More than 150 people injured after blaze broke out in the early hours at Pulse club in town 60 miles from Skopje
At least 59 killed in North Macedonia nightclub fire
North Macedonia’s public prosecutor Ljupco Kocevski has said five prosecutors would investigate the fire.
“At the moment, orders have been issued for collecting of evidence” and some people were being interviewed, Kocevski said.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Doctor Who writer says he feels ‘a wave of anger heading towards us’ and hostility in UK as well as US
Russell T Davies has said gay society is in the “greatest danger I have ever seen”, since the election of Donald Trump as US president in November.
Speaking to the Guardian at the Gaydio Pride awards in Manchester on Friday, the Doctor Who screenwriter said the rise in hostility was not limited to the US but “is here [in the UK] now”.
Continue reading...The arrival of four astronauts will allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to return to Earth after nine months on the International Space Station
There were emotional scenes of smiling astronauts hugging and embracing in zero gravity on the International Space Station on Sunday after a replacement crew docked with the orbital outpost – a step towards the return home of two astronauts who have been stranded for more than nine months.
A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts to the ISS in a Nasa crew-swap mission that will allow the pair of stuck astronauts, Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return home after nine months on the orbiting lab.
Continue reading...Interior minister says blaze at pop concert in eastern town of Kočani probably caused by pyrotechnics
Fifty-nine people have been killed and more than 100 injured in a fire that broke out in a nightclub in North Macedonia early on Sunday.
The blaze in the small eastern town of Kočani is thought to have erupted when special-effect pyrotechnics caused the roof of the Pulse nightclub to go up in flames.
Continue reading...Maximo Napa, 61, says he survived by eating cockroaches, birds and a turtle – and thinking about his mother
A Peruvian fisher was found alive after drifting at sea for 94 days, a navy official said on Saturday, as he was discharged from hospital after his ordeal.
Maximo Napa, 61, was rescued in his small fishing boat on Tuesday after being spotted by an Ecuadorian vessel off the coast of Chimbote in northern Peru.
Continue reading...Treatment of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, who has been suspended from senate, shines light on women’s rights
Last July, Nigeria’s third-most powerful man gave a rare apology on the floor of the senate which he heads.
Godswill Akpabio had chastised his colleague Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan for speaking out of turn, saying: “We are not in a nightclub”. But after receiving what he said was a deluge of insulting text messages from Nigerians, he apologised publicly a few days later.
Continue reading...Up to 100 injured after Trump orders strikes in response to shipping attacks
The US has launched airstrikes against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis, killing at least 31 people and injured up to 100 more, in Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.
US officials have said the airstrikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, may continue for weeks.
Continue reading...Launched by Nasa and SpaceX, the Falcon 9 is picking up Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, whose eight days on board the International Space Station became nine months
A long-awaited mission to return stranded US astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore from the International Space Station has been launched by Nasa and SpaceX.
The pair were due to spend eight days on the ISS in June, but technical problems with the experimental spacecraft that took them there have left them stuck on the orbital laboratory for nine months.
Continue reading...Farmers and bikers join students in climax to movement that Aleksandar Vučić labels an ‘imported revolution’
A vast demonstration has been gathering in Belgrade, marking the climax of more than four months of student-led protests and the biggest challenge to President Aleksandar Vučić in the 11 years of his increasingly autocratic rule.
Vučić stoked tensions in the run-up to yesterday’s mass protest, suggesting there would be an attempt to overthrow him by force and calling it an “imported revolution” with the involvement of western intelligence agencies, but he provided no evidence for the claims. The demonstrations against government corruption and incompetence have so far been overwhelmingly peaceful.
Continue reading...Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy, has written op-eds and reports questioning Ukraine’s role in negotiations
A retired US general charged with helping sell the Trump administration’s Ukraine peace plan wrote a string of op-eds and reports for a rightwing thinktank in which he repeatedly questioned whether Ukraine had a legitimate part to play in peace negotiations.
Keith Kellogg also blamed the war on the machinations of a US “military-industrial complex” and “[Joe] Biden’s national security incompetence” rather than Russia’s 2022 invasion, which has been condemned across the globe and resulted in a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives.
Continue reading...Ancient Mesopotamian stone tablets show extraordinary detail and reach of government in cradle of world civilisations
The red tape of government bureaucracy spans more than 4,000 years, according to new finds from the cradle of the world’s civilisations, Mesopotamia.
