World news | The Guardian

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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Bobi Wine flown to unknown location, his party says, hours after security forces allegedly killed 10 of his campaigners

The Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine was taken from his house and brought to an unknown location on Friday, his party said as President Yoweri Museveni closed in on a landslide re-election.

Wine’s National Unity Platform party said on Friday evening in a post on X that an army helicopter had landed in his compound in the capital, Kampala, and “forcibly taken him away to an unknown destination”.

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$1.6m project drew outrage over ethical questions about withholding vaccines proven to prevent disease

The controversial US-funded study on hepatitis B vaccines among newborns in Guinea-Bissau has been halted, according to Yap Boum, a senior official at the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The study has been cancelled,” Boum told journalists at a press conference on Thursday morning.

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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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Mark Carney holds talks with Xi Jinping on rare Beijing trip as Canada seeks to diversify trade links away from US

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Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China as he held talks in Beijing with President Xi Jinping, the first visit by a Canadian leader in eight years.

Addressing Xi in the Great Hall of the People, Carney said: “Together we can build on the best of what this relationship has been in the past to create a new one adapted to new global realities.”

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Women allege Spanish singer subjected them ‘to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in atmosphere of control’

The Spanish singer Julio Iglesias has broken his silence over allegations that he sexually abused two women who worked in his Caribbean mansions, saying he has never “abused, coerced or disrespected any woman”.

The 82-year-old entertainer, whose career spans six decades, had been accused by two female former employees who allege they had been sexually assaulted and subjected “to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation … in an atmosphere of control and constant harassment”.

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Yoon Suk Yeol’s conviction for obstructing own arrest separate from main trial that could lead to death penalty

A South Korean court has sentenced former president Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison for mobilising presidential security forces to block his own arrest and abusing his powers. It is the first judicial ruling linked to the events surrounding his failed martial law declaration in December 2024.

The ruling is separate from Yoon’s main insurrection trial, where prosecutors earlier this week sought the death penalty and a verdict is due next month.

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US to lower tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 15% as chip and tech businesses pledge $250bn spending in US operations

The US said on Thursday that it had signed a deal with Taiwan to reduce tariffs on goods from the democratic island, while increasing Taiwanese semiconductor and tech companies’ investments in America.

The agreement, the US commerce department said, “will drive a massive reshoring of America’s semiconductor sector”.

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Crane in use on high-speed rail project hits passing train, causing it to derail

At least 32 people in Thailand have been killed and scores injured after a crane collapsed on to a passenger train and derailed it, officials said.

Footage from the scene verified by Agence France-Presse showed the crane’s broken structure resting on giant concrete pillars and smoke rising from the wreckage of the train below.

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Results for 2025 risk further unsettling economies about China’s trade practices and overcapacity, and their own over-reliance on Chinese products

China has reported a strong export run in 2025 with a record trillion-dollar surplus, as its producers brace for three more years of a Trump administration set on slowing the manufacturing powerhouse by shifting US orders to other markets.

Beijing’s resilience to renewed tariff tensions since Donald Trump returned to the US presidency last January has emboldened Chinese firms to shift their focus to south-east Asia, Africa and Latin America to offset US duties.

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Yoon is on trial for insurrection charges, after trying to declare martial law in late 2024

South Korean prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for former president Yoon Suk Yeol over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, in the first insurrection trial of a Korean head of state in three decades.

Prosecutors characterised the case as the “serious destruction of constitutional order by anti-state forces”, telling Seoul central district court that Yoon had “directly and fundamentally infringed upon the safety of the state and the survival and freedom of the people”.

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Woman killed by tree branch as NSW SES records more than 800 calls for help. Follow updates live

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The road to Trish’s Queensland farm was blown up for a coalmine – now flood waters have left her ‘stuck in a hole’

Cattlewoman Trish Goodwin should be celebrating.

It was proper wet season rain. And we needed it. We needed it badly.

We did have an evacuation at Narrabeen overnight due to the rapid rising waters there and the localised heavy rainfall, so that continues around that. Those particular areas with the weather also moving up north, we’ll see around north-eastern New South Wales experiencing some of that heavy winds, heavy rain and large wind gusts.

We’re hoping to see a little bit of relief for the Illawarra area today. But still in that Sydney northern area. So again urging everyone to keep safe, keep inside if you can.

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• Former Australia batter given a ‘50/50 chance of surviving’

• Spent eight days in induced coma

Damien Martyn has said he is back after overcoming a meningitis scare, which he said took his life out of his hands.

In a heartfelt post on his social media accounts, the former Australia batter said he was given a 50% chance to live after battling the disease, which causes an infection and swelling of fluid and membranes around the brain and spinal cord. The 54-year-old was put into an induced coma on 27 December and was fighting for his life in a Gold Coast intensive care unit until he woke eight days later.

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Deputy state coroner concludes 21-year-old, who died after exiting a moving vehicle, was ‘exploited’ and exposed to ‘potentially criminal’ conduct in five weeks in Australia

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A New South Wales coroner has referred the death of a Filipino migrant worker, who died after jumping from a moving vehicle in 2019, to the Australian federal police to consider further investigations.

