World news | The Guardian

Afghanistan and Yemen excluded from list of 17 priority countries chosen by Trump administration to receive aid laden with demands

The $2bn (£1.5bn) of aid the US pledged this week may have been hailed as “bold and ambitious” by the UN but could be the “nail in the coffin” in changing to a shrunken, less flexible aid system dominated by Washington’s political priorities, aid experts fear.

After a year of deep cuts in aid budgets by the US and European countries, the announcement of new money for the humanitarian system is a source of some relief, but experts are deeply concerned about demands that the US has imposed on how the money should be managed and where it can go.

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Mamady Doumbouya reneged on promise not to stand and hand west African country back to civilian rule

The head of Guinea’s junta, Mamady Doumbouya, who had pledged not to run for office after seizing power four years ago, has been elected president after the country’s electoral commission said he had secured a sweeping majority of the vote.

Doumbouya, 41, faced eight rivals for the presidency but the main opposition leaders were barred from running and had urged a boycott of the vote held over the weekend.

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Dispute has potential to create civil war in south of Yemen and spill over into neighbouring countries

Tensions between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia over the future of Yemen and the imminent possibility of the declaration of an independent southern state have reached boiling point with Saudi Arabia in effect accusing the UAE of threatening its future security.

The dispute has the potential to create a civil war within the south of Yemen and also spill over into other disputes including in Sudan and the Horn of Africa where the two countries often find themselves backing opposite sides. Yemen could yet become only one theatre in which the two vastly wealthy Gulf states vie for political influence, control of shipping lanes and commercial access.

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• British former boxing champion sustained minor injuries

• Sina Ghami and Kevin ‘Lateef’ Ayodel killed in accident

The British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua has issued a statement after he was injured in a car crash in Nigeria on Monday morning which killed two of his close friends.

The former world heavyweight boxing champion was taken to an undisclosed hospital after his car hit a stationary vehicle at about 11am on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Ogun state police commissioner, Lanre Ogunlowo, said. The driver of Joshua’s vehicle was also injured, he added.

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Tighter border controls caused arrivals to decline sharply but forced people on to more dangerous routes, activists say

More than 3,000 people died trying to reach Spain by sea over the past year, a sharp fall from the previous 12 months.

However, activists cautioned that the drop reflected tighter border controls that have forced migrants to take increasingly dangerous routes.

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Report of a drone attack on a port facility signals new phase in US military campaign against Nicolás Maduro

• US wargames played out scenarios for Maduro’s fall. None of them ended well for Venezuela

Nearly a week after Donald Trump first announced what he said was the first US ground strike in a four-month-long military pressure campaign against Venezuela, details remain very thin on the ground.

CNN and the New York Times reported late on Monday that they had confirmed the CIA had used a drone to target a “port facility” allegedly used by the Tren de Aragua street gang. No casualties were reported, but the date, time and location of the attack remain unknown. Venezuela’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro, and his government have remained silent.

If confirmed, the first strike on land would mark a new phase in a campaign that since August has involved the deployment of a massive US naval fleet, airstrikes that have so far killed 107 people, a “total blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers, the seizure of two vessels and the pursuit of a third.

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Former Brazilian president underwent a phrenic nerve block while temporarily released from prison for surgery

Jair Bolsonaro underwent a second “phrenic nerve block procedure” on Monday to treat persistent hiccups.

The treatment went well and the former Brazilian president’s condition is stable, according to his medical team.

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Train accident in Oaxaca is likely to raise criticisms about public works projects from the previous administration

At least 13 people were killed when a train derailed in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, in an accident which is likely to revive opposition criticisms of the speed and dealings with which the country’s government builds its flagship public works projects.

The incident took place on the Interoceanic Train, which was built to link the Atlantic and Pacific oceans across the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, creating an alternative rail cargo route to the Panama canal intended to drive development in the region.

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Trump alleged that US forces hit ‘very hard’ in what would mark his team’s first land strike on Venezuela if confirmed

Donald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.

