Category Archives: World News

Lahore’s metro line opened to fanfare – but what is the real cost of China’s ‘gift’?

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The Pakistani city’s railway is a hit with passengers, but critics say worker deaths and huge debt are too high a price to pay

In a global pandemic, people across the world have avoided public transport systems where they can. But last week the Pakistani city of Lahore unveiled its “gift from China” – a $1.6bn (£1.23bn) light-rail transit system. The Orange Line metro is designed to carry nearly a quarter of a million people a day in Pakistan’s second-largest city.

As 50,000 masked commuters packed into gleaming, air-conditioned trains festooned with Chinese and Pakistani flags to celebrate the first day of operation. Tayyaba Urooj, a 45-year-old mother, was among them, and had brought nine of her relatives from Karachi along for the trip. “Alhamdulillah, the train just started. We want it to succeed and for Pakistan to succeed,” says Urooj in the packed carriage. “I am a little worried because it’s congested – but it’s Pakistan, so there’s always a rush.”

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Rocky Horror’s Richard O’Brien: ‘I should be dead. I’ve had an excessive lifestyle’

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The creator of the cult show is not going quietly into his 70s. He talks about coming out as trans, going ‘loopy’ on crack – and speaking in tongues after suffering a stroke

Richard O’Brien is 78, but his toothpick body and lightbulb head have always lent him a certain agelessness. A few months ago, however, the rakish Rocky Horror Show creator, Crystal Maze presenter and transgender parent-of-three received a stark reminder of his advancing years.

He was pottering around at home in New Zealand when he suddenly found himself lying on the floor. “I didn’t register that something was desperately wrong,” he says, speaking from the house he shares with his third wife, Sabrina, 10 miles outside of Katikati. “I just thought: ‘I wonder why I can’t get up.’” Struggling to his feet, he attempted to make a drink, only to discover he couldn’t put the top back on the milk. “I was in a dream-like state. Finally, I gave up with the milk, went to go back to the bedroom, slid down the wall and started speaking in tongues. That’s when Sabrina called the ambulance.”

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‘We’re going to the skies and stars!’ The man building our jetpack future – in tribute to his Dad

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Richard Browning is pursuing the stuff of a million childhood dreams. But having built a working jetpack, will anybody use it?

On a gloomy afternoon in a Sussex wood, a 21st-century superhero appears. Dressed in black, helmeted, a pack on his back and jets on his arms, he rises to a couple of metres above the ground, accelerates up above a grassy bank and then hovers in a swirling cloud of autumn leaves.

No matter how many times you’ve watched a video on YouTube, nothing can quite prepare you for the sight of a human being in flight. It is the embodiment of a thousand myths, from Hermes and Peter Pan to Iron Man, as well as a million childhood dreams, and is the only correct answer to that old conundrum: which superpower would you choose, invisibility or flying? If it wasn’t for the roar of the jet engines and the smell of fuel, you would assume it was just a dream.

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Election fight: a divided US takes to the streets as the count goes on – in pictures

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Protesters turned out in cities across the US for the second night while votes are still being counted for the 2020 presidential election

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Coronavirus live news: Italy reports 445 new deaths, highest daily toll since end of April

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Daily Italian total comes as Piedmont, Calabria, Lombardy and Aosta Valley face new restrictions from Friday; three-week restrictions in Greece

The head of France’s public health service has said the coronavirus crisis in the country is getting worse and every day in the fight to slow the spread of infections counts.

“We’re facing a very high wave (of infections),” Jérôme Salomon told a news conference. “The epidemic is progressing. We must all slow the spread together.”

Salomon: "The situation is deteriorating. Every day counts. We have to break the chain of this epidemic. Each of us must act to put a brake on the virus." He is outlining the health safety measures. "The slightest doubt, take a test."

Greece has reported 2,917 new coronavirus cases, hitting a new daily peak hours after authorities announced a second nationwide lockdown is going into effect this Saturday, 7 November.

Thursday’s cases follow on the 2,646 cases reported on Wednesday, which was a new record. Authorities said infections have risen 20% in recent days.

