Officials say 900 homes in Xi’an were left without power in disaster that struck after unusually high rainfall and typhoons
A mudslide in China’s north-western city of Xi’an has killed 21 people, with six still missing, officials said on Sunday.
The city’s emergency management authority released an update on the number of casualties from Friday’s disaster as China grappled with unusually high summer rainfall.
Continue reading...Thiago Menezes Flausino, who dreamed of becoming a footballer, was the ninth child to die in a shooting this year in Rio
Those who knew Thiago Menezes Flausino described him as a boy with dreams. These were brutally shattered by several police bullets this week, when the 13-year-old became one of the latest victims of state violence in a Rio de Janeiro favela.
“He dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. He’d passed tryouts for a bigger team and was going to start playing on the day he was killed,” said his aunt Nataly Bezerra Flausino, standing outside the evangelical church where her nephew’s funeral was being held on Tuesday, mere months after his baptism.
Continue reading...Russian military targeted residential areas, factories and mobile communications towers, says regional governor
Here’s video of Ukrainian border guards placing a new sign on Snake Island.
“The next border sign will be installed in our Ukrainian Crimea after its liberation by the defence forces of Ukraine,” a uniformed man said, standing before a post painted blue and yellow like the country’s flag, in a video shared on Facebook by the head of the border service, Serhiy Deineko.
Continue reading...Killing of Fernando Villavicencio ahead of elections comes as country struggles with surge in drug-related violence
Millions of Ecuadorians will have seen the phone camera footage showing the last seconds before presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed, shot through the windows of a white pickup truck after being escorted by unarmed policemen who were helpless to save him.
The images that followed showed panic and chaos as the burst of gunfire sent screaming supporters to the ground. Another clip filmed inside the campaign meeting, which Villavicencio had just left, showed panicked followers fleeing or ducking for cover and bloodstains on the tiled floor.
Continue reading...An official investigation of claims that many more people than previously thought died during Nazi control of the Channel Island has pleased some, but dismayed others
Their foreboding entrance smothered in ivy, the tunnels gouged out of sheer rock beside Water Lane on the island of Alderney have long terrified generations of the island’s children.
For decades, though, it seemed that was as far as the notoriety of the dank tunnels on the outskirts of St Anne, the capital of the tiny Channel Island, would extend.
Continue reading...Moderate Tories fear the party’s attack on human rights will alienate many voters and damage the UK’s global standing
The Conservatives risk being seen once again as the “nasty party” by trying to win votes with a divisive attack on human rights, senior party figures have warned.
Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure from his party this weekend over his pledge to stop the boats crossing the Channel. It follows another week that ended in Channel deaths after the capsizing of a boat, while the total number of people making the dangerous crossing since 2018 rose above the 100,000 mark.
Continue reading...William Lai issues global appeal during US stopover after China denounces him as a ‘troublemaker’
Taiwan’s vice-president has urged the world to stand up against the “increased threat from authoritarianism” and reiterated a willingness to talk to China, in a speech made in New York during a brief US stopover condemned by Beijing.
William Lai, a frontrunner to be Taiwan’s next president at elections in January, said in New York on Sunday: “If Taiwan is safe, the world is safe, if the Taiwan Strait is peaceful, then the world is peaceful,” according to a read out from Taiwan’s presidential office.
Continue reading...Governor says death toll in Lahaina is expected to rise after ‘worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced’
At least 93 people have died in the fire that consumed the historic town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui, and officials warned that the effort to find and identify the dead was still in its early stages.
Meanwhile, anger at the government response to the deadliest wildfire in recent US history is mounting. Residents have raised questions over various aspects of the government response, from warnings during the inferno to aid distribution in the days since.
Continue reading...Fernando Villavicencio fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in capital, Quito
The political party of Ecuador’s assassinated presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, picked its vice-presidential candidate to replace him on Saturday, just a week before the election.
Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.
Continue reading...Deal revives agreement from 20 years ago and will allow intelligence and training support for Peru’s air force
Peru announced an air security agreement with the US on Saturday in what the government described as a push to stop planes belonging to drug gangs from entering the South American country’s airspace.
The deal revives a bilateral security cooperation pact with the US from 20 years ago, according to a government statement, and will permit new intelligence and training support to flow to Peru’s air force.
Continue reading...At least 1,000 people reported missing following fires, as a new fire burns in Kaanapali in West Maui
Hawaii resident Ella Tacderan spoke to the Guardian about her experience of the devastation in Maui where her family home once stood.
