Category Archives: World News

‘They are us’: Christchurch shooting victims remembered two years on

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New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern pledges to fight racism as she joins around 1,000 people to mark the second anniversary of the mosque attacks

The 51 worshippers murdered in the Christchurch mosque attacks almost two years ago by a white supremacist have been remembered at a national service with songs, prayers, speeches and pledges to rebuild the community.

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the governor general, Patsy Reddy, joined around 1,000 members of the community at Christchurch’s Horncastle arena on Saturday for the service.

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Trump coronavirus coordinator, Deborah Birx, takes job at air purifier business

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Birx, who was criticised for not standing up to Trump over Covid, takes job with Texas company that says its purifiers clean virus from the air

Dr Deborah Birx, the former Trump White House coronavirus taskforce coordinator, is taking a private sector job, joining a Texas manufacturer that says its purifiers clean Covid-19 from the air within minutes and from surfaces within hours.

Birx will join Dallas-based ActivePure as chief scientific and medical adviser, she and the company said on Friday.

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Rarest subspecies of wolf in North America sees population almost double in five years

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Environmentalists are hopeful about increase in numbers but say wolves are still in a precarious position

Once on the verge of extinction, the rarest subspecies of grey wolf in North America has seen its population nearly double over the last five years, with more gains being reported in 2020.

The results of the latest annual survey show there are at least 186 Mexican grey wolves in the wild in New Mexico and Arizona, US wildlife managers said on Friday. That marks the fifth straight year that the endangered species has increased its numbers, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Spring breakers flock to Covid hotspot Florida to party like it’s 2019

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A combination of students who feel they are at little risk and a governor who has lifted restrictions has experts worried, leading some schools to cancel spring break altogether

Covid-19 and spring break have never mixed well. Last March one young, shirtless man in Miami wearing a backwards-facing green cap went “viral” in the pre-pandemic sense when he told a reporter: “If I get corona, I get corona,” he said. “I’m not going to let it stop me from partying.”

A year later, even after Covid has killed over 500,000 Americans, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended against all travel, similar pictures and videos of spring breakers – no masks or social distancing in sight – are being seen again this year.

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Bolivia’s ex-interim president faces arrest warrant for terrorism and sedition

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Prosecutors move against Jeanine Áñez and officials who backed ousting of former leader Evo Morales

Bolivia’s former interim president faces an arrest warrant for terrorism and sedition as prosecutors move against officials who backed the ousting of former leader Evo Morales, which his party – now back in power – considers a coup.

“The political persecution has begun,” said Jeanine Áñez, who headed a conservative administration that took power after Morales resigned in November 2019.

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Mathias Cormann elected OECD chief despite climate record

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Former Australian finance minister’s candidacy was dogged by complaints from environmental groups

Australia’s former finance minister Mathias Cormann has won a hard-fought election to become the new chief of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), despite grave concerns voiced by environmental groups over his record on climate change.

Cormann narrowly defeated the Swedish former EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström in the election to lead the 37-member Paris-based organisation, which gives advice to member governments on economic trends, inequality, fighting corruption and trade and is seen as the world’s leading rulemaker on corporate tax.

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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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