Category Archives: World News

Egypt frees three rights workers after outcry over crackdown

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Three staffers at one of the last rights groups still operating in Egypt were arrested last month

Three Egyptian human rights workers who were arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences last month have been freed after an outcry over the government’s crackdown on one of the last rights groups still operating in the country.

The arrests and moves against the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, or EIPR, had underlined the extent to which President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s government has gone in silencing dissent and independent organisation during years of arrests and other forms of intimidation.

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Brexit talks falter as UK claims EU is hardening negotiating stance

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Progress stalls as robust lobbying from France alleged and tussle ensues over UK subsidies regulator

Brexit negotiations took a sudden step backwards Thursday afternoon Downing Street said, after furious French lobbying pushed the EU to make late demands.

The apparent eleventh hour hardening of the EU position was said to have destabilised the troubled talks, peeling back progress made over the previous 24 hours.

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Italy bans travel between towns over Christmas

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Midnight mass to be brought forward so worshippers can get home before 10pm curfew

The Italian government has approved a ban on inter-regional travel during the Christmas period as the country registered the highest daily coronavirus death toll of the pandemic.

Under a new decree signed by the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, on Thursday night, people will be barred from travelling beyond their regions between 20 December and 6 January except for work, health or emergency reasons.

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Yemen ‘one step away from famine’ as donors dry up amid Covid, UN warns

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Urgent alert issued over millions struggling with ‘catastophic levels’ of hunger as less than half of required aid received

The window to prevent the return of famine to Yemen is rapidly closing, UN agencies have warned, with a new assessment showing millions could head further into hunger in the coming months.

The alert came as a World Health Organization food security assessment showed thousands of people are slipping into famine – a number that is predicted to triple in the first half of next year – while millions more have seen declining access to food.

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US logs a record 3,157 coronavirus deaths in one day

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The US recorded its highest daily number of coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, as the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid exceeded 100,000 for the first time since the pandemic began.

According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, 3,157 new deaths were recorded on Wednesday, more than the number of people killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The previous high was the 2,607 deaths recorded on 15 April, at the beginning of the pandemic.

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European and US experts question UK’s fast-track of Covid vaccine

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Some criticise jingoistic tone of announcement and say longer process may prove preferable

Politicians, health professionals and commentators in Europe and the US have questioned Britain’s decision to fast-track approval of a coronavirus vaccine and criticised what some saw as the jingoistic tone of its announcement.

The UK on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve a Covid-19 vaccine when the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) granted the Pfizer/BioNTech shot emergency authorisation for clinical use.

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Woman seriously hurt by tiger bite at Carole Baskin big cat sanctuary

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  • Volunteer taken to hospital after incident early on Thursday
  • Big Cat Rescue in Tampa made famous by Netflix’s Tiger King

A female volunteer who regularly feeds big cats was bitten and seriously injured by a tiger Thursday morning at Carole Baskin’s Big Cat Rescue sanctuary in Florida, which was made famous by the Netflix series Tiger King, officials said.

Hillsborough county fire rescue received a trauma alert call about 8.30am Thursday from the sanctuary, agency spokesman Eric Seidel told the Associated Press.

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Valéry Giscard d’Estaing obituary

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Former French president who brought in socially liberal reforms but whose grand style ultimately proved offputting to voters

As Valéry Giscard d’Estaing became the Grand Old Man of French politics – a position he held for at least two decades – it became harder to recall the intellectually brilliant and reforming politician who in 1974 became the Fifth Republic’s youngest president.

Giscard, who has died aged 94, was 48 when he became president and only 55 when he stopped, after one seven-year term, meaning he experienced his political career go into decline at an age when most of his contemporaries were only just making a bid for high office. Thereafter Giscard fought to remain relevant, particularly in European politics, as he saw off his bitter rivals – François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac – to become the longest lived former French president in history. It would be a mistake, however, to remember Giscard, or VGE as he was often known, solely for his longevity.

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‘Dirty methods’ in Brexit vote cited in push for new laws on Europe’s elections

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Sites such as Facebook will have to publicly disclose identity of people and entities funding such advertising

The “dirty methods” of the Brexit referendum have been cited as a reason for new EU laws aimed at tackling disinformation and forcing online platforms including Facebook to publicly disclose the identity of people and entities funding political adverts.

Věra Jourová, a vice president of the European commission, said the EU rule-book needed to be updated to deal with on-line political campaigning, as she unveiled draft legislation at a press conference in Brussels.

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Zacharias not Zeppelin: Germany to scrap Nazi-era phonetic table

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Communication aid was altered in 1934 because original version was deemed ‘too Jewish’

Germany is to scrap its phonetic spelling table introduced by the Nazis 86 years ago and temporarily replace it with the version the regime abolished because it was “too Jewish”.

The table, in which codewords are assigned to each letter of the alphabet to aid communication and avoid confusion, particularly in radio transmissions and telephone calls, originated in the late 19th century. In 1934 it was adapted by the Nazis who cleansed it of all its Jewish names as part of the regime’s drive to reject all Jews from German life, which culminated in the Holocaust.

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Obama, Clinton and Bush pledge to take Covid vaccine on TV to show its safety

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  • Trio’s pledge comes as FDA works towards vaccine approval
  • Obama: ‘If Fauci tells me this is safe … I’m going to take it’

Former US presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton have pledged to get vaccinated for coronavirus on television to promote the safety of the vaccine.

