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

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


Asia Bibi: Pakistan’s top court upholds blasphemy acquittal

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 01:54 AM PST

Christian woman who spent eight years on death row now free to leave country

Pakistan's top court has upheld the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, meaning she is free to leave the country.

Bibi, who spent eight years on death row, has been held at a secret location since her death sentence was quashed after hardline Islamists threatened to kill her if she was freed.

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Huawei: China calls US charges 'immoral' as markets slide

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:13 PM PST

  • Grand juries indict company, affiliates and CFO on 23 charges
  • Attorney general says offending went 'all the way to the top'

China has blasted the US government's indictments against Huawei as "unfair and immoral" and urged Washington to stop its "unreasonable suppression" of the Chinese telecommunications company after it was charged with a series of offences.

In an escalation of hostilities between the world's biggest economic powers, the US justice department charged Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, with conspiring to violate sanctions on Iran by doing business with Tehran through a subsidiary it tried to hide. Separately, it said Huawei stole robotic technology from the US carrier T-Mobile.

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Brexit: EU dismisses Tory compromise plan as unworkable

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 01:39 AM PST

Brussels sceptical about Irish border proposal backed by Brexiters and remainers

A plan from rival Conservative factions aimed at securing a breakthrough in the Brexit impasse has been greeted with immediate scepticism from EU officials, who said the proposals are not workable.

Senior Tory Brexit supporters including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker hatched the plan with leading remainers including Nicky Morgan and Stephen Hammond.

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Cameroon arrests opposition leader who claims he won 2018 election

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 01:39 AM PST

Maurice Kamto and other opposition members arrested following protests against election result

A Cameroonian opposition leader who claims he won last year's election has been arrested.

Police held Maurice Kamto and several other opposition figures. One was pulled out of his hospital bed where he was recovering from gunshot wounds sustained at a protest against the country's longtime president, Paul Biya.

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Trump steps up Maduro pressure with sanctions on Venezuelan oil company

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 04:09 PM PST

  • Sanctions on $7bn in assets intended to boost Guaidó
  • John Bolton keen to counter 'penetration' from Cuba and Iran

The Trump administration has tightened the screws on Venezuela's embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, announcing sanctions against the country's state-owned oil company PDVSA in what the US national security adviser admitted was partly an attempt to counter strategic threats from Cuba and Iran.

Related: Juan Guaidó: Venezuela has chance to leave chaos behind

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Joshua Tree national park 'may take 300 years to recover' from shutdown

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 04:51 PM PST

National park saw 'irreparable' damage including vandalism, ruined trails and trees cut down, says former superintendent

The former superintendent of Joshua Tree national park has said it could take hundreds of years to recover from damage caused by visitors during the longest-ever government shutdown.

"What's happened to our park in the last 34 days is irreparable for the next 200 to 300 years," Curt Sauer said at a rally over the weekend, according to a report from the Desert Sun. Sauer retired in 2010 after running the park for seven years.

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India's main opposition promises universal basic income for poor

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:21 PM PST

Ruling party dismisses Congress leader's election pledge as unaffordable

India's main opposition Congress party has said it will implement a variation of a universal basic income (UBI) targeted at the poor if it wins the country's upcoming national election.

The announcement, dismissed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) as financially irresponsible, is the first major shot in an election battle likely to be replete with populist giveaways to voters.

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Apple rushes to fix FaceTime bug that let users eavesdrop on others

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 01:21 AM PST

Firm disables Group FaceTime over serious glitch which can also turn on video without people's knowledge

Apple has made the group functionality on its FaceTime application temporarily unavailable as it rushes to fix a glitch that allowed users to listen in on the people they were calling when they did not pick up the call. Under certain circumstances, the glitch also allowed callers to see video of the person they were calling before they picked up.

The Guardian confirmed the existence of the bug, which was first reported by 9to5Mac. It turned the phone of the recipient of a FaceTime call into a microphone while the call was still ringing. If the recipient of the call pressed the power button on the side of the iPhone – an action typically used to silence or ignore an incoming call – their phone would begin broadcasting video to the initial caller.

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Dutch man's epic 89,000km drive proves electric cars are viable in Australia

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 10:42 PM PST

By driving such extreme distances, Wiebe Wakker hopes to bust Australian anxieties about electric vehicles

A Dutch man who has driven 89,000km from Amsterdam to Adelaide in a small electric car says he is proving to Australians that electric vehicles are a viable alternative.

Since March 2016, adventurer Wiebe Wakker has driven across 33 countries from Europe to the Middle East to south-east Asia and finally to Australia in a 2009 Volkswagen Golf, converted to electric.

