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

Christmas travel chaos as airlines cancel more than 3,000 flights
Polish deputy PM says Germany wants to turn EU into ‘fourth reich’
‘We’ve heard it all before’: Ukrainians brush aside talk of Russian invasion
Ukraine: Russian consulate in Lviv hit by molotov cocktail
Astronomers on tenterhooks as $10bn James Webb telescope set for lift off
French zoo closes after pack of nine wolves escapes
Grace Mirabella, 70s and 80s US Vogue editor, dies aged 92
Los Angeles police kill girl, 14, when firing at suspect in clothing store
Latin America urges US to reduce plastic waste exports to region
Russia fines Google £73m over failure to delete ‘illegal’ content
Chinese officials face punishment over Covid lockdown in Xian
‘Better days ahead’: people forced into Christmas isolation stay upbeat
UK hits new Covid record again with more than 120,000 daily cases
K-pop star Suga tests positive for Covid after BTS return from US
‘It’s so liberating’: India’s first salon run by transgender men
Remembering Joan Didion: ‘Her ability to operate outside of herself was unparalleled’
‘We’re all citizens of planet Earth’: former astronaut Bill Nelson on his mission at Nasa
My winter of love: I was not expecting a hot first date. Then I found love in a terrible pub
The TV quiz of the year: from It’s a Sin to Squid Game
The person who got me through 2021: Awkwafina made me hopeful for success in dark days
The best of the long read in 2021
Tagging UK asylum seekers: another Patel idea destined to fail?
Covid live news: 1.7 million people in UK had coronavirus last week; thousands of Christmas flights cancelled
The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America
Ex-Georgia election workers sue Giuliani and OAN, saying fraud claims put them in danger
Book It In: Kathryn Heyman on fury, trauma and personal transformation
Lebanon faces ‘depressing’ Christmas as internet crisis stops festive calls
‘My grandmother hid Jewish children’: Poland’s underground refugee network
Donald Trump could face charges for trying to obstruct certification of election, legal experts say
Why Putin is acting like a man who has run out of time
Good news is Omicron may be less severe, bad news is it’s surging faster
Nothing but net: Third grade teacher makes full court shot – video
Bangladesh: dozens dead after fire sweeps through ferry – video
'They keep telling us: war, war, war': Putin accuses west of expanding towards Russia – video
Voices of Covid doctors: 'It was always about trying to save you' – video

Christmas travel chaos as airlines cancel more than 3,000 flights

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 09:37 AM PST

Passengers returning home for festive season face disruption as Omicron leaves airlines short-staffed

Passengers travelling home for Christmas have been hit with disruption worldwide after airline companies cancelled more than 3,000 flights on Friday, according to a flight tracking website.

The surge of Christmas Eve cancellations came as the rapidly spreading Omicron coronavirus variant meant carriers were unable to staff their flights.

Polish deputy PM says Germany wants to turn EU into ‘fourth reich’

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 07:32 AM PST

Jarosław Kaczyński's remarks in far-right newspaper are latest episode in Poland's lengthy standoff with EU

The head of Poland's ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has said Germany is trying to turn the EU into a federal "German fourth reich".

Speaking to the far-right Polish newspaper GPC, the head of the Law and Justice party (PiS) said some countries "are not enthusiastic at the prospect of a German fourth reich being built on the basis of the EU".

‘We’ve heard it all before’: Ukrainians brush aside talk of Russian invasion

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 12:00 AM PST

In Kyiv and beyond, people carry on with the festive season despite rhetoric about imminent conflict

Russia is threatening war on Ukraine, but in Kyiv the city council is putting up Christmas trees rather than bomb shelter notices, and organising concerts rather than army recruitment drives.

Amid a Russian military buildup on Ukraine's eastern border and in annexed Crimea, hostile rhetoric between Russia and the US and its allies is edging towards a cold war high, with Ukraine the battlefield for any actual fighting. Ukrainians, however, just emerging from Covid quarantine, are enjoying ice rinks and markets put up for the holiday season and would rather think about how to celebrate the coming new year.

Ukraine: Russian consulate in Lviv hit by molotov cocktail

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 09:10 AM PST

Incident described by Moscow as terrorism and Ukrainian officials as hooliganism comes as tensions soar

The Russian foreign ministry said on Friday that a molotov cocktail had been thrown at the the country's consulate in the Ukrainian city of Lviv and that it had formally protested about the attack, which it described as an act of terrorism.

The ministry summoned a Ukrainian official and demanded apologies from his country's authorities.

