Category Archives: World News

Lady Gaga’s dog walker describes ‘close call’ after he was shot in robbery

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On social media, Ryan Fischer says ‘healing still needs to happen’ after he was attacked while walking three dogs

Lady Gaga’s dog walker, who was shot last week during a robbery in Hollywood when two of the singer’s French bulldogs were stolen, has described the violence and his recovery “from a very close call with death” in social media posts on Monday.

Ryan Fischer’s posts included pictures taken from his hospital bed, where he says a “lot of healing still needs to happen” but he looks forward to reuniting with the dogs.

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Canada’s top newspaper group gambles on casino app to help fund journalism

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Torstar, which owns more than 70 papers, to launch gaming app to ‘support the growth and expansion of quality journalism’

As advertising revenues dry up and the outlook for print newspapers looks increasingly bleak, publishers around the world are constantly hunting for new and innovative ways to fund costly journalism.

Related: Why Toronto is taking action against a carpenter amid its homelessness crisis

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War and famine could wipe out the next generation of Yemenis

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After years of violence half the population is going hungry and 400,000 under fives are at risk of dying from malnutrition

Eleven-year-old Sadia Ibrahim Mahmud was so weak she could not even move the blanket covering her tiny frame by herself.

“I want to get better, and I want to go to school,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. The autumn sunlight pouring into the malnutrition ward at a Sana’a hospital hurt her eyes; she turned her head on the pillow and tried to rest.

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Idris Elba and Naomi Campbell sign letter backing gay rights in Ghana

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Group of 67 high-profile figures say they are ‘deeply disturbed’ by recent closure of LGBTQ+ centre in Accra

Some of the UK’s most prominent people of Ghanaian heritage have joined together to condemn their former homeland for its stance on gay rights in what will be seen as an extraordinary show of diaspora power.

The influential names in fashion, film and media, including Idris Elba and the Vogue editor-in-chief, Edward Enninful, have signed an open letter in support of Ghana’s LGBTQ+ community. Naomi Campbell, although, not of Ghanaian heritage, has also put her name to the letter.

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Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy sentenced to jail for corruption

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Sarkozy found guilty of corruption and influence peddling but is unlikely to spend time in prison

When the verdict came, it reduced the Paris court to a stunned silence: Nicolas Sarkozy was guilty of corruption and influence peddling, and sentenced to three years in prison, two of them suspended.

France’s president from 2007 to 2012 had played an “active role” in forging a “corruption pact” with his lawyer and a senior magistrate to obtain information on a separate investigation into political donations, the leading judge declared, and there was “serious and concurring evidence” of collaboration between the three men to break the law.

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‘There is no perfect crime’: inside the real French CSI

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A new police science unit in France is deploying groundbreaking forensics and believes DNA will soon allow it to put faces on suspects

Imagine a crime scene. The body of a man in a red sweatshirt and jeans lies dead on the living room floor of an apartment, a revolver near his right hand. There is a blood stain on the blue patterned rug and a bullet hole in the ceiling. On a low table sit an almost empty bottle of whisky and two glasses. The television is off.

If this were an episode of the French TV crime drama Engrenages (Spiral) which ran for eight seasons, or the more recent Netflix hit Lupin, the mystery would have been solved and the killer caught before the screen credits rolled.

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‘Falling off a cliff’: pandemic crippling world’s most fragile states, finds report

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The world’s poorest are becoming poorer as the impact of Covid compounds existing crises, says Disaster Emergency Comittee

Thousands could starve in the world’s most fragile states as the pandemic comes on top of existing crises, warns a new report today which found aid workers are deeply pessimistic about the coming year.

The survey of aid workers by the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) found that they believed humanitarian conditions were at their worst in a decade.

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‘Shocked by the uproar’: Amanda Gorman’s white translator quits

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International Booker winner Marieke Lucas Rijneveld will not translate inaugural poet’s work into Dutch after anger that a Black writer was not hired

The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman’s poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black.

Related: 'My family are too frightened to read my book': meet Europe's most exciting authors

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Belgium considers U-turn on Oxford Covid vaccine for over-55s

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Several European countries opted not to give the jab to older age groups due to lack of data

People over the age of 55 in Belgium could be given the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, as the government seeks to “reset” its heavily criticised vaccination programme.

Belgium joined Germany, France, Poland and Italy last month in only giving the vaccine to younger groups due to a comparative lack of data on its efficacy in the older age ranges in the Oxford/AstraZeneca clinical trials.

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Push to recall California governor Gavin Newsom gains steam – but who’s behind it?

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Effort to oust governor – though unlikely to succeed – reflects political polarization that has widened amid Covid

Across California, hundreds of thousands of people armed with signs and clipboards are gathering outside of local Walmarts, in shopping center parking lots, and on beachside boardwalks, trying to convince their neighbors that the governor needs to go.

An effort to recall Gavin Newsom has gained momentum in recent weeks, as the California governor’s approval ratings dipped amid mounting frustration over how the state has handled the Covid pandemic, and the economic slump caused by closures.

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Coronavirus live news: Germany reopens hairdressers; Chinese hackers ‘target Indian vaccine makers’

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Germany continues to loosen restrictions; Cyberintelligence firm says Chinese hackers are state-backed; South Africa lowers alert level

Tokyo has requested Beijing to stop taking anal swab tests for Covid-19 on Japanese citizens as the procedure causes psychological pain, a government spokesman said on Monday.

