Category Archives: World News

Mediterranean is a hotspot for climate change, says Greek PM

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Kyriakos Mitsotakis warns of difficult summer ahead as wildfires continue to rage and more tourists fly home

The Mediterranean is a “hotspot for climate change”, the Greek prime minister has said, as more tourists boarded repatriation flights home and a firefighting mission ended in tragedy when a water-bombing plane crashed into a hillside.

The water bomber, a Canadair CL215, smashed into a hillside in Evia in the battle to extinguish flames near a village outside Karystos. Greece’s airforce, to which the plane belongs said it was being flown by two Greek pilots, and they had launched a rescue mission.

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UK interest rates need to stay higher for longer to beat inflation, says IMF

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US Fed will also have to raise rates more aggressively than forecast, says Washington-based body

Interest rates in the UK will need to stay higher for longer than previously forecast in order to tackle stubbornly high inflation, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The IMF’s regular update on the state of the global economy singled out the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England as two central banks that will need to raise official borrowing costs more aggressively than it assumed only three months ago.

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Singapore to execute a woman for first time in almost 20 years

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Killing of Saridewi Djamani is one of two this week as activists say most on death row are marginalised people

Singapore is due to execute a woman for the first time in almost 20 years on Friday, one of two killings planned for this week.

Singaporean national Saridewi Djamani was sentenced to the mandatory death penalty in 2018, after she was found guilty of possession of about 30g of heroin for the purposes of trafficking, according to the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC), which tracks death row cases.

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Taiwan: teenage girl sexually abused in botched sting operation

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Police had asked the 13-year-old to assist them in an undercover operation by meeting a man she had accused of blackmailing her

Two Taiwanese police officers are under investigation after a teenager was assaulted by a man she had accused of blackmail, while taking part in a police sting operation to catch him.

The incident took place in November 2020, when the then 13-year-old told police in the northern Taiwan city of Taoyuan that she had been threatened by a man on a dating app, who tried to coerce her into sex by threatening to publish explicit photos of her online.

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Baby dies after teargas fired at Rohingya trying to escape Indian detention centre

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Child’s death follows hunger strike at Jammu & Kashmir jail amid increasing hostility towards 40,000 refugees ahead of elections

A five-month-old girl has died after Indian forces fired teargas at Rohingya refugees trying to escape a detention centre where they have been held for more than two years.

Videos – sent to Rohingya activists by detainees at Hiranagar jail, now operating as a holding centre – appear to show women and men amid clouds of teargas. About 270 Rohingya detainees at the centre, in the Indian-administered territory of Jammu & Kashmir, have been on hunger strike since April over their detention.

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Northern Ireland could lose half its veterinary medicines in Brexit row

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Requirement for animal medicines to be batch-tested in EU could see products discontinued, BVA warns

Northern Ireland could lose half of its veterinary medicines in a new Brexit row threatening to prolong the political stalemate in the region, it has emerged.

The British Veterinary Association told the Lords committee on Northern Ireland in written evidence that it was “extremely concerned” about the issue even though the Windsor framework sealed between Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, in March was sold as a solution to the protracted saga regarding Northern Ireland.

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‘A dark day for Israeli democracy’: US Jewish groups denounce Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul

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But Monday’s parliamentary action limiting the Israeli supreme court only drew muted criticism from the Biden administration

Explainer: What is Israel’s judicial overhaul vote about?

Jewish groups in the US have condemned the Israeli parliament’s vote to limit the power of the judiciary as a threat to democracy and warned that it could damage relations with American Jews. But the White House limited its criticism to calling the outcome “unfortunate” in a sign that the Biden administration is unlikely to impose any real costs on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for defying the president’s calls to delay the vote and reach a compromise with his opponents.

After seven months of fierce debate, the Israeli government on Monday voted to limit the court’s ability to overturn laws and give politicians more control over judicial appointments. The changes have been denounced by critics as a transparent power grab that will erode democratic norms and aid Netanyahu’s fight against graft charges, which he denies.

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Nova Scotia: body found amid search for four missing after ‘furious’ flooding

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Two children among the missing when vehicles were submerged on road after more than 200m of rain pummeled some regions

The body of a 52-year old man and other human remains have been discovered by emergency teams searching for four people who went missing in historic flooding after more than 200mm (7.87in) of rain pummeled some regions of Nova Scotia at the weekend.

The man’s body was found near West Hants in Nova Scotia, on the south-eastern coast of Canada, where search and rescue teams were looking for two children, a youth and a man who were in two vehicles which became submerged in flood water.

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Vladimir Putin signs law banning gender changes in Russia

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Legislation outlaws medical interventions ‘aimed at changing the sex of a person’ and altering gender details in public records

Vladimir Putin has signed legislation that bans people from officially or medically changing their gender, representing a further blow to Russia’s embattled LGBTQ+ community.

The act, passed unanimously by both houses of parliament, bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person”, as well as banning changing a person’s gender in official documents or public records. The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies.

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Talks initiated with North Korea over US soldier who ran across border

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British general says US-led United Nations Command gives few details of contacts over Travis King who crossed line on 18 July

The US-led United Nations Command has initiated talks with North Korea about the American soldier who ran into that country and crossed one of the most militarized borders in the world, according to an official.

But a British lieutenant general who helps lead the UN command stopped short of saying exactly when talks about Travis King began, whether they have been constructive or how many exchanges there have been. The lieutenant general, Andrew Harrison, also would not address any known details about King’s health condition.

