Category Archives: World News

Kyiv facing ‘sharp deterioration’ in electric supply after Russian strikes

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Supplier tells people living in and around city that blackouts could last ‘a lot longer’ than previously planned

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukrainians living in and around Kyiv have been told of a “sharp deterioration” in the region’s electricity supply after a fresh wave of Russian strikes aimed at sapping public morale as the country’s cold winter approaches.

A local energy supplier, Yasno, warned that existing blackouts could last a lot longer than a previously planned schedule of four-hour outages and that the capital already faced an electricity deficit of about 30% or more.

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Fears Bolsonaro may not accept defeat as son cries fraud before Brazil election

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Claim of ‘greatest electoral fraud ever seen’ raises concern that far-right president is echoing Donald Trump’s playbook

Fears are growing that Jair Bolsonaro could refuse to accept defeat in Brazil’s crunch election this Sunday after his politician son claimed Brazil’s far-right president was the victim of “the greatest electoral fraud ever seen” amid unproven allegations of foul play.

The assertion from the president’s senator son, Flávio Bolsonaro, was almost identical to language used by Donald Trump – Bolsonaro’s most prominent international backer – after he lost the 2020 US election to Joe Biden.

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Canada conservatives under scrutiny for inviting murderer to tough-on-crime speech

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Ex-provincial minister convicted over death of his wife attended speech arguing government is ‘too lenient’ on violent offenders

The conservative government of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is under scrutiny after a convicted murderer was invited to attend its tough-on-crime speech.

On Wednesday the province’s lieutenant governor, Russell Mirasty, presented the throne speech, outlining the conservative administration’s agenda and arguing the federal government was “too lenient” on violent offenders.

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Police investigate claim of secret Chinese police stations in Canada

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RCMP looking into ‘reports of criminal activity’ surrounding facilities allegedly used to pressure Chinese nationals abroad

Canada’s federal police force is investigating reports that clandestine Chinese “police stations” are operating in Toronto amid reports of a global network used to target overseas dissidents.

The Royal Canada Mounted Police said it was investigating “reports of criminal activity in relation to the so-called ‘police’ stations” but did not specify the location of the sites.

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Iran protests reignite at funerals and commemorations for those killed

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Protesters turn out in dozens of towns and appear to take control of largely Kurdish city of Mahabad

Protests against the Iranian government have suddenly regained momentum as funerals for those killed and a highly emotional commemoration of the movement have stretched security forces drawn into a further cycle of arrests and repression.

Dozens of towns were rocked by protests on Wednesday night as mainly young crowds used the cover of darkness to mark the 40th day since Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in police custody, sparking unprecedented unrest.

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Spain’s new citizenship law for Franco exiles offers hope in Latin America

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Consulates inundated with inquiries, with 700,000 descendants thought to be entitled to fast-track nationality

Once Spaniards looked across el charco (the pond) for refuge. Now traffic is expected to go the other way after Spain passed a law granting citizenship to the grandchildren of people exiled under the Franco dictatorship.

Lawyers and consulates in central and South America say they have been inundated with inquiries after the passing of the democratic memory law, which seeks “to settle Spanish democracy’s debt to its past”. It is estimated that as many as 700,000 people could be eligible for citizenship under the law, which passed the upper house of parliament on 5 October and came into effect on 21 October.

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Credit Suisse to cut 9,000 jobs and seek billions in new investment

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Shake-up aims to draw line under series of scandals and new £3.5bn loss at Swiss bank

Credit Suisse has disclosed sweeping plans to cut 9,000 jobs and raise billions of pounds from investors in a Saudi-led funding round, as part of a company-wide overhaul meant to draw a line under a series of scandals and help it recover from a £3.5bn loss.

The announcement follows months of speculation over the scale of change scheduled under its new boss, Ulrich Körner, who has been tasked with scaling back the investment bank and slashing costs.

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We need to talk about Xi Jinping: G7’s discord over powerful trading partner

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Disagreements have opened up about strategy when China is also seen as an existential threat

Western powers in the G7 group of nations are failing to coordinate their China strategies, senior western officials admit, adding that the need to do so has been given sharp impetus by Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power at this month’s Communist party congress.

The G7’s poor coordination reflects a deep disagreement, also reflected within the EU, about whether dialogue and trade with China have a future if Beijing is seen as an existential threat that requires strict strategic controls on economic ties.

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Mexico falls back but won’t spring forward as summer time abolished

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Congress votes to scrap daylight savings and just keep standard time, meaning end to changing clocks twice a year

Pedro López, an office worker in the Mexican state of Veracruz, gets up before dawn, and drives in the moonlight an hour and a half to his job. “Leaving my house in the dark every single day and driving under the moon is horrible, especially in a landscape as beautiful as Veracruz,” he said.

But, for half a year at least, he’ll be driving in the sunlight. Mexico’s congress voted on Wednesday to abolish summer time, and when Mexicans set their clocks back this weekend, it will be for the last time. In March, they will not be turned forward.

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Bolsonaro’s campaign relies on ‘secret budget’ payoffs to win Brazil’s election

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The government slush fund, which amounts to about one-fifth of the entire discretionary spending budget, has little or no oversight

When historians write books about why so many Brazilians voted for the far-right they will justifiably focus on ideological, political and social issues. But there is another key reason why President Jair Bolsonaro is still competitive as Sunday’s runoff ballot approaches: he’s handing out billions from a government slush fund.

The fund is known as the “secret budget” because there is little or no oversight over where the money goes once it is handed to lawmakers.

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Federal budget 2022 reply speech live: opposition leader Peter Dutton to respond to Labor’s October budget – latest updates

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Leader of the opposition to give his reply to the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ first budget. Follow the day’s news live

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi will give notice of a private senator’s bill she will introduce today aiming to halt the indexation on student loans and increase the repayment threshold to above the median wage.

Faruqi says it is one way which would help ease the cost of living burden on people with student debt:

Student debt is no small problem. About three million people in Australia have the burden of student debt.

At a time when the cost of living is biting hard, governments can no longer ignore the student debt crisis and its impacts.

What we have said all the time is that we want wages to grow, and we want them to stay growing. Not to have a short-term growth and then have at the expense of potentially higher unemployment.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is we’ve got to get an IR system that drives productivity. That’s not about working harder for less, it’s about working smarter. It’s about creating the environment where people use new technology, where they innovate, where they share ideas, where they open new markets, where they have more skilled people.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin rails against ‘west’ in latest speech; Kyiv faces longer and stricter blackouts after attacks – as it happened

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Russian president addresses Valdai discussion club; Ukrainian capital to face more power outages after energy supplies hit

Russian forces struck the power grid in central regions of Ukraine overnight and further electricity supply restrictions are possible, the Reuters news agency quotes the grid operator Ukrenergo as saying.

Russia has stepped up its strikes on crucial Ukrainian infrastructure including the power grid in recent weeks, leaving millions without electricity or heating for lengthy periods of time as winter approaches.

Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike. We are talking about the involvement of components of civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, by the United States and its allies in armed conflicts.

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Shell doubles its profits to $9.5bn as call for windfall tax grows

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Oil giant to boost dividends as firm continues to benefit from energy price spike after Ukraine invasion

Shell has reported profits of nearly $9.5bn (£8.2bn) between July and September, more than double the amount it made during the same period a year earlier, as it said it would increase its payments to shareholders.

The oil company continued to benefit from soaring energy prices prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it was not able to match the record $11.5bn profit it earned between April and June, because of weaker refining and gas trading.

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Open letter to top publisher condemns $2m Amy Coney Barrett book deal

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More than 250 literary figures rail against acquisition by Penguin Random House of book by conservative US supreme court justice

Nearly 250 figures from the US literary world have signed an open letter protesting the acquisition by Penguin Random House of a book by the conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The hardline Catholic conservative was Donald Trump’s third appointee, her nomination rushed through by Senate Republicans after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal lion, shortly before the 2020 election.

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Climate crisis funds not reaching countries in need, senior UN official says

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With famine in Somalia almost inevitable, Martin Griffiths criticises opaque handling of $100bn a year promised to poorer countries

The UN’s humanitarian chief has questioned why billions of dollars pledged to tackle the climate crisis have not been used to fight famine in Somalia.

Martin Griffiths said he did not know where the promised $100bn (£87bn) a year to fight the impact of global heating in poorer countries had gone, and called for greater transparency around climate finance.

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China locks down part of Wuhan, nearly three years after first Covid case emerged

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More than 800,000 people locked down in site of world’s first Covid outbreak in 2019, as other Chinese cities seal up streets and homes

Chinese cities from Wuhan in central China to Xining in the north-west are doubling down on Covid-19 curbs, sealing up buildings, locking down districts and throwing millions into distress in a scramble to halt widening outbreaks.

China on Thursday reported a third straight day of more than 1,000 new Covid cases nationwide, a modest tally compared with the tens of thousands a day that sent Shanghai into a full-blown lockdown earlier this year but enough to trigger more curbs and restrictions across the country.

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New Zealand influencers detained in Iran ‘extremely relieved’ to be home

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NZ government facing accusations that its response to Iran protests has been muted in order to secure release of pair

Two New Zealand influencers who were detained for nearly four months in Iran have said they are “extremely relieved” to be out of the country and back with family.

Christopher “Topher” Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray were on a trip they called Expedition Earth; driving a Jeep through 70 countries to “promote environmental issues” and documenting their travels on Instagram. They disappeared in early July, shortly after they were questioned by authorities upon entering Iran. The pair are understood to have been kept in the country by security forces.

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Iran: gunmen kill at least 15 people at Shia shrine in Shiraz

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Attack takes place same day security forces reportedly open fire at mourners in Mahsa Amini’s hometown

Armed men have attacked a Shia Muslim shrine in the Iranian city of Shiraz, killing at least 15 people, the state news agency Irna said, as security forces clashed with protesters marking 40 days since the death of Mahsa Amini in custody.

Irna described the attackers as “takfiri terrorists”, a label used by officials in predominantly Shia Muslim Iran to refer to hardline, armed Sunni Islamist groups. The attack was later claimed by Islamic State in a statement posted on the terror group’s telegram channel.

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Finnish MPs abolish need to see two doctors before abortion

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Pregnant woman’s request will be sufficient to obtain procedure without need for further reasons

Lawmakers in Finland have approved a legislative reform that will ease the process of getting an abortion in the country, which currently has the Nordic region’s strictest abortion law.

Finland’s 200-seat Eduskunta legislature on Wednesday voted by a wide margin 125-41 in favour of a law reform that will, among other things, abolish the need for approval from two doctors to terminate a pregnancy.

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French-German friendship ‘still alive’ as Macron meets Scholz amid tensions

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Two leaders under pressure to repair relations after rifts over defence, energy and China

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, hosted the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for lunch on Wednesday as they sought to iron out significant differences on energy and defence that have weakened their relationship at a time of war in Ukraine.

Both leaders, whose countries are seen as the joint driving force of the European Union, made an effort to smile as Scholz emerged from his black Mercedes at the Élysée Palace to shake hands, but the German chancellor appeared to sidestep Macron’s attempts to put an arm around him.

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