Category Archives: World News

Colombian police killed 86 people in 2020, report reveals

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Instances of violence pointed to ‘structural and systematic’ abuses within the police force and sparked calls for reform

Police officers in Colombia killed 86 people last year, according to a local NGO which reported “structural and systematic” abuses in the South American nation’s police force.

Temblores, an non-governmental organization that monitors state violence, also documented 7,992 cases of assault and 30 cases of sexual violence, with migrant communities and Afro-Colombians often the victims.

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Coronavirus live news: Finland announces lockdown plan; Ukraine registers 40% jump in new cases

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Finnish PM announces three-week lockdown from 8 March; Ukraine registered 8,147 cases on Wednesday; EU leaders to debate certificates for people who had Covid jabs

Coronavirus is continuing to spread at high rates across Europe, with two variants posing the greatest threat, according to Dr Hans Henri Kluge, the World Health Organization’s director for Europe.

Speaking at a news conference, Kluge said that less than 1 million new cases have been reported for a second week in a row as transmission is slowing across Europe, while new reported cases have declined by almost a half since end of 2020. However he cautioned against complacency given that the number of new cases in Europe is 10 times higher than in May last year, and most countries still have very high levels of community transmission.

One in ten Covid-19 sufferers remain unwell after 12 weeks, and many for longer, he added. He advised health authorities to listen to the symptoms of long Covid sufferers in order to better understand the condition. This is a priority for the WHO, and should be for every health authority, he said.

Hungary is predicting a difficult few weeks ahead as a result of rising coronavirus infections, Reuters reports.

There’s not much available detail yet, but an update should follow shortly.

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Not a sprint: endurance experts on how to make it through lockdown

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Marathon runner Eddie Izzard, solo sailor Pip Hare and explorer Levison Wood explain what they have learned about enduring the seemingly unendurable

It just goes on and on, doesn’t it? Despite the millions of vaccinations, and Boris Johnson’s “roadmap” for easing the lockdown, this pandemic is feeling increasingly like an endurance test – a marathon, followed by another marathon, followed by another. Or trudging for miles and miles across the desert for day after day. Or sailing alone around the world, battling storms and loneliness. How do you keep going? There are people who know a thing or two about that – keeping going, endurance, deserts and storms. Perhaps they might even have some advice.

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Biden urged to back water justice bill to reverse decades of underinvestment

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Water Act proposes injection of federal dollars to overhaul ageing infrastructure, create jobs and address inequalities

Democratic lawmakers and advocates are urging Joe Biden to back legislation proposing unprecedented investment in America’s ailing water infrastructure amid the country’s worst crisis in decades that has left millions of people without access to clean, safe, affordable water.

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Princess Latifa letter urges UK police to investigate sister’s Cambridge abduction

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Latifa says in letter passed to police ‘your help and attention on her case could free’ Princess Shamsa

Princess Latifa, a daughter of Dubai’s ruler who claims to have been held in captivity by her father since 2018, has asked UK police to re-investigate the kidnapping more than 20 years ago of her sister, Princess Shamsa, according to a letter reported by the BBC.

The BBC reported that in a letter handwritten in 2019 – but passed to Cambridgeshire police on Wednesday – Latifa says the police may be able to free Shamsa, who was abducted on the orders of her father when she was 19.

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Number of Hong Kong residents moving to Taiwan nearly doubles in 2020

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Wave of migration comes amid worsening crackdown on freedoms following the introduction of Beijing’s national security law

Taiwan issued nearly twice as many residence permits to Hongkongers in 2020 compared with the previous year, new government data have shown, further evidence of the continued exodus of people from the city that is under a worsening crackdown.

Pro-democracy supporters and basic freedoms in Hong Kong have been under pressure since the introduction of a national security law by Beijing in late June.

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Malawi MPs debate bill to liberalise abortion laws as churches oppose

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Law would widen strict rules in country where thousands suffer complications from unsafe terminations

A bill to liberalise Malawi’s abortion laws will be debated by MPs today in the face of opposition from faith groups.

If passed, the termination of pregnancy bill would allow abortions when a woman’s mental or physical health is in danger, in cases of rape and incest, and when there are serious foetal abnormalities.

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Ghanaian LGBTQ+ centre closes after threats and abuse

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Founder says community centre in Accra was closed pre-emptively to protect its staff

A community centre for LGBTQ+ people in Ghana has been closed, following a wave of protest against the rights of sexual minorities in the country.

In recent weeks government ministers and religious groups had demanded the closure of the centre, intended to be a safe space for LGBTQ+ people to meet and find support. Yet since the opening in January of the centre in the capital, Accra, many people have received death threats and online abuse.

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Myanmar military supporters attack anti-coup protesters

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At least two people stabbed after pro-junta demonstrators march through central Yangon

Supporters of Myanmar’s military armed with iron rods, catapults and knives have attacked anti-coup protesters in Yangon after weeks of rallies calling for the return of democracy in the country.

At least two people were stabbed in the attacks, which occurred after hundreds of pro-military demonstrators marched through central Yangon towards the main railway station. Pro-democracy supporters met them with crossed wrists, banging pots and pans.

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Coventry family wins legal battle for Irish wording on gravestone

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Church court had objected to loving tribute to Margaret Keane for fear of arousing political ‘passions’

A grieving family has won its battle to erect a gravestone with an inscription in Irish after overturning a church court ban issued on the grounds that it might arouse political “passions”.

The family of Margaret Keane, a Coventry dinner lady who died aged 73 in 2018, now hope a Celtic cross bearing the words “In ár gcroíthe go deo” – “in our hearts forever” – will be in place on her grave in the grounds of St Giles church in Exhall, near Nuneaton, in time for St Patrick’s Day on 17 March.

