World news | The Guardian

Governments opting for oligarchy while brutally repressing protests over austerity and lack of jobs, charity report says

The world saw a record number of billionaires created last year, with a collective wealth of $18.3tn (£13.7tn), while global efforts stalled in the fight against poverty and hunger.

Oxfam’s annual survey of global inequality has revealed that the number of billionaires surpassed 3,000 for the first time during 2025. Since 2020, their collective wealth grew by 81%, or $8.2tn, which the charity claims would be enough to eradicate global poverty 26 times over.

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Yoweri Museveni wins seventh term but poll criticised by observers and rights groups over repression of opposition and internet blackout

Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, fresh from winning a seventh term in office at 81, said on Sunday that the opposition were “terrorists” who had tried to use violence to overturn the election results.

Official results showed Museveni winning a landslide with 72% of the vote, but the poll was criticised by African election observers and rights groups due to the heavy repression of the opposition and an internet blackout.

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Museveni’s opponent, Bobi Wine, alleges that members of polling staff were kidnapped and called for peaceful protests

Yoweri Museveni, has won the Ugandan election and his seventh term with more than 70% of the vote, state election authorities have said, amid an internet shutdown and claims of fraud by his opponent.

His opponent, a youthful musician known as Bobi Wine, condemned what he called “fake results” and alleged that members of polling staff were kidnapped, among other election irregularities. He called for peaceful protests to pressure the authorities to release what he called the “rightful results”.

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Atlas Lions face Senegal in final of Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday and Moroccan diaspora scents victory

London’s Little Morocco is brimming with pride and anticipation. The Moroccan diaspora in North Kensington is in no doubt that on Sunday the Atlas Lions will triumph against Senegal in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations.

“There’s not just an excitement, it has completely taken over everything else,” said Souad Talsi, who runs the Al-Hasaniya Moroccan women’s centre at the base of 31-storey Trellick Tower, at the north end of Golborne Road.

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Virunga park ranger says babies are well cared for by mother Mafuko but high infant mortality makes first weeks critical

It was noon by the time Jacques Katutu first saw the newborn mountain gorillas. Cradled in the arms of their mother, Mafuko, the tiny twins clung to her body for warmth in the forest clearing in Virunga national park, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Katutu, head of gorilla monitoring in Virunga, has seen dozens of newborns in his 15 years as a ranger. But, he tells the Guardian, even he was touched by the sight of the fragile infant males, who face serious obstacles if they are to become silverbacks one day.

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President announces 30-day order after inmates also took 46 people hostage at three prisons

Guatemala’s president has declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency to combat criminal gangs after authorities accused them of killing eight police officers and holding hostages at three prisons.

The killings occurred in the capital, Guatemal City, and surrounding areas a day after gang-affiliated inmates took 46 people hostage in the three prisons across the country to demand incarcerated gang leaders be moved to lower-security facilities.

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Fires blaze through 8,500 hectares, forcing 50,000 people to evacuate as firefighters struggle to extinguish flames

Wildfires raging across central and southern Chile have killed at least 18 people, scorched thousands of hectares of forest and destroyed scores of homes, authorities said, as the South American country swelters under a heatwave.

Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric, declared a state of catastrophe in the country’s central Biobío region and the neighbouring Ñuble region, about 500km (300 miles) south of Santiago, the capital.

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Any Lucía López Belloza was detained at Boston’s airport in November and flown to Honduras two days later

• US citizens and permanent residents: have you been racially profiled by ICE?

The Trump administration apologized in court for a “mistake” in the deportation of a Massachusetts college student who was detained trying to fly home to surprise her family in Texas for Thanksgiving.

But the administration still argued that the federal government error should not affect her immigration case.

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John Ratcliffe meets Delcy Rodríguez in Caracas less than two weeks after his agents helped to oust her precedessor

The CIA chief whose agents reputedly played a key role in abducting Nicolás Maduro has flown to Venezuela to meet his successor as the sidelined opposition leader, María Corina Machado, vowed she would become the country’s first elected female president.

Machado’s comments were broadcast on Friday, a day after she handed her Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump in recognition of what she called a principled and decisive move against Maduro, whom US special forces snatched on 3 January.

