Category Archives: World News

El Salvador news outlet relocates to Costa Rica to avoid Bukele’s crackdown

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El Faro moves its headquarters to avoid ‘fabricated accusations’ after 25 years reporting on drug wars, crime and corruption

El Faro has survived many pressures in its 25 years reporting on El Salvador’s bloody drug wars, crime and institutional corruption.

“We’ve been harassed. We’ve received death threats from drug cartels, requiring us to contract armed security guards. And we’ve had the police coming to our houses after we revealed their corruption scandals,” said Óscar Martínez, editor of the online investigative outlet. “Some of our journalists have been exiled, but we have managed to continue reporting from San Salvador.”

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Severe heatwave engulfs Asia causing deaths and forcing schools to close

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Extreme temperatures described as ‘worst April heatwave in Asian history’ as records threatened in India, China, Thailand and Laos

A severe heatwave has swept across much of Asia, causing deaths and school closures in India and record-breaking temperatures in China.

Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian, described the unusually high temperatures as the “worst April heatwave in Asian history”.

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French trade minister to visit UK after post-Brexit ‘hiccup’

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Olivier Becht says two countries have moved on since tensions with government of Boris Johnson

France’s overseas trade minister will visit London on Wednesday in what is being hailed in Paris as a return to business as usual between the two countries after Brexit and the cross-Channel “tensions” of Boris Johnson’s leadership.

It will be Olivier Becht’s first official visit to the UK since his appointment last year and comes after a warmer relationship was signalled with the meeting of Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris last month.

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Russian hackers want to ‘disrupt or destroy’ UK infrastructure, minister warns

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Cabinet Office secretary, Oliver Dowden, to issue national alert and urge companies to boost cybersecurity

Russian hackers organised along the lines of the paramilitary Wagner group are seeking “to disrupt or destroy” parts of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, a cabinet minister will warn at a cyber conference in Belfast on Wednesday.

Oliver Dowden, the Cabinet Office minister, will issue a national alert to key businesses amid growing international concern that as Russia struggles in Ukraine, an under-pressure Kremlin is searching for new ways to threaten the west.

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Humanitarian aid ‘impossible’ as fighting in Sudan traps millions

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Hopes of 24-hour ceasefire to evacuate civilians and wounded after US secretary of state intervenes

Fighting continued in Sudan hours after an internationally brokered truce was supposed to have come into effect, as forces loyal to dueling generals battled for key locations in the capital and accused each other of violating the cease-fire.

At least 185 people have been killed and more than 1,800 injured in more than four days of fighting that has pitted army units loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional governing sovereign council, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is deputy head of the council. Their power struggle has derailed a shift to civilian rule and raised fears of a wider conflict.

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At least 29 people killed in Beijing hospital fire

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Some managed to escape from multi-storey building by fashioning bedsheets into makeshift ropes

A fire at a hospital in Beijing has killed at least 29 people and forced dozens to evacuate, a Chinese government official has said.

As clouds of black smoke billowed into the sky late on Tuesday, people trapped in the multi-storey building apparently tied bedsheets into makeshift ropes and escaped by climbing out of windows, as seen in videos circulating on social media.

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Caught short at 35,000ft: plane forced to turn back after toilets malfunction

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Five of eight toilets broke down on Austrian Airlines flight carrying 300 people from Vienna to New York

An Austrian Airlines plane had to return two hours into a flight from Vienna to New York after five of its eight toilets broke down.

About 300 people were onboard Monday’s eight-hour, Boeing 777 flight. The crew decided to turn around after finding a technical problem was preventing the toilets from flushing properly, a spokesperson for the airline told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday.

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Ukraine criticises Brazil’s peace efforts and invites Lula to see invasion’s effects

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Kyiv accuses Brazilian president’s initiative for giving equal weight to ‘the victim and the aggressor’

Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has condemned the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” by Russia and again called for mediation to end the war, as he came under fire for his previous comments on the conflict.

Speaking at a lunch on Tuesday with Romanian president Klaus Iohannis, Lula said a group of neutral nations must come together to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.

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UK should not ‘pull the shutters down’ on China, says James Cleverly

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Exclusive: British foreign secretary says failing to engage ‘closely and regularly’ with Beijing would be ‘really counterproductive’

Britain should not “pull the shutters down” on China, as it would be counterproductive to the national interest, the foreign secretary has told the Guardian.

In a warning to Conservative hawks, James Cleverly insisted there was not a binary choice to be made between treating China as either a threat or an opportunity, and said the UK’s approach needed to be more nuanced.

