Category Archives: World News

Ex-Mossad chief ‘disappointed’ over alleged threats against ICC prosecutor

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Tamir Pardo says alleged campaign under his successor ‘sounds like Cosa Nostra-style blackmail’

A former head of the Mossad has described his disbelief and disappointment at allegations that his successor at the Israeli intelligence agency threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC), likening the conduct to mafia-like tactics.

Tamir Pardo, who served as director of the Mossad between 2011 and 2016, was responding to a Guardian investigation published this week about an alleged operation by the Israeli spy service to put pressure on the former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to abandon a war crimes investigation.

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Moscow decries US move to allow its weapons to be used on targets in Russia

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Senior officials say decision marks serious escalation and their threat to use tactical nuclear weapons is not a bluff

The Kremlin has said Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied weapons against targets in Russia demonstrates Washington’s deep involvement in the conflict, as some of Vladimir Putin’s allies increased their nuclear threats against the west.

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Friday that Moscow was already aware of attempts by Ukraine to strike targets on Russian territory with weapons provided by the US.

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Israel-Gaza war: IDF says its troops have ended operations in eastern Jabaliya – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Israel-Gaza war coverage here

Here is an extract from a piece about a small group of Israelis stopping settlers obstructing aid trucks, by Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum in Tarqumiya, with photographs by Alessio Mamo:

At approximately 10.30am on a scorching Monday, a group of five young Israeli settlers arrived at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the West Bank, where dozens of aid trucks bound for Gaza were expected.

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Houthis say at least 16 killed in UK and US strikes in Yemen

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Rebel group says strikes, aimed at underground facilities and missile launchers, killed and wounded civilians

A joint US and UK air raid on Houthi missile launchers in Yemen has killed 16 people and injured more than 40, according to the Houthi health ministry.

There is no independent way of confirming the death toll, but if accurate it would represent the single largest loss of life since the US and UK started their campaign to degrade the Houthi military in January.

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Amlo promised to transform Mexico, but he leaves it much the same

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Many voters are better off, but the Mexican president failed to solve bigger problems like violence and corruption

Six years ago, Andrés Manuel López Obrador broke Mexico’s traditional parties’ grip on power to become president, promising to reshape a country wracked by inequality, corruption and violence.

The self-described “Fourth Transformation” – which put López Obrador’s project on a level with the Mexican Revolution and the war of independence – has fallen short of its lofty goals. But López Obrador’s approval ratings remain rock solid, at about 65%, and his party, Morena, seems sure to retain the presidency.

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Trial results for new lung cancer drug are ‘off the charts’, say doctors

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More than half of patients with advanced forms of disease who took lorlatinib were still alive after five years with no progression

Doctors are hailing “off the chart” trial results that show a new drug stopped lung cancer advancing for longer than any other treatment in medical history.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

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‘Solidarity over hatred’: the small band of Israelis stopping settlers obstructing aid trucks

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Peace activists confronting settlers acknowledge they are ‘a minority within a minority’

At approximately 10.30am on a scorching Monday, a group of five young Israeli settlers arrived at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the West Bank, where dozens of aid trucks bound for Gaza were expected.

The settlers had received detailed information about the timing, location, and number of trucks that would pass through the checkpoint that morning. What they had not anticipated was that dozens of peace activists had also gathered in Tarqumiya with a specific mission: to prevent the settlers from blocking the vehicles and ensure that the aid continued its journey to Gaza.

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Papua New Guinea’s PM makes first visit to site of deadly landslide

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James Marape apologises for not making journey sooner, as ongoing instability hampers recovery and poses risk to residents

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, has made his first visit to a remote village hit by a deadly landslide last week and thanked international aid donors for their support.

Authorities are still struggling to determine how many people are buried under parts of a mountain which collapsed on to the Yambali village in the remote Enga region on 24 May.

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‘Guilty on all counts’: how the world’s media reacted to the Trump trial’s historic verdict

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The former president appears on front pages across the globe on Friday, as the world’s media takes in the unprecedented outcome of the hush-money trial

“Guilty on all counts,” is the headline on the Guardian’s front page on Friday, after Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a historic criminal hush-money trial.

It took the jury less than 12 hours to reach a verdict in the unprecedented first criminal trial against a current or former US president.

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Nigeria takes up case of its Teesside University students ordered out of UK

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High Commission to meet leaders at university after currency crash in home country meant students couldn’t pay for tuition

Delegates from the Nigerian high commission in London are to meet bosses from Teesside University to discuss the treatment of a group of students who were ordered to leave the UK after failing to meet tuition repayments.

The Nigerian students were left distressed and in some cases suicidal after they were involuntarily withdrawn from their courses and ordered to leave, in what has been described as a “serious diplomatic issue”.

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Bob Menendez: Democratic senator charged with bribery set to run as independent

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Embattled senator reportedly procures 800 signatures needed before 4 June deadline to appear on November ballot

Senator Bob Menendez has reportedly procured enough signatures to run for re-election as an independent, even while the incumbent Democrat faces bribery charges over his alleged work promoting the interests of the Egyptian government.

