The most polluted countries were Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India. Air pollution in India, which is home to six of the 10 dirtiest cities in the world, fell by 7% between 2023 and 2024. The air quality in Beijing is now almost the same as in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. To create the ranking, the researchers averaged real-time data on air pollution, measured at ground level, over the course of the calendar year. Air quality monitoring is worse in parts of Africa and west Asia, where several countries were excluded from the analysis.

“The damage she had done was monumental,” Yunus told the Guardian, describing the state of Bangladesh when he took charge. View image in fullscreen Celebrations at Parliament House after the fall of Sheikh Hasina, in Dhaka in August. Photograph: Syed Mahamudur Rahman/NurPhoto/Rex/ShutterstockYunus’s return to Bangladesh was heralded as the dawn of a new era for the country. Yunus is determined to frame the country’s woes as consequences of Hasina’s rule: “Hasina’s regime wasn’t a government, it was a family of bandits. In a speech, Trump alleged millions of USAid dollars earmarked for strengthening Bangladesh political landscape had been used to elect a “radical left communist” without offering any evidence.

With music, among other things.”View image in fullscreen Swiss farmers in traditional attire yodel before the Alpabfahrt cattle drive in Urnäsch, in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. While Echo vom Eierstock is the most prominent example of a sea change in the Swiss yodelling scene, it’s not the only one. Echo vom Eierstock’s runaway popularity means they have also had to become selective, capping membership at 50. As soon as she heard of Echo vom Eierstock, she knew she had to try out. In traditional yodelling songs, “women are made out to be sweet, small, helpless, and defenceless when a man comes to call”, says Felber.

After Elon Musk backed Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) – calling the party Germany’s “only hope” – voters are considering an alternative to Tesla. Data released on Thursday showed that registrations of the company’s electric cars in Germany fell 76% to 1,429 last month. Calling them “major brand worries for Tesla”, he added in a note to investors that the direct impact on sales should be relatively small. View image in fullscreen In Australia, Tesla sales were down 72% in February compared with the same month in 2024. UK Tesla sales fell in January, but bounced back by a fifth in February to leave sales up year-on-year for 2025 so far.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said his government is working on a plan to prepare large-scale military training for every adult male in response to the changing security situation in Europe. “Today we are talking about the need for a half-million army in Poland,” Tusk said. Poland already spends a higher proportion of GDP on defence than any other Nato member, including the US. Last year Poland’s defence spending reached 4.1% of GDP, according to Nato estimates, and it plans to hit 4.7% this year. Trump has suggested the US might abandon its commitments to the alliance if member countries don’t meet defence spending targets.

The Swiss government has been told it must do more to show that its national climate plans are ambitious enough to comply with a landmark legal ruling. It was seen as a historic decision in Europe, where it was the court’s first ruling on climate, with direct ramifications for all 46 Council of Europe member states. However, there was resistance within Switzerland from the start, and by the summer the Swiss federal council had rebuffed the ruling. She called on the Swiss federal council and parliament “to take the dangers of global warming seriously and finally take decisive action against the climate crisis”. Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said European governments had “reaffirmed the rule of law”.

To fanfare and flags, the Aukus deal was presented as a sure bet, papering over an uncertainty that such an ambitious deal could ever be delivered. Then, by the “late 2030s”, according to Australia’s submarine industry strategy, the UK will deliver the first specifically designed and built Aukus submarine. View image in fullscreen President Biden (centre) announcing the Aukus deal with Scott Morrison (l) and Boris Johnson (r) in 2021. Turnbull argues pillar one of the Aukus deal was a “catastrophe” from conception, and its liabilities “are becoming more apparent every day”. The nuclear-powered submarines Australia wants to buy and then build “are both too big, too expensive to own and we can’t afford enough of them to make a difference”.

Decades on, I am horrified that an approach that wreaked havoc in the global south is still being pursued in the UK. Britain was of course the trailblazer for privatising infrastructure in the Thatcher years, and subsequent UK governments went on to use public-private partnerships to fund new schools, hospitals, roads and prisons, with much of the capital being raised overseas. As the economist Angus Hanton argues, the UK has become a vassal state, paying economic tribute to the American owners of its assets. By asking regulators to prioritise economic growth over other important social and environmental priorities, the new UK government risks following the same dangerous path. But we need a coherent new strategy that doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past and prevents us sleepwalking into economic disaster.

