Category Archives: World News

‘The suit burns’: Madrid’s street performers suffer in record Spanish heat

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The country has recorded its hottest, driest April yet. For people working outdoors, it’s no joke

There are many better places to be in Spain than Madrid when recordbreaking temperatures bring summer’s ruthless heat in spring, prompting government health warnings, action plans from regional authorities and the familiar agonising wait for outdoor public pools to open.

There are also many better places to be in Madrid when the mercury nudges 30C (86F) than under a woolly hat inside a furry Sonic the Hedgehog costume in the elegant, shadeless air fryer that is the Spanish capital’s Plaza Mayor.

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Married NHS doctors stranded in Sudan with their four young children

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Sarra Eljak and Mustafa Abbas missed the last flight as 220km trip to airbase was too dangerous for their children

A couple who both work for the NHS missed the last UK evacuation flight out of Sudan on Saturday, believing the journey to be “too dangerous”.

The doctors must now find an alternative means of fleeing the war-torn country.

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Sudanese army blocks Britons from boarding last rescue flights

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Nearly 1,900 have been evacuated, says UK government, but final flight has yet to leave Khartoum

Britons are feared to have been stranded in Sudan following reports that the country’s armed forces had prevented a number of people from reaching the last rescue flights out of the war-torn country on Saturday.

On Saturday night, it was announced that 1,888 people on 21 flights have been evacuated from Sudan – the vast majority of them British nationals and their dependents – but the last flight was yet to leave despite being scheduled to depart at 6pm.

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UK coastguard ‘left Channel migrants adrift’ in lead-up to mass drowning

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Investigation reveals that at least 440 people appear to have been abandoned in the weeks before the worst Channel disaster in 30 years

• Read more: ‘Horror beyond words’: how Channel distress calls were ‘ignored’

Hundreds of vulnerable migrants were abandoned to their fates after the UK coastguard “effectively ignored” reports of small boats in distress during the days leading up to the worst Channel disaster in 30 years when at least 27 people died, an Observer investigation suggests.
Around 440 people appear to have been left adrift after the coastguard sent no rescue vessels to 19 reported boats carrying migrants in UK waters, according to an analysis of internal records and marine data seen by the Observer and Liberty Investigates.

Experts said the failure to act appears to breach international law.

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‘Horror beyond words’: how Channel distress calls were ‘ignored’ 19 times before 2021 disaster

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Investigation reveals that understaffed Dover control room was overwhelmed by calls from people in trouble before 27 died at sea

• Read more: UK coastguard ‘left Channel migrants adrift’

On the afternoon of 3 November 2021, a woman called Hampshire police. Her brother was crossing the Channel in a small boat that day, she said via a translator. But something awful had just happened. Twenty minutes earlier he’d texted to say that smugglers had begun shoving passengers overboard. “Loads had been kicked off and were in the water”, fighting for their lives in the treacherous currents of the world’s busiest shipping lane.

Police passed the details to HM Coastguard and at 4.57pm an operator flagged the incident, according to internal logs obtained by the Observer and Liberty Investigates.

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‘A deadly trip’: Sudanese refugees find little welcome at Egyptian border

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People fleeing fighting in Khartoum left waiting for days at sparsely staffed crossing after costly and dangerous journeys

Thousands of people have fled fierce street battles in central Khartoum for Sudan’s borders, waiting for days in the open air to enter Egypt or walking hundreds of miles to cross into South Sudan.

Rana Ameen, a 23-year-old engineering student, said she and five members of her family had paid the equivalent of £475 per person to travel to the border crossing with Egypt, almost 600 miles (1,000km) away.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Crimea navy oil depot fire ‘contained’ – as it happened

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Moscow-installed governor in Sevastopol says blaze, attributed to Ukrainian drone strike, now under control

Ukraine’s president said on Friday that he had asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to help bring back Ukrainian children deported by Russia.

In his evening address, AFP reports that Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying:

We need to involve everyone ... to put pressure on the Russian aggressor and the terrorists who kidnapped so many of our children.

The UN, many others want to do something, but so far the results have been poor. So I have appealed to the leader of China.

Now, with regard to the need in general for shells at the front, what we want. Today we are coming to the point where Wagner is ending.

Wagner, in a short period of time, will cease to exist. We will become history, nothing to worry about, things like this happen.

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Japan approves abortion pill for the first time

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Health ministry gives green light to two-step treatment made by British pharmaceutical firm Linepharma

The abortion pill will become available in Japan for the first time after the health ministry approved a drug used to terminate early-stage pregnancies.

Abortion is legal in Japan up to 22 weeks, but consent is usually required from a spouse or partner, and until now a surgical procedure had been the only option.

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Sculpture of euthanised walrus Freya unveiled in Oslo

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Campaigners commemorate mammal who drew large crowds in Norwegian capital last summer before being put down

A bronze sculpture has been unveiled in Norway of the walrus nicknamed Freya, who gained global attention last summer after basking in the Oslo fjord until officials euthanised her.

