Category Archives: World News

Honeymoon over for Japan’s new PM amid Covid third wave

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Support for Yoshihide Suga plunges as his travel policy is blamed in part for rise in infections

Yoshihide Suga’s honeymoon period as Japan’s prime minister had barely begun when coronavirus intervened. Now, two months into his leadership, he finds himself battling a resurgent outbreak and disillusionment among voters.

Enthusiasm for the farmer’s son who worked part-time to pay his way through university has all but evaporated since he took office in late September. As Japan prepares for a holiday period that experts fear could be overshadowed by a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases, an anxious public has Suga in its sights.

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Tom Cruise recorded shouting and swearing at Mission: Impossible crew over Covid issues

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The film star can be heard saying ‘if you don’t do it, you’re fired’, reportedly after crew members in Leavesden studios failed to socially distance

Tom Cruise has been recorded screaming obscenities at crew members on his current film Mission: Impossible 7 after apparent breaches of on-set social distancing guidelines.

The Sun published an audio recording of Cruise shouting and swearing at film crew on the project, of which is he one of the producers, threatening instant dismissal of anyone found to be contravening distancing rules.

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‘He ruined us’: 10 years on, Tunisians curse man who sparked Arab spring

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Thanks in part to Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, Tunisians are freer than before, but many are miserable and disillusioned

His act of despair still shakes the Arab world. Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old fruit seller whose self-immolation triggered revolutions across the Middle East, has a boulevard named after him in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis. In his home town of Sidi Bouzid, he is depicted in a giant portrait facing the local government headquarters.

But a decade since he set himself on fire in protest at state corruption and brutality, Bouazizi is out of fashion in Tunisia – along with the revolution his death inspired. His family have moved to Canada and cut most ties with Sidi Bouzid. “They were smeared,” says Bilal Gharby, 32, a family friend.

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‘Very narrow path’ to Brexit agreement, says Ursula von der Leyen – video

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Ursula von der Leyen told European leaders she did not know if a trade agreement could be reached with Britain before the 31 December deadline. 

The main issue remained fisheries, on which the European commission president said discussions were very difficult. She added Europe did not question UK sovereignty over its waters, but asked for rights for EU workers

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‘It’s over for us’: how extreme weather is emptying Bangladesh’s villages

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The frequency of natural disasters is making life in rural areas increasingly difficult, pushing inhabitants into city slums

The house Faruk Hossain grew up in has, for the last six months, resisted being claimed by the river, as the rest of the village already has been.

But slowly, as the waters have failed to seep away, he has come to accept that the family house has become uninhabitable. Like other villages nearby, Chakla in Bangladesh’s Satkhira district has not re-emerged from the flooding caused by Super-cyclone Amphan, which battered the south of the country in late May,

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Coronavirus live news: London enters tier 3 restrictions; Trump will ‘absolutely’ encourage vaccine use

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One in four people globally may not get vaccines until 2022; EU likely to approve vaccine within days; Canada signs deal to accelerate Moderna vaccine deliveries

A little more on the new community transmission case in Sydney. The positive case was detected in van driver transporting international airline crew to and from Sydney airport. Matilda Boseley and Melissa Davey report.

Related: NSW records new local Covid case, raising questions over airline crew quarantine

It’s been described as “very un-Australian” - one of the fiercest, but most flexible, criticisms you can make in this part of the world.

Australian department of foreign affairs and trade officials are being allowed to skip government-mandated hotel quarantine when returning from abroad, instead spending two weeks at home.

Related: Foreign affairs officials allowed to skip hotel quarantine when returning to Australia

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Coronavirus live news: UK death toll rises by 612; Denmark to impose hard lockdown over Christmas

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‘We have to act now,’ says Danish PM; 11,214 new cases in the Netherlands; no vaccines for poorer countries until 2024, report claims

Peru’s government told people in the country not to invite friends and family who live outside the home to Christmas and New Year celebrations, a measure aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Coronavirus cases in Peru totalled 987,675 as of Tuesday with 36,817 deaths so far, according to official figures. Health authorities are warning of a possible second wave of infections early next year.

Brazil has registered more than 70,000 additional cases of Covid-19, pushing the country’s total confirmed cases over 7 million.

The country has now registered 7,040,608 total confirmed cases, behind only the US and India.

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At least 250,000 suffered abuse in New Zealand’s state care system, inquiry finds

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Royal commission into abuse in state care between 1950 and 1999 found victims were ‘most disadvantaged or marginalised’

A quarter of a million New Zealanders held in state care suffered some form of abuse, a landmark inquiry has found, with the true number believed to be higher.

The royal commission into abuse in state care is investigating historic abuse of children, young adults and vulnerable adults by state-run institutions between 1950 and 1999, as well as in affiliated religious institutions, such as church-run orphanages.

