Canadian police confirm man had ‘several’ weapons and will face multiple charges
Canadian police say the armed man who rammed a truck through the gates of the prime minister’s residence was loose for 13 minutes before authorities finally spotted him.
Media reports have identified the intruder as Corey Hurren, a reservist in the Canadian Rangers, a branch of the military that typically operates in remote and coastal regions.
Continue reading...Pressure grows on Duke of York to ‘speak up’ after the arrest of his friend Ghislaine Maxwell
The Duke of York was accused of subjecting alleged victims of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to a “torture test” by his silence as lawyers for the women increased the pressure following the arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell.
As Maxwell, 58, remained in custody on charges of facilitating former boyfriend Epstein’s sexual exploitation of underage girls, lawyers for multiple women demanded Prince Andrew “be a man”, “speak up” and stop “deliberately avoiding” US authorities.
Continue reading...Front of magazine’s ‘Madness’ issue attacked as attempt to glamorise mental illness
Vogue Portugal has been criticised for insensitive treatment of mental health on one of its latest magazine covers.
The image – one of four covers created for its July/August “Madness” issue – features model Simona Kirchnerova crouched in a bath flanked by two nurses, with one pouring water over her head. The cover has been criticised both for attempting to glamorise mental illness and for the use of the outdated term “madness”.
Continue reading...Bernardo Bustillo mistakenly left his video on while attempting to multi-task by showering while listening to an online meeting
A municipal councillor in northern Spain has offered to resign after inadvertently broadcasting video of himself showering during an online council meeting that was being livestreamed.
Earlier this week councillors in Torrelavega gathered online to hash out some of the latest issues facing the municipality of some 52,000 people. Following the protocols put in place as the coronavirus tightened its grip on Spain, half a dozen councillors dialed into the videochat at 8am, streaming it online for journalists and residents.
Continue reading...Protective measures taken and social media erased as both question how they can operate
Journalists and lawyers in Hong Kong are scrambling to adapt as Chinese authorities set up the apparatus to enforce a controversial national security law, including appointing a hardline party official to head a new security agency.
Zheng Yanxiong, who is best known for tackling protests on the mainland, is to run the office established under the law that empowers mainland security agents to operate in Hong Kong openly and unbound for the first time.
Continue reading...Expert on Hans Christian Andersen says it is ‘hard to see what is racist’ about fairytale
The statue of the Little Mermaid in the entrance to Copenhagen harbour has been daubed with the words “racist fish”.
The 107-year-old statue has often been vandalised by protesters, ranging from pro-democracy activists to anti-whaling campaigners. As recently as January, “Free Hong Kong” was scrawled on the rock on which the 1.65-metre bronze sits.
Continue reading...Frequency of heatwaves and cumulative intensity has risen through the decades, research finds
Heatwaves have increased in both length and frequency in nearly every part of the world since the 1950s, according to what is described as the first study to look at the issue at a regional level.
The study found the escalation in heatwaves varied around the planet, with the Amazon, north-eastern Brazil, west Asia (including parts of the subcontinent and central Asia) and the Mediterranean all experiencing more rapid change than, for example, southern Australia and north Asia. The only inhabited region where there was not a trend was in the central United States.
Continue reading...Philippines reports largest single-day increase in cases; Florida confirms 10,000 new cases in one day; Brazil infections nearing 1.5m
Authorities in northern Nigeria’s biggest city Kano have lifted a three-month lockdown imposed to contain a coronavirus outbreak linked to hundreds of deaths.
State governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje announced the lifting of the curfew in a broadcast, insisting the key trading hub had seen a sharp drop in infections.
We can beat our chest and say we are winning the case and there is no longer any need for the lockdown.
There will be free movement for all.
Despite imposing an early lockdown, containment may be unravelling in Bolivia amid poverty, an underprepared health system and a bitter political standoff, report Laurence Blair and Cindy Jiménez Bercerra in La Paz.
When Pedro Flores and a group of fellow doctors arrived in the Beni, Bolivia’s tropical northern province, at the end of May, they knew the crisis caused by coronavirus would be severe. But what they found still left them shaken.
There were no medical supplies, there were no ventilators, no oxygen.
Here in Trinidad most people have a relative, a friend, a neighbour who has died. We’re in a health disaster.
Related: Bolivia in danger of squandering its head start over coronavirus
Continue reading...Hatice Cengiz hopes trial in absentia will reveal circumstances of journalist’s death and location of remains
The fiancee of Jamal Khashoggi has told a Turkish court that all avenues for justice must be explored as 20 Saudi officials went on trial in absentia over the journalist’s gruesome killing and dismemberment in Istanbul in 2018.
Taking the witness stand on Friday morning at Istanbul’s Çağlayan courthouse complex, Hatice Cengiz had to pause several times to stop her voice from breaking. The absence of the 20 defendants, as well as Khashoggi’s still missing remains, weighed heavily over the proceedings.