Astronomers on tenterhooks as $10bn James Webb telescope set for lift off

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 05:15 AM PST

Nasa's flagship mission counts down to launch at 1220 GMT on Christmas Day from Kourou, French Guiana

Final checks and fuelling are under way for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, a flagship mission for Nasa that aims to observe worlds beyond the solar system and the first stars and galaxies that lit up the cosmos.

If all goes to plan, the $10bn (£7.4bn) observatory will become the largest and most powerful telescope ever sent into space when it blasts off at 12.20pm UK time on Christmas Day onboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

French zoo closes after pack of nine wolves escapes

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 09:35 AM PST

Four wolves were shot dead by park workers and five anaesthetised by officials at scene

Authorities in the south of France have temporarily shut down a zoo after a pack of nine wolves escaped from an enclosure during visiting hours, officials have said.

No humans were injured in the incident last weekend at the Trois Vallées zoo in Montredon-Labessonnié in the south-west Tarn region but four of the wolves were shot dead by park workers and five were anaesthetised by local officials on the scene, Fabien Chollet, a local official, told AFP on Friday.

Grace Mirabella, 70s and 80s US Vogue editor, dies aged 92

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 10:53 AM PST

Mirabella was editor of the magazine from 1971 to 1988 and was a non-nonsense champion of practical fashion

Grace Mirabella, the editor of American Vogue throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, has died aged 92.

Mirabella was a non-nonsense champion of practical fashion. She succeed the more whimsical and bohemian Diana Vreeland as editor in 1971 and remained in the role until 1988.

Los Angeles police kill girl, 14, when firing at suspect in clothing store

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 02:28 AM PST

Bullet fired at man suspected of assault went through dressing room wall and struck teenager, officers say

Los Angeles police have fatally shot a 14-year-old girl who was in the dressing room of a clothing store when officers fired at an assault suspect and a bullet went through the wall, authorities have said.

The Los Angeles County coroner identified the girl as Valentina Orellana-Peralta.

Latin America urges US to reduce plastic waste exports to region

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 05:21 AM PST

Study finds exports to region doubled in 2020 with practice predicted to grow as US invests in recycling plants

Environmental organisations across Latin America have called on the US to reduce plastic waste exports to the region, after a report found the US had doubled exports to some countries in the region during the first seven months of 2020.

The US is the world's largest plastic waste exporter, although it has dramatically reduced the overall amount it exports since 2015, when China – previously the top importer – said it "no longer wanted to be the world's rubbish dump" and began imposing restrictions. Elsewhere around the world imports are rising, and not least in Latin America, with its cheap labour and close proximity to the US.

Russia fines Google £73m over failure to delete ‘illegal’ content

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 04:02 AM PST

Moscow ruling is first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia and comes amid fears of internet crackdown

A Moscow court has said it is fining Alphabet's Google 7.2bn roubles (£73m) for what it says is a repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in Russia.

Moscow has increased pressure on big tech this year in a campaign that critics characterise as an attempt by Russian authorities to exert tighter control over the internet, something they say threatens individual and corporate freedom.

Chinese officials face punishment over Covid lockdown in Xian

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 04:15 AM PST

Disciplinary body says people to be held accountable for failing in efforts to prevent and control outbreak

Officials in the north-western Chinese city of Xian are facing punishment for "not doing a good job" after a Covid-19 outbreak led to the lockdown of its 13 million residents.

All domestic flights out of Xian and most trains from the city scheduled for Friday were cancelled. Officials say the outbreak has been traced to the arrival of a plane from Pakistan.

‘Better days ahead’: people forced into Christmas isolation stay upbeat

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 07:00 AM PST

From a change of routine to an unexpected rest, those self-isolating look on the bright side

When Isaac, 16, tested positive for coronavirus a few days ago, he decided to self-isolate alone in his room. He wanted to make sure he did everything he could not to pass the virus on to his family and ensure they were able to have some normality over Christmas.

After his mum, Debs, posted what he was doing on Twitter, she was flooded with loving messages to pass on to him. She plans to print them all and put them up on the wall opposite his room for him to see on Christmas Day.

UK hits new Covid record again with more than 120,000 daily cases

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 08:12 AM PST

Data shows one in 35 people at home in England had Covid this week, rising to one in 20 in London

A total of 122,186 reported daily coronavirus cases have been recorded as of 9am on Friday, according to the latest government figures, another record number of cases in a single day.

The government said a further 1,171 people were in hospital with the virus and 137 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid.

K-pop star Suga tests positive for Covid after BTS return from US

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 01:27 AM PST

Band's management says singer self-isolating at home and is not showing any symptoms

Suga, songwriter and rapper for the K-pop sensation BTS, has tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from concerts in the US, the group's management has said.

