Category Archives: World News

Climber convicted of manslaughter after leaving girlfriend on Austria’s highest peak to seek help

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Thomas P given five-month suspended prison sentence and €9,400 fine over death of Kerstin G by gross negligence

An amateur mountaineer has been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter over the death of his girlfriend, whom he left behind on Austria’s highest peak after they got into difficulty on their climb.

Thomas P, 37, was handed a five-month suspended sentence and fined €9,400 (£8,200) for causing the death of Kerstin G in January 2025 by gross negligence, an offence that carries a maximum prison term of three years.

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Asos co-founder dies in fall from 18-storey building in Thailand

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Police say UK entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths fell from 17th floor of an 18-floor condominium on 9 February

Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai seaside resort city of Pattaya.

Police told Reuters that the 58-year-old had fallen from the 17th floor of an 18-storey condominium on 9 February.

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Smokejumper and union leader aims to win in Montana by focusing on workers

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Sam Forstag, who parachutes from planes to fight wildfires, believes pro-worker polices can flip district from Trump ally

Sam Forstag is used to launching himself into heated territory.

As a smokejumper, his job is to jump out of airplanes 3,000 feet in the air and parachute down into the Montana wilderness. Going by air is often the easiest way to access the remote wilderness and combat the wildfires that burn an average of 7.2 million acres a year in the state.

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Anger as Trump FDA retreats from plan to ban artificial colors in food

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Experts say new labeling could deceive consumers as dangerous substances still allowed under new rules

In a further retreat from its pledge to ban artificial dyes from food, Donald Trump’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would loosen labeling requirements to allow companies to state “no artificial colors”, even though products may contain some dangerous substances such as titanium dioxide.

The FDA in early February announced it would allow food makers to claim “no artificial colors” as long as the dyes are not petroleum-based, but health experts say even some naturally based additives present health risks, and the labeling would deceive consumers.

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Osaka stunned by anonymous gift of gold bars to fix ageing water pipes

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Mayor says Japanese city will respect donor’s specification that £2.7m gift must be used to repair dilapidated system

Osaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (£2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city’s dilapidated water pipes.

The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday.

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Aston Martin issues another profit warning and sells F1 naming rights for £50m

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Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit sales

Aston Martin has warned that its losses will be worse than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.

The luxury carmaker, majority-owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024.

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Epstein cultivated relationship with CBP officer, prompting US investigation | First Thing

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Guardian review of US justice department files reveals Epstein interacted with six CBP officers. Plus, how anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers’ movement

Good morning.

Federal investigators examined Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer who worked at the St Thomas airport to which the late convicted sex offender flew regularly by private plane before traveling by boat or helicopter to his private island, newly released documents reveal.

Was anyone ever charged? No CBP officer was ever charged for crimes related to Epstein, and the Guardian has not seen any evidence to suggest that CBP officers had direct knowledge or involvement in Epstein’s crimes.

How have Epstein’s survivors reacted? One of them, Marijke Chartouni, said: “If only the US justice department acted as decisively. It took British police less than three weeks from the release of the latest tranche of Epstein files to arrest Andrew, making Pam Bondi and Kash Patel look increasingly inept.”

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Andrew’s arrest does not guarantee justice for trafficking victims, says top US lawyer

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Gloria Allred says allegations involving sharing of state trade secrets were prioritised over sexual assault claims against trade envoy

A lawyer representing several victims of Jeffrey Epstein has said she does not believe there will be “any real justice” for those trafficked and abused by him and his high-profile associates, despite the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Gloria Allred, who has worked as a women’s rights lawyer for five decades, said that while the UK had acted quickly on the allegation that the former prince had shared confidential documents with the disgraced financier while he was a trade envoy, there appeared to be far less progress on sexual assault allegations against him.

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‘A momentous watershed’: Europe’s papers react to arrest of former prince Andrew

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Agreement across continent that Mountbatten-Windsor’s detention has put monarchy in unprecedented danger

Neither the shock nor the historical significance of the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was lost on the European press. And if there was one thing that correspondents and leader writers around the continent could agree on, it was that the former prince’s detention had plunged the British monarchy into a place of unprecedented danger and vulnerability.

“Despite all the scandals that have shaken the British royal family over the decades, it’s no exaggeration to say that the arrest of King Charles III’s brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor represents a momentous watershed for the Windsor monarchy,” El País said in a leader on Friday.

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Man in Sicily trained his dog to illegally dump rubbish, say police

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City of Catania calls ruse to avoid CCTV cameras installed to stop fly-tipping ‘as cunning as it is doubly wrong’

A man in Catania, Sicily, trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish by the roadside in an attempt to evade surveillance cameras installed to combat fly-tipping, municipal police have said.

The episode was detailed in a post on the city of Catania’s official Facebook page. Accompanying a video of the dog was a remark from the police that “inventiveness can never become an alibi for incivility”.

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Iran deal prospects will be clear within 10 days, Trump says as military buildup grows

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Second carrier strike group heads for region as US waits for Iran to respond after talks in Geneva

Donald Trump has said it will be clear within “probably 10 days” whether he can reach a nuclear deal with Iran, as the US military buildup in the Middle East intensifies with the impending arrival of a second carrier strike group.