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Outcry after Duke administrator warns Chinese students to speak English

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 05:58 PM PST

University apologizes and opens investigation as email sent to foreign scholars denounced as discriminatory

Duke University moved quickly Monday to offer apologies, launch an investigation and reassure a core group of graduate scholars after a medical school administrator sent an email warning to Chinese students to speak in English.

Outcry mounted after an email sent Friday by Megan Neely, who teaches in the biostatistics master's degree program and served as its director of graduate studies.

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Mosques from Quebec to Texas seek to balance security with openness

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 02:00 AM PST

The planned transformation of Quebec's Grand Mosque is haunted by a deadly attack on the Islamic centre in 2017

Until 29 January 2017, random motorists on the busy Chemin Sainte-Foy would sometimes pull over to the Quebec City Grand Mosque to withdraw some money.

Converted from a Desjardins Bank, it still looks like one, with its rows of rectangular glass panes and a barricaded drive-through. Its only crescent and minaret are in graphic form on a small plastic sign, blocked from the road by trees.

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Tollywood confidential: inside the world's biggest film city

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:30 PM PST

The next 15 megacities #11: As Hyderabad heads towards megacity status, its film industry is going from strength to strength. Its secret? Cutting-edge VFX and filming in multiple languages

It is rush hour on Monday morning in Hyderabad, but the city's usual deafening soundtrack of revving engines and blaring horns is absent. The only noise comes from a woman gently sweeping the veranda of one of the large, pastel-coloured mansions nearby. The silence is even more disconcerting when you see the airport near the end of the street, and, just beyond that, a railway station. New York's Statue of Liberty is a short walk away, as is the splendour of the ancient city of Mahishmati. In fact, Mahishmati is the first place here where I encounter any real noise – the blue special effects screens around the fibreglass throne area are rather flimsy, and a buzz from power tools carries from the adjoining parking lot, where workers are building a pirate ship.

We are in Ramoji Film City, the largest film studio in the world and the beating heart of Tollywood, India's Telugu-language film industry. And although Ramoji is technically part of Hyderabad, in reality – with its (real) hotels, workshops, soundstages, gardens, post office, banks and restaurants – it is a metropolis in and of itself.

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From Le Pen to Alice Weidel: how the European far-right set its sights on women

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 02:00 AM PST

In far-right populist parties across the continent, a new generation of angry white women are rising to leadership roles. Why are they turning to groups that have traditionally opposed feminism?

It was a chastening lesson for any woman tempted to join the cut and thrust of rightwing populism. After Corinna Miazga was elected to the German parliament in 2017 for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, a male colleague suggested she would be better suited to being a pole dancer than an MP.

Miazga did not let it rest, getting her own back by telling a party conference of the lewd intervention by fellow MP Petr Bystron. "An 'Argh' went up in the audience," she recalls. "No one could quite believe I'd dared to reveal this. Many people in the AfD were subsequently angry at me. They said: 'We know you're cross, but by bringing this into the public arena, you'll encourage people to say we have a male-female problem in the party.'"

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UK weather: Met Office warns of snow and ice as temperatures plunge

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 12:41 AM PST

Up to 10cm of snow expected on higher ground with 'patchy' snowfall likely elsewhere

Weather warnings for snow and ice have been issued for large parts of the UK, with up to 10cm (4in) of snow expected to fall on higher ground as temperatures drop.

A band of wet weather that could fall as rain, sleet or snow is expected to push from west to east during Tuesday morning, affecting Wales, northern England and Scotland. As the day progresses, the wintry weather will move across the Midlands and into the south-east.

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Brexit vote: Liam Fox says May now insisting withdrawal deal text must be rewritten - Politics live

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 02:07 AM PST

Rolling coverage of the Commons debate on Brexit, including probable votes on Graham Brady's anti-backstop amendment and Yvette Cooper's ruling out no deal

The plan from rival Conservative factions aimed at securing a breakthrough in the Brexit impasse has been greeted with immediate scepticism from EU officials, who said the proposals are not workable, my colleagues Matthew Weaver and Daniel Boffey report.

Related: Brexit: EU dismisses Tory compromise plan as unworkable

"The Malthouse Compromise" after @kitmalthouse, who brought us together

We need to get out of the EU on time and with a functioning government.

This is how. #Brexit https://t.co/mB9vmdkX90

A question from BTL.

8.30am: Theresa May chairs a political cabinet. Later, at 9.30am, there will be a normal cabinet too.

@Andrew

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Laura Plummer tells of relief at release from Egyptian prison

Posted: 29 Jan 2019 12:21 AM PST

Woman jailed for carrying painkillers says she cannot wait to get home to the UK

A British woman released from jail in Egypt has spoken of her relief at being able to return to the UK.

