World news | The Guardian

Rolling updates of today’s political developments, including the Queen’s speech vote, division over a possible election and EU debate over Brexit extension

Moscow court extends detention until 29 December for Paul Whelan, who says he’s being kept for a potential prisoner swapA former US marine who has been held in Russia since last year on spy charges insisted he was more Mr Bean than Mr Bond as a Moscow court extended his detention for another two months.Paul Whelan, 49, who has US, Irish, Canadian and British citizenship, denounced the case against him and said he was being held “hostage” for a possible prisoner exchange. Continue reading...

Spanish dictator’s body moved from tomb in the Valley of the Fallen to lie alongside his wife

Author highlights evidence suggesting that ‘orphanage tourism’ drives families apart and makes children vulnerable to abuseJK Rowling has called on students around the world not to volunteer at orphanages, pointing to emerging evidence that “orphanage tourism” drives family separation and child trafficking.Speaking at the One Young World summit in London, the global forum for young leaders, the Harry Potter author and founder and president of children’s charity Lumos, said orphanages do “irreparable harm” and “perpetuate the abuse” of children and communities. Continue reading...

Men who worked for sexual health charity face life imprisonmentUganda said on Thursday it had arrested 16 LGBT activists on suspicion of gay sex, which is punishable with life imprisonment, in what activists called an escalating campaign against sexual minorities.The 16 men, believed to be aged between 22 and 35, were taken into custody late on Monday at the office of a sexual health charity where they all worked and lived, fellow activists said. Continue reading...

Police say 31 men and eight women were found, as extra time secured to detain man held on suspicion of murderThe 39 people found dead in a lorry trailer in Essex were Chinese nationals, police have confirmed, as they secured extra time to hold a Northern Irish man on suspicion of murder.The victims, discovered in a refrigerated trailer in Grays on Wednesday, were eight women and 31 men, Essex police added. Continue reading...

Labour peer heads push to ‘save family reunion’ amid fears Brexit will stop young refugees from joining relatives in UKBritain’s “hardening” attitude to asylum seekers threatens to end one of the last safe routes for children to reach the UK, Alf Dubs has said.Lord Dubs believes the Home Office is targeting a permanent reduction in childrens’ rights, under an EU law known as the Dublin regulation, to join family in the UK after Brexit. Continue reading...

The brothers haven’t seen each other since 2012. Their story highlights the deteriorating plight of Syrian refugeesThe last time all five brothers were together was in August 2012, inside a bomb shelter in southern Syria.It was Ramadan, and each night they broke fast to the sound of artillery and airstrikes pounding their besieged neighbourhood above. Continue reading...

House of Bicentenary in site near Pompeii has been under restoration for 35 yearsAn ancient Roman house has reopened to the public in the archaeological park of Herculaneum, the town near Naples buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.Considered the site’s most noble Roman villa, the House of the Bicentenary had been under restoration for 35 years. The three-storey, 600 sq metre domus, which contains stunning frescoes and mosaic floors, was discovered in 1938, 200 years after excavations at the site began, but closed to the public in 1983 after falling into disrepair. Continue reading...

IICSA report lays bare culture of cover-up and denial that facilitated 30 years of abuseA “sadistic and predatory” atmosphere and a culture of cover-up and denial in a Catholic school allowed sexual abusers to commit crimes against children for decades, an independent inquiry has found.Senior figures at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s school in west London, part of the English Benedictine Congregation, were perpetrators of abuse over a 30-year period. Staff members failed to raise concerns because of a “mafia-like” atmosphere and the fear of losing their jobs. Continue reading...

Will the PM keep trying to push his withdrawal agreement bill or call an early election?

Authorities believed Mimi Mefo, an award-winning journalist who works for Deutsche Welle in Berlin, might try to stayA Berlin-based journalist who was due to speak at a press freedom conference in Brisbane has said she was denied a visa by the Australian government because they believed she might try to stay.Mimi Mefo, an award-winning Cameroonian journalist who currently works for Deutsche Welle, was scheduled to deliver a keynote address at the Integrity 20 conference on Friday. Continue reading...

Athletes lose moral compass after using secret paths and markings to win contestA Chinese orienteering team has been disqualified for cheating at the Military World Games in China.Chinese runners in the middle-distance competition on Sunday initially came first, second, and fourth among the women and second among the men. Continue reading...

