New evidence from impeachment inquiry witness Laura Cooper knocks down key pillar of Trump?€?s defence
Ukraine raised concerns about a hold on military aid on the same day as Donald Trump?€?s infamous phone call with its president, a Pentagon official told the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday.
The evidence from Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defence, knocks down a key pillar of the White House?€?s defence: that Ukraine was unaware of the suspension of nearly $400m in security assistance until a much later date.
Royal pressed to turn over all relevant documents about contacts with financier
Lawyers representing the victims of the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have signalled they are willing to serve a subpoena to Prince Andrew to ensure he cooperates with their investigations.
The UK?€?s GDP growth rate will slip to 1% next year even if a no-deal Brexit is avoided, according to the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation. My colleague Phillip Inman has the full story here.
Temperatures top 40C in Victoria?€?s north as up to 11 properties hit by fire in South Australia, while NSW and Tasmania face difficult conditions
Record-breaking spring temperatures helped spark and fan bushfires across the country on Thursday, forecasting a potentially devastating bushfire summer.
In Victoria, 100km/h winds fanned more than 60 blazes, as an unprecedented heatwave moved north to south, drawing comparisons with the ?€?worst conditions you?€?d see in February or March?€? from the state?€?s emergency services minister Lisa Neville.
Murdoch was responding to a question at AGM about time given to ?€?climate deniers?€? by News Corp outlets in Australia
News Corp executive chairman Rupert Murdoch has said ?€?there are no climate change deniers around I can assure you?€? after he was asked at the corporation?€?s AGM why his company gives them ?€?so much airtime?€? in Australia.
Murdoch was speaking in New York on Wednesday when he received a question from a proxy for Australian activist shareholder Stephen Mayne.
Scotland?€?s former first minister faces 14 charges that also include indecent assault
Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland, has appeared in court accused of attempting to rape a woman at Bute House, the Georgian property in Edinburgh?€?s new town used as the official residence of Scotland?€?s first ministers, in June 2014.
He appeared at the high court in Edinburgh on Thursday in front of Lady Dorrian, the lord justice clerk, to face a total of 14 charges including one of attempted rape, 11 charges of sexual and indecent assault, some of which allegedly occurred numerous times, and twocommon law charges of indecent assault dating to 2008. Salmond has repeatedly denied the charges.
Simon Cheng, a former UK consular employee, has only been offered a two-year visa
Questions have been raised about Britain?€?s treatment of a former UK consular worker from Hong Kong, who said he was asked to resign after being detained and allegedly tortured on a work trip to mainland China.
Simon Cheng has been offered a two-year UK visa, but sources said it is a ?€?working holiday?€? type, which only allows him to spend 12 months employed and leaves him without a path to permanent residency.
The case was launched on behalf of 700 women who had pelvic mesh and tape products implanted to treat common complications of childbirth
Hundreds of women left in debilitating pain by faulty transvaginal mesh devices have won a landmark case against multinational giant Johnson & Johnson.
The Australian class action against companies owned by Johnson & Johnson - watched closely across the world - was won on behalf of 1,350 women who had mesh and tape products implanted to treat pelvic prolapse or stress urinary incontinence, both common complications of childbirth.
German politicians accuse Roger Hallam of downplaying significance of genocide
A co-founder of Extinction Rebellion has sparked anger in Germany after referring to the Holocaust as ?€?just another fuckery in human history?€?.
Roger Hallam has been accused of downplaying the Nazis?€? genocide of 6 million Jews by arguing in an interview that the significance of the Holocaust has been overplayed.
The British group are delaying a tour to support new album Everyday Life as they work towards developing concerts that will be carbon neutral
Coldplay have pledged to make any tour in support of their new album ?€?actively beneficial?€? to the environment.
Frontman Chris Martin told BBC News that the British group was waiting to tour their new album, Everyday Life, so they can ensure such a tour is carbon neutral. ?€?Our next tour will be the best possible version of a tour like that environmentally,?€? said Martin. ?€?We would be disappointed if it?€?s not carbon neutral. We?€?ve done a lot of big tours at this point. How do we turn it around so it?€?s not so much taking as giving??€?
As another week of violence grips the city, normal life is on hold - people cannot work, schools are closed, roads are paralysed and children are terrified
The ongoing political crisis in Hong Kong is probably the biggest challenge of my life. I don?€?t remember having lost sleep and appetite and not being able to think about anything else for months on end ever before.
Like many other Hongkongers, I have been overwhelmed by an acute sense of helplessness and anxiety during the past five months as I have watched our home descend in to a war zone every few days.
