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The Guardian;Critic wrongly jailed by former president of Philippines hopes to return to politics;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/critic-wrongly-jailed-by-former-president-of-philippines-hopes-to-return-to-politics;2025-01-01T14:00:16Z | Leila de Lima, one of fiercest critics of the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody “war on drugs” who was jailed for more than six years on baseless charges, will try to return to politics in 2025. De Lima was one of the few politicians who criticised Duterte during his time in office, and enraged the former leader when she began investigating killings carried out during his anti-drugs crackdowns. She knew to expect retaliation, she said. “I thought it would just be regular vilification, the slut-shaming, the verbal attacks,” she said. She did not anticipate that she would spend more than six and a half years in prison. Finally free, and vindicated by the courts in the summer, she hopes to return to national politics next year and will run as the lead party list nominee of Mamamayang Liberal, a new party formed as a wing of the once-ruling Liberal party, in midterm elections in May 2025. The party promises to champion the rights of marginalised groups, including fishers, farmers, women, youth, the poorest communities in cities, and LGBTQ+ people. De Lima said she remained committed to ensuring justice for victims of the war on drugs. “It’s been more than seven years already, and justice for them has been so elusive,” she said of victims’ families. As many as 30,000 people, mostly men, are estimated to have been killed during the crackdowns. Duterte, who was succeeded as president by Ferdinand Marcos Jr in 2022, is facing growing scrutiny over his anti-drug campaigns. He is the subject of an investigation by the international criminal court and inquiries by the Philippines congress. The ICC investigation, into possible crimes against humanity, was “already at its advanced stage”, De Lima said, adding that an arrest warrant could be issued imminently. “I knew that eventually, truth would prevail, and that is what is happening now,” she said. “Witnesses are coming out, not any more scared, telling the people, telling their testimony, what they knew about Duterte’s war on drugs.” Duterte is not worried about domestic investigations, she added. “He feels that he could still influence them, pressure them, or even scare them.” He knows he cannot influence the ICC. De Lima, 65, was elected to the senate in 2016 – the same year Duterte won the presidential vote after promising a deadly crackdown to rid the streets of drugs. He promised to kill so many criminals that funeral parlours would be packed. When De Lima, who was then chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, began an inquiry into the killings, Duterte accused her of being an “immoral woman” who had a “very sordid personal and official life”. He accused her of facilitating the drugs trade and receiving payments from drug lords while she was justice secretary. He also accused her driver of collecting drug payoffs and to have a sex tape of the two of them. At a rally of his supporters, he said if he were her he would hang himself. De Lima was removed as chair of the committee investigating the drugs war and arrested in 2017. “They wanted to make an example out of me – so that the other politicians, other public figures, would be scared,” said De Lima. In prison she continued her senate work, handwriting notes for her staff who set up a mobile office in a car outside the prison. She kept a strict routine: prayers and bible reading, senate work, feeding stray prison cats (she adopted five upon her release), walking around the perimeter of the compound, reading and journal writing. De Lima’s siblings never told their 92-year-old mother that she had been imprisoned, and instead said she was studying abroad. “Every time my mom is watching the TV, if it’s already the news time, they would change channels,” she said. Witnesses that testified against her have since recanted their statements, with some saying they were pressured to falsely implicate her. The last of the three charges against her, which were all drugs-related and condemned by UN experts as politically motivated, was dropped in June. Whether or not Duterte is prosecuted by the ICC depends on Marcos. In 2022, Marcos ran on a joint ticket with the former leader’s daughter, vice-president Sara Duterte, and always said he would not cooperate with the ICC. But there is speculation he could change his mind, as the two families are now embroiled in a fierce political war. Over recent months, Sara Duterte has launched scathing attacks on Marcos, threatening to dig up the remains of his dictator father and throw them into the sea, and she claiming she had spoken to a hitman and instructed him to kill Marcos and his wife if she were to be killed. The violent language – typical of her father’s political brand – is understood as an attempt shore up support among their base before next year’s midterms. Rodrigo Duterte will run to become mayor of Davao, their family’s stronghold on the southern island of Mindanao. “They know that their influence is diminishing,” said De Lima. “They are struggling to survive politically and in the power play [with the Marcos camp]”. There is speculation she will run for president in 2028, though her approval ratings have fallen. De Lima called Sara Duterte “a dangerous leader” who is becoming increasingly like her father. She is backing one of three petitions calling for her impeachment over issues including allegations related to misuse of public funds and threats against public officials. Whether this progresses will depend on how much support it receives from the House of Representatives. Marcos has advised against impeachment. But De Lima is hopeful that he will comply with the ICC if it seeks Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest. Marcos is reluctant to openly commit to doing so now, given the popularity of his rivals, she said. But in time she expects this will change: “I think deep inside of him, that’s what they want. That’s the best way to get rid of Mr Duterte.” |
The Guardian;Trump’s killing of Qassem Suleimani led to fall of Assad, says Tugendhat;https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/01/donald-trump-killing-of-qassem-suleimani-triggered-fall-of-assad-tom-tugendhat;2025-01-01T13:10:04Z | Donald Trump’s decision to sanction the assassination of an elite Iranian commander triggered a chain of events that has revealed Iran as a paper tiger and led to the overthrow of Basher al-Assad, a former UK security minister has said. Tom Tugendhat, now on the Conservative backbenches and intending to focus on foreign policy, also predicted the Iranian regime would collapse in a few years. He said that if handled properly, Syria could become the economic powerhouse of the Middle East within a decade. It is unusual for a former British cabinet minister to lavish praise on what is seen by some as such a controversial act bordering on an extrajudicial killing. His remarks were made shortly before the fifth anniversary of Qassem Suleimani’s killing in Baghdad, an anniversary that led the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, again to claim in a speech in Tehran that the Syrian leadership would be forced to withdraw as “youth rises up” to defeat the newly installed Sunni regime. Suleimani was instrumental in using Syria and Iraq as a base from which to drive back the Sunni Islamist group Islamic State and to entrench Iranian interests in both countries. Tugendhat argued on the Conflicted podcast that Suleimani’s death in a drone attack had proved to be a turning point. He said: “I’m always struck by how some people can be much more seminal, much more key, pivotal to an organisation than you realise at the time. The reality is when Qassem Suleimani was killed in January 2020, he held in his head all the relationships, all the deals for everybody around the region. “He was replaced, but he wasn’t really, because nobody could replace the personal 20-year relationships that he held. That’s really the unpicking. So I have to say, I know it’s not popular, but President Trump, effectively, was the trigger that began the fall of the Assad regime.” Tugendhat, a former chair of the foreign affairs select committee, also saw a crisis inside the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) due to the loss of Syria. He said: “Young members of the IRGC are saying two things. One, the old guard are corrupt and incompetent. That’s why Hezbollah has been hung out to dry and defeated. That’s why old allies like Assad have fallen. That’s one thing they’re saying. “The second thing they’re saying is that they’re hearing rumours, I don’t know how true they are, but they’re hearing rumours that the ayatollah and the government in Tehran wants to talk to the Americans to try and find a way out of this and perhaps hang on. And they’re saying that there’s absolutely no way that anybody can talk to the killers of Qassem Suleimani. “Now, this means that there is a really big problem within the regime itself, a really big challenge, because actually there’s no way through. These young people, the extremists in the IRGC, so the extremists of the extreme, are trying to hold the regime to a level of purity that is just now completely inconsistent with reality.” Tugendhat was reflecting on the growing consensus in the reformist government in Tehran that direct talks with Donald Trump over a new nuclear deal should be sought, a belief that is meeting resistance from hardliners. Tugendhat, an opponent of the initial nuclear deal in 2015 and as a security minister an advocate of proscribing the IRGC, sees the revolution in Syria as a wider turning point. He said: “Frankly, if we get Syria right in 10 years, Syria could be absolutely not just a pole of stability but a fantastic economic powerhouse in the region, exporting stability and civilisation, as it has done for quite literally tens of thousands of years, to the rest of the world again. “There are moments like now when the old era is dead, the old illusions are dead, and various things are killing it. And I suspect that the regime in Tehran will be gone in the next few years as well. So I think there’s a real opportunity for freedom to spread and for opportunity to spread.” At the same time, he said, there were significant dangers in Syria, with the country divided as Kurdish groups and the radical Sunni Islamist group Hayat al-Tahrir Sham (HTS) fight for influence. Tugendhat accused the west of having no long-term strategy in the Middle East, arguing that the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the failure of Barack Obama to act on his red lines when Assad used chemical weapons in 2013 had given an opportunity for Vladimir Putin to present himself as a reliable strongman. At various forks in the road, Tugendhat argued, the west “demonstrated weakness, advertised fickleness”. He said: “Putin is no more constant than we are, but he has the illusion of it. And this is the sort of complete fake strongman theory of life. It’s complete rubbish, of course, but the illusion of it appears real, and that’s enough to have brought certain decisions which have led to mass misery.” |
The Guardian;Belgium becomes first EU country to ban sale of disposable vapes;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/belgium-becomes-first-eu-country-to-ban-sale-of-disposable-vapes;2025-01-01T12:48:15Z | Belgium has become the EU first country to ban the sale of disposable vapes in an effort to stop young people from becoming addicted to nicotine and to protect the environment. The sale of disposable electronic cigarettes is banned in Belgium on health and environmental grounds from 1 January. A ban on outdoor smoking in Milan came into force on the same day, as EU countries discuss tighter controls on tobacco. Announcing the ban last year, Belgium’s health minister, Frank Vandenbroucke, described electronic cigarettes as an “extremely harmful” product that damages society and the environment. “Disposable e-cigarettes is a new product simply designed to attract new consumers,” he told the Associated Press. “E-cigarettes often contain nicotine. Nicotine makes you addicted to nicotine. Nicotine is bad for your health.” The minister also cited the “hazardous waste chemicals” present in the cheap and widely available disposable vapes. Australia restricted the sale of all vapes to pharmacies last year as part of a series of anti-smoking measures described as world-leading. In the UK it will be illegal to sell single-use vapes from June 2025 in a move designed to combat their widespread use by children and prevent environmental damage. Vandenbroucke said Belgium was “playing a pioneering role in Europe to weaken the tobacco lobby” and called for an update of EU law. The country is seeking to reduce the number of new smokers to zero or near zero by 2040 and is taking other steps to “discourage and denormalise” smoking. Smoking is already banned in playgrounds, sports fields, zoos and theme parks, and tobacco products will not be able to be sold in supermarkets larger than 400 square metres or displayed at points of sale from 1 April. An official Belgian Health Interview survey in 2018 found that 15.3% of the population aged 15 and over smoked every day, down from 25.5% in 1997. The 2023 survey, due to be released in September, is expected to show a further decline in smoking, but the government said further action was needed to meet its tobacco-reduction targets. A ban on outdoor smoking in Milan, the northern Italian business and fashion hub long known for its smog, came into force on Wednesday. Smokers who light up on the city’s streets and in crowded public spaces will face fines of between €40 (£33) and €240. The ban is an extension of a measure imposed in 2021 which prohibited smoking in parks and playgrounds, and at bus stops and sports facilities. The city’s officials said the ban was intended to improve air quality and protect people’s health, especially against the effects of passive smoking. The ban does not, however, apply to e-cigarettes. Milan is located in the Po Valley, a huge geographical area straddling the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. A Guardian investigation in 2023 found more than a third of the people living in the valley and surrounding areas breathed air four times above the World Health Organization’s guideline limit for the most dangerous airborne particulates. Although the number of smokers in Italy has gradually fallen over the past 15 years, 24% of the population still smokes, according to data last year from the Higher Health Institute. An estimated 93,000 deaths each year in Italy are attributed to smoking, according to the health ministry. Italy’s first national anti-smoking measure was introduced in 1975, when smoking was banned on public transport and in classrooms. The ban was extended in 1995 to include public administration areas, and in 2005 to all enclosed public areas. |
The Guardian;Fate of endangered monkey hinges on Brazilian city’s planning policy;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/fate-of-endangered-monkey-hinges-on-brazilian-citys-planning-policy;2025-01-01T11:41:14Z | The fate of one of the world’s most threatened primates will be on the line in the coming months when Brazilian authorities decide whether to incorporate the pied tamarin into the urban planning policies of Manaus. Conservationists say the inclusion is crucial not just to protect the critically endangered monkey but as an indicator of the Amazonian city’s willingness to create green spaces that will benefit the lives of its people. The pied tamarin – which has a small, fluffy white upper body and a black, hairless face – has one of the narrowest ranges of any primate and is found only around the borders of the city. In recent decades it has been squeezed out of much of its home by the sprawl of Manaus, which is the most densely populated metropolis in the Brazilian rainforest with more 2.2 million residents. Unregulated growth has increased the area of the city by 60% since 1985. To feed its people, nearby farms have more than doubled in size, now covering 56,000km/s. Transport systems are also expanding, and roadkill is a major threat to wildlife in this biodiversity hotspot. The population of the pied tamarin has shrunk rapidly to an estimated 22,000 and they are predicted to lose 80% of the number in the next 20 years. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature rates it as critically endangered, which is the final category before extinction. Various efforts have been made to save the species, including a national action plan, the federal government’s establishment of a Pied Tamarin Wildlife Refuge and rescue centres, and the construction of wildlife bridges across roads. But with numbers continuing to decline, conservationists say a more comprehensive strategy is needed. On 21 November detailed proposals were submitted to city authorities during a public debate. Advocates of the pied tamarin are now awaiting a decision. “This monkey’s habitat has been steamrollered. Many live in fragments of forest, where they are effectively in captivity. This creates genetic bottlenecks” said Dominic Wormell, the founder of the Tamarin Trust. “We must integrate its conservation into urban planning by creating more green spaces. This can bring public health benefits. This tiny monkey needs the lungs of the city to survive and so do the residents’ children.” In early 2025, this will be a central topic of discussion at a series of meetings among city authorities, Manaus university biologists, conservation groups, local and state environment departments and the two main federal environment bodies – Ibama and ICMBio. Diogo Lagroteria, chair of ICMBio’s pied tamarin species committee, says it is crucial for politicians and local government to commit to policies that preserve, restore and protect green spaces: “Children and the elderly, in particular, would benefit from a cooler, more welcoming city with opportunities to connect to nature.” “We really need a joined-up plan,” Wormell said. “The fight to save the pied tamarin is a fight to save the Amazon rainforest itself. If we can secure a future for this tiny monkey by planting trees and showing that conservation of the forest creates a better future for us and the primates that live along side us, then maybe people will start to see how truly valuable the Amazon is to them and the whole world.” |
The Guardian;Russian gas flows to Europe via Ukraine cease as transit agreement expires;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/breakaway-moldovan-region-cuts-heating-and-hot-water-as-russia-stops-gas-flow;2025-01-01T11:35:59Z | Russian gas has ceased flowing to Europe via Ukraine, causing power cuts in parts of Moldova and concern in some EU capitals about making up the deficit. In others, however, there was celebration over a further step towards weaning Europe off Russian energy. Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, called the development “a new victory” for the continent. Russian gas has flowed through Ukraine for decades, mainly through a Soviet-built pipeline that begins in Sudzha, a town in Russia’s Kursk region currently under the control of Ukrainian forces, and ends near Uzhhorod, on Ukraine’s western border with Slovakia. Gas continued to flow based on a 2019 agreement after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, providing revenue for both countries. Kyiv made hundreds of millions of euros a year in transit fees. Negotiations took place last year to extend the deal but came to nothing. “Russian gas has not been supplied for transit via Ukraine since 8:00 am [Moscow time, 06:00 GMT],” Russia’s Gazprom said in a statement on Wednesday. Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, confirmed Ukraine had stopped transit flows, calling the move “historic” in a statement on Wednesday. “Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses,” he said. There were some swift effects, with the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria losing heating and hot water on Wednesday morning. A statement on the website of Tirasteploenergo, the local energy company, said the heating cuts took effect at 7am local time (06:00 GMT) on Wednesday. It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows and balcony doors, and use electric heaters. “It is forbidden to use gas or electric stoves to heat the apartment. This can lead to tragedy,” the company said. A company employee told Reuters by phone she did not know how long the situation would last. Transnistria, a pro-Russian entity that claims independence from the rest of Moldova, was receiving its gas via Ukraine. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the share of Russian gas on the European market has dropped from about 35% to about 8%, as European countries sought to diversify supplies. Some countries, however, such as Slovakia, still relied heavily on Russian gas. The country’s Russia-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, decried the failure to renew a transit deal, claiming the move would hurt Europe more than Russia. “Halting gas transit via Ukraine will have a drastic impact on us all in the EU but not on the Russian Federation,” he wrote on Facebook. The only Russian gas route to Europe still in operation is TurkStream, a Black Sea pipeline that sends gas to Hungary and Serbia. |
The Guardian;Parrots, trees and dragons: test yourself with our quiz on national flag changes;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/parrots-trees-dragons-quiz-national-flag-changes;2025-01-01T10:00:11Z | |
