Category Archives: World News

US was not given notice of Israeli strike that killed Nasrallah, top Biden aide says

Posted on by

National security spokesperson John Kirby reiterates ‘ironclad’ support for Israel but ‘mourns’ civilian deaths

The White House said on Sunday it had not been warned in advance of the airstrike that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a Beirut suburb and assumed it had caused civilian casualties, while reaffirming its “ironclad” support to Israel.

John Kirby, the national security spokesperson, said the US had not been informed of the airstrike, and that the president, Joe Biden, only found out about it once Israeli planes were already in the air.

Continue reading...

Israel strikes Houthi targets in Yemen as it continues to bomb Lebanon

Posted on by

Assault on Iran-backed proxies expands with attacks on fuel facilities and power plants in Hodeidah and Ras Issa

Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday while continuing to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, where at least 50 more people are believed to have died. The fresh assaults on Iran-backed proxies across the Middle East risk accelerating a slide towards a devastating regional conflict on multiple fronts.

The attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen involved dozens of Israeli planes and appears to have targeted fuel facilities, power plants and docks at the Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports. It one of the biggest such operations yet seen in the near year-long crisis in the region.

Continue reading...

Malcolm Turnbull condemns UK’s ‘extraordinary’ hypocrisy over Spycatcher affair

Posted on by

Exclusive: Former Australian PM witnessed ‘shocking act of perjury’ and says MI5 are still trying to hide something

The former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has accused the UK government of hypocrisy and concealment over the way it continues to block the release of secret files about the Spycatcher affair.

Before entering politics, Turnbull was a barrister for Peter Wright, a retired senior MI5 intelligence officer who revealed a series of illegal activities by the British security services in his memoir Spycatcher.

Continue reading...

Valentino steals the show in Paris with Alessandro Michele at the helm

Posted on by

Ex-Gucci star brings 70s haute bourgeoisie ladies in trailing chiffons and Gen Z boys in tattoos and pearls to the runway

Valentino was the hottest ticket of this Paris fashion week, and the show had a sense of occasion to match.

A vast floor was laid with smashed mirror tiles, glittering like a ballroom after an earthquake. Five hundred armchairs and a smattering of glowing lamps lay beneath a shroud of white sheets, as if a grand house had been locked up for a long winter. The house of Valentino was shaking off the cobwebs for a new era and hitting the dancefloor.

Continue reading...

Melting glaciers force Switzerland and Italy to redraw part of Alpine border

Posted on by

Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn a border that traverses an Alpine peak as melting glaciers shift the historically defined frontier.

The two countries agreed to the modifications beneath the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe, which straddles Switzerland’s Zermatt region and Italy’s Aosta valley.

Continue reading...

Search resumes in what may be deadliest migrant boat sinking off Canaries

Posted on by

At least nine dead and 48 missing after vessel carrying 87 people sinks off Spanish island of El Hierro

Rescuers renewed their search on Sunday for about 48 people missing after their migrant boat sank close to the Spanish island of El Hierro in what could become the deadliest such incident in 30 years of crossings from Africa to the Canary Islands.

Nine people, one of them a child aged between 12 and 15, have been confirmed dead in the incident in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Continue reading...

New Zealand reclaims world record for largest mass haka

Posted on by

More than 6,000 people perform Māori dance at Eden Park rugby stadium in Auckland, to break France’s record

New Zealand has reclaimed the world record for the largest mass haka after more than 6,000 people performed the Māori dance, dethroning France.

The record was broken in deafening fashion at Eden Park rugby stadium in Auckland, where thousands of men, women and children combined on the pitch to complete the traditional dance involving vigorous movements, stamping feet and rhythmic shouting.

Continue reading...

Impact of Hezbollah assassinations may take months to emerge

Posted on by

Targeting of group’s leaders has failed to win Israel significant strategic advantage in past, let alone deal fatal blow

In 1992, Israeli media celebrated an assassination. The man killed then was Abbas al-Musawi, the secretary general of Hezbollah, whose convoy was struck by Israeli helicopters.

Then, as now, Israeli analysts speculated that Musawi’s death might possibly portend the end of Hezbollah, which had been founded 10 years before after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.

Continue reading...

Milan appeals against ‘grotesque’ move to rename airport after Berlusconi

Posted on by

City authorities take case to Lombardy regional court in effort to block initiative by Matteo Salvini

Milan council has appealed against a “grotesque” move to rename the city’s main airport after the scandal-tainted late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The council approved a resolution to take the case to the Lombardy region’s administrative court after the initiative to rename Malpensa was accelerated by Matteo Salvini, the transport minister in Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government.

Continue reading...

European ministers call for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

Posted on by

France says Israel must stop strikes, as governments voice alarm over escalation and killing of Nasrallah

European foreign ministers have stepped up calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, amid concern that Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, risks seriously destabilising Lebanon and the region.

Even as Israeli defence officials continued to raise the prospect of a cross-border operation into southern Lebanon, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK voiced alarm over the latest escalation on the Israeli side.

Continue reading...