The remains of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco are being moved from a grandiose mausoleum outside Madrid to be reburied in a family crypt. The closed-door operation will fulfil the wishes of those who considered the mausoleum an affront to the tens of thousands who died in the country’s civil war

The new book Conversations on Conflict Photography delves into the stories behind some of the most critical images photographers have had to takeIn the newly published Conversations on Conflict Photography, Lauren Walsh, a professor at New York University and the New School, discusses the visual documentation of suffering with award-winning photographers, photo editors and representatives of major humanitarian organizations.The excerpts below delve into the stories behind some of the most critical images these photographers have had to take during the course of their profession. Continue reading...

Woman reportedly held hostage in latest incident involving visitor to Italian cityA tourist is facing charges of kidnapping after allegedly holding a worker at a bureau de change in Venice hostage in a row over exchange rates.The man is reported to have been unhappy with the amount in euros he got in exchange for $100. Continue reading...

Asterix and the Chieftain’s Daughter, released on Thursday, stars a rebellious teenage Gaul who keeps Asterix and Obelix on their toes

Nusrat Jahan Rafi was set on fire after refusing to withdraw sexual harassment allegationA court in Bangladesh has sentenced 16 people to death over the murder of a 19-year-old student who was burned alive.Nusrat Jahan Rafi was doused in paraffin and set on fire in April after refusing to withdraw a sexual harassment complaint against the headteacher of the seminary she attended. Continue reading...

Among the 3,400 residents of the Falklands are a community of about 100 Zimbabweans, who have been a familiar and welcome sight in the past decade, clearing the 25,000 mines laid by Argentinian troops during their 74-day occupation of the islands in 1982 Continue reading...

A refusal to include affordable housing led Johannesburg to reject glossy plans for high-end housing, offices, a rail station and entertainment district. It seems the city will get disconnected car-centric gated communities insteadThe Gautrain rushes through the green rolling hills and grasslands of Modderfontein, the commuter rail’s gold livery recalling Johannesburg’s reason for existence as a mining town, and speeds past the platforms of the commuter station that never got finished.Four lanes of smooth tarmac lead over the horizon. Streetlights evenly spaced and dropdowns from the kerbs make it easier for pedestrians to cross than in much of South Africa’s biggest city – except there are no pedestrians. The paint still looks fresh and the markings clear, but these roads to nowhere end in concrete and steel barriers. Continue reading...

Minister could face investigation as Sydney lord mayor calls on Taylor to release evidence to back up his ‘implausible’ claimLabor is calling for a police investigation into whether a document was forged in Angus Taylor’s office with the purpose of influencing the exercise of duty by the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, with Labor declaring it will refer the matter in the next 24 hours.Labor rounded on the controversy-prone federal minister for emissions reduction in parliament on Thursday following a revelation by Guardian Australia that false figures were used by Taylor’s office to unleash a political attack on Moore last month. Continue reading...

Amnesty calls for end to detentions under male ‘guardianship’ systemAmnesty International has called on Jordan to end what it has described as an abusive system that jails women if they disobey their male “guardians” or have relationships deemed inappropriate.Despite recent efforts to give women better protections, Amnesty said in a new report published on Wednesday that Jordan still allows the arbitrary detention of women, including when male family members – usually fathers or brothers – complain to the authorities that they have been absent without permission. Continue reading...

She was vilified when she left office in 2015 – but polls say the former president and Alberto Fernández are likely to oust Mauricio MacriWhen she left office in 2015, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was vilified by her opponents as a corrupt populist who had bankrupted Argentina during her two-term presidency.Related: Indigenous Mapuche pay high price for Argentina's fracking dream Continue reading...

Excessive pride in my UK document has given way to a yearning for one from my mother’s country – but I may have left it too lateThroughout my life I have spent a fair amount of time in Croatia and, before that, Yugoslavia. Back in the day, one of my favourite things was to leave my British passport lying around when I was with friends over there. This was the one with the hard cover. It looked and felt substantial, especially to the Croats and Serbs I knew, who handled it in admiration. I specifically recall a friend of mine called Tomislav getting his passport out to show me. This would have been in the late 90s, when nearly all the people I knew there were looking for a way out to some place else. “What good is this rubbish?” demanded Tomislav, flapping his Croatian passport in my direction. “Where will it get me? Nowhere!” and with that he tossed it on to the floor.Twenty years on, how things have changed. Now whose passport is more substantial? Ever since the referendum, my Croatian mum has been badgering me to sort out a Croatian passport. I’ve always felt half-Croatian and always wanted to formalise that with the passport, but now it felt a bit opportunistic so I’ve ended up leaving it until what might be, for all we know, the very last minute. Because I once had a Yugoslavian passport, I thought it would be relatively straightforward. But it turns out I need to locate a piece of paper proving that I was registered somewhere, in Zagreb. That piece of paper should have made its way to my mum’s place of birth from the Yugoslav embassy in London, but may now be somewhere in Belgrade, not Zagreb. Which may mean a Croatian passport is a long way off yet. Continue reading...

