Three doctors accused of performing or coercing women into sterilisation procedures
A judge in Quebec has given the go-ahead for a class action lawsuit over the forced sterilisation of Indigenous women in the Canadian province.
Two Atikamekw women known publicly by only their initials, UT and MX, brought the lawsuit against three doctors they accuse of performing or coercing women into sterilisation procedures in a small, remote town in northern Quebec.
Continue reading...Most urban polling stations in Harare and Bulawayo, where opposition claims it has strong support, open four hours late
Delays have marred voting in Zimbabwe’s general election after a campaign dominated by the country’s interlinked economic crises.
Voting at most urban polling stations in Harare and Bulawayo began four hours late after polling officers failed to distribute papers for the council elections. Some polling stations were still to receive election material more than seven hours after polls opened.
Continue reading...Commander seen as an ally of Wagner has not been seen in public since Yevgeny Prighozin’s mutiny in June
Russia has relieved Gen Sergei Surovikin of his command of the Russian aerospace forces, in the highest-level sacking yet of a military commander after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abortive mutiny in June.
The extended absence and now removal of Surovikin, a prominent commander, indicates the shock waves sent through the military establishment by Prigozhin’s armed uprising. He sent thousands of troops to seize a military headquarters in the city of Rostov-on-Don and try to march on Moscow to protest against the dismantling of his Wagner private military company.
Continue reading...New study published in Nature says period was as destructive as record 2016 El Niño drought and heatwave
The first half of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency was so destructive for the Amazon that it was comparable to the record 2016 El Niño drought and heatwave in terms of carbon emissions, according to scientists.
Annual emissions from the world’s largest rainforest roughly doubled in 2019 and 2020, compared with the 2010 to 2018 average, according to a new study published in Nature, as swaths of forest were deliberately cleared and burned for cattle ranching and farming during the first two years of the far-right leader’s time in office.
Continue reading...India has raised its spacefaring profile and will now be seen as low-cost provider for missions possible
For all the risks, for all that was riding on a successful landing, the descent to the moon’s surface was remarkably uneventful, if not exactly stress-free. The Vikram lander, part of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, dropped steadily on its thrusters to the rock below, slowed to a hover as it approached the ground, and finally came to a rest on the dusty terrain.
When confirmation came that the lander was down, anxiety in the control room gave way to cheers and applause. With the soft touchdown, India becomes the first country to land a probe at the moon’s south pole, a rugged region where deep craters lie in permanent shadow and where ice could provide water, oxygen and fuel for future missions. The first will be on the moon itself, and in lunar orbit, but they could also supply trips to Mars, with the benefit that the materials do not need to be lifted off the Earth’s surface at great cost. It is a region of key scientific interest.
Continue reading...Some took parts of wooden seats for buoyancy after watching friends die on drifting vessel
Facing hunger, thirst and a rising number of deaths, some of the group of asylum seekers who were adrift for more than a month in the Atlantic resorted to breaking off chunks of the boat’s wooden seats in hopes of floating to land, a friend of three of the survivors has said.
More than 90 people are believed to have died before the rickety boat that had set off from Fass Boye, a seaside town in Senegal, was found off Cape Verde last week. Survivors said they left on 10 July aiming to reach Spain’s Canary Islands and spent weeks drifting at the mercy of powerful Atlantic trade winds.
Continue reading...US-based semiconductor association claims Chinese tech firm has acquired at least two plants and is constructing three others
Huawei has been accused by a leading association of semiconductor manufacturers of building a collection of secret chip-making facilities across China to help the technology company bypass US sanctions, according to a report.
The Chinese tech firm moved into chip production last year and was receiving an estimated $30bn (£23.7bn) in state funding from the government, the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association was quoted as saying by Bloomberg, adding that Huawei had acquired at least two existing plants and was building three others.
Continue reading...Vikram lander touches down at lunar south pole shortly after 6pm India time
India has become the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the south pole of the moon, in a historic moment that drew cheers at watching parties around the country.
“India is on the moon,” Sreedhara Panicker Somanath, the chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation, said as the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s Vikram lander touched down shortly after 6pm (1230 BST) near the little-explored lunar south pole in a world first for any space programme.
Continue reading...Experts say army received bribes from people smuggling until 2015 law associated with Mohamed Bazoum
Observers have linked Mohamed Bazoum’s support for European Union policies aimed at stifling migration routes through north Africa to his ousting as president of Niger last month.
Army officers toppled Bazoum on 26 July, as Niger became the fourth west African country since 2020 to have a coup, following Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali.
Continue reading...Government-run railway opens inquiry after incident in north-eastern state of Mizoram
A railway bridge under construction in India has collapsed killing at least 26 workers and injuring two, police said, as the state-run railway authority opened an investigation.
