UN rights chief voices concern over sentencing of Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong
The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he is “very concerned” after China sentenced two prominent human rights lawyers to more than a decade each in jail.
Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were convicted of subversion of state power after closed-door trials and sentenced to 14 and 12 years respectively.
Continue reading...Land Rover was monitoring a dissident republican parade commemorating the 1916 Rising
The British and Irish governments have condemned petrol bomb attacks on police in Derry on the eve of Joe Biden’s visit to Northern Ireland.
A small crowd threw petrol bombs and other missiles at a police Land Rover during a parade by dissident republicans in the Creggan area of the city on Monday. The vehicle briefly caught fire and was withdrawn.
Continue reading...Rescue workers continue to search smouldering debris for more people after suspected explosion, as manslaughter investigation opened
Rescue workers have recovered a sixth body from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building in Marseille, as emergency services battled difficult conditions to look for missing people.
More than 24 hours after a suspected explosion at the building, where people had reported a strong smell of gas, dozens of rescue workers and dogs worked among the debris and rubble as a fire still smouldered underneath.
Continue reading...Dismissal of Yoav Gallant triggered unprecedented surge of protest against plan to disempower judiciary
As Israel faces a surge in violence on almost every front, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has reversed his decision to fire the defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for warning that his judicial overhaul was harming the military.
In a televised speech late on Monday, Netanyahu said Gallant would stay in his position, two weeks after he dismissed the minister.
Continue reading...Russian opposition figure facing up to 25 years in jail tells Moscow court he stands by all of his political statements
Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who faces up to a quarter of a century in jail on treason charges, has told a Moscow court that he stood by all of his political statements and said his prosecution resembled one of Joseph Stalin’s show trials.
Kara-Murza, 41, who holds Russian and British passports, has denied several charges including treason and spreading false information about the Russian army. Prosecutors have requested a 25-year prison sentence.
Continue reading...Lucy Dee sustained critical injuries in attack on Friday that killed her daughters Maia and Rina
The mother of two British-Israeli sisters killed in a shooting in the occupied West Bank has died from injuries sustained in the incident.
Maia and Rina Dee, 20 and 15, were killed on Friday when their car was shot at by a suspected Palestinian gunman. Their mother, Lucy (also known as Leah), 45, who was in the car with them, sustained critical injuries and was left in a coma.
Continue reading...David Crouch to raise daughter of murdered Caroline Crouch in the Philippines, where her grandmother has relocated
Almost two years after the 19-year-old British student, Caroline Crouch, was murdered by her husband as she lay asleep in the couple’s Athens maisonette, her father says he will concentrate on raising his granddaughter, “who is now without” either parent.
Speaking publicly for what he said would be the last time, David Crouch, 79, told the Guardian he would leave Greece to look after Caroline’s daughter, Lydia, who is almost three, in the Philippines, “far away” from her mother’s self-confessed killer.
Continue reading...Operation comes as attempted crossings of Mediterranean from north Africa surge over weekend
The Italian coastguard said on Monday it was carrying out a rescue operation involving two fishing boats with a total of 1,200 passengers on board, as the number of people attempting to cross the Mediterranean from north Africa surged over the weekend.
One vessel carrying about 800 people was more than 120 miles (190 km) south-east of the Sicilian city of Syracuse, the coastguard said.
Continue reading...Key players in Yemeni coalition government ready to go along with minimum eight-month ceasefire
Saudi Arabia has persuaded the key players in the Yemeni coalition government to go along with a minimum eight-month ceasefire with Houthi rebels in parallel with talks on the future of the country that may take as long as two years, as it rushes to capitalise on its new relationship with Iran.
Saudi and Houthi leaders met on Sunday for the first time in public in the Houthi-held capital, Sana’a, with the Saudis keen to cut their losses after a disastrous eight-year-long intervention that started with airstrikes in 2015. Mediators from Oman were also present.
Continue reading...Teenager killed and two others wounded during Israeli arrest operation amid escalating tensions
Israeli troops have fatally shot a 15-year-old Palestinian boy and wounded two other people during an arrest operation in a West Bank refugee camp, as tensions continued to escalate in the occupied territories.
Mohammed Balhan was shot in the head, chest and abdomen in the Aqabat Jabr camp near Jericho, according to local Palestinian official Hani Obeidat, who called it an “unjustifiable crime”. A video showed him lying dead on a stretcher in the hospital, his head bandaged and his mother wailing as she leaned over his body.