“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday.

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Government said the move was due to its ‘unrestricted respect for human rights’ in the face of US aggression

Venezuela has said it has carried out its largest release of political prisoners this year, claiming to have freed 99 people detained for taking part in protests after the 2024 election, widely believed to have been stolen by the dictator Nicolás Maduro, as it comes under increasing military pressure from the US.

Civil society organisations have treated the news with caution and stressed that the releases were insufficient, noting that at least 900 political prisoners remain in the country.

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Ador terminated the Australian-born singer’s contract on Monday and is now suing her, a family member and the band’s former producer

The K-pop record label Ador is suing a former member of megaband NewJeans for millions in damages, it has announced, a day after removing her from the group following a year-long dispute that saw the band allege mistreatment and attempt to leave their contract.

The compensation suit against Danielle Marsh, a 20-year-old Australian-born singer, comes months after a Seoul district court ruled that NewJeans’ five members must honour their contracts with Ador, whose parent company Hybe is also behind the K-pop sensation BTS. The band’s contract runs until 2029.

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Reunification ‘is unstoppable’, says Chinese president, a day after the conclusion of intense military drills

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has vowed to reunify China and Taiwan in his annual New Year’s Eve speech in Beijing.

Speaking the day after the conclusion of intense Chinese military drills around Taiwan, Xi said: “The reunification of our motherland, a trend of the times, is unstoppable.”

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Carmakers such as MG, BYD and Chery are set to pass 200,000 mark in sales, analysis suggests, double 2024’s total

Chinese brands are on course to account for one in every 10 new cars sold in Britain during 2025, a marked increase on last year as sales increase across Europe.

Manufacturers led by MG, BYD, and Chery are on track to break the 200,000 mark in UK new car sales in 2025, meaning they are very likely to account for 10% of the market, according to Matthias Schmidt, an analyst tracking electric cars across Europe.

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PM Sanae Takaichi joins petition asking for better facilities for women to match improved representation

Nearly 60 female lawmakers in Japan, including the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, have submitted a petition calling for more toilets in the parliament building for women to match their improved representation.

Japanese politics remains hugely male-dominated, although the number of women in the parliament rose at the last election – and Takaichi became the first female prime minister in October. This is reflected by there being only one lavatory containing two cubicles for the lower house’s 73 women to use near the Diet’s main plenary session hall in central Tokyo.

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Foreign affairs department statement says Australia opposes any actions that ‘increase the risk of accident, miscalculation or escalation’

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Australia says it is deeply concerned about Chinese military exercises near Taiwan, and has raised the issue with Chinese officials.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) said the large-scale simulations risked destabilising the region and could result in an accident or escalation.

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While last year’s 8.6% increase isn’t likely to be repeated, economists expect growth across the country as demand continues to outstrip supply

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Australian residential property values are expected to rise by at least 5% over the next 12 months – on top of the 8.6% increase seen in 2025 – exacerbating a housing affordability crunch across the country.

Every state and territory capital city recorded increases last year, according to Cotality data, led by a dramatic 18.9% rise in Darwin, 15.9% in Perth and 14.5% in Brisbane.

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A woman has also died after being swept into the ocean in Sydney on New Year’s Day, while the body of a man was found near Palm beach

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An Irish man has died at Whitehaven beach near the Great Barrier Reef, with three other people found dead and grave fears for two more after separate incidents in waters off Sydney during a horror New Year period.

Queensland police said that emergency services received reports that a 35-year-old Irish man had been found dead in the water at the popular beach in the state’s north at about 11am on Wednesday.

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Blaze on city’s eastern fringe contained but not controlled on Thursday with firefighters warning of risk to lives and homes

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A teenager accused of tossing a firecracker into Perth bushland on New Year’s Eve has been charged after it sparked a bushfire that threatened homes on the city’s eastern fringe.

More than 2,000 homes and businesses lost power as the fire, east of Perth airport in Western Australia, approached properties near Maida Vale, Forrestfield and Kalamunda, police said in a statement on Thursday.

