Category Archives: World News

Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea FC sale cash may be under investigation as ‘proceeds of crime’

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Documents filed at Companies House over 2022 deal could complicate row with UK over how money will be used

Jersey authorities may be investigating whether cash raised by Roman Abramovich’s 2022 sale of Chelsea FC amounts to the proceeds of crime, according to documents filed at Companies House on Wednesday, potentially complicating a row with the UK government over how the money will be used.

Accounts for Fordstam Ltd, the company through which the billionaire Russian oligarch owned Chelsea, show that the proceeds of the sale – currently frozen and gathering interest in a Barclays Bank account – have risen to £2.4bn.

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Prison sentences for pair who attacked gay men hailed as sign of hope for Kenya’s LGBTQ+ community

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The perpetrators were jailed for 15 years for robbery with violence in the east African country, where homophobic attacks are increasing

The sentencing of two people who attacked and robbed two gay men in Kenya has been hailed by LGBTQ+ rights advocates as a breakthrough and a sign of hope for the country’s queer community. “Abel Meli & Another” were sentenced to 15 years in prison for robbery with violence on 3 March at Milimani law courts in Nairobi.

The ruling is a rare example of justice being served for the queer community in Kenya. Njeri Gateru, the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an independent human rights institution working towards equality for sexual and gender minorities in Kenya, said: “A lot is going against [the queer community] with the existence of the criminal laws and prevailing homophobic attitudes, but some of us still trust that we can find justice, so this case encourages us.”

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Ultrasound repellers could keep hedgehogs off roads, scientists hope

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Study shows animals hear very high frequencies, making it possible to design a deterrent to cut deaths

Hedgehogs have been discovered to hear high-frequency ultrasound, raising hopes that they could be deterred from dangerous roads with ultrasound repellers.

Vehicles are estimated to kill up to one in three hedgehogs, a big factor in the much-loved mammal’s drastic decline across Europe over recent decades.

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Cologne Cathedral’s plans to charge for tickets spark outcry

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Limiting access to German church to well-off visitors would be ‘socially unjust’, critics say

Plans at Cologne Cathedral to start charging visitor fees have sparked an outcry, with critics warning against limiting access to the majestic gothic building to the well-off.

Officials said this month that the cathedral, the tallest twin-spired church in the world and a tourist magnet in Germany’s fourth largest city, could only be maintained with a new revenue stream.

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‘My lovely distraction’: live stream of kākāpō – world’s fattest parrot – and her chicks captivates New Zealand

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More than 100,000 people have tuned in to watch ‘kākāpō cam’, which captures a rare flightless bird sleeping, tidying her nest and fighting off intruders

On an island in New Zealand’s remote southern fjords, one of the world’s strangest and rarest parrots – the kākāpō – is caring for her tiny chick as fans from across the globe watch on.

Through the black and white lens of a hidden camera, a fluffy orb with a kazoo-like squeak jostles for food from its mother’s beak. The mother, Rakiura, is attentive – scooping her chick under her large green wings, fending off an intruding bird, and periodically tidying her nest.

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US weighs sending forces into Iran to secure nuclear stockpile, reports say

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Tehran has enough material to make at least 10 nuclear warheads but extracting it would be very risky, say experts

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads.

Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”.

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Aramco warns of oil market ‘catastrophe’ unless strait of Hormuz reopens soon

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Saudi Arabian state oil firm calls crisis by far the biggest the region has seen but firm can reroute 70% of exports and tap crude held in storage

Saudi Arabia’s state oil company has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the world’s oil markets if the US-Israeli war with Iran continues to block shipping in the strait of Hormuz.

The world’s biggest oil exporter expects to be able to supply the market with about 70% of its usual crude output despite the stranglehold on the vital trade artery, but its chief executive warned that there would still be “drastic” consequences for the world economy if the disruption continues.

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Iranians living in UK tell Starmer that war will only strengthen Tehran regime

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Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe among more than 100 signatories to letter urging PM not to get drawn further into the conflict

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is among three of Iran’s former political prisoners and more than 100 Iranians living in the UK who have urged the British prime minister not to get drawn further into the Iran conflict.

They are all signatories in a letter to Keir Starmer saying the way the war is being conducted is strengthening the regime in Tehran.

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Family of Tumbler Ridge shooting victim sues OpenAI alleging it could have prevented attack

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Eight people were killed by 18-year-old in Canada, who had described violent scenarios involving guns to ChatGPT

The family of a child critically injured one of Canada’s worst mass shootings is suing OpenAI, arguing the technology company could have prevented the attack on a school last month.

The lawsuit comes days after the head of OpenAI said he would apologize to the families of a remote Canadian town after violence shattered the tight-knit community.

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Spain to formally pardon 53 women incarcerated by Franco regime

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Thousands of girls were locked up by Board for the Protection of Women for ‘rehabilitation’

Spain is to formally pardon a group of 53 women who are among thousands who were incarcerated by the Franco regime on the grounds that they were supposedly “fallen or in danger of falling”.