The lifesize sculpture depicts Freya lying on her side on the rocky shore of Oslo’s Kongen marina, not far from where the real 600kg mammal last summer drew large crowds as she chased ducks and swans, and rested on boats that struggled to support her bulk.

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Texas man fatally shoots five neighbors after noise complaint, sheriff says

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Police are searching for suspect in after shooting in Cleveland, in which one of the victims was an eight-year-old child

After neighbors complained about the noise he was making, a Texas man went next door with an AR-15-style rifle and shot them, killing five people – including an eight-year-old child – as well as wounding three others at a home in Cleveland, Texas, on Friday night.

Law enforcement patrolling the community more than 40 miles outside of Houston were searching for Francisco Oropeza, 38, who had been intoxicated and fled the scene, the sheriff of San Jacinto county, Greg Capers, told reporters on Saturday.

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Large blaze at Russian navy depot in Crimea after suspected drone strike

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Column of smoke seen rising from burning fuel tanks in port city of Sevastopol

A huge fire was burning in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol on Saturday after what was reported to be a Ukrainian drone strike on fuel tanks at a Russian navy depot.

Video footage posted on social media showed a large waterside area on fire, with a column of black smoke rising from the burning fuel. Other images showed a huge pall of smoke hanging over the area.

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US army grounds all aviation units for training after fatal helicopter crashes

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Suspension comes after 12 soldiers die within a month in two crashes in Alaska and Kentucky

The US army has grounded aviation units for training after 12 soldiers died in helicopter crashes in Alaska and Kentucky in the last month.

The suspension was effective immediately, with units being grounded until they complete the training, the army spokesperson Lt Col Terence Kelley said.

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Unseen Gabriel García Márquez novel to be published next year

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Colombian author’s En Agosto Now Vemos (We’ll See Each Other in August) had been just a rumour but now fans will get to read it

Rumours had long circulated that an entire literary masterpiece, never seen by the public, could still be lying in a dusty safe held by the late author’s family or under lock and key at his archive at the University of Texas.

On Friday Penguin Random House confirmed that an unpublished Gabriel García Márquez novel – titled En Agosto Nos Vemos, (We’ll See Each Other in August) – not only exists, but will be on shelves across Latin America in 2024.

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Yacht once owned by Richard Burton in shootout off Yemen coast

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Yemeni authorities said ‘suspicious’ and unresponsive ship opened fire, while ship manager reports clash with pirates

Armed guards aboard a yacht once owned by the late Welsh actor Richard Burton have fired on approaching ships in the Gulf of Aden, prompting an intense gunfight. Yemeni authorities said the guards mistakenly opened fire on a Coast Guard vessel but the ship’s manager insisted they had clashed with pirates.

The shooting reportedly killed one Yemeni Coast Guard member and wounded another person in a hail of gunfire – the guards are said to have shot as many as 200 rounds of ammunition. The incident shows the danger faced by both shippers and security forces in the waters off the Arab world’s poorest country, even as it remains crucial for global commerce.

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Samuel Alito says leaked abortion draft made conservative justices ‘targets of assassination’ – as it happened

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Ron DeSantis grew angry on Thursday when asked by a reporter in Israel about his time at Guantánamo Bay:

One interesting thing about this clip is that it’s been shared on Twitter both by DeSantis’s own media operation (which is posted above) and by Democrats looking to attack the presumptive candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. Make of that what you will.

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Federal workers tell Trudeau to step in to pay and work-from-home dispute

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Largest strike in decades enters 10th day with workers enjoying public support despite disruption to government services

Striking federal workers in Canada are calling for the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to get involved in stalled negotiations, as the largest job action in decades enters its 10th day and key government services grind to a halt.

More than 100,000 employees with Canada’s largest public sector union have been on strike since last week in a battle over wages and the ability to work remotely.

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‘Crimes against humanity’: UN body calls for release of Guantánamo inmate

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UN’s arbitrary detention group calls for immediate release of Palestinian Abu Zubaydah, saying detention has no basis in law

A UN body has declared that the detention of a long-term Guantánamo inmate, Abu Zubaydah, has no lawful basis and called for his immediate release, warning that the systemic deprivation of liberty at the camp may “constitute crimes against humanity”.

The UN working group on arbitrary detention (UNWGAD), also declared the UK, among other countries, was “jointly responsible for the torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of Mr Zubaydah” over his more than 20 years in detention.

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Britons in Sudan have until midday on Saturday to fly out, ministers say

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Government announces end to airlifts amid calls for NHS doctors without UK passports to be rescued

British nationals trapped in Sudan have until midday on Saturday local time to get on a flight before they stop, ministers have announced, as a doctors’ union called for NHS medics without UK passports to also be airlifted.

Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, said on Friday night more than 1,500 people had been flown out, and there had been a “significant decline in British nationals coming forward”, meaning it was time to end the operation.

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