Category Archives: World News

China reports Australia to UN body over ‘violated’ human rights

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China itself has been accused of operating detention centres, with more than 1m people estimated to have been detained in Xinjiang

China has said it is “deeply concerned” by what it described as the Australian government’s operation of offshore detention centres, and has called for the sites to be closed immediately.

Ties between the two countries soured in 2018 when Australia became the first nation to publicly ban China’s Huawei from its 5G network and worsened when Australia last year called for an inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus.

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Gunmen kidnap 39 students in Nigeria in raid on college

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Attack in north-west of country is latest in series of mass abductions targeting schools

Gunmen have raided a college in north-west Nigeria and kidnapped 39 students, in the latest mass abduction targeting a school.

The gang stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Mando, Kaduna state, at about 9.30pm (2030 GMT) on Thursday, shooting indiscriminately before taking students. The Kaduna college was said to have about 300 male and female students – mostly aged 17 and older – at the time of the attack.

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Yellow review – a gripping epic about fascism in Belgium

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Available online
Part two in NTGent’s Sorrows of Belgium trilogy is a visually arresting account of the rise of the Rex party and the horror of the second world war

Director Luk Perceval’s Sorrows of Belgium trilogy charts three dark chapters in the nation’s history, starting with colonial oppressions in the Congo in Black (produced by NTGent in 2019) and ending with the Brussels terrorist attacks of 2016 in Red (yet to be staged). The second instalment, Yellow, dramatises the rise of the fascist party Rex, which led to collaboration with Nazi occupiers.

What is immediately arresting in NTGent’s live-stream, with English subtitles, is the cinematic quality of the production. It is exquisitely filmed by Daniel Demoustier in the theatre, though not always on the stage. Shot almost entirely in black and white with some intermittent hues of yellow, it seems variously like a dance and a series of sorrowful tableaux of human suffering and collective delusion. Camera angles draw us into the roused faces of Belgian fascists, circling them dizzily as they spit out their rhetoric, and then drawing away to show them as a choreographed ensemble. Annette Kurz’s set design seems more like a moving painting, with the actors often performing on or around a table that serves as a miniature stage.

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Sea of resilience: how the Pacific fought against Covid

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A new documentary shows that while the health impacts of the pandemic have - so far - been largely avoided, the effects of isolation on families, communities, and livelihoods has been profound

Faith, family, and a little bit of farming.

The Pacific’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been one of self-reliance and resistance: to turn to its communities and churches, its lands and seas.

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Spanish police seize narco-submarine in Málaga raid

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Officers discover vessel during wider operation in which hundreds of kilos of drugs were seized

Spanish police have announced the seizure of a homemade narco-submarine able to carry as much as two tonnes of cargo.

Police discovered the nine-metre (30ft) vessel last month while it was being built in the southern city of Málaga, during a broader international drug operation involving five other countries and the EU crime agency, Europol.

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Chinese hotel with polar bear enclosure opens to outrage

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Harbin hotel keeping threatened species in pen overlooked by bedrooms angers animal welfare groups

A Chinese hotel built around a central polar bear enclosure for the non-stop viewing pleasure of its guests has opened to immediate condemnation from conservationists.

At Harbin Polar Land in north-east China, the hotel bedrooms’ windows face onto the bears’ pen, with visitors told the animals are their “neighbours 24 hours a day”.

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‘I can never ever forget’: sister of Christchurch mosque victim on grief and acceptance

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Aya Al-Umari desperately misses her brother Hussein, who was killed in the 2019 massacre, with 50 others

A few months after the Christchurch mosque attacks, Aya Al-Umari went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and from there to Abu Dhabi, where she and her brother Hussein grew up.

The trip was a major step towards accepting her brother’s death, she says. “I wanted to go down the memory lane of our childhood.”

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Boris Johnson rules out return of Parthenon marbles to Greece

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Prime minister says sculptures taken by Lord Elgin would remain in Britain as they had been legally acquired

Boris Johnson has used his first interview with a European newspaper since becoming the UK’s prime minister to issue a point-blank rejection of the Parthenon marbles being returned to Greece.

Johnson insisted that the sculptures, removed from the monument by Lord Elgin in circumstances that have since spurred one of the world’s most famous cultural rows, would remain in Britain because they had been legally acquired.

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Moroccan police accused of burning migrant shelters near Spanish enclave

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Refugees and migrants camped along border to Melilla say there have been repeated raids following 150 people attempting to cross

Migrants in northern Morocco said they had been forced to sleep out in the open after repeated raids by police, who allegedly burned down their shelters in camps near the Spanish enclave Melilla.

Those camped along the border said Moroccan forces returned for a fourth day on Friday despite having already torched most of their tents.

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Hollywood Down Under: stars flock from US to film in Covid-free Australia

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Blessed with sunny weather, diverse locations and a ready-made film industry, Sydney and the Gold Coast have become movie powerhouses

On a warmish Wednesday evening early in the year, Paul Mescal was celebrating his birthday and everybody seemed to know. The Irish actor, famous for his neckchain and his leading role in Normal People, was in Sydney, Australia, for a new film, and the word was spreading. He was photographed running in Centennial Park. He was sighted at Tamarama Beach. He popped into an inner-city pub.