The Guardian;Wednesday briefing: The people, policies, places and pop culture that could define 2025;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/first-edition-2025-predictions;2025-01-01T06:45:06Z | Good morning – and happy new year. Whether you are reading this on the way home from a very late night or feeling refreshed after tucking yourself in at precisely 00:01, welcome to 2025. While technically it may be just another day, it’s hard to avoid the feeling of renewal that comes with the new year – even if it’s accompanied by dark, gloomy days and an emptier-than-you’d-like bank account. As you contemplate your resolutions, I’ve compiled some key stories and themes that are likely to shape the year ahead. But first, the headlines. In depth: Expect the unexpected *** Donald Trump’s inauguration The returning president-elect was perhaps the single most dominating figure of 2024, and that will only intensify this year. In the run-up to inauguration day, various organisations including the Women’s March, the National Women’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood are hosting a day of action – a protest, in effect. It will almost certainly not be as big as the Women’s March demonstration held in January 2017, after Trump’s first inauguration. It brought an estimated 500,000 protesters to Washington DC while about 4 million took part in other events across the US. Unlike in 2016, this time around Trump won both the popular vote and a comfortable electoral college margin, and Republicans have secured a “trifecta” by also gaining control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. And so, crucially, Trump’s election can no longer be dismissed as an aberration, meaning there is less of a fight in the air. Much has been written about what to expect from a second Trump term. But to boil things down, over the next 12 months we can expect trade wars – Richard Partington’s useful primer on the global economic outlook for 2025 reflects on how important they might be – government shutdowns, sweeping executive orders to reduce immigration, nativist politics and isolationist geopolitical policies. *** The climate crisis In 2024, the world experienced another record-hottest year. Extreme weather events were more frequent and severe because of the climate emergency. This will not slow down in 2025. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says greenhouse gas emissions have to peak by 2025 and then drop sharply if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, as per the Paris agreement. With Trump in office and a “greenlash” in Europe, 2025 could be a bad year for climate policy. In this piece looking at the approach Keir Starmer might take this year in the UK, Fiona Harvey notes that his response to the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations on future emissions cuts will be a key test of how seriously he takes the crisis. A good news story to keep an eye out for: more than 175 countries are expected to sign a UN treaty agreeing to reduce single-use plastics. Talks collapsed towards the end of 2024 but there are hopes that they will be revived in the coming year. *** Gaza, Ukraine and beyond The prospects for peace and ceasefire agreements remain elusive in the major conflicts that dominated last year’s international agenda. Russia continues to make incremental gains as the war of attrition grinds on in Ukraine. Despite President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s relentless entreaties, the incoming Trump administration may opt to curtail or halt funding for Ukraine, which would prove catastrophic for Kyiv. Though reports suggested ceasefire negotiations were gathering momentum towards the end of 2024, a breakthrough appears unlikely in Gaza as Israel persists with its offensive. The absence of a clear Israeli plan for the “day after” the war means the attacks on Gaza will continue and the Israeli military will probably lay the foundations for an indefinite period of military presence. Meanwhile, Sudan has been in the grip of disease, displacement and unconscionable violence for nearly two years. Armed groups, often supported by foreign powers – the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others – vie for gold, influence and territorial control. As the conflict continues, the risk of an increasingly fragmented environment grows, with several armed groups positioning themselves to fill power vacuums and establish themselves as security providers across the country in 2025. *** A year of significant elections 2024 was billed as “democracy’s Super Bowl”, with more than 80 national elections taking place. This year there will be fewer elections, but they will be important. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is expected to be ousted. Ecuador’s president Daniel Noboa, the world’s youngest elected government leader, is seeking re-election despite only being in power for two years. Germany has been locked in political turmoil for some time and its forthcoming federal election will be the most consequential vote this year. *** Culture The crisis in live music and the unsustainable cost of touring were big talking points last year, and while less commercially successful artists continue to struggle, megastars and their stadium tours will dominate 2025. There’s Coldplay, Dua Lipa, AC/DC, Ed Sheeran, Shakira and, who could possibly forget, the Oasis reunion tour. Expect endless, tedious discourse about the state of Noel and Liam Gallagher’s relationship. There’s plenty to see in the cinema: the third instalment in the Avatar series is coming out, and yet another Bridget Jones. Personally, I still need to go and see Robbie Williams played by a CGI chimpanzee in Better Man. Here’s Peter Bradshaw’s pick of the year ahead, while this piece by Catherine Shoard looks at some of the auteurs back with new films this year. And if you prefer your culture with a final score attached, here’s a preview of the year’s unmissable sporting events. *** Who knows what else? Of course, we simply could not have predicted many of 2024’s most shocking headlines. There were assassination attempts, high-profile killings, collapsed bridges and floods in the desert. Maybe we should just expect the unexpected. Reading this online or on the Guardian app? Over the Christmas period the headlines and sport will not appear, so to get the First Edition experience in your inbox every morning, sign up here. |
The Guardian;New Year’s Eve: ball drops in New York’s Times Square as celebrations take place across the globe – as it happened;https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/dec/31/new-years-eve-celebrations-2024-2025-live;2025-01-01T06:23:54Z | With that, we are ending this live New Year’s coverage. A very very happy 2025 to all of you, and thank you as always for reading. May your year involve lots and lots more reading of all kinds – and more confetti: Good news for home buyers in the UK in 2025: experts have predicted a “buyer’s market” for house hunters in the year ahead, giving them greater negotiating power as the mood of the housing market shifts to “cautious optimism”. However, even the more hopeful expectations for 2025 were met with caution, as an important stamp duty relief for first-time buyers was scheduled to end in the spring, as well as potentially high interest rates and taxes bearing down on the market. Photographs from Brazil, Slovenia and the US: Next up are the central USA, Mexico City, Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and a small part of Ecuador. It is very newly the year 2025 on the US east coast – New York City, Washington DC, Detroit – as well as parts of Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Cuba, Acre in Brazil, Panama, a small part of Mexico, Haiti, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, Jamaica, a small region of Chile, and the Cayman Islands. And – why not? – more! Here are some photographs from the celebrations in Times Square: The ball has dropped, it is 2025 in New York City and much of the rest of the world. Auld Lang Syne plays over the screams and cheers of the crowd, followed by Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York. The ball is sparkling purple, and the countdown has begun: 20 seconds to go. Five minutes to go until the ball drop in New York City. The organisation managing Times Square has tested the drop and inspected 2025 numerals, lights and thousands of crystals as part of a tradition going back to 1907. This year’s celebration includes musical performances by TLC, Jonas Brothers, Rita Ora and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. By Tuesday evening, people who had been in line for hours moved through a gauntlet of security checks, and then rested up for the night of performances and cheering ahead, with some even laying on the pavement. “It’s the biggest party in the world. There’s no other place to celebrate New Year’s than Times Square,” said Tommy Onolfo of Long Island, who started attending regularly eight years ago. Some different ways to ring in the new year across the globe: There’s a bit of rain in New York but that hasn’t dampened spirits for revellers in Times Square waiting for the ball to drop. The fireworks and ball drop in Times Square, New York, will take place in just over an hour. The clock has struck midnight in parts of the Americas, including some of Brazil, Argentina, part of Chila, French Guiana and Bermuda. Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada have also started the new year, and on the hour, so will Venezuela, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Guyana. Here are pictures from celebrations in Germany, Brazil, India and Colombia: New Year’s Eve revellers in Australia have largely been praised for their behaviour at the country’s biggest fireworks shows, while officers were kept busy with outbursts of trouble around local fireworks. More than a million people swarmed the main vantage points around Sydney harbour and hundreds of thousands of Melbourne partygoers were treated to a fireworks and laser spectacular. Police in both cities said the vast majority of partygoers enjoyed the night safely, although officers were kept busy with violence away from the main celebration areas: “There are warnings of gales. Wintry showers, rain later, moderate or good. The familiar rhythms and cadences of these misty, magical phrases have now been familiar to British islanders for a whole century. They are communicated to us at strange, twilit times, every weekday at 12.48am and 5.20am, with an extra gust of early-evening drama at 5.54pm at weekends”. Here is our story on 100 years of the Shipping Forecast, by Jude Rogers: Rome’s traditional New Year’s Eve festivities have an additional draw: the start of Pope Francis’ Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration projected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to the Eternal City in 2025. On Tuesday, Francis will celebrate a vespers at St. Peter’s Basilica, followed by Mass on Wednesday, when he is expected to again appeal for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East. Jan. 1 is a day of obligation for Catholics, marking the Solemnity of Mary. The BBC is celebrating 100 years of a suprisingly soothing weather forecast for sailors in British waters that has inspired musicians and poets and become an immovable fixture on UK radio, AFP reports. The Shipping Forecast, providing predictions by the Met Office on expected wind speeds, sea state, weather and visibility, began as a vital service to sailors and sea captains who may be in peril at sea. Modern seafarers can now rely on sophisticated forecasting technology but the calm, rhythmic delivery of the forecast by one of BBC Radio 4’s silky-voiced continuity announcers has turned the forecast into something of a beloved British institution. Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya described the Shipping Forecast as a “cherished ritual” and “one of our national treasures”. He said the centenary would be marked with a day-long series of programmes on Wednesday. The service was set up in 1867 in response to a storm off north Wales eight years earlier that led to the death of 800 people and the loss of 133 ships, according to the Met Office. It was initially transmitted by telegraph before being first broadcast on radio on 1 January 1924 and taken over by the BBC in October 1925. Sea areas around the British Isles with mysterious names such as “Viking”, “Dogger”, “Sole”, “Lundy” and “Fastnet” are covered in the forecast which is peppered with phrases such as “rain at times, moderate or good”, “becoming cyclonic” and “falling slowly”. The poetic sounding names of coastal weather stations such as “Tiree”, “Ronaldsway and “Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic” also feature, adding to its appeal. Here are some more photographs of celebrations (and naps) from around the world – Brazil, China, Portugal and the US: NPR producer Martin Patience has posted a photograph of the fireworks in Damascus, Syria earlier this evening: The world’s largest time capsule is due to be opened this year. Put together in 1977, it contains 5,000 items, “ranging from small items such as books to large objects such as automobiles.” It was made by a small-town Nebraska store owner named Harold Keith Davisson, who chose the items with his grandchildren in mind. It will be opened on 4 July 2025. Here is a video of New Year’s celebrations around the world so far: Three women have given birth to baby boys at the stroke of midnight in Goyang, South Korea, the Chosun Daily reports. In South Korea, 2025 is the Year of the Snake. Their names: The first newborns of the year were nicknamed “Dingguli,” born to mother Koo Seul-ki, 35, and father Kang Woo-seok, 41; “Kkomuli,” born to mother Koo Ra-gyeom, 27, and father Lee Hyo-young, 38; and “Nikke,” born to mother Lee Seung-hyun, 33, and father Park Jun-soo, 36. The babies weighed 3.29 kilograms, 3.12 kilograms, and 3.1 kilograms, respectively. Here is Paddington in the London Eye, with what must be an especially large marmalade sandwich under his hat: London Mayor Sadiq Khan has posted his New Year’s message and a video of the fireworks, which says, “Greatest city in the world. Greatest fireworks in the world. Happy New Year, London!”: Here are more photographs from the procession: While elsewhere in the country, people took part in the 101st traditional “Achetringele” procession in Laupen. This photograph shows Young “Baesemanne” (broom men), who hold long-handled juniper brooms and wear wooden masks and air-filled pig bladders called “Soeiblaatere”: The festive procession, which starts from Laupen Castle, uses the pig bladders, as well as bells, brooms, and the masks to drive away demons and evil spirits. The leader of the procession announces New Year’s wishes, followed by a chase with the inflated Soeiblaatere. Originating a century ago, the parade features masks crafted in 1924, and its roots may date back to the Germanic Julfest. “Achetringele” means ‘ring down,’ symbolizing the banishment of the old year. In Switzerland, some brave souls farewelled 2024 with a swim in icy waters: Fireworks over the London Eye: Here is another view of the fireworks over the Arc de Triomphe in Paris: Hello from the other side of the world and 11 hours into the future, this is Helen Sullivan taking over our live coverage. It is 11.21 here in Sydney, sunny, and most of my colleagues on the international desk have already had a swim: 2025 is looking good so far. And with that I am handing over to my colleague Helen Sullivan on the other side of the world in Australia. It just leaves me to point out that my co-pilot Willow this evening has not been the most enthusiastic contributor to the live blog – and has basically slept through the whole thing, local fireworks and all. Which is probably a blessing. Please let me take this opportunity, on behalf of everybody at the Guardian and the Observer in the UK, to wish you a very happy new year, and one that is as peaceful as it can be. I will see you on the website somewhere again soon. Paddington Bear, voiced by Ben Whishaw, has wished everybody a happy new year at the London fireworks – the character seems ubiquitous at public events in the UK now – then there was a short burst of Auld Lang Syne, and we are done! Part of the fireworks display in London has celebrated that it is 25 years since the London Eye itself was formally opened by the-then prime minister Tony Blair on 31 December 1999. It was originally only given permission to be there for five years as a temporary attraction, but it is very difficult to imagine the central London skyline without it now. There is always a tiny bit of lag on the images of the London fireworks display arriving to us over the newswires, but we just got the first one, and it is a keeper. The London firework display has so far paid tribute to Team GB achievements in the Paris Olympics, and England’s men’s football team’s near-miss at Euro 2024. There was a section dedicated to Charli xcx’s signature brat green, and a rather more sombre reminder that it was the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings in 2024. Big Ben is chiming … The UK has greeted 2025 on a night when weather disrupted planned celebrations across Scotland and northern England, while crowds in London gathered for a firework display that went ahead despite the conditions. Crowds had gathered in central London for the traditional display that centres around the London Eye on the River Thames. London’s mayor Sadiq Khan, announcing that the event would go ahead as planned, said: “I’m really excited about the London New Year’s Eve fireworks, the biggest fireworks taking place anywhere across Europe. Hundreds of thousands of fireworks, great light display but also a great soundtrack tonight as well.” An amber warning for heavy rain was been put in place across parts of north-west England until 9am on New Year’s Day, PA Media reporter. The Met Office warning stretches from Settle in the Yorkshire Dales across to Preston and down to parts of the Peak District. The warning states that heavy rain is “likely to lead to disruption including flooding in some locations” with a chance some places could see more than 10cm of rain. Some celebrations in Edinburgh had already been disrupted after a decision on Monday to cancel outdoor event due to the risk of weather conditions. In a message ahead of the new year, UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, compared the task his government faces with that the Attlee government faced in 1945, and said there would be “a year of rebuilding”. Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch told voters to “Watch this space” as she said the Conservative party faced “a long term project” of renewal and that “Things may be bumpy along the way.” Television coverage in the UK is switching to the fireworks in London … My colleagues in Australia have put together this gallery of great images from the new year celebrations there – where the weather looks significantly better than in the UK. By the way, if you think I am freewheeling a bit on the live blog here, Sophie Ellis-Bexter has just introduced on stage on BBC One a giant full-sized resin horse replica face-painted as David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane character, which she claimed she bought online during lockdown. I feel safe that I will not be doing anything as weird as that. As we build up to midnight in the UK, here are some more striking photographs of new year celebrations from different countries around the world. Do you fancy another round-up of the year before we hit midnight in the UK? Of course you do. The Tom Jenkins’ best sport photographs of 2024 gallery is well worth a couple minutes of your time. Here are a couple of images from London where crowds have gathered for the firework display. Robbie Williams has also been working hard this evening. He was the top billed interviewee on the Graham Norton Show on BBC One earlier tonight, and was also living it up headlining ABC’s celebrations in Sydney. I should have roped him in to help with the live blog too. While I know that there will be readers of this blog from all over the world at the moment – and I notice some of our Australian readers in the comments are already up and several hours into the new year – with it coming up to less than half hour to go until midnight in the UK and me being based in London, I’m going to put my focus there for a little while. I’ve just put the Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s New Year’s Eve Disco Party on BBC One on in the background. She is not entirely my personal cup of tea to be honest, but I actually saw her live the other week supporting the Human League at Wembley Arena, and I have to say I was left in awe at her ability as a support act to get a whole arena up and dancing and signing along. It was like being at a Joe Wicks’ workout, but with Abba cover versions. Here are some more pictures from around the world as cities see in the new year. Here is a view of the fireworks over the Quadriga sculpture on top of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. It has turned midnight across large swathes of western Europe, with crowds greeting the new year in the capitals and other many other cities of France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Spain. PA Media has spoken to people in Edinburgh where weather warnings have forced the cancellation of outside celebrations for Hogmanay. David Liew, a 59-year-old lawyer from Singapore, told the news agency “We’ll just walk around, you know, we see a lot of lights, a lot of stores. We’ll just walk around, take some pictures and hopefully make the best use of our time.” Elisa Dorris, who is originally from Spain but now lives in Dublin, flew to Edinburgh with friends in order to see the fireworks. “We are very disappointed,” the 23-year-old said, “but we will try to have fun here in the Christmas market.” Kiran Stacey is a political correspondent based in Westminster for the Guardian Keir Starmer has promised to rebuild Britain as Labour did after the second world war as he enters a pivotal year for his premiership. The prime minister said in his prerecorded new year message that 2025 would be a year of rebuilding, with his government looking to turn the corner after a turbulent first six months in power. Starmer invoked the forthcoming 80th anniversary of VE Day in May as he compared the task his government faces with that the Attlee government faced in 1945. Starmer said: “That is what we will be focusing on: a year of rebuilding. But also, rediscovering the great nation that we are, a nation that gets things done no matter how hard or tough the circumstances. “We will have time to reflect on that this year, a chance, with the 80th anniversary of VE and VJ Day, to cherish the greatest victories of this country and the greatest generation that achieved it. “But that victory, and indeed the peace and the prosperity that followed, all rested on that same foundation we must rebuild today. The security of working people, that is the purpose of this government, the goal of our plan for change. And we will push it forward in 2025.” You can read more of Kiran Stacey’s report here: Keir Starmer vows to rebuild Britain as Labour did after second world war Met Éireann has also weather warnings in place, with Cork and Kerry told to expect “persistent rain”, potentially causing “localised flooding” and “hazardous travelling conditions”. There is an entire social media sub-genre suggesting “if you start” a particular song or movie or TV show at a precise time tonight, something that happens will coincide with midnight. My favourites so far being that if you start Ghostbusters 2 at exactly 10.27 Bill Murray will wish you Happy New Year at midnight, companion Graham will wish Happy New Year at midnight if you start Doctor Who episode Revolution of the Daleks at 23:47pm, and the drums come in on Phil Collins’ epic In The Air Tonight on the stroke of midnight if you start it 20 seconds after 11.56pm. I haven’t tested any of these – I just like the ideas. It is not midnight in Berlin yet, but crowds have already gathered and there have been some fireworks for them to enjoy. It has just passed midnight in Kyiv, where people have gathered to see in the new year. In a statement on his official Telegram channel president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he thanked “All who have been fighting for it [Ukraine] so steadfastly and so bravely for more than a thousand days. Our people. Ukrainians … who are going through all the difficulties with dignity. People for whom being citizens of Ukraine is a matter of pride. And for me, it is a matter of pride to be the president of such people. Ukrainians who prove: no cruise missiles can defeat a people who have wings!” Earlier people gathered in one of the Kyiv metro stations to sing carols. In the UK, PA Media reports that an amber warning for heavy rain has been put in place across parts of North West England until 9am on New Year’s Day. The Met Office warning stretches from Settle in the Yorkshire Dales across to Preston and down to parts of the Peak District. The warning states that heavy rain is “likely to lead to disruption including flooding in some locations” with a chance some places could see more than 10cm of rain. You can find the latest weather warnings for the UK here. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare while waiting for midnight to come along, can I tempt you with a picture news quiz? In Russia president Vladimir Putin has given his traditional New Year’s Eve address to the nation. Tass reports the address lasted 3 minutes 35 seconds and “was one of the shortest during his entire presidency”. It added “in his annual speech, the head of state recalled the main events of the outgoing year and spoke about the country’s upcoming prospects.” A simple joy of being a journalist on New Year’s Eve is every now and again you get sent over the newswires a photoset from some local tradition which you don’t recall coming across before. These pictures are from Laupen in Switzerland, where a procession to chase away bad spirits includes people carrying pigs’ bladders filled with air, as you do. It looks a little bit like this … One of the big choices in the UK – if you aren’t out partying – is what to watch on TV to see in the new year. BBC One has Sophie Ellis-Bexter hosting a disco party from 11.30pm, BBC Two has Jools’ Annual Hootenanny from the same time. ITV One has opted out of it all, with the news followed by a compilation of TikTok clips, while Channel 4 has gone for The Godfather: Part II, which starts just after 11pm. Cheery. My tip? Put on 60 Songs: BBC Two at 60 from earlier this year on iPlayer. I’ve had it on in the background for half-an-hour and I’ve already had Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Bob Marley, Pet Shop Boys, Beyoncé, the Kinks and more. That will tide you over for a couple of hours. Or want to watch something great from television in 2024 that you missed? Our top 50 best shows is here. (And also some ones to avoid here.) Can you have enough pictures of fireworks on New Year’s Eve? Probably not. My colleagues Elena Goodinson and Joe Plimmer on our picture desk have put together this gallery of some of the best views of the night so far … One of the things I do enjoy about doing the live blog on New Year’s Eve is it gives me a chance to point you to some of the great reviews of the year we have published over the last couple of weeks, and always one of my personal favourites is the alternative sports awards, this year featuring some brilliantly weird quotes, the greatest dropped catch in cricket you will ever see, and a few very enjoyable animal cameos. Here are some of the latest images of New Year’s Eve celebrations from around the world. Time for another quiz while we wait for midnight to creep across the globe? Why not. How about tackling Patrick Barkham’s environment quiz of the year? London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks event will go ahead at midnight despite weather concerns, PA Media reports. Much of the UK faces heavy rain and strong winds, and even snow in some parts, leading to widespread disruption. Many planned have been cancelled, including high-profile outdoor celebrations in Edinburgh. London mayor Sadiq Khan said: I’m really excited about the London New Year’s Eve fireworks, the biggest fireworks taking place anywhere across Europe. Hundreds of thousands of fireworks, great light display but also a great soundtrack tonight as well. You can find the latest weather warnings for the UK here. In the UK, recently installed Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has issued a new year message. In the short clip, she says: Happy new year. Like all of you, I am looking forward to a 2025 that is full of hope, security and prosperity. The Conservative party is also going through a period of change. This process of renewal will be a long term project. Things may be bumpy along the way, but the party I now lead is going to do things differently. Watch this space. The UK prime minister Keir Starmer is expected to issue a New Year’s Eve statement later tonight. The United Arab Emirates has just passed into 2025. In recent years the seven emirates have often competed to put on the most extravagant displays, with attempts to set world records for the number of drones used simultaneously. Earlier this evening the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was lit up ahead of the celebrations. One of the main reasons for having a live blog on New Year’s Eve is we get lots of great pictures and video footage of firework displays, and here are some clips from Sydney, a city that always prides itself on putting together a tremendous show. Those of you outside the UK may not necessarily be familiar with Susie Dent, who is the absolute queen of the English language on popular quizshow Countdown, and on her social media often posts an obscure word of the day. SPOILERS: it is usually an obscure old word that nevertheless somehow manages to be incredibly relevant to the politics of today without her having to explicitly make her point. Anyway, she has just posted her word for New Year’s Eve, which is “respair”. Dent says: Word of the day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come. “Respair”, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair. Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025. If you are in the mood for a bit of political context in the UK as we count down towards midnight, let me point you towards our Politics Weekly review of the year, featuring my colleagues John Harris, Pippa Crerar and Kiran Stacey. France’s president Emmanuel Macron has given a traditional New Year’s Eve address to the nation on television. In it, Macron recalled that during 2024 France had hosted not only the Olympic and Paralympic Games, but also held events marking the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings, and the reopening of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral. However, France’s president conceded that his decision to call early parliamentary elections in June 2024 created more political instability in the country. Macron said: “The dissolution caused more divisions in the Assembly than solutions for the French people. “If I decided to dissolve, it was to give you back your voice, to regain clarity and avoid the threat of immobility. But lucidity and humility demand we acknowledge that at this time this has produced more instability than serenity, and I take full responsibility for that.” I am not one to judge, after all I am the person working on New Year’s Eve doing the live blog, but if you are reading this then over the next couple of hours I was going to – as well as bring you lots of pictures of fireworks – make some suggestions of ways to help your evening pass with some fun and jollity. And quizzes are a great way. So here is my first quiz suggestion of the evening, why not try Séamas O’Reilly & Dara O’Reilly’s quiz on how much news you remember from 2024? It has just turned midnight in Pakistan. Earlier in Karachi, as is traditional, much was made of the final sunset of 2024 in the country, with people posing for photos against the background of the dipping sun. It always makes for a very photogenic scene. Nepal has also seen in the new year, but 15 minutes earlier than neighbouring India. Nepal is one of only three places in the world with a timezone offset from GMT by the rather distinctive figure of 45 minutes. The Chatham Islands and Eucla are the others. This is, I think, the fourth time I’ve done a New Year’s Eve live blog for the Guardian, and you inevitably find yourself interested in why that should be. It takes about half hour for the sun to cross the whole of Nepal, and the country effectively straddles two timezones. So since 1986 the country has used Nepal Standard Time, which centres a meridian around the mountain of Gaurishankar, and offsets it at UTC+05:45, which makes more sense with the sun’s position at noon than picking a timezone either side. It has just turned midnight in India, and here are some photos of the people celebrating the arrival of 2025 in Mumbai. If you are in the UK, then the Met Office has weather warnings in place across parts of Scotland, Wales and the north of England for snow, rain and wind. None of which suggests it would be a great night to go out to try to spot the northern lights, but the Met Office has suggested they might be visible. PA Media reports that people in the east of Scotland, north-east England and Northern Ireland could be treated to sightings of the natural phenomenon. It quotes Met Office spokesperson Grahame Madge saying: Although the solar conditions are set fair to see the northern lights, unfortunately the meteorological conditions are not that helpful. Scotland should provide the best chances but with unsettled conditions dominating it will be hard to get a guaranteed view. Perhaps the best areas may be those along the eastern coast of Scotland. Heavy rain and high winds are set to cause disruption in much of the country, with a widespread cancellation of New Year’s Eve events. You can find the latest weather warnings for the UK here. Public firework displays and celebrations in Edinburgh, Blackpool, Newcastle, the Isle of Wight, and Ripon have already been called off. Hello, it is Martin Belam here in London taking over the live blog. I will be with you for the next few hours. If you want to get in touch you can email me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from people who have unusual plans for the evening, and to see pictures of your pets dressed up for new year. I also promise lots of still images of fireworks, and of course coverage of what world leaders have to say as the clock strikes midnight across the next few timezones. And it’s officially 2025 in Taiwan, as well as Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. Happy new year to our readers in the Philippines, where the clock has just struck midnight. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be covering the blog for the next few hours. Here’s some photos of the celebrations in Manila … There will be more muted celebrations in Puerto Rico, as nearly all of the US territory is without power after an underground power line failed. A blackout hit early on Tuesday, leaving more than 1.3 million people in the dark. Officials said it could take up to two days to restore power. The outage hit at dawn, plunging the island into an eerie silence as electrical appliances and air conditioners shut down before those who could afford generators turned them on. “It had to be on the 31st of December!” exclaimed one man, who only gave his name as Manuel to Associated Press, as he stood outside a grocery store in the capital of San Juan, grumbling about the outage that coincided with his birthday. “There is no happiness.” Nearly 90% of 1.47 million clients across Puerto Rico were left in the dark, according to Luma Energy, a private company that oversees electricity transmission and distribution. Here’s some initial photographs of the new year being rung in, literally, in the Japanese capital Tokyo less than an hour ago. In the next 15 minutes Beijing, Hong Kong, Manila, and Singapore will be among those celebrating the new year. Celebrations are ongoing ahead of the next set of countries who will see in the new year. A fireworks display in Taiwan has been attended by thousands in Taipei. Meanwhile it may be several hours until Europe begins entering the new year, but there are already partygoers in the Spanish capital, Madrid. In an earlier post we said that all of Australia had entered 2025. That has now been corrected. Perth, WA, will celebrate the new year in just under 25 minutes A number of new years events across the United Kingdom have been cancelled because of bad weather. The most notable casualty is Hogmanay celebrations in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh. A fireworks display from the city’s castle at the top of the Royal Mile has been cancelled, as has a gig nearby by Texas. A street party alongside Princes Street has also been scrapped. About 50,000 people were due to attend. Other events indoors are still scheduled to go ahead. Public firework displays in Blackpool, Newcastle, the Isle of Wight, and Ripon have also been called off. City Hall in London said it is monitoring the weather forecast “closely” ahead of the showpiece fireworks display over the River Thames. Transport, including ferries to the Isle of Man, has also been affected by the weather. As of half an hour ago, more cities in Australia are now in 2025, with Darwin, Adelaide and Brisbane among those to see the clock strike twelve. More than 1 million people watched Sydney’s fireworks, while hundreds of thousands took to the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne to watch the midnight displays. Perth, capital of the Western Australia state, does not reach midnight for another 25 minutes. Tokyo is among the cities that will see in the new year in about 15 minutes’ time. The Japanese capital has had festivities under way all evening ahead of the clock striking midnight. South Korea will enter 2025 at the same time as their Japanese neighbours. On a day where protests continue after the impeachment of the country’s president Yoon Suk Yeol, some have already been celebrating the impending new year. There’s more new year’s messages from world leaders, as German chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for unity amid political pressure due to a poorly performing economy and the fall out from a deadly attack on a Christmas market. Scholz, who faces an election in February that could see him removed from power, said that Germany was a country should remain united. “Strength comes from solidarity. And we are a country that sticks together,” Scholz said in his New Year’s address, which will be broadcast Tuesday night. “We have it in our hands together: we can make 2025 a good year.” He acknowledged that Germany is still reeling from the Christmas market attack that killed five and injured more than 200 people in the eastern city of Magdeburg when a Saudi doctor drove his car into a crowd. He was arrested on murder charges. “We are stunned by this inhuman act. How can an insane assassin cause so much suffering?” Scholz said. “And it is not only in Magdeburg that many are asking themselves: Where can we find the strength to carry on after such a catastrophe?” Ahead of the election on 23 February, Scholz called on Germans to go vote and took a swipe at tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who twice this month called on people to choose the far-right Alternative for Germany party. “You, the citizens, decide what happens in Germany. It’s not up to the owners of social media,” Scholz said. President Vladimir Putin used his new year address to tell Russians that the country would move forward with confidence in 2025. Putin‘s seasonal message was being broadcast at midnight in each of Russia’s 11 time zones, starting with Kamchatka and Chukotka in the far east, Reuters reports. His message comes 25 years since he was named acting president on New Year’s Eve in 1999, when predecessor Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and apologised for the country’s post-Soviet turmoil in a speech that stunned Russians. In his message, Putin said Russia had strengthened its unity in the first quarter of the 21st century, achieving significant goals and overcoming trials. “And now, on the threshold of the new year, we are thinking about the future. We are confident that everything will be fine, we will only move forward. We know for sure that the absolute value for us was, is and will be the fate of Russia, the well-being of its citizens,” he said. Putin paid tribute to Russian soldiers fighting in the war in Ukraine, describing them as “true heroes”, but did not refer in detail to the state of the conflict or make predictions for how the battlefield situation would evolve in 2025. It’s now 2025 in Queensland – where they’re one hour behind the rest of the Australian east coast. There are round 80,000 individual fireworks going off across the city’s skyline at the minute. There are also big displays to the south of Brisbane on the Gold Coast and to the north on the Sunshine Coasts. And there’s this earlier pic from Newcastle, New South Wales… More pictures from the fireworks in Sydney. On a slightly different note, Chins’s president, Xi Jinping, has sent out a positive new year message about the country’s sluggish economy. Despite fears of growth well below the government’s targets, Xi claimed in a speech that the official growth targets of 5% for 2025 would be met. His message rebutted concerns that Donald Trump’s incoming US administration will harm Beijing’s prospects in the new year. “The current economic operation faces some new situations, challenges from the uncertainty of the external environment and pressure of transformation from old drivers of growth into new ones, but these can be overcome through hard work,” Xi said. Here’s our full story: And there are many events are taking place around the world ahead of the midnight celebrations. There is already a massive crowd in Chongqing in western China ahead of midnight. Here are some nice countdown clips of the Sydney show. More than one million people are watching a spectacular fireworks display over Sydney Harbour Bridge to see in the new year. With clear skies and a balmy temperature of 22C, the famous celebrations got into full swing a few seconds ago as the clocks hit midnight in Australia’s two most populated states of New South Wales and Victoria. It’s not quite such a lovely picture in the UK where high winds and heavy rain are forcing the cancellation of some New Year’s Eve events. Edinburgh called off its official street parties yesterday because of the prospect of some nasty weather and the curse has spread further south today. Firework displays have been called off inBlackpool, Newcastle, the Isle of Wight and Ripon, North Yorkshire. Here’s the full story. Sydney is the self-appointed “world capital of new year’s eve” but there are also large crowds out in Melbourne to see in 2025. Families and groups gathered early along the banks of Melbourne’s Yarra River, to secure a good view of the city’s skyline in anticipation of the 14 tonnes of fireworks shot from 27 buildings along with 60 lasers. Domenic Adami and a group of friends picked their spot in Alexandra Gardens near the Yarra and set up a picnic before settling in for the midnight light show. “I heard, this year, they’re going to be bigger than Sydney, but usually they’re pretty good,” Adami told Australian Associated Press. “Even when I sit and watch it at home or from somewhere else on TV, it looks amazing. “Each year has just gotten better and better, and this year seems like it’s going to be the best.” The family-friendly fireworks went off over Sydney Harbour earlier before the main display at midnight (1pm GMT). Another visitor to Sydney is British tourist who used to watch the images of harbourside fireworks a sa child and vowed one day to visit the harbour city. The 28-year-old has found a vantage point in Balmain with friends and looking forward to the show. “It is a bit of a bucket list thing for me,” she told AAP. “At home the Sydney fireworks is always all over the news, it is one of the first places that brings in the New Year.” Auckland has become the first major city to welcome 2025 a short while ago, with thousands of people counting down to the new year and cheering at fireworks launched from New Zealand’s tallest structure, Sky Tower, and a spectacular light show. Thousands also thronged to downtown or climbed the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point, and a light display recognizing Auckland’s Indigenous tribes. It follows a year marked by protests over Māori rights in the nation of 5 million. Countries in the South Pacific are the first to ring in the New Year, with midnight in New Zealand striking two hours before midnight in Sydney, 13 hours ahead of London and 18 hours before the ball drop in New York. The countdown is well and truly under way in Australia – at least in the country’s eastern cities where it is less than a hour to go before midnight. Hundreds of thousands of people have already packed themselves into the best vantage points around Sydney harbour to wait for the famous New Year’s Eve fireworks show. Many of those who will be bringing in the new year in Sydney are tourists such as Roman and Monica Gezernek from Germany who have been waiting for hours for the Sydney pyrotechnics. “They’re world famous apparently so we have to see them,” Roman Gezernek told Australian Associated Press. The pair will fly out to New Zealand on New Year’s Day to continue the trip of a lifetime. “We’re pensioners so we’re just taking our time around the world,” he said. Hello and welcome to our live coverage of New Year’s Eve celebrations from around the world as 2025 begins. We will bring you some of the best photos as people around the globe ring in the new year – well at least those parts of the world that use the Gregorian calendar. Other new years are available. |