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Former president convicted for coup plot to take advantage of law that knocks four days off jail term for each book read

Jair Bolsonaro’s lawyers appear to have been reading up on the country’s penal code and have found a way to help their client reduce the 27-year prison sentence he received last year for plotting a coup: by reading books.

There is only one problem: the former far-right Brazilian president has never been known as a bibliophile. “Sorry, I don’t have time to read,” Bolsonaro once declared. “It’s been three years since I read a book.”

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Number of high-spending Chinese tourists visiting Japan halved last month after PM said an invasion of Taiwan could spark Japanese military involvement

Chinese tourism to Japan almost halved in December amid a bitter diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo over the security of Taiwan.

The number of tourists from mainland China dropped by about 45% from the same month a year earlier to about 330,000, Japan’s transport ministry said on Tuesday.

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Fourth year of decline deepens concerns over ageing, shrinking workforce and long-term economic impact

China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birthrate plunged to another record low despite the introduction of polices aimed at encouraging people to have children.

Registered births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025 – or 5.63 for every 1,000 members of the population – down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024, and the lowest since records began in 1949.

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Sanae Takaichi tells senior figures in ruling Liberal Democratic party she plans to dissolve lower house on 23 January

Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has called a snap election as she attempts to capitalise on high approval ratings since becoming the country’s first female prime minister three months ago.

Takaichi, a conservative who is embroiled in a deepening dispute with China over the security of Taiwan, said on Monday she would dissolve the lower house of the Diet – Japan’s parliament – on 23 January, with an election to follow on 8 February.

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Economy weathered a fraught geopolitical landscape to reach 5% goal but domestic structural challenges ‘not going away’, say experts

• China’s population falls again as birthrate hits record low

• Business live – latest updates

China has said its economy grew 5% last year, hitting Beijing’s official target as the world’s second-largest economy overcame Donald Trump’s tariff war with a record trade surplus.

Data released on Monday by Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics showed the Chinese economy hit the official target of “around” 5% – the same growth as in 2024 – despite a slowdown to 4.5% in the final three months of the year.

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Decision expected on Monday or Tuesday, potentially smoothing relations before Keir Starmer’s visit to China

• Why Chinese ‘mega embassy’ is not such a worry for British spies

A decision on China’s proposed mega embassy in London is expected on Monday or Tuesday, with Chinese officials and British diplomats in Beijing holding their breath in anticipation of the planning application finally being approved.

The saga, which has been running since 2018, is widely expected to end with the British government giving the green light for construction. If it does, one group likely to be grateful is those who work in the British embassy’s dilapidated building in Beijing. The UK’s plans to redevelop its outpost in China’s capital have been blocked for years by the Chinese government because of the London embassy row.

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Surfer taken to hospital with minor injuries after latest shark attack at Point Plomer beach on mid-north coast

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A surfer has been taken to hospital after being bitten by a shark off the coast of New South Wales’ Limeburners Creek national park, the state’s fourth incident in 48 hours.

The local health district said the man, 39, was in hospital in a stable condition with minor injuries. The attack took place near the Point Plomer campground, less than 20km north of Port Macquarie, on Tuesday morning.

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Families call for end to political ‘bickering’ amid concerns the state LNP will not back proposed program

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The parents of police murdered in a 2022 ambush in western Queensland have thrown their support behind the federal government’s proposed gun buyback scheme in the wake of the Bondi beach terror attack.

The Guardian understands that the state LNP government decided not to support the buyback program at a marathon cabinet meeting on Monday.

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• Liberal leader claims credit for ‘fixing’ Labor’s hate speech laws as they pass lower house

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The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, says the two bills on gun control and hate speech will be introduced to parliament this morning and that there has been “constructive engagement” with the Coalition over the last 48 hours.

But on whether that deal is signed, sealed and delivered, Rowland, speaking on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast, won’t guarantee the Coalition will support the bill when introduced and she says she won’t “pre-empt” anything.

I don’t want to pre-empt any of those conversations, and particularly since they have been undertaken in good faith … some of those issues go around the listing of hate groups and that framework. And it is a fact that the opposition has sought a number of amendments to this area. I will point out that the removal of the serious vilification provisions do mean that these remaining provisions in the prohibited hate groups section do need to do a lot of work.

