Category Archives: World News

Thousands of rival protesters rally in Seoul after Yoon Suk Yeol avoids arrest

Posted on by

Crowds gather outside South Korean presidential residence where suspended leader is protected by security officers

Thousands of rival South Korean protesters have rallied in the capital a day after a failed attempt to arrest the country’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, for imposing a short-lived martial law decree that led to his impeachment.

The country has been plunged into political chaos since last month, with Yoon defiantly holed up in the presidential residence surrounded by hundreds of loyal security officers who have so far resisted efforts by prosecutors to arrest him.

Continue reading...

World’s oldest person, Tomiko Itooka, dies in Japan aged 116

Posted on by

Itooka, who died at a care home in Ashiya, enjoyed bananas and had been a keen mountain climber

A Japanese woman who was the world’s oldest living person has died at the age of 116.

Tomiko Itooka, who was awarded the Guinness World Record status last year, died on 29 December at a care home in Ashiya, Hyogo prefecture in central Japan.

Continue reading...

Fire at food market in northern China kills eight people and injures 15

Posted on by

Cause of fire in city of Zhangjiakou in Hebei province is under investigation

At least eight people have died and 15 are injured after a fire broke out at a food market in northern China, according to state media.

The fire at the Liguang market in the city of Zhangjiakou broke out at midday on Saturday and had been mostly extinguished two hours later, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing a government official in Qiaoxi district where the market is located.

Continue reading...

Syria to resume international flights at Damascus airport

Posted on by

First commercial flights since overthrow of Assad regime to begin from Tuesday, aviation chief says

Syria’s main airport in Damascus is to resume international flights after commercial trips were halted following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

“We announce we will start receiving international flights to and from Damascus international airport from [Tuesday],” the state news agency Sana reported, quoting Ashhad al-Salibi, the head of the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport.

Continue reading...

Deadly New Orleans attack underscores looming threat of IS attacks in the US

Posted on by

Islamic State has urged followers to attack the US, and the attorney general has called the group a top security concern

The Islamic State (IS) threat on the US homeland has caused renewed concern as more details emerge about the man allegedly behind what the FBI is calling an “act of terrorism” in New Orleans on New Year’s Day that killed 14 and injured scores more.

US citizen and army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, was killed in the attack after driving into partygoers on Bourbon Street and engaging police in a gunfight. Found inside his rental truck was the infamous black flag of IS; it was later revealed he had pledged allegiance to the group in a series of videos posted to Facebook mere hours beforehand.

Continue reading...

‘It is impossible to outrun them’: how drones transformed war in Ukraine

Posted on by

Small FPV drones, which travel at 37mph, have become ubiquitous, evolving from ‘a novelty to a weapon of choice’

Denys, a soldier with Ukraine’s Khyzhak brigade, describes a new kind of war. Standing in a barracks workshop with piles of basic Ukrainian First Person View (FPV) drones behind him, he says simply: “There are fewer gunfights because there are more drone fights.”

Frontlines that were once a gunshot apart are now a killing zone several miles deep, as Russian and Ukrainian drone squads, hidden about one- to three miles behind the frontline, target each other’s forces with simple aerial attacks. “Back in 2022, we were still running around with machine guns from the tree lines,” Denys says, almost with nostalgia.

Continue reading...

FBI finds bomb-making material at home of New Orleans attack suspect

Posted on by

Investigators recover equipment from house rented by attacker who killed 14 and injured dozens on New Year’s Day

Authorities have confirmed finding bomb-making materials at the New Orleans home that US military veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar rented before ramming a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers, according to an FBI statement containing the most complete account yet of the attack.

Investigators recovered from Jabbar’s rental truck a transmitter intended to trigger the two bombs, the statement read, confirming prior media reporting.

Continue reading...

Meta is killing off its own AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

Posted on by

Instagram profile of ‘proud Black queer momma’, created by Meta, said her development team included no Black people

Meta is deleting Facebook and Instagram profiles of AI characters the company created over a year ago after users rediscovered some of the profiles and engaged them in conversations, screenshots of which went viral.

The company had first introduced these AI-powered profiles in September 2023 but killed off most of them by summer 2024. However, a few characters remained and garnered new interest after the Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times late last week that the company had plans to roll out more AI character profiles.

Continue reading...

About 30 killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza as truce talks set to resume

Posted on by

‘Harsh day’ of bombardments with several children among dead, says Gaza’s civil defence agency

Gaza’s civil defence agency said about 30 people were killed in Israeli bombardments on Friday, as Hamas said indirect negotiations for a truce in the war were set to resume in Qatar.

The Israeli military said three rockets targeted its territory from the Gaza Strip, the latest in a flurry of launches by militants in the devastated Palestinian territory.

Continue reading...

Austrian liberal party quits coalition talks leaving negotiations in disarray

Posted on by

Surprise move by Neos raises doubts about viability of forming centrist government excluding far right

The smallest of three parties in talks to form Austria’s next government has unexpectedly quit the negotiations, throwing into disarray an effort to form a centrist ruling coalition without the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ).

The surprise move by the liberal Neos party raised serious doubts about the future of the coalition talks and buoyed the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly FPÖ. The FPÖ has railed against those negotiations since it was shut out despite winning the last parliamentary election in September with 29% of the vote.

Continue reading...

