Category Archives: World News

Brazil ministers to visit site of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira’s murder

Posted on by

Visit is part of push by Lula’s government to beat back illegal miners, loggers and poachers who wrought environmental havoc

Indigenous activists are planning to take some of Brazil’s top ministers to the spot where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira were murdered in the Amazon rainforest amid reports security forces are poised to launch a major environmental clampdown in the remote border region.

Leaders of Univaja, the Indigenous association for which Pereira worked in Brazil’s Javari Valley, said senior politicians, including justice minister Flávio Dino and the minister for Indigenous peoples Sônia Guajajara, would travel there on 27 February.

Continue reading...

Nicaragua: Ortega crackdown deepens as 94 opponents stripped of citizenship

Posted on by

Some of country’s most celebrated writers and journalists targeted as critics condemn ‘totalitarian drift’ under 77-year-old president

Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian regime has intensified its political crackdown, stripping 94 Nicaraguans of their citizenship, including some of the Central American country’s most celebrated writers and journalists, among them the Guardian contributor Wilfredo Miranda.

The move was announced by a Nicaraguan judge on Wednesday and sparked renewed condemnation of Ortega’s Sandinista government, which has been waging a dogged offensive against perceived rivals since June 2021.

Continue reading...

Israel votes to strip citizenship from Arabs convicted of terrorism

Posted on by

New law is aimed at Israeli citizens who have received financial aid from the Palestinian Authority

Israel has passed legislation allowing the state to strip Arabs convicted of terror offences of citizenship or residency and deport them to the West Bank or Gaza Strip if they have accepted financial aid from the Palestinian Authority.

The new law, which the Knesset voted for on Wednesday, is designed to discourage what Israel calls “pay for slay” stipends, which Palestinians view as assistance for the families of those imprisoned. Israel says the longstanding practice serves as an incentive to violence.

Continue reading...

Japan’s new whaling ‘mother ship’ being built to travel as far as Antarctica

Posted on by

Company says vessel’s construction will help ‘pass on our whaling culture to the next generation’

A Japanese company is building a new whaling ship designed to travel as far as Antarctica, sparking fears commercial operations could resume in the Southern Ocean.

Australia’s environment minister, Tanya Plibsersek, reaffirmed the Albanese government’s commitment to a global moratorium on commercial whaling, while Greenpeace condemned the practice as “brutal and unnecessary”.

Continue reading...

Journalist held without trial in China said to need urgent medical attention

Posted on by

Advocates of Huang Xueqin accuse authorities of ‘trying to exert mental pressure and physical torture’

Advocates for a Chinese journalist and activist who has been held in detention without trial for almost 18 months have said she needs urgent medical attention.

Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing, a labour rights activist, were detained in September 2021 and formally arrested a month later. They have been accused of inciting subversion of state power, and held in Guangzhou without access to family or lawyers.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskiy rules out giving up any territory to Putin in potential peace deal – as it happened

Posted on by

This live blog has now closed, you can read more of our Russia-Ukraine war coverage here

A poll has revealed that one year after Russia began its war of aggression against Ukraine, 61% of Europeans believe Ukraine will be successful.

PA reports:

One year into the war in Ukraine, 61% of Europeans believe that the country will prevail. Germans, however, are not quite so optimistic, although a 55% majority believes in a Ukrainian victory. These are the findings of the EU-wide survey conducted by eupinions. It is published in cooperation with the Belgian King Baudouin Foundation.

Europeans are not only betting on victory, 68% also see the war of aggression as a matter affecting them all, because it is an attack on the whole of Europe. Most EU citizens polled also see Ukraine in a battle to defend a set of common values that are shared by all European states.

Continue reading...

Big pharma must value African lives above profits, warns head of UNAids

Posted on by

‘Racist’ inequalities leave sub-Saharan region bearing burden of more that half world’s new HIV infections, says Winnie Byanyima

The head of UNAids, Winnie Byanyima, has attacked pharmaceutical giants for prioritising profits over saving lives, and warned that “racist” inequalities are undermining progress towards ending Aids, especially in Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for more than half of all new infections, with women and marginalised groups facing higher new infection rates. Aids-related illnesses were the leading cause of mortality among African women, and adolescent girls and young women were three times more likely than men to get HIV.

Continue reading...

China claims US balloons flew over Tibet and Xinjiang as spying row rumbles on

Posted on by

US deputy secretary of state says Beijing is claiming ‘a gazillion balloons by the US over China … That is absolutely not true’

Diplomatic friction has worsened between the United States and China after Beijing claimed, without evidence, that US high-altitude balloons flew over its Xinjiang and Tibet regions, and threatened unspecified measures against US entities for undermining Chinese sovereignty.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a tussle over flying objects after the US military this month shot down what it called a Chinese spy balloon over the coast of South Carolina. Beijing said it was a civilian research vehicle mistakenly blown off course, and that Washington overreacted.

Continue reading...

Riots erupt in Nigerian cities as bank policy leads to scarcity of cash

Posted on by

Angry protesters attack ATMs and block roads in frustration at lack of new banknotes days before election

Rioters have attacked bank ATMs and blocked roads in three Nigerian cities as anger spilled on the streets over a scarcity of cash, just days before the country’s general election.

Nigeria has been struggling with a shortage in physical cash since the central bank began to swap old bills of the local naira currency for new ones, leading to a shortfall in banknotes.

Continue reading...

At least 39 migrants killed in Panama bus crash after crossing Darién Gap

Posted on by

Vehicle carrying families migrating to the US plunged off escarpment near town of Gualaca when driver lost control – reports

At least 39 migrants have been killed in a gruesome bus accident in Panama after trekking for days through the Central American country’s southern jungles on their way to a new life in the US.