NBC News reported on Thursday that Menendez secured the 800 signatures needed by 4 June to appear on the November ballot, although the senator’s team hopes to collect as many as 10,000 signatures before the Tuesday deadline.

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ANC looks set to lose majority in watershed moment for South Africa

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Early election count puts African National Congress on 42% of the vote, compared with 57% in final tally in 2019

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party looks set to lose its majority for the first time since it swept to power at the end of apartheid, in a watershed moment for the country, as support for the former liberation movement collapsed below 50% in partial results.

With 31.1% of votes counted by early evening on Thursday, South Africa was on the precipice of an era of national coalition government. The ANC had 42.3% of the vote, with the pro-business Democratic Alliance on 25% and the Marxist-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters on 9%.

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$10m prize launched for team that can truly talk to the animals

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AI expected to help researchers unlock two-way communication, say team that includes Tel Aviv University

In the Dr Dolittle books and films, the ability to “talk to the animals” captured the imagination. Now scientists are being offered a $10m prize to create real conversations.

The Coller Dolittle Challenge for Interspecies Two-Way Communication has been launched by the Jeremy Coller Foundation and Tel Aviv University. While the use of AI is not obligatory, the team say the technology can boost almost all proposals.

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Spanish MPs give final approval to amnesty law for Catalonia’s separatists

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Ex-regional president Carles Puigdemont among high-profile beneficiaries after MPs approve law by 177 votes to 172

Spanish MPs have given their final approval to the deeply divisive amnesty law that the country’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, offered Catalan separatists in return for helping him back to power after last year’s inconclusive general election.

The new law, approved by 177 votes to 172 in Spain’s 350-seat congress of deputies, will apply to about 400 people involved in the symbolic independence referendum of November 2014 and the illegal unilateral poll that followed three years later, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in four decades.

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Egypt tight-lipped over Israeli takeover of Gaza buffer zone

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Cairo seeks to keep lid on public anger and avoid escalation as IDF moves into Philadelphi corridor in breach of 1979 peace accord

Egypt has reacted with a wall of silence to the Israeli takeover of a buffer zone in southern Gaza, in apparent defiance of a decades-old peace agreement, as Cairo sought to keep a lid on simmering public anger while also avoiding an escalation in tensions with Israel.

Israel said on Wednesday that its forces had gained “operational” control over the Philadelphi corridor – the Israeli military’s code name for the 9-mile-long (14km) strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border. Under the terms of the 1979 peace accord between Egypt and Israel, each side is allowed to deploy only a small number of troops or border guards in a demilitarised zone that stretches along the entire Israel-Egypt border and encompasses the corridor.

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Paris theatre cancels Asterix star’s shows after sexual assault allegations

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Edouard Baer says he ‘does not recognise himself’ in allegations of harassment and assault by six women

Edouard Baer, a French actor best known for playing Asterix on screen, has become the latest star to feel the impact of sexual assault allegations as his live show in Paris was cancelled.

Baer, who played the fictitious Gaul in the 2012 blockbuster Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia alongside Gérard Depardieu, was accused by six women of harassment and sexual assault in a joint article by online news site Mediapart and the feminist website Cheek last week.

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Reveal party funding before elections, says European anti-corruption chief

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Marin Mrčela also calls on EU to join Group of States Against Corruption to show it is serious about tackling misconduct

Political parties across Europe, including the UK, should be forced to publish the names of their private funders before elections, not after, the president of the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption body has said.

Unveiling the annual report of the Group of States Against Corruption (Greco), Marin Mrčela, who is the justice of the supreme court of Croatia, also called on the European Union to stop using “excuses” not to join the body.

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‘Unliveable’: Delhi’s residents struggle to cope in record-breaking heat

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Temperatures of more than 45C have left population of 29 million exhausted – but the poorest suffer most

As the water tanker drove into a crowded Delhi neighbourhood, a ruckus erupted. Dozens of residents ran frantically behind it, brandishing buckets, bottles and hoses, and jumped on top of it to get even a drip of what was stored inside. Temperatures that day had soared to 49C (120F), the hottest day on record – and in many places across India’s vast capital, home to more than 29 million people, water had run out.

Every morning, Tripti, a social health worker who lives in the impoverished enclave of Vivekanand Camp, is among those who has to stand under the blazing sun with buckets and pots, waiting desperately for the water tanker to arrive.

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Meet the Chinese army’s latest weapon: the gun-toting dog

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China shows off mechanical canine with an automatic rifle on its back at joint military drills with Cambodia

The Chinese army has debuted its latest weapon: a gun-toting robotic dog.

The mechanical canine, which has an automatic rifle on its back, was front and centre of recent joint military drills with Cambodia, according to footage from the state broadcaster CCTV.

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