Exclusive: NHS England has dramatically increased recruitment of workers from states with critical medical staff shortages
Brexit has left the NHS increasingly dependent on doctors and nurses from poor “red list” countries, from which the World Health Organization says it is wrong to recruit.
The health service in England has hired tens of thousands of health staff from countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe since the UK left the EU single market at the end of 2020.
Continue reading...Indonesia’s 1,700m Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted for 11 minutes on Thursday, causing ash cloud but no damage to nearby villages on the island of Flores
At least seven international flights from Indonesia’s resort island Bali have been cancelled, an airport official said on Friday, after a volcano in the archipelago nation’s east erupted, shooting dark ash 8km into the sky.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703m (5,587ft) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, erupted for 11 minutes and nine seconds late on Thursday, authorities said, raising the volcano’s alert status to the highest level.
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Continue reading...More than 500,000 people sign petition after ‘powerful sonic impact’ allegedly directed towards rally in Belgrade
More than half a million people have signed an online petition calling for an independent investigation into whether security forces in Serbia used a sonic weapon – what the petition described as a “sound cannon” – during Saturday’s huge anti-corruption rally.
Days after as many as 325,000 people took to the streets of Belgrade, rights groups and opposition parties continue to allege that protesters were targeted with some sort of auditory device that briefly sowed panic and left some with symptoms that lingered long after the rally.
Continue reading...Masih Alinejad had incurred the wrath of Tehran by campaigning for Iranian women to reject strict dress codes
Two men have been found guilty of plotting to assassinate the Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad at her home in New York City in a murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors said was financed by the Iranian government.
The verdict was returned at a federal court in New York on Thursday, ending a two-week trial that featured dramatic testimony from a hired gunman and Alinejad, an author, activist and contributor to Voice of America.
Continue reading...Elon Musk’s company is arguing against the government’s expanded powers to allow easier removal of online content
India’s IT ministry has unlawfully expanded censorship powers to allow the easier removal of online content and empowered “countless” government officials to execute such orders, Elon Musk’s X has alleged in a new lawsuit against New Delhi.
The lawsuit and the allegations mark an escalation in an ongoing legal dispute between X and the government of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, over how New Delhi orders content to be taken down. It also comes as Musk is getting closer to launching his other key ventures, Starlink and Tesla, in India.
Continue reading...State department turns down special request to supply city of Tijuana in drought-affected north for first time ever
The United States has refused a request by Mexico for water, alleging shortfalls in sharing by its southern neighbor, as Donald Trump ramps up a battle on another front.
The state department said on Thursday it was the first time that the United States had rejected a request by Mexico for special delivery of water, which would have gone to the border city of Tijuana.
Continue reading...US president’s plan for American firms to run power plants is unrealistic and is opposed by Putin and Zelenskyy
As a demand, it is Donald Trump at his most confusing. The American president appears, at least according to Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, to have told Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday that “American ownership” of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants would be their best protection in future – although the Ukrainian president said on Thursday that “the issue of property, we did not discuss”.
Of the four, the most significant, and the one that Trump has repeatedly referred to in the past week, is the vast, six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. It is Europe’s biggest nuclear generator, located on the southern bank of the Dnipro River. Before the full-scale Russian invasion it produced about 20% of the country’s electricity but it is now on the frontline of Europe’s largest war since 1945.
Continue reading...Actor suggests she may have been intentionally smeared and says ‘no one has to forgive me’ after recent controversy
Karla Sofía Gascón has described herself as “less racist than Gandhi” and insisted “no one has to forgive me for anything” as she returns to the public eye after the emergence of offensive social media posts widely thought to have torpedoed the Oscar hopes of her film Emilia Pérez.
The Spanish performer, who became the first transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, was dropped from the film’s campaigning materials by its studio, Netflix, and criticised by colleagues and prominent politicians after the series of old racist and Islamophobic tweets came to light.
Continue reading...Amendment brought by coalition of parties says wolves add to food waste due to remains of livestock they kill
The Spanish parliament has voted through a measure that will in effect lift the hunting ban on wolves that was imposed in 2021.
A coalition led by the conservative People’s party, with the support of the far-right Vox party and Basque and Catalan nationalists, added an amendment to a law aimed at reducing Spain’s estimated 1.2bn kilograms of food waste.
Continue reading...Thousands of acres of rainforest is being cleared to produce palm oil, used in popular Nestlé and Mondelēz brands
West Papua’s Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.