Related: US sets records for Covid deaths and hospitalizations as it nears 14m cases – live updates

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Bangladesh begins moving Rohingya families to remote island

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Operation to move 2,500 families begins despite safety concerns and lack of consent from refugees

Bangladesh has begun moving Rohingya families from camps near the Myanmar border to a settlement on a remote island, despite concerns about its safety and a lack of consent from the refugees.

More than 1,600 Rohingya refugees set sail on Friday from Bangladesh’s southern port of Chittagong for the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal, a naval official said, Reuters reported.

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Iran says it will comply with nuclear deal if Biden lifts all sanctions

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Foreign minister calls on US to ‘show its good faith’ but appears to rule out renegotiating deal

Iran will come back into full compliance with its nuclear deal immediately after the incoming Joe Biden administration in the US proves its bona fides by lifting all sanctions, the country’s foreign minister has said.

Setting out the parameters for a new relationship with Washington, Javad Zarif also said Iran would not require the US to rejoin the deal, known as the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPoA), before lifting its sanctions, but would need some kind of assurance that once it has rejoined, the Biden administration would not simply leave the deal again in the same way Donald Trump did.

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‘I guess this is a thing now, right?’: monolith appears on California mountain – video report

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A new mysterious metal monolith has appeared atop a mountain in California, just a week after a similar structure captured the imagination of the world when it was discovered in the deserts of Utah – before disappearing. Amid mounting international attention of the mystery, a similar structure was reportedly found in the mountains of Romania - before it disappeared as well

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Vancouver plan to decriminalize street drugs sets up battle with Ottawa

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The city’s plan to reduce overdose deaths needs support from Canada’s government – but Justin Trudeau is likely to be reluctant

Vancouver has set the stage for a showdown with Canada’s federal government by moving to become the first city in the country to decriminalize street drugs – setting itself on a collision course with Justin Trudeau, who has so far declined to pursue the option.

The city’s council voted unanimously last week to ask the federal government in Ottawa for an exemption to the country’s criminal code, which, if granted, would remove the threat of criminal sanctions for possessing small amounts of street drugs for personal use within a city.

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Coronavirus live news: Global death toll passes 1.5m

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World passes grim tally with a death reported every nine seconds on average; Italy registers 993 new deaths and 23,255 new cases; Iran goes past 1m cases

More than 1.5 million people have lost their lives due to Covid-19 with one death reported every nine seconds on a weekly average, as vaccinations are set to begin in December in a handful of developed nations.

Reuters reports that half a million deaths occurred in just the last two months, indicating that the severity of the pandemic is far from over. Nearly 65 million people globally have been infected by the disease and the worst affected country, United States, is currently battling a third wave of coronavirus infections.

I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.

A partial lockdown will begin this weekend in the Gaza Strip after Covid-19 infections surged in the densely populated territory, Gaza’s interior ministry declared on Thursday.

Mosques, schools, universities and kindergartens - excluding high schools and nurseries - will be closed during the day, although many businesses will be allowed to remain open until a night-time curfew from 6pm to 8am forces Gazans to stay at home. There will be a full closure at weekends.

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Coronavirus live news: US records highest daily deaths since April; Obama, Bush and Clinton offer to get vaccines on TV

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French ex-president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has died of Covid-related complications; US suffers highest daily deaths since April; Former US presidents hope to inspire public confidence in vaccine

Hi there - this is Archie Bland picking up the global coronavirus liveblog, and beginning in Russia, where 28,145 new cases, a record high, and 554 deaths have been recorded in the last 24 hours.

Those figures compare with 25,345 new cases and 589 deaths, the latter figure also a record, the previous day.

Hundreds of thousands of masked students in South Korea, including 35 confirmed Covid-19 patients, took the highly competitive university entrance exam today despite the viral resurgence that has forced authorities to toughen social distancing rules.

About 493,430 students were taking the one-day exam at about 1,380 sites across the nation, including hospitals and other medical facilities where the 35 virus patients and hundreds of other test-takers in self-quarantine sat separately from others, according to the education ministry.

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Taliban denies targeting media as 50th journalist dies in Afghanistan

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Rising violence by militants raises fears for press freedom after US troops withdraw in May

The Taliban have denied they are deliberately targeting journalists in attacks amid the surge in violence throughout Afghanistan.

The US watchdog Sigar (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) says Taliban violence has risen by 50% since September, with media workers saying they don’t feel safe doing their jobs.

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Murder Me, Monster review – a grisly mystery that stays boldly unsolvable

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This convention-defying horror has Guillermo del Toro’s vision and David Lynch’s dreamlike logic. But what does it all mean?

Internal affairs takes on new meaning in this distinctively involuted Argentine thriller about a spate of gruesome decapitations in an Andes backwater. Police officer Cruz (Victor Lopez) is already on the case when his lover Francisca (Tania Casciani) becomes the next to have her head apparently chewed off, a mysterious green goo smeared on the stump. Her hollow-eyed husband David (Esteban Bigliardi) is suspect numero uno: he is found naked in the vicinity of the victims and, after later being carted off to an asylum, testifies to a strange voice in his head that whispers: “Murder me, monster.”

Related: My streaming gem: why you should watch The Distinguished Citizen

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All change: India’s railways bring back tea in clay cups in bid to banish plastics

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Stations switch to humble earthen kulhads in move to cut down on toxic waste and boost incomes of village potters

A small and humble relic from India’s past is about to stage a major comeback. At all 7,000 railway stations in the country, tea will be served in earthen cups known as kulhads.

The kulhads, redolent of a bygone pastoral era, are unpainted, unglazed and have no handles, but are perfectly biodegradable and environment-friendly, which is why the country’s railways minister, Piyush Goyal, has said they will replace plastic cups as part of the government’s goal of making India free of single-use plastic.

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