfather when he was six.
Continue reading...People in Havana more concerned about buying chicken suspect little will change with Raúl’s departure
News travels swiftly through Havana, bumping against people so they turn, then rolling on. Cubans have a phrase for it: la bola en la calle, the ball in the street.
Raúl Castro’s announcement on Friday that he is to retire and bring 62 years of Castro rule on the island to a close caused barely a ripple, even if it sent waves around the world.
Continue reading...Ankara records 318 deaths in 24 hours, while Gaza authorities have received 80,000 vaccine doses for population of 2 million people
Half of all adults in the US have received at least one Covid-19 shot, the government announced Sunday, marking another milestone in the nation’s largest-ever vaccination campaign but leaving more work to do to convince skeptical Americans to roll up their sleeves.
The Associated Press reports:
Almost 130 million people 18 or older have received at least one dose of a vaccine, or 50.4% of the total adult population, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Almost 84 million adults, or about 32.5% of the population, have been fully vaccinated.
The US cleared the 50% mark just a day after the reported global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million, according to totals compiled by Johns Hopkins University, though the actual number is believed to be significantly higher.
Guinea received on Sunday a shipment of 300,000 Sinovac Covid-19 vaccines purchased from China and is also set to receive a donation of 200,000 Sinopharm shots, Guinean foreign minister Ibrahima Khalil Kaba said.
Reuters reports:
Kaba gave no further details on the Sinopharm donation. Guinea is reporting 93 new coronavirus infections on average each day, 59% of the peak in March.
There have been 21,460 infections and 138 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began.
Caught on the frontline between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists, Marinka is a town forgotten by the world
Vera Basova stands by her house holding a local newspaper. The front page headline says Russia is bringing tanks to the eastern Ukrainian border. “What do they want from us? Why are they dragging those tanks here?” Basova asks her neighbour.
The 90-year-old worries she will have to go back to hiding in her basement to escape shelling in the war between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas region that recently entered its eighth year and has taken more than 13,000 lives.
Continue reading...Fall comes amid warnings over speculation by novice investors in cryptocurrencies such as dogecoin
Bitcoin has posted its biggest one-day drop in almost two months, amid warnings that novice investors could suffer heavy losses from speculating in crypto assets such as “meme coin” dogecoin.
Bitcoin tumbled more than 11% on Sunday, dropping from about $62,000 (£45,000) to $55,000 – its lowest level since the end of March. Last week, the cryptocurrency had hit fresh record highs at nearly $65,000.
Continue reading...Exclusive: five Ramzan Kadyrov allies subject of criminal complaint for crimes against humanity
Five officials from the inner circle of Chechnya’s autocratic leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, are the subject of a criminal complaint in Germany for crimes against humanity, in a legal attempt to seek justice over the semi-autonomous Russian republic’s anti-gay purges.
The 97-page charge sheet, extracts of which have been seen by the Guardian, accuses the Chechen military and state apparatus of persecution, unlawful arrests, torture, sexual violence and incitement to murder at least 150 individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation since February 2017.
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