NSW deputy state coroner Rebecca Hosking handed down the findings into the death of 21-year-old Jerwin Royupa on Friday. She concluded Royupa, a trainee at a winery, was “exploited” and exposed to “potentially criminal” conduct during his five weeks in Australia.

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Floods predicted for NSW south coast after severe storms dumped 180mm in six hours on Victoria’s Lorne and Wye River, washing cars into the sea on the Great Ocean Road

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Authorities have defended the timing of warnings for holidaymakers along Victoria’s surf coast who were hit by an “unprecedented” downpour on Thursday, as Sydney awaited its “soggiest weekend of summer” to date.

Weatherzone forecasters predicted 20mm of rainfall was possible in Sydney on both Saturday and Sunday, which would be a record for the time of year.

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The incident at Gunnedah near Tamworth is the third fatality involving police in the state this year

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A man armed with a bow and arrow has been shot dead by police in New South Wales as they carried out a welfare check – the third fatality involving officers this year.

Authorities attended the man’s house in Gunnedah near Tamworth on Friday at 1.40pm after receiving a call about concerns for his welfare.

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Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland will face tariffs from 1 February

What do people in Greenland think of Donald Trump and his threats to take over the island? The Guardian’s Miranda Bryant and Lauren Hurrell take a look.

Reuters estimated that thousands of protesters attended the “Hands Off Greenland” rallies around Denmark on Saturday, chanting “Greenland is not for sale” and waving Greenland’s red and white “Erfalasorput” flag.

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Heads of state across Europe respond in solidarity with Denmark and Greenland, and boycott of World Cup suggested

Donald Trump threatened a 25% tariff on a slew of European countries including Denmark, Germany, France and the UK – until the US is allowed to purchase Greenland, in an extraordinary escalation of the president’s bid to claim the autonomous Danish territory.

In a lengthy post on Saturday on Truth Social, Trump said he would impose a 10% tariff on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland beginning 1 February, “on any and all goods sent to the United States of America”.

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Using one of his favourite weapons to win an argument, the US president underlines the unstable nature of any deal he makes

Donald Trump’s threat to impose fresh tariffs on eight European countries – UK, Norway and six EU member states – is a wrecking ball to the carefully stitched deals he concluded with those countries last summer.

The two biggest voting blocs in the European parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Socialists & Democrats (S&Ds), said on Saturday night the deal with the EU cannot be approved in the present circumstances.

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Prime minister and opposition politicians condemn threat to impose 10% tariff unless deal reached to buy the Arctic island

Keir Starmer has said Donald Trump’s decision to impose 10% tariffs on the UK and seven other European countries over Greenland was “completely wrong”.

The US president said the levies would apply from 1 February to Nato members – including the UK, France and Germany – who have deployed troops to the territory in response to growing uncertainty over its future.

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US president’s increasingly bellicose demands for control of the island may force the EU to draw a line in the snow

• Greenland: new shipping routes, hidden minerals – and a frontline between the US and Russia?

The crisis over Greenland may deliver the moment when Europe must stand up to Donald Trump, as officials have said a US attempt to annex the territory could shatter the Nato transatlantic alliance.

European leaders have entertained Trump’s demands for nearly a year as he has pushed Nato countries to increase their defence spending to 5% of GDP, and threatened to pull US support from Ukraine as part of a peace process that appears to favour Russia. They have also given a muted response to US adventurism abroad including the capture and rendition of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

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Country says some appointments to the group, which will oversee the administration and reconstruction of Gaza, are ‘contrary to its policy’

Israel has objected to the White House’s pick of world leaders who will join the so-called Gaza “board of peace”, meant to temporarily oversee governance and reconstruction in the strip.

The White House and other sources announced a flurry of appointments and invitations to the organisation over the last two days, including Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, former UK prime minister Tony Blair and the president of Argentina, Javier Milei.

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Despite the ceasefire, more than 100 children have died in the territory since October

A 27-day-old baby died in Gaza on Saturday from severe cold, bringing the number of children in the region who have died of hypothermia since the start of the current winter season to eight, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Medical sources confirmed to the news agency Anadolu that the newborn, named Aisha Ayesh al-Agha, died as a result of freezing temperatures, and that when she was brought to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis it was already too late to save her.

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Supreme leader blames US for death toll and calls Donald Trump a criminal for support of demonstrations

The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has acknowledged for the first time that thousands of people were killed during the protests that rocked Iran over the last two weeks.

In a speech on Thursday, Khamenei said that thousands of people had been killed, “some in an inhuman, savage manner”, and blamed the US for the death toll. The supreme leader railed against the US president, Donald Trump, whom he called a “criminal” for his support of demonstrations, and called for strict punishment of protesters.

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Report claims unrestricted online access will be a ‘government privilege’, limited to individuals vetted by regime

Iran is planning to permanently break from the global internet, only allowing individuals vetted by the regime to connect online, according to Iranian digital rights activists.

“A confidential plan is under way to turn international internet access into a ‘governmental privilege’,” according to a report from Filterwatch, an organisation monitoring Iran’s internet censorship, citing a number of sources in Iran.