“A nightmare” scene, Tacderan said:
Continue reading...Russian defence ministry says 14 Ukrainian drones destroyed by air defences and another six jammed electronically over the occupied peninsula
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, has posted a video of Russian soldiers from the Moscow area asking for aid from Russia, detailing how they were sent to the frontlines without training or equipment.
Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the defence council of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine has confirmed that there were explosions in the city this morning. On Telegram, he said that so far there were no losses connected to the explosions.
Continue reading...Events marred by violence in Sweden, Canada and the US were billed as cultural, but activists say they are militaristic and full of hate speech
After opponents of the Eritrean government stormed a festival in Stockholm that was allegedly promoting the east African country’s regime earlier this month, setting light to cars and throwing stones, the Swedish government tried to distance itself from it all. The justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, said it was “not reasonable for Sweden to be drawn into other countries’ domestic conflicts”.
But in the sunlit cafeteria of a community space in Kista, a few miles from the festival site in Järvafältet, a wooded area north of the Swedish capital, Abdulkader Habib disagreed. Opposition to Eritrea’s dictator, Isaias Afwerki, was not an Eritrean problem: “this is a big international problem,” he said.
Continue reading...Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar to navigate economic and political turmoil after Imran Khan conviction
A little-known senator from Pakistan’s least populous province has been announced as caretaker prime minister to see the country through to the next election, the leader of the opposition said.
The Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and opposition leader, Raja Riaz, agreed on Saturday to name senator Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar as caretaker premier.
Continue reading...The disappearance of a statue of the comic book artist in his Belgian birthplace was thought to be an act of decolonisation
It would have been a suitable assignment for Tintin, the intrepid Belgian boy reporter and his multi-talented, intuitive dog, Snowy.
Across Brussels, where Hergé, the creator of the eponymous comic books, was born, there are constant reminders of one of its most famous exports. A giant image of the character clinging to the back of a steam train from the book Tintin in America adorns one of the exits from the city’s Eurostar station, while a mural of Tintin, his seafaring friend Captain Haddock and Snowy covers the gable end of a house just over a mile away, surviving graffiti and vandalism.
Continue reading...Thirteen people rescued after Europe-bound vessel sank near city of Gabes, says coastguard
At least two Tunisians including a baby died when their Europe-bound boat sank off the north African country’s south-eastern shores, the coastguard said, adding five others were missing.
The vessel carrying 20 Tunisians went down at 2am 120 metres (395ft) from the beach in Gabes, a statement said, as search operations continue.
Continue reading...Analysts says key figures in new regime were underestimated as elected president remains confined to residence
The leaders of the military takeover in Niger remained defiant this weekend, apparently confident that disarray among regional opponents, support from other military regimes in neighbouring countries and a wave of popular mobilisation at home will allow them to keep power for the indefinite future.
Mohamed Bazoum, the democratically elected president of Niger, remains confined to his official residence in Niamey, the capital, amid faltering international efforts to convince the new rulers of the unstable but strategically important country to return to barracks two weeks after launching a coup.
Continue reading...Attacks keep up pressure on Vladimir Putin, although have become ‘not a big deal’ for many unmoved Russians
A new campaign of drone strikes has targeted the Russian capital in recent days as Kyiv has demonstrated its ability to hit Moscow and to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of the Russian elites and others seeking to ignore the invasion of Ukraine.
Video on Friday showed a drone slamming into the ground and exploding near a residential area in the north-west of the city, as rowers nearby participated in a national championship in the Krylatskoye district.
Continue reading...While meteors are active from July, Perseids will be most visible in northern hemisphere this Saturday and Sunday
Stargazers will be in for a treat this weekend as the best meteor shower of the year is expected to peak.
The Perseids are named after the Greek hero Perseus because the meteor shower appears to come from the eponymous constellation.
Continue reading...Water scarcity threatening agriculture faster than expected, warns Cop15 desertification president
The world is likely to face major disruption to food supplies well before temperatures rise by the 1.5C target, the president of the UN’s desertification conference has warned, as the impacts of the climate crisis combine with water scarcity and poor farming practices to threaten global agriculture.
Alain-Richard Donwahi, a former Ivory Coast defence minister who led last year’s UN Cop15 summit on desertification, said the effects of drought were taking hold more rapidly than expected.
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