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Australia’s foreign affairs department seeking to verify reported death of Russell Allan Wilson on 12 December

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The department of foreign affairs is trying to confirm the death of an Australian man who was reportedly killed while fighting with Ukrainian forces against Russia last month.

According to multiple posts on social media, Russell Allan Wilson was killed on 12 December in the Donetsk region. The ABC reported that a friend of Wilson said he was killed during his final mission, and had been due to be married the week after his death.

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Levy on beef exceeding quotas to begin immediately as Beijing seeks to protect domestic industry

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Australian beef producers said they were “extremely disappointed” after China announced a 55% tariff on imports that exceed quota levels in a move to protect a domestic cattle industry slowly emerging from oversupply.

China’s commerce ministry said on Wednesday the total import quota for 2026 for Australia and other countries such as Brazil and the US covered under its new “safeguard measures” is 2.7m metric tons, roughly in line with the record 2.87m tons it imported overall in 2024.

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Police have ruled out an attack on Le Constellation bar as investigation starts into cause of fire

Officials at the press conference are asking for “prudence” from those in the town, reminding them not to make unnecessary demands on hospitals, which are overwhelmed.

Please leave investigators to do their work, they say.

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Investigators say no indication of terrorism or arson after 40 people die and 115 are injured in blaze

• Switzerland ski resort fire – latest updates

Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 115 injured, many of them seriously, after a fire at a bar in the Swiss Alps during a new year celebration at a luxury ski resort.

The blaze ripped through the packed bar, Le Constellation, early on Thursday in Crans-Montana, one of the top-ranked ski destinations in Europe, which lies about 25 miles (40km) north-west of Zermatt.

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Police say blaze tore through crowded bar where people were seeing in the new year

• Switzerland resort fire – latest updates

About 40 people are believed to have been killed and 115 injured after a fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year’s Eve party in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana.

Swiss police confirmed several dozen partygoers were dead. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, the ministry said. It confirmed arson was not responsible, with the blaze thought to be the result of an accident.

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Ukraine has not commented on attack on cafe and hotel that comes despite ‘productive’ ongoing peace talks

A Ukrainian drone strike killed 24 people and injured at least 50 more as they celebrated the new year in a Russian-occupied village in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Russian officials said, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise despite diplomats hailing productive peace talks.

Three drones struck a cafe and hotel in the resort town of Khorly on the Black Sea coast, the region’s Moscow-installed leader, Vladimir Saldo, said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday. He said one of the drones was carrying an incendiary mixture that sparked a blaze.

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Country’s largest women’s health organisation says case of Marius Borg Høiby encouraging people to seek help

Staff at Norway’s largest women’s health organisation have seen a rise in the number of women reporting abuse and sexual assault at the hands of their partners ahead of the rape trial of a member of the royal family, saying they hope the case helps to “break taboos”.

Marius Borg Høiby, the 28-year-old son of the Norwegian crown princess, is due to stand trial in February on 32 charges including four counts of rape, the domestic abuse of a former partner and the illegal filming of a number of women without their knowledge or consent.

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Nationwide protests against living conditions enter fifth day with security forces reportedly using live ammunition

The largest protests in Iran for three years entered a fifth day on Thursday amid reports of deadly clashes between protesters and security forces, with state-affiliated media confirming at least two people had been killed.

Although state media did not identify those killed, witnesses and videos circulating on social media appear to show protesters lying motionless on the ground after security forces opened fire.

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Analysts attribute increase to kingdom’s ‘war on drugs’ as authorities kill 356 people by death penalty

Saudi authorities executed 356 people in 2025, setting a new record for the number of inmates put to death in the kingdom in a single year.

Analysts have largely attributed the increase in executions to Riyadh’s “war on drugs”, with some of those arrested in previous years only now being executed after legal proceedings and convictions.

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Sources say generators and tent poles restricted from humanitarian bodies but commercial shipments allowed in

Israel is running a parallel system of controls for shipments into Gaza, allowing commercial traders to bring goods into the territory that are barred for humanitarian organisations.

