Category Archives: World News

In Hong Kong it now looks like opposition is against the law

Posted on by

Mass arrests raise question of what, if anything, dissenting politicians are actually allowed to do

Wednesday’s sweeping arrests of more than 50 pro-democracy activists, pollsters, politicians and fundraisers in Hong Kong seemed to all but criminalise opposition politics in the city.

Those arrested face charges of subversion for their role in unofficial primary elections held last summer that aimed to maximise the pro-democracy bloc’s performance in elections to the city’s legislative council.

Continue reading...

French authorities charge man suspected of organising new year rave

Posted on by

Prosecutor say 22-year-old not alone in organising event that shocked a country in lockdown

French authorities have charged a suspected organiser of an illegal new year rave at which 2,400 people defied coronavirus rules, in a decision condemned by his supporters as an injustice.

The wildcat rave party in Brittany shocked the country as people continued to observe strict bans on gatherings to battle the coronavirus.

Continue reading...

France’s highest court orders retrial of art-dealing Wildenstein family

Posted on by

Guy Wildenstein and others face new trial after court annuls 2018 tax fraud acquittal

France’s highest court has ordered a retrial of members of the art-dealing Wildenstein family who were acquitted of tax fraud in 2018.

Guy Wildenstein, a close friend of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, and other family members, known in France as “les W”, were cleared of hiding an estimated €550m from the French tax authorities in offshore accounts in 2017 – a decision upheld on appeal.

Continue reading...

What’s the scientific basis for delaying the Covid vaccine second dose?

Posted on by

UK health officials also allowing combining doses from different manufacturers

UK health officials have decided to delay giving second doses of Covid-19 vaccines and even permit combining doses from different manufacturers, prompting international concern. What is the scientific justification for this decision?

Why has the UK decided to lengthen the gap between the first and second doses of vaccine?
The original plan was to offer priority groups an initial shot of vaccine, followed by a second dose three weeks later. But a rapid increase in the number of Covid-19 cases, combined with the emergence of a more transmissible variant and uncertainty about the supply of vaccine stocks, prompted the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to consider other options.

Continue reading...

Istanbul university students clash with police over rector appointment

Posted on by

Melih Bulu was assigned post at Boğaziçi University by Turkish president Erdoğan

Students and staff at an Istanbul university have clashed with police in rare protests sparked by the politically charged appointment of a state-approved rector with links to Turkey’s conservative ruling party.

Melih Bulu – who stood as a Justice and Development party (AKP) parliamentary candidate in 2015 – was appointed rector of Boğaziçi University by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a presidential decree issued on 1 January and sworn into office on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

Thieves pelt French police with Burgundy wine in motorway chase

Posted on by

Burglars made off with €350,000 of prestigious bottles from luxury hotel

A gang of wine thieves turned to the closest thing at hand when they discovered French gendarmes in hot pursuit of their van.

The burglars, who were making off with an estimated €350,000 (£317,000) worth of grands crus Burgundy wines, began hurling their loot at officers as they sped down the motorway at high speed.

Continue reading...

China stalls WHO mission to investigate origins of coronavirus

Posted on by

UN body says scientists were due to be deployed to country on Tuesday, but China says negotiations ongoing

China has attempted to downplay concerns over its refusal to authorise a fact-finding mission to the country by the World Health Organization to study the origins of Covid-19, saying it is still negotiating access with the UN body.

A day after the head of the WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was “very disappointed” that China had not authorised the entry of the 10-strong research team, led by Dr Peter Ben Embarek, China insisted there had been a “misunderstanding” between the two sides about agreed dates for the visit, adding that discussions were ongoing.

Continue reading...

Brazilian beef farms ‘used workers kept in conditions similar to slavery’

Posted on by

Workers on farms supplying world’s biggest meat firms allegedly paid £8 a day and housed in shacks with no toilets or running water

Brazilian companies and slaughterhouses including the world’s largest meat producer, JBS, sourced cattle from supplier farms that made use of workers kept in slavery-like conditions, according to a new report.

Workers on cattle farms supplying slaughterhouses earned as little as £8 a day and lived in improvised shacks with no bathrooms, toilets, running water or kitchens, according to a report from Brazilian investigative agency Repórter Brasil.

Since 1995, the report said, 55,000 Brazilian workers have been rescued by government inspectors from “situations similar to slavery”. While the number of investigations has fallen in recent years – 118 workers were freed in 2018, compared with 1,045 a decade earlier – that does not mean the situation has improved, just that inspections have been reduced, it noted.

Continue reading...

Julian Assange refused bail despite judge ruling against extradition to US

Posted on by

Judge says WikiLeaks co-founder ‘still has an incentive to abscond from these, as yet unresolved, proceedings’

Julian Assange has been refused bail by a judge who this week rejected a US request to have him extradited to face espionage and hacking charges.