The 28-year-old, whose real name is Min Yoon-gi, was confirmed to have contracted the virus on Friday during his self quarantine after returning home to South Korea on Thursday, according to Big Hit Music.

‘It’s so liberating’: India’s first salon run by transgender men

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 02:00 AM PST

Founder Aryan Pasha wants La Beauté & Style to be an inclusive and comfortable space, as well as tackle prejudice and provide employment

The beauty treatments listed at the new La Beauté & Style salon are much the same as those offered by the dozen or so other parlours that dot the traffic-heavy Dilshad Extension area of Ghaziabad, 17 miles (28km) east of Delhi. But that is where the similarity ends.

The wall behind the reception desk is painted in rainbow colours; a mural of a trans man with flowing multicoloured locks decorates another wall; a woman wearing a sari is having her eyebrows plucked next to a trans man who is telling a stylist how he would like his hair cut.

Remembering Joan Didion: ‘Her ability to operate outside of herself was unparalleled’

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 10:44 AM PST

The American author was not only brilliant but also generous and kind to younger writers, writes Emma Brockes

There is that famous photo of Joan Didion, taken in Malibu in 1976, in which she leans on a deck overlooking the beach, cigarette in hand, scotch glass at her elbow, and regards her family – John Dunne, her husband, and their then 10-year-old daughter, Quintana – through lowered, side-long eyes. Like other iconic photos of Didion from the period, she is at one remove from the group, off to the side and in this case, looking not at the camera but at her family as they look at the camera. It's the pose Didion perfected, in life as in art, and when news of her death at the age of 87 broke on Thursday, it was a shock to see another frame from that sequence surface online. In it, Didion, eyes fixed forward, smiles broadly at the camera in the conventional style – a rare glimpse behind the persona.

The paradox of Didion was not unusual among writers, whose confidence is often borne of a million anxieties. But her ability to operate outside herself – to measure the gap between inside and out and slyly mock any effort to conceal it – was unparalleled. She was, famously and by her own account, diffident, brittle, runtish, prone to migraines, afraid of the telephone, and as she wrote in the preface to her 1968 collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, "bad at interviewing people", apparent deficits that, in Didion's hands, were of course precisely what permitted her entry to places her rivals – particularly the blow-hard men of 1960s journalism – couldn't reach.

‘We’re all citizens of planet Earth’: former astronaut Bill Nelson on his mission at Nasa

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 12:00 AM PST

Nasa's new administrator discusses the space race with China, UFOs, billionaire 'astronauts' and building a 'mission control' for climate change

When Apollo 11 launched in July 1969, Bill Nelson was an army lieutenant on leave behind the iron curtain, listening with colleagues to the BBC on shortwave radio.

"There were three young Americans standing on the hills overlooking Budapest, screaming at the top of our lungs, cheering as that rocket lifted off," Nasa's new administrator recalled in a video interview.

My winter of love: I was not expecting a hot first date. Then I found love in a terrible pub

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 10:00 PM PST

Ten years after my dad died, I felt rudderless – a manchild still making sense of life. But suddenly, surprisingly, I met someone with whom I had an immediate bond

For most of the winter of 2011-12, I was a slightly reluctant member of the Guardian's spin-off dating site, Guardian Soulmates. I was still in my 20s, just about, and pouring the energy and naivety of youth into a busy social life, a career as a writer of newsprint ephemera and a room in a shared flat. I think I was also a bit lonely and rudderless – a manchild still making sense of life 10 years after the sudden death of my dad. Whatever it was, something was missing.

By late February, I had been on half a dozen first dates – and no second dates. I was getting tired of the whole thing. It was all so procedural. But I'd agreed to meet a girl called Jess, whose profile handle – "good_grammar_is_hot" – had somehow not entirely put me off.

The TV quiz of the year: from It’s a Sin to Squid Game

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 05:00 AM PST

How's your 2021 TV knowledge? Test how much love you've been giving your favourite shows with our brain-tickling end-of-year quiz

The person who got me through 2021: Awkwafina made me hopeful for success in dark days

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 07:00 AM PST

In Nora from Queens, Awkwafina's adorable loser alter ego was inspiring. Faced with constant failure, she kept going, with wit and warmth

During the past 20 months I've become addicted to TV shows about women trying and failing to make it. Broad City, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 2 Broke Girls: it's like looking in a mirror, if I could be bothered to do even that. But the absolute fabulous queen loser of all is Awkwafina, in her self-created show Nora from Queens.