All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture.
Continue reading...George Glezmann was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist
A US man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist has been released by the Taliban in a deal brokered by Donald Trump’s hostage envoy, Adam Boehler, and Qatari negotiators.
George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, is the third American detainee to be released by the Taliban since January. He was seized by the Taliban’s intelligence services in December 2022 and was designated by the US government as wrongfully detained the following year.
Continue reading...Protesters accuse PM of continuing Gaza war for political reasons and ignoring plight of hostages still held by Hamas
Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for a new ceasefire in Gaza and to protest against what they say is an attack on the country’s democracy by the rightwing governing coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Key highways have been blocked and police have made at least 12 arrests amid heated scenes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. More protests were expected in the coming days as the campaign “gathers momentum and energy”, campaigners said.
Continue reading...People gather at city hall and students march in anger at arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, a likely opposition candidate for presidency
Outside Istanbul’s city hall on Wednesday night a mass of protesters gathered in the freezing air to defy a city-wide ban on gatherings. A banner bearing a portrait of the Istanbul mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, giving a speech alongside the words “sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation” covered part of the facade of his now vacant office.
In dawn raids that morning police had detained İmamoğlu, the only contender seen as capable of defeating Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in presidential elections. For many residents of Turkey’s largest city, the arrest symbolised how far the state was willing to go to remove a perceived threat to the incumbent president.
Continue reading...Payments by OECD countries outstrip amount spent on defence, police services and housing, report finds
The cost of government debt payments in the world’s richest nations last year reached its highest level since 2007, outstripping the amount spent on defence, police services and housing, a report has found.
Across the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), debt service costs as a percentage of national income rose to 3.3% in 2024, from 2.4% in 2021.
Continue reading...Hospitals say high proportion of women and children among dead in latest strikes
At least 91 Palestinians have been killed and many more injured in a third day of Israeli strikes across Gaza, according to medical officials in the strip, who said a high proportion of the dead were women and children.
The timing of the strikes in the new Israeli offensive appears to have increased the proportion of women and children among the victims, with many sleeping when the missiles struck overnight or very early in the morning. Among those pulled alive from rubble on Thursday was a month-old baby girl, but her parents and brother were killed.
Continue reading...Teachers will be banned from setting homework involving screens in effort to tackle ‘risks’ of intensive use of IT at young age
The regional government of Madrid has unveiled plans to limit the use of computers and tablets in primary schools to a maximum of two hours a week in an effort to tackle “the risks associated with the early, intensive and inappropriate use of information technology”.
Under the proposals, to be enacted in September, teachers will also be banned from setting homework involving screen use.
Continue reading...One version of Baby Three doll appears to bear a mark resembling the shape of the ocean border on which China bases its illegitimate claim to most of the South China Sea
Regional tensions over the South China Sea have tanked the sales of a popular children’s doll in Vietnam after it was put under investigation and accused of being unpatriotic because a design marking appeared to resemble China’s “nine-dash line”.
The Baby Three doll is Chinese-made and had reportedly been hugely popular among children and Gen Z in Vietnam earlier this year. Between September, when it first gained popularity, and December the dolls reportedly generated US$1.6m in sales.
Continue reading...Activists in world’s third-largest democracy warn the legal changes signal a return to military dominance in civilian affairs that characterised Suharto years
Indonesia has ratified controversial changes to its military law allowing armed forces personnel to hold more civilian posts, a move that analysts fear could usher in a resurgence of the military in government affairs.
Activists in the world’s third-largest democracy have criticised the revisions, warning they signal a return to Indonesia’s “New Order” era, when the country was led by former authoritarian ruler Suharto, who stepped down in 1998.
Continue reading...Nearly half of female entrepreneurs surveyed by Cherie Blair Foundation for Women do not have regular internet access
The cost of a mobile data package is all that is holding back many female entrepreneurs in developing countries, according to recent research.
While social media marketing is reported to be crucial by female business owners who have access to it, 45% of women in business in low- and middle-income countries said they did not have regular internet access because of the expense and connection issues.
Continue reading...Mélanie Joly says Ottawa would ask for leniency for other Canadians facing the same fate
Canada has strongly condemned the execution of four of its citizens who were put to death in China on drug-smuggling charges, amid lingering diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
The minister of foreign affairs, Mélanie Joly, said on Wednesday that all four were dual citizens and were executed earlier this year. She added that Ottawa would ask for leniency for other Canadians facing the same fate.
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