Driver held on suspicion of murder as investigation is launched into possible role of organised crime groupsPolice have searched two addresses in Northern Ireland overnight in relation to the discovery of 39 bodies inside a refrigerated lorry trailer in Essex. Work is continuing to identify those who died as part of a wide-ranging murder investigation into the UK’s worst such tragedy in almost 20 years.The two searches on Wednesday night are believed to be linked to the arrest of the driver, named locally as 25-year-old Mo Robinson, from Portadown, who is being held and questioned on suspicion of murder by Essex police. Continue reading...

Millions of ounces of unmined gold are still believed to lie below the surface, fuelling a booming – but frequently deadly – illicit industryAs he prepares to descend an abandoned mineshaft in the Johannesburg suburb of Roodepoort, Fix, a sinewy informal goldminer from Lesotho, recounts stories of subterranean gun battles and unearthing the scattered bones of those who came before him.“This is very dangerous work,” he says, draining a quart of beer for courage. “But there’s a lot of money down there.” Continue reading...

Psychologists increasingly think PTSD can be passed down – what does that mean for regions hit by conflict?Saleem says he can still see the faces of the young men he shot. More than a decade after sniper duty in the Lebanon-Israel war of 2006, he still has nightmares.“In this region we have a saying that a young man is like a rose …” He breaks off for a moment and then does not finish the sentence. Continue reading...

After communism fell, the promises of western liberalism to transform central and eastern Europe were never fully realised – and now we are seeing the backlash.

A group of women in Noumea who swim and snorkel up to 3km five days a week have uncovered a large population of venomous sea snakes in the Baie des Citrons where scientists once believed they were rare. The citizen scientists, aged in their 60s and 70s, call themselves 'the fantastic grandmothers’. They swim with the 1.5-long lethal greater sea snakes, documenting the local population with cameras to take note of their breeding habits and share them with experts Continue reading...

Band reveal details of double album Sunrise and Sunset among ads for bales of hay and whitegoodsColdplay has revealed the tracks of its new album by placing ads in the classified sections of newspapers around the world.They started close to home with local papers in north Wales and Devon but also included Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, the Otago Daily Times in New Zealand and Le Monde in France. Continue reading...

Hundreds of firefighters brought in to tackle blaze as Jacinda Ardern promises to restore venueA fire in Auckland’s city centre continues to smoulder 48 hours after thousands of people were evacuated from the heart of New Zealand’s largest city.Hundreds of firefighters have been working in shifts to put out the blaze on the roof of the SkyCity convention centre, with reinforcements called in from towns as far away as Hamilton, two hours to the south, which provided 30 firetrucks. Continue reading...

Parliamentary report says Nilantha Jayawardena had information on attacks 17 days before they happened

Royal household bureau members including a nurse and vet sacked for breaching ‘disciplinary conduct’Thailand’s king has fired six senior palace officials for their “evil actions”, the palace announced Wednesday, days after the monarch stripped his consort of all her titles for “disloyalty”.In a week of palace intrigue which has gripped the country, King Maha Vajiralongkorn fired six high-ranking officials from the royal household bureau, including “a nurse at the bedroom guard service” and a veterinarian, according to two separate announcements released by palace mouthpiece the Royal Gazette. Continue reading...

A new Senate bill would give a federally mandated boost to America’s growing school surveillance industrySenate Republicans have a new plan for preventing mass shootings: require public schools to use surveillance technology to monitor students’ online behavior for signs of violence or self-harm.A new Republican bill that claims “to help prevent mass shootings” includes no new gun control measures. Instead, Republican lawmakers are supporting a huge, federally mandated boost to America’s growing school surveillance industry. Continue reading...

Report calls for higher age of criminal responsibility and warns of legal aid ‘deserts’Powers to control justice, policing and prisons should be devolved to the Welsh assembly as they are in Scotland and Northern Ireland, a commission led by the former lord chief justice of England and Wales has recommended.In a strongly worded report on the justice system in Wales, a review chaired by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd calls for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to at least 12 years, says “advice deserts” are appearing due to cuts in legal aid, and condemns high imprisonment rates as unsustainable. Continue reading...