Basic life-saving supplies including generators and tent poles are on a long Israeli blacklist of “dual-use” items. The Israeli government says entry of these items must be severely restricted because they could be exploited by Hamas or other armed groups for military ends.

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Demonstrations against deteriorating living conditions have widened to include criticism of how Iran is governed

Alborz, a textile merchant in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, decided he could no longer sit on the sidelines. He closed his shop and took to the streets, joining merchants across Iran who shuttered their stores and students who took over their campuses to protest against declining economic conditions.

The sudden loss of purchasing power pushed Alborz and tens of thousands of other Iranians into the streets, where protests are now entering their fourth day. Students have paralysed university campuses, traders have shut down their stores and demonstrators have blocked off streets in defiance of police. Protests have spread from the capital, Tehran, to cities across Iran.

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Government should have appointed an envoy to carry out checks on activist in citizenship row, says Emily Thornberry

The government could have avoided “embarrassing failures” in the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah by having a special envoy deal with complex cases involving Britons detained abroad, Emily Thornberry has said.

The chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee criticised “serious shortcomings” in information sharing, which she said could have been resolved by having a dedicated official carry out background checks.

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Zia’s archrivalry with Sheikh Hasina defined the country’s politics for a generation

Khaleda Zia, the first female prime minister of Bangladesh whose long rivalry with Sheikh Hasina defined the country’s politics for a generation, has died aged 80.

Zia was one of the most significant and divisive political figures in the country since Bangladesh independence 50 years ago. Her death was announced on Tuesday morning by the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP).

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Turnout appears low for vote in which most candidates seen as allies of junta and large areas excluded by war

Polls have closed in conflict-racked Myanmar, ending the first phase of an election that has been widely condemned as a sham designed to legitimise the military junta’s rule.

The military has touted the vote as a return to democracy almost five years after it seized power in a coup, ousting the country’s then de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, detaining her and sparking a spiralling civil war.

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Kathmandu mayor Balendra ‘Balen’ Shah will run for prime minister with presenter Rabi Lamichhane’s party after deadly protests that ousted government

Two of Nepal’s most popular political leaders have formed an alliance ahead of next year’s election in the wake of deadly youth-led protests earlier in the year that ousted the government.

Television host Rabi Lamichhane, the 51-year-old chairperson of the Rastriya Swatantra party (RSP), and the 35-year-old rapper turned Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah pledged to address the demands of the younger generation following September’s deadly anti-corruption protests.

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As the military pushes ahead with a widely condemned election, Beijing’s priorities are proving decisive

• Myanmar’s first election since the 2021 coup: everything you need to know

Myanmar’s military has managed to regain momentum in its battle against a determined patchwork of opposition groups, retaking some territory, and pushing ahead with a widely condemned election that begins on Sunday.

It is a turnaround for the military, which had appeared so beleaguered that some dared to question if it could collapse.

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Elections will be first since military seized power in 2021, but analysts say vote is far from a step toward democracy

Myanmar is preparing to go to the polls for the first time since its military seized power in a coup in 2021, but with its former leader behind bars, its most successful political party disbanded and roughly a third of the country either disputed or in rebel hands, few believe claims by its military rulers that its 28 December election will be “free and fair”.

“This is not for the people, this is for themselves,” says Pai, 25, who fled Myanmar after the military seized power. “They [the ruling junta] are looking for a way out of the trap they are [in].”

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Hundreds of people gather in Centenary Square to see in 2026 after false claims online promise ‘dazzling’ display

The new year got off to an anticlimactic start for hundreds of people in Birmingham who were tricked into attending a non-existent New Year’s Eve fireworks display. Again.

Crowds of revellers gathered in the city’s Centenary Square, hoping to catch a glimpse of a pyrotechnics display to welcome in 2026.

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Second highest annual number of irregular arrivals on record reached British shores in 2025

More than 41,000 people crossed the Channel in small boats last year, figures branded “shameful” by the Home Office have revealed.

