Category Archives: World News

Zelenskiy says Russia’s recent offensive shows pressure on Kremlin ‘not enough’

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Ukrainian president signs military agreement with EU and says ‘fulfilment of every promise’ of support is important

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told EU leaders that Russia’s spring offensive in Kharkiv showed that international pressure on the Kremlin was “not enough”, as he signed a military agreement with the bloc.

Vladimir Putin had tried to “expand the war” in May with a new offensive in eastern Ukraine, Zelenskiy said on Thursday, referring to relentless attacks on the Kharkiv region.

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Le Pen claims far right will win absolute majority and take over military decisions

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National Rally leader says Macron ‘won’t have choice’ but to appoint her protege as PM and he would make decisions on Ukraine support

Marine Le Pen has said she expects her far-right National Rally (RN) party to win an absolute majority in France’s general election, form a government and take over at least some defence and armed forces decision-making – including on Ukraine.

France’s constitution states that the president is head of the armed forces and chairs France’s national defence committees, but also that the prime minister is “responsible for national defence”, leaving the precise role of the premier open to interpretation.

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Canada’s 2023 wildfires created four times more emissions than planes did last year – report

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Months-long fires spewed about the same amount of carbon dioxide that 647m cars put in the air in a year, data shows

Catastrophic Canadian warming-fueled wildfires last year pumped more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air than India did by burning fossil fuels, setting ablaze an area of forest larger than the US state of West Virginia, new research has found.

Scientists at the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland calculated how devastating the impacts of the months-long fires in Canada in 2023 that sullied the air around large parts of the globe. They figured it put 3.28bn tons (2.98 metric tons) of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the air, according to a study update published in Thursday’s Global Change Biology. The update is not peer-reviewed, but the original study was.

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‘Here I found respect for who I am’: the French citizens who choose to leave

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Scores of highly qualified French citizens from Muslim backgrounds have left the country in recent years

Even as she climbed up the corporate ladder in France, Ophélie Rizki’s after-work routine remained unchanged. Each evening as she got into her car to drive home, she would make a beeline for her headscarf, feeling herself slowly becoming whole again as she covered her hair.

She had never been explicitly told that she couldn’t wear her hijab at work, nor had she asked. But as politicians in France continued to spar over headscarves, two decades after parliament voted to ban them in school, she worried about the impact that choosing to keep her hair covered would have on her career. “You don’t ask the question, you know it’s not something you can do,” she said.

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Egyptian scribes suffered work-related injuries, study says

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Higher incidence of damage to hips, jaws and thumbs reveals their writing efforts may have taken a toll

From bad backs to eye strain, office work can take its toll on the body.

But it seems such perils are nothing new: researchers have found Egyptian scribes experienced damage to their hips, jaws and thumbs as a result of their efforts.

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Italian PM criticised by opposition after fascist chants by party’s youth wing

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Meloni has not yet commented on revelation of Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants by members of National Youth

Italian opposition parties have rounded on the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, after an investigative outlet published video clips and messages showing members of her far-right party’s youth wing engaging in fascist chants, Nazi salutes and antisemitic rants.

Undercover reporters from the investigative website Fanpage infiltrated groups and chat forums used by members of National Youth, the youth wing of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party.

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Chinese Communist party expels two ex-defence ministers for corruption

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Li Shangfu, who vanished from public life last year, and Wei Fenghe accused of accepting gifts and facilitating benefits

The Chinese Communist party has expelled two former defence ministers for corruption, including Li Shangfu, who disappeared from public view along with other senior figures last year.

Li was sacked as defence minister in October, two months after he disappeared from public life. He served just seven months as defence minister. No explanation was given for his sudden removal, which temporarily destabilised efforts to rebuild US-China defence dialogues.

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Israel-Gaza war: Israel warns it could take Lebanon ‘back to the Stone Age’ – as it happened

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Yoav Gallant said Israel is preparing for war with Hezbollah but stressed that his government preferred a diplomatic solution

Here are some of the latest images from Israel, where an anti-government demonstration has again attempted to block highways while demanding that Benjamin Netanyahu strike a deal to return Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and to call elections in Israel.

Haaretz reporter Bar Peleg has posted this video, which shows protesters blocking a road by setting a fire.

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NCA failure to investigate imports linked to forced Uyghur labour unlawful, court rules

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Decision could result in retailers being prosecuted if they import goods made through forced labour, campaigners say

The UK National Crime Agency’s decision not to launch an investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province was unlawful, the court of appeal has found.

Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which brought the action, said Thursday’s decision was a landmark win that could lead to high street retailers being prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) if they import goods made through forced labour.

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Londoner continues epic trans-Africa run after release from South Sudan jail

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Deo Kato detained by security services for three weeks after being arrested near Juba on run from South Africa to UK

A Ugandan-born Londoner on a 9,000-mile run from South Africa to London has been released from jail in South Sudan, his partner has told the Guardian.

Deo Kato had already run more than the length of Africa – the equivalent of more than 200 marathons – when he was arrested near Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on 2 June. His partner and project manager, Alice Light, had no idea where he was, only discovering he was in prison on 17 June.

