UK foreign secretary issues direct warning during phone call with Rwandan president after escalation of conflict
Rwanda has put $1bn of global aid under threat by taking part in the invasion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said.
He made the direct warning in a phone call to the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, on Sunday after also speaking to the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, about the crisis.
Continue reading...Narrow passage of controversial CDU-CSU motion ends longstanding boycott on cooperating with far-right party
The German parliament has narrowly passed a motion urging tough restrictions on immigration that was highly controversial because it was backed by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party.
The motion was brought by the conservative opposition CDU-CSU and backed by, among others, the AfD, breaking a longstanding taboo on cooperation with the anti-immigration party.
Continue reading...Palestinians in war-devastated Gaza and occupied West Bank expected to be hardest hit by ban on refugee agency
The main UN agency serving Palestinians in the occupied territories, including Gaza, looks likely to be shut down on Thursday as Israel defied widespread international support for the agency in a move Unrwa predicted would “sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition”.
Unrwa’s banning looks certain, as Israel’s high court of justice refused a last-minute request to intervene to suspend the law forbidding the agency from operating in Israel.
Continue reading...Claudia Sheinbaum says US government does not have right to change name of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America
Mexico will send a letter to Google to question its decision to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico for users of Google Maps in the US.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the US government did not have the right to rename the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico, much of which is in international waters.
Continue reading...Man fined for flying device under influence as court applies same punishment it would for drunk-driving a vehicle
A man has been convicted for drunk-driving a drone in what is thought to be the first case of its kind in Sweden.
The 55-year-old man was found guilty in July of flying the device at a classic car event in Rättvik, a town in Dalarna, central Sweden, in a temporary no-fly zone.
Continue reading...Cells taken from blood and ‘reprogrammed’ into heart muscle cells may help patients with heart failure
Damaged hearts can literally be patched up to help them work, say researchers, in what has been hailed as a groundbreaking development for people with advanced heart failure.
According to a recent study, heart failure affects more than 64 million people worldwide, with causes including heart attacks, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease.
Continue reading...Ursula von der Leyen announces plans to cut red tape and boost innovation in second term as head of European Commission
The EU executive has announced “an unprecedented simplification effort” to cut regulations and boost innovation in an attempt to reverse Europe’s economic decline and better compete with China and the US.
In her first major policy announcement since starting a second term as the European Commission president last month, Ursula von der Leyen outlined policy proposals intended to boost Europe’s flagging economy.
Continue reading...Government plans to remove legal recognition of gender-based killings in latest attack on women’s rights
Femicide will be struck from Argentina’s penal code, according to a vow from the administration of Javier Milei, the president. It is his administration’s latest attack on women’s rights.
Mariano Cúneo Libarona, the justice minister, said the government will “eliminate the figure of femicide from the Argentine penal code” adding that feminism was a “distortion of the concept of equality”.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: After Donald Trump’s remarks, renewed alarm about what will follow the first phase of the ceasefire
Good morning. Donald Trump presented his proposal as one rooted in a concern for the safety of Palestinians: it was time to find many of the residents of Gaza somewhere else to live. “I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” he said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”
That was more than stream of consciousness: Trump doubled down on his comments on Monday. But the idea of “cleaning out” Gaza is not welcomed by the Palestinians who live there – or the countries that Trump has in mind as their new home. And if they were to be forced to leave after Gaza was devastated by the Israeli military, it would appear to be a clear case of ethnic cleansing.
Kumbh Mela festival | Dozens of people are feared to have died in crowd crushes at India’s Kumbh Mela festival, local officials have said, as vast crowds went to bathe at one of the holiest sites of the Hindu gathering. People were crushed in the early hours of Wednesday as tens of millions flocked to immerse themselves in the sacred confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
UK economy | Rachel Reeves is unveiling plans to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” between Oxford and Cambridge as she stakes the government’s success on kickstarting economic growth. The chancellor will announce a blueprint to improve infrastructure across the region in the hope of adding £78bn to the UK economy within a decade.
Extremism | Yvette Cooper will reject internal Home Office advice to widen the definition of extremism to include violent misogyny and conspiracy theorists, the Guardian understands. The home secretary is expected to reject a report saying that authorities should adopt an “ideologically agnostic” approach in favour of focusing on Islamist and far-right violence.
Tax | Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Russian oligarch, may owe British tax authorities as much as £1bn, according to analysis of documents that suggests his companies failed to pay tax on profits made through an elaborate offshore investment scheme.
Technology | US tech stocks tentatively recovered on Tuesday after the emergence of the Chinese DeepSeek app wiped $1tn (£800bn) in value from the leading US tech index. Nvidia recovered somewhat from Monday’s 17% drop, rising 9%.