Hundreds of administrative tablets – the earliest physical evidence of the first empire in recorded history – have been discovered by archaeologists from the British Museum and Iraq. These texts detail the minutiae of government and reveal a complex bureaucracy – the red tape of an ancient civilisation.
Continue reading...Voters reflect on their priorities and mood shifts in their communities before a crucial contest
When the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, resigned in early January, after months of pressure to quit, the approval ratings of the progressive firebrand had dropped from their peak of 65% in September 2016 to 22%.
At the end of last year, the Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, described by many as “Trump Lite”, was the clear favourite to win Canada’s next general election, and the top pick of 45% of Canadians for prime minister. At the time, the three biggest issues for voters were all economic: reducing the cost of everyday items, inflation and interest rates, and access to affordable housing.
Continue reading...Authorities in capital make apparent attempt to disrupt demonstration by cancelling public transport
Tens of thousands of people from across Serbia joined an anti-corruption rally in Belgrade on Saturday, in what is regarded as the culmination of months of protest that have shaken the grip of the country’s autocratic president, Aleksandar Vučić.
The sound of whistles and vuvuzelas echoed throughout the Serbian capital, which has been on high alert since the rally was announced.
Continue reading...British steelmakers lobby for government to set limit to compete with France and Germany
The British steel industry has called for capped energy prices for heavy industry in order to match France and Germany, as companies grapple with the fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war.
UK Steel, a lobby group, has proposed the government set a maximum price for energy through a contract for difference (CfD), before an announcement of a new steel strategy.
Continue reading...Swedish company’s valuation jumped 24% in 2024 as ‘buy now, pay later’ market is projected to top $160bn by 2032
The Swedish fintech firm Klarna disclosed on Friday that its revenue jumped 24% in 2024 as the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) pioneer made public its filing for a much-anticipated US stock market listing.
The company, which reshaped online shopping through its short-term financing model, drew investor attention as its valuation soared from $5.5bn to $46.5bn in just two years, fueled by three funding rounds between mid-2020 and 2021.
Continue reading...Shaken by rail protests, Kyriakos Mitsotakis brings in new transport minister while tacking right on migration
The Greek prime minister has appointed a former far-right student activist to the helm of the migration ministry as part of a broad reshuffle aimed at “resetting” his government amid public outrage over its handling of a deadly 2023 train crash.
In an attempt to stem declining approval ratings, Kyriakos Mitsotakis placed the self-described nationalist, Makis Voridis, in the sensitive post while selecting a number of younger officials to key portfolios including the transport ministry.
Continue reading...Former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor sworn in and expected to call election soon
Mark Carney has said Canada will never be part of the US, after being sworn in as the country’s 24th prime minister in a sudden rise to power.
“We will never, in any shape or form, be part of the US,” the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England told a crowd outside Rideau Hall in Ottawa, rejecting Donald Trump’s annexation threats. “We are very fundamentally a different country.”
Continue reading...A spokesperson offered no evidence for the claim after 26 people were killed on a train that was hijacked in Balochistan province on Tuesday
Pakistan’s military has accused neighbouring India of sponsoring militant groups in the south-west of the country as survivors recounted their ordeal from an unprecedented attack that killed 26 passengers on a hijacked train.
The scope of the attack in Balochistan province underscores the struggles that Pakistan faces to rein in militant groups.
Continue reading...Apparent rejection of new offer to free US-Israeli hostage dashes hopes of progress but will please Tel Aviv
The Trump administration has accused Hamas of making “entirely impractical” demands and stalling on a deal to release a US-Israeli hostage in exchange for an extension of the Gaza ceasefire.
“Hamas is making a very bad bet that time is on its side. It is not,” the office of Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and the US national security council said in a statement. “Hamas is well aware of the deadline, and should know that we will respond accordingly if that deadline passes,” it said, adding that Trump had already vowed Hamas would “pay a severe price” for not freeing hostages.
Continue reading...Backing of Greens is tantamount to approval of chancellor-in-waiting’s proposal to relax debt brake
Germany’s conservative chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz, has said he has secured the support of the Green party for his radical plan to increase spending on defence and infrastructure after marathon talks that went through the night, paving the way for its approval in parliament.
“Germany is back,” Merz said in Berlin on Friday. “Germany is making its large contribution to the defence of freedom and peace in Europe.”
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