The women were locked up as adolescents by the Board for the Protection of Women, a collection of institutions run by religious orders. The board, which had echoes of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene laundries, was overseen by Carmen Polo, the wife of the dictator Gen Francisco Franco.

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China-North Korea trains to restart, six years after Covid brought them to stop

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Travel operators say Chinese and North Koreans can now buy tickets for services leaving this week

Passenger train services between China and North Korea are to resume this week, six years after their suspension because of the Covid-19 pandemic, travel operators have said.

Train journeys between the two countries were halted in 2020 as strict border closures were imposed to prevent the virus spreading.

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Fears for women’s rights in Chile as anti-abortion president set to take office

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José Antonio Kast, who voted against legalising divorce in 2004, has pushed for return to total abortion ban

Women’s rights activists in Chile are bracing as the most conservative president since the Pinochet dictatorship prepares to take office on Wednesday.

José Antonio Kast, a 60-year-old ultra Catholic whose father was a member of the Nazi party, has consistently blocked progressive bids for women’s rights and equality across his three-decade career in politics.

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New Zealand Covid response among world’s best but ‘scars’ remain, inquiry finds

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Royal commission says response led by Jacinda Ardern was broadly ‘appropriate’, in a wide-ranging report featuring recommendations for future pandemics

A royal commission into New Zealand’s Covid response has found it was one of the best in the world but acknowledged the period had left “scars”.

The second of two inquiry reports on the pandemic was released on Tuesday and focused on the period between February 2021 to October 2022, when the government changed from an elimination strategy to one of suppression and minimisation of the virus. It also examined vaccine safety and the government’s immunisation programme, lockdowns and tracing and testing technology.

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Trump’s Iran war will reinforce North Korea’s view that nuclear weapons are the only path to security

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As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival

North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.

But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.

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Trump claims Iran or ‘somebody else’ could have carried out deadly school strike

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President makes evidence-free claim despite video showing US Tomahawk missile hit naval base next to school

As oil prices surged amid the widening war with Iran, Donald Trump suggested, without evidence, on Monday that the strike on an Iranian elementary school could have been carried out by Iran or “somebody else”.

During back-to-back appearances in Florida, Trump was asked whether the US would accept responsibility for a strike that hit the school and killed scores of people, many of them children, after video evidence showed a US Tomahawk struck the naval base next to it.

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Three Australians jailed for more than a decade over Melbourne man’s shooting death in Bali

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Sentences of 16 and 12 years handed down over 2025 death of 32-year-old Zivan Radmanovic

A court on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali has sentenced three Australian citizens over the fatal shooting of a fellow Australian national, after they claimed to have been paid by a man they will not identify.

Mevlut Coskun, Paea I Middlemore Tupou and Darcy Jenson were convicted of the shooting death of Zivan Radmanovic, a 32-year-old from Melbourne.

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Ig Nobels to move awards to Europe due to concern over US travel visas

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Scientific awards – which honor research that makes people laugh and then think – to move away from ‘unsafe’ US

The annual Ig Nobels, a satirical award for scientific achievement, are shifting for the first time from the US to Europe due to concerns about attendees getting visas, organizers announced on Monday.

Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, a digital magazine that highlights research that makes people laugh and then think, the 36th annual ceremony will be held in Zurich. It’s usually held in the US in September, a few weeks before the actual Nobel prizes are announced.

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Trump says Iran war is ‘very complete, pretty much’ as economic toll rises

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President reassures Republicans that conflict is intended to be short lived but also says ‘we haven’t won enough’

Donald Trump has said that the war in Iran is “very complete, pretty much”, as the economic toll of the joint US-Israeli operation has risen, disrupting global oil trade and threatening to engulf the Middle East in a regional war.

Trump made the comments before a speech and press conference in Florida where he sought to emphasise that the US military campaign would be ending soon amid concerns from Republican allies that the US was being dragged into another long-term conflict in the region.

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Democrats file new war powers resolutions and call for public hearings on Iran strikes

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Senators say Trump allies such as Hegseth and Rubio should be forced to testify to Congress on ‘unnecessary war’

Democratic senators have filed a wave of new war powers resolutions as they call on Republicans to convene public hearings into the US hostilities with Iran or be forced to vote on continuing a conflict that polls show majorities of Americans do not support.

Late last week, Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Adam Schiff of California, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Chris Murphy of Connecticut filed resolutions under the War Powers Act that would force the US military to withdraw from the war with Iran unless Congress votes to authorize the engagement.

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‘We thought we were doomed’: Canadian fishers in dramatic rescue after ice shelf floats away

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Anglers describe harrowing phone calls to loved ones once ice detached from shores of Georgian Bay in Ontario

Kevin Fox thought the spring-like temperatures that had temporarily pushed the cold away from south-eastern Ontario meant a good day on for ice fishing, a popular winter pastime in the region.

After shifting location because the wind and ice “didn’t feel right” and the fish weren’t biting close to shore, he and a friend joined nearly two dozen others far out on a sheet of ice in Lake Huron. They followed the familiar routine of anyone who spends a day on the ice: they drilled holes, dropped their lines and waited.

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