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Global wave of elections could hit UK financial system, warns Bank of England

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Central bank raises concerns over newly elected governments as more than 80 countries go to polls this year

Uncertainty caused by a global wave of elections, starting this weekend in France, risks destabilising the UK’s financial system, the Bank of England has warned.

Officials are concerned about the kind of policies that newly elected governments may enforce in large economies, including the US, where Donald Trump is vying for another term as president in the run-up to the election in November.

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India’s supreme court to rule on new penal code permitting marital rape

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Rights groups protesting at Modi government’s view that criminalising sexual assault violates ‘sanctity’ of marriage

Campaigners angry that marital rape is not to be criminalised under India’s long-awaited new penal code have been promised a ruling on the issue by the supreme court next month.

Human rights organisations, including the All India Democratic Women’s Association, have been petitioning India’s supreme court to make it a criminal offence. The court has in turn asked the government for a response.

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‘We cannot deny history again’: Brazil floods show how German migration silenced Black and Indigenous stories

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The promotion of European immigration was linked to the idea of ‘whitening the Brazilian population’, say historians

Dominga Menezes was only 12 years old when she danced for a dictator.

It was 25 July 1974, and São Leopoldo, a medium-sized city in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, was celebrating both the anniversary of its founding and 150 years of German immigration to Brazil.

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‘Whack-a-mole situation’: Algerian officials wrestle with water shortage anger

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State not acting fast enough to build desalination stations to deal with dwindling rainfall and resulting drought, say critics

On 8 June, anger over months of water rationing spilled over in the drought-stricken central Algerian town of Tiaret, where balaclava-wearing demonstrators barricaded roads and burned tyres.

Rationing had been introduced to deal with a drought in parts of Algeria and neighbouring Morocco where the amount of rainfall that had historically replenished critical reservoirs was much reduced. Taps had been running dry for months, forcing people in the region – a semi-arid, high-desert plateau increasingly plagued by extreme heat – to queue to access water.

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Bolivia’s president sees off attempted coup after urging citizens to take to streets

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Luis Arce said the country’s democracy was at stake after army troops seized control of La Paz’s political heart and military police storm palace

Bolivia’s President Luis Arce appears to have seen off an attempt to topple his leftwing government after a dramatic afternoon in which heavily armed troops, seemingly commanded by a top army general, stormed the government palace before beating a retreat and seeing their alleged leader detained.

On Wednesday afternoon Arce urged citizens to take to the streets to defend the country’s democracy from an apparent coup attempt, after troops seized control of a central square in La Paz which houses government buildings.

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Five charged over alleged plot to bribe Minnesota juror with $120,000 in cash

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Prosecutors say scheme – ‘like something out of a mob movie’ – was hatched to stop conviction in Covid fraud case

Five people have been charged with conspiring to bribe a Minnesota juror with a bag of $120,000 in cash in exchange for the acquittal of defendants in one of the country’s largest Covid-related fraud cases, the US attorney’s office and the FBI announced on Wednesday.

Court documents made public reveal an extravagant scheme in which the accused researched the juror’s personal information on social media, surveilled her, tracked her daily habits and bought a GPS device to install on her car. Authorities believe the defendants targeted the woman, known as juror 52, because she was the youngest and they believed her to be the only person of color on the panel.

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Fossil of Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome hints at early humans’ compassion

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Skull anatomy shows the boy or girl would have been severely disabled, yet survived until the age of six

A Neanderthal child with Down’s syndrome survived until at least the age of six, according to a new study whose findings hint at compassionate caregiving among the extinct, archaic human species.

Recent examination of a human fossil unearthed at the Cova Negra archaeological site in the Spanish province of Valencia found traits in the inner-ear anatomy which indicated Down syndrome, in the earliest-known evidence of the genetic condition.

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Film and TV crew members reach deal with Hollywood studios to avert strike

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Iatse union agrees tentative three-year deal with Disney, Netflix and others over pay, AI protections and residuals

The union that represents film and television crews has reached an agreement with Hollywood studios that will stave off a major strike – a welcome development after the industry saw significant labor turmoil last year.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (Iatse) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) announced on Tuesday they had a tentative three-year agreement that will affect about 50,000 crew members.

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Sudan’s warring factions using starvation as weapon, experts say

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Special rapporteurs working for UN warn famine is imminent and over 25 million people need urgent help

Human rights experts working for the United Nations have accused Sudan’s warring parties of using starvation as a war weapon, amid mounting warnings of imminent famine in the African country.

Sudan plunged into chaos in April last year when simmering tensions between the country’s military and a notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country.

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Closed-door trial of US journalist Evan Gershkovich begins in Russia

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WSJ reporter faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on spying charges US says are politically motivated

A Russian court has begun a closed-door trial of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges that he, his employer and the US government have all described as politically motivated.

Gershkovich appeared in a courtroom in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday, his head shaven by prison authorities, after being transferred from the Moscow jail where has been held since March 2023.

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