World

Dominic Raab has said it is “unlikely” that he will attend the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, amid growing calls for British dignitaries to boycott the event over alleged human rights abuses in China. The foreign secretary told Kay Burley on Sky News he doubts he will attend the sporting event, but that individuals should

America’s divisions are huge, but the country appears to have come together to support Simone Biles. The superstar US gymnast, one of the world’s most famous athletes, pulled out of two finals at the Tokyo Olympics – the women’s team final on Tuesday and then Thursday’s women’s all-around competition – to focus on her mental

If you do what Simone Biles does, if you take the awe-inspiring risks that she takes, you really have to believe that you can pull them off. In short, she stopped believing in herself and didn’t want to harm herself or her team’s chances of doing well. At the start of the week she posted

COVID-19 cases in Tokyo are now rising faster than at any time in the pandemic but Japanese authorities are resisting renewed calls for the Olympics to be suspended. The Japanese capital reported 2,848 cases on Tuesday, which is a record number and 149% higher than the previous week’s average. Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has

Five people are missing following an explosion at a German industrial park for chemical companies. The blast in Leverkusen has been declared an “extreme threat” by authorities and left several people injured. The explosion happened at 9.40am local time (7.40am GMT) and caused a fire at a fuel depot at Chempark, an industrial park for

A violent hailstorm has brought traffic to a halt on one of Italy’s main highways, injuring a number of people and smashing car windows. The storm hit part of the northern stretch of the road between Milan and Naples, which runs for almost 500 miles. Hundreds of cars were pelted with hail, forcing drivers to

Tunisia’s president has been accused of staging a coup by his opponents after he dismissed the prime minister and froze parliament following violent demonstrations over the country’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a statement on Tunisia’s state television, President Kais Saied said he would assume executive authority with the support of a new prime

Dr Angelique Coetzee is a GP in the South African capital Pretoria, where she has run a family clinic for the past 33 years. But she has never known anything like COVID-19. She said: “If you have never been in such a situation, you can’t imagine what it is like. We’ve been dealing with 30

The Pride march that snaked its way through Budapest was about much more than just celebrating the city’s LGBT+ community. This was a raucous blend of party and protest.  The party was obvious – a blend of lots of people, plenty of noise, a sense of collective purpose and the beating sunshine. As for the

Slava Kemlil is waiting for us on the dock in the Arctic town of Chersky.   He’s been there applying for government grants but it is not where he feels at home. Home is in the tundra with his reindeer. “You can relax there,” he says. “You can breathe the fresh air. In the settlement

Team GB’s hopes of a cycling medal on the first day of the Tokyo Olympics came to an early end after Geraint Thomas pulled out of the men’s road race following a crash. Thomas and teammate Tao Geoghegan Hart fell around 70km (43 miles) into the 234km (145 mile) event which finished at the Fuji

The opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has begun with a spectacular show at the national stadium. The event began with a performer seeming to morph from a seed into a plant through the use of overhead projections. A compilation video showing athletes training alone as they prepared for the Games. A countdown kicked

Guinea has pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics, citing a “resurgence of COVID variants”. It means five athletes from the African nation will be missing from the delayed Games. Minister of sports Sanoussy Bantama Sow said the decision had been taken because of the continuing coronavirus pandemic. “Due to the resurgence of COVID variants, the

The director of the Olympics opening ceremony has been fired over comments he made about the Holocaust. The remarks were made by Kentaro Kobayashi during a comedy show in 1998 and included the phrase: “Let’s play Holocaust”. Mr Kobayashi’s words resurfaced in news articles ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony, and organising committee president Seiko Hashimoto

Further rain has been forecast until the weekend in China’s Henan province where at least 25 people have been killed in days of flooding. From Saturday to Tuesday, 3,535 weather stations in Henan saw rainfall exceeding 5cm, of which 1,614 had levels above 10cm and 151 above 25cm. Twelve people died and more than 500

People have been left trapped in cars and underground train carriages after heavy rainfall caused widespread damage in central China. More than 20cm of rain fell on the city of Zhengzhou, Henan province, in a single hour on Tuesday. In the recent European floods, the worst-hit areas of Germany saw 18.2cm over three days. So