Money sent home by relatives working abroad has transformed Kamza over the past decade
Driving out of Albania?€?s capital, Tirana, into nearby Kamza, blocks of communist-era apartments give way to a chaotic jumble of houses of different colours, shapes and heights. Many are half-finished or being rebuilt. Some are just exposed brick, while others are painted near-fluorescent greens, oranges or yellows.
?€?People pay a lot of attention to the aesthetics of the houses,?€? says Njazi Murrja, who lives locally. ?€?They show the culture and the wealth of the family.?€?
Three decades after the Berlin Wall fell, the crossing is a mess of souvenir shops and fast-food restaurants - and time is running out to change things
It was the most famous border crossing in the Berlin Wall, the official gateway for allied diplomats, military personnel and foreigners to enter communist East Berlin by road.
And in 1961, Checkpoint Charlie seized the world?€?s attention when a diplomatic spat about allied forces?€? freedom to travel in East Berlin quickly escalated and saw Soviet and American tanks squaring up to one another. The world watched aghast, fearful of a third world war, as a formidable flock of superpower tanks rolled towards the border, standing just 100 yards apart.
Restaurants offering fixed-price three-course menús have been a cornerstone of the country?€?s urban life for decades, but tourism, shorter lunch breaks and gentrification have put them under threat. What will it take to fight back?
Food is at the heart of Spanish culture. From social life to business deals, everything revolves around food - above all, lunch. How did Mariano Rajoy, then prime minister, react last year when faced with an unprecedented vote of no confidence? He went to lunch. For eight hours.
The three-course menú del día has been the cornerstone of Spanish cuisine and social life for generations. Consequently, the restaurants serving these menús - generally low on aesthetics and high on value for money - have been a feature of the urban landscape. Now, though, their existence is threatened by a combination of rising rents, changing tastes and working hours, tourism and gentrification.
Optimists have fewer strokes, sleep better and live longer than pessimists. But how do you change your outlook? By embracing your Best Possible Self, keeping a gratitude journal - and changing your narrative
I?€?ve been called many things in my life, but never an optimist. That was fine by me. I believed pessimists lived in a constant state of pleasant surprise: if you always expected the worst, things generally turned out better than you imagined. The only real problem with pessimism, I figured, was that too much of it could accidentally turn you into an optimist.
But accidental optimism is not one of the known dangers of pessimism, a list that does include career impairment, poor health and early death. Optimism, by contrast, is associated with better sleep and lower levels of cardiovascular disease. One study this year claimed that people who describe themselves as optimists had 35% fewer strokes than those who didn?€?t. Another, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science last summer, found that compared with pessimists, the most optimistic subjects lived 11-15% longer lives on average.
Prospect of crashing out of EU leaves UK more exposed to global financial risks, thinktank says
The UK?€?s GDP growth rate will slip to 1% next year even if a no-deal Brexit is avoided, according to the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation.
The OECD said the economy would slow down from growth of 1.2% this year if parliament passes Boris Johnson?€?s Brexit deal before the 31 January deadline, before returning to 1.2% in 2021.
Hours after figures released, fresh attacks by Assad forces leave a further 21 civilians dead in Idlib
Bombing by Syrian government and Russian forces of the last opposition-held pockets of Syria has killed 1,300 people and displaced almost 1 million more since April, according to monitors.
The Syria Campaign, a UK-based charity, said the Syria Civil Defence rescue service reported that 304 children and 11 rescue workers had died in the bombardment across north-west Idlib province and the surrounding countryside.
Government critics fear purge of sector as more than 12,000 organisations lose registered charity status
More than 12,000 charities have been told they can no longer operate in Uganda as critics raised fears that government regulatory measures effectively amounted to a purge.
The government said a review that took place in August and September would root out poorly performing organisations and create ?€?a reliable data bank on all NGOs?€? in the country.
Joe Biden boasted about his support among African American voters during the fifth Democratic presidential debate in Atlanta on Wednesday. 'I come out of the black community in terms of my support,' Biden said and listed 'the only black African American woman who had ever been elected to the United States Senate' as one of his endorsements, at which the candidate and senator Kamala Harris threw her hands in the air, laughing: 'Nope. That's not true. The other one is here.'
Decision to elevate former journalist reflects level of trust Trudeau has in her and the scale of the task for his government
During the most important week in North American free trade negotiations last year, Canada?€?s top representative arrived in Washington wearing white T-shirt that read ?€?Keep Calm and Negotiate Nafta?€? and ?€?Mama ? Chopped Liver?€?.
The message from her children who made the shirt, was clear: Chrystia Freeland was not to be underestimated.
Manifesto will also promise 1m new green jobs ?€? ?€?Quid pro quo ?€? the answer is yes?€?, impeachment inquiry hears ?€? how online shopping shapes our world
Good morning and welcome to our general election coverage as Jeremy Corbyn prepares to launch Labour?€?s campaign manifesto with big promises on housing and green jobs. You can stay up to date during the day with our live politics coverage but for now let?€?s jump into this morning?€?s top stories.
