Category Archives: World News

Vatican Museums faces unprecedented legal dispute over job conditions

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Petition by 49 employees could lead to Holy See being taken to court for ‘undermining dignity and health’

Forty-nine employees at the Vatican Museums have started an unprecedented legal dispute over job conditions and workplace safety, which could lead to the Holy See being taken to court.

The staff, mostly custodians who have worked at the museums for years, claim they are treated as “commodities” by Pope Francis’s administration, according to a report in Corriere della Sera.

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‘We tell them to go’: civilian life on the edge of Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine

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As Putin’s forces press towards ruined Chasiv Yar, Ukrainians try to survive under bombardment in the shadow of the frontline

For months, Serhiy Gorbunov has been trying to persuade residents of Chasiv Yar, Russia’s current target in eastern Ukraine, to leave. “There’s intense shelling. The place is being bombarded. It’s a difficult situation,” he said. “People are living underground in basements. We tell them: ‘Please go.’ They answer with excuses. Most say they don’t want to abandon their homes. We try to help but they refuse.”

Gorbunov is the head of the city military administration in Kostiantynivka, the nearest functioning city to the frontline. That is 7 miles (11km) from his office, reached via a dusty and potholed back road that climbs up to the heights of Chasiv Yar. The Russians, who have been besieging the town for well over a year, have now reached its eastern outskirts and are trying to surround it.

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Fierce battles in Gaza as Israeli forces attack Hamas militants

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Heavy bombardment and airstrikes reported in devastated north while clashes also seen in south as tens of thousands flee Rafah

Fierce battles were under way across much of the devastated north of Gaza on Sunday, with heavy bombardment and airstrikes reported as Israeli forces attacked Hamas militants in areas that have already seen repeated rounds of fighting.

The new clashes underlined the failure of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to secure much of the territory, analysts said, after a campaign that has brought massive destruction, the displacement of about 2 million people and the deaths of around 35,000, mostly women and children.

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Death, disease and despair as fighting closes in on besieged Sudanese city

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Darfur is on the brink of another disaster as fighting intensifies around El Fasher, the last city in the region not controlled by the Rapid Support Forces

At the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people on the northern fringe of El Fasher in North Darfur, about seven people a day arrive with injuries sustained from nearby clashes between fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and groups allied to the Sudanese army.

For months now the RSF have been besieging El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, trapping a million people in the last major population centre in Sudan’s vast Darfur region not under paramilitary control.

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Thousands protest in Israel amid anger at Netanyahu over hostages held in Gaza

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Demonstrators call for deal to bring hostages home as well as elections and PM’s resignation as Israeli troops advance on Rafah

Thousands of Israelis joined protests over the weekend calling for a deal to bring home hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas, early elections and the immediate resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.

The large protests came amid renewed fighting in Gaza, where Israeli troops have advanced for the first time towards the centre of Rafah, the territory’s southernmost city, and launched operations in several northern areas where fierce clashes have previously taken place.

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David Cameron urges BBC to describe Hamas as terrorist organisation

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Foreign secretary’s call comes after group releases video of British-Israeli hostage it says died after being wounded in Israeli airstrike

Middle East crisis: latest news updates

David Cameron has urged the BBC to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation, reviving an accusation that the corporation shies away from a valid description of the Islamist group that is holding Israeli hostages.

The UK foreign secretary told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the organisation should reconsider its guidelines in light of a video released by Hamas showing the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell, who the group said had died in Gaza.

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Israel-Gaza war live: Israel lacks ‘credible plan’ to safeguard Rafah civilians, says US – as it happened

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Secretary of state Antony Blinken defends decision to pause bomb delivery to Israel: ‘We have real concerns about the way they’re used’

On Sunday, more families, estimated in the thousands, were leaving Rafah as the Israeli military pressure intensified. Tank shells landed across the southern Gaza city as the army gave new evacuation orders covering some neighbourhoods in the centre of Rafah, which borders Egypt. Israel yesterday called for Palestinians in more areas of Rafah to head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in al-Mawasi, a narrow strip of coastline at the southernmost end of the territory. But there are grave concerns for the security of those fleeing to the area, which aid workers say is packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have already overwhelmed inadequate supplies of food, clean water and healthcare. Sanitation barely exists, leading to the rapid spread of disease.

The UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has said it would be wrong for Israel to carry out a major offensive in Rafah “without a plan to protect people”. “For there to be a major offensive in Rafah, there would have to be an absolutely clear plan about how you save lives, how you move people out the way, how you make sure they’re fed, you make sure that they have medicine and shelter and everything,” the former Conservative prime minister told Sky News. “We have seen no such plan … so we don’t support an offensive in that way,” he added, echoing similar statements by the US. The closure of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, the difficulties of reaching the Kerem Shalom crossing because of the fighting, a lack of transport because of fuel shortages and the flight of key workers mean almost no aid is reaching southern and central Gaza.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, urged for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid” into the besieged Gaza Strip. “But a ceasefire will only be the start,” Guterres told a donor conference in Kuwait. “It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war,” he said.