The Guardian;Top Venezuelan pianist urges music world to snub youth orchestra linked to Maduro;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/01/top-venezuelan-pianist-urges-music-world-to-snub-youth-orchestra-linked-to-maduro;2025-01-01T05:00:04Z | One of Venezuela’s most celebrated musicians, the pianist Gabriela Montero, has called on concert halls and music promoters to cut ties with her country’s world-renowned youth orchestra as a result of Nicolás Maduro’s alleged theft of last year’s presidential election. The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela (SBSOV), which has close ties to Maduro’s administration, is scheduled to perform at some of Europe’s most prestigious classical music venues in January to mark the 50th anniversary of Venezuela’s world-famous music training programme, El Sistema. The tour, which includes concerts at London’s Barbican, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Berlin Philharmonic, will coincide with the expected start of Maduro’s third term, despite widespread suspicions that he stole July’s election. Even regional allies Brazil and Colombia – whose leaders have longstanding ties to Maduro’s political movement, Chavismo – have refused to recognise Maduro’s claim of victory. Their leftwing presidents, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, are not expected to attend the 10 January inauguration in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Last month, Petro said it was clear that Venezuelans “no longer wanted” the Chavistas in power. The Venezuelan orchestra has been celebrated around the world for its effervescent performances and work training virtuoso musicians from poor backgrounds. But critics claim that in recent years – as Venezuela has slipped into authoritarian rule and economic turmoil – Maduro’s regime has turned the orchestra into an international propaganda tool. Maduro’s close allies the vice-president and oil minister, Delcy Rodríguez, and the president’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, were appointed to El Sistema’s board in 2018. “El Sistema is essentially a political organisation … because it’s run out of the office of the president and its board of directors includes high-profile politicians including Nicolás Maduro’s son and Delcy Rodríguez,” said Geoffrey Baker, the author of a book called El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth. Montero said the world should no longer tolerate such “music-washing” after Venezuela’s election on 28 July, for which voting tallies published by the opposition suggest Maduro lost to his now-exiled rival Edmundo González Urrutia. “The cultural sector must no longer facilitate the overt promotion of a manifestly failed ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ through the emotive optics of Venezuela’s youth orchestras,” the pianist, who was born in Caracas, told the Guardian. “Once we succeed in removing the regime by implementing the will of the Venezuelan people, we can restore moral independence to our musical and educational mission. Until such a time, regime-owned entities have no place in the world’s great concert halls,” said Montero, who recently received the Human Rights Foundation’s Václav Havel international prize for creative dissent. Montero urged fellow artists “to show solidarity with the Venezuelan people in this hour of dire crisis, by ceasing to do business with a Venezuelan regime that continues to hold our country hostage, that refuses to recognse the will of the vast majority”. She said: “It is morally incoherent to continue profiting from the superficially compelling, marketing-friendly message of social transformation through music, while partnering with an autocratic narco-state that condemns an entire society to abject misery, including our musicians and their families.” The pianist issued a particular plea to the London-based classical music promoter Askonas Holt, urging the company to stop working with the SBSOV, which performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall just days after July’s election. The arts management company’s website boasts of “a longstanding relationship” with the orchestra stretching back to its first European tour in 2007. In a statement, Donagh Collins, the company’s chief executive, said: “Askonas Holt has been arranging international tours for the orchestras and choirs of El Sistema for nearly 20 years, clearly predating Maduro, with each tour usually taking up to two years to plan and deliver. “The tour of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in January 2025 started its journey long before any plans for an inauguration in Caracas and there is no link between the two events. We are working with concert halls across Europe who want to present El Sistema and who do not view their presentations as being a reflection on a government or party.” The superstar Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel declined to comment on calls for a boycott of the orchestra he leads. But a representative denied the orchestra was a propaganda tool for Maduro, claiming “the opposite is true”. “It is well documented how, after Gustavo spoke out against the Maduro government in 2017, the regime chose to cancel US and international tours with both the National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela,” said the representative, who declined to be named. “[El Sistema] receives state funding, and has since its inception, as do its orchestras, but just because an entity is funded by the state, that does not automatically make it a propaganda tool,” the conductor’s representative added. Montero argued that musicians and promoters should not shirk their responsibility to challenge the situation in Venezuela, where more than 1,600 people were detained as part of a post-election crackdown. “Musicians are not a privileged class of citizen, granted immunity from their common duty of care to reject tyrannical systems. Nor are they protected from the grim realities of state failure,” Montero said. “Classical music itself, however powerful an elixir, possesses no intrinsic immunity card by virtue of its beauty alone. On the contrary, the great composers have shown us that it is the role of music – and art in general – to reveal, confront and temper man’s darkest excesses, not to conceal them behind convenient marketing mantras.” Baker said that while the media often questioned how repressive and authoritarian states used Premier League football clubs to “sports-wash” their reputations, much less attention was paid to the use of music for the same purpose. “But … in many ways it’s exactly the same phenomenon and it requires exactly the same kind of analysis that people are willing to give to football these days,” Baker said. Collins said Askonas Holt considered its work with El Sistema “to be a partnership with a world-leading socio-educational programme for children and teenagers from deprived and challenging backgrounds”. “It has been recognised internationally as a beacon for education through the medium of classical music … We are proud to have played a fundamental role in determining its success and international influence, celebrating their excellent standard of musicianship and demonstrating to the world a visceral expression of the power and joy of music-making,” said Collins, adding that his company was “opening up opportunities on the international stage for young musicians”, such as the conductors Dudamel, Domingo Hindoyan and Rafael Payare. “Askonas Holt also works with orchestras that are similarly committed to transforming lives through music, as well as those on the frontline of international conflicts such as the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra,” Collins said. “We think our work is even more important in today’s world, where cultural exchange can be a powerful tool to keep borders open, to shine a light on oppressed communities and to build bridges between nations who have turned their backs on one another.” |
The Guardian;Ecuador confirms incinerated bodies belong to missing ‘Guayaquil Four’ boys;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/ecuador-confirms-incinerated-bodies-belong-to-missing-guayaquil-four-boys;2024-12-31T22:07:54Z | Ecuador’s attorney general’s office has confirmed that incinerated bodies found on Christmas Eve belong to the four children missing since early December, in a case posing a severe challenge to President Daniel Noboa’s “war on drugs”. The four boys – all black, aged between 11 and 15, and residents of Las Malvinas, a poor area in the country’s largest city, Guayaquil – were returning from a football game on 8 December when they were apprehended by 16 air force soldiers. They have become known as the “Guayaquil Four”. The bodies were found on Christmas Eve in the Taura region, where the military allegedly released them near an air force base. DNA testing was required to identify the bodies. On Tuesday the attorney general’s office informed the families that the bodies belonged to the boys and later posted on social media: “The results of the forensic genetic tests confirm that the four bodies found in Taura correspond to the three teenagers and one child who went missing after a military operation on 8 December.” Antonio Arroyo, the uncle of two of the boys (who were brothers), received the news in tears. “They’re the children, the children are dead. My nephews are dead,” he said, according to Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo. The families were informed after a hearing in which a judge ordered that the 16 air force personnel involved in the operation be held in custody while the investigation continues. About 200 people, including relatives of the boys, gathered outside the court in Guayaquil, holding banners displaying photos of the boys and slogans such as “Where are the children?” and “They took them alive, we want them alive!”. After being apprehended by soldiers near their homes, the four were allegedly released 26 miles (42 km) away, late at night, in an unfamiliar rural area. They have not been seen since. The Ministry of Defence initially denied involvement, only later admitting that the military had apprehended the boys. The ministry alleged the teenagers were involved in robbing a woman, but the public prosecutor investigating the case stated that there was no evidence to support this. Before the confirmation of the deaths, the case was already considered the greatest popularity crisis for Noboa’s hardline security policy, imposed after he declared a state of “internal armed conflict” in January, with the armed forces at the centre of his project. Protests across the country have marked the last days, and some believe that the situation could intensify. “There is total sadness in the vulnerable communities of Guayaquil,” said Arturo Ramírez Morán, a professor at the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil. “In an environment filled with impotence, violence against the state can flare up in the blink of an eye.” Public prosecutors are now investigating whether the military were responsible for the deaths. The Ministry of Defence had claimed that the boys could have become victims of organised crime after being released. The 16 soldiers are being investigated for “forced disappearance” – a crime with a sentence of 22 to 26 years in prison. |
The Guardian;South Korea plane crash investigators turn to black boxes in search for vital clues;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/south-korea-plane-crash-investigators-turn-to-black-boxes-in-search-for-vital-clues;2024-12-31T16:09:49Z | As investigators set to work unpicking the cause of Sunday’s devastating plane crash in South Korea, the black boxes carried on the aircraft will be of prime importance, with retrieval of data from the cockpit voice recorder under way. All but two of the 181 people onboard died in the disaster, with the victims aged from three to 78. The Korean airline’s chief executive, Kim E-bae, said he wanted “to bow my head and apologise”, according to a statement on the company’s website, adding it was “difficult to determine the cause of the accident”. Experts will hope the flight recorders offer crucial insights. Often called black boxes despite being orange in colour, these shoebox-sized electronic devices are often found at the rear of an aircraft to minimise damage in the case of a crash. However, while the devices are built to withstand extreme temperatures and underwater immersion, they are not immune to the effects of a crash. The devices store flight data such as speed, altitude and fuel levels, as well as voice recordings from the cockpit and other sounds including engine noise and radio transmissions. In some aircraft, both types of data are stored in the same device, while in others the data is stored in two separate devices, as appears to be the case for Jeju Air’s flight 7C2216. With both devices having been reported as discovered, they could provide vital clues as to how the Boeing 737-800 aircraft ended up skidding along a runway and colliding with an antenna array. However, reports in South Korean media suggest the flight data recorder is partially damaged, potentially delaying its analysis, with officials saying that decoding it could take a month or more. According to the Yonhap news agency, the second black box containing the cockpit voice recorder was in better condition. Among key questions are why the plane stopped broadcasting automated tracking data shortly before it hit the runway, why the plane’s landing gear failed to deploy as it prepared to land, and whether the crash could have been down to a bird strike, given air traffic controllers had issued a warning about just such a hazard as the plane approached the runway. It has already emerged that the aircraft aborted its first attempt at landing and issued a distress call before its second, while video footage suggests flaps on the wings were not deployed to slow the aircraft. Flight recorders have proved crucial to solving such conundrums before: among other examples, it was the retrieval of the black boxes from deep beneath the waves that allowed experts to finally piece together what happened to Air France flight 447 – an Airbus A330 that crashed into the Atlantic in June 2009, killing all onboard. The final report concluded that the plane crashed after a catastrophic series of events that began with the failure of speed sensors and led to the pilots pulling the aircraft up to 37,500ft to slow it down, resulting in the aircraft stalling. According to the Korea Times, Joo Jong-wan, the director of aviation policy at the transport ministry, said at a briefing on Monday that the damaged flight data recorder would be transported to Gimpo airport the following day so that experts could assess the extent of the harm and determine how much data could be extracted. Frank E Turney, the chair of the aviation department for Capitol Technology University in the US, said that while the black boxes could be helpful in an investigation, they were only part of the puzzle. “The [black] box or the flight data recorder is not going to sit there and tell you this is what caused this accident. What it’s going to do, it’s going to give you all of the underlying factual data that you can use to try to assess how the accident occurred,” he said. “Sometimes the data that you’re getting from the flight data recorder will be very conclusive on what the cause of the accident was, but most of the time it is going to be a piece of the overall investigation, and not necessarily a slam dunk on ‘this is what caused this accident’.” One important point, he added, was that it was often not a single thing that caused an accident but a series of steps – known as the “accident chain” – that can include an initial problem, subsequent developments, and the response of the pilots. Turney said investigators would explore many other avenues to understand a crash, including the structure of the plane, whether there was a mechanical error, and factors relating to the pilots – such as whether they had had enough sleep or were adequately trained. “They’re going to go through all of that, and then at some point they’re going to sit down and go through all of this information to figure it out,” he said. “But the flight data recorder is usually a fairly sizeable piece of the puzzle that they use to determine the accident.” Aviation experts have already raised safety questions over the placement of a concrete embankment 250 metres beyond the end of the runway at Muan international airport, into which the plane crashed before bursting into a fireball. While the investigation continues, South Korea has launched an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operations, including a separate check of all Boeing 737-800s. |
The Guardian;South Korea plane crash investigations focus on role of airport embankment;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/south-korea-plane-crash-cause-investigation-muan-airport-embankment;2024-12-31T16:00:50Z | South Korean authorities seeking answers to the country’s deadliest plane disaster are investigating the role of a hardened barrier at the end of a runway that was hit after the jet crash-landed on Sunday. The structure may only partly explain why Sunday’s Jeju Air flight ended in such a violent manner. All but two of the 181 people onboard died when the plane slid down the runway at Muan international airport and burst into flames after hitting the dirt-and-concrete embankment built to house navigation equipment. A report by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Tuesday said the airport’s operating manual, uploaded early in 2024, had noted that the raised ground was too close to the end of the runway, at 199 metres (652ft) away. Airport officials responded at the time by saying “adjustments would be considered” during future development, Chosun reported. The embankment was built to house a localiser, an antenna system that emits radio signals to guide aircraft toward the runway. It is essential for safe landings and needs to be placed relatively in line with the runway. The embankment has been a focus of attention but it is not unusual to have obstacles and hazards near the end of runways – not only navigation equipment but also major roads, warehouses, trees and often open water. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recommends a 240-metre safety area at the end of runways but only mandates a 90-metre area. Several other key questions remain for investigators, including why the jet touched down late on the runway at such a high speed with no landing gear deployed and no apparent use of the wing flaps, which are used to slow a plane down. South Korea’s director general for airport policy, Kim Hong-rak, told a news briefing that officials would “conduct an additional review of our airport safety standards”. The US National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday that it had sent investigators to South Korea to assist with the investigation. Families of the dead remained at Muan international airport on Tuesday to demand more information from authorities. The national police agency said it had enlisted additional officials and would use rapid DNA analysers to speed up the identification of five bodies. All of the other victims have been identified, but most remain at a temporary morgue at the airport. Early theories about the cause of the crash centred on a bird strike, but some experts do not believe such an event – which is relatively common – would have been forceful enough to prevent the pilot from lowering the Boeing 737-800’s landing gear as it approached the runway. Investigators are trying to establish if any of the aircraft’s control systems were disabled, and why the pilot apparently attempted to land so soon after declaring an emergency. The plane, powered by two CFM International 56-7B26 engines, appeared to be travelling at great speed when the pilot attempted what is known as a belly landing. “I can’t think of any reason for being forced to make a landing like this,” said John Nance, an aviation safety expert and former military and commercial pilot who flew 737s for Alaska Airlines. Jeju Air’s chief executive, Kim Yi-bae, said maintenance staff had not flagged any problems with the aircraft when it was inspected before takeoff on Sunday. Speaking at a televised press conference, Kim said the airline would reduce its winter services by 10-15% and strive to win back the trust of the travelling public. The crash poses a serious challenge to South Korea’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, who has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the county’s entire airline operation, while the transport ministry will inspect all 101 Boeing 737-800s in operation in the country by the end of the week. Choi, who replaced the impeached former acting president Han Duck-soo at the weekend, said the priority was to identify the remaining victims and support the passengers’ families. “Even before the final results are out, we ask that officials transparently disclose the accident investigation process and promptly inform the bereaved families,” he said at a disaster management meeting. Choi had immediately declared a seven-day period of mourning and paid his respect at a memorial at the crash site. Similar memorials have been set up at other locations around the country, and flags were flying at half mast. Representatives from the US NTSB, the US Federal Aviation Administration and the aircraft manufacturer Boeing planned to meet in Muan on Tuesday. Establishing the cause of the accident could prove more complicated and time-consuming than usual, after the ministry said the plane’s damaged flight data recorder was missing key pieces, making it more difficult to extract its data. The second “black box” containing the cockpit voice recorder was in better condition, the Yonhap news agency said. Park Han-shin, whose brother died in the crash, said he had been told by authorities that his brother had been identified but said he had not been able to see his body. South Korean authorities will be under pressure to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the Sewol ferry disaster in April 2014, in which more than 300 people died, mostly high school students. Many relatives of the victims complained it took authorities too long to identify the dead and to establish the cause of the accident. The bodies of four of the identified victims in Sunday’s crash have been handed over to their families, Yonhap said, citing local officials. |
The Guardian;‘The forest will survive’: the volunteers saving Kharkiv’s war-charred woodland;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/ukraine-volunteers-saving-kharkiv-war-charred-woodland;2024-12-31T16:00:50Z | Yuriy Bengus, a biologist, surveyed a scene of destruction. The Zhuravli forest, on the northern edge of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, was a blackened mess. Rooks cawed from burned pine trees and hopped between stumps. A dead bird lay in an abandoned military dugout. War was down the road. From somewhere to the north of Kharkiv came a muffled boom. Bengus plunged his spade into the sandy earth. “From an ecological point of view, oaks are most suitable,” he said. His assistant, Yulia Kucherevska, a 16-year-old volunteer, reached into a plastic bag, pulling out three acorns that she tossed into a shallow hole. The pair moved on to the next spot and threw in three more. Behind them a No 16 tram rattled past. In spring 2022 Russian troops had tried to seize Kharkiv, home to a million people. The city’s defenders dug trenches in the forest and blocked the road – now named Invincible Street and previously called Hero of Labour Alley – with concrete blocks and tank traps. Meeting fierce resistance, the Russians pulled back. Ever since, the Russian army has been bombing Kharkiv, using ballistic and other missiles. The forest is near the city’s most pummelled district – Saltivka, its high-rise blocks gutted shells – and a hydropark, a park based around a body of water. On 17 September a Russian warplane hit the green site with an aerial bomb. Four firefighters tackling an existing fire were injured, with one losing an arm. The blaze swallowed up four acres of woodland, killing animals and scaring away coots on the water nearby. Bengus, along with a group of volunteers, is now attempting to restore the forest. Why bother, given that Russian forces might come back and with fighting continuing a mere 12 miles away? “The oaks will take 25 years to reach maturity. But I’m certain the forest will survive. I’m more optimistic now than before. Where we are standing will be Ukraine,” he said. He added: “Russia has been trying to destroy us for hundreds of years, in particular our language and culture. But we always come back to life as a people and a nation. They can bomb us, of course, but I don’t think they can take over Kharkiv.” He continued: “We have a different mentality. Russians obey power. Our government listens to us.” The biologist’s ambitious plan is to replace the charred trees with English oaks, Quercus robur, which are native to Ukraine and Europe. A virulent root fungus has already wiped out many of Kharkiv’s Scots pines, causing them to shed their orange bark. “Oaks encourage biodiversity. They help mycelium growth and are good for insects and birds,” he said. After Bengus posted about the forest on his Facebook page, he was inundated with offers of help. Children from a neighbourhood school, lycee number 23, collected 50kg of acorns. A scientist in Kyiv sent a box belonging to a pyramid-shaped oak variety. The students put the acorns in water, rejecting any that floated to the top – healthy ones will sink. Kucherevska, who studies at the school, visits the forest three times a week after classes before it gets dark. “It’s fun. I come here with my friends,” she said, adding: “If there’s an air raid alert my parents won’t let me go.” So far, she had buried “around 40,000 acorns”. Not all would survive, but this meant many new trees, she said. She and her biology teacher, Anna Bozhko, joined a digging party earlier this week, along with Bengus and his wife, Lyudmila. Bozhko made a note of where saplings would sprout. What about the risk from bombs? “We’ve got used to it. We’ve adapted. I refuse to be terrified. Everyone is doing what they do. In our case that’s planting oaks. I believe Kharkiv has a future,” she said. Beyond the city, the situation is grim. Both sides build fortifications in wooded frontline areas, and use trees to conceal armoured vehicles and firing positions. In May the Russians launched a cross-border attack on the city of Vovchansk, now a wreck, in Kharkiv oblast. They are closing in on Kupiansk – seized by Russians at the start of the full-scale invasion, liberated, and in danger of being captured again. Russian airstrikes against Ukraine energy infrastructure and cities on Christmas Day left half a million people in the Kharkiv region without heating. Yevhen Vasylenko, the spokesperson for Kharkiv’s regional emergency department, said more than 300 forest fires had been recorded in 2024, the worst year ever. He said Russian shelling was often the cause, with the dense mining of forests adding to the problem. One fire in September ripped through the village of Studenok, near the city of Izium, burning down 236 houses and forcing 200 people to flee. It went on for a week. “We can’t use helicopters to extinguish fires from the air because of the war. It’s impossible. And you can’t walk in the forest because of mines. We use sappers to put the fire out,” Vasylenko said. He added: “I don’t think anyone has experience of working in a situation when you can be shelled and attacked by drones, or can step on a mine at any time. It’s very hard.” The Studenok fire destroyed 4,000 acres of forest, located between Kharkiv and the war-torn Donetsk region, he said. Smoke made it difficult for people to breathe. Firefighters saved residents and – where possible – rescued rabbits, hedgehogs and turtles. Ducks and many dogs died. “The problem is Russia wants to destroy our country. They are ruining our ecosystem as well,” he said. After seeding new oak trees, Begnus went back to his flat in Kharkiv and collected more acorns from the local park. He pointed to trees he had planted back in the 1980s next to his high-rise block: an exotic ginkgo and a towering white fir. “The neighbours on the first floor are not happy about the fir. They complain it blots out their light,” he said. “But when it comes to nature and biodiversity, we have to do something.” |
