Category Archives: World News

Security guards at Doha World Cup park claim they are paid just 35p an hour

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Migrant workers in Qatar working as guards at Al-Bidda Park appear to get one day off a month and are housed in dirty camps on the edge of the desert

Migrant workers employed as security guards in a huge park that will be at the heart of Qatar’s World Cup festivities appear to be being paid as little as 35 pence an hour.

The men are stationed across Al Bidda Park, a pristine green space adjoining the Fifa Fan Festival. Throughout the tournament Al Bidda Park will be packed with football fans enjoying the sweeping lawns, shaded picnic spots and views over Doha. The guards interviewed are not contracted to Fifa or deployed in the Festival.

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Two Canadian men charged with shooting animals at safari park

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Mathieu Godard and Jeremiah Mathias-Polson accused of breaking into Parc Omega in Quebec and killing three wild boar and an elk

Two Canadian men have been charged with entering a safari park in Quebec and shooting three wild boar and an elk, brazen killings that have left staff at the family-themed park in shock.

Police say Mathieu Godard and Jeremiah Mathias-Polson broke through a barrier at Parc Omega on the evening of 10 November.

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Summit to be extended to Saturday as talks remain gridlocked – as it happened

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The European Union has backed a loss and damage fund, one of the key demands of developing countries at the climate talks

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The low-lying Pacific island of Tuvalu has been reacting to the EU’s proposal on “loss and damage”. Its finance minister, Seve Paeniu, called for support for phasing out all fossil fuels, language so far missing from the draft Sharm el-Sheikh agreement.

He described the EU position on loss and damage as a “breakthrough”.

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Russia-Ukraine war: remains of explosives found at Nord Stream pipeline blast site – as it happened

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

The Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency has reported that a school was struck by Ukrainian fire in the occupied region of Donetsk, one of the areas of Ukraine that the Russian Federation claims to have annexed.

It quotes the Russian-imposed mayor of Donetsk Aleksey Kulemin saying that 10 shells were fired at the central districts of the city, two of which landed in close proximity to the school. The report states that:

According to local residents, there were about five hits. Due to the fact that the shelling took place during the curfew, there were no casualties. The windows were broken, the walls in the school building were cut with shrapnel.

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Iranian protesters chant anti-regime slogans at boy’s funeral

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Footage shows mother of Kian Pirfalak telling mourners officials are ‘lying’ about cause of son’s death

Protesters at the funeral of a young boy whose family say was killed by Iranian security forces have chanted anti-regime slogans and ridiculed the official account of his death.

Hundreds of mourners flocked to the city of Izeh in south-western Iran for the funeral of Kian Pirfalak, according to footage posted online.

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EU reversal of stance on loss and damage turns the tables on China at Cop27

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China is responsible for more cumulative emissions than any country other than the US

Late on Thursday night in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Cop27 UN climate talks seemed stuck in an irretrievable logjam. Rich and poor countries had reached deadlock, a “breakdown between north and south”, according to the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

By Friday morning, the talks had been upended and the battleground dramatically redrawn, in a way it has not been in 30 years of these annual talks. At stake is the question of whether some of the world’s leading economies – countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf petrostates, Russia and countries with high per capita income such as South Korea and Singapore – should start contributing for the first time to help the poorest and most vulnerable countries with the impacts of climate disaster.

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Malaysia’s TikTok election: under-21s head to polls for first time

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Saturday’s poll is first since voting age was lowered to 18, meaning there are 6m more voters than in 2018

Malaysians will vote in a tightly contested general election on Saturday, after two weeks of fierce campaigning in which politicians have sought to woo millions of young voters by embracing Instagram and TikTok trends.

Saturday’s election is the first since constitutional changes lowered the voting age to 18 and automatically registered voters, meaning there are 6 million more voters than at the previous election in 2018. It is believed to be the first time people under 40 make up the majority of the electorate.

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‘Gross sabotage’: traces of explosives found at sites of Nord Stream gas leaks

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Swedish prosecutor says ‘complex’ investigation and analysis continue to see if suspects can be identified

Traces of explosives have been found at the sites of September’s multiple leaks from the Nord Stream gas pipelines, confirming that the breaches were the result of sabotage, Sweden’s prosecution authority has said.

“Analysis that has now been carried out shows traces of explosives on several of the objects that were recovered” from the scene in the Baltic Sea, Mats Ljungqvist, the prosecutor leading the investigation, said on Friday.

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‘Biggest challenge of my life’: Kherson’s leaders toil to turn city around

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After the euphoria of the Ukrainian city’s recapture, many of its people are living at rock bottom, lacking the basics to survive

Before the war, the problems faced by the residents of Kherson were similar to those in many European cities: salaries, corruption, addiction, the need to improve public services. Now they centre on obtaining the means of survival: water, heat, food, electricity and connection to the outside world.

Many villages in the Kherson region have been without electricity, gas and running water for months. Kherson city’s electricity and water supply was cut off about two weeks ago as the Russians fled, and not everyone had a gas supply.

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Hopes for workers’ legacy fade after ‘deafening silence’ from Qataris

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  • Trade union working with Qatar fears for World Cup legacy
  • It sees ‘no sign that sustainable change is coming’

The trade union leading attempts to improve conditions for migrant workers in Qatar has warned that a positive World Cup legacy is unlikely after proposals for a migrant workers’ centre and wider reform were met with “deafening silence” by government officials.