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Paths to US election victory: what Trump and Biden need to win

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How the uncounted votes could fall and what that would mean for each of the candidates

Paths to victory remain in the US presidential race for both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, but Biden has more ways to win and appears to be running stronger state to state, based on the places – cities, mainly – where large absentee votes have yet to be counted.

Related: Build your own US election result: plot a Biden or Trump win

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‘Prevent, discourage, confront’: South American states tackle Chinese trawlers

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Huge fleets’ intrusions into Pacific fishing territory prompt Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru to join forces

Related: 'It's terrifying': can anyone stop China's vast armada of fishing boats?

Four South American countries have joined forces in a bid to combat illegal fishing by huge Chinese fleets off their coasts.

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Mail-in ballot tracker: counting election votes in US swing states

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With millions of Americans voting by mail during the pandemic, the Guardian and ProPublica are tracking the votes in critical states to determine how many are counted, rejected and delayed

This piece is published in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive their biggest stories as soon as they’re published

An unprecedented number of Americans have voted by mail this year to avoid Covid-19 risk. Joe Biden’s supporters said they were more likely to vote by mail while Donald Trump’s supporters said they were more likely to vote in person. With postal delays, rejected ballots and a dearth of funding, the process isn’t always smooth – ballots can be rejected for multiple reasons, and due to court challenges, election rules are changing even while voting is underway. Meanwhile, Trump and other Republican officials have spent the last months casting doubt on the mail-in voting process, paving the way for legal battles during the vote count.

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Tiny air pollution rise linked to 11% more Covid-19 deaths – study

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Evidence is now strong enough that preventive action should be taken, scientists say

A small rise in people’s long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with an 11% increase in deaths from Covid-19, research has found. Another recent study suggests that 15% of all Covid-19 deaths around the world are attributable to dirty air.

The available data only allows correlations to be established and further work is needed to confirm the connections, but the researchers said the evidence was now strong enough that levels of dirty air must be considered a key factor in handling coronavirus outbreaks.

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Denmark announces cull of 15 million mink over Covid mutation fears

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Mutated virus infects 12 humans, sparking concerns that effectiveness of future vaccine could be affected

The world’s largest mink producer, Denmark, says it plans to cull more than 15 million of the animals, due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines.

At a press conference on Wednesday, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said 12 people are already infected with the mutated virus and that the mink are now considered a public health risk.

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Turkey resists calls for tougher measures to tackle Covid-19 surge

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New restrictions including a 10pm hospitality curfew criticised as not going far enough

Turkey is resisting implementing tough measures to combat Covid-19 despite fears that a second wave of the coronavirus is taking hold in the country and as several European states declare new lockdowns.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announced on Tuesday that restaurants, bars, hairdressers, barbers, cinemas and all other similar entertainment venues and businesses across Turkey would have to close at 10pm. Flexible working hours across both the private and public sectors were encouraged, he added, and mosques and schools would remain open for now.

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Indian TV anchor’s arrest escalates feud with Maharashtra state

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Arnab Goswami’s arrest follows claims that his BJP-backing TV channel smears opponents

One of India’s most famous and polarising television journalists has been arrested in connection with a 2018 suicide case, escalating an ongoing feud between the conservative news anchor and the Maharashtra state government.

Arnab Goswami, the founder of the rightwing channel Republic TV, was arrested at his home in Mumbai early on Wednesday. It prompted a chorus of anger from the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), including from the home affairs minister, Amit Shah, who called it a “blatant misuse of state power”.

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Police investigate if Vienna attacker was part of wider network

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Kujtim Fejzulai believed to have acted alone but known to have been an Isis sympathiser

Austrian police are investigating whether an Islamist terrorist who killed four people in Vienna on Monday night was part of a wider network and if the attack could have been prevented.

Kujtim Fejzulai, known to authorities as a sympathiser of the Islamic State group, which claimed credit for the murders, is believed to have been the lone gunman in the attack despite hours of uncertainty over whether accomplices remained at large.

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Fighting reported in Ethiopia after PM responds to ‘attack’ by regional ruling party

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Abiy Ahmed says defence forces mobilised in Tigray region ‘to save the country’

Fighting has been reported in northern Ethiopia after the country’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, ordered a military response to an “attack” by the ruling party of the restive Tigray region on a camp housing federal troops.

