US journalist sues Indian government after losing his overseas citizenship
A US journalist has taken the Indian government to court after his Indian overseas citizenship was unilaterally cancelled, after the publication of a story critical of a prominent Indian businessman. OCI status is given to foreign citizens of Indian origin, or those married to Indian nationals, and allows for visa-free travel, residency and employment in India. Satter received his OCI through marriage. According to an investigation by Reporters Without Borders, at least 15 media outlets investigating Appin received legal notices and five have been subjected to legal proceedings. The Indian government now has until the next hearing, on 22 May, to respond to the petition and give legal justification for Satter’s OCI cancellation.
Source:The Guardian
March 13, 2025 18:27 UTC
‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals
Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed. “And given that we’re looking at the world’s largest cities, there are really significant numbers of people involved.”Coping with climate whiplash and flips in cities is extremely hard, said Michaelides. The researchers have worked in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the cities suffering climate whiplash. Other whiplash cities include Baghdad, Bangkok, Melbourne and Nairobi. The cities that had at least five months more of both extreme wet and extreme dry in the second period were classed as having developed climate whiplash.
Source:The Guardian
March 13, 2025 02:29 UTC
German tourists’ ordeal reportedly ending as they are returned from US detention
The families of the two tourists, who were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), had compared their ordeals to “a horror film”. Both Germans were held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, a prison in San Diego, California. He had entered the US on a tourist visa and with his girlfriend, Lennon Tyler, had subsequently visited Mexico where they had taken her dog to the vet. “Especially not if you’re on a tourist visa, and especially not over the Mexican border.”US authorities have yet to issue a statement on the German cases. She had been travelling on a tourist visa, but was told she should have applied for a working visa as she planned to stay with a family receiving accommodation in exchange for carrying out domestic chores.
Source:The Guardian
March 13, 2025 02:22 UTC
Trump’s steel tariffs spark EU retaliation with €26bn trade penalties
The EU has announced it will impose trade “countermeasures” on up to €26bn worth of US goods in retaliation to Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, escalating a global trade war. France’s European affairs minister, Benjamin Haddad, said on Wednesday that the EU could “go further” in its response to the US tariffs. In 2019, Switzerland, one of the EU’s closest trading partners, complained when it was affected by EU restrictions on steel imports designed to protect EU industry. The UK steel industry warned that Trump’s tariffs “couldn’t come at a worse time”, and said the move would have “hugely damaging consequences for UK suppliers and their customers in the US”. Gareth Stace, the director general of the trade association UK Steel, called the Trump administration’s move “hugely disappointing”.
Source:The Guardian
March 12, 2025 20:49 UTC
Only seven countries worldwide meet WHO dirty air guidelines, study shows
The most polluted countries were Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. Air pollution in India, which is home to six of the 10 dirtiest cities in the world, fell by 7% between 2023 and 2024. The air quality in Beijing is now almost the same as in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. To create the ranking, the researchers averaged real-time data on air pollution, measured at ground level, over the course of the calendar year. Air quality monitoring is worse in parts of Africa and west Asia, where several countries were excluded from the analysis.
Source:The Guardian
March 11, 2025 17:22 UTC
Muhammad Yunus on picking up the pieces in Bangladesh after ‘monumental’ damage by Sheikh Hasina’s rule
“The damage she had done was monumental,” Yunus told the Guardian, describing the state of Bangladesh when he took charge. View image in fullscreen Celebrations at Parliament House after the fall of Sheikh Hasina, in Dhaka in August. Photograph: Syed Mahamudur Rahman/NurPhoto/Rex/ShutterstockYunus’s return to Bangladesh was heralded as the dawn of a new era for the country. Yunus is determined to frame the country’s woes as consequences of Hasina’s rule: “Hasina’s regime wasn’t a government, it was a family of bandits. In a speech, Trump alleged millions of USAid dollars earmarked for strengthening Bangladesh political landscape had been used to elect a “radical left communist” without offering any evidence.
Source:The Guardian
March 11, 2025 02:25 UTC
‘You can yodel and don’t have to be conservative’: the Swiss feminist choir rewriting traditional songs
With music, among other things.”View image in fullscreen Swiss farmers in traditional attire yodel before the Alpabfahrt cattle drive in Urnäsch, in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. While Echo vom Eierstock is the most prominent example of a sea change in the Swiss yodelling scene, it’s not the only one. Echo vom Eierstock’s runaway popularity means they have also had to become selective, capping membership at 50. As soon as she heard of Echo vom Eierstock, she knew she had to try out. In traditional yodelling songs, “women are made out to be sweet, small, helpless, and defenceless when a man comes to call”, says Felber.
Source:The Guardian
March 11, 2025 00:30 UTC
‘Major brand worries’: Just how toxic is Elon Musk for Tesla?
After Elon Musk backed Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – calling the party Germany’s “only hope” – voters are considering an alternative to Tesla. Data released on Thursday showed that registrations of the company’s electric cars in Germany fell 76% to 1,429 last month. Calling them “major brand worries for Tesla”, he added in a note to investors that the direct impact on sales should be relatively small. View image in fullscreen In Australia, Tesla sales were down 72% in February compared with the same month in 2024. UK Tesla sales fell in January, but bounced back by a fifth in February to leave sales up year-on-year for 2025 so far.
