World news | The Guardian

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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Opposition hopes to tap into frustrations of people living in country where conflict remains a daily reality

Central African Republic goes to the polls on Sunday with the president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, seeking a third term.

As many as 2.3 million registered voters will cast ballots for what observers are calling a quadruple election: votes for the presidency and parliament as well as local and municipal offices.

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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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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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Community leaders raise alarm over study links and Polynesian ties, with Tonga to face restrictions from January as US says too many overstay

The small Pacific nation of Tonga is one of more than a dozen countries to be hit with visa and entry restrictions on 1 January as the Trump administration tightens its crackdown on immigration.

In December, the US said it would further restrict and limit the entry of foreign nationals to protect the country from “national security and public safety threats”.

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• The 54-year-old was admitted to hospital on Boxing Day

• Martyn played total of 67 Tests between 1992 and 2006

The former Australian Test cricketer Damien Martyn has been admitted to hospital and placed in an induced coma after being diagnosed with meningitis.

The sporting community is rallying around the 54-year-old, who “is in for the fight of his life”, according to the former AFL player Brad Hardie, who revealed Martyn’s condition on 6PR on Tuesday.

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Can inflation be tamed without further interest rate hikes? And will the hot streak for gold and silver continue in 2026?

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The Australian share market delivered a 6.8% return in 2025, representing a third consecutive year of gains in a volatile period marked by trade wars, reigniting inflation and fears of an artificial intelligence-fuelled bubble.

Here are three things to watch for in 2026.

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Albanese will face a crucial test on the economy while the Coalition deals with existential questions after an election drubbing

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Before 14 December, Anthony Albanese was enjoying the most successful year of his long parliamentary career.

A landslide election win delivered Labor 94 lower house seats and crushed its political opponents.

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Officials warned of major economic, environmental and social disruption to Australia due to its dependence on coal

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The Howard government was warned in 2005 that climate change was occurring more quickly than previously predicted and “many human and natural systems and economic activities in Australia” were vulnerable, newly released documents show.

Cabinet papers made public by the National Archives on Thursday show officials warned the Coalition government of critical gaps in knowledge about the timing, location and magnitude of climate-related damage, even as international cooperation geared up to try to limit the worst effects on the planet.

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Alexander Downer told senior colleagues the H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate into a pandemic ‘with potentially devastating consequences’ for Australia and the world

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Health officials warned the Howard government that Australia might need to close schools and shut international borders in the event of a global influenza pandemic, nearly 15 years before the arrival of Covid-19.

Previously unreleased cabinet papers made public by the National Archives of Australia on Thursday show planning for an influenza pandemic reached all the way to the national security committee of federal cabinet in October 2005. The discussions, two years after the Sars viral respiratory disease spread across Asia, presaged much of the response as Covid-19 spread around the world.

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Border guards find boat with its anchor down after telecoms link between Helsinki and Tallinn targeted

Finnish police have seized a vessel suspected of damaging a telecommunications cable that runs between Helsinki and Tallinn in the Gulf of Finland.

Police did not disclose any details about the identity of the vessel, but the Finnish public broadcaster Yle, citing the MarineTraffic specialised website, said the ship was the Fitburg, a 132-metre-long cargo ship bearing a flag from St Vincent and Grenadines, en route from St Petersburg, Russia, to Haifa, Israel.

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Draft bill to be submitted for legal checks as France aims to follow Australia’s world-first ban on platforms including Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube

France intends to follow Australia and ban social media platforms for children from the start of the 2026 academic year.

A draft bill preventing under-15s from using social media will be submitted for legal checks and is expected to be debated in parliament early in the new year.

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Despite reviews of the district as a raucous tourist trap, improved policing has restored safety and an eclectic vibe

When Ireland redeveloped a swathe of central Dublin in the 1990s, the idea was to create a version of Paris’s Left Bank, a cultural quarter of cobbled lanes, art and urban renewal.

Planners and architects transformed the run-down Temple Bar site by the River Liffey into an ambitious experiment that drew throngs of visitors and won awards.

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Country’s six-month stint at helm begins with defence, migration and Ukraine still at top of agenda

Cyprus says it will bring “a new approach to the table” when it assumes the EU presidency on Thursday, as defence, migration and Ukraine continue to top the agenda at a time of acute geopolitical uncertainty.

As one of the bloc’s smaller member states, Cyprus will tackle its six-month stint at the EU’s helm with discipline and dedication but also “a different mindset”, the Cypriot foreign minister, Constantinos Kombos, said.

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Passengers face delays day after power supply problem and broken down train halted services between UK and France

Eurostar passengers have been warned that continued delays and cancellations are possible on Wednesday despite the resumption of services after a power supply issue halted Channel tunnel train trips connecting London to the European mainland.

Thousands of passengers in the busy run-up to the new year faced hours of delays after the train operator cancelled services between London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels on Tuesday because of an overhead power supply problem and a failed LeShuttle train.

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President calls for talks with leaders of demonstrations caused by decline in currency and living standards

Iran’s government has called for dialogue with protest leaders after the country’s largest demonstrations in three years over a plunging currency and declining living conditions.

Protests started on Sunday after Iran’s currency fell to a record low against the US dollar, causing traders and shopkeepers to close their stores in downtown Tehran. This was accompanied by mass protests in the capital as well as in major cities, including Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashhad.

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Attack was aimed at what Riyadh called a shipment of weapons for separatists backed by UAE

The United Arab Emirates has said it will withdraw its remaining forces in Yemen after tensions with Saudi Arabia escalated over a sweeping offensive by UAE-backed separatists.

