World
Albania seeks arrests for quake deaths in collapsed buildings
TIRANA (Reuters) – Albanian prosecutors have issued a series of arrest warrants on charges including murder and abuse of office over the deaths of 51 people killed when a 6.4-magnitude earthquake toppled dozens of buildings...
Anger erupts at U.N. climate summit as major economies resist bold action
MADRID (Reuters) – Major economies resisted calls for bolder climate commitments as a U.N. summit in Madrid limped towards a delayed conclusion on Saturday, dimming hopes that nations will act in time to stop rising temperatures devastating people and the natural world. With the two-week gathering spilling into the weekend, campaigners and many delegates slammed...
Former Sudan president Bashir sentenced to two years in detention for corruption
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – A Sudanese court on Saturday convicted former president Omar al-Bashir on corruption charges and sentenced him to two years of detention in a reform facility, the first ruling against the ex-leader ousted by mass unrest. The presiding judge said Bashir, 75, who was deposed by the military in April following months of...
Police drag environmental protesters from hall of Amsterdam airport
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch military police began forcibly removing a group of environmental protesters from the main hall of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on Saturday after they refused to leave. Hundreds of protesters had arrived for a demonstration against “the big polluter” Schiphol organised by Greenpeace, which had been granted a permit to protest outside the...
Bloomberg climate plan would halve U.S. carbon emissions in 10 years
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Friday unveiled a climate plan to slash U.S. carbon emissions by 50% in ten years, by slapping tougher pollution standards on new gas-fired power plants and replacing coal with cleaner energy sources like wind and solar. The billionaire former New York City mayor has been...
Thousands join biggest protest for years in Thai capital
BANGKOK (Reuters) – Several thousand people took part in Thailand’s biggest protest since a 2014 coup on Saturday after authorities moved to ban a party that has rallied opposition to the government of former military ruler Prayuth Chan-ocha. The demonstration in Bangkok, called just a day earlier by Future Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, a...
Trump impeachment looms as U.S. House committee approves charges
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday took Republican President Donald Trump to the brink of impeachment by approving two charges against him over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden. A divided House Judiciary Committee voted 23-17 along party lines to approve articles of...
‘I don’t feel like a role model’ – Finland’s new 34-year-old leader
BRUSSELS/HELSINKI (Reuters) – She may be the world’s youngest-serving head of government, but Finland’s newly appointed prime minister does not feel like a role model, 34-year-old Sanna Marin told Reuters on Friday. Marin became the Nordic country’s prime minister on Tuesday, and two days later found herself rubbing shoulders at a European Union summit with...
Morocco ex-diplomat to U.N. accused of visa fraud over workers
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Prosecutors in New York have charged a former Moroccan ambassador to the United Nations and others with visa fraud, accusing them of bringing workers to the United States using fake employment contracts and then exploiting them. Abdeslam Jaidi, his ex-wife Maria Luisa Estrella and her brother Ramon Singson brought...
Chile must prosecute police, army for violence against protesters – U.N.
GENEVA/SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chilean police and soldiers used excessive or unnecessary force to quell recent demonstrations, committing serious human rights violations including unlawful killings and torture that should be prosecuted, the United Nations said on Friday. The U.N. human rights office said in a report that it had documented an “alarmingly high number” of 345...
New Zealand divers search for volcano victims; death toll rises to 15
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand divers searched contaminated waters near the volcanic White Island for two remaining bodies on Saturday, as the death toll from an eruption rose to 15 people, the police said. Waters around the island were contaminated by the massive eruption of rocks, lava and chemicals on Monday, reducing visibility. “Divers have...
Fate of global climate action ‘in the balance’ as U.N. talks go down to wire
MADRID (Reuters) – Big polluting countries faced last-ditch pressure from smaller nations to show serious commitment to fighting climate change as negotiators battled into the early hours of Saturday to salvage a result from a fraught U.N. summit in Madrid. With the two-week gathering mired in interlocking disputes over how to implement the 2015 Paris...
U.S. Supreme Court takes up Trump bid to shield financial records
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear President Donald Trump’s appeals in three separate cases to prevent his financial records, including tax returns, being handed over to Democratic-led House of Representatives committees and a New York prosecutor. The Republican president is trying to block subpoenas for bank records, tax returns...
Uber submits appeal to regain London taxi licence
LONDON (Reuters) – Uber submitted an appeal on Friday against a decision by London’s transport regulator to strip the taxi app of its right to operate in one its most important markets, setting up a potentially lengthy legal process during which it can continue to take rides. Last month, Transport for London (TfL) refused to...
In New York lab, centuries-old corals hold clues to climate shifts
PALISADES, N.Y. (Reuters) – Some 20 miles north of New York City, a team of scientists is searching for clues about how the environment is changing by studying organisms not usually found in the woods around here: corals. In the labs of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a research unit of Columbia University overlooking the Hudson River,...
