Category Archives: World News

Russia-Ukraine war: Polish president ‘afraid Moscow is preparing new offensive’ – as it happened

Posted on by

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

Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, governor of Sumy region, and Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv region, have both posted their regular morning status updates on Telegram, and both say that their regions passed the night without any shelling or air raid warnings taking effect.

Politico’s chief Brussels correspondent Suzanne Lynch reports from Brussels that the Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has said he expects Germany will sign off on sending tanks to Ukraine at a key meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group at the Ramstein airbase in Germany on Friday.

Continue reading...

Ukraine’s interior minister killed in helicopter crash

Posted on by

Denys Monastyrskiy and other key officials among dead after crash near kindergarten in Kyiv suburb

At least 14 people including Ukraine’s interior minister, Denys Monastyrsky, and other senior officials have been killed after a helicopter crashed by a kindergarten in a suburb of Kyiv.

A number of children at the school in Brovary were among the casualties after debris hit the building. The most recent update, on Wednesday afternoon, suggested one child had been killed, after previous reports that the number was at least three.

Continue reading...

UN agency and US labour secretary deny backing UK anti-strike bill

Posted on by

Remarks at odds with government claims that new minimum service law has ‘international seal of approval’

The UN agency for workers’ rights and the US labour secretary have distanced themselves from the UK government’s claims that its strikes bill has the “international seal of approval”.

The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and the business secretary, Grant Shapps, have repeatedly justified rolling out the anti-strike legislation claiming the International Labour Organization (ILO) backs minimum service levels being provided during stoppages by workers, a key plank of the proposed new measures.

Continue reading...

Sint Maarten approves plan to cull entire population of vervet monkeys

Posted on by

The Caribbean territory plans to exterminate at least 450 of the invasive primates – but critics disagree with the proposal

The government of Sint Maarten in the eastern Caribbean has approved a controversial plan to cull its entire population of vervet monkeys, as the proliferation of the invasive species becomes an increasing nuisance on the Dutch island territory.

Authorities will fund the Nature Foundation St Maarten NGO to capture and euthanise at least 450 monkeys over the next three years in the territory which borders French St Martin.

Continue reading...

Underwater bike garage solves Amsterdam station’s storage headache

Posted on by

Central station is replacing its messy, overflowing cycle parking facilities with a low-cost area that’s tucked away out of sight

Beneath the clear waters and pleasure boats by Amsterdam central station is a remarkable feat of engineering: an underwater garage for 7,000 bicycles.

The garage, which opens on 26 January, is the result of a four-year, €60m (£53m) project to clear heaps of rusty bikes left by hasty commuters and install rows of clean, safe parking spaces underground, where bikes can be left free for 24 hours and then at a cost of €1.35 per 24 hours.

Continue reading...

Fears mount over safety of two missing Mexican environmental activists

Posted on by

Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca and Antonio Díaz Valencia’s bullet hole-riddled vehicle was found after an anti-mining meeting

Fears are mounting for the safety of two missing Mexican land rights activists after their vehicle was found ridden with bullet holes.

Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca, a human rights lawyer and environmentalist and Antonio Díaz Valencia, leader of the Aquila Indigenous community in Michoacán, were last seen on Sunday evening travelling toward the neighbouring state of Colima after attending an anti-mining community meeting.

Continue reading...

World’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, dies at 118

Posted on by

Sister Andrée was born in 1904 and survived an outbreak of Covid-19 in 2021 in her nursing home that killed 10 other residents

The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, has died aged 118, a spokesperson has said.

Randon, known as Sister Andrée, was born in southern France on 11 February 1904, when the first world war was still a decade away.

Continue reading...

Brazil charges 39 with staging coup after storming of government buildings

Posted on by

Bolsonaro supporters are also accused of armed criminal association and violent attempt to subvert democratic state of law

The office of Brazil’s prosecutor-general has presented its first charges against some of the thousands of people who authorities say stormed government buildings in an effort to overturn former president Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in the October election.

The prosecutors in the recently formed group to combat antidemocratic acts have also requested that the 39 defendants who allegedly ransacked the Brazilian congress building be imprisoned as a preventive measure, and that 40m reais ($7.7m) of their assets be frozen to help cover damages.

Continue reading...

Russia-Ukraine war latest: six children among dead and 19 missing following Dnipro strike

Posted on by

Death toll from Saturday’s Russian missile attack on a residential building in the Dnipro rises to 45

Rescue workers have this morning found the body of a child in the rubble of the high-rise residential building struck by Russia at the weekend, according to Ukrainian officials.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the office of president of Ukraine, posted an update to Telegram to say:

At 09.46am, the body of one dead child was found from under the rubble of a destroyed residential building on the 4th floor. A total of 41 people died (including four children), 79 people were injured (including 16 children), and 39 people were rescued (including six children).

Continue reading...

Captured mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was living in modest apartment

Posted on by

Italian investigators discover designer clothes and expensive shoes inside ‘normal’ two-storey building

The mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the world’s most-wanted criminals who had spent 30 years on the run, lived in a modest apartment in western Sicily in his final months as a free man, Italian investigators said.

