Month: April 2019

Paris’s Notre-Dame, an icon of christianity in France, blazed through the night after catching fire in the early evening.  Onlookers watched in horror as one of the world’s most famous spires collapsed, followed by the 12th century cathedral’s roof.  400 firefighters battled the flames overnight, finally gaining the upper hand at around midnight.  Watch how the…

More than one in ten Nepalese now suffer a chronic lung problem like emphysema or bronchitis, as a result of worsening air pollution in the country. The findings are the result of a study by the Nepal Health Research Council into air quality in the country, which has been labelled the "worst in the world". Air pollution…

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has pledged to rebuild “the epicentre of our lives” after fire ripped through Notre-Dame cathedral and gutted the much-loved monument. Some 400 firefighters managed to save the main structure of the 13th-­century Gothic masterpiece and its two bell towers as rapidly spreading flames threatened to engulf the whole of the building.…

The remains of 41 Aboriginal Australians brought to Europe to be displayed in museums were returned to their descendants at a ceremony in Berlin on Monday. The handover is the largest ever repatriation of Aboriginal remains taken from Australia during the colonial era. Representatives of the Yawuru indigenous group from Western Australia were present at…

Sudanese protesters on Sunday demanded the country’s military rulers "immediately" hand power over to a civilian government that should then bring ousted leader Omar al-Bashir to justice. Thousands remained encamped outside Khartoum’s army headquarters to keep up pressure on a military council that took power after ousting Bashir on Thursday. On Sunday the organisation which spearheaded…

Donald Trump has suggested Boeing should "rebrand" its grounded 737 Max fleet and give it "a new name" in the wake of two deadly crashes involving the jets. The US president tweeted on Monday: "What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would fix the…

Japanese police are questioning the president of a company that manufactured anatomical skeletons after the discovery of the bones of an estimated 500 people in the garden of a suburban home in Tokyo. The man, who has not been named as he has not yet been charged, is the head of a company called the…

The established centre-left and centre-right blocs in the EU Parliament are likely to lose their combined majority in May’s European Elections, according to the latest polling. Polls indicate that these two large pan-European blocs, which are comprised of a host of allied parties from each EU country, will lose seats under a tide of populist…

One of the world’s rarest turtles, a Yangtze giant softshell, has died in a Chinese zoo, leaving only three of the critically endangered species left.  The turtle was the last confirmed female in the world when she died during fertility treatment, raising the grim prospect that the species, which is also known as the Red…

Angela Merkel has upset the new leader of her Christian Democratic party (CDU) party by cancelling a key hustings for the European elections, leading to speculation that the two leading figures in German politics have fallen out over the party’s new identity. Ms Merkel has informed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer at the eleventh hour that she will…