More than 100 killed and 64 missing as flooding and landslides hit Nepal

Posted on by

Officials expect death toll to rise as flood waters inundate Kathmandu after highest rainfall since 1970

Flooding and landslides caused by continuous rainfall have killed at least 101 people in Nepal while 64 people are missing, officials have said.

Rain began pouring down on Friday night and continued into Saturday, with low-lying neighbourhoods in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, inundated by surging floodwaters.

“The death toll has reached 101, and 64 people are missing,” police spokesperson Dan Bahadur Karki told AFP early on Sunday.

Continue reading...

JD Vance takes stage at his second speech today in Pennsylvania – as it happened

Posted on by

After earlier speech in Monroeville, Republican vice-presidential candidate vows to ‘turn Pennsylvania red’ in Newton. This blog is now closed.

Tim Walz paid a visit to Ann Arbor to watch a football game between the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota.

The Democratic vice-presidential nominee was greeted at the airport by University of Michigan students, who had arrived in a bus donning a banner that read “Put Me In, Coach!”

“I would always tell people in campaigns: If you want a democracy after the election, you have to have an autocracy before the election,” Carville said.

Continue reading...

The world is shifting away from using animals in research. Will Australia get left behind?

Posted on by

Australia’s lack of transparency and funding leave it on the outer as researchers worldwide explore alternatives for training, study and testing

A global shift in scientific and medical research is under way as countries hope to phase out experimentation on animals – but Australia risks being left behind.

The transition from using animals to alternatives based on human cells, tissue and data is driving multibillion-dollar growth in new technologies and methods. However, industry leaders and insiders warn Australia will miss those opportunities due to a lack of funding, opaque record keeping and national inconsistencies.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Nine dead and 48 missing after migrant boat sinks off Canary Islands

Posted on by

Rescue services say they saved 27 of the 84 people aboard the vessel believed to have come from Mauritania

Nine people are confirmed drowned and at least 48 are missing after a boat carrying migrants capsized off Spain’s Canary Islands overnight, rescue services said on Saturday, the latest in a series of such disasters off the west coast of Africa.

Sea rescue teams said in a statement they had answered a distress call off El Hierro, one of the islands in the Atlantic archipelago, shortly after midnight. They managed to save 27 of the 84 people on board.

Continue reading...

‘World of horrors’: families huddle on Beirut’s streets amid the bombs

Posted on by

Residents of Lebanon’s capital flee their homes and seek shelter as the death toll from Israel’s airstrikes rises

Gunshots fired into the air, women wailing in the streets, the ever-present buzz of drones and the distant thud of Israeli airstrikes: this was the sound of mourning in Beirut on Saturday. Hassan Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for 32 years, was dead, killed in an Israeli airstrike on Dahieh, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the day before.

For many in Lebanon, his killing had been unimaginable. But Israel’s war with Hezbollah had long surpassed what was previously thought possible. Pagers had exploded in hands, walkie-talkies blew up in belts and Israeli warplanes killed hundreds in half a day. The death of Nasrallah was one more blow to the Lebanese psyche, already struggling to grasp soaring death tolls and, for some, the loss of their home overnight.

Continue reading...

‘Leave now’, Foreign Office urges Britons in Lebanon

Posted on by

British government says it has been securing extra flights as it asks UK nationals to register their presence

The British government has been securing extra flights for UK nationals to make their way out of Lebanon, as ministers continued to urge citizens still in the country to “leave now”.

Official advice has been warning British nationals to leave the country for months. But with the escalation of tension following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, there have been fresh appeals to Brits to urgently secure a place on a flight.

Continue reading...

Top Russia diplomat warns west not to fight ‘nuclear power’ in UN speech

Posted on by

Sergei Lavrov accuses west of using Ukraine ‘to defeat’ Russia days after Putin shifts Moscow’s nuclear posture

Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.

Three days after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.

Continue reading...

At least 22 reported dead as storm John weakens over Mexico

Posted on by

Residents from Michoacán to Oaxaca evacuate after storm ravages Pacific coastline, bringing floods and landslides

Residents in south-western Mexico on Saturday evacuated from homes flooded by the remnants of Hurricane John that ravaged the Pacific coastline for a week, bringing deadly floods and landslides that left 22 people reported dead.

In Guerrero, the worst-hit state and one of Mexico’s poorest, 18 people were killed, according to local media, many due to mudslides that crushed houses. To the south, local media reported three deaths in Oaxaca, and a young boy died in a river to the north in Michoacán state.

Continue reading...

The killing of Hassan Nasrallah leaves Iran with a fateful choice and the US humiliated

Posted on by

Israel’s airstrike on Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon has far-reaching implications for Tehran and Washington

When Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, told reporters in New York on Friday that the coming days will determine the future path of the Middle East, he could not have been more prescient, even if at the time he was hoping that Hezbollah and Israel could be persuaded to step back from the brink.

Now, with the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah confirmed killed, the region, after 11 months, has finally stepped over the brink and into a place it has truly never been before.

Continue reading...