Contributions from European countries drop as progress on 0.7% target goes into reverse
Less than 10% of EU aid money reaches the countries where it is most needed, according to a study that found levels of assistance had dropped for the second year running.
The EU and its member states remain the biggest development donor group in the world - investing ?71.9bn ($61bn) in 2018, more than half of global aid - but its contribution was 5.8% lower than in 2017, the European NGO network, Concord, found in its AidWatch report.
Charity takes action after holes are discovered in two batches of Life Guard condoms
The charity Marie Stopes International is recalling more than a million condoms in Uganda, after officials raised concerns that they were prone to breaking.
The charity began the recall of packets of Life Guard condoms after the National Drug Authority found they contained holes and did not meet quality standards. More than half of the affected products have since been recovered.
Government announces plans to relocate 20,000 people from islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos by early 2020
Greece has announced plans to close its three largest migrant camps and replace them with facilities on the mainland that campaigners have likened to detention centres.
People living in overcrowded camps on the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos will be moved to closed complexes for identification, relocation and deportation with a capacity of at least 5,000 people each.
Children bear the brunt as extremism and climate crisis drive almost 500,000 people from their homes
The UN food agency has warned of an ?€?escalating humanitarian crisis?€? in Burkina Faso, driven by growing extremist violence and the long-term impact of climate crisis in the arid central Sahel region.
A sharp increase in attacks, the result of the west African country becoming embroiled in the jihadist insurgency that began in the region in early 2015, has forced almost half a million people from their homes.
A surging Pete Buttigieg avoided major criticism while Tulsi Gabbard reinforced her outsider status in Atlanta debate
Some of the candidates used the explosive congressional testimony from the EU ambassador Gordon Sondland earlier in the day as a launchpad to renew calls for Donald Trump?€?s impeachment.
Bougainvilleans will vote in an independence referendum this weekend, the result of a unique Melanesian process of reconciliation
Thirty years ago Bougainville lost 20,000 people in a brutal civil war that lasted almost a decade.
This week Bougainvilleans will go to the polls to vote on independence from Papua New Guinea, but in a very different mood - one of joy and celebration. Underlying this historic occasion is a resolve by all sides to honour the fallen, but never again return to conflict.
New revelations about party funding are a stain on the country?€?s reputation for transparency
Complacency can be a nation?€?s greatest foe.
New Zealanders, buoyed by their country?€?s high ranking in global transparency measures, see little to learn from other states when it comes to cleaning up politics.
Day four of impeachment hearings saw the most explosive testimony so far as Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, claimed Donald Trump had directed a quid-pro-quo with Ukraine through his personal lawyer Rudi Giuliani.
Sondland asserted that an Oval Office meeting with Trump was conditional on Ukraine announcing investigations into Burisma, a gas company linked to the son of the former vice-president Joe Biden, and a widely discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine planted evidence on a server of the Democratic party to show that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
'We followed the president?€?s orders,' said the Trump appointee in remarks that sent shockwaves through Washington and elicited a furious response from the president.
Democratic presidential contenders backed the Donald Trump impeachment inquiry during the fifth televised debate on Wednesday, saying his efforts to press Ukraine to investigate the former vice-president Joe Biden was an example of his administration's corruption. The debate came hours after a senior US diplomat gave explosive testimony that directly implicated the president in a quid pro quo deal with Ukraine
The US president has responded to shocking testimony from Gordon Sondland on the existence of a quid pro quo by saying that he wanted ?€?nothing?€? from Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn on Wednesday, Trump added that the impeachment hearings should be brought to an end.
Trump's comments came after Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, said that he was forced to work with Trump?€?s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, against his will, and criticised the White House and state department for failing to provide records
A star witness at the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump has testified to the existence of a quid pro quo with Ukraine and insisted: 'We followed the president?€?s orders.' Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, said in bombshell evidence that he was forced to work with Trump?€?s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, against his will, and criticised the White House and state department for failing to provide records.
'Everyone was in the loop,' Sondland testified in opening remarks. 'It was no secret'
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said everyone in Ukraine is 'tired about Burisma', the company at the heart of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. The inquiry is trying to establish whether the US president pressured Ukraine to open an investigation into Hunter Biden, son of former US vice-president and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden. Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, one of Ukraine's largest gas conglomerates
Large number of US citizens demonstrated against the war in Iraq (and the possible war in Iran) during this October weekend. Massive turnout in Boston and San Fransisco, and also in Chicago, LA and DC people took to the streets. The message was: NO more war in Iraq! NO to a war with Iran!