I think we’re really close. I mean, effectively, the laws won’t be as strong as what the government wants them to be, and that’s been public for a while. But importantly, this will still involve the strongest hate speech laws that Australia’s ever had.

We’ve got to deal with the parliament that we have, and I can’t see a pathway in the current parliament.

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The spectacular aurora australis, also known as the southern lights, may be visible as far north as Victoria and New South Wales

A ‘severe’ solar storm, which is being monitored by the National Emergency Management Agency, could make auroras visible in Australia as well as cause disruptions to the power grid.

Here’s what you need to know about the solar storm.

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Police commissioner Mal Lanyon says demonstration rules – imposed after Bondi attacks – have ‘taken heat out of the community’

The New South Wales police commissioner has extended a restriction on protests in Sydney for a third time, but narrowed the area it covers in a bid to get “the balance right between community safety and a right to protest” ahead of Invasion Day.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mal Lanyon, said the restrictions would no longer include Hyde Park, allowing police to authorise the major annual Invasion Day protest to march from that location to Victoria Park on Monday.

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Flurry of posts on Truth Social firmly set out Trump’s Greenland stance to European leaders

• Trump cites UK’s ‘stupidity’ over Chagos Islands as reason to take over Greenland

It seems like the US president, Donald Trump, has had a busy evening US time with his phone in his hand.

Overnight, he:

Attacked the UK, mockingly calling it a “brilliant” ally, for “shocking” plan to hand over sovereignity of the Chagos islands to Mauritius (despite previous US support), saying it’s among a “long line” of reasons why Greenland “has to be acquired”

Leaked private text messages from France’s Emmanuel Macron and Nato’s Mark Rutte discussing his latest policy moves

Threatened France with 200% tariffs on French wine and champagne over Macron’s refusal to join the Gaza “board of peace”, said of Macron that “nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon”

Reiterated his intention of taking over Greenland as “imperative for national and world security,” saying “there can be no going back”

Posted a meme planting the US flag on Greenland, saying it’s “US territory, est. 2026,” days after the US delegation agreed with Danish foreign minister for talks to be conducted behind closed doors, and not through threatening messages on social media.

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Red caps are becoming a symbol of protest in Denmark as Donald Trump ratchets up the pressure on Greenland

Red baseball caps spoofing Donald Trump’s Maga hats have become a symbol of Danish and Greenlandic defiance against the US president’s threat to seize the frozen territory.

The caps reading “Make America Go Away” – parodying Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan – have gained popularity, along with several variants on social media and at public protests, including a weekend demonstration held in freezing weather in Copenhagen.

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The US president said he would “100%” push ahead with his plans to hit European nations with tarrifs if he doesn’t get Greenland

• Donald Trump links threats to seize Greenland to Nobel prize snub

In a nod to Trump’s efforts on Ukraine, Starmer says he recognises the US president’s role in pushing for ceasefire there – as he says “we will work closely with the United States, Ukraine and our other allies to apply pressure where it belongs: on Putin.”

In his strongest criticism of Trump yet, Starmer goes on to say:

A trade war is in no one’s interest, and my job is always to act in the UK’s national interest.

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PM says US tariffs are in no one’s interests – and Greenland row should be resolved through ‘calm discussion’

Keir Starmer has played down the prospect of retaliatory tariffs on the US, after Donald Trump threatened to impose fresh levies against Nato allies if a deal over Greenland is not reached.

The prime minister said US tariffs would damage the British economy and were “in no one’s interests”, despite growing pressure domestically to take a more forceful response. The UK would prefer a “calm discussion” with allies, he added.

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Officials say death toll likely to rise as rescuers continue to comb through wreckage in remote area of Andalucía

Spain will begin three days of mourning on Tuesday as rescuers continue to comb through the wreckage of twisted train cars and scattered debris to locate victims after a train collision that killed at least 40 people and injured dozens.

On Monday, more than 18 hours after a high-speed train carrying about 300 Madrid-bound passengers derailed and collided with an oncoming train, people across the country were still scrambling to make contact with missing loved ones caught up in Spain’s worst rail disaster in more than a decade.

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Two sides blame each other for release of inmates, as Syria’s president looks to gain control of north-east

More than 100 inmates have escaped from a Syrian jail holding Islamic State prisoners amid clashes in the north-east of the country after an agreement by the under-pressure Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to withdraw from two key provinces.

