Category Archives: World News

‘This is all we could get’: Dutch tourists arrive in Rhodes for locked-down holiday

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In experiment organised by Dutch government, travellers will have to take regular Covid tests and are barred from leaving resort

A regime that might, in more normal times, resemble a boot camp has been happily embraced by 189 Dutch tourists who traded lockdown in the Netherlands for eight days of voluntary confinement at a Greek beach resort.

In an experiment devised by travel industry experts determined not to lose another season to Covid-19, the tourists arrived on the Aegean island of Rhodes on Monday as part of a test run to see if safe holidays can be arranged during the pandemic.

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Peru faces polarizing presidential runoff as teacher takes voters by surprise

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Pedro Castillo will face Keiko Fujimori, the far-right heiress to one of the country’s enduring and controversial political dynasties

Peru faces a polarizing presidential runoff vote, in which a hard-left schoolteacher – who caught a wave of popular discontent over the coronavirus and a cratering economy – will face the far-right heiress to one of the country’s most enduring and controversial political dynasties.

Pedro Castillo, a veteran teachers’ union leader, took pollsters and voters by surprise in Sunday’s first-round vote winning 18.47%, with 84% of the official vote counted. In second place, Keiko Fujimori – daughter of the jailed former leader Alberto Fujimori – polled 13.12%, closely followed by two more far-right candidates.

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Covid pandemic still growing exponentially, WHO says

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World Health Organization says ‘confusion and complacency’ prolonging global situation

The global coronavirus pandemic is still growing exponentially, the World Health Organization said on Monday, as it reported 4.4m cases in the last week, the seventh straight week of rising numbers.

The latest global figures represent a 9% increase in infections on last week and a 5% rise in deaths.

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Military buildup near Ukraine sows confusion over Russian intentions

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Analysis: there are several reasons Russia would want to raise tensions, but an attack appears unlikely

Russia’s fortnight-long military buildup to the east and south of Ukraine has helped it mass an estimated 80,000 troops in the border region in an attention-grabbing exercise that is increasingly occupying western thinking.

Tanks and other artillery units have also been arriving at Voronezh, east of Ukraine, according to Janes, a military intelligence firm, and a staging ground for about 3,000 troops been established to the south of the city.

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Natanz ‘sabotage’ highlights Iran’s vulnerability to cyber-attacks

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Analysis: Apparent attack by Israel is a reminder of the weaknesses of industrial control systems

The apparent attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility appears to be the latest episode in an increasing tit-for-tat cyberwar. Both sides have already targeted so-called industrial control systems [ICS], which have emerged as a key weakness for countries across the globe.

While Iran described the latest attack as “sabotage”, Israeli media called it a cyber-attack.

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Coronavirus live news: India overtakes Brazil in cases; Italy row over plans for ‘Covid-free’ holiday islands

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India now second-worst affected country after US; Sicily and Sardinia criticise plans to prioritise small tourist islands for vaccination

Spain will initially prioritise people aged between 70 and 79 for coronavirus vaccines produced by Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit, which are due to start arriving this week.

Reuters reports:

Spain will take a first delivery of 300,000 doses of the single-shot vaccine on Wednesday morning, Carolina Darias told reporters at Gran Canaria airport after a visit to the Spanish Canary Islands.

Johnson & Johnson began delivering its vaccine to EU countries on Monday after some delays due to production issues, European Union officials and the company said.

South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa believes Africa must expand its medical manufacturing capacity and forge partnerships to boost expertise and investment to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and future health emergencies.

Reuters reports:

The continent has struggled to acquire vaccines to fight Covid-19 and imports the vast majority of its medicines and medical equipment, leaving it at the mercy of overseas supplies.

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Natanz nuclear plant attack ‘will set back Iran’s programme by nine months’

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US intelligence sources believe Israel was behind Saturday’s cyber-attack on heavily guarded facility

The cyber-attack on the heavily guarded Natanz plant in Iran will set back Tehran’s nuclear programme by nine months, US intelligence sources have claimed.

Iran’s foreign ministry has blamed Israel for sabotaging Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility, and although Israel has not formally confirmed responsibility its officials have done little to dispel the notion.

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Alibaba shares jump after record $2.8bn anti-monopoly fine

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E-commerce firm feels penalty by Chinese regulators means focus on company is at an end

Shares in Alibaba surged on Monday after the e-commerce company said that a record $2.8bn fine handed down by Chinese regulators marked the end of an investigation into anti-competitive practices at the company.

Top executives at the company, founded by the billionaire Jack Ma, told investors that while Chinese regulators continued a wider investigation into the sprawling conglomerates in the country’s tech industry, they believed the multibillion dollar fine announced at the weekend marked the end of the focus on Alibaba. The company is listed in Hong Kong and its shares climbed as much as 9% on the management’s comments.

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Ecuador election: former banker Lasso in lead with 93% of vote counted

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Voters in presidential race appear to have rejected leftist movement, favouring conservative over Andrés Arauz

A conservative businessman looks likely to become Ecuador’s president, with voters rejecting the leftist movement started by the former president Rafael Correa more than a decade ago.