Awkwafina plays a bizarro-reverse-mirror version of herself as a nearly thirtysomething bum, living in her childhood home with her grandmother and her widowed father. It's pure lockdown comfort TV, with every petty slight and worldly favour soothed away by familial love. Nothing Nora from Queens does ever works out, and yet it's always fine in the end. Attempted jobs, moneymaking schemes, love interests and opportunities for growth come and go, with all the wit and humour being incidental. The laughs come from off-the-cuff comments, the quickest physical reactions and scathing jibes, but the emotion is gooey and true. And that's how I live now – with Nora from Queens as my more adorable, charismatic, sexy, funny, hipster-chic proxy. I actually have the same sloppy tracksuit bottoms, oversized T-shirts, thick dorky glasses and button-down overshirts that Nora wears in the show. If she gets up at noon every day in TV fantasyland, heck, I do it every day in reality. And if she fails at everything while refusing to leave her childhood home or embrace adulthood, well, me too – and I'm 10 years older than Awkwafina herself and 15 older than the show's character.

The best of the long read in 2021

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 10:00 PM PST

Our 20 favourite pieces of the year

After growing up in a Zimbabwe convulsed by the legacy of colonialism, when I got to Oxford I realised how many British people still failed to see how empire had shaped lives like mine – as well as their own

Tagging UK asylum seekers: another Patel idea destined to fail?

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 09:33 AM PST

Despite a string of measures intended to cut numbers, more than 27,000 crossed the Channel in small boats this year

The home secretary, Priti Patel, has repeatedly promised to curb the number of people arriving on UK shores in small boats by making this route "unviable" but more than 27,000 refugees have crossed the Channel this way, up from 8,500 in 2020.

The Home Office is now planning to introduce a tagging scheme for asylum seekers after a reportedly "exasperated" Boris Johnson ordered a review. It is the latest proposal in a string of ideas aimed at clamping down on small boat arrivals, none of which have been successful at curbing numbers so far.

Covid live news: 1.7 million people in UK had coronavirus last week; thousands of Christmas flights cancelled

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 10:53 AM PST

ONS figures are highest on record so far; Christmas for many in disarray as US and Australian airlines say flight crews hit by Covid

Here's a story that echoes the cancellation of flights happening over the US.

Thousands of Australians have had their domestic flights cancelled in the hours leading up to Christmas, as frontline staff were ordered to test and isolate amid a rise in Covid cases.

The world on screen: the best movies from Africa, Asia and Latin America

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 07:00 AM PST

From a Somali love story to a deep dive into Congolese rumba, Guardian writers pick their favourite recent world cinema releases

Read more: Books that explain the world: Guardian writers' nonfiction reads of the year

The Great Indian Kitchen

Ex-Georgia election workers sue Giuliani and OAN, saying fraud claims put them in danger

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 08:34 AM PST

Ruby Freeman and daughter claim they became center of unfounded conspiracy theories and were singled out by Trump

Two former Georgia election workers have filed a defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the rightwing One America News Network and several of its senior executives, claiming the workers became the target of vote-rigging conspiracy theories that put them in physical danger and threatened their livelihoods.

During the 2020 election, Ruby Freeman and daughter Wandrea "Shaye" Moss worked as poll workers counting ballots at State Farm Arena in Fulton county, Georgia. They claim they became the center of a series of unfounded conspiracy theories promoted by former New York mayor Giuliani, who was then serving as an advisor to Trump, and several top employees at the California-based OAN news network.

Book It In: Kathryn Heyman on fury, trauma and personal transformation

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 08:30 AM PST

In this episode of our new podcast Book It In, features editor Lucy Clark talks to Kathryn Heyman about the indignities that women endure throughout their lives and the craft of writing a memoir

Hear more episodes of Book It In here

Fury is published by Allen & Unwin.

Lebanon faces ‘depressing’ Christmas as internet crisis stops festive calls

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 12:00 AM PST

With telecoms barely working, a plunging currency and young people emigrating, it's a bleak Christmas for weary Lebanese

In Lebanon's year of loss and deprivation, simple pleasures have steadily drained away along with its fortunes. But amid a crisis renowned for breaking new ground, few Lebanese had thought their ability to stay in touch was at risk – until a pre-Christmas warning sent shudders through the country.

The telecommunications minister, Johnny Corm, warned this week that a lack of funds and fuel could soon see Lebanon's already struggling internet grind to a halt, making festive calls and messages even trickier than usual – and a financial and social disintegration like no other even more acute.