Source:The Guardian
March 09, 2025 02:30 UTC
Poland plans military training for every adult male amid growing European security fears
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said his government is working on a plan to prepare large-scale military training for every adult male in response to the changing security situation in Europe. “Today we are talking about the need for a half-million army in Poland,” Tusk said. Poland already spends a higher proportion of GDP on defence than any other Nato member, including the US. Last year Poland’s defence spending reached 4.1% of GDP, according to Nato estimates, and it plans to hit 4.7% this year. Trump has suggested the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defence spending targets.
Source:The Guardian
March 09, 2025 01:50 UTC
Switzerland told it must do better on climate after older women’s ECHR win
The Swiss government has been told it must do more to show that its national climate plans are ambitious enough to comply with a landmark legal ruling. It was seen as a historic decision in Europe, where it was the court’s first ruling on climate, with direct ramifications for all 46 Council of Europe member states. However, there was resistance within Switzerland from the start, and by the summer the Swiss federal council had rebuffed the ruling. She called on the Swiss federal council and parliament “to take the dangers of global warming seriously and finally take decisive action against the climate crisis”. Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said European governments had “reaffirmed the rule of law”.
Source:The Guardian
March 07, 2025 16:47 UTC
Surface tension: could the promised Aukus nuclear submarines simply never be handed over to Australia?
To fanfare and flags, the Aukus deal was presented as a sure bet, papering over an uncertainty that such an ambitious deal could ever be delivered. Then, by the “late 2030s”, according to Australia’s submarine industry strategy, the UK will deliver the first specifically designed and built Aukus submarine. View image in fullscreen President Biden (centre) announcing the Aukus deal with Scott Morrison (l) and Boris Johnson (r) in 2021. Turnbull argues pillar one of the Aukus deal was a “catastrophe” from conception, and its liabilities “are becoming more apparent every day”. The nuclear-powered submarines Australia wants to buy and then build “are both too big, too expensive to own and we can’t afford enough of them to make a difference”.
Source:The Guardian
March 07, 2025 02:41 UTC
Britain is now following a developing country economic model – and we know where that leads | Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
Decades on, I am horrified that an approach that wreaked havoc in the global south is still being pursued in the UK. Britain was of course the trailblazer for privatising infrastructure in the Thatcher years, and subsequent UK governments went on to use public-private partnerships to fund new schools, hospitals, roads and prisons, with much of the capital being raised overseas. As the economist Angus Hanton argues, the UK has become a vassal state, paying economic tribute to the American owners of its assets. By asking regulators to prioritise economic growth over other important social and environmental priorities, the new UK government risks following the same dangerous path. But we need a coherent new strategy that doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past and prevents us sleepwalking into economic disaster.
Source:The Guardian
March 07, 2025 02:30 UTC
‘That’s not me’: Blatter and Platini restate innocence in Swiss fraud case
Sepp Blatter, the former president of Fifa, and Michel Platini, the France great and former president of Uefa, have restated their innocence in relation to allegations of fraud when appearing on Monday in a Swiss court. The Swiss federal prosecutor has appealed against that decision, leading to a new hearing at the extraordinary appeals chamber of the Swiss criminal court in Muttenz, near Basel. Blatter told the court on Monday he was not guilty of fraud. “They falsely claimed that Fifa owed Platini, or that Platini was entitled to, the sum of two million Swiss francs for advisory work,” the indictment read. The Swiss federal prosecutor is seeking a sentence of 20 months, suspended for two years, against Blatter and Platini.
Source:The Guardian
March 05, 2025 01:32 UTC
Wall Street shrugs off Trump after he vows Mexico and Canada tariffs
Financial markets largely shrugged after Donald Trump outlined plans to impose punitive tariffs on Mexico and Canada as soon as next month while signing scores of executive orders on his first day in office. US markets were closed for Martin Luther King Day on Monday, so Asian markets were the first to respond. US stock futures pointed to modest gains on Wall Street when markets open for trading at 2.30pm GMT. Gold – seen as a safe haven asset – was back in favour, hitting a two-month high amid uncertainty over US tariffs. On Monday, Trump said he wanted to reverse the US trade deficit with the EU through tariffs or more US energy exports.
Source:The Guardian
January 21, 2025 21:17 UTC
‘We don’t want to be Americans,’ says Greenland prime minister – as it happened
Greenland’s future will be decided by Greenland,” prime minister Múte B. Egede told a press conference. Greenland's prime minister Mute Bourup Egede, here pictured at another press conference earlier this month. View image in fullscreen Slovak prime minister Robert Fico and deputy prime minister Denisa Sakova attend a no-confidence vote in Bratislava, Slovakia. Greenland’s future will be decided by Greenland,” prime minister Múte B. Egede told a press conference. View image in fullscreen Greenland's prime minister Mute Bourup Egede, here pictured at another press conference earlier this month.
Source:The Guardian
January 21, 2025 21:00 UTC