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Malaysia’s gay community fears backlash after Matty Healy’s outburst

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The 1975 singer’s onstage condemnation of homophobic laws has angered conservatives and left some LGBTQ+ people uneasy

The 1975 frontman Matty Healy’s recent appearance at a festival in Kuala Lumpur – where he criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws and kissed a male bandmate on stage – has strongly angered conservatives in the country.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community have also expressed unease over his actions, fearing that the episode risks further exacerbating the hostilities they face.

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Travel firms flying tourists to Rhodes are ‘profiteering’, senior Tory says

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Alicia Kearns backs calls for the government to advise against travel to the Greek island

Travel firms that continue to fly tourists to Rhodes have been accused of “profiteering” by a senior Conservative, as ministers faced pressure over official travel advice for the island, where 10,000 British tourists have been stranded.

As flights rescuing holidaymakers began arriving in the UK on Monday, calls continued for a change in the Foreign Office’s stance on the categorisation of Rhodes to enable tourists to get a refund for their trips through their travel insurance.

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‘A near-death experience’: UK tourists describe escape from Rhodes wildfires

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Travellers say they faced ‘absolute chaos’ as they were forced to flee with luggage still at hotels

Dean Mason, 56, from Rothley in Leicestershire, described getting caught up in the Rhodes wildfires as a “near-death experience”.

Mason arrived at a hotel in Kiotari beach a week ago with his wife, daughter, and four-year-old granddaughter.

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North Korea fires missiles into sea hours after US submarine arrives in the South

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South Korean armed forces condemn the two launches as a ‘grave provocation’

North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, adding to a recent streak of weapons testing that is apparently in protest against the US sending naval assets to South Korea.

In its third round of launches since last week, North Korea fired the missiles from an area near its capital, Pyongyang, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said early on Tuesday local time. It said the missiles travelled about 250 miles (400km) before landing in waters off the Korean peninsula’s eastern coast.

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What is Israel’s judicial overhaul about and what happens next?

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Constitutional crisis on cards as supreme court justices are asked to consider curbing their own powers

Israel’s supreme court has begun hearing challenges to the first plank of the far-right and ultra-religious government’s wide-ranging changes to the judiciary passed by the Knesset in July: abolishing the court’s power to overrule government decisions.

A full-blown constitutional crisis is now on the cards as the justices weigh in on legislation curbing their own powers, while government ministers have indicated they will not comply with any ruling striking the law down.

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Israeli parliament votes in Netanyahu’s controversial supreme court changes

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Roars and cries from demonstrators as bill passes 64-0 after opposition politicians leave plenum in protest

Israel’s far-right, ultra-religious government has succeeded in passing a key part of the coalition’s judicial overhaul, seven months after introducing the legislation, in the face of widespread, sustained opposition from protesters.

The bill abolishing the “reasonableness” clause that allows Israel’s unelected supreme court to overrule government decisions was passed into law by a final vote of 64-0 in parliament on Monday. Every member of the coalition voted in favour, while opposition lawmakers abandoned the Knesset plenum in protest, shouting “Shame!” as they left.

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Marielle Franco: new suspect arrested over killing of Rio city councillor

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Brazil federal police say Maxwell Simões Corrêa helped plan 2018 assassination; two former police officers are already awaiting trial

Brazilian police have arrested a new suspect over the killing of the Rio de Janeiro city councillor Marielle Franco, the first major development for some years in a murder case that shocked Brazil and prompted international outcry.

Franco, an outspoken defender of marginalised populations, was killed with her driver Anderson Gomes in a drive-by shooting in March 2018. Two former police officers accused of carrying out the murders were arrested a year later – but they are yet to stand trial by jury and an investigation into who ordered the assassination has dragged on slowly ever since.

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Greece wildfires: climate crisis will ‘manifest itself everywhere with greater disasters’, says Greek PM – as it happened

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Latest news: Kyriakos Mitsotakis tells parliament ‘we are at war’ as nearly 2,500 people evacuated from Corfu

Ludovica Gazze, an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick, says the pollution from the wildfires is likely to have an effect throughout Greece – and beyond.

The economic costs of wildfires are substantial and widespread. There are the immediate and visible costs of healthcare and assistance, as well as forgone tourist income.

There are also the invisible costs of the pollution caused by wildfires, which can travel hundreds of miles as we saw in the case of the Canada wildfires in June. Pollution worsens health, cognition, and productivity.

There’s no coincidence at all that climate change has driven these higher temperatures, and the higher temperatures are causing the fires that are spreading.

The only way to tackle this is deep and rapid emissions reductions. In terms of greenhouse gases, we have virtually doubled the amount of greenhouse gases compared to the pre-industrial level.

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Algeria wildfires kill dozens of people including 10 soldiers

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About 7,500 firefighters trying to bring blazes under control and 1,500 people evacuated as heatwave spreads

Thirty-four people including 10 soldiers have been killed by wildfires in the mountainous Béjaïa and Bouïra regions of Algeria, as a heatwave spreads across north Africa and southern Europe.

About 8,000 firefighters were trying to bring the flames under control, authorities said, adding that about 1,500 people had been evacuated.

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Essential poll: sizeable support for Daniel Andrews’ decision to scrap Commonwealth Games

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Almost 60% of people support players receiving equal pay in the Women’s World Cup

More than 40% of Australians agree with Daniel Andrews’ controversial decision to scrap the Commonwealth Games, with his home state most supportive of the move, new polling shows.

While critics bemoaned the decision as “an international embarrassment”, the latest Guardian Essential poll found Australians were less invested, with 41% of those polled agreeing with the Victorian government’s decision, while 36% disagreed and 24% were unsure.

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