The US president, speaking at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington DC, insisted Iran could not have a nuclear weapon and emphasised that “bad things will happen” if the country continued “to threaten regional stability”.

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Bard hires top law firm to investigate links between college president and Epstein

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WilmerHale to conduct review following new revelations about Leon Botstein’s dealings with convicted sex offender

Bard College’s board of trustees has retained the outside law firm of WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation into communications between Jeffrey Epstein and the college’s longtime president Leon Botstein.

WilmerHale’s will conduct an “independent review” of the “full scope of these communications”, financial contributions connected to Epstein, and any related matters, the board said in an announcement on Thursday evening.

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New Zealand bug of the year: moth named Avatar after mining threat crowned winner

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Arctesthes avatar moth, which won nearly half of the votes, was discovered in 2012 and is critically endangered

A tiny critically endangered moth, named after the Avatar films because of the proposed mining activity threatening its primary habitat, has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year.

The Avatar moth won by a wide margin, earning 5,192 of the more than 11,000 total votes cast. It won 2,269 more votes than the runner-up, the mahoenui giant wētā, one of the world’s largest insects. Other contenders included the wonderfully spiky hellraiser mite, the country’s heaviest spider – the black tunnelweb – and a giant earthworm that glows in the dark.

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Trump changed mind on Chagos deal ‘after UK blocked use of Diego Garcia for Iran strikes’

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US president links deal with military strikes against Iran in connection with Tehran’s nuclear ambitions

Donald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.

In his latest change of heart on the deal, the US president said on social media that Keir Starmer was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.

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French prosecutor seeks murder charges over killing of far-right activist

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Political tensions rise after fatal attack at protest in Lyon as Emmanuel Macron hits out over remarks by Italian PM

A French prosecutor is seeking murder charges against seven suspects in the fatal beating of a far-right activist that has fuelled political anger beyond France’s borders, prompting Emmanuel Macron to tell Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to keep out of French affairs.

Quentin Deranque, 23, died from head injuries after being attacked by at least six people on the sidelines of a far-right protest in Lyon on 12 February. Most of the 11 suspects who have been detained are from far-left movements.

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Forget the Board of Peace, Trump may be closer than thought to attacking Iran

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Tehran may claim it will not negotiate under duress, but that is precisely what it is being required to do

Although much attention will be given to the inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, it is the “arsenal of war” that Donald Trump has assembled in the Middle East, and what it implies for the stately pace of Washington’s negotiations with Iran, that deserves more.

The well-connected Axios reporter Barak Ravid is hated in Iran – one news site on Thursday described him as a one-man psychological war operation against Tehran. But he is widely read, as was his report that the US viewed the talks in Geneva on Tuesday as a “nothing burger”, and that a full-scale attack on Iran was far closer than most Americans realised. The story led to a spike in oil prices and front-page pieces in US newspapers saying Trump’s military preparations would be complete by the weekend, with the president hinting a decision would be made “probably over the next 10 days”.

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RSF siege of El Fasher in Sudan has ‘hallmarks of genocide’, UN mission finds

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Report details harrowing 18-month occupation of North Darfur capital, showing destruction aimed at ethnic communities

The siege and capture of the Sudanese city of El Fasher by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group last October bore “the hallmarks of genocide”, a UN-mandated fact-finding mission has said.

In a report detailing the harrowing 18-month occupation of the capital of North Darfur, investigators concluded that the RSF and allied militias deliberately inflicted conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Zaghawa and Fur ethnic communities.

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Accenture ‘links staff promotions to use of AI tools’

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Consulting firm keen to increase uptake of technology and is reportedly monitoring adoption by workforce

Accenture has reportedly started tracking staff use of its AI tools and will take this into consideration when deciding on top promotions, as the consulting company tries to increase uptake of the technology by its workforce.

The company told senior managers and associate directors that being promoted to leadership roles would require “regular adoption” of artificial intelligence, according to an internal email seen by the Financial Times.

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Austrian mountaineer ‘endlessly sorry’ for girlfriend’s death but denies criminal wrongdoing

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Thomas P gives evidence on first day of trial in case that could shape standards for mountain sports

An Austrian mountaineer has said he is “endlessly sorry” his girlfriend froze to death on a joint climb to the country’s highest peak, but denied criminal wrongdoing as his trial began in Innsbruck.

The 37-year-old defendant, identified only as Thomas P, gave evidence on the first day of the high-profile proceedings over the tragedy on Großglockner, in a case that could shape international standards for liability in mountain sports.

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Leftist who defended child marriage elected as Peru’s interim president

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José María Balcázar, who argued for marriage at 14 and above, replaces José Jerí who was voted out after a scandal

Peru’s congress has elected José María Balcázar, an octogenarian leftist lawmaker who has defended child marriage, as the country’s interim president ahead of general elections in April.

Balcázar is Peru’s ninth president since 2016. The surprise election, in which Balcázar beat the favourite, María del Carmen Alva, a conservative, came after lawmakers voted to remove José Jerí as president on Tuesday after just four months in office, due to a scandal over secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen.

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