Top World News
An extraordinary life: descendant welcomes biography of woman ‘gifted’ to Queen Victoria
Oct 18, 2026 - World 
A girl called Àìná was captured by an African king and later taken to England to become Sarah Forbes Bonetta, protege of the imperial monarch When she was seven years old, Bayo Randle’s great-great-grandmother Sarah Forbes Bonetta was presented to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle as a “diplomatic gift” from an African king.Victoria would go on to pay for Bonetta’s education, approve her marriage to one of west Africa’s wealthiest men, and become godmother to her eldest daughter. Continue reading...
Paris police report 855 arrests after violent clashes and looting during protests
Oct 18, 2026 - World 
Paris police have arrested 855 people after violent clashes during a protest against rising living costs
US ambassador to Israel condemns settler attack on US journalist, and other Mideast news
Oct 18, 2026 - World 
The U.S. ambassador to Israel condemns a settler attack that left an American journalist badly beaten in the West Bank
‘4,000 people minding our own business’: four decades on, Falklands again face a hostile Argentina
Oct 18, 2026 - World 
Facing a slump in the polls, Argentina’s president is making economic attacks on the islands’ oil industry, and suggesting its key fisheries industry could be next A dozen local people and a uniformed military police officer (“Do you mind if I sit in?”) took their seats at the back of the handsome wood-panelled courtroom that doubles as the Falkland Islands’ legislative assembly. Outside, it was a typically blowy early evening. It may nominally be spring in the south Atlantic, but Stanley harbour, with its dark grey water speckled with historical shipwrecks, was a cauldron of swells and churn.Six of the assembly’s eight members – five men, one woman – waited patiently at a row of desks and microphones. The heating had been turned up to just short of uncomfortable. Behind them, a portrait of King Charles. From the other walls, dusty photographs of governors peered down on the scene. Continue reading...
Indigenous woman shackled to hospital bed while in labour in Queensland
Oct 18, 2026 - World 
Birth happens days before Labor and Coalition block bill to ban ‘barbaric practice’ of shackling incarcerated women during childbirthGet our new political email, free app or daily news podcastAn incarcerated Indigenous woman was shackled to a hospital bed in Queensland while she was in labour last weekend, an advocacy group has said.The birth happened just days before Labor and the Coalition blocked a bill to ban the “barbaric practice” of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth. Continue reading...