Videos released by the SDF showed what it said were IS members being broken out from a jail in Shaddadi by figures in black balaclavas. It said it had lost control of the building after what it claimed was an attack by government-affiliated fighters that killed or wounded dozens.

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Two people detained in Kermanshah, including 16-year-old, tell group they were subjected to sexual abuse during arrest

A 16-year-old was among protesters sexually assaulted in custody by the security forces in Iran during the nationwide uprising that has left thousands dead, according to a human rights group.

Two people, one of them a child, detained in the city of Kermanshah in western Iran told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that they were subjected to sexual abuse by riot police during their arrest.

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Government’s truce with Syrian Democratic Forces follows advance on Kurdish-held areas amid struggle to control entire country

The Syrian government on Sunday announced a ceasefire with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), taking almost full control of the country and dismantling the Kurdish-led forces that controlled the north-east for over a decade.

The announcement comes as tensions between government forces and the SDF boiled over earlier this month, eventually resulting in a major push by government forces towards the east. The SDF appeared to have largely retreated after initial clashes on a tense frontline area in eastern Aleppo province.

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President issues warning amid speculation Donald Trump plans to assassinate or remove supreme leader

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned on Sunday that any attack on the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be a declaration of war.

In an apparent response to speculation that Donald Trump is considering an attempt to assassinate or remove Khamenei, Pezeshkian said in a post on X: “An attack on the great leader of our country is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.”

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Finance minister says Netanyahu should back annexation and settlement, and attacks Turkey and Qatar’s role on Gaza ‘executive board’

Far-right members of Israel’s governing coalition on Sunday rejected a US-backed plan for postwar governance in Gaza, criticising their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for failing to annex the Palestinian territory and establish new Israeli settlements in the territory.

After the announcement of the White House’s pick of world leaders who will join the so-called Gaza “board of peace”, which includes representatives of Turkey and Qatar, both of which have been critical of Israel’s war in the strip, Israeli far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, described Netanyahu’s “unwillingness to take responsibility for Gaza” as “the original sin”.

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Eastern region on high alert as authorities try to track animal tearing through villages in Jharkhand after apparently becoming separated from herd

Forest officials in India are on the hunt for an elephant that has killed more than 20 people in a days-long rampage through the eastern state of Jharkhand.

Since the beginning of January, 22 people have been killed by a single-tusked elephant that has been tearing through forests and villages in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.

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Delhi is world’s second largest purchaser of Russian crude, which is now cheaper than oil from Middle East

Russia is already working to circumvent the latest US sanctions to ensure India can continue to import high levels of cheap Russian crude oil, according to industry analysts.

Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, India has become the world’s second largest purchaser of Russian crude oil, which has been heavily discounted due to the impact of western sanctions.

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Police ask Paramjeet Singh Pamma to install security cameras and reinforce door locks at his home

Police have advised a high-profile Sikh activist in the UK to install security cameras at his home and reinforce door locks because of threats from Hindu nationalist elements.

Paramjeet Singh Pamma, 52, said he had been visited by police and received verbal advice to increase his security due to intelligence suggesting threats to his safety.

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UN and many western countries as well as human rights groups say that in the absence of a meaningful opposition the election is neither free, fair nor credible

Voters in war-torn Myanmar queued up on Sunday to cast their ballots in the second stage of a military-run election, following low turnout in the initial round of polls that have been widely criticised as a tool to formalise junta rule.

Myanmar has been ravaged by conflict since the military ousted a civilian government in a 2021 coup and detained its leader, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a civil war that has engulfed large parts of the impoverished nation of 51 million people.

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Satat Sampada founders Harjeet Singh and Jyoti Awasthi say allegations are ‘baseless, biased and misleading’

Police have raided the home of one of India’s leading environmental activists over claims his campaigning for a treaty to cut the use of fossil fuels was undermining the national interest.

Investigators from India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) claim Harjeet Singh and his wife, Jyoti Awasthi, co-founders of Satat Sampada (Nature Forever), were paid almost £500,000 to advocate for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (FFNPT).