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Lost artefact from Great Pyramid of Giza found in cigar box in Aberdeen

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Wooden fragment from at least 3000BC discovered by chance by Egyptian university researcher

A lost artefact from the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of only three objects ever recovered from inside the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, has been found in a chance discovery at the University of Aberdeen.

Curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany, originally from Egypt, was reviewing items in the university’s Asia collection when she came across a cigar box marked with her country’s former flag.

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Senior faith leaders call for global decriminalisation of LGBT+ people

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UK conference brings together more than 60 leaders, demanding an international ban on conversion practices

Senior faith leaders from around the world are coming together at an event backed by the UK government to call for an end to the criminalisation of LGBT+ people and a global ban on conversion practices.

More than 370 figures from 35 countries representing 10 religions have signed a historic declaration ahead of a conference on 16 December in a move that will highlight divisions within global religions.

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Cyclone Yasa: Fiji prepares for category 5 storm as Tonga braces for Zazu

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Evacuations ordered in Fiji as Yasa strengthens into a category five system with winds of up to 270km/h

Twin cyclones are bearing down on Pacific islands, with Fiji’s main island likely to be directly hit by a category five storm for the second time this year.

Tonga and Fiji were bracing for potentially catastrophic damage as tropical cyclones Zazu and Yasa intensified off their coastlines on Wednesday.

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Mexico: new security law strips diplomatic immunity from DEA agents

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Law also requires foreign officials in the country to share any intelligence they have obtained with Mexican officials

Mexico’s congress has approved a new national security law restricting the activities of foreign law enforcement officers, in a move which critics say will endanger intelligence sources and threaten the future of international anti-narcotics operations.

The law passed on Tuesday strips foreign agents of diplomatic immunity and requires foreign officials in the country to share any intelligence they have obtained with Mexican officials.

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Kayleigh McEnany refuses to follow McConnell admitting Trump election defeat – video

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Kayleigh McEnany has described Monday's electoral college vote confirming Joe Biden as the nation's next president as just 'one step in the constitutional process'. The White House press secretary's assessment is the latest example of White House officials declining to accept Biden's victory, even after Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday broke his silence on the winner of the presidency, saying: 'The electoral college has spoken.'

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Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell acknowledges Biden/Harris victory – video

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Republican Mitch McConnell on Tuesday congratulated the Democratic president-elect, Joe Biden, and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, on their election victories, ending his long silence on the outcome of the presidential race. In remarks on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning, the Senate majority leader acknowledged the Democrats' winning the White House following Monday's formal result issued by the electoral college

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Is she hiding in a submarine? In a bunker? The hunt for Ghislaine Maxwell

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The death of Jeffrey Epstein sparked a worldwide search for his former associate. How did the woman now known as Inmate 02879-509 keep such a low profile for so long?

This time last year, Ghislaine Maxwell was off the grid. The Oxford-educated socialite was lying low as the focus of a frenzied media hunt pivoted to her after the suicide of her erstwhile lover Jeffrey Epstein.

“For Ghislaine-watchers, the autumn of 2019 through to the summer of 2020 was a mystery,” says Mark Seal, the Vanity Fair special correspondent who followed her story. “She was said to be hiding in a submarine, lying low in Israel, in the FBI witness protection programme, in a luxurious villa in the south of France, sunning herself on the coast of Spain, or in some high-security doomsday bunker owned by rich and powerful friends – all seemingly possible, but all, thus far at least, wrong,” he adds.

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Coronavirus live news: Germany pressures EU for speedy vaccine approval; Italian PM says new restrictions needed

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Germany keen to begin vaccinations amid surge in cases; Guiseppe Conte says third wave in Italy to be avoided at all cost

The Danish government will extend current lockdown measures to the entire country, the broadcaster TV2 has reported, citing unnamed sources. The measures, which were implemented last week in parts of Denmark after signs of a rapid rise in infections, include shutting bars, restaurants and museums.

Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.

The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.

Related: UK medical journals call for Christmas Covid rules to be reversed

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More Biden cabinet picks emerge as McConnell acknowledges victory – as it happened

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That’s all from me. Thanks for sticking with us.

Can the Radical Left “steal” an election you haven’t conceded?

This seems notable… A Trump fundraising email that implicitly concedes that he may not serve two continuous terms pic.twitter.com/WX9T01EjHo

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Kent lorry park will not be ready in time for Brexit day deadline

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Heavy rain has hampered work on site intended to relieve queues around Dover from 1 January

The Kent lorry park designed to relieve queues of up to 7,000 trucks taking goods across the Channel will not be ready for Brexit on 1 January, it has emerged.

Damian Green, the MP for Ashford, said the government told him rain had hampered work on the site between the villages of Sevington and Mersham, fuelling fears of traffic queues around the county for the first two months of the year.

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