Palestinians reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight in the Jabaliya refugee camp and other areas in the northern Gaza Strip, which has suffered widespread devastation. Residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery struck across the camp and the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City.

On Sunday, more families, estimated in the thousands, were leaving Rafah as the Israeli military pressure intensified.

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US threatens to block more arms sales if Israeli assault on Rafah goes ahead

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Antony Blinken highlighted the ‘horrible loss of life of innocent civilians’, in some of the strongest criticism of Israel from the US to date

The US may block more weapons systems to Israel if it goes ahead with a ground offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has said.

The US has already suspended the shipment of 3,500 2,000lb (907kg) and 500lb (227kg) high-payload bombs following concerns over the scale of civilian casualties in Israel’s war in the territory.

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Catalonia goes to polls in vote that will gauge support for independence

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Regional election will also indicate whether Spanish prime minister’s conciliatory approach has paid off

Voters in Catalonia are heading to the polls on Sunday to cast their ballots in a snap regional election that will gauge the strength of the waning independence movement and indicate whether the conciliatory approach of Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has paid off.

The election was called in March by the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, a member of the moderate pro-independence Catalan Republican Left party (ERC), after opposition parties voted down the budget proposed by his minority government.

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Starmer has laid out his plan to tackle asylum. Will it actually work? | Sunder Katwala

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The Labour leader confirmed he would scrap the Rwanda scheme in his Dover speech, then confusingly blurred his own argument

Could Keir Starmer “Make Asylum Boring Again”? That would be the ultimate test of success for his claim that he can grip the issue that has caused Rishi Sunak more trouble than any other. Starmer’s message is that he is no less committed to securing the borders and stopping the small boats crossing the Channel, but that achieving this requires a serious plan to tackle smuggling gangs and fix the asylum system in Britain too. So how different is Labour’s plan – and would it work?

Labour’s analysis should be that making asylum work depends on blending control and compassion. The Dover speech was a political exercise in asymmetric triangulation. Robust messages about control were loudly proclaimed. More liberal ideas about a rules-based system could be found, but mostly by reading between the lines.

Starmer did confirm that Labour would scrap the Rwanda scheme. Labour had seemed to wobble in the face of premature Conservative confidence that Rwanda is already working to deter. Ironically, the biggest risk for Sunak’s deterrent argument would come if he finally gets to test it practically. Send the first flights to Rwanda this summer and further arrivals across the Channel will surely outpace any removals 10 times over.

There is a clash of principle over asylum. Labour would process the asylum claims of those who arrived without permission. The Conservatives have now passed several laws vowing they will not. Yet ministers are in denial. Whether or not up to 500 people go to Rwanda does not give the government any plan for the next 50,000 people it still claims it intends to remove. So flagship new duties on the home secretary to refuse these claims for ever have not been given legal force – as the courts would strike that out in all those cases where the government has no realistic alternative. Yet the government has ceased to process asylum cases, reversing last year’s success in clearing the historic backlog.

Starmer is right to deny the charge that Labour’s policy is an “amnesty”, since processing the backlog would see some asylum claims granted and others refused. But he confusingly blurs his own argument with a tit-for-tat labelling of government policy as a “Travelodge amnesty”.

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Could new US sanctions threaten future of West Bank settlements? | Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum

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Joe Biden’s latest executive order gives scope to target the finances of Israeli politicians and businesses linked to extremists

Escalating US sanctions on violent settlers, initially taken as a mostly political rebuke to extremists, are now seen by some inside Israel as a potential threat to the financial viability of all Israeli settlements and companies in the occupied West Bank.

The Biden administration’s new controls on a handful of men and organisations linked to attacks on Palestinian civilians, first announced in February then expanded twice in March and April, have generally been treated in Israel and beyond more as a humiliating public censure of a close ally than as a major political shift.

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Sake takes UK by storm as Japan’s national drink goes mainstream

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No longer just drunk for courage at karaoke clubs, the ‘food-friendly’ rice spirit is becoming a first choice of connoisseurs

When sommelier Erika Haigh opened the UK’s first independent sake bar, in London’s West End in 2019, passersby would wander in and try to order milkshakes, bewildered by the unfamiliar drink advertised in the window.

“Today, that confusion has largely disappeared,” said Haigh, who has since opened Mai Sake, a shop offering tasting events and meals. “You can now go on a sake bar crawl across London, and you’ll find it featured on the beverage lists of many restaurants – including non-Japanese establishments.”

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‘You say you are a musician, they beat you more’: the Ukrainian sax player who survived Putin’s torture prisons

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Yuriy Merkotan played in a military band and, after being caught up in the Mariupol siege, spent nearly two years in various jails

When Yuriy Merkotan enlisted in Ukraine’s national guard in 2020, it was not because he wanted to fight. A saxophonist living in the southern port city of Mariupol, there were few opportunities to play music professionally. So when a spot became free in a 16-person band attached to a national guard brigade, he jumped at the chance.