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Chief secretary to Keir Starmer inists that British diplomacy with the US was still working

Good morning. Yesterday, at his press conference in Downing Street, Keir Starmer said he wanted to restrict the amount of time that toddlers spend with their screens. He probably was not thinking of Donald Trump, but Trump’s egotism, greed and lack of self control mean that he is regularly compared to a young child and, within the last couple of hours, on a flight from the US to Davos, he has been glued to his screen, firing off inflammatory posts on his Truth Social network.

For Starmer, the most embarrassing is one criticising the UK’s decision to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (in return for an agreement that the UK and the US will still be able to use the Diego Garcia military base for at least another 99 years). The Trump administation approved the deal when it was negotiated, accepting the Downing Street argument that this would remove the risk of the UK and the US losing access to Diego Garcia under interntational law. Trump now says this is a sign of “total weakness” and “great stupidity”.

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Son of David and Victoria Beckham takes to Instagram to open up about feud with parents

A very public spat on social media captured global attention and filled the front pages on Tuesday with its grave consequences for a once close relationship.

No, not the US president Donald Trump slamming the UK for its “extreme stupidity” but this was Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham, apparently permanently cutting ties with his family.

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US president says on social media that Britain’s decision to cede islands to Mauritius is ‘act of total weakness’

Donald Trump has suggested Britain’s decision to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is among the reasons he wants to take over Greenland.

The US president, who is travelling to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, made the claim as he ramped up his rhetoric on acquiring the Arctic territory.

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Shops, restaurants and hotels particularly hit by slowdown in hiring, as unemployment remains at 5.1%

• Business live – latest updates

The number of employed people in the UK has fallen, particularly in shops, restaurants, bars and hotels, reflecting weak hiring, while private sector wages grew at the slowest rate in five years, official figures show.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the number of employees on payrolls fell by 43,000 in December from the previous month, to 30.2 million – the biggest monthly drop since November 2020.

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Rolling coverage of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Bessent claims reports Europe could sell Treasury bonds is ‘completely false narrative’

Scott Bessent then denies that European Union countries, and the UK, could exercise the “nuclear option” over the Greenland crisis, and dump their holdings of US Treasuries.

Asked how the Treasury Department, and the White House, would prepare for this, Bessent insists it is a “completely false narrative”, and claims the media are “hysterical” over the issue.

I would say this is the same kind of hysteria that we heard on April 2nd. There was a panic.

What I am urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out.

What president Trump is threatening on Greenland is very different than the other trade deals. So I would urge all countries to stick with their trade deals.

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Major disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field may make northern lights visible far more south than usual

The aurora could be visible across Canada and much of the northern tier of US states on Monday night, and possibly even further south, following a major disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field, a forecast shows.

The forecast, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s space weather prediction center, comes amid intense geomagnetic and solar radiation storms, said Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the center.

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Holiday marked with parades and services but tempered by anxieties over racial and social equality under Trump

Martin Luther King Jr Day was marked with parades and services across the US on Monday. But the celebration for the achievements of the slain 60s civil rights leader was tempered by contemporary anxieties over racial and social equality and Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

At a rally in Harlem, the Rev Al Sharpton referred to Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother of three who was killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.

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Victor Manuel Diaz was found unresponsive at Camp East Montana in what ICE officials claim is ‘presumed suicide’

• Who is on the frontline of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown?

A second man being held at a US immigration detention facility in Texas has died in two weeks, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday.

Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, originally from Nicaragua, was found “unconscious and unresponsive in his room” on 14 January at the Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, ICE said in a press release.

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Sarah Rogers says prosecuting people for ‘merely’ expressing support ‘does more harm than good’

Arresting supporters of Palestine Action is “censoring” their free speech and “does more harm than good”, a Trump administration official has said.

Sarah Rogers, the US undersecretary for public diplomacy, was asked in an interview with the news platform Semafor whether the British government should allow supporters of the proscribed terror group to protest.

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European carmakers among hardest hit with US president’s talk of Greenland-linked trade levies also pushing down the dollar

• Markets stay calm amid Trump’s gambit, but long-term risks are huge

• Could the EU hit back with its ‘big bazooka’?

European stock markets fell on Monday and gold and silver prices hit record highs after Donald Trump threatened to impose additional tariffs on eight European countries in an increasingly aggressive attempt to claim Greenland.

France’s Cac fell 1.8%, while Germany’s Dax and Italy’s FTSE MIB were down 1.3%. In the UK, the FTSE 100 fell 0.4%.

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