Reuters reported that chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato said the government has not received a response that Beijing would change the testing procedure, so Japan would continue to ask China to alter the way of testing.

A Chinese state-backed hacking group has in recent weeks targeted the IT systems of two Indian vaccine makers whose coronavirus shots are being used in the country’s immunisation campaign, cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma told Reuters.

Rivals China and India have both sold or gifted COVID-19 shots to many countries. India produces more than 60% of all vaccines sold in the world.

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Protesters swamp Hong Kong court after pro-democracy figures charged

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British consulate general among crowds outside court voicing their opposition to latest crackdown

About 1,000 people gathered outside a Hong Kong court where 47 pro-democracy candidates, campaigners and activists faced charges of conspiracy to commit subversion under the national security law on Monday.

The group are accused of organising and participating in an unofficial primary poll in July last year aimed at selecting the strongest candidates for a legislative council election that the government later postponed, citing the coronavirus. Authorities said the informal poll was part of a plan to “overthrow” the government.

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Like Pablo Hasél, I faced jail for my rap lyrics – but the worst censorship is self-censorship | Valtònyc

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The rapper’s arrest shows Spain has a problem with freedom of ideology. But people shouldn’t be scared to write songs that stand up to power

The arrest of Pablo Hasél this month, a Spanish rapper – like me – who is accused of glorifying terrorism and insulting the monarchy in his lyrics, didn’t surprise me. When I was 18, I wrote a song about the Spanish king, the police arrested me and I was sentenced to three and a half years in jail. The day they came to take me to prison, I fled to Belgium and have been here ever since, despite the best efforts of Spain to have me extradited. It seemed like a joke – almost four years in jail for a song. But it wasn’t: there are 18 rappers in Spain facing jail for similar charges.

Related: Angry words: rapper's jailing exposes Spain's free speech faultlines

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Voices of long Covid: ‘We are the people that never recovered’ – video

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From struggling to breathe and move – to aches and fevers that never went away – there are thousands of people who say they are experiencing symptoms months after first contracting Covid-19. They are a community struggling to find answers, care and compensation. The Guardian spoke to five people suffering with long Covid

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A massive famine is creeping into Yemen, we need to stop it devouring a generation | Mark Lowcock and Ignazio Cassis

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Monday’s high-level meeting convened by UN will call for immediate funding to slow the hunger endangering millions


In November the United Nations issued a warning that Yemen was in imminent danger of the worst famine the world has seen for decades.

Today Yemen is fast approaching the point of no return. Yet, just as the country reaches its darkest hour, an opportunity has presented itself.

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Aung San Suu Kyi faces four charges as Myanmar junta cracks down on dissent

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Ousted leader, not seen in public since last month’s military coup, appears in court via video link

Two new charges have been announced against Aung San Suu Kyi, according to her lawyer, as Myanmar’s ousted leader appeared before court via video link.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has not been seen in public since she was detained by the military one month ago, now faces a total of four legal charges. If convicted, she may be prevented from running in future elections.

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First papal visit to Iraq to go ahead despite Covid and terrorism concerns

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Visit from Pope Francis will start in Baghdad on Friday and is his first trip abroad in 15 months

Despite the twin threats of Covid-19 and terrorism, the first ever papal visit to Iraq is due to begin on Friday, during which Francis will meet beleaguered Christian communities and one of the world’s most influential Muslim leaders.

For 84-year-old Pope Francis, it will be his first trip abroad for 15 months as the pandemic has curtailed his movements. New Covid restrictions came into effect in Iraq last week, with overnight curfews and a full three-day lockdown at weekends, as daily recorded cases doubled in less than a week.

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Biden can help end Yemen civil war by backing referendum, say separatists

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Southern Transitional Council president says US leader should support a vote on independence for the South

Joe Biden can help end the six-year civil war in Yemen by backing a UN-sponsored referendum on independence for the South, the president of Yemen’s separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) has said.

In an interview with the Guardian, Aidarus al-Zoubaidi claimed a referendum would show 90% support for independence for Yemen’s South and should be held exclusively within the South, pointing out that in the Brexit referendum the rest of the European Union was not given a vote.

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‘Help and you are a criminal’: the fight to defend refugee rights at Europe’s borders

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As illegal, and often violent, pushbacks of asylum seekers continue – human rights groups also report growing hostility

At the offices of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group in Budapest, András Léderer and his colleagues have a map on which they track every asylum seeker – man, woman or child – who has been physically pushed back by police from the Hungarian border and into the forests of Serbia.

The pushbacks are illegal under international law. Yet it is Léderer and his fellow human rights activists who could face arrest and a jail sentence if they went to the border to witness what is happening there.

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Repeated lockdowns are a version of hell – Aucklanders deserve our thanks | Morgan Godfery

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Our national reluctance to make a fuss as well as the structure of our government have helped us fight Covid

On 28 February 2020, the New Zealand authorities were confirming the country’s “first” Covid-19 case. “PANDEMONIUM”, wrote the New Zealand Herald from its first page. Aucklanders made a dash for the supermarkets, according to the same paper, cleaning out toilet paper supplies and gridlocking the city’s major transport nodes. The government was advising national caution after barring travellers from China earlier that month and organising repatriation flights for New Zealanders through the next.

Four weeks later, on 25 March 2020, the country went into a nationwide lockdown.

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