The incident happened on Wednesday in the town of Sairang in the north-eastern state of Mizoram, its chief minister, Zoramthanga, said on the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Continue reading...Chinese dissident Kwon Pyong, 35, was arrested after becoming stuck in mudflats near Incheon
A Chinese dissident previously jailed for criticising Xi Jinping has fled to South Korea by jetski, towing barrels of fuel behind him to ensure he completed the long journey.
The man identified by Chinese activist groups as Kwon Pyong, 35, was arrested last Wednesday night after he got stuck in mud flats near Incheon.
Continue reading...Wagner leader and chief commander Dmitry Utkin were onboard the crashed Embraer plane, according to Russian officials
Russia has appointed a new acting head of its aerospace forces to replace Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon”, the RIA state news agency reported on Wednesday.
In June, US intelligence claimed that Surovikin, who previously led the invasion force in Ukraine, had prior knowledge of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s uprising, in which Wagner group mercenaries captured the city of Rostov and moved on Moscow before cutting an amnesty deal.
Ex-chief of the Russian Air and Space Forces Sergei Surovikin has now been relieved of his post, while colonel-general Viktor Afzalov, head of the main staff of the airforce, is temporarily acting as commander-in-chief of the airforce”.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Japan’s decision to release radioactive water from the tsunami-hit power plant has divided groups – is it entirely safe or staggeringly stupid?
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition
Good morning.
Today’s newsletter comes to you from Manchester, original home of the Guardian (est 1821), and me, Helen Pidd, your friendly north of England editor. I’ll be writing the daily briefing alongside Nimo for the next few weeks.
Continue reading...Singer’s big hit, stuffed with cliches about Italian life, was irresistible to millions as far away as Russia and Georgia
Toto Cutugno, the singer whose cliche-ridden but irresistibly catchy L’Italiano defined ideas of Italian culture to millions of listeners across Europe and Russia, has died at Milan’s San Raffaelle hospital aged 80.
Born Salvatore Cutugno to Sicilian parents in Tuscany, the singer was for a decade a regular at the Sanremo music festival, the Italian institution that served as inspiration for the Eurovision song contest.
Continue reading...People’s party’s Alberto Feijóo is choice of king to succeed Pedro Sánchez but would only be able to form minority government
The leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party has been put forward to be prime minister, in a move that seems doomed to fail as he has not secured enough votes to command a majority.
In accordance with protocol, King Felipe VI proposed Alberto Feijóo for the investiture on Tuesday night on the grounds that his party won the most votes in last month’s general election, which produced a hung parliament.
Continue reading...Russian leader, wanted under international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, gives speech by video link to summit in South Africa. This live blog is now closed
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has posted a picture of himself alongside Nikolai Denkov, the prime minister of Bulgaria, with whom he said he had “fruitful talks” at the Ukraine-Balkans summit on Monday.
Zelenskiy said the two leaders had discussed further cooperation, Black Sea security and alternative grain corridors, adding that he expected to meet more “Balkan colleagues” on Tuesday.
Continue reading...The Fall will be published next month and promises to chronicle the rightwing network and the Murdoch family’s downfall
The author Michael Wolff, whose bestselling books have chronicled the rise and fall of Donald Trump, promised on Tuesday to tell readers how Fox News will end.
“I have been telling the story of the great power of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News for many years,” Wolff said, announcing his new book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty. “This power is now reaching a natural end and The Fall brings the story to its closing act.”
Continue reading...Cable car ordeal ends as authorities say everyone brought to safety after hours-long operation in Battagram
All eight people have been rescued from a stricken cable car high above a remote Pakistan valley, a spokesperson for the state-run emergency services said.
Pakistani authorities said army commandos, with the help of civilians, made the final rescues after an operation lasting hours. Floodlights were installed and a ground-based operation reached the remaining three people late on Tuesday more than 12 hours after their cable car snagged, leaving it hanging precariously at an angle.
Continue reading...‘Twitter killer’ social media platform experienced initial boom in sign-ups when it launched in July
Meta has launched a web version of its “Twitter killer” social media platform Threads that can be used without an app, as it attempts to revive itself after a recent drop in usage.
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp launched the microblogging site in July, widely understood as an alternative for users disillusioned with Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has since rebranded as X.
Continue reading...Africa minister says civilian death toll horrific and UK is to send evidence to UN
War crimes and atrocities against civilians are being committed in Darfur, western Sudan, the UK’s Africa minister Andrew Mitchell said on Tuesday, becoming one of the first western officials to identify that the fighting in Sudan has developed into more than a power struggle between two rival factions.
Mitchell said there was growing evidence of serious atrocities being committed, describing the civilian death toll as horrific in a statement released by the Foreign Office. “Reports of deliberate targeting and mass displacement of the Masalit community in Darfur are particularly shocking and abhorrent. Intentional directing of attacks at the civilian population is a war crime.”
Continue reading...