Similar withdrawals from UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain reported as concerns grow about restart of war on Iran after US midterm elections
The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia as the gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and oilfield.
Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. The state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said: “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.”
A man accused of making threats while armed with “improvised nunchucks” at a Western Australian MP’s electorate office could have been holding a musical instrument, not a weapon, a court has been told.
John Lawrence Smart appeared on Thursday in the WA magistrates court, where his lawyer expressed concern for his mental health. He was not required to enter a plea.
Almost every shallow-water coral reef on the planet, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, faces a high risk of ecosystem collapse before 2075 because of global heating, according to an assessment by United Nations nature advisers.
About 24% of the planet’s reefs across more than 80 countries are already critically endangered, the assessment said, but when the expected impacts of global heating were added this rose to 96%.
Jim Chalmers has revealed December’s midyear budget update will project weaker growth and higher unemployment, as economists warn of a difficult six months ahead for the Australian economy.
Two days after a senior Reserve Bank official foreshadowed the potential for another interest rate rise in under two weeks’ time, the treasurer in a speech on Friday morning will say “higher inflation is putting people under pressure, tighter monetary policy is weighing on domestic activity, and we can see that in the softening of the labour market”.
Oil prices jumped to a five-month high on Thursday after attacks in Saudi Arabia and hits to tankers in the strait of Hormuz threatened further disruptions to the world’s crude supply.
Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose by 3% to hit $112 a barrel for first time since 18 May.
Kim Aris says ‘hearing her voice again means more than words can express’ amid loosening of detention restrictions
The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to speak to the detained former democratic leader for the first time in more than five years.
“Today, I was finally able to speak with my mother, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after more than five years. Hearing her voice again means more than words can express,” Kim Aris said in a post on Facebook on Thursday.
Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un, issues warning after inspecting border fortifications against backdrop of rising tensions
Propaganda loudspeakers aimed at South Korea will be ready to restart within days along the entire border, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has said amid a worsening of ties between the two countries.
The statement, carried by the state news agency KCNA on Thursday, came a day after she said the loudspeakers would be in operation along the whole border from some time in October.
US photojournalist describes ‘protective shield’, vows to return to work in West Bank and criticises Netanyahu comments on incident
The Washington Post photojournalist who was attacked and seriously injured by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Friday has described how she was saved with the help of local Palestinians.
Heidi Levine sustained four fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs and four puncture wounds when she was knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten by a crowd of masked settlers while she and other journalists were covering the olive harvest in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah.
Hepatitis B study in Guinea-Bissau that was to be funded by CDC and that drew global backlash ‘will not move forward’
The US-backed hepatitis B vaccine trial in African newborns that drew global backlash was halted, the lead researcher said on Wednesday.
It was “now clear” that the study “will not move forward in Guinea-Bissau”, Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, a Danish researcher, wrote on LinkedIn, adding, “we were not given the necessary governmental approval.”
Person named ‘K’ from China paid five defendants to injure Huang Yi-hao, New Taipei prosecutors say
Taiwanese prosecutors have charged five men over a plot to ram a car into a comedian who made fun of the Chinese Communist party and Xi Jinping.
Taiwan has repeatedly accused China of transnational repression to silence critics on the self-governed island, which Beijing claims as its territory and has vowed to take by force if necessary.
Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka spent a week in jail after defying restrictions on protests in Delhi amid government crackdown
An Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests.
The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week.
Water and fresh food running out in Taiz as fighting intensifies and Houthi advance cuts off most supply routes
The humanitarian crisis in the besieged Yemeni city of Taiz is becoming unmanageable as the city runs out of water, fuel and fresh food, Oxfam aid workers in the country have warned.
Iran-allied Houthi forces have largely encircled the city of more than 900,000 people, cutting it off from most supply routes. This week, heavy fighting has raged around the city’s old airport, causing extensive damage in a densely populated residential area.
Relatives of gravely ill detainees at two Floridaimmigration jails say authorities are about to deport their loved ones to unknown countries in Africa despite worsening medical conditions.
Flights are scheduled as early as Wednesday, according to the families and the immigration advocacy group the Workers Circle, which has been monitoring conditions and speaking with detainees inside two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in south Florida.
Case in Africa’s most populous country was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda
Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.
The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
Police seize doses of hepatitis B vaccine from people at center of dispute over research on African newborns
Controversial vaccine researchers who have been praised by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, had their offices in Guinea-Bissau raided by judicial police, who seized doses of hepatitis B vaccines, officials said on Facebook.
The researchers have been at the heart of an ongoing dispute over research on African newborns, supported by $1.6m from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and matched by the Pershing Square Foundation and the Bluebell Foundation for a total of $3.2m.
Result is a victory for prime minister Mark Carney and supporters of Canadian unity
Voters in Canada’s Alberta have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to begin the process of independence, delivering a decisive victory for supporters of Canadian unity and deepening divisions within the separatist movement.
With nearly 1.9m votes counted, roughly 76% people supported remaining in Canada, while 24% backed beginning a process toward separation, according to unofficial results from Elections Alberta.
Mitchell Fairbarn found guilty of animal cruelty after prosecutors say he hurt and frightened the 27-year-old bird
A Canadian man was convicted of animal cruelty charges on Monday for snatching a flamingo named Peachy from its enclosure at an iconic Las Vegas hotel.
Prosecutors said it was a malicious prank while a lawyer for the tourist insisted it was drunken foolishness not meant to harm the bird.
Far-right presidential candidate’s TV debate swipe at rival backfires as people take to social media to parody it
To Flávio Bolsonaro and his publicists, it must have seemed an ingenious idea that would expose his rival’s supposed crookedness on the eve of Brazil’s presidential election.
But the far-right politician’s decision to attend a primetime television debate against his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with the word “corrupto” (corrupt) written on the palm of his hand has backfired.
Researchers say almost 90% of participants in unconditional basic income scheme in Peru adopted environmentally beneficial practices
A pioneering project to provide Indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon with an unconditional basic income has contributed to the protection of the rainforest, according to a study.
The analysis from the University of Bath is expected to contribute to a growing debate about the role of direct payments to communities that maintain globally important ecosystems.
Low-cost broadband provider Jio Platforms aims for £81bn valuation when it floats on the stock market on Wednesday
India’s second-richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is launching what could be the country’s biggest-ever initial public offering (IPO), despite a stock market downturn.
Mumbai-based Jio Platforms, a telecoms company backed by Meta Platforms and Google, is hoping to raise up to 302bn rupees (£2.4bn) and is targeting a 10.3tn rupees valuation when it floats on the stock market from Wednesday.