The Guardian;Israel’s hospital attacks have put Gaza healthcare on brink of collapse, says UN;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/israel-hospital-attacks-gaza-healthcare-on-brink-of-collapse-says-un;2024-12-31T15:39:08Z | Israel’s pattern of sustained attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers has brought the coastal strip’s healthcare system to the brink of “total collapse”, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office. The report, which catalogues the besieging and targeting of hospitals and their immediate grounds with explosive weapons, the killing of hundreds of medical workers, and the destruction of critical life-saving equipment, said that in certain circumstances the attacks could “amount to war crimes”. Israel has consistently denied committing war crimes in Gaza. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said the report’s findings pointed to “blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law”. “As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” Türk said in a statement. While the Israeli military has repeatedly sought to justify its attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, accusing armed groups including Hamas of using medical facilities as command posts, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said the evidence provided by Israel to back up its assertions had been “vague”. This week Israel ordered the closure of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, which has been attacked repeatedly in recent weeks, and detained its injured director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who has reportedly been interned in the notorious Sde Teiman detention camp. Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage. Covering the period from 12 October 2023 to 30 June 2024, the rights office said: “The situation has deteriorated to a catastrophic level since October 2023, as this already damaged health system has been targeted, resulting in the killing of hundreds of health and medical professionals. “The attacks on hospitals often followed a similar pattern, involving missile strikes on hospital buildings, the destruction of hospital facilities, shooting of civilians, sieges, as well as temporarily taking over hospital buildings.” It added: “A fundamental rule of international humanitarian law is that the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for. All wounded and sick persons, including civilians and persons hors de combat, are afforded protection. Furthermore, IHL [international humanitarian law] provides specific protections to medical personnel and medical units where the wounded and sick are cared for, including hospitals.” It concluded: “The destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff and other civilians in these attacks, is a direct consequence of the disregard of international humanitarian and human rights law.” Noting that about 80% of Gaza’s healthcare system had been destroyed, the report said this had led to preventable deaths, including of mothers, and to newborn babies being denied care. Responding to claims that Israeli forces had directed sniper fire at hospitals, the report said: “Another feature of attacks on hospitals has been the apparent precision targeting, by long-barrel weapons, of people inside hospitals, including medical staff. “In most cases it has been difficult to determine attribution, particularly where there were reports of armed clashes in the vicinity.” The Israeli military did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the report. The UN said that, responding to its report, the Israeli government had said its military took extensive measures to mitigate civilian harm and minimise disruption, including the provision of aid and evacuation routes, and the setting up of field hospitals. Israel has in the past few days conducted operations against hospitals in Gaza that drew criticism from the head of the World Health Organization. The report said deliberately directing attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are would, provided they are not military objectives, be war crimes. “In each operation on a hospital documented by OHCHR, after multiple strikes on structures in the vicinity, the Israeli military besieged the premises. The siege cut off access and isolated those inside, including patients, medical staff and IDPs [internally displaced people], while preventing the entry of medical supplies and other necessities of life, negatively impacting individuals’ rights to health and life,” the report said. “The siege of Kamal Adwan hospital in north of Gaza and al-Amal hospital in south of Gaza are two of six emblematic cases monitored and documented by OHCHR.” “If any of the strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, totalling 136 strikes between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024, were deliberately targeting civilians including doctors, nurses and medics not taking a direct part in hostilities, or civilian objects not being used to commit acts harmful to the enemy, rather than military objectives, these would amount to war crimes,” the report concluded. Israel has consistently rejected such claims from multiple organisations, including human rights groups. The report was released as Gaza health authorities said 45 patients and wounded people, accompanied by more than 100 relatives, were evacuated to receive treatment in the United Arab Emirates. |
The Guardian;France carried out bombing raid on Islamic State targets in Syria, defence minister says – as it happened;https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/dec/31/middle-east-crisis-live-israel-houthis-rocket-attacks-yemen-latest-updates;2024-12-31T12:55:37Z | As the time approaches 3pm in Tel Aviv, Israel, here’s a roundup of today’s news in the Middle East. A UN report has said Israel’s attacks on hospitals in and around Gaza have led the area’s healthcare system to the brink of “total collapse”. The UN Human Rights Office says its report raises concerns about how much Israel is complying with international law. Meanwhile The head of Unrwa – the UN agency for aid in Gaza – Philippe Lazzarini says “horrors continue unabated” 15 months since the war broke out between Israel and Gaza, triggered by the Hamas terror attack. More than 250 members of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (Unrwa) had been killed since the start of the conflict, and more than two-thirds of Unrwa buildings have been damaged or destroyed, he said. The president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Ola Awad, said the Gaza Strip’s economy crumbled this year during the continued Israeli operations in the territory. Palestinian news agency Wafa reported: “By the end of 2024, estimates indicate that the unprecedented sharp contraction in the GDP in the Gaza Strip will continue by more than 82%, accompanied by an increase in the unemployment rate to 80%.” The Palestinian Civil Defence agency said it has received hundreds of distress calls from displaced people whose tents and shelters have been flooded by rainwater after heavy rain. Palestinian health authorities say 45 people have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip for general hospital treatment in the United Arab Emirates. They include a 10-year-old boy suffering from kidney failure. French aircraft have bombed Islamic State positions in Syria, the country’s defence minister Sebastien Lecornu has announced. The strikes are the first on Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Syria’s new rulers have confirmed the appointment of Murhaf Abu Qasra as defence minister in the new interim government, according to a statement released on Tuesday. The new Syrian government has reportedly appointed former foreign fighters to its armed forces, Reuters has reported. The new figures include Uyghurs, a Jordanian and a Turk as Damascus tries to shape a patchwork of rebel groups into a professional military, two Syrian sources told the news agency. Israel has warned Yemen’s Houthi rebels that they face the same “miserable fate” as Hamas and Hezbollah if they continue with rocket attacks. A UN report has said Israel’s attacks on hospitals in and around Gaza have led the area’s healthcare system to the brink of “total collapse”. The report by the UN Human Rights Office, titled Attacks on hospitals during the escalation of hostilities in Gaza, examines attacks between October 2023 and June 2024 and said successive attacks raise “serious concerns” about the extent to which Israel is complying with international law. It says there had been 136 strikes on 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, leading to “significant” casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians. It warns that under international law, the “deliberate” destruction of healthcare facilities may constitute a war crime. The UN high commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said it had led to hospitals becoming a “death trap”. He said: “As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap. The protection of hospitals during warfare is paramount and must be respected by all sides, at all times. “This report graphically details the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff, and other civilians in these attacks in blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law.” French aircraft have bombed Islamic State positions in Syria, the country’s defence minister Sebastien Lecornu has announced. The strikes are the first on Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad. “Our armed forces remain engaged in battling terrorism in the Levant,” Lecornu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, while on a New Year visit to French UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. “On Sunday, French air assets carried out targeted strikes against Daesh on Syrian soil,” he added, using the Arabic name for IS. The defence ministry told AFP that France’s Rafale fighter jets and US-made Reaper drones “dropped a total of seven bombs on two military targets belonging to Daesh in central Syria”. France has belonged to the Inherent Resolve international coalition against IS since 2014 for Iraq and 2015 for Syria. French troops involved in the operations are based in the region, including in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As Assad’s fall to a shock offensive by Syrian rebels led by a radical Sunni group rapidly reshapes the country, observers fear space could be left for IS to regather its strength. The group has survived in both Iraq and Syria despite the destruction of its so-called caliphate that lasted from 2014-19. Washington said in mid-December that it had doubled American troop numbers fighting jihadists in Syria, to about 2,000. Its Central Command – responsible for the Middle East – said it wanted to ensure that IS “does not seek to take advantage of the current situation to reconstitute in central Syria”. The president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Ola Awad, said the Gaza Strip’s economy crumbled this year during the continued Israeli operations in the territory. According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, Awad said there had also been a sharp decline in the productivity in the West Bank. Wafa reported: “By the end of 2024, estimates indicate that the unprecedented sharp contraction in the GDP in the Gaza Strip will continue by more than 82%, accompanied by an increase in the unemployment rate to 80%.” The West Bank’s economy shrunk by more than 19%, with unemployment now standing at more than 35%. Among the sectors affected were external trade, construction and industry. Palestinian health authorities say 45 people have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip for hospital treatment in the United Arab Emirates. They left the European hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis early on Tuesday, Associated Press reports, and travelled through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel. The patients are accompanied by over 100 of their relatives, according to the hospital. Among them was a 10-year-old boy, Abdullah Abu Yousef, suffering from kidney failure. The child was accompanied by his sister after the Israeli authorities rejected his mother’s application to join him. Israel says it screens escorts for security. “The boy is sick,” said his mother, Abeer Abu Yousef. “He requires hemodialysis three to four days a week.” The Health Ministry says several thousand Palestinians in Gaza need medical treatment abroad. Israel has controlled all entry and exit points since capturing the southern city of Rafah in May. Israel’s offensive, launched after Hamas’ attack in October 2023 has gutted the territory’s health care system and forced most of its hospitals to close. Those that remain open are only partially functioning. Syria’s new rulers have confirmed the appointment of Murhaf Abu Qasra as defence minister in the new interim government, according to a statement released on Tuesday. Reuters had initially reported the appointment of Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, on 21 December after speaking to an official source. The head of the UN aid agency for Gaza said “horrors continue unabated” 15 months since the war broke out between Israel and Gaza, triggered by the Hamas terror attack. Philippe Lazzarini said more than 250 members of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (Unrwa) had been killed since the start of the conflict, and that more than two-thirds of Unrwa buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Lazzarini, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, said at least 20 Unrwa staff are in Israeli prisons. Those who have been released have reported “mistreatment, humiliation and torture”, he said. He added: “I reiterate my call for independent investigations into the systematic disregard for the protection of humanitarian workers, premises and operations. This cannot become the new standard and impunity cannot become the new norm.” He called for the release of all detained humanitarian staff, and hostages, and for Israel to facilitate humanitarian access and lift the “siege” on Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Defence agency said it has received hundreds of distress calls from displaced people whose tents and shelters have been flooded by rainwater after heavy rain. “Our crews can only evacuate citizens from their damaged shelters to other places that are mostly unsuitable to shelter, and they remain in the open – under the rain and bitter cold,” it said on Telegram, Al Jazeera reports. “We appeal to people of conscience to rush to save these families and help them move to suitable shelters that protect them from rainwater,” it added. The statement added that displaced people in the refugee camps in central Gaza City, al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, Rafah and western Deir el-Balah, in particular, need help. UN agencies estimate that some 1.6 million people in Gaza are living in makeshift shelters that do not protect them from the cold of winter, with nearly half a million in flood-prone areas. On Monday Reuters reported a baby had died in a tent amid freezing temperatures and heavy rain. His brother was being treated in intensive care. The new Syrian government has reportedly appointed former foreign fighters to its armed forces, Reuters has reported. The new figures include Uyghurs, a Jordanian and a Turk as Damascus tries to shape a patchwork of rebel groups into a professional military, two Syrian sources told the news agency. The move to give official roles, including senior ones, to jihadists may alarm some foreign governments and Syrian citizens fearful about the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) administration’s intentions, despite its pledges not to export Islamic revolution and to rule with tolerance towards Syria’s large minority groups. Syria’s new rulers, drawn mainly from HTS, have indicated that foreign fighters and their families may be given Syrian citizenship and be allowed to stay in the country because of their contributions to the fight against Assad. A Syrian government spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment on the thinking behind the appointments. The sources said that out of a total of almost 50 military roles announced by the Defence Ministry on Sunday, at least six had gone to foreigners. Reuters and the Guardian have not been able to independently verify the nationalities of the individuals appointed. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS-leader-turned de facto ruler of Syria, has purged dozens of foreign jihadi fighters as part of a campaign to Syrianise and moderate his group. In remarks broadcast on Sunday, Sharaa said the new Syria “cannot be run by the mentality of groups and militias” Israel has warned Yemen’s Houthi rebels that they face the same “miserable fate” as Hamas and Hezbollah if they continue with rocket attacks. Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said the Iran-backed group would be targeted by Israeli military after recent attacks by the Houthis on Israel. Hours after the warning by Danon, Israel’s military said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, as air raid alarms were sounded. The Houthis targeted Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv and a power station south of Jerusalem using a hypersonic ballistic missile and a Zulfiqar ballistic missile, respectively, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said. Danon told the United Nations: “To the Houthis, perhaps you have not been paying attention to what has happened to the Middle East over the past year. “Well, allow me to remind you what has happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Assad, to all those who have attempted to destroy us. Let this be your final warning. This is not a threat. It is a promise. You will share the same miserable fate,” Danon said. Before the meeting, Danon told reporters: “Israel will defend its people. If 2,000 kilometres is not enough to separate our children from the terror, let me assure you, it will not be enough to protect their terror from our strengths.” |
The Guardian;‘I just ran a lot’: the Strava user whose runs became a viral art phenomenon;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/i-just-ran-a-lot-the-strava-user-whose-runs-became-a-viral-art-phenomenon;2024-12-31T11:41:11Z | Paused on a busy Toronto street, eyes glued to a map on his phone, Duncan McCabe could easily be mistaken for a lost tourist. Within moments, however, he’s on the move again. “I think, at this point, we’re along the belly of the whale,” he says. “The fin is coming up soon.” McCabe is midway through his latest work, using the outline of his running route as shown on the fitness app Strava to create a cartoonish whale. The cetacean, spout and all, comes as he enjoys online fame from his previous work of running art, a dancing stick figure that has accrued nearly 100m views. It all started for the 32-year-old accountant after he posted a 27-second video to TikTok. Virtually all art on Strava, the popular app used by athletes to record the details of their workouts, comprises a single, at times immensely detailed, frame. McCabe’s contribution to the genre was in making something that moved – or in this case, danced. The video, set to the beat of Purple Hat by Sofi Tukker, has the stick figure dancing and shuffling along the streets of Toronto’s West End – a feat that involved 1,100km of running. Every second of the video is a marathon and a half. The idea, which plays out like a flip book, came from his wife, Andrea Morales. “I love working with video. And over the years I’ve come to appreciate that one of the most powerful and underused tools is the passage of time,” he said. “And motion is just time unfolding.” The stick figure wasn’t McCabe’s first attempt at Strava art. Last year, he made a collection of blocky animals by running through the city’s streets. He admits they were amateurish, but served as a useful exercise in learning both the quirks of Strava and the level of fastidiousness needed to execute a grander vision. Initially, the now-famous TikTok post went unnoticed, racking up dozens of views in the first few days. “The reality is you have to go into these things assuming that they’ll fall flat, that they’ll fail.” It was only after Ben Steiner, a Toronto-based sports journalist, reposted McCabe’s video that a broader audience took notice. In the weeks since, he’s appeared on daytime talkshows, waded through a frenzy of media interviews and emerged with a level of virality that has exceeded anything he imagined would be possible. With that level of internet fame, he now occupies a rare space few creatives ever attain: a chance to build on success and to address the ever-lingering question of what comes next. The whale, run on a recent December morning before sunrise, is part of that answer. Holding a detailed map on his phone in one hand and a 360-degree camera in another, he jogs up and down the quiet pre-dawn streets, past the clatter of road construction and at times, dodging incoming traffic. “If I let Strava plan this route out for me, it would put me at crosswalks. That doesn’t work for something like a whale.” Occasionally, he abruptly stops and begins walking, the secret for the most controversial element of his famed dancing stick figure: the diagonal lines. It’s the question he’s asked most online: how did he pull off this impossible feat, in a city laid out on a grid, without cutting through yards or even through entire buildings? McCabe uses a quirk of Strava whereby if a user pauses the run, and then moves to another location, the program smooths out the route using a straight line. But his explanation isn’t enough to satisfy a minority of armchair internet contrarians. “They say that instead of running four times a week, I flew a drone, lied to my friends and family in the hopes that a novel idea takes off,” he said. “Because that’s oddly more satisfying than accepting I just ran a lot for a long time.” Instead, he wishes viewers had noted the deliberate subtleties of the animation, including when the stick figure struts along the screen – a feat that required shifting the whole piece further and further away from his home. When it came to assembling the video, McCabe had to fiddle with the smallest details, including dozens of stray lines and frame rates. The resulting art, in a way, comes in spite of – not because of – the programs used to create it. Art and running both require propulsive internal force to complete. For McCabe, it was a vision in his head – of a dancing stick figure – he couldn’t shake. “It’s simple, I know it sounds silly, but I got goosebumps thinking about what it could be.” There were days he was soaked through from torrential downpours. When he needed to access his phone to see the route, he realised wet fingers can’t operate a touch screen. “You find yourself praying you can find a bit of dry sock to maybe clear a bit of the screen,” he says. “Or else you just spent the last hour for nothing.” For 10 months, he toiled alone. “I was doing this with no feedback. All I had was my wife. I’d come home and she’d ask how my stick man was, and I’d tell her: ‘Oh, tonight was a great stick man.’” His online fame, however, has not brought him many tangible rewards. “I thought brands would want to reach out and maybe want to be a part of this,” he said. “All I’ve got is a pair of shoes and a few protein bars.” Even with all the miles logged, McCabe doesn’t think of himself as a runner. “I don’t have a fancy kit. I don’t go fast. If anything, running is just a way of making the art.” The sun has risen, the streets are growing busier and McCabe is nearly done with the whale. He’s working through the lower pectoral fin. When he can, he edges towards patches of greenery. “I like to avoid the sharp turns when I can. I love the lazy, meandering angles, especially on something like a whale. Not everyone will notice it. Most won’t,” he said. “But, I do.” |