The government said 41,472 people arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in 2025 – the second highest number on record after 45,774 made the journey in 2022.

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New Labour advertising guru Chris Powell says urgent plan needed to ‘wage and win the daily war for attention’

• Chris Powell: What is Keir Starmer doing to push back the populists? Not nearly enough

Keir Starmer does not have enough of a plan to defeat the “existential threat” that populism poses to UK democracy and should undertake a “fundamental reset”, New Labour’s former advertising strategist Sir Chris Powell has warned.

Powell, who is the brother of Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser, warned there were just three years to stop the “new and terrifying threat” of populists, suggesting Reform UK could represent a danger to democracy and national institutions.

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British charitable trust that draws on OxyContin-maker fortune says it exempted names to protect reputations

Two charities that received a combined total of more than £1.1m from the British charitable trust run by the Sackler family were kept out of its latest accounts to protect their reputations from “serious prejudice”.

The trust, which draws on the Sackler fortune that came out of the US opioid crisis, gave £3.8m to arts, eduction and science bodies in 2024, according to its latest accounts, filed on New Year’s Eve.

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Harsher penalties and a ‘reshaping’ of the sector predicted when Financial Conduct Authority takes over as regulator

UK law firms are bracing themselves for a money-laundering crackdown as ministers race to improve the City’s reputation ahead of a fresh financial crime review.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been designated as the new anti-money laundering watchdog for the legal sector, in a move that experts warn could result in “sharper” penalties and ultimately reshape the industry.

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Mamdani was sworn into office by Letitia James shortly after midnight in the abandoned city hall subway station

Here are some photos coming out of New York City as we wait for Mamdani’s inauguration block party to get under way.

Happy new year! In the wee hours of 2026, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the new mayor of New York City in a private ceremony in the abandoned beaux-arts subway station under city hall.

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President tells Wall Street Journal in interview that his doctors encouraged him to take lower dose but he declined

Donald Trump takes “more aspirin” than his doctors recommend but he says “my health is perfect”, according to an interview given to the Wall Street Journal after the outlet recently questioned the 79-year-old president’s health.

Trump told the Journal that the large dose of aspirin he take daily has causes him to bruise easily and he has been encouraged by his doctors to take a lower dose – but he declined the advice because he has been taking it for 25 years.

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Abortion was seen as one of Democrats’ strongest issues in the 2024 election – new polls indicate that may be shifting

Up to seven states will vote on abortion rights this year. But recent polling indicates that Democrats may not be able to count on the issue in their efforts to drive votes in the 2026 midterms, after making abortion rights the centerpiece of their pitch to voters in the elections that followed the fall of Roe v Wade.

In 2024, 55% of Democrats said abortion was important to their vote, according to polling from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). But in October of this year, just 36% of Democrats said the same. By contrast, abortion remained about as important to Republicans in both 2024 and 2025, PRRI found. PRRI’s findings mirror a September poll from the 19th and SurveyMonkey, which found that the voters who cared most about abortion are people who want to see it banned.

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President auctioned off portrait painted live onstage and said his new year’s resolution was ‘peace on Earth’

Donald Trump welcomed 2026 with a glitzy bash at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach where he auctioned off a freshly painted portrait of Jesus Christ for $2.75m and said his new year’s resolution was a wish for “peace on Earth”.

The portrait of Jesus had been painted onstage by artist Vanessa Horabuena who, the president said, was “one of the greatest artists anywhere in the world”.

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Complaint argues Trump administration denying coverage of gender-affirming care is sex-based discrimination

The Trump administration is facing a new legal complaint from a group of government employees who are affected by a new policy going into effect Thursday that eliminates coverage for gender-affirming care in federal health insurance programs.

The complaint, filed Thursday on the employees’ behalf by the Human Rights Campaign, is in response to an August announcement from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that it would no longer cover “chemical and surgical modification of an individual’s sex traits through medical interventions” in health insurance programs for federal employees and US Postal Service workers.

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