There is a continuous sound of heavy machinery at the mouth of the main tunnel of the Tapovan power station in India’s Uttarakhand state. Rescuers are desperately trying to reach about 35 workers trapped inside a tunnel after a glacier collapse. It has now been more than 60 hours since a Himalayan glacier broke off
World
It is “extremely unlikely” coronavirus came from a laboratory incident in China, according to a joint mission investigating the origins of the pandemic. Investigators believe the most likely cause of the initial outbreak was the virus jumping from an “intermediary host species” to humans. It means future investigations will not focus on a laboratory incident
The impoverished country of Haiti – already an economic disaster zone with organised crime and kidnapping for ransom out of control – now finds itself in the midst of a constitutional crisis with violent confrontations between anti-government protesters and the police a daily occurrence. The country’s leading opposition parties, the judiciary and activist groups say
Police have fired a water cannon in Myanmar’s capital as tens of thousands of people across the country protest over last week’s military coup. Demonstrations are growing in the southeast Asian state in a bid to get elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government reinstated. The peaceful protests swelled over the weekend and
South Africa is suspending its rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after finding it offers limited protection against mild disease caused by the COVID-19 variant discovered there. It follows disappointing results in a trial conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said. The government had been intending to give the AstraZeneca
At least 150 people are feared dead in northern India after part of a Himalayan glacier broke off, sending a flood of water and debris into two hydroelectric dams. A portion of Nanda Devi glacier broke off in the Tapovan area of Uttarakhand state on Sunday, with the subsequent flooding damaging the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga
*Warning – this story contains descriptions of a child who has suffered extensive burns* The vicious conflict in Syria has been raging for 10 years. One of the worst humanitarian disasters in history, more than 6.5 million people have been displaced, forced to escape the violence. Many of them live in camps in the Idlib
You can see the boats sail into Pakaquiteta beach every morning, carrying people and possessions from an area in Mozambique that is known as “the land of fear”. More than half a million people have fled from northern parts of the country’s most northerly province, Cabo Delgado, and thousands of evacuees have sought sanctuary on
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has criticised the Russian government after diplomats from several European countries were expelled from the country for allegedly joining protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. The Russian foreign ministry said Polish, German and Swedish officials took part in what it described as “illegal demonstrations” in St Petersburg and
A politician who has called for civil disobedience against the military coup in Myanmar has become the latest senior figure to be arrested. Win Htein, 79, was held at his home in Yangon and taken to the capital Naypyitaw, according to a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Mr
There was no accidental leakage of disease from a Chinese laboratory with a history of studying coronaviruses, an international team investigating the origins of COVID-19 has been told. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was on Wednesday visited by World Health Organisation (WHO) experts who are looking for clues as to how the COVID-19 pandemic
The military coup in Myanmar is attempting to block access to Facebook for the sake of “stability” as citizens use the platform to organise protests against the overthrowing of the government. Ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has now been remanded in detention until 15 February, prompting citizens to form a Civil Disobedience Movement group
Russia’s foreign minister has described reaction from Western countries to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s jailing as “hysteria” – telling them to keep out of Russia’s affairs. At a news conference in Moscow, Sergei Lavrov said: “As for the coverage of events happening in Russia, not just those related to Navalny, but to everything in general,
Police in Myanmar have filed a charge against ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been remanded in detention until 15 February. Ms Suu Kyi, who was detained on Monday as Myanmar’s military staged a coup, is charged with breaching the country’s import and export laws. A police document states that four illegally imported
The World Health Organisation team in Wuhan investigating the origins of COVID-19 say they are getting data “which no one has seen before” and are “really getting somewhere” – and have not ruled out the possibility that the virus had escaped from a lab. Dr Peter Daszak, part of the ongoing WHO mission, told Sky
The United Nations (UN) fears the coup in Myanmar will worsen the plight of some 600,000 Rohingya Muslims still in the country. Myanmar‘s military seized power on Monday in a coup against the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with other political leaders in early morning raids. Hundreds of