The Guardian;Netherlands to open archive on people accused of wartime Nazi collaboration;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/netherlands-to-open-archive-on-people-accused-of-wartime-nazi-collaboration;2024-12-31T10:28:54Z | For 80 years, details of their ancestors’ collaboration with the Nazis have been buried in spotless rows of filing cabinets in The Hague. But thousands of Dutch families face having their relatives’ history laid bare later this week when an archive opens on 425,000 people accused of siding with the occupier during the second world war. On Thursday, the central archives of the special jurisdiction courts (CABR), established after the allies liberated the Netherlands to bring collaborators to justice, will open under national archive rules. Until now, the most visited war archive in the Netherlands has been accessible only to researchers, those involved and direct descendants. But from Thursday the physical archive will open to general visitors. For the first three months of 2025, researchers and descendants of victims and alleged perpetrators will also have digital access to a quarter of this extraordinary database – on site at the national archive in The Hague – for the first time. Relatives have mixed feelings about the move. “It’s a bit uncomfortable,” said Connie, 74, one of three sisters whose family history is contained in the archive. “I don’t know what could come out of it eventually, if people Google our surname.” But some in the Netherlands believe that openness about the country’s wartime past, including its economic and bureaucratic collaboration, is crucial. Three-quarters of the Dutch Jewish population – more than 102,000 people – were murdered by the Nazis, with antisemitic collaboration from the state, police and some of the Dutch population. It is a past that the country is only now coming to terms with, opening a national Holocaust museum, making a public apology and funding research into the role of institutions and transport firms. “This is part of the repression by the Dutch of their memories of collaboration, after we had punished our military and political collaborators,” said Johannes Houwink ten Cate, an emeritus professor of Holocaust studies at Amsterdam University. “I can understand the children and grandchildren of collaborators now fear possible consequences, but my personal experience is that their feelings come to rest once they have seen the files. Making this open is an important step.” Initially, the intention had been to put the archive online at the website Oorlog voor de Rechter (“war before the judges”) on Thursday. But the prospect sparked public disquiet and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (AP) issued a warning that putting the archive of suspected collaborators online would breach privacy laws. “In the spring of 2024, the AP had a signal from a surviving relative that the planned publication of the CABR was possibly not being organised in a lawful way,” it announced. “The national archives must now start working on an alternative method.” Online publication is delayed and the culture minister, Eppo Bruins, says the archive should not be indexable by search engines such as Google. But eventually it is hoped that 30m pages of witness reports, diaries, membership cards for the Dutch fascist party, medical records, court judgments, pardon pleas and pictures will all be searchable. At a recent event at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, the director, Martijn Eickhoff, said the special court archive from 1944 and 1952 was a valuable historical resource. But it was also a period of wild accusation, he said: fewer than 15% of suspects were punished by tribunals and extraordinary courts, and two-thirds not at all. “It is important to look at this archive carefully,” he told the Guardian. “If a text is misleading, people become critical about the source, and this is what you learn to do as a historian … But because it contains so many personal documents, this affects people enormously.” He compared the Dutch archive with modern-day Syria, where global experts are working to preserve evidence of crimes under the toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad. “We hope to lead this experiment [opening the archive] on the right tracks. Not to open the door again to collective hatred,” he told a room of descendants, including Connie and her sisters Jolanda and Mieke. The sisters, who asked for their surname not to be published, have different feelings about the opening of the archive. While Connie is concerned, Jolanda, 70, said she did not mind and Mieke, 68, said she was keen to see her grandfather’s dossier. He had a building company that carried out work for the Nazis, and in the reckoning after the war he was punished for it. The sisters’ father worked there too. “But he was 18,” said Jolanda. “I don’t know what other things my grandfather believed, but Dad believed in a better world, not in Nazi ideology … But you can make choices, like my father’s family. Sometimes it’s a bad choice.” |
The Guardian;Tuesday briefing: How public celebrations like New Year’s Eve became private events;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/first-edition-crowds-dan-hancox;2024-12-31T06:45:00Z | Good morning. If you’re planning to go out in a big city on New Year’s Eve, it is more likely than ever that your festivities will be sponsored, guarded, overpriced and restricted. In London, Edinburgh – although not this year, as Hogmanay celebrations have been cancelled because of forecast storms – and many other cities in the UK and around the world, public squares that were once understood to be a shared space for anyone who cared to use them are now often under the control of private companies, contracted by the authorities to keep people safe, keep them spending money – and even keep them away. This change is predicated on the idea that an unmanaged crowd is a dangerous, mindless thing that can lead even the most upstanding citizen into some sort of barbarism. In his superb new book, Multitudes: How Crowds Made The Modern World, Dan Hancox argues that this isn’t true – and that, instead, being part of a free-roaming festive crowd is among the best things about being a human being. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Dan about the fascinating, bleak changes to how new year crowds are allowed to assemble, and what those changes reveal about modern society. I hope you find an unbranded celebration that lets you roam wherever you want tonight, and here are the headlines. In depth: ‘There is something instinctive about congregating with strangers when something exciting happens’ Thanks so much for doing this, Dan. One thing that might be a useful way to begin is by explaining the distinction you make in the book between “closed” and “open” crowds. What’s the difference? And which kind is a New Year’s crowd? A closed crowd is something like a concert hall or a football stadium – somewhere with secure perimeter fencing with paid-for tickets nearly always as a condition of entry, and with a bunch of other conditions of entry as well. You’re entering into, usually, a private space, and you’re paying for the privilege to do so, and your behaviour sort of responds accordingly. You’re more likely to sit still in the seat that has been assigned to you and to comport yourself according to the social norms of that particular space. Open crowds in the modern city are increasingly rare. And New Year’s Eve crowds are a very good example – a rare example – of a substantial urban open crowd in which there is theoretically no boundary, that people freely leave and join and move around in without any kind of authority. You get this at Notting Hill carnival [in west London]. You might get it when, say, the Lionesses win the Euros and people spontaneously gravitate towards the city centre to celebrate, but nobody has particularly summoned them there to do so. Most protests are open crowds too, even if they have stewards in yellow jackets, marshalling the edges. It’s about your freedom of movement to join and leave. In recent years, as part of a wider change in the way people in cities are policed, new year celebrations have become more likely to be closed crowds with particular areas that you’re allowed to be in, and ticketing and more heavy-handed security. What does that change about the experience? That is absolutely the trend of the last decade, to turn those open crowds into closed crowds, and New Year’s Eve is a prime example of that. In cities like London and New York and Sydney, you have what was hitherto an assembly of up to a million people, sprawled quite messily across the city in an attempt to join the throng, being quite heavily securitised. In London, it was Boris Johnson in 2014 who introduced ticketing for the fireworks for the first time. And with the ticketing, you get a cavalcade of other conditions – fencing, stewarding, security guards, closer surveillance, and now also stratified ticketing, where you can pay more for a “better” service. It has the effect of compartmentalising the crowd, because an open crowd is viewed as dangerous and suspicious by people in power. It’s a very clear hierarchy of wealth and class that revives the way cities were constructed in the 18th and 19th centuries. The current mayor, Sadiq Khan, was critical of it at the time, saying that this was purportedly about safety but was really about monetising people’s good time – but then when he was elected, he kept it. Ticket prices start at £20 and go up to £50 for a better view. They’re already sold out for this year. There’s also a company offering new year packages where you get a boat for 12 people to float down the Thames for £5,775. One of the big consequences of this, which I think is a real demerit, is that you just get many fewer people coming – in London, it’s down from a million to 100,000. The same thing is true in Sydney and in other places where the same thing has happened. It works quite consciously as a dispersal method, which should be antithetical to what they want, which is a thriving, buzzing city. You quote Elias Canetti, who wrote a book called Crowds and Power in 1960, and says that what people want in a crowd is a “blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another”. I would say that it cuts against the spirit and the fun of joining the crowd. The new year’s crowd is essentially the carnival crowd, by which I don’t mean Notting Hill or Rio but this ancient spirit of carnival – the moment where the pauper is the king and vice versa, and everyone in the village is allowed to escape the bonds of the usual hierarchy in the name of a good party. If you’re being compartmentalised according to taste, wealth, mobility that goes against something innate in us. There’s this brilliant Finnish expression, torilla tavataan, which literally means “to the town square”, but is used figuratively as an expression of joy, say when your team has just won the ice hockey. It reveals something really important: the crowd belongs in the public square and the public square belongs to the crowd, and there is something instinctive about congregating with strangers when something exciting happens. A thread through a lot of what you’re talking about is the growth of the events industry. One of the most memorable examples of how they have changed things was the story in 2019 about festival organisers Underbelly making people in Edinburgh apply for access to their own homes if they lived within the “street party area”, and restricting whether they could have their own New Year’s Eve parties. That’s like a hyperbolic example of the kind of thing we see more generally – where a very heavily commercialised events industry traps something free and organic. There have always been events, and there have always been people organising them, and often monetising them. But the growth of the urban events industry in the past two decades is extremely striking, and it’s now a key part of the post-industrial city’s economic mix – both in attracting tourism, but also just encouraging people who live there to spend their disposable income. It’s also important to say that this isn’t just about the organisation – it’s also about how the city is constructed. Most cities in the west have more and more fences, metaphorically and literally, and there are more and more spaces that appear to be public and are actually owned by private developers. They’re known as privately owned public spaces, or POPs for short. And that has had a huge impact on how crowds behave and where they are able to assemble. But although it’s accelerated significantly, it’s also not a new phenomenon. Trafalgar Square is a great example: when it was first laid out in the early 19th century, the Chartists were on the rise, and there was real clamour and public protest about the extension of the electoral franchise. And because of the concern of the vast amount of space Trafalgar Square offered, after a year or so they added the vast fountains – they take up almost half the entire space, and the only reason they are so big is because it reduces the space available for the crowd by half. So the authorities have always been concerned about large crowds, and will try to mitigatethat by designing them out. Is there any truth to the idea that the only way to make a crowd safe is to make it smaller – or that you need this level of oversight to look after people? It is a genuine and important concern – over 150 people died in Seoul in South Korea only a couple of years ago in a horrendous Halloween tragedy on very narrow streets. But the leading crowd safety experts say that all crowd crushes are avoidable with the right preparations. And I wonder if, with New Year’s Eve, safety is being used as a bit of an excuse. The best counter example is Notting Hill carnival, where about a million people a day throng, generally safely, in a tiny little web of streets where 40,000 people normally live. I spoke to the CEO of the carnival trust, Matthew Phillip, and he told me that the first thing he did when he took over was remove a lot of the barriers. That may sound counterintuitive, but the evidence is that the best way to ensure safety is to give them freedom of movement. Bottling people up just makes crushes more likely. You cite Barbara Ehrenreich, who argued that in the 20th century “a truly participatory, popular, cultural and festive life was transformed into pure rock’n’roll spectacle”, and that you could view that as the conclusion of a centuries-long effort to tame audiences. Do you see the new year crowd as an extension of that phenomenon? The trend of the past 50 years is of the capture and containment of public festivities. They are just too unruly to make enough money from to be allowed to continue. But that attempt to bring the festive crowd to heel should be pushed back against. Yes, what’s happened in cities like London has made the crowd smaller, perhaps made it better behaved, but also made it less free. That’s a shame, because we have an evolutionary imperative to get together with strangers for a good time, and it’s what we should all be doing on New Year’s Eve, whether or not we can afford a ticket. Reading this online or on the Guardian app? Over Christmas period the headlines and sport will not appear, so to get the First Edition experience in your inbox every morning, sign up here |
The Guardian;South Korean court issues arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/arrest-warrant-south-korea-president-yoon-suk-yeol-martial-law-ntwnfb;2024-12-31T02:06:10Z | A court in South Korea has approved an arrest warrant for the country’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached over his ill-fated decision to impose martial law early this month, investigators said. Yoon’s decision to declare martial law late on 3 December plunged Asia’s fourth-biggest economy into its worst political crisis for decades and caused concern in Washington. Yoon was forced to lift the order just six hours later after MPs forced their way into parliament to vote it down. The corruption investigation office confirmed that a court in Seoul had approved the warrant, but it was not clear if police would be able to execute it. “The arrest warrant and search warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol … were issued this morning,” the Joint Investigation Headquarters said in a statement. Yoon Kab-keun, a lawyer for Yoon, condemned the move. “The arrest warrant and search and seizure warrant issued at the request of an agency without investigative authority are illegal and invalid,” he said in a statement. Soon after investigators said they had raided the army’s counterintelligence offices as part of the growing martial law probe. “The emergency martial law investigation team of the Corruption Investigation Office is conducting a search and seizure operation at the Counterintelligence Command this afternoon,” investigators said in a statement. Yoon has so far refused to cooperate with the investigation into his martial law order. He has failed to report to investigators for questioning over allegations of abuse of authority and orchestrating a rebellion, and his presidential security service has prevented court-ordered searches of his office and residence. Yoon also faces charges of insurrection – a crime that can carry life imprisonment or the death penalty and one of the few charges from which a South Korean president does not have immunity. An official from the corruption investigation office said Yoon’s refusal to be questioned had prompted the warrant request. “The reason for the warrant is that there is a concern that the individual may refuse to comply with summons without justifiable reasons, and there is sufficient probable cause to suspect the commission of a crime,” the official said. The warrant is valid until 6 January, he said, adding that Yoon could be held at a police station or the Seoul detention centre. Media reports said an imminent arrest or search of the presidential residence was unlikely, as investigators would seek to coordinate with the presidential security service. Technically, anyone obstructing the execution of an arrest warrant could be arrested. But under South Korean law, locations potentially linked to military secrets cannot be seized or searched without the consent of the person in charge, and it is unlikely that Yoon will voluntarily leave his residence if he faces arrest. It is the first time an arrest warrant has been issued for an incumbent president in South Korea, according to local media. Police were deployed early on Tuesday outside Yoon’s residence in central Seoul in an attempt to prevent unrest. Yoon’s supporters and protesters calling for his removal have staked out his residence, with local media showing images of altercations between the two camps overnight. “Unless Yoon voluntarily lets them detain him, there is no way to detain him,” said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership. “Should investigators have hand-to-hand fights with the security service?” Choi said that investigators were still likely to visit Yoon’s residence to show they were doing their work diligently and fairly. Park Sung-min, president of the Seoul-based political consulting firm MIN Consulting, said the push for an arrest warrant was probably an attempt to pressure Yoon to cooperate with the investigation. The acting leader of South Korea’s ruling People Power party, Kweon Seong-dong, said on Tuesday that attempting to detain a sitting president was inappropriate, according to Yonhap news agency. Yoon’s presidential powers were suspended after the national assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December over his imposition of martial law. The constitutional court has 180 days from that date to decide whether to confirm the impeachment or reinstate Yoon, whose two-and-a-half years in office have been marred by scandal and policy deadlock. The martial law order triggered weeks of political and market turmoil. Yoon’s replacement, Han Duck-soo, was also impeached last week for refusing to approve bills to facilitate the investigation into his predecessor. Han’s successor as interim president, Choi Sang-mok, had been in office for just two days when he was confronted with the fatal plane crash at Muan international airport, the worst aviation disaster on South Korean soil. On Tuesday Choi called for national harmony and unity and for trust in the government in a New Year’s address. “The Republic of Korea is in an unprecedentedly serious situation,” Choi said in a written statement, citing changes around global trade, diplomacy and security, as well as domestic political uncertainty. “The government will do its best to run state affairs stably in all areas of defence, diplomacy, economy and society for the people to feel relieved,” he added. Agencies contributed reporting |
