Category Archives: World News

Friends of Russian anti-war singer cast doubt on official version of his death

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Vadim Stroykin reported to have killed himself by jumping from a ninth-floor window during visit by security services

No one knows exactly what happened in the final moments of Vadim Stroykin’s life.

The 59-year-old Russian singer-songwriter’s vibrant career came to a sudden end on 5 February when a team from Russia’s security services arrived at his cramped ninth-floor St Petersburg flat at 9am. They were investigating him for what has become one of the gravest offences in today’s Russia — donating to the Ukrainian army.

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Badenoch and Farage to vie for attention of Trump allies at London summit

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Event co-founded by Jordan Peterson will bring together global rightwing figures including senior US Republicans

Influential rightwingers from around the world are to gather in London from Monday at a major conference to network and build connections with senior US Republicans linked to the Trump administration.

The UK opposition leader, the Conservatives’ Kemi Badenoch, and Nigel Farage of the Reform UK party, her hard-right anti-immigration rival, will compete to present themselves as the torchbearer of British conservatism.

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New Zealand’s ‘Everyone must go!’ tourism campaign ridiculed as emigration hits record high

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Tagline has quickly become the subject of derision, with some critics likening it to a clearance sale slogan

A New Zealand tourism campaign targeting Australian visitors has been ridiculed for sounding like a clearance sale slogan and for being tone-deaf amid widespread public service job cuts and record numbers of New Zealanders moving overseas.

The government launched its “Everyone must go!” campaign on Sunday, in a bid to encourage Australian holiday-makers to visit New Zealand. The NZD$500,000 campaign will run on radios and social media in Australia between February and March.

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Egypt draws up Gaza reconstruction plan that would exclude Hamas

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Alternative to Trump plan would involve committee of technocrats but future military status of Hamas unresolved

An alternative to Donald Trump’s plan to turn the Gaza Strip into a US-owned “Riviera of the Middle East” is being prepared by Egypt in conjunction with the World Bank, under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance and control of the territory’s reconstruction.

The process would be handed over on an interim basis to the control of a social or community support committee. No member of Hamas would sit on the committee. But the future military status of Hamas within Gaza is unresolved, which is likely to be a barrier to Israeli endorsement of the plan.

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Ukraine recaptures frontline village amid signs of slowing Russian advance

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Pischane in Donetsk back under Kyiv’s control as Zelenskyy renews call for fighting to end ‘with just and lasting peace’

Ukrainian forces have recaptured a village on the frontline in the country’s east, amid signs Russia’s advance may be slowing down and as Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his call for the fighting to end “with a just and lasting peace”.

On Sunday, Ukrainian forces took back the village of Pischane, south-west of the city of Pokrovsk, military officials said. Russian units had made rapid gains in the area in December and January, seizing a string of settlements and threatening to cut off Pokrovsk.

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UK must act more promptly over latest Iran detentions, says Richard Ratcliffe

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Husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe expresses concern for Craig and Lindsay Foreman who were held in January

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has called on ministers to act “more promptly” than they did to help free his wife, after Iran detained a British couple on a motorcycle trip.

Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife was freed in 2022 after five years in a Tehran prison, expressed fears that the couple would now face the “brutal theatre” of court process to “get the government’s attention”.

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‘The US is ready to hand Russia a win’: newspapers on Europe’s Trump shock

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European papers express deep alarm at declaration of an ‘ideological war’, while the NYT says Putin may soon ‘realise his dream’

This year’s Munich security conference exposed the chasm in core values separating the Trump administration from most Europeans and sparked deep alarm at US efforts to control the Ukraine peace process and exclude European governments from it.

Here is what some of the main European and US newspapers had to say about it.

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Netanyahu says Israel working closely with US on Trump’s plan for Gaza

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Israeli PM and US secretary of state express joint support for ‘bold vision’ that would force 2 million people to leave

Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working closely with the US to implement Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which involves US ownership of the coastal strip, the removal of more than 2 million Palestinians and the redevelopment of the occupied territory as a resort.

The Israeli prime minister was speaking after a meeting in Jerusalem with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who defended the Trump plan as bold and visionary. Rubio and Netanyahu blamed Iran for the violence in the Middle East and insisted Tehran would be stopped from developing nuclear weapons.

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Alexei Navalny supporters visit grave on first anniversary of his death

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Queues of people risk possible arrest at Moscow cemetery while European leaders condemn Kremlin

European leaders have condemned the Kremlin’s “ultimate responsibility” in the death of Alexei Navalny, as supporters of Russia’s best-known opposition politician held remembrance events a year after he died in an Arctic penal colony.

A steady queue of people braved freezing temperatures and possible arrest in Moscow to visit Navalny’s grave in Borisovskoye cemetery, while his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, was due to address a memorial ceremony in Berlin, where she is living in exile.