But on the list of stars now working in Australia, Mescal – in Sydney for a musical film adaptation of Carmen – is comfortably mid-level. Thanks to its relative freedom from Covid-19 and associated restrictions, Australia – blessed with diverse locations, sunny weather and a ready-made film infrastructure – has become Hollywood Down Under.

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Cast out: the Yazidi women reunited with their children born in Isis slavery

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Yazidi elders disown former slaves of Islamic State, forcing them to choose between their children and their community

Bundled up in oversized scarves and coats, and squirming over lounge chairs, the 12 young children seemed startled as nine strange women with outstretched arms hurried towards them.

Some of the women sobbed as they embraced the bemused toddlers, who stared at them blankly not recognising their mothers, or understanding what the fuss was about. One mother stood motionless with her head in her hands, while another stared intently into her tiny daughter’s eyes.

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Merkelism without Merkel: Green hopes high before German state vote

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Pragmatic state premier with flat-top ahead in polls as CDU faces defeat in country’s south-west

Winfried Kretschmann, a white-haired former biology teacher who has been the state premier of Baden-Württemberg since 2011, can look forward to this Sunday’s elections in his wealthy corner of south-west Germany with ease.

In the home state of Daimler, Porsche and Bosch, he has not just won the support of the metal and electronics industry, but that of conservative voters, 65% of whom have in surveys expressed their wish for the 72-year-old Catholic to retain his office.

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Toronto swaps Google-backed, not-so-smart city plans for people-centred vision

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A year after ditching a Google tie-up to create a tech-heavy waterside development, Canada’s largest city is stressing affordability and sustainability

When a Google-backed company first considered 12 acres of industrial land along Toronto’s waterfront, it saw a blank slate that would let it design a hi-tech, futuristic city.

Algorithms would ease congestion on heated roads. Autonomous vehicles would shuttle residents past towering wooden skyscrapers. And by closely studying millions of residents, computers could learn how to make the city more livable.

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What is Joe Biden doing to cope with a rise in unaccompanied child migrants?

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As the administration tackles Trump’s legacy February saw more minors arriving alone at the southern border than since May 2019

Joe Biden’s promise of a more “fair, safe and orderly” immigration system is facing an early test as the number of children seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border has increased this year.

Related: Surge in migrants seeking to cross Mexico border poses challenge for Biden

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Italy braces for widespread closures as Covid cases rise

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Schools, restaurants and shops expected to shut with hospitals under strain from new wave

Italy’s government is expected to announce the closure of schools, restaurants and shops across most of the country as a new wave of coronavirus infections puts hospitals under strain.

The prime minister, Mario Draghi, will hold a mid-morning cabinet meeting on Friday to decide new restrictions for the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which on Thursday recorded almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths.

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Netflix weighs up crackdown on password sharing

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Streaming service tests feature that asks viewers if they share household with subscriber

Netflix has begun testing a feature that asks viewers whether they share a household with a subscriber, in a move that could lead to crackdown on the widespread practice of sharing passwords among friends and family.

Some Netflix users are reported to have received a message asking them to confirm they live with the account owner by entering a code included in a text message or email sent to the subscriber.

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Lucha libre wrestlers enforce wearing of Covid masks at Mexican market – video

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Mexico's famed masked wrestlers take the fight to Covid-19 at a wholesale market, the Central de Abastos in Mexico City. Stallholders and customers were encouraged to wear face masks and use sanitiser. Mexico has recorded more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths, the fourth country to do so. It was the first country in Latin America to begin vaccinating its population

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Out of Africa: how Netflix’s ambitions could change the continent’s cinema

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The streaming giant has come knocking, but a lack of infrastructure and government support continues to hinder the continent telling its own stories

It was the sight of donkeys carrying camera equipment that reminded Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese he was shooting in Lesotho. The director was filming This Is Not a Burial, It Is a Resurrection in a remote part of his tiny home nation, which has no cinemas and – unsurprisingly – zero film infrastructure. “It’s a bit daring to take a crew there and shoot because there’s no electricity,” Mosese says from his home in Berlin. “Especially when we go to the mountains – we had to rely on the donkeys because at some point we just couldn’t carry the equipment.”

The shoot ran on petrol-powered generators. Villagers pitched in as ad-hoc crew members. Many fingers were crossed. “We had to build everything from scratch,” he says. That approach didn’t harm the film. Critically lauded, the stylish mood piece about grief, community and egregious land development has been entered in the Oscars as the country’s 2021 candidate.

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Europe doubles down on cycling in post-Covid recovery plans

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Success of schemes during pandemic has led many cities to plan vastly expanded bike networks

When the coronavirus pandemic led to global lockdowns a year ago, hundreds of cities reconfigured their streets to make walking and cycling easier to aid social distancing and reduce air pollution. Now, with an end to the lockdowns in sight, the measures have proved so successful that cities across Europe are betting on the bicycle to lead the recovery.

According to the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF), the continent’s cities spent €1bn on Covid-related cycling measures in 2020, creating at least 600 miles (1,000km) of cycle lanes, traffic calming measures and car-free streets.

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Hemiandrus jacinda: insect named after New Zealand prime minister

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New species of wētā, a giant flightless cricket, is seen as ‘reflecting traits’ of Jacinda Ardern

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has received what may be her greatest accolade yet: a large insect named in her honour.

A new species of wētā – a giant flightless cricket that is endemic to New Zealand – has been named Hemiandrus jacinda for being Labour-party red in colour and “long-limbed”.

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