World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

Democrats reclaim power as Nancy Pelosi elected House speaker
Third woman enters Indian temple amid protests at lifting of ban
'One giant leap': China's Chang'e 4 rover Jade Rabbit 2 sets off on moon mission
Tropical Storm Pabuk makes landfall on Thailand's east coast
German politicians’ personal data hacked and posted online
US halts cooperation with UN on potential human rights violations
Canada says 13 citizens detained in China since Huawei CFO's arrest
Caroline Lucas urges parliament to 'seriously consider' tax on meat
Screen time not intrinsically bad for children, say doctors
'I can do it in robes': Japanese monks post videos in protest at driving fine
'What is the sea telling us?': Māori tribes fearful over whale strandings | Eleanor Ainge Roy
Naval ship deployed to Channel to intercept refugee vessels
Donald Trump has a point – the world should start solving its own problems | Simon Jenkins
Schoolgirls in Kenya to face compulsory tests for pregnancy and FGM
Jazmine Barnes: FBI joins search for man who fatally shot seven-year-old
'It's like 1984': Venezuela targets human rights defenders
'There won't be anything left': Tropical Storm Pabuk reaches Thailand – video
Smoke plume from Tasmania bushfire turns sky red over Hobart
'My parents sold me': poverty drives trade in child brides in Zimbabwe | Nyasha Chingono
Somalia expels top UN official over 'interference with internal affairs'
Experts urge Egypt to rethink two-child population strategy
China thinks it can arbitrarily detain anyone. It is time for change | Michael Caster
Why 'good populism' is the wrong strategy to fight 'bad populism' | Cas Mudde
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing in college – video
'Transparency will be the order of the day': Nancy Pelosi elected House speaker – video
Searching for scrap in Guatemala City – in pictures

Democrats reclaim power as Nancy Pelosi elected House speaker

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 07:49 PM PST

House tests new power by passing bills to end the government shutdown, but legislation is unlikely to break impasse

Bid to discredit Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with college dance video backfires

Democrats reclaimed power in the House on Thursday and officially elected Nancy Pelosi to be the next speaker, returning her to a position for which she made history as the first woman elected to the office.

The California Democrat earned 220 votes from a total of 430 members present, while Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, won 192.

Third woman enters Indian temple amid protests at lifting of ban

Posted: 04 Jan 2019 12:26 AM PST

Police say situation is 'normal for now' after clashes leave one man dead and many injured

A third woman has entered a flashpoint temple in southern India, stoking tensions after two days of clashes between Hindu hardliners and police.

The Sabarimala temple in Kerala state has been at the centre of a prolonged showdown since September, when India's supreme court overturned a ban on women aged 10 to 50 setting foot inside.

'One giant leap': China's Chang'e 4 rover Jade Rabbit 2 sets off on moon mission

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 10:07 PM PST

Project leader echoes Neil Armstrong's quote after rover's successful separation from lander

China's space agency has posted the first photo of its Chang'e 4 lunar rover on the far side of the moon after its groundbreaking touchdown on Thursday.

The rover – named Yutu 2, or Jade Rabbit 2 – left the spacecraft, drove off a ramp and began making tracks on the moon's surface at 10.22pm on Thursday, about 12 hours after Chang'e 4 landed.

Tropical Storm Pabuk makes landfall on Thailand's east coast

Posted: 04 Jan 2019 12:43 AM PST

Tourist resorts of Koh Samui, Koh Tao and Koh Phangan expected to be hardest hit

Rain, winds and surging seawater buffeted coastal villages and tourist resorts as Tropical Storm Pabuk made landfall on southern Thailand's east coast.

The storm, with maximum sustained winds of 42mph (70kph), made shore at Nakhon Si Thammarat province on Friday afternoon and headed westward at 12mph, said Phuwieng Prakhammintara, the director general of the national meteorological department.

German politicians’ personal data hacked and posted online

Posted: 04 Jan 2019 01:53 AM PST

Members of all major parties except for far-right AfD affected by breach, report says

Hackers have posted personal data from hundreds of German politicians, including credit card details and mobile phone numbers.

US halts cooperation with UN on potential human rights violations

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 10:00 PM PST

Exclusive: State department has ceased to respond to complaints from special rapporteurs in move that sends 'dangerous message' to other countries

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The Trump administration has stopped cooperating with UN investigators over potential human rights violations occurring inside America, in a move that delivers a major blow to vulnerable US communities and sends a dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world.

Canada says 13 citizens detained in China since Huawei CFO's arrest

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 07:37 PM PST

Diplomatic tensions between the two countries have escalated since Meng Wanzhou's arrest on 1 December

Canada has said 13 of its citizens have been detained in China since the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in December in Vancouver at the request of the US.

"At least" eight of those 13 have since been released, a Canadian government statement said, without disclosing what charges if any had been laid.