The accident took place in the early hours of Wednesday as a convoy of buses traveled from Panama’s border with Colombia towards a migrant reception centre near the town of Gualaca.

Continue reading...

Wagner mercenary group will ‘decrease’ as prisoner recruitment ends, says boss

Posted on by

Kremlin is said to be pushing back against private army and curbing influence of Yevgeny Prighozin

The Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted that his mercenary group is facing difficulties in Ukraine and will soon decrease in size, amid growing evidence that his political influence in the Kremlin is waning.

“The number of Wagner units will decrease, and we will also not be able to carry out the scope of tasks that we would like to,” Prigozhin told a group of pro-war bloggers and state journalists gathered at an army barracks in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

French prosecutors close rape investigation into model agency boss

Posted on by

Case on alleged crimes by Gérald Marie in 1980s and 90s closed due to statute of limitations

French prosecutors have closed an investigation into possible rape and sexual assault by the model agency boss Gérald Marie, who was accused of a string of offences.

The Paris prosecutors’ office concluded that the alleged crimes in the 1980s and 1990s took place too long ago to be prosecuted under French law which sets time limits for offences to be tried in court.

Continue reading...

Ukraine ‘inflicting very serious losses’ on Russian troops in the east, says Ukrainian official – as it happened

Posted on by

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar says Russian attacks are constant

Nato countries should spend a minimum of 2% of their GDP on defence, said the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, on Wednesday as Nato defence ministers gathered in Brussels.

“Just spending two percent will not be enough. It must be the basis for everything that follows. The German government is debating that right now and will soon reach an agreement,” Pistorius told the media, Reuters reports.

Continue reading...

China’s provinces spent almost £43bn on Covid measures in 2022

Posted on by

Third of provinces yet to publish data as country looks to revive economy after zero-Covid policy ends

Chinese provinces spent more than £42.8bn on tackling Covid-19 in 2022, according to data released by local governments, with the figure expected to rise as the huge cost of the pandemic hits the world’s second-largest economy.

Although national statistics are not yet available, at least 20 of China’s 31 provinces have published figures on how much money they spent on measures to control the pandemic.

Continue reading...

Haunting new footage of Titanic wreckage to be released

Posted on by

More than 80 minutes of rare and mostly unseen video was taken during pioneering 1986 expedition

Haunting new footage of the wreck of the RMS Titanic was set to be released on Wednesday, taken during the pioneering 1986 expedition that gave the first glimpses of the doomed ocean liner since its notorious sinking on its maiden voyage more than seven decades before.

The cache of more than 80 minutes of the rare and mostly unseen video comes from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) of Massachusetts, which partnered with French explorers in the discovery of the ship’s remains.

Continue reading...

Captain of football team rescued from Thai cave in 2018 dies in UK

Posted on by

Cause of death of Duangpetch Promthep, who moved to Leicester to attend a football academy, has not been confirmed

Duangpetch Promthep, one of the 12 boys from the Wild Boars football club who were rescued from a flooded Thai cave in 2018, has died in the UK.

Duangpetch, who had moved to the UK to attend a college’s football academy, died on Tuesday, the Zico Foundation, which had supported his scholarship abroad, said. His death was also confirmed by Brooke House college in Leicester.

Continue reading...

‘Where are they?’ Anger in north-west Syria at slow earthquake response

Posted on by

Survivors in Jindires feel forgotten by the world, and have particular scorn for UN’s dealings with Assad

Ruqaya Mohammed Mustafa stood next to her few remaining neighbours and the heaped piles they once called home and wearily welcomed the first visitors she had seen since the earthquake last week.

All this time, she and the people of Jindires, in northern Syria, had been begging for help. First to dig survivors from the rubble, then to provide shelter and food in the cruel grip of winter.

Continue reading...

European Commission takes Poland to court over ‘legal Polexit’

Posted on by

‘Bombshell’ step in response to rulings by Polish judges that breach principle of the supremacy of EU law

The European Commission is taking Poland to court over rulings from Polish judges considered by experts as a “legal Polexit” that fundamentally undermine the EU’s legal order.

The decision to refer Poland to the European court of justice on Wednesday – described by one expert as a bombshell – comes as Poland’s rightwing nationalist government battles to secure €35.4bn (£31.4bn) in EU Covid recovery funds that have been frozen over concerns about government-influenced courts.

Continue reading...

Rats! New York mayor fined $300 over rodents at Brooklyn property

Posted on by

Eric Adams gets split decision while spokesman says: ‘One decision is clear, however: the mayor still hates rats’

In the latest round of his long battle against rats, the New York mayor, Eric Adams, scored a split decision on Tuesday when a hearing officer dismissed one summons while upholding another citing Adams for not doing enough to keep rodents at bay at his Brooklyn townhouse.

Adams was fined $300. A spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said the mayor was “grateful” one summons was dismissed and would consider his options about the second.

Continue reading...

Thai activists call for stop to punishment haircuts in schools

Posted on by

One teacher accused of cutting hair of at least 100 students after relaxing of regulations last month

Activists in Thailand have called for clearer guidance and enforcement to stop the use of humiliating punishment haircuts in schools, after a teacher was accused of cutting the hair of at least 100 students as they sat in rows on the floor.

For decades, students in Thailand have had to comply with strict rules regarding the length and style of their hair. Last month, however, in response to growing protests from young people, the ministry of education revoked its hair regulations, saying schools could instead develop their own policies.

Continue reading...