The Emirati defence ministry announced the withdrawal on Tuesday, hours after Saudi Arabia bombed what it said was a shipment of weapons for Yemeni separatists that had arrived from the UAE.

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Isaac Herzog’s spokesperson says he has not spoken to Trump since US president wrote to urge him to stop trial

The office of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has denied a claim by Donald Trump that Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges, would soon receive a pardon.

Speaking shortly before his meeting in Florida with the Israeli prime minister on Monday night, Trump said he had been told by Herzog that a pardon was “on its way”.

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Abbas Araghchi claims US president’s Arab allies now view Israel’s recklessness as ‘a threat to us all’

• You’ll never defeat us in Iran, President Trump: but with real talks, we can both win | Abbas Araghchi

Donald Trump should defy Benjamin Netanyahu and realise renewed talks with Iran over its nuclear programme are a better bet and more likely to succeed owing to stronger support in the region for a successful outcome, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, says in a Guardian article. He also suggests Trump’s Republican base want a deal and not further unnecessary wars.

Araghchi was writing a day after Netanyahu held talks with Trump in the US in which Israel’s calls to consider fresh attacks on Iran were discussed alongside the Gaza peace plan.

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Israeli prime minister said he will award Trump with Israel prize, highest civilian honor, while visiting Mar-a-Lago

Donald Trump has warned that Hamas will have “hell to pay” if it fails to disarm while offering full-throated support to Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting with the Israeli prime minister in Florida.

In a bravura display of mutual admiration, Netanyahu announced that the US president would be awarded the Israel prize, the country’s highest civilian honour, which since its inception in the 1950s has never before been given to a non-Israeli person.

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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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US president’s assertions climate change is ‘a hoax’ and London has police no-go areas left unchallenged, say critics

Britain’s media regulator Ofcom is under pressure to investigate a GB News interview with Donald Trump after complaints that it contained misleading and inaccurate claims that the network failed to challenge.

The rightwing channel claimed a “world exclusive sit-down interview” with the US president in November, in which Trump asserted that human-induced climate change was “a hoax” and that London had no-go areas for police and that the capital had “sharia law”.

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Near-freezing temperatures likely but clear, dry skies will be perfect for viewing fireworks, says Met Office

Snowfall is expected across much of the UK in a chilly start to the new year, forecasters have said, as revellers were advised to wrap up with near-freezing temperatures expected on New Year’s Eve.

Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations are expected to go ahead after last year’s cancellation due to high winds, despite yellow warnings for snow across northern Scotland.

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Hospitals brace for new year surge in sick patients as temperatures plummet and with 95% of beds full

The NHS is under “extraordinary pressure” and braced for a new year surge in sick patients as amber cold health alerts were issued for the whole of England.

While the number of patients in hospital with flu is levelling off, according to data published on Wednesday, health leaders said the NHS was “not out of danger yet” with temperatures expected to plummet.

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Rail services between Sheffield and Doncaster affected on New Year’s Eve after incident at Conisbrough

Train passengers in South Yorkshire are facing disruption on New Year’s Eve after the theft of signalling cables, Network Rail has said.

The rail body said services between Sheffield and Doncaster would be affected all day after the theft in Conisbrough.

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Exclusive: Met figures thought to reflect national picture with Covid, poverty and more people seeking help possible factors

The number of violent offences involving an adolescent attacking their parents or step-parents has increased by more than 60% in the past decade, according to figures recorded by the UK’s biggest police force.

Data released by Scotland Yard reveals that there were 1,886 such offences recorded in 2015 but this increased to 3,091 in the first 10 months of 2025 alone.

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US-made device planned by end of year hit by recent government shutdown affecting shipments

Trump Mobile, the phone company launched by Donald Trump’s family business, has pushed back plans to deliver a $499 (£371) gold-coloured smartphone by the end of the year.

The Trump Organization licensed its name to launch a mobile service and the device in June, in the latest monetisation of his presidency by a family business empire now run by Trump’s sons.

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As a judge puts a security hold on Rob and Michele Reiner’s cases and Joe Rogan criticises Donald Trump’s comments about Reiner’s death, collaborators continue to pay tribute

More than two weeks after the deaths of the film director Rob Reiner and his photographer wife, Michele, friends and colleagues continue to pay tribute to the couple.

Writing on Instagram, Cary Elwes, who starred in Reiner’s 1987 classic The Princess Bride, said he only now felt able to post publicly about his loss.

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Forty-seven men killed by states operating death penalty – almost double last year’s number

US executions have surged in 2025 to the highest level in 16 years, as Donald Trump’s campaign to reinvigorate judicial killings, combined with the US supreme court’s increasing refusal to engage in last-minute pleas for reprieve, have taken a heavy toll.

A total of 47 men – they were all male – have been killed by states operating the death penalty in the course of the year. That was almost double the number in 2024, amounting to the greatest frenzy of capital punishment bloodletting in America since 2009.

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Officials claim to find ‘rampant fraud’ in childcare funding, but prosecutions began in Biden era and Tim Walz says ‘we’ve spent years cracking down on it’

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it is freezing federal funding for childcare programs in Minnesota after allegations of fraud – first exposed and prosecuted during the Biden administration – recently became the focus of conservative influencers and media outlets.

Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of health and human services, said in a video statement that the funding freeze was in response to what he called “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country … We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud.”

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A pity that Trump, or one of the 18 intelligence agencies reporting to him, did not trace the image back to its source

Even while on holiday at his Florida resort, Donald Trump has refused to take a break from his unrelenting war on wind energy.

Late Tuesday, the US president posted an image of a dead bird beneath a turbine on social media, accompanied by the lament: “Windmills are killing all of our beautiful Bald Eagles!”

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