Movie mogul engaged fixers, lawyers and spies to intimidate actor over her allegations of rape, she says in lawsuitThe actor Rose McGowan alleges in a new lawsuit that the film mogul Harvey Weinstein took “diabolical” actions when he learned she was going to write in a memoir that the producer had raped her decades prior, engaging a team of fixers, lawyers and an international spy agency to intimidate and silence her.“This case is about a diabolical and illegal effort by one of America’s most powerful men and his representatives to silence sexual-assault victims. And it is about the courageous women and journalists who persisted to reveal the truth,” the actor alleges in the lawsuit filed in a California federal court on Wednesday. Continue reading...

President said in a televised speech the right ‘prepared the coup’ with foreign powers amid growing tensions over the electionBolivia’s president, Evo Morales, has accused opposition leaders and foreign powers of attempting a “coup” against him amid growing tensions over the result of Sunday’s desperately tight election.In an angry televised speech on Wednesday, Morales said: “A coup d’etat is under way. The right wing prepared the coup with international support.” Continue reading...

Initiative, first used in South Africa, would give witnesses immunity from prosecutionMinisters are actively examining the possibility of introducing a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission for Northern Ireland whereby witnesses would get immunity from prosecution in an attempt to deal with the legacy of the Troubles.The idea was raised at the defence select committee and is partly aimed at reducing the number of criminal proceedings that British army soldiers are involved in that relate to the 30-year period of violence and disorder in which 3,600 people died. Continue reading...

The largest protests in Lebanon in 14 years have shut down the country as a revolt against a weak government, ailing services and a looming economic collapse continues to gain momentum. The demonstrations began last week amid anger over the government’s plan to impose new taxes, and have since widened into demands for resignations and a secular state Continue reading...

Thursday: Angus Taylor baselessly accused Clover Moore of driving up carbon emissions. Plus, former PM says government is damaging superannuationGood morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 24 October. Continue reading...

Prime minister awaits decision of EU27 over extension before next moveBoris Johnson’s cabinet is divided over how to proceed with Brexit, as the prime minister faces the stark choice of pressing ahead with his deal or gambling his premiership on a pre-Christmas general election.After an inconclusive meeting with Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday morning in an attempt to agree an acceptable timetable for parliament to consider the bill, the prime minister told MPs at Wednesday’s PMQs that he was awaiting the decision of the EU27 over whether to grant an extension before settling his next move. The EU’s decision is unlikely to come before Friday. Continue reading...

Residents and business owners of rural Lancashire district unsurprised by ONS findingsAsk the residents of the Ribble Valley whether they would swap their rural lives for a busy city one, and the answer is straightforward: “Definitely not. The thought of it horrifies me,” said Jonathan Gledhill, the landlord of the Red Pump Inn, a village dining pub in this quiet part of mid-Lancashire.Just north of the former mill towns of south Lancashire, this green and pleasant part of the north-west – which includes the vast and unspoilt Forest of Bowland – is officially the happiest place in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics. On a scale of 0 to 10, Ribble Valley residents scored an average of 8.30 when asked by government surveyors about how happy they felt. This compared with an average of 7.56 for the country at large. Continue reading...

Donald Tusk tells Boris Johnson he has recommended that the EU27 accept request for extensionBoris Johnson will be left waiting for the EU’s terms for a further Brexit extension until Friday, with signs of momentum building behind Donald Tusk’s plan for a delay up to 31 January.The French government has privately voiced its concerns about taking the pressure off MPs to vote for the deal, which they believe could be ratified in 15 days, but EU sources said the bloc was seeking a “solution that works for all” and avoids a no deal exit. Continue reading...

Will European leaders agree to a fresh delay – and if so, when will it be announced?

In trial of David Duckenfield, Trevor Hicks recalls retort from a police officer during disasterTrevor Hicks, whose two teenage daughters were killed in the crush at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989, was told to “shut your fucking prattle” when he called on a senior police officer to help as the disaster was unfolding, a court has heard.Hicks, who went to the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest with his then wife, Jenni, and their daughters Vicki, 15, and Sarah, 19, recalled the retort at the trial of the match commander, David Duckenfield, on a charge of manslaughter. Continue reading...

More than 14,000 people thought to have been tortured to death by regime during war

Exclusive: Prisoner advocate describes routine practice as ‘sexual assault by the state’ that could could wake up middle-class Australians to ‘police brutality’

More Russian troops arrive in border region as Donald Trump hails situation as a ‘big success’Russian troops have expanded their presence across north-eastern Syria, the result of an agreement between Ankara and Moscow that should end Turkey’s attack on Kurdish-led forces at the price of ending the Kurds’ dreams of local autonomy.Syrian and Russian media showed footage of Russian military police vehicles on the outskirts of the important towns of Manbij and Kobani on Wednesday, one day after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, met Vladimir Putin in Sochi. Continue reading...