Denaro, 60, who was apprehended as he came out of a well-known private clinic in Palermo, lived in a small apartment inside a two-storey yellow building in the centre of the town of Campobello di Mazara, in the province of Trapani, in the heart of his territory.

Continue reading...

Twitter ‘verified’ check marks bought by Taliban appear to have been removed

Posted on by

Afghanistan’s hardline Islamist rulers had never carried a verification tick mark before the launch of Twitter Blue

Twitter account verifications bought by the Taliban appear to have been removed, after many expressed outrage that the social media platform had given its blue check marks to Afghanistan’s hardline Islamist rulers.

Twitter previously only gave blue “verified” check marks to accounts that were considered “active, notable and authentic accounts of public interest”. But since Elon Musk acquired the platform last year, users can buy them from the Twitter Blue service for a fee – an option at least two officials of the Taliban government in Afghanistan had exercised.

Continue reading...

Ryanair enjoys record January with 2m sales in a weekend for the first time

Posted on by

Airline to continue aggressive post-Covid expansion, offering 10% more seats in the UK this summer compared with 2022

Ryanair took record numbers of bookings in January, the budget airline has announced, passing 2m sales in a weekend for the first time.

Its chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said there was no sign of a slowdown in demand despite the economic uncertainty.

Continue reading...

‘Extinction crisis’ of sharks and rays to have devastating effect on other species, study finds

Posted on by

Almost two-thirds of sharks and rays living on world’s coral reefs at risk, with 14 of 134 species reviewed critically endangered

Almost two-thirds of sharks and rays that live around the world’s coral reefs are threatened with extinction with potentially dire knock-on effects for ecosystems and coastal communities, according to new research.

Overfishing was the main cause of the declines over the past half a century, with larger sharks and rays being particularly hard hit.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Three gang members admit roles in €113m Dresden jewel heist

Posted on by

One defendant says he and unnamed accomplice broke into the Green Vault and took valuables in November 2019

Three members of a notorious criminal gang have confessed to stealing priceless 18th-century jewels from a German state museum at their trial in Dresden.

Rabieh Remmo, one of six defendants, told the regional court in the eastern city that he and an unnamed accomplice broke into the Green Vault in a brazen night-time raid in November 2019.

Continue reading...

Ukraine urges world leaders to intensify war efforts on first day at Davos

Posted on by

Kyiv officials ask allies at World Economic Forum to step up military supplies to defeat Russia

Ukraine has urged world leaders to intensify efforts to remove Vladimir Putin’s troops from its soil as the country’s war with Russia dominated the first full day of the gathering of the global elite in Davos.

With the war clouding the outlook for the global economy in 2023, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Yuliia Svyrydenko, urged the country’s allies to step up supplies of military hardware so that Russia could be more quickly defeated.

Continue reading...

Germany’s no-nonsense new defence minister faces early test over Ukraine

Posted on by

Boris Pistorius is surprise pick for role as he has a low profile in Germany and is little known internationally

A veteran but low-profile politician is to be appointed as Germany’s new defence minister, the government has announced, filling the role at a crucial time when the country is under acute pressure to increase its commitment to Ukraine, especially by allowing it the use of tanks.

Boris Pistorius, 62, who has been the interior minister of the northern state of Lower Saxony for the past decade, will face his first major task on Friday when western allies meet at the US military’s Ramstein base in south-west Germany to discuss providing Kyiv with more weapons and equipment.

Continue reading...

Vietnam president quits amid anti-corruption drive

Posted on by

Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ‘submitted resignation from assigned positions, quit job and retired’, say reports

Vietnam’s president has resigned after days of rumours he was about to be sacked as part of an anti-corruption drive that has led to several ministers being fired, according to state media reports.

Nguyen Xuan Phuc has “submitted his resignation from his assigned positions, quit his job and retired”, the VNA said.

Continue reading...

Chinese woman says she is detained in secret location after Beijing protest

Posted on by

Video purportedly shows 26-year-old editor, who accuses police of forcing her and friends to sign blank arrest warrants

A Chinese woman has accused police of forcing her and friends to sign blank arrest warrants and detaining them in secret locations over their attendance at a protest vigil in Beijing last year.

A video, purported to be of Cao Zhixin, a 26-year-old editor at Peking University Press, began spreading online on Monday. In it, Cao said she and five friends attended a riverside vigil in Beijing on 27 November, to mourn the victims of a building fire in Urumqi. The fire had been linked to the enforcement of China’s strict zero-Covid policy and became a catalyst for vigils and protests.

Continue reading...

UK government urged to honour pledge to Afghan refugees’ families

Posted on by

Exclusive: Charities and activists call on PM to follow through on pledge to allow families to resettle in UK

More than 100 charities and activists are calling on the prime minister to facilitate the resettlement of family members of thousands of Afghans who came to the UK under a government scheme.

The government pledged to resettle family members in the UK but at the moment there is no mechanism for them to do this. Campaigners have accused the government of abandoning Afghans in danger who were promised the right to reunite with family members in the UK.

Continue reading...