Continue reading...Fiancee of late journalist hopes Istanbul trial will reveal circumstances of death and location of remains
Twenty Saudi officials are on trial in absentia in Turkey accused of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, almost two years after his disappearance in Istanbul shocked the world and irreparably tarnished the image of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman as a liberal reformer.
Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, and the UN special rapporteur Agnès Callamard waited for the judges to arrive in a courtroom at the imposing courthouse complex in Istanbul’s Çağlayan neighbourhood before the trial began on Friday. Both women are hoping it will shed more light on the grim circumstances of the journalist’s death and reveal what happened to his remains.
Continue reading...Despite imposing an early lockdown, containment may be unravelling amid poverty, an underprepared health system and a bitter political standoff
When Pedro Flores and a group of fellow doctors arrived in the Beni, Bolivia’s tropical northern province, at the end of May, they knew the crisis caused by coronavirus would be severe. But what they found still left them shaken.
“The health system, public and private, collapsed,” said Flores. Many doctors in the regional capital of Trinidad fell ill. Other medical staff, terrified, locked themselves in at home or fled to remote farmhouses. As critically ill patients multiplied, the death toll began to climb.
Continue reading...Areas with a drier climate have seen greater loss of biodiversity from global warming
Dry tropical forests are more vulnerable to the impacts of global heating than had been thought, according to new research, with wildlife and plants at severe risk of harm from human impacts.
Some tropical forests are very wet, but others thrive in a drier climate and scientists had thought these drier forests would be better adapted to drought, and therefore more able to cope with the effects of the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Philippe’s popularity has grown, as Macron’s has slipped, during the coronavirus crisis
Édouard Philippe, the prime minister of France, has tendered his government’s resignation after seeing the country through the coronavirus pandemic.
The Élysée Palace announced Philippe, an increasingly popular figure during the crisis, had submitted the government’s resignation but would remain as head of an interim government until the president, Emmanuel Macron, carried out a reshuffle and named his successor.
Continue reading...NGOs warn of rising uncertainty over programmes to tackle poverty and Covid-19 despite assurances from ministers
The government’s plans to merge the Department for International Development (DfID) with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have been criticised for a chaotic lack of clarity as NGOs are told to cut aid programmes.
DfID said it was due to review its aid spending because of a fall in gross national income, but stressed no decisions had been made. However, experts in the aid sector say there are already signs of cuts among programmes tackling poverty and Covid-19.
Continue reading...The Fourth of July is traditionally for barbecues, fireworks, boisterous partying and various hijinks to celebrate Independence Day. But this year, with coronavirus cases soaring to all-time highs, medical experts warn that the normal US holiday exuberance could instead create infection “superspreader” events.
Related: 'It's very troubling': alarm grows over Covid-19 spike among young Americans
Continue reading...Coronavirus thwarts plan by survivors to light candles for dozens of detainees who died in airstrike on detention centre during Tripoli fighting
One year on from the migrant detention centre bombing in Tajoura, eastern Tripoli, dozens of refugees and migrants who died have never been formally identified.
At least 53 people were killed and 130 injured on the night of 2 July 2019, according to the UN, after an airstrike by a foreign aircraft supporting eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar’s forces hit a hall where migrants and refugees were locked up.
Continue reading...Campaigner Simon Cheng, granted asylum in UK, says shadow parliament would send ‘clear signal’ to Beijing
Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are discussing a plan to create an unofficial parliament-in-exile to preserve democracy and send a message to China that freedom cannot be crushed, campaigner Simon Cheng has said.
Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, was convulsed by months of often violent, pro-democracy and anti-China demonstrations last year, resisting Chinese interference in its promised freedoms and posing the biggest political crisis for Beijing since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Continue reading...Ireland eased restrictions this week and drinkers have been getting used to the new normal
They had had to book a table, restrict their group to four people, sanitise their hands, shun the bar, not sing, and leave after 105 minutes, but Johnny Knox and Tommy Flannery were not complaining.
After three months of lockdown, Ireland eased restrictions this week and the pair were back in the pub, sinking pints and talking up a storm. “The first pint? Absolutely brilliant,” said Knox, 64, working his way through another Tuborg.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has declared the US economy is 'roaring back' after news of a fall in unemployment nationwide. The results come as states across the country have been gradually lifting Covid-19 restrictions. While 4.8m jobs were added in June, parts of the country have also experienced record numbers of new coronavirus cases
Continue reading...Little respite for Duke of York over friendship with British socialite and Jeffrey Epstein
The arrest by the FBI of the British woman Ghislaine Maxwell on multiple charges related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein throws an uncomfortable spotlight once more on the Duke of York.
It comes less than one month after a bad-tempered war-of-words between Prince Andrew’s lawyers and US prosecutors over the royal’s cooperation – or alleged lack of it – over their investigation into the late billionaire.
Continue reading...