Category Archives: World News

Climate talks will test Biden’s pledge to make global heating a priority

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Summit is designed to revive a US-convened forum of the world’s major economies that previous administrations had allowed to lapse

President Joe Biden is doubling down on his reset of his predecessor’s environmental policies by inviting Russian president Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping of China to the first big climate talks of his administration next month aimed at increasing cooperation to fight global heating.

The Leaders Summit on Climate talks, scheduled to be held virtually on 22 and 23 April, are an opportunity for the US to shape, hasten and deepen global efforts to cut climate-wrecking fossil fuel pollution, administration officials told the Associated Press.

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Protesters face police in Myanmar in one of the bloodiest days since coup – video

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Unarmed civilians and children were reportedly killed on one of the bloodiest days since a military coup in Myanmar.

Security forces killed more than 90 people on armed forces day as Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leader, said during a parade in the capital the military would protect the people and strive for democracy

State television had said on Friday that protesters risked being shot “in the head and back”. Despite this, demonstrators against the 1 Feb coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns

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New Zealand’s Covid quarantine fee change places politics over a citizen’s right to return | Sarah Habershon

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The government knows that to quell the mutinous grumbling at home you have to nominate an ‘outgroup’

Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve taken huge comfort in the knowledge that just about everyone I love is safely inside the fortress-like border that’s been erected around New Zealand. I have no doubt that every other Kiwi still living or trapped in the Covid red-zones of the world feels the same way. But this week’s announcement that returning citizens must now commit to a stay of at least six months, double the previous requirement of three, to avoid a NZ$3,100 (£1,600) fee for their managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) prioritises politics over their right to return.

The government’s official line on the issue is that the changes are being made in the interests of fairness and sustainability. In practice, the policy amounts to a thinly veiled deterrence strategy. A strategy with the additional bonus of delivering visible action in response to public restlessness following the recent series of lockdowns. It neither contributes meaningfully to meeting the cost of the policy nor makes the policy more equitable, but it does make for a satisfying user-pays narrative to placate resentment towards the border and those who cross it.

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Mozambique: several dead as insurgents seize control of town

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At least one foreign worker among those killed after assault on Palma, near a huge gas project

Islamist militants seized control of a town in northern Mozambique, killing several people including at least one foreign worker, near a huge gas project involving France’s Total and other energy companies, security sources said on Saturday.

Militants raided the town of Palma in the northern province of Cabo Delgado on Wednesday, forcing nearly 200 people including foreign gas workers to be evacuated from a hotel where they had sought refuge.

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Dublin hospital told to stop giving Covid jabs after sharing surplus with private school

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Beacon hospital chief is believed to have sent his children to St Gerard’s school, where staff received jabs

The Irish health minister has moved to suspend coronavirus vaccines from being given at a private hospital in Dublin after it used spare doses to vaccinate teachers at a fee-paying school.

Stephen Donnelly said it was “completely unacceptable” and has asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to suspend vaccinations at the Beacon hospital, with the exception of already scheduled appointments.

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Coronavirus live news: UK over-70s could start getting booster jabs in September, Czech government extends state of emergency

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Vaccines minister says first booster doses will go to the top four priority groups, which includes care home staff, NHS workers and clinically extremely vulnerable

Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, has received her first dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

The 50-year-old politician was given a shot of AstraZeneca’s vaccine by a GP at Castle Park leisure centre in Lisnaskea in her Co Fermanagh constituency on Saturday morning, according to PA.

There is a really positive community spirit here and across all of our centres in a collective effort to combat Covid-19. I am grateful to all of the wonderful team of medics and volunteers who are making this happen in GP practices and centres across Northern Ireland every day of the week.

Families in Israel are celebrating Passover following a successful vaccine rollout in the country in which more than half of its overall population have received both doses.

Giordana Grego, who immigrated to Israel from Italy, told AP:

For us in Israel, really celebrating the festivity of freedom definitely has a whole different meaning this year after what we experienced. It’s amazing that this year we’re able to celebrate together, also considering that in Italy, everybody is still under lockdown.

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‘Reclaim These Streets’ and rubber duck rallies: human rights roundup – in pictures

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Coverage on recent struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cardiff Bay to Thailand

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‘Vaccine prince’: the Indian billionaire set to make Covid jabs for the UK

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Serum Institute boss Adar Poonawalla has rented a Mayfair mansion for £50,000 a week

The AstraZeneca vaccine has made Prof Sarah Gilbert – who led the Oxford team that created it – one of the UK’s most famous modern scientists and turned the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company into a household name.

But almost half of all the AstraZeneca shots, destined for the arms of hundreds of millions of people around the world, are being produced by a 40-year-old Indian billionaire with a penchant for private jets and Picassos.

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Protests at ‘inhumane’ export of live horses to Japan for food

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Activists seek ban on flying horses to Japan with thousands sent every year from Canada and France

Tens of thousands of horses are being subjected to long-haul flights, confined in crates with no food or water, to meet demand for horsemeat in Japan.

Since 2013, about 40,000 live horses have been flown to Japan from airports in western Canada. Under Canadian regulations, the journey can stretch up to 28 hours, during which the animals are allowed to go without food, water or rest.

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Myanmar: Dozens reported killed after military says protesters could be ‘shot in the head’

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Demonstrators defy threats from the military to turn out on Saturday as the country’s generals mark Armed Forces Day

Myanmar’s security forces have shot and killed at least 50 people across the country, local media reported, as the leader of the ruling junta said the military would protect the people and strive for democracy.

Protesters against the 1 February military coup came out on the streets of Yangon, Mandalay and other towns on Saturday, defying a warning that they could be shot “in the head and back” as the country’s generals celebrated Armed Forces Day.