But when Russian forces put Mariupol under siege in February 2022, the band members were called to duty. They ended up inside Azovstal, the sprawling factory that became the last bastion of Ukrainian defence as the Russian occupation proceeded to its grim conclusion.

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Pig kidney ‘xenotransplant’ patient dies two months later

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No indication that Richard ‘Rick’ Slayman’s receipt of genetically modified kidney caused his death, says Massachusetts transplant team

The first recipient of a genetically modified pig kidney transplant has died about two months later, with the hospital that performed the surgery saying it did not have any indication the transplant was the cause.

Richard “Rick” Slayman had the transplant at Massachusetts general hospital in March at the age of 62. Surgeons said they believed the pig kidney would last for at least two years. On Saturday, his family and the hospital that performed the surgery confirmed Slayman’s death.

Associated Press contributed reporting

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About 50,000 protest in Tbilisi against Georgia ‘foreign agents’ bill

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US says parliamentarians must choose between Kremlin-style laws or Euro-Atlantic democratic path

An estimated 50,000 people marched peacefully in heavy rain in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Saturday night after the US said parliamentarians had to choose between Kremlin-style laws or the Euro-Atlantic democratic path they had embarked upon.

The march was the latest in a series of public protests against a “foreign agents” bill that would require media and commercial organisations receiving more than 20% of their funding from outside the country to register as “agents of foreign influence”.

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Dutch broadcaster decries Eurovision decision to ban its contestant

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Avorotros says Joost Klein’s disqualification ‘disproportionate’ after incident involving female member of production crew

The Dutch broadcaster who sent the country’s entry to Eurovision has said the decision to disqualify its contestant from the song contest just hours before the start of tonight’s grand final was “disproportionate”.

Dutch singer and rapper Joost Klein was excluded from the main show due to an incident involving a female member of the production crew, the competition’s organisers announced earlier in the day.

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Hamas says British-Israeli hostage has died from airstrike wounds

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Nadav Popplewell, 51, abducted on 7 October, was reportedly wounded in Israeli strike more than a month ago

Hamas said in a statement on Saturday that the British-Israeli hostage Nadav Popplewell had died of wounds that he sustained in an Israeli airstrike more than a month ago.

Popplewell, 51, was a captive taken from Nirim kibbutz and a video previously released by Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, showed him displaying visible signs of physical abuse.

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Terrified families flee Rafah as Israel set to open all-out assault

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Leaflet instructs Palestinians to leave southern Gaza city as Benjamin Netanyahu shuns pressure from Joe Biden

More than a hundred thousand Palestinians fled Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, on Saturday, after Israeli warnings to evacuate before an imminent military assault that will open a bloody new phase of the seven-month-long conflict.

Roads leading out of Rafah were choked with long columns of young and old, sick and healthy, riding in overloaded pick-up trucks and battered cars, in pony carts and on hand-pulled trolleys. Many walked, carrying their belongings, under a searing summer sun. Some were pushed in wheelchairs or even carried.

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‘Explosive’ secret list of abusers set to upstage women’s big week at Cannes film festival

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Crisis management team reported to be in place as Meryl Streep heads roster of female stars and directors collecting accolades

For good and bad reasons, on and off the red carpet, the spotlight is trained on women in the run-up to the Cannes film festival this week. As the cream of female film talent, including Hollywood’s Meryl Streep and Britain’s Andrea Arnold, prepare to receive significant career awards, a dark cloud is threatening. It is expected that new allegations of the abuse of women in the European entertainment industry will be made public, which may overshadow the sparkle of a feminist Croisette.

Streep’s screen achievements will be celebrated with an honorary Palme d’Or at the opening ceremony, while a day later Arnold, the acclaimed British film director, will receive the prestigious Carosse d’Or from the French director’s guild. And on Sunday another influential British film personality will be saluted when diversity champion Dame Donna Langley, the chairman and chief content officer at NBCUniversal, is to be honoured with the Women in Motion Award at a lavish dinner. All this comes in a year that also sees the American director Greta Gerwig, best known for last summer’s Barbie, presiding over a jury that features the campaigning stars Eva Green and Lily Gladstone. But the story of the 77th festival will not be all positive for women.

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Latest Gaza evacuation warnings expose weak spots in Israel’s war strategy

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Awareness of diplomatic fallout has led Israel to downplay offensive, while return to north shows difficulty of eliminating Hamas

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Two elements are particularly striking about the latest evacuation warnings issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to residents and displaced people in central Rafah and a considerable part of northern Gaza.

The first is that the warnings for Rafah were put at the bottom of leaflets and social media posts, almost as if the IDF was trying to downplay the coming offensive. This may be because Israeli military officials have told the media for much of the week that they were carrying out “precise, limited and targeted” operations in the city with the sole objective of seizing the key border crossing with Egypt. This is now clearly not the case, if it ever was.

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