Caroline Lucas urges parliament to 'seriously consider' tax on meat

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 10:00 PM PST

Exclusive: Green MP will tell Oxford Farming Conference UK must prioritise sustainability

Parliament must "seriously consider" levying a tax on meat to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help to render the farming industry carbon neutral, the Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, is urging.

She will say on Friday that a meat tax in the UK could be offset for more sustainable meat producers, such as organic livestock farmers, through more money for sustainable agriculture schemes.

Screen time not intrinsically bad for children, say doctors

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 10:30 PM PST

Device use may not be issue if parents supervise other areas of children's lives, study claims

Spending time looking at screens is not intrinsically bad for children's health, say the UK's leading children's doctors, who are advising parents to focus on ensuring their children get enough sleep, exercise and family interaction rather than clamping down on phones and laptops.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has produced the first guidance for parents on how long children should spend on their laptops and phones, which throws the ball firmly back into the parents' court.

'I can do it in robes': Japanese monks post videos in protest at driving fine

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 08:27 PM PST

Videos showing monks skateboarding and skipping were posted after monk fined for driving while wearing robes

Buddhist monks in Japan have posted videos on social media to prove their traditional attire is no obstacle to safe driving after one of their brethren was fined.

Police said an officer had stopped the unnamed monk, who is in his 40s, on a road in Fukui prefecture in western Japan earlier this year and told him he could not drive in his "constricting" sōi robes.

'What is the sea telling us?': Māori tribes fearful over whale strandings | Eleanor Ainge Roy

Posted: 02 Jan 2019 11:00 PM PST

New Zealand's whale whisperers worry that manmade changes in the ocean are behind the spike in beachings

Whale whisperer Hori Parata was just seven years old when he attended his first mass stranding, a beaching of porpoises in New Zealand's Northland, their cries screeching through the air on the deserted stretch of sand.

Seven decades later, Parata, 75, has now overseen more than 500 strandings and is renowned in New Zealand as the leading Māori whale expert, called on by tribes around the country for cultural guidance as marine strandings become increasingly complex and fatal.

Naval ship deployed to Channel to intercept refugee vessels

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 03:30 PM PST

HMS Mersey's mission follows request for military assistance from the home secretary, Sajid Javid

The Royal Navy patrol vessel HMS Mersey has been deployed to the Channel to help deal with people attempting to cross to the UK from France, ministers have confirmed.

The move came after a formal request for military assistance from the home secretary, Sajid Javid. The deployment will be financed by the Home Office.

Donald Trump has a point – the world should start solving its own problems | Simon Jenkins

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:33 PM PST

For all his antics on the Mexican border, the US president is right to be withdrawing troops from Syria

For a Briton to spend time in the US just now is a blessed relief. Whole days pass, and no talk of Brexit. It is as if a pall has lifted from the art of conversation. But the US has its own deep divide, slashing through the populist body politic. It is Donald Trump and "America first".

Trump has become a phenomenon. Like Samson in the temple, he seems able to topple the entire edifice of policy. Down crashes America's government machine for the sake of a wall, world trade is devastated, stock markets plummet, alliances lie in ruins. It is astonishing what one man can do to the world, virtually alone.

Schoolgirls in Kenya to face compulsory tests for pregnancy and FGM

Posted: 04 Jan 2019 02:00 AM PST

Girls in Narok County will be made to reveal identities of babies' fathers and tell police about female genital mutilation

Plans to subject schoolgirls in Kenya to mandatory tests for female genital mutilation and pregnancy are a violation of victims' privacy, campaigners have warned.

All girls returning to school this week in Narok, Kenya, will be examined at local health facilities as part of a countywide crackdown.

Jazmine Barnes: FBI joins search for man who fatally shot seven-year-old

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:00 PM PST

Barnes was in a car with her mother and sisters when a man fired into the vehicle, in what some fear was a racist attack

The FBI has joined local law enforcement in a Texas manhunt to locate the suspect who shot and killed a seven-year-old girl in a drive-by shooting in Houston on Sunday. Prominent local and national activists have put up $100,000 in reward money for the man's capture as outrage grows over what some suspect may have been a racist attack.

The victim, Jazmine Barnes, was riding in the car with her mother, LaPorsha Washington, and three sisters, leaving a Walmart, when authorities say a man in a red pick up truck pulled up alongside them and fired into the vehicle. The gunfire killed Jazmine and wounded Washington, as well as her six-year-old daughter, who has not been identified.

'It's like 1984': Venezuela targets human rights defenders

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:00 PM PST

Amid Venezuela's collapse, Nicolás Maduro has locked up those accused of criticizing his regime – often without due process

Geraldine Chacón, a 24-year-old lawyer from Caracas, went four months without seeing the sun while a prisoner in the Helicoide, the feared hillside prison complex administered by Venezuela's secret police, where she was denied access to sunlight, water and food.

"The guards told me I was a political prisoner, and for that I don't get anything," said Chacón, speaking by phone from Caracas, where she is on conditional release. "Without seeing the sun, you lose a sense of time, you don't know if it's day or night – it's horrible."