The co-founder of WikiLeaks has been held at Belmarsh prison in south-east London for the past 18 months after he was evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy, where he sought asylum for seven years.

Continue reading...

Why Raphael Warnock was elected Georgia’s first black US senator

Posted on by

Analysis: Political rise of preacher who took up mantle of earlier civil rights activists has coincided with changes in state

When Raphael Warnock was born, the state of Georgia was represented in the Senate by two segregationists – one of them, Herman Talmadge, a southern Democrat who opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Today, Warnock, a senior preacher at the Ebenezer Baptist church, where Martin Luther King Jr once preached, has been elected the first African American Democratic senator from a formerly Confederate state.

Continue reading...

Denmark launches children’s TV show about man with giant penis

Posted on by

Critics condemn idea of animated series about a man who cannot control his penis, but others have backed it

John Dillermand has an extraordinary penis. So extraordinary, in fact, that it can perform rescue operations, etch murals, hoist a flag and even steal ice-cream from children.

The Danish equivalent of the BBC, DR, has a new animated series aimed at four- to eight-year-olds about John Dillermand, the man with the world’s longest penis who overcomes hardships and challenges with his record-breaking genitals.

Continue reading...

Chef and Le Gavroche restaurateur Albert Roux dies aged 85

Posted on by

Member of Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness, his family has said

The chef and restaurateur Albert Roux has died at the age of 85.

The founder of the Michelin-starred Le Gavroche and member of the Roux culinary dynasty died on Monday after a long illness.

Continue reading...

Dozens of Hong Kong pro-democracy figures arrested in sweeping crackdown

Posted on by

Campaigners and politicians held in wave of arrests under the national security law

More than 50 people, including pro-democracy politicians and campaigners, have been arrested in early-morning raids across Hong Kong in a crackdown by authorities that was condemned as a “despicable” assault on freedom.

In a police operation involving more than 1,000 officers, the 53 individuals were detained under the territory’s controversial national security law (NSL), accused of “subverting state power” by holding primaries for pro-democracy candidates for the Hong Kong election.

Continue reading...

Congolese people have been brutalised since 1996. Why isn’t the west helping?

Posted on by

Despite accusations of war crimes in the central African country, the international community seems unmoved

On New Year’s Eve, a gang of militia left its jungle base and swept across Beni, a forested north-eastern corner of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, looking for Nande people to kill.

Locals alerted the Congolese army but they were ignored. In small farms in Tingwe, a few kilometres from a DRC army base, the gang found 25 people – men, women and children – out harvesting food. One by one they hacked them to death with machetes and axes.

Continue reading...

Virginity tests for female rape survivors outlawed by Pakistani court

Posted on by

Judge said the ‘humiliating’ practice was used to cast suspicion on the victim, and deflected focus from the act of sexual violence

A Pakistani court has outlawed the practice of subjecting female rape survivors to a virginity test in an unprecedented ruling.

Lahore’s high court ruled on Monday that the virginity test has no legal basis and “offends the personal dignity of the female victim”.

Continue reading...

James Comey: Donald Trump should not be prosecuted after leaving office

Posted on by
  • Fired FBI director: next attorney general must ‘foster trust’
  • President has insulted Comey and threatened him with jail

Donald Trump should not be prosecuted once he leaves the White House no matter how much evidence has been amassed against him, the former FBI director James Comey writes in a new book.

Related: Trump call to Georgia secretary of state electrifies voters in Senate runoffs

Continue reading...

Beirut’s wounds on show in display of art damaged by port blast

Posted on by

Exhibition presents torn paintings and grazed sculptures in a museum itself hit by explosion

Through the entrance is a version of Guido Reni’s 17th-century portrait of St John the Baptist, blown to shreds. Nearby, a chandelier lies splattered on the ground where it fell. Mirrors are cracked, paintings ruptured, and roofs in some rooms half-caved in.

Beirut is slowly rebuilding from the explosion on 4 August that destroyed much of its eastern seafront neighbourhoods and tore through galleries and hotel lobbies where some of Lebanon’s most renowned art was on display.

Continue reading...

North Korea: Kim Jong-un says economic plan a near-total failure at rare political meeting

Posted on by

Ruler begins second Workers’ party congress by admitting strategy fell short in ‘almost all areas’

North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, has admitted that his economic policies have largely failed, and vowed to avoid a repeat of the “painful lessons” of the past at a rare meeting of the country’s ruling party.

Kim told the congress of the Workers’ party that his five-year economic plan had failed to achieve its goals “in almost all areas to a great extent”, North Korean state media said on Wednesday.

Continue reading...