German artists sign open letter against TV show host accused of sexism

Posted on by

Choice of Thilo Mischke, author of Around the World In 80 Women, for ARD’s flagship arts show criticised

More than 100 prominent German writers and artists have signed an open letter refusing to appear on one of Germany’s top culture programmes on public television after the broadcaster announced a new host who has been accused of sexism and racism in his writing.

ARD said in late December it had picked the author Thilo Mischke, 43, to co-present its flagship culture show, ttt – Titel, Thesen, Temperamente (Titles, Theses, Temperaments), after the programme’s veteran host Max Moor stepped aside.

Continue reading...

More than 2,200 people died in Mediterranean in 2024, UN finds

Posted on by

Figure includes hundreds of children, who make up one in five migrants trying to reach Europe fleeing war and poverty

More than 2,200 people either died or went missing in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe in search of refuge in 2024.

The figure, cited in a statement from Regina De Dominicis, the regional director for Europe and central Asia for the UN’s children’s agency, Unicef, was eclipsed on New Year’s Eve when 20 people fell into the sea and were reported missing after a boat started to take in water in rough seas about 20 miles off the coast of Libya.

Continue reading...

Philippine president removes deputy from security council after alleged plot to kill him

Posted on by

Vice-president Sara Duterte is facing an investigation over her alleged threat to kill Ferdinand Marcos Jr

The Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, has removed his vice-president, Sara Duterte, from the national security council (NSC) a month after she allegedly plotted to kill him, according to an executive order released on Friday.

The order, signed on Monday by Lucas Bersamin, a lawyer and the Philippines’ executive secretary, removed Duterte and all former presidents from the council, which advises the president on policies affecting national security.

Continue reading...

‘A look into the future’: TV drama about Danish climate refugees divides opinion

Posted on by

Families Like Ours has become national talking point but some scientists say events depicted could not happen

Featuring scenes of huge crowds boarding ferries, protest and desperation as six million Danes become climate refugees and life as they know it rapidly collapses, the new TV series by the Oscar-winning director Thomas Vinterberg is a potential “look into the future”, he says.

Familier som vores (Families Like Ours) – a drama which depicts a flooded Denmark shut down and evacuated – has been viewed nearly 1m times and become a national talking point. At its premiere at the Venice international film festival, it evoked tears, shouts and a standing ovation, with one critic describing it as “grimly prophetic”.

Continue reading...

Massive cleanup under way in Ghana after fire destroys one of world’s biggest secondhand markets

Posted on by

Thousands of traders face ruin after blaze razes two-thirds of Accra’s Kantamanto, which receives an estimated 15m used clothes from global north each week

A huge cleanup operation is taking place after a fire devastated one of the world’s biggest secondhand clothes markets.

Thousands of traders’ stalls were destroyed in the blaze that started at about 10pm on 1 January and consumed large sections of Kantamanto market in Accra, Ghana’s capital.

Continue reading...

Thai prime minister declares £324m in assets including 217 designer handbags

Posted on by

Paetongtarn Shinawatra made required wealth declaration to national anti-corruption commission

Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, has declared £324m in assets including a collection of 217 designer handbags and 75 luxury watches in submissions on her wealth to a government body.

Paetongtarn, daughter of the billionaire ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, took office in September, the fourth member of the powerful family to lead Thailand.

Continue reading...

Barcelona to fine e-scooter users up to €500 for riding on pavements

Posted on by

Council to crack down on antisocial behaviour linked to rapid rise of e-scooter riders in city

Anyone riding an electric scooter on the pavement or without a helmet in Barcelona faces a fine of up to €500 (£415) from 1 February as part of a crackdown on antisocial behaviour linked to the rapid rise of e-scooter use in the Mediterranean city.

In an urban landscape that is mostly flat, with more than 250km (155 miles) of cycle lanes, 2,500 hours of sunshine and barely 55 rainy days a year, electric scooters are a perfect fit. According to the city council’s figures, the number of people using e-scooters since the pandemic has risen four times faster than those choosing to travel by bicycle.

Continue reading...

‘Worst-case scenario’: when needed most, New Orleans bollards were missing in action

Posted on by

Those barriers were being repaired – and others were down – when attacker struck, prompting questions

Like the rest of those living in New Orleans at the time, Aaron Miller – then the city’s homeland security director – was terrified after a gunman drove a truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the French coastal city of Nice in 2016, killing 86 people and wounding many more in a terrorist attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS).

Similar car attacks in Berlin, London, New York and Barcelona also put him on edge as he thought about the safety of his city.

Continue reading...

Bid to tackle extremism in US military unlikely to be revived under Trump

Posted on by

Twin terror attacks bring renewed focus on scourge of extremism, but efforts to effect change have so far stalled

The deadly New Year’s Day terrorist attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas have brought renewed attention to the scourge of extremism in the US military, but efforts to tackle it wilted in the later years of the Biden administration, and are unlikely to be revived once Donald Trump begins his second term this month.

Both the New Orleans vehicle attack that killed 14, and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas in which the driver died, were perpetrated by discharged or serving members of the armed forces.

Continue reading...

Arrest standoff shows defiance of impeached South Korean president

Posted on by

Yoon Suk Yeoul has vowed to ‘fight to the end’ as he resists attempts to hold him accountable amid political crisis

South Korean anti-corruption officials attempting to arrest the country’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, must know by now what he meant by his repeated vows to “fight to the end”.

In the month since his calamitous declaration of martial law, Yoon, along with most of his party, his legal team and, crucially, his security detail, have resisted at every turn attempts to hold him politically and legally accountable.

Continue reading...