At least two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire outside a Coptic church south of Cairo on Friday, killing at least nine people in the latest attack on the country’s Christian minority.

The attack happened at the Marmina church in the Helwan City district on the capital’s southern outskirts. The dead include members of the congregation and a police officer killed in a shootout at the security post guarding the building. Several others were wounded. One of the gunmen was killed after an exchange of fire with security forces, while another was arrested as he tried to escape to a narrower street across the road from the church, interior ministry sources told the Guardian.The source said at least four of the casualties were officers from the special forces squad guarding the church. “After the attack, explosive experts dismantled two IEDs [improvised explosive devices], near the church,” he said. The interior ministry however said in an official statement that the attack was carried out by one militant who “was going to blow himself up using a suicide belt.” It described him as a “dangerous element” who participated in several operations against security personnel.(theguardian)…[+]

Sixty-eight Yemeni civilians were killed in two air raids by the Saudi-led coalition in one day, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Yemen has said, as he condemned what he described as “an absurd and futile war”.

Jamie McGoldrick’s unusually direct criticism came in an update citing initial reports from the UN human rights office of the two strikes earlier this week. The first hit a crowded market in Taez province, killing 54 civilians, including eight children, and wounding 32 others, McGoldrick said. The second was in the Red Sea province of Hodeidah and killed 14 people from the same family.

“I remain deeply disturbed by mounting civilian casualties caused by escalated and indiscriminate attacks throughout Yemen,” McGoldrick said. In addition to the casualties from Tuesday’s two air raids, another 41 civilians were killed and 43 wounded over the previous 10 days of fighting, he said. The Arab coalition intensified its air campaign targeting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels after 19 December, when Saudi air defences intercepted a ballistic missile the insurgents had fired at the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The Saudis claim to be on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, which is held by the Houthi rebels.

“These incidents prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led coalition, continue to show in this absurd war that has only resulted in the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people,” McGoldrick said on Thursday. Civilians “are being punished as part of a futile military campaign by both sides”, he said.(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN– Three flood-prone communities in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) will soon benefit from a project that will help them build resilience to that particular climate change impact. The Establishing Flood-Resilient SMART Communities through Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) Partnerships project will target the communities of Sea Cow’s Bay and East End/Long Look on Tortola, and Great Harbour on the sister island of Jost Van Dyke.

The project is being funded through the Community Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (CDRRF), which is managed by the Caribbean Development Bank. It is a collaborative effort among the Government of the British Virgin Islands through the Department of Disaster Management (DDM), and several non-profit organisations, including the Adventist Development Relief Agency, Rotary Family of BVI, BVI Red Cross and the Jost Van Dyke Preservation Society. CDRRF funded the project to the tune of USD649,500.

Work to be completed under the project will include retrofitting the Ebenezer Thomas Primary School and Valarie O Thomas Community Centre, the installation of sirens, and the procurement and installation of emergency signs and sedimentation traps for water courses. Director of the Department of Disaster Management, Ms. Sharleen DaBreo underscored the project’s importance in helping the BVI lessen its vulnerability to climate change impacts.(CDB)…[+]

Music will play, fireworks will explode and shimmer; then at the stroke of midnight on 1 January, Bulgaria, the poorest and “most corrupt” country in the European Union, will pick up the baton of the bloc’s rotating presidency. The presidency – chairing EU meetings and setting an agenda – does not have the clout it once did, but it is still a big moment for the eastern Balkan nation of 7.4 million people, which was part of the last wave of EU enlargement that reunited east and west.

Yet more than a decade after Bulgaria joined the EU, questions remain over its record in tackling corruption, while the presence of far-right minority parties in government has caused alarm. According to Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, Bulgaria is the most corrupt country in the EU. “No one [in Bulgaria] is prosecuting political corruption, there are no ex-government officials in jail,” says Ognian Shentov, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Democracy in Sofia. “We have reached a stage of state corruption which we describe as state capture.”(theguardian)…[+]

Politicians, and others in positions of power, should stop corroding civil discourse and seek to unify society, the former US president Barack Obama said in a rare interview conducted by Prince Harry for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Obama did not mention his successor, Donald Trump, by name, but said social media could lead to facts being discarded and prejudices being reinforced, making public conversation harder. “All of us in leadership have to find ways to recreate a common space on the internet,” he said. Obama reflected on the day he relinquished power to Trump and said: “Overall there was serenity there, more than I would have expected,” but his sense of achievement was laced with a sense of “all the work that was left undone”. He said he viewed each presidency as part of a relay race, but felt he had passed the baton on successfully. “We had run a good race,” he said. Since leaving office, he said, life appeared to move in slow motion, but he insisted this slower pace could be liberating if it meant he “could spend an extra 45 minutes talking to Michelle or having a long breakfast”.(theguardian)…[+]

