More than 160 buildings in a Myanmar town have been destroyed in fires caused by shelling from government troops, according to local media. Tensions between Myanmar’s military junta and opposing militia forces have continued to grow since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February. Now footage has
World
US spy agencies have admitted that the true origins of COVID-19 may never be known. The Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said on Friday that theories involving transmission from animals or a leak from a lab were plausible. However, the office added that analysts could not agree which was more likely
Failure to tackle global vaccine inequality at this weekend’s G20 summit could prolong the pandemic, civil society groups have warned. Campaigners have claimed previous calls to tackle structural problems with vaccine supply have so far been ignored, allowing doses to be “hoarded” by rich nations. The People’s Vaccine Alliance, a coalition of more than 75
Two weeks of global leaders meeting to save the world begin with a one-on-one between the leader of the planet’s biggest religious denomination and its most powerful superpower. US President Joe Biden flies into Rome for an audience with the Pope ahead of the G20 summit of world leaders and after that the COP26 climate
France has detained a British scallop trawler owned by Macduff Shellfish and given a verbal warning to another fishing boat in waters off its coast. French maritime minister Annick Girardin said it is “not war but this is a combat”, amid a warning the country could ban allowing British fishing boats to disembark at French
The president of the COP26 UN climate summit has told Sky News it is unclear if the crucial meeting will be a success and it is currently hanging “in the balance”. Just days from the summit, Alok Sharma said: “This is going to be difficult. “This is going to be a big challenge. “This is
Analysis by Tom Cheshire, Asia correspondent If anyone was hoping for a big statement from the world’s biggest polluter ahead of COP26 – well, bad luck. This is as good as it gets. There are no new pledges. Those were unlikely after President Xi made his dramatic and welcome declaration last year, that China would
“I am just the same, unselfconfident person I was,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told Sky News in August last year. “But this is my mission. I have to overcome all these difficulties and bring our country to a free future and become a mother and wife again.” That was shortly before a blatantly rigged election robbed her
Attacks by Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) in Afghanistan have become more deadly since the withdrawal of NATO forces, with at least 346 civilians killed by the group since late August. The insurgents carried out bombings in areas where previously they had little presence. A security expert told Sky News this could be a sign of
At least seven people have been killed and 140 injured after Sudan’s military seized power, a health ministry official has said. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the military-civilian Sovereign Council on Monday and announced a state of emergency. He has promised to hold elections in July 2023 and then hand over power to an elected
Levels of planet-heating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached record highs again last year, UN scientists have warned just a week before global climate negotiations begin. Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere rose at a faster rate in 2020 than at any point during the previous decade, with the
At least five senior government officials have been detained by military forces, according to reports. The country’s main pro-democracy political group, the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), has called on people to take to the streets in response to any apparent coup attempt. Internet and mobile phone signal outages have been reported, say SPA officials who
Britain is “fully cooperating” with an investigation into the murder of a Kenyan woman whose body was found in a septic tank close to a UK army camp, a top diplomat has said. High Commissioner to Kenya Jane Marriott said the UK will support the inquiry into the “tragic death” of Agnes Wanjiru in 2012
A notorious Colombian drug kingpin has been arrested in what has been described as the biggest blow to the country’s trafficking network since the death of Pablo Escobar. Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, was captured by the armed forces during an operation in a rural area of the South American nation’s Uraba region. Both
The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, has pledged to make his country carbon neutral by 2060 at a landmark conference in Riyadh. Speaking in pre-recorded comments at the opening of the three-day event, bin Salman said Saudi Arabia had an ambition to become a “global centre for sustainable tourism”. He said: “We
A United Nations humanitarian flight was forced to abandon its landing in the capital of the country’s Tigray region due to Ethiopian military airstrikes, according to aid workers. Ethiopian authorities appear to be escalating the intimidation tactics against aid workers amid the intensifying, year-long Tigray war. A deadly conflict erupted between Tigrayan and Ethiopian government
The emissions from an overseas fossil fuel project the UK is funding to the tune of $1.15bn was assessed against 2°C of warming, not the 1.5°C limit broadly accepted as a safer threshold to avoid the worst effects of climate change, Sky News can reveal. The revelation about the gas project in Mozambique comes the
A Haitian gang leader has threatened to kill 17 kidnapped American and Canadian missionaries if he is not given millions in ransom money. In a video posted on YouTube, the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang that abducted the group said: “I swear by thunder that if I don’t get what I’m asking for, I
We could see a seemingly endless line of trucks as we headed down the highway in northern Ethiopia. As their contents drew closer we knew the battle ground was shifting in this country’s increasingly nasty civil conflict. There were thousands of troops perched on the back, clutching automatic weapons while fighting to stay upright. They
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will not attend COP26 in Glasgow at the end of the month in what is being seen as another major blow for the climate summit. A Kremlin spokesman said other representatives of Russia would attend the talks and that Mr Putin would take part remotely. The decision to not attend by