The Guardian;Ukraine war briefing: US grants $6bn in aid to Ukraine before Trump inauguration;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/ukraine-war-briefing-us-grants-6bn-in-aid-to-ukraine-before-trump-inauguration;2024-12-31T01:36:14Z | The US has unveiled almost $6bn in military and budget aid for Ukraine, as the Biden administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before president-elect Donald Trump takes office next month. “I’ve directed my administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Biden said in a statement. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.” The package includes nearly $2.5bn more in weapons, as well as $3.4bn in economic assistance to help pay for critical government services, including salaries for civilian government and school employees, healthcare workers and first responders. Ukrainian forces have staged a new attack on the town of Lgov in southern Russia’s Kursk region, badly damaging a two-storey apartment building, the region’s acting governor said on Monday, a week after four people were killed in another strike. Alexander Khinshtein, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said one person was injured in the latest attack in the region, where Ukrainian forces have seized a chunk of territory after launching an incursion in August. “Their purpose is to frighten people, sow confusion, panic and chaos,” Khinshtein said of the Ukrainian attack. “And to deny children the chance to enjoy the forthcoming New Year.” Russia and Ukraine have carried out a major prisoner exchange, with at least 150 people from each side returning home before New Year’s Eve, in a swap partly brokered by the United Arab Emirates. “The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a message posted on Telegram on Monday. “My son is 5 years old now, the last time I saw him he was 2 years old,” said Serhii, who was captured by Russian forces at the Azovstal steel mill in the southern port Mariupol, which withstood a siege for nearly three months in 2022. Ukraine is pledging support for the new authorities in Syria, which was once a key Russian ally in the Mideast. Ukraine’s foreign minister met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, days after Kyiv announced the delivery of a large shipment of wheat flour to the country after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, who has been granted asylum in Moscow. Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said he hopes “that a new Syria would become a country that respects international law”. “The Russian and Assad regimes supported each other because their foundation is violence and torture,” he added. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to step up bilateral relations with Russia in a letter to President Vladimir Putin on Monday, state media KCNA reported on Tuesday. In the message, Kim sent New Year greetings to Putin and all Russians, including their troops and “wished that the New Year 2025 would be recorded as the first year of victory in the 21st century when the Russian army and people would defeat neo-nazism and achieve a great victory,” KCNA said. Kim and Putin signed a mutual defence treaty at a summit in June, which calls for each side to come to the other’s aid in the event of an armed attack, and Pyongyang has since dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Russia to support its war effort, according to Ukraine, the US and South Korea. |
The Guardian;Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof was ‘scathing about African leaders’, files reveal;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/31/live-aid-campaigner-bob-geldof-was-scathing-about-african-leaders-files-reveal;2024-12-31T00:01:51Z | The Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof urged Tony Blair not to appoint an African co-chair to the UK-led organisation working to overhaul international aid to the continent because he thought African leadership was “very weak” on the issue, newly released government documents suggest. The singer was “scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders” before the establishment in 2004 of Blair’s Commission for Africa, which would produce a report, Our Common Interest, and prompt a landmark pledge by rich nations to boost aid and write off debt. Geldof was instrumental in persuading the then prime minister to set up a “Brandt II” report, similar to the 1980 Brandt report on international economic development, which would lead to a “Marshall plan” for Africa, a reference to the US plan to rebuild Europe after the second world war. It would coincide with the UK’s presidency of the G8 nations group and the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. But behind the scenes, Geldof and the government had different ideas on how it should be set up, official papers released to the National Archives show. Geldof stressed in one letter to the prime minister that Blair’s personal leadership was vital if it was to succeed. “I do think this needs to be a direct commission from you personally – your vision, your authority, your weight,” he wrote. He also called for speed so it could report back in time for the G8 summit that Blair was hosting at Gleneagles in July 2005. “I know I’m pushy, and I know you’re up to your neck, but something short of the normal seven-week delay response would be welcome (do you use Royal Mail?). Seriously though, this must be implemented almost immediately,” Geldof wrote. A No 10 letter from October 2003, reporting on a telephone conversation between Blair and Geldof, said: “The PM spoke with Bob Geldof today. Geldof argued that unless we found a way to allow Africans to make livelihoods at home they would come to our shores, resulting in massive social upheaval. African leadership had been very weak.” Other Downing Street officials urged caution. One said they could face “opprobrium” from Geldof and his fellow Live Aid campaigner Bono if they were unable to deliver on the plan. Liz Lloyd, a senior adviser on international development, expressed concern over Geldof’s desire that the commission, while being chaired by Blair, should also be independent, and she stressed the government must have oversight. “If this document is going to have your name and be sold by you, [Geldof] must accept that we have the final editing role,” she wrote to Blair. The fact Geldof was opposed to a chair from Africa was particularly “tricky”, she added. “He is scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders and sees the audience as primarily the US,” she noted. “He therefore does not want an African co-chair, content to ride with your name to give it credibility.” She continued that they would need “prominent African involvement” and suggested Blair “talk carefully” to the then South African president, Thabo Mbeki, to secure his support. The ensuing pledge at Gleneagles to double aid and extend debt relief was hailed by Geldof as “mission accomplished”, although some anti-poverty campaigners complained that he had got too close to the government and that it did not go far enough. |
The Guardian;Olaf Scholz: German election ‘will not be decided by social media owners’;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/olaf-scholz-german-election-will-not-be-decided-by-social-media-owners;2024-12-30T23:01:48Z | The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has urged voters not to let the “owners of social media channels” decide next year’s snap election, after Elon Musk repeatedly endorsed the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). In a New Year’s Eve address recorded for television and made available before its broadcast on Tuesday, Scholz said German citizens alone had the power to decide “where Germany goes from here” after the general election on 23 February. “It will not be decided by the owners of social media channels,” Scholz said of the country’s future. “In our debates, one can be forgiven for sometimes thinking the more extreme an opinion is, the more attention it will garner.” Rather, Scholz said, the fate of German society “will be up to the vast majority of reasonable and decent people”. Without mentioning Musk or his platform, X, explicitly, Scholz urged Germans to resist manipulation and to stand up for their democracy. “After all, it’s customary to make wishes on New Year’s Eve. What I wish for is that we will not let ourselves be played off each other,” he said. Scholz noted there had been a surge of disinformation on social media after the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg on 20 December in which five people were killed and more than 200 injured. The car ramming was allegedly committed by a Saudi-born assailant with far-right sympathies. “No small number of these rumours and conjectures, though, have meanwhile been debunked. These things divide and weaken us,” he said. “This is not good for our country.” On Monday, a spokesperson for Scholz, Christiane Hoffmann, accused Musk of trying to meddle in the country’s election campaign with a series of declarations backing the anti-Muslim, anti-migration AfD party. “It is indeed the case that Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election,” Hoffmann said at a regular media briefing. Musk had the right to free speech, she said, adding: “After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.” Musk has often weighed in on German politics, even calling Scholz a “fool” on X last month. However, his more recent open calls for German voters to support the AfD, which federal authorities classify as a suspected extremist party, have sparked outrage and accusations of troubling interference in Europe’s top economy. The South African-born entrepreneur, a close adviser to Donald Trump who has been named by the incoming president to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the US federal government, wrote on X earlier this month: “Only the AfD can save Germany.” In the post, Musk shared a video by a German rightwing influencer, Naomi Seibt, who criticised Friedrich Merz, the conservative frontrunner in the German election, and praised Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president. He followed up at the weekend with a guest editorial in the broadsheet Welt am Sonntag arguing that Germany was teetering on the brink of economic and cultural collapse, defending the AfD against accusations of radicalism and praising the party’s approach to the economy, including regulation and tax policy. The editor of the centre-right newspaper’s opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, posted on X that she had submitted her resignation in protest at the decision to run the article. Politicians from across the political spectrum criticised Musk’s attempts to put his thumb on the scales of German democracy, with the health minister, Karl Lauterbach, of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD), calling his intervention “undignified and highly problematic” and Merz saying it was “intrusive and presumptuous”. Merz told the Funke media group: “I cannot recall in the history of western democracies a comparable case of interference in the election campaign of a friendly country.” Scholz’s centre-left-led coalition collapsed last month, prompting him to call a confidence vote in order to trigger a general election in February, seven months ahead of schedule. His SPD is widely expected to lose to Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc amid voter anger over the cost of living and meagre economic growth. AfD members have been working for months to make inroads with the Trump camp, seeking to harness his electoral momentum for the German campaign. Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, was one of the first foreign politicians to welcome Trump’s victory. A small group of AfD activists posed for pictures with Trump at his private club Mar-a-Lago on US election day last month, chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in English and German. Musk’s endorsement in Die Welt cited Weidel’s “same-sex partner from Sri Lanka” as evidence that the portrayal of the AfD “as rightwing extremist is clearly false”. “Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” he wrote. The AfD is polling second on about 19%, behind the CDU/CSU on 31%. A strong showing for the party could complicate coalition building, requiring the election winner to seek up to two partners to build a ruling majority. All mainstream parties have ruled out collaborating with the AfD at state or federal level. |
The Guardian;Israel sets out case to UN security council for full assault on Yemen’s Houthis;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/israel-sets-out-case-to-un-security-council-for-full-assault-on-yemens-houthis;2024-12-30T18:45:05Z | Israel has set out its case to the UN security council for a full assault on Houthi forces in Yemen, claiming the Iranian-backed group now represents a well-armed terrorist army that threatens not just the regional economy but the entire global order. The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, also called for the Houthis to be designated as a foreign terrorist organisation, a step that may make it more difficult for Iran to provide material support without facing further economic sanctions. Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the UN – who had called for the UN security council meeting to discuss the recent escalation in Houthi attacks on Israel – said the Houthis “were nothing more than part of Iran’s war against peace”. The group, he said, had an annual budget of $1.2bn (£0.95bn) and came dangerously close to strangling the Suez canal by its attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. He added that “millions of Israelis are waking up every night to the sound of sirens across the country”, accusing the Houthis of launching 300 attacks on Israel this year. He said: “Let me make one thing absolutely clear; we have had enough. Israel will not stand by and wait for the world to react. We will defend our citizens.” The Houthis were no longer a regional threat but a threat to the world order, he said. While almost all security council members at Monday’s meeting condemned the Houthi attacks on Israel mounted a week ago, many also condemned the Israeli threat to Yemeni civilians represented by the air raids on key power stations, the air traffic control tower at the airport in the capital of Sana’a, and ports which are critical to the delivery of aid. Nine Yemeni civilians were killed in the attacks that Israel said were retaliation for what Danon described as “a relentless Houthi bombardment of Israeli population centres”. Barbara Woodward, the UK envoy to the UN, reiterated Israel’s right to self-defence but warned: “Israel’s action must be consistent with their obligations under international law including protection of civilians.” She said she was “concerned by the attack on Sana’a airport that endangered Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus”. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) was at Sana’a airport when Israeli warplanes struck on Thursday. A crew member from Tedros’s plane was injured in the strike and Tedros said he and his colleagues “escaped death narrowly”. “Humanitarian aid workers must be able to carry out their important work safely and securely,” said Woodward, adding the director general had been in Yemen to seek the release of a group of UN staff held hostage by the Houthis. Israel’s latest remarks appear to be part of a strategic decision to launch further decisive attacks on the Houthis, a strategy it hopes will be endorsed by the incoming Trump administration. Danon portrayed the UN as morally compromised and unwilling to take the steps necessary to enforce an arms embargo on Yemen. Israel wants the UN to interdict ships carrying Iranian weapons to the Houthis though ports such as Hodeidah. The US and the UK governments think the current weak mandate of the UN verification and inspection mechanism needs review. Referring to the narrow escape of the WHO director general and his delegation, Danon said: “We have no control over who is where. We have no intention to bomb to harm NGO or the UN, on the contrary, but if they are in areas where Houthis are, they should be careful because we will not sit idly by.” Vasily Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the UN, went further in criticising Israel, saying the attacks were not owing to self-defence, but “are part of military aggression against a sovereign state by the collective west”. He said it was irrelevant if the attack was regarded as retaliation since the scope of destruction was a deliberate escalation, and disproportionate. He accused the US and the UK of being involved in the attacks on civilian infrastructure. The Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, and the group’s spokesperson, Yahya Qasim Sare’e, have made it clear that as long as the war in Gaza continues, the Houthis will continue to attack shipping and Israel. Some Houthi activists have said on social media that recent attacks on Jaffa are a prelude to an attack on Israeli nuclear sites. |
The Guardian;Russia and Ukraine swap at least 300 prisoners in exchange deal;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/russia-ukraine-swap-prisoners-exchange-deal;2024-12-30T18:43:35Z | Russia and Ukraine have carried out a major prisoner exchange, with at least 150 people from each side returning home before New Year’s Eve, in a swap partly brokered by the United Arab Emirates. “The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of such days: our team managed to bring 189 Ukrainians home,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a message posted on Telegram on Monday. The Russian defence ministry said 150 prisoners from each side had returned home, and there was no immediate explanation for the difference in numbers. Ukraine’s coordinating centre on exchanges said those returning to Ukraine included 87 soldiers from the army, 43 from the national guard, 33 border guards, 24 from the navy and two civilians. It said 14 officers were among the group. The centre said those Ukraine sent back to Russia were prisoners captured during Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region, which began in late summer and resulted in Kyiv occupying a small chunk of Russian territory. Among the stated goals of the Kursk operation were having a bargaining chip to play at potential future negotiations, and seizing prisoners to trade for Ukrainians held by Russia. Some of those who Russia returned on Monday had been held since the early months of the war, which began when Russia invaded in February 2022. The exchange, the 11th this year, brought the total number of Ukrainian prisoners returned by Russia this year to 1,358, the coordination centre said, but added there were many more remaining in Russia. “We are working to free everyone from Russian captivity. This is our goal. We do not forget anyone,” Zelenskyy said. Returning prisoners have told the Guardian of physical and psychological brutality while in captivity, including repeated beatings, humiliating strip-searches, threatening interrogations and orders to sing the Russian national anthem or recite Russian poetry. Maria Klymyk, of the Media Initiative for Human Rights in Kyiv, whose organisation has conducted interviews with more than 100 returning prisoners, said many came home with injuries caused by malnourishment, neglect or abuse and some even needed amputations. “Almost everyone we have spoken to was tortured,” she said last year. Zelenskyy shared photographs of some of those exchanged on Monday, who were sitting on a coach and holding up Ukrainian flags. Russia’s human rights commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, published video of Russian soldiers gathered outside buses. “Very soon our guys will embrace their relatives and friends and celebrate the new year in their native land,” she wrote in a Telegram message accompanying the video. The exchange is a rare piece of good news for Ukraine as the country heads towards New Year’s Eve, when traditionally families gather together in one of the biggest holidays of the year in Ukraine and Russia. Kyiv is warily awaiting the return of Donald Trump to the White House, and to see what his stated goal to bring a quick peace to the conflict will look like in practice. Some hope Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, may soon realise that Vladimir Putin has little interest in a deal and push for further military backing for Ukraine. Others fear Trump, given his longstanding admiration for the Russian president, may throw Ukraine under the bus. On Monday, Joe Biden’s administration announced nearly $6bn (£4.8bn) in military and budget aid for Ukraine, part of a rush to increase assistance before Trump takes over as president. “Today, I am proud to announce nearly $2.5bn in security assistance for Ukraine, as the Ukrainian people continue to defend their independence and freedom from Russian aggression,” Biden said in a statement. The package will allow the Pentagon to take weapons from US stocks and send them quickly to Ukraine. At the same time, the US Treasury announced $3.4bn in direct budgetary support for Ukraine. |
The Guardian;Church of England must open up its governance to scrutiny | Letters;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/church-of-england-must-open-up-its-governance-to-scrutiny;2024-12-30T17:53:49Z | It is difficult to comprehend why the Anglican Church allowed known abusers into positions of trust, and continued to tolerate situations that should have been impossible (C of E must ‘kneel in penitence’ after difficult year, says archbishop of York, 25 December). A church has no knees but those of its members, most of whom, in this case, were surely oblivious of the situation. That the archbishop of York chose to use figurative language at such a portentous moment offers a small clue to the problem. Why did Stephen Cottrell need an adviser to tell him that a known abuser should not hold any office in the church? What is the point of high office in the church if its holders cannot act in favour of victims and against perpetrators? The Anglican church into which I was baptised as a helpless baby and confirmed as an ignorant teenager has had much to commend it over the centuries. The Church in Wales was “separated and disestablished” in 1914, and I wish that the Church of England had taken a corresponding decision later in the 20th century. Arguably, this would have been better for the church. It would certainly be better for the UK constitution now to separate itself, the electorate and the public from an organisation that is so pitiably unable to manage its affairs. I doubt that a great hierarchical institution can really “demonstrate the power of love”. But such an organisation can, and surely should, demonstrate the significance of timely, appropriate action. Janet Dubé Peebles, Scottish Borders • It’s taken me a lifetime to realise that the physical invasion and abuse I received as a teenager by a priest of the Church of England, and the rapes by his friends, and the acceptance of such behaviour by this unaccountable priest, was exactly that – rape and abuse. Nothing protected you in the 1960s. I doubt if the bishops at the time could imagine what went on, though such ignorance or naivety didn’t prevent others in the town being suspicious. My mother challenged this priest on account of the rumours, but who else could she turn to? Turn a blind eye, was the attitude of many in the church. The religious nonsense of this priest and his nomenclature, “Father”, protected him. His outburst in a sermon that “we were all drains and came to mass for divine disinfectant” went unchallenged, projecting his unresolved guilt on to young minds. It just seems laughable today; at the time it was dangerous. The bishop of Newcastle made it plain: “there was a “generation of bishops in the C of E” who were “very much in the mould of it being an old boys’ club”. My priest died unchallenged, unrepentant, full of pride in his religious gobbledegook, his shield from shame at invading young vulnerable lives, their minds and bodies. Name and address supplied • About 15 years ago, I attended a safeguarding symposium where the emphasis was on sharing best practice when working with vulnerable children and adults, and how best to have effective safeguarding policies and structures within organisations. Several Church of England parish groups were present. During the day, members of these groups talked about the church “reaching out” to support other organisations. At the plenary meeting I referenced these comments, and wondered to the audience if the C of E ever allowed other organisations to “reach in” to see how it operated and offer appropriate feedback. This was met with blank incomprehension by church members, although one approached me afterwards to say I’d given him something to think about. The Church of England has resisted any meaningful examination of how it operates, and is an example that it’s not enough to have policies and procedures – there have to be effective actions. Name and address supplied • Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays. |
