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New York Times - World News

2026-02-19 00:04:27 (3 days ago)

Yoon’s jail cell is a world away from his presidential mansion.

New York Times - World News

2026-02-19 00:01:08 (3 days ago)

Policy Flip-Flops Hurt the British Leader. Then Came a New Political Threat.

Already weakened by “U-turns” on his agenda, Prime Minister Keir Starmer faced calls to step down over appointing a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein as U.S. ambassador.

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:57 (3 days ago)

Authoritarians, strongmen and dictators: who is on Trump’s Board of Peace?

Representatives of repressive regimes from around the world are flying to Washington for the inaugural meeting of the body

A grouping of largely oppressive and authoritarian world leaders and their envoys are flying to Washington for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s newly established Board of Peace.

The body was created to implement his vision for Gaza’s future after it was destroyed by Israel, but Trump has widened its scope, calling it “the most consequential international body in history”.

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:57 (3 days ago)

Retailers in UK plan to cut staff hours and jobs amid rising employment costs

BRC survey finds finance bosses expect technology to improve productivity, with 69% pessimistic about the economy

UK retailers are planning to cut staff hours and jobs amid rising employment costs and pessimism about the economy.

Almost two-thirds (61%) of finance bosses at retail companies said they planned to reduce working hours or cut overtime, according to the latest survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), the trade body that represents most big retailers. More than half (55%) said they would cut head office jobs and 42% said they would reduce jobs in stores.

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:56 (3 days ago)

The secret Afghan women’s book club defying the Taliban to read Orwell

Banned from education, a clandestine reading circle meets every week to pour over novels by Abbas Maroufi, Zoya Pirzad and Ernest Hemingway

Four young women sit together, waiting for the phone to ring. When the call finally comes, their friend’s voice is crackly and hard to make out, but they wait patiently for the signal to improve so they can start discussing their chosen book.

Every Thursday, the five friends come together away from the disapproving gaze of the Taliban for a reading circle. They read not for entertainment but, as they put it, to understand life and the world around them. They call their group “women with books and imagination”.

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:56 (3 days ago)

Say goodbye to the sex drought! What the Danes can teach us about making more love

While other countries are deep in a sex recession, the Danish drive shows no signs of stalling. How do they stay so frisky?

Copenhagen on the Thursday before Valentine’s Day is intoxicatingly romantic. That’s not hyperbole – you could breathe in and be drunk on it. The canals have frozen over, which only happens about once every 13 years, and couples are skating on them. You can see cosy bars from miles away because they’re strung with fairy lights – apparently not just a Christmas thing here. Everyone is beautiful.

But none of that comes close to explaining why young Danes in Denmark, unlike gen Z across the developed world, are still having sex. Winter isn’t even their frisky season. “You feel the atmosphere in the springtime,” says Ben, 35, half-British, half Danish. His friend Anna, also 35, originally Hungarian, says: “Post-hibernation fever, you can feel the sexual energy. Everyone is on. Everyone swims in the canals, a lot of the women will be topless – they’re like herrings.” (Which is to say: they are typically Danish, they love the water and they don’t wear clothes … I think.) Ben and Anna are millennials, of course, rather than gen Z: they provide the outsiders’ perspective.

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:56 (3 days ago)

The US is dragging Europe back to the days of white supremacism. Our leaders are playing along | Shada Islam

People like me were targets of the Islamophobia that gripped the west after the US-led ‘war on terror’. Now I fear a chilling sequel is on the way

Twenty-five years ago, George W Bush persuaded European leaders to back his “war on terror”. That disastrous project cost millions of lives and caused mass displacement of people from across the Middle East. It normalised racism and hatred for Muslims, refugees and racialised minorities in the US and Europe. I fear Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, with its calls to defend white, western, Christian civilisation against supposedly contaminating racialised migrants – and the standing ovation he received from European elites – may mark a chilling sequel.

Rubio’s language of a shared and superior American and European civilisation differs from that of his bosses, Donald Trump and JD Vance. His tone is more emollient but his outreach is conspiratorial. Rubio talks of migration and identity and civilisational anxiety, rather than terrorism and hard security threats as Bush once did. In his Munich speech, Rubio flattered Europeans about the continent’s colonial past. He denied preaching a message of xenophobia or hate, and instead framed his call to defend national borders as entirely respectable, dutiful and a “fundamental act of sovereignty”.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:55 (3 days ago)

US funding for global internet freedom ‘effectively gutted’

Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat

For nearly two decades, the US quietly funded a global effort to keep the internet from splintering into fiefdoms run by authoritarian governments. Now that money is seriously threatened and a large part of it is already gone, putting into jeopardy internet freedoms around the world.

Managed by the US state department and the US Agency for Global Media, the programme – broadly called Internet Freedom – funds small groups all over the world, from Iran to China to the Philippines, who built grassroots technologies to evade internet controls imposed by governments. It has dispensed well over $500m (£370m) in the past decade, according to an analysis by the Guardian, including $94m in 2024.

The Guardian - World News

2026-02-19 00:00:54 (3 days ago)

Inside voice: what can our thoughts reveal about the nature of consciousness?

Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiences

What was I thinking? This is not as easy or straightforward a question as I would have thought. As soon as you try to record and categorise the contents of your consciousness – the sense impressions, feelings, words, images, daydreams, mind-​wanderings, ruminations, deliberations, observations, opinions, intuitions and occasional insights – you encounter far more questions than answers, and more than a few surprises. I’d always assumed that my stream of consciousness consisted mainly of an interior monologue, maybe sometimes a dialogue, but was surely composed of words; I’m a writer, after all. But it turns out that a lot of my so-called thoughts – a flattering term for these gossamer traces of mental activity – are preverbal, often showing up as images, sensations, or concepts, with words trailing behind as a kind of afterthought, belated attempts to translate these elusive wisps of meaning into something more substantial and shareable.

I discovered this because I’ve been going around with a beeper wired to an earpiece that sends a sudden sharp note into my left ear at random times of the day. This is my cue to recall and jot down whatever was going on in my head immediately before I registered the beep. The idea is to capture a snapshot of the contents of consciousness at a specific moment in time by dipping a ladle into the onrushing stream.

Globo News - Mundo

2026-02-19 00:00:51 (3 days ago)

EUA acusam China de teste nuclear secreto e elevam tensão entre potências

Termina tratado nuclear entre Rússia e EUA; entenda por que cenário deve mudar Uma acusação dos Estados Unidos contra a China reacendeu as tensões entre as duas potências nucleares e o debate sobre o futuro do controle de armas, em um contexto de crescente rivalidade estratégica e desconfiança entre os dois países. ✅ Siga o canal de notícias internacionais do g1 no WhatsApp Os Estados Unidos afirmam ter evidências que sugerem que a China realizou um teste nuclear secreto. Segundo Washington, um sinal sísmico detectado em junho de 2020 perto do sítio de Lop Nur, no oeste da China, corresponde a uma explosão nuclear de baixa potência. Autoridades norte-americanas avaliam que os dados registrados não correspondem a um terremoto nem a qualquer atividade de mineração conhecida. Elas sugerem a possibilidade de um teste deliberadamente discreto, possivelmente planejado para burlar mecanismos internacionais de monitoramento e verificação. Pequim rejeita categoricamente as alegações e acusa Washington de distorcer os fatos para justificar a própria estratégia nuclear. Especialistas internacionais permanecem cautelosos. Os sinais sísmicos observados são considerados muito fracos para confirmar definitivamente que houve um teste nuclear, diante da falta de evidências técnicas suficientes. Vácuo no controle de armas Imagem de arquivo mostra teste com arma nuclear feito pelos Estados Unidos Yucca Flats, no estado de Nevada, em 1955. Comissão Atômica dos Estados Unidos via AP Além da análise científica, o caso ocorre em meio a um desafio mais amplo no cenário de desarmamento. Ele surge no momento em que o último grande tratado que limitava os arsenais estratégicos das principais potências nucleares expirou, deixando um vácuo no controle de armas. Batizado de Novo START, o tratado de controle de armas nucleares firmado entre os Estados Unidos e a Rússia em 2010 expirou neste mês. Diante disso, o presidente Donald Trum, pediu um novo acordo que inclua a China. O documento impunha limites de 1.550 ogivas estratégicas implantadas e 800 lançadores e bombardeiros pesados para cada lado, com mecanismos de verificação mútua. No entanto, a eficácia do tratado já estava comprometida desde 2023, quando as inspeções foram suspensas em decorrência da ofensiva russa em grande escala na Ucrânia. LEIA TAMBÉM CIA aposta em drama de pai de família e divulga vídeo em chinês para recrutar espiões na China; ASSISTA Mísseis nucleares, drones poderosos e armas secretas: como o poderio militar da China ameaça os EUA; INFOGRÁFICO VÍDEO: avalanche na Itália deixa 3 esquiadores mortos nos Alpes EUA ameaçam retomar testes Trump e Xi Jinping se encontram em Busan, na Coreia do Sul Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein Nesse contexto, Washington levanta a possibilidade de retomar testes nucleares em nome do equilíbrio estratégico. A perspectiva amplia preocupações de analistas, que alertam para a crescente desconfiança e o risco de escalada entre potências nucleares. Na terça-feira (17), um alto funcionário do governo norte-americano afirmou que os EUA estão prontos para voltar a realizar testes nucleares de baixa potência, encerrando décadas de moratória, e reiterou acusações de explosões secretas por parte da China. Christopher Yeaw, subsecretário do escritório de controle de armas e não proliferação do Departamento de Estado, afirmou que Trump falava sério quando declarou, em outubro, que os EUA voltariam a realizar testes nucleares, sem dar detalhes. “Como disse o presidente, os Estados Unidos voltarão a realizar testes em igualdade de condições”, declarou Yeaw no centro de estudos Hudson Institute, em Washington. “A igualdade de condições, no entanto, pressupõe uma resposta a um padrão prévio. Não é preciso ir além de China ou Rússia para encontrar esse padrão”, explicou. Yeaw não anunciou uma data para esses testes e disse que Trump tomará a decisão, mas indicou que ocorrerão em um “cenário parelho”. “Não vamos continuar em uma desvantagem intolerável”, acrescentou. VÍDEOS: mais assistidos do g1

Al Jazeera - Top Stories

2026-02-18 23:57:39 (3 days ago)

At least 37 killed in Nigeria mine carbon monoxide poisoning: Reports

Illegal mining is a widespread issue in Nigeria, where operations lack both government oversight and safety protocols.

Al Jazeera - Top Stories

2026-02-18 23:56:27 (3 days ago)

N Korea’s Kim unveils 50 rocket launchers ahead of key congress

Kim hails nuclear-capable weapons as 'wonderful' and 'attractive' as N Korea gears up for a once-in-five-year congress.