Sepp Blatter, the former president of Fifa, and Michel Platini, the France great and former president of Uefa, have restated their innocence in relation to allegations of fraud when appearing on Monday in a Swiss court. The Swiss federal prosecutor has appealed against that decision, leading to a new hearing at the extraordinary appeals chamber of the Swiss criminal court in Muttenz, near Basel. Blatter told the court on Monday he was not guilty of fraud. “They falsely claimed that Fifa owed Platini, or that Platini was entitled to, the sum of two million Swiss francs for advisory work,” the indictment read. The Swiss federal prosecutor is seeking a sentence of 20 months, suspended for two years, against Blatter and Platini.

Financial markets largely shrugged after Donald Trump outlined plans to impose punitive tariffs on Mexico and Canada as soon as next month while signing scores of executive orders on his first day in office. US markets were closed for Martin Luther King Day on Monday, so Asian markets were the first to respond. US stock futures pointed to modest gains on Wall Street when markets open for trading at 2.30pm GMT. Gold – seen as a safe haven asset – was back in favour, hitting a two-month high amid uncertainty over US tariffs. On Monday, Trump said he wanted to reverse the US trade deficit with the EU through tariffs or more US energy exports.

Greenland’s future will be decided by Greenland,” prime minister Múte B. Egede told a press conference. Greenland's prime minister Mute Bourup Egede, here pictured at another press conference earlier this month. View image in fullscreen Slovak prime minister Robert Fico and deputy prime minister Denisa Sakova attend a no-confidence vote in Bratislava, Slovakia. Greenland’s future will be decided by Greenland,” prime minister Múte B. Egede told a press conference. View image in fullscreen Greenland's prime minister Mute Bourup Egede, here pictured at another press conference earlier this month.

Lauterbach said the new US president’s announcement was “a serious blow to the international fight against global health crises”. Members of the global health community said that Trump’s decision could backfire on the US. Dr Pete Baker, deputy director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development thinktank, said the decision to withdraw was “highly regrettable”. “It undermines global health security and risks progress on critical issues like pandemic preparedness and antimicrobial resistance,” he said. “The political support of the US for the global health security architecture is irreplaceable.

The wealth of the world’s billionaires grew by $2tn (£1.64tn) in 2024, three times faster than in 2023, amounting to $5.7bn a day, according to a report by Oxfam. The latest inequality report from the charity reveals that the world is now on track to have five trillionaires within a decade, a change from last year’s forecast of one trillionaire within 10 years. In the UK, wealth climbed by £35m a day to £182bn in 2024, it said. The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men grew on average by almost $100m a day and even if they lost 99% of their wealth overnight, they would remain billionaires. The report argues that most of the wealth is taken, not earned, as 60% comes from either inheritance, “cronyism and corruption” or monopoly power.

Presumably intended to capture the same audience as recent French literary adaptations such as The Count of Monte Cristo, this wildly uneven English-language action adventure taps into the legend of the apple-skewering archer William Tell and celebrates the feisty, radical spirit of those well-known political subversives – checks notes – the Swiss. The famous apple incident is a taut centrepiece for Nick Hamm’s picture, and the action sequences are propulsive. The casting, however, is questionable. As William Tell, Claes Bang aims for stirring oration but ends up with something that sounds more like half-stirred word porridge.

Vice President Kashim Shettima has departed Abuja to represent Nigeria at the 2025 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) scheduled for Davos, Switzerland. The Vice President will join world leaders, top business executives, and representatives of development partners at the meeting to discuss the state of the world economy with a view to improving its conditions. Among the events slated for Vice President Shettima is a workshop entitled, “Roadmap to Co-create Investment Opportunities for Africa’s Frontier Markets,” organized by the African Development Bank in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. Senator Shettima will also co-chair a forum on “Turning Digital Trade into a Catalyst for Growth in Africa,” scheduled for the Pischa Congress Centre. Vice President Shettima will attend, as a panellist, a Stakeholder Dialogue entitled “Global Risks 2025.” The Global Risks Report highlights an increasingly volatile global landscape, marked by accelerating geopolitical, technological, and environmental challenges.