Category Archives: World News

Israeli airstrike in Syria kills more than 40 people, says war monitor

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Strike near Aleppo weapons depot reportedly killed Hezbollah and Syrian troops, while civilians also said to be among dead

Israeli airstrikes on Syria’s Aleppo province have killed more than 40 people, including members of Hezbollah and a large number of Syrian soldiers in an area near the militant Lebanese organisation’s weapons depots, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

As many as 42 people were killed in what contradictory reports described as air and drone strikes in the early hours of Friday that hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near Aleppo’s international airport, and a nearby town that houses a military facility.

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Easter processions cancelled in southern Spain due to rainstorms

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Spain is hit by strong winds and rain from Storm Nelson and four drown on storm-battered coasts

Easter processions in southern Spain have been cancelled after heavy rain from Storm Nelson, as the country was hit by strong winds and four people drowned on its storm-battered coasts.

All of the big processions in Seville on Holy Thursday were cancelled because of the rainstorms that were otherwise welcome in a region that has been experiencing a severe drought.

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Lula dismays relatives of dictatorship’s victims by ignoring coup anniversary

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Brazil’s president has nixed commemorations of the 1964 coup, possibly to avoid irking the military as senior officers facing jail for allegedly conspiring to stop Lula taking power after 2022 election

Relatives of the victims of Brazil’s brutal two-decade dictatorship have voiced anger and dismay over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reported decision to block official remembrance events marking the 60th anniversary of the 1964 military coup d’état.

Activists had hoped the leftist’s government would mark the 31 March 2024 anniversary of that power-grab with a series of memorials honouring the thousands who were killed, disappeared or tortured by the 1964-85 regime.

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Bolivian Indigenous groups assert claim to treasure of ‘holy grail of shipwrecks’

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Descendants of miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargo

Indigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombia’s plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project.

Colombia hopes to begin recovering artefacts from the wreck of the San José in the coming months but the Caranga, Chicha and Killaka peoples in Bolivia propose that the galleon and its contents should be considered “common and shared patrimony”.

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‘Get on a plane’: Danish minister urged to meet Greenland coil scandal women

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Exclusive: Territory’s government calls for visit to listen to those thought to be living with consequences of forced fitting of IUDs

The Danish health minister should “get on a plane and visit” some of the thousands of women thought to be living with the consequences of being forcibly fitted with the contraceptive coil as children, Greenland’s gender equality minister has said.

In an attempt to reduce the population of the former Danish colony, at least 4,500 women and girls are believed to have undergone the medical procedure, usually without their consent or knowledge, at the hands of Danish doctors between 1966 and 1970 alone.

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Extortionate Easter eggs and shrinking sweets: fears grow of a ‘chocolate meltdown’

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Poor harvests in extreme weather conditions have led to a tripling of cocoa prices – but farmers have seen no benefit

Around the world this holiday weekend, people will consume hundreds of millions of Easter eggs and bunnies, as part of an annual chocolate intake that can exceed 8kg (18lb) for every person in the UK, or 5kg in the US and Europe. But a global shortage of cacao – the seed from which chocolate is made – has brought warnings of a “chocolate meltdown” that could see prices increase and bars shrink further.

This week, cocoa prices rose to all-time highs on commodity exchanges in London and New York, reaching more than $10,000 a tonne for the first time, after the third consecutive poor harvest in west Africa. Ghana and Ivory Coast, which together produce more than half of the global cacao crop, have been hit by extreme weather supercharged by the climate crisis and the El Niño weather phenomenon. This has been exacerbated by disease and underinvestment in ageing plantations.

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Western governments struggle to coordinate response to Chinese hacking

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Experts say UK-imposed sanctions will make no difference when hacking is part of ecosystem of dealing with Beijing

With the announcement that the UK government would be imposing sanctions on two individuals and one entity accused of targeting – without success – UK parliamentarians in cyber-attacks in 2021, the phrase “tip of the iceberg” comes to mind. But that would underestimate the iceberg.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the sanctions were a sign that “targeting our elected representatives and electoral processes will never go unchallenged”.

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Crystal Mason: Texas woman sentenced to five years over voting error acquitted

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Appeals court rules Mason, now 49, did not know she was ineligible when she voted in 2016 and throws out conviction

A Texas appeals court has thrown out a five-year prison sentence for Crystal Mason, a Texas woman who was sentenced for trying to cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election that was rejected.

Mason, now 49, attempted to vote in Fort Worth in the 2016 even though she was ineligible because she was still on supervised release – which is like probation – for a tax felony. She has always maintained she had no idea she was ineligible and only tried to cast a ballot because her mother urged her to.

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45 dead as bus plunges from bridge into ravine in South Africa

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Only survivor after vehicle falls 50 metres and catches fire is eight-year-old who was taken to hospital with serious injuries

An eight-year-old child was the sole survivor after a bus carrying 46 people fell 50 metres from a bridge in South Africa into a ravine and caught fire.

The child, who has not been named, was taken to hospital with serious injuries, the transport ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.

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‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid

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Judges issue unanimous decision and say Palestinians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance

The international court of justice has ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where sections of the population are facing imminent starvation, in a significant legal rebuke to Israel’s claim it is not blocking aid deliveries.

A panel of judges at the UN’s top court, which is already considering a complaint from South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in the Palestinian territory, issued the ruling after an emergency measure in January obliging Israel to admit emergency aid.