The electoral council in Ecuador did not declare a winner in the contest to replace Lenín Moreno as president next month, but results released by the agency showed the former banker Guillermo Lasso with about 53% of votes and the leftist Andrés Arauz with 47%, with more than 93% of votes counted. Arauz conceded the election.

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Inside South Baltimore’s fight against burning trash – video

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​Residents in South Baltimore are fighting to 'starve' their nearby Bresco incinerator due to health concerns over the amount of pollution it creates. Of the 72 remaining facilities in the US, the vast majority are located in predominantly low-income or minority communities, raising concerns about compounding pollutants in already overburdened neighbourhoods

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Animal testing suspended at Spanish lab after ‘gratuitous cruelty’ footage

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Madrid regional government says it has suspended all activity at Vivotecnia after inspection found ‘signs of animal mistreatment’

Regional officials in Spain have temporarily halted all activity at an animal testing facility after the publication of undercover footage that appears to show animals being taunted, smacked, tossed around and cut into with no or inadequate anaesthesia.

Since 2000, Madrid-based contract research organisation Vivotecnia has carried out experiments on animals ranging from monkeys to mini pigs and rabbits for the biopharmaceutical, chemical, cosmetic, tobacco and food industries. The facility has in the past secured funding from the EU and Spanish authorities for its projects.

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Cambodia condemns Vice for edited photos of Khmer Rouge victims smiling

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Colourised images from Tuol Sleng prison during 1970s genocide were manipulated, media group says

Cambodia has condemned images published by Vice media group that featured victims of the Khmer Rouge genocide, colourised and with some apparently edited to add smiles to their faces.

The artist Matt Loughrey modified images taken at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of people were tortured and interrogated before they were sent on to the killing fields of Choeung Ek.

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‘My son could die’: the disabled Syrian refugees on the sharp end of UK aid cuts – photo essay

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Two centres in Lebanon are among the casualties of cuts to British aid, with devastating consequences for thousands of patients and families

In January, the British government told its diplomats to start finding 50–70% cuts in aid funding. In March, it was revealed it was slashing aid funding to Syrian refugee projects by a third. Among the many casualties of those cuts is a project in Lebanon.

Two centres – in Zahlé and in Beirut – offer specialised services, such as speech and physiotherapy, for disabled Syrian refugees who can’t afford to pay for them.

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Covid vaccine passports: what can we learn from Israel? – video explainer

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Israel became the first country in the world to test vaccine passports when it announced the 'green pass' scheme in February. The passes allow people who have had two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to return to restaurants, theatres and sport events.  With many countries planning to reopen after their vaccination campaigns, the Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent, Oliver Holmes, examines the lessons that could be learned from Israel's rollout

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France to ban some domestic flights where train available

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MPs vote to suspend internal flights if the trip can be completed by train within two and a half hours instead

French MPs have voted to suspend domestic airline flights that can be made by direct train in less than two and a half hours, as part of a series of climate and environmental measures.

After a heated debate in the Assemblée Nationale at the weekend, the ban, a watered-down version of a key recommendation from President Emmanuel Macron’s citizens’ climate convention, was adopted.

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How Facebook let fake engagement distort global politics: a whistleblower’s account

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The inside story of Sophie Zhang’s battle to combat rampant manipulation as executives delayed and deflected

Shortly before Sophie Zhang lost access to Facebook’s systems, she published one final message on the company’s internal forum, a farewell tradition at Facebook known as a “badge post”.

“Officially, I’m a low-level [data scientist] who’s being fired today for poor performance,” the post began. “In practice, in the 2.5 years I’ve spent at Facebook, I’ve … found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions.”

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Police say officer who shot and killed unarmed Daunte Wright intended to fire Taser

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Brooklyn Center police chief describes fatal shooting of Black man, 20, as result of ‘accidental discharge’ from handgun

Police in a Minneapolis suburb said an officer accidentally shot and killed a 20-year-old Black man on Sunday afternoon during a traffic stop, releasing graphic body-camera footage they say shows the officer intended to use a Taser not a handgun during the death of unarmed Daunte Wright.

Related: ‘They didn’t have to kill him’: anger and outrage as locals mourn Daunte Wright

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‘Aphrodisiac’ of the ocean: how sea cucumbers became gold for organised crime

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Overfishing and smuggling of this crucial animal are affecting biodiversity and the livelihood of local fishers in Sri Lanka

It’s after sunset in Jaffna when Anthony Vigrado dives into the waters of Palk Bay, scanning the seafloor to collect what seems to be prized treasure. What he comes back with are sea cucumbers – long, leathery-skinned creatures that are increasingly valuable and the source of his income for the past 12 years.

But after a 10-hour search, his harvest is only a fraction of what it used to be, as the shores of northern Sri Lanka and southern India have become a prime spot for exploitation.

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Gordon Brown calls for G7 to act on Covid vaccine ‘apartheid’

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Former prime minister says group should commit to global vaccine drive and slams UK’s foreign aid cut

Preventing poor countries suffering from vaccine “apartheid” will require the G7 group of rich nations to commit $30bn (£22bn) a year to a global immunisation drive, Gordon Brown has said.

The former Labour prime minister said the UK should use June’s G7 summit in Cornwall to rekindle the moral purpose of the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005, paying for its share of the new fund by reversing the government’s “misguided” cut to the foreign aid budget.

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