Continue reading...From China to Indonesia, the year of the snake symbolises wisdom and vitality and is marked by family gatherings and festive red banners across many parts of East and Southeast Asia
Hundreds of millions of people across Asia will celebrate the lunar new year with their families on Wednesday, as they bid farewell to the year of the dragon and usher in the year of the snake.
In China, people will enjoy eight days of consecutive public holidays for the 2025 Spring festival, an opportunity to share meals, attend traditional performances, and set off firecrackers and fireworks.
Continue reading...Proposal from state board of education condemned by teachers and rights groups, as parents and students protest
Parents enrolling children in Oklahoma public schools will be required to provide proof of their child’s US citizenship or legal immigration status under a proposed rule approved Tuesday by the state board of education.
The board voted unanimously to approve the rule aimed at helping Donald Trump’s immigration policies. It still needs to be approved by the legislature and the governor.
Continue reading...Government employees’ union says offer pressures career workers to quit and will cause chaos in federal programs
The Trump administration has offered federal workers buyouts worth more than seven months’ salary if they would leave their jobs by 6 February as the White House attempts to slash the civil service in an unprecedented overhaul of US government.
The office of personnel management, the government’s human resources agency, sent a memo to the federal workforce on Tuesday evening with four directives that it says Trump is mandating, including a full-time return to the office for most employees. It also said that the federal workforce would be subjected to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and warned that most agencies would be downsized.
Continue reading...Levies threaten exporters to US market, while scrapping of subsidies will hit EV sales – and Tesla could gain
The internal combustion engine appears to hold a special place in Donald Trump’s psyche. During his inauguration speech last week, he made a “sacred pledge” to raise US car production to “a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago”.
Car making and the oil industry – not AI, computer chips, or even cryptocurrencies – were the only two industries the new US president highlighted as he promised to make America a “manufacturing nation once again”.
Continue reading...Press secretary Karoline Leavitt says late-night dismissals came after White House’s personnel office issued memo
The justice department fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors involved in the two criminal prosecutions against Donald Trump after receiving instructions to do so from the White House, indicating the late-night purge was a political directive that deputized the justice department.
The termination of the career prosecutors were ostensibly at the direction of the acting attorney general, James McHenry, according to the notices sent to anyone remaining on the trial team of 18 who had worked for former special counsel Jack Smith.
Continue reading...At least 100 people killed and 1,000 wounded in three days of heavy fighting in North Kivu
Dead bodies lay on the streets and explosions and gunfire echoed across the largest city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Tuesday, as fighting continued to rage between the army and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
Residents reported continuing gun and mortar fire in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province and a regional humanitarian hub for displaced people, after M23 fighters entered the city on Sunday.
Continue reading...All 176 people onboard escaped safely after blaze began inside Airbus jet preparing to take off from Gimhae airport
An Airbus plane belonging to South Korean carrier Air Busan has caught fire on a runway at Gimhae international airport in the country’s south while preparing for departure to Hong Kong, fire authorities said on Tuesday.
All 169 passengers and seven crew members were evacuated, with three having minor injuries, fire authorities in Busan said.
Continue reading...Prediction by ex M16 counter-terror director comes as security paused around two main detention facilities
Donald Trump has thrown into doubt the security and administration of the main two detention facilities in north-east Syria that hold thousands of Islamic State fighters, the former counter-terrorism director of M16 Richard Barrett says.
The state of limbo has been caused in the short term by the US president unexpectedly suspending all USAid funding for 90 days, and by long-term uncertainty over his willingness to retain troops in Syria.
Continue reading...Crowds give life to the Paris museum and the painting is a silent, compelling mystery at the heart of the hubbub
What a wonderful headache for a museum to have. The Louvre in Paris gets so many visitors it is taking drastic measures to cope, which include moving its most famous treasure to a dedicated space where fans can visit without entering the main museum at all. It will no longer suck the oxygen from other art.
Nearly 9 million visitors a year stream through the Louvre and it’s believed 80% of them are looking for Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, better known as La Gioconde, better still as the Mona Lisa.
Continue reading...Prosecutor at Old Bailey says Katrin Ivanova was only member of Bulgarian spy ring able to pull off plot
A lab technician has been accused of being the only member of a Bulgarian spy ring able to pull off a plot to steal the mobile numbers of Ukrainian soldiers training in Germany.
Katrin Ivanova, 33, was told by prosecutor Alison Morgan KC at the Old Bailey that she had been described by the plotters’ leader as the most technically adept member of the group and that she was necessary to the planned surveillance in Stuttgart.
Continue reading...Commission finds democratic institutions ‘robust in the face of foreign interference’ but some MPs behaved ‘naively’
Canada’s democratic institutions are “robust in the face of foreign interference” attempts and there is “no evidence of ‘traitors’” in the country’s parliament, a landmark report into election meddling has found.
But the commission’s lead said on Tuesday that the federal government should take steps to better safeguard democratic institutions and better inform the public of foreign interference threats.
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