New Zealand resumes mission to retrieve remaining bodies following volcanic eruption
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand police said on Saturday they would search in the waters near the volcanic White Island in their attempts to retrieve two remaining bodies, following a fatal eruption earlier this week. The remains of six people were successfully retrieved on Friday after a military team in gas masks and hazmat suits...
I need a break, says globetrotting Greta
TURIN, Italy (Reuters) – Tireless teenage activist Greta Thunberg has been crisscrossing the globe by car, train and boat – but not plane – to demand action on climate change. But now even she needs a rest. Fresh from being named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, the 16-year-old Swede joined thousands of students in...
Australia’s climate stance sparks anger at U.N. summit
MADRID (Reuters) – Campaigners slammed Australia on the final day of a U.N. climate summit on Friday as its policy of using old carbon credits to count towards future emissions targets emerged as a major sticking point in negotiations. The talks aim to agree outstanding details of how to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement to...
Counting the cost of protest – Hong Kong police rack up $120 million overtime bill
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong police have earned an average of US$11,000 for each officer in overtime pay during the last six months of anti-government protests, with the total overtime bill coming to more than US$120 million, government figures showed on Friday. Police have covered more than 900 protests since June and worked overtime...
French police kill man who threatened officers with knife in Paris
PARIS (Reuters) – Police officers shot dead a man who threatened them with a knife in the Paris business district of La Defense on Friday, police sources said. A security man had alerted police to the presence of a man armed with a knife in La Defense Square. The suspect rushed towards the three-men patrol...
Macron warns UK post-Brexit deregulation would mean losing EU market access
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – French president Emmanuel Macron warned Britain on Friday that the more it chose to deregulate its economy after Brexit, the more it will lose access to the European Union’s market. “I don’t think that you can have a strong relationship with Europe’s single market with substantial regulatory differences on climate, environmental, economic...
14th December
One dead, 11 injured in east German gas blast
BLANKENBURG, Germany (Reuters) – Gas canisters were found in an apartment where a blast occurred early on Friday in the eastern German city of Blankenburg, killing one person and injuring 11 others, one of them severely, the city’s mayor said. The deceased victim was believed to be a 78-year-old man who was renting the property...
Ebola spreads in Congo after militants attack treatment camp – WHO
GENEVA (Reuters) – Cases of the deadly Ebola virus have risen in the Democratic Republic of Congo where health care workers remain largely cut off from the disease’s hotspots since militants attacked their camp, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. Twenty-seven Ebola cases were confirmed in North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the...
Gabon bans gay sex as global pace of reform falters
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Gabon has passed a law against gay sex, becoming the 70th country to ban the practice, an official confirmed, as the global pace of reform falters. The central African country banned “sexual relations between people of the same sex” in a new penal code earlier this year, according to copies...
Remote island off East Timor turns sunlight, air into drinking water
KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Villagers on a tiny island off the coast of East Timor who have long struggled with water shortages have secured regular fresh supplies, using just air and the power of the sun. The innovative scheme uses solar power to suck water out of the air and make it drinkable,...
Algeria’s new president Tebboune faces tough challenge
ALGIERS (Reuters) – Algeria’s new president faces the country’s biggest political crisis in decades, a hostile economic climate and attacks on his legitimacy after winning an election with low turnout opposed by a massive protest movement. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, 74, beat the other four candidates – all also former senior officials – to win the race...
Johnson election victory propels Britain towards swift Brexit
LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on Friday for “closure” over the Brexit divisions that have riven the United Kingdom, saying his election victory provided an overwhelming mandate to take Britain out of the European Union on Jan. 31. Johnson, the face of the victorious “Leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum, fought the...
Crumbling seawall heightens worries over flood threat to Indonesian capital
JAKARTA (Reuters) – When part of a seawall protecting Jakarta collapsed last week near fisherman Awing Takalar’s shack it brought back bad memories of when another levee burst in 2007 and all his belongings were washed away. Fortunately, the tides have not been high, and residents in the exposed section of the Indonesian capital’s northern...
Images from space show Australia’s bushfires in a different light
(Reuters) – A series of enormous bushfires are raging across east Australia, with a total perimeter longer than the distance from London to Singapore. Reuters has combined imagery from satellites to create representations of what the fires look like in different light wavelengths. Interactive graphic: Forests in flames https://tmsnrt.rs/34jHcAO Integrating different types of data can...
Kenyan scientist builds with bottles to beat plastic pollution
GILGIL, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hope Mwanake understands the plastic pollution crisis facing Kenya better than most. An environmental scientist who ran a waste collection service in Kenya’s central town of Gilgil, she witnessed first hand the mountains of plastic buckets, bottles and jerry cans discarded by residents, hotels, shops and schools. “We were...