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Grieving, bruised and divided on the wisdom of foreign-backed revolt, how can the Iranian people achieve change?

The Japanese writer Haruki Murakami in his novel 1Q84 may have foreshadowed the great and indelible rift Iranian society is about to experience. “The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They can’t turn away. Their memories are passed on from parent to child. That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”

Inside Iran, contrasting memories are already being brought into even sharper relief and made more traumatic by the blanket propaganda from Iran state TV portraying protesters as drug-crazed or pawns of a foreign power attracted to a violent terrorist culture reminiscent of Islamic State.

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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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Exclusive: Amazon, Meta and X among firms holding hundreds of meetings with people at heart of government, data shows

Tech companies have been meeting government ministers at a rate of more than once per working day, enjoying high-level political access that dwarfs that of child safety and copyright campaigners, who called the pattern “shocking” and “disturbing”.

Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Elon Musk’s X, whose Grok AI image generator has sparked outrage with its sexualised images of women and children, were among the US tech companies holding hundreds of meetings with people at the heart of government, a Guardian investigation has found.

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Draft creates ‘too broad an opt-out’ for intelligence chiefs to decide what information is released after major incident

The mayors of Liverpool and Manchester have said an amendment to the Hillsborough law should be withdrawn, saying it does not do enough to prevent future cover-ups.

The Liverpool city region mayor, Steve Rotheram, and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, said the amendment “creates too broad an opt-out” by allowing intelligence officials to decide what information is released to investigators after a major incident.

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Vincent Chan, who already pleaded guilty to 26 offences, accused of possessing indecent images of children

A nursery worker who was convicted of dozens of sexual attacks on children left in his care has been charged with a further 15 offences.

Vincent Chan, 45, previously pleaded guilty to 26 offences between 2022 and 2024, including sexually assaulting four girls aged between two and four at the north London nursery where he worked, and offences relating to more than 25,000 indecent images of children.

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M&S, Morrisons and Ocado among retailers bringing out ranges targeting shoppers taking Wegovy or similar

Veganuary and dry January are among the new year health kicks enthusiastically endorsed by supermarkets, but this year the buzz is around “Jab-uary” as pricey diet foods aimed at people on weight-loss drugs hit the shelves.

Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Asda, Ocado and the Co-op are among the big names targeting shoppers who use weight-loss injections, known as GLP-1 agonists, but better known by brand names such as Wegovy and Mounjaro.

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The views of the former Tory vaccines minister clash with those of high-profile members and the party faithful

There was no shortage of ammunition for reporters seeking to pepper Nadhim Zahawi with questions when the former Conservative chancellor was unveiled as Reform’s newest recruit on Monday.

But one persistent line of questioning seemed to draw a flash of real anger from the defector: did he reject the views of a doctor who was permitted by Reform to use the main stage at its annual conference to claim that the Covid vaccines, which Zahawi had himself rolled out as vaccines minister during the pandemic, were responsible for King Charles and the Princess of Wales’ cancers?

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Prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen joined countrymen marching across capital city of Nuuk for island’s biggest protest

Thousands of Greenlanders carefully marched across snow and ice to take a stand against Donald Trump on Saturday. They held signs of protest, waved their national flag and chanted “Greenland is not for sale” in the face of increasing threats of an American takeover.

Just as they finished their trek from the small downtown of Greenland’s capital city Nuuk to the US consulate, the news broke that Trump had announced he would charge a 10% tariff on eight European countries from February over their opposition to US control of Greenland.

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President also denies he ever offered JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon the chair of the Federal Reserve

Donald Trump threatened to sue JPMorgan Chase on Saturday, citing an unsubstantiated allegation that major banks discriminated against him after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot.

Trump announced the potential lawsuit in a post on social media, tying the threat to his criticism of a recent Wall Street Journal article that reported he had offered the JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, the position of US Federal Reserve chair. Trump insists the report is inaccurate and says no such offer was ever made.

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US health department’s new food pyramid places red meat and cheese high in saturated fats over plant-based proteins

The new food pyramid rolled out in US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) places animal-based proteins, including cheese and red meats high in saturated fats, above plant-based proteins, which has raised alarm bells among health and environmental experts.

This rejiggered food pyramid is in line with Kennedy’s previous signals that he will recommend increasing saturated fat in US diets as part of the “Make America healthy again” movement.

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Warner Bros is also being pursued by Paramount Skydance, helmed by David Ellison, son of president’s ally

Donald Trump bought at least $1m worth of bonds in Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), according to a financial disclosure form, days after he said would “be involved” in a proposed merger between the two companies.

The White House released a financial disclosure report on Friday which showed that Trump made two purchases from Netflix and two purchases from WBD, each amounting to at least $502,000.

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Nathan Chasing Horse, who had part in Dances with Wolves, accused in trial that spotlights influence of ‘medicine men’

After learning she was of Lakota descent around 1996, Melissa Leone, who was adopted, hungered to connect to her Native American tribe.

“I was grabbing a hold of any and all connections that felt good or safe,” she said.

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