Top World News

Mar 12, 2026 - World

Payment of 2% at employee-owned partnership follows sales increase to £13.4bnThe owner of John Lewis and Waitrose has paid an annual bonus to workers for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose by 6%.The retail group’s 69,000 employees – which it calls partners – will share £35m, the equivalent of 2% of salary, after it recorded an increase in sales and profits. The payout amounts to about one extra week of pay. Continue reading...

Mar 12, 2026 - World

The final report into the Centrelink debt recovery process that wreaked havoc on the vulnerable is not the full-stop many wanted. It has not restored the trust that was so fundamentally brokenFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe whistleblower’s message landed just before Christmas.It was 2016, now a distant memory. Continue reading...

Mar 12, 2026 - World

Hail Creek is responsible for about 20% of Australia’s coalmine methane, while only producing 1% of the country’s coalFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastEnvironmental groups have called on the federal government to intervene after Australia’s most methane-polluting open-cut coalmine was approved for extension.A proposed expansion of the Hail Creek coalmine in central Queensland, described by conservationists as a “carbon bomb”, was backed by the state’s government on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Mar 12, 2026 - World

Health justice charity Medact says data-sharing potential could be used for UK version of US immigration raidsPalantir’s NHS contract opens the door to the Big Brother-style data-sharing that Reform UK would use for a version of US immigration raids, health bosses have been told.Palantir Technologies – the data analytics company founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp – won a £330m NHS England contract to deliver the Federated Data Platform in 2023. Continue reading...

Mar 12, 2026 - World

In today’s newsletter: Robert Malley, who led talks for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, helps make sense of the warGood morning, and apologies for the interruption to your usual programming. Stepping out from behind the editing desk to write today’s newsletter feels somewhat like a player-manager throwing himself on to the pitch, but I’ll try not to destabilise your morning routine too much. Lord knows, the world doesn’t need any more chaos.Since the US and Israel first attacked Iran two weeks ago, it’s been a scramble to keep up with events. The death of a supreme leader, speculation about his successor, global implications ranging from oil price spikes to drones raining down on once-safe cities like Doha and Dubai – the world has rarely felt so unstable.Iran | Iran dramatically escalated its strategy of striking civilian infrastructure and transport networks across the Gulf on Wednesday, attacking commercial ships and targeting Dubai’s international airport as US and Israeli warplanes launched new waves of strikes on the Islamic Republic.UK news | Keir Starmer overruled officials who warned of a “reputational risk” in making Peter Mandelson US ambassador, despite being handed a dossier of evidence about the peer’s relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, documents reveal.Artificial intelligence | Popular AI chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, including bombing synagogues and assassinating politicians, with one telling a user posing as a would-be school shooter: “Happy (and safe) shooting!”Oil | The International Energy Agency is poised to call for the largest release of government oil reserves in its history to help calm the oil price shock triggered by the US-Israeli attacks on Iran.UK politics | Keir Starmer warned his cabinet against an “overly deferential” approach to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish governments, telling ministers they should be prepared to make spending decisions “even when devolved governments may oppose this”, according to a leaked memo. Continue reading...