The night Ghani Rehman was condemned to die, his father asked if they could share a last meal together. But Ghani excused himself, preferring to wait in his room. His sisters came to see him, and he gave them each a small token to remember him by: a plastic-wrapped mint drop. The 18-year-old boy knew what was coming. Less than 24 hours earlier, the neighbour’s 15-year-old daughter Bakhtaja, with whom Ghani had tried to elope from Ali Brohi Goth, their poor neighbourhood of Karachi, had been tied down and electrocuted. His father finished dinner, then returned. With the help of an uncle, he strapped his son to a rope bed, tying one arm and one leg to the frame with uncovered electrical wires. Bakhtaja had endured 10 minutes of searing electrical jolts before she died. The boy took longer, and eventually the uncle stepped in and strangled him. The couple were buried in the dead of night.(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN – The University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) has big plans for its future, including continued developments that stakeholders believe could position the institution with other globally renowned tertiary tech giants.

Only 19 percent of Jamaicans aged 19 to 24 are currently enrolled in tertiary institutions, and only 15 percent of the workforce have a tertiary education. However, after a recently completed expansion and enhancement project financed by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), enrollment at UTech increased. The project has cemented hopes that the college can be a springboard to drive education, training and certification to increase productivity and prosperity in Jamaica, particularly by adding to the number of Jamaicans entering the workforce in fields related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The UTech Enhancement Project commenced in 2007 when the Government of Jamaica signed a loan agreement with CDB for a loan of US26 million (mn) to fund the development project at the University. The Government undertook this investment as a grant to UTech, Jamaica to which the University provided counterpart funding of US17 mn. The project proceeded under three main components of institutional strengthening, building and civil works, and furniture, fixtures and equipment.The shared facilities building, constructed as part of the intervention, is a learning and teaching space for all colleges and faculties, and comprises 20 SMART classrooms, three state-of-the-art lecture theatres, computer laboratories, sanitary amenities and an amphitheatre.(CDB)…[+]

The global plastic binge which is already causing widespread damage to oceans, habitats and food chains, is set to increase dramatically over the next 10 years after multibillion dollar investments in a new generation of plastics plants in the US. Fossil fuel companies are among those who have ploughed more than $180bn since 2010 into new “cracking” facilities that will produce the raw material for everyday plastics from packaging to bottles, trays and cartons. The new facilities – being built by corporations like Exxon Mobile Chemical and Shell Chemical – will help fuel a 40% rise in plastic production in the next decade, according to experts, exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis that scientist warn already risks “near permanent pollution of the earth.”

“We could be locking in decades of expanded plastics production at precisely the time the world is realising we should use far less of it,” said Carroll Muffett, president of the US Center for International Environmental Law, which has analysed the plastic industry. “Around 99% of the feedstock for plastics is fossil fuels, so we are looking at the same companies, like Exxon and Shell, that have helped create the climate crisis. There is a deep and pervasive relationship between oil and gas companies and plastics.”(theguardian)…[+]

Thousands of Peruvians took to the streets on Monday to protest against the pardon granted to the former president Alberto Fujimori, with many calling it part of a backroom deal struck to protect the current president from impeachment on corruption charges.

The Sunday pardon came three days after abstentions by lawmakers from a party led by Fujimori’s children caused the failure of a vote to impeach the president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Fujimori, 79, was serving a 25-year sentence over the deaths of 25 people in a campaign against the leftist Shining Path terrorist group. Roughly 5,000 people protested across the country carrying posters with Fujimori’s face and the words “murderer” and “thief”. Fujimori, president from 1990 to 2000, is remembered for stabilising the economy and defeating the Shining Path, and for human rights violations and corruption. In a message to the nation late on Monday, Kuczynski called for an “effort at reconciliation”, urging the protesters to “turn the page” and not be carried away by hate and “the negative emotions inherited from our past”. Meanwhile Fujimori sought forgiveness from Peruvians “from the bottom of my heart” on Tuesday for shortcomings during his rule, and thanked Kuczynski for granting him a Christmas pardon.(theguardian)…[+]

The families of two men who died after their Jeep was swept away in a river on Christmas Day have said they are heartbroken. Declan Davitt, 26, and Martin Needham, 27, were in the 4×4 when it fell into the Carrowniskey river in County Mayo, west Ireland, in the early hours of the morning.  The vehicle soon became fully submerged in the water and was carried downstream amid gale force winds and high water levels. It has been reported that the vehicle was crossing a stretch of water used locally as a shortcut by tractors and four-wheel drives. The men were returning from a night out socialising with friends. However, the crossing was more dangerous than usual because of the bad weather, which swelled the stretch of water, and the vehicle became caught in the tide. It entered the water near Louisburgh, close to the Mayo Atlantic coastline, at around 2.30am on Monday. Another man, 19, managed to escape and reach land, where he raised the alarm and alerted emergency services at about 3am.(theguardian)…[+]