Gemfields makes decision over ruby mining after groups ‘took advantage’ of situation to try to invade its site

The London-listed mining company Gemfields said it had temporarily halted its ruby mining operation in Mozambique after groups “took advantage” of political unrest to set fire and attempt to invade its site, resulting in two fatalities.

Gemfields, one of the world’s largest miners of coloured gemstones , said that more than 200 people associated with illegal ruby mining attempted to invade the residential village built by the company next to its Montepuez Ruby Mining (MRM) operation in northern Mozambique on Christmas Eve.

From Jordana’s sprightly soft rock to Pataka Boys’ collagist UK-Punjabi hip-hop, our writers pick their must-listen gems from 2024

• More on the best music of 2024
• More on the best culture of 2024

Who could read the description “truck stop concrète” and not be intrigued? The San Diego sound collagist Phil Geraldi’s two-track cassette for Not Not Fun sketches a journey across the American plains in which the glow of a gas station canopy is as integral to the landscape as the dust and cacti. He rides the radio dial as if it were a ferris wheel, creating a recurring flicker of pop into talk radio and classical into ambient beauty that then might break free from the static to forge its own soaring journey across an endless sky.

• World No 2 tested positive for trimetazidine in August
• Swiatek insists all anti-doping cases are treated the same

Iga Swiatek says she feared a more negative reaction to her doping ban, and insists that all such cases in tennis are treated in the same way. The Pole was handed a one-month suspension in November after a positive test for trimetazidine, which the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted was caused by contamination of a medicine Swiatek was taking for jet lag.

It was the second high-profile doping case to hit the sport this year after the men’s world No 1 Jannik Sinner’s two failed tests, for which he did not receive a ban. The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) appealed that decision and Sinner may still be suspended, but Swiatek is not expecting a similar outcome.

Anthony Gilheaney, 30, charged with attempted murder after four pedestrians were hit by a car

Anthony Gilheaney, 30, has been charged with four counts of attempted murder after four pedestrians were hit by a car in London’s West End on Christmas Day, the Metropolitan police have said.

More details soon …

Economists say EU countries hardest hit by 2010s debt crisis now in stronger position than France and Germany

The European Central Bank is facing a tough balancing act in 2025 as it tries to navigate a reversal of fortunes in eurozone economies, as the hardest hit nations of the 2010s debt crisis outperform the traditional core.

Highlighting a potential shift in power dynamics within the single currency bloc, economists said countries in the EU periphery ravaged by last decade’s sovereign debt crisis were in a stronger position than northern Europe’s most powerful nations, including France and Germany.

My wife and I are ‘one and done’ on kids. We’re also ‘one and done’ with unsolicited advice about our decision

For a few years now, I’ve kept a few vials of a stranger’s sperm on ice. Not just hanging out in my freezer next to the frozen peas, to be clear. They’re in a fancy cryobank and every six months a $285 charge pops up on my credit card statement for the privilege of storing them.

I’ve been justifying that hefty price tag as the cost of keeping my options open. My wife and I have a perfect little three-year-old girl and we’ve ummed and ahhed about having another one. (I won’t get into the specifics of assisted reproduction, but if you’re a same-sex female couple, then sperm is kinda key.) We’ve held on to our toddler’s baby things just in case a second one appears: our basement is full of boxes of old toys and clothes. It looks like we’re going to have to clear out and cancel that sperm storage, however – we’ve finally decided that we are firmly in the “one and done” club.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

The outspoken Labour MP and new head of the foreign affairs select committee has a warning for her younger colleagues

Emily Thornberry has never been afraid to speak her mind, even if doing so sometimes lands her in trouble.

As the only frontbencher to have been dropped from Keir Starmer’s ministerial team when Labour entered government, the MP for Islington South and Finsbury is beginning a new chapter in her political career, as the head of the foreign affairs select committee.

From a ‘holy grail’ discovery to the return of a Dartmoor dweller, test your knowledge of this year’s biggest stories

An enigmatic nautical bulletin that has transmitted across dark waters for a whole century, it has beguiled everyone from Carol Ann Duffy to Blur – and offered a very British comfort to people across the globe

There are warnings of gales. Wintry showers, rain later, moderate or good. The familiar rhythms and cadences of these misty, magical phrases have now been familiar to British islanders for a whole century. They are communicated to us at strange, twilit times, every weekday at 12.48am and 5.20am, with an extra gust of early-evening drama at 5.54am at weekends.

The Shipping Forecast celebrates its 100th year of broadcast on the BBC in 2025, and this New Year’s Day, Radio 4 is going storm-sized in its appreciation. The simple bulletin, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (try reading that without taking on the measured, honeyed tones of a continuity announcer) is the subject of the station’s regular series that day, as well as several special documentaries.