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Brother of British national held in Nigeria says UK has ‘turned its back’

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Kingsley Kanu, brother of Indigenous People of Biafra leader Nnamdi Kanu, calls on PM to defend British citizens

The brother of a British national being held in Nigeria after falling victim to extraordinary rendition has accused the UK government of turning its back, and called on Keir Starmer to “wake up” and “defend British citizens”.

Kingsley Kanu, the brother of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a prominent separatist movement proscribed in Nigeria, said the UK government had failed to intervene in his brother’s case.

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UK hopes to be a bridge between Europe and Trump’s US, minister says

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Jonathan Reynolds says Britain has not given up on persuading the US to allow Ukraine to join Nato

The UK hopes to act as a bridge between Europe and Donald Trump’s US, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has said before what could be a crucial week of diplomacy in deciding Ukraine’s future.

With Keir Starmer expected to travel to Paris on Monday for an emergency summit of European leaders, in advance of a possible trip to Washington the following week, Reynolds said the UK had still not given up on persuading the US to allow Ukraine to join Nato.

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Contraception for capybaras: Buenos Aires suburb’s rodent plan stirs debate

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Government in Nordelta approves plans to control numbers of world’s largest rodent – but not all are in agreement

A contraception debate is gripping one of Argentina’s most notable luxury neighbourhoods – not for its wealthy residents, but for its original occupants, the capybaras.

In recent years, the lovable rodents have been accused of overrunning the Nordelta, a meticulously landscaped and manicured suburb north of Buenos Aires.

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‘They may be Russian some day’: was this the week that changed the war in Ukraine?

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As Donald Trump and his officials rip up three years of US rhetoric on supporting Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is walking an unenviable diplomatic tightrope

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had some tough weeks in the past three years, but this past one may be up there with the worst of them.

Back on Monday, in an hour-long interview with the Guardian at his Kyiv offices, the Ukrainian president was in a cautiously optimistic frame of mind. He said he had received “positive signals from the Americans” over upcoming negotiations. His team was working to fix a date for a meeting with Donald Trump, he said, and he was sure that the US president understood the importance of coordinating his position with Kyiv before talking to Russia.

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As the US walks away, Europe needs to step up for Ukraine. But does it have the will?

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Russia is relying on strength of numbers, and Putin may not honour a peace deal

After three years of Russia’s attempt to occupy and annex Ukraine, the country continues to put up a fierce resistance.

Russia is suffering more than 1,500 casualties a day and only slowly taking ground. But the Ukrainian army is also being put under immense pressure.

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At least 18 people die in crowd crush at Delhi railway station

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Rush broke out as travellers scrambled to board trains in India’s capital to go to world’s largest religious gathering

At least 18 people have died in a crush at a railway station in India’s capital when surging crowds scrambled to catch trains to the world’s largest religious gathering, officials have said.

The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, and has a history of crowd-related disasters – including one last month, when at least 30 people died in another crush at the holy confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.

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Teenage boy dies and four injured in knife attack in Austria

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The suspect was detained in the city of Villach after a 14-year-old boy died

A 14-year-old boy has died and four other people have been injured in a knife attack in southern Austria on Saturday, according to police, who said they had arrested a 23-year-old suspect.

The suspect was detained in the city of Villach, where the attack took place, police said on Saturday. He is a Syrian national with legal residence in Austria, they said.

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UK rushes forward plans for £2.5bn steel investment after Trump announces tariffs

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US president’s announcement prompts government to publish green paper weeks ahead of schedule

The government has rushed forward plans for a £2.5bn investment in the UK steel industry after Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on all imports of steel and aluminium into the US.

The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, will publish a green paper entitled Plan for Steel on Sunday – several weeks before schedule – in a sign of how Trump’s tariffs are sending shock waves through a UK government desperate to kickstart economic growth.

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Athens resists as investors swoop on the city’s ‘neighbourhood of the gods’

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The district of Plaka dates to neolithic times but a new wave of development is luring more tourists – and local people are fighting back

In a neoclassical building in Athens on the oldest street of one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the western world, residents gathered last week with much on the minds.

Items on the agenda included noise pollution, congestion and other modern afflictions, but there was one that was met with instant relief: Haris Doukas, the city’s mayor, had decided to set up a taskforce to save Plaka, the ancient quarter at the heart of the capital’s historic centre.

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British couple held in Iran on ‘security’ grounds named

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Relatives of Craig and Lindsay Foreman say they are engaging with UK government about situation

A British couple who have been detained in Iran have been named by their family as Craig and Lindsay Foreman.

The couple, in their early 50s, had only planned on being in Iran for five days as part of a motorbike trip across the world.

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JD Vance decried as extremist over attack on UK abortion clinic safe zones

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US vice-president’s comments, part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe, called inaccurate and misogynistic

JD Vance has been labelled an “extremist” after he launched a broadside against the UK’s efforts to protect women seeking an abortion.

The US vice-president’s criticisms of UK and Scottish policies on safe access zones around abortion clinics – part of a wide-ranging tirade against Europe on Friday – were derided as inaccurate and misogynistic by a number of groups, politicians and governments.

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