‘My grandmother hid Jewish children’: Poland’s underground refugee network

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:00 PM PST

As thousands attempt to cross the Belarus-Poland border seeking asylum in Europe, local activists are trying to help

In the attic of a cottage in the woods near the Polish village of Narewka, a young Iraqi Kurd crouches, trembling with cold and fear. Through the skylight, the blue lights of police vans flash on the walls of his hiding place. Outside, dozens of border guards are searching for people like him in the snowstorm. Downstairs, the owner of the house sits in silence with his terrified wife and children.

The young Kurd is one of thousands of asylum seekers who entered Poland across the border with Belarus, where countless others have become trapped on their way to Europe. The Polish family have offered him shelter. But if the Polish police find him, he risks being sent back across the frontier into the sub-zero forests of Belarus, while his protectors risk being charged for aiding illegal immigration.

Donald Trump could face charges for trying to obstruct certification of election, legal experts say

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 11:00 PM PST

Analysis: charges could be well founded given Trump's incendiary remarks to a rally before the Capitol attack and aggressive pressuring of officials

Expectation is growing that Donald Trump might face charges for trying to obstruct Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election this year as a House panel collects more evidence into the 6 January attack on the Capitol, former prosecutors and other experts say.

Speculation about possible charges against the former US president has been heightened by a recent rhetorical bombshell from Republican representative and 6 January panel vice-chair Liz Cheney suggesting the House panel is looking at whether Trump broke a law that bars obstruction of "official proceedings".

Why Putin is acting like a man who has run out of time

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 09:40 AM PST

Analysis: As Ukraine drifts from the control he desires, disdain for potential negotiating partners leaves the option of force

Vladimir Putin has deployed his troops to the border with Ukraine, delivered impossible demands on Europe and appears ready to launch a new offensive to establish his domination over Kyiv.

Putin is said to feel a "historical mission" to reverse Ukraine's drift towards the west, despite his own role in creating a rift by annexing Crimea and fuelling a war in Ukraine's south-east. But his current fast pace raises questions of why he appears to feel the moment to act is now, as if he is running out of time.

Good news is Omicron may be less severe, bad news is it’s surging faster

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 09:13 AM PST

Analysis: smaller proportion of people hospitalised with Covid variant means little when rise in infections is so huge, warn experts

Evidence that infections caused by Omicron may be less severe than other Covid variants is good news but is likely to make little or no difference to the duration of the pandemic, according to experts.

Several pieces of research published this week suggest that people infected with Omicron are much less likely to require hospitalisation.

Nothing but net: Third grade teacher makes full court shot – video

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 08:27 AM PST

A group of students in Washington DC watch as their teacher, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, cooly makes a basketball shot from across the court. Fitzpatrick, known as 'Ms Fitz' to her students, had promised hot chocolates for all if she made the shot

Hoopla online as US teacher's basketball long shot goes viral

Bangladesh: dozens dead after fire sweeps through ferry – video

Posted: 24 Dec 2021 06:49 AM PST

At least 39 people have been killed and 70 injured after a fire ripped through a crowded river ferry in Bangladesh.

The blaze began in the engine room of the ferry in the early hours of Friday morning, officials said, but the cause was not immediately clear. It took 15 fire engines two hours to get it under control.

People were forced to jump from the vessel, which was carrying about 800 passengers, into the freezing river water to escape

River ferry fire kills dozens in Bangladesh

'They keep telling us: war, war, war': Putin accuses west of expanding towards Russia – video

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 08:58 AM PST

Vladimir Putin has accused the west of 'coming with its missiles to our doorstep' as he reiterated demands for no further Nato expansion in Europe. 'They keep telling us: war, war, war,' Putin said on Thursday.

The Russian president did little to reduce tensions over Ukraine as he spoke at a televised press conference, saying he would be prepared to launch an intervention if he felt Ukraine or its western allies were preparing an attack on Russia's proxies in the country

Putin accuses west of 'coming with its missiles to our doorstep'

Voices of Covid doctors: 'It was always about trying to save you' – video

Posted: 23 Dec 2021 04:08 AM PST

Healthcare workers around the world have been on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic for almost two years, which put them through the darkest days of their careers. Five doctors who have worked in hospitals in Uganda, New Zealand, the US, India, the UK and Brazil told the Guardian about how the pandemic had tested them personally and professionally, but how they continue to find hope and resolve to keep working.

Thanks to Dr Peter Kavuma, Dr Dalilah Restrepo, Dr Yogesh Kalkonde, Dr Anne Menezes and Dr Megan Smith, who is also a spokesperson at the campaigning organisation EveryDoctor

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

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

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