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UK imposes sanctions on art collector accused of financing Hezbollah

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Nazem Ahmad, who has owned works by Picasso and Warhol, suspected of laundering money for militant group

A high-profile art collector has been put on a Treasury sanctions list and charged in the US over claims that he uses his collection, which has included masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Antony Gormley and Andy Warhol, to launder money for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Nazem Ahmad, a diamond and art dealer who once posed in his Beirut penthouse for a glossy magazine and featured in a piece about the “world’s most beautiful homes and the fascinating people who live in them”, has been targeted in the UK under new counter-terrorism powers.

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Northern Irish man dies and Indian man missing on Annapurna climb in Nepal

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Noel Hanna died during descent of world’s 10th highest mountain, say expedition organisers

A Northern Irish climber has died and an Indian climber is missing after falling into a crevasse in separate incidents on Mount Annapurna, the world’s 10th highest mountain.

Another Indian climber fell ill on the way down from the 8,091-metre (26,540ft) summit but survived after spending the night in harsh conditions on the mountain.

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Absolut vodka exports to Russia discontinued after outcry in Sweden

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Firm’s owner, Pernod Ricard, faced calls for boycott and political pressure after resuming some exports in April

The maker of Sweden’s Absolut vodka has said it is ceasing all exports to Russia after calls to boycott the brand flared up in Sweden and on social media.

The Absolut Company said it had “decided to stop the export of its brand to Russia”.

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UK company mining gold in Amazon on disputed land

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London-listed Serabi Gold extracting gold without approval of Brazilian land registry and Indigenous communities

A London-listed company has been mining gold in the Amazon rainforest without approval from the Brazilian land agency or the consent of nearby Indigenous communities, according to an investigation by the Guardian and partners.

Serabi Gold has been blasting 4.5 metre-wide tunnels and trucking ore from the Coringa project site in Pará state. But interviews with land agency officials and documents seen by the Guardian, Unearthed and Sumaúma indicate that ownership of the area is disputed and the land was allegedly occupied by illegal land-grabbers.

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India and Russia in ‘advanced talks’ over free trade agreement

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Deal would build closer economic ties as most western states push to isolate Moscow over Ukraine

India and Russia have entered “advanced negotiations” over a free trade agreement that aims to build closer economic ties as most western governments push to isolate Moscow over the war in Ukraine.

In a development likely to add to tensions in Washington, London and EU capitals, Russia and India’s trade ministers said on Monday the two countries were in talks to strike a free trade deal.

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Tunisia bans meetings at opposition offices after detaining leader

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Police close headquarters of main opposition coalition as fears mount party will be banned

Tunisian authorities have banned meetings at all offices of the opposition Ennahda Islamist party and police have closed the headquarters of the Salvation Front main opposition coalition.

Ennahda fears the move will pave the way for banning the party. It came a day after police detained the leader of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, the most prominent critic of President Kais Saied and three senior officials, the party said.

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Canada shuts baby eel fishery after string of attacks on harvesters

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Officials announce 45-day ban on harvesting elvers in provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

Canada has temporarily shut down its baby eel fishery following a string of attacks on harvesters, as well as mounting concerns over widespread poaching of the threatened fish.

Officials from the department of fisheries and oceans on Saturday announced a 45-day ban on harvesting the young eels, called elvers, in the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, shuttering the lucrative C$50m (£30m) market.

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UN ready for ‘heartbreaking’ decision to pull out of Afghanistan

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Officials say it will leave in May if Taliban cannot be persuaded to let local women work for organisation

The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.

The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.

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Scientists discover pristine deep-sea Galápagos reef ‘teeming with life’

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Diving to 600m, researchers find reefs full of octopus, lobster and fish, raising hopes for corals’ survival amid rising sea temperatures

Scientists operating a submersible have discovered deep-sea coral reefs in pristine condition in a previously unexplored part of the Galápagos marine reserve.

Diving to depths of 600 metres (1,970ft), to the summit of a previously unmapped seamount in the central part of the archipelago, the scientists witnessed a breathtaking mix of deep marine life. This has raised hopes that healthy reefs can still thrive at a time when coral is in crisis due to record sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. It also showed the effectiveness of conservation actions and effective management, they said.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin and Zelenskiy visit troops near frontline

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This blog has now closed, you can read more of out Ukraine war coverage here

You may have seen that we are testing a new feature across some of the Guardian’s live blogs, including the Ukraine live blog, which allows you to contact some of our live bloggers directly. This is for people who want to message us, they are not public comments.

If you have something you’ve seen you think I’ve missed, or you have questions or comments about the war or our coverage, or have spotted one of my regular typos or transliteration errors, please do drop me a line.

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