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‘The base is solidly behind him’: Trumpism expected to thrive at CPAC

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Lineup at annual gathering features former president’s allies – and Trump himself – suggesting his dominance is undiminished by his election loss

Ronald Solomon spent five days making the 2,300-mile drive from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Orlando, Florida, where he will sell about 75 different hat designs, 15 types of flag, 10 T-shirt designs and a range of eight face masks.

Solomon is the president of the Maga Mall, a retailer of Donald Trump and “Make America great again” merchandise. Undeterred by the former president’s 2020 election defeat and disgrace, he expects to do brisk business when the biggest annual gathering of grassroots conservatives opens on Thursday.

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Claudette Colvin: the woman who refused to give up her bus seat – nine months before Rosa Parks

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It was a spring afternoon in 1955 when a teenager’s spontaneous act of defiance changed US history. Why did it take 40 years for her to get any credit?

It was 2 March 1955, and an unusually humid spring day when students at Booker T Washington high school, a segregated school in the heart of the Jim Crow south, had been let off early to make their way home. A group boarded a segregated public bus, which wound through segregated neighbourhoods gradually filling up with passengers.

A 15-year-old gifted Black student, with aspirations to become a civil rights attorney, took a window seat near the exit door. She gazed outdoors until the white driver instructed her to give up her seat for a white passenger standing nearby.

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Black-browed babbler found in Borneo 180 years after last sighting

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Exclusive: Stuffed specimen was only proof of bird’s existence until discovery in rainforest last year

In the 1840s, a mystery bird was caught on an expedition to the East Indies. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon, described it to science and named it the black-browed babbler (Malacocincla perspicillata).

The species was never seen in the wild again, and a stuffed specimen featuring a bright yellow glass eye was the only proof of its existence. But now the black-browed babbler has been rediscovered in the rainforests of Borneo.

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‘Unique’ petrified tree up to 20m years old found intact in Lesbos

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Discovery of 19.5-metre tree with roots, branches and leaves is unprecedented, say experts

First came the tree, all 19.5 metres of it, with roots and branches and leaves. Then, weeks later, the discovery of 150 fossilised logs, one on top of the other, a short distance away.

Nikolas Zouros, a professor of geology at the University of the Aegean, couldn’t believe his luck. In 25 years of excavating the petrified forest of Lesbos, he had unearthed nothing like it.

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Oxfam GB released from supervision by watchdog after Haiti scandal reforms

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Charity made changes after 2019 earthquake response report found allegations of child sexual misconduct by staff weren’t properly investigated

Oxfam will no longer be subject to strict supervision by the charity watchdog following “significant” reforms prompted by a 2019 report into conduct by its staff after the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The Charity Commission for England and Wales found allegations that staff working in disaster zones sexually abused children were not fully disclosed, with the watchdog also citing a “culture of poor behaviour” among Oxfam GB staff sent to help victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

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Turkey’s mobsters step out of shadows and into public sphere

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After decades in hiding, in prison or keeping low profile, players from a bloody period in the country’s history are now seen as ‘folk idols’ by the Turkish right

At first glance, the photograph of two smartly dressed older Turkish men, posing for the camera in an office filled with flags, could be of any important figures in the country – but it is rare for a picture to say so much about both the past and the future.

On the left is Devlet Bahçeli, an ultranationalist political dinosaur who has in the past few years become an influential coalition partner in the government of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

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Pfizer Covid vaccine 94% effective, study of 1.2m people finds

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A major study of data from Israel showed Pfizer shot cut symptomatic cases drastically across all age groups

The first major real-world study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be independently reviewed shows the shot is highly effective at preventing Covid-19, in a potentially landmark moment for countries desperate to end lockdowns and reopen economies.

Until now, most data on coronavirus vaccines has come under controlled conditions in clinical trials, leaving an element of uncertainty about how the results would translate into the real world.

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All suspects in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder arrested, says police chief

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Angelo Gafa says all those who masterminded killing of Maltese journalist now apprehended or charged

Every person involved in the 2017 murder of the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has been apprehended, Malta’s national police chief has declared.

Commissioner Angelo Gafa was speaking before a court hearing on Wednesday evening at which two new suspects were arraigned.

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Manhattan district attorney reportedly subpoenas Bannon’s financial records – live

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Joe Biden is meeting with a bipartisan group of Congress members to discuss improving US supply chains to better prepare for future crises.

“The last year has shown some of the vulnerability we have with some of the supply chains, including the PPE we needed badly but had to go abroad to get,” Biden told reporters at the start of the meeting.

Biden, meeting in Oval with members of Congress about supply chain problems, including a shortage of computer chips for the autos industry, says it’s causing some production lines to slow down and “people might be laid off.” pic.twitter.com/nHNN2CofN5

Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the interior department, faced more pointed questions from Republicans during her second confirmation hearing today.

Republican Senator John Barrasso pressed Haaland, who would be the first Native American cabinet secretary if confirmed, on her past statements against fracking on public lands.

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Lloyds and HSBC are shedding office space … did they have too much to begin with?

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Why there may be more to the announcement of Covid-inspired cuts than meets the eye

Here comes another bank that has decided, apparently definitively, that working practices will not return to their pre-pandemic norms. Lloyds Banking Group says it plans to shed 20% of its office space. Earlier this week, HSBC said it would get rid of 40%.

These figures are so dramatic that they invite suspicion. Have managements really come to the firm view that working from home is so popular that employees’ demands for flexibility must be granted? Or did these banks have too much office space in the first place and now wish to save a few quid?

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