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Mozambique: 180 workers trapped in hotel amid insurgent attack

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Military tries to airlift people to safety from strategic port town of Palma, near Total gas project

More than 180 people, including expatriate workers, have been trapped inside a hotel in a northern Mozambique town under attack by insurgents for three days.

The military was trying on Friday to airlift the workers to safety from Palma town which is situated near the multibillion-dollar gas site on the Afungi peninsula in Cabo Delgado province, according to the trapped workers.

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Joe Biden condemns Georgia voting law: ‘This is Jim Crow in the 21st century’ – live

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The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

Activists in Georgia vowed on Friday to keep up an aggressive campaign to pressure Republicans over their support for the law restricting voting access, saying they were undeterred by its final passage through the legislature.

Related: 'Jim Crow in the 21st century': Biden denounces Georgia Republicans over new voting law

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, argued the Georgia law restricting voter access underscored the need to pass the For the People Act.

The Democratic-controlled House passed the election reform legislation earlier this month.

We saw it in Georgia last night. We see it across the country.

A concerted, nationwide, and racist effort by Republican state legislatures to limit the right of American citizens to vote.

The #ForThePeople Act is a priority of this Congress to fight this and renew Democracy. pic.twitter.com/E0TFJ68dqv

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‘Jim Crow in the 21st century’: Biden denounces Georgia Republicans over new voting law

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President says new law represents ‘blatant attack on the constitution’ as voting rights activists vow to keep up the fight

Joe Biden lambasted a new law in Georgia that imposes sweeping new voting restrictions, calling it “un-American” and “Jim Crow in the 21st century”.

He said in a statement: “Instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country, is a blatant attack on the constitution and good conscience.”

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The Guardian view on China, Xinjiang and sanctions: the gloves are off | Editorial

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Beijing wants to silence critics of its treatment of Uighurs. But the impact will be broader

China’s response to criticisms of horrifying human rights violations in Xinjiang is clear and calculated. Its aims are threefold. First, the sanctions imposed upon individuals and institutions in the EU and UK are direct retaliation for those imposed upon China over its treatment of Uighurs. That does not mean they are like-for-like: the EU and UK measures targeted officials responsible for human rights abuses, while these target non-state actors – elected politicians, thinktanks, lawyers and academics – simply for criticising those abuses.

Second, they seek more broadly to deter any criticism over Xinjiang, where Beijing denies any rights violations. Third, they appear to be intended to send a message to the EU, UK and others not to fall in line with the harsher US approach towards China generally. Beijing sees human rights concerns as a pretext for defending western hegemony, pointing to historic and current abuses committed by its critics. But mostly it believes it no longer needs to tolerate challenges.

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Regional museums break ranks with UK government on return of Benin bronzes

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Aberdeen says it will repatriate a bust while Cambridge museum has ‘expectation’ its collection could be returned

Regional UK museums could lead a wave of repatriations of disputed Benin bronzes – most of them looted by British forces in 1897 – in defiance of the British government’s stance that institutions should “retain and explain” contested artefacts.

On Thursday, the University of Aberdeen confirmed it would repatriate a bust of an Oba, or king of Benin, which it has had since the 1950s, “within weeks”, a landmark move for a British institution.

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Scandal! Horror! Biden’s press-briefing notes prompt rightwing outrage

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Fox News got exercised about the president taking cues on Thursday – but there’s nothing wrong with being prepared

Joe Biden’s first press conference has caused some strong reactions from the conservative side of the aisle after he was caught … reading notes.

On Thursday night, Fox News dedicated considerable time covering just how long Biden took to hold his first press conference – 49 days!

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‘India’s soul at stake’: West Bengalis vote in divisive election

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Tensions between Muslims and Hindus high as Modi’s BJP shows it could win state for first time

In the sleepy, swampy surroundings of Nandigram, West Bengal, where mango and coconut trees grow in abundance, bicycles meander down dusty lanes and ponds fester with green algae, a vicious political showdown has been brewing.

West Bengal, one of India’s most populous states, will begin voting in its elections on Saturday to elect its state government. The significance of the poll, however, spreads far beyond the state’s borders. “The soul of not just Bengal but India is at stake,” said Malay Tewari, a Bengali social activist.

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France not complicit in Rwanda genocide, says Macron commission

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Report says France did not do enough to halt the 1994 killings but found no evidence of complicity

France bears the burden of “heavy and damning responsibilities” in the Rwandan genocide but was not complicit in the slaughter, according to the findings of an official commission set up by Emmanuel Macron.

As many as 800,000 people, mainly from Rwanda’s minority Tutsi ethnic population, were massacred in a wave of killings in 1994. The report released on Friday confirmed long and persistent accusations that France did not do enough to halt the killings, but said there was no evidence of complicity in the massacres.

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At least 20 livestock ships caught in Suez canal logjam

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Concerns for animals’ welfare if Ever Given blockage crisis is protracted


At least 20 of the boats delayed due to a stricken container ship in the Suez canal are carrying livestock, according to marine tracking data, raising concerns about the welfare of the animals if the logjam becomes protracted.

The 220,000-ton Ever Given is causing the longest closure of the Suez canal in decades with more than 200 ships estimated to be unable to pass, and incoming vessels diverting around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

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Editor of top US medical journal put on leave amid outcry over racism podcast

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Jama’s Howard Bauchner replaced by interim editor after ‘offensive’ remarks by deputy on podcast about structural racism

The editor-in-chief of Jama, the Journal of the American Medical Association, has been placed on leave amid controversy over comments about structural racism made on a podcast by one of his deputies.

The New York Times reported that the American Medical Association told staff on Thursday Dr Howard Bauchner would be replaced by an interim editor while an investigation was carried out.

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