The Building and Wood Workers’ International has been working with the Qatari government since 2016 and was part of a collective effort that led two years to the abolition of the kafala system, under which workers could not change jobs without their employer’s permission. Union officials, however, now believe that attempts to cement change – including the creation of a migrant workers’ centre – have been stonewalled and see “no sign that sustainable change is coming”.

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Cop27: EU agrees to loss and damage fund to help poor countries amid climate disasters

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Change in stance puts spotlight on US and China, which have both objected to fund

A breakthrough looked possible in the deadlocked global climate talks on Friday as the European Union made a dramatic intervention to agree to key developing world demands on financial help for poor countries.

In the early hours of Friday at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt, the European Commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, launched a proposal on behalf of the EU that would see it agree to establishing a loss and damage fund.

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‘Something feels different’: MH17 guilty verdicts deliver ‘some justice’ for families of victims

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‘It’s what we came to hear, the missile downing mum and dad’s plane is true,’ son says

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For Matthew Horder, in an Amsterdam court to hear three men finally convicted of responsibility for the shooting down of commercial airline flight MH17, there is, finally, a sense of justice, tempered by the knowledge the men responsible for murdering his parents are not likely to see the inside of a prison cell.

Three men convicted over the fatal shooting down of MH17 on 17 July 2014 – Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinsky, and Leonid Kharchenko – have been sentenced to life imprisonment. A Dutch court held them responsible for the Buk missile launch that downed the passenger jet, killing all 298 people on board.

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Dozens of countries sign deal to curb bombing in urban areas

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Campaigners hope agreement will change military norms, though it was not endorsed by countries including Russia, Israel and China

Eighty countries led by the US, UK and France have signed a declaration in Dublin pledging to refrain from urban bombing, the first time countries have agreed to curb the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.

The international agreement is a product of more than three years of negotiation – predating the war in Ukraine – but was not endorsed by several major military powers, including Russia, China, Israel and India.

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FBI director ‘very concerned’ by reports of secret Chinese police stations in US

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Christopher Wray says the FBI is investigating the existence of stations in New York, which could violate sovereignty

The United States is deeply concerned about the Chinese government setting up unauthorised “police stations” in US cities to possibly pursue influence operations, FBI director Christopher Wray has said.

“I’m very concerned about this. We are aware of the existence of these stations,” Wray told a US Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee hearing, acknowledging the FBI’s investigative work on the issue but declining to give details.

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Brittney Griner begins sentence in remote Russian penal colony

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Lawyers say US basketball star ‘doing as well as could be expected’ at IK-2 in Mordovia, following visit

Basketball star Brittney Griner has been sent to a remote Russian penal colony to start serving her sentence, her lawyers have said.

“Brittney began serving her sentence at IK-2 in Mordovia,” lawyers Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov said in a statement.

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Gaza: at least 21 people die as fire breaks out at party in residential block

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Several more were injured as flames burst through top floor of four-storey building in Jabalia refugee camp

At least 21 people have been killed and several others injured after a fire broke out during a party in the northern Gaza Strip, in one of the deadliest recent incidents outside the violence stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It took firefighters more than an hour to gain control of the massive flames that burst through the top floor of a four-storey residential building in the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip.

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Torture van found as suspected Israeli gang leader held in South Africa raid

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Police say drugs and gun also found at Johannesburg property where they detained wanted Abergil gang member and seven others

A man reputed to be one of Israel’s most wanted gang leaders has been arrested during a raid on a home in an affluent Johannesburg suburb where South African authorities said they also found guns, drugs and a van equipped for torture.

South African police said on Thursday that the 46-year-old Israeli was a member of the Abergil gang, which deals in drug trafficking and extortion, and that he was wanted in Israel for several attempted murders.

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Charlize Theron sparks anger after claiming Afrikaans facing oblivion

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Hollywood actor criticised by South Africans after saying settler language ‘not very helpful’

Charlize Theron has prompted anger in her native South Africa after suggesting that Afrikaans, a language descended from Dutch colonial settlers, is heading for oblivion.

“There’s about 44 people still speaking it … it’s definitely a dying language, it’s not a very helpful language,” the 47-year-old Oscar-winning actor said this week on a US podcast, Smartless.

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Alaa Abd el-Fattah exhausted and weak, family say after visit

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The activist’s mother was allowed to visit her son for the first time in nearly a month on Thursday

The family of the British-Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah say his health has visibly deteriorated due to the escalation of his hunger strike, after being allowed to visit him on Thursday.

It was the first time the activist’s mother, Laila Soueif, had been allowed to visit him in nearly a month. Prison authorities repeatedly denied her access last week.

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Quebec man charged with terrorism over alleged Haiti coup plot

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Gerald Nicolas, 51, accused of conspiring to overthrow government of Jovenel Moïse, who was later assassinated in separate plot

Canadian police have charged a Quebec man with terrorism over allegations he conspired to overthrow the government of the late Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, who was later assassinated in a separate plot.

Gerald Nicolas, 51, stands accused of leaving Canada to facilitate a terrorist activity, facilitating a terrorist activity and providing property for terrorist purposes, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said on Thursday.

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