Analysts and diplomats have been warning for weeks that a standoff between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) could plunge Ethiopia into a bitter and bloody civil conflict.

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Prosecutors in Brazil file embezzlement charges against Jair Bolsonaro’s son

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Flávio Bolsonaro accused of siphoning off employees’ publicly funded wages

Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son has been formally accused of embezzlement, money laundering, misappropriation of funds and directing a “criminal organisation” as sleaze allegations continue to swirl around the family of Brazil’s far-right president.

Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro announced late on Tuesday that they had filed the charges against Flávio Bolsonaro, 39, a senator whose affairs have been under the spotlight since the eve of his father’s January 2019 inauguration.

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Luxor review – beautifully sparse character study amid Egypt’s ancient glory

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Andrea Riseborough stars as a war-zone medic going through a low-key mid-life crisis as she tries to recover by visiting the famous archaeological site

Slow, delicate and sparse, Luxor is coming out on digital this week just as all the cinemas close down again. If you have a chance to see it, try to view it in the dark, without distractions, on the biggest screen you can in order to approximate a cinema setting and to best appreciate its deep-breath pacing and dry-heat beauty.

Writer-director Zeina Durra’s feature, her second after the evocatively titled The Imperialists Are Still Alive!, follows English surgeon Hana (an unusually subdued Andrea Riseborough, giving a great, slow-burn performance) as she recovers from the horrors of working in a Syrian war zone for an aid organisation. As she rests up at a plush hotel in Luxor, the open-air museum of a town in Egypt she used to live in years 20 before, she passes the time visiting the sights and having polite interactions with other guests and tourists, all the while considering what may be an even more traumatic assignment in Yemen.

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Fate of climate crisis hangs on election as US exits Paris agreement

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Trump administration set US withdrawal in motion a year ago but it didn’t take effect until 4 November

The United States on Wednesday officially became the only country in the world refusing to participate in global climate efforts, with the fate of the crisis hanging on the still uncalled presidential election.

Donald Trump as of Wednesday has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement, an international pact to try to avert dangerous temperature increases that are already leading to more extreme weather and threaten to shrink world food supplies, force millions to flee their homes and deprive many of basic human rights. Trump’s administration set the US exit in motion a year ago, but it didn’t automatically take effect until 4 November.

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‘Don’t stop the music’: songs bring hope to a Nigerian psychiatric unit

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There is a huge mental health treatment gap across Africa, but in one Nigerian hospital, music therapy is having a positive impact

The music comes on – a soft blend of guitar, saxophone, piano – and people sit still at first, then heads start to sway to the sound. Some hum along; mostly they sing, or laugh and dance. At the end, when quiet returns, their mood is assessed – as it was when the session started.

Once or twice a month, Bola Otegbayo brings a team of singers and instrumentalists into this psychiatric unit at University College hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Nigeria. Otegbayo realised a few years ago that some of her patients were lonely even though their loved ones visited and caregivers provided succour. So she began to share music. Now she is a musicologist alongside her main job as a renal technologist.

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Uganda’s ‘street uncles’ transform young lives in the slum – a photo essay

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In an area that is infamous for high drug use, a group of men use their own experience of addiction to help children strive for new goals

  • Photography by Katumba Badru Sultan

It was as a child in 1983 that Mark Owori first began using drugs. He started by supplying them to his sister, Lucky, who was a soldier in Uganda’s bush war. Eventually he also became both involved in the war and an addict.

This was under the rule of Ugandan independence leader Milton Obote and during a conflict in which Owori says that everyone had a role – from spying to looking for food. His was to keep soldiers supplied with drugs.

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France considers envoy to explain Macron’s ideas to Muslim states

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Move comes amid backlash over president’s views on secularism and freedom of expression

France is looking at appointing a special envoy to explain Emmanuel Macron’s thinking on secularism and freedom of expression in a bid to quell the anti-French backlash growing in some Muslim countries, officials have said.

The growth in anti-French sentiment also has the potential to deepen the already entrenched conflict between Macron and Turkey over Libya and oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.

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