Author: Press Room

Two environmental activists were killed on Saturday after they opposed an open-pit iron oxide mine in a reserve.United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Mary Lawlor has called for an independent investigation into the killing of two environmental activists in Honduras, days after they were shot dead. On Saturday, Aly Dominguez, 38, and Jairo Bonilla, 28, from the village of Guapinol in Honduras’s eastern Colon Department were killed by unidentified men. Local police attributed the deaths to a robbery. “It’s vital that an independent investigation is carried out into the killing of the two defenders in…

Halfords has sounded the alarm on profits, blaming lingering staff shortages and weaker demand for high-ticket items, sending the shares down 20 per cent. The bike and car parts seller said it now expected underlying profit before tax to be between £50mn and £60mn in 2023, down from previous estimates of £65mn to £75mn.“Like many businesses, one of the biggest challenges we face is recruitment,” chief executive Graham Stapleton said in a statement. “Put simply, we can’t get enough qualified technicians into our garages to meet demand.” The shortages “will limit growth of higher [profit] margin sales” in the next few…

The World Health Organization (WHO) is urging passengers wear masks on long haul flights.The recommendation, made on Tuesday, follows the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the US.In Europe, the XBB.1.5 subvariant has been detected in small but growing numbers, WHO and Europe officials said at a press briefing.Passengers should be advised to wear masks in high-risk settings such as long haul flights, said the WHO’s senior emergency officer for Europe, Catherine Smallwood.”This should be a recommendation issued to passengers arriving from anywhere where there is widespread COVID-19 transmission,” she added.How widespread is the new Omicron subvariant?XBB.1.5 – the…

Canada’s transport minister and executives of the country’s major airlines, including Sunwing, will face questioning from lawmakers on Thursday over the chaos faced by travellers over the winter holidays. The House of Commons Transport, Infrastructure and Communities committee is probing the lengthy travel delays and the treatment of thousands of air and rail passengers who faced cancellations and rescheduled trips.Although severe storms across the country were a major factor, the committee is looking into how the air and rail industries could better prepare for worsening winter conditions and improve their customer relations services, and whether the government is properly protecting…

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will spotlight his record and his agenda when he’s sworn in Tuesday for a second four-year term as governor of the swing state of Georgia.Kemp, who defeated a Donald Trump-backed challenger in last spring’s GOP gubernatorial primary before comfortably topping Democratic star and voting reform activist Stacey Abrams in November’s general election, will give his inaugural address at Georgia State University’s convocation center, just a couple of blocks from the state Capitol in downtown Atlanta.The governor’s advisers say Kemp’s inaugural address will focus on his record of economic success in his first term and cast a…

Victorian Senator Jane Hume has slammed the Prime Minister’s response to questions about the proposed indigenous Voice to Parliament as “outrageous” and “unfair”. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to provide additional detail about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, responding to a list of 15 questions posed by opposition leader Peter Dutton by saying “people are over cheap culture war stunts” and accused the opposition of appealing to “fear rather than hope”.But Senator Hume hit back at the prime minister’s “faux outrage and indignation,” accusing him of implying “that if you don’t sign up to the Voice blindly, then somehow you’re…

It had been a while since I wrote about the euro before my column this week, largely because good news is no news, to turn the old dictum around. With the absence of drama around Europe’s single currency, there is less interest and less need to discuss it. But Croatia’s accession on January 1 — which brings the euro’s membership to 20 countries — made it timely to return to it. As far as I can see, all the arguments about how the euro was inherently unsustainable, at least without some great leap to large-scale common budgeting, have simply receded…

Exclusive: Mum-of-four Charlotte Green rushed her two-year-old son to hospital on Boxing Day after he started struggling to breathe, just weeks after her baby daughter was hospitalised with a chest infectionVideo LoadingVideo UnavailableThe video will auto-play soon8CancelPlay nowA mum-of-four who lives in a mould-ridden flat is fearing for her toddler’s health after he was hospitalised with pneumonia. Charlotte Green, 26, says she has tried everything to fix the leaks and damp permeating her two-bedroom home in Lewisham, South East London, but the problem keeps returning. She has been on a rehousing priority list since April 2022, but the local council…

Shares in Ubisoft fell by nearly a fifth after the French games company slashed its forecasts and said that sales over the crucial holiday season had been “markedly and surprisingly slower than expected”. Paris-based Ubisoft, best known for its Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance franchises, said on Wednesday that it expected net bookings to drop 10 per cent in the financial year that ends in March from 12 months earlier. The group had previously forecast a 10 per cent rise.Its shares shed 19 per cent to trade at €19.26 mid-morning in Paris on Thursday, the first day of trading since…

After almost four days on strike, a tentative agreement has been reached between the New York State Nurses Association and two of New York City’s largest hospitals.Over 7,100 nurses associated with Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center in NYC staged a walkout at 6 a.m. Monday, protesting the working conditions and demanding safe staffing, primarily in the emergency departments.Around 3:30 a.m., the Mount Sinai Health System tweeted, “the strike is over, and we have an agreement.” The system then thanked its employees for their “unwavering dedication and world-class patient care.”About 15 minutes prior, the Montefiore Medical Center announced a…