Continue reading...Alarm on both sides of Atlantic as French president warns against being drawn into any Taiwan conflict
Emmanuel Macron has flown into a storm of criticism after he said Europe should not become a “vassal” and must avoid being drawn into any conflict between the US and China over Taiwan.
The French president made the remarks in an interview on his plane after a three-day state visit to China, where he received a red carpet welcome by China’s president, Xi Jinping – a show of pageantry that alarmed some European China watchers.
Continue reading...Pools and well-watered gardens at least as damaging as climate emergency or population growth
The swimming pools, well-watered gardens and clean cars of the rich are driving water crises in cities at least as much as the climate emergency or population growth, according to an analysis.
The researchers said the vast difference in water use between rich and poor citizens had been largely overlooked in seeking solutions to water shortages, with the focus instead on attempts to increase supply and higher prices for water. They said the only way to protect water supplies was by redistributing water resources more equally.
Continue reading...Iranian state TV shows metro staff stopping women at ticket barriers, in effect barring many from work
Hijab enforcement groups are to be set up on the Tehran metro and women not wearing the hijab will be refused entry, in effect banning some women from work, Iranian state TV has reported.
The move appears to be part of a pattern of government efforts to force Iranian public bodies to take greater responsibility for enforcing the hijab. Many Iranian women, especially in urban centres, have refused to comply with the hijab rules, in a sign that the “women, life, freedom” protests that began in September continue in a more individualised form.
Continue reading...Tropical cyclone brews off the Kimberley while freezing rain causes chaos in Quebec and Ontario
At the weekend a tropical low that was situated in the Timor Sea moved west-south-west into waters north of the Kimberley, Western Australia. Deepening as it moved, the low developed into a tropical cyclone on Sunday night that brought gale-force winds of up to 56 mph (90km/h) to the coast. Squally thunderstorms across northern parts of the region produced strong winds and heavy rain.
The tropical cyclone is forecast to reach category 3 by Tuesday. From Wednesday it is expected to turn south, prompting the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to warn that a significant risk of further instability could steer the storm south-east into central or eastern Pilbara, or western Kimberley. Given sea surface temperatures will be 30-32C (86-90F), the cyclone is expected to deepen to a category 4, with some models forecasting central pressure as low as 910hPa.
Continue reading...The six films include the tale of an ogre who preys on women, a sci-fi Nigeria taken over by AI, and a girl on a mission to end drought
Traditional African tales of monsters, genies and malevolent spirits have been reworked for a contemporary audience in a new Netflix series.
Film-makers from Tanzania, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritania and Uganda have turned six traditional stories into dark fantasy dramas that cover topics including domestic violence, suicide and child marriage.
Continue reading...Interaction at temple in India seen in video that has gone viral condemned as ‘inappropriate’ and ‘scandalous’
The Dalai Lama has apologised after he faced allegations of inappropriate behaviour after kissing a young boy on the lips and asking him to “suck his tongue” at a public event in India.
The interaction, which took place in late February at the Dalai Lama’s temple in Dharamshala, was attended by about 100 young students who had just graduated from the Indian M3M Foundation.
Continue reading...Near miss occurred off coast of Crimea in September 2022, according to apparent leak of Pentagon documents
Continue reading...Flood moving abroad has come as a shock and is costing tens of millions in lost tax receipts
A record number of super-rich Norwegians are abandoning Norway for low-tax countries after the centre-left government increased wealth taxes to 1.1%.
More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022, according to research by the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. This was more than the total number of super-rich people who left the country during the previous 13 years, it added. Even more super-rich individuals are expected to leave this year because of the increase in wealth tax in November, costing the government tens of millions lost tax receipts.
Continue reading...Ship-launched fighter jets have previously never been seen in island’s air defence zone
China’s military exercises targeting Taiwan have concluded after three days in which it encircled the island, simulated missile attacks on cities, and practised ship-launched strikes from the east.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on Monday the combat readiness drills had “comprehensively tested the troops under actual combat conditions”.
Continue reading...Directors such as Yorgos Lanthimos have joined campaign to save the Astor and Ideal from hotel and office developments
The spectre of two historic Athens cinemas being closed by commercial interests bent on turning them into a hotel and office block has spurred film-makers to get in front of the camera with pleas to stop the process.
Directors of international acclaim have appealed to save the buildings amid mounting public disquiet over the pace of development in one of Europe’s oldest capitals. Leading the charge, Costa-Gavras, the Paris-based film director who shot to fame with the political drama Z, released when Greece was under military rule, called the existence of the Ideal and Astor cinemas indispensable for the enjoyment of film in an era when the “barbarism” of movies being watched on TV and mobile phones was widespread.
Continue reading...