The Guardian;South Korea launches safety inspection of all airline operations after Jeju Air crash;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/south-korea-emergency-safety-inspection-airline-operations-jeju-air-crash;2024-12-30T15:52:42Z | South Korea has launched an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operations, and a separate check of all Boeing 737-800s, after 179 people died in a Jeju Air crash involving the aircraft on Sunday. As shocked citizens began a second day of official mourning and flags flew at half-mast, the government said it would carry out the audit of all 101 of the aircraft in domestic operation, with US investigators, possibly including Boeing, joining the inspection. Choi Sang-mok, who was appointed South Korea’s president two days before the disaster, said an exhaustive inspection was essential to overhaul the aviation safety system and “move toward a safer Republic of Korea”. He was speaking as reports emerged that another passenger jet belonging to Jeju Air was forced to return to Gimpo airport in Seoul shortly after taking off on Monday, after an unspecified problem with its landing gear. Landing gear malfunction is among the issues being targeted by the investigation into Sunday’s crash, in which the plane skidded along the runway in what the aviation industry describes as a “belly landing”. Officials said the crash could have also been caused by a bird strike and weather conditions – or a combination of those and other factors – but the exact cause was not yet known. It was the worst civil aviation disaster on South Korean soil. With identification of the dead proceeding slowly, Park Han-shin, a representative of the bereaved families, said they were told the bodies were so “badly damaged” that officials needed time before returning them to their families. “I demand that the government mobilise more personnel to return our brothers and family members as intact as possible more swiftly,” he said. Among questions that have emerged in the immediate aftermath of the accident is whether an almost 2-metre-high structure, a concrete wall located unusually close to the end of the runway, which the jet hit before exploding, exacerbated the catastrophe. The wall, used to support a “localiser” antenna that provides landing alignment information to aircraft, is understood to be much taller than those used at other South Korean airports. Transport ministry officials said on Monday they would look into whether the Muan airport’s localiser should have been made with lighter materials that would have broken up more easily. Two flight attendants – a man and a woman – were rescued from the tail of the aircraft, which broke apart on impact with the wall. They were being treated at a hospital in Seoul after being transferred from hospitals near the airport, the Yonhap news agency said. The male survivor was being treated for fractures to his ribs, shoulder blade and upper spine, said Ju Woong, the director of the Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital. Ju said the man, whose name has not been released, told doctors he “woke up to find [himself] rescued”. Details of the female survivor were not immediately available. The Boeing 737-800 plane operated by the South Korean budget airline Jeju Air aborted its first landing attempt and later smashed down on the runway at speed after issuing a distress call. Video of the crash indicated that the pilots did not deploy flaps or slats on the wings to slow the aircraft, suggesting a possible hydraulic failure, and did not manage to manually lower the landing gear, possibly as they did not have time. The plane’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been retrieved from the wreckage, but media reports said it could take longer than usual to determine the cause as the flight data recorder had been damaged in the crash. Establishing the cause of a major air disaster typically takes months, and damage to the recorder was expected to cause further delays, Yonhap said, citing a land ministry official. Choi declared a seven-day mourning period starting from Sunday, as he attempted to coordinate a response to a major disaster only days after he replaced his impeached predecessor, Han Duck-soo. Han, too, had been made interim leader after the impeachment in mid-December of Yoon Suk Yeol over his disastrous, and short-lived, declaration of martial law earlier in the month. The animosity of the past month appeared to have been put to one side as senior politicians from the ruling and opposition parties attempted to console a country in mourning. While the accident investigation will focus on the model of aircraft, there will inevitably be questions for the flight’s operator, Jeju Air. The low-cost carrier said that about 68,000 flight reservations – over 33,000 for domestic flights and 34,000 for international routes – had been cancelled, the majority after the crash took place. The airline said it would do all it could to support the families of the victims, including with financial aid. Its chief executive, Kim E-bae, told a televised news conference he took “full responsibility” for the crash, irrespective of the cause, and bowed deeply in apology with other senior company officials. He said the company had not identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft after regular checkups, and that he would wait for the results of government investigations. Local travel agencies also reported a rise in cancellations of tour packages after the crash. “We had about 40 inquiries regarding travel cancellations on Sunday alone,” one travel agent told Yonhap. “We saw about double the usual amount of cancellations and a 50% decrease in bookings.” |
The Guardian;What we know about Boeing 737-800 model that crashed in South Korea;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/what-we-know-about-boeing-737-800-model-that-crashed-in-south-korea-jeju-air;2024-12-30T15:24:10Z | Jeju Air’s flight 7C2216 crashed on Sunday, killing 179 of the 181 people onboard. What model was the plane that crashed? The 737-800 is one of the “next generation” models of Boeing’s bestselling 737 series, which was first launched in 1993. The 800 variant first flew in 1997, and was the biggest seller of that generation. It has a maximum capacity of 189 passengers. The 800 and its next-generation siblings were replaced by the 737-Max, which was closely related but had bigger engines and other upgrades. Design flaws in the Max were at fault in two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. Those crashes began the biggest crisis in Boeing’s history, with the entire 737-Max fleet grounded until the design faults were rectified. How many are in use? The 737-800 will be familiar to many flyers. About 15% of the global passenger aircraft fleet (4,400 planes) are Boeing 737-800s, according to data from the aviation analytics firm Cirium. More than 180 airlines around the world use the 737-800 as the workhorse of their fleets, according to theSeatMaps website. They include the big three US carriers – American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta – Europe’s largest airline, Ryanair, and many others including Qantas, Singapore Airlines and the Netherlands’ KLM, according to SeatMaps. What happened on the flight? Flight 7C2216 was filled with holidaymakers travelling from Bangkok to Muan in South Korea. It may be some weeks before investigators make public any findings of what caused the crash. Air traffic controllers had issued a bird strike warning as the plane approached the runway, but some experts have questioned whether that could have caused the crash. The aircraft stopped broadcasting automated tracking data shortly before it landed without its landing gear extended. The plane then slid along the runway before colliding with an antenna array and bursting into flames. Officials confirmed 179 deaths, with two injured crew members found in the tail section. The victims were aged from three to 78. What has Jeju Air said? The Korean airline’s chief executive, Kim E-bae, has said he wanted “to bow my head and apologise”, according to a statement on the company’s website. He expressed his condolences to the families of those killed and said Jeju Air would do whatever it could to support them. In the statement, Kim said it was “difficult to determine the cause of the accident”, adding: “Regardless of the cause of the accident, I feel responsible as the CEO.” The company has removed booking tools from its website homepage. What has Boeing said? A company spokesperson said: “We are in contact with Jeju Air regarding flight 2216 and stand ready to support them. We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew.” The manufacturer said it was legally obliged to refer all queries about the accident to South Korea’s Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board (ARAIB). What will happen now? The crash happened while South Korea was in political turmoil following the impeachment of Yoon Suk Yeol, the president, after he decreed and then cancelled martial law. However, the acting president, Choi Sang-mok, has ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operations, as well as a seven-day period of national mourning. South Korea’s transport ministry has ordered an inspection of every Boeing 737-800 operating in the country. In the meantime, Jeju Air has disclosed it has experienced a surge in booking cancellations, saying about 68,000 flight reservations had been cancelled, according to the Yonhap news agency. |
The Guardian;New Taiwanese boardgame offers chance to battle Chinese invasion;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/new-taiwanese-boardgame-offers-chance-to-battle-chinese-invasion;2024-12-30T14:38:49Z | As families in Taiwan prepare to gather for lunar new year celebrations in January, a game that will be released that month promises to offer some war-themed fun over the festive period. The board game 2045, developed by the Taiwanese company Mizo Games, invites players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years in the future. Players are given roles that include Taiwanese army officers, Chinese sleeper agents and volunteer citizen fighters. “We can’t predict the future, but if a conflict is unavoidable I hope this game gives people a chance to experience war on the tabletop before it reaches us,” KJ Chang, the founder of Mizo Games, told the Wall Street Journal. The game is being released at a time when China has increased its military pressure around the self-governing island. Taiwan has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China but Beijing regards it as part of its territory and has promised to “unify” it with China, using force if necessary. Observers do not know when, if ever, China will launch a military operation against Taiwan. But some analysts have pointed to the years around 2050 as a possible risk period. Xi Jinping, China’s leader and military commander-in-chief, has pledged to build a “world-class army” by the middle of the century, and 2049, the centenary of the People’s Republic of China, is the date by which Beijing wants to achieve “national rejuvenation”. Mizo Games launched a crowdfunding campaign for their new product in August. Within months, it had raised NTD$4.1m (£99,468), surpassing its original target by more than 4,000%. 2045 is the latest in a series of entertainment products in Taiwan that focus on the threat of an attempted Chinese annexation. This year also saw the release of Zero Day, a Taiwanese government-funded television series that depicts a Chinese invasion. It also received support from Robert Tsao, a Taiwanese tech billionaire and supporter of Taiwan’s civil defence efforts. As well as receiving the first copies of the game, VIP backers of the crowdfunding campaign will receive extra Taiwan-themed products. They include a leather passport cover embossed with the words: “Let my fly as a Taiwanese”, a nod to Taiwan’s lack of international recognition. Most countries in the world only have formal diplomatic relations with China. Beijing insists that countries should not recognise Taiwan as a separate country from China and puts pressure on governments to cut ties with Taipei. |
The Guardian;Sixty-mile drag mark found near damaged Baltic Sea cable, says Finland;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/finnish-investigators-into-suspected-sabotage-find-100km-trail-on-baltic-sea-bed;2024-12-30T14:34:22Z | Finnish investigators say they have found a seabed trail stretching almost 100km (about 60 miles) around the site of an underwater electricity cable that was damaged on Christmas Day in a suspected act of Russian sabotage. The ship under suspicion of causing the damage, a vessel called the Eagle S flying the flag of the Cook Islands, is believed to be part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, used for transporting Russian oil products subject to embargos after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “Our current understanding is that the drag mark in question is that of the anchor of the Eagle S,” the police chief investigator, Sami Paila, said on Sunday. “We have been able to clarify this matter through underwater research,” he told the Finnish national broadcaster Yle. The apparent act of sabotage damaged the Estlink 2 electricity cable connecting Finland and Estonia. The cable will take months to repair, which could lead to increased electricity prices in Estonia over the winter. It is the latest in a series of suspicious incidents involving damage to underwater power and communications cables. Paila said the “question of intent is a completely essential issue” and would be clarified during the investigation. However, a senior Estonian official said there was little doubt that the two countries were dealing with a deliberate attack. “If you’re dragging an anchor, it can’t be that you don’t notice it, because the ship would go off course. It’s clearly not possible,” the official told the Guardian. The Estonian official admitted it was “not easy to prove” who was behind the attack, though suspicion naturally falls on Russia, which has been conducting a campaign of sabotage against Nato countries over the past two years. The crew of the Eagle S was made up of Georgian and Indian nationals, Finnish media reported, but the ship had recently docked in Russia and was believed to be carrying Russian oil products. The Estonian official said that when the alarm came on Christmas Day, Finland and Estonia sent ships to the area but the Estonian vessel could not cope with the stormy seas, so the Finns took the lead. “It took a couple of hours to clarify exactly which ship was to blame, and during that time [the Eagle S] cut two communication lines as well,” said the official. However, the ship was stopped before there was any damage to Estlink 1, a second electricity cable linking Finland and Estonia. Tallinn has launched a naval and special forces operation to protect the remaining pipeline. The apparent sabotage comes as Estonia plans to decouple its power grid from the old Soviet network this coming spring and unite with a central European network instead. The official said these plans would go ahead but the damage to the cable would probably prove costly, citing incurred losses when the same cable was put out of action a year ago in an act not linked to sabotage. “It was a 10% increase in cost during the months it took to repair. Altogether, Estonians paid €90m more due to that. So it’s not peanuts,” the official said. Last month two fibre-optic cables were damaged in waters between Sweden and Denmark in an apparent act of sabotage by a Chinese ship. Repeated incidents in the Baltic Sea led the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, to announce on Friday that the alliance would increase its military presence in the sea. The Estonian official said Tallinn’s own military operation would focus on monitoring the heavy traffic in the Baltic and providing a speedy response to threats. “We try to identify suspicious ships, or if we see that the anchor is in the water we will do everything to stop this ship before it reaches the cable,” the official said. |
The Guardian;Berlin accuses Elon Musk of trying to influence German election;https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/30/german-official-elon-musk-trying-to-influence-election-afd;2024-12-30T14:21:23Z | The German government has accused Elon Musk of trying to meddle in the country’s election campaign with repeated endorsements of the far-right party AfD. “It is indeed the case that Elon Musk is trying to influence the federal election,” said the government spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann after Musk’s X posts and an opinion piece published at the weekend backing the anti-Muslim, anti-migration Alternative für Deutschland. She said at a regular media briefing that Musk had the right to free speech, adding: “After all, freedom of opinion also covers the greatest nonsense.” Musk has often weighed in on German politics, even calling the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a “fool” on his social media platform X last month. However, his more recent open calls for German voters to back the AfD, which federal authorities classify as a suspected extremist party, have sparked outrage and accusations of troubling interference in Europe’s top economy. The South African-born entrepreneur, who has been named by Donald Trump to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the US federal government, wrote on X earlier this month: “Only the AfD can save Germany.” In the post, he shared a video by a German rightwing influencer, Naomi Seibt, who criticised Friedrich Merz, the conservative frontrunner in the German election, and praised Javier Milei, Argentina’s self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president. He followed up at the weekend with a guest editorial in the broadsheet Welt am Sonntag arguing that Germany was teetering on the brink of economic and cultural collapse, defending the AfD against accusations of radicalism and praising the party’s approach to the economy, including regulation and tax policy. The editor of the centre-right newspaper’s opinion section, Eva Marie Kogel, posted on X that she had submitted her resignation in protest at the decision to run the article. Politicians from across the political spectrum criticised Musk’s attempts to put his thumb on the scales of German democracy, with the health minister, Karl Lauterbach, of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD) calling his intervention “undignified and highly problematic” and Merz saying it was “intrusive and presumptuous”. Merz told the Funke media group: “I cannot recall in the history of western democracies a comparable case of interference in the election campaign of a friendly country.” Scholz’s centre-left-led coalition collapsed last month, prompting him to call a confidence vote in order to trigger a general election in February, seven months ahead of schedule. His SPD is widely expected to lose to Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc amid voter anger over the cost of living and meagre economic growth. Last week, Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, criticised X explicitly and Musk indirectly in a short speech announcing his formal decision to dissolve parliament and call the election on 23 February. Steinmeier, whose role is largely ceremonial, warned of “outside influence” in the campaign, specifically citing recent “open and blatant” attempts on X to sway the vote. The remarks were widely interpreted as an admonishment of Musk. Members of the AfD have been working for months to make inroads with the Trump camp. Alice Weidel, the party’s co-leader, was one of the first politicians abroad to welcome Trump’s election victory. A small group of AfD activists posed for pictures with Trump at his private club Mar-a-Lago on US election day last month, chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in English and German for the cameras. In Musk’s endorsement in Die Welt, he cited Weidel’s “same-sex partner from Sri Lanka” as evidence that the portrayal of the AfD “as rightwing extremist is clearly false”. “Does that sound like Hitler to you? Please!” he wrote. The AfD is polling second on about 19%, behind the CDU/CSU on 31%. A strong showing for the party could complicate coalition building after the election, requiring the winner to seek up to two partners to build a ruling majority. All mainstream parties have ruled out collaborating with the AfD at state or federal level. |
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Dataset Card for World_News
A collection of news articles from around the world. The script ensures no duplicate articles are added.
Dataset Details
Dataset Description
The articles are drawn from these sources:
Reuters News Agency
BBC World News
Al Jazeera
Le Monde
South China Morning Post
The Hindu
Deutshce Welle
The Gauardian
NPR
TASS News Agency, Russia
The Sydney Morning Herald
Curated by: McNarland Software Consulatants Inc.
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Shared by [optional]: None
Language(s) (NLP): [English, French, Russian]
License: [MIT]
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Global News Sources (RSS Feeds)
AL_JAZEERA_FEED_URL = "https://www.aljazeera.com/xml/rss/all.xml" BBC_FEED_URL = "http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml" LE_MONDE_FEED_URL = "https://www.lemonde.fr/rss/en_continu.xml" REUTERS_FEED_URL = "https://www.reutersagency.com/feed/?best-regions=north-america&post_type=best" THE_HINDU_FEED_URL = "https://www.thehindu.com/news/feeder/default.rss" SCMP_FEED_URL = "https://www.scmp.com/rss/2/feed" DW_FEED_URL = "https://rss.dw.com/rdf/rss-en-all" TASS_FEED_URL = "https://tass.com/rss" RT_FEED_URL = "https://www.rt.com/rss/" ABC_FEED_URL = "https://www.abc.net.au/news/feed/51120/rss.xml" SMH_FEED_URL = "https://www.smh.com.au/rss/feed.xml"
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The JSON format file contains a label and text column. The text column contains the article content while the label contains the publisher, publish date, and article name.
"label": "The Guardian;Middle East crisis live: protesters across Israel call for Netanyahu to agree hostage deal;https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/01/middle-east-crisis-live-israeli-military-says-bodies-of-six-hostages-recovered-in-gaza;2024-09-01T18:16:45Z", "text": "US vice-president Kamala Harris has spoken to Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the parents of Hersh who was one of the hostages ..."
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