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Rural California county keeps ultra conservative official who pushed to upend voting system

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Shasta county’s Kevin Crye fought off recall effort, but a far-right official who pushed election conspiracies lost the race for his seat

Shasta county voters returned a mixed verdict on the ultra-conservative politics the rural enclave in northern California has become known for, ousting one far-right local official and offering another a political lifeline.

County residents on 5 March resoundingly declined to re-elect Patrick Jones to the board of supervisors, the county’s governing body. Jones, a leader of the local far-right movement, had repeatedly, and baselessly, argued that county and US elections are being rigged. Jones’s opponent, Matt Plummer, won the race for the seat with nearly 60% of the vote.

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Russia criticised for using veto to end UN monitoring of North Korea sanctions

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Ukraine’s foreign minister calls veto ‘guilty plea’ amid claims Pyongyang is aiding Moscow’s war against Kyiv

Russia has blocked the renewal of a UN panel monitoring sanctions against North Korea, weeks after the body said it was investigating reports of arms transfers between Moscow and Pyongyang.

The move was met with a flurry of criticism, including by Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who took to social media to call the veto “a guilty plea” amid allegations that Pyongyang is aiding Moscow in its war against Kyiv.

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Macron rekindles France-Brazil relationship in widely memed Lula visit

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Photos of French president’s three-day trip to Brazil to reaffirm countries’ partnership delight internet observers

If the official photos are anything to go by, Emmanuel Macron’s three-day trip to Brazil has been more romantic getaway than international diplomacy.

The French president, who ended his tour of the South American country on Thursday with a state visit to the capital, Brasília, prompted online hilarity after the publication of photos showing him being particularly chummy with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

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‘Potentially serious impropriety’: Labour questions Johnson’s Venezuela meeting

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Former PM’s meeting with President Maduro, in capacity as hedge fund consultant, is under further scrutiny

Labour is demanding answers over what the party said was “potentially serious impropriety” by Boris Johnson after it emerged that the former prime minister met the Venezuelan president in his role as a consultant for a hedge fund.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said in a letter to Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister and Cabinet Office minister, that there were concerns that Johnson may have breached the ministerial code.

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Queer artists call on Olly Alexander to boycott Eurovision over Israel participation

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Maxine Peake and Sarah Schulman among signatories of open letter asking singer to withdraw from contest

More than 450 queer artists, individuals and organisations have called on the UK’s Eurovision contestant, Olly Alexander, to boycott this year’s competition in solidarity with Palestine.

The actor Maxine Peake and the novelist and playwright Sarah Schulman are among the signatories of the open letter calling on the singer to withdraw from the contest in May due to the conflict in Gaza.

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Latvia’s top diplomat steps down after flights scandal

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Krišjānis Kariņš allegedly spent up to €1.3m on private jet rentals for official trips

Krišjānis Kariņš, the Latvian foreign minister, has said he will step down after a scandal over his use of state funds to pay for private flights during his time as prime minister.

Last week, Latvia’s prosecutor general opened an investigation into the misuse of state funds after it was revealed that Kariņš had allegedly spent up to €1.3m (£1.1m) on private jet rentals for official trips.

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Taliban edict to resume stoning women to death met with horror

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Afghan regime’s return to public stoning and flogging is because there is ‘no one to hold them accountable’ for abuses, say activists

The Taliban’s announcement that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death has been enabled by the international community’s silence, human rights groups have said.

Safia Arefi, a lawyer and head of the Afghan human rights organisation Women’s Window of Hope, said the announcement had condemned Afghan women to return to the darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s.

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US repeatedly warned Russia ahead of Moscow attack, White House says

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National security spokesperson says US passed on warnings and dismissed Russian allegations Ukraine was involved as ‘nonsense’

The US repeatedly alerted Russia that extremists were planning to attack large gatherings in Moscow ahead of last week’s concert hall attack that claimed more than 140 lives, the White House has said.

The national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday that US officials passed on warnings – including one in writing – and dismissed Russian allegations that Ukraine was involved as “nonsense”.

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French parliament backs bill to stop hair discrimination against black women

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Draft law, which also affects redheads, blond people, and those with dreadlocks now goes to senate

France’s lower house of parliament has backed a bill banning discrimination based on hairstyle, colour or texture, in a “historic” move supporters say will help penalise workplace discrimination.

Olivier Serva, an independent deputy for the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe who sponsored the bill, has argued that there is a lot of suffering based on hair discrimination, and that women of African descent in France were often encouraged to change their hairstyle before job interviews.

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France assesses Paris Olympics terrorist threat in light of Moscow attack

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Minister and intelligence services meet to discuss security for Games that includes opening ceremony on the Seine

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has met intelligence services to assess the terrorist threat to the country, after the Moscow concert hall attack claimed by Islamic State raised fresh security fears over the Paris Olympics.

One of the biggest security challenges facing the organisers of the Games in the French capital is to protect the opening ceremony on 26 July. It is planned to be an unprecedented, open-air extravaganza, which for the first time in Olympic history will not take place within the confines of a stadium, but instead involve a flotilla of 94 boats carrying thousands of waving athletes down a 6km (3.7-mile) stretch of the Seine, followed by a further 80 boats carrying media and security, while an estimated 222,000 people gather along the river’s edge and 200,000 more watch from buildings.

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