Laura Plummer, 34, from Hull, was sentenced to three years in prison on Boxing Day in 2017 for taking 290 tramadol tablets into the country.

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Let Me Finish review: Everybody hates Chris Christie – and he hates Jared Kushner

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 10:00 PM PST

The former New Jersey governor spares Donald Trump but lashes out at everyone else. The result is a political tour de farce

Chris Christie failed to a win a single delegate in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, and garnered less than 1% of the votes cast in the GOP primary. He then left the New Jersey governor's mansion with a 14% approval rating. Let Me Finish, his bombshell of a book, could just as easily have been titled Everybody Hates Chris.

Related: Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political 'hit job' in explosive new book

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Chinese activist Liu Feiyue given five years' jail for 'inciting subversion'

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:46 PM PST

Flawed trial shows how Beijing abuses the judicial system to silence dissent, says Amnesty International

The founder of a prominent Chinese civil and human rights website has been sentenced to five years in prison for inciting state subversion, according to human rights organisations.

Liu Feiyue created and ran the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, which covers a range of rights issues including protests, police abuses and government corruption – sensitive topics that are scrubbed from most Chinese media sites.

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Three homes destroyed by bushfires in southern Tasmania

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:55 PM PST

Fire service warns more properties could be lost in Castle Forbes Bay area as crews battle multiple blazes across the state

Three properties have been destroyed by fires in Tasmania and the state's fire service has warned more property could be lost as 12 emergency warnings remained in place on Tuesday afternoon.

The Tasmania Fire Service confirmed on Tuesday that three homes had been destroyed on Frypan and Bermuda roads in Glen Huon, in southern Tasmania, as a result of either ember attacks or direct combustion from radiant heat.

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'Alone in the darkness': life for Liberia's fishermen – in pictures

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:00 PM PST

The threat of poaching by foreign trawlers has eased for the nation's 33,000 local fishermen, who are hauling in the rewards of a coastguard crackdown

Photographs: Nicole Schafer/Sea Shepherd

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Breast-ironing: British peer to raise issue in parliament

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 07:06 AM PST

Leading QC Alex Carlile hopes to force wider scrutiny of the practice after Guardian revealed 'dozens' of girls subjected to abusive custom

A British peer is to table questions in parliament on the secretive practice of "breast-ironing", after the Guardian revealed that the abusive intervention is spreading in the UK.

Alex Carlile, one of the UK's leading QCs who is a former deputy high court judge and a member of the House of Lords, told the Guardian that he hoped to trigger a wider scrutiny of the practice in the UK.

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'It kills within hours': two die as cholera outbreak spreads in Ugandan capital

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 06:31 AM PST

Health officials battle to stop disease spreading in Kampala slums with lack of toilets and poor sanitation made worse by heavy rains

Two people have died in a new cholera outbreak in the overcrowded slums of Uganda's capital, Kampala.

The ministry of health confirmed at the weekend that there were 43 suspected cases of cholera in the city and that two people had died. It said an emergency isolation unit had been set up.

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Leading UK child health body under fire over baby milk sponsorship

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 03:54 AM PST

Royal College of Paediatrics urged to rethink conference funding amid claims deal contravenes World Health Organization code

The Royal College of Paediatrics has been accused of breaching World Health Organization guidance after it accepted sponsorship funding from baby formula companies.

More than 100 medics and 13 health groups have written to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), urging it to drop Nestlé, Nutricia and Danone from the list of sponsors for its first international conference, to be held in Cairo on 29 January.

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Women swear sometimes – let's get the hell over it

Posted: 26 Jan 2019 06:00 AM PST

'Prominent woman says curse word' has become a news genre unto itself – just ask Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Rashida Tlaib

I'm going to let you in on a shocking secret: sometimes women swear. Here's another revelation: there is generally nothing newsworthy about a woman swearing. I am eager to emphasize this because you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise: "Prominent woman says curse word" is a highly popular, highly sexist, news genre. Just look at the recent headlines about the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

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Manila's jeepneys – in pictures

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 11:00 PM PST

Part of the Philippine urban landscape for decades, jeepneys, small buses originally made from military vehicles left by the Americans after the second world war, are being phased out. Pollution and safety concerns mean jeepneys 15 years or older will be taken off the streets by 2020. Also threatened are the livelihoods of artists who customise them

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300 Disney-style castles lie empty in £151m Turkish ghost town - drone video

Posted: 28 Jan 2019 03:59 AM PST

Burj al Babas was left unfinished last year after developers Sarot Property Group went bankrupt. The future of the 300 Disney castle style homes – which cost an estimated £151m  to build – is now uncertain, and the dystopian sight has become a cautionary tale for other developers in Turkey's debt-laden construction sector

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