'There won't be anything left': Tropical Storm Pabuk reaches Thailand – video

Posted: 04 Jan 2019 01:50 AM PST

Rain, heavy wind and seawater lashed coastal villages and tourist resorts on the east coast of southern Thailand as Tropical Storm Pabuk made landfall. Authorities fear Pabuk could be the worst tropical storm to hit the country since 1989

Tropical Storm Pabuk makes landfall on Thailand's east coast

Smoke plume from Tasmania bushfire turns sky red over Hobart

Posted: 04 Jan 2019 12:31 AM PST

Fire in world heritage area threatens six towns as Victoria experiences dramatic temperature swings

An out of control bushfire burning in the Tasmanian world heritage area has threatened six towns and sent thick smoke across Hobart and Port Arthur, as Victoria experienced a day of wild temperature changes that brought a dangerous bushfire close to east Gippsland towns.

The sky over Hobart turned a dramatic red on Friday morning as the smoke plume stretched for hundreds of kilometres across the state.

'My parents sold me': poverty drives trade in child brides in Zimbabwe | Nyasha Chingono

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 11:00 PM PST

Married off at 13, Maureen lost her education and her health. Her plight is common in a country racked by economic turmoil

The end of Maureen's days at a primary school in north-eastern Zimbabwe marked the beginning of her life as a wife.

At 13, the brightest student in her class in Mudzi, Mashonaland, she was married to a man three times her age.

Somalia expels top UN official over 'interference with internal affairs'

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 07:07 AM PST

Nicholas Haysom told to leave after urging inquiry into civilian casualties during protests over former al-Shabaab leader's arrest

Somalia has asked the UN secretary general's special envoy to leave the country "as soon as possible" after accusing him of "interfering with the country's internal affairs".

A statement from the ministry of foreign affairs on Tuesday declared top UN official Nicholas Haysom persona non grata. The ministry said that Haysom "is not required and cannot work in this country".

Experts urge Egypt to rethink two-child population strategy

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 05:37 AM PST

Medics say limiting families s not the answer for a country where a baby is born every 15 seconds

In the cramped office of New Cairo hospital's family planning clinic, Safah Hosny sets a box overflowing with contraceptives next to the visitors' ledger on a small desk.

There are eight condoms for one Egyptian pound, about 4p, or ampoules of injectable birth control, for just under 9p. A contraceptive implant lasting three years costs 22p, while copper IEDs – the most popular form of birth control on offer according to Dr Hosny – cost 17p.

China thinks it can arbitrarily detain anyone. It is time for change | Michael Caster

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 06:02 PM PST

The lack of global outcry over the detention of two Canadians virtually guarantees the next such case

Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has called China's detention of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor a "worrying precedent" but for many China watchers it is all too familiar.

It reminds us of the detentions of other foreign citizens, such as Canadian Kevin Garratt, Briton Peter Humphrey, Sweden's Gui Minhai, or Taiwanese Lee Ming-che, and that over the years China has institutionalised arbitrary and secret detention affecting innumerable Chinese citizens, and with little international consequence.

Why 'good populism' is the wrong strategy to fight 'bad populism' | Cas Mudde

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 03:00 AM PST

Many traditional parties are trying to co-opt the agenda of the radical right in order to defeat them. But various elections in 2018 reveal the limits of that approach

After the Dutch parliamentary elections of March 2017, the prime minister, Mark Rutte, triumphantly declared that "good populism" had defeated "bad populism", a claim eagerly and uncritically repeated in media around the world. It confirmed received wisdom that the best way to defeat the populist radical right, is to co-opt a moderate version of their agenda, while excluding the party itself.

Few cared that Rutte's claim rested on dubious empirical grounds: compared with the 2012 election, Rutte actually lost big (-5.2%), whereas Geert Wilder's Party for Freedom (PVV) made gains (+3.0%) and was joined by a new far-right party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), with 1.8%, making their combined scored of 14.9%. That's less than one percentage point lower than the PVV's high score of 15.45% in 2010.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing in college – video

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 08:04 PM PST

An attempt to humiliate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the day she was sworn in as the youngest ever US Congresswoman has backfired impressively, prompting a huge outpouring of support for her

• Bid to discredit Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with college dance video backfires

'Transparency will be the order of the day': Nancy Pelosi elected House speaker – video

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 02:19 PM PST

Democrats reclaimed power in the House of Representatives on Thursday and officially elected Nancy Pelosi as the next speaker. Pelosi, who had previously served as speaker from 2007-2011, became the first former speaker to win re-election since Sam Rayburn in 1955

Democrats reclaim power as Nancy Pelosi elected House speaker

Searching for scrap in Guatemala City – in pictures

Posted: 03 Jan 2019 02:35 AM PST

Workers known as guajeros descend daily to search for recyclable items at one of the biggest rubbish dumps in Guatemala City. Hundreds carry out